Install Linux. I don't know about the influenza virus, but it sure as hell stopped the Code Red Virus
(It was a joke people, lighten up)
In all seriousness, I usually just lightly mist Lysol on a soft t-shirt, and wipe my keyboard down with it. I'm not exactly sure how smart that is, but it has yet to damage anything.
Granted, there are a great many of you who can translate benchmarks into real world performance, but you and I both know that your kind is in the minority. Like 10% of all gamers minority. The rest will either live and die by reviews and benchmarks (with no independant thought of their own)), or acknowledge that there is more to gameplay and performace than benchmarks - and just leave things alone at the acknowledgement.
I fall into that second category, and even I am in the minority.
First of all, I would like to remind everyone that benchmarks are subjective. I know this may come as a shock to you, but just because someone types with perfect grammer, has a pretty banner and a nice website layout that doesn't mean they aren't immune to bias or hyperbole. Even further, sometimes their intentions are honest, but their results just aren't typical
A perfect example of this was the ongoing debate about the 9600GT vs 8800GT vs HD 3870. Go through about 5-6 different reviews and you'll realize that there clearly isn't a winner in the fight, yet some websites won't hesitate to call the HD 3870 inferior, or try to pidgeon hole the Radeon card as being a "better value" - overlooking the fact that it outperformed the NVidia card on some games, while using less power and running cooler. The fact of the matter is all 3 of the cards perform better that the other 2 in at least 1-2 situations, but some people are just plain reluctant claim an ATi card is better than it's NVidia counterpart (due to it having almost the same performace with lower power consumption).
It's all subjective people. Benchmarks have never been an exact science anyways.
(ps: You all aren't kids anymore. Google this stuff for yourself and save me some time. I'm at work too you know:oP)
You have reports of cruelty to animals, and widespread rumors of lab engineered chickens (albeit untrue), and THIS is what you spend your money on? Instead of pointless junk that doesn't serve any purpose other than get your name in the Guinness book of World Records, about you do something useful with the money. You can start by doing research to come up with a type of grease that WON'T kill your customers.
Not to start an argument, but wasn't there an article posted on this very website telling us how OpenSolaris was/is the Linux killer*? So far how has that one panned out? Other F/OSS operating systems never really make it to relevancy because frankly, their hardware support is always years behind that of Linux. That very reason is why I switched (at least for now) from BSD, back to Linux.
*I must note that it funny that they compared OpenSolaris to SUSE - clearly the slowest of the major Linux distros.
(Girlfriend) : Hey honey, what time you plan on being home? (Joe Sixpack): I don't know baby, I'm at Steve's playing cards.
(Enter The Trap)
(Girlfriend) : Oh okay. You didn't tell me that Steve moved. (Joe Sixpack): Oh he didn't. He's still at the same place. (Girlfriend) : Oh okay. Did you see the news last night? I heard there was an earthquake... (Joe Sixpack): Wow... I didn't hear anything about an earthquake honey. (Girlfriend) : Me neither! So how the hell did Steve's apartment move 30 miles West in 24 hours?!! (Joe Homelesss): What do you mean baby? (Girlfriend) : *putting his clothes in a trash bag* Oh nothing dear.
I'm going to hurry to the Sprint store right now before my girlfriend "suprises" me with a new cell phone for Christmas.
With all this focus on the amount of quality lost in the reconversion, people are overlooking the most important issue:
DRM'd music and.wma have mediocre sound quality to begin with.
Being considered good quality on computer speakers or iPod ear buds is one thing; sounding good on $150 audiophile earphones or a dolby digital surround system is another thing entirely. I see this all the time with old Jazz records. You can re-encode with the best software modern science can provide, but it doesn't mean a damn thing if the initial conversion was a crappy one.
You have an addiction (probably crack)
on
Slashdot's Vastu
·
· Score: 1
I don't know anything about the principles of Vastu Shastra but the lady has a point. Slashdot's laziness in revamping their site design and usability is what enabled Digg to completely trump Slashdot's massive head-start and leave it curled up in a ditch, coughing blood.
