When do you want people to do these brain teasers? At work, or on their own time?
If you want them to do this at work, then you have too many people on staff if they can waste time doing brain teasers. Reducing staff to 50 - 100 highly skilled employees will improve productivity and reduce wasted time which is costing you money.
If you expect these people to work on these brain teasers at home, then you must be a manager with your head in the clouds expecting employees to do 'homework'!
Gamers don't like long drawn out storytelling in most of the popular games like Halo or Unreal, they just want to shoot em up and ask questions later. I do prefer games like HL2 that combining inline storytelling with real time action, but then again, games are not really intended to be innovative forms of storytelling.
Perhaps the only genre that this article applies to is the RPG genre, which fights to combine 80+ hours of gameplay with a story that remains fresh from start to end. Most RPG's get stale by about hour 10, and by hour 40 they start to repeat themselves. The problem is that nobody can really generate 80 hours of storytelling, even novels don't take 80 hours to read.
Its fun to critise developers for failing to offer really good stories in games, but they are not novelists or movie makers and for the most part, gamers really don't want long drawn out cut-scenes or read pages of text in order for the game to progress. If anything, developers should stop forcing a story into a game, and let the game unfold like real life, where events happen at random and people create their own adventures.
The biggest downfall of the DS will be its dual screen and touch screen feature. Once the initial drive to develop unique and custom apps that utilize these features slows down (if it hasn't all ready), games will start cloning the look and feel of other games and users will grow tired of the same old concept being rehashed again and again.
While the DS has proven more successful then Nintendos Virtual GameBoy, the story will be the same, developers will also grow tired of adapting existing games or try and force creativity in order to make use of the touchscreen and dual screen features. How many games have been released for the DS that are based on other platform games but force touch screen control in some way that just doesn't make sense or doesn't work well (like Metroid).
In any regard, I am seeing many new games stop trying to do something novel with the second screen and simply uses it for some stats or interactive settings screen while all the main action takes place on the primary screen. For the most part, you don't even use the touch screen except to change weapons or change a preference, this is hardly innovation at work.
Perhaps from a company that actually has made 6 or 7 Mario Party games and variations of the same theme with different key characters, the idea of rehasing old concepts obviouisly hasn't grown stale for Nintendo even though consumers are no longer fooled or amused by the lack of variation
Not to be obvious, but does your Dad really need to keep all that mail? I can understand if he runs a business and needs to keep track of customer correspondance, but if that was the case, I doubt he would have used AOL in the first place.
I really don't see why he needs to keep years worth of email, I doubt he has ever, or would ever, need to pull up a message from a month ago, let alone 2 or more years ago.
I think that your father should just switch to Gmail and bite the bullet and loose all that junk. As far as I can tell, there is nothing he can do anyways to swap email from AOL to Gmail, but he could always go through his AOL list and forward those messages he wants to keep. But I doubt there is any real need to preserve years worth of personal email. AOL is NOT going to make it easy for someone to switch to a new email service, thats why the force people like your Dad to keep paying for it despite being other free services available.
So, tell your stubborn pops that he needs to let go. Setup a Gmail account and have him go through his AOL message and forward those emails he really needs to keep. Chances are after about an hour of this tediousness he will realize that there isn't any reason to hold on to all those emails and just start fresh.
Wind Walker should have been called Zelda: FedEx! I mean all you did was sail back and forth getting this piece of something for someone in order to deliver something to someone else all in the effort to collect 8 of something else so that you can get something for yourself to fight the final boss!
Don't get me wrong, Wind Walker had a lot of novel and innovative ideas, but after about the 3rd cross world FedEx mission, it got a little dull quite quickly.
Um, any good web design app has code validation. Dreamweaver validates CSS, Javascript and HTML based on different platforms like IE, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera and Safari. It may not work perfecty to identify all problems, but it should at least get you closer then simply cheaping out and developing web pages using notepad and CuteFTP.
To put it bluntly. MS rushes to put something out that is buggy and doesn't work very well and doesn't offer as many features as a competitor, sound familiar? I tried it but it definitely is not as slick as Google's Earth, although Google has it share of problems too, but they are more subdued. Maybe by version 8 of Virtual Earth will MS get it right.
I do have to agree that Microsoft dominates the PC industry with a lot of unfair partnerships and agreements with PC vendors. But to say that PC consumers are losing billions because of this "monopoly" is a little far fetched. This assumes that PC users actually WANT Linux, and are not being offered the choice.
Lets put it this way. In a fair world, both Linux AND Windows are offered on every Dell computer. Many assume that Linux is FREE and Windows is NOT. Would the Linux option actually cost nothing compared to buying a Windows license on a Dell computer? My honest opinion is NO! While you are able to get Linux for free by downloading it online, a company like Dell would prefer to setup some form of Linux support option which you will have to pay for. Linux IS FREE, Linux support IS NOT! Also, considering the sheer amount of support required by newbies to simply install and use Linux, Dell would quickly want to absorb the extra cost of support by charging SOMETHING for installing Linux on their PC's.
The bottom line is, people often over estimate how free Linux really is. In a perfect world, if Linux was as easy to use and configure as Windows, then yes, you are losing $100 every time you buy a Dell computer because they charge you for the XP license and don't offer you a viable free alternative. But in reality, Dell would charge about $100 to install Linux on their PC's because of all the extra headaches and nightmares it would cause them in technical support alone.
There are lots of people believing they have a legitimate copy of XP they got with a prefab computer but really they received a pirated copy of the software, or they may have unknowingly purchased a pirated illegal copy from a store when they thought they were buying the real thing. Piracy exists outside of kiddies downloading stuff off P2P. Microsoft wants to know what sources people are buying illegal copies from and give these people a chance to buy the real thing for a discount regardless if they were aware of the fact or not which I think is a fair policy.
