Disqus - Latest Comments for bitflung

Re: $115,000 for a Porsche Cayenne and it doesn’t have Bluetooth

bitflung — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:19:08 -0000

any chance it can talk to the SIM card wirelessly?
in my N95 i have an option for 'Remote-SIM' - the help only says that 'if another device is using my SIM remotely, i can't use it locally'.

seems like a good way to do things - especially if the car's GSM can sync contacts automatically like i do now with my mac.

otherwise... well... you're right. crap implementation.

Re: Malcolm Murphy - Pick and Mix data applications

bitflung — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:36:47 -0000

NNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
this creates the 'walled garden' currently STANDARD IN USA and it is EXTREMELY BAD!

i have a nokia N95 at my disposal, so i'm lucky - it's not AT&T branded and not even offered by them. but look at what they do with the cost of services on the devices they offer:

i pay $15/mo for unlimited data. AT&T assumes i'm using an antiquated piece of crap, because it's not one of their recent offerings - they don't know it but i use VoIP, email, web, etc... in fact i have raw TCP connection happening all the time. Nokia Maps, A-GPS, Worldmate Flight Alerts, Earthcomber, IMAP IDLE based pseudo-push email, EVERYTHING WORKS. they don't want this to happen. they would get more money from me if i paid:

- $30/mo unlimited 'full' internet

- $20/mo for GPS usage. yeah, thats right AT&T Navigator costs $20/mo. ridiculous, yes?

- $30 MORE per month for tethering (which i do on my n95, and can even log into my work's IPSEC VPN). right, so if i want 'unlimited' internet from above, thats only to be used on the phone. buy a package that includes tethering and i'm charged for anything over 5GB of usage... and i'm also going to pay $60-65 instead of $30-35. (why the 'maybe' on the last $5 for each option? if it's DATA ONLY you pay $5 extra, add data to voice and you avoid this).

so, my CURRENT AT&T PLAN, which is outside the scope of their intended use for my plan, costs me:
$40/mo voice + $15/mo data + $5/mo text-messaging = $60/mo TOTAL.

to do the same thing using their walled-garden approach?
$40/mo voice + $60/mo data + $5/mo text + $20/mo GPS = $125/mo TOTAL

more than 2x the cost!!!!! and why? because the corporate execs found that if a user is willing to pay for individual access to service A and service B, then as you increase the cost of each service you find a maximum they'll pay for THAT ONE SERVICE and that's the 'right' price for it. there is no incentive for them to make it easier for users to get these services at a lesser cost.

WALLED-GARDEN = MORE EXPENSIVE
and per-service based fees creates a walled-garden out of necessity.

please PLEASE don't encourage your mobile networks to do this. this is the fundamental reason why the USA has such crap phones and crap usage of good phones even when they are made available.

----------

on a side note: i paid about $140 for 3 years of navigation on my N95. that's a one-time fee that i didn't include above. round up to $150, thats $50/year or about $4/month you can add to my current $60/mo AT&T service rates... and their 'legitimate' alternative is STILL 2x more expensive. the post was long, i didn't want to clutter things up above... but for honesty's sake i've added it here.

-bit

Re: iPhone in the office

bitflung — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:44:30 -0000

Disclaimer: i don't have an iphone or a crackberry. i prefer my nokia n95.

first, let me quote the portions of your article i'd like to comment on:

"I’m not that surprised that it’s being adopted. Having tried both I think I’d still rather have the CrackBerry 8120 especially as it has WiFi on it(1). It’s not pretending to be something else.
I have an iPod (two in fact) and so never listen to music on the phone. I have a camera. I have a phone(2). I don’t really check the web on my phone because it’s rarely that urgent(3). So, that leaves me with the need for email and, quite simply, Blackberry is perfect for this(4). Especially as it has keys to easily type one(5)."

right.

1. rather have the crackberry as it has wifi on it:
- what is it the crackberry can do with wifi that the iphone cannot? bigger screen, better browser, i'd have thought the iphone would win this part hands down. now that Truphone is available for the iPhone even my trusty VoIP on my nokia has competition (which was one of my top 3 reasons for getting this phone).

2. I have a camera. I have a phone.:
- great for you. i don't. i have a camera phone. i don't think the iPhone camera is of significant quality for anyone to feel that they don't need a normal camera as well (presuming they ever had the inclination for one). even my N95's camera (with observably greater quality than the iphone) sits dangerously close to the 'i still need a normal camera' line due to the lack of a real flash (like the N82... sweet pics from that).
- you argue against the iphone because you already have 2 ipods. silly rabbit, trix are for kids. if you didn't have the ipods (or better yet, they break/get-lost/are-stolen/become-obsolete) then your argument completely deteriorates. personally, i wouldn't listen to music on the iphone or the crackberry - i need my A2DP and neither of those offer it.

