You're delusional. Then again, it's expected when you're a Nintendo fanboy.
Fact: The PSP is immensely more powerful than the DS or ANY other handheld console or PDA.
Fact: Multimedia is games, films and audio, all of which the PSP can handle.
I'm a Nintendo fanboy? The only Nintendo I've ever owned was a Donkey Kong handheld player in the early 80s. I don't really care much for games - I used to play arcades and C64 games back in the 80s.
But you called the PSP a "powerful multimedia machine" - when it's actually just a handheld gaming console. Can it compress MPEG-4 or MPEG-2 video? Can you connect a Firewire video camera to it, and use the PSP to edit your footage?
If it can't perform these basic multimedia tasks, then how can it be considered powerful? It basically just plays back media. But you don't call your DVD player a "powerful multimedia system" do you?
Maybe you are the one who should stop with the drugs if you think that anyone who disagrees with you is automatically a competing "fanboy." I'm actually an adult, a man, not a fan.
This is all well and good, but what advantages does it offer the user? I have a hard enough time managing my tens of thousands of bookmarks. Now I'm supposed to sift through everyone else's bookmarks, too?
You may as well just dump Google into my bookmarks, for all the good that would do. I thought the idea of bookmarking was to have a specific, limited set of pointers that are of personal utility, not to replicate "portals".
What's needed is anti-social bookmarking - like a robot that goes through my links and eliminates the ones that aren't necessary. Or a search-engine that searches the content of my bookmarks, and my bookmarks only. It would be even better if it could go out onto the web and actually eliminate websites that I find to be junk, or a waste of bandwidth, to de-clutter my surfing experience.
Come to think of it, this is NOT all well and good. Social bookmarking sounds almost as evil as blogging.
It's set to debut in 2006 for use in hybrid cars (my current Toshiba Satellite doesn't get very far on battery power, but it's a beautiful shade of blue)
Since when did Toshiba make vehicles? you'd think they could come up with a better name for a car than the "Satellite," though.
So in addition to the "boss key" we now need a "hot girl key" to minimize all of our useful productive work and replace it with something cute and fuzzy.
What makes you think hot girls aren't interested in productivity, and only like "cute and fuzzy" things? Many hot girls are highly intelligent, and would not be impressed by something cute and fuzzy. They like it hard and streamlined.
From my observation, women tend to be more serious about getting stuff done and usability, while guys are more into games and time-wasting.
But I guess that might be lost on you, as you appear to believe that women are inferior and technically unsophisticated. Good luck, you'll probably need it if you are trying to get "hot girls" with your attitude.
Windows users can get all the software they want for free. Don't like this answer? I don't like it either but it's called reality. And this is what many of them answer when you tell them software is included in the price: 'Who cares?'
The difference is that the Apple software (iLife, MacOS X) doesn't suck. Customers will care as soon as they see how much easier it is to use Mac software to actually get stuff done.
I'm wondering the same thing. Where'd all the real republicans go? The ones who don't pay subsidies to big business (and would've let some of the major airlines fold, to be replaced by more competitive ones) and don't spend needlessly on programs that aren't working or entire departments
Clinically speaking, the only right we've ever managed to conclusively demonstrate is that all living things eventually have the right to die.
Not if the "right to life" religious lobby has its way. Then we'll all be placed on artificial life support, living for eternity as vegetables with a feeding tube. The Matrix is coming, sponsored by Jeb Bush and Dick Cheney.
Hey, I wonder if Halliburton has anything to do with this "right to life" and Schiavo thing. I mean, we already know that Cheney's heart runs on sweet crude. But he's just the prototype. Maybe the "alternative" energy scheme favored by Halliburton is to replace hospital patients' blood with oil, and create a hospital bed that generates power by harnessing involuntary spasms, moans and twitches.
Hey, at least it's a way to get free public health care AND to avoid the drilling of ANWR.
That's why it's legslating morality. People feel that these games are "offensive" and so want to get rid of them.
Is anyone saying that these games should be "gotten rid of"? The article just mentions kids being encouraged to play them. We could keep the games, and encourage more responsible parenting to restrict access to violent games for kids. No need to take them away for adults and responsible teenagers.
"This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it's OK to diss people because they are a woman, they're a different colour or they're from a different place."
That's OK; I only kill and torture people in videogames who are the same color and gender as I am. Surely Hillary doesn't mind violence against non-minorities?
