> but at what point does paying extra for that beat out something that outperforms what you're buying by every other conceivable metric?
It's a tough but personal call, I guess. Given the earlier metaphor, I'd much rather have the Maybach which is priced similarly to the sports cars, but since there's no Maybach option for the Neo900 that's where we're at. I think I paid about $700 for the first N900, later getting them for $300 for my father and sister (who are both still using them); so ~$1000 for the Neo900 is tempting to have a pocket Debian box with all the gadgets, and presumably, a community like Maemo had that was keen to hop in and hack it.
I'm a little bummed since the last time I was a looking to spend $1000 on a phone it was (now I can't remember, either a Siemens or a Motorola) phone that could do UMTS and quad-band GSM, meaning I would have been able to use the same phone in the US, Europe and Japan.
If I thought a better option would come along if I waited another year, or even two, this would be a more obvious solution. Given that I don't replace phones every two years, maybe the amortized cost is worth it. I'm obviously still tempted, although with 5G deployments *scheduled* for 2020 maybe it's not worth it. Or it'll simply be a good time to look to upgrade. I'm very conflicted.
I loved my N900, and still have it despite the flaky USB port and the amount of battery it chugs, the fact that Maemo wasn't as free as you'd hoped and that it was supported by Nokia about as well as Nokia supported anything. Because of that, I've been watching the Neo900 project for quite some time, although I'll admit it wasn't until today that I payed closer attention to the frequency options (since they were always subject to change anyway).
There isn't a good world phone option. Given the chips they're working with, the world options (Euro LTE or penta-band UMTS) won't work with T-Mobile USA's UMTS or LTE networks [as far as I can map support and bands?], and the US version won't work at all in Japan. Compare that to other pentaband phones which drop the 800MHz for the AWS band, which work worldwide.
Off-topic, but does anyone click on any of the "Video" stories, or is that like the real-estate used for the Dice ads? For those wholly confused by what this is, it's not intended at all as a competitor for Android or iOS based devices, it exists for its own reasons. A car analogy (do users here still ask for those? Or here do car analogies ask for users?): telling someone looking to get an Neo900 to get an Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy would be like telling someone to get a Ferrari 458 or Lamborghini Huracan rather than a Rolls Royce Phantom. Sure, the Ferrari and Lamborghini are cheaper, faster, and more likely to be on the poster in your room; but someone wanting to buy the Rolls isn't going to be impressed by that.
This may help explain why some carriers (e.g. T-Mobile) required an "unlimited" data plan for certain phones. Even though my wife only uses about 40 MB of data over T-Mobile's network a month, they want to require her to use the more expensive unlimited plan. If it's an unlimited plan, they aren't charging you for additional data transfer.
Well, technically they might be, but not directly; and not legally. If that's really the reasoning, then they're just extremely evil and bad, bad people.
There are various after-market vendors for at least the major brands in digital SLRs. Even with the newer generation of Canon batteries (e.g. for the 7D) which have special chips to communicate with the camera, at least for the time being, non-smart batteries will at least still work.
Is this ideal, as a consumer? No, it'd be better for consumers if Canon were to release instructions for other manufacturers to communicate in the same way their own batteries do. However, there is sufficient demand for cheaper non-OEM batteries that several companies will sell them, and probably continue to have some available past the life of the camera (I just bought a new round for the 20D, which was replaced by the 30D about six years ago).
Even if the specific batteries are no longer available, the Canon dSLRs can still be powered by AA batteries if you have the hand grip (which I could never imagine shooting without, although I can foresee arguments from people who prefer the smaller size without it).
Pish-posh. I had an iPad device. Work bought me a first-gen model the week they came out, and we've got a number of shared iPad2s for development. I played around with it for a little over a year, using it almost entirely for its Web browser, eMail client/calendar, and the Economist.
The eMail client wasn't particularly great. it was manageable to type on the screen, but it was incredibly frustrating to do certain things, like prune unnecessary parts of a message to which you are replying.
The Web browser was a frustrating experience, especially if the WiFi was at all flaky. If I were following links from an eMail, I'd move between the two applications, and the Web browser would flush its cache when it woke-up, meaning I wouldn't have access to old pages until it was able to download and render them again. Even worse, it could only keep nine pages open at once, so if you had several open to come back to, and you happened to navigate to one that used pop-ups, you were SoL.