Since this uses conventional RAM, this requires the computer to be powered up or battery power supplied to preserve the contents. If this power drains, you lose your data. Also, this product doesn't even sync contents of iRam to the hard drive for that inevitable conclusion of what should happen if the onboard battery should fail or lose power.
I will happily wait for true non-volitile solid state hard drive solutions. I don't expect hundreds of gigabytes or even terrabytes of storage, just enough to put the system kernel and regularily used applications in a much faster storage partition, which would improve system performance overall
iRam may be a novel interim solution, especially if you should have left over RAM from new computer upgrade, but to get that 4GB of storage space, you still have to spend anywhere from $500 - $800 to populate those ram slots. Combined with the $100 initial price tag, that is just too much money for something that will lose its data after long periods of disuse.
There is no need to invest in some 3rd party solution. With the beauty of Linux, you can easiliy set up one or more offsite backup servers.
While something like a hurricane might wipe out an entire area, for the most part setting up a few servers outside of your office for online data backup makes more sense and is easy to do.
A couple of the IT guys at my place of employment have a server setup at home for data backup. The company pays for their high speed internet connections and the box and they simply setup Linux to perform the automated back overnight.
If you really know nothing about Linux or have no resources to setup these servers you can then invest in a 3rd party solution. I think it is easy enough and well worth it to look into creating your own solution. The reason why there are so many copycat companies offering this service is because it is dirt simple to implement.
Broadband may the the FCC's top goal, just make sure you don't offer free access to it! You can make something ubiquitous if you make it free, otherwise charging $40 - $80 for the "right" to broadband won't find it available in every home in America.
I can't understand how so many people are fixated on particular details about their computers. Intel or AMD, Apple or PC, this or that.
With Apple switching to Intel, many Apple fans are outraged that Apple is adopting a PC back end, but for what reason? Certainly if anyone is going to make Intel processors work AND look good, it will be Apple. Apple just doesn't USE hardware, like Dell or other PC makers, they try to innovate and contribute to overall design. Apple will partner with Intel to create innovative cooling solutions and well designed cases, this will allow Intel to customize processors that can be optimized for performance, which they generally may find difficult to do in the DIY PC market. The bottom line is, even if Intel takes the P4 and slaps it into a Mac, Apple will make it work better.
Largely what OS X runs on is of inconsequence to the quality of this OS. OS X will still be a stable, rich, and high performance OS, regardless of which CPU it is using. For all intents and purposes, Apple will continue to ship well conceived and innovative boxes running an excellent OS even if there is the Intel Inside logo on the front of the box
Put it this way, if your an Apple fan, and don't like Intel being in your new Mac, then what are you going to switch to? I would prefer the quality of OS X and the quality of Apple computers over a PC, even if 97% of a Mac is now essentially a PC.
The bottom line is lets reserve judgement on the Mactel platform until it is released. If anyone is going to make the Pentium line really shine, it will be Apple. I am sure that Apple didn't enter this arrangement lightly, let us give them the benefit of doubt that they know what they are doing and will offer us some exceptional new choices in the near future.
Any Apple Video iPod will probably be their current generation color iPod's with a video playback firmware update.
Any NEW technology may be an iPod like the current generation, with slightly larger screen and video playback (given if the current generation do not have video codec capability).
What the new video iPod will NOT be is a truely innovative product that will compete against other video players in the market.
The iPod may be Apple's greatest success story, but they have not innovated in this product line for a while. Sure the Shuffle was a hit, but it only represents Apple following trends other companies have set by offering cheap and small flash based players. Apple hasn't added anything truely innovative in their iPod lineup, even the "color" screen and photo abilities are not truely innovative, just representing a trend Apple is following.
Video playback represents more a change in their iTunes music store and software, rather then an iPod innovation. It looks like Apple is spending more time beefing up iTunes, rather then worrying about such things as continuing to make their iPod's compete against new products emerging with better features and a cheaper price tag. Apple can relax for a little while longer, as their iPod sales are brisk, but many people like myself, happy with the old iPods, but unhappy with Apples recent apathy towards mobile technology will cause problems in the near future.
I am sure any "new" video iPod will be a rehash of existing technology, simply with video playback and a new enhanced iTunes music store and software. Apple won't offer touch screen capabilities, large display,or any other innovative features that you can already find among all the competitors quickly surpassing Apple in almost every aspect of music players, style, quality, features, and price!
The number one factor in console sales is the games. It has nothing to do with brand loyalty, significant andvances in technology or quality and reliable hardware.
Its the games, games, games. XBOX is the most superior current generation console on the market, and it lagged behind an older PS2 simply because Microsoft did not secure enough exclusive titles for the XBOX. MOST titles are either PC ports, or were ported to PC (including Halo), or the titles could be found on other game consoles. The only reason why I didn't buy the XBOX is that having the PS2, I didn't find any titles on the XBOX I wanted that wasn't already offered on the PS2 platform. This is the only situation where being first had its benefits, when you start cross-platforming games.
For the XBOX360 to succeed, Microsoft needs to start creating some exclusive franchises that will ONLY be available on the XBOX360. This is why Nintendo is still surviving, because of their exclusive Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Pokemon, Kirby, Wario, etc, etc, etc titles. If Nintendo started whoring out every one of their characters to every platform, then they would have died long ago.
This also applies to the PS3, when it comes out second, if Sony does not secure enough exclusive titles, then the market share Microsoft built up with the XBOX 360 will affect sales of the PS3 if Sony just ports XBOX360 titles to their platform. But the XBOX360 market share will only gain momentum over the PS3 if there are enough good titles at launch to build up a large consumer base.
