I highly disagree. So far, it seems that the fastest and most commercially available form of long-term storage technology right now is the hard drive. Flash media is up and coming, but the write operation for these devices are horrifically slow for any sort of hard disk replacement. The closest new breakthrough that will "replace" the hard disk is a "hybrid" hard disk, which is still a hard disk anyway.
If I were a stock investor, however, I would definitely put my money on these new RAM technologies coming up, as they do look promising for the years ahead.
A regular corporate IT department does not need to worry about installing the Palm Desktop Conduit. This was a problem in the past where Palm devices did not have cellular coverage and needed some base to communicate. Today, many people who do use Palm OS devices own a Treo 650 or later, which support the Good Messaging Platform, which delivers the same functionality as the Blackberry Enterprise Server without the vendor lock-in.
As I said before, the only people that will have a specific need for the software will be those that have Palm devices that cannot connect to any networks, and IT departments usually take care of this by disallowing such devices (except for very selective circumstances, which are very easy to solve anyway).
Another thing; why is anyone making arguments against corporate use of the iPhone in the first place? This phone was meant for personal use! I can understand that unaware Microsoft shills want to use baseless claims against the product, but this is quite asinine. If Apple wanted to compete with the Blackberry, I doubt that it would get this much press anyway (think about it: how much press has the Blackberry 8800 been getting outside of the corporate circle?).
Other than that, this article is very, very good. However, I'm getting quite tired of the iPhone speculation, since we will not truly see the (social/economical/corporate) effects of the phone until many months after its first production run. As for me, I'll stick with my trusty Treo 650 until it breaks, and then I'll get a Treo 700 to match it!
I agree very much with this statement. Maybe 3G is not so popular in the United States (we are diverting much of our bandwidth focus to the home computer, not mobile devices), 3G is becoming the de facto standard in Europe and Asia. It has been shown statistically that a lot of Internet activity coming from Europe alone was from mobile devices, and most, if not all, of the European mobile carriers have upgraded to 3G for this specific purpose.
I highly think that releasing any phone without this capability (or something just as lucrative) in that region is a bad idea. Then again, Apple can get surprisingly creative when it comes to their products, and anything with this amount of hype is due for some surprise.
In the United States, there are only four major cellular phone providers. There are alternatives, but most of them are off-shoots of the already well established Big Four.
Of course HUGE and MONOPOLISTIC mobile providers are going to be able to eliminate the younger and smaller competition out of market, ESPECIALLY if it heavily threatens their profitability.
Why do you think that it has taken forever for a mobile phone manufacturer to include some kind of Skype-enabled consumer phone? It has been shown that mobile providers are not willing to allow even the smallest cracks of "the different" to enter the surface.
Plus, even if this company were to get some kind of an edge on T-Mobile/Deutsch Telekom, they have a MUCH LARGER budget for developing new solutions to trumph current IP implementations, as well as reasons why IP mobile does not work right now.
In short, I think it will be a while before we start seeing IP-based mobile networks on the rise, and chances are that those networks will come from the big players before anything (at least in the US, anyway).
I really hope that this case doesn't get taken to the heights of Microsoft's anti-trust suits did because it's really not worth it...
Mac OS X includes desktop-wide search functions. I am not sure as to how difficult they are to "turn off," but it comes with the OS to provide ease of use for the user instead of having to find third-party utilities to do the same job as Windows users of the past have had to.
Now, Microsoft decides to include desktop searching functions as well. If I am not mistaken, these functions can be turned off, but that does not matter. Google is then planning to sue Microsoft for unfair competition because their Desktop Search Application is no longer useful?
If Google's primary argument in this case is that the integrated desktop search is too difficult to turn off, they better have pretty good lawyesr that can establish a clear and persuasive definition of what it means to "turn off" something. I'm pretty sure that if Google truly wanted to, they could establish an option within their own program (or set a default option) to turn off the Windows searching mechanism. There are also plenty of instructions that could be written to turn off the searching ability. I could go on with this, but the point here is that this main argument is a weak one that will get them nowhere even before the gavel hits the desk.
Google has a ton of applications that are universally useful; why must they target something that MIcrosoft finally got right?
I wasn't elaborate enough on my questions, but thanks for the response.
The issue that has really been getting on my nerves everytime I use a Linux installation is that every new release promises some sort of leap of easiness, when it really falls short every time. It's kind of like that "Designed for Windows XP" issue, except in reverse. My laptop stumbles on a Linux installation. Video driver installation can take HOURS to get right (and nothing close to the usability present on a Windows installation). Wireless never works right because the drivers are not open-source (to elaborate, the closest I have gotten to a working wireless module was in Ubuntu, but I had constant dropouts on a VPN-backed non-secure connection).