After all, we know that white males are worth less than black females.
Its latest research shows that daily use of computer and video games by children has almost doubled since 1999 to almost two hours.
Violent games are a favourite with teenage boys.
Researchers from the University of Oklahoma recently found that two-thirds of school fights were instigated by regular video game players, but in the study of 607 students only four fights were started by children who had never played such games.
Well, gosh. If most teenagers are playing games for two hours a day - then wouldn't it be likely that most fights are started by game players, as most students are game players? And the four fights started by non-game-players, are probably the only non-game-players in the school. I even find it hard to believe that any student has never played video games. the quote above also mixes statistics - it talks about "two thirds" on one hand, and "four fights" on the other. So, am I to assume that there were only 12 fights for the period in question? let's turn the statistics around - a full third of fights were started by students who had never played a game. I find it hard to believe that a whole third of the student body does not play games. So, it seems to me that non-game-players are over-represented as fight instigators.
Rather than focusing on the content, I wish they would focus on the more disturbing statistic: two hours a day sitting in front of a game. That's not healthy, even if the game about saving super-fluffy-cute-happy-lucky kittens.
Also of more concern are the parents who use TVs and games to babysit kids. Damn, when I was a kid, the most elaborate "toy" we had was a BMX bike. The computer was for learning programming on, not entertainment (at least when the parents were looking). To even ask for an expensive electronic game would have been met with ridicule.
But parents today just give in to the marketing and their own laziness, and buy the spoiled brat the latest X-Box or Playstation Portable. How about these parents buy the kids a nice Linux or Mac system, so they can learn something about using or programming computers? They can even be allowed to play inexpensive shareware or freeware games as a reward for getting work done on the computer. there are also many brain-engaging games on the desktop platform than on the consoles - such as SimCity 4 and other strategy games. I know you can get some of these for consoles, but they just aren't the same without a mouse, keyboard, HD storage space and map-making tools.
But of course, in the brave new America, thinking is bad for you, Macs and Linux are evil, and you have to buy the biggest-selling commercial games for Windows or X-Box. You should design websites and blogs with Microsoft Word, and programming a computer is the equivalent of terrorism.
No, I actually work with advertisers designing ads (unfortunately). But the iPod is not successful just because of marketing. The mega-marketing only began after it became popular. It actually had a very quiet start on the Mac platform, and before the iPod, iTunes was winning over Mac users with very little fanfare.
What people are missing is that it's not just about a feature list. It's about design and integration. You can easily add "FM tuner" or "stopwatch" to a specification list. But it's not so easy to describe the flawless integration with iTunes. That's the big "feature" which the other players are missing. They all come with lousy software. people want to manage their digital music, not have dozens of toy features and crap software.
And if it's all about marketing - then why have companies like Sony failed so miserably, when they have spent more on marketing than Apple has? Other companies like iRiver and Creative are spending millions on marketing. I see many more ads for the iRiver and the Olympus player than the iPod - but none of those other players are actually selling.
What's funny about that? Apple ipods have better market penetration than anyone else. If you ask anyone in a westernised nation to say "Hey, what's the name of that musicy thing that connects to the computer?", they are going to say 'Oh, that's an ipod.', or they're going to look at you blankly.
Well why is that so? If other products have so many more features, then why does the iPod attract such attention?
In reality, when normal, honest people have the guns, the criminals are more afraid to use theirs, and if they decide to do so anyway, they find a much quicker demise.
If that's true, then how do you explain America's extermely high rate of gun violence and murder - while countries with fewer guns, and tighter regulation, have much lower levels of firearm misuse and violence?
However, there are plenty of people out there that are evil -- and they have guns, and will use them.
Only when the society they belong to encourages gun owenership and has lax regulation and tracking of said firearms.
It's not just because the word sounds silly - it's because of the overwhelming over-use and misuse of the term. Suddenly, everyone is a blogger.
It is also insulting to the concept of self-publishing, which has been around for a long time. It makes it sound as if "bloggers" invented the idea. The other aspect that annoys is the vanity aspect - all those wankers who call themselves part of the "blogosphere" or the "blog revolution." It is damaging to a reasoned analysis of self-publishing.
I might be willing to buy that, if it wasn't for the fact that the vast majority of software isn't written by Microsoft or Apple.
