Wouldn't it be easier to just hide behind a tree? Just in time to try and pump some Zune sales. To get real about it, the "news" report from KING TV (http://www.king5.com/) in Seattle didn't say it was the iPod tracking you, and neither did the "researchers" but the morons at CNN did. What about the data squirting Zunes?
"The next iPod you buy will likely be priced at $299 or $249 or some other round number; if Apple pays a buck in licensing fees to Universal or some other outfit, they won't add a buck to the retail price."
That gives me an idea: If Apple can tout "we donate $10 to blah blah cause if you buy this iPod (Green)", why not put on the package "the cost of this iPod includes $16 paid to the RIAA/MPAA as a penalty for assumed piracy"? Then we CAN split it out in court to (1) prove our iPods have no pirated content and force a refund from the RIAA/MPAA with penalties and (2) pirate our brains out stating we've paid for the right.
Granted, that's a workable system, but the Subject line says "It's all about the interface". By default, that makes a phone with a wire strung to the dashboard less than optimum, on top of fiddling with the phone itself to select music. Fiddling is what I did when I had the iPod on a cassette adapter shoved into the original radio and stuffed the iPod into the ashtray to keep it from hiding in the car when I turned corners. That's not an interface, that's a pain in the ass.
Here's my current scenario in the car(s); the Alpine head unit connects to the AI-Net, a serial cable that loops through audio peripherals and carries audio and control. I've got a CD changer from the original installation, added an XM tuner to the AI-Net later and the iPod adapter after that.
In the BMW, I mounted the iPod itself in the trunk in a clip that plugs into the Alpine adapter - out of sight completely and not in the glove box (cheesy solution). The iPod comes up in the head unit's source menu and behaves like the CD changer only much faster. It allows you to scroll all your folders, artists, albums, playlists etc and shows them on the head unit's multi-line text display plus charges/runs the iPod on car power and sounds terrific. I can also use the steering wheel controls to select all this stuff easily with thumb pressure and without looking.
Extending that, if the iPhone appears, I'll certainly need to rethink where everything goes, possibly clipping the iPhone to the sun visor. It will probably also need an updated AI-Net interface that does all the/mute/answer/speakerphone/resume stuff with steering wheel controls. That should be available within weeks of the iPhone's release.
You're stupid if you buy raw drives or RAM from Apple. I just bought six 500GB hard drives for my OS X Server (running on a six year old G4) for $220 each and stuck a Highpoint RocketRAID card in there for RAID 5. Works great and it was a fine choice.
" It's easy on a Mac because they dictate which cameras will work."
Yeah, just about all cameras work. It's called "Standards", but that's outside of the scope of any conversation involving Microsoft. Here's a list of "supported" cameras from Apple which excludes some "PC Only" cameras I've seen "just work" on a Mac anyway:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/cameras.html
Re:I must say, as one of the biggest apple fans...
on
Leopard Vs. Vista
·
· Score: 1
"The PC is like a freedom loving punk concert."
You clearly don't purchase your software or read the Microsoft EULAs. Microsoft will OWN you if you aren't careful. Freedom my ass. That's why we're getting rid of all Microsoft products possible at work - and replacing the Novell server next week with an Xserve.
// It was almost as if Microsoft said "Let's throw millions of dollars at a market and see if we can get a piece of it."//
I keep coming back to the stock holders. SOMEONE from that group is going to "get" that Microsoft sucks as a tech company and demand they take all that money wasted on Zune and XBox and put it into a 5.25% 6 month CD at the bank. They'd make a much larger return for the shareholders.
You're playing tunes from your Nokia, listing tracks on the dashboard and running the player through the Bluetooth interface in your car? That's a trick.
Back to reality, how do I plug the Nokia into my iPod interface and [future] iPhone interface in my BMW? (yes, I have one, plus an Alpine iPod adapter in my Vanagon). All the tracks list and sort on the dashboard display along with playlists I made in iTunes.
The answer is "stop using iPod and iTunes" but I won't do that, and I still can't plug the Nokia into my BMW the way I want anyway. It comes down to hardware lockin, which I'm not in favor of. I'd like to see a common royalty free interface and protocol for all this stuff - but then the manufacturers would need to play on a more level playing field.
"Yep, Windows users will take it... because they are told to take it by MS"
Nahhh... half the fun is cracking Windows crap to make it all free. Sheep/slaves is a bad side effect, not a goal. That's why all the MS fans keep saying how cheap it is to run everything on Windows - because they STEAL IT.
If they were forced to purchase everything they stole, they'd all be running Ubuntu next week.
"Until the DRM is broken... the media will be even less available for OSS users than Windows users."
