I'm still not understanding why I should check out Safari on XP, even though I'm curious to do so. I've got a fairly well-tuned nicely customized Firefox 2 with a bunch of extensions and a skin I like. What is Safari going to offer me that's better? Heck AdBlock alone on FF is worth the price of admission.
To those that say Firefox is bloated and slow now: how many extensions and plugins are you running? The point of Firefox wasn't necessarily to be small and lightweight always, though I would bet that the basic vanilla Firefox *is* small and lightweight. But it was made to be able to be extended - if you add on a bunch of crap, it's probably going to add some overhead. Personally, I have a ton of scripts and extensions, and have no issues with speed or the application, rendering, or with stability. It is an all around rock solid browser. It still doesn't sound like Safari, beta or no, or any other browser can match what I have set up, and that's the point.
As for the iPhone/Webkit development, I still don't understand that, either. If it's supposed to be cross platform and just web/ajax code, why do you need a specific browser to work with it? How would that be any different from IE-only sites? And if it's cross platform, why couldn't you use Firefox or IE or Opera to develop iPhone web apps, too? What am I missing?
As I understood it, Miranda used the AIM TOC and TOC2 protocols, which are hopelessly outdated. There was work on supporting the current OSCAR protocol, but it looks like it still doesn't support buddy icons. It may be superficial of me, but that was and is a major check mark against using Miranda for me. Which is a shame, because otherwise it seemed awesome...it was fast and light and small. But I just don't understand why it's AIM support is so much further behind EVERY other multi-service IM client out there.
I eventually came to the conclusion that it really depended on how you grew up with IM. If you started off with ICQ (which ironically I did, but eventually moved to AIM), then Miranda's look and feel is right at home. However, if your IM experience is based on AIM, Miranda feels very foreign. Something like Gaim/Pidgin fits that mold a lot better. Really, my only complaint with Gaim is the memory footprint, and I bet a lot of that is from using the GTK+ libraries. If only someone would make a Windows-native IM client based on the Gaim libraries, then we'd be set!
Does Miranda do AIM buddy icons yet? Last I played with Miranda, it was a PITA to set up with any resemblance to Gaim's functionality. It *was* nice having a microscopic memory footprint, though.
Midrange and low-end machines, though, turn out to be pretty comparable, with more choices in the PC arena but some good values if you happen to want what Apple has decided you need.
That's my sticking point with Apple....why would I want a choice in the computer I want to use? Surely someone else knows more about what I want than I do!
For me, what label an album is released on is the major criterion in determining how it will be procured - surely I am not the only one?
Or, 95% of the rest of the population will continue to buy music based on the artist's name, or the name of the song they heard on the radio. Honestly, I couldn't tell you the name of the label on any of groups that I listen to and have CDs of. Granted, I haven't bought new music in quite some time, but when a favorite artist comes out with new stuff, I'll be buying it. Ideals or not, I'm guessing the majority of the world is the same way.
If a farmer had the choice between seeds he can use to generate new seeds, vs seeds that only work once, wouldn't he go with the most flexible ones? This just reeks of vendor lock-in...will we begin to see "open source" agriculture "sprout" up?
On the other hand, could this be developed for humans, possibly in the Ohio/Indiana/West Virginia/California areas?:-P
I've run into this same "problem" with MytvTV, and have had the same experience. I have Comcast digital cable, but only one STB. I built the MythTV box with a PVR500, mostly so I could *record* one show while *watching* another. Or in the case of Thursday nights, record two shows while watching a third. I can't do that with the IR blaster and digital cable. If I went that route, I'd be worse off than I would with an old VCR - I'd be forced to watch whatever is being played on the digital cable box, unless I want to fork over more money for more STBs.
Actually, I've started using MythTV less and less. I've found grabbing HDTV rips off bittorrent to be much better. RSS automatically downloads them, they're there the next day (which is when I'd watch them anyway), they're already encoded in HD, commercials are all cut out. My MythTV box has become a glorified media server. I'm thinking of checking out MediaPortal or LinuxMCE sometime, MythTV just isn't doing it for me.
So can the people that can get this join the 5 people out there that can get Verizon's FiOS service? I mean really, what's the point of these announcements when the tech isn't available to 99% of the rest of the country?
Sorry, I'm just sore at my current broadband options as I look to get a house. There doesn't seem to be any way to get digital cable (one box at that) and Internet anywhere from 3-4Mb down (either cable or DSL) for less than 90 bucks a month. And this was after *finally* finding a house in mid-Michigan that *had* broadband available. Cable penetration is almost nil here, in 2007. DSL is available to some places, but I don't want satellite TV, and don't need local phone service as I use my cell phone as my main phone. So I can expect to see this offering from ATT or something from Verizon somewhere in about 15 years, right?
