(the 5.5gen ipod was a little weak in the upgrade features)
A little weak... A little weak? Seriously, it should have been a 5.01gen iPod. When I upgraded my iPod to the newest version of the firmware I got all of the features of the 5.5gen and it looks exactly the same. The only thing I didn't get was the slightly brighter screen but since I keep my current iPod at half levels I don't think a brighter screen would have done me any good. Seriously... They weren't even trying.
That said, competition is very good for all of us. But it's best when competitors have products that continually out do each other. Once we actually do have an iPod killer, then we'll actually get to see some very unique products as they duel for 1st place.
Well... considering the 360 has sold 12 million units after one year and the Wii is at 4.8 Million sold currently, I'd say that the Xbox360 does indeed have a lead in actual user base. Not to say that the Wii isn't currently dominating sales, but the Xbox isn't just sitting with 0 sales. It's selling plenty and saying it's a failure isn't warranted.
If everyone who didn't want to see ads blocked them, then the ads that were seen would have more value because they would be seen by people who wanted to see them. Pushing an ad on someone who doesn't want to see it is, what, going to suddenly make that person buy something?
First of all just because it has more value to the advertiser doesn't mean that the advertiser is going to give more money to the website. Remember it's the advertiser who is selling something not the website.
Unfortunately there are many kinds of payment conventions when it comes to online advertising. Some are paid per click, some per view.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising#Pa yment_conventionsIf you view an ad from the former then that ad definitely has value when displayed on your PC, and you are harming them. And when I mean them I am referring the website owners not the advertisers, which are of course different.
If I want to see/here about a company, I will seek them out.
Heaven forbid they don't take your word for it. What if they have a product never before seen on this planet. How exactly do you plan for them to make it known that they have something good for you to buy. They have to not only show you what it is but they have, but how it's going to revolutionize the way you live. And it would too, as long as you knew about it.
Unless you keep track of everything(and who has the time), sometimes ads can do some good as well as bad. I'm not saying that ads are the best thing in the world since a lot of advertisers get very annoying for very bad products but it'd be worse if you didn't get to see any new product that was coming out.
From what I can see MPEG-4 Simple Profile is going to be supported, not Advanced Simple Profile that xvid uses.
This update seems to be more for those who already have Mpeg4 compliant dvd players since those people encode for the lowest common denominator and don't turn on things like GMC when encoding.
I would say this is looking for conspiracies when it's not really there. But I agree that this quote
According to the company's specifications, the Apple TV can play HD video with a resolution of 1,280 by 720 pixels, but it doesn't actually seem that well suited to it. The hard drive is small, and the low power consumption speaks of weak processors inside. And since Apple's standard-definition video looks so bad, I'm not confident the HD video will look good either.
Doesn't belong at all in the article. It's not definitive in any way.
But the premise is on the money and I wouldn't call him a shill for it. Both the XBox360 and the AppleTV have very good HiDef interfaces(the AppleTV a bit better). But if you actually get content from the respective content sources (Live or iTunes), you'll see a major difference. I would say that a huge portion of people don't have their own HD sources to put on the AppleTV or a 360 but bought either one looking to the sources available to them to fill their gap.
In his other words, AppleTV looks fantastic and has a great HiDef interface, but the content sucks monkey balls, so why is this out in the first place? Live downloads look FANTASTIC on a device where these things are a secondary function. The 360 is growing up real fast in the face of AppleTV when it comes down to getting one of the devices because you don't have an HD source.
I'm actually running it on a mostly stock black Macbook. That means a 2Ghz Core2Duo and 1GB of ram. It only depends on what you want to do with it do you really need 2GB. I do video encoding, web browsing, programming and basic office stuff on mine and it's always been fine. I try not to do all that at the same time though. I suggest that if you do end up needing more than 1GB don't buy it from whereever you get your computer from. I can get a 1GB stick of ram from Newegg for $50-60 for my notebook.
Vista isn't slower, except when it is? A three year old can spot that level of logical fallacy. How old are you?
Maybe a three year old would have caught that I said that not everything was slower. Jeez. Reread the sentences before commenting please. Using the word "everything" is a little like using a loaded shotgun. You're gonna shoot down things you didn't mean to shoot.
