In keeping with anti Microsoft, and of late anti Google sentiment, I officially despise Apple. More specifically iTunes and Apple's whole MP3 world domination plan.
I've never liked iTunes; it's messes with your MP3s, creates dupliates, it fails to acknowledge that you might actually have more than one computer in your household and it generally works very hard to prevent me from doing perfectly legitimate things with my media. If I had to get permission from it everytime I wanted to turn on the radio, and it was from a Space Odyssey 2001, it probably wouldn't let me do that either... Dave.
The straw that broke the camels back:
I recently purchased my other half a cool little iPod Nano, and was looking forward to using (portable) SongBird to sync music with it. I figured that Apple had probably decided to loosen their death grip of MP3/media world, but boy was I wrong. To my utter dismay I discovered that Songbird was pretty much forced to drop support for iPods because it doesn't fit in with Apple's world domination plans. Bang goes that portable dream up in smoke. It's a shame but I don't think that I really have any pressing need for SongBird beyond the iPod support. I'll probably just stick with XMplay and VLC. Sorry, SongBird you just got caught in the cross-fire.
So to you Apple I extend a middle finger in salute of your continued efforts to force me to decide when and how I listen to my music. I have a few choice words for you...
Floola, Yamipod, mliPod, Amarok, CopyTrans Manager
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I already knew all of this. Especially with iPods being overpriced pieces of crap (and Macs just being overpriced), I've stayed far away from Apple products - especially iTunes.
Vintage!
I'm not saying that this is anything new, just ranting my frustration and disappointment, since I've been painfully reminded of it.
I just need SongBird to add external flash media support to MSC devices and I'll be all set with my "DigitalTouch".
I am not sure where I stand here...
I have the Ipod Touch, and I love it...So fun and it works well, but...
I don't like itunes....
-It messed up my ipod with that stupid 'Auto-sync' option when I plugged my ipod into another pc with it installed...a whole day of school with an ipod devoid of music or videos...at least it was charged though...
-It is so annoying when you download something...take a film I got on DVD with a free ipod version inside...yay...so I download it, and it wont play until I activate this pc, but it took me ages to work that out...
-The limit on how many pcs can be autorised...I have only ever used two, but apparently I have authorised at least 3...
“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman
Totally agree, Apple are the devil. Far worse than Google or even Microsoft. Microsoft are slowly being forced to comply with standards and stuff, Google have always supported open source, but Apple on the other hand continue to do everything they can to make everything proprietary and stop you integrating anything at all.
My lil' sister just got the latest iTouch for XMas. But you can't tranfer files to it without iTunes. And you can't transfer files off it at all. It's ridiculous. I hated Apple before, but I don't understand how they convince people to keep buying a device that can't even interface with a standard operating system!
Stupid. Apple should die.
Robin.
I remember reading an article explaining why Google doesn't open-source search and advertising. Basically, all of Google's revenue (about a $billion a day last time I've checked) comes from search and ads.
Apple on the other hand also has the same concept. They lock the music down to iTunes because the iTunes store provides them moola. They keep the insides of a Mac locked so that they can make a killing off of replacement parts (exception: Mac Pros are already expensive enough). Essentially, it's just that Apple's business model pulls in money from more places. Google makes enough money off of ads that they make more money by simply making cool stuff for free.
Microsoft is getting better though, I'll have to agree on that :).
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I don't really like Songbird either. I put Rockbox on my Sansa e250, and then installed Songbird onto my flash drive. I had a really hard time trying to get the two to sync (I ended up using FreeFileSync and then installing Songbird to my Sansa). Now Songbird crashes nearly every 3 minutes, duplicates every song in the library, and takes 4 minutes to start up :(.
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so you are willing to pay 499$ for that Archos MP3 video player that has just as many GB as the Ipod classic if not more (last time i checked it was around 320GB to 500gb)? It supposibly is the only MP3 player that will work officialy out of the box with linux, mac, and windows. probibly just a plain old MSC device.
I love my Mac. it is highly priced because it uses good components. when you buy a 499$ computer you get cheap crap or parts that havent been fully scanned through quality control standards. all the hard drives in the dells at work have been replaced 2-3 times and at least half have had to have ram replaced. the laptops are worse. 100% of them have had their hard drive replaced 4 times or more. 10% have been rebuilt from the round up, ram has been replaced, 2 have burnt up and more things have gone wrong. my work laptop has a dying screen/ video card, a unworking NIC card, no HD, Memory issues, helkl its amazing this POS is still alive. Mir pats it smiling knowing he finaly succeded in one of his life goals of having a IBM Thinkpad R40/T40.
