I've just graduated from Computer Science from a good British university. It was a good university in the rankings and is well known and I worked very hard and achieved a good degree. As a result, I've had a lot of job offers with very good salaries for a fresh graduate position (£30k to £45k) and had to turn down quite a few and pick the one which was most interesting and enjoyable to me. Finding a job hasn't been hard at all. The same applies for the rest of my year and my friends, all had good jobs to go to straight after university.
I did a really interesting course, with a great balance between theory and practice. We have some of the best lecturers in the country and had opportunities to work with a lot of cutting edge research and technologies. You don't have teachers, but researchers and lecturers working on really exciting things and up to date knowledge sharing it with their students. It was very useful and valuable, and quite different from what a CS Major is in the US. We actually study just CS (A-levels and GCSEs cover what Americans generally also cover alongside their Major, which are done at school). What I learnt and did on my course has been invaluable in my job, so it was definitely worthwhile (not to mention really interesting!)
Companies want *good* graduates, not just graduates. As I've ended up doing some recruitment myself in my current position, that comes from experience as well! If you are a good graduate who has worked hard, has a passion and an interest, did a good course and is ready and willing to learn and give their best, you can't find enough of them and they will get good jobs, and indeed they do!
I don't know how much people know about the UK university system, but there a good universities and bad universities. Good universities are top in the rankings, have a good reputation, and are about learning and gaining new knowledge. Bad universities are basically a result of the government pushing everyone into higher education. To go to a good university, you need to work hard at school, get good A-levels and work hard through your course and get an accredited meaningful degree from a university people will know exist. All the rest go to the bad universities (which are more like colleges - polytechnics which werent even previously called universities), require nothing to get in, party and have a good time and get a fairly meaningless degree at the end of it and very little knowledge. There's a big difference here.
Furthermore, CS in the article is grouped as containing all the other related-but-not-really degrees. From experience again, people with IT degrees (completely different to CS - CS is technical, IT is "business thinking") find it hard to find jobs. They can't really become managers as they don't understand what they are trying to manage. They can't go into technical positions as they haven't done it. On the other hand, as a good CS graduate, you have a lot of opportunities in a lot of different areas.
In conclusion, a good graduate from a good university will have no problem at all getting a job. Students from bad universities (ones which recruit, rather than select students) and who do strange courses (e.g. Things like Computer Games offered at some not-so-great universities) or things like IT degrees generally find it a lot harder. Theres some big distinctions here, which the article doesn't fairly represent.
A utility I found a while ago which I absolutely live by these days is WindowTabs, which gives the ability to use tabs in Windows - grouping things however you want, autogrouping by application and other fairly useful features.
It's great when dealing with lots of putty windows, Outlook messages, switching between browser windows, vim windows and so forth.
Just thought I'd post this for anyone else looking for something like this, because I never realised something like this existed, so hopefully it'll help someone:)
I have been thinking the same thing. I dont think I have ever been prompted to upgrade Flash on my current install, and it's quite far out of date. It's a shame Firefox can't use Mozilla's update functionality for updating plugins as well as addons, as then it would be seamless. In fact, I've just tried to find an easy way to upgrade Flash, and it seems the only way is to go back to the website and download it again?
The summary of the story doesn't emphasise the point that the spying test was just a small trial, and that Phorm is actually coming directly to the UK.
3 of the major UK ISPs: Virgin Media, BT and Talk Talk are getting all ready to implement and bring in Phorm. More information and details are available at the useful website BadPhorm: http://www.badphorm.co.uk/
Thousands and thousands of UK users are going to be subject to this inescapable violation of their privacy with little to do about it. There is an opt-out cookie, but this does not prevent the fact that the users browsing still goes through the Phorm servers. Would you be happy with all your internet browsing going through a third party server, let alone one owned by an advertising company that wants to profile you and "see the whole internet" (Reference: http://www.badphorm.co.uk/news.php?item.30.3 ) through your browsing history.
A fast growing petition to the UK government on the governments website is nearing 10000 signatures, and just shows how many people do not want this to happen (Link: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/ )
This may not concern many people in the US, or people on the smaller ISPs in the UK - but the worrying thing is, other ISPs are already saying that they are going to watch the results and see if the ISPs can get away with it - if they can, they will likely pick it up to. And your ISP might do too!
I'm not fully versed of the way the system works in America, but is there nothing like the student loan available in the UK to UK students?
The idea is that most students cant afford to pay the tuition fees, but will get jobs after university, so you can get a student loan from your local education authority which will allow you to go wherever you want and you don't have to worry about costs. The university you can go to is decided by your results and your work, not by how much money you have.
The student loan is a lot more friendly than bank loans in the fact that you don't have to worry about paying it back like a normal loan - just 9% of the your salary over £15,000 goes to pay it back after you start working automatically, and there's no schedule for paying it back. If you do not earn more than £15,000 or are not working, nothing happens, and after 25 years, any remaining debt is cancelled anyway. You don't have to worry about interest, other than inflation, and you don't even need to think about it until after your course and you start working and earning more than £15,000.
This seems to make a lot of sense to me, so surely there is something similar in America, although I haven't been able to find something similar? Either rather unfriendly bank loans that lead to a debt you really dont want to carry around with you, or by being limited to how much you want to pay as to where you can go, which seems a bit painful.