3. I don’t really check the web on my phone because it’s rarely that urgent:
- this is precisely what people used to when explaining why they didn't need the blackberry - just replace 'web' with 'email'. now fast forward to a time when checking email on the phone is quite comfortable and pleasant. sitting at my desk, i sometimes check my email on my phone (again, nokia) INSTEAD of my laptop - it's simply that pleasant. web on the phone? err... on the nokia it's bearable. feature complete but unpleasant. on the blackberry it's about the same - pretty uncomfortable. on the iphone? seriously, in the middle of my work i can imagine reaching over and tapping my phone's screen a few times rather than opening up my browser, etc etc etc.
- your argument here simply shows that you've become acclimated to the status quo.

4. So, that leaves me with the need for email and, quite simply, Blackberry is perfect for this:
- more 'perfect' than the iphone? or even my nokia? i doubt it. i get push email on my nokia. iphone users get push as well. i get attachments and support for office documents out of the box with QuickOffice. how much more perfect than this do you really think the blackberry is? this is like mac people still crying "but we're better with graphics than PCs"! -- simply no longer true, if it ever was.

5. Especially as it has keys to easily type one.:
- ahhh.... finally a valid point. good point, Rob.

Re: iPhone in the office

bitflung — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:26:17 -0000

my comment was never posted.

what - you didn't want to let my long comment point out the err of your arguments? i was moderated out? what gives? clearly you agree with my rebuttal then.

i was not biased towards the iphone (i'm a nokia guy) nor was i biased against the blackberry (i compared it favorably against my preferred device: nokia n95). but my comment was moderated out. it would have been the first reply to this article.

in short: the ONLY valid argument made above is that against the keyboard. everything else is fluff and tripe. care to read my full comment that was never posted? ask for it, i have a copy: jared.eldredge[at)gmail(dot]com.

-bit

Re: RotateMe v2.0 Beta Now Available to Donors!

bitflung — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:31:53 -0000

awww... i donated last week because his site said exactly what you've just posted! i thought your post was saying that he is actually distributing the app now.

you broke my heart!!

Re: Video: RotateMe 2.0 Beta in Action

bitflung — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:54:51 -0000

aww man - i doanted $20 USD last week, 11/2/07. i haven't heard anything from samir, not a word. i'm really excited to try this app!!

anyone have contact with him? i've emailed him now twice about it, i dont want to be a pain in the @$$ but i donated a large amount and really want to try the beta out.

*feeling-unappreciated*
-jared

Re: Video: RotateMe 2.0 Beta in Action

bitflung — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:21:58 -0000

@zach will do, thanks - i appreciate it

Re: Only2Clicks Prompts a Question: What do you Browse?

bitflung — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:13:02 -0000

i agree with the fast and lightweight mobile sites being more efficient. do you ever use them on your PC? most mobile sites render very well on my mac (safari), and i find that when i just want to get something done (rather than surf the web for mild entertainment) the mobile sites are typically far better then the full onslaught of ads, flash and frequently broken CSS.

Re: Nokia E71 - The Lowdon

bitflung — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:34:10 -0000

"push e-mail on updating every 30 mins via 3G"

please PLEASE please!!!! stop using this term incorrectly. Nokia users (i use an N95): Push email does NOT GET UPDATED EVERY _X_ MINUTES. This is like saying you're going to poll for incoming SMS every 30 minutes - or that "maybe those windmills will cool you off" - it just doesn't work this way!

countless times in recent months i've seen this misnomer. and i keep trying to correct it. why? because i want REAL PUSH EMAIL. if everyone accepts that we've got it already "by polling every 30 minutes" then the definition of the problem becomes grey and cloudy.

Look at the US market for bluetooth. Verizon and Microsoft both played their role in destroying the ubiquitous Personal Area Network that is Bluetooth. sure sure, buy a nokia and bluetooth does what it's meant to. but my co-workers and even my boss have no idea that verizon has crippled their precious strangled devices. no one in my office, beyond me, can use their phones as generic, open, connected devices.

why? because they have accepted that Bluetooth==handsfree. they've accepted it as much as every windows user has accepted that windows==performance (also a lie) or that mac==graphics (another lie).

please PLEASE for the sake of my sanity, don't propagate this sort of mis-use of terms into the realm of nokia. you'll end up redefining the term altogether -- just as the media did when they used Hacker instead of Cracker - now the term hacker is forever clouded by the stupidity the masses, and it's our fault for not providing them all with the proper terms when the mis-use was young enough to be fixed. "great hack"! can now be followed by a whispering, "is that legal"? it's a shame.

polling for email every 30 minutes? thats called any of these: 'Email', 'Pull Email', 'Polled Email', or 'Timed Retrieval of Email'. PUSH gets PUSHED to your device. if this were an alarm clock, you would be pretty ticked off if i sold you a clock that you could look at every 30 minutes and, if it reads 9:30am or later lets you press a button to make it beep. no no no, you'd want the alarm to PUSH the beep at you, so you can ignore it until it beeps. having the clock automatically check it's time every 30 minutes to push the button for you? that's half-assed. it's not a REAL alarm clock. it's a misnomer to call it such. perhaps it's useful, or at least more so than the clock that requires user intervention at all times, but it's still not right -- and the RIGHT thing exists, it's real, it can be had, IT EVEN HAS A NAME.