However, my laptop works extremely well in any version of Windows thrown at it. Not to mention that I can get 2 hours of extra battery life out of it on Windows because Linux cannot properly call the power management commands on anything (wireless, video card, you name it)...
I'm not trying to start a spec competition here. I'm just saying that another Linux distribution always flashes something ultra new and theoretically kind of competitive, but (for me) always fails to please. That and the article written here doesn't live up to the/. title.
Read the article, and as a user pretty familiar with the Linux world, this is what I have to say:
Mass FUD
Every time these articles come out, I cringe in reading them. Everytime I look for something insightful and new, I just keep getting more irrelevant information.
Have not played with the newest Ubuntu release, but a couple of questions come to mind:
1. Does it come with NATIVE codec support, or do I still have to spend some time looking for these?
2. How are the video drivers looking? How well can it pick up a, say, workstation-level ATI Mobility card? (last time I tried, this was the massive point of failure, and wasted time)
3. How's the support for the Intel Centrino Wireless chipset (the new ones, too)?
4. Any new news on usability? Features (any)? I don't care about 3D graphics on my desktop that much...
I ask these questions because the release immediately before this one was a terrible experience for me. No native wireless, no native codec support, bad video support, on and on and on...I know the experience is great for some, but Windows (XP, so far) is good for almost ALL PC configurations (post 1998, at least).
This article discusses the obvious points about any Linux distribution that has fairly decent GUI support. I'm still waiting for the article that REALLY shows a genuine advantage to choose Linux over my Windows Vista installation that will not have me spending days on configuration...
Of course this was to happen! Microsoft showed its investors and key manufacturers that the OS release will be on par to its Windows 95 explosion, which everyone knew was not going to be the case. Times Square ads, articles, and lots of other forms of attention only brought a weak demand in the market. Windows XP was good enough, and consequential events like these show that.
However, I'm pretty sure that, as the article points out, this falling trend will reverse itself when back-to-school season starts and people need to
upgrade their old machines to keep them running or up-to-date.
While that might be true, I personally would be willing to speculate that many people in those fields would have at least had some formal training on how to use TeX/LaTeX or some Equation Editing software, at least for the sake of completing a thesis.
One of my professors, who is a mathematician in academia, is not the most computer-savvy, but is using some distribution of Linux and knows how to write documents in TeX fairly well.
This kind of argument is much like English major students not knowing how to use a computer by default. It is somewhat discriminative.
Apple's install base tends to have more of a clue then Windows users and Linux boys can at the very least ID when their infected or comprimised.
What?
If you are talking about the population that uses Apple Mac products, then I think you are HIGHLY misinformed. The main reason why many of them made the switch is PRECISELY BECAUSE of their inadequate knowledge on how to protect their Windows PC from viruses, spyware, etc. Many experienced power users who run Windows (XP, at least) software have NO protection and can still have great security provided strictly by the OS. Are all of those configured BY DEFAULT? Of course not, which is a major reason for the "need" of AV/spyware products.
And Linux users? Apple users know more than MOST Linux users who are usually MORE proficient in terms of security configurations and the like?
I can almost bet that if a major virus, trojan, or hard-hitting malware were to infect OS X-based operating systems, and if it were as conspicuous as their Windows counterparts, then I assure you that the "base" knowledge (or lack thereof) would manifest itself.
I just hope that this little xPDA actually handles different languages better than their current implementation in Palm OS...
Just for kicks, I tried to find a Japanese language pack for my Palm, only to find out that to allow Japanese characters to be shown, a special extension must be installed on the system that runs the risk of BREAKING any Western language! I need to find the page that details this information.
If it cannot do that, then I would much rather stick to the fully-capable laptop that I have now.
Plus, I think people get PDAs because they are MUCH smaller than their current laptops. I'm not sure if the market is really looking into sub-portable sized PDAs for a change. Even if they were, one can get full PDA functionality on their phone now (smartphones, anyway), so to plan the next meeting is as simple as digging into your pocket, not your backpack.
Then again, great criticism is [almost] anyways the paved road before a great product.
I don't think it's that so many people are unaware more than that so many people need a reason to NOT buy an iPod.
I gave up that trend about half a year ago and have never been happier. Even though the iPod interfact isn't as smart as, say, my old Creative Zen Micro, it works ultra-reliably and is nice to have. It's not too big, not too flashy, and works exactly the way I want it to work. I even have alternatives with the iPod interace (Rockbox), which cannot be said of Creative.
I have also never downloaded a song from iTunes, yet I am at full capacity with my player and use Winamp for everything...
If you haven't tried the device, I strongly recommend that you give it a try. Go to Best-Buy. Pick one up. If you don't like it, return before 30 days. No risk, no loss.
This article shows that even Ph.D's can make stupid mistakes.