I'm talking about dialog boxes from the Operating System, not from applications. Even from applications, most Mac developers try to emulate Apple's style and guidelines. Windows developers seem to just imitate the accumulation of cruft that has defined Windows.
I always find it amazing how so many Windows developers don't think of more elegant ways of doing things - because they are used to microsoft's clunky design. It seems they just get blinded to the deficiencies, because they are so accustomed to dealing with Windows. For example, you will often hear Windows support advice or rationalisations saying "To do that, simply do this: [insert half a page or more of instructions]. Then I think "how do they consider this a minimal task?" If i were required to do that just to operate my Mac, I would be very frustrated/angry/disappointed. OTOH, Windows users usually shrug off this extra work, because they have never experienced any other way of doing things.
Part of the problem is the overload of steps required to do stuff on Windows. When the Mac gives you fewer steps, it's much easier to focus on each step. When you are inundated with steps, they often just blur together and become meaningless.
More importantly, I've seen stupid users nowhere near a computer. I see them every time I get on the highway. I see them in the food store buying "Lite" versions of food that are just as laden with fat, sugar, and other crap as the regular versions.
Well, obviously. But I'm not sure what this has to do with the issue. Even stupid users, when given a more elegant or consistent design, will make fewer mistakes. Making things uneccessarily complex or confusing, only increases the damage or mistakes that stupid users can make.
FWIW, while I use Macs fairly infrequently, I've seen plenty of stupid dialogs on the Mac.
Do you have any examples from the Operating System, or just from badly designed applications? My point is that developers tend to follow the precedents of the OS they use the most. So, you certainly see more stupid dialogs in programs that are just lame ports of Windows software to Mac. But those that follow Apple's guidelines, tend not be guilty of this.
it's also not just restricted to dialog boxes. Microsoft and Windows apps often have incredibly strangely designed menus, put options in strange places, etc. There is less consistency between applications on Windows than MacOS. Two similar applications will often do the same thing in entirely different ways. It's not just one component, but a number of influences, that contributes to the feeling of disempowerment of the Windows user, and their acceptance of poor design and onerous tasks.
It's almost like the Mac's elegance is contagious, as is the clunkiness of Windows.
I've watched countless users sit there and click though endless dialogs warning them about how they're about to unleash bubonic plague upon the world or whatever. These people regard warnings as a hassle, something to be dismissed as quickly as possible. They do not regard them as an actual warning. Warnings are something that apply to other people.
That's a direct result of the design of Windows. Whenever i use Windows, I am constantly amazed at the number of stupid dialog boxes one has to click through, to perform even simple tasks. Making things worse, their dialogs are often confusing and poorly-written. Many of them even mangle the English language.
If Microsoft had not conditioned users to view dialog boxes as mere annoyances, then maybe they would not dismiss them so quickly without reading them. In contrast, dialog boxes are much rarer on Macs, and they are written much more clearly, and are more useful. They encourage the user to pay attention to them.
This is the first time I've seen someone pan 'extra functionality' as being bad.
You must live a very sheltered life, then. Many extra functions in consumer products (and software) make the product worse. Have you never heard of bloat? Or featuritis? Often it's a virtue to do a smaller number of things well, than to do thousands of things in a half-assed way.
Besides, I never said that the screens were BAD, just that they are uneccessary to a large portion of the market. Why should those that don't need a screen, have to pay the extra cost for it? Remember, the iPod Shuffle was by far the cheapest MP3 player (at 512MB or 1GB capacity) on the market when it was released. It probably would have been more expensive with a screen.
Extra features are useless if you don't need them, and become negative features when you have to pay for them, or they get in the way of doing the things you actually want to do with them. (Hi, Clippy! No, I don't need your help writing a letter, Clippy. Fuck off and die, Clippy!)
But hey, I guess I must be an irrational fanatic. Funny how many more consumers buy iPods than any other brand of player that has more features. i guess they all must be irrational fanatics, too.
If I'm listening on random (the shuffle doesn't support any other kind of course) and I like a tune I've not noticed before.. how do I find out who it is/what album/etc.? - by looking at the screen.
But why do you need to know that? And more specifically, why wouldn't you already know it, seeing as you are the one who loaded the music onto it in the first place?
Sometimes it's good just to listen to music, without obsessing over trivia.
Learn English and you'll be able to understand it.
I understand English just fine. I was complaining about how poorly written their English is - and also about the way they are hiding their actual intentions. Instead of saying "don't use the iTunes Music Store" - they write a bunch of ambiguous bullshit to try and hide their intentions.
