Ever try a clean install on a Dell computer? I would estimate at least 50%, there are extra drivers that must be installed before everything works. Oh, don't have the driver disc with your Dell? Then you'll need another computer, and have to download them from the Dell site, that is, if you can figure which one you'll need.
I've purchased two Dell computers recently, one preloaded with Ubuntu, another with Vista. I've configured both to dual boot. Here's as difficult as it was to do: http://my.opera.com/djfake/blog/
Is it that difficult to add MP3 support to Ubuntu? No. Flash? No. It takes a few commands and a few minutes. Ubuntu 7.04 has come a long way. Sure, it can still go further in terms of usability, and yes, the whole "restricted drivers" is something that prevents it from reaching the masses.
But, call an apple an apple. Dell's Ubuntu machines were not "preinstalled with an OS" the same way an Apple is with Mac OS X or a PC is with Windows whatever.
Walt's definition of an "average computer user" is someone that can operate a toaster. In my experience with sysadmin and helpdesk, "the average user" would enjoy a far better experience with ANY computer, if they took the time to think of it "beyond a toaster". It's really not that difficult, and one great thing about Linux is that it's perfect for learning computing basics.
c
I think it pertinent to point out that CompUSA is going out of business in the US. Obviously, former service managers that hide behind shitty mfg warranties do very little for repeat business...
There are no "left-leaning" governments in the Western sense in Africa. What there is is tribalism! Incredibly malicious rulers. Corruption that makes Chicago seem like daycare. The most extreme swings between haves and have-nots.
It doesn't make sense to apply Western ideaologies to African countries; it's Africa man, and there ain't no middle ground; most people worrying about too much the basics - water, food, shelter - to worry about "rights" and "politics" and all that.
bs. Africa is starving because of corruption. because people are selfish, self-centered and will string their "brother" up to dry in order to get ahead.
The amazing thing about these types of articles is that they accredit the demise of the music industry to p2p downloading, but they don't mention what is perhaps even more detrimental: cd burning. let's face it, p2p is a pain in the ass most of the time. but walk into a microcenter where they sell 100 CD-Rs for less then $10, and guess what - you think those are all to burn pictures of the kiddies? burn baby burn.
The decline of the music industry is really a perfect exercise in economics. Someone oughtta write a book.
1. there are a lot other things to do with your time than listen to music. Like typing on slashdot. 2. downloading supplants the entire distribution system of music. If cds sold for $3.00 they'd sell more units. 3. there are too many cds. This is what started to kill the records industry in the mid '90s. Too many releases, too many discs, too many choices. 4. the "reissue" boom is over. in the mid 90s everything started getting "reissued" to cd. People dumped their vinyl. Go to a used records store. It's hard to find good used vinyl these days. Why? scarcity. it was dumped, it was scarffed and now there's just slim pickins.
I thought I was the only one that liked Vista! In fact, I even went out and bought a new computer with Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed. I had IIS up and running in about 20 minutes (did have to tweak the temp dir), had no problems connecting to my linux server or wife's Powerbook, shared the printer to them as well, installed synctoy, all the usual apps etc.Okay, I didn't connect it to an AD or anything, but it's rock solid. Microsoft did a great job of redesigning the start menu - very functional, and nothing looks better than Aero.
It's the best Windows desktop I've purchased. Now to put my four-year old XP machine on eBay.
Everyone forgets to remember that music is generational. The current generation that's "teens/early twenties" doesn't care about physical delivery of goods. The older generations have moved into the "we buy less now" category and the whole bubble of selling 50s/60s/70s music that everyone originally had on vinyl is now mostly in the used CD bins. So, there's too many CDs, too many artists, too many options to Music. Talk to anyone that owns a decent record shop and they'll tell you - people are dumping their CD collections and vinyl is selling hot. There's too many friggn' CDs and equipment to play them on out there, whereas vinyl is getting scarce. Basic economics applies here.Someone should do a study on the total number of CDs ever pressed. What if used CDs were $3 and new CDs were $6?
And to whomever thinks CDs sound worse than vinyl, needs to get their ears checked. I will agree that there are poorly remastered CDs, and CDs taken from the wrong source. A "properly" recorded and/or (re)mastered CD has far more dynamic range than vinyl. Do a) and b) comparisons between vinyl pressings and remastered CDs. Proof? Get a copy of Manfred Mann's Earth Band's The Good Earth on CD (remastered in the early '90s) and play it against the US vinyl pressing on Warner Bros. The vinyl sounds terrible due to a crapy pressing, then couple it with the surface noise. Any one that has vinyl collection of thousands of records will tell you - most vinyl was cheaply pressed.