Games drive sales. I always say that if there are at least 4 to 5 titles available on a platform I realy want to play, I will buy that platform. But I won't rush out to buy the XBOX360 just because it is first, or it offers state-of-the-art technology. Buying a game console before having at least 2 games you want to play is kind of rediculous.
Motherboard makers seemed to be slow to recognize that USB flash drives and devices could have easily replaced the floppy. Supporting booting from a USB device was so sporatically and poorly implemented that few people realize that their motherboard offers that capability.
That capability wasn't even advertized with my MSI motherboard, until one day, when I had a printer that contains media card readers was both on and had a flash card in it, and the computer would not boot because it said invalid disk. It took me a while to realize that my motherboard could actually boot from a USB device.
Also, while many MB makers have found ways to updating the BIOS from within Windows, few, like MSI, still haven't figured this out yet, and require a clean boot to a floppy disk before you can perform an BIOS update.
Windows is also to blame, as in some cases, it still relies on a boot to a floppy for some recovery and installation issues. Microsoft could have ended the floppies long life simply by forcing MB makers to use USB boot devices and ending floppy support in Windows XP. Apple has never looked back from dropping floppy support all those years ago, and OS X boots happily from firewire drives (if not USB as well).
Finally, while USB flash drives have dropped in price and gained storage space, they are doing it quite slowly, and the price still isn't as attractive as a box of floppy disks. Offer a cheap $5 128mb usb drive, and that should end any economic debate about the merit of the floppy disk.
There is little reason to keep the floppy, except because of poor hardware and software design. All those boasting the need to keep the floppy are only proving that the PC industry has been very slow to drop legacy technology because of poor adoption of new technology.
While it will should be great to broadcast HDTV signals by this cut off, realize that HDTV signals can always be downscaled to be displayed on non-HDTV televisions.
For a time in the 70's and 80's, most people bought an external cable convertor box that would allow them to receive more channels then the basic TV set at the time could allow, all with the convenience of a remote control. After about 10-15 years, ALL televisions were essentially made incorporating a cable convertor and remote control, and the trend for external boxes ended.
Digital cable and HDTV has reintroduced this trend as televisions still mostly lack the ability to decode and receive DTV broadcasts, most people have accepted the norm of using an external cable box to view their cable content. Whether they will use a box to get enhanced HDTV content, or use a box to downscale HDTV to be viewed on older sets, the trend for external boxes will be here for another 5 - 10 years, until all televisions integrate DTV and HDTV cable convertors.
Everything old is new again, the cable convertor box all but went extinct only to be introduced now in a digital format. Although, I prefer them now with digital recorders, digital surround sound, and high quality pictures.
In Canada, education so focuses on reading, writing, and arithmetic (the 3r's)that it loses focus of the fact that kids should have a more balanced education, filled with many different experiences.
There is no doubt that learing to read and write, and understanding math and science is important, but it isn't ALL involved in education. Many art, drama, and music programs, along with many sports programs, are being dropped or greatly downscaled in favour of a more rigid academic program of math, science, and language.
While many may dismiss art, drama, and music as being superflous to educational needs, music is highly mathmatical, in fact, I learned fractions by taking music lessons long before they were introduced in math class, as the concept of whole, half, quarter, sixteenth, etc helped me to readly understand fractions in math. Art and drama both help a child learn more abtract thinking, and problem solving, outside of a purely 3R environment. Sports are important to overcome the obesity crisis our kids are facing, as well as additional problem solving and social skills such as when playing team sports.
Also, art, drama and music, and sports interupt the relative boredome the 3R's impose on our kids, and help to make education fun. A few hours of math and language cources, interrupted with the relative freedom or an art class, or music helps to encourage a child to keep in school, as they have something to look forward every day. If find it sad when someone says they found out how to make math or science fun. They might illicit some more concentrated focus from the students, but I am sure the kids would rather learn how to paint, play an insturment, act, or play some soccer.
Finally, I think that homework is overated, and should be left in the school. It compensates for an education system that is too ambitious to try and cram as much acedemia in a child before they hit the age of majority. If a school is highly centric in 3R education, after school is the time that parents should consider enrolling their child in music, dance, or sports programs for a more balanced and enriched education experience. If schools impose often 2 - 4 hours of homework a night on a child, then this will keep them away from developing other areas of their brains and discovering other talents which they could develop and help guide them to a more favourable career.
University and college is for academia. Taking intense courses in math, science, etc. in post-secondary applies when people have decided on a path to take in life, and know they will need that education and skills to ultimately get started in their choosen career. Pre-secondary and secondary high school should offer a balance of academia and arts to help a developing child understand all their options in life so they can make an informed career choice, rather then being led by the nose by an academia program that purely focuses on getting grades by learning mostly useless information.
Think of all the calculus and algebra you use in your real life, along with all that important information about the Creb cycle, along with how to spell existentialism. If we could go back in time, and replaced all the time spent learning about information we DON'T use in the future and filled it with art,drama, music, or sports, as an adult wouldn't you really prefer to play the guitar, paint, or be skilled in a few sports as opposed to knowing how to differentiate?
Instead, as adults, we wish for some more time in our busy lives to try and learn these skills and regret not being offered a chance in our childhood to delite in these endeavours.
I honestly, honestly, honestly, have to say that going to univeristy to learn how to program is NOT the best way to get an education. Especially if you want to learn how to program in 3D graphics in DirectX and OpenGL. I actually never heard of ANY university program that caters to these technologies in general, perhaps some business releated college like DeVry might offer a McCourse on the buzz technology of the day.
You can more easily learn C++ and 3D programming simply by doing it, rather then reading about doing it. Get yourself a C++ primer, and the OpenGL Bible or a DirectX book, and simply sit down and spend some time programing on a computer. Create a project, like a 3D interactive game, even if its a Pong clone, and you will learn more then university can offer.
