The suit might have merit if the iPod would not play MP3 files or some other standard format. WMA is not a standard--hell, the "W" stands for "Windows" for crying out loud. Can Microsoft be sued for not supporting "Apple File Protocol" or some other Apple-specific protocol? The 'Windows' bit of it doesn't mean it only runs on Windows. Lots of MP3 devices support WMA, hence the dispute.
Frankly, I find your ignorance of this quite baffling.
Do you have some sources for that? 8K/year? I get that as about $48K/year adjusted for inflation. Of course they're not the millionaire tycoons themselves, but surely the stockholders wouldn't want to trust deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and more to people who weren't highly skilled and thus paid commensurately. Not-really-related-question: Was the economy different enough back then that somebody making $48k/equiv. could, for example, buy a house?
I'm just asking. I'm under the impression that inflation doesn't always coincide with cost of living.
...and wikipedia asserts that a typical nuke plant produces 1 GW of power. So presumably about 100 GW of electrical generation is 20% of our electrical needs. Now I feel bad for making a fart noise when I was asked to save the Clock Tower!
"5. No automatic copyright for photos. There has to be some artistic quality to them." a.) "Artistic quality" cannot be measured in such a way that somebody couldn't cook up some rationale as to an image having some 'artistic quality'.
b.) A challenge over a photographic copyright wouldn't occur unless somebody tried to use one of some value. In that respect, it has some artistic quality by default.
It's possible reality would tell a different tale, but I don't envision this working as described.
Excuse me, the link in the story pointed to the 30GB model. Note that the 160GB model seems to be more expensive. Note that 250GB USB powered hard drives are going for around $150 dollars now. The only thing I can see that the the Archos can do that the Nokia can't is act as a Digital Video Recorder. So, if that's what you want the Device for, then I guess Archos is your choice. If you want an open platform that does play videos, play audio files, browse the internet, do GPS mapping, do spreadsheets, word processing, plotting, book reading, ssh server, ssh client, Internet telephony, games, ect, the Nokia 770 is currently the best choice in the smallest package. Again, if I drop my external hard drive, I can always get another one. Drop your Archos hard drive player 5 times and see how well in operates. I have dropped my Nokia 770 at least 5 times with no ill effects. Your Nokia device cannot hook up to a TV and an external drive will require more power. (Not to mention the added bulk of the whole shebang.) The Archos device is a movie player, the Nokia device gets you part of the way (and for a lot of people, that's probably enough.) there.
"Well, unless it was an operating system problem and not bad data or bad programming, what's the point in mentioning that other than childish bashing?"
I couldn't connect to my webserver last night during a power outage. Incidentally, that server runs on Linux. Giggle giggle snort. My niche with mod points will love that!
Not trying to be flippant here, but I've never heard of this Archos gadget and don't, after a cursory examination, understand why I'd prefer this thing to, say, a Nokia Maemo-based doodad like the N800 or N810? Same screen resolution, wifi, etc - ok, no internal hard drive - and I don't have to jailbreak it to load custom apps.
Why wouldn't I want to support the company not going out of its way to make my life difficult if custom apps were what I were after?
-Isaac That depends on how you view the device. If you're looking for an internet tablet, the Archos is NOT for you. If you're looking for something you could store a huge library of stuff ready to play on your TV, the Archos would wipe the floor with the Nokia device. If the library of videos isn't interesting to you, then it's a non-choice.
"- I was watching a 90 minute video yesterday and the Opera browser gave me an "Out of memory" message about 85 minutes into the show. I'm not sure if higher resolutions or bitrates would fill the memory faster."
This is an off-the-cuff guess, but I imagine what's going on is FLV files get cached as they're downloaded so you can seek through them. If I'm right, you're probably stuck unless there is a way to get Opera to cache to an SD card or USB drive. (Given the nature of the console, that doesn't strike me as very likely. But, I cannot say from personal experience so in that respect it's still 'possible'.)
"Make the dog bark more. Seriously. Get a powerful ultrasonic whistle (electronic) and either play it loudly 24/7, or joyfully engage it automatically at 3 AM daily, and especially weekends, until the dog problem resolves itself..."