*sigh*
thats the end of my rant. sorry for being so long winded. if you actually read this whole thing you must be thinking i'm nuts. i'm just fed up. i'm tired of 'polling' email being called push. i'm tired of technology failing to take root because people forget they want it.

Re: Honesty exists, yes. But not for everybody.

bitflung — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:30:17 -0000

i would consider taking legal action against handango - failure to act responsibly after notice of copyright infringement, inaction which serves to make them even more profit than the fraudulent person(s) selling your themes.

talk to an attorney, i have no doubt a free consultation could result in at least harming handango at worst with a net-zero impact on your pocket.

goodluck
-bit

Re: Nokia N96 Face The Task Site Misleading? Buyer Thinks So

bitflung — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:04:26 -0000

err...yeah, i'd be ticked off. let me put it this way:
i WAS wishing i could afford to face-the-task, and NOW i'm HAPPY I DIDN'T SPEND MY MONEY ON IT.

sure, donations are great. save the panda and all. but seriously, they used the lure of the n96 to get me interested... and to tell rubin that it won't be sent out until it's pretty much in everyone's hands anyway... sheesh!

unless nokia plans to pull an apple maneuver (limit the stock to specific geographical areas) then i'd bet a week after rubin's got the n96 someone will look at it and say, "hey! nice, how come your's is numbered like that - mine isn't".

bummer.

Re: Video Center On Latest N82 Firmware Adds Scheduled Downloads

bitflung — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:25:12 -0000

yeah, but have you gotten the scheduled downloads to work yet?? i haven't. and i've noticed that LiveTV is no longer in my video center. i used to be able to manually add livetv XML feeds - which if there were embedded rtsp links, would let me watch the rtsp video like any other feed, but also let you see the published schedule and even set alerts (like an alarm to sound off 5 minutes before "Big Bang Theory")

i abandoned it long ago, as it's just easier to watch tv/movies via hulu, etc on skyfire.

Re: What If Apple Announces Next iPhone With 5MP Camera and Keyboard - Death of Nokia N97?

bitflung — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:49:40 -0000

no. the iphone interface is nice and all, but there's more to a phone than just that. app store? yeah, sure, great. i'm able to locate, obtain, install, when i wish to purchase software remotely through my nokia. sure sure sure, nokia doesn't run the stores i shop at - who cares? is it as 'slick' as the apple app store? not even close. do i care? not even a little.

the app store is fundamentally broken. from apple's horrible backend enforcement of non-fully-disclosed rules right through to the broken frontend that fails to provide a stable and knowable release visibility timeframe.

so - a qwerty iphone with 5MP camera? that's only as good as a nokia to me if it also comes with a better 3g radio, video, copy/paste, MULTITASKING, oh and don't forget open development opportunity. i want JBTASKMAN to be a valid app for me, and ROTATEME, and FLIPSILENT. apple? best we can say is maybe apple would let one or more similar apps through and maybe not. and maybe after letting them through they'll secretly remove them later. that's a closed ugly version of a walled garden, and it's clearly not for me.

i'm no nokia fanboy, my n95 is my first nokia device ever. i'm no apple hater, i've just acquired my 3rd mac and haven't used any microsoft product regularly since 1998. i'm a computer engineer. i want the best and most fully functional devices. i want nokia devices.

-jared

Re: Nokia Photos 1.5 Beta - Now Launched

bitflung — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:44:49 -0000

maybe they're still trying to find a way to provide a pleasant experience in windows? i have to say, my fiance has an N82 with NSeries Suite and, well, it sucks. it's constantly breaking and failing to connect to her N82 via bluetooth, the tethering option has ot worked once (and trying to set it up almost invariably breaks the rest of the suite)... i'd go on and on, but i'm off-topic.

in the end, windows is a shit host for services like this. i think they were heading in the right direction with Ovi Sync - let the phone sync with the 'cloud'. then, if you want this info on windows, sync the cloud to windows. that's my take. but i'm on a mac and the software stack there doesn't change nearly as much (and it tends to work as advertised) so maybe i'm spoiled? nokia seems to write better mac software than windows software.

-bit

Re: Nokia Secondary Camera Rediscovered + Our Phontography Blog Launched

bitflung — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:32:12 -0000

well, i'm in the USA so the secondary camera has never been useful for proper video calls (the original design intent, or so i gather). that, and my N95-1 is a euro variant, so i can't connect via 3G anyways (even with it, video calling is rather... err... stupid, in the states)

but i DO use the front facing camera fairly often, though not for snaps.