I don't know what planet you live on, but digg hasn't - and will never - trump slashdot. Even though digg is successful, it has nothing to do with the slashdot's interface. Digg has more of a "leet hacker" feel to it (at least it did for the 6 months I tried it out), and none of those moronic antics would last a minute here on slashdot. You don't have to be a genius here. Hell, you don't even have to be knowledgeable about the topic you're speaking on. But you do have to be well spoken, and digg is too over-ran with teenagers to ever become a major player in the news website game. The only benefit to digg is the speed at which it's updated. Because the stories don't have to pass through the editors, it tends to be more up-to-the-minute than slashdot. However, the drawback is ever more dupes that slashdot, and the occasional mindless drivel that the kids voted to the front page.
I'm sorry, but I left digg months ago, and I haven't looked back.
First of all, "good" or "better" is strictly a matter of preference. I personally prefer the fonts in Linux, but maybe you're looking for some kind of font eye candy that I've never noticed. Most recent distros have good fonts, and SUSE has had them for years now. All distros are capable of having beautiful fonts, some of them just don't configure the settings by default.
Secondly, If you've used a computer for more than 5 minutes, you know screenshots mean absolutely dick. It isn't my job to convince idiots like you. How about you be an adult and try something out for yourself before you go off broadcasting your uninformed opinions.
1) Actually, I run KDE with nVidia drivers installed, and I made it a point to ask people how the fonts look (since it used to be such a big issue with Linux newbies. When asked, numerous Windows users either said they looked nice, or they looked better than Windows.
2) KDE can easily be changed to take us less screen space. If you ever decide to give up your career in trolling and start using computer software, I recommend you try DesktopBSD. By default, they size down the KDE taskbar, making it the same size as Windows XP.
If they ever get things "resolved", then people like you would be crying that they're trying to look too much like Windows.
The problems I encountered with Fedora Core 6 were not huge issues, but there were enough smaller bugs that made me wonder if this release was rushed.
Then the author goes on to the statement:
Since their primary "business" (they are a none profit group) is to write software, particularly stabile operating systems it certainly doesn't reflect postively on them to have their website go down on the day of release.
You mean "rushed" like being in too much of a hurry to proof read your article? It was in the second paragraph sheesh...
As a frequent visitor to slashdot, I can tell you that nothing irritates me more than the dozens of double standards that exist amongst the posters here.
If anyone else would continuously have buggy releases, they would be deemed a crap distro (Mandrake anyone?). Fedora continues to drop half-assed releases, and this same tired "only a test bed" argument keeps coming up - as if Fedora didn't have the same 6 month release cycle that Ubuntu and SUSE had.
My first Linux distro ever was Red Hat, and I can tell you that it's always been hit or miss. It has always been the most inconsistent disro in Linux. Either it works perfectly for this user, or it's a total nightmare for the that user. Broken build systems, favoritism towards GNOME, "enhancements" that resulted in security holes... all of this has been happening for years. Are you going to try to convince me that Red Hat Linux 8.0 was a test bed as well? Since you really want to split hairs, most Linux apps are "unofficial" releases. Does that resolve them from having to function properly?
This is not a test bed. This is Red Hat being Red Hat, and having no incentive because they're faithful following with continue to make excuses for their shortcomings like they always have.
I used the FDA Analogy in reference to their ability to protect the consumer from the disease, just like Microsoft is capable of protecting it's end users from viruses (via security updates, or being more secure by design). Apple blames someone else when they could have caught it in house. That's where I was trying to go with it.
