I've been using the Beyond TV 3 trial version for a week now, it works well and I really like the web interface.
However although it advertises that it can also 'stream live tv' this functionality doesn't work with some very popular PVR cards (the WinTV 250/350 series) that do mpeg2 encoding in hardware.
This functionality is promised for a future version, but its something to consider if you own one of these cards.
As a system administrator I pay an arm and a leg to put my data inside a granite canyon so it can withstand any force known to man.
Then a big disaster happens and me and everyone in my company dies.
At that point our disaster recovery options are as follows:
1) an alien life form to arrive on earth, rescue the data from the inside of a granite canyon, and decide to stay and run our business
2) a primitive life form on earth that was strong enough to withstand the big natural disaster, evolves over millions of years, then rescues the data from the inside of the granite canyon and decides to run our business
Neither scenario seems likely. But to keep the CEO happy we should probably use those good quality HP LTO tapes to make sure the data is still around in a few million years.
Presenter: "We're going to sell a PC. But we can't really let people do what they want with it. We need to protect it. With a bios! Ya we'll protect it with a bios!"
Bill: "What are we going to call it?"
Presenter: "Well we need a symbol.. that represents not being able to do what you want."
Bill: "X?"
Presenter: "Yes! And another symbol that suggests it already does what you probably need it to do."
The most valuable commodity people have now is time. The internet has no concept of time.
I think that eventually time will become so valuable that anything that requires a time commitment will become annoying and low priority.
If your tv show started 20 minutes ago you're out of luck. Why watch tv on NBC's schedule when you can surf that favorite web site anytime you like?
Recording tv? That was a neat trick a long time ago, but do most people still have time to do that? How many times have you recorded something you thought you wanted to watch.. and never watched it? Was it because you didn't have the time.:)
My prediction is that tv won't be superceded by the internet, tv will eventually be broadcast on it exclusively.
TV execs read this:
I don't want to be able to record tv and watch it later. PVR's are nice toys but not the solution.
Let me watch what I want, when I want, and make it play right when I want it to. And it has to be free. If you have any questions you can find me on the internet.:)
In the article they state the number one risk is the state of the economy, and the number two risk is open source.
I would argue that Microsoft's number one risk is actually the free spread of information over the internet. This is something that can not be controlled (yet).
In the old days IT decisions were made with very limited information. Possibly Gartner group published recommendations, maybe from reading trade journals that were several months out of date.
A popular saying was "well nobody got fired using [insert company here] products". It was all about risk management. Go with the biggest baddest company, and at least you're protected in some way if things blow up. That was the theory.
With easier access to information folks are realizing that this theory doesn't always hold true. When the latest windows/exchange/internet explorer vulnerability is unleashed, now you're just part of the bigger collective that is screwed.
It becomes harder for companies to do damage control when the facts spread quickly and undergo so much analysis by people not on their payroll.
When the internet functions as a self regulating corporate BS filter, then it becomes the biggest single threat to Microsoft.
If you think your government is not doing enough to protect consumers, take some responsibility and start planning how you're going to change things around next election.
The United States used to be a democracy, but it is less so now. This is only because of the recent apathy in the general population. Governments do whatever they want only when you allow them to.
There's nothing broken here (a right wing government, suppressive anti consumer legislation) that can't be undone once you get the people you want back into office.
I've been witness to this in Canada (both federally and provincially). Political parties that ruled wrecklessly can be made extinct if enough people are willing to make it their priority.
Paving the road for better products
on
New Linux PVR Box
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
This Telly device does seem expensive. What's exciting is the prospect of better, cheaper, and more mainstream products to come.
When this concept becomes mainstream things will really get cool.
It took mp3 players to legitimize the mp3 format and show consumers that audio cd's are limiting. It will take PVR/media playing hardware to do the same for movies and tv.
Making this even cooler
on
X11 in ASCII
·
· Score: 1
What they should do now is render screenshots of the ascii based X11 screens on the ascii based X11 screen.
Everytime someone posts a message about OS X, I try really hard to take it seriously.
I repeat to myself..
Its a BSD kernel, its a BSD kernel, its a BSD kernel, its a BSD kernel.
But whats with the names? Safari? Jaguar? Panther? It's hard not to imagine mac users wearing helmets and riding elephants.
And its nearly impossible to say 'cocoa' without smiling? Seriously, try it.
