It's all about the significant digits.

> You must have missed the solution that was reached

> in the scientific and engineering (inc IT) community...

...which does nothing to alter the fact that you are dealing with devices that have limitations that have nothing to do with powers of ten.

When I was a kid, the propaganda about the metric system was that it was somehow more sensible. It wasn't just some randomly assigned bit of nonsense. It was actually supposed to be more useful and more practical.

The idea of forcing a square peg into a binary hole flies in the face of all of that.

A proper Terabyte is a number that can be expressed with ONE signficant digit in it's native format.

Some outside of IT continue to ignore the fact that computing is a base 2 enterprise.

MediaStudioPro

If you are really intent on using it then why not run it in Vmware or Virtualbox?

Multimedia dwarfs any OS

> What possible system would you want that is touch screen, yet has to have a whirring HDD and AV all the time just to fit the bloated win7

Anything that has enough room for my MP3 collection can accomodate any real OS. Add video into the mix and you quickly dwarf any operating system regardless of the size. My favorite PMP has a 500G hard drive not for the OS but for it's ability to hold all of my music, all of my pictures, and a respectable number of videos.

Fixating on the wrong technical details again.

> The title really sums it up - this is software for people who are Linux fans,

> not people who primarily want to edit video. Where is the discussion about

> workflow, comparing the pros and cons of open source vs commercial

...because most people simply don't care. This includes even people that use Macs.

With the exception of a few oddball apps like iMovie or Blender, the "workflow" is pretty much the same across the board.

Can you pick it up and start being useful with it? Will the tool get in your way? Is it incomplete, buggy or just plain unwilling to meet you half way (like iMovie).

What "ethos" do you think is better exactly? The "you will service us" approach?

Don't be an Idiot.

> Apple's philosophy is perfect for the 99% of people

> who just want to browse the web, read emails and

> write documents.

...except proper Macs still retain the ability to blow your foot off. It's functionality that is very easy to get too. The system isn't restricted at all.

Yet despite of all of this, Macs were allegedly perfectly suitable for the n00b consumer (at least until before the iPad came along).

This is because the Unix foundation that MacOS is built on is not prone on doing stupid things and neither is the shiny happy user facing part. Don't be an idiot is a sufficient guiding principle. You don't have to lock things down and treat people like babies.

This new Apple fanboy idea that 99% of people are too stupid to use a Mac or similar systems like it should deeply offend just about everyone.

Newspeak redefinition of geek.

> In fact it's actually a (vocal) minority of the geek minority,

> grown up sensible people just care if shit works the way

> it is supposed to, and don't mind paying for things.

Yes. This includes simple nonsense like saving things, printing things, moving them around, decoding whatever I happen to have, viewing any website or putting a single album on a PMP.

The Apple fanboys are desperately trying to redefine the term "geek".

Not getting in my way when I want to do something is a very key element of "shit working the way it's supposed to".

Installing VLC on a Mac does not make you a geek.

Those shout down history are doomed to repeat it.

If the age of DOS taught us anything it's that consumers are not free to pick up the next fad without openness. Closed systems trap customers and prevent them from using the next fad.

This is why MacOS was such a smashing success all these decades. [/sarcasm]

No. $99 still isn't the buy in price.

> Oh, look at that! The buy in price *is* $99.00 then. No

> iPod/iPhone or extra purchases needed, but don't let

> facts interfere with a rabid rant.

You're forgetting about the HDMI cable they didn't include.

This annoyed me about the Roku too.

3.5G > 35G ???

> Well, not really... Blu-Ray supports both MPEG2 (which a lot of disks use) and MPEG4.

Yes. Really.

You're trying to claim that a 35G BluRay in h264 or VC1 can be replaced by a dramatically smaller file with a considerably lower bitrate. The sums just don't add up.

A total non-enterprise platform.

> If you want to deploy an application on ipad or iphone,

> the only requirement is that the users have itunes

> installed on their local machines

The 80's called. They want their outdated application deployment methodology back.