Want obscure stuff? Check out Magnatunes. Use a search engine. There's a lot of stuff out there.
Well duh. I have plenty of it myself. My point was that the intended audience of this article is people who need Microsoft's help in purchasing a damn MP3 player. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They could do with some help finding these stores. A search engine is not going to give the "Microsoft seal of approval" that the article is trying to imply.
Then again, if you understood English, you might be able to understand that my post was not a request for information, but a critique of the way Microsoft handles its PR. The article claims to assist users who are interested in buying an MP3 player. But it doesn't actually provide any practical information. It is thinly-veiled FUD.
People shouldn't have to put every letter of a word in capitals just so the slow folks won't miss it.
But this site was written specifically for slow folks. Microsoft always dumbs stuff down. Who else would read it? Oh right.... slashdot users... enough said.
Slashdot Mirror
Was it like beep beep beep, or what?
I'm a Nintendo fanboy? The only Nintendo I've ever owned was a Donkey Kong handheld player in the early 80s. I don't really care much for games - I used to play arcades and C64 games back in the 80s.
But you called the PSP a "powerful multimedia machine" - when it's actually just a handheld gaming console. Can it compress MPEG-4 or MPEG-2 video? Can you connect a Firewire video camera to it, and use the PSP to edit your footage?
If it can't perform these basic multimedia tasks, then how can it be considered powerful? It basically just plays back media. But you don't call your DVD player a "powerful multimedia system" do you?
Maybe you are the one who should stop with the drugs if you think that anyone who disagrees with you is automatically a competing "fanboy." I'm actually an adult, a man, not a fan.
You call that light work?
Bwaaaahaaaaaaa haaaaaa haaaa! Have some more Kool-Aid, man.
[Bender] Screw the bookmarks. I'm going to make my own planet. With blackjack and hookers. Ahhh, forget the blackjack.
Truly, anti-social robotics is the only remaining hope for the human species.
You may as well just dump Google into my bookmarks, for all the good that would do. I thought the idea of bookmarking was to have a specific, limited set of pointers that are of personal utility, not to replicate "portals".
What's needed is anti-social bookmarking - like a robot that goes through my links and eliminates the ones that aren't necessary. Or a search-engine that searches the content of my bookmarks, and my bookmarks only. It would be even better if it could go out onto the web and actually eliminate websites that I find to be junk, or a waste of bandwidth, to de-clutter my surfing experience.
Come to think of it, this is NOT all well and good. Social bookmarking sounds almost as evil as blogging.
Since when did Toshiba make vehicles? you'd think they could come up with a better name for a car than the "Satellite," though.
What makes you think hot girls aren't interested in productivity, and only like "cute and fuzzy" things? Many hot girls are highly intelligent, and would not be impressed by something cute and fuzzy. They like it hard and streamlined.
From my observation, women tend to be more serious about getting stuff done and usability, while guys are more into games and time-wasting.
But I guess that might be lost on you, as you appear to believe that women are inferior and technically unsophisticated. Good luck, you'll probably need it if you are trying to get "hot girls" with your attitude.
The difference is that the Apple software (iLife, MacOS X) doesn't suck. Customers will care as soon as they see how much easier it is to use Mac software to actually get stuff done.
I've got two words for you: Alien abduction.
Not if the "right to life" religious lobby has its way. Then we'll all be placed on artificial life support, living for eternity as vegetables with a feeding tube. The Matrix is coming, sponsored by Jeb Bush and Dick Cheney.
Hey, I wonder if Halliburton has anything to do with this "right to life" and Schiavo thing. I mean, we already know that Cheney's heart runs on sweet crude. But he's just the prototype. Maybe the "alternative" energy scheme favored by Halliburton is to replace hospital patients' blood with oil, and create a hospital bed that generates power by harnessing involuntary spasms, moans and twitches.
Hey, at least it's a way to get free public health care AND to avoid the drilling of ANWR.
Is anyone saying that these games should be "gotten rid of"? The article just mentions kids being encouraged to play them. We could keep the games, and encourage more responsible parenting to restrict access to violent games for kids. No need to take them away for adults and responsible teenagers.
That's OK; I only kill and torture people in videogames who are the same color and gender as I am. Surely Hillary doesn't mind violence against non-minorities?
After all, we know that white males are worth less than black females.