And I'm gonna reiterate myself. Most things are quicker to the naked eye. Not everything. If you do major video editing or encoding you'll be a few frames per second slower. But loading the programs and the the way the programs react will be quicker
Really? Cause I haven't seen anything of the sort of everything is slower. In fact everything that isn't related to a single program doing hardcore processing is faster. Searching is way faster, cutting losses from failed network events is faster, and most importantly for me, when you are heavily taxing ram/virtual ram each window respond faster(as if you weren't doing heavy duty work). But if you aren't talking about individual programs being slower, then yes some programs are slower to do cpu intensive tasks. Not by too much... at least for me. I'll take the other improvements any day as trade for a few frames per second on my video encode. It just feels better to me. But then again I gave it a chance before dismissing it outright.
The real reason x86 won't go away any time soon is that MS has decided that's the only thing it's going to support,...
... for now
You have to remember that Microsoft didn't always just do x86. From Wikipedia:
Windows NT 3.1 was released for Intel x86 PC compatible, DEC Alpha, and ARC-compliant MIPS platforms.
AND
Windows NT 4.0 was the last major release to support Alpha, MIPS, or PowerPC,...
They stopped supporting the other platforms because there wasn't enough users to warrant keeping those branches alive. But it doesn't mean that if a new popular platform were to come out Windows would stay out of it.
But I think the point of the GP post was that in order for it to be effective each side has to be able to sit down and say that the other side has good implementation and use it. If they don't they're just butting heads duplicating what one side probably has a superior implementation. It's not evolving if nobody picks a new or better solution to a problem one team is having while the other had it solved several generations ago.
You know I used to be of the DRM sucks why pay for it crowd. This move is brilliant and makes me more willing to spend money on the tracks... However, I will not be doing it through the wondercrap that is iTunes. Sorry bout that. I know a lot of people like it and what not, it's just really not for me. About 90% of my music files are encoded in Vorbis and Apple support in that area is lacking. Plus I'm just not into that interface of theirs. But if their was a way to get at the iTunes store without it, I'm probably sure that I'd buy a few tracks.
I always thought that the real performance gain from the Dyson's weren't always their tremendous sucking power(although some claim to have that ability.) It's that they don't lose their suction over time. So it's current ranking of "very good" stays good for 10 years. If you bought a "better performing" vacuum you'd lose the suction over time meaning that in the same 10 year period you'd need to buy 2-4 vacuums losing that monetary advantage.
I much prefer the Windows "Classic" desktop, the only thing missing from it is a proper dual pane file manager...
I know this might not what you want but it can help. If you just want two panes of seperate directories just open 2 explorer windows(Win+E works good). Select the windows you want to have paned in the task bar using CTRL. Right click and then click on "Tile Horizontally"... voila 2 panes of different folders. The benefit is that you can even more "Panes" like 3 or 4. You still don't get the easily accessible commands under each window(I dunno, I've never used those other file managers) but the keyboard shortcuts have been easy enough to use.
I can see *ABSOLUTELY NO NEED* for 3D file explorers on 3D desktops unless you simply want a fashion accessory just to show off to friends.
It's not about having 3d desktops in Windows. It's about compositing the desktop and file explorer windows in a 3d accelerator. Which does enhance the productivity. But while their at it, they have the full power of a 3d accelerator already at their beck and call, might as well do some fancy tricks to make it a bit prettier. It doesn't cost the processor anything so there isn't much wasted cpu time to hamper the experience.
1) Nobody said anything about Windows. Why are Linux users so unable to let Linux stand on its own? You never see Mac users constantly comparing everything about OS X to Windows, instead they judge OS X on its own merits and criticize it for its own failings.
This is of course user preference as I find both the unit and interface beautiful. And the unit's faceplate is configurable for more personal style. Honestly I find Apples stuff both good looking, but trite. Seriously if all your friends have one, what makes one any more yours compared to anyone elses?
I would assume that the reason slobs would be more productive is that they have to use more of their brain keeping track of what they need is in what place. Keeping things neat would only mean that your brain gets lazy and your brain would want to keep that laziness state. Giving it things to do constantly would make it want to constantly working state.
Yeah... it has no place messing around with C:\Documents and Settings,/Users or/home, if and only if it was a normal OS upgrade(such as going from OSX 10.2 to 10.4). Vista isn't just an upgrade to XP(ie. its not like it's SP3 or something.) Since it is a new operating system, and does it's user directory differently(it's in/Users) then it's gotta move the old directory to someplace where it's understandable that that is where all the old stuff is. And since moving files on a drive both simple and non destructible, this is a fairly safe process.