> Sure, there are other annoyances about enterprise deployment

That's putting it lightly.

It's the content, not the pixel size.

There's a big difference between seeing the difference and caring enough to buy all new gear and media. Although there are plenty of people that can't notice the difference. It's just like how many people are perfectly content with medicore mp3s.

Either way, what that other guy said is right: it's the content that matters.

If you are in a position to obsess over pixel clarity, then clearly the movie has failed to properly grab you.

Same pipes, controlled by the same people.

Were people really that far behind 10 years ago? There's all of this talk about how backwards the US is supposed to be in terms of broadband price and speed. Did the rest of the world just leapfrog us or somesuch? I am using the same broadband technology I was 10 years ago.

Most important of all is the fact that the same players are dominating the scene. For many people, their cable company is their ISP. That doesn't bode well for trying to replace them with various forms of downloads.

I have a very respectable download speed and I still see Netflix stumble. I also have occasional outtages. I might have satellite outtages too but I wouldn't notice as much as I've got a fat PVR sitting in front of it. The sat could be offline for a month and I might not notice. (big drives)

Knickers in a twist.

> Theres no reason to think that creationists would be woefully upset at this app.

Clearly you do not follow this sort of thing.

Take the most complicated and proprietary option possible...

> If you have an iOS device, it will wirelessly send any H264 video to the

> Apple TV. There doesn't need to be a load of intelligence or different

> apps in the aTV as they're all in the handheld device.

This is really quite stupid. Instead of having all of your bulk power in a box that is stationary and plugged into wall power and perhaps wired networking, you have it all in your phone. You're much better off having a dumber portable device and a more powerful stationary.

All of the proprietary approaches to moving iPod data around are really silly when all you need is simple file sharing and a player next to the TV that can actually play everything.

Plus there is wireless HDMI too. So there's no need to use an Apple specific protocol for this either.

Apple DVR huh?

I am not sure that the Apple faithful really think they are going to bring to the party here. Current generation recording gear already deals with the main technical hurdle that comes with S1 generation Tivo gear. While they probably do better at Microsoft at creating a better DVR for dummies, they probably are unlikely to do better than Tivo. Even if they do, they still are left with the same problem that Tivo has.

Cable companies are the gatekeepers of their own walled gardens and they aren't about to let Tivo or Apple in. 3rd party solutions will continue to be more expensive and at a competitive disadvantage to cable companies.

Trying to kill Big Cable is probably a better approach (as much as it pains me to say it) for Apple.

Someone should remind Larry about the GPL

Someone should remind Larry about the GPL.

All of the improvements he's been making most certainly need to be released to any Oracle customer allowing those changes to filter back into the mainline kernel.

Where have you been?

> Solaris has very good NUMA capability, a fantastic

> filesystem, proper multi-pathing, and proven large

> memory deployments. Do any of those features exist

> to the same level in Linux? Or did I miss something?

Yes you did. You missed when Linux surpassed Solaris in scale and size of NUMA machines.

There are some monster SGI machines running Linux that dwarf any Sun out there.

Although Oracle excels in clusters. Companies got tired of paying Sun prices for NUMA machines. The started making clusters of non-NUMA machines from Sun and then took Sparc out of the equation. That's why you see all of the silly Penguin logos all over San Francisco during Oracle OpenWorld.

ABA -- Anything But AppleTV

> Round of applause for wasting money then Shane.

Agreed.

> Mine is configured so that any media I download or save into

> my video library on my PC is automatically available in the

> living room on the Xbox.

Got the same setup with MythTV. XBMC will do this too.

> Thanks Microsoft for making products that just work.

Even a proper Mac will do the right thing here. You don't

have to go running to Microsoft. You just have to be willing

to not drink the (apple flavored) cool-aid.

Open systems play more stuff and allow for simpler connectivity.

