This was it. I remember from the I/O keynote, complaints about Microsoft exploiting some open standard to establish one-way compatibility, but I couldn't remember the details. Thanks. This comment ought to be at the top, it's most likely the reason XMPP support was dropped.
Thanks. In my dreams last night, Balmer came up on stage with Page and apologized to the world for not seeing a need for S2S XMPP federation and they announced a partnership between Hangouts and Skype/Lync via S2S XMPP. Then they pulled a "but there's more" and announced that they open-source extended XMPP/Jingle so that both products could handle Multi-way chat/audio/video. In my dreams!
Google face *competition* from the pack of 4 "Facebook,Apple,Amazon,Netflix" but not Microsoft, Microsoft currently are struggling to compete effectively against Google, and nothing seems to be changing that. Ironically one of the many reasons (the main being its not that good) form Windows Phone spectacular failure is its insistence on skype, something that the carriers despise.
It is not possible that Google doesn't fear MS. I'd be willing to be that most of the people reading our comments here are doing so from a Windows computer.
I think Skype was around quite a bit longer, so you'd have to put it the other way around -- Google realized Skype's potential and came up with a competitor. Microsoft realized Skype's potential as well, and purchased them.
For sure, Skype was around first, but I think that it isn't as much of what Skype stands for as what Skype stands for when Microsoft owns it. Google fears Microsoft more than it feared Skype.
...they could have just showed you a list of all your current Google Talk XMPP contacts and asked you to place check marks next to any that you wanted to invite to your Microsoft Account contact list...
As of today's announcement from Google, they would have done all that work in vain. Perhaps MS realized that Google's commitment to XMPP was not something that could be relied upon?
Nothing is for sure when you're working with competitors, but I don't think that Microsoft would have had a lot (if anything) to lose by attempting to incorporate XMPP. XMPP should have been added a long time ago by Microsoft, way back in the Messenger days. I can't remember what year (2008?) Microsoft offered up XMPP for the first time with Office Communications Server (it was in 2007 R2), but they should have offered XMPP at that time. By my measurements, if Microsoft did everything right with respect to XMPP, Skype should have been getting XMPP in 2013.
I like open IM and will miss being able to chat with my Gtalk contacts from Lync.
This mostly comes down to a battle between 2x platforms: Google vs. Microsoft. I consider myself a pretty avid Microsoft supporter, but if you look at the facts, I kind of think that Microsoft started this fight by:
1) Buying Skype and pitting Skype against Talk.
2) Their Scroogled campaign that pitted Outlook against Gmail
3) Connecting Outlook.com to the Talk API when Google would have preferred that Microsoft federate skype/outlook/hotmail/live/passport via XMPP.
It's that third point surrounding XMPP federation that this all comes down to. When Microsoft decided to not federate via XMPP with the Outlook/Skype consumer products they were saying that they only wanted to establish 1-way communication with Google's platform. There is no doubt that this pissed Google off because Microsoft is trying to take away their market share while also taking advantage of their services and open architecture. Google's offered up XMPP for many years and Microsoft never connected until they had a mail product that was capable of trading market share (in one direction).
Microsoft is clearly not against XMPP because they do support XMPP in their commercial IM product, Lync (which I'm a regular user of and competent in supporting/deploying). I've considered many scenarios but can't figure out why Microsoft wouldn't want to enable XMPP for its consumer products as a way of communicating with Google Talk contacts other than to discourage interoperability with their consumer products; e.g. keep everyone on Skype.
I know that some might argue that Microsoft connected to Google the way they did so that it could pull over all of your Google Contacts and already authorized XMPP invites, but in my opinion they could have just showed you a list of all your current Google Talk XMPP contacts and asked you to place check marks next to any that you wanted to invite to your Microsoft Account contact list. With all that said, maybe its as simple as that someone in the right position at Microsoft failing to comprehend the scenario.
The article clearly states that WP8 is going to be updated to the next version of WP. This would be like saying that Windows 7 RTM support is ending so Microsoft is abandoning all of its faithful Windows 7 users that are buying computers today with Windows 7 today. When in-fact Microsoft is really just saying that you need to be running the latest SP1 (service pack) that can be installed on any computer running Windows 7 RTM. Basically, install WP8.5 or WP9 (whatever it is called) and you'll be set.