Its latest research shows that daily use of computer and video games by children has almost doubled since 1999 to almost two hours. Violent games are a favourite with teenage boys. Researchers from the University of Oklahoma recently found that two-thirds of school fights were instigated by regular video game players, but in the study of 607 students only four fights were started by children who had never played such games.
Well, gosh. If most teenagers are playing games for two hours a day - then wouldn't it be likely that most fights are started by game players, as most students are game players? And the four fights started by non-game-players, are probably the only non-game-players in the school. I even find it hard to believe that any student has never played video games. the quote above also mixes statistics - it talks about "two thirds" on one hand, and "four fights" on the other. So, am I to assume that there were only 12 fights for the period in question? let's turn the statistics around - a full third of fights were started by students who had never played a game. I find it hard to believe that a whole third of the student body does not play games. So, it seems to me that non-game-players are over-represented as fight instigators.
Rather than focusing on the content, I wish they would focus on the more disturbing statistic: two hours a day sitting in front of a game. That's not healthy, even if the game about saving super-fluffy-cute-happy-lucky kittens.
Also of more concern are the parents who use TVs and games to babysit kids. Damn, when I was a kid, the most elaborate "toy" we had was a BMX bike. The computer was for learning programming on, not entertainment (at least when the parents were looking). To even ask for an expensive electronic game would have been met with ridicule.
But parents today just give in to the marketing and their own laziness, and buy the spoiled brat the latest X-Box or Playstation Portable. How about these parents buy the kids a nice Linux or Mac system, so they can learn something about using or programming computers? They can even be allowed to play inexpensive shareware or freeware games as a reward for getting work done on the computer. there are also many brain-engaging games on the desktop platform than on the consoles - such as SimCity 4 and other strategy games. I know you can get some of these for consoles, but they just aren't the same without a mouse, keyboard, HD storage space and map-making tools.
But of course, in the brave new America, thinking is bad for you, Macs and Linux are evil, and you have to buy the biggest-selling commercial games for Windows or X-Box. You should design websites and blogs with Microsoft Word, and programming a computer is the equivalent of terrorism.
No, I actually work with advertisers designing ads (unfortunately). But the iPod is not successful just because of marketing. The mega-marketing only began after it became popular. It actually had a very quiet start on the Mac platform, and before the iPod, iTunes was winning over Mac users with very little fanfare.
What people are missing is that it's not just about a feature list. It's about design and integration. You can easily add "FM tuner" or "stopwatch" to a specification list. But it's not so easy to describe the flawless integration with iTunes. That's the big "feature" which the other players are missing. They all come with lousy software. people want to manage their digital music, not have dozens of toy features and crap software.
And if it's all about marketing - then why have companies like Sony failed so miserably, when they have spent more on marketing than Apple has? Other companies like iRiver and Creative are spending millions on marketing. I see many more ads for the iRiver and the Olympus player than the iPod - but none of those other players are actually selling.
Well why is that so? If other products have so many more features, then why does the iPod attract such attention?
If that's true, then how do you explain America's extermely high rate of gun violence and murder - while countries with fewer guns, and tighter regulation, have much lower levels of firearm misuse and violence?
However, there are plenty of people out there that are evil -- and they have guns, and will use them.
Only when the society they belong to encourages gun owenership and has lax regulation and tracking of said firearms.
Have you ever heard of horse tranquilizers? They work on cats too, y'know.
It is also insulting to the concept of self-publishing, which has been around for a long time. It makes it sound as if "bloggers" invented the idea. The other aspect that annoys is the vanity aspect - all those wankers who call themselves part of the "blogosphere" or the "blog revolution." It is damaging to a reasoned analysis of self-publishing.
I'm talking about dialog boxes from the Operating System, not from applications. Even from applications, most Mac developers try to emulate Apple's style and guidelines. Windows developers seem to just imitate the accumulation of cruft that has defined Windows.
I always find it amazing how so many Windows developers don't think of more elegant ways of doing things - because they are used to microsoft's clunky design. It seems they just get blinded to the deficiencies, because they are so accustomed to dealing with Windows. For example, you will often hear Windows support advice or rationalisations saying "To do that, simply do this: [insert half a page or more of instructions]. Then I think "how do they consider this a minimal task?" If i were required to do that just to operate my Mac, I would be very frustrated/angry/disappointed. OTOH, Windows users usually shrug off this extra work, because they have never experienced any other way of doing things.
