Posts by Mage

the really really really big thing that killed Skype

Was that it got broken by MS:

Netbooks suddenly going to near 100% CPU, that had worked when eBay owned it.

Migration of login to MS Passport

Removal of features.

Dumbing down of text chat.

Death of Linux Version.

Some people even moved to QQ.

It was dying long before Whatsapp was popular.

Re: At least ... IE

Because IE is dead. MS even killed IE8, so any OS using it for Windows or MS Update, say reinstalled X-Ray machine, can no longer connect to MS Servers. Fails on HTTPS and FTP. VMware ends IE11 support next year. MS has even killed their own Edge, and is using the guts of Chrome (Chromium?) in it now.

I was trying to get updates and converters for Office 2003 and Office 2007. MS's site search is now useless for that, you have to search cnet instead. MS wants to rent you Office 365. Not office as you know it. But then The Ribbon (Office 2007 and later?) isn't Office as you know it. Easier to find the third party "Recreate the Traditional Menus" plugin than any MS service pack or plugin for real versions of Office (i.e. ones that came on CD and didn't need the Internet, even the phone activation still works, though you may need to search the Internet to find the phone numbers).

1-800-930-031 to activate all MS Products in Ireland. No quiz any more on why you are reinstalling, fully automated.

Re: No cursor keys

Surely you mean

E

S D

X

Re: Independent key verification

Initial key distribution really needs a separate channel and no identification of what the message is for, but known identity of both parties.

It's been the the problem of every system ever. The Asymmetric system using public and private keys is a part solution.

Re: International Standards Organization

Just kill the stupid US date format.

I don't mind them keeping inches, Fahrenheit, the confusing pounds alone for body weight or their spelling. Or their own names for things.

Though I try to either write the month or use YYYY-MM-DD. I now use YYYY-MM-DD on all my spreadsheets etc.

Re: You are all thieves

The 8 track (Lear Jet Audio) had high tape wear , no FF and no rewind because it was a an always slipping endless loop. Though 1/4" rather than 1/8" CC and twice the speed, it wasn't better quality than decent CC using home recorded tapes because of high speed duplication and the track width may have been slightly less than CC as the head is physically moved each time the metal foil is detected. Home recording gear did exist. Also the program had to be split in four.

Experimental wire recording existed maybe 1899. US and UK used Wire Recording till after WWII. The Germans started tape use in the 1940s. Ampex was one of the first post WWII copies.

1: RCA 1/4" tape cartridge 1958

2: Compact Cassette 1962. Originally for dictation.

3: Lear Jet 8 Track 1/4" endless loop demos in 1964. A refinement of earlier loop cartridges. Also called Stereo 8. Only widespread ever in USA and because of a deal with a car maker. Some small sales in UK 1968 to 1970, approximately. A dead format.

Radio studios/DJs used an endless loop cartridge that seems to have predated the consumer 8 track

4: Micro Cassette 1969. At half the speed of Compact Cassette and usually mono (someone mad MIGHT have done a stereo version) it was only ever for dictation. Now dead due to Flash memory.

5: Sony Elcaset 1976 1/4" tape, superior design to CC and RCA cartridge. Technically good, but too large for portable market (there was one portable that looks like a competitor to Uher or other reel to reel portable recorders used by journalists.) About 10 years too late, so a failure. Dead format.

6: CD. About 1982 to 1984 introduction. Still best solution for physical music

7: Sony Minidisc. A great idea killed by DRM, inability to copy off your own recordings digitally (journalists etc) 1992. Now a dead format. Also Sony was too late adopting MP3 as alternative to ATRAC.

7: MP3 Players using Flash, battery backed RAM or HDD: Available solid state and HDD from 1997, though prototypes using other codecs may have existed from 1982. MP3 as a codec only existed from 1984.

SACD / DVD Audio / HDCD Audio etc: Variously 1995 to 1999 introductions. All dead. Aimed at Audiophiles, a fickle market.

8: iPod. A very late MP3 entrant (2001) successful due to iTunes.

There was also a very large stereo / two track version of the Lear Jet cartridge also using 1/4" tape that was only rented to restaurants and hotels. Certainly in use in 1970s.

Cassette players and tapes are still made and sold.

Re: You are all thieves

Motorola was so named because they brought out a record player for cars, before WWII!

This proves that some trends are only fashion driven. There is no point at all to Vinyl over CD.

"RIAA historical data suggests 1986 was the last time vinyl revenue topped CDs, however that year was early in the life of the CD as a format and a time when the Sony Walkman and its clones were still cool. 1986 therefore saw cassettes account for 55.9 per cent of sales."

CD came out in force about 1985, though they existed earlier, demoed in 1982.

While cassettes are totally inferior in quality to Vinyl, they do have some advantages over CD and other formats. However the CC resurgence is also fashion driven, and nostalgia.

Ironically the really cheap or early cassette players have survived but the belts in the high-end ones turn to goo.

Easier to get steel needles for old windups and Stylii for 1950s to 1990s record players than some of the new ones sold. Most of which claim to do 78, but none have the fatter stylus needed for the wider grooves. A microgroove stylus thus picks up noise from the bottom of the groove, I doubt any use the briefly lived dual profile stylus for both.

Re: What's the idea that the rest of the world...

Success is partly having the money to start, marketing, hard work and luck.

Not actually ideas.

Intel didn't invent x64, AMD did. Or Transistors. They got lucky with the 8080 because CP/M (Digital Research). They started as a RAM maker.

Apple didn't invent the MP3 player (iTunes & Marketing) or the Smart phone (Data plans & Marketing).

MS didn't invent BASIC (Dartmouth College) or DOS (Digital Research) or Windows (Xerox) or C# (based on Java).

Hovercraft, Concorde, Inmos Transputer, First electronic Computer. Also UK developed their own independent atomic weapons and space flight. The only country to develop either and give them up. US persuaded them to rent / buy from them.

Maxwell, Faraday.

The rot started actually before Thatcher, but she accelerated it. Being ONLY Services based and a Nation of Shopkeepers is not sustainable for a former Empire now a small island Nation. A lot of Empire wealth was asset stripping and exploitation. Ask Indians, Africans, Caribbean, China, Australia and Ireland.

Re: a preview for well over a year

Really?

In a basement with a sign saying beware of the leopard!

Re: possible for Apple to allow updates

No, because Epic will not have access to iOS tools.

It's not like Android or Windows (and especially not like Linux), because on those you can build apps to latest API etc without any MS or Google support. You only need Google agreement for the Playstore distribution.

You can in theory develop for Android and let people download direct if they change the security setting on their phone or tablet.

So you can ALSO install old Android and Windows apps for products no longer on on the stores. With Apple your phone/tablet is doomed to NEVER have even an out of date VLC, epub reader or whatever UNLESS you installed it from the store while BOTH the phone/tablet was supported and the App was current.

So apart from the double dip of taking any ongoing income from an app as well as the sale, they totally control and eventually block the device you bought. In the name of "security", but it's ego and greed.