OK. I agree that licensing isn't the same as mandating. So if Microsoft suggested that the US government pay Microsoft a license fee for every computer in America you would think that was just a great idea?
Ahh, we have stumbled across my favorite discussion.
... because it rides on the coat-tails of Windows itself which, of course, only got where it is today by riding on the coat-tails of DOS, which rode on the coat-tails of the IBM-PC
You see, having lived through the whole PC revolution, I contend that MS did not hitch a ride on the coat-tails of the IBM-PC. In fact in my view it is the other way around -- they drove the bus! Until MS came along the pattern was for hardware vendors to also sell you their OS. Everything was closed. Even Apple (a darling of this forum) was closed (and still is). It's "us or the highway" was what all the hardware vendors declared. As it turns out, though, IBM screwed up by outsourcing their OS and not demanding an exclusive (I'm sure they would do it differently if they could have a "do-over"). Gates was no dummy. He developed versions of MSDOS independent of IBM, which ran on IBM machines. And yes, MS got a bit lucky when clones emerged, though frankly if they hadn't have secured rights to sell MSDOS to those clone manufacturers then it would have been much more difficult for them (the cloners) to achieve compatibility. They would have had to "clean room develop" an OS, which is significantly more difficult than clean-rooming a BIOS (which was hard in itself). [note: why is that? it's because a BIOS is a middle layer which is pinned from both ends, an OS is only pinned from the bottom unless you can get your hands on every application ever written to test compatibility at the top] So basically it was MS that broke the hardware vendor's lock on operating systems. This led to competition in the hardware world, which led to cheap hardware. All of that led to Microsoft's hard-won dominance in the marketplace in a self-perpetuating spiral.
One more note, by insisting on binary compatibility, MS has managed to maintain their dominance (and at the same time fostered the cheap hardware revolution) all the way to today. Intel/AMD were forced to keep binary compatibility (come out with a new chip that wouldn't run Windows? preposterous), which again led to much competition in the processor world, which led to amazing performance at ever cheaper prices. Counter-examples: Sun SPARC, Intel Itanium, IBM PowerPCs (used by Apple). None of these processors had binary compatibity with another vendor's parts and, surprise of surprises, they are all fading away.
You can say all you want about MS business practices, and the quality, security and stability problems with their software, but you cannot deny their significant role in laying the foundations for cheap, compatible hardware which enabled things like FOSS and Linux to emerge.
I don't see how threatening to pull Windows from S Korea is a "money grab". If you recall the genesis of this was S. Korea posturing that they wanted their own special version of Windows (no doubt to protect some local companies who compete with some built-in components of Windows). Of course there are financial implications to Microsoft - which is why they said they *might* have to withdraw from S Korea if the demands were too expensive (or time-consuming) for them to meet.
Or does hatred of all things Microsoft trump this forum's hatred of monopolies and for-profit activities? Because as we all know, Linspire is making a money grab - they are not doing it to "further the cause". Seriously, do we really want governments mandating the use of a particular OS? That *cannot* be a good thing. I can't help but wonder how much howling would there be in these parts if the headline read:
Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer, just offered to license every computer in the country with Windows...
Besides, as someone else on this board mentioned, PC gaming is really big in S Korea, so it's all just idle chatter anyhow.
Actually I tried Google Desktop awhile ago. I found it somewhat annoying and it seemed to slow my machine down. I guess I am in the minority - you folks must have lots more stuff to search than I do. I rarely find myself "searching" for my own stuff. Searching is something I do on the internet, and for that Google works just dandy. Do people really need this wonderful search capability to find things in their own files? What am I missing here? To keep things organized, I put my stuff in folders and give them descriptive names. Videos in My Videos, Music in My Music (artist folders beneath that), Pictures in My Pictures (year folders, then event folders beneath that), Documents in My Documents (project folders beneath that), etc. Yes, I sometimes use Outlook search for a particular email based on its content, though recently I have been getting better at creating folders and filing emails as well to minimize searching. It just seems to me that a far better solution to the problem is organizing your data in the first place.
Of course this only works if it *ISN'T* the OJ Simpson Trial jury doing the analysis. A perfect match - odds are one in a zillion - nope, I still don't believe it's him. What else ya got?