Oooo... Noodle that a step further - DRM cuts both ways. We're all thinking DRM disables playing content without a key. You'll need Windows DRM to ENABLE playing content because it's natural state is a compendium of encrypted glop. The chip in your machine phones home. Media doesn't match? No chip to phone home? No play. Profit!
That said, I agree DRM in any state will be cracked. It was a bonehead mistake on a random DVD and a bright, observant punk that gave us DeCSS.
I think Microsoft got bent over by the RIAA and MPAA big time. The music and movie industries distrust Microsoft sooooo much that they demanded draconian DRM before even allowing their property on Vista or the Zune at all. They also distrust Windows "security" so much that Microsoft has to encrypt the whole damned computer as insurance against cracking the payload - movies and music. Microsoft isn't doing that because it's fun. Combined with Microsoft's own software protection schemes, Vista could be the end of tolerence for this nonsense.
Does anybody think Ballmer offered "hey, how would you guys like a slice of every Zune sold?". It was probably more like "what's it going to take to certify the Zune to carry your assets? How 'bout I squirt you some pictures of Franklin?"
Now with RIAA and MPAA holding Microsoft's nuts in their fists, lets put some more pressure on the gullable consumer. Joe Schmoe buys an HD-DVD/Bluray disk and finds out he can't watch it a fourth time unless he buys a license extension. How about re-purchasing a license to your entire music library annually? That's what the RIAA/MPAA want so badly and Vista is their ticket to do that...
...until everyone drop kicks their Vista machines to the curb. DRM isn't Microsoft or Apple's idea (well, not Apple's anyway), it's these RIAA/MPAA chumps who need reasonable control over their assets in a burglar infested environment. For each of those protections, at least Apple shows a way out with a wink. It's not graceful but they offer to burn your puchased music to an unencrypted CD and there has to be a path to get video on a DVD, as bad as that is. Microsoft wouldn't DARE suggest that lest they get their nuts twisted off. They're in deeeeep shit and they know it.
The world's sad devotion to Microsoft is imploding as we watch. Even with the solid lock Microsoft has had on so many markets for so long, they're REALLY turning themselves into the odd duck as high tech turns casual. I'll need another bag of popcorn before this show is over.
Lets say you're in any car sold in North America next year listening to your iPod enabled audio system. The phone rings, pauses the music and lets you talk hands free - blah blah blah while you park your car, pluck the iPod out and keep talking on the phone - then resume the music where you left off... same device. Sign me up.
Was the researcher who developed them paid and credited for this?
Ummm... yeah, a lot of the PARC team who were hired by Apple got pretty cashed up when Apple IPO'd a year later. In exchange for the PARC tour, Xerox Corp. also bought a million bucks worth of pre-IPO stock from Apple which netted 18 million bucks.
Xerox knew the products would work, they just couldn't sell it - but they sure knew how to cash in on it. Xerox got some of their investment back on products they ignored and Apple essentially got everything they needed from Xerox in a horse trade.
Some PARC people harbored individual jealousies against Apple and frustration with Xerox's behavior toward the computer R&D area, but Xerox Corp. was just fine with selling out their computer brains. They built their own computers (Alto, Star, 820) but readily bought their own developments back as soon as another vendor could make them cheaper.
I worked for Xerox when all that was happening and I can tell you the only reason Xerox was playing with computers is because IBM started building copiers.
For the price, I'd rather have 2 dual Woodcrest 2.6 Mac Pros to get 8 cores...
Ahhh... if only EVERYTHING was Xgrid aware, then that would work... I'd get a pile of Minis or the Xgrid agent for Linux. Hell, After Effects can't even use all the RAM in one machine, much less Xgrid.
More processors in one box is the only thing the current incarnation of After Effects can take advantage of... with diminishing returns on the processor count as you pointed out. Our Quad G5 is not twice as fast as a Dual G5 rendering After Effects - maybe 1.6 times faster.
However, the same Dual G5 2GHz was still 2 or 3 times faster than the Dual 2.4GHz Xeon under Windows doing the same After Effects work... and that software is optimized for Windows.
(oh god, I've just opened the flood gates for pimple faced gamers to flame me)
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't it be easier to just hide behind a tree? Just in time to try and pump some Zune sales. To get real about it, the "news" report from KING TV (http://www.king5.com/) in Seattle didn't say it was the iPod tracking you, and neither did the "researchers" but the morons at CNN did. What about the data squirting Zunes?
"The list is too big. He's trying to make it widdle."
Awwwww... how could you miss it?... The WIST is too big! Made me LOL anyway.