Actually, it is more likely the reason is what BBC state themselves. It's not to do with the license fee, but more to do with the fact that the BBC only have rights agreements to show things in the UK. The same reason us in the UK can't watch programs from American television networks and websites. If the BBC can't get the right to show it outside of the UK, then they can't legally allow people to watch it outside of the UK on its web based service. This is an entirely different issue to that of the license fee.
I'm not one for getting rid of older computers and still make use of my old Windows ME 700Mhz laptop with 56mb of RAM. It runs the latest version of Firefox 2 with around 10 addons (along with history, bookmarks, tabs and the things they want to get rid of) just perfectly and there's not much difference in speed between my 3.2Ghz and 1.5gb RAM desktop and the laptop, which I found quite surprising.
I'm not sure Firefox is quite as bloated or resource intensive as people often claim. How old are we talking about here?
My only disappointment will be that Firefox are dropping Windows 9x/ME support, which I think is a great shame, considering the number of users of Firefox still on those operating systems.
That said, the BBC's website design is not really much different. Plain black text on a white background. No ads, no flashing graphics, and just a small header at the top and side navigation. I find the BBC's site a refreshing change from the majority of news websites which go overboard with flash animations, colours and more adverts than text.
If there was one case when linking to a printable page wasn't necessary in my opinion, it'd be the BBC.
To me, telling them to go elsewhere doesn't seem like a very adequate solution. I don't know about you, but I know I and most of the people I know when we have a large task at hand which requires concentration prefer to be on our own in the quiet able to get on with it and focus, as opposed to being in a room with lots of other students, distractions and noise. Plus, if the internet is cut off in dorms, I am willing to bet a lot of people that go to the libraries and departments afterwards are not going to be going there to do work, thus even more noise, distracctions and perhaps difficulty of getting a computer. Not an ideal environment or solution for working, which is one of the primary focuses of university.
A primary focus, and not the only focus either. When applying to universities, at least in the UK, they make it very clear and important that you are not just going there to study. You are going to be spending a good few years of your life there, and there is more to that than just working. That is why there are clubs, societies, social events and such. If people work hard all day, attend their lectures, do well in their tests, complete their work, why shouldn't they be able to relax a little at the end of it, read up on the news, send an email to their family, talk to their friends not at the same university, play some online games, or even work-related leisure (eg. A CS student working on a project in their free time with relevance to their studies).
Thus, I don't think this is a positive move at all, and will only harm the students, not benefit them.
Interesting reply, although there are some points which have me a little curious
"1) I can copy and backup the files wherever and on whatever I want. It's a simple file, of which I can see the details. To listen to it, the machine has to have been registered with the account you bought it with, and you can register 5 computers. If you have it registered, you can play it as often as you like. Other systems don't give you access to the files, and you can only copy them or move them with a special program the way the manufacturer intended."
Could you give any examples of such systems? I use Windows Media DRMed files with Napster, and they are just simple files too, always have been. And the registration process is the same - you need to register your computer to play them, which is as simple as me typing in my username and password with the service I am using, again, sounds similar. I thought this was pretty much standard, not something just for fairplay - I haven't heard of a system you have described, so I'd be interested if you could point me to one?
"2) I don't "use up" any of the tunes by listening to them, or when burning them to a CD. Some others do."
In the general services which are competitors to itunes, this is also true. True, Windows Media DRM does allow for adding limitations on media, but in some ways, this can be soon as more flexibility. Afterall, if DRM is necessary otherwise you wouldn't be able to get it at all, the same is true here - if they want to release a preview, with this DRM they can do so and you'll get it, wheras if this wasn't available, you wouldn't get it at all - sometimes, as has been the argument for DRM, something is better than nothing.
"3) iTunes will clearly show you which songs have DRM, and which don't. It will let you play unprotected MP3s or AACs that you ripped or got from anywhere without trying to inspect the source or slapping it's own DRM everywhere."
Again, pretty sure this is nothing unique - 'Protected Media' makes it very clear to me what files have DRM and which do not. It's even possible to tell just through windows explorer, without even needing to open it.
"WMA has, I believe, different "levels" of protection"
That is true, and it allows for things such as subscription services - you always are made fully aware of what you are getting. You buy a music file from service X, you know what you can burn it to CDs, listen to it forever etc. You know that if you subscribe to an unlimited package, you can't burn it, and you can only listen to it as long as the subscription lasts. It's not overly confusing and it's always made clear. I for one quite like the subscription model, as it allows me to listen to music I never would have thought of, without having to buy it first, I can just go and pick random peices and enjoy them, if I hear something on the radio I like, I can listen to it later when I get home, and I can try out music properly before deciding if it's something I truly want to purchase.
That isn't to say that I like DRM, quite the opposite, and I would be willing to pay twice as much for unprotected music, but I have to admit that I find Windows Media DRM much more "free and liberal" than fairplay, and the better of two evils, both for the people providing the music (offering subscription unlimited services, for example) and the consumers (more choice on how you play your music, and where you play it and what you play it on - for example, I can listen to the protected music in Windows Media Player, or WinAmp or on my creative zen vision, which I chose, not forced into).