FWIW, I rushed out and bought a HTC 8X on the day they came out and used it alongside my day-to-day smartphone and although I LOVED the OS, I hated the fact that there weren't enough apps and the whole Messenger/Skype/Lync/Facebook/SMS thing is a mess on the device at the moment. I would have kept the device and loved using it had it not been for how horrific the messaging experience is on the phone. For anyone who cares, the default "Messaging" app contains your text messages and facebook messages, but is 100% incompatible with Skype and Lync at the moment. It doesn't support Messenger anymore really either since that is technically on its way out. My opinion is that they need to somehow integrate Lync/Skype/Facebook/SMS on the platform to give an unrivaled communications experience. If they could also integrate voicemail, email, twitter, and phone calls all so they show up in that same place then that would be great. You should just be able to set your outbound communication preferences for a particular contact so that you can reply to them easily./rant
Surface Pro is very close to reaching my "device trifecta". I think that the killer device for 2013 needs to be these 3-things with very few compromises:
1) Notebook: everyone is comfortable with this form factor and still wants it. It has to have a full keyboard is basically the main point here. I think that it ideally should be able to work on your lap but I don't know that everyone agrees with me.
2) Tablet: Most people want to consume and play, this is the easiest form factor for that. It is also the best form factor for convenience. If you want to whip your device out and check something really quick then a tablet is the most comfortable form factor to achieve this.
3) Desktop: This is the big one that I think all these tablets are missing and I feel like the solution is so close. All they have to do is make a docking station with dual mini-DisplayPort outputs and a bunch of other connections such as Ethernet, USB3, and audio in/out. the dock would need to connect with just a single connector and should ideally stand the device up in its tablet form factor so it can be used as a 3rd screen for additional interaction/notifications. If this isn't in the plans for Windows 9/Surface 2 then it should be.
I have Comcast Business Class Internet in Seattle and I'm not re-rerouted; everything is working as it should. I internally have a split-horizon DNS setup where are DNS requests thare non-local are forwarded to OpenDNS's servers.
I don't see this feature being added to the corporate IT toolbox of practical ways to run legacy applications. Lots of business computers are going to suffer larger than acceptable performance hits when running XP virtualized on top of 7.
Imagine XP being virtualized on top of 7 on a desktop with a Pentium 4 2.4GHz CPU (no Hyper-Threading or Virtualization Technology Support), 1 GB RAM, 80 GB 7200 RPM HDD, and a circa 2004 integrated graphics card. Many companies still have tons of computers like these that will barely be able to run 7 let alone XP virtualized on top of it.
The fundamental problem is many people are just as happy today with their XP computers as they were 5 years ago when they purchased them. Although many of us who have new quad-core computers with solid-state-disks and loads of memory can barely stand using them these archaic machines, it is all about what the end-user is able to accomplish with their toolbox at the end of the day.
Disclaimer: I run Windows 7 on my main laptop, love it, and look forward to it hopefully being adopted with huge open arms by everyone.
This is unfortunately another case to show that SSDs are not ready for prime-time. With that said, I'm anxiously awaiting the ability to buy a super-fast 120GB+ SLC drive once prices drop below $400.
I just hope that Microsoft and Apple come up with some great software enhancements for handling SSDs ASAP.
It is hard for me to believe that the two OS giants can't release their upcoming software in a way that is totally SSD optimized. They are kidding themselves if they don't think that conventional mechanical HDDs are living past their life expectancy already.
That is really hard to say. I don't think that we are going to know for sure if Apple is dropping x86 support until MacWorld in January.
I personally hope that they drop support for the Core Duo and Core Solo processors if they drop PPC support just so that I can stop seeing them come in for repairs.
I'd sign up if you can get it with static IP addresses and no prot blocking. Otherwise I'd be forced to stay with my current Comcast business plan that I have at my house. I'm sure though that by the time Comcast can offer those speeds over residential in my area that they will also have comparable Commercial plans that offer what I need (8 statics at a minimum).