The "just work" without being horribly limited in order to achieve that.

Flight of the Freetards...

>> However, the Warner move removes one plank in a common

>> freetard defence..."I am only doing this because it is not

>> available and I must see this now".

>

> Not for the true freetard who runs Linux, ITunes isn't available.

This "freetard" has some of these shows wasting space on his MythTV master backend right now.

Dunno about your side of the pond, but these are carried by broadcast channels over here. If not for the crap signal quality, I would get these shows from an antenna for free.

This DRM nonsense with iTunes is why I like DVDs. I can rip them and play them back on whatever device or whatever OS I want. I can even cater to Apple's restrictive requirements if I want. Although I prefer the Archos for it's storage capacity.

The whole point of something like iTunes is "getting it now". If iTunes can't "give it to me now" then really what's the point? Just wait for the DVDs and pay less.

That's what I do with HBO content since buying what we watch is cheaper than subscribing to the channel. Plus I can sell those disks to my fellow "freetards" when I tire of them.

Amazon help keeps Apple in line.

A Bug versus a Virus.

> is the poor little linux boy getting upset because someone is

> getting a taste of the same medicine every other OS gets

> when a fault is found.....

It's not the same "medicine" at all.

When Windows has a problem it's usually much more meaningful and real malware is released to the wild and people's systems actually get infected. The architecture of the system makes a bug like this far less dangerous.

Local root exploits are as old as Unix and predate Linux entirely.

Down with WinDevices

> This means more fakeraids. STOP THIS NONSENSE.

Agreed.

If you are going to buy into software RAID then just back away and let the OS handle it. Just support enough channels so that the Operating System has something to work with.

Just support more SATA channels in system chipsets across the board.

Make 6 standard and 10 common.

RAID or not, a cheap board with lots of SATA ports can be very handy.

Woohoo!

> My ipad's jbroken and with a nifty application called iFile

> i can mount any SD card or USB key on the device (with

> the help of the photo kit hardware).

You can do something similar with the Archos 5 and the battery dock but the UI is rather gruesome. Although the Archos benefits from having 30x more storage.

I was putting off getting the Apple dongle because I don't trust Apple. I want to maintain control of anything that I create. I want to be sure that it's not altered and that I can get at it with any tools or OS I want to.

>

> Tho i do understand why something like that wouldn't be

> mentioned here -- imho the device should be able to do

> these tasks without having to be modified.

My wife's "killer app" is from the Cydia repository.

Perhaps El Reg should mention these sorts of things...

Crime fighting should not pay

...the whole point of "policing" is the fact that you think something is so wrongful that it is worthwhile that you "lose money" on the whole proposition. Criminal investigations and prosecutions are for those things that are so bad that you want to get rid of them despite the monetary cost.

It's Torts that should not be bothered with unless the money makes sense.

Big Content is really annoyed about how most cops would rather go after shoplifters, or murderers, or drug dealers, or terrorists. Society doesn't really value "copyright crime".

$60K? That's like what the girl sued for using Kazaa got stuck with just for sharing a single song.

Your app really isn't all that.

> Also, many applications don't need high integrity levels.

Most of those aren't harmed by the overhead of a proper database either.

On the other hand, a proper standardized algebra with some built in safety and recovery features comes in handy for other boundary conditions besides raw performance. It's not just about speed and most apps really don't need to be fixated on speed to the exclusion of all else.

Skimping on the data engine can cause other issues in the future.

It's like hearing the clueless rant at the GPL.

Yes. How dare those people make money selling things to individuals that want to use their own personal property any way they see fit!

Jailbreaks simply allow all buyers and sellers to act with the freedom they should have had to begin with and the same freedom they have on a Mac or a PC.

Cue the Lemming FUD Machine

> Targeted by over 99% of malware and yet most people manage

> to do what they want and apparently enjoy doing it.

No not really. It just has a long standing commanding market position that makes it difficult to flee from. People like you will help build that perception.