A lot of these stories are FAR from censored. As a matter of fact, I highly remember reading about them and using them in my debate tournaments in high school, such as the oceans bit and the Congo genocide. As a matter of fact, if one looks hard enough, he or she may even be able to find MOUNDS of news wire articles on these same stories. If you can afford it (or your school has a subscription) Lexis-Nexis is a great place to start.
These news articles are not "censored" in the true sense of the word. They are "censored" to a public that A) does not want to see the reality of our government's inner-business or B) does not care to hear about issues like these. When you have stories of Ann Nicole's death and Paris Hilton's prison time making Page 1 of many news outlets, then it comes to show where the true censorship is applied.
Speaking of which, when did people actually start caring about the Darfur initiative? Do these people know how ineffective and problematic UN peacekeepers have been? US-based armies and peacekeepers have been causing all sorts of chaos since the inception of the program...
Actually, I have heard otherwise. I have heard from home-schooled adults that there exists programs that unite home-schooled children in a very similar manner, such as home-schooled choirs (some of which who outrank their public or private school ilk). Furthermore, there are many home-schooled children and teenagers that are able to go to top-level schools and participate in many school functions, mostly in a normal manner.
However, the only issue that I have with the home-schooled movement is that many people do it for religious reasons rather than scholastic reasons (please see the following Wikipedia entry on this. ), which can lead to other forms of indoctrination (more like prozletyzing) that I do not fully support, even as a Christian believer myself.
Your point is true, but with iPods, it's basically impossible to control any music flow without using the device, unless you have a remote control, which I did not see any of with the sample I took. For many people here charged up on the Zune, the difference between the champion and the competitor should be blatant.
I think I even saw more Sandisk devices than I did Zunes. I would say that if I grouped all of the 'other' MP3 players that I saw, that total would be greater than the Zune-carrying total. Once again, refer to eBay or Amazon to confirm this, as those sales seem to agree with my conjecture.
After the Zune was released, I decided to go counting how many people would actually buy it. My target was where my internship was: New York. This would be a fairly easy time killer; many New York commuters have some sort of MP3 player, so it shouldn't be too hard to at least get a raw estimate and ballpark a real-world value from there.
Since it's release, I only counted TWO people who had a Zune. TWO. Out of the HUNDREDS of people that I have seen while commuting every weekday to work, and out of the HUNDREDS of iPods (various generations) I have seen on those commuters, I have only seen TWO people carry a Zune. Furthermore, I have yet to really see a Zune make Page 1 of your advertisements. It's usually pretty deeply hidden, unlike its competitor.
Another interesting place to confirm this is eBay. If I had to ballpark a value for the average price of a Zune there, I would have to say it was somewhere around the upper $210-lower $220 range. Check here. However, the average price of iPods is noticeably higher. Check here.
In short, I think that this iDumpster, while it might surface as a joke, is just to remind the Zune developers that they have quite a bit of work to do before they even expect to see people actually flocking to this device. This is just my honest opinion.
It is not that City-wide Wi-Fi doesn't work or there is no tech powerful enough to run it; it's just poor implementation and, more importantly, poor advertisement.
For one, rural and suburban municipal Wi-Fi would be a much better implementation because some of these cities are still on the lower-end of personal internet connections (think low-speed DSL...). Running a Wi-Fi network with its network connection coming from an area with a much faster internet connection or a satellite-capable connection could possibly happen...
Also, I live in a fairly popular city in the United States. I believe we have city-wide Wireless internet, but I have not heard a WORD from our city's government (either that or it was taken down). Plus, another poster mentioned a good point that there is just too much cross-talk; I could be in a cafe with Wi-fi enabled, but it will not be that advantageous with the SEVENTEEN other wireless networks that are in the air...
I think this is a case where 802.11a might hold a candle. But that's just me, and maybe it's not right either;-)
Of course these coupons don't have an expirey date because there is no such a thing! On the flipside, I think you just developed a new adjective. Imagine:
Er.. the capacity of the iPhone is what, 4 gigs? Maybe 8 if you splurge? I have twice that much on my iPod, and my music collection is nothing compared to what my friends have. That wide screen is an invitation to fill it up with video, but with the iPhone's limited capacity, you can only hold enough video for one or two plane trips.
This is what I was trying to get at. This is the mentality that most of us who are well aware of other options will take; we have a good phone (that could double as a music player if we want), the iPod is good, the camera is good; why do I need an iPhone? If everyone had that mentality already, Apple would not have even dreamed of attempting to enter such a fierce area of competition (it's not like anyone can make a cell phone and wait for the money, you know!) If most people were more cautious about the medium capacity of the player, you could be sure that either we would definitely not have 30 GB iPods being popular right now or it would have been another company getting the limelight (Creative, anyone?).