This may be your view, but I'm not sure it's representative of the majority of people, at least those of which I have witnessed here in the UK in public. The majority of consumers I witness with phones use them for a large number of other things - from VNC, to video streaming (such as Orb), games, remote desktop, SSH, instant messaging, IRC and so forth - a phone gives you connectivity wherever you go, and for a lot of people, this means more than simply being able to ring people, but to use this connectivity in other ways.
To compare it to a fridge is just laughable - a phone with third party applications allows you to take advantage of connectivity to achive things you couldn't otherwise, wheras with a fridge this isn't so. If I'm on a train journey and I want to say a quick hello to a friend or family, check my home computer, stream a video from my home computer, in an emergency restart something on my server if something has gone wrong and I'm the only one around, or even to simply play a game that someone has written in their spare time, I can do that - wheras without that connectivity from the phone I could not. The same is not true with a fridge.
I simply fail to see how NOT being able to run third party applications is a good thing, an advantage - you don't have to, but surely having that freedom is good, and being deprived of it when nearly all other phones offer it is not good. Well, I suppose it must be good, you know, if it makes sure a bad application can't "bring down half of cingular's netwok"...
"The only DRM you'll find is in purchases from iTunes, and they have to have that for record companies to play along. It's the fairest, most liberal DRM out there, and if you don't want it on your system, just don't buy from iTunes."
I keep on seeing quotes such as this, and can't help but wonder if I'm failing to see something. Microsoft licenses their DRM so that DRM protected windows media files can be played in different players, different portable devices and other devices, wheras with Apple, you're pretty much tied into Apple products - seems more restrictive to me.
Before I knew better, I made use of Napster (new napster) and purchased a few files and wanted to find a media player that would support it, and I had quite a large amount of choice - more fair and liberal than Apple's DRM, I would say, although this was just my opinion as a consumer - I notably had much more choice and freedom than I would have had I gone with Apple.
Plus, I don't see how you can excuse Apple's DRM because you can burn it to a CD and rip it (which if you have a big music collection wastes a lot of time which doesn't need to be wasted!) and again, this doesn't work for videos, only music. If you're going to say that Apple's DRM is liberal and free because of this, so is most DRM (currently), you can burn to a CD, or rip the output - still unnecessary hassle, but Apple isn't the golden example to free and easy DRM compared to everyone else.
As has already been said - DRM is not about protecting piracy, it's all about control. What is worrying is that Apple being the biggest proponent of DRM and being a company which likes control (other companies too, not just Apple), I fear things can only get worse.
"Most people just don't care about things like who has the superior kernel. People care far more about the parts they see and work with, so that is what I'm going to deal with here."
So immediately, this article is already biased to a "who has the best user interface" because people don't care about the rest of the operating system - I highly disagree, and while most people might not directly care, it still matters. Afterall, the most important parts of the OS are Process management, Memory management, Disk and file systems, Networking, Security, User interface, Device drivers - to only focus on one yet claim that OS X is miles ahead because of it seems a little biased. But even then, is it a fair review?
So lets have a look at what this article boils down to, at the start:
> Messages from the operating system: Windows by default gives you feedback when you do things, wheras Mac OS X doesn't have to because "it just works".
Some people like feedback, I plug in a mouse to a windows PC, and it "just works", just like their mac example, yet it tells me it's installed new hardware. I like the feedback, and if I don't, I can disable it. Some people like feedback, some people don't. If I plug in a stranger hardware device, it's nice to know what Windows had the drivers, rather than me needing to install them. Surely this would only be a flaw if the messages were forced upon you, but the fact you can turn them off and gives you the choice suggests to me it's not really a problem with the operating system.
> User Interface: It is difficult to tell which application is active because buttons are still coloured even when the window is not active. Furthermore, Vista is both consistenty yet not consistent at the same time, wheras Mac OS has great consistency.
I found this quite a long shot, I've never had problems telling windows apart because there is colour in a non-active window. I'm typing this in notepad right now, and firefox is behind me with coloured buttons. The window is darker because it's active, the window behind is lighter - people have been used to that, and I haven't heard of people having problems with it in Vista or Pre-vista. If you don't like the UI, you can change it too, to make it easier to tell the difference, or even to go back to windows classic. As for consistency, I've frequently heard people complain about the lack of consistency on Mac OS X, so I found their reference to it amusing. For example, this article on the 'many facces of Apple's OS X applications' here http://www.robservatory.com/archives/2005/05/17/co nsistency-of-design/ - not to mention the fact that different programs often need different interfaces. Internet explorer does not look like Media Player. iTunes does not look like safari - they're different things alltogether. On Windows, most of the time things are fairly consistent, however, on Mac, you can have 3 or more different interfaces showing at the same time ( eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TigerDesk.png )
Change and renaming: Some things have changed in Vista, for example "My computer" to "Computer"
I would say change is a natural part of the evolution of an operating system. There were lots of changes from OS 9 to OS X, it takes a bit of getting used to at first, but most is done logically, and I wouldn't say it's a significant disadvantage.
> UAC: It doesn't ask for a password, and it's annoying because it isolates the rest of the operating system when it asks, therefore it's bad and it's different.