Only one thing is important to me with the routers that the ISPs give you... Can you put it into a transparent bridge mode and proxy the ARP through? If you can do this then you can set up whatever kind of router you want on the other side of their "crappy" router.
Does anybody know for sure if the Actiontec routers allow for you to set up a transparent bridge to another router behind it?
You aren't fully understanding the point that your parent made. Humans can frequently hear the difference between audio that is digitally sampled at 24,000hz vs. 48,000hz and some can even tell a difference all the way up to 96khz (super high end audio equipment goes up to 192khz). You are not going to find many people that can notice the difference between a 75hz refreshing light and a 100hz or 200hz refreshing light, let alone a 24,000hz refreshing light. Humans are without question more capable of distinguishing differences in sampling rate of light vs. audio.
Blu-ray is winning the war now that Blockbuster has decided to exclusively carry BD in on all of their stores. When you go into many retail stores now, there are also bigger displays for Blu-ray discs since they are selling MUCH better.
I had asked the guys at my local Blockbuster store how many people were renting HD-DVD's and they all said that it was close to a 10:1 ratio of Blu-ray to HD-DVD rentals. Blu-ray may cost less, but consumers are more aware than ever of wanting quality in the electronics they purchase.
I concede a lot of consumers don't really know what x64 is. (Hell, a LOT of IT nerds don't really know what x64 is. In fact, I know almost nobody who actually needs or really benefits from an x64 desktop OS. 64-bit Linux users *included*. )
It is useful to anybody who needs greater than or equal to 4096MB of RAM!!!
64-bit compatibility should be an afterthought at this point, and I think that it is completely false advertising to not say Windows Vista 32-bit explicitly. 64-bit Windows Vista is becoming more of a standard in high end workstations(/gaming rigs) that have 4GB+ of RAM. If a product does not say 32-bit only, then 64-bit is implied because Microsoft has now dropped the x64 marker from the 64-bit versions of Vista; you either buy 32-bit edition or 64-bit edition.
Actually, P-IMAP is supported by very few. IMAP with IDLE is very different from P-IMAP which part of a spec that Oracle helped develop for use with it's OCS 10g. P-IMAP came out of the Lemonade project and is an extension of IMAP4rev1 which was developed primarly and CMU for Cyrus, but with large contributions as well from UW with uw-imap.
The Push-IMAP protocol (P-IMAP) defines extensions to the IMAPv4 rev1 protocol [RFC3501] for optimization in a mobile setting, aimed at delivering extended functionality for mobile devices with limited resources. The first enhancement of P-IMAP is that unlike a standard IMAPv4 Rev1 server, which relies on the client to constantly initiate contact to ask for state changes, the P-IMAP server can push crucial changes to a client. In addition, P-IMAP contains extensions for email filter management, message delivery, and maintaining up-to-date personal information. Bindings to specific transport are explicitly defined.
Biased, iPhone not ready for enterprise use
on
The Perfect Phone Storm?
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· Score: 5, Informative
That article was completely biased towards the iPhone even though the author has never even used one. So many people entirely miss the point of what a Smartphone is supposed to be for the corporate world. I feel like the problem truly is that most, like the author of this article, have never used a Windows Mobile 5/6 Smartphone/PPC in a properly set up environment. Most people in fact that have used a Blackberry or Windows Mobile phone have never used them with an Exchange server or BES. Until you have used a WM5/6 phone with an Exchange 2003/7 server, I don't think that you are ready to actually critique the usefulness of Microsoft's platform.
This article advocates that the corporate world should accept the iPhone with open arms against the analysts wishes. Although the article makes this claim, the iPhone doesn't support the most basic requirements of an enterprise-grade Smartphone's purpose; over-the-air Groupware/PIM! Without supporting OTA PIM, I can't leave the office and continue working effectively...
I need to be able to send email back and forth with my colleagues without a 30 minute delay round-trip. Email sending and retrieval should be pushed (not polled) and it should be instant (i.e. direct push Exchange).
I need to be able to accept/reject appointments/meetings from my phone and have replies sent instantly.
I need to be able to wirelessly edit my to-do list (and have my assistant update it while I'm out running around during the day).
I need to have access to all of my email folders, and have them be indexed and instantly searchable
I need to be able to edit simple Word and Excel documents for tracking work while I'm in the field.
