You say that as if it's a bad thing! But then again, it's not really true. Nearly half of US mobile users do use GSM. Over half use CDMA2000. Both networks support text messaging. You can text message between networtks without a problem. CDMA2000, while being user unfriendly compared to GSM, has many technical advantages that GSM does not have and will not have until it gets WCDMA.
More people still use outdated devices like pagers.
The same kinds of people that use pagers in the US are the same kinds of people that use them elsewhere -- those that need the simplicty/reliability of a pager. Otherwise, cell phones have taken over the market.
you complete missed PostgreSQL, a open source. It's more free than MySQL. It's ACID compliance and has many, many more features and originated as a *real* database system, not a toy (like MySQL). In fact, it's crazy to consider MySQL when there are superior free alternatives.
It is not a Solved Problem. I've had problems with some poorly written programs. Also, certain font renderers do not always respect the operating system's wishes. Graphics are either too small or must be scaled to size (which is annoying). It's a lot easier to simply use a smaller resolution, which looks horrible on an LCD.
of course it's a concern. what about antialiased fonts? icons? I find dithering annoying. I also find GUIs with more colors more visually appealing (compare the same GUI at 4-bit color vs. 16-bit or 24-bit.) and for those that play games or do look at/work with images or watch movies, 24-bit is a necessity.
18-bit temporal dithering is definitely noticable.
LCD's don't look fugly at other resolutions IF you turn off scaling. Really there's no reason to run an LCD at non-native resolution unless you're a developer testing what something looks like on other screen sizes. If so, turn off scaling and deal with the black bars - it's temporary.
That's great, until you want things on the screen to appear bigger (for whatever reason). Changing resolutions with black bars does not help make anything bigger, and streching looks horrid.
Also, there are games that are designed for 4:3 displays and do not adequately handle 5:4 monitors, often not supporting any 5:4 resolutions at all.
Is there anything besides old sprite-based games that you need one particular resolution for?
I, for one, do not run my 19" CRT at its maximum resolution. Not because of refresh rates, but so I don't strain my eyes. At 1280x960, I need my glasses to read the screen. At 1152x864, it's much easier to read everything. (85hz in both cases). If I wanted to, I could run at 1600x1200, but even then everything's really small. In events where both 17" and 19" LCDs often have a native resolution of 1280x1024, using a smaller resolution can be very painful, especially when there are no other decent 5:4 resolutions available on your video card.
Increasing font sizes is usually not a reasonable option. Also, what about fans of Linux consoles?
Only until OLED displays are widely available.
But they aren't, so CRT still has the contrast advantage.
...they just have phospor for burn-in.
I have never seen a CRT with burn-in in my lifetime.
Good LCDs on the market today are just as usable as CRTs in this regard.
Good LCDs that cost much more than the functional counterpart CRT? No thanks, I'll pass.
Humans can't see more than 2^24 colors, so I think we're safe with that.
some LCDs are still 18-bit displays. as for the temporal dithering, it's noticable to me.
You also neglected to mention the facts that CRTs are heavy and bulky, and that only LCDs are an inherently digital design. Analog video/audio signals lick balls.
CRTs are heavy and bulky? Not a concern. I don't take mine to work every day. It doesn't leave my desk. That's what laptops are for.
Analog AUDIO signals are bad? Hrm, I think just about every speaker in the world connects to its amplifier using an ANALOG connection. Sometimes, digital is overrated.
-CRT's do get dead or stuck pixels in manufacturing. Some manufacturers have begun to warranty against even one dead pixel. Once it's done and on your desktop you aren't going to lose additional pixels.
Really now? It's impossible to have a dead pixel on a computer monitor, in the same sense that you get them on an LCD. (I don't think it would be a dead pixel at all. CRT's don't have individual pixels like LCDs.) I, for one, have used many, many CRTs, and have never seen a problem similar to a dead pixel (other than dust on the screen). LCDs, on the other hand, I see dead pixels on all the time.