Ok, it's different but it's not as flawed as they seem to make out - first, it does require a password unless you have the priviledges to not require a password (contrary to what the article would have you believe) - this is an added convenience in the fact that if you're the system admin, you don't want to constantly be putting in the p
Just wanted to pick on a point here which you raised which I'd be interested in learning more about. You comment 'WMP is, of course, a joke.' - "of course", why is that?
I use Windows Media Player 10 and have done for a long time for my music needs. I have Naspter (and subscribe) which integrates perfectly with WMP, I can listen to any music I want to at the click of a button, I can get music inforamtion on music I've both bought from Napster or ripped myself. Windows Media Player has my entire music library stored and handles it well and uses very little CPU or memory usage, I can leave it playing in the background most of the time quite happily. My two problems with it was that it didn't like tracker music files, but thanks to directplay that was easily solved, and that it was big, solved by finding a great skin named Tiny Player which is perfect. I have a pocket PC, a creative zen vision and a GP2X which I use for music/videos, and WMP handles both fine when it comes to automatically or manually handling. Therefore, I would like to challenge your comment that it is a joke - it's easy, it's simple and it works well and even those I know who have relatively little computer knowledge have been able to use it without problem. I find itunes a bit on the bloated side - I much prefer WMP with it's 10mb memory footprint maximised and 4mb footprint minimised - there's not really an excuse for bloaty applications, and this ZDNet article about utorrent in 130kbytes and its superb low memory footprint and resource friendly programming sums up my view quite well - http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=153. Just because computers these days doesn't mean there is good justification for lazy programming and resource hogging which simply wasn't possible in the past.
I'd also like to add that my pocket PC, gp2x and creative zen vision all function great, I get great playback, battery life and features from all of them and have never had any problems.
What I've found to be the best option, is to get rid of the idea of a dedicated Media PC and instead just use my normal PC and a great little and cheap device called a MediaMVP which is both slim and tidy and connects to the network (wireless or wired) and can play pretty much any media located on the computer, which can be in a completely different room, and be used for other things.
Furthermore, you get all the benefit of a media center PC without actually needing one thanks to the software GB-PVR, which is free and runs on windows which provides an interface for the MediaMVP, which is skinnable and you can use plugins to add even more extensibility, from a TV internet browser, VNC, video library and many others.
From this, I get all the benefits of a media center PC and it works really well. The PVR searches the TV guide automatically and records my favourite programs as they come on, organises them into folders based on program and renames them based on episode, then converts them to small but good quality XVID AVI files.
I now have a nice library of all my favourite episodes on the extra 200gb hard drive in my system, I can watch live television, pause, rewind, view the TV guide and enjoy the various plugins, and all without needing an actual media center PC. It's simply another thing tacked on to my main PC, like any other background service. Not only that, but it's also very easy to both setup and use.
Just my opinion, but a slimline MediaMVP thin client, GBPVR server, and an extra hard drive for media works a lot better and comes out a lot cheaper than a media PC, and takes up a lot space too, good for keeping the people that dislike computers or wires in the lounge happy too.
"From reality: It will require Vista. That's all Microsoft needs it to do."
From what I've read, technically it doesn't. I was reading an interesting article in PC Format (UK Magazine) today, and them trying to find out why DX10 will be restricted to Vista - the best answer they were able to come up is that the structure in Vista (eg. usermode rather than kernal mode) is slightly different and therefore it would require modifications to make it work with XP.
In fact, the article states that ATI are working with DirectX 10 under windows XP (with a few modifications to make it fit Vista). So the question is - if they can, and it's obviously possible, why can't we we?
If anyone has a better explanation as to why it's Vista limited, I'd be very interested in hearing it (as would many others, from the impression I've got - even ATI, Nvidia and Microsoft, who PC Format contacted, were unable to provide much of an answer.)
In my opinion, and what has been demonstrated somewhat with the sales of PSP games so far, is that well-written games do not depend on amazing graphics or performance. A well made game, with a good story or plot and a good implementation to go along with that can be much more astounding, and it is this that would possibly slaughter game makers.
With APIs and what is exposed through Linux, such games should be possible. Sure, they may not be as "amazing" as the PSP games due to less direct access or less freedom, but what they could be - is better games.
Plus the fact it'd most likely be possible to port many already existent games which run on Linux, let alone emulators as mentioned above, offering potentially loads of games, both new homebrew, emulation and ported games. For a platform which sells at a loss and depends on UMD movies and game sales, this would be crippling, both to the developers and to Sony.
One only has to look at a platform such as the GP2X to realise this - so far, no commercial games (released), just ports, emulators and homebrew - yet it has a great following, a huge range of free games and is enough to keep many people occupied, even without amazing 3d effects or the latest releases. Endorsing this on a platform such as the PSP, as far as I can see, would slaughter the game makers - it'd be hard to compete with such competition, especially at least, at the rate it's going now (Although it's a personal opinion, I took a look through the PSP games - I found very little which was tempting, original, creative or even mildly appealing - To me, although I admit I may be a bit of an old-fashioned gamer, imprsesive 3D graphics do not make a good game).