"The next iPod you buy will likely be priced at $299 or $249 or some other round number; if Apple pays a buck in licensing fees to Universal or some other outfit, they won't add a buck to the retail price."
That gives me an idea: If Apple can tout "we donate $10 to blah blah cause if you buy this iPod (Green)", why not put on the package "the cost of this iPod includes $16 paid to the RIAA/MPAA as a penalty for assumed piracy"? Then we CAN split it out in court to (1) prove our iPods have no pirated content and force a refund from the RIAA/MPAA with penalties and (2) pirate our brains out stating we've paid for the right.
Granted, that's a workable system, but the Subject line says "It's all about the interface". By default, that makes a phone with a wire strung to the dashboard less than optimum, on top of fiddling with the phone itself to select music. Fiddling is what I did when I had the iPod on a cassette adapter shoved into the original radio and stuffed the iPod into the ashtray to keep it from hiding in the car when I turned corners. That's not an interface, that's a pain in the ass.
Here's my current scenario in the car(s); the Alpine head unit connects to the AI-Net, a serial cable that loops through audio peripherals and carries audio and control. I've got a CD changer from the original installation, added an XM tuner to the AI-Net later and the iPod adapter after that.
In the BMW, I mounted the iPod itself in the trunk in a clip that plugs into the Alpine adapter - out of sight completely and not in the glove box (cheesy solution). The iPod comes up in the head unit's source menu and behaves like the CD changer only much faster. It allows you to scroll all your folders, artists, albums, playlists etc and shows them on the head unit's multi-line text display plus charges/runs the iPod on car power and sounds terrific. I can also use the steering wheel controls to select all this stuff easily with thumb pressure and without looking.
Extending that, if the iPhone appears, I'll certainly need to rethink where everything goes, possibly clipping the iPhone to the sun visor. It will probably also need an updated AI-Net interface that does all the /mute /answer /speakerphone /resume stuff with steering wheel controls. That should be available within weeks of the iPhone's release.
Now, that's an interface.
You're stupid if you buy raw drives or RAM from Apple. I just bought six 500GB hard drives for my OS X Server (running on a six year old G4) for $220 each and stuck a Highpoint RocketRAID card in there for RAID 5. Works great and it was a fine choice.
" It's easy on a Mac because they dictate which cameras will work."
Yeah, just about all cameras work. It's called "Standards", but that's outside of the scope of any conversation involving Microsoft. Here's a list of "supported" cameras from Apple which excludes some "PC Only" cameras I've seen "just work" on a Mac anyway:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/cameras.html
"The PC is like a freedom loving punk concert."
You clearly don't purchase your software or read the Microsoft EULAs. Microsoft will OWN you if you aren't careful. Freedom my ass. That's why we're getting rid of all Microsoft products possible at work - and replacing the Novell server next week with an Xserve.
I keep coming back to the stock holders. SOMEONE from that group is going to "get" that Microsoft sucks as a tech company and demand they take all that money wasted on Zune and XBox and put it into a 5.25% 6 month CD at the bank. They'd make a much larger return for the shareholders.
It's getting worse and worse.
" I don't see what law (statute or precedent) would be violated by Microsoft using patent lawsuits to solidify its OS monopoly"
Anywhere else on the planet, this is called extortion, coercion, racketeering or something like that. It's time to call in an air strike.
Linux is what Microsoft wants to be = infringement.
WHY God WHY!!
BOOOMMMM... thunder thunder... BECAUSE I HATE YOU!
You're playing tunes from your Nokia, listing tracks on the dashboard and running the player through the Bluetooth interface in your car? That's a trick.
Back to reality, how do I plug the Nokia into my iPod interface and [future] iPhone interface in my BMW? (yes, I have one, plus an Alpine iPod adapter in my Vanagon). All the tracks list and sort on the dashboard display along with playlists I made in iTunes.
The answer is "stop using iPod and iTunes" but I won't do that, and I still can't plug the Nokia into my BMW the way I want anyway. It comes down to hardware lockin, which I'm not in favor of. I'd like to see a common royalty free interface and protocol for all this stuff - but then the manufacturers would need to play on a more level playing field.
Awwwww... you take the fun out of everything!
"Yep, Windows users will take it ... because they are told to take it by MS"
Nahhh... half the fun is cracking Windows crap to make it all free. Sheep/slaves is a bad side effect, not a goal. That's why all the MS fans keep saying how cheap it is to run everything on Windows - because they STEAL IT.
If they were forced to purchase everything they stole, they'd all be running Ubuntu next week.
"Until the DRM is broken... the media will be even less available for OSS users than Windows users."