I need to be able to decrypt encrypted email and sign messages
I need to be able to import and export certificates so that I can encrypt sessions with TLS/SSL
I need an input system that allows me to type as fast as possible (if the iPhone can't be typed on as fast as an HTC/Blackberry phone, I would become incredibly frustrated)
From what we know so far, the iPhone doesn't support any of these features, even when used in conjunction with a Mac OS X 10.5 Server. Until the iPhone can meet my basic PIM needs, I have no reason to consider it instead of my HTC TyTN running WM6 Pro, and I feel that businesses need to reconsider the iPhone for these same reasons.
With all that said, I love what the iPhone is doing to stir up the Smartphone business! Hopefully all manufacturers will take notice of the iPhone's interface and start competing with creative new designs that will eventually benefit all consumers.
Outlook handles any protocol other than IMAP very gracefully. Outlook 2007 had done a much better job with IMAP, but it still doesn't hold a candle to Thunderbird as an IMAP client. When Outlook 2003+ is used with Exchange 2003/2007 though, there really isn't a better email/groupware suite available. If you haven't used the Exchange/Outlook combination, then you couldn't possibly understand what you are missing out on.
With that being said though, Google Apps is a great offering, and I'm really looking forward to watching it improve over time. If Thunderbird/Lightning can work with Google Apps seamlessly then that will just be an added bonus (one that I wish Google could participate in).
Groupware is likely the most important app to runnin a business efficiently with a computer, and this is why it will forever be one of the main focuses of IT.
I have been amazed by the IT community's/press' reaction to Vista and Internet Explorer 7. This case with Blackboard is the perfect example of the complaint I have been hearing all to often recently, "Why doesn't website/program X work with IE7/Vista?", which is generally followed by, "I can't believe Microsoft did this, they must have a huge problem on their hands!".
The thing is though, this isn't Microsoft's problem. Vista was in beta for a very very long time. As a result, all of these businesses that develop website/program X should have started testing about a year ago (maybe even more) for compatibility issues. Vista was pre-released to IT professionals and Developers like all Microsoft beta products. I think that Microsoft's openess to developers and IT pros is one of their best qualities; it is definitely a compelling reason for why their latest software been so stable and feature packed (Exchange 2007, Office 2007, Windows Vista, etc.)
On the other hand, I do find it completely irresponsible that developers have not fix their webites to work with Vista. If you run a major software application like Blackboard, one can assume that it is going to be running on unmanaged PC's. Whenever a softare application is developed for an unamanged environment, all majority platforms need to be accounted for. Vista is more than just another platform, it now comes on every manufacturers shipping Home & Home Office PCs and in 2 years it will become the primary OS in nearly all environments.
For a business like Blackboard to make the statement; "If your PC breaks tomorrow and you need to go buy a new one, TOO BAD! We don't care enough about Vista so we aren't going to modify our software to work with it." That is just poor judgement on their part because the way I see it, many companies like Blackboard are just being lazy. They figure that because they are the standard of their industry/field, they can get by without supporting major new platforms. In reality they are just trying to save on developement costs at the consumer/end-users expense.
Vista is a great stable operating system and their should be absolutely no reason for any major softare or website to not work with it.
For people who haven't tried Microsoft Office 2007 yet, I really recommend that you at least give the trial of Microsoft Office 2007 a test drive using the trial available on Microsoft's website. If you have to do serious word processing (research, writing a book, education, etc.) then Word 2007 is a gift from god. You can't understand this though unless you try it and use the new citation features, etc.
From a purely technical IT POV though, Office 2007 is finally based on an open XML format. The application exposes a brand new beautiful interface that is innovative and much easier to use than anything in the past. I would go as far as saying that Microsoft will probably revolutionize the way we see menu bars in many other applications. I'm looking forward to seeing Office 2007's wide adoption as well as Microsoft Office 2008:mac which will bring the Apple platform up to speed with the new XML format (and hopefully MAPI/RPC over HTTPS).
