But just as easily I can also point to things like the TurboGrafix16 which died unloved deaths because they were beaten to the market by their competitors. Ultimately, there's a lot more to the success or failure of a console than it's order to market. Make it good enough with enough good games from the get-go, and people will buy it if you come out first, and then you'll be in a commanding market position to squash your enemies from.
"The xbox doesn't seem cheap when you realize you're paying for it when you buy software from Microsoft's monopoly areas. Same goes for IE, media player and all the little utilities included in the OS that used to be made by various companies. It's never free, you just pay elsewhere."
Unless you run Linux, in which case your Xbox purchase is being subsidized by the oppressed masses of Windows users....
2001 called, and they want their tired old argument back. The fact of the matter is that the Xbox actually has a number of quality titles out there now, like Knight of the Old Republic, Crimson Skies, etc. The fact that the rest of the games play on the other consoles isn't that much of a criticism when you apparently own all 3. The bulk of decent titles these days come out on all 3, and without fail the Xbox versions of the games are always of higher quality in sound and graphics than the other versions. Given that, unless you enjoy buying bad versions of games just because you don't want to support MS or something, it certainly seems strange how you get far more enjoyment out of your other two consoles than your Xbox.
"Also if XBox couldn't beat the PS2 with a 2-year technical advantage and huge losses, how do they expect to beat the PS3 being 1 year behind?"
Man, I think I'm still whirling from all that spin you just put out. Let me get this straight, are you seriously suggesting that being first to market now is a disadvantage? That coming out first is being 1 year behind? And somehow I just know if MS delays the Xbox Next to 1 year after the PS3, you'll just be saying how does MS expect to beat PS3 while being beaten to the market again?
So is the only way for MS to act effectively to base all of their release dates strictly around their competitor's and come out at the exact same time or something? I know we hate MS and their Xbox here, but really....
I remember some time ago there was a story on Slashdot about how the solar cycle was at its peak, and people even at low latitudes could see the Aurora Borealis. Unfortunately I missed out on it that time, but I'd love to see the Aurora still. Does anyone know if these solar flares will again allow people as far south as San Francisco or even Los Angeles to see the Aurora?
If you don't mind Sony and all the baggage that comes with them, their clamshell PDA's are outstanding wireless PDA's. They have a CF slot dedicated to just being used for 802.11b cards (though if you buy a 3rd party driver you can also use CF memory cards in it), and they have the best screen bar none on PDA's to date. 320x480 of web-browsing pleasure (well, relative to other PDA's anyways). That's twice the resolution of any PPC-based handheld.
The ones you'd want to look at if you're interested are the NX60, NX70V (same as NX60 with a crappy camera), and the NZ90 (only if you're really into getting a gigantic PDA with an actually decent digital camera built-in).
I was wondering at the apparently non-sensical link. If that's not proof the editors at/. don't even bother to read the articles, I don't know what is.
Haha, I just have to add my 2 cents on this, since I like this story.
My caucasian friend went to China last year. While there he picked up a bunch of DVDs. He was excited to see that they already had both Two Towers and Return of the King on DVD, as well as Spiderman, which had been out not long in the theaters. He eagerly bought them all at grossly inflated (for pirate dvds) prices, and when he brought him home we popped them in the dvd player together. The Two Towers turned out to be a video of what appeared to be maybe a SCA reunion or something. It was a bunch of guys riding around in goofy costumes on horses. I couldn't stop laughing. He then popped in Spiderman, and as the movie started, the dramatic title of Earth Vs. The Spider came up on the screen. He didn't even bother taking his dvds with him as he left.
Haha, they sure had nice cases though. That's the key for the pirates: nice, believable cases.
I'm sure the exec knew that it wasn't actually the TT too, he just wanted to spread some FUD about the evil pirates.
Man, I could have gotten my story posted on/. and scooped this one by a year.....
"The MS TabletPC is obviously just another way to sell the MS Windows OS since it really doesn't solve any problems that were not already solved by cheaper tools."
