That sounds portable. And as such, it sounds like something that is designed to be regularly cranked up and down, and checked and maintained regularly as well. And maintained by a sharp military operation.
It sounds neat, but not like something for the wifi crowd.
Well, you're probably right, for people who aren't that picky in what they admire. Then again, we're talking about linking to an Exchange Server, so I've probably wandered into a thread where I don't belong... heh
Geeks will be the LAST to be assimilated. In fact, we're the only ones with the know-how to know where to ram the screwdriver in to shut the bloody thing down when the time comes.
Geeks are awed by big wirewrap panels, and fast FPGA simulators. Wannas are awed by flashy electronic toys.
Decide what you want to 'standardize' on. I decided to go 'low' and standardized on the Palm III. Now I have three of them and am continuing to shop for them cheap on eBay. The second one was $20 with a dock and a 'full size' folding keyboard, the third one was $5 and just the PDA. Both appear to be almost brand new (i.e. units that somebody bought and just never used). The time to standardize and start buying on eBay is now, they'll probably stop being ultra-cheap eventually. My first PDA was a Handspring Visor Platinum, incidentally (it died) so I scaled 'down' in what I eventually decided was adequate. And I made the mistake of 'upgrading' to the 'latest' Palm a year ago when the Visor died, and ended up with a crummy flimsy 'feature rich' piece of flashy junk with only a few hours of battery life.
The Palm III has 2-3 months of battery life with a pair of disposable AA batteries. Those of you too young to have used that generation of PDA should look back a bit and see if the old-school Palm 3 era devices could suit your needs. They might. You can even hack 68000 assembler and write your own apps if you like.
I bought a new Palm 'Tungsten' device about a year ago. It lasted just beyond the warranty period of 6 months. It really, really sucked having to make sure I charged it at least daily. I've switched back to the Palm III. I own one that gets heavy use, and have bought several more that are almost brand new on eBay for under $20 each (the second one was under $10 including shipping).
They get hundreds of hours of battery life. Weeks and Months of battery life with heavy daily use.
The new Palm stuff is junk by comparison to a Palm III, so long as what you're aiming for is regular old PDA functionality.
A unit integrated with a cellphone is a non-starter for me, a complete non-starter. Did I mention I like the Palm III because it consumes two AAA batterys ever few months? Yep. I'm a cheap kinda guy. And nobody pays me enough money to motivate me to carry a fricking cellphone. I don't know that anybody _could_ pay me enough.
And I have CodeWarrior for PalmOS 3. So I am set up for years of use, and will continue to pick up a few more Palm III devices. I intend to have a fresh one to pull out if one dies 20 years from now.
And I read the great-GP comment as being one where the commenter casually waved his hand and cited examples of things government should automatically be striving to eliminate. The GP commenter called him on it in a thoughtful way. And you're arguing about the semantics.
You're a member of the online subculture. The bulk of American consumers didn't even have Internet connections back then.
It's really just sad and shows ingrown 'echo chamber' tendencies that people in the online community always acclaim the failure of DIVX as representing anything significant about marketing copy-protected media.
It was early, before DVD was mainstream. It was narrowly marketed from only a small number of outlets. People did not 'resoundingly reject it with righteous indignation.'
Would you really buy FLACs, mp3s, or OGGs from random private individuals, and expect them to be legal?
I buy and sell records and CDs all the time. The original media has lasting durable value.
What artists who buy into the DRM scheme are buying into is a disposable market where their works will not be around twenty years from now for anybody to remember. There won't be collectors trafficing in their works, and they'll eventually disappear from history.
There's no 'artifact' for transient all-DRM-protected musical performances. There's nothing that will remain outside big amorphous blobs of data with questionable archiving rights attached. That should be a problem for artists.
It does those things so long as Steven Jobs feels it's worthwhile to maintain an 'authorization/deauthorization' service. I have music recordings on acetate disks that are now close to 100 years old. They still have the same entertainment value today that they originally did.
People who 'tie' themselves to a corporation's DRM scheme are acquiring nothing with long term lasting value.
So your answer is: you'll sell me a cellphone? Do you work at Radio Shack or something? That's what THEY always do if I go in there asking an unrelated question....
When somebody responds with the kind of strong hostile language you have, I know there is something right about what they're attacking.
'Designed for simplicity' is something that nerds, geeks, and hackers have ALWAYS taken as an opportunity for improvement. Be careful of the company you're keeping, if 'simplicity' is a high priority.
Some people will maintain that the ipod firmware is broken by default, by virture of it containing DRM features.
If somebody handed me an Ipod for free (probably the only way I will end up with one) I would spend a decent amount of time looking into alternatives to iTunes to sync it with, and alternative firmware to run on it. I just don't like all-singing, all-dancing solutions from wannabe monopolies like Apple.