I didn't mind the format, and that's why I put up with it for a year. However, depending upon what I plan on doing, I now have two tablets that each work much better than the iPad device did. I have a Nook Simple Touch Reader which works great in daylight situations, and as a reader at night (with K9 mail, the default Android browser, and Opera browsers installed, it's much more reliable than the iPad for those purposes). For situations where eInk doesn't work, or more general browsing and usage I have a HP TouchPad (with a Debian chroot and iceweasel).
Yes, most people won't want to deal with loading an alternative home screen or configure a Debian chroot, but in doing so each are significantly better than the iPad device in my opinion, and together they're still less than a used first-generation iPad device from Apple. Maybe the Apple iPad device is best for you, and makes your life simpler, but objectively saying, from a technical standpoint, that nothing else can touch it disingenuous. (From the aspects of marketing, sales, and mind-share, things are obviously different.)
None of these should be harder to use than a normal phone. To initially configure, maybe--but you can do that and then ship them off where all they need to be is connected to the network.
Why bother with a cross-platform software solution? You could, if it simplifies your support issues, I suppose. Each platform has plenty of options if you just need some support however (my father uses Telepathy on his phone).
As I said, my parents have an Aastra phone, which fetches its configuration file from an FTP server (you can also just have it fetch over HTTP/HTTPS) so any configuration changes take effect within a day, or after they restart the phone--including a centralized address book. The Aastra phones are really good if you want a hybrid centralized-decentralized configuration/contact situation and you want to spend a couple hours doing the initial configuration for everyone. The users don't need to know anything special.
> open source software... ATI card... (older Nvidia) without glitches.
Since you don't say, and from experience, I'm forced to wonder if you were using ATI's fglrx or Nvidia's proprietary drivers, which would seem to go counter the impression it seems that you're trying to make (open source failed you).
Really there isn't much else to respond to. You don't say what it was that you were using (did you need 3D and compositing? or simply 2D?). I've never come across problems with open drivers just running wmaker or fvwm; and I've run Compiz fine on older Radeon cards (open) and currently on Intel (open) cards.
The biggest problems I've run into was trying to maintain a system using proprietary drivers. I've decided it's just not worth the hassle. Closed drivers in an open system isn't any better than closed drivers in a closed system.
I've noticed Vitelity started offering SMS on their SIP lines. I've not played with it, but would love to hear from people who have (especially if they integrated it with Asterisk). I don't care enough about SMS to play with it right now but am vaguely intrigued about the possibilities of having it integrated into my Asterisk server.
My "everything north of Boston is the same" prejudice shows, but I'm surprised there's UMTS availabe in Maine!
IIRC, I do have some lag on the calls, but I never traced where this was (my Aastra phones I *don't think* demonstrate this [over a wired connection]). It's only been noticeable to me when I'm talking on the phone with someone in the same room (hearing both the direct voice and over the GSM->Vitelity->Asterisk (CoLo)->(Comcast->Wifi->) N900), however which means it's never been a problem in real use. It could be I'm just luckier, or that I've just gotten accustomed to it.
I haven't had consistent problems over T-Mo's 3G, although I do intermittently (usually in areas of poor coverage/deep inside buildings). 3G is prone to some intermittent hic-ups that self-correct but are noticeable from time-to-time (3G does have higher latency than WiFi, and I'm using a high bit-rate codec).
I also don't use the phone (any phone) that much for voice...
As said downstream, I have T-Mo USA since... I'm in the USA and that's the only UMTS network it supports here. Also, it's cheaper than AT&T and has always worked for me (and I've never been in an area where AT&T had service and T-Mobile didn't because of roaming agreements).
Voice quality's fine as long as it's on UMTS (3G), with or without HSPA--although with poor reception (inside buildings) there can be some difficulty but still generally usable. On EDGE it doesn't keep up and generally drops--there's a bug in that the N900 doesn't use the GSM codec over SIP (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11744) which would help significantly over EDGE.
Fortunately, indoors, I generally have WiFi so this usually isn't an issue. I've used it to replace my old Linksys IPhone SIP phone which just stayed indoors connecting to WiFi. Obviously, the N900 is much more versatile than the IPhone was.
(And while I mentioned Vitelity by name, I'm just really happy with what they offer compared to the other SIP carriers I've tried--it's definitely geared toward the more technically inclined which certainly doesn't hurt. Other providers might be easier to get working if you just want a simple VoIP plan with some package of minutes and what not.)
My set-up is my N900 using UMTS (or WiFi if I'm at home) connecting to my Asterisk box which handles call routing and voicemail, and which connects to the plain-old-telephone-system via Vitelity. Alternatively, you could skip running your own Asterisk server and just connect to Vitelity directly (or run Asterisk on the N900).