1. using TiVi Phone, i place free VoIP Video Calls to other TiVi Phone users (namely my fiance, running tivi phone on her N82). It even works over EDGE :)

2. i use my phone as a bluetooth webcam on my mac

3. sometimes it's the closest thing to a mirror i've got

4. soon-to-be-released is Handwave (aikonlab.com). i plan to use the front facing camera with that app too.

snaps? no. other uses? hell yeah!

-bit

Re: Mobile Web Wars

bitflung — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:24:53 -0000

quote:
"And Pandora CEO Tom Jordan claimed that more people downloaded his app for the iPhone in the first few days that the device was on sale than have tried Pandora on any other AT&T phone - and Pandora is pre-loaded on every other AT&T phone".

response:
-WRONG-
preloaded? as in, 'hey i already paid for it when i bought my phone, so lets give it a whirl'? NOPE.

AT&T, in their infinite wisdom *ahem* has made pandora part of their 'walled garden' of pay-per-month features. rather than providing users with pandora, they provide users with the privilege to PAY for a service these users already know they can get for free on a pc. yup, for $9 per month you can get access a free online music service.

now you see why no one wants to use it?
there are 3 kinds of mobile users:

1. buy the phone from my service provider, use it as a PHONE ONLY (maybe an SMS on new years)

2. buy my phone form my service provider, have fun experimenting with services, but try (pretty successfully, with the exception of ringtones) not to pay for features that aren't actually available for free elsewhere.

3. get an unlocked phone, sign up for the $15 unlimited internet service, abuse the service by listening to pandora with the built-in flash-enabled browser (am i REALLY that special? i've got a Nokia N95 - hell i even watch HULU.COM on my phone via skyfire, admittedly that's a bit more niche than most people will bother with).

Re: Question: Which Netflix Streamer Solution Are You Considering As a Non-Xbox 360/TiVo Owner?

bitflung — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:24:21 -0000

personally, i'm holding out for the VuNow device from verismo networks. to be sure, i haven't seen any statements indicating they will support netflix streaming, but for $100 this box does everything Roku should have done -- i'm sure it's got the horse power for netflix streaming and i'm hoping for a future service update to provide it.

personally, i'm not a netflix subscriber. but i WOULD be if my otherwise worthwhile streaming video box also provided netflix for me... and that's my point. (roku: get hulu and i'll be one of your boxes too!)

Re: Question: Which Netflix Streamer Solution Are You Considering As a Non-Xbox 360/TiVo Owner?

bitflung — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:21:24 -0000

@Nnyan
Netflix support for linux is coming by way of boxee "early next year" -> (http://www.deviceguru.com/boxee-adds-netflix-mo...) "As mentioned above, the new Netflix VOD support reportedly is already released for Mac OS X, and is expected to be available for Ubuntu Linux “early next year,” according to a source on the Boxee team. "

VuNow price will be $99 -> (http://www.jonzee.com/vunow-another-media-playi...) "The VuNow will cost you $99 bucks when it releases in December (15th)."

VuNow will support NAS -> (http://www.vunow.com/) "Access to Personal Media such as video, music, and photos from the home network – stored on a PC, Networked Attached Storage device, or even on a connected USB storage device"

I wasn't sure if you were ASKING about codec support on the VuNow, or stating that it exists. to be clear, xvid and matroska are both supported in the 'premium' VuNow offering -> (http://www.vunow.com/specifications)
"MPEG-2 PS
DVD VOB
Transport Stream
MP4
AVI
MOV"

iTunes support? not likely to ever officially happen - though if you've got iTunes running on another machine, remotely controlling that machine and streaming the audio to remote speakers is officially supported by apple, you just need to 1) use apple's AirTunes interface (with THEIR Airport access point), or 2) install audio hijack, etc to push the audio stream to, say, a shoutcast stream.

-bit

Re: Question: Which Netflix Streamer Solution Are You Considering As a Non-Xbox 360/TiVo Owner?

bitflung — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:37:37 -0000

@Nnyan

will be 802.11g via USB; and no, they don't claim support for any 3rd party wifi adapters (so it seems we'll have to buy theirs)

of course, i sat all day yesterday with credit card in hand refreshing the vunow page incessantly... until near the day's end when the page updated to tell me that i'd been wasting my time... the VuNow won't launch till the 22nd now.

sadly that's too late for xmas shopping -- so i'll be buying a roku (if any video player) for my brother. vunow must have lost a huge sales boon by slipping their delivery date so late (it was originally to be ready last summer) :(

Re: VUDU Hogging Up Your Bandwidth?

bitflung — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:26:21 -0000

i like the CTO's response - sounds like a legitimate use of distributed subscribers' resources to me. but hey, i'm a computer engineer... i'm biased toward such a usage paradigm (and against caps like comcast has started inflicting).