Gran Turismo HD has provided me with HOURS OF ENTERTAINMENT already. This game is going to be fantastic when it is released, but for now, even though the graphics are spectacular, I still expect more from Polyphony Digital when this game is released. The game is missing good tire tracks, smoke effects, and shadowing could be improved. The car models are incredible, and the lighting on the cars is great. I really wish that there was a way for Anti-aliasing to be used, but with the 1920x1080 resolution at 60fps, I assume that using any form of Anti-aliasing would likely be asking too much from the RSX GPU.
This game is once again going to be the benchmark for racing simulators, and will be reason enough for many to purchase a PS3 (it was why I bought one, along with the Bluray drive).
Slashdot Mirror
This was it. I remember from the I/O keynote, complaints about Microsoft exploiting some open standard to establish one-way compatibility, but I couldn't remember the details. Thanks. This comment ought to be at the top, it's most likely the reason XMPP support was dropped.
Thanks. In my dreams last night, Balmer came up on stage with Page and apologized to the world for not seeing a need for S2S XMPP federation and they announced a partnership between Hangouts and Skype/Lync via S2S XMPP. Then they pulled a "but there's more" and announced that they open-source extended XMPP/Jingle so that both products could handle Multi-way chat/audio/video. In my dreams!
Google fears Microsoft more than it feared Skype.
Google face *competition* from the pack of 4 "Facebook,Apple,Amazon,Netflix" but not Microsoft, Microsoft currently are struggling to compete effectively against Google, and nothing seems to be changing that. Ironically one of the many reasons (the main being its not that good) form Windows Phone spectacular failure is its insistence on skype, something that the carriers despise.
It is not possible that Google doesn't fear MS. I'd be willing to be that most of the people reading our comments here are doing so from a Windows computer.
1) Buying Skype and pitting Skype against Talk.
I think Skype was around quite a bit longer, so you'd have to put it the other way around -- Google realized Skype's potential and came up with a competitor. Microsoft realized Skype's potential as well, and purchased them.
For sure, Skype was around first, but I think that it isn't as much of what Skype stands for as what Skype stands for when Microsoft owns it. Google fears Microsoft more than it feared Skype.
...they could have just showed you a list of all your current Google Talk XMPP contacts and asked you to place check marks next to any that you wanted to invite to your Microsoft Account contact list...
As of today's announcement from Google, they would have done all that work in vain. Perhaps MS realized that Google's commitment to XMPP was not something that could be relied upon?
Nothing is for sure when you're working with competitors, but I don't think that Microsoft would have had a lot (if anything) to lose by attempting to incorporate XMPP. XMPP should have been added a long time ago by Microsoft, way back in the Messenger days. I can't remember what year (2008?) Microsoft offered up XMPP for the first time with Office Communications Server (it was in 2007 R2), but they should have offered XMPP at that time. By my measurements, if Microsoft did everything right with respect to XMPP, Skype should have been getting XMPP in 2013.
I like open IM and will miss being able to chat with my Gtalk contacts from Lync.
This mostly comes down to a battle between 2x platforms: Google vs. Microsoft. I consider myself a pretty avid Microsoft supporter, but if you look at the facts, I kind of think that Microsoft started this fight by:
1) Buying Skype and pitting Skype against Talk.
2) Their Scroogled campaign that pitted Outlook against Gmail
3) Connecting Outlook.com to the Talk API when Google would have preferred that Microsoft federate skype/outlook/hotmail/live/passport via XMPP.
It's that third point surrounding XMPP federation that this all comes down to. When Microsoft decided to not federate via XMPP with the Outlook/Skype consumer products they were saying that they only wanted to establish 1-way communication with Google's platform. There is no doubt that this pissed Google off because Microsoft is trying to take away their market share while also taking advantage of their services and open architecture. Google's offered up XMPP for many years and Microsoft never connected until they had a mail product that was capable of trading market share (in one direction).
Microsoft is clearly not against XMPP because they do support XMPP in their commercial IM product, Lync (which I'm a regular user of and competent in supporting/deploying). I've considered many scenarios but can't figure out why Microsoft wouldn't want to enable XMPP for its consumer products as a way of communicating with Google Talk contacts other than to discourage interoperability with their consumer products; e.g. keep everyone on Skype.