This is not what the public thinks of their devices. For one, most cell-phone music players are bad. Very bad. For example, the Digital Audio Player application on most Motorola phones has innate trouble finding MP3s correctly! It does not support any recognizable folder hierarchy structure, and it also has that utterly imbecile 100 song cap. If there was anyone that could spark the fire for mobile entertainment, it could have been Motorola. They had all of the tools, and they already had the niche market, but they still blew it. I still have yet to see them release anything somewhat impressive other than their RAZR derivatives (exception goes to the RAZR Linux phone, however).
The only possible and marginal exception to this would be Verizon's solution, but I cannot comment on something I do not know (can it even play non-DRM'ed audio files?) Secondly, how easy is it to get a decently encoded MPEG or AVI on your phone with a 2.2" display AT MOST and probably using some in-house, proprietary software, if any?
The iPod resolves this problem for the people I am talking about. It's an iPod that makes calls. Or it's a phone that has an iPod. Either way, it would still be an impressive mesh between two technologies that after five years or so of American popularity are STILL attempting to work out.
Watch for a huge influx of (decent) mobile entertainment solutions in the coming future. You can exclude the jPhone.
In my opinion, I highly beg to differ (this post is long, so please bare with me if you want).
Apple.com has this introductory product description:
iPhone combines three amazing products -- a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching -- into one small and lightweight handheld device.
Let's look into this for a moment. Keep in mind that Apple is most likely targeting or at least attempting to re-acquire most of the audience that also bought their iPod products:
A revolutionary mobile phone
For us "geeks," this phone is probably nothing but the ordinary. We have already seen devices that surpass their "revolutionary" claims, at least specification wise. But it has no physical keypad. This is important. How usable is this "screen keypad" (something that has been tried, and has failed, before) and how well will the public receive it? I honestly expect that this technology is indeed "revolutionary," since their staple claims are normally their strongest and perform undoubtedly better than their competitors.
A widescreen iPod with touch controls
So Apple could market this as a quasi-evolutionary, no -revolutionary, upgrade to their current iPod line and possibly garner their old audience. Or they could entice the many who have been wishing for a touch-screen iPod with widescreen (the Zune finally dies here) with this product and let them have a phone on the side. Speaking as a "geek," I know I've seen oodles of phones with music players and MP3 capability, but it would be a lie for me to say that the majority of them are worth replacing an iPod or similar (for reference, check the RAZR with iTunes line and see what I mean...)
and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching
Many people here have already bashed this phone for its somewhat antiquated connections to the Internet. But how many people in the United States use the full power of mobile internet on their phone? I know few who do more than purchase ringtones and other commodities for their device (if even that), and maybe do a quick search for something of the moment, like movie times (which are carrier-catered in most cases). The iPhone integrates this experience straight into the UI so a normal person doesn't even have to really open a browser to do the simple things. Want to search for a location? Just "tap" the search button. Need to find movie times? Can probably be configured there too. I wouldn't even be surprised if there is are OS-wide search functions built-in, which is something that few, if any, independent phone carriers have been able to accomplish (at least not with smartphones, which are still in their infancy).
Its obvious that the iPhone is up against lots of veterans in the field. But Apple is the MASTER of usability, which is what makes the bulk of the phone experience. This phone should and deserves to do very well.
Honestly, I think that the decision to not include WINE in the Dell-packaged Ubuntu install is a great idea. As many pointed out already, WINE is really a crapshoot application (at least in my experience). Some applications will work wonderfully (like Internet Explorer or Winamp), while others will not work at all (Microsoft Office, Photoshop, etc). I'm sure that if the application were more mature and had support for most applications, then it would be valuable to include it (and charge for it as well).
Plus, it's not like the option to install it disappears when you get a Linuxed Dell. There are still repos and other outlets that will make the software available, so it's really just up to the user as to whether he wants to try it or not. Then again, in a couple of months or years time when more people unfamiliar to the Linux platform start purchasing these laptops, there is a very small possibility that they would have an interest in using it as supposed to, say, VMWare (free).
On top of THAT, Ubuntu doesn't even install WINE by default so this is a non-issue to begin with.
If that's the case, then you might want to check out CallWave's offering that allows the fetching of voicemail straight to e-mail (or SMS) in WAV files. To me, that beats Visual Voicemail hands down, since it is compatible with ANY carrier (VV only works on Cingular[?]) and allows you to check and save messages without even having to touch the phone. It even e-mails missed calls!
I never went back to regular voicemail after using this.
DISCLAIMER: I have NO affiliation with Callwave or its subsidiaries.
I have loaded both Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista on my HP Mobile Workstation. With WinXP, I would get about 4.5 hours on a standard battery, and about 5 hours with battery management tools. With Vista, I would get about 3.5 hours of battery life with Aero on, but after installing the same battery management tools, I would easily get about 5 hours of battery life under the same conditions.
I have even read reports about people getting MORE battery life under Windows Vista in comparison to WinXP. I believe it is all a matter of the hardware on your laptop and how well your company supports Vista with it.