Re:My experience replacing CRT with LCD
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Are CRTs History?
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I got a decent 19" CRT for $25. Less than a year old. It was replaced by LCDs; and 2 years after I first got it, it's still working great.
I got it from a company that was getting rid of old hardware.
I have a large box with enough PE to cause quite an explosion, yet I get in it and move around with the box at high speeds every day.
Most of the problems with exploding batteries has to do with improper charging or shutoff circuits (often crappy non-OEM hardware) or poorly manufactured cells (also usually crappy non-OEM).
Re:T-Mobile is rumored to offer in-home VoIP servi
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A Private GSM Cell?
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what method are you using to measure signal strength/quality?
I was _comparing_ bars, while you were comparing your "signal" as a percentage (of what?). So I assumed you got that info from bars.
sounds like door-to-door evangelism or even salesmen. While some believe Linux and open source has innumerable advantages over anything Microsoft or closed source and would never consider running Windows again, others do not and will not share their viewpoints.
First, why put OpenOffice on a system for free when you can sell MS Office or other commercial alternative for a profit? (Charging to install a free program wouldn't be very popular with customers, either.) Not to mention some people will still ask for Office by name even if you have OpenOffice.
Firefox is almost understandable, if it came pre-configured. Undesirable problems aside, there isn't much that Firefox can't do that IE can. But -- how would it help their business? People won't buy computers because they come with Firefox. It'd look bad if they charged for installation, too. So what's the incentive?
Thunderbird, however... a lot of software assumes Outlook Express or Outlook. Virus scanners and spam blockers often expect users to be using one of the Outlooks. Auto-configuration software and instructions from ISPs also assume this, so Thunderbird would go largely unused.
Re:T-Mobile is rumored to offer in-home VoIP servi
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A Private GSM Cell?
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"almost 100% signal" to "10-50% signal"? that's as unambiguous as "shot by a nerf dart" to "shot by a bullet".
first, the bars on your phone do not correlate to 100% signal to 10-50% signal. they often measure certain amounts of signal strength, ignoring issues like the actual quality of the signal.
a good cellular network should be accessible inside most buildings. otherwise, the network is poor. while some buildings *are* wireless-unfriendly, the issue is more often than not simply a poor network, and there's no reason my cellphone shouldn't work at wal-mart, all along the expressway, in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, etc.
i have 5/5 bars inside at home on T-Mobile. i have 5/5 bars at work on AT&T Wireless. i have 5/5 bars at school on Cingular. T-Mobile works at home and work, Cingular works at home and school, and AT&T works at work and school. had any one of those providers paid to add more cell sites at the right places, i'd have perfect coverage on one of them. instead, i have to switch between them in order to keep my phone working. but it *does* work everywhere i go -- on at least one of the providers. (AT&T works at the most places, but they don't do well around here.)
on my phone, 5 bars is -84dBm and greater. ~100ft away from a tower, my phone has read -43dBm (the highest I've ever seen on it.) the 1900MHz GSM networks here, once again, have a min RSSI (minimum signal strength) at -105dBm or -110dBm, so there can be a huge difference between different values of "5 bars".
Of course they take customer input on tower placment. But they're more inclined to place towers where they need it the most e.g. the most cutomers will be satisfied -- like near the brand new housing development or that annoying spot on the freeway where calls always drop. The middle of nowhere comes last, unless there's a lot of new development or a nice expressway there.
and as for "some rich fool" -- get real. most of the big us cell companies are wholly owned subsidaries of much larger corporations.
while those phones are better than some others, they tend to only make a dramatic improvment when coverage in many areas is at a point in between the provider's minimum RSSI (-105 or -110dBm on the 1900MHz GSM networks here) and where other phones can no longer work reliably. this tends to be T-Mobile USA's GSM networks. you can't magically take a -112dBm signal and make it work with another standard gsm phone.
also, a lot of the supposed "improvment" may have to do with the psychological effect of different thresholds for dropping calls, showing signal strength, and losing paging signals. while some phones are exceptionally bad, and a few are exceptionally good, the good ones aren't *that* much better than the average phones. and the *bad* ones usually aren't either, as providers try not to sell bad products.
