Information Technology by dreamtrove

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Information Technology

POSTED BY: DREAMTROVE
UPDATED: Friday, December 18, 2009 14:38
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Sunday, December 13, 2009 5:27 PM

Sorry for being irritable. I've been working 16 hours 7 days a week since aug 8th, which means four months without a day or hour off, I'm a bit stressed. I have four more days of this, and I'm looking forward to a break.

Okay thread topic. Story never checked back so he never changed the image size, I'm going to respond to Mike's posts which I couldn't read in 4 point type, so I'll repost them here.

Yeah, this is a thread about information technology, not politics, but it's a realworld event, I'm sick of politics, and I want to think about information technology. After all, it directly impacts my life and is important to my future, and politics is not.

Okay, enough from me for the moment. Mike said something, and I'm going to try to figure out what it was

Quote:

DT: Nope, it doesn't. Which is why there's the iPod Touch and the iPhone. ;)
Oh, they work as a handy Sirius/XM radio controller, GPS system, nav system, portable hard drive, storage for music/video/movies, etc., too.

This multi-function device thing is common now. I like it. I also like the ability to disable certain features so that they don't consume power when you're not using them. click a button to turn off BT etc.

Quote:

But I guess I'll have to wait for Apple's netbook to see what all it might do...
I'm hoping for more "convergence" - more features, smaller size, lighter weight. Add a book reader and an HDMI output at a true 1080p - heck just put all that in a small unit like the Apple TV with a WiFi capability and BlueTooth, and have the little netbook itself just be the interface/display - all the REAL computing power and/or storage would be either offsite ("cloud" computing) or on the "drive unit" that would be the hub of the home infotainment system. Hell, how about an app that ties into your home's HVAC system so you can optimize your home efficiency while you're on the computer? And why stop there? Why not multiplex into the home wiring to turn lights on and off, etc., while you're not there, to create the appearance that someone IS there?

The problem with this is power.
A netbook or smaller device is consuming the same amount of processing power as a regular computer, but can't afford to carry a 3lb battery. The result is something like the Raon Everun: Tremendous computing power in the palm of your hand... for about an hour and 20 minutes.

My lenovo Netbook runs an impressive 12 hours, for all day computing. That's nice. It's only about twice my regular laptop, which is a Dell M140 that runs 6 hours, but that's quite a step considering the small size. viliv is claiming very high battery rates, but claims and reality, well, wait and see.

The problem of power consumption comes when you start slimming it down. The Lenovo S10 runs an atom, which takes a watt by itself, I have 1.5gb, screen (backlight is a little bit of a hog,) BT, Wifi, a watt each I think, no 3g. The end result is a machine that runs on 7-8 watts. With a 84wh battery, that's a nice travel device, but still doesn't fit in your pocket.

There's one snag: While the atom runs at low power while I surf the net, use office, etc., it starts burning the full 20-30 watts if I run full motion video. That radically reduces my battery time. You don't notice this change on a major processor, because you're never in powersave mode.

Now jump a size down to something like the iPhone. If you want active computing with full capabilities, you're still burning a minimum of 5-6 watts, even with the smaller screen, and that's before you go to video. Meanwhile, you have radically downsized the battery. Add to that 3g, you have serious power issues..

Quote:
I hated netbooks at first; seemed like a way of getting you to pay more for far less. The more I think of them, though, the more I see them as the next step in convergence, in putting so much more of your life in your pocket. Your health info, your diet, your medical history... all of it could be in your hands, IN YOUR POCKET, when you hit the ER door. ;)

My reaction was similar. It didn't help that the ASUS architecture was completely soldered to the board. This is a trend I hate. I've been reviewing recent models for flexibility. What I love about this machine is how easy it is to reconfigure. It came with some tweenie OS for quick jumping to social network sites and no power, running on an HDD, which is nothing you want to travel with, running a 3 cell 28wh, no BT, on 500mb. Powerless. I swapped the HDD for a SSD, SLC, at 8x, nice, fast, totally silent, runs cool. I installed Karmic (9.10) and throttle the CPU to 0.8 on everything but video. 1.5gb, intalled bluetooth, and wifi jack anything and everything. It's pretty sweet. But that's a totally flexible architecture (almost, I still want to set the fan triggers, it is on at 43, off at 41, that's just plain silly. It never reaches those temps on battery, but on AC it does. If it were set to 50C, it would never reach it. Except on video.)