Not that I'm agreeing with her stance (megastar musicians should be more than set for life), but do I just call Ticketmaster to get tickets to watch you do your job? There's a reason people pay big bucks to be "entertained" by sports and music and whatnot, instead of paying 50 bucks a pop to go down to Innotech and watch you code....
I bought my own domain, have it hosted through a third party. I can create any number of email addresses for myself, but I've actually now forwarded them all to my gmail account. Frankly, every ISP email app out there sucks compared to Gmail. Squirrelmail? What the hell, is it 1990? It sucks. I've tried tons of third party webmail scripts (scoured sourceforge for them) and they all suck. Even roundcube, which seems to be the closest to a "current" web app style still felt clunky last time I checked. Gmail's interface is just better, plus 2GB per email account can hardly be matched by any sort of hosting package (especially if you start creating email accounts for friends and family).
Sure, I could host my own email server and try something like Scalix or Zimbra, and those do look promising. But the whole reason I use hosting in the first place is so I don't have to deal with running a mail server that I depend on on my own home cable modem, have to deal with backups, redundancy, what-if-the-power-goes-out, etc.
I just don't understand how there are apps like Gmail out there, and the best webmail client the community can come up with is Squirrelmail. Where is the php/imap client with gmail's functionality and ease of use? I don't want a desktop email client on the web (which was Roundcube last time I checked), I want a good clean, intuitive interface for IMAP.
I agree, although I don't see the correlation between cell use and lower incomes, etc. If anything, I'd think more and more young professionals would be solely using mobile phones. Out of my group of friends, I can't think of anyone who still has a land line, and my boss just gave up his to go entirely mobile.
The way I see it, the use of a landline for me is outdated. People are calling *me*, not my home. Why should I keep it at the house then? If I don't want to be bothered with it, there's no reason I need to answer my cell phone, I'll just let it go to voicemail. But if it's important (as assumed by me via caller ID), I'll pick up. The key is to not become a slave to your technology.
I'm 27 and have been using a cell phone as my primary phone for probably the last 6 years or so. It's made sense as I move from place to place. Now that we're looking to get a house, both of us have our own cell phones and we don't really see the point of getting a land line, unless it was needed for DSL. Luckily, we have the cable monopoly available.
Really, the only reason I can think of having a "house phone" for would be once we start having kids. Having a number that can be reached by someone outside of us would probably become necessary. Or further down the road, we wouldn't want their friends calling either of our numbers, so we'd need something else. But would it be a landline? I dunno....hopefully by that time the wireless landscape might be different, but I'd probably just consider adding another line to the wireless family plan, or looking at something like Skype for the home.
Maybe those people are more careful with their phones? Rather than a land line, you might look into one of those child-tether things to keep it attached to your wrist!
So, if the Wii was the Wii, with it's good games and novel control scheme, cost the same amount, but had the graphics capabilities that the Xbox360 has, would it be less of a system than it currently is? I understand that touting raw specs doesn't mean much, and you need to focus on the games. But it seems like saying "but...but....it's all about the fun level and the controller instead of the graphics!" sounds like a copout. Have to good control scheme, and have the options there to make awesome looking games, too. Different styles suit different games...I don't see why every game on the Wii *needs* to be cartoony in look and feel just because the thing can't generate moderate PC level graphics.
But why can't you have both? Why can't you have novel gameplay elements, but better-than-last-generation graphics and sound, too? I'm not saying they should make a $600 Wii, but why couldn't you make a reasonably priced system that falls somewhere between Xbox and Xbox360 in graphics and specs, but with the Wii's game concepts. Graphics don't *make* games on their own, but they don't make them worse, do they?
Sort of on topic, sort of off, but does Comcast's CEO actually use Comcast as his cable provider?
I ask this as my Comcrap cable has been knocked out *again* from a thunderstorm. Since January, we've lost service due to an ice storm, a relatively light snowfall, and just plain old rain. Another occasion had the TV service freezing up because it was *raining*. We've received nominal credits (yay, a $1.30 credit on my $90 bill!)
Does the CEO have to read about FiOS offering substantially better speeds and programming at a similar or lesser price than his own cable? If he has a problem, does he have to wait on hold for an hour and a half to talk to someone, just like his technicians? Is his area stuck with a cable guide that is 3 generations behind those in the middle of freakin' Indiana? Does his HD pixellate or get out of sync every so often? Is he happy with the literal handful of HD channels available to his lineup?