Cocoa.:)
Steve Jobs: Well you're going to be AMAZED by what we've done. Today we're ready to unveil... Coconut! Inspired by Guano, and the successor to Firefly. Fully compatible with Gerber API's.
The average non-technical user is happy enough just getting things working.
Home users want to take their notebooks anywhere in the house and be able to surf. Business travel through airports (interoperability) may not even be their priority.
Why should they be concerned about mac addresses or hex keys? Firmware upgrades to make things more compatible?
Lets make it easy for them. Vendors should sell wireless home networking kits that have all the encryption turned on in advance by default, with drivers that assume this also by prompting for the prepackaged keys at install time.
Joe user could buy a box containing an access point with two pcmcia wireless nics. By default those two nics will be the only onces that can access the access point. The shiny box that says "easy install" will be what clinches the purchase.
Of course an advanced user could still change the defaults to suit their needs.. but that requires effort.
Joe User will always assume the defaults are good enough for him, and they should be.
Liberation can only happen if a person no longer wants what you're leaving behind.
Many people aren't willing to liberate themselves from their 3d games and expensive investments in existing software and hardware.
I've helped many people install their first linux. With a few notable exceptions, most enjoy the experience, feel good about themselves for a period of time, and then go back to their Windows desktops. The smarter ones figure out how to run both environments and reap the benefits of both.
So this enterprise product, targeted towards business, can now be installed by 15 year old irc warez monkeys on their home pc's?
The subtle point is that their souped up gaming pc's will probably run this latest incarnation of windows better than the hardware available to most businesses.
I'm completely in awe of the mentality some people take that Sun is in some way a "threat" to open source.
Linux is an operating system, Sun is a hardware company. At this point each can benefit from the other.
Even if Sun didn't embrace Linux 100%, it still promotes open source software (sendmail, samba, apache). So there's no need to act like the jilted girlfriend.
Like it or not, big companies prefer to do business with big companies. If Sun went away, Microsoft would happily fill that void.
If Ximian can provide something usable I'll consider putting Redhat 8.0 back on my desktop system. Otherwise its time to move on.
I didn't endure 10 years of slow painful progress in the linux desktop to take a 5 year leap backwards with Redhat's latest sorry offering.
Linux users don't want a dumbed down desktop where everything is twice as big, runs twice as slow, and has half as many configuration options. And where its three times as difficult to customize it to the way *you* want it to be.
Lets say you're a developer who under such an arrangement got to look at the windows source. Now lets say the windows source code contained a whole bunch of open source code ripped off from Linux and BSD over the last few years.
To look at this source meant you had to swear on our mother's life and your checkbook that you will not tell anybody what it contains.
Aside from flooding the market with variations of an existing product (graphics pro ultra turbo rage 1 2 3 4 express), ATI has a history of dropping support for earlier products anytime a new version of Windows comes out.
Extortion should not be the primary method of getting existing customers to upgrade. Perhaps this was learned from Microsoft.
Ask anyone with an early tv wonder card who wanted to use NT, or anyone with an original all in wonder card who wants to use all of its features in XP.
All things being equal (technology wise) think carefully about where you want to go for drivers and customer support two or three years from now.
I think I missed something here. Somewhere along the line, the judge who couldn't be fooled by the defense... was removed.
A new judge was a appointed who represented the wishes of a new government who no longer wished to do anything bad to one of its big campaign contributers.
The prosecution then decided to team with the defense, to propose a soft settlement with the new judge in a glorious menage a trois.
Meanwhile the public looked on wondering what happened. Fortunately a press release telling them that Microsoft has been punished set all their minds at ease.
The only thing that would have made this great moment complete was if the final judgement was issued in Visual Basic.
I'll file this one in my great moments in US history scrapbook, next to the picture of Johnny Cochrane.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been using the Beyond TV 3 trial version for a week now, it works well and I really like the web interface.
However although it advertises that it can also 'stream live tv' this functionality doesn't work with some very popular PVR cards (the WinTV 250/350 series) that do mpeg2 encoding in hardware.
This functionality is promised for a future version, but its something to consider if you own one of these cards.
As a system administrator I pay an arm and a leg to put my data inside a granite canyon so it can withstand any force known to man.
Then a big disaster happens and me and everyone in my company dies.