That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard in my life. First of all, at least be consistant. One minute people are outraged and calling for heads for negligent behavior; the next minute it's all the Government's fault, and companies shouldn't be held responsible for quality control. You can't play both sides of the fence. Secondly, you obviously don't have a clue as to what Mad Cow Disease is. The Mad Cow Disease outbreak came from farmers feeding pigs to the cows, because it was cheaper than importing the soybean supplements that didn't grow well in Europe. Here's a quote for you:
The use of meat and bone meal as a protein supplement in cattle feed was widespread in Europe prior to about 1987. Worldwide, Soybean meal is the primary plant-based protein supplement fed to cattle. However, soybeans do not grow well in Europe, so cattle raisers throughout Europe turned to the less expensive animal byproduct feeds as an alternative.
Even ignoring the fact that farmers are directly responsible, it' still insane to blame the FDA. Agencies like the FDA are used as a fail safe - the final safety net to catch problems. The farm that breeds the cows could easily test for illnesses and disease. The slaughter houses or manufacturing plant can catch diseases. McDonald's being the multi-billion corporation that is could easily have the meat inspected when it arrives in the country. The meat passes through all these checkpoints, giving companies like McDonald's several opportunities to catch the problem. Instead, you chose to blame an agency that's responsible for millions of tasks and millions of companies. I really don't see the logic there.
"As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it," Apple said on its site.
That's like MacDonald's importing meat infected with Mad Cow Diease, then blaming the FDA for not catching it.
Apple Vice President Greg Joswiak told CNET News.com that the virus was discovered last week and said the company has been working around the clock since then to discover the root cause of the problem. Joswiak said it was traced to a particular Windows machine in the manufacturing lines of a contract manufacturer that builds the iPods for Apple.
So Apple tells us that Wiindows isn't safe enough for basic home users to run, but they use it on a computer that's responsible for mass producing their products? You can't be serious.
I don't get you people. For a group that proclaims their hate for Microsoft as often as they do, slashdotters swear that Microsoft can kill any application and any company. I'm sorry, but even Microsoft has their limitations.
Microsoft is no match for Adobe Acrobat. I guess you can consider Adobe the iPod equivalent of computer software companies. The measuring stick that all image editors are judged buy isn't Microsoft Paint - it's Adobe Photoshop. As far as document formants are concerned, Acrobat is no different. Adobe Acrobat is the one format that anyone even remotely computer literate is familiar with. My sister who has an office job knows what it is. My 15 year old cousin in high school knows what it is. My 51 year old mother even knows what it is. My barely computer literate brother is even familiar with Adobe Acrobat. Like the iPod, Acrobat is bigger than just a file format - it's the name that we all know and love, and it's one of a few cross platform applications that actually make quality, up-to-date Linux versions. Ask any long time Mac user, and they'll quickly tell you that Adobe was vital to keeping their platform afloat (Photoshop, Go Live).
As a matter of fact, we've seen this all before. Apple released a transportation method that was clearly better than it's competitor (USB), and submitted it to a standards committee. But despite all the advantages of Firewire, people had too many legacy applications and were too familiar with USB to abandon one of the few computer elements they were comfortable with. If you add legacy support to my previous reasons, The Microsoft threat isn't as strong as you would like to tell yourself it is.
As for NVIDIA driver quality, I'd have to disagree. I think ATI is currently better off on the driver front. Look at vista. NVIDIA's drivers only work for 2d and business applications. I can't even run ET or WoW. Day of Defeat Source runs at 30fps with the stock driver and is unplayable with the latest beta driver.
So your comparison is based on beta drivers, running on a beta, unreleased OS. Normally, I'd go on and on about how I've tested NVidia drivers under Windows XP/2000, several Linux distros, and even under BSD and had perform flawlessly. However, under the circumstances of your comparison, I'll just strongly suggest that you rethink your logic.
He probably would, of course. When a tragic event like that happens to a family, most of them would lose objectivity and be filled with regret, remorse, and hatred. That's why we need sane, objective people who have the capacity to see things clearly making these kinds of decisions, instead of bitter, reactionary victims.