I believe Android's Gingerbread release also supports SIP, but I don't have direct experience with that. Either way, I use SIP over 3G and WiFi quite a bit since it's significantly cheaper than when I'm on the mobile voice network.
Yes. At least on EDGE, if you're actively using data, your phone won't ring. Surfing, Pandora, YouTube- whatever. If you're using your phone, it won't ring while you're on an EDGE network.
Don't believe me? Google for it. Lots of us have this problem.
(mumble-mumble-I-hate-AT&T-mumble-mumble)
It's not that I don't believe you--there are lots of phone and network combinations--but this isn't a necessary EDGE limitation. Take a look at the GRPS classes (specifically class A or class B) and DTM.
Even when I was stuck on GPRS and later EDGE using a class B phone, most have an option to ignore incoming calls if you're using data. If you don't have that option checked, your data connection will be suspended during an incoming call. I've had a number of DUN sessions suspended because of incoming calls--and even had SSH sessions resume beautifully if I kept them short enough. That goes back to the first Bluetooth and GPRS enabled phone I owned back in 2003 and through several models I've owned since.
a) A system has (more properly a "largish" subset of systems running the Ubuntu distribution have) stability problems.
b) While the machines themselves are stable, there could be significant changes in the distribution over a relatively short time.
c) The distribution has a psychosis.
I'll let others approach a and c. As for b, the distribution does have stability issues as compared to most mainstream distributions, let alone Debian-stable. I've yet to go through an Ubuntu update without having things break requiring some moderate digging around.
Some obvious things that I wouldn't have expected to happen in Debian:
Ubuntu pushed new Nvidia drivers at nigh the last moment, as happend with Jaunty. The drivers had some stability bug and the fix on launch day was to revert to an older version from the beta. Debian would never release binary-drivers with it's distribution.
Ubuntu changed configuration systems between Jaunty, Karmic, and Lucid--specifically those configuring input in X. The Synaptics touchpad on my MacBook worked fine in Jaunty. I've not gotten it to work right since but looking at the configuration files for each system shows the radically different configuration systems, and the update process obviously didn't do the Right Thing during the update since it broke. Debian would never have three named releases within a calendar year.
My girlfriend managed to update from Karmic to Lucid by herself. I had told her that it was ok to update packages as they became available, but hadn't realized how easy it would be for her to actually update the entire system to a new release. Her Eee PC's wireless networking and ACPI triggers broke forcing me to fix things that had just been working manually. Some of these came back with a reboot, for others I needed to find the "new" packages in Lucid, for others some manual tweaking, and apparently some of the buttons aren't working "right" still. I never would have had a girlfriend running Debian.
Some search engine sites support the ability for a user to submit a search query by encoding the search string within a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Typically, however, the user must encode the search string in the URL using special formatting that is inconvenient or unnatural for users to type. For example, in some cases, users must add a special string such as "query=" to indicate that a search is being requested, and/or must add special characters to the search string itself. As one example, the URL www.google.com/search?q=mars%20rover may be used to the search for "mars rover."
It isn't possible under the standards to not force the "user" (client) to encode certain strings, but any "major" user agent will do this without human intervention. Giving an example of "mars%20rover" (not even "mars+rover" which is the better version) seems like someone is intentionally trying to mislead the less-knowledgeable, not to mention the blatant ignoring of everyone that already does URL rewriting and even those that perform additional sanitation (e.g. wikipedia converting spaces to underscores so valid URLs are clean and unescaped).
I'm probably only one of three people in the world who even remembers it, but what about the 2.5 years with Kilborn?
Most people I talk to about the show don't even know it existed before Stewart, or what the lira was. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the rights owners would rather put those days behind them.
My rant from May 2005 with a photo from an Albany-area newspaper of the rate changes (focusing on the local exits, but also lists the Tappan Zee's difference: $4 in cash vs. $3.60 on the E-ZPass).
people who use the ez pass do it out of choice. you aren't required to use one on the highways. you can just pay cash at the tolls
New York state, as of a few years ago, started charging higher toll rates if you paid cash instead of using the EZpass. I'm still not clear on how this is permissible, since earlier plans were struck down because the courts considered it disadvantageous to out-of-state motorists (who were unlikely to have an EZpass) and a violation of the commerce clause of the constitution (since many of the tolls concerned were on Interstates).
There's a lot about Eudora I miss (and some I don't, to be fair) now that I'm using primarily the Seamonkey mail.