Quote:
By the way, if your netbook fits in your pocket, you've got some REALLY big pockets! ;)

Lol. Wondered if you'd catch that. I was actually of course referring to the same trend you're referring to. There's no reason for the unit itself, the computer, to be larger than a wallet, now. It would be nice to use it as a phone/web tablet everywhere you went, and then have the BT desktop setup when you got home. I just bought a bluetooth desktop for 30 bucks it's just wireless KB, mouse, and numeric sudoku-pad. Monitor would be nice too, if the phone was the CPU.

But again, to be realistic, the phone in question would have to be very lightweight in power consumption to have any kind of travel or operational battery life.

Quote:
Sadly, I'm probably going to remain limited in the size of whatever device I carry with me, by the size of the keyboard. A 13" MacBook is about as small a keyboard as I can comfortably type on, and I'm useless on the tiny little QWERTY keyboards that come on most flipphones these days. My brain knows where "q" and semicolon are, and my pinkies know where they are, but my index fingers DON'T know where those characters are on the keyboard. As such, when I try to "type" on a tiny keypad, I lose massive amount of efficiency, and drop from 75wpm to more like 7.5 wpm. :)

My fingers are small, I prefer a small kb. Not blackberry small, but like this one. I probably would have no problem with the UMID M1 KB except it's missing keys, I have issues with the whole "soldered" thing again there.

But actually, you'd be looking at a folding bluetooth kb even for travel. You check your mail, business transactions, etc., but if you want to write something, pull out a folding BT, and type away on a regular KB.

The BT desktop is full size, but you can also get a folding BT KB of decent size.

Quote:
So even with something relatively tiny, I'm going to want at least a foldable (or rollable?) keyboard to carry with me, so I can write on the fly.

The stowaway model will always have the nifty james bond/indiana jones feel, but I suspect the simple fold in half will make more sense

Quote:

Oh, I don't mind their proprietary systems, if it means that I can just plug-n-play, and know it will work. I am NOT tech-savvy; I have no desire whatsoever to build computers, nor to program them. I just want to USE the damn things, and when I want to use it, I want it to work. Mac systems have always done that for me.

I'm too geeky. I want to rig it just so. Also, I don't want to pay for anything extra, files, software, etc.
I view all of this as "implied debt" a concept you know I hate. I pay cash up front for whatever I buy and I don't want anyone ever coming to me and asking for more money.

Quote:
I'm wireless now. I just hooked up the Airport Extreme base station and got it set up and now I'm on the back porch typing this, and it's 70 degrees and sunny outside.

You live not here. It's 10 here.

I have wifi, there's no wireless cell coverage here, but I want to plan ahead. I have my eyes on some devices I'll post in a bit

Quote:
I tried this last weekend with a NetGear wireless router. Spent five hours wrestling with it, trying to configure it, trying to get it to work. Called a buddy of mine, and he said it takes a Windoze™ machine to configure it to work with a Mac. Funny, the salesman at the store never mentioned that. And when I specifically TOLD him that I was currently using a 13" MacBook running OS-X 10.4.11 (yes, I even gave him the sub-release number!), he assured me that it would be fine. It wasn't fine. I took the sumbitch back and demanded my money back. And when they could tell that I was amping up and things were about to turn TRULY ugly, they immediately relented and gave me my full refund - which I applied toward the purchase of a refurbished Airport Extreme base station.

Netgear, I'm sorry guys, you have serious issues. I have gotten netgear to work ONLY under the conditions specified on the box. D-Link is what I'm using right now. It's weak, but doesn't crash as often as Cisco's Linksys. I suspect Belkin is better, but I gave my belkin router away, and now here I am.

Quote:
So now I'm happy, wireless, and working. And I can print wirelessly now, even on CDs and DVDs (if anyone remembers what those things were...). I can share my music from my iPod, or transfer it around. And if I do things just right, I'm told I can send music wirelessly from iPod to my home theatre speakers.

I have a thought about this, but it's a deep dark fremmy thought and I won't post it ;)

Quote:
I'm sure I'm biased, because I've been on Macs since 1985, so they seem intuitive to me. I've got friends who rant about how cludgy the iTunes interface seems, and I had no idea what they were talking about, until one of them showed me how he was trying to download stuff in his iTunes account on his PC laptop - and it WAS clunky as hell. I told him he really should try it on my Mac, which he did. He now owns a MacBook Pro. It's funny - I've converted so many of my friends to Macs, and they all have much newer, much fancier systems than I do now, and I'm a li'l bit jealous, to be honest.