Amarok! Dont get me started there! What a f*cking POS. cant sync worth crap, changed the ID tags on my songs by putting pointless Unicode on random tracks thus making it impossible to find a WHOLE album or Artist or even the right track, Then there is the whole "takes a f*cking half hour to type a search", The library has gone to shit, the new 2.x looks like shit, did i mention it cant f*cking sync, MTP support fails, MSC support fails, it changed the bitrate playback of some of my trans like for example i have a 320kbs track and it plays it at 96kbs. Amarok makes me RAGE.
Songbird... pointless as well. you have to manualy update the library database each time and you cannot make it so that it goes to multiple folders in different directories to find your music. oh did i mention it sucks in syncing? oh and the playlist feature fails miserably. i make a playlist and play it once, then i press play agian and it SHOULD start from the begining, but nooooo it has to start at the last track played. GWAAAAAAAAAAAAA....
If it (mp3 player) cannot support drag and drop then its a worthless peice of shit!
I am perfectly happy with a Sansa e250, and boy am I glad that I don't usually even play music with it :).
The solution to Mac problem--get an Asus.
And to raise the bar even farther, if you can't install Rockbox on it, it's a worthless though expensive paperweight that plays music!
(Somebody lock this thread before I find a gun ;).)
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i have 3 Sansa mp3 players. one is locked up with MTP so one HAS to use a sync program to transfer music to it. FREAKING FAILS
ASUS isnt that great either. i have seen an asus catch on fire, the SSD in them die, the keyboard fall apart and more hidious things. you get what you pay for.
Also whats the point of installing ROCKbox? just allows you to play some games and possibly some media that wasnt originaly supported.
What's your Sansa model? The majority have an option to use MTP or MSC (I love that :)).
ASUS is ranked with the #2 best computer/support quality in the world, after Apple (of course). I love SSDs if only I could get my hands on one.
And Rockbox is great not only because you can play games, it lets you play games while listening to music, and it plays MPEGS (which are 1/2 the size of the MOV formats the Sansa e200 series demands), oh and it supports SDHC, which is pretty huge (literally). Plus it's themable and about 95% of it is customizable.
(Subliminal Message @ MOD: [Please] Lock this thread before I find some NyQuil and mix it with antifreeze.)
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umm... the alchohol content of the nyquil will cause a severe reaction to the anti-freeze. there are beter ways to go.
check my profile/bio. edit: updated
The reaction is what would be intended ;).
(Mod: Please lock this up already, please!)
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i have seen a person go that way. trust me you dont want to go that way.
I'm glad I started off such a jolly old thread. Something to fill us with hope and joy for the coming new year (if you're not there already, Australia and co).
Happy New Media Player Everybody!
I rarely purchase pre-built computers. I usually build mine from scratch so I know exactly what's in them and how upgradeable they are.
Wooo!!!
You official hate everything I do
Apple likes to claim universal stuff as theirs, like in your example, MP3's, GUI's for Computers, etc.
I used to hate Yahoo too, until they promoted Firefox.
they dont promote firefox. they castrate their mail and services so that you are forced not only to use IE but to use a windows based computer or you cannot utilise the simplest of email things. i cannot *#&^!ing attach anything to a @*&*!ing email anymore. Yahoo tells me to go talk to my ISP and my ISP tells me to go talk to yahoo and then yahoo closes their call hotline for paying customers. thanks for the shaft Yahoo! good thing i still have my Hotmail and now a google account.
t(o_ot)
They did at one time.
http://www.favbrowser.com/images/yahoo-firefox.gif
if you have linux you are 100% fsked from yahoo. hell even Microsuck Hotmail works in linux.
Do what? We used Ubuntu for about six months a year or two ago, and my wife uses Yahoo! Mail and never had a problem. Messengers are another matter, we just use Pidgin (was Gaim then).
Recently they now require you to install some program to use the attachment feature in Yahoo!Mail. sadly it is not Mac or Linux compatable so it screws us linux and mac users from sending attachments. So unless you are using Yahoo!Mail Classic you are basicly screwed.
Oh as for Yahoo messanger you are correct. their IM capabilities on linux leave much to be desired
i haven't installed there program. I attached files just fine
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
If you use the Attach button at the top, it attachs files like it always has for years. It's only when you click on the "Attach files more easily" link at the bottom that you have to install the software. Don't click that link and you won't be prompted to install software.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
as i mentioned to yahoo and verizon who keeps sending me back and forth, when i click the attach button NOTHING happens. this is replicatable for me on Win XP, Win Vista, SUSE 11.1, Puppy 4.3.1, DSL 4, Knoppix 5 and 6.
I just checked and found out the Attach button is actually a Flash button, not HTML. I was going to try and see what the action was that's triggered by the button, but it's in a Flash file somewhere, not in the HTML.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
Great... that means its a flash bug. har har. Now i will be told to go talk to Adobe =_=
Read the reviews here:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/
I own a Sansa Clip 2GB for the gym & running and an old school Rio Karma 20GB. I had a Rio Cali, but it died after it fell on the road too many times while running.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
I have a Diamond Rio PMP300SE... it has a full 64MB RAM... eat your heart out!