At that point our disaster recovery options are as follows:
1) an alien life form to arrive on earth, rescue the data from the inside of a granite canyon, and decide to stay and run our business
2) a primitive life form on earth that was strong enough to withstand the big natural disaster, evolves over millions of years, then rescues the data from the inside of the granite canyon and decides to run our business
Neither scenario seems likely. But to keep the CEO happy we should probably use those good quality HP LTO tapes to make sure the data is still around in a few million years.
I wish we could find a way to get all their lawyers and executives in one room at the same time.
We could videotape them interacting with each other, slapping each others backs, perhaps exchanging stupid looks.
Scientists could study them like rats, so we could teach parents how to avoid raising future generations of low life corporate scumbags.
I love it when things we want are taken away and things we don't need are give back to us.
A universal garage door opener? Can that play mp3's?
This trial is like a big magic show. Microsoft is the magician.
Everyone needs to stop throwing their hands up in the air and wondering where the rabbit went.
Its time to look at the court room itself and ask how the government allowed it to became rigged with smoke, mirrors, and false floors.
Microsoft board room meeting:
Presenter: "We're going to sell a PC. But we can't really let people do what they want with it. We need to protect it. With a bios! Ya we'll protect it with a bios!"
Bill: "What are we going to call it?"
Presenter: "Well we need a symbol.. that represents not being able to do what you want."
Bill: "X?"
Presenter: "Yes! And another symbol that suggests it already does what you probably need it to do."
Bill: "XBox?"
The most valuable commodity people have now is time. The internet has no concept of time.
:)
:)
I think that eventually time will become so valuable that anything that requires a time commitment will become annoying and low priority.
If your tv show started 20 minutes ago you're out of luck. Why watch tv on NBC's schedule when you can surf that favorite web site anytime you like?
Recording tv? That was a neat trick a long time ago, but do most people still have time to do that? How many times have you recorded something you thought you wanted to watch.. and never watched it? Was it because you didn't have the time.
My prediction is that tv won't be superceded by the internet, tv will eventually be broadcast on it exclusively.
TV execs read this:
I don't want to be able to record tv and watch it later. PVR's are nice toys but not the solution.
Let me watch what I want, when I want, and make it play right when I want it to. And it has to be free. If you have any questions you can find me on the internet.
consigliere -
An advisor or counselor, especially to a capo or leader of an organized crime syndicate.
In the article they state the number one risk is the state of the economy, and the number two risk is open source.
I would argue that Microsoft's number one risk is actually the free spread of information over the internet. This is something that can not be controlled (yet).
In the old days IT decisions were made with very limited information. Possibly Gartner group published recommendations, maybe from reading trade journals that were several months out of date.
A popular saying was "well nobody got fired using [insert company here] products". It was all about risk management. Go with the biggest baddest company, and at least you're protected in some way if things blow up. That was the theory.
With easier access to information folks are realizing that this theory doesn't always hold true. When the latest windows/exchange/internet explorer vulnerability is unleashed, now you're just part of the bigger collective that is screwed.
It becomes harder for companies to do damage control when the facts spread quickly and undergo so much analysis by people not on their payroll.
When the internet functions as a self regulating corporate BS filter, then it becomes the biggest single threat to Microsoft.
If you think your government is not doing enough to protect consumers, take some responsibility and start planning how you're going to change things around next election.
The United States used to be a democracy, but it is less so now. This is only because of the recent apathy in the general population. Governments do whatever they want only when you allow them to.
There's nothing broken here (a right wing government, suppressive anti consumer legislation) that can't be undone once you get the people you want back into office.
I've been witness to this in Canada (both federally and provincially). Political parties that ruled wrecklessly can be made extinct if enough people are willing to make it their priority.
This Telly device does seem expensive. What's exciting is the prospect of better, cheaper, and more mainstream products to come.
When this concept becomes mainstream things will really get cool.
It took mp3 players to legitimize the mp3 format and show consumers that audio cd's are limiting. It will take PVR/media playing hardware to do the same for movies and tv.
What they should do now is render screenshots of the ascii based X11 screens on the ascii based X11 screen.
Everytime someone posts a message about OS X, I try really hard to take it seriously.
:)
I repeat to myself..
Its a BSD kernel, its a BSD kernel, its a BSD kernel, its a BSD kernel.
But whats with the names? Safari? Jaguar? Panther? It's hard not to imagine mac users wearing helmets and riding elephants.