You should never need to fear data.

There's no good reason to be afraid of a DOCUMENT that's been sent to you. Microsoft's insistence on blurring the line between data and programs and the tendency to just run things automatically regardless of source is where this nonsense comes from.

The cause has always been painfully obvious

> You won't help but always mock Windows for these viruses but why you don't look at the cause?

I already posted my analogy.

This happens because Windows is the OS that thinks it's a good idea to lick the sidewalks.

THAT is why this nonsense continues to happen.

Do you lick the sidewalk?

Well, your computer thinks this is a good idea.

The average n00b user should not have to worry that their OS insists on ingesting every piece of crap it finds on the sidewalk in the poorest part of the city. It should just a little bit smarter than that.

Not everyone is "geeky" like you...

> Am I the only one that disables that as pretty much the first thing on a new Windows install?

Probably. At least on this side of the pond there's a well established cult of elevating ignorance and a tendency to treat computing as something that you need to be extra smart in order to understand in the least tiny way.

So most people are probably not "fixing" their systems.

They really shouldn't come pre-broken to begin with.

Defaults should be sensible and sane.

1 meter might as well be a light year.

>> "Are you going to pay £/$1.99 every time your

>> kids want to watch IceAge3 again. And again. And again?"

>

> Just buy it on iTunes, and stream it from there, instead of renting

> again and again and again.

Better still. Buy the spinny disk from Amazon and rip it.

Creating an intermediate step of any sort kind of defeats the point of an appliance like this.

Grandma already has a Wii.

> Ultimately the Apple TV is just an extension of the

> iPod/iTunes experience, which you either buy into

> or not. Your average geek is going to be able to obtain

> music elsewhere

At least in the US, everything being released these days can do Netflix streaming and other things like Amazon or YouTube. It's in the TVs, it's in the spinny disk players. It's in the game consoles.

You don't have to be a "geek" for an AppleTV to be redundant.

It's not like this is AppleTV vs. MythTV & MCE. This is AppleTV versus the entire rest of the consumer electronics industry.

Grandma already has a Netflix subscription and streams through the Wii.

Apple is last to the party this time.

> Does no other geek see a niche market in the making here?

Nope. Roku already has a box that does what the AppleTV does.

It's only advantage is iTunes.

Ultimately, it is the same old failed product in a smaller case with less capable playback hardware.

The Debian AppStore.

> Where's the Mac/Win/Linux AppStore

"apt-get install Osmos"

Infact, if you pay attention to Cydia when it's doing it's thing you'll notice that it's just running Debian's packager. The whole "app store" thing is just a dressed up version of Debian.

I interact with my iphone and my Ubuntu box in a very similar manner when it comes to "apps": I hear from some guy or website about a cool app and to go look for it in the package manger. Searching either package repository directly is less useful. Both just have too much to sort through really. Apple's is mainly dressed up better. Plus it includes proprietary 3rd party payware.

Curation Schmuration

As a user I really don't see the "added value" of Apple's allegedly superior approach. The best apps are still the things I hear about through "word of mouth" or otherwise through 3rd party sources. If I see a bunch of things in the appstore, I am still pretty much forced to try every single one of them out to sort out what's decent or useful for me. The ratings and approval nonsense doesn't do squat to help me find what's usable or likable.

Although I have seen iThing apps mysteriously disappear, be discontinue d from the store due to lack of ongoing developer payments or just had issues with iTunes s*itting itself and needing to be reinstalled from scratch (the 9.x versions of iTunes).

Less need to be dependent on questionable appstore payware of course is going to probably be percieved as a net loss to developers.

It's still just an iPod.

> Having had the misfortune of having to use a Acer Netbook, I don't see Apple

> being particularly worried about the 'pundits' right now

Actually, Acer actually puts respectable keyboards on their machines unlike HP or Dell.

If Acer rises from the ashes it will be due to the fact that someone wants to visit some Flash site, or browse it in a non-mobile browser, or do something really strange like save or print or move their own data around.

