I have been using GeeXboX , based on Linux and MPlayer, for a couple of years and it works well.
You can install it, but it's not necessary. So it's very easy to use.
From the website: At the time of the first development releases (Dec. 2002), it was only capable of playing DivX movies, but now, nearly every kind of media file can be played with GeeXboX, with the OS supporting:
* MPEG 1/2 movies (MPG files, VCDs, DVDs...)
* MPEG 4 movies (DivX, XviD, H.264...)
* RealMedia and Windows Media movies.
* OggMedia streams
* Matroska streams
* Audio streams like : MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV (AudioCD), AC3, MusePack (MPC), FLAC...
* Network streams : WebRadio and WebTV
* Watching analog TV and digital DVB
So may be it isn't a "Home Media Center" but a standalone media player on steroids.
Sometimes I wonder if a competing company is behind some of these stories.
Not like Java
Geeks are geeks because what they love, but also what they hate.
Microsoft has also a reputation for selling unfinished products, if people (consumers) don't know it they are going to continue buying faulty Microsoft products.
Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development, security, reliability, systems management, and user interface. However, public demonstrations have been full of cool graphics effects and consumer features
This isn't be respectful, this is an advertisement.
It's like when you have a job interview and they ask you to say something "bad" about yourself.
The answers are "You work too hard", "You often take on more work than you should", "You make too many demands on yourself",...very bad indeed.
Anything is possible once you realize that your brain *makes* your reality.
You can say "There is no spoon" and jump the gap bewteen two buildings, but it's a shame that first time every body falls.
Pleaso, don't try it althought you think you can do it.
I think that GTA it's too many violent and really make children behave like a criminal (jargon, attitude,...), but not kill people.
Games like Quake IV or HALO are less psychological violent although you must kill your enemy. WOW its a great game. And Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego was educational and funny.
I'm in favor of videogames, but not all videogames. It isn't a matter of if videogames are good or bad, but if there are some video games that may be bad for children and teenagers.
I support you in this fight, but when the PS3 comes out, the battle is most probably lost. Masses don't care about their digital rights,
Kids (and not so young) wants to play alone and with his friends with a console. So what are they going to buy?
a) PS 3
b) Xbox 360
c) Nintendo
Nintendo is the best for children. But kids wants to play GTA San Adreas and ground ups didn't have a clue about video games. So they are going to buy Sony PS3 or Microsoft XBox 360.
So masses are going to buy the worst option available.
Buy it:
* You may buy it and it works, in which case you get a new power source: your gain is infinite.
* You may buy it and it don't works, in which case you has a very little loss and therefore negligible.
Don't buy it:
* You may not buy it and it works, in which case you loss your business: your loss is infinite.
* You may not buy it and it works, in which case you don't loss nor gain nothing.
So if they aren't very good on statistics, they are going to buy it.
maybe we're a bit too trusting of blogs, and it doesn't hurt to look at the other's guys point of view
I have seen pro-Microsoft comments modded up, here on Slashdot. For God's sake pro-Microsoft!
I never have seen on a magazine like Forbest that the mighty power enterprises have too much power, or any criticism to it's politicians friends.
Just search the Microsoft Topic and you are going to find a lot of news about the "hated" one. Some news are to talk about some awful act of the Redmond company, but there are a lot of news about it's products (Despite my initial skepticism, I am deeply impressed with MSH technology, and I am legitimately excited about the future of the Windows command line.). That's somthing that you never are going to see on Forbest.
So it's better have a blog with it's good and bad posts, than a corporate-controled media.
That's a lot of money doing a lot of good, and is probably better spent than most Government-sponsered projects
I'm from Spain. We have a very good health care system for free, but it costs a lot of money. Some of that money goes to buy Microsoft products for the computer that it's in the desk of a lot of doctors and a lot more for administrative purposes.
So I'm not very impressed that they spend some of the money earned from our social security systems to preserve some old computers in the United States.
When I was young "nerd" news were read on magazines. We must wait one month, but usually two or three to get some news of an event.
Now anything older than 1 or 2 days seems old news.
If a history is old 5 days after it arrises, may be that history isn't as important as to mention it. After a century of existence MI6 opens a web, and 5 days later isn't it interesting?
Internet is a great site to read news, but makes people very impatient.