Apple ticked me off in the very beginning. My first machine was an apple ][e. I loved it, even though I recognized that it was technologically inferior to the TI-994a. What started to bug me was the cost. $2200. It seemed high in comparison. My dad was one of the first reviewers, and Apple *would* *not* cut him a break, making them unique in the computing world. He gave them a ton of free publicity. Then I found out all the stats, like that the cost of manufacturing was $156, $6 less than the TI, and the rest was air. This would fortell every financial experience with apple thru the present day.

Apple is in the business of ripping people off. Even if they make good equipment, their first goal is to rip you off.

Anyway, next, the Mac, and then the PowerMac, and then I gave up. If something broke, you had to buy from apple. If you wanted to expand, you had to buy from apple. Replacement FDD, c.1989, IBM: $12. MAC $450. We were nails.

Anyway, I also always had other machines, Atari, Amiga, and PC. Eventually, PC won out, but windows lost to Linux for me.

Quote:
Heck, I'll be happy to upgrade to the new SnowLeopard OS in the next few months... And I may add a new iMac to the network, since more than one can be on at the same time now!

But I really wish Apple would come up with a netbook or something in a similar planform before long.

I'm looking for open technology. I want to be able to change everything on the machine, 'cause I change a lot. I want to swap the drive, the OS, the power system, screen, anything. Also, Mr. Solder has the problem of "If anything breaks, you buy a new unit." I want everything solid state, to minimize the chance of Sudden Application Death Syndrome (SADS) and Machine/OS Brick Syndrome (MOBS).

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Sunday, December 13, 2009 6:48 PM

DREAMTROVE

Asus r50a

http://products.pocketables.net/products/?id=152
7.8" x 3.8"
39 Wh

Viliv x70-ex

http://products.pocketables.net/products/?id=523
8.3" x 4.6"
29wh

Samsung Q1 Ultra

http://products.pocketables.net/products/?id=151
9" x 4.9"
56wh

It's Samsung. That's its first three strong points. Size-wise, requires a large pocket.

At this size and price, I'd think the Viliv S-7 would be the hands down winner, but it's hard to see a strong advantage over a standard netbook for 10% of the price.

Viliv S5
http://www.umpcportal.com/products/Viliv/S5/
3.3"x6.1"
23wh

At first glance, the asus
http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/12/asus-r50a-full-review/
looks like the most superphone worthy. I don't know, the default architecture is very nice, and the size, 3.8"x7.8" makes for a decent reader, and pocketable.

There are other Samsung models, and I haven't looked into the Kohjinsha much yet.

Still, if the architecture problems on the Asus fon't hold over from the netbooks, and the native vista can be pared down or replaced, it looks like a nice machine.

Thoughts?

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Monday, December 14, 2009 6:57 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The problem with this is power.
A netbook or smaller device is consuming the same amount of processing power as a regular computer, but can't afford to carry a 3lb battery. The result is something like the Raon Everun:

I might be missing context, but the whole point of the smaller machines is that they use less power. The latest Intel Atoms are pretty impressively efficient. Gutless as hell when compared to the top i7s, but they're aimed at a different market.

Quote:

Lol. Wondered if you'd catch that. I was actually of course referring to the same trend you're referring to. There's no reason for the unit itself, the computer, to be larger than a wallet, now. It would be nice to use it as a phone/web tablet everywhere you went, and then have the BT desktop setup when you got home. I just bought a bluetooth desktop for 30 bucks it's just wireless KB, mouse, and numeric sudoku-pad. Monitor would be nice too, if the phone was the CPU.

Don't know if this is what you're talking about, but there's product ranges referred to as smartbooks that are just that.

Quote:

My fingers are small, I prefer a small kb. Not blackberry small, but like this one. I probably would have no problem with the UMID M1 KB except it's missing keys, I have issues with the whole "soldered" thing again there.

I have a PDA, the touchscreen allows pretty good character recognition of hand writing, so no need for a keyboard.

Quote:

I'm too geeky. I want to rig it just so. Also, I don't want to pay for anything extra, files, software, etc.
I view all of this as "implied debt" a concept you know I hate. I pay cash up front for whatever I buy and I don't want anyone ever coming to me and asking for more money.