Yep, I'm bitter. I use Comcast because I can't get DSL (I'd have to get a landline phone for that anyway, which I don't want) and they are the only provider. I hate it hate it hate it. I just don't understand how someone could subscribe to their service and actually *enjoy* it, given the other technology alternatives that are out there, but just aren't available yet to everyone for some unknown reason. Gahhhhh!
Granted, I didn't RTFA, but this just seems counterintuitive. I can see Macs infiltrating the graphics or marketing depts of corporations, but there are better alternatives for "real work". Can you do *real*.NET programming on a Mac? Any other development, or if you're just looking for generic office PCs (word processing, spreadsheets, email and web), why wouldn't you use Linux on commodity hardware? What does the Mac offer other than the intangible "experience" that would be hard pressed to justify to the bottom line?
Why doesn't MS just give the EU a big "F- you" and stop selling it's products in Europe? Not that I'm saying that MS is in the right in anything they do, but it sounds like the EU is being a royal pain in the side for Microsoft. Why couldn't MS just say "Fine, I don't want to do business with you, have fun", take their ball and go home?
Is that one worse than the one with the guy playing fucking air guitar to Justin Timberlake? Between his douche-y smile, his flaming dancing, or the moronic premise that he's going up to people (complete strangers?) and sticking his earbuds in their ears, I would once just like to see his head explode....
Not that I agree with Verizon's stance, but to those who are questioning how in the world an ISP can get away with this:
This is for Verizon's wireless (ie, mobile PDA, cell phone data) data access plan and not their "normal" ISP plan, correct? I wouldn't expect a 5Gb limit through my cable internet or DSL access, but how does Verizon's plans compare to those offered by other cellular or wireless carriers?
I've been looking into some of the rural wireless plans that are available, and most of them (not just from the cell companies) seem to limit throughput and data downloaded, especially the shared wifi ones.
Advertising "unlimited" and only offering 5Gb is a little shady, but really, are they the only ones doing it?
I've never really run into problems until we've started to look at buying a house. Both the missus and I want to live "out in the country", ie, not in a subdivision, with some land for ourselves. We want some room to stretch. But as we're looking at places, house after house has a small satellite dish, and one place I called the cable company about they said they didn't go out that far. DSLReports has some mapping info, but it's far from complete and useful.
How is it 2006 and we still have widespread tech gaps in mid-Michigan? I mean, we're not in *that much* BFE. We're 20-30 minutes from major towns. If cable's not here yet, how long will it be before Fiber and the like? Of course DSL doesn't work out here, either. After broadband in college, and apartments I've lived in, I'm supposed to go back to dialup???
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still not understanding why I should check out Safari on XP, even though I'm curious to do so. I've got a fairly well-tuned nicely customized Firefox 2 with a bunch of extensions and a skin I like. What is Safari going to offer me that's better? Heck AdBlock alone on FF is worth the price of admission.
To those that say Firefox is bloated and slow now: how many extensions and plugins are you running? The point of Firefox wasn't necessarily to be small and lightweight always, though I would bet that the basic vanilla Firefox *is* small and lightweight. But it was made to be able to be extended - if you add on a bunch of crap, it's probably going to add some overhead. Personally, I have a ton of scripts and extensions, and have no issues with speed or the application, rendering, or with stability. It is an all around rock solid browser. It still doesn't sound like Safari, beta or no, or any other browser can match what I have set up, and that's the point.
As for the iPhone/Webkit development, I still don't understand that, either. If it's supposed to be cross platform and just web/ajax code, why do you need a specific browser to work with it? How would that be any different from IE-only sites? And if it's cross platform, why couldn't you use Firefox or IE or Opera to develop iPhone web apps, too? What am I missing?
As I understood it, Miranda used the AIM TOC and TOC2 protocols, which are hopelessly outdated. There was work on supporting the current OSCAR protocol, but it looks like it still doesn't support buddy icons. It may be superficial of me, but that was and is a major check mark against using Miranda for me. Which is a shame, because otherwise it seemed awesome...it was fast and light and small. But I just don't understand why it's AIM support is so much further behind EVERY other multi-service IM client out there.
I eventually came to the conclusion that it really depended on how you grew up with IM. If you started off with ICQ (which ironically I did, but eventually moved to AIM), then Miranda's look and feel is right at home. However, if your IM experience is based on AIM, Miranda feels very foreign. Something like Gaim/Pidgin fits that mold a lot better. Really, my only complaint with Gaim is the memory footprint, and I bet a lot of that is from using the GTK+ libraries. If only someone would make a Windows-native IM client based on the Gaim libraries, then we'd be set!
Does Miranda do AIM buddy icons yet? Last I played with Miranda, it was a PITA to set up with any resemblance to Gaim's functionality. It *was* nice having a microscopic memory footprint, though.