Or how about the parent post is obviously just another way to bash Microsoft on a topic that a/.er obviously has no experience in. Why don't you try the Tablet PC before you bad mouth it and Microsoft. It works well, very well. Much better than your PalmOS alternatives do, with their large laptop size screens, improved handwriting recognition, searchable memos that are still handwritten by you, plus they pack the whole power of a laptop and throw in all of the above at the same price as a regular mini form factor laptop.
Wait, what am I saying?? Blearhg, it's just Micro$haft up to it's old ways, trying to screw us over and make us BUY things!
I disagree. With the sort of deals you find posted on FatWallet, and with the sort of hotdealers you find posting on FatWallet, when we do return to those retailers, you can bet they're not making any profit off of us. I don't take the stand that I'm not going to shop at the store anymore, I take the stand that I'm not going to let the retailer make any more money off of me. A subtle but important distinction.
Will I be in Best Buy again, getting my $400 free dollars courtesy of Bill Gates and Best Buy if the deal came back? You bet I would.
So when you say that they work as hard drives, is it the case that when you plug them in, another drive letter appears on your computer? Does this apply to both the Windows and the Mac versions? So is iTunes actually unnecessary then if you prefer to just use explorer?
so any recommendations for us Joe 6-packs?
on
Digital Dark Ages?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
My most important data on my computer is the pictures from my digital camera. Right now I'm keeping one copy of all the pictures on my hard drive, and as I take more pictures everytime I get ~650 megs worth I burn them onto a CD backup as well. I'd really like to be able to take them off of my hard drive to free up space, but then I hear that CDRs have been known to fail, which would be incredibly upsetting for me. Worse yet would be going back after a couple years have passed and finding that the CDRs have died with age. Of course the worst case scenario would be having my hard drive die in a couple of years, and go back to the CDRs only to find that they died at some unknown point in the past.
As such, does anyone have any recommendations for average people like me out there who have data that is very important to them, but for whom corporate measures like commercial data backup services just aren't practical? Is there a better practice I can do than what I'm doing already? How about specially designed long life CDRs? Does such a thing exist?
I dunno about that. Of course it depends on the businessman, but as I understand it, maintaining a certain image is very much a part of the job of most businessmen. To a certain extent it doesn't matter how well things they use perform, they just have to impress the people at the meetings and clients when you pull them out.
So it's not just simplicity and efficiency, but simplicity, efficiency, and image. And these PDA phones get killed on that last one. Or at least this is the story that I've heard about the way businessmen work, repeated many atime. Could it be just a case where conventional wisdom is a little off from reality?
PS 802.11 really sucks the juice. Modern PDA's with color screens and fast processors have bad enough battery lives as it is (just look at this one). Bluetooth really seems like a more sensible choice in this arena.
As cool as those combo PDA phones are, if you stop and consider for a moment you'd realize that the sheer geek factor of those is off the charts. There are 3 demographics such phones would target: the practical businessman the trendy student the gee-whiz technogeek
Forget the average businessman, do you think the average fashion conscious teen would consider for a second holding a PDA sized phone up to their head and talking into to it? Half the appeal of cellular phones comes from their "cool" factor, and these days smaller is better seems to be the significant trend in phones. Frankly I can't see those combination PDA phones achieving any market penetration outside of the geek market. If the wireless is only for data, that's one thing, but you can't expect people to talk into these things.
For my money, bluetooth PDA's paired with small, sleek cellular phones is where it's going to be at. You got a phone when you need a phone, and a PDA when you need a PDA, and not a gainly unsightly mess when you need either.
Sorry, figured it would be obvious. Heh, prices on electronics are good in Japan, but not THAT good (didn't you read that recent piece on Akihabara shopping?).
I think the equivalent dollar figure I saw on the N70V was around $440 US as I recall.
Alternatively, you could also consider the ARM based OS-5 Palm devices that will be coming out in the near future (less than half a year) if you like. Not to be plugging Palm or anything, I like PPC's too, and people have their preferences, but from the fact that you are currently using a Vx I figured you might want to stay with Palm OS. They also will have similar speed ranges and what not, plus with the added bonus (or detraction, depending on your point of view) that they run Palm OS. This will mean that you can migrate any programs you have on your Vx over (besides hacks) without any problems.