Some of the reasons I run Linux too. If I could I'd probably go BSD, but it simply doesn't have the hardware support. Certain things like GFX Cards need proprietary drivers, because the manufactures don't release hardware specs, and the free BSD flavours have little or no support.

My only comment on your devices would be regarding Asus. I used to always think they were a quality make, but their quality has dropped and their after sales support is... Well they don't actually have any. Seriously. I bought a £450 motherboard from them, that's supposed to come with the best support they offer. It arrived fail on fit, and apparently they don't have a support number. I had to email some chinese guy who couldn't speak English who told me that it wasn't their problem. In the end I managed to get them to accept it as a return for testing, but I had to send it to Hong Kong at my expense (£60). That was three months ago. I've heard nothing since. No refund, no replacement. Do yourself a favour, avoid Asus they're a bunch of clowns.

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Monday, December 14, 2009 8:35 PM

DREAMTROVE

Citizen,

Quote:
I might be missing context

You can't carry a 3lb battery on a phone. You can easily do so on a laptop. That's the point. So what if an M140 burns 30 watts, it carries a 3lb battery, so it last 6 hours.

Smaller devices don't exists in order to lower power, they exist for portability. However, they *have* to reduce power in order to have any portability because they will be carrying a smaller battery. My Lenovo Ideapad last 12 hours. That's really very nice. Also, it's <3lbs total for the unite, so it's highly portable, and I highly port it.

I'd like a phone that does the same.

Quote:
Don't know if this is what you're talking about, but there's product ranges referred to as smartbooks that are just that.

This was reposted from the superman thread where it was out of place and I couldn't read it.

Quote:
I have a PDA, the touchscreen allows pretty good character recognition of hand writing, so no need for a keyboard.

Test an actual and fair estimate of your true wpm output on that, and get back to me.

Quote:
Some of the reasons I run Linux too. If I could I'd probably go BSD, but it simply doesn't have the hardware support. Certain things like GFX Cards need proprietary drivers, because the manufactures don't release hardware specs, and the free BSD flavours have little or no support.

If hardware is successful, eventually someone will come up with the library to support it. This is probably an argument in favor of the Samsung, as it is liable to be around for a while.

Samsung is probably still underestimated as a force. They produce more engineers each year from their internal education system than probably half the nations of the world combined. It's probably a more formidable force than anything else out there, including Seiko, Toshiba, Sony, etc.

Quote:
My only comment on your devices would be regarding Asus. I used to always think they were a quality make, but their quality has dropped and their after sales support is...

Thanks for the review. This is valuable feedback. You can never know if stuff you read on pages pro or con is user generated. There's no substitute for experience.

I've run into this with other companies, Compaq, Dell, to say nothing of many now extinct companies. Asus won't become extinct because this is a sideline for them, but they might back out of the portable PC market. It was a total pain when LG did this.

You make a strong case.

All things being equal, I suspect the answer is always buy Samsung. I like the size of the Asus unit, it's more phoneworthy, and I want a decent 3g, and a camera facing forwards (I don't need to take a picture of me, thank you)

Mainly, I don't like sealed units. If I can't swap parts, drive, memory, etc., then I tend to skip it, because the sticker price on these items, and then figure "if any component dies, and it's soldered to the board, you're screwed." <--- This is the main problem with the Asus eeePC*, and also the UMID MBOOK M1.

* Okay, the additional issues with the eee are
1. 4gb main drive? what is this, 1995? The use of normal flash memory as an SSD is begging for very poor performance.
2. I have an objection to any unit whose screen does not fill the available area. It screams "cheapskate," and even if the screen is readable, that corner cutting is probably endemic and will bite you in the ass elsewhere.

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 3:10 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

You can't carry a 3lb battery on a phone. You can easily do so on a laptop. That's the point. So what if an M140 burns 30 watts, it carries a 3lb battery, so it last 6 hours.

Smaller devices don't exists in order to lower power, they exist for portability. However, they *have* to reduce power in order to have any portability because they will be carrying a smaller battery. My Lenovo Ideapad last 12 hours. That's really very nice. Also, it's <3lbs total for the unite, so it's highly portable, and I highly port it.

Good point. And it tends to point out some differences between users and priorities. My MacBook rarely leaves the house, probably because it's NOT portable *enough*. When it was connected with a CAT5 line, I just left the power cord plugged in, so the battery was always charged. Now that I'm wireless, I'm finding out how short the battery life can be. Six hours would be a *gift*. :) Also, I don't really have much use for it away from home, since the only place I really spend any amount of time other than home is work, and I've got a computer there, plus the iPod that goes most everywhere with me.