I know that some might argue that Microsoft connected to Google the way they did so that it could pull over all of your Google Contacts and already authorized XMPP invites, but in my opinion they could have just showed you a list of all your current Google Talk XMPP contacts and asked you to place check marks next to any that you wanted to invite to your Microsoft Account contact list. With all that said, maybe its as simple as that someone in the right position at Microsoft failing to comprehend the scenario.
The article clearly states that WP8 is going to be updated to the next version of WP. This would be like saying that Windows 7 RTM support is ending so Microsoft is abandoning all of its faithful Windows 7 users that are buying computers today with Windows 7 today. When in-fact Microsoft is really just saying that you need to be running the latest SP1 (service pack) that can be installed on any computer running Windows 7 RTM. Basically, install WP8.5 or WP9 (whatever it is called) and you'll be set.
/rant
FWIW, I rushed out and bought a HTC 8X on the day they came out and used it alongside my day-to-day smartphone and although I LOVED the OS, I hated the fact that there weren't enough apps and the whole Messenger/Skype/Lync/Facebook/SMS thing is a mess on the device at the moment. I would have kept the device and loved using it had it not been for how horrific the messaging experience is on the phone. For anyone who cares, the default "Messaging" app contains your text messages and facebook messages, but is 100% incompatible with Skype and Lync at the moment. It doesn't support Messenger anymore really either since that is technically on its way out. My opinion is that they need to somehow integrate Lync/Skype/Facebook/SMS on the platform to give an unrivaled communications experience. If they could also integrate voicemail, email, twitter, and phone calls all so they show up in that same place then that would be great. You should just be able to set your outbound communication preferences for a particular contact so that you can reply to them easily.
Back to the point. Please read the article.
Surface Pro is very close to reaching my "device trifecta". I think that the killer device for 2013 needs to be these 3-things with very few compromises: 1) Notebook: everyone is comfortable with this form factor and still wants it. It has to have a full keyboard is basically the main point here. I think that it ideally should be able to work on your lap but I don't know that everyone agrees with me. 2) Tablet: Most people want to consume and play, this is the easiest form factor for that. It is also the best form factor for convenience. If you want to whip your device out and check something really quick then a tablet is the most comfortable form factor to achieve this. 3) Desktop: This is the big one that I think all these tablets are missing and I feel like the solution is so close. All they have to do is make a docking station with dual mini-DisplayPort outputs and a bunch of other connections such as Ethernet, USB3, and audio in/out. the dock would need to connect with just a single connector and should ideally stand the device up in its tablet form factor so it can be used as a 3rd screen for additional interaction/notifications. If this isn't in the plans for Windows 9/Surface 2 then it should be.
I have Comcast Business Class Internet in Seattle and I'm not re-rerouted; everything is working as it should. I internally have a split-horizon DNS setup where are DNS requests thare non-local are forwarded to OpenDNS's servers.
Excel 2007 SP2 actually does support .ODS now.
I don't see this feature being added to the corporate IT toolbox of practical ways to run legacy applications. Lots of business computers are going to suffer larger than acceptable performance hits when running XP virtualized on top of 7.
Imagine XP being virtualized on top of 7 on a desktop with a Pentium 4 2.4GHz CPU (no Hyper-Threading or Virtualization Technology Support), 1 GB RAM, 80 GB 7200 RPM HDD, and a circa 2004 integrated graphics card. Many companies still have tons of computers like these that will barely be able to run 7 let alone XP virtualized on top of it.
The fundamental problem is many people are just as happy today with their XP computers as they were 5 years ago when they purchased them. Although many of us who have new quad-core computers with solid-state-disks and loads of memory can barely stand using them these archaic machines, it is all about what the end-user is able to accomplish with their toolbox at the end of the day.
Disclaimer: I run Windows 7 on my main laptop, love it, and look forward to it hopefully being adopted with huge open arms by everyone.
This is unfortunately another case to show that SSDs are not ready for prime-time. With that said, I'm anxiously awaiting the ability to buy a super-fast 120GB+ SLC drive once prices drop below $400.
I just hope that Microsoft and Apple come up with some great software enhancements for handling SSDs ASAP.
It is hard for me to believe that the two OS giants can't release their upcoming software in a way that is totally SSD optimized. They are kidding themselves if they don't think that conventional mechanical HDDs are living past their life expectancy already.