I would never recommend FireFox to a casual user until auto-update is available. Casual users will not periodically check for security updates (of which there have been many in FireFox) and so they will be like sitting ducks.
If you do a Windows version you accomodate the vast majority of the desktops on the planet. It is pretty hard to justify increasing the workload very much to cover the remainder. Has anybody tried this application on Wine (http://www.winehq.com/) ?
I've used IRC in the past and I thought it was pretty good for what (and when) it was. However, it could have used some serious usability improvements. I found that, if you "lived" in IRC you got accustomed to its quirks, but if you used it intermittently there were startup pains each time as you got re-acquinted with its idiosyncracies. Now admittedly it's been awhile since I used it, but from what I recall it was: text based only, used this bizarre "so-and-so wants to chat with you" popup if they were sending you a file, had a built-in server list that kept getting out of date, and was very hostile to newbies. What would be cool is if something more usable like AIM (the horror!) could emerge. Maybe to get a screen name you would register your areas of expertise (C++, Image Processing, whatever) and then you might even have to answer a few quiz questions. That might keep out the riff-raff. Just a thought.
Actually according to an article on Ars they DO allow you to download your own songs to your phone. Also, they make the same statement: 1GB = 1000 songs, which translates to a 32kbps encode rate. I doubt they would release songs at that bitrate that sounded terrible (especially at $2.50 a pop) so I would withold my judgement on sound quality. Along those lines, I wonder if they let you encode at different rates when putting music on your phone (trade capacity for quality for more discerning listeners).
"Microsoft may be creating their own branded digital television DVR / satellite service. A DVR that lets you "Log In" with your Microsoft Account before you begin your television watching would allow Microsoft to serve up relevant ads based on: the program you are watching, your search history, the type of emails you have received in the past 24 hours (excluding spam hopefully), or anything else Microsoft can track. Imagine the possibilities... You are watching Microsoft Satellite TV through your "internet ready" Microsoft DVR."
I saw many positive comments regarding the Google version of the article. Why do I suspect the opinions would be much different if the article read like the edited one I posted in the preceding paragraph of this comment? Read through this new edited version and see if you have a different, more negative reaction. Just because it's Google doesn't mean it's automatically a good thing.
Users will also be able to copy music purchased via the store to their PCs and burn it to CD. In addition, they will be able to load 16-32MB of their own music on to the new phones if they choose.
I *assume* the 16-32MB *limit* is because that is the size of the bundled cards. So it looks like you CAN put music you already own into your phone. And if you did put in a 1GB card you can have a pretty decent portable music player that is also a phone. I think that makes this a much more significant announcement. I'm surprised they don't play that angle up more. Seems to me that Sprint has 2 distinct advantages over the iTunes phone: no 100 song limit and the ability (if you want) to buy a song instantly over-the-air.
So now we have someplace to send all of those out of work encyclopedia salesmen! They can hawk wikipedia in the third world! I can see them trapsing about, lugging a satchel full of CDs. "You don't want to deprive your children from having access to these wonderful volumes!"
I am having trouble understanding the rules of engagement. If MS "gives away" IE for free, they get called to task. If they "give away" Media Player for free, they get in hot water. Now why exactly would giving away virtualization not result in the same harsh treatment? Is it because there aren't established for-profit companies in that space already? How about VMWare? If MS gave away virtualization, the "anti-trust" crowd would drag them into court faster than you can say "billable hours".
Well, it is a high end phone (~$400), so they make more profit from that. Also, people who buy high end phones are more likely (and able) to use other pay-for services. Lastly, if you get people accustomed to listening to their music on their phone, you have a good chance of selling them a song or two each month on an impulse, gotta have it now, purchase. Yeah, $400 is alot for a phone, but it's not alot more than buying an iPod AND a phone (especially a "cool" phone).
Actually the phones it runs on have stereo headphones. And I'm pretty sure you get both a mobile download AND a higher quality, CD-burnable desktop download for the $2.50 pricetag.