Both Seamonkey and Thunderbird have come a long way (the random "what's the Internet?" problems, where the client needs to be restarted before it can use the network again, from earlier versions of Thunderbird don't seem to happen anymore). The most painfully obvious deficiency as I see it is the absolutely pitiful filtering rules though, which I remember being significantly better in the version of Eudora I used about a decade ago.
Admittedly, filtering is done best on the server (procmail, you're my hero), but sometimes that's not always an option. There are still a few rough edges, but I've managed to configure it to the point where the filtering is the only thing that comes to mind right now (as far as a "normal" user is concerned, anyway--if I were to compare it to good ol' mutt, it doesn't even come close yet).
Support for standard, instant E-Mail notification - No ??? From everything I've heard, including from its users, the Apple iPhone doesn't support the IMAP IDLE extension which most major IMAP servers support, reducing the amount of data that needs to be sent over the proverbial wire, and providing near-instant notification of e-mail. Instead, Apple users are forced to either result in polling (expensive in terms of bandwidth, power, and if you have roaming charges--money) or use a specific server (Yahoo! I think is doing some push-mail thing with Apple's phone?).
Lastly, the Nokia E61i is not a "European Phone". It's available here in the states. Nokia is a European company. The phone is also available in the European market.
Frankly, half of the things I mentioned (e.g. Flash) I couldn't care less about. I listed them just for the bullet points to roughly match-up with the original comparison.
You're right, the reason I don't like the iPhone is because it doesn't let me do what I want. I don't see how that's a problem with my analysis. It doesn't change the fact that the iPhone is a rather poor solution for a "complete hand computer and digital assistant". If you drink the Apple Kool-Aide® if you, like the idea of iTunes integrated with your phone, and you want a usable web browser on your phone, it's a decent solution. I can't find another thing it does as well as anyone else though. There are better phones at E-mail. There are better phones at anything it doesn't do, since they can run third-party apps--how do I chat with a friend or co-worker from the iPhone? SMS? That can get pricey.
The iPhone, however, is a complete hand computer and digital assistant I also can't stand the keyboard, but arguing about that is like arguing about the shade of blue on my curtains. I like it, you probably don't. Frankly, I like being able to type without looking at what's under my thumbs, and I haven't figured-out how to do that with the Apple phone yet.
E61 - iPhone Expandable memory - No Phone Numbers from Webpages - Yes Full alphabetical keyboard - On-screen Choice of Opera or Apple browser - Safari Support for standard, instant E-Mail notification - No Search and dial from Google Maps - Sure. 3rd party J2ME, native programs - No. Macromedia Flash - So I hear. RIM Blackberry - No. GPS tools - Not that I know of?
I don't even understand what this one means: On-Screen Conferencing options - Play on-hold games with the phone
I couldn't stand the Japanese phone market, even more than the American one. The E61 (and E61i) is a great tool. The dedicated standard keyboard makes both remote administration (ssh) and chat (Jabber, IRC, e-mail) easy. It's no more cumbersome than Apple's iPhone (slightly wider?), and is infinitely more extensible. The lack of IDLE support on the iPhone alone ruled it out for me.
While I can appreciate "Visual Voicemail" as an improvement over the standard mobile offering, I can't imagine that it makes-up for the phones other deficiencies. My voicemail system as it is sends me e-mail with the voice mail as an attachment (with Caller ID info, date, all that jazz), which (because of the IDLE support) instantly notifies me of the new voice mail, and lets me decide if I want to listen to it (download and play the attachment, or dial the voicemail number).
you do not have to do anything to be affected by this law
I know I'm being pedantic, but let's not forget this isn't actually a law, it just has the power of law without that nasty legislative branch getting involved.
It really does seem like an end-run around both of the other branches.
... and I love the thing. I use (the left-hand model) with my Kinesis keyboard, and for the first time in my life i haven't had those annoying pains when at the computer for long time.
Kinesis (I think) will actually let you try the mouse for a while and then return it (money-back satisfaction guarantee) although there's a possibility that it's just for thei keyboards (although I thought it included the mouse also) -- might be worth paying the little extra than you can get it for elsewhere. J&R was the cheapest I've seen it (and I've got less qualms buying from them than some place like Amazon as someone else had suggested).
b) if you're robbed, as long as you conscientiously inform the card company, you are not liable for anything charged on it - you're out nothing.
And that's the biggest saving-grace over a debit card (in the U.S. at least)--with a credit card the liability is with the issuer by law, debit cards don't have the same form of protection.