I don't recall seeing anyone screaming that during the O.J. Simpson case
You obviously missed the most important statement in his post:
"Most People"
His argument wasn't how some people can get by. He specifically said that PC's were becoming obsolete, and I counted with why I felt it would never happen. It wasn't a personal attack against him; it was just another way to look at things.
When someone tries to speak for the masses, you can't defend them by saying "well he said he didn't do it". If that's the point, then maybe he should just speak for himself.
Yet another common misconception I'd love to see die.
Laptop have major speficification restraints that will never allow them to surpass PC. Heating problems limit what kind of parts you can put in there. Laptops also runs on AC power, which isn't strong enough to power those GeForce 7900 GT's that serious gamers run (usually in SLI mode I might add...) Space limitations restrict space, and pratically eliminate upgradability, making it damn near impossible to have the drive space needed for those who like to make their tivo boxes. More importantly, I can't crack open my laptop and fix/replace parts myself like I can with my desktop.
With laptops, you usually get equal performance (at best), for double the price of what you'd pay for the pc. That alone assures me desktops aren't going anywhere.
I recall way back when Linux was smaller and faster than Windows. Dare I say it's going the other way now?
Nope. You could say that, but it would be completely inaccurate. The problem with Linux is most people confuse with Linux itself with a distro's specific style of Linux.
Case in point: SuSE, RedHat, Mandriva, Ubuntu. Take a vanilla distro like Slackware - it's lightening fast, and it has far fewer security bugs than other distros. Why? Because the distros I mentioned make their own 'enhancements', which quite often end up in security bugs. RedHat was always terrible about this. Then you have SuSE, which although pretty secure, is terribly slow. They make their modifications to the DE which in turn makes KDE noticably slower than on other distros. And that's not to mention the memory leaks in Breezy Badger.
I replaced my Slackware 10.2 with Windows XP on my laptop, and there was a noticible speed difference. Nothing major, but it was noticible. Browse the forums and search distrowatch to find yourself a minimalized Linux distro. You'll be amazed at the speed difference.
The largest capacity microSD card in existance is 2Gb, and it won't be released until late 2006. $250 for the player, and another $45 for the microSD card (and that's just the 1Gb model. I'm at the cost of the iPod already, and still at less than half of the space it takes to hold the 4,500 songs on my iPod.
You know what would really kill the iPod? A better product! iPod has one heck of a marketing campaign, but let's face it that isn't the only reason for it's sucess. I'm a techie just like most of you, and I'm borderline anti-Apple. I been wanting an mp3 player for a while now. After about 18 months of researching it, I went with the iPod for numerous reasons.
1)It has by far the most accesories of any portable player.
2)It's by far the thinnest of any Mp3 player. The closest resemblace to the iPod is the Samsung Z5. The only problem is the 4Gb Z5 isn't much smaller than my 30Gb video iPod.
3)Quality. Before video was a factor, the only serious competitor to iPod was the Creative Zen Sleek. I'm glad I didn't get one. It started out nice, but let's just say it wasn't built for durability. Consumers were posting all over the net (it should still be on CNet and Amazon) about rattling noises. It seems that the earphones jack wasn't soildered properly, and thousands of people where having problems about it comming loose and falling inside the player. That's a great way to steer people away from Apple.
But it wasn't only hardware quality that was in question. The "Plays For Sure" nonsense was wreaking havok, and several people weren't able to install the software on Windows 2000. If that wasn't bad enough, the people that COULD install the player complained about being forced to keep the songs on their harddrive (no manual update like the one present in iTunes).
Now before I hear any of the usual iPod propaganda, let me dispell some of the most common rumors:
1)You do NOT have to purchase music from iTunes. It sounds obvious, but I actually heard a saleman in Radio Shack tell someone that the only way to get music in the iPod was to buy it. You would think he was just trying to sell more pre-paid cards for iTunes, but once I spoke with him, he actually didn't know. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to use iTunes at all.
(Disclaimer: I must warn you that I've heard stories of 3rd party software corrupting iTunes.db. It works fine with everything else, but once iTunes detects the.db file has been edited by a 3rd party, it might not recognize the file anymore.)