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I've just graduated from Computer Science from a good British university. It was a good university in the rankings and is well known and I worked very hard and achieved a good degree. As a result, I've had a lot of job offers with very good salaries for a fresh graduate position (£30k to £45k) and had to turn down quite a few and pick the one which was most interesting and enjoyable to me. Finding a job hasn't been hard at all. The same applies for the rest of my year and my friends, all had good jobs to go to straight after university.
I did a really interesting course, with a great balance between theory and practice. We have some of the best lecturers in the country and had opportunities to work with a lot of cutting edge research and technologies. You don't have teachers, but researchers and lecturers working on really exciting things and up to date knowledge sharing it with their students. It was very useful and valuable, and quite different from what a CS Major is in the US. We actually study just CS (A-levels and GCSEs cover what Americans generally also cover alongside their Major, which are done at school). What I learnt and did on my course has been invaluable in my job, so it was definitely worthwhile (not to mention really interesting!)
Companies want *good* graduates, not just graduates. As I've ended up doing some recruitment myself in my current position, that comes from experience as well! If you are a good graduate who has worked hard, has a passion and an interest, did a good course and is ready and willing to learn and give their best, you can't find enough of them and they will get good jobs, and indeed they do!
I don't know how much people know about the UK university system, but there a good universities and bad universities. Good universities are top in the rankings, have a good reputation, and are about learning and gaining new knowledge. Bad universities are basically a result of the government pushing everyone into higher education. To go to a good university, you need to work hard at school, get good A-levels and work hard through your course and get an accredited meaningful degree from a university people will know exist. All the rest go to the bad universities (which are more like colleges - polytechnics which werent even previously called universities), require nothing to get in, party and have a good time and get a fairly meaningless degree at the end of it and very little knowledge. There's a big difference here.
Furthermore, CS in the article is grouped as containing all the other related-but-not-really degrees. From experience again, people with IT degrees (completely different to CS - CS is technical, IT is "business thinking") find it hard to find jobs. They can't really become managers as they don't understand what they are trying to manage. They can't go into technical positions as they haven't done it. On the other hand, as a good CS graduate, you have a lot of opportunities in a lot of different areas.
In conclusion, a good graduate from a good university will have no problem at all getting a job. Students from bad universities (ones which recruit, rather than select students) and who do strange courses (e.g. Things like Computer Games offered at some not-so-great universities) or things like IT degrees generally find it a lot harder. Theres some big distinctions here, which the article doesn't fairly represent.
A utility I found a while ago which I absolutely live by these days is WindowTabs, which gives the ability to use tabs in Windows - grouping things however you want, autogrouping by application and other fairly useful features.
It's found at http://www.windowtabs.com/
It's great when dealing with lots of putty windows, Outlook messages, switching between browser windows, vim windows and so forth.
Just thought I'd post this for anyone else looking for something like this, because I never realised something like this existed, so hopefully it'll help someone :)
I have been thinking the same thing. I dont think I have ever been prompted to upgrade Flash on my current install, and it's quite far out of date. It's a shame Firefox can't use Mozilla's update functionality for updating plugins as well as addons, as then it would be seamless. In fact, I've just tried to find an easy way to upgrade Flash, and it seems the only way is to go back to the website and download it again?
The summary of the story doesn't emphasise the point that the spying test was just a small trial, and that Phorm is actually coming directly to the UK.
3 of the major UK ISPs: Virgin Media, BT and Talk Talk are getting all ready to implement and bring in Phorm. More information and details are available at the useful website BadPhorm: http://www.badphorm.co.uk/
Thousands and thousands of UK users are going to be subject to this inescapable violation of their privacy with little to do about it. There is an opt-out cookie, but this does not prevent the fact that the users browsing still goes through the Phorm servers. Would you be happy with all your internet browsing going through a third party server, let alone one owned by an advertising company that wants to profile you and "see the whole internet" (Reference: http://www.badphorm.co.uk/news.php?item.30.3 ) through your browsing history.
There is lots of interesting discussion going on about this, particularly at Cable Forum by Virgin Media users, who are going to be thrown into this spying (Link: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33628733-virgin-media-phorm-webwise-adverts-updated.html )
A fast growing petition to the UK government on the governments website is nearing 10000 signatures, and just shows how many people do not want this to happen (Link: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/ )
This may not concern many people in the US, or people on the smaller ISPs in the UK - but the worrying thing is, other ISPs are already saying that they are going to watch the results and see if the ISPs can get away with it - if they can, they will likely pick it up to. And your ISP might do too!
I'm not fully versed of the way the system works in America, but is there nothing like the student loan available in the UK to UK students?
The idea is that most students cant afford to pay the tuition fees, but will get jobs after university, so you can get a student loan from your local education authority which will allow you to go wherever you want and you don't have to worry about costs. The university you can go to is decided by your results and your work, not by how much money you have.
The student loan is a lot more friendly than bank loans in the fact that you don't have to worry about paying it back like a normal loan - just 9% of the your salary over £15,000 goes to pay it back after you start working automatically, and there's no schedule for paying it back. If you do not earn more than £15,000 or are not working, nothing happens, and after 25 years, any remaining debt is cancelled anyway. You don't have to worry about interest, other than inflation, and you don't even need to think about it until after your course and you start working and earning more than £15,000.