Slashdot Mirror
> but at what point does paying extra for that beat out something that outperforms what you're buying by every other conceivable metric?
It's a tough but personal call, I guess. Given the earlier metaphor, I'd much rather have the Maybach which is priced similarly to the sports cars, but since there's no Maybach option for the Neo900 that's where we're at. I think I paid about $700 for the first N900, later getting them for $300 for my father and sister (who are both still using them); so ~$1000 for the Neo900 is tempting to have a pocket Debian box with all the gadgets, and presumably, a community like Maemo had that was keen to hop in and hack it.
I'm a little bummed since the last time I was a looking to spend $1000 on a phone it was (now I can't remember, either a Siemens or a Motorola) phone that could do UMTS and quad-band GSM, meaning I would have been able to use the same phone in the US, Europe and Japan.
If I thought a better option would come along if I waited another year, or even two, this would be a more obvious solution. Given that I don't replace phones every two years, maybe the amortized cost is worth it. I'm obviously still tempted, although with 5G deployments *scheduled* for 2020 maybe it's not worth it. Or it'll simply be a good time to look to upgrade. I'm very conflicted.
I loved my N900, and still have it despite the flaky USB port and the amount of battery it chugs, the fact that Maemo wasn't as free as you'd hoped and that it was supported by Nokia about as well as Nokia supported anything. Because of that, I've been watching the Neo900 project for quite some time, although I'll admit it wasn't until today that I payed closer attention to the frequency options (since they were always subject to change anyway).
There isn't a good world phone option. Given the chips they're working with, the world options (Euro LTE or penta-band UMTS) won't work with T-Mobile USA's UMTS or LTE networks [as far as I can map support and bands?], and the US version won't work at all in Japan. Compare that to other pentaband phones which drop the 800MHz for the AWS band, which work worldwide.
Off-topic, but does anyone click on any of the "Video" stories, or is that like the real-estate used for the Dice ads?
For those wholly confused by what this is, it's not intended at all as a competitor for Android or iOS based devices, it exists for its own reasons. A car analogy (do users here still ask for those? Or here do car analogies ask for users?): telling someone looking to get an Neo900 to get an Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy would be like telling someone to get a Ferrari 458 or Lamborghini Huracan rather than a Rolls Royce Phantom. Sure, the Ferrari and Lamborghini are cheaper, faster, and more likely to be on the poster in your room; but someone wanting to buy the Rolls isn't going to be impressed by that.
use the sideload option in recovery
This may help explain why some carriers (e.g. T-Mobile) required an "unlimited" data plan for certain phones. Even though my wife only uses about 40 MB of data over T-Mobile's network a month, they want to require her to use the more expensive unlimited plan. If it's an unlimited plan, they aren't charging you for additional data transfer.
Well, technically they might be, but not directly; and not legally. If that's really the reasoning, then they're just extremely evil and bad, bad people.
There are various after-market vendors for at least the major brands in digital SLRs. Even with the newer generation of Canon batteries (e.g. for the 7D) which have special chips to communicate with the camera, at least for the time being, non-smart batteries will at least still work.
Is this ideal, as a consumer? No, it'd be better for consumers if Canon were to release instructions for other manufacturers to communicate in the same way their own batteries do. However, there is sufficient demand for cheaper non-OEM batteries that several companies will sell them, and probably continue to have some available past the life of the camera (I just bought a new round for the 20D, which was replaced by the 30D about six years ago).
Even if the specific batteries are no longer available, the Canon dSLRs can still be powered by AA batteries if you have the hand grip (which I could never imagine shooting without, although I can foresee arguments from people who prefer the smaller size without it).
Pish-posh. I had an iPad device. Work bought me a first-gen model the week they came out, and we've got a number of shared iPad2s for development. I played around with it for a little over a year, using it almost entirely for its Web browser, eMail client/calendar, and the Economist.
The eMail client wasn't particularly great. it was manageable to type on the screen, but it was incredibly frustrating to do certain things, like prune unnecessary parts of a message to which you are replying.
The Web browser was a frustrating experience, especially if the WiFi was at all flaky. If I were following links from an eMail, I'd move between the two applications, and the Web browser would flush its cache when it woke-up, meaning I wouldn't have access to old pages until it was able to download and render them again. Even worse, it could only keep nine pages open at once, so if you had several open to come back to, and you happened to navigate to one that used pop-ups, you were SoL.