2) You do not have to buy QuickTime Pro to import movies. That was true once upon a time, that was changed in iTunes 6.02. However, iTunes is still slow, and neither iTunes or QuickTime can encode muxed videoes with audio, so you're better off using a free alternative.
Let's face it people : The iPod isn't perfect by anyone's standards, but it's the best player on the market by a landslide. If you want to bring Apple's domination of the mp3 market to a halt - give it some decent competition. Creative started now, so hopefully after a few years they'll have all the kinks ironed out. Until then, I can't recommend anything else.
Can anyone even tell me if DDR2 is an official standard yet? Because last I heard, it wasn't - and that was AMD's reason for never supporting it. AFAIK, DDR2 is basically just a rogue project for overclockers. Like anything else designed for overclocking (Motherboards, Graphics Cards), the OC editions are never exact anyways.
Slashdot Mirror
Install Linux. I don't know about the influenza virus, but it sure as hell stopped the Code Red Virus
(It was a joke people, lighten up)
In all seriousness, I usually just lightly mist Lysol on a soft t-shirt, and wipe my keyboard down with it. I'm not exactly sure how smart that is, but it has yet to damage anything.
Then I wasn't talking to you.
Granted, there are a great many of you who can translate benchmarks into real world performance, but you and I both know that your kind is in the minority. Like 10% of all gamers minority. The rest will either live and die by reviews and benchmarks (with no independant thought of their own)), or acknowledge that there is more to gameplay and performace than benchmarks - and just leave things alone at the acknowledgement.
I fall into that second category, and even I am in the minority.
First of all, I would like to remind everyone that benchmarks are subjective. I know this may come as a shock to you, but just because someone types with perfect grammer, has a pretty banner and a nice website layout that doesn't mean they aren't immune to bias or hyperbole. Even further, sometimes their intentions are honest, but their results just aren't typical
:oP)
A perfect example of this was the ongoing debate about the 9600GT vs 8800GT vs HD 3870. Go through about 5-6 different reviews and you'll realize that there clearly isn't a winner in the fight, yet some websites won't hesitate to call the HD 3870 inferior, or try to pidgeon hole the Radeon card as being a "better value" - overlooking the fact that it outperformed the NVidia card on some games, while using less power and running cooler. The fact of the matter is all 3 of the cards perform better that the other 2 in at least 1-2 situations, but some people are just plain reluctant claim an ATi card is better than it's NVidia counterpart (due to it having almost the same performace with lower power consumption).
It's all subjective people. Benchmarks have never been an exact science anyways.
(ps: You all aren't kids anymore. Google this stuff for yourself and save me some time. I'm at work too you know
I haven't seen any nudes, but in the Nativity Scene it looks as if a nipple is almost about to pop out. That's pretty edgy in my opinion.
You have reports of cruelty to animals, and widespread rumors of lab engineered chickens (albeit untrue), and THIS is what you spend your money on? Instead of pointless junk that doesn't serve any purpose other than get your name in the Guinness book of World Records, about you do something useful with the money. You can start by doing research to come up with a type of grease that WON'T kill your customers.
You can't be serious...
What about hardware support?
Not to start an argument, but wasn't there an article posted on this very website telling us how OpenSolaris was/is the Linux killer*? So far how has that one panned out? Other F/OSS operating systems never really make it to relevancy because frankly, their hardware support is always years behind that of Linux. That very reason is why I switched (at least for now) from BSD, back to Linux.
*I must note that it funny that they compared OpenSolaris to SUSE - clearly the slowest of the major Linux distros.
(Girlfriend) : Hey honey, what time you plan on being home?
(Joe Sixpack): I don't know baby, I'm at Steve's playing cards.
(Enter The Trap)
(Girlfriend) : Oh okay. You didn't tell me that Steve moved.
(Joe Sixpack): Oh he didn't. He's still at the same place.