You can read the story at Palm Infocenter. According to the article, processors in the Palm OS ready programs currently range at 18MHz to 1GHz and OS 5 should be released in June. So basically, whatever floats your boat. If you're only changing to PPC reluctantly you might wanna consider sitting tight a couple months, especially if your need for a new handheld isn't great.
If you're interested in a far more detailed review from a site that is focussed on nothing besides Palm hardware (so they should know what they are talking about) go to here.
As an additional bonus they already have a fairly burgeoning discussion from a buncha PDA geeks, who likewise really know what they're talking about for the most part (though the site has a real problem with trolls).
Incidentally, if you would like one that is in English Mr. Taco, you could buy them practically anywhere these days as I understand. This is a logical, if hideously overpriced place to start. At the rate that yen is converting to dollars these days, it's actually cheaper to buy a Japanese model and import it to the US than buy it through the curiously overpriced US outlets. I saw a N70V for 4-something US dollars at my local electronics etailer here in Japan, without doing any shopping around at all.
For anyone who is in the know and has downloaded the high resolution pictures, can you explain what those glowing blue patches you see by the coasts are? They're especially prominent in the one with clouds, but there's a pretty bright one off the coast of Cuba and Florida too in the loudless one.
Considering this is supposed to be true color, I'm really curious, since I've never seen anything like these in normal pictures of the Earth from space. In the cloudy one it almost looks like someone spilled radioactive waste all over South America and Europe or something....
I had read this article previously on Plastic where it had been previously posted, and hadn't bothered to read it again before I posted. As such I misrecalled their definition of the middle group.
I will amend my previous claim.
There are 3 groups, under my view of things (which is slightly different than the article's):
-There's the bottom group, that will crack anything that comes their way for fun and sport and whatever. They're a lost cause.
-There's the top group, that will always pay out of principle. You don't gotta worry about them.
-And then there's the middle group, where the people _would_ pay if necessary, but if it's convenient enough, they'd just as soon get it for free. So I am defining this group to be people who WOULD pay assuming that no pirated version is available.
And so, if you're a member of that middle group, it all comes down to whether you think that it's the same morality to deprive someone of making X dollars, as to take away X dollars from them. Either way they're down X dollars, so rationally it's hard to argue that they're different, but it is to a lot of people.
The article mentions 3 groups. There's the bottom group, that will crack anything and everything that comes their way for fun and sport. They're a lost cause. There's the top group, that will always pay out of principle. You don't gotta worry about them. And then there's the middle group, where the people would pay if necessary, but if it's convenient enough, they'd just as soon get it for free.
And if you're a member of that middle group, it all comes down to whether you think that it's the same morality to deprive someone of making X dollars, as to take away X dollars from them. Either way they're down X dollars, so rationally it's hard to argue that they're different, but it is to a lot of people.
Yes, what you say is all true, and the day when I realized this was also the day that I stopped submitting stories. This whole 'gotta-catch-the-attention-of-the-editor' thing is really pathetic considering that we're doing them a favor by submitting, not the other way around. I used to submit stories because I wanted to help make Slashdot a better place. It's clear that they've got more than enough help already considering the way they will ignore good submissions simply because they don't like the write up with them (It's not like they could add their own write-up anyways or anything).
So I guess the thing really is, I could give a damn whether or not they post my stupid submission or not. But when I have found something that I know will be of genuine interest to the rest of the geek audience out there on Slashdot, and I thoughtfully take the time out of my day to send the URL the way of the Slashdot editors, the last thing I need is to be treated like they're doing me a favor should they choose to take the time to read my submission and post it.....
Heh, they can call it encryption if they want, but this is encryption on the same scale as ROT-13. The message is encoded in the Base-4 number system with each number being the alphabet's letter's numerical position. so a = 1, z = 26. Or encoded, a = 001, z = 122.
And like numerous people have pointed out, while this contest in itself can't lead to a DMCA violation, the sad thing is, a piece of software "encrypted" with this algorithm could.