Finally, want to here a "new" release that's only on CD and sounds better than vinyl? Check out Opeth's Damnation. What a wonderful recording. Simply sounds stunning.
Here's what my Dell Higher Ed rep had to say a few weeks ago when I tried to order a Dell E520n with Ubuntu:
"After much research, I determined that the Ubuntu versions are not available to higher ed customers for several reasons. As new units, we are not yet able to determine if Canonical can provide the support. Plus, there are production concerns. They are only available to U.S. consumers which means that you would not be able to purchase through the [sic] tax exempt customer number."
I ordered it through the consumer side, and paid the tax.
I've had Ameritech or SBC or ATT DSL for over seven years now. Here's what it costs for May 2007:
Telephone (excluding calls & Call-Waiting): $16.08, DSL Basic:$14.99. Tonight's line test: 1313kps download / 313kps upload. Other than the fact that the DSL charge will go up to $19.99 upon renewal, it's done nothing but get less expensive. My only grip is that on the rare occasion when I have to call customer service, I have to deal with some off-shore help center. I always demand level two support immediately.
Here's what my Dell Higher Ed rep had to say when I tried to order a Dell E520n with Ubuntu:
"After much research, I determined that the Ubuntu versions are not available to higher ed customers for several reasons. As new units, we are not yet able to determine if Canonical can provide the support. Plus, there are production concerns. They are only available to U.S. consumers which means that you would not be able to purchase through the [sic] tax exempt customer number."
So he offered me a quote for the FreeDOS version instead...
To directly quote my Dell HigherEd rep:
"After much research, I determined that the Ubuntu versions are not
available to higher ed customers for several reasons. As new units, we
are not yet able to determine if Canonical can provide the support.
Plus, there are production concerns. They are only available to U.S.
consumers which means that you would not be able to purchase through the
[sic] tax exempt customer number."
Been using http://www.gtkpod.org/ for a few years now with my 4G iPod, now with Fedora Core 6. Works flawlessly, but the dekstop program has weird sorting. You could also use udev rules to back up anything: http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/9311/
People buy PCs because they play computers games, Macs because they want all the software they'll every need...
But who can buy a computer with Linux preinstalled? There's precious little choice for the average user. I mean Linspire at a Microcenter? It's the bottom end, it's sold as cheap.
Once Dell, HP, Gateway, Lenovo et al start offering Linux preloaded (and supported), things will get interesting.
You're absolutely correct! Your average computer user doesn't buy an OS or software first, they buy the computer. And computers come with two OS's installed: Windows & Mac OS X. If Dell ever gets around to selling Ubuntu preloads on consumer computers, that will be the first step in any kind of mass acceptance of Linux. Ubuntu has done a good job of creating an OS that's easy to use, but if the major computer manufacturers offer Linux preloaded AND with some sort of support, then we'll see the numbers. But your average user isn't going to install a new OS on a computer, especially if it works fine for them.
Imagine a highly visible marketing effort like installing Ubuntu kiosks in Starbucks across the country. Probably more effective than a penguin on an Indy race car.
As I said before, we want better quality music (although this 256 nonsense is not it - what about lossless or flac?!) and what Apple wants is their AAC to become the defacto standard over mp3.
Really? Then I guess this is bullshit too:
MacRumors.com reveals a letter circulated by Apple to all producers of content for the iTunes Store, announcing that from May onward they can sell their music at higher quality and free of DRM. Hopefully this opens the doors for labels like Netwerk. This is a big step in the right direction, although it's unclear exactly what Apple means by 'higher quality,' and there is no mention of price changes. (Apple charges $0.30 more per song for DRM-free content from EMI and encodes it at 256K.) Quoting from the letter: 'Many of you have reached out to iTunes to find out how you can make your songs available higher quality and DRM-free," Apple wrote in the communication. "Starting next month, iTunes will begin offering higher-quality, DRM-free music and DRM-free music videos to all customers."
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/30/ 2225246&from=rss
What do you do with an aging format? Try to convince consumers that they need something better, and try to get them to buy the same thing twice. This whole HDVD/BLURAY sounds like another round of DVD-Audio, SACD, HDCD, business. So who's surprised with some low sales figures? The current CD and DVD standards are good enough, and the LCD usually wins.
People are foolish to buy from iTunes. You get half the music, the hassle of DRM and are locked to one hardware device - the iPod.