Treat it well...it should be in a museum.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
I also have the original Black Diamond Rio with a mind-blowing (...ly tiny) 32MB! I'm not even sure you can fit a full-length CD on it.
I'm sure the grandchildren will have a good chuckle at them one day, asking "But Grandpa, why didn't you have embedded microchips in your brain like we do?"
"Well kids, let me tell you a story about the good old days of portable media..."
In WMA format you probably can. MP4 might be able to as well, but those formats weren't widely used then.
I had a Rio One that also had 32MB, but it had an SD slot. I got it for free when I bought Windows XP. I also got a stick of RAM, a music CD, some other stuff. This was Best Buy. They also offered to install it but I passed on that.
I don't think we'll ever have microchips in the brain. You can put a GPS chip in your kid (I think it goes into the shoulder?) if you're rich, but I don't think they'll ever integrate computers into the brain. One of my favorite games, Deus Ex, is about this stuff. The main character has a computer in his brain. I don't see that coming to regular people. But you never know. But if you ask me, we'll have time travel first. And that's saying something.
When I was a kid, my prediction for the successor to audio tapes, maybe CDs by then, was essentially microSD. I envisioned a chip containing an album that you plug in. Star Trek: First Contact actually did this. And in a very limited fashion, albums were released in Mp3 format on microSD cards, so you could listen to them on a cell phone. Saw it at Best Buy a year or two ago.
If we can think it up, then it is possible.
Purple cows are just a few decades worth of genetics work away. Maybe even less... who knows!
I don't think the Rio supported those formats... not sure. You probably could with MP3 if you use 56kbps, Mono.
I routinely used to rip at 96kbps (stereo though) just to squeeze some extra space out of it.
And the extra memory slot was ok, but it was contiguous data storage, so you had to manipulate the MP3s to maximize the use of both internal and external storage. A real pain!
No, I think those old players only supported MP3 and WAV, though Microsoft has traditionally made it easy for third parties to support their WMA.
I don't believe "if we can imagine it, it's possible". Star Trek envisioned the transporters, but the way they explain the technology, you could technically copy a person. The way they explain it is that they record a copy of you, vaporize you, and rebuild you in another location, and it's so perfect that you don't even feel it. There are just so many problems with that. They never explain why you couldn't take someone like Data (their android), beam him somewhere, and just keep re-materializing him. Make an android army.
We wouldn't, or shouldn't want tech like that. Imagine if people who have kids "backup" their kid every day. Kid gets kidnapped, murdered, among other things, parents just restore the backup. The value of human life goes down to zero. I am actually seriously considering writing a novel along those lines, only the tech isn't transporters, it's cloning (near about the same thing).
Purple cows, while random, would just be a function of either skin color or hair/fur color, which they can probably do now. Purple isn't a natural color though, something would have to be introduced, a hormone or enzyme or something. Like if the skin had no pigmentation, was just real pink, and a touch of blue were added.
There's no way teleporting could ever happen without killing the person being teleported.
The last I heard, scientists couldn't determine the position of an atom without destroying the atom; by extension, they can't create the necessary "backup" of a person without destroying that person, atom-by-atom. Sure, they can then "rebuild" that person from their "backup", but they can't bring that person's life back.
Maybe teleporting is the way of the future, but I intend to stay firmly old-fashioned in this regard.
Time travel is another thing I don't think will ever happen, and won't use if it does happen. For example, what if we can travel to the past? Suppose you go back to the past, have a serious accident and die - all of a sudden, back in the present, you and your entire family vanish. "It's a Wonderful Life" provides a great example of what can happen if one person suddenly stops existing, and time travel provides too many opportunities for just that.
Suppose you travel to the past and disturb the delicate ecosystems there? There are consequences for that kind of thing, too, as "A Sound of Thunder" chillingly illustrates.
Suppose you travel to the future? Maybe you don't like what you see a year from now, so you return to the present and take steps to change your future - and miss out on the magnificent rainbow God provided at the end of that dark time you saw.
Brain chips? Ha. Here's another up-and-coming "technology" I will never use or want - my brain happens to be my affair, and I don't intend to have people, say, watching my every thought. I also don't see the need to replace school with a couple of microchips and an operation. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I don't see the need or use for this.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Good point on teleporting vs. life/soul. Star Trek has been accused of vilifying religion; I don't have the article handy, but it's out there somewhere -- this long article affirms that the more advanced and enlightened an alien race in Star Trek and other series is, the farther from religion (of any kind) they are, and inversely, religious aliens tend to be somewhat primitive. Star Trek exhibits no faith in God, but purely in technology. (As a Christian and as a geek, I don't see the issue here -- Star Trek is fiction, a fantasy, so it's fine not being all about God -- in fact, I prefer that the fictions I enjoy not be influenced by Christianity.) So of course Trek overlooks the soul factor because every secret of life is quantified in the Trek universe. Just about. Or at least the transporters can account for every secret, and back them up.