In some countries, the problem IS that the US "isn't the least bit restrictive". Remember, there are some countries out there that don't have Freedom of Speech, Religion, Protest, Anonymity or many other things.
You are talking about Europe, not Afganistan.
Think of the Great Fire Wall of China for starters.
You are talking about Europe, not China.
Then there are those that also want to eliminate all the porn on the internet.
So yes, I'd say it is about "control", or lack there of.
Of course it is about control.
It is about control of one of the more important strategic resource of the XXI century.
It will be a political irresponsibility to let another country control all your communication infraestructures.
Microsoft is going to want to do a regulated market. So you may expect regulated IP Television, so no other little player can enter the game. May be a IP Television emission tax wold do the trick.
Would you still buy the cheese if you could take as much of it as you wanted, whenever you wanted, for free?
If some day a slice of 15gr of cheese is sold for $19.99 I think a lot of people is going to steal it so they can eat some.
Software and entertainment companies are more profitable than any other industry. So don't compare a cheese with movie DVDs or music CDs.
The problem with this service outside UK is that in a lot countris exists a tight TV policy. At first some TVs were banned to protect TV frequencies, but now there are a lot of political/economic causes to not change the laws.
I don't kwnow how exactly this laws work in the US, but in my country TV channels have a lot of political influence.
So we are not going to see BBC outside UK any time soon.
It's better to try to do the change like Germany is doing than to add another distro to the market. Spain has a lot of distros for every comunidad, but it lacks politic objectives.
(The linked article talks about 20% market-share in Germany and Poland...)
They have begin 2 world wars, it isn't such a surprise that they are going to leader the first World Wide Web War too.
I think that Pologne is going to be the next...in reach 20% mark-share for Firefox.
Microsoft has to do what apple did with MacOS X. Microsoft has to put it's operating sistem in to the trash and get a real unix like OS. Maybe they can use BSD as a start, it's stable and it's free.
A sues B. B sues C. C sues everybody.
I think China (that comunist country) is going to be the next Big Fish, because enterprises are more interested in get easy money suing everybody than in make new products or offer new services. And they make consumer electronic that sux because you are a potentia Pirate so the devices decides what you can do and what you can't do.
This is a magazine that is aimed middle managers.
So this article lacks conceptual integrity, Is this just someones blog piece, or a regular column writer?
professionalism, Does this piece matter at all?
and innovation. I have readed this somewhere...
On top of that, reading in front of a monitor at this point in time is not enjoyable.
New devices as Nokia 770 can make read more enjoyable with good 800x600 screens. ePaper may be the future, but not the present.
"no cost of shipping, no middleman warehouse distribution, no physical cost to print/bind, no brick and mortar store paying electricity, rent, stocking risky books at a premium, they'll be dirt cheap!" I was wrong.
You can't say that on slashdot!
You have a lot of free (as in beer, as in speech) eBooks: Project Gutenberg, Wiki Books, or you can search it on Creative Commons. And there are a lot of books in HTML, PDF (without encription), txt format...
Slashdot Mirror
I have been using GeeXboX , based on Linux and MPlayer, for a couple of years and it works well. : ...) ...) ...
You can install it, but it's not necessary. So it's very easy to use.
From the website:
At the time of the first development releases (Dec. 2002), it was only capable of playing DivX movies, but now, nearly every kind of media file can be played with GeeXboX, with the OS supporting
* MPEG 1/2 movies (MPG files, VCDs, DVDs
* MPEG 4 movies (DivX, XviD, H.264
* RealMedia and Windows Media movies.
* OggMedia streams
* Matroska streams
* Audio streams like : MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV (AudioCD), AC3, MusePack (MPC), FLAC
* Network streams : WebRadio and WebTV
* Watching analog TV and digital DVB
So may be it isn't a "Home Media Center" but a standalone media player on steroids.
1st 4+ post: That's just business..(Score:5, Insightful)
2nd 4+ post: No, it isn't (Score:5, Insightful)
So you are worng, there was a discussion similar to this one.
Sometimes I wonder if a competing company is behind some of these stories.
Not like Java
Geeks are geeks because what they love, but also what they hate.
Microsoft has also a reputation for selling unfinished products, if people (consumers) don't know it they are going to continue buying faulty Microsoft products.