If you don't know how to program in C++, you could take a colledge diploma course, like a 6 month program, so you can beef up your programming skills, but to waste another 3-4 years to get another degree is just that, a waste of time and money.
I find too often that people that don't know what they want to do in life spend way too much time in university, you already got a degree, getting another one may improve your chances of getting a job in the field, but when it comes to 3D graphics and game development, they will look at experience OVER education.
Try and find an entry level job at a 3D animation studio, or game company if you are really serious about getting into this industry, but in the meantime, just start programming now, you will start to get a good feel for the industry in a few months, and if you focus on completing a project like your own FPS or other game concept, you can use that experience to get a job quicker then another 4 year degree
Before switching to a different keyboard layout, you should identify why your feeling pain and experience repetitive strain injury.
I think people overplay the benefits of DVORAK over QWERTY, specifically with regards to RSI, simply altering which keys you press probably will not solve your problem.
Some things to consider, your posture at your desk, are your arms inline with the height of the keyboard, or do you have to angle them up or down? Do you tense your hands while typing, or are your wrists and fingers relaxed. Do you pound on the keyboard, or just tap on the keys. Also, are you trying to be a speed demon, or do you realize the benefits of slowing down your typing and maintaining a consistent speed, rather then typing in sudden quick bursts. Finally, do you take a break at least once an hour?
Also, I am 30 as well, a professional software developer and been touch typing since high-school and do not experience any RSI symptoms, largely because about 6-7 years ago I switched to the Natural Keyboard by MS which promotes better hand and arm position. Finding a keyboard that is more ergonomic could be all you need.
Relearning a new keyboard layout will stunt your programming performance for a few months, and if your switching back and forth between two formats, you may find it takes longer to learn and become skilled using DVORAK. But, ultimately, if is solves your RSI problems, then it will be worth it in the end.
When ATI first announced their CrossFire solution, hyping about the fact you could use older cards with newer generations for improved performance, I thought this was a great idea. Spending $500+ for a video card today, only to have it replaced a year or two later is kind of a waste, but if it still could be used to contribute to improved gaming performance, then I could see spending the money.
Then details about CrossFire came out. It requires using only CURRENT generation ATI cards, the X850 and X800, a very expensive CrossFire generation video card AND the fact you need a CrossFire compatible motherboard, of which, currently only ATI makes a chipset for. All this adds up to an expensive system, and not very practical.
If the benchmarks and real-time performance of a CrossFire platform shows significant gains in performance, then it may be worth it to get a system that meets ALL these conditions, but as of yet, nothing suggests that this kind of system offers anything better then what is available today.
With nVidia's SLI, sure you need 2 expensive and matching cards to work, but that is it, you don't need any specialized motherboards. I think this will be CrossFire's major downfall, the requirement for specialized hardware, especially if VIA decides not to make their own CrossFire compatible chipset.
Time will tell if CrossFire lives up to the hype, but I think that ANY dual card configuration is only a gimmick that won't last, like 3DFX original SLI hardware. It seems like next-generation video cards are already boasting the capability to out perform current generation dual card systems, with only ONE GPU. Wasting $1000+ to get a dual system today to find out a $500 video card 6 months from now outperforms it would be quite dissapointing.
But the end result of any compiled language is the machine code, which can be represnted by any high level language.
But yes, I forgot just how simplistic the gaming engines were for the Atari, and I guess if you want to program for it, your going to need something simple like Basic, which is a bit more higher level then assembly, but not much.
All good points, but then why CALL it DOOM3, or QUAKE 4, why even commission another company to develop another game in the series?
Let other companies have a run with their game engine, and develop some fresh new titles, a new franchise they can milk for a few years, rather then offering high quality clones of exsiting games.
ID isn't being seen as an innovator which is why they are losing their luster.
I think most companies try to bank off the success of previous games, but fail to realize that what this industry needs is fresh meat!
There is some suggestion that due to an increase in the popularity of online music sales, music pirating is on the downturn. I have to agree that if you can easily find music content, and the prices isn't too steep, I would prefer to buy the song and download it legally, rather then find some copy on a P2P network, and download it illegally.
It makes sense to offer movies for download for the same trend to happen.
The problem is, while digital music players are all the rage, video players have been slow to catch on, many people simply don't want to watch their movie on a 4" or smaller screen.
I think that video on demand, like offered on many digital cable networks, is the best way to offer movies, as it beams directly to your TV and home theater, devices actually designed for video content.
All I have to add to this is that there should always be a pay-once, watch-often mentality, whereby you own the rights to watch the movie as many times as you want (wherever you are, home or on the road), rather then paying for each time you want to view it. DIVX (the original) failed because of this concept, and ANYONE attempting to offer a system whereby you pay-per-view of online distributed movies, will fail as well.
Not to offend anyone, but religion is one of those things that you should keep to yourself.
Religion and politics, religion in school, religion in conversation are all kind of major don'ts. The problem is that religion is TOO emotionally connected and varied. One person takes it very seriously, while another is more open. Wars are, after all, started over religion
Looking for baby stuff to buy for my future neice or nephew, I came across a plush toy that, when triggerd, would recite a prayer. They are called prayer pals, and it made me cringe. Religion just should never be forced onto someone, especially a young child.
Concepts like using games or toys to promote religion in general is based on a small group of people looking to impose THEIR beliefs on others, and looking to make a buck out of it as well. This is the worst form of biased marketing.
Let people discover religion for themselves, let it be a process of self discovery, and rather then forcing a young child to think like you do, help them to develop their own opinions about life and religion, and if they want to find out more information, use books and talk to people rather then buying a gimmicky game or toy
Religion is personal, eReligion is a horrendous concept!