"For those thinking about upgrading to either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD when they become available, you may want to think again."
So what's the alternative? What is the High Defintion alternative that is on the horizion that people can purchase instead?
Don't forget that the kind of people with a HD display already are the 'early adopters' who will probably buy both a Blu-Ray and a HD-DVD player.
The alternative is, uh... to watch those Petticoat Junction DVDs they sell at Walgreens for $0.99. Content is King, and the content creators and owners will define the standards.
It presented me with a page with a big blank white screen and nothing on the screen.
I am browsing from a NetBSD machine using a current version of Mozilla.
I have to assume that the web page is supposed to load some sort of Flash animation and/or proprietary mess that I don't have a 'helper' installed to make work.
They expect to IMPRESS people with a home page like that? They think they will get CUSTOMERS that way? Without even providing a 'bail out of the bullshit and take me to the content' link?
It depends a LOT on what said embedded application is intended for.
If your embedded OS goes into a home appliance or some stand-alone application, your experience holds fast. If the application is net connected and world-visible, i.e. the controller in an internet-enabled vending machine, then your experience and opinion is lacking. It is NOT acceptable to 'screw down the lid and forget' about a net connected app, especially if a widely-used OS is embedded. Exploits WILL surface, and maintenance of the system to protect against said expoits WILL be necessary.
Most of the people had no embedded experience, and I had to spend a lot of time redoing things that would have been OK on a general purpose system, but were nightmares under an RTOS.
You just described why Linux can never suffice as an embedded RTOS. Too many 'general purpose' fingers in the code. I have seen this in the past as well.
I've seen USB "power only" hubs available for charging these devices while you're on vacation.
As have I. And most USB hubs that provide any significant amount of power have a provision to plug in auxillary power with a.... get this.... wall wart.
Slashdot Mirror
You're throwing around bold emotional assertions.
Are you sure what you're carrying on about has anything at all to do with science?
That sounds portable. And as such, it sounds like something that is designed to be regularly cranked up and down, and checked and maintained regularly as well. And maintained by a sharp military operation.
It sounds neat, but not like something for the wifi crowd.
will do the job admirably.
Well, you're probably right, for people who aren't that picky in what they admire. Then again, we're talking about linking to an Exchange Server, so I've probably wandered into a thread where I don't belong... heh
Certainly. If you carry a cellphone, you probably don't use the phonebook function in your PDA.
I hope that isn't ALL you use the PDA for. If it is, you only need a cellphone.
Geeks will be the LAST to be assimilated. In fact, we're the only ones with the know-how to know where to ram the screwdriver in to shut the bloody thing down when the time comes.
Geeks are awed by big wirewrap panels, and fast FPGA simulators. Wannas are awed by flashy electronic toys.
Decide what you want to 'standardize' on. I decided to go 'low' and standardized on the Palm III. Now I have three of them and am continuing to shop for them cheap on eBay. The second one was $20 with a dock and a 'full size' folding keyboard, the third one was $5 and just the PDA. Both appear to be almost brand new (i.e. units that somebody bought and just never used). The time to standardize and start buying on eBay is now, they'll probably stop being ultra-cheap eventually. My first PDA was a Handspring Visor Platinum, incidentally (it died) so I scaled 'down' in what I eventually decided was adequate. And I made the mistake of 'upgrading' to the 'latest' Palm a year ago when the Visor died, and ended up with a crummy flimsy 'feature rich' piece of flashy junk with only a few hours of battery life.
The Palm III has 2-3 months of battery life with a pair of disposable AA batteries. Those of you too young to have used that generation of PDA should look back a bit and see if the old-school Palm 3 era devices could suit your needs. They might. You can even hack 68000 assembler and write your own apps if you like.
I bought a new Palm 'Tungsten' device about a year ago. It lasted just beyond the warranty period of 6 months. It really, really sucked having to make sure I charged it at least daily. I've switched back to the Palm III. I own one that gets heavy use, and have bought several more that are almost brand new on eBay for under $20 each (the second one was under $10 including shipping).
They get hundreds of hours of battery life. Weeks and Months of battery life with heavy daily use.
The new Palm stuff is junk by comparison to a Palm III, so long as what you're aiming for is regular old PDA functionality.
A unit integrated with a cellphone is a non-starter for me, a complete non-starter. Did I mention I like the Palm III because it consumes two AAA batterys ever few months? Yep. I'm a cheap kinda guy. And nobody pays me enough money to motivate me to carry a fricking cellphone. I don't know that anybody _could_ pay me enough.
And I have CodeWarrior for PalmOS 3. So I am set up for years of use, and will continue to pick up a few more Palm III devices. I intend to have a fresh one to pull out if one dies 20 years from now.