Now Apple is trying to pawn off higher bit rate AAC as "premium" quality. "Premuim Quality" is lossless - just go buy a CD and rip it yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
I've purchased two Dell computers recently, one preloaded with Ubuntu, another with Vista. I've configured both to dual boot. Here's as difficult as it was to do: http://my.opera.com/djfake/blog/ Is it that difficult to add MP3 support to Ubuntu? No. Flash? No. It takes a few commands and a few minutes. Ubuntu 7.04 has come a long way. Sure, it can still go further in terms of usability, and yes, the whole "restricted drivers" is something that prevents it from reaching the masses. But, call an apple an apple. Dell's Ubuntu machines were not "preinstalled with an OS" the same way an Apple is with Mac OS X or a PC is with Windows whatever.
Walt's definition of an "average computer user" is someone that can operate a toaster. In my experience with sysadmin and helpdesk, "the average user" would enjoy a far better experience with ANY computer, if they took the time to think of it "beyond a toaster". It's really not that difficult, and one great thing about Linux is that it's perfect for learning computing basics. c
this article is bullshit. the whole thing was staged. Now we all know what a killacycle is. Go buy the and ENV http://machinedesign.com/ContentItem/58517/Motorbikerunsonhydrogen.aspx
I think it pertinent to point out that CompUSA is going out of business in the US. Obviously, former service managers that hide behind shitty mfg warranties do very little for repeat business...
There are no "left-leaning" governments in the Western sense in Africa. What there is is tribalism! Incredibly malicious rulers. Corruption that makes Chicago seem like daycare. The most extreme swings between haves and have-nots.
It doesn't make sense to apply Western ideaologies to African countries; it's Africa man, and there ain't no middle ground; most people worrying about too much the basics - water, food, shelter - to worry about "rights" and "politics" and all that.
bs. Africa is starving because of corruption. because people are selfish, self-centered and will string their "brother" up to dry in order to get ahead.
Calvin College most recent headline was Bush as the commencement speaker. Maybe Jesus helped build this supercomputer (sic)?
The amazing thing about these types of articles is that they accredit the demise of the music industry to p2p downloading, but they don't mention what is perhaps even more detrimental: cd burning. let's face it, p2p is a pain in the ass most of the time. but walk into a microcenter where they sell 100 CD-Rs for less then $10, and guess what - you think those are all to burn pictures of the kiddies? burn baby burn.
The decline of the music industry is really a perfect exercise in economics. Someone oughtta write a book.
1. there are a lot other things to do with your time than listen to music. Like typing on slashdot.
2. downloading supplants the entire distribution system of music. If cds sold for $3.00 they'd sell more units.
3. there are too many cds. This is what started to kill the records industry in the mid '90s. Too many releases, too many discs, too many choices.
4. the "reissue" boom is over. in the mid 90s everything started getting "reissued" to cd. People dumped their vinyl. Go to a used records store. It's hard to find good used vinyl these days. Why? scarcity. it was dumped, it was scarffed and now there's just slim pickins.
enough. thanks
I thought I was the only one that liked Vista! In fact, I even went out and bought a new computer with Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed. I had IIS up and running in about 20 minutes (did have to tweak the temp dir), had no problems connecting to my linux server or wife's Powerbook, shared the printer to them as well, installed synctoy, all the usual apps etc.Okay, I didn't connect it to an AD or anything, but it's rock solid. Microsoft did a great job of redesigning the start menu - very functional, and nothing looks better than Aero.
It's the best Windows desktop I've purchased. Now to put my four-year old XP machine on eBay.
And to whomever thinks CDs sound worse than vinyl, needs to get their ears checked. I will agree that there are poorly remastered CDs, and CDs taken from the wrong source. A "properly" recorded and/or (re)mastered CD has far more dynamic range than vinyl. Do a) and b) comparisons between vinyl pressings and remastered CDs. Proof? Get a copy of Manfred Mann's Earth Band's The Good Earth on CD (remastered in the early '90s) and play it against the US vinyl pressing on Warner Bros. The vinyl sounds terrible due to a crapy pressing, then couple it with the surface noise. Any one that has vinyl collection of thousands of records will tell you - most vinyl was cheaply pressed.
Finally, want to here a "new" release that's only on CD and sounds better than vinyl? Check out Opeth's Damnation. What a wonderful recording. Simply sounds stunning.