I have one of these as well and it is great! I can't believe that D-Link would consider discontinuing it.
That is really hard to say. I don't think that we are going to know for sure if Apple is dropping x86 support until MacWorld in January.
I personally hope that they drop support for the Core Duo and Core Solo processors if they drop PPC support just so that I can stop seeing them come in for repairs.
The 1st gen MBs and MBPs were a joke.
A completely revolutionary interface is somewhere in the grand Apple plan, but that is what we are going to be calling Mac OS 11.
I can guarantee you though that we aren't going to see a Mac OS 11 until the iPhone's forseeable future is predictable and successful.
With that logic though, they shouldn't have tested Ubuntu 8.04 because they apparently tested that as well while it was still in beta.
I'd sign up if you can get it with static IP addresses and no prot blocking. Otherwise I'd be forced to stay with my current Comcast business plan that I have at my house. I'm sure though that by the time Comcast can offer those speeds over residential in my area that they will also have comparable Commercial plans that offer what I need (8 statics at a minimum).
Only one thing is important to me with the routers that the ISPs give you... Can you put it into a transparent bridge mode and proxy the ARP through? If you can do this then you can set up whatever kind of router you want on the other side of their "crappy" router.
Does anybody know for sure if the Actiontec routers allow for you to set up a transparent bridge to another router behind it?
You aren't fully understanding the point that your parent made. Humans can frequently hear the difference between audio that is digitally sampled at 24,000hz vs. 48,000hz and some can even tell a difference all the way up to 96khz (super high end audio equipment goes up to 192khz). You are not going to find many people that can notice the difference between a 75hz refreshing light and a 100hz or 200hz refreshing light, let alone a 24,000hz refreshing light. Humans are without question more capable of distinguishing differences in sampling rate of light vs. audio.
Blu-ray is winning the war now that Blockbuster has decided to exclusively carry BD in on all of their stores. When you go into many retail stores now, there are also bigger displays for Blu-ray discs since they are selling MUCH better.
I had asked the guys at my local Blockbuster store how many people were renting HD-DVD's and they all said that it was close to a 10:1 ratio of Blu-ray to HD-DVD rentals. Blu-ray may cost less, but consumers are more aware than ever of wanting quality in the electronics they purchase.
It is useful to anybody who needs greater than or equal to 4096MB of RAM!!!
64-bit compatibility should be an afterthought at this point, and I think that it is completely false advertising to not say Windows Vista 32-bit explicitly. 64-bit Windows Vista is becoming more of a standard in high end workstations(/gaming rigs) that have 4GB+ of RAM. If a product does not say 32-bit only, then 64-bit is implied because Microsoft has now dropped the x64 marker from the 64-bit versions of Vista; you either buy 32-bit edition or 64-bit edition.
Actually, P-IMAP is supported by very few. IMAP with IDLE is very different from P-IMAP which part of a spec that Oracle helped develop for use with it's OCS 10g. P-IMAP came out of the Lemonade project and is an extension of IMAP4rev1 which was developed primarly and CMU for Cyrus, but with large contributions as well from UW with uw-imap.
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-maes-leThat article was completely biased towards the iPhone even though the author has never even used one. So many people entirely miss the point of what a Smartphone is supposed to be for the corporate world. I feel like the problem truly is that most, like the author of this article, have never used a Windows Mobile 5/6 Smartphone/PPC in a properly set up environment. Most people in fact that have used a Blackberry or Windows Mobile phone have never used them with an Exchange server or BES. Until you have used a WM5/6 phone with an Exchange 2003/7 server, I don't think that you are ready to actually critique the usefulness of Microsoft's platform.
This article advocates that the corporate world should accept the iPhone with open arms against the analysts wishes. Although the article makes this claim, the iPhone doesn't support the most basic requirements of an enterprise-grade Smartphone's purpose; over-the-air Groupware/PIM! Without supporting OTA PIM, I can't leave the office and continue working effectively...
From what we know so far, the iPhone doesn't support any of these features, even when used in conjunction with a Mac OS X 10.5 Server. Until the iPhone can meet my basic PIM needs, I have no reason to consider it instead of my HTC TyTN running WM6 Pro, and I feel that businesses need to reconsider the iPhone for these same reasons.