Speaking of which, I have a tiny little 2Gb iPod Shuffle (the postage-stamp sized clip-on kind), and its battery will run it for two full workdays (16 hours). I've also got a 160Gb iPod Video, which won't last much more than ONE workday, playing the exact same content. So I hear ya on the "more features, lower battery life" conundrum.

Quote:

Test an actual and fair estimate of your true wpm output on that, and get back to me.

I wonder... I bet I *DO* type faster than I can write.

Quote:

If hardware is successful, eventually someone will come up with the library to support it. This is probably an argument in favor of the Samsung, as it is liable to be around for a while.

'Course, that also bodes well for the iPod/iPhone family of goodies, too.

Quote:

Samsung is probably still underestimated as a force. They produce more engineers each year from their internal education system than probably half the nations of the world combined. It's probably a more formidable force than anything else out there, including Seiko, Toshiba, Sony, etc.

Yup. Samsung has been, for quite a while now, much better quality than their prices would tend to indicate. If anything, they probably hurt their reputation by being priced too low. Korea is the new Japan. India is the NEXT Japan. :)

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 5:17 AM

DREAMTROVE

Mike,

I find that the netbook now gets used much more than the laptop, and I don't go far, but it takes me away from the desk. The ability to move and work is important. I recommend it, but don't try to run windows or accept any dumbed down OS, it can be a full machine. Sure, it's not what you want for playing video etc, but you're not usually walking around watching a video.

Everyone types faster than they write, people who can do either faster widen the gap. This took about 5 seconds to find:

The average writing speed is 15 wpm, typing: 33.
Fastest handwriting speeds are 22-31, fastest typing speeds are usually around 150. fastest shorthand is around 100, fastest stenotype, 225.

The matter of typing can easily be calculated: Your brain processes 400 information units per minute. The fastest typists learn to make "letter pairs" as information units. Divide that by characters per word, and then subtract 10% for the error free rule: tasks done at 90% of optimum speed have virtually no error. Correcting errors in far more time consuming than anything else.

If hardware is successful, industry will freak. In Korea, this stuff takes off because they have a relatively stable free society, cause they're all pretty right wing like the japanese ;) [/snark] But seriously, there's something about Altaic cultures which causes them to work, if only that the language group is so difficult to penetrate that the NWO can't brainwash their kids. (See also, Finland.)

Already, US vendors are refusing to carry MIDs and UMPCs, because they figure they can sell more gadgets if people must by a desktop, laptop, notebook, netbook *and* a phone. They lost the desktop, now the idea of netbook-phone scares them.

Samsung is a little empire. They probably care less about their market share, and more about overall exposure and extent. They don't seem bent on format wars like Sony or Apple.

Quote:

Korea is the new Japan. India is the NEXT Japan. :)

quite possible, but my suspicion is some weird part of India like tamil nadu, because of the impenetrable language/culture barrier.

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 6:47 AM

KWICKO

Oh, and as an aside, I did see a little news piece about a summit between the makers of book readers, to see if they can arrive at an agreed-upon standard. Seems there are AT LEAST four different ones now, each with their own proprietary software and OS, and none of them can play well together, which is just making it useless for publishers, who were hoping to slash costs by selling you a downloadable file online, and now they have to have four (or more) such files, one for each different reader.

Get a standard, include the audio file with the cost of the "book", and call it done. It really should be just that simple.

As to platform wars, I've no doubt Apple will be working on their own reader software now... ;)

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 9:28 AM

DREAMTROVE

Mike,

Undoubtedly true, and pointless. The whole "reader" thing has one thing going for it: A different screen. I'd prefer units have changeable screens.

Here's a system I like. I just had to print something from my netbook. I have Karmic 9.10, I plug in my Samsung ML-1740 laser printer (yeah, everything I own is Samsung, I even replaced my netbook drive with a Samsung SSD, have high speed SSD, will travel, without spontaneous drive death <-- very annoying) anyway, it said "you've plugged in a Samsung ML-1740" there was no delay or drive fuss or anything.

I suspect there will be a division:

A geek set that will have multifunction flexible devices, and this will eventually be a consumer market, targeted in a stealth way, and represent around 10% of users.