I carried a music-capable phone for quite some time and it was rather handy. I always had my phone, and I always charged my phone, so it was easy to slip on my earbuds and listen to some tunes when out for a walk, mowing the lawn, whatever. It's really not as bizarre as it first seems. In fact I rather miss it -- I have since changed carriers and their music-capable phones are way too expensive, so now I use my PocketPC as my music player.
OK, $2.50 per song is pretty pricey - agreed. But there are already services in the UK (Orange has one) that charge 2 pounds per song (~$3), and they don't even bundle a second version of the track which is downloadable on the desktop.
I also hasten to say, the/. group is most decidedly *NOT* the target market for this product. Think teenagers. Think parents of teenagers who are being badgered to get their little cherubs cells phones and iPods. According to the press release, with a 1GB card you can put 1000 songs into the phone. That capacity is very competitive with an iPod nano or iPod mini. Now of course these teenagers can't buy 1000 songs at $2.50 a pop, but there also seems to be some sort of desktop companion application. Maybe they can use that to convert their MP3s to put them on their phone. If that were the case then Sprint might have something. It certainly would blow away the pathetic iTunes phone which has been so roundly reviled.
It seems to me that if companies like Google need to hire programmers to work on the "less glamorous" aspects of FOSS applications, that points out a significant weakness in the FOSS development model. This has always been a pet peeve of mine regarding FOSS... the applications never seem *quite* finished, or *quite* up to real commercial standards. True, many are very good, and true, many "commercial" products are lacking. But when you compare the best commercial products with the best that FOSS has to offer, FOSS always seems to come up short.
Now please let me put on my flame-proof suit before I click "submit".... OK, fire away!
Slashdot Mirror
Without a doubt MS is going to use their monopoly desktop to force people to msn search by embedding it into windows
Do you have a reference for this assertion?
+4 Interesting? Let me try ... Microsoft really wants to kill Google! MWAHAHAHA. Now I'll just sit back and collect the Karma.
OK. I agree that licensing isn't the same as mandating. So if Microsoft suggested that the US government pay Microsoft a license fee for every computer in America you would think that was just a great idea?
Ahh, we have stumbled across my favorite discussion.
... because it rides on the coat-tails of Windows itself which, of course, only got where it is today by riding on the coat-tails of DOS, which rode on the coat-tails of the IBM-PC
You see, having lived through the whole PC revolution, I contend that MS did not hitch a ride on the coat-tails of the IBM-PC. In fact in my view it is the other way around -- they drove the bus! Until MS came along the pattern was for hardware vendors to also sell you their OS. Everything was closed. Even Apple (a darling of this forum) was closed (and still is). It's "us or the highway" was what all the hardware vendors declared. As it turns out, though, IBM screwed up by outsourcing their OS and not demanding an exclusive (I'm sure they would do it differently if they could have a "do-over"). Gates was no dummy. He developed versions of MSDOS independent of IBM, which ran on IBM machines. And yes, MS got a bit lucky when clones emerged, though frankly if they hadn't have secured rights to sell MSDOS to those clone manufacturers then it would have been much more difficult for them (the cloners) to achieve compatibility. They would have had to "clean room develop" an OS, which is significantly more difficult than clean-rooming a BIOS (which was hard in itself). [note: why is that? it's because a BIOS is a middle layer which is pinned from both ends, an OS is only pinned from the bottom unless you can get your hands on every application ever written to test compatibility at the top] So basically it was MS that broke the hardware vendor's lock on operating systems. This led to competition in the hardware world, which led to cheap hardware. All of that led to Microsoft's hard-won dominance in the marketplace in a self-perpetuating spiral. One more note, by insisting on binary compatibility, MS has managed to maintain their dominance (and at the same time fostered the cheap hardware revolution) all the way to today. Intel/AMD were forced to keep binary compatibility (come out with a new chip that wouldn't run Windows? preposterous), which again led to much competition in the processor world, which led to amazing performance at ever cheaper prices. Counter-examples: Sun SPARC, Intel Itanium, IBM PowerPCs (used by Apple). None of these processors had binary compatibity with another vendor's parts and, surprise of surprises, they are all fading away. You can say all you want about MS business practices, and the quality, security and stability problems with their software, but you cannot deny their significant role in laying the foundations for cheap, compatible hardware which enabled things like FOSS and Linux to emerge.