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When do you want people to do these brain teasers? At work, or on their own time?
If you want them to do this at work, then you have too many people on staff if they can waste time doing brain teasers. Reducing staff to 50 - 100 highly skilled employees will improve productivity and reduce wasted time which is costing you money.
If you expect these people to work on these brain teasers at home, then you must be a manager with your head in the clouds expecting employees to do 'homework'!
Gamers don't like long drawn out storytelling in most of the popular games like Halo or Unreal, they just want to shoot em up and ask questions later. I do prefer games like HL2 that combining inline storytelling with real time action, but then again, games are not really intended to be innovative forms of storytelling.
Perhaps the only genre that this article applies to is the RPG genre, which fights to combine 80+ hours of gameplay with a story that remains fresh from start to end. Most RPG's get stale by about hour 10, and by hour 40 they start to repeat themselves. The problem is that nobody can really generate 80 hours of storytelling, even novels don't take 80 hours to read.
Its fun to critise developers for failing to offer really good stories in games, but they are not novelists or movie makers and for the most part, gamers really don't want long drawn out cut-scenes or read pages of text in order for the game to progress. If anything, developers should stop forcing a story into a game, and let the game unfold like real life, where events happen at random and people create their own adventures.
Believe me, its gotten old already.
The biggest downfall of the DS will be its dual screen and touch screen feature. Once the initial drive to develop unique and custom apps that utilize these features slows down (if it hasn't all ready), games will start cloning the look and feel of other games and users will grow tired of the same old concept being rehashed again and again.
While the DS has proven more successful then Nintendos Virtual GameBoy, the story will be the same, developers will also grow tired of adapting existing games or try and force creativity in order to make use of the touchscreen and dual screen features. How many games have been released for the DS that are based on other platform games but force touch screen control in some way that just doesn't make sense or doesn't work well (like Metroid).
In any regard, I am seeing many new games stop trying to do something novel with the second screen and simply uses it for some stats or interactive settings screen while all the main action takes place on the primary screen. For the most part, you don't even use the touch screen except to change weapons or change a preference, this is hardly innovation at work.
Perhaps from a company that actually has made 6 or 7 Mario Party games and variations of the same theme with different key characters, the idea of rehasing old concepts obviouisly hasn't grown stale for Nintendo even though consumers are no longer fooled or amused by the lack of variation
Not to be obvious, but does your Dad really need to keep all that mail? I can understand if he runs a business and needs to keep track of customer correspondance, but if that was the case, I doubt he would have used AOL in the first place.
I really don't see why he needs to keep years worth of email, I doubt he has ever, or would ever, need to pull up a message from a month ago, let alone 2 or more years ago.
I think that your father should just switch to Gmail and bite the bullet and loose all that junk. As far as I can tell, there is nothing he can do anyways to swap email from AOL to Gmail, but he could always go through his AOL list and forward those messages he wants to keep. But I doubt there is any real need to preserve years worth of personal email. AOL is NOT going to make it easy for someone to switch to a new email service, thats why the force people like your Dad to keep paying for it despite being other free services available.
So, tell your stubborn pops that he needs to let go. Setup a Gmail account and have him go through his AOL message and forward those emails he really needs to keep. Chances are after about an hour of this tediousness he will realize that there isn't any reason to hold on to all those emails and just start fresh.
Wind Walker should have been called Zelda: FedEx! I mean all you did was sail back and forth getting this piece of something for someone in order to deliver something to someone else all in the effort to collect 8 of something else so that you can get something for yourself to fight the final boss!
Don't get me wrong, Wind Walker had a lot of novel and innovative ideas, but after about the 3rd cross world FedEx mission, it got a little dull quite quickly.
Um, any good web design app has code validation. Dreamweaver validates CSS, Javascript and HTML based on different platforms like IE, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera and Safari. It may not work perfecty to identify all problems, but it should at least get you closer then simply cheaping out and developing web pages using notepad and CuteFTP.
To put it bluntly. MS rushes to put something out that is buggy and doesn't work very well and doesn't offer as many features as a competitor, sound familiar? I tried it but it definitely is not as slick as Google's Earth, although Google has it share of problems too, but they are more subdued. Maybe by version 8 of Virtual Earth will MS get it right.
I do have to agree that Microsoft dominates the PC industry with a lot of unfair partnerships and agreements with PC vendors. But to say that PC consumers are losing billions because of this "monopoly" is a little far fetched. This assumes that PC users actually WANT Linux, and are not being offered the choice.
Lets put it this way. In a fair world, both Linux AND Windows are offered on every Dell computer. Many assume that Linux is FREE and Windows is NOT. Would the Linux option actually cost nothing compared to buying a Windows license on a Dell computer? My honest opinion is NO! While you are able to get Linux for free by downloading it online, a company like Dell would prefer to setup some form of Linux support option which you will have to pay for. Linux IS FREE, Linux support IS NOT! Also, considering the sheer amount of support required by newbies to simply install and use Linux, Dell would quickly want to absorb the extra cost of support by charging SOMETHING for installing Linux on their PC's.
The bottom line is, people often over estimate how free Linux really is. In a perfect world, if Linux was as easy to use and configure as Windows, then yes, you are losing $100 every time you buy a Dell computer because they charge you for the XP license and don't offer you a viable free alternative. But in reality, Dell would charge about $100 to install Linux on their PC's because of all the extra headaches and nightmares it would cause them in technical support alone.
There are lots of people believing they have a legitimate copy of XP they got with a prefab computer but really they received a pirated copy of the software, or they may have unknowingly purchased a pirated illegal copy from a store when they thought they were buying the real thing. Piracy exists outside of kiddies downloading stuff off P2P. Microsoft wants to know what sources people are buying illegal copies from and give these people a chance to buy the real thing for a discount regardless if they were aware of the fact or not which I think is a fair policy.