And its nearly impossible to say 'cocoa' without smiling? Seriously, try it.
Cocoa.
Steve Jobs:
Well you're going to be AMAZED by what we've done. Today we're ready to unveil... Coconut! Inspired by Guano, and the successor to Firefly. Fully compatible with Gerber API's.
The average non-technical user is happy enough just getting things working.
Home users want to take their notebooks anywhere in the house and be able to surf. Business travel through airports (interoperability) may not even be their priority.
Why should they be concerned about mac addresses or hex keys? Firmware upgrades to make things more compatible?
Lets make it easy for them. Vendors should sell wireless home networking kits that have all the encryption turned on in advance by default, with drivers that assume this also by prompting for the prepackaged keys at install time.
Joe user could buy a box containing an access point with two pcmcia wireless nics. By default those two nics will be the only onces that can access the access point. The shiny box that says "easy install" will be what clinches the purchase.
Of course an advanced user could still change the defaults to suit their needs.. but that requires effort.
Joe User will always assume the defaults are good enough for him, and they should be.
Many have tried but its proven very difficult to get really up close to the viagra spammers.
Liberation can only happen if a person no longer wants what you're leaving behind.
Many people aren't willing to liberate themselves from their 3d games and expensive investments in existing software and hardware.
I've helped many people install their first linux. With a few notable exceptions, most enjoy the experience, feel good about themselves for a period of time, and then go back to their Windows desktops. The smarter ones figure out how to run both environments and reap the benefits of both.
seismic
drag me drop me treat me like an object
Did this article have a picture attached showing a woman holding a coffee mug?
So this enterprise product, targeted towards business, can now be installed by 15 year old irc warez monkeys on their home pc's?
The subtle point is that their souped up gaming pc's will probably run this latest incarnation of windows better than the hardware available to most businesses.
drag me drop me treat me like an object
I'm completely in awe of the mentality some people take that Sun is in some way a "threat" to open source.
Linux is an operating system, Sun is a hardware company. At this point each can benefit from the other.
Even if Sun didn't embrace Linux 100%, it still promotes open source software (sendmail, samba, apache). So there's no need to act like the jilted girlfriend.
Like it or not, big companies prefer to do business with big companies. If Sun went away, Microsoft would happily fill that void.
I get this kind of noise from my lcd panel.
I'm betting if you turn off the lcd panel and recreate the same actions you won't hear anything.
If Ximian can provide something usable I'll consider putting Redhat 8.0 back on my desktop system. Otherwise its time to move on.
I didn't endure 10 years of slow painful progress in the linux desktop to take a 5 year leap backwards with Redhat's latest sorry offering.
Linux users don't want a dumbed down desktop where everything is twice as big, runs twice as slow, and has half as many configuration options.
And where its three times as difficult to customize it to the way *you* want it to be.
If I wanted that I'd buy a Mac.
Ximian, please help us.
:)
Would you legally be allowed to TELL anybody?
This is a hypothetical question:
Lets say you're a developer who under such an arrangement got to look at the windows source. Now lets say the windows source code contained a whole bunch of open source code ripped off from Linux and BSD over the last few years.
To look at this source meant you had to swear on our mother's life and your checkbook that you will not tell anybody what it contains.
Would you legally be allowed to do anybody??
Aside from flooding the market with variations of an existing product (graphics pro ultra turbo rage 1 2 3 4 express), ATI has a history of dropping support for earlier products anytime a new version of Windows comes out.
Extortion should not be the primary method of getting existing customers to upgrade. Perhaps this was learned from Microsoft.
Ask anyone with an early tv wonder card who wanted to use NT, or anyone with an original all in wonder card who wants to use all of its features in XP.
All things being equal (technology wise) think carefully about where you want to go for drivers and customer support two or three years from now.
I think I missed something here. Somewhere along the line, the judge who couldn't be fooled by the defense... was removed.
A new judge was a appointed who represented the wishes of a new government who no longer wished to do anything bad to one of its big campaign contributers.
The prosecution then decided to team with the defense, to propose a soft settlement with the new judge in a glorious menage a trois.
Meanwhile the public looked on wondering what happened. Fortunately a press release telling them that Microsoft has been punished set all their minds at ease.
The only thing that would have made this great moment complete was if the final judgement was issued in Visual Basic.
I'll file this one in my great moments in US history scrapbook, next to the picture of Johnny Cochrane.