I didn't mind the format, and that's why I put up with it for a year. However, depending upon what I plan on doing, I now have two tablets that each work much better than the iPad device did. I have a Nook Simple Touch Reader which works great in daylight situations, and as a reader at night (with K9 mail, the default Android browser, and Opera browsers installed, it's much more reliable than the iPad for those purposes). For situations where eInk doesn't work, or more general browsing and usage I have a HP TouchPad (with a Debian chroot and iceweasel).
Yes, most people won't want to deal with loading an alternative home screen or configure a Debian chroot, but in doing so each are significantly better than the iPad device in my opinion, and together they're still less than a used first-generation iPad device from Apple. Maybe the Apple iPad device is best for you, and makes your life simpler, but objectively saying, from a technical standpoint, that nothing else can touch it disingenuous. (From the aspects of marketing, sales, and mind-share, things are obviously different.)
Buy a dedicated SIP phone.
My parents are running Aastra phones (with wireless handsets).
My fiancée has an ATA (analog telephone adapter) and loves that she can use her old analog phone with it.
You can buy a Grandstream phone for $50 if you don't want something fancy like Aastra or Cisco.
None of these should be harder to use than a normal phone. To initially configure, maybe--but you can do that and then ship them off where all they need to be is connected to the network.
Why bother with a cross-platform software solution? You could, if it simplifies your support issues, I suppose. Each platform has plenty of options if you just need some support however (my father uses Telepathy on his phone).
As I said, my parents have an Aastra phone, which fetches its configuration file from an FTP server (you can also just have it fetch over HTTP/HTTPS) so any configuration changes take effect within a day, or after they restart the phone--including a centralized address book. The Aastra phones are really good if you want a hybrid centralized-decentralized configuration/contact situation and you want to spend a couple hours doing the initial configuration for everyone. The users don't need to know anything special.
> open source software ... ATI card ... (older Nvidia) without glitches.
Since you don't say, and from experience, I'm forced to wonder if you were using ATI's fglrx or Nvidia's proprietary drivers, which would seem to go counter the impression it seems that you're trying to make (open source failed you).
Really there isn't much else to respond to. You don't say what it was that you were using (did you need 3D and compositing? or simply 2D?). I've never come across problems with open drivers just running wmaker or fvwm; and I've run Compiz fine on older Radeon cards (open) and currently on Intel (open) cards.
The biggest problems I've run into was trying to maintain a system using proprietary drivers. I've decided it's just not worth the hassle. Closed drivers in an open system isn't any better than closed drivers in a closed system.
I've noticed Vitelity started offering SMS on their SIP lines. I've not played with it, but would love to hear from people who have (especially if they integrated it with Asterisk). I don't care enough about SMS to play with it right now but am vaguely intrigued about the possibilities of having it integrated into my Asterisk server.
My "everything north of Boston is the same" prejudice shows, but I'm surprised there's UMTS availabe in Maine!
IIRC, I do have some lag on the calls, but I never traced where this was (my Aastra phones I *don't think* demonstrate this [over a wired connection]). It's only been noticeable to me when I'm talking on the phone with someone in the same room (hearing both the direct voice and over the GSM->Vitelity->Asterisk (CoLo)->(Comcast->Wifi->) N900), however which means it's never been a problem in real use. It could be I'm just luckier, or that I've just gotten accustomed to it.
I haven't had consistent problems over T-Mo's 3G, although I do intermittently (usually in areas of poor coverage/deep inside buildings). 3G is prone to some intermittent hic-ups that self-correct but are noticeable from time-to-time (3G does have higher latency than WiFi, and I'm using a high bit-rate codec).
I also don't use the phone (any phone) that much for voice ...
As said downstream, I have T-Mo USA since ... I'm in the USA and that's the only UMTS network it supports here. Also, it's cheaper than AT&T and has always worked for me (and I've never been in an area where AT&T had service and T-Mobile didn't because of roaming agreements).
Voice quality's fine as long as it's on UMTS (3G), with or without HSPA--although with poor reception (inside buildings) there can be some difficulty but still generally usable. On EDGE it doesn't keep up and generally drops--there's a bug in that the N900 doesn't use the GSM codec over SIP (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11744) which would help significantly over EDGE.
Fortunately, indoors, I generally have WiFi so this usually isn't an issue. I've used it to replace my old Linksys IPhone SIP phone which just stayed indoors connecting to WiFi. Obviously, the N900 is much more versatile than the IPhone was.
(And while I mentioned Vitelity by name, I'm just really happy with what they offer compared to the other SIP carriers I've tried--it's definitely geared toward the more technically inclined which certainly doesn't hurt. Other providers might be easier to get working if you just want a simple VoIP plan with some package of minutes and what not.)