(Girlfriend) : Oh okay. Did you see the news last night? I heard there was an earthquake...
(Joe Sixpack): Wow... I didn't hear anything about an earthquake honey.
(Girlfriend) : Me neither! So how the hell did Steve's apartment move 30 miles West in 24 hours?!!
(Joe Homelesss): What do you mean baby?
(Girlfriend) : *putting his clothes in a trash bag* Oh nothing dear.
I'm going to hurry to the Sprint store right now before my girlfriend "suprises" me with a new cell phone for Christmas.
With all this focus on the amount of quality lost in the reconversion, people are overlooking the most important issue:
.wma have mediocre sound quality to begin with.
DRM'd music and
Being considered good quality on computer speakers or iPod ear buds is one thing; sounding good on $150 audiophile earphones or a dolby digital surround system is another thing entirely. I see this all the time with old Jazz records. You can re-encode with the best software modern science can provide, but it doesn't mean a damn thing if the initial conversion was a crappy one.
I don't know what planet you live on, but digg hasn't - and will never - trump slashdot. Even though digg is successful, it has nothing to do with the slashdot's interface. Digg has more of a "leet hacker" feel to it (at least it did for the 6 months I tried it out), and none of those moronic antics would last a minute here on slashdot. You don't have to be a genius here. Hell, you don't even have to be knowledgeable about the topic you're speaking on. But you do have to be well spoken, and digg is too over-ran with teenagers to ever become a major player in the news website game. The only benefit to digg is the speed at which it's updated. Because the stories don't have to pass through the editors, it tends to be more up-to-the-minute than slashdot. However, the drawback is ever more dupes that slashdot, and the occasional mindless drivel that the kids voted to the front page.
I'm sorry, but I left digg months ago, and I haven't looked back.
You can't be serous.
First of all, "good" or "better" is strictly a matter of preference. I personally prefer the fonts in Linux, but maybe you're looking for some kind of font eye candy that I've never noticed. Most recent distros have good fonts, and SUSE has had them for years now. All distros are capable of having beautiful fonts, some of them just don't configure the settings by default.
Secondly, If you've used a computer for more than 5 minutes, you know screenshots mean absolutely dick. It isn't my job to convince idiots like you. How about you be an adult and try something out for yourself before you go off broadcasting your uninformed opinions.
1) Actually, I run KDE with nVidia drivers installed, and I made it a point to ask people how the fonts look (since it used to be such a big issue with Linux newbies. When asked, numerous Windows users either said they looked nice, or they looked better than Windows.
2) KDE can easily be changed to take us less screen space. If you ever decide to give up your career in trolling and start using computer software, I recommend you try DesktopBSD. By default, they size down the KDE taskbar, making it the same size as Windows XP.
If they ever get things "resolved", then people like you would be crying that they're trying to look too much like Windows.
You mean "rushed" like being in too much of a hurry to proof read your article? It was in the second paragraph sheesh...
As a frequent visitor to slashdot, I can tell you that nothing irritates me more than the dozens of double standards that exist amongst the posters here.
If anyone else would continuously have buggy releases, they would be deemed a crap distro (Mandrake anyone?). Fedora continues to drop half-assed releases, and this same tired "only a test bed" argument keeps coming up - as if Fedora didn't have the same 6 month release cycle that Ubuntu and SUSE had.
My first Linux distro ever was Red Hat, and I can tell you that it's always been hit or miss. It has always been the most inconsistent disro in Linux. Either it works perfectly for this user, or it's a total nightmare for the that user. Broken build systems, favoritism towards GNOME, "enhancements" that resulted in security holes... all of this has been happening for years. Are you going to try to convince me that Red Hat Linux 8.0 was a test bed as well? Since you really want to split hairs, most Linux apps are "unofficial" releases. Does that resolve them from having to function properly?
This is not a test bed. This is Red Hat being Red Hat, and having no incentive because they're faithful following with continue to make excuses for their shortcomings like they always have.