Slashdot Mirror
But just as easily I can also point to things like the TurboGrafix16 which died unloved deaths because they were beaten to the market by their competitors. Ultimately, there's a lot more to the success or failure of a console than it's order to market. Make it good enough with enough good games from the get-go, and people will buy it if you come out first, and then you'll be in a commanding market position to squash your enemies from.
"The xbox doesn't seem cheap when you realize you're paying for it when you buy software from Microsoft's monopoly areas. Same goes for IE, media player and all the little utilities included in the OS that used to be made by various companies. It's never free, you just pay elsewhere."
Unless you run Linux, in which case your Xbox purchase is being subsidized by the oppressed masses of Windows users....
2001 called, and they want their tired old argument back. The fact of the matter is that the Xbox actually has a number of quality titles out there now, like Knight of the Old Republic, Crimson Skies, etc. The fact that the rest of the games play on the other consoles isn't that much of a criticism when you apparently own all 3. The bulk of decent titles these days come out on all 3, and without fail the Xbox versions of the games are always of higher quality in sound and graphics than the other versions. Given that, unless you enjoy buying bad versions of games just because you don't want to support MS or something, it certainly seems strange how you get far more enjoyment out of your other two consoles than your Xbox.
"Also if XBox couldn't beat the PS2 with a 2-year technical advantage and huge losses, how do they expect to beat the PS3 being 1 year behind?"
Man, I think I'm still whirling from all that spin you just put out. Let me get this straight, are you seriously suggesting that being first to market now is a disadvantage? That coming out first is being 1 year behind? And somehow I just know if MS delays the Xbox Next to 1 year after the PS3, you'll just be saying how does MS expect to beat PS3 while being beaten to the market again?
So is the only way for MS to act effectively to base all of their release dates strictly around their competitor's and come out at the exact same time or something? I know we hate MS and their Xbox here, but really....
I remember some time ago there was a story on Slashdot about how the solar cycle was at its peak, and people even at low latitudes could see the Aurora Borealis. Unfortunately I missed out on it that time, but I'd love to see the Aurora still. Does anyone know if these solar flares will again allow people as far south as San Francisco or even Los Angeles to see the Aurora?
If you don't mind Sony and all the baggage that comes with them, their clamshell PDA's are outstanding wireless PDA's. They have a CF slot dedicated to just being used for 802.11b cards (though if you buy a 3rd party driver you can also use CF memory cards in it), and they have the best screen bar none on PDA's to date. 320x480 of web-browsing pleasure (well, relative to other PDA's anyways). That's twice the resolution of any PPC-based handheld.
The ones you'd want to look at if you're interested are the NX60, NX70V (same as NX60 with a crappy camera), and the NZ90 (only if you're really into getting a gigantic PDA with an actually decent digital camera built-in).
Try one of the Linux clients on the eDonkey network. I prefer eDonkey to Kazaa even when I'm running Windows.
I was wondering at the apparently non-sensical link. If that's not proof the editors at /. don't even bother to read the articles, I don't know what is.
Haha, I just have to add my 2 cents on this, since I like this story.
/. and scooped this one by a year.....
My caucasian friend went to China last year. While there he picked up a bunch of DVDs. He was excited to see that they already had both Two Towers and Return of the King on DVD, as well as Spiderman, which had been out not long in the theaters. He eagerly bought them all at grossly inflated (for pirate dvds) prices, and when he brought him home we popped them in the dvd player together. The Two Towers turned out to be a video of what appeared to be maybe a SCA reunion or something. It was a bunch of guys riding around in goofy costumes on horses. I couldn't stop laughing. He then popped in Spiderman, and as the movie started, the dramatic title of Earth Vs. The Spider came up on the screen. He didn't even bother taking his dvds with him as he left.
Haha, they sure had nice cases though. That's the key for the pirates: nice, believable cases.
I'm sure the exec knew that it wasn't actually the TT too, he just wanted to spread some FUD about the evil pirates.
Man, I could have gotten my story posted on
"The MS TabletPC is obviously just another way to sell the MS Windows OS since it really doesn't solve any problems that were not already solved by cheaper tools."