My set-up is my N900 using UMTS (or WiFi if I'm at home) connecting to my Asterisk box which handles call routing and voicemail, and which connects to the plain-old-telephone-system via Vitelity. Alternatively, you could skip running your own Asterisk server and just connect to Vitelity directly (or run Asterisk on the N900).
I believe Android's Gingerbread release also supports SIP, but I don't have direct experience with that. Either way, I use SIP over 3G and WiFi quite a bit since it's significantly cheaper than when I'm on the mobile voice network.
Yes. At least on EDGE, if you're actively using data, your phone won't ring. Surfing, Pandora, YouTube- whatever. If you're using your phone, it won't ring while you're on an EDGE network.
Don't believe me? Google for it. Lots of us have this problem.
(mumble-mumble-I-hate-AT&T-mumble-mumble)
It's not that I don't believe you--there are lots of phone and network combinations--but this isn't a necessary EDGE limitation. Take a look at the GRPS classes (specifically class A or class B) and DTM.
Even when I was stuck on GPRS and later EDGE using a class B phone, most have an option to ignore incoming calls if you're using data. If you don't have that option checked, your data connection will be suspended during an incoming call. I've had a number of DUN sessions suspended because of incoming calls--and even had SSH sessions resume beautifully if I kept them short enough. That goes back to the first Bluetooth and GPRS enabled phone I owned back in 2003 and through several models I've owned since.
There are three possible meanings to the phrase
Ubuntu's got severe stability problems
.
a) A system has (more properly a "largish" subset of systems running the Ubuntu distribution have) stability problems.
b) While the machines themselves are stable, there could be significant changes in the distribution over a relatively short time.
c) The distribution has a psychosis.
I'll let others approach a and c. As for b, the distribution does have stability issues as compared to most mainstream distributions, let alone Debian-stable. I've yet to go through an Ubuntu update without having things break requiring some moderate digging around.
Some obvious things that I wouldn't have expected to happen in Debian:
Ubuntu pushed new Nvidia drivers at nigh the last moment, as happend with Jaunty. The drivers had some stability bug and the fix on launch day was to revert to an older version from the beta. Debian would never release binary-drivers with it's distribution.
Ubuntu changed configuration systems between Jaunty, Karmic, and Lucid--specifically those configuring input in X. The Synaptics touchpad on my MacBook worked fine in Jaunty. I've not gotten it to work right since but looking at the configuration files for each system shows the radically different configuration systems, and the update process obviously didn't do the Right Thing during the update since it broke. Debian would never have three named releases within a calendar year.
My girlfriend managed to update from Karmic to Lucid by herself. I had told her that it was ok to update packages as they became available, but hadn't realized how easy it would be for her to actually update the entire system to a new release. Her Eee PC's wireless networking and ACPI triggers broke forcing me to fix things that had just been working manually. Some of these came back with a reboot, for others I needed to find the "new" packages in Lucid, for others some manual tweaking, and apparently some of the buttons aren't working "right" still. I never would have had a girlfriend running Debian.
http://broadbandusa.sc.egov.usda.gov/files/BTOP%20Peer%20Reviewer%20Letter%207-6%20v2.pdf
I followed the link in the article to the paper that supposedly requested reviewers, and I got a 404.
A cursory scan at the Federal Register notice (Vol. 74 No. 125; Wed July 1 2009) hasn't have anything stick out either as far as volunteers.
It isn't possible under the standards to not force the "user" (client) to encode certain strings, but any "major" user agent will do this without human intervention. Giving an example of "mars%20rover" (not even "mars+rover" which is the better version) seems like someone is intentionally trying to mislead the less-knowledgeable, not to mention the blatant ignoring of everyone that already does URL rewriting and even those that perform additional sanitation (e.g. wikipedia converting spaces to underscores so valid URLs are clean and unescaped).
I'm probably only one of three people in the world who even remembers it, but what about the 2.5 years with Kilborn?
Most people I talk to about the show don't even know it existed before Stewart, or what the lira was. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if the rights owners would rather put those days behind them.
http://matt.wronka.org/me/log/rant/15
My rant from May 2005 with a photo from an Albany-area newspaper of the rate changes (focusing on the local exits, but also lists the Tappan Zee's difference: $4 in cash vs. $3.60 on the E-ZPass).