-jared

Re: Question: Which Netflix Streamer Solution Are You Considering As a Non-Xbox 360/TiVo Owner?

bitflung — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:11:51 -0000

well, i've ordered my vunow. it took a bit - i was expecting a flurry of user reviews, etc after they launched. seems the uptake didn't match my expectations. i've now cancelled my cable tv service and have just high speed internet (well, that plus basic cable, since the cable company wants to sell ads, they make it cheaper to have basic+internet than just internet alone).

it should arrive early next week (maybe even tomorrow, friday, but i doubt it).

i opted for the SD unit with wifi. i'll be sure to post about my impression of the unit/service.

Re: Question: Which Netflix Streamer Solution Are You Considering As a Non-Xbox 360/TiVo Owner?

bitflung — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:18:24 -0000

@Nnyan

well, overall i'm impressed with the product, but not the service. the device decodes video smoothly and the user interface is responsive and pleasant to use. a few features should be added, like being able to re-organize the live streaming tv channels, or maybe flag some as "crap" and not have to scroll past them to find the one you want. HOLY crap is there a LOT of religious crap on there. if i was a born-again-christian or something i'd be in heaven. i'm not, so i'm in hell. go figure. seriously though, there must be at least 15 live streaming channels dedicated to Godvertising 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

which gets me into the services part. the 'services' are the live streaming channels, connection to youtube, cinemanow, etc. since cinemanow isn't live yet (click it and you get a "come back soon" message) i'll scrap that one from this post. youtube? i once said i hate it and done understand the draw to it. now that's all i really watch on this thing. here's a break down of what's available, with *'s next to what i watch:

1. * youtube (i subscribed to ChannelFrederator, RocketBoom, and a few others - i also use it as a radio and let music videos stream while i sit and surf the web on my mac)

2. video search (i'll occasionally use this to search for something specific, like John Stewart's interview at Crossfire)

3. * live streaming tv (there are 2 or 3 channels that don't 100% suck. the rest are totally worthless to me; i'd rather they didnt appear in my listings. the best, i think, is Film24 in the asian channels list. sadly it tends to be foreign films with an asian language for subtitles... so if it's not an english film to start with i have to abort and go watch youtube for 30 seconds before i get bored and turn it off)

4. bit-torrent (man, does ANYONE get good bandwidth with torrents? it's not the vunow, even on my mac i tend to get 1-10 kbps. that's it. same on the vunow. it takes a week to download an episode of grey's anatomy. a WEEK. when it was done downloading, something went screwy and the uncompressed file as a correct 132kbyte AVI that wouldn't play. i was NOT happy and haven't bothered trying again. bit-torrent was useless on my mac, and it's useless here)

5. *** UPnP (i use this ALL the time. it's the BEST way to play music, videos, or slideshows of pictures from my nokia phone. i've got an N95. if you own an N-series nokia phone, chances are that you've got this feature and never used it. nokia's directions assume you want to stream from the phone to a windows box, but that's garbage and failure prone - windows sucks - straming to the vunow works flawlessly almost 100% of the time. once i had the vunow freeze on me while i was streaming mp3s to it and browsing the 5MP images from new years eve. i don't know if the vunow failed, or if the phone failed. UPnP never worked right anywhere else for me)

Re: Question: Which Netflix Streamer Solution Are You Considering As a Non-Xbox 360/TiVo Owner?

bitflung — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:50:22 -0000

@Nnyan

non-existent (for now only, i hope)

in an email exchange with the CTO @ vunow, Vijay stated there were plans for hulu support to come, if/when possible, in the form of firmware update to existing boxes. i didn't ask about veoh or netflix.

Re: Windows XP Downgrade Costs $21 More Than New Copy of Leopard

bitflung — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:50:24 -0000

@sam

first off, i hate both macosx and windows. i take it personally. i'm a computer engineer by trade (albeit i design hardware, not software) and the fact that FOSS such as linux can compete so well with commercial operations is absurd. add to it none of these 3 major OS's can hold a candle to the defunct and commercially dead BeOS and you'll start to see why i sit and ponder, "how can any of these companies claim to be innovating at all"?

yeah - off topic to start with but i'll get back to the topic. i wanted to toss that out there first: not so much as flame-bait but to highlight that my views on windows vs. macosx are not significantly biased, "i am not an apple fanboy" may be the simple way to state it, though hardly believable as a standalone sentence.

so, on to my reply:
" Having just timed wakeup times on my Macbook Pro, and my Inferior Asus model laptop, there is no wakeup disparity (both computers require a new login to get to the desktop, so this is a non-issue)."

perhaps the intel macs lost this major advantage? i'm still running a 5 year old powerbook g4, and i can with absolute certainty that my wake-up times are less than 1/10 of those on brand new windows vista laptops. windows xp was not known for good sleep/hibernate functionality (slow, failure prone) but i'll admit 2 inconsistencies in my comparison: 1. 5 year old mac vs. brand new vista boxes (i've got 3 to compare with, lenovo, dell, toshiba); and 2. i don't require user authentication for wake-from sleep on my mac. the vista boxes all default to this (can it be turned off?). typically i wake from sleep, launch X11, and am logged into my remote server from my mac before the vista boxes have even figured out how to display the login prompt.