I used the FDA Analogy in reference to their ability to protect the consumer from the disease, just like Microsoft is capable of protecting it's end users from viruses (via security updates, or being more secure by design). Apple blames someone else when they could have caught it in house. That's where I was trying to go with it.
Your analogy was still better though.
Even ignoring the fact that farmers are directly responsible, it' still insane to blame the FDA. Agencies like the FDA are used as a fail safe - the final safety net to catch problems. The farm that breeds the cows could easily test for illnesses and disease. The slaughter houses or manufacturing plant can catch diseases. McDonald's being the multi-billion corporation that is could easily have the meat inspected when it arrives in the country. The meat passes through all these checkpoints, giving companies like McDonald's several opportunities to catch the problem. Instead, you chose to blame an agency that's responsible for millions of tasks and millions of companies. I really don't see the logic there.
That's like MacDonald's importing meat infected with Mad Cow Diease, then blaming the FDA for not catching it.
So Apple tells us that Wiindows isn't safe enough for basic home users to run, but they use it on a computer that's responsible for mass producing their products? You can't be serious.
I don't get you people. For a group that proclaims their hate for Microsoft as often as they do, slashdotters swear that Microsoft can kill any application and any company. I'm sorry, but even Microsoft has their limitations.
Microsoft is no match for Adobe Acrobat. I guess you can consider Adobe the iPod equivalent of computer software companies. The measuring stick that all image editors are judged buy isn't Microsoft Paint - it's Adobe Photoshop. As far as document formants are concerned, Acrobat is no different. Adobe Acrobat is the one format that anyone even remotely computer literate is familiar with. My sister who has an office job knows what it is. My 15 year old cousin in high school knows what it is. My 51 year old mother even knows what it is. My barely computer literate brother is even familiar with Adobe Acrobat. Like the iPod, Acrobat is bigger than just a file format - it's the name that we all know and love, and it's one of a few cross platform applications that actually make quality, up-to-date Linux versions. Ask any long time Mac user, and they'll quickly tell you that Adobe was vital to keeping their platform afloat (Photoshop, Go Live).
As a matter of fact, we've seen this all before. Apple released a transportation method that was clearly better than it's competitor (USB), and submitted it to a standards committee. But despite all the advantages of Firewire, people had too many legacy applications and were too familiar with USB to abandon one of the few computer elements they were comfortable with. If you add legacy support to my previous reasons, The Microsoft threat isn't as strong as you would like to tell yourself it is.
So your comparison is based on beta drivers, running on a beta, unreleased OS. Normally, I'd go on and on about how I've tested NVidia drivers under Windows XP/2000, several Linux distros, and even under BSD and had perform flawlessly. However, under the circumstances of your comparison, I'll just strongly suggest that you rethink your logic.
I don't recall seeing anyone screaming that during the O.J. Simpson case
You obviously missed the most important statement in his post:
"Most People"
His argument wasn't how some people can get by. He specifically said that PC's were becoming obsolete, and I counted with why I felt it would never happen. It wasn't a personal attack against him; it was just another way to look at things.
When someone tries to speak for the masses, you can't defend them by saying "well he said he didn't do it". If that's the point, then maybe he should just speak for himself.
Yet another common misconception I'd love to see die.
Laptop have major speficification restraints that will never allow them to surpass PC. Heating problems limit what kind of parts you can put in there. Laptops also runs on AC power, which isn't strong enough to power those GeForce 7900 GT's that serious gamers run (usually in SLI mode I might add...) Space limitations restrict space, and pratically eliminate upgradability, making it damn near impossible to have the drive space needed for those who like to make their tivo boxes. More importantly, I can't crack open my laptop and fix/replace parts myself like I can with my desktop.
With laptops, you usually get equal performance (at best), for double the price of what you'd pay for the pc. That alone assures me desktops aren't going anywhere.
I recall way back when Linux was smaller and faster than Windows. Dare I say it's going the other way now?