I don't see how threatening to pull Windows from S Korea is a "money grab". If you recall the genesis of this was S. Korea posturing that they wanted their own special version of Windows (no doubt to protect some local companies who compete with some built-in components of Windows). Of course there are financial implications to Microsoft - which is why they said they *might* have to withdraw from S Korea if the demands were too expensive (or time-consuming) for them to meet.
Or does hatred of all things Microsoft trump this forum's hatred of monopolies and for-profit activities? Because as we all know, Linspire is making a money grab - they are not doing it to "further the cause". Seriously, do we really want governments mandating the use of a particular OS? That *cannot* be a good thing. I can't help but wonder how much howling would there be in these parts if the headline read:
...
Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer, just offered to license every computer in the country with Windows
Besides, as someone else on this board mentioned, PC gaming is really big in S Korea, so it's all just idle chatter anyhow.
And while we're on the subject, what's with all those Linux distros. We have Redhat, Ubuntu, Suse, Debian, Knoppix, etc etc. Enough already.
There is no such thing as an X2 3200 - 3800 is the "bottom of the line", so the reference to 3200 is in error.
Actually I tried Google Desktop awhile ago. I found it somewhat annoying and it seemed to slow my machine down. I guess I am in the minority - you folks must have lots more stuff to search than I do. I rarely find myself "searching" for my own stuff. Searching is something I do on the internet, and for that Google works just dandy. Do people really need this wonderful search capability to find things in their own files? What am I missing here? To keep things organized, I put my stuff in folders and give them descriptive names. Videos in My Videos, Music in My Music (artist folders beneath that), Pictures in My Pictures (year folders, then event folders beneath that), Documents in My Documents (project folders beneath that), etc. Yes, I sometimes use Outlook search for a particular email based on its content, though recently I have been getting better at creating folders and filing emails as well to minimize searching. It just seems to me that a far better solution to the problem is organizing your data in the first place.
Of course this only works if it *ISN'T* the OJ Simpson Trial jury doing the analysis. A perfect match - odds are one in a zillion - nope, I still don't believe it's him. What else ya got?
I would never recommend FireFox to a casual user until auto-update is available. Casual users will not periodically check for security updates (of which there have been many in FireFox) and so they will be like sitting ducks.
l nerabilities.html
Don't believe me, check out http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vu
If you do a Windows version you accomodate the vast majority of the desktops on the planet. It is pretty hard to justify increasing the workload very much to cover the remainder. Has anybody tried this application on Wine (http://www.winehq.com/) ?
I've used IRC in the past and I thought it was pretty good for what (and when) it was. However, it could have used some serious usability improvements. I found that, if you "lived" in IRC you got accustomed to its quirks, but if you used it intermittently there were startup pains each time as you got re-acquinted with its idiosyncracies. Now admittedly it's been awhile since I used it, but from what I recall it was: text based only, used this bizarre "so-and-so wants to chat with you" popup if they were sending you a file, had a built-in server list that kept getting out of date, and was very hostile to newbies. What would be cool is if something more usable like AIM (the horror!) could emerge. Maybe to get a screen name you would register your areas of expertise (C++, Image Processing, whatever) and then you might even have to answer a few quiz questions. That might keep out the riff-raff. Just a thought.
Actually according to an article on Ars they DO allow you to download your own songs to your phone. Also, they make the same statement: 1GB = 1000 songs, which translates to a 32kbps encode rate. I doubt they would release songs at that bitrate that sounded terrible (especially at $2.50 a pop) so I would withold my judgement on sound quality. Along those lines, I wonder if they let you encode at different rates when putting music on your phone (trade capacity for quality for more discerning listeners).
So then, a bus full of high school teenagers with cell phones will look like a major traffic jam?
"Microsoft may be creating their own branded digital television DVR / satellite service. A DVR that lets you "Log In" with your Microsoft Account before you begin your television watching would allow Microsoft to serve up relevant ads based on: the program you are watching, your search history, the type of emails you have received in the past 24 hours (excluding spam hopefully), or anything else Microsoft can track. Imagine the possibilities... You are watching Microsoft Satellite TV through your "internet ready" Microsoft DVR."