I wonder if making the thing whistle only when it barks would do the trick. The idea being to trick the dog into thinking he's emitting that sound. I suggest that because I had a problem with my cat walking across my keyboard. I broke him of this by setting the KB to *Ding!* whenever the keys are pressed. That resolved itself pretty quick. I dunno if this would work on a dog, but cats don't like when their stealthiness is removed. I don't think dogs are as sensitive to that, but I'm thinking if the whistle is annoying or painful for the dog, that might be enough to get him to stop.
Yes. Take just about any service with millions of members and you'll find stories of flakey service at busy times.
"Maybe the Live core group has been replaced by the Windows quality assurance gurus, or maybe they just 'upgraded' the Live service to the same servers they use for Hotmail?"
Maybe it's just a really really tough problem to solve. Or is a real-time nation-wide network for millions of games to play on something only Microsoft could screw up on?
I used Photoshop 5.5 since its release. OS X 10.5 and Apple's move to Intel processors has forced me to upgrade - if it wasn't for that, I'd still be slogging along running Classic on top of OS X. PSCS has added a couple of things I like, but overall most of the bullet-point features are largely unused. I haven't heard anything "bad" about CS3, but I haven't heard anything good, either - this is the first point in favor of NOT ugprading.
There's plenty good about CS3. I dunno if there's anything good enough to make you run out and purchase an upgrade, but it has some nicities. They've upgraded the UI to be a little more low-real-estate friendly. This is a blessing and a curse. It's a curse because if you take advantage of it, you'll have to memorize some icons and do a little more clicking to get to what you want to get to. It's easy to get sucked into fighting with it. But if you work with it instead of against it, there are some okie benefits to it. It's a blessing because the UI is a good deal more dockable, so you don't end up with your palettles blocking your work area. For me, that's great. I hate zooming in only to have the window expand and be blocked by the palettes, making selection or transformations very difficult. I hated it for the first week and now I wish I had CS3 at work instead of CS2. YMMV.
There are a couple of other features that have become indispensible to me between CS and CS3 that I'm not sure the big braggy bullet-point features on the web actually have mentioned. First is the upgrade to the layer selection model. Instead of using the horrible 'linking' system in CS3, you can actually ctrl or shift click layers to add/subtract them from a selection and work on them. This is one of those things that you don't really discover the value of until you're taking it for granted. I wanted to hang myself when I was stuck on PS7 for a few days on a project without that feature.
Smart Objects is the other one. It's funny, I read all about them, watched the videos etc, and still didn't get them until I started fiddling with them myselves. Basically, a smart object takes whatever layers you have selected, and stores it just like a.PSD within a.PSD. Then, when you move them around or clone them or whatever, they are instanced into your project. Non-destructively. This is a lousy explanation so I'll try to paint you a picture here, so to speak:
1. Create a layer of a leaf. 2. Turn that layer into a Smart Object 3. Clone that layer several times around the screen. 4. Go to each of those clones, make them bigger, smaller, roate them, or whatever. 5. Double click on one of the clones. It'll open what appears to be a new Photoshop file containing only the leaf.
6. Modify the leaf... change its color.. add a dropshadow.. do whatever you want. 7. Click save and return to your original image 8. Notice that ALL of the leaves in your scene now reflect that change you made. 9. Go to any of the leaves you rotated or scale and choose transform again. Notice that it remembered where you transformed it? That's because it didn't make the change permenant. That's what I mean by instancing.
I personally like using Smart Objects to work on something that's really high res, but something I'll want to scale down later. Textures are a good example. A lot of the textures I create end up being 512 by 512, but I often work at 2048. Since Smart Objects are non-destructive, I can have that 512 file but keep the original 2048 image around. I also use it if I'm fuzzy on just how small I want to shrink something. This way I don't lose the original.
I'm also a layer pig. I use a ton of layers for a ton of different purposes. CS3 kicks CS's rear pretty solidly in that regard, partly because of the new selection modes I mentioned earlier and partly because of Smart Objects that I sometimes use just for organizational reasons.
To clarify the summary, the biggest issue is not the spying on users; the biggest issue is the deceptive server name
No. The "biggest issue" here comes from the fact that a software vendor has the arrogance to think they have some "right" to use my network connection in an app having no business connecting to the internet in the first place.
The actual address just raises a few red flags, but I'd consider it just as unkosher if they connected directly to "www.adobe.com".