If anyone has similar experiences, please discuss.
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I highly disagree. So far, it seems that the fastest and most commercially available form of long-term storage technology right now is the hard drive. Flash media is up and coming, but the write operation for these devices are horrifically slow for any sort of hard disk replacement. The closest new breakthrough that will "replace" the hard disk is a "hybrid" hard disk, which is still a hard disk anyway.
If I were a stock investor, however, I would definitely put my money on these new RAM technologies coming up, as they do look promising for the years ahead.
But isn't the PS3 still being outperformed by its competitors mainly because of low price/benefit ratio?
A regular corporate IT department does not need to worry about installing the Palm Desktop Conduit. This was a problem in the past where Palm devices did not have cellular coverage and needed some base to communicate. Today, many people who do use Palm OS devices own a Treo 650 or later, which support the Good Messaging Platform, which delivers the same functionality as the Blackberry Enterprise Server without the vendor lock-in.
As I said before, the only people that will have a specific need for the software will be those that have Palm devices that cannot connect to any networks, and IT departments usually take care of this by disallowing such devices (except for very selective circumstances, which are very easy to solve anyway).
Another thing; why is anyone making arguments against corporate use of the iPhone in the first place? This phone was meant for personal use! I can understand that unaware Microsoft shills want to use baseless claims against the product, but this is quite asinine. If Apple wanted to compete with the Blackberry, I doubt that it would get this much press anyway (think about it: how much press has the Blackberry 8800 been getting outside of the corporate circle?).
Other than that, this article is very, very good. However, I'm getting quite tired of the iPhone speculation, since we will not truly see the (social/economical/corporate) effects of the phone until many months after its first production run. As for me, I'll stick with my trusty Treo 650 until it breaks, and then I'll get a Treo 700 to match it!
I agree very much with this statement. Maybe 3G is not so popular in the United States (we are diverting much of our bandwidth focus to the home computer, not mobile devices), 3G is becoming the de facto standard in Europe and Asia. It has been shown statistically that a lot of Internet activity coming from Europe alone was from mobile devices, and most, if not all, of the European mobile carriers have upgraded to 3G for this specific purpose.
I highly think that releasing any phone without this capability (or something just as lucrative) in that region is a bad idea. Then again, Apple can get surprisingly creative when it comes to their products, and anything with this amount of hype is due for some surprise.
In the United States, there are only four major cellular phone providers. There are alternatives, but most of them are off-shoots of the already well established Big Four.
That's what I meant.
Of course HUGE and MONOPOLISTIC mobile providers are going to be able to eliminate the younger and smaller competition out of market, ESPECIALLY if it heavily threatens their profitability.
Why do you think that it has taken forever for a mobile phone manufacturer to include some kind of Skype-enabled consumer phone? It has been shown that mobile providers are not willing to allow even the smallest cracks of "the different" to enter the surface.
Plus, even if this company were to get some kind of an edge on T-Mobile/Deutsch Telekom, they have a MUCH LARGER budget for developing new solutions to trumph current IP implementations, as well as reasons why IP mobile does not work right now.
In short, I think it will be a while before we start seeing IP-based mobile networks on the rise, and chances are that those networks will come from the big players before anything (at least in the US, anyway).
I really hope that this case doesn't get taken to the heights of Microsoft's anti-trust suits did because it's really not worth it...
Mac OS X includes desktop-wide search functions. I am not sure as to how difficult they are to "turn off," but it comes with the OS to provide ease of use for the user instead of having to find third-party utilities to do the same job as Windows users of the past have had to.
Now, Microsoft decides to include desktop searching functions as well. If I am not mistaken, these functions can be turned off, but that does not matter. Google is then planning to sue Microsoft for unfair competition because their Desktop Search Application is no longer useful?
If Google's primary argument in this case is that the integrated desktop search is too difficult to turn off, they better have pretty good lawyesr that can establish a clear and persuasive definition of what it means to "turn off" something. I'm pretty sure that if Google truly wanted to, they could establish an option within their own program (or set a default option) to turn off the Windows searching mechanism. There are also plenty of instructions that could be written to turn off the searching ability. I could go on with this, but the point here is that this main argument is a weak one that will get them nowhere even before the gavel hits the desk.
Google has a ton of applications that are universally useful; why must they target something that MIcrosoft finally got right?
I wasn't elaborate enough on my questions, but thanks for the response.
The issue that has really been getting on my nerves everytime I use a Linux installation is that every new release promises some sort of leap of easiness, when it really falls short every time. It's kind of like that "Designed for Windows XP" issue, except in reverse. My laptop stumbles on a Linux installation. Video driver installation can take HOURS to get right (and nothing close to the usability present on a Windows installation). Wireless never works right because the drivers are not open-source (to elaborate, the closest I have gotten to a working wireless module was in Ubuntu, but I had constant dropouts on a VPN-backed non-secure connection).