Since this uses conventional RAM, this requires the computer to be powered up or battery power supplied to preserve the contents. If this power drains, you lose your data. Also, this product doesn't even sync contents of iRam to the hard drive for that inevitable conclusion of what should happen if the onboard battery should fail or lose power.
I will happily wait for true non-volitile solid state hard drive solutions. I don't expect hundreds of gigabytes or even terrabytes of storage, just enough to put the system kernel and regularily used applications in a much faster storage partition, which would improve system performance overall
iRam may be a novel interim solution, especially if you should have left over RAM from new computer upgrade, but to get that 4GB of storage space, you still have to spend anywhere from $500 - $800 to populate those ram slots. Combined with the $100 initial price tag, that is just too much money for something that will lose its data after long periods of disuse.
There is no need to invest in some 3rd party solution. With the beauty of Linux, you can easiliy set up one or more offsite backup servers.
While something like a hurricane might wipe out an entire area, for the most part setting up a few servers outside of your office for online data backup makes more sense and is easy to do.
A couple of the IT guys at my place of employment have a server setup at home for data backup. The company pays for their high speed internet connections and the box and they simply setup Linux to perform the automated back overnight.
If you really know nothing about Linux or have no resources to setup these servers you can then invest in a 3rd party solution. I think it is easy enough and well worth it to look into creating your own solution. The reason why there are so many copycat companies offering this service is because it is dirt simple to implement.
Broadband may the the FCC's top goal, just make sure you don't offer free access to it! You can make something ubiquitous if you make it free, otherwise charging $40 - $80 for the "right" to broadband won't find it available in every home in America.
I can't understand how so many people are fixated on particular details about their computers. Intel or AMD, Apple or PC, this or that.
With Apple switching to Intel, many Apple fans are outraged that Apple is adopting a PC back end, but for what reason? Certainly if anyone is going to make Intel processors work AND look good, it will be Apple. Apple just doesn't USE hardware, like Dell or other PC makers, they try to innovate and contribute to overall design. Apple will partner with Intel to create innovative cooling solutions and well designed cases, this will allow Intel to customize processors that can be optimized for performance, which they generally may find difficult to do in the DIY PC market. The bottom line is, even if Intel takes the P4 and slaps it into a Mac, Apple will make it work better.
Largely what OS X runs on is of inconsequence to the quality of this OS. OS X will still be a stable, rich, and high performance OS, regardless of which CPU it is using. For all intents and purposes, Apple will continue to ship well conceived and innovative boxes running an excellent OS even if there is the Intel Inside logo on the front of the box
Put it this way, if your an Apple fan, and don't like Intel being in your new Mac, then what are you going to switch to? I would prefer the quality of OS X and the quality of Apple computers over a PC, even if 97% of a Mac is now essentially a PC.
The bottom line is lets reserve judgement on the Mactel platform until it is released. If anyone is going to make the Pentium line really shine, it will be Apple. I am sure that Apple didn't enter this arrangement lightly, let us give them the benefit of doubt that they know what they are doing and will offer us some exceptional new choices in the near future.
Any Apple Video iPod will probably be their current generation color iPod's with a video playback firmware update.
Any NEW technology may be an iPod like the current generation, with slightly larger screen and video playback (given if the current generation do not have video codec capability).
What the new video iPod will NOT be is a truely innovative product that will compete against other video players in the market.
The iPod may be Apple's greatest success story, but they have not innovated in this product line for a while. Sure the Shuffle was a hit, but it only represents Apple following trends other companies have set by offering cheap and small flash based players. Apple hasn't added anything truely innovative in their iPod lineup, even the "color" screen and photo abilities are not truely innovative, just representing a trend Apple is following.
Video playback represents more a change in their iTunes music store and software, rather then an iPod innovation. It looks like Apple is spending more time beefing up iTunes, rather then worrying about such things as continuing to make their iPod's compete against new products emerging with better features and a cheaper price tag. Apple can relax for a little while longer, as their iPod sales are brisk, but many people like myself, happy with the old iPods, but unhappy with Apples recent apathy towards mobile technology will cause problems in the near future.
I am sure any "new" video iPod will be a rehash of existing technology, simply with video playback and a new enhanced iTunes music store and software. Apple won't offer touch screen capabilities, large display,or any other innovative features that you can already find among all the competitors quickly surpassing Apple in almost every aspect of music players, style, quality, features, and price!
The number one factor in console sales is the games. It has nothing to do with brand loyalty, significant andvances in technology or quality and reliable hardware.
Its the games, games, games. XBOX is the most superior current generation console on the market, and it lagged behind an older PS2 simply because Microsoft did not secure enough exclusive titles for the XBOX. MOST titles are either PC ports, or were ported to PC (including Halo), or the titles could be found on other game consoles. The only reason why I didn't buy the XBOX is that having the PS2, I didn't find any titles on the XBOX I wanted that wasn't already offered on the PS2 platform. This is the only situation where being first had its benefits, when you start cross-platforming games.
For the XBOX360 to succeed, Microsoft needs to start creating some exclusive franchises that will ONLY be available on the XBOX360. This is why Nintendo is still surviving, because of their exclusive Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Pokemon, Kirby, Wario, etc, etc, etc titles. If Nintendo started whoring out every one of their characters to every platform, then they would have died long ago.
This also applies to the PS3, when it comes out second, if Sony does not secure enough exclusive titles, then the market share Microsoft built up with the XBOX 360 will affect sales of the PS3 if Sony just ports XBOX360 titles to their platform. But the XBOX360 market share will only gain momentum over the PS3 if there are enough good titles at launch to build up a large consumer base.