If they want to download some form of legitimate update or additional content, their bloatware can damned well ask for my permission. Otherwise, I consider this no less than theft of service on Adobe's (or whatever company you want to pick, since we tolerate far too many of them doing this crap) part.
Okay, now cue the trolls and apoligists who will quote part of a EULA that not even its own author ever read. I'll throw another rock into the pond, here. CS3 has a auto-update feature for all of the apps in your suite. This isn't a surprise. They made it pretty clear it'll do that and you can easily turn it off. That said, this actually surprises me. I knew all about the apps calling home to find updates, but I don't have the foggiest idea what this data's being used for.
In short: I agree. I use a couple of Adobe apps to work on NDA stuff. I don't/b like finding out that it's calling home with data I don't know what they're going to do with.
If you'd read TFA (and not just its misleading headline), you'd realize that since your friend probably didn't use the Internet to help him flash his neighbor, this law wouldn't apply to him even in NJ. Busted. You're right, I apologize. As you've pointed out, I was dumb enough to run with the sensationalist headline.
If it's one thing that scares me in this world, it's the thought of a justice system that doesn't permit a proper shot at rehabilitation. I am paranoid that the US is headed in that direction, all for fears of what might happen. If you ask me, that's a sure-fire way to land us in a police state.
I heard a story about a guy who was 19 and had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. According to the laws of that state, there was some flexibility there if the age difference was two years or less. The male was like a year and two days older than the female. The judge banged his gavel, and now the kid is a 'sex offender' that has to register. Everyone has heard a similar story, or has a friend of a friend that this happened "personally" to. Problem is, it's all complete bullshit. Show me one credible source that documents someone being labelled as a sex offender for having consentual sex with a younger girlfriend (and before someone bothers quoting statute, yes I am aware that there are laws against such things in most states; I'm asking for a instance where someone has been prosecuted and than placed on a sex offender registry solely for that crime).
Doesn't T-Mobile market a phone that switches to WiFi when WiFi's available? Could a sex offender violate this law simply by making a phone call? Not if he has a decent lawyer, no. I don't think you could convince a judge that placing a call, even if the signal uses an internet connection, is the same as web browsing. That said, though, it would be a bad idea for him to have a Treo or an iPhone.
I'm a proponent for freedom and privacy and all that......but these are convicted sex offenders, not your average joe or script kiddy. I admit I have to agree with the decision, even if it's not reliably enforceable. Please keep in mind the popularity of online chat rooms as far as finding young kids goes, and the use of the internet to spread child porn. Even if it doesn't work perfectly, I can't disagree with it. Please, Think of the children! I can't tell if you're kidding or not, especially after the 'think of the children' line. In case you're not being funny: I have a friend that is a 'sex offender' because he got pissed off at his neighbor and flashed her during an argument. She pressed charges, and now he has to register. What he did was stupid... but kicking him off the net? That's the same level of offense as a brutal rape?! I'm glad we don't live in NJ.
"No one has ever been raped, beaten or contracted a sexually-transmitted disease on the internet."
I think that statement's a little too broad to be taken as true.
That doesn't mean, though, that I disagree with you in spirit. I'm concerned that 'sex offender' is too broad of term for this to really apply. I heard a story about a guy who was 19 and had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. According to the laws of that state, there was some flexibility there if the age difference was two years or less. The male was like a year and two days older than the female. The judge banged his gavel, and now the kid is a 'sex offender' that has to register.
If anybody had asked my opinion, I would have said that this was excessive considering the context. The idea of banning him completely from the internet, in my mind, is ridiculous. Not only would this have the potential to effectively prohibit him from working in an office environment, but as the internet becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, it will become the punishment that continues to keep on punishing. Every year that goes by, his life gets harder.
I don't have a silver bullet for this problem. But I would at least offer the suggestion there should be levels of sex offenders. For example: Somebody convicted of statuatory rape where the age difference is less than 4 years would be a different level than somebody who brutally raped an unwilling person. The person I just described wouldn't be banned from the net, but the sort of person you'd see on "To Catch a Predator" could be.
That suggestion is a bit short-sighted considering my point about the ubiquity of the internet, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, though, nobody (outside of an extreme case) would think of banning a convicted criminal from using a telephone. It won't be long before internet access is just as fundamental to our society.