However, my laptop works extremely well in any version of Windows thrown at it. Not to mention that I can get 2 hours of extra battery life out of it on Windows because Linux cannot properly call the power management commands on anything (wireless, video card, you name it)...
I'm not trying to start a spec competition here. I'm just saying that another Linux distribution always flashes something ultra new and theoretically kind of competitive, but (for me) always fails to please. That and the article written here doesn't live up to the /. title.
Read the article, and as a user pretty familiar with the Linux world, this is what I have to say:
Mass FUD
Every time these articles come out, I cringe in reading them. Everytime I look for something insightful and new, I just keep getting more irrelevant information.
Have not played with the newest Ubuntu release, but a couple of questions come to mind:
1. Does it come with NATIVE codec support, or do I still have to spend some time looking for these?
2. How are the video drivers looking? How well can it pick up a, say, workstation-level ATI Mobility card? (last time I tried, this was the massive point of failure, and wasted time)
3. How's the support for the Intel Centrino Wireless chipset (the new ones, too)?
4. Any new news on usability? Features (any)? I don't care about 3D graphics on my desktop that much...
I ask these questions because the release immediately before this one was a terrible experience for me. No native wireless, no native codec support, bad video support, on and on and on...I know the experience is great for some, but Windows (XP, so far) is good for almost ALL PC configurations (post 1998, at least).
This article discusses the obvious points about any Linux distribution that has fairly decent GUI support. I'm still waiting for the article that REALLY shows a genuine advantage to choose Linux over my Windows Vista installation that will not have me spending days on configuration...
Of course this was to happen! Microsoft showed its investors and key manufacturers that the OS release will be on par to its Windows 95 explosion, which everyone knew was not going to be the case. Times Square ads, articles, and lots of other forms of attention only brought a weak demand in the market. Windows XP was good enough, and consequential events like these show that.
However, I'm pretty sure that, as the article points out, this falling trend will reverse itself when back-to-school season starts and people need to upgrade their old machines to keep them running or up-to-date.
While that might be true, I personally would be willing to speculate that many people in those fields would have at least had some formal training on how to use TeX/LaTeX or some Equation Editing software, at least for the sake of completing a thesis.
One of my professors, who is a mathematician in academia, is not the most computer-savvy, but is using some distribution of Linux and knows how to write documents in TeX fairly well.
This kind of argument is much like English major students not knowing how to use a computer by default. It is somewhat discriminative.
What?
If you are talking about the population that uses Apple Mac products, then I think you are HIGHLY misinformed. The main reason why many of them made the switch is PRECISELY BECAUSE of their inadequate knowledge on how to protect their Windows PC from viruses, spyware, etc. Many experienced power users who run Windows (XP, at least) software have NO protection and can still have great security provided strictly by the OS. Are all of those configured BY DEFAULT? Of course not, which is a major reason for the "need" of AV/spyware products.
And Linux users? Apple users know more than MOST Linux users who are usually MORE proficient in terms of security configurations and the like?
I can almost bet that if a major virus, trojan, or hard-hitting malware were to infect OS X-based operating systems, and if it were as conspicuous as their Windows counterparts, then I assure you that the "base" knowledge (or lack thereof) would manifest itself.
I just hope that this little xPDA actually handles different languages better than their current implementation in Palm OS...
Just for kicks, I tried to find a Japanese language pack for my Palm, only to find out that to allow Japanese characters to be shown, a special extension must be installed on the system that runs the risk of BREAKING any Western language! I need to find the page that details this information.
If it cannot do that, then I would much rather stick to the fully-capable laptop that I have now.
Plus, I think people get PDAs because they are MUCH smaller than their current laptops. I'm not sure if the market is really looking into sub-portable sized PDAs for a change. Even if they were, one can get full PDA functionality on their phone now (smartphones, anyway), so to plan the next meeting is as simple as digging into your pocket, not your backpack.
Then again, great criticism is [almost] anyways the paved road before a great product.
I don't think it's that so many people are unaware more than that so many people need a reason to NOT buy an iPod.
I gave up that trend about half a year ago and have never been happier. Even though the iPod interfact isn't as smart as, say, my old Creative Zen Micro, it works ultra-reliably and is nice to have. It's not too big, not too flashy, and works exactly the way I want it to work. I even have alternatives with the iPod interace (Rockbox), which cannot be said of Creative.
I have also never downloaded a song from iTunes, yet I am at full capacity with my player and use Winamp for everything...
If you haven't tried the device, I strongly recommend that you give it a try. Go to Best-Buy. Pick one up. If you don't like it, return before 30 days. No risk, no loss.
This article shows that even Ph.D's can make stupid mistakes.