This seems to make a lot of sense to me, so surely there is something similar in America, although I haven't been able to find something similar? Either rather unfriendly bank loans that lead to a debt you really dont want to carry around with you, or by being limited to how much you want to pay as to where you can go, which seems a bit painful.
Actually, it is more likely the reason is what BBC state themselves. It's not to do with the license fee, but more to do with the fact that the BBC only have rights agreements to show things in the UK. The same reason us in the UK can't watch programs from American television networks and websites. If the BBC can't get the right to show it outside of the UK, then they can't legally allow people to watch it outside of the UK on its web based service. This is an entirely different issue to that of the license fee.
I'm not one for getting rid of older computers and still make use of my old Windows ME 700Mhz laptop with 56mb of RAM. It runs the latest version of Firefox 2 with around 10 addons (along with history, bookmarks, tabs and the things they want to get rid of) just perfectly and there's not much difference in speed between my 3.2Ghz and 1.5gb RAM desktop and the laptop, which I found quite surprising.
I'm not sure Firefox is quite as bloated or resource intensive as people often claim. How old are we talking about here?
My only disappointment will be that Firefox are dropping Windows 9x/ME support, which I think is a great shame, considering the number of users of Firefox still on those operating systems.
That said, the BBC's website design is not really much different. Plain black text on a white background. No ads, no flashing graphics, and just a small header at the top and side navigation. I find the BBC's site a refreshing change from the majority of news websites which go overboard with flash animations, colours and more adverts than text.
If there was one case when linking to a printable page wasn't necessary in my opinion, it'd be the BBC.
To me, telling them to go elsewhere doesn't seem like a very adequate solution. I don't know about you, but I know I and most of the people I know when we have a large task at hand which requires concentration prefer to be on our own in the quiet able to get on with it and focus, as opposed to being in a room with lots of other students, distractions and noise. Plus, if the internet is cut off in dorms, I am willing to bet a lot of people that go to the libraries and departments afterwards are not going to be going there to do work, thus even more noise, distracctions and perhaps difficulty of getting a computer. Not an ideal environment or solution for working, which is one of the primary focuses of university.
A primary focus, and not the only focus either. When applying to universities, at least in the UK, they make it very clear and important that you are not just going there to study. You are going to be spending a good few years of your life there, and there is more to that than just working. That is why there are clubs, societies, social events and such. If people work hard all day, attend their lectures, do well in their tests, complete their work, why shouldn't they be able to relax a little at the end of it, read up on the news, send an email to their family, talk to their friends not at the same university, play some online games, or even work-related leisure (eg. A CS student working on a project in their free time with relevance to their studies).
Thus, I don't think this is a positive move at all, and will only harm the students, not benefit them.
Interesting reply, although there are some points which have me a little curious
"1) I can copy and backup the files wherever and on whatever I want. It's a simple file, of which I can see the details. To listen to it, the machine has to have been registered with the account you bought it with, and you can register 5 computers. If you have it registered, you can play it as often as you like.
Other systems don't give you access to the files, and you can only copy them or move them with a special program the way the manufacturer intended."
Could you give any examples of such systems? I use Windows Media DRMed files with Napster, and they are just simple files too, always have been. And the registration process is the same - you need to register your computer to play them, which is as simple as me typing in my username and password with the service I am using, again, sounds similar. I thought this was pretty much standard, not something just for fairplay - I haven't heard of a system you have described, so I'd be interested if you could point me to one?
"2) I don't "use up" any of the tunes by listening to them, or when burning them to a CD. Some others do."
In the general services which are competitors to itunes, this is also true. True, Windows Media DRM does allow for adding limitations on media, but in some ways, this can be soon as more flexibility. Afterall, if DRM is necessary otherwise you wouldn't be able to get it at all, the same is true here - if they want to release a preview, with this DRM they can do so and you'll get it, wheras if this wasn't available, you wouldn't get it at all - sometimes, as has been the argument for DRM, something is better than nothing.
"3) iTunes will clearly show you which songs have DRM, and which don't. It will let you play unprotected MP3s or AACs that you ripped or got from anywhere without trying to inspect the source or slapping it's own DRM everywhere."
Again, pretty sure this is nothing unique - 'Protected Media' makes it very clear to me what files have DRM and which do not. It's even possible to tell just through windows explorer, without even needing to open it.
"WMA has, I believe, different "levels" of protection"
That is true, and it allows for things such as subscription services - you always are made fully aware of what you are getting. You buy a music file from service X, you know what you can burn it to CDs, listen to it forever etc. You know that if you subscribe to an unlimited package, you can't burn it, and you can only listen to it as long as the subscription lasts. It's not overly confusing and it's always made clear. I for one quite like the subscription model, as it allows me to listen to music I never would have thought of, without having to buy it first, I can just go and pick random peices and enjoy them, if I hear something on the radio I like, I can listen to it later when I get home, and I can try out music properly before deciding if it's something I truly want to purchase.
That isn't to say that I like DRM, quite the opposite, and I would be willing to pay twice as much for unprotected music, but I have to admit that I find Windows Media DRM much more "free and liberal" than fairplay, and the better of two evils, both for the people providing the music (offering subscription unlimited services, for example) and the consumers (more choice on how you play your music, and where you play it and what you play it on - for example, I can listen to the protected music in Windows Media Player, or WinAmp or on my creative zen vision, which I chose, not forced into).
