Are you referring to the "privacy" that is already being gradually eaten away at (thanks to the government), anyway? At least Google is a little more upfront about it, and their invasion of our privacy isn't in the same way that the government (and God only knows who else) is attempting to invade our privacy. Google is supported by advertising, and I really don't mind the way that they're going about creating a more personalized brand of advertising. It's not as though they're using any of the information that they're collecting to persecute anyone.
You won't be the only one. Personally, I'd still purchase mine, though, as I don't get my music from iTunes. I certainly find it more than just a bit disappointing to know that the music industry would sink so low as to demand revenue for a product whose sales they had no part in.
What's even sadder about their attempt is that not everyone who purchases an iPod isn't necessarily purchasing new music. Many people rip their existing collections and import them to their iPod, so how does that entitle anyone in the music industry to a cut of iPod sales? Parasites.
UghI still don't like the idea of voice command as an input method. Honestly, I think it'd be cool if somebody made it possible to type entirely by using mouse gestures. Hahahahaimagine how cool you'd look typing with a mouse. That'd be awesome. Not practical. Just awesome.
The difference is that Google's product is actually effective and functional. Honestly, just look at Microsoft's current efforts to simplify UI's in Vista and Office 12, then try telling me that things are actually simpler and easier to use. Google knows what it's doing.
Gmail even got me to start organizing my messages more effectively through use of filters and such. Granted, yes, it was probably due to the lack of other features, but it made me more efficient without me immediately realizing it.
Although it's a somewhat morbid example, Gmail helped me to verify to my mother that I had, indeed, informed her about our dog being put down back in April. I was able to tell her the exact date and everything, thanks to Gmail and its amazing search engine.
It all went very quickly. We were talking on the phone, and my mother asked me, "So, how's Frisky doing?" I told her that I thought I'd told her a long time ago about the dog being put to sleep, but she didn't seem to remember. Since I typically forget even details as major as that, I told her to hold on a sec.
I logged into my Gmail account, did a search for "frisky", came up with several e-mails, and quickly checked each one for the message in which I told my mother about Frisky being put down. Easy as pie.
Moderation for "How Delightfully Morbid", anyone?
You do raise a good point. Whenever I'm using my Hotmail account to follow up on eBay transactions, I typically find myself keeping all e-mails that relate to a particular transaction in the Inbox. Thus, whenever I'm waiting on several purchases at once, my Inbox is a mess!
Yes, I could create a nice, new folder for each one, but that certainly doesn't make sorting through those eBay e-mails any easier. Whatever the case, however, I still need to go through 40+ e-mails after such all of my shipments have been completed, taking up much more time than I would've spent reading all of those e-mails. It's annoying and inefficient.
Everyone that I e-mail regularly has a label and two filters already set up in my Gmail account to sort the mail automatically. However, the way I see it, were I to ever use Gmail for eBay purchases (which I really should do), I could simply Archive the messages, then do a simple search by eBay item #'s or item descriptions.
And that also serves as a great example of e-mails that you wouldn't necessarily anticipate needing anymore, only to realize that something went wrong with the item and you had thoughtlessly deleted everything that provided you with the proper contact information.
Gmail doesn't "spam" you. The Google ads that appear while you're checking your e-mail (in unobtrusive Adwords form) merely relate to what you're talking about in your e-mail. For instance, on more than one occasion, my mom thought that it was quite useful that some of the Google ads led her to sites that directly related to our discussions.
As for the lack of a delete button, however, I don't see the big deal. Yes, I realize that you may find an e-mail to be useless, but what if you do happen to want to go back to it much later? It could happen, although you may not think so.
More and more, I'm not really caring all that much whether or not titles from other consoles will make it to the Revolution, because they'll be big overly-serious graphics-fests with little gameplay value.
That's what the main strength of the Revolution will be: Originality. I seriously hope that developers are either too lazy to port their existing games for other consoles to the Revolution. Instead, I feel that this will get more developers to create original works for the Revolution.
Actually, you know what I feel they should do? Maybe offer a base version (or maybe two - home and pro), then offer additional content via a subscription service, much like Linspire's Click 'n Run Warehouse. Seriously, I wouldn't mind paying a subscription fee if they'd just lower the damn prices on their overpriced software.
How about $99.99 for home and $149.99 for pro?
Yay. I can't wait for those things to arrive at CompUSA. Now, in addition to keeping track of and stocking the many renditions of Microsoft Office, I'm now forced to keep track of seven different versions of Windows Vista? You know, I'm tempted to believe that it's impossible for Microsoft to release anything that's actually a legitimately complete product. Say what you will, but I guarantee you that Ultimate Edition will even require additional purchases for certain functionality.
You know, as much as it pains me to do so, I'm just gonna start carrying burnt Linux distros with me at work, handing them to any customer who asks about purchasing Windows.