A lot of these stories are FAR from censored. As a matter of fact, I highly remember reading about them and using them in my debate tournaments in high school, such as the oceans bit and the Congo genocide. As a matter of fact, if one looks hard enough, he or she may even be able to find MOUNDS of news wire articles on these same stories. If you can afford it (or your school has a subscription) Lexis-Nexis is a great place to start.
These news articles are not "censored" in the true sense of the word. They are "censored" to a public that A) does not want to see the reality of our government's inner-business or B) does not care to hear about issues like these. When you have stories of Ann Nicole's death and Paris Hilton's prison time making Page 1 of many news outlets, then it comes to show where the true censorship is applied.
Speaking of which, when did people actually start caring about the Darfur initiative? Do these people know how ineffective and problematic UN peacekeepers have been? US-based armies and peacekeepers have been causing all sorts of chaos since the inception of the program...
Actually, I have heard otherwise. I have heard from home-schooled adults that there exists programs that unite home-schooled children in a very similar manner, such as home-schooled choirs (some of which who outrank their public or private school ilk). Furthermore, there are many home-schooled children and teenagers that are able to go to top-level schools and participate in many school functions, mostly in a normal manner.
However, the only issue that I have with the home-schooled movement is that many people do it for religious reasons rather than scholastic reasons (please see the following Wikipedia entry on this. ), which can lead to other forms of indoctrination (more like prozletyzing) that I do not fully support, even as a Christian believer myself.
By the old-fashioned method of observance. :-)
Your point is true, but with iPods, it's basically impossible to control any music flow without using the device, unless you have a remote control, which I did not see any of with the sample I took. For many people here charged up on the Zune, the difference between the champion and the competitor should be blatant.
I think I even saw more Sandisk devices than I did Zunes. I would say that if I grouped all of the 'other' MP3 players that I saw, that total would be greater than the Zune-carrying total. Once again, refer to eBay or Amazon to confirm this, as those sales seem to agree with my conjecture.
After the Zune was released, I decided to go counting how many people would actually buy it. My target was where my internship was: New York. This would be a fairly easy time killer; many New York commuters have some sort of MP3 player, so it shouldn't be too hard to at least get a raw estimate and ballpark a real-world value from there.
Since it's release, I only counted TWO people who had a Zune. TWO. Out of the HUNDREDS of people that I have seen while commuting every weekday to work, and out of the HUNDREDS of iPods (various generations) I have seen on those commuters, I have only seen TWO people carry a Zune. Furthermore, I have yet to really see a Zune make Page 1 of your advertisements. It's usually pretty deeply hidden, unlike its competitor.
Another interesting place to confirm this is eBay. If I had to ballpark a value for the average price of a Zune there, I would have to say it was somewhere around the upper $210-lower $220 range. Check here. However, the average price of iPods is noticeably higher. Check here.
In short, I think that this iDumpster, while it might surface as a joke, is just to remind the Zune developers that they have quite a bit of work to do before they even expect to see people actually flocking to this device. This is just my honest opinion.
It is not that City-wide Wi-Fi doesn't work or there is no tech powerful enough to run it; it's just poor implementation and, more importantly, poor advertisement.
For one, rural and suburban municipal Wi-Fi would be a much better implementation because some of these cities are still on the lower-end of personal internet connections (think low-speed DSL...). Running a Wi-Fi network with its network connection coming from an area with a much faster internet connection or a satellite-capable connection could possibly happen...
Also, I live in a fairly popular city in the United States. I believe we have city-wide Wireless internet, but I have not heard a WORD from our city's government (either that or it was taken down). Plus, another poster mentioned a good point that there is just too much cross-talk; I could be in a cafe with Wi-fi enabled, but it will not be that advantageous with the SEVENTEEN other wireless networks that are in the air...
I think this is a case where 802.11a might hold a candle. But that's just me, and maybe it's not right either ;-)
Of course these coupons don't have an expirey date because there is no such a thing! On the flipside, I think you just developed a new adjective. Imagine:
"You're so expirey today!"
Okay, maybe not.
This is what I was trying to get at. This is the mentality that most of us who are well aware of other options will take; we have a good phone (that could double as a music player if we want), the iPod is good, the camera is good; why do I need an iPhone? If everyone had that mentality already, Apple would not have even dreamed of attempting to enter such a fierce area of competition (it's not like anyone can make a cell phone and wait for the money, you know!) If most people were more cautious about the medium capacity of the player, you could be sure that either we would definitely not have 30 GB iPods being popular right now or it would have been another company getting the limelight (Creative, anyone?).
This is not what the public thinks of their devices. For one, most cell-phone music players are bad. Very bad. For example, the Digital Audio Player application on most Motorola phones has innate trouble finding MP3s correctly! It does not support any recognizable folder hierarchy structure, and it also has that utterly imbecile 100 song cap. If there was anyone that could spark the fire for mobile entertainment, it could have been Motorola. They had all of the tools, and they already had the niche market, but they still blew it. I still have yet to see them release anything somewhat impressive other than their RAZR derivatives (exception goes to the RAZR Linux phone, however).