This may be your view, but I'm not sure it's representative of the majority of people, at least those of which I have witnessed here in the UK in public. The majority of consumers I witness with phones use them for a large number of other things - from VNC, to video streaming (such as Orb), games, remote desktop, SSH, instant messaging, IRC and so forth - a phone gives you connectivity wherever you go, and for a lot of people, this means more than simply being able to ring people, but to use this connectivity in other ways.
To compare it to a fridge is just laughable - a phone with third party applications allows you to take advantage of connectivity to achive things you couldn't otherwise, wheras with a fridge this isn't so. If I'm on a train journey and I want to say a quick hello to a friend or family, check my home computer, stream a video from my home computer, in an emergency restart something on my server if something has gone wrong and I'm the only one around, or even to simply play a game that someone has written in their spare time, I can do that - wheras without that connectivity from the phone I could not. The same is not true with a fridge.
I simply fail to see how NOT being able to run third party applications is a good thing, an advantage - you don't have to, but surely having that freedom is good, and being deprived of it when nearly all other phones offer it is not good. Well, I suppose it must be good, you know, if it makes sure a bad application can't "bring down half of cingular's netwok"...
"The only DRM you'll find is in purchases from iTunes, and they have to have that for record companies to play along. It's the fairest, most liberal DRM out there, and if you don't want it on your system, just don't buy from iTunes."
I keep on seeing quotes such as this, and can't help but wonder if I'm failing to see something. Microsoft licenses their DRM so that DRM protected windows media files can be played in different players, different portable devices and other devices, wheras with Apple, you're pretty much tied into Apple products - seems more restrictive to me.
Before I knew better, I made use of Napster (new napster) and purchased a few files and wanted to find a media player that would support it, and I had quite a large amount of choice - more fair and liberal than Apple's DRM, I would say, although this was just my opinion as a consumer - I notably had much more choice and freedom than I would have had I gone with Apple.
Plus, I don't see how you can excuse Apple's DRM because you can burn it to a CD and rip it (which if you have a big music collection wastes a lot of time which doesn't need to be wasted!) and again, this doesn't work for videos, only music. If you're going to say that Apple's DRM is liberal and free because of this, so is most DRM (currently), you can burn to a CD, or rip the output - still unnecessary hassle, but Apple isn't the golden example to free and easy DRM compared to everyone else.
As has already been said - DRM is not about protecting piracy, it's all about control. What is worrying is that Apple being the biggest proponent of DRM and being a company which likes control (other companies too, not just Apple), I fear things can only get worse.
"Most people just don't care about things like who has the superior kernel. People care far more about the parts they see and work with, so that is what I'm going to deal with here."
So immediately, this article is already biased to a "who has the best user interface" because people don't care about the rest of the operating system - I highly disagree, and while most people might not directly care, it still matters. Afterall, the most important parts of the OS are Process management, Memory management, Disk and file systems, Networking, Security, User interface, Device drivers - to only focus on one yet claim that OS X is miles ahead because of it seems a little biased. But even then, is it a fair review?
So lets have a look at what this article boils down to, at the start:
> Messages from the operating system: Windows by default gives you feedback when you do things, wheras Mac OS X doesn't have to because "it just works".
Some people like feedback, I plug in a mouse to a windows PC, and it "just works", just like their mac example, yet it tells me it's installed new hardware. I like the feedback, and if I don't, I can disable it. Some people like feedback, some people don't. If I plug in a stranger hardware device, it's nice to know what Windows had the drivers, rather than me needing to install them. Surely this would only be a flaw if the messages were forced upon you, but the fact you can turn them off and gives you the choice suggests to me it's not really a problem with the operating system.
> User Interface: It is difficult to tell which application is active because buttons are still coloured even when the window is not active. Furthermore, Vista is both consistenty yet not consistent at the same time, wheras Mac OS has great consistency.
I found this quite a long shot, I've never had problems telling windows apart because there is colour in a non-active window. I'm typing this in notepad right now, and firefox is behind me with coloured buttons. The window is darker because it's active, the window behind is lighter - people have been used to that, and I haven't heard of people having problems with it in Vista or Pre-vista. If you don't like the UI, you can change it too, to make it easier to tell the difference, or even to go back to windows classic. As for consistency, I've frequently heard people complain about the lack of consistency on Mac OS X, so I found their reference to it amusing. For example, this article on the 'many facces of Apple's OS X applications' here http://www.robservatory.com/archives/2005/05/17/co nsistency-of-design/ - not to mention the fact that different programs often need different interfaces. Internet explorer does not look like Media Player. iTunes does not look like safari - they're different things alltogether. On Windows, most of the time things are fairly consistent, however, on Mac, you can have 3 or more different interfaces showing at the same time ( eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TigerDesk.png )
Change and renaming: Some things have changed in Vista, for example "My computer" to "Computer"
I would say change is a natural part of the evolution of an operating system. There were lots of changes from OS 9 to OS X, it takes a bit of getting used to at first, but most is done logically, and I wouldn't say it's a significant disadvantage.