Re:T-Mobile is rumored to offer in-home VoIP servi
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A Private GSM Cell?
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So instead of actually building a decent network, they'll just make a VoIP service.
Why RS-MMC? Why not SD, which is many times more popular, or even a derivative of SD? The fees to implement SD* can't be that much, and a device of this size can surely support it.....
No, you don't need special drivers, but you need to pay for the specifications for the high-speed SD card interface or be forced to retrieve data from the card using a slow serial interface.
"FreeBSD has been [...] ahead of it in some areas for many years now"
In what areas? I see a lot of Linux-only drivers out there, many binary-only. A lot of drivers are developed on Linux and later ported to other open source operating systems after they become stable on Linux...
Really, now? Start listing them, and I'll be happy to challenge them, one-by-one. Unless of course you're just trolling and have no evidence behind your claims...
So if I can't make a list of drivers, I'm automatically trolling? That sounds like a trollish challenge -- "if I can't prove my claim by factual evidence and the other person won't either, then I'm right and the other person is wrong". There are lots of Linux drivers out there that are supported on Linux and Linux only...
The number of companies is completely and totally irrelivant. Microsoft is only one company...
The number of companies is not irrelevant. (is that word that hard to spell?) "Less" is a quantitative measure and there are truly less companies that support BSD than Linux or Windows. Microsoft is only one company, but there are many, many companies that sell Windows or offer support for Windows. The same applies for Linux. No matter how you look at it, there's less vendor support for BSD than Linux or Windows.
Really? Have you heard of NetBSD? Do you not realize that FreeBSD has been not only on-par with Linux, but ahead of it in some areas for many years now?
Try PC hardware support. That's the concern of most people. There are a lot of drivers for Linux exclusively. While supporting a bunch of different platforms is a good thing, it's not something most people will choose one operating system over another for if they're using the most prevalent platform in the world.
And on a personal note, the lack of a journalled filesystem has kept me away from FreeBSD ever since XFS was available on Linux.
Less vendor support;
That's debatable
No, it's not debatable. There are much fewer hardware manufacturers that support BSD. There are much fewer companies that sell and support BSD. There are much fewer software companies that support BSD.
you can't possibly deny that all BSD distros have a much better security tract record than Linux
And you're saying that without context; there are many different distributions available and many more Linux users. Since more people are interested in Linux, more people will find vulnerabilities. There's also more code to find problems with
But at the end of the day, I wouldn't really be too concerned with the security of either operating system.
Less complicated init is also less powerful,
and less painful filesystem managment is highly subjective. And, from an admin's point of view, BSDs being easier to learn is highly subjective also... I find Debian significantly easier to maintain, and I don't have to deal with the inconvenience of compiling software or the inconvenience of poorly compiled packages.
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You say that as if it's a bad thing! But then again, it's not really true. Nearly half of US mobile users do use GSM. Over half use CDMA2000. Both networks support text messaging. You can text message between networtks without a problem. CDMA2000, while being user unfriendly compared to GSM, has many technical advantages that GSM does not have and will not have until it gets WCDMA.
More people still use outdated devices like pagers.
The same kinds of people that use pagers in the US are the same kinds of people that use them elsewhere -- those that need the simplicty/reliability of a pager. Otherwise, cell phones have taken over the market.
I got the Belkin car kit simply so I didn't have to turn up the volume. (the car kit has its own independent amplifier and uses the line-out.)
you complete missed PostgreSQL, a open source. It's more free than MySQL. It's ACID compliance and has many, many more features and originated as a *real* database system, not a toy (like MySQL). In fact, it's crazy to consider MySQL when there are superior free alternatives.