The only possible and marginal exception to this would be Verizon's solution, but I cannot comment on something I do not know (can it even play non-DRM'ed audio files?) Secondly, how easy is it to get a decently encoded MPEG or AVI on your phone with a 2.2" display AT MOST and probably using some in-house, proprietary software, if any?
The iPod resolves this problem for the people I am talking about. It's an iPod that makes calls. Or it's a phone that has an iPod. Either way, it would still be an impressive mesh between two technologies that after five years or so of American popularity are STILL attempting to work out.
Watch for a huge influx of (decent) mobile entertainment solutions in the coming future. You can exclude the jPhone.
In my opinion, I highly beg to differ (this post is long, so please bare with me if you want).
Apple.com has this introductory product description:
iPhone combines three amazing products -- a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching -- into one small and lightweight handheld device.Let's look into this for a moment. Keep in mind that Apple is most likely targeting or at least attempting to re-acquire most of the audience that also bought their iPod products:
A revolutionary mobile phoneFor us "geeks," this phone is probably nothing but the ordinary. We have already seen devices that surpass their "revolutionary" claims, at least specification wise. But it has no physical keypad. This is important. How usable is this "screen keypad" (something that has been tried, and has failed, before) and how well will the public receive it? I honestly expect that this technology is indeed "revolutionary," since their staple claims are normally their strongest and perform undoubtedly better than their competitors.
A widescreen iPod with touch controlsSo Apple could market this as a quasi-evolutionary, no -revolutionary, upgrade to their current iPod line and possibly garner their old audience. Or they could entice the many who have been wishing for a touch-screen iPod with widescreen (the Zune finally dies here) with this product and let them have a phone on the side. Speaking as a "geek," I know I've seen oodles of phones with music players and MP3 capability, but it would be a lie for me to say that the majority of them are worth replacing an iPod or similar (for reference, check the RAZR with iTunes line and see what I mean...)
and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searchingMany people here have already bashed this phone for its somewhat antiquated connections to the Internet. But how many people in the United States use the full power of mobile internet on their phone? I know few who do more than purchase ringtones and other commodities for their device (if even that), and maybe do a quick search for something of the moment, like movie times (which are carrier-catered in most cases). The iPhone integrates this experience straight into the UI so a normal person doesn't even have to really open a browser to do the simple things. Want to search for a location? Just "tap" the search button. Need to find movie times? Can probably be configured there too. I wouldn't even be surprised if there is are OS-wide search functions built-in, which is something that few, if any, independent phone carriers have been able to accomplish (at least not with smartphones, which are still in their infancy).
Its obvious that the iPhone is up against lots of veterans in the field. But Apple is the MASTER of usability, which is what makes the bulk of the phone experience. This phone should and deserves to do very well.
Honestly, I think that the decision to not include WINE in the Dell-packaged Ubuntu install is a great idea. As many pointed out already, WINE is really a crapshoot application (at least in my experience). Some applications will work wonderfully (like Internet Explorer or Winamp), while others will not work at all (Microsoft Office, Photoshop, etc). I'm sure that if the application were more mature and had support for most applications, then it would be valuable to include it (and charge for it as well).
Plus, it's not like the option to install it disappears when you get a Linuxed Dell. There are still repos and other outlets that will make the software available, so it's really just up to the user as to whether he wants to try it or not. Then again, in a couple of months or years time when more people unfamiliar to the Linux platform start purchasing these laptops, there is a very small possibility that they would have an interest in using it as supposed to, say, VMWare (free).
On top of THAT, Ubuntu doesn't even install WINE by default so this is a non-issue to begin with.
If that's the case, then you might want to check out CallWave's offering that allows the fetching of voicemail straight to e-mail (or SMS) in WAV files. To me, that beats Visual Voicemail hands down, since it is compatible with ANY carrier (VV only works on Cingular[?]) and allows you to check and save messages without even having to touch the phone. It even e-mails missed calls!
I never went back to regular voicemail after using this.
DISCLAIMER: I have NO affiliation with Callwave or its subsidiaries.
I have loaded both Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista on my HP Mobile Workstation. With WinXP, I would get about 4.5 hours on a standard battery, and about 5 hours with battery management tools. With Vista, I would get about 3.5 hours of battery life with Aero on, but after installing the same battery management tools, I would easily get about 5 hours of battery life under the same conditions.
I have even read reports about people getting MORE battery life under Windows Vista in comparison to WinXP. I believe it is all a matter of the hardware on your laptop and how well your company supports Vista with it.
If anyone has similar experiences, please discuss.