Which BSD does the Mac laptop run? NetBSD is a good choice, IMHO.
No, I am excited when I find a good deal on a whole tube of MC68HC11A1 processors in the DIP package on eBay for cheap.
The day when all-of-slashdot is enamored by the latest video crap (it's mostly for TeeVee, you see) is a dark day.
chanting magical semantic manipulation
Ummm. Pot. Kettle. Black.
And I read the great-GP comment as being one where the commenter casually waved his hand and cited examples of things government should automatically be striving to eliminate. The GP commenter called him on it in a thoughtful way. And you're arguing about the semantics.
We're all clever.
You're a member of the online subculture. The bulk of American consumers didn't even have Internet connections back then.
It's really just sad and shows ingrown 'echo chamber' tendencies that people in the online community always acclaim the failure of DIVX as representing anything significant about marketing copy-protected media.
It was early, before DVD was mainstream. It was narrowly marketed from only a small number of outlets. People did not 'resoundingly reject it with righteous indignation.'
Carry on, then.
Would you really buy FLACs, mp3s, or OGGs from random private individuals, and expect them to be legal?
I buy and sell records and CDs all the time. The original media has lasting durable value.
What artists who buy into the DRM scheme are buying into is a disposable market where their works will not be around twenty years from now for anybody to remember. There won't be collectors trafficing in their works, and they'll eventually disappear from history.
There's no 'artifact' for transient all-DRM-protected musical performances. There's nothing that will remain outside big amorphous blobs of data with questionable archiving rights attached. That should be a problem for artists.
It does those things so long as Steven Jobs feels it's worthwhile to maintain an 'authorization/deauthorization' service. I have music recordings on acetate disks that are now close to 100 years old. They still have the same entertainment value today that they originally did.
People who 'tie' themselves to a corporation's DRM scheme are acquiring nothing with long term lasting value.
So your answer is: you'll sell me a cellphone? Do you work at Radio Shack or something? That's what THEY always do if I go in there asking an unrelated question....
Wow. This discussion is crowded with people who dodge the question.
When somebody responds with the kind of strong hostile language you have, I know there is something right about what they're attacking.
'Designed for simplicity' is something that nerds, geeks, and hackers have ALWAYS taken as an opportunity for improvement. Be careful of the company you're keeping, if 'simplicity' is a high priority.
Some people will maintain that the ipod firmware is broken by default, by virture of it containing DRM features.
If somebody handed me an Ipod for free (probably the only way I will end up with one) I would spend a decent amount of time looking into alternatives to iTunes to sync it with, and alternative firmware to run on it. I just don't like all-singing, all-dancing solutions from wannabe monopolies like Apple.
You need to answer his question, not dance around the issue of what a 'standard' is.
What non-Apple player can he play AAC files on that he purchased from the iTunes store?
It's a question a lot of us want to have answered.
"For those thinking about upgrading to either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD when they become available, you may want to think again."
So what's the alternative? What is the High Defintion alternative that is on the horizion that people can purchase instead?
Don't forget that the kind of people with a HD display already are the 'early adopters' who will probably buy both a Blu-Ray and a HD-DVD player.
The alternative is, uh... to watch those Petticoat Junction DVDs they sell at Walgreens for $0.99. Content is King, and the content creators and owners will define the standards.
Same as it ever was.
I tried to go to that site.
It presented me with a page with a big blank white screen and nothing on the screen.
I am browsing from a NetBSD machine using a current version of Mozilla.
I have to assume that the web page is supposed to load some sort of Flash animation and/or proprietary mess that I don't have a 'helper' installed to make work.
They expect to IMPRESS people with a home page like that? They think they will get CUSTOMERS that way? Without even providing a 'bail out of the bullshit and take me to the content' link?
It depends a LOT on what said embedded application is intended for.
If your embedded OS goes into a home appliance or some stand-alone application, your experience holds fast. If the application is net connected and world-visible, i.e. the controller in an internet-enabled vending machine, then your experience and opinion is lacking. It is NOT acceptable to 'screw down the lid and forget' about a net connected app, especially if a widely-used OS is embedded. Exploits WILL surface, and maintenance of the system to protect against said expoits WILL be necessary.
Most of the people had no embedded experience, and I had to spend a lot of time redoing things that would have been OK on a general purpose system, but were nightmares under an RTOS.
You just described why Linux can never suffice as an embedded RTOS. Too many 'general purpose' fingers in the code. I have seen this in the past as well.
I've seen USB "power only" hubs available for charging these devices while you're on vacation.
As have I. And most USB hubs that provide any significant amount of power have a provision to plug in auxillary power with a.... get this.... wall wart.
I wouldn't know, based on the 'shortcut help' clippy offers.