"EXACTLY. People always comment on how much friendlier Windows is.... I just don't see it. If it was so damn friendly, then why do I still have to keep answering questions about it from my family and friends?... I've been using Linux on my home machine since RedHat 6.1, and the advances it has made on the desktop are nothing short of amazing."
I think you inadvertently hit upon a clue to the answer to your question. You do not have to rewind too many years before every little thing you configured in Linux was done by editing a.CONF file and restarting services. Not newb friendly. I would suggest that it's one of those cases of 'used to be true' and not everybody got the memo. (At least that's my excuse for propogating that rumor a few months ago, something I apologize for.) Sort of like how BSOD jokes still fly around here even though BSOD's nearly went extinct with Win2K.
That said, though, no matter how intuitive a UI is, people are going to ask questions about their computer. It's just human nature. Everybody's afraid of pressing the wrong button. Ubuntu is not immune to this and never will be. (Nor is OSX or Windows or whatever.)
"And regarding the "noob friendliness", this is always put forward with Windows although I keep seeing Windows users that just can't manage to make head from tails from their system..."
On the flip side, you can't throw a rock without hitting 6 Windows users. Help for those users is a lot easier to come by.
"If you wanted to do that couldn't you just buy something like a Kill-A-Watt, and measure it simply like that."
It wouldn't be the same. You can only measure one appliance at a time with that. That would actually be almost entirely useless based on the example I gave. You're right, though, they'd actually have to include that feature. But I can dream, can't I?
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly, I find your ignorance of this quite baffling.
Well, sure, if I were talking about saying pftbtbtb. Instead, I'm saying frppbpbppb. It's a subtle distinction. :)
I'm just asking. I'm under the impression that inflation doesn't always coincide with cost of living.
...and wikipedia asserts that a typical nuke plant produces 1 GW of power. So presumably about 100 GW of electrical generation is 20% of our electrical needs. Now I feel bad for making a fart noise when I was asked to save the Clock Tower!b.) A challenge over a photographic copyright wouldn't occur unless somebody tried to use one of some value. In that respect, it has some artistic quality by default.
It's possible reality would tell a different tale, but I don't envision this working as described.
"Well, unless it was an operating system problem and not bad data or bad programming, what's the point in mentioning that other than childish bashing?"
I couldn't connect to my webserver last night during a power outage. Incidentally, that server runs on Linux. Giggle giggle snort. My niche with mod points will love that!
Why wouldn't I want to support the company not going out of its way to make my life difficult if custom apps were what I were after?
-Isaac That depends on how you view the device. If you're looking for an internet tablet, the Archos is NOT for you. If you're looking for something you could store a huge library of stuff ready to play on your TV, the Archos would wipe the floor with the Nokia device. If the library of videos isn't interesting to you, then it's a non-choice.
"- I was watching a 90 minute video yesterday and the Opera browser gave me an "Out of memory" message about 85 minutes into the show. I'm not sure if higher resolutions or bitrates would fill the memory faster."
This is an off-the-cuff guess, but I imagine what's going on is FLV files get cached as they're downloaded so you can seek through them. If I'm right, you're probably stuck unless there is a way to get Opera to cache to an SD card or USB drive. (Given the nature of the console, that doesn't strike me as very likely. But, I cannot say from personal experience so in that respect it's still 'possible'.)
"Make the dog bark more. Seriously. Get a powerful ultrasonic whistle (electronic) and either play it loudly 24/7, or joyfully engage it automatically at 3 AM daily, and especially weekends, until the dog problem resolves itself..."
I wonder if making the thing whistle only when it barks would do the trick. The idea being to trick the dog into thinking he's emitting that sound. I suggest that because I had a problem with my cat walking across my keyboard. I broke him of this by setting the KB to *Ding!* whenever the keys are pressed. That resolved itself pretty quick. I dunno if this would work on a dog, but cats don't like when their stealthiness is removed. I don't think dogs are as sensitive to that, but I'm thinking if the whistle is annoying or painful for the dog, that might be enough to get him to stop.
"Doesn't this sound just awfully familiar?"
Yes. Take just about any service with millions of members and you'll find stories of flakey service at busy times.