-> wake from sleep in windows is rubbish. macosx? maybe on intel it's rubbish there too.
---
"In terms of booting, the MBP actually takes longer than my Windows XP to boot."
what world do you live in? i've never seen a winxp box take less than a minute to boot, and i've never seen any macosx take more than 1 minute. that's a fundamental difference between the micro kernel OS's and monolithic kernel OS's (linux, for example, is a HOG when booting - it suffers the same fundamental design flaw as windows 95 through vista) BeOS, by the way, booted in 15 seconds on most any pc capable of running it, regardless of cpu speed, etc. why? microkernel. microkernels have a bad rap from old-hat software devs because they are inherently less efficient (message passing vs. shared memories) but this limitation only applies when running a single threaded, non-interrupted app. booting? 99% of the REQUIRED wait states are from hard drive access times. the rest? lets just say, efficient use of the harddrive would bring all OS's to about a 15 second boot time on a standard harddrive. solid state could improve too.

-> try your comparison again, i'd bet $20 windows takes at least 20 seconds or 2x longer to boot, whichever is LARGER.
---
"Also to be fair to the Maccies, the price disparity grows as you get to the upper range..."

800, 500, 200, i don't personally care. i am still unhappy with macosx as well as vista -- so charge me $1000 extra and sell me something that doesn't suck - then i'll be happy.

looking back at the article's title, they're basically saying that macosx leopard is inexpensive - then using this to insinuate (claim?) that the xp downgrade is over priced. maybe we should assume that some of the upgrade-path-price is built into the initial sale on a mac? you buy 1.5 licenses on the first day, so later the final upgrade cost appears cheaper to you? i don't know. i don't really care. cost isn't the issue (not that i'm rich, remember my own machine is a 5 year old powerbook) but rather what you get for that cost.

-> if macs were/are any better then they should charge more for them - i'm willing to pay for what i want to get. i'm not convinced this is the case, but if windows were better i'd be willing to pay a premium for the OS... that's not likely the case either from where i'm standing: they both suck.
---
"Also, in fairness, I’ve never had to rebuild my Windows XP, and my MBP had far from the load of software I wanted or cared for. ..."

if you haven't had to reinstall windows from scratch, then, well... you must be awful patient or perhaps absurdly good at spotting crap software before you install it. macs are no easier to clean up after corruption, at least for the typical users. it's mostly possible with both OSs to fix issues without a reinstall - though at some point they both need a fresh install to get back to that nice day-one-feel.

software? half the stuff that came on my mac i'll never touch. garage band? yeah, if i had an musical talents i wouldn't cut it as an engineer (that's a joke: it's funny cuz its true). regardless, the software bundled on a mac is of a distinctly, perhaps measurably, better quality and functionality than that bundled on a windows pc. trialware? seriously? still?!?!? most windows users would be better off with a clean install on day one - format and rid yourself of the crap installed by dell, lenovo, toshiba, whomever -- the same crap that will beg for money after 30 - 90 days.

now - software AVILABILITY, that's an arguable point. and arguably there's more available for windows. is this a 'feature' of windows? not in my mind. either you can, or you can't, get you software of choice for you os of choice. period. what sucks is when your software of choice is locked to other-than your os of choice. i feel that pain all the time: there's pretty much NO commercial software available for BeOS (that, if it wasn't clear an hour ago when you started reading my post, is my OS of choice, still. but i don't run it. because i have to get my work done...)

-> software? it's a moot point. if you use what apple gives you, be happy it came with the product. on windows, you get nothing worth keeping at all.
---
"...Mac apps generally use twice the RAM as equivalent PC apps. I found that the sweet spot for my non-64 bit compliant Mac was 3GB (the max possible being 4GB with any OS X build, yes, even the 64-bit compatible ones as the OS doesn’t use anything over the 4GB wall)."

if your ram isn't 100% utilized, it's wasted. whether your OS or your apps are over consuming ram - i don't know. i don't have any one-to-one comparison to make - i don't run the same software on PCs and macs. i CAN say that there is a huge performance penalty when vendors stop targeting your particular CPU type: FLASH is completely unusable on my mac. why? not ram, or OS, but Adobe started writing code in a manner that is intolerably non-optimized on a RISC processor. this is the main reason i'm looking for a new notebook, buts thats another story (i miss hulu!).