It is not a Solved Problem. I've had problems with some poorly written programs. Also, certain font renderers do not always respect the operating system's wishes. Graphics are either too small or must be scaled to size (which is annoying). It's a lot easier to simply use a smaller resolution, which looks horrible on an LCD.
Those aren't stuck pixels. it's missing phosphor, as you said.
18-bit temporal dithering is definitely noticable.
What magical technology upscales images without noticable effects?
18 bit? What LCD doesnt display 24 bit?
some LCDs display "24-bit" thorugh a technology called "temporal dithering", where they cycle between color values to simulate "16.2 million" colors.
That's great, until you want things on the screen to appear bigger (for whatever reason). Changing resolutions with black bars does not help make anything bigger, and streching looks horrid.
Also, there are games that are designed for 4:3 displays and do not adequately handle 5:4 monitors, often not supporting any 5:4 resolutions at all.
I, for one, do not run my 19" CRT at its maximum resolution. Not because of refresh rates, but so I don't strain my eyes. At 1280x960, I need my glasses to read the screen. At 1152x864, it's much easier to read everything. (85hz in both cases). If I wanted to, I could run at 1600x1200, but even then everything's really small. In events where both 17" and 19" LCDs often have a native resolution of 1280x1024, using a smaller resolution can be very painful, especially when there are no other decent 5:4 resolutions available on your video card.
Increasing font sizes is usually not a reasonable option. Also, what about fans of Linux consoles?
Only until OLED displays are widely available.
But they aren't, so CRT still has the contrast advantage.
I have never seen a CRT with burn-in in my lifetime.
Good LCDs on the market today are just as usable as CRTs in this regard.
Good LCDs that cost much more than the functional counterpart CRT? No thanks, I'll pass.
Humans can't see more than 2^24 colors, so I think we're safe with that.
some LCDs are still 18-bit displays. as for the temporal dithering, it's noticable to me.
You also neglected to mention the facts that CRTs are heavy and bulky, and that only LCDs are an inherently digital design. Analog video/audio signals lick balls.
CRTs are heavy and bulky? Not a concern. I don't take mine to work every day. It doesn't leave my desk. That's what laptops are for.
Analog AUDIO signals are bad? Hrm, I think just about every speaker in the world connects to its amplifier using an ANALOG connection. Sometimes, digital is overrated.
Really now? It's impossible to have a dead pixel on a computer monitor, in the same sense that you get them on an LCD. (I don't think it would be a dead pixel at all. CRT's don't have individual pixels like LCDs.) I, for one, have used many, many CRTs, and have never seen a problem similar to a dead pixel (other than dust on the screen). LCDs, on the other hand, I see dead pixels on all the time.
I got it from a company that was getting rid of old hardware.
Most of the problems with exploding batteries has to do with improper charging or shutoff circuits (often crappy non-OEM hardware) or poorly manufactured cells (also usually crappy non-OEM).
I was _comparing_ bars, while you were comparing your "signal" as a percentage (of what?). So I assumed you got that info from bars.
haha I agree
First, why put OpenOffice on a system for free when you can sell MS Office or other commercial alternative for a profit? (Charging to install a free program wouldn't be very popular with customers, either.) Not to mention some people will still ask for Office by name even if you have OpenOffice.
Firefox is almost understandable, if it came pre-configured. Undesirable problems aside, there isn't much that Firefox can't do that IE can. But -- how would it help their business? People won't buy computers because they come with Firefox. It'd look bad if they charged for installation, too. So what's the incentive?