The last time I left the netbook at home, I wish I would have brought it along. It does what the Apple device refuses to do. Sometimes that's handy. (like last trip)

Apple is the anti-Commodore

> but then it would be a mac and the idea is to make something that doesn't suck

Not to mention CHEAP. Putting Apple hardware into a Commie chassis would be a travesty.

A travesty I say!

Since a Mac is specifically designed to fit in it's particular brick, there's no saying it's even possible. Whereas PC components of all sorts are cheap and plentiful. This is why modders have already pulled this off for themselves.

Put the commie next to the TV where it belongs.

> Nvidia Ion2 graphics? it wont be able to run much more than C64 games with that

It will be able to decode BluRay.

That means that it could be an interesting sort of HTPC with the wierd retro case and the built in keyboard.

Cluless Microsoft Apologists...

> It's not really a flaw per say and doesn't just affect Windows but Linux,

> Unix, Mac OS and nearly every other OS out there.

What?

Unix looks for system libraries in $PWD? News to me.

You know that funny looking file layout that the rest of you weenies like to make fun of. It's designed to specifically avoid precisely this sort of situation.

Executables are in one place. Libraries are in another. User data is in yet another.

Stop ignoring vdpau you hypocrites!

Larry has his problems certainly.

However, the fact that his company was OK with Linux help put it on the map at a time when everyone else was trying to ignore or bury it. Adobe really hasn't done very many favors for Linux. They tend to help "spread the FUD" in their particular area of expertise (desktops).

Adobe is in no position to talk here. They like to put out crap and then make lame excuses.

Adobe: add full support for vdpau into Flash and then come and talk.

Better yet: actually support Linux in some meaningful fashion.

Conflating bugs with actual malware.

> the Linux fanbois wouldv'e ripped Microsoft a new one by now...

The Linux Zealots would never have noticed what with all of the real exploits and trojans and worms out there in the wild causing havoc and bringing the internet down and whatnot.

With Windows, there's plenty of low hanging fruit.

The Subtleties of X

> If it's a case of simply needing to run a malicious X program, then presumably

> it could be done remotely over ssh -X for example.

Nope. The X server runs on the local machine. No GUI of any sort needs to be

running on a server if you are running an X application on it remotely. The part

of X that needs to do root level bit-banging and would cause the problem is going

to be running on the machine that is the "terminal".

The 20 year old stuff should be free.

> Nice to see that even the Linux fanbois don't believe in

> commercial software on their penguin infected boxes.

If you take the average person's box and take off all of the stuff that represents 5 or more shovelware updates over 10 or 20 years or more then you don't have much left really. Most of what's on a common PC is strictly "commodity" stuff that should be pretty much devalued by now. Some of it isn't because of proprietary standards that interfere with the replaceability you have with proper physical commodities.

A word process or web browser that's mostly unchanged for years and years should be gratis.

Although the real problem with something like Windows is not the stuff from EA or even the stuff from Penumbra but all of the random stuff out there written by who knows who that can somehow manage to get automatically run for you.

Creating a freeware trojan for Linux or any other Unix should really not be such a big deal if the local root exploit is available. The problem is running it. the trick of a proper virus is propagation.

PCs get cheaper. Nothing to see here...

For the cost of an iPad you can get yourself a pretty respectable full size laptop. When you compare the differences in price versus functionality, it just might not make a lot of sense anymore to people to buy a cheaper netbook. A lot of the distinctiveness of netbooks has disappeared as their specs have been beefed up. Plus PCs and laptops are cheaper all around. The whole "netbook" thing is simply a reflection of how PC technology gets cheaper over time.

The new tiny Sony Vaio laptop/netbook is much like the old tiny Vaio laptop. Although the price has been dramatically reduced.

So much for industry standards.

This is a storage vendor.

The idea that they only expect to deal with Windows is a bit absurd.