> UAC: It doesn't ask for a password, and it's annoying because it isolates the rest of the operating system when it asks, therefore it's bad and it's different.
Ok, it's different but it's not as flawed as they seem to make out - first, it does require a password unless you have the priviledges to not require a password (contrary to what the article would have you believe) - this is an added convenience in the fact that if you're the system admin, you don't want to constantly be putting in the p
Just wanted to pick on a point here which you raised which I'd be interested in learning more about. You comment 'WMP is, of course, a joke.' - "of course", why is that?
I use Windows Media Player 10 and have done for a long time for my music needs. I have Naspter (and subscribe) which integrates perfectly with WMP, I can listen to any music I want to at the click of a button, I can get music inforamtion on music I've both bought from Napster or ripped myself. Windows Media Player has my entire music library stored and handles it well and uses very little CPU or memory usage, I can leave it playing in the background most of the time quite happily. My two problems with it was that it didn't like tracker music files, but thanks to directplay that was easily solved, and that it was big, solved by finding a great skin named Tiny Player which is perfect. I have a pocket PC, a creative zen vision and a GP2X which I use for music/videos, and WMP handles both fine when it comes to automatically or manually handling. Therefore, I would like to challenge your comment that it is a joke - it's easy, it's simple and it works well and even those I know who have relatively little computer knowledge have been able to use it without problem. I find itunes a bit on the bloated side - I much prefer WMP with it's 10mb memory footprint maximised and 4mb footprint minimised - there's not really an excuse for bloaty applications, and this ZDNet article about utorrent in 130kbytes and its superb low memory footprint and resource friendly programming sums up my view quite well - http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=153. Just because computers these days doesn't mean there is good justification for lazy programming and resource hogging which simply wasn't possible in the past.
I'd also like to add that my pocket PC, gp2x and creative zen vision all function great, I get great playback, battery life and features from all of them and have never had any problems.
What I've found to be the best option, is to get rid of the idea of a dedicated Media PC and instead just use my normal PC and a great little and cheap device called a MediaMVP which is both slim and tidy and connects to the network (wireless or wired) and can play pretty much any media located on the computer, which can be in a completely different room, and be used for other things.
Furthermore, you get all the benefit of a media center PC without actually needing one thanks to the software GB-PVR, which is free and runs on windows which provides an interface for the MediaMVP, which is skinnable and you can use plugins to add even more extensibility, from a TV internet browser, VNC, video library and many others.
From this, I get all the benefits of a media center PC and it works really well. The PVR searches the TV guide automatically and records my favourite programs as they come on, organises them into folders based on program and renames them based on episode, then converts them to small but good quality XVID AVI files.
I now have a nice library of all my favourite episodes on the extra 200gb hard drive in my system, I can watch live television, pause, rewind, view the TV guide and enjoy the various plugins, and all without needing an actual media center PC. It's simply another thing tacked on to my main PC, like any other background service. Not only that, but it's also very easy to both setup and use.
Just my opinion, but a slimline MediaMVP thin client, GBPVR server, and an extra hard drive for media works a lot better and comes out a lot cheaper than a media PC, and takes up a lot space too, good for keeping the people that dislike computers or wires in the lounge happy too.
"From reality: It will require Vista. That's all Microsoft needs it to do."
From what I've read, technically it doesn't. I was reading an interesting article in PC Format (UK Magazine) today, and them trying to find out why DX10 will be restricted to Vista - the best answer they were able to come up is that the structure in Vista (eg. usermode rather than kernal mode) is slightly different and therefore it would require modifications to make it work with XP.
In fact, the article states that ATI are working with DirectX 10 under windows XP (with a few modifications to make it fit Vista). So the question is - if they can, and it's obviously possible, why can't we we?
If anyone has a better explanation as to why it's Vista limited, I'd be very interested in hearing it (as would many others, from the impression I've got - even ATI, Nvidia and Microsoft, who PC Format contacted, were unable to provide much of an answer.)
In my opinion, and what has been demonstrated somewhat with the sales of PSP games so far, is that well-written games do not depend on amazing graphics or performance. A well made game, with a good story or plot and a good implementation to go along with that can be much more astounding, and it is this that would possibly slaughter game makers.
With APIs and what is exposed through Linux, such games should be possible. Sure, they may not be as "amazing" as the PSP games due to less direct access or less freedom, but what they could be - is better games.
Plus the fact it'd most likely be possible to port many already existent games which run on Linux, let alone emulators as mentioned above, offering potentially loads of games, both new homebrew, emulation and ported games. For a platform which sells at a loss and depends on UMD movies and game sales, this would be crippling, both to the developers and to Sony.
One only has to look at a platform such as the GP2X to realise this - so far, no commercial games (released), just ports, emulators and homebrew - yet it has a great following, a huge range of free games and is enough to keep many people occupied, even without amazing 3d effects or the latest releases. Endorsing this on a platform such as the PSP, as far as I can see, would slaughter the game makers - it'd be hard to compete with such competition, especially at least, at the rate it's going now (Although it's a personal opinion, I took a look through the PSP games - I found very little which was tempting, original, creative or even mildly appealing - To me, although I admit I may be a bit of an old-fashioned gamer, imprsesive 3D graphics do not make a good game).