An excerpt from the article:
One final note worth mentioning is that this strategy does remove the "corporate Windows XP" option from the hands of pirates. Volume licensing for Pro, SBE, and EE may still mean that there will be copies of Windows Vista out there that don't "call home" for Windows Product Activation, but as you can see, Microsoft has removed most of the features that most pirates would want from those OSes. You won't see corporate licensing versions of Ultimate Edition.
While I definitely agree that this is a smart idea on Microsoft's part, why even bother creating so many different versions? It's getting a little ridiculous.
I've tried using Ubuntu, and I must say that even the easy-to-install variety of Linux distros is not without a serious learning curve. I absolutely do not understand Linux to the point where I feel comfortable relying on it.
Let's see, with Ubuntu, I was unable to figure out how to install NVIDIA drivers, just as I was unable to get unicode support in any of the distros that I tried. Linux is far more than 5 years away from being mainstream.
And I definitely realize that the NES is most definitely not the 'beginning' of video games. However, the NES was my first game console, so I very much consider it to be the very definition of my video game 'roots'.
Yes, it's true that NES didn't exactly start it all, but the NES is ultimately what fished the industry out of the toilet.
Actually, Microsoft still isn't deciding who wins or loses. Just wait and see: The third-party peripheral developers will start charging more for their shoddy product that are nowhere near as durable as official products. Maybe then those third-party peripheral developers will put some thought into their products.
Personally, I only buy official peripherals, with the exception of maybe Pelican.
You know, I feel as though this is more of a quality control issue than what many people are considering it. The number of peripherals released for anything that garners even a decent amount of popularity is nothing short of disgusting.
For instance, I work at CompUSA, and I must say that I cringe every single time I have to stock a new iPod accessory. Some of the iPod accessories that I've seen lately are nothing short of pathetic.
Example: Today, I came across an accessory that turns a car's cup holder into an iPod holder. Lame.
Seriously, I hope that this works in Microsoft's favor. Maybe these developers will think twice before releasing several variations of what is, essentially, the same damn controller.
Now, if there's no sense of quality control, though, I think this will ultimately only lead to more expensive throw-away peripherals, rather than dirt-cheap ones. Let's hope for the best. I really hope that Pelican (one of my favorite third party peripheral developers) brings their quality products to the 360.
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That's a bit much. Besides, did Hitler offer free services as a result of his project? I think not. :)
I'm sure it's only a matter of time until it spreads further. Be patient. :P
Are you referring to the "privacy" that is already being gradually eaten away at (thanks to the government), anyway? At least Google is a little more upfront about it, and their invasion of our privacy isn't in the same way that the government (and God only knows who else) is attempting to invade our privacy. Google is supported by advertising, and I really don't mind the way that they're going about creating a more personalized brand of advertising. It's not as though they're using any of the information that they're collecting to persecute anyone.
You won't be the only one. Personally, I'd still purchase mine, though, as I don't get my music from iTunes. I certainly find it more than just a bit disappointing to know that the music industry would sink so low as to demand revenue for a product whose sales they had no part in.
What's even sadder about their attempt is that not everyone who purchases an iPod isn't necessarily purchasing new music. Many people rip their existing collections and import them to their iPod, so how does that entitle anyone in the music industry to a cut of iPod sales? Parasites.
UghI still don't like the idea of voice command as an input method. Honestly, I think it'd be cool if somebody made it possible to type entirely by using mouse gestures. Hahahahaimagine how cool you'd look typing with a mouse. That'd be awesome. Not practical. Just awesome.
Ermno, #0000ff is a hex code for blue ("violets are blue"), so I don't really see how they should be described as #ff00ff.
The difference is that Google's product is actually effective and functional. Honestly, just look at Microsoft's current efforts to simplify UI's in Vista and Office 12, then try telling me that things are actually simpler and easier to use. Google knows what it's doing.
Gmail even got me to start organizing my messages more effectively through use of filters and such. Granted, yes, it was probably due to the lack of other features, but it made me more efficient without me immediately realizing it.
Although it's a somewhat morbid example, Gmail helped me to verify to my mother that I had, indeed, informed her about our dog being put down back in April. I was able to tell her the exact date and everything, thanks to Gmail and its amazing search engine.
It all went very quickly. We were talking on the phone, and my mother asked me, "So, how's Frisky doing?" I told her that I thought I'd told her a long time ago about the dog being put to sleep, but she didn't seem to remember. Since I typically forget even details as major as that, I told her to hold on a sec.
I logged into my Gmail account, did a search for "frisky", came up with several e-mails, and quickly checked each one for the message in which I told my mother about Frisky being put down. Easy as pie.
Moderation for "How Delightfully Morbid", anyone?