90% of the people will continue to buy branded proprietary devices and have a separate one for each function. (Why do we have a toaster? Is an over not capable of it?) <-- sure, there are reasons, but a stove *could* be designed with built in toaster. It isn't for some reason. Yet a fridge has a freezer built in.

just thinkin out loud

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 12:08 PM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
You can't carry a 3lb battery on a phone. You can easily do so on a laptop. That's the point. So what if an M140 burns 30 watts, it carries a 3lb battery, so it last 6 hours.

...

I'd like a phone that does the same.

The PDA I have from work battery lasts similar length of time to phones, I don't have to charge it every day, and it doubles as a phone, so. The PDA itself is about five years old, so they should be better now, given the advances in miniaturisation and battery life.

Of course in some ways portability/miniturisation implies low power usage. Flash memory has much lower power requirements than a mechanical hdd, smaller screens, less ram, slower processor. All are required to miniaturise the device, and also end up using less power into the bargain.

Quote:

Test an actual and fair estimate of your true wpm output on that, and get back to me.

Oh, it's no where near my normal typing speed, but it *is* much faster than the on-screen keyboard, or my typing speed on any keyboard you could attach to a device that'll fit in your pocket. Though I did learn to type reasonably fast with my thumbs when using a psion some years ago.

Quote:
If hardware is successful, eventually someone will come up with the library to support it.

For me it's the eventually part. There's only stable and fully featured opensource support for ATI graphics cards pre R500, that's the 9xxx series and earlier. That's technology that was new in 2002. The Mesa drivers are experimental and buggy, they actually don't work properly on my machine, so back to proprietary drivers, that don't support BSD. Mesa will catch up in time, but the GFX manufactures will probably have moved the bleeding edge on by then.

*Sigh*

Quote:

Samsung is probably still underestimated as a force. They produce more engineers each year from their internal education system than probably half the nations of the world combined. It's probably a more formidable force than anything else out there, including Seiko, Toshiba, Sony, etc.

Samsung kit appears in the strangest places. Some of the Xerox printers the MOD uses are rebadged samsungs. In fact they're the same rebadged samsung as the HPs the Home Office uses.

Quote:
Thanks for the review. This is valuable feedback. You can never know if stuff you read on pages pro or con is user generated. There's no substitute for experience.

Glad I could help. Actually I did some digging, on Asus's own forum there's a thread for the board I got, which has something like a reported 80% failure rate. Should have done some deeper checking I guess...

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 1:54 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Mike,

Undoubtedly true, and pointless. The whole "reader" thing has one thing going for it: A different screen. I'd prefer units have changeable screens.

Here's a system I like. I just had to print something from my netbook. I have Karmic 9.10, I plug in my Samsung ML-1740 laser printer (yeah, everything I own is Samsung, I even replaced my netbook drive with a Samsung SSD, have high speed SSD, will travel, without spontaneous drive death <-- very annoying) anyway, it said "you've plugged in a Samsung ML-1740" there was no delay or drive fuss or anything.

I suspect there will be a division:

A geek set that will have multifunction flexible devices, and this will eventually be a consumer market, targeted in a stealth way, and represent around 10% of users.

90% of the people will continue to buy branded proprietary devices and have a separate one for each function. (Why do we have a toaster? Is an over not capable of it?) <-- sure, there are reasons, but a stove *could* be designed with built in toaster. It isn't for some reason. Yet a fridge has a freezer built in.

just thinkin out loud

Sadly, I have a toaster, an oven, AND a toaster-oven. None of them work particularly well. :(

Me, I'd like to have a "base unit" - my disk drives (CD, DVD, Blu-Ray), hard drive, and most of the software and utilities, and have it hooked in so that it would function as the main "infotainment" hub for the house - TV tuner, internet radio, iTunes, etc. - and then have the smaller portable unit that would travel with me. It would have phone, camera (preferably the phone and camera would use a BlueTooth earbud, with the camera facing forward so that what you're looking at, it's looking at), reader, enough of a drive to hold some books, documents, a couple movies or so, and your iTunes and some simple apps you might need (think "Word Lite" or "PowerPoint Lite" or some such - not the whole program, which would hog memory, but a simpler version of same that would allow you functionality, yet still be compatible with the full version which is stored on your base unit at home).