In a slightly different note... First I heard people on the/. say "there is no visual difference in Firefox 2 compared to Firefox 1.5. Why the hell would I upgrade?" And then I hear "there is too much visual difference in IE7 compared to IE6. Why the hell would I upgrade?" Holy crap my ear bleeds from all this whining. Seriously.
Really basic users wouldn't even bother thinking about it. Vista's advertisements haven't been that hardcore and I wouldn't think that anyone fitting this category would give it another thought. Those that are a little computer literate would not look at all the different versions. There is Vista Home Basic and Home Premium... Both aptly named and immediately comfortable to pick out of the crowd. You're not going to find 50 versions of Vista at Walmart.
As for actually using Vista... It has been great for me and most programs should work(they do for me), but if you are used to using certain programs just make sure they should work under Vista before upgrading.
Gah it's like I have to say this every single time... I DON'T care who did it first. As long as the functionality is there in the system I am currently using. And since it does work as well as Archive and Install(look on other posts for the FUD destruction) this system works just fine.
Slashdot Mirror
That said, competition is very good for all of us. But it's best when competitors have products that continually out do each other. Once we actually do have an iPod killer, then we'll actually get to see some very unique products as they duel for 1st place.
Well... considering the 360 has sold 12 million units after one year and the Wii is at 4.8 Million sold currently, I'd say that the Xbox360 does indeed have a lead in actual user base. Not to say that the Wii isn't currently dominating sales, but the Xbox isn't just sitting with 0 sales. It's selling plenty and saying it's a failure isn't warranted.
Unfortunately there are many kinds of payment conventions when it comes to online advertising. Some are paid per click, some per view. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising#P
Unless you keep track of everything(and who has the time), sometimes ads can do some good as well as bad. I'm not saying that ads are the best thing in the world since a lot of advertisers get very annoying for very bad products but it'd be worse if you didn't get to see any new product that was coming out.
From what I can see MPEG-4 Simple Profile is going to be supported, not Advanced Simple Profile that xvid uses.
This update seems to be more for those who already have Mpeg4 compliant dvd players since those people encode for the lowest common denominator and don't turn on things like GMC when encoding.
But the premise is on the money and I wouldn't call him a shill for it. Both the XBox360 and the AppleTV have very good HiDef interfaces(the AppleTV a bit better). But if you actually get content from the respective content sources (Live or iTunes), you'll see a major difference. I would say that a huge portion of people don't have their own HD sources to put on the AppleTV or a 360 but bought either one looking to the sources available to them to fill their gap.
In his other words, AppleTV looks fantastic and has a great HiDef interface, but the content sucks monkey balls, so why is this out in the first place? Live downloads look FANTASTIC on a device where these things are a secondary function. The 360 is growing up real fast in the face of AppleTV when it comes down to getting one of the devices because you don't have an HD source.
I'm actually running it on a mostly stock black Macbook. That means a 2Ghz Core2Duo and 1GB of ram. It only depends on what you want to do with it do you really need 2GB. I do video encoding, web browsing, programming and basic office stuff on mine and it's always been fine. I try not to do all that at the same time though. I suggest that if you do end up needing more than 1GB don't buy it from whereever you get your computer from. I can get a 1GB stick of ram from Newegg for $50-60 for my notebook.
And I'm gonna reiterate myself. Most things are quicker to the naked eye. Not everything. If you do major video editing or encoding you'll be a few frames per second slower. But loading the programs and the the way the programs react will be quicker
Really? Cause I haven't seen anything of the sort of everything is slower. In fact everything that isn't related to a single program doing hardcore processing is faster. Searching is way faster, cutting losses from failed network events is faster, and most importantly for me, when you are heavily taxing ram/virtual ram each window respond faster(as if you weren't doing heavy duty work). But if you aren't talking about individual programs being slower, then yes some programs are slower to do cpu intensive tasks. Not by too much... at least for me. I'll take the other improvements any day as trade for a few frames per second on my video encode. It just feels better to me. But then again I gave it a chance before dismissing it outright.
Ah, but why wouldn't you want toilet paper. Yes I'm talking to you other cultures.