"Maybe the Live core group has been replaced by the Windows quality assurance gurus, or maybe they just 'upgraded' the Live service to the same servers they use for Hotmail?"
Maybe it's just a really really tough problem to solve. Or is a real-time nation-wide network for millions of games to play on something only Microsoft could screw up on?
"Though that could have been from people celebrating Christmas early, it seemed far too early still for that."
If a large demographic of XBOX Live users is 25+, then people home for a couple of weeks from work could have increased traffic dramatically.
I hear that.
I used Photoshop 5.5 since its release. OS X 10.5 and Apple's move to Intel processors has forced me to upgrade - if it wasn't for that, I'd still be slogging along running Classic on top of OS X. PSCS has added a couple of things I like, but overall most of the bullet-point features are largely unused. I haven't heard anything "bad" about CS3, but I haven't heard anything good, either - this is the first point in favor of NOT ugprading.
There's plenty good about CS3. I dunno if there's anything good enough to make you run out and purchase an upgrade, but it has some nicities. They've upgraded the UI to be a little more low-real-estate friendly. This is a blessing and a curse. It's a curse because if you take advantage of it, you'll have to memorize some icons and do a little more clicking to get to what you want to get to. It's easy to get sucked into fighting with it. But if you work with it instead of against it, there are some okie benefits to it. It's a blessing because the UI is a good deal more dockable, so you don't end up with your palettles blocking your work area. For me, that's great. I hate zooming in only to have the window expand and be blocked by the palettes, making selection or transformations very difficult. I hated it for the first week and now I wish I had CS3 at work instead of CS2. YMMV.
.PSD within a .PSD. Then, when you move them around or clone them or whatever, they are instanced into your project. Non-destructively. This is a lousy explanation so I'll try to paint you a picture here, so to speak:
There are a couple of other features that have become indispensible to me between CS and CS3 that I'm not sure the big braggy bullet-point features on the web actually have mentioned. First is the upgrade to the layer selection model. Instead of using the horrible 'linking' system in CS3, you can actually ctrl or shift click layers to add/subtract them from a selection and work on them. This is one of those things that you don't really discover the value of until you're taking it for granted. I wanted to hang myself when I was stuck on PS7 for a few days on a project without that feature.
Smart Objects is the other one. It's funny, I read all about them, watched the videos etc, and still didn't get them until I started fiddling with them myselves. Basically, a smart object takes whatever layers you have selected, and stores it just like a
1. Create a layer of a leaf.
2. Turn that layer into a Smart Object
3. Clone that layer several times around the screen.
4. Go to each of those clones, make them bigger, smaller, roate them, or whatever.
5. Double click on one of the clones. It'll open what appears to be a new Photoshop file containing only the leaf.
6. Modify the leaf... change its color.. add a dropshadow.. do whatever you want.
7. Click save and return to your original image
8. Notice that ALL of the leaves in your scene now reflect that change you made.
9. Go to any of the leaves you rotated or scale and choose transform again. Notice that it remembered where you transformed it? That's because it didn't make the change permenant. That's what I mean by instancing.
I personally like using Smart Objects to work on something that's really high res, but something I'll want to scale down later. Textures are a good example. A lot of the textures I create end up being 512 by 512, but I often work at 2048. Since Smart Objects are non-destructive, I can have that 512 file but keep the original 2048 image around. I also use it if I'm fuzzy on just how small I want to shrink something. This way I don't lose the original.
I'm also a layer pig. I use a ton of layers for a ton of different purposes. CS3 kicks CS's rear pretty solidly in that regard, partly because of the new selection modes I mentioned earlier and partly because of Smart Objects that I sometimes use just for organizational reasons.
I
No. The "biggest issue" here comes from the fact that a software vendor has the arrogance to think they have some
"right" to use my network connection in an app having no business connecting to the internet in the first place.
The actual address just raises a few red flags, but I'd consider it just as unkosher if they connected directly to "www.adobe.com".
If they want to download some form of legitimate update or additional content, their bloatware can damned well ask for
my permission. Otherwise, I consider this no less than theft of service on Adobe's (or whatever company you want
to pick, since we tolerate far too many of them doing this crap) part.