Oooo... Noodle that a step further - DRM cuts both ways. We're all thinking DRM disables playing content without a key. You'll need Windows DRM to ENABLE playing content because it's natural state is a compendium of encrypted glop. The chip in your machine phones home. Media doesn't match? No chip to phone home? No play. Profit!
That said, I agree DRM in any state will be cracked. It was a bonehead mistake on a random DVD and a bright, observant punk that gave us DeCSS.
I think Microsoft got bent over by the RIAA and MPAA big time. The music and movie industries distrust Microsoft sooooo much that they demanded draconian DRM before even allowing their property on Vista or the Zune at all. They also distrust Windows "security" so much that Microsoft has to encrypt the whole damned computer as insurance against cracking the payload - movies and music. Microsoft isn't doing that because it's fun. Combined with Microsoft's own software protection schemes, Vista could be the end of tolerence for this nonsense.
Does anybody think Ballmer offered "hey, how would you guys like a slice of every Zune sold?". It was probably more like "what's it going to take to certify the Zune to carry your assets? How 'bout I squirt you some pictures of Franklin?"
Now with RIAA and MPAA holding Microsoft's nuts in their fists, lets put some more pressure on the gullable consumer. Joe Schmoe buys an HD-DVD/Bluray disk and finds out he can't watch it a fourth time unless he buys a license extension. How about re-purchasing a license to your entire music library annually? That's what the RIAA/MPAA want so badly and Vista is their ticket to do that...
...until everyone drop kicks their Vista machines to the curb. DRM isn't Microsoft or Apple's idea (well, not Apple's anyway), it's these RIAA/MPAA chumps who need reasonable control over their assets in a burglar infested environment. For each of those protections, at least Apple shows a way out with a wink. It's not graceful but they offer to burn your puchased music to an unencrypted CD and there has to be a path to get video on a DVD, as bad as that is. Microsoft wouldn't DARE suggest that lest they get their nuts twisted off. They're in deeeeep shit and they know it.
The world's sad devotion to Microsoft is imploding as we watch. Even with the solid lock Microsoft has had on so many markets for so long, they're REALLY turning themselves into the odd duck as high tech turns casual. I'll need another bag of popcorn before this show is over.
Lets say you're in any car sold in North America next year listening to your iPod enabled audio system. The phone rings, pauses the music and lets you talk hands free - blah blah blah while you park your car, pluck the iPod out and keep talking on the phone - then resume the music where you left off... same device. Sign me up.
I wonder if you can replace the battery?
Depends, this is Apple going into a whole new world.
I call it "unencumbered by years of experience". Cell phone design seriously needs some fresh eyes. I'll vote for Apple to do that better than anyone.
Was the researcher who developed them paid and credited for this?
Ummm... yeah, a lot of the PARC team who were hired by Apple got pretty cashed up when Apple IPO'd a year later. In exchange for the PARC tour, Xerox Corp. also bought a million bucks worth of pre-IPO stock from Apple which netted 18 million bucks.
Xerox knew the products would work, they just couldn't sell it - but they sure knew how to cash in on it. Xerox got some of their investment back on products they ignored and Apple essentially got everything they needed from Xerox in a horse trade.
Some PARC people harbored individual jealousies against Apple and frustration with Xerox's behavior toward the computer R&D area, but Xerox Corp. was just fine with selling out their computer brains. They built their own computers (Alto, Star, 820) but readily bought their own developments back as soon as another vendor could make them cheaper.
I worked for Xerox when all that was happening and I can tell you the only reason Xerox was playing with computers is because IBM started building copiers.
Catholic discussion board? I'm a retired Catholic. Does that count?
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,270 for growbar... http://www.google.com/search?q=growbar // Results 1 - 10 of about 1,400,000 for progressbar.... http://www.google.com/search?q=progressbar // Yea, that's as weird of a word as I thought it was.
A "progress bar" is just a growbar being watched by an optimist.
......
NEEDS MORE GROWBAR!!!
For the price, I'd rather have 2 dual Woodcrest 2.6 Mac Pros to get 8 cores...
Ahhh... if only EVERYTHING was Xgrid aware, then that would work... I'd get a pile of Minis or the Xgrid agent for Linux. Hell, After Effects can't even use all the RAM in one machine, much less Xgrid.
More processors in one box is the only thing the current incarnation of After Effects can take advantage of... with diminishing returns on the processor count as you pointed out. Our Quad G5 is not twice as fast as a Dual G5 rendering After Effects - maybe 1.6 times faster.
However, the same Dual G5 2GHz was still 2 or 3 times faster than the Dual 2.4GHz Xeon under Windows doing the same After Effects work... and that software is optimized for Windows.
(oh god, I've just opened the flood gates for pimple faced gamers to flame me)