Nope. You could say that, but it would be completely inaccurate. The problem with Linux is most people confuse with Linux itself with a distro's specific style of Linux.
Case in point: SuSE, RedHat, Mandriva, Ubuntu. Take a vanilla distro like Slackware - it's lightening fast, and it has far fewer security bugs than other distros. Why? Because the distros I mentioned make their own 'enhancements', which quite often end up in security bugs. RedHat was always terrible about this. Then you have SuSE, which although pretty secure, is terribly slow. They make their modifications to the DE which in turn makes KDE noticably slower than on other distros. And that's not to mention the memory leaks in Breezy Badger.
I replaced my Slackware 10.2 with Windows XP on my laptop, and there was a noticible speed difference. Nothing major, but it was noticible. Browse the forums and search distrowatch to find yourself a minimalized Linux distro. You'll be amazed at the speed difference.
The largest capacity microSD card in existance is 2Gb, and it won't be released until late 2006. $250 for the player, and another $45 for the microSD card (and that's just the 1Gb model. I'm at the cost of the iPod already, and still at less than half of the space it takes to hold the 4,500 songs on my iPod.
No Thanks.
You know what would really kill the iPod? A better product! iPod has one heck of a marketing campaign, but let's face it that isn't the only reason for it's sucess. I'm a techie just like most of you, and I'm borderline anti-Apple. I been wanting an mp3 player for a while now. After about 18 months of researching it, I went with the iPod for numerous reasons.
.db file has been edited by a 3rd party, it might not recognize the file anymore.)
1)It has by far the most accesories of any portable player.
2)It's by far the thinnest of any Mp3 player. The closest resemblace to the iPod is the Samsung Z5. The only problem is the 4Gb Z5 isn't much smaller than my 30Gb video iPod.
3)Quality. Before video was a factor, the only serious competitor to iPod was the Creative Zen Sleek. I'm glad I didn't get one. It started out nice, but let's just say it wasn't built for durability. Consumers were posting all over the net (it should still be on CNet and Amazon) about rattling noises. It seems that the earphones jack wasn't soildered properly, and thousands of people where having problems about it comming loose and falling inside the player. That's a great way to steer people away from Apple.
But it wasn't only hardware quality that was in question. The "Plays For Sure" nonsense was wreaking havok, and several people weren't able to install the software on Windows 2000. If that wasn't bad enough, the people that COULD install the player complained about being forced to keep the songs on their harddrive (no manual update like the one present in iTunes).
Now before I hear any of the usual iPod propaganda, let me dispell some of the most common rumors:
1)You do NOT have to purchase music from iTunes. It sounds obvious, but I actually heard a saleman in Radio Shack tell someone that the only way to get music in the iPod was to buy it. You would think he was just trying to sell more pre-paid cards for iTunes, but once I spoke with him, he actually didn't know. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to use iTunes at all.
(Disclaimer: I must warn you that I've heard stories of 3rd party software corrupting iTunes.db. It works fine with everything else, but once iTunes detects the
2) You do not have to buy QuickTime Pro to import movies. That was true once upon a time, that was changed in iTunes 6.02. However, iTunes is still slow, and neither iTunes or QuickTime can encode muxed videoes with audio, so you're better off using a free alternative.
3)There is an easy way to get your music back off of your iPod, but it isn't free.
Let's face it people : The iPod isn't perfect by anyone's standards, but it's the best player on the market by a landslide. If you want to bring Apple's domination of the mp3 market to a halt - give it some decent competition. Creative started now, so hopefully after a few years they'll have all the kinks ironed out. Until then, I can't recommend anything else.
Can anyone even tell me if DDR2 is an official standard yet? Because last I heard, it wasn't - and that was AMD's reason for never supporting it. AFAIK, DDR2 is basically just a rogue project for overclockers. Like anything else designed for overclocking (Motherboards, Graphics Cards), the OC editions are never exact anyways.