/.er obviously has no experience in. Why don't you try the Tablet PC before you bad mouth it and Microsoft. It works well, very well. Much better than your PalmOS alternatives do, with their large laptop size screens, improved handwriting recognition, searchable memos that are still handwritten by you, plus they pack the whole power of a laptop and throw in all of the above at the same price as a regular mini form factor laptop.
Or how about the parent post is obviously just another way to bash Microsoft on a topic that a
Wait, what am I saying?? Blearhg, it's just Micro$haft up to it's old ways, trying to screw us over and make us BUY things!
I disagree. With the sort of deals you find posted on FatWallet, and with the sort of hotdealers you find posting on FatWallet, when we do return to those retailers, you can bet they're not making any profit off of us. I don't take the stand that I'm not going to shop at the store anymore, I take the stand that I'm not going to let the retailer make any more money off of me. A subtle but important distinction.
Will I be in Best Buy again, getting my $400 free dollars courtesy of Bill Gates and Best Buy if the deal came back? You bet I would.
FYI I believe the Sony Clie NX-90 should also qualify as an OS 5 PDA, as well as its lesser camera-less brother
So when you say that they work as hard drives, is it the case that when you plug them in, another drive letter appears on your computer? Does this apply to both the Windows and the Mac versions? So is iTunes actually unnecessary then if you prefer to just use explorer?
My most important data on my computer is the pictures from my digital camera. Right now I'm keeping one copy of all the pictures on my hard drive, and as I take more pictures everytime I get ~650 megs worth I burn them onto a CD backup as well. I'd really like to be able to take them off of my hard drive to free up space, but then I hear that CDRs have been known to fail, which would be incredibly upsetting for me. Worse yet would be going back after a couple years have passed and finding that the CDRs have died with age. Of course the worst case scenario would be having my hard drive die in a couple of years, and go back to the CDRs only to find that they died at some unknown point in the past.
As such, does anyone have any recommendations for average people like me out there who have data that is very important to them, but for whom corporate measures like commercial data backup services just aren't practical? Is there a better practice I can do than what I'm doing already? How about specially designed long life CDRs? Does such a thing exist?
There are GPS and cameras available here in Japan at least as well.
I dunno about that. Of course it depends on the businessman, but as I understand it, maintaining a certain image is very much a part of the job of most businessmen. To a certain extent it doesn't matter how well things they use perform, they just have to impress the people at the meetings and clients when you pull them out.
So it's not just simplicity and efficiency, but simplicity, efficiency, and image. And these PDA phones get killed on that last one. Or at least this is the story that I've heard about the way businessmen work, repeated many atime. Could it be just a case where conventional wisdom is a little off from reality?
PS 802.11 really sucks the juice. Modern PDA's with color screens and fast processors have bad enough battery lives as it is (just look at this one). Bluetooth really seems like a more sensible choice in this arena.
As cool as those combo PDA phones are, if you stop and consider for a moment you'd realize that the sheer geek factor of those is off the charts. There are 3 demographics such phones would target:
the practical businessman
the trendy student
the gee-whiz technogeek
Forget the average businessman, do you think the average fashion conscious teen would consider for a second holding a PDA sized phone up to their head and talking into to it? Half the appeal of cellular phones comes from their "cool" factor, and these days smaller is better seems to be the significant trend in phones. Frankly I can't see those combination PDA phones achieving any market penetration outside of the geek market. If the wireless is only for data, that's one thing, but you can't expect people to talk into these things.
For my money, bluetooth PDA's paired with small, sleek cellular phones is where it's going to be at. You got a phone when you need a phone, and a PDA when you need a PDA, and not a gainly unsightly mess when you need either.
Sorry, figured it would be obvious. Heh, prices on electronics are good in Japan, but not THAT good (didn't you read that recent piece on Akihabara shopping?).
I think the equivalent dollar figure I saw on the N70V was around $440 US as I recall.
Alternatively, you could also consider the ARM based OS-5 Palm devices that will be coming out in the near future (less than half a year) if you like. Not to be plugging Palm or anything, I like PPC's too, and people have their preferences, but from the fact that you are currently using a Vx I figured you might want to stay with Palm OS. They also will have similar speed ranges and what not, plus with the added bonus (or detraction, depending on your point of view) that they run Palm OS. This will mean that you can migrate any programs you have on your Vx over (besides hacks) without any problems.