With all that said, I love what the iPhone is doing to stir up the Smartphone business! Hopefully all manufacturers will take notice of the iPhone's interface and start competing with creative new designs that will eventually benefit all consumers.
Outlook handles any protocol other than IMAP very gracefully. Outlook 2007 had done a much better job with IMAP, but it still doesn't hold a candle to Thunderbird as an IMAP client. When Outlook 2003+ is used with Exchange 2003/2007 though, there really isn't a better email/groupware suite available. If you haven't used the Exchange/Outlook combination, then you couldn't possibly understand what you are missing out on.
With that being said though, Google Apps is a great offering, and I'm really looking forward to watching it improve over time. If Thunderbird/Lightning can work with Google Apps seamlessly then that will just be an added bonus (one that I wish Google could participate in).
Groupware is likely the most important app to runnin a business efficiently with a computer, and this is why it will forever be one of the main focuses of IT.
I have been amazed by the IT community's/press' reaction to Vista and Internet Explorer 7. This case with Blackboard is the perfect example of the complaint I have been hearing all to often recently, "Why doesn't website/program X work with IE7/Vista?", which is generally followed by, "I can't believe Microsoft did this, they must have a huge problem on their hands!".
The thing is though, this isn't Microsoft's problem. Vista was in beta for a very very long time. As a result, all of these businesses that develop website/program X should have started testing about a year ago (maybe even more) for compatibility issues. Vista was pre-released to IT professionals and Developers like all Microsoft beta products. I think that Microsoft's openess to developers and IT pros is one of their best qualities; it is definitely a compelling reason for why their latest software been so stable and feature packed (Exchange 2007, Office 2007, Windows Vista, etc.)
On the other hand, I do find it completely irresponsible that developers have not fix their webites to work with Vista. If you run a major software application like Blackboard, one can assume that it is going to be running on unmanaged PC's. Whenever a softare application is developed for an unamanged environment, all majority platforms need to be accounted for. Vista is more than just another platform, it now comes on every manufacturers shipping Home & Home Office PCs and in 2 years it will become the primary OS in nearly all environments.
For a business like Blackboard to make the statement; "If your PC breaks tomorrow and you need to go buy a new one, TOO BAD! We don't care enough about Vista so we aren't going to modify our software to work with it." That is just poor judgement on their part because the way I see it, many companies like Blackboard are just being lazy. They figure that because they are the standard of their industry/field, they can get by without supporting major new platforms. In reality they are just trying to save on developement costs at the consumer/end-users expense.
Vista is a great stable operating system and their should be absolutely no reason for any major softare or website to not work with it.
For people who haven't tried Microsoft Office 2007 yet, I really recommend that you at least give the trial of Microsoft Office 2007 a test drive using the trial available on Microsoft's website. If you have to do serious word processing (research, writing a book, education, etc.) then Word 2007 is a gift from god. You can't understand this though unless you try it and use the new citation features, etc. From a purely technical IT POV though, Office 2007 is finally based on an open XML format. The application exposes a brand new beautiful interface that is innovative and much easier to use than anything in the past. I would go as far as saying that Microsoft will probably revolutionize the way we see menu bars in many other applications. I'm looking forward to seeing Office 2007's wide adoption as well as Microsoft Office 2008:mac which will bring the Apple platform up to speed with the new XML format (and hopefully MAPI/RPC over HTTPS).
Gran Turismo HD has provided me with HOURS OF ENTERTAINMENT already. This game is going to be fantastic when it is released, but for now, even though the graphics are spectacular, I still expect more from Polyphony Digital when this game is released. The game is missing good tire tracks, smoke effects, and shadowing could be improved. The car models are incredible, and the lighting on the cars is great. I really wish that there was a way for Anti-aliasing to be used, but with the 1920x1080 resolution at 60fps, I assume that using any form of Anti-aliasing would likely be asking too much from the RSX GPU.
This game is once again going to be the benchmark for racing simulators, and will be reason enough for many to purchase a PS3 (it was why I bought one, along with the Bluray drive).