Some Trekkies like to tell me that the transporters can't be used as I suggest, but it was done recently (enough) on Voyager, where all non-humans (and some refugees) had to "live" in the transporter buffers during inspections (this episode was called "Counterpoint"), and there's the Next Generation episode where Scotty had put himself in a transporter buffer for several years (and was found by Picard's crew).
Time travel... A Sound of Thunder is, in my opinion, the greatest authority on linear time travel. But I do not see time travel as linear. I see time as like a family tree turned on its side. Every choice you make, you make both choices, and time splits. Where you are, you're a sum of all the choices you've made. When you go forward in time, I think you cease to exist and people believe you've disappeared, and eventually consider you dead, mourn you, and move on, so when you reappear in the future, you have no future, because you left the timeline. When you go back, you backtrack along the road you've traveled, but if you make a change, you start a new branch, and when you go back, that's where you are. It's an alternate universe.
Of course, it's all just theory. Fun theory at that. No basis in fact. Just something fun to think about.
In the first part of the recent Doctor Who special, the Doctor is asked why he can't just go back in time to stop the Master (his nemesis) from carrying out his evil plans (something I've wondered a time or two) and he says that he can't go back or forward on his own timeline. It makes sense. That he can travel all over space and time, but he can't go back to past events he was involved in, or see his own future.
Besides, it's science fiction. We don't know how these things really work. Some people have put an enormous amount of thought into the issues. They have been debated extensively by people who know as much about them as anyone. I would recommend some transhumanist forums.
Would you guys cut it out! You're totally ruining my rant against Apple!
Would you guys cut it out! You're totally ruining my rant against Apple!
Apple created CUPS. Without Apple, Linux couldn't print, or at the very least, the printing would suck.
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they just bought the guy who invented it (according to wikipedia). I think thats a difference.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Actualy it is mainly supported by Apple, it was never invented by Apple. Apple has added amy many lines of code into CUPS.
Why do celebrities & rich people use Mac products?
Because Mac stuff is trendy and you've got to be up-to-minute otherwise your career will be limited to guest star appearances on day-time television.
I've never been a fan of apple.
Why pay more for less?
Itunes is horrible and took over a friend's media collection.
What killed apple for me is that I had one guy that told me i would change to apple after using a mac book. He made the mistake of saying tis after I became a released developer here(pa.com).
I've always seen apple as overpriced things, built on the good marketing (like miley cyrus) and support good enough that most people can use it. I fail to see why people think apple would ever produce a itunes or something similar that would work on windows, not when they make the mac book.
If you want a different os, put ubuntu (or mepis :)) on your laptop.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
The thing about Apple, is you get a pretty good computer that looks really nice.
Functionally, to a geek, it's inferior to a home-built Wintel box -- this is true and Apple does not try to deny it. However, it is superior to most Dells (not counting Alienware/XPS) and Hewlett-Packards you're likely to buy at Walmart.
Macs are good for kids and newbies because they require little/no training and are built around the idea that computers should "just work".
For those of us who know better, Macs are like real computers with training wheels. They're like the Wii and the DS to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3/PSP owners. Now there are some wicked-powerful Power Macs out there, but for their price, you might as well hit up Falcon Northwest and get a real PC with, in fact, more power, that runs a real OS as well as games.
I wasn't aware that FreeBSD and NeXT were for kiddies. Guess I should be teaching my kids to use the Unix core then.
(I'd definitely have less security nightmares!) I actually run multiple OSes at home - all for specific purposes. Mac for graphic design, Windows for games, and OpenSuSE for file server/web dev. testing. Perhaps Macs were at one time less powerful machines, but I think Apple has finally gotten it through their thick (egotistical) heads that as users become more savvy, and start developing content, they are going to need more power.
Although I think the blame on that should probably go to Motorola. The PPC processor had way more potential than the Intel architecture, but IBM lost interest in the development, and Motorola couldn't keep up with the demand, and by the time they got to the 604 PPC, the performance started lagging behind Intel. That was when Apple decided that they needed a CPU manufacturer that was going to keep developing rather than rest on their laurels. So while your point about the processor might have been valid a while back, it's not so much the case anymore.
My other Intel based machines are custom built, and I can't argue that point. Off-the-shelf systems almost always use alder architecture/parts, so if you want your machine to last longer, it's better to spend a little more up front and get exactly what you want. Besides, you know you're going to want a better machine next year anyway!
I used to sign here, but the ink keeps smudging on my screen.
To all of you that do have a mac, this might help you kick the habit...
http://consumerist.com/2009/11/smoking-near-apple-computers-creates-bioh...
“There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them!”Richard Feynman