Okay, now cue the trolls and apoligists who will quote part of a EULA that not even its own author ever read. I'll throw another rock into the pond, here. CS3 has a auto-update feature for all of the apps in your suite. This isn't a surprise. They made it pretty clear it'll do that and you can easily turn it off. That said, this actually surprises me. I knew all about the apps calling home to find updates, but I don't have the foggiest idea what this data's being used for.
In short: I agree. I use a couple of Adobe apps to work on NDA stuff. I don't/b like finding out that it's calling home with data I don't know what they're going to do with.
If it's one thing that scares me in this world, it's the thought of a justice system that doesn't permit a proper shot at rehabilitation. I am paranoid that the US is headed in that direction, all for fears of what might happen. If you ask me, that's a sure-fire way to land us in a police state.
And no, random blogs full of hearsay are not credible sources. http://news.opb.org/article/oregonians-perceptions-statutory-rape-may-be-changing/
^^ Here's one. Fortunately, the conviction was overturned.
It happens, man.
Please, Think of the children! I can't tell if you're kidding or not, especially after the 'think of the children' line. In case you're not being funny: I have a friend that is a 'sex offender' because he got pissed off at his neighbor and flashed her during an argument. She pressed charges, and now he has to register. What he did was stupid... but kicking him off the net? That's the same level of offense as a brutal rape?! I'm glad we don't live in NJ.
Porn, porn, porn.
We ALL know where THAT leads...
possibly even to
"No one has ever been raped, beaten or contracted a sexually-transmitted disease on the internet."
I think that statement's a little too broad to be taken as true.
That doesn't mean, though, that I disagree with you in spirit. I'm concerned that 'sex offender' is too broad of term for this to really apply. I heard a story about a guy who was 19 and had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. According to the laws of that state, there was some flexibility there if the age difference was two years or less. The male was like a year and two days older than the female. The judge banged his gavel, and now the kid is a 'sex offender' that has to register.
If anybody had asked my opinion, I would have said that this was excessive considering the context. The idea of banning him completely from the internet, in my mind, is ridiculous. Not only would this have the potential to effectively prohibit him from working in an office environment, but as the internet becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, it will become the punishment that continues to keep on punishing. Every year that goes by, his life gets harder.
I don't have a silver bullet for this problem. But I would at least offer the suggestion there should be levels of sex offenders. For example: Somebody convicted of statuatory rape where the age difference is less than 4 years would be a different level than somebody who brutally raped an unwilling person. The person I just described wouldn't be banned from the net, but the sort of person you'd see on "To Catch a Predator" could be.
That suggestion is a bit short-sighted considering my point about the ubiquity of the internet, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, though, nobody (outside of an extreme case) would think of banning a convicted criminal from using a telephone. It won't be long before internet access is just as fundamental to our society.
"EXACTLY. People always comment on how much friendlier Windows is.... I just don't see it. If it was so damn friendly, then why do I still have to keep answering questions about it from my family and friends? ... I've been using Linux on my home machine since RedHat 6.1, and the advances it has made on the desktop are nothing short of amazing."
.CONF file and restarting services. Not newb friendly. I would suggest that it's one of those cases of 'used to be true' and not everybody got the memo. (At least that's my excuse for propogating that rumor a few months ago, something I apologize for.) Sort of like how BSOD jokes still fly around here even though BSOD's nearly went extinct with Win2K.
I think you inadvertently hit upon a clue to the answer to your question. You do not have to rewind too many years before every little thing you configured in Linux was done by editing a
That said, though, no matter how intuitive a UI is, people are going to ask questions about their computer. It's just human nature. Everybody's afraid of pressing the wrong button. Ubuntu is not immune to this and never will be. (Nor is OSX or Windows or whatever.)
"And regarding the "noob friendliness", this is always put forward with Windows although I keep seeing Windows users that just can't manage to make head from tails from their system..."
On the flip side, you can't throw a rock without hitting 6 Windows users. Help for those users is a lot easier to come by.
"If you wanted to do that couldn't you just buy something like a Kill-A-Watt, and measure it simply like that."
It wouldn't be the same. You can only measure one appliance at a time with that. That would actually be almost entirely useless based on the example I gave. You're right, though, they'd actually have to include that feature. But I can dream, can't I?
... but it was suspended for nearly a decade after the head researcher stepped into the accelerator... and vanished.