You have to remember that Microsoft didn't always just do x86. From Wikipedia: AND They stopped supporting the other platforms because there wasn't enough users to warrant keeping those branches alive. But it doesn't mean that if a new popular platform were to come out Windows would stay out of it.
But I think the point of the GP post was that in order for it to be effective each side has to be able to sit down and say that the other side has good implementation and use it. If they don't they're just butting heads duplicating what one side probably has a superior implementation. It's not evolving if nobody picks a new or better solution to a problem one team is having while the other had it solved several generations ago.
I did 1337 times just to make sure. Hey it could have been an easter egg...
You know I used to be of the DRM sucks why pay for it crowd. This move is brilliant and makes me more willing to spend money on the tracks... However, I will not be doing it through the wondercrap that is iTunes. Sorry bout that. I know a lot of people like it and what not, it's just really not for me. About 90% of my music files are encoded in Vorbis and Apple support in that area is lacking. Plus I'm just not into that interface of theirs. But if their was a way to get at the iTunes store without it, I'm probably sure that I'd buy a few tracks.
I always thought that the real performance gain from the Dyson's weren't always their tremendous sucking power(although some claim to have that ability.) It's that they don't lose their suction over time. So it's current ranking of "very good" stays good for 10 years. If you bought a "better performing" vacuum you'd lose the suction over time meaning that in the same 10 year period you'd need to buy 2-4 vacuums losing that monetary advantage.
I know this might not what you want but it can help. If you just want two panes of seperate directories just open 2 explorer windows(Win+E works good). Select the windows you want to have paned in the task bar using CTRL. Right click and then click on "Tile Horizontally"... voila 2 panes of different folders. The benefit is that you can even more "Panes" like 3 or 4. You still don't get the easily accessible commands under each window(I dunno, I've never used those other file managers) but the keyboard shortcuts have been easy enough to use.
It's not about having 3d desktops in Windows. It's about compositing the desktop and file explorer windows in a 3d accelerator. Which does enhance the productivity. But while their at it, they have the full power of a 3d accelerator already at their beck and call, might as well do some fancy tricks to make it a bit prettier. It doesn't cost the processor anything so there isn't much wasted cpu time to hamper the experience.
ROFL. Seriously on the floor...
Or they can use the $500 to prevent them from being harassed... even when they didn't do any sort of pirating.
This is of course user preference as I find both the unit and interface beautiful. And the unit's faceplate is configurable for more personal style. Honestly I find Apples stuff both good looking, but trite. Seriously if all your friends have one, what makes one any more yours compared to anyone elses?
isn't open source. Damn it. Someone get to work on that so that all my dreams can come true.
I would assume that the reason slobs would be more productive is that they have to use more of their brain keeping track of what they need is in what place. Keeping things neat would only mean that your brain gets lazy and your brain would want to keep that laziness state. Giving it things to do constantly would make it want to constantly working state.
Yeah... it has no place messing around with C:\Documents and Settings, /Users or /home, if and only if it was a normal OS upgrade(such as going from OSX 10.2 to 10.4). Vista isn't just an upgrade to XP(ie. its not like it's SP3 or something.) Since it is a new operating system, and does it's user directory differently(it's in /Users) then it's gotta move the old directory to someplace where it's understandable that that is where all the old stuff is. And since moving files on a drive both simple and non destructible, this is a fairly safe process.
In a slightly different note... First I heard people on the /. say "there is no visual difference in Firefox 2 compared to Firefox 1.5. Why the hell would I upgrade?" And then I hear "there is too much visual difference in IE7 compared to IE6. Why the hell would I upgrade?" Holy crap my ear bleeds from all this whining. Seriously.
Really basic users wouldn't even bother thinking about it. Vista's advertisements haven't been that hardcore and I wouldn't think that anyone fitting this category would give it another thought. Those that are a little computer literate would not look at all the different versions. There is Vista Home Basic and Home Premium... Both aptly named and immediately comfortable to pick out of the crowd. You're not going to find 50 versions of Vista at Walmart.
As for actually using Vista... It has been great for me and most programs should work(they do for me), but if you are used to using certain programs just make sure they should work under Vista before upgrading.
Gah it's like I have to say this every single time... I DON'T care who did it first. As long as the functionality is there in the system I am currently using. And since it does work as well as Archive and Install(look on other posts for the FUD destruction) this system works just fine.