Games drive sales. I always say that if there are at least 4 to 5 titles available on a platform I realy want to play, I will buy that platform. But I won't rush out to buy the XBOX360 just because it is first, or it offers state-of-the-art technology. Buying a game console before having at least 2 games you want to play is kind of rediculous.
Motherboard makers seemed to be slow to recognize that USB flash drives and devices could have easily replaced the floppy. Supporting booting from a USB device was so sporatically and poorly implemented that few people realize that their motherboard offers that capability.
That capability wasn't even advertized with my MSI motherboard, until one day, when I had a printer that contains media card readers was both on and had a flash card in it, and the computer would not boot because it said invalid disk. It took me a while to realize that my motherboard could actually boot from a USB device.
Also, while many MB makers have found ways to updating the BIOS from within Windows, few, like MSI, still haven't figured this out yet, and require a clean boot to a floppy disk before you can perform an BIOS update.
Windows is also to blame, as in some cases, it still relies on a boot to a floppy for some recovery and installation issues. Microsoft could have ended the floppies long life simply by forcing MB makers to use USB boot devices and ending floppy support in Windows XP. Apple has never looked back from dropping floppy support all those years ago, and OS X boots happily from firewire drives (if not USB as well).
Finally, while USB flash drives have dropped in price and gained storage space, they are doing it quite slowly, and the price still isn't as attractive as a box of floppy disks. Offer a cheap $5 128mb usb drive, and that should end any economic debate about the merit of the floppy disk.
There is little reason to keep the floppy, except because of poor hardware and software design. All those boasting the need to keep the floppy are only proving that the PC industry has been very slow to drop legacy technology because of poor adoption of new technology.
While it will should be great to broadcast HDTV signals by this cut off, realize that HDTV signals can always be downscaled to be displayed on non-HDTV televisions.
For a time in the 70's and 80's, most people bought an external cable convertor box that would allow them to receive more channels then the basic TV set at the time could allow, all with the convenience of a remote control. After about 10-15 years, ALL televisions were essentially made incorporating a cable convertor and remote control, and the trend for external boxes ended.
Digital cable and HDTV has reintroduced this trend as televisions still mostly lack the ability to decode and receive DTV broadcasts, most people have accepted the norm of using an external cable box to view their cable content. Whether they will use a box to get enhanced HDTV content, or use a box to downscale HDTV to be viewed on older sets, the trend for external boxes will be here for another 5 - 10 years, until all televisions integrate DTV and HDTV cable convertors.
Everything old is new again, the cable convertor box all but went extinct only to be introduced now in a digital format. Although, I prefer them now with digital recorders, digital surround sound, and high quality pictures.
In Canada, education so focuses on reading, writing, and arithmetic (the 3r's)that it loses focus of the fact that kids should have a more balanced education, filled with many different experiences.
There is no doubt that learing to read and write, and understanding math and science is important, but it isn't ALL involved in education. Many art, drama, and music programs, along with many sports programs, are being dropped or greatly downscaled in favour of a more rigid academic program of math, science, and language.
While many may dismiss art, drama, and music as being superflous to educational needs, music is highly mathmatical, in fact, I learned fractions by taking music lessons long before they were introduced in math class, as the concept of whole, half, quarter, sixteenth, etc helped me to readly understand fractions in math. Art and drama both help a child learn more abtract thinking, and problem solving, outside of a purely 3R environment. Sports are important to overcome the obesity crisis our kids are facing, as well as additional problem solving and social skills such as when playing team sports.
Also, art, drama and music, and sports interupt the relative boredome the 3R's impose on our kids, and help to make education fun. A few hours of math and language cources, interrupted with the relative freedom or an art class, or music helps to encourage a child to keep in school, as they have something to look forward every day. If find it sad when someone says they found out how to make math or science fun. They might illicit some more concentrated focus from the students, but I am sure the kids would rather learn how to paint, play an insturment, act, or play some soccer.
Finally, I think that homework is overated, and should be left in the school. It compensates for an education system that is too ambitious to try and cram as much acedemia in a child before they hit the age of majority. If a school is highly centric in 3R education, after school is the time that parents should consider enrolling their child in music, dance, or sports programs for a more balanced and enriched education experience. If schools impose often 2 - 4 hours of homework a night on a child, then this will keep them away from developing other areas of their brains and discovering other talents which they could develop and help guide them to a more favourable career.University and college is for academia. Taking intense courses in math, science, etc. in post-secondary applies when people have decided on a path to take in life, and know they will need that education and skills to ultimately get started in their choosen career. Pre-secondary and secondary high school should offer a balance of academia and arts to help a developing child understand all their options in life so they can make an informed career choice, rather then being led by the nose by an academia program that purely focuses on getting grades by learning mostly useless information.
Think of all the calculus and algebra you use in your real life, along with all that important information about the Creb cycle, along with how to spell existentialism. If we could go back in time, and replaced all the time spent learning about information we DON'T use in the future and filled it with art,drama, music, or sports, as an adult wouldn't you really prefer to play the guitar, paint, or be skilled in a few sports as opposed to knowing how to differentiate?
Instead, as adults, we wish for some more time in our busy lives to try and learn these skills and regret not being offered a chance in our childhood to delite in these endeavours.
I honestly, honestly, honestly, have to say that going to univeristy to learn how to program is NOT the best way to get an education. Especially if you want to learn how to program in 3D graphics in DirectX and OpenGL. I actually never heard of ANY university program that caters to these technologies in general, perhaps some business releated college like DeVry might offer a McCourse on the buzz technology of the day.
You can more easily learn C++ and 3D programming simply by doing it, rather then reading about doing it. Get yourself a C++ primer, and the OpenGL Bible or a DirectX book, and simply sit down and spend some time programing on a computer. Create a project, like a 3D interactive game, even if its a Pong clone, and you will learn more then university can offer.