oh, and 64-bit compatible OS's CANT EVER address over 4GB of ram on 32-bit hardware. at least not while the hardware needs to address into that memory with 8-bit granularity. 2^32 = 4 billion (well, thats the plain english approximation anyway). 4 billion bytes = 4 GB. that's it. the hardware is designed to address each byte uniquely, and your maximum size of an address is 32 bits (i.e. 2^32). you could have a 256-bit OS on 32-bit hardware and still only see the bottom 4GB of ram installed. there are some hacks for older 32-bit machines, but they were custom hacks for expensive servers. along the lines of switching, programmatically, between one bank of 4GB and another. there were performance penalties, cost penalties, power penalties.... in short, it was faster, cheaper and more efficient to just re-engineer the cpu and supporting logic to support 64-bit wide addresses (and therefore 64-bit wide representations of ANY data).

-> ram is cheap. buy more. got a limitation on how much ram will fir in the box? thats a hardware issue and outside the scope of this discussion, but if you can cram in 4GB the hardware is at it's functional limit and there's no better 'version' for windows OR macosx.
---
"As to the cars, to be fair, Porsche DID come out with the Boxster………"

does it say anything that i drive an Insight? that's the honda hybrid that was first to ship in the USA (actual retail availability was before the prius, at least in new england). i bought mine Q1-2001. call me an early adopter, a sucker, a hippie -- but i think there's more of a similarity between macosx and my hybrid than there is between the mac and a porsche.

as neil stevenson once put it (http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html):
"... There was a competing bicycle dealership next door (Apple) that one day began selling motorized vehicles--expensive but attractively styled cars with their innards hermetically sealed, so that how they worked was something of a mystery."

"...Eventually the big dealership came out with a full-fledged car: a colossal station wagon (Windows 95). It had all the aesthetic appeal of a Soviet worker housing block, it leaked oil and blew gaskets, and it was an enormous success. A little later, they also came out with a hulking off-road vehicle intended for industrial users (Windows NT) which was no more beautiful than the station wagon, and only a little more reliable."

"... One of them (Be, Inc.) is selling fully operational Batmobiles (the BeOS). They are more beautiful and stylish even than the Euro-sedans, better designed, more technologically advanced, and at least as reliable as anything else on the market--and yet cheaper than the others."

-> car analogies are fun. i miss beos. part of me is seriously tickled to see BeOS described with such glory. then i get mad, because Be, Inc. failed to make money and stay in business.... ahhh memories.....
---

ok, i've procrastinated long enough. back to work i go...

Re: Windows XP Downgrade Costs $21 More Than New Copy of Leopard

bitflung — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:41:22 -0000

“but you are also clearly speculating on a lot of things that I’ve actually tested ”
- fair enough - though the discrepancy in wake-up times makes me wonder how our views can be so vastly different.

“as engineers, I hope we can agree that theory and product have a large chasm separating them.”
- **nod**

“The hardware is 64-bit, the memory controller is 64-bit, that’s all fine and dandy, so that’s not the problem.”
- i suppose, if you still have the extra ram, a simple test would be booting from a linux live cd and watching how it interprets the ram. i’m still thinking it’s a hardware issue, even if it’s not related to the address width. still, the fault would lay on apple’s shoulders. i know less about the newest memory architectures than i do about DDR (you know, way way back on the first iteration of ddr, seems like weeks ago, but i just checked, it’s the stuff in my 5 year old powerbook). at least back in those days the memory controllers had issues with density; where a 64×8 might not work, a 32×16 would.

this may no longer be applicable — i’m still designing for DDR at 333MHz over here…

“we can also agree that the reason for such rampant fanboyism with the Apple company does have some merit to it, and I also hope we can agree that liking a company so much, we must still be careful with future actions with concern.”
- sure. not to be argumentative, but i don’t necessarily agree on this point: however it’s irrelevant whether i do or not.
—

nice to see another engineer’s perspective. i hope you find a solution to add more ram to your machine. now, i don’t have a day off (you lucky bastard) so sadly i’m off to work another few hours…

take care sam.

Re: New Firmware for N95-1 Finally Out

bitflung — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:56:37 -0000

take a look at the video centre - there are new video feeds available and new services too - goto settings and look around. video center now supports XMLTV and DVB-IPI

there are a couple new feeds including:
ONETV

which seems to provide streaming TV channels... albeit rather obscure channels, but since vimio LiveTV seems to be off-air now, this is streaming tv for the n95 :)

Re: Key Lock Clock Updated With Automatic Keylock Function

bitflung — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:08:50 -0000

why would we use the auto-keylock from this app instead of, say, the autokey lock built into the phone?

Re: Nokia Releases Handful Of Updates For The N97

bitflung — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:24:52 -0000

a few odd things:

1. Phone Memory Update seems to become available for me again after reboot - after every reboot. it installs "successfully" each time but is always available again the next time i check for updates after rebooting.