You can read the story at Palm Infocenter. According to the article, processors in the Palm OS ready programs currently range at 18MHz to 1GHz and OS 5 should be released in June. So basically, whatever floats your boat. If you're only changing to PPC reluctantly you might wanna consider sitting tight a couple months, especially if your need for a new handheld isn't great.
If you're interested in a far more detailed review from a site that is focussed on nothing besides Palm hardware (so they should know what they are talking about) go to here.
As an additional bonus they already have a fairly burgeoning discussion from a buncha PDA geeks, who likewise really know what they're talking about for the most part (though the site has a real problem with trolls).
Incidentally, if you would like one that is in English Mr. Taco, you could buy them practically anywhere these days as I understand. This is a logical, if hideously overpriced place to start. At the rate that yen is converting to dollars these days, it's actually cheaper to buy a Japanese model and import it to the US than buy it through the curiously overpriced US outlets. I saw a N70V for 4-something US dollars at my local electronics etailer here in Japan, without doing any shopping around at all.
For anyone who is in the know and has downloaded the high resolution pictures, can you explain what those glowing blue patches you see by the coasts are? They're especially prominent in the one with clouds, but there's a pretty bright one off the coast of Cuba and Florida too in the loudless one.
Considering this is supposed to be true color, I'm really curious, since I've never seen anything like these in normal pictures of the Earth from space. In the cloudy one it almost looks like someone spilled radioactive waste all over South America and Europe or something....
Both you and maeka are right, I am wrong.
I had read this article previously on Plastic where it had been previously posted, and hadn't bothered to read it again before I posted. As such I misrecalled their definition of the middle group.
I will amend my previous claim.
There are 3 groups, under my view of things (which is slightly different than the article's):
-There's the bottom group, that will crack anything that comes their way for fun and sport and whatever. They're a lost cause.
-There's the top group, that will always pay out of principle. You don't gotta worry about them.
-And then there's the middle group, where the people _would_ pay if necessary, but if it's convenient enough, they'd just as soon get it for free. So I am defining this group to be people who WOULD pay assuming that no pirated version is available.
And so, if you're a member of that middle group, it all comes down to whether you think that it's the same morality to deprive someone of making X dollars, as to take away X dollars from them. Either way they're down X dollars, so rationally it's hard to argue that they're different, but it is to a lot of people.
The article mentions 3 groups. There's the bottom group, that will crack anything and everything that comes their way for fun and sport. They're a lost cause. There's the top group, that will always pay out of principle. You don't gotta worry about them. And then there's the middle group, where the people would pay if necessary, but if it's convenient enough, they'd just as soon get it for free.
And if you're a member of that middle group, it all comes down to whether you think that it's the same morality to deprive someone of making X dollars, as to take away X dollars from them. Either way they're down X dollars, so rationally it's hard to argue that they're different, but it is to a lot of people.
Yes, what you say is all true, and the day when I realized this was also the day that I stopped submitting stories. This whole 'gotta-catch-the-attention-of-the-editor' thing is really pathetic considering that we're doing them a favor by submitting, not the other way around. I used to submit stories because I wanted to help make Slashdot a better place. It's clear that they've got more than enough help already considering the way they will ignore good submissions simply because they don't like the write up with them (It's not like they could add their own write-up anyways or anything).
So I guess the thing really is, I could give a damn whether or not they post my stupid submission or not. But when I have found something that I know will be of genuine interest to the rest of the geek audience out there on Slashdot, and I thoughtfully take the time out of my day to send the URL the way of the Slashdot editors, the last thing I need is to be treated like they're doing me a favor should they choose to take the time to read my submission and post it.....
SPOILER ALERT
Heh, they can call it encryption if they want, but this is encryption on the same scale as ROT-13. The message is encoded in the Base-4 number system with each number being the alphabet's letter's numerical position. so a = 1, z = 26. Or encoded, a = 001, z = 122.
And like numerous people have pointed out, while this contest in itself can't lead to a DMCA violation, the sad thing is, a piece of software "encrypted" with this algorithm could.