If a farmer had the choice between seeds he can use to generate new seeds, vs seeds that only work once, wouldn't he go with the most flexible ones? This just reeks of vendor lock-in...will we begin to see "open source" agriculture "sprout" up?
:-P
On the other hand, could this be developed for humans, possibly in the Ohio/Indiana/West Virginia/California areas?
I've run into this same "problem" with MytvTV, and have had the same experience. I have Comcast digital cable, but only one STB. I built the MythTV box with a PVR500, mostly so I could *record* one show while *watching* another. Or in the case of Thursday nights, record two shows while watching a third. I can't do that with the IR blaster and digital cable. If I went that route, I'd be worse off than I would with an old VCR - I'd be forced to watch whatever is being played on the digital cable box, unless I want to fork over more money for more STBs.
Actually, I've started using MythTV less and less. I've found grabbing HDTV rips off bittorrent to be much better. RSS automatically downloads them, they're there the next day (which is when I'd watch them anyway), they're already encoded in HD, commercials are all cut out. My MythTV box has become a glorified media server. I'm thinking of checking out MediaPortal or LinuxMCE sometime, MythTV just isn't doing it for me.
So can the people that can get this join the 5 people out there that can get Verizon's FiOS service? I mean really, what's the point of these announcements when the tech isn't available to 99% of the rest of the country?
Sorry, I'm just sore at my current broadband options as I look to get a house. There doesn't seem to be any way to get digital cable (one box at that) and Internet anywhere from 3-4Mb down (either cable or DSL) for less than 90 bucks a month. And this was after *finally* finding a house in mid-Michigan that *had* broadband available. Cable penetration is almost nil here, in 2007. DSL is available to some places, but I don't want satellite TV, and don't need local phone service as I use my cell phone as my main phone. So I can expect to see this offering from ATT or something from Verizon somewhere in about 15 years, right?
Not that I'm agreeing with her stance (megastar musicians should be more than set for life), but do I just call Ticketmaster to get tickets to watch you do your job? There's a reason people pay big bucks to be "entertained" by sports and music and whatnot, instead of paying 50 bucks a pop to go down to Innotech and watch you code....
I bought my own domain, have it hosted through a third party. I can create any number of email addresses for myself, but I've actually now forwarded them all to my gmail account. Frankly, every ISP email app out there sucks compared to Gmail. Squirrelmail? What the hell, is it 1990? It sucks. I've tried tons of third party webmail scripts (scoured sourceforge for them) and they all suck. Even roundcube, which seems to be the closest to a "current" web app style still felt clunky last time I checked. Gmail's interface is just better, plus 2GB per email account can hardly be matched by any sort of hosting package (especially if you start creating email accounts for friends and family).
Sure, I could host my own email server and try something like Scalix or Zimbra, and those do look promising. But the whole reason I use hosting in the first place is so I don't have to deal with running a mail server that I depend on on my own home cable modem, have to deal with backups, redundancy, what-if-the-power-goes-out, etc.
I just don't understand how there are apps like Gmail out there, and the best webmail client the community can come up with is Squirrelmail. Where is the php/imap client with gmail's functionality and ease of use? I don't want a desktop email client on the web (which was Roundcube last time I checked), I want a good clean, intuitive interface for IMAP.
I agree, although I don't see the correlation between cell use and lower incomes, etc. If anything, I'd think more and more young professionals would be solely using mobile phones. Out of my group of friends, I can't think of anyone who still has a land line, and my boss just gave up his to go entirely mobile.
The way I see it, the use of a landline for me is outdated. People are calling *me*, not my home. Why should I keep it at the house then? If I don't want to be bothered with it, there's no reason I need to answer my cell phone, I'll just let it go to voicemail. But if it's important (as assumed by me via caller ID), I'll pick up. The key is to not become a slave to your technology.
I'm 27 and have been using a cell phone as my primary phone for probably the last 6 years or so. It's made sense as I move from place to place. Now that we're looking to get a house, both of us have our own cell phones and we don't really see the point of getting a land line, unless it was needed for DSL. Luckily, we have the cable monopoly available.
Really, the only reason I can think of having a "house phone" for would be once we start having kids. Having a number that can be reached by someone outside of us would probably become necessary. Or further down the road, we wouldn't want their friends calling either of our numbers, so we'd need something else. But would it be a landline? I dunno....hopefully by that time the wireless landscape might be different, but I'd probably just consider adding another line to the wireless family plan, or looking at something like Skype for the home.
Just my $.02.