2. Maps update to 3.1 is the same - always available again after a reboot. more than just this, running the maps app after a reboot causes it to ask me to go update it. i've checked version numbers, it's not an update, same version every time.

3. people are reporting C: drive usage and free ram number that don't make sense to me. my C: drive is essentially empty (that is, nothing directly installed on it - it it came preinstalled and i was able to remove it i have done so already) and even after the phone memory update i have 17.7MB free. anyone else seeing similar drive utilization? i've deleted c:\dmgr and c:\cache using y-browser to no avail. others are reporting upwards of 47mb free on drive c: - am i using 30mb i could free up somewhere, or does everyone see similar numbers to mine?

-bit

Re: Nokia Makes Ovi Files Free

bitflung — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:20:38 -0000

is anyone else having issues connecting to the service? i've installed on my mac, and on my windows pc, and neither one of them has been able to connect to the backend service (the client says it is disconencted, always).

on windows it even crashes after a few minutes (vista home premium 64 bit compiled on a saturday by a guy named ben who had a hang-nail that was bothering him..... sorry, not the time or place to pick on microsoft... just couldn't help myself).

i've tested from multiple networks and even ensured that i can establish a socket connection to cache.files.ovi.com:443 via the network i originally tried setting it up from.

on my mac, i see a repeated error message indicating that ovi files is "unable to get local issuer certificate". (open console.app - search for ovi - if you dont see it you're better off than me).

anyone else? anyone? Bueler?
-bit

Re: The Compass Application The N97 Should Have Shipped With

bitflung — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:15:02 -0000

the compass app mentioned by others above is indeed much more slick than the one discussed in the post. it is provided by the developer 'Offscreen' and is quite nice.

this link may or may not work for others - it is the URL from my search in ovi store:
http://store.ovi.com/content/6E48B6D01950F915E0...

-bit

Re: How To: Fix The Nokia N97 Camera Slider

bitflung — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:17:33 -0000

@touzeen
i never had issue with my N95-1 slider - guess i was lucky (i abused the hell out of that phone too).
---
my N97? yeah, i've had a screen protector over the camera lens now since i first heard of the scratching. i was too late myself and some scratches were already there.

this solution, it looks to me that it won't work right. by the nature of the physical design you press the blue plastic in towards the lens when you open and close it. maybe you can try not to, but eventually you'll press in enough to cause it to touch and scrape the lens - even after this fix.

filing away the part that was touching before, but leaving the surrounding area alone, will cause the locale of the scratching to drift to the edges of the region you've files down. a more proper fix would prevent any of the camera lens area from being scratched by potentially lifting the blue plastic away from the lens.

perhaps you could do this by sacrificing the area of the lens already scratched: glue on a strip of plastic parallel to the LEDs that would act as a lifter to prevent the blue plastic from being able to press against the lens, perhaps.

my hope, personally, is to attach a thin piece of microsuede or chamois to the underside of the blue plastic. this would give it the ability to wipe the lens clean as so many believed was its original purpose. maybe a combination to the two would be best.

Re: F-Secure Mobile Security Suite Review

bitflung — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:24:14 -0000

i've used f-secure in the past, and will again in the future. using the NCPe IPSEC VPN client, and putty SSH, I frequently connect to my office to work remotely.

Without a proper malware/virus protection product, I would not be able to convince my employer to allow this connection. Hard-reset to fix the issue? That's like saying you don't need antivirus in windows because you can always format the hard-drive and reinstall (or use the recovery disk, if you've got one of those mainstream consumer plastic machines).

I'm not arguing that everyone needs this - but rather that some people do. If you need it, you know it - if for no other reason than because IT states, "no remote access without firewalls and antivrials".

All things being equal, I'm quite pleased that f-secure sells this software: if I HAD to install antivirus and ALL I could choose from were McAfee and Symantec (the two most commonly used products in my area) I wouldn't bother. Simply put, I've used f-secure for years, love their products and respect their developers. Their competition tends to make bloatware that I would refuse to install on my resource limited machines (both mobile and netbook alike).

Re: How To Replace The Nokia N97 Camera Slider

bitflung — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:50:18 -0000

great to see this video posted - i've already got my replacement glass and have been holding off for 3 reasons:
1. wasn't sure how to safely remove the old scratched glass (now i see)
2. don't want to void warranty yet (would be ticked if something else goes awry)
3. haven't prepped my new glass properly yet

#3 is the key: why mickey didnt prep his either is beyond me. clearly, there is potential for dirt to get underneath. i dont care how careful you are about pressing down on that slider, you're gonna scratch the new glass eventually. i want to prep my new glass with a piece of cloth between the glass and slider before installing it. otherwise, it's just a waste of time and money. ($12 for new glass from hong kong - cheap i guess but took over a month to ship).

-bit