The mobile unit would have smallish storage and memory, no CD drive of any kind, keyboard, screen, and WiFi or BlueTooth capability, plus enough battery life to run 12 hours or better. While it might not fit easily in a pocket, it wouldn't be much bigger than that. It's your movie and TV, your iTunes, internet radio, and satellite radio tuner, and more.

Oh - and it's also your school textbook, your tablet, and your pencil. :)

And of course, it's easy to sync up to your home unit from a distance via the internet, so you have access to all your stuff while you're on the road. And it's easy for students to sync up with the base unit in their classrooms.

Lots of this is being done now, but ALL of it will be coming along soon.

I never thought I'd like a netbook, or find any use for one. I thought that about book readers, too. And I thought that about laptops, but now I find myself not using ANY of my desktops (and I have THREE iMacs, including an old lime green one!), preferring the simpler, easier, lighter laptop.

It's also getting much easier to just use a flatscreen TV as your main monitor, if you need such a thing (someone like me, who's losing vision, DEFINITELY needs a biggish screen). I'd like to utilize the picture-in-picture feature to work with the computer, too, so you could be watching one thing on TV while looking up your IMDB info on the show in a small window in the corner of the screen.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 5:49 PM

DREAMTROVE

Citizen

Quote:

Of course in some ways portability/miniturisation implies low power usage. Flash memory has much lower power requirements than a mechanical hdd, smaller screens, less ram, slower processor. All are required to miniaturise the device, and also end up using less power into the bargain.

Yes. I already have this figured in. You don't need a slower processor, you just scale it down. Almost all processors are scalable, and have been since the dawn of home computers, if not computers. This one is scaled at 50% to 800mhz and is consuming 1 watt. wireless uses a watt, ssd, too, total, it uses 4 watts with the screen off. 7-10 with the screen on depending on backlight setting. More on video.

Quote:

Oh, it's no where near my normal typing speed, but it *is* much faster than the on-screen keyboard, or my typing speed on any keyboard you could attach to a device that'll fit in your pocket. Though I did learn to type reasonably fast with my thumbs when using a psion some years ago.

Oh, sorry, yes, I would agree to that, though I got reasonably fast at the jornada onscreen kb.

My assumption is that on any handheld device if I was doing any serious typing, I'd keep a BT KB foldable on hand.

Quote:

For me it's the eventually part. There's only stable and fully featured opensource support for ATI graphics cards pre R500, that's the 9xxx series and earlier. That's technology that was new in 2002. The Mesa drivers are experimental and buggy, they actually don't work properly on my machine, so back to proprietary drivers, that don't support BSD. Mesa will catch up in time, but the GFX manufactures will probably have moved the bleeding edge on by then.

*Sigh*

You actually out-geeked me there.

Quote:

Samsung kit appears in the strangest places. Some of the Xerox printers the MOD uses are rebadged samsungs. In fact they're the same rebadged samsung as the HPs the Home Office uses.

My dell has a Samsung screen. For all I know so does this Lenovo. Maybe Lenovo does. It's real nice anyway. I can't imagine Vista or Win7 on this. But Karmic runs like a top.

Quote:

Glad I could help. Actually I did some digging, on Asus's own forum there's a thread for the board I got, which has something like a reported 80% failure rate. Should have done some deeper checking I guess...

Asus has issues. I'm aware of that. I like features like their 3g, a forward camera. I don't know why there's so much webcam: I don't want to take picture of *me*. Also, the video-phone thing is a long term sci-fi gimmick, it will never take off because a) it has no added value, and b) it prevents you from multitasking. If people couldn't multitask while talking, on or off the phone, they just wouldn't talk.

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 6:09 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Also, the video-phone thing is a long term sci-fi gimmick, it will never take off because a) it has no added value, and b) it prevents you from multitasking. If people couldn't multitask while talking, on or off the phone, they just wouldn't talk.

Not to mention that you REALLY don't want your mother-in-law seeing you roll your eyes while she jabbers on... ;)

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009 8:31 PM

DREAMTROVE

Mike,

just editing that last to add "Naked."

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Thursday, December 17, 2009 6:28 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
You actually out-geeked me there.

I have a degree in Geek.

Have you seen this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_%28console%29

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Friday, December 18, 2009 2:38 PM

DREAMTROVE

Citizen,

Yep, was considering that. I don't computer game much, though. I'm thinking maybe UMID M1, or Samsung Q1 Ultra.

I was just at two cell stores, and the only contracts there are Faustian. Gotta be some way to get decent global mobil in your pocket that you can actually type on.

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