It's like when you have a job interview and they ask you to say something "bad" about yourself.
The answers are "You work too hard", "You often take on more work than you should", "You make too many demands on yourself",
Pleaso, don't try it althought you think you can do it.
Games like Quake IV or HALO are less psychological violent although you must kill your enemy. WOW its a great game. And Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego was educational and funny.
I'm in favor of videogames, but not all videogames. It isn't a matter of if videogames are good or bad, but if there are some video games that may be bad for children and teenagers.
a) PS 3
b) Xbox 360
c) Nintendo
Nintendo is the best for children. But kids wants to play GTA San Adreas and ground ups didn't have a clue about video games. So they are going to buy Sony PS3 or Microsoft XBox 360.
So masses are going to buy the worst option available.
So if they aren't very good on statistics, they are going to buy it.
I never have seen on a magazine like Forbest that the mighty power enterprises have too much power, or any criticism to it's politicians friends.
Just search the Microsoft Topic and you are going to find a lot of news about the "hated" one. Some news are to talk about some awful act of the Redmond company, but there are a lot of news about it's products (Despite my initial skepticism, I am deeply impressed with MSH technology, and I am legitimately excited about the future of the Windows command line.). That's somthing that you never are going to see on Forbest.
So it's better have a blog with it's good and bad posts, than a corporate-controled media.
I'm from Spain. We have a very good health care system for free, but it costs a lot of money. Some of that money goes to buy Microsoft products for the computer that it's in the desk of a lot of doctors and a lot more for administrative purposes.
So I'm not very impressed that they spend some of the money earned from our social security systems to preserve some old computers in the United States.
It's my opinion.
There isn't any trademark problems with DSPAM?
SPAM is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods Corporation, and DSPAM aren't the Monty Python.
When I was young "nerd" news were read on magazines. We must wait one month, but usually two or three to get some news of an event.
Now anything older than 1 or 2 days seems old news.
If a history is old 5 days after it arrises, may be that history isn't as important as to mention it. After a century of existence MI6 opens a web, and 5 days later isn't it interesting?
Internet is a great site to read news, but makes people very impatient.
You are talking about Europe, not China.
You are talking about Europe, not Us.
Of course it is about control.
It is about control of one of the more important strategic resource of the XXI century.
It will be a political irresponsibility to let another country control all your communication infraestructures.
Microsoft is going to want to do a regulated market. So you may expect regulated IP Television, so no other little player can enter the game. May be a IP Television emission tax wold do the trick.
Software and entertainment companies are more profitable than any other industry. So don't compare a cheese with movie DVDs or music CDs.
So 17.5 million - 12.8 viagra webs = 5.3 million
Texas Hold'em up: 3,720,000
5.3 million - 3.7 Texas hold'em up = 1.6 million.
So may be there are a lot of new webs, but if there are spam who cares?
The problem with this service outside UK is that in a lot countris exists a tight TV policy. At first some TVs were banned to protect TV frequencies, but now there are a lot of political/economic causes to not change the laws.
I don't kwnow how exactly this laws work in the US, but in my country TV channels have a lot of political influence.
So we are not going to see BBC outside UK any time soon.
Spanish oficial distros (From spanish Wikipedia):
I, for one, welcome our new german overl.... or may be not.
I think that Pologne is going to be the next...in reach 20% mark-share for Firefox.
Microsoft has to do what apple did with MacOS X. Microsoft has to put it's operating sistem in to the trash and get a real unix like OS. Maybe they can use BSD as a start, it's stable and it's free.
A sues B. B sues C. C sues everybody.
I think China (that comunist country) is going to be the next Big Fish, because enterprises are more interested in get easy money suing everybody than in make new products or offer new services. And they make consumer electronic that sux because you are a potentia Pirate so the devices decides what you can do and what you can't do.
I for one welcom or new chinese overlords.
This is a magazine that is aimed middle managers.
So this article lacks conceptual integrity,
Is this just someones blog piece, or a regular column writer?
professionalism,
Does this piece matter at all?
and innovation. I have readed this somewhere...
You can't say that on slashdot!
You have a lot of free (as in beer, as in speech) eBooks: Project Gutenberg, Wiki Books, or you can search it on Creative Commons. And there are a lot of books in HTML, PDF (without encription), txt format...