If you don't know how to program in C++, you could take a colledge diploma course, like a 6 month program, so you can beef up your programming skills, but to waste another 3-4 years to get another degree is just that, a waste of time and money.
I find too often that people that don't know what they want to do in life spend way too much time in university, you already got a degree, getting another one may improve your chances of getting a job in the field, but when it comes to 3D graphics and game development, they will look at experience OVER education.
Try and find an entry level job at a 3D animation studio, or game company if you are really serious about getting into this industry, but in the meantime, just start programming now, you will start to get a good feel for the industry in a few months, and if you focus on completing a project like your own FPS or other game concept, you can use that experience to get a job quicker then another 4 year degree
Before switching to a different keyboard layout, you should identify why your feeling pain and experience repetitive strain injury.
I think people overplay the benefits of DVORAK over QWERTY, specifically with regards to RSI, simply altering which keys you press probably will not solve your problem.
Some things to consider, your posture at your desk, are your arms inline with the height of the keyboard, or do you have to angle them up or down? Do you tense your hands while typing, or are your wrists and fingers relaxed. Do you pound on the keyboard, or just tap on the keys. Also, are you trying to be a speed demon, or do you realize the benefits of slowing down your typing and maintaining a consistent speed, rather then typing in sudden quick bursts. Finally, do you take a break at least once an hour?
Also, I am 30 as well, a professional software developer and been touch typing since high-school and do not experience any RSI symptoms, largely because about 6-7 years ago I switched to the Natural Keyboard by MS which promotes better hand and arm position. Finding a keyboard that is more ergonomic could be all you need.
Relearning a new keyboard layout will stunt your programming performance for a few months, and if your switching back and forth between two formats, you may find it takes longer to learn and become skilled using DVORAK. But, ultimately, if is solves your RSI problems, then it will be worth it in the end.
When ATI first announced their CrossFire solution, hyping about the fact you could use older cards with newer generations for improved performance, I thought this was a great idea. Spending $500+ for a video card today, only to have it replaced a year or two later is kind of a waste, but if it still could be used to contribute to improved gaming performance, then I could see spending the money.
Then details about CrossFire came out. It requires using only CURRENT generation ATI cards, the X850 and X800, a very expensive CrossFire generation video card AND the fact you need a CrossFire compatible motherboard, of which, currently only ATI makes a chipset for. All this adds up to an expensive system, and not very practical.
If the benchmarks and real-time performance of a CrossFire platform shows significant gains in performance, then it may be worth it to get a system that meets ALL these conditions, but as of yet, nothing suggests that this kind of system offers anything better then what is available today.
With nVidia's SLI, sure you need 2 expensive and matching cards to work, but that is it, you don't need any specialized motherboards. I think this will be CrossFire's major downfall, the requirement for specialized hardware, especially if VIA decides not to make their own CrossFire compatible chipset.
Time will tell if CrossFire lives up to the hype, but I think that ANY dual card configuration is only a gimmick that won't last, like 3DFX original SLI hardware. It seems like next-generation video cards are already boasting the capability to out perform current generation dual card systems, with only ONE GPU. Wasting $1000+ to get a dual system today to find out a $500 video card 6 months from now outperforms it would be quite dissapointing.
But the end result of any compiled language is the machine code, which can be represnted by any high level language. But yes, I forgot just how simplistic the gaming engines were for the Atari, and I guess if you want to program for it, your going to need something simple like Basic, which is a bit more higher level then assembly, but not much.
All good points, but then why CALL it DOOM3, or QUAKE 4, why even commission another company to develop another game in the series? Let other companies have a run with their game engine, and develop some fresh new titles, a new franchise they can milk for a few years, rather then offering high quality clones of exsiting games. ID isn't being seen as an innovator which is why they are losing their luster. I think most companies try to bank off the success of previous games, but fail to realize that what this industry needs is fresh meat!
There is some suggestion that due to an increase in the popularity of online music sales, music pirating is on the downturn. I have to agree that if you can easily find music content, and the prices isn't too steep, I would prefer to buy the song and download it legally, rather then find some copy on a P2P network, and download it illegally.
It makes sense to offer movies for download for the same trend to happen.
The problem is, while digital music players are all the rage, video players have been slow to catch on, many people simply don't want to watch their movie on a 4" or smaller screen.
I think that video on demand, like offered on many digital cable networks, is the best way to offer movies, as it beams directly to your TV and home theater, devices actually designed for video content.
All I have to add to this is that there should always be a pay-once, watch-often mentality, whereby you own the rights to watch the movie as many times as you want (wherever you are, home or on the road), rather then paying for each time you want to view it. DIVX (the original) failed because of this concept, and ANYONE attempting to offer a system whereby you pay-per-view of online distributed movies, will fail as well.
Not to offend anyone, but religion is one of those things that you should keep to yourself.
Religion and politics, religion in school, religion in conversation are all kind of major don'ts. The problem is that religion is TOO emotionally connected and varied. One person takes it very seriously, while another is more open. Wars are, after all, started over religion
Looking for baby stuff to buy for my future neice or nephew, I came across a plush toy that, when triggerd, would recite a prayer. They are called prayer pals, and it made me cringe. Religion just should never be forced onto someone, especially a young child.
Concepts like using games or toys to promote religion in general is based on a small group of people looking to impose THEIR beliefs on others, and looking to make a buck out of it as well. This is the worst form of biased marketing.
Let people discover religion for themselves, let it be a process of self discovery, and rather then forcing a young child to think like you do, help them to develop their own opinions about life and religion, and if they want to find out more information, use books and talk to people rather then buying a gimmicky game or toy
Religion is personal, eReligion is a horrendous concept!