You do raise a good point. Whenever I'm using my Hotmail account to follow up on eBay transactions, I typically find myself keeping all e-mails that relate to a particular transaction in the Inbox. Thus, whenever I'm waiting on several purchases at once, my Inbox is a mess!
Yes, I could create a nice, new folder for each one, but that certainly doesn't make sorting through those eBay e-mails any easier. Whatever the case, however, I still need to go through 40+ e-mails after such all of my shipments have been completed, taking up much more time than I would've spent reading all of those e-mails. It's annoying and inefficient.
Everyone that I e-mail regularly has a label and two filters already set up in my Gmail account to sort the mail automatically. However, the way I see it, were I to ever use Gmail for eBay purchases (which I really should do), I could simply Archive the messages, then do a simple search by eBay item #'s or item descriptions.
And that also serves as a great example of e-mails that you wouldn't necessarily anticipate needing anymore, only to realize that something went wrong with the item and you had thoughtlessly deleted everything that provided you with the proper contact information.
Gmail doesn't "spam" you. The Google ads that appear while you're checking your e-mail (in unobtrusive Adwords form) merely relate to what you're talking about in your e-mail. For instance, on more than one occasion, my mom thought that it was quite useful that some of the Google ads led her to sites that directly related to our discussions.
As for the lack of a delete button, however, I don't see the big deal. Yes, I realize that you may find an e-mail to be useless, but what if you do happen to want to go back to it much later? It could happen, although you may not think so.
More and more, I'm not really caring all that much whether or not titles from other consoles will make it to the Revolution, because they'll be big overly-serious graphics-fests with little gameplay value.
That's what the main strength of the Revolution will be: Originality. I seriously hope that developers are either too lazy to port their existing games for other consoles to the Revolution. Instead, I feel that this will get more developers to create original works for the Revolution.
Actually, you know what I feel they should do? Maybe offer a base version (or maybe two - home and pro), then offer additional content via a subscription service, much like Linspire's Click 'n Run Warehouse. Seriously, I wouldn't mind paying a subscription fee if they'd just lower the damn prices on their overpriced software.
How about $99.99 for home and $149.99 for pro?
Yay. I can't wait for those things to arrive at CompUSA. Now, in addition to keeping track of and stocking the many renditions of Microsoft Office, I'm now forced to keep track of seven different versions of Windows Vista? You know, I'm tempted to believe that it's impossible for Microsoft to release anything that's actually a legitimately complete product. Say what you will, but I guarantee you that Ultimate Edition will even require additional purchases for certain functionality.
You know, as much as it pains me to do so, I'm just gonna start carrying burnt Linux distros with me at work, handing them to any customer who asks about purchasing Windows.
An excerpt from the article:
One final note worth mentioning is that this strategy does remove the "corporate Windows XP" option from the hands of pirates. Volume licensing for Pro, SBE, and EE may still mean that there will be copies of Windows Vista out there that don't "call home" for Windows Product Activation, but as you can see, Microsoft has removed most of the features that most pirates would want from those OSes. You won't see corporate licensing versions of Ultimate Edition.
While I definitely agree that this is a smart idea on Microsoft's part, why even bother creating so many different versions? It's getting a little ridiculous.
I've tried using Ubuntu, and I must say that even the easy-to-install variety of Linux distros is not without a serious learning curve. I absolutely do not understand Linux to the point where I feel comfortable relying on it.
Let's see, with Ubuntu, I was unable to figure out how to install NVIDIA drivers, just as I was unable to get unicode support in any of the distros that I tried. Linux is far more than 5 years away from being mainstream.
And I definitely realize that the NES is most definitely not the 'beginning' of video games. However, the NES was my first game console, so I very much consider it to be the very definition of my video game 'roots'.
Yes, it's true that NES didn't exactly start it all, but the NES is ultimately what fished the industry out of the toilet.
Actually, Microsoft still isn't deciding who wins or loses. Just wait and see: The third-party peripheral developers will start charging more for their shoddy product that are nowhere near as durable as official products. Maybe then those third-party peripheral developers will put some thought into their products.
Personally, I only buy official peripherals, with the exception of maybe Pelican.
You know, I feel as though this is more of a quality control issue than what many people are considering it. The number of peripherals released for anything that garners even a decent amount of popularity is nothing short of disgusting. For instance, I work at CompUSA, and I must say that I cringe every single time I have to stock a new iPod accessory. Some of the iPod accessories that I've seen lately are nothing short of pathetic. Example: Today, I came across an accessory that turns a car's cup holder into an iPod holder. Lame. Seriously, I hope that this works in Microsoft's favor. Maybe these developers will think twice before releasing several variations of what is, essentially, the same damn controller. Now, if there's no sense of quality control, though, I think this will ultimately only lead to more expensive throw-away peripherals, rather than dirt-cheap ones. Let's hope for the best. I really hope that Pelican (one of my favorite third party peripheral developers) brings their quality products to the 360.