Here's what my Dell Higher Ed rep had to say a few weeks ago when I tried to order a Dell E520n with Ubuntu: "After much research, I determined that the Ubuntu versions are not available to higher ed customers for several reasons. As new units, we are not yet able to determine if Canonical can provide the support. Plus, there are production concerns. They are only available to U.S. consumers which means that you would not be able to purchase through the [sic] tax exempt customer number." I ordered it through the consumer side, and paid the tax.
Total taxes for the billing period were $2.95, fees were $1.25 and included in my total.
I've had Ameritech or SBC or ATT DSL for over seven years now. Here's what it costs for May 2007: Telephone (excluding calls & Call-Waiting): $16.08, DSL Basic:$14.99. Tonight's line test: 1313kps download / 313kps upload. Other than the fact that the DSL charge will go up to $19.99 upon renewal, it's done nothing but get less expensive. My only grip is that on the rare occasion when I have to call customer service, I have to deal with some off-shore help center. I always demand level two support immediately.
"After much research, I determined that the Ubuntu versions are not available to higher ed customers for several reasons. As new units, we are not yet able to determine if Canonical can provide the support. Plus, there are production concerns. They are only available to U.S. consumers which means that you would not be able to purchase through the [sic] tax exempt customer number."
So he offered me a quote for the FreeDOS version instead...
To directly quote my Dell HigherEd rep: "After much research, I determined that the Ubuntu versions are not available to higher ed customers for several reasons. As new units, we are not yet able to determine if Canonical can provide the support. Plus, there are production concerns. They are only available to U.S. consumers which means that you would not be able to purchase through the [sic] tax exempt customer number."
Been using http://www.gtkpod.org/ for a few years now with my 4G iPod, now with Fedora Core 6. Works flawlessly, but the dekstop program has weird sorting. You could also use udev rules to back up anything: http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/9311/
But who can buy a computer with Linux preinstalled? There's precious little choice for the average user. I mean Linspire at a Microcenter? It's the bottom end, it's sold as cheap.
Once Dell, HP, Gateway, Lenovo et al start offering Linux preloaded (and supported), things will get interesting.
You're absolutely correct! Your average computer user doesn't buy an OS or software first, they buy the computer. And computers come with two OS's installed: Windows & Mac OS X. If Dell ever gets around to selling Ubuntu preloads on consumer computers, that will be the first step in any kind of mass acceptance of Linux. Ubuntu has done a good job of creating an OS that's easy to use, but if the major computer manufacturers offer Linux preloaded AND with some sort of support, then we'll see the numbers. But your average user isn't going to install a new OS on a computer, especially if it works fine for them. Imagine a highly visible marketing effort like installing Ubuntu kiosks in Starbucks across the country. Probably more effective than a penguin on an Indy race car.
Slide 7 states: "One ton of computer scrap contains more gold than 17 tons of gold ore." Now how does that work?
As I said before, we want better quality music (although this 256 nonsense is not it - what about lossless or flac?!) and what Apple wants is their AAC to become the defacto standard over mp3.
Really? Then I guess this is bullshit too: MacRumors.com reveals a letter circulated by Apple to all producers of content for the iTunes Store, announcing that from May onward they can sell their music at higher quality and free of DRM. Hopefully this opens the doors for labels like Netwerk. This is a big step in the right direction, although it's unclear exactly what Apple means by 'higher quality,' and there is no mention of price changes. (Apple charges $0.30 more per song for DRM-free content from EMI and encodes it at 256K.) Quoting from the letter: 'Many of you have reached out to iTunes to find out how you can make your songs available higher quality and DRM-free," Apple wrote in the communication. "Starting next month, iTunes will begin offering higher-quality, DRM-free music and DRM-free music videos to all customers." http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/30/ 2225246&from=rss
What Apple really wants is their AAC to be the standard for compressed music. What people really want is uncompressed music.
It's nowhere as long as you think. Maybe a month at most...
What do you do with an aging format? Try to convince consumers that they need something better, and try to get them to buy the same thing twice. This whole HDVD/BLURAY sounds like another round of DVD-Audio, SACD, HDCD, business. So who's surprised with some low sales figures? The current CD and DVD standards are good enough, and the LCD usually wins.
AAC m4a files can be played anywhere, yes. Copy protected m4p files? Let's not even start talking about converting them to mp3 (lossy to lossy)...
People are foolish to buy from iTunes. You get half the music, the hassle of DRM and are locked to one hardware device - the iPod. Now Apple is trying to pawn off higher bit rate AAC as "premium" quality. "Premuim Quality" is lossless - just go buy a CD and rip it yourself.