I saw many positive comments regarding the Google version of the article. Why do I suspect the opinions would be much different if the article read like the edited one I posted in the preceding paragraph of this comment? Read through this new edited version and see if you have a different, more negative reaction. Just because it's Google doesn't mean it's automatically a good thing.
There is another article in Ars Technical (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051031-550 3.html) that says:
Users will also be able to copy music purchased via the store to their PCs and burn it to CD. In addition, they will be able to load 16-32MB of their own music on to the new phones if they choose.
I *assume* the 16-32MB *limit* is because that is the size of the bundled cards. So it looks like you CAN put music you already own into your phone. And if you did put in a 1GB card you can have a pretty decent portable music player that is also a phone. I think that makes this a much more significant announcement. I'm surprised they don't play that angle up more. Seems to me that Sprint has 2 distinct advantages over the iTunes phone: no 100 song limit and the ability (if you want) to buy a song instantly over-the-air.
So now we have someplace to send all of those out of work encyclopedia salesmen! They can hawk wikipedia in the third world! I can see them trapsing about, lugging a satchel full of CDs. "You don't want to deprive your children from having access to these wonderful volumes!"
I am having trouble understanding the rules of engagement. If MS "gives away" IE for free, they get called to task. If they "give away" Media Player for free, they get in hot water. Now why exactly would giving away virtualization not result in the same harsh treatment? Is it because there aren't established for-profit companies in that space already? How about VMWare? If MS gave away virtualization, the "anti-trust" crowd would drag them into court faster than you can say "billable hours".
Well, it is a high end phone (~$400), so they make more profit from that. Also, people who buy high end phones are more likely (and able) to use other pay-for services. Lastly, if you get people accustomed to listening to their music on their phone, you have a good chance of selling them a song or two each month on an impulse, gotta have it now, purchase. Yeah, $400 is alot for a phone, but it's not alot more than buying an iPod AND a phone (especially a "cool" phone).
I think you missed an important qualifier:
Maybe they can use that to convert their MP3s to put them on their phone. If that were the case then Sprint might have something.
So IF you could transcode your MP3s and put them on the phone and IF it could hold 1000 songs, THEN I think Sprint would have something pretty cool.
Actually the phones it runs on have stereo headphones. And I'm pretty sure you get both a mobile download AND a higher quality, CD-burnable desktop download for the $2.50 pricetag.
I carried a music-capable phone for quite some time and it was rather handy. I always had my phone, and I always charged my phone, so it was easy to slip on my earbuds and listen to some tunes when out for a walk, mowing the lawn, whatever. It's really not as bizarre as it first seems. In fact I rather miss it -- I have since changed carriers and their music-capable phones are way too expensive, so now I use my PocketPC as my music player.
We should hire the guys who hid the WMD in Iraq. They know how to make stuff completely disappear!
OK, $2.50 per song is pretty pricey - agreed. But there are already services in the UK (Orange has one) that charge 2 pounds per song (~$3), and they don't even bundle a second version of the track which is downloadable on the desktop.
/. group is most decidedly *NOT* the target market for this product. Think teenagers. Think parents of teenagers who are being badgered to get their little cherubs cells phones and iPods. According to the press release, with a 1GB card you can put 1000 songs into the phone. That capacity is very competitive with an iPod nano or iPod mini. Now of course these teenagers can't buy 1000 songs at $2.50 a pop, but there also seems to be some sort of desktop companion application. Maybe they can use that to convert their MP3s to put them on their phone. If that were the case then Sprint might have something. It certainly would blow away the pathetic iTunes phone which has been so roundly reviled.
I also hasten to say, the
It seems to me that if companies like Google need to hire programmers to work on the "less glamorous" aspects of FOSS applications, that points out a significant weakness in the FOSS development model. This has always been a pet peeve of mine regarding FOSS ... the applications never seem *quite* finished, or *quite* up to real commercial standards. True, many are very good, and true, many "commercial" products are lacking. But when you compare the best commercial products with the best that FOSS has to offer, FOSS always seems to come up short.
... OK, fire away!
Now please let me put on my flame-proof suit before I click "submit".