Thunderbird, however... a lot of software assumes Outlook Express or Outlook. Virus scanners and spam blockers often expect users to be using one of the Outlooks. Auto-configuration software and instructions from ISPs also assume this, so Thunderbird would go largely unused.
first, the bars on your phone do not correlate to 100% signal to 10-50% signal. they often measure certain amounts of signal strength, ignoring issues like the actual quality of the signal.
a good cellular network should be accessible inside most buildings. otherwise, the network is poor. while some buildings *are* wireless-unfriendly, the issue is more often than not simply a poor network, and there's no reason my cellphone shouldn't work at wal-mart, all along the expressway, in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, etc.
i have 5/5 bars inside at home on T-Mobile. i have 5/5 bars at work on AT&T Wireless. i have 5/5 bars at school on Cingular. T-Mobile works at home and work, Cingular works at home and school, and AT&T works at work and school. had any one of those providers paid to add more cell sites at the right places, i'd have perfect coverage on one of them. instead, i have to switch between them in order to keep my phone working. but it *does* work everywhere i go -- on at least one of the providers. (AT&T works at the most places, but they don't do well around here.)
on my phone, 5 bars is -84dBm and greater. ~100ft away from a tower, my phone has read -43dBm (the highest I've ever seen on it.) the 1900MHz GSM networks here, once again, have a min RSSI (minimum signal strength) at -105dBm or -110dBm, so there can be a huge difference between different values of "5 bars".
and as for "some rich fool" -- get real. most of the big us cell companies are wholly owned subsidaries of much larger corporations.
also, a lot of the supposed "improvment" may have to do with the psychological effect of different thresholds for dropping calls, showing signal strength, and losing paging signals. while some phones are exceptionally bad, and a few are exceptionally good, the good ones aren't *that* much better than the average phones. and the *bad* ones usually aren't either, as providers try not to sell bad products.
Great strategy.
* -- see http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=15065 2&cid=12640564
No, you don't need special drivers, but you need to pay for the specifications for the high-speed SD card interface or be forced to retrieve data from the card using a slow serial interface.
the rechargable AA batteries I have here (2500mAh Duracell) are nickel metal hydrate (NiMH), IIRC
In what areas? I see a lot of Linux-only drivers out there, many binary-only. A lot of drivers are developed on Linux and later ported to other open source operating systems after they become stable on Linux...
Really, now? Start listing them, and I'll be happy to challenge them, one-by-one. Unless of course you're just trolling and have no evidence behind your claims...
So if I can't make a list of drivers, I'm automatically trolling? That sounds like a trollish challenge -- "if I can't prove my claim by factual evidence and the other person won't either, then I'm right and the other person is wrong". There are lots of Linux drivers out there that are supported on Linux and Linux only...
The number of companies is completely and totally irrelivant. Microsoft is only one company...
The number of companies is not irrelevant. (is that word that hard to spell?) "Less" is a quantitative measure and there are truly less companies that support BSD than Linux or Windows. Microsoft is only one company, but there are many, many companies that sell Windows or offer support for Windows. The same applies for Linux. No matter how you look at it, there's less vendor support for BSD than Linux or Windows.
Bad support for esoteric hardware;
Really? Have you heard of NetBSD? Do you not realize that FreeBSD has been not only on-par with Linux, but ahead of it in some areas for many years now?
Try PC hardware support. That's the concern of most people. There are a lot of drivers for Linux exclusively. While supporting a bunch of different platforms is a good thing, it's not something most people will choose one operating system over another for if they're using the most prevalent platform in the world.
And on a personal note, the lack of a journalled filesystem has kept me away from FreeBSD ever since XFS was available on Linux.
Less vendor support;
That's debatable
No, it's not debatable. There are much fewer hardware manufacturers that support BSD. There are much fewer companies that sell and support BSD. There are much fewer software companies that support BSD.
you can't possibly deny that all BSD distros have a much better security tract record than Linux
And you're saying that without context; there are many different distributions available and many more Linux users. Since more people are interested in Linux, more people will find vulnerabilities. There's also more code to find problems with
But at the end of the day, I wouldn't really be too concerned with the security of either operating system.
Less complicated init is also less powerful, and less painful filesystem managment is highly subjective. And, from an admin's point of view, BSDs being easier to learn is highly subjective also... I find Debian significantly easier to maintain, and I don't have to deal with the inconvenience of compiling software or the inconvenience of poorly compiled packages.