Maybe those people are more careful with their phones? Rather than a land line, you might look into one of those child-tether things to keep it attached to your wrist!
So, if the Wii was the Wii, with it's good games and novel control scheme, cost the same amount, but had the graphics capabilities that the Xbox360 has, would it be less of a system than it currently is? I understand that touting raw specs doesn't mean much, and you need to focus on the games. But it seems like saying "but...but....it's all about the fun level and the controller instead of the graphics!" sounds like a copout. Have to good control scheme, and have the options there to make awesome looking games, too. Different styles suit different games...I don't see why every game on the Wii *needs* to be cartoony in look and feel just because the thing can't generate moderate PC level graphics.
But why can't you have both? Why can't you have novel gameplay elements, but better-than-last-generation graphics and sound, too? I'm not saying they should make a $600 Wii, but why couldn't you make a reasonably priced system that falls somewhere between Xbox and Xbox360 in graphics and specs, but with the Wii's game concepts. Graphics don't *make* games on their own, but they don't make them worse, do they?
Sort of on topic, sort of off, but does Comcast's CEO actually use Comcast as his cable provider?
I ask this as my Comcrap cable has been knocked out *again* from a thunderstorm. Since January, we've lost service due to an ice storm, a relatively light snowfall, and just plain old rain. Another occasion had the TV service freezing up because it was *raining*. We've received nominal credits (yay, a $1.30 credit on my $90 bill!)
Does the CEO have to read about FiOS offering substantially better speeds and programming at a similar or lesser price than his own cable? If he has a problem, does he have to wait on hold for an hour and a half to talk to someone, just like his technicians? Is his area stuck with a cable guide that is 3 generations behind those in the middle of freakin' Indiana? Does his HD pixellate or get out of sync every so often? Is he happy with the literal handful of HD channels available to his lineup?
Yep, I'm bitter. I use Comcast because I can't get DSL (I'd have to get a landline phone for that anyway, which I don't want) and they are the only provider. I hate it hate it hate it. I just don't understand how someone could subscribe to their service and actually *enjoy* it, given the other technology alternatives that are out there, but just aren't available yet to everyone for some unknown reason. Gahhhhh!
Granted, I didn't RTFA, but this just seems counterintuitive. I can see Macs infiltrating the graphics or marketing depts of corporations, but there are better alternatives for "real work". Can you do *real* .NET programming on a Mac? Any other development, or if you're just looking for generic office PCs (word processing, spreadsheets, email and web), why wouldn't you use Linux on commodity hardware? What does the Mac offer other than the intangible "experience" that would be hard pressed to justify to the bottom line?
Why doesn't MS just give the EU a big "F- you" and stop selling it's products in Europe? Not that I'm saying that MS is in the right in anything they do, but it sounds like the EU is being a royal pain in the side for Microsoft. Why couldn't MS just say "Fine, I don't want to do business with you, have fun", take their ball and go home?
[Dr. Evil]How 'bout....nooooo....[/Dr. Evil]
Is that one worse than the one with the guy playing fucking air guitar to Justin Timberlake? Between his douche-y smile, his flaming dancing, or the moronic premise that he's going up to people (complete strangers?) and sticking his earbuds in their ears, I would once just like to see his head explode....
Not that I agree with Verizon's stance, but to those who are questioning how in the world an ISP can get away with this: This is for Verizon's wireless (ie, mobile PDA, cell phone data) data access plan and not their "normal" ISP plan, correct? I wouldn't expect a 5Gb limit through my cable internet or DSL access, but how does Verizon's plans compare to those offered by other cellular or wireless carriers? I've been looking into some of the rural wireless plans that are available, and most of them (not just from the cell companies) seem to limit throughput and data downloaded, especially the shared wifi ones. Advertising "unlimited" and only offering 5Gb is a little shady, but really, are they the only ones doing it?
Wow.
Touche! Sigh....it's been a loooooong week.....
I've never really run into problems until we've started to look at buying a house. Both the missus and I want to live "out in the country", ie, not in a subdivision, with some land for ourselves. We want some room to stretch. But as we're looking at places, house after house has a small satellite dish, and one place I called the cable company about they said they didn't go out that far. DSLReports has some mapping info, but it's far from complete and useful.
How is it 2006 and we still have widespread tech gaps in mid-Michigan? I mean, we're not in *that much* BFE. We're 20-30 minutes from major towns. If cable's not here yet, how long will it be before Fiber and the like? Of course DSL doesn't work out here, either. After broadband in college, and apartments I've lived in, I'm supposed to go back to dialup???
But I don't want to download that. I want to download Justin Timberlake.
Here in the Midwest, we grow corn....
Maybe they're some U-M hippies?