New York state, as of a few years ago, started charging higher toll rates if you paid cash instead of using the EZpass. I'm still not clear on how this is permissible, since earlier plans were struck down because the courts considered it disadvantageous to out-of-state motorists (who were unlikely to have an EZpass) and a violation of the commerce clause of the constitution (since many of the tolls concerned were on Interstates).
There's a lot about Eudora I miss (and some I don't, to be fair) now that I'm using primarily the Seamonkey mail.
Both Seamonkey and Thunderbird have come a long way (the random "what's the Internet?" problems, where the client needs to be restarted before it can use the network again, from earlier versions of Thunderbird don't seem to happen anymore). The most painfully obvious deficiency as I see it is the absolutely pitiful filtering rules though, which I remember being significantly better in the version of Eudora I used about a decade ago.
Admittedly, filtering is done best on the server (procmail, you're my hero), but sometimes that's not always an option. There are still a few rough edges, but I've managed to configure it to the point where the filtering is the only thing that comes to mind right now (as far as a "normal" user is concerned, anyway--if I were to compare it to good ol' mutt, it doesn't even come close yet).
Lastly, the Nokia E61i is not a "European Phone". It's available here in the states. Nokia is a European company. The phone is also available in the European market.
Frankly, half of the things I mentioned (e.g. Flash) I couldn't care less about. I listed them just for the bullet points to roughly match-up with the original comparison.
You're right, the reason I don't like the iPhone is because it doesn't let me do what I want. I don't see how that's a problem with my analysis. It doesn't change the fact that the iPhone is a rather poor solution for a "complete hand computer and digital assistant". If you drink the Apple Kool-Aide® if you, like the idea of iTunes integrated with your phone, and you want a usable web browser on your phone, it's a decent solution. I can't find another thing it does as well as anyone else though. There are better phones at E-mail. There are better phones at anything it doesn't do, since they can run third-party apps--how do I chat with a friend or co-worker from the iPhone? SMS? That can get pricey. The iPhone, however, is a complete hand computer and digital assistant I also can't stand the keyboard, but arguing about that is like arguing about the shade of blue on my curtains. I like it, you probably don't. Frankly, I like being able to type without looking at what's under my thumbs, and I haven't figured-out how to do that with the Apple phone yet.
Let's play with European phones now, Nokia E61i:
E61 - iPhone
Expandable memory - No
Phone Numbers from Webpages - Yes
Full alphabetical keyboard - On-screen
Choice of Opera or Apple browser - Safari
Support for standard, instant E-Mail notification - No
Search and dial from Google Maps - Sure.
3rd party J2ME, native programs - No.
Macromedia Flash - So I hear.
RIM Blackberry - No.
GPS tools - Not that I know of?
I don't even understand what this one means: On-Screen Conferencing options - Play on-hold games with the phone
I couldn't stand the Japanese phone market, even more than the American one. The E61 (and E61i) is a great tool. The dedicated standard keyboard makes both remote administration (ssh) and chat (Jabber, IRC, e-mail) easy. It's no more cumbersome than Apple's iPhone (slightly wider?), and is infinitely more extensible. The lack of IDLE support on the iPhone alone ruled it out for me.
While I can appreciate "Visual Voicemail" as an improvement over the standard mobile offering, I can't imagine that it makes-up for the phones other deficiencies. My voicemail system as it is sends me e-mail with the voice mail as an attachment (with Caller ID info, date, all that jazz), which (because of the IDLE support) instantly notifies me of the new voice mail, and lets me decide if I want to listen to it (download and play the attachment, or dial the voicemail number).
On the other hand, Apple has the mainstream hype.
I know I'm being pedantic, but let's not forget this isn't actually a law, it just has the power of law without that nasty legislative branch getting involved.
It really does seem like an end-run around both of the other branches.
... and I love the thing. I use (the left-hand model) with my Kinesis keyboard, and for the first time in my life i haven't had those annoying pains when at the computer for long time.
Kinesis (I think) will actually let you try the mouse for a while and then return it (money-back satisfaction guarantee) although there's a possibility that it's just for thei keyboards (although I thought it included the mouse also) -- might be worth paying the little extra than you can get it for elsewhere. J&R was the cheapest I've seen it (and I've got less qualms buying from them than some place like Amazon as someone else had suggested).
b) if you're robbed, as long as you conscientiously inform the card company, you are not liable for anything charged on it - you're out nothing.
And that's the biggest saving-grace over a debit card (in the U.S. at least)--with a credit card the liability is with the issuer by law, debit cards don't have the same form of protection.
And that's why I don't trust debit cards.