Part of the problem is the overload of steps required to do stuff on Windows. When the Mac gives you fewer steps, it's much easier to focus on each step. When you are inundated with steps, they often just blur together and become meaningless.
More importantly, I've seen stupid users nowhere near a computer. I see them every time I get on the highway. I see them in the food store buying "Lite" versions of food that are just as laden with fat, sugar, and other crap as the regular versions.
Well, obviously. But I'm not sure what this has to do with the issue. Even stupid users, when given a more elegant or consistent design, will make fewer mistakes. Making things uneccessarily complex or confusing, only increases the damage or mistakes that stupid users can make.
FWIW, while I use Macs fairly infrequently, I've seen plenty of stupid dialogs on the Mac.
Do you have any examples from the Operating System, or just from badly designed applications? My point is that developers tend to follow the precedents of the OS they use the most. So, you certainly see more stupid dialogs in programs that are just lame ports of Windows software to Mac. But those that follow Apple's guidelines, tend not be guilty of this.
it's also not just restricted to dialog boxes. Microsoft and Windows apps often have incredibly strangely designed menus, put options in strange places, etc. There is less consistency between applications on Windows than MacOS. Two similar applications will often do the same thing in entirely different ways. It's not just one component, but a number of influences, that contributes to the feeling of disempowerment of the Windows user, and their acceptance of poor design and onerous tasks.
It's almost like the Mac's elegance is contagious, as is the clunkiness of Windows.
I think their next product should be called the iPatch. Available in white or ship-grade aluminium. After all, two eyes are superfluous.
Note: Parrot available separately. Do not taunt iPatch.
That's a direct result of the design of Windows. Whenever i use Windows, I am constantly amazed at the number of stupid dialog boxes one has to click through, to perform even simple tasks. Making things worse, their dialogs are often confusing and poorly-written. Many of them even mangle the English language.
If Microsoft had not conditioned users to view dialog boxes as mere annoyances, then maybe they would not dismiss them so quickly without reading them. In contrast, dialog boxes are much rarer on Macs, and they are written much more clearly, and are more useful. They encourage the user to pay attention to them.
You must live a very sheltered life, then. Many extra functions in consumer products (and software) make the product worse. Have you never heard of bloat? Or featuritis? Often it's a virtue to do a smaller number of things well, than to do thousands of things in a half-assed way.
Besides, I never said that the screens were BAD, just that they are uneccessary to a large portion of the market. Why should those that don't need a screen, have to pay the extra cost for it? Remember, the iPod Shuffle was by far the cheapest MP3 player (at 512MB or 1GB capacity) on the market when it was released. It probably would have been more expensive with a screen.
Extra features are useless if you don't need them, and become negative features when you have to pay for them, or they get in the way of doing the things you actually want to do with them. (Hi, Clippy! No, I don't need your help writing a letter, Clippy. Fuck off and die, Clippy!)
But hey, I guess I must be an irrational fanatic. Funny how many more consumers buy iPods than any other brand of player that has more features. i guess they all must be irrational fanatics, too.
But why do you need to know that? And more specifically, why wouldn't you already know it, seeing as you are the one who loaded the music onto it in the first place?
Sometimes it's good just to listen to music, without obsessing over trivia.
I understand English just fine. I was complaining about how poorly written their English is - and also about the way they are hiding their actual intentions. Instead of saying "don't use the iTunes Music Store" - they write a bunch of ambiguous bullshit to try and hide their intentions.
Want obscure stuff? Check out Magnatunes. Use a search engine. There's a lot of stuff out there.
Well duh. I have plenty of it myself. My point was that the intended audience of this article is people who need Microsoft's help in purchasing a damn MP3 player. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They could do with some help finding these stores. A search engine is not going to give the "Microsoft seal of approval" that the article is trying to imply.
Then again, if you understood English, you might be able to understand that my post was not a request for information, but a critique of the way Microsoft handles its PR. The article claims to assist users who are interested in buying an MP3 player. But it doesn't actually provide any practical information. It is thinly-veiled FUD.
People shouldn't have to put every letter of a word in capitals just so the slow folks won't miss it.
But this site was written specifically for slow folks. Microsoft always dumbs stuff down. Who else would read it? Oh right .... slashdot users... enough said.
Ummm, it was a (poor) joke. I'm not actually acronymically-challenged.