dennis p

Member since: Jul 20th, 2005

dennis p's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
TUAW.com	1 Comment
Engadget	9 Comments
Download Squad	9 Comments
The Digital Music Weblog	3 Comments

Recent Comments:

iPad fever: What didja get? (TUAW.com)

Mar 12th 2010 2:00PM Nope, I ain't buying one. Why?

1. No generic ability to use USB devices. I need to be able to shuttle data onto and off of an external HD (say from camera chips like Compact Flash and store data on the HD or to snag a folder of cartoons or a movie from the HD and put on the iPad).

2. Apps only come from the AppStore???? This is close to a general purpose computer, I want to install code of my own, apps from other vendors that are not subject to the whims of the almighty Apple Corp!

3. DRM. Doesn't work for music, should be rejected for movies and ebooks. Don't lock me in or prevent me from reading that ebook on another device!

4. Price of 3G combined with absurdly low bandwidth caps on poky-ass ultra slow networks don't cut it for me! (Why can South Koreans watch TV on their phones during their commutes but we get raked over the coals for so much as THINKING about really using media over the air?)

5. Unclear ability to multitask. Can you read or surf the web AND listen to iTunes? I have yet to confirm that such is possible. That and the fact that it is often the case that we cut & paste from something else when doing email that I see a need for at SOME ability to multitask. App switching ala iPhone won't cut it, thanks.

Before anyone slags on me as a "hater", I have 3 Macs (MBP, Air & mini), a Win7 desktop, an XP laptop & XP netbook, and an old IBM T40 running Ubuntu. Oh, and yes I have a JesusPhone (3G) that is the best smartphone I've seen so far (but not the best I could imagine...). I just don't see how I can use this device with the inherent limitations Apple has saddled it with.

That said, don't get me wrong. It is a very sexy device. Great form factor. Touchscreen. Nice colors. Has the ability to let me use a keyboard. Decent battery life. All great. Those other things I want I gotta have or its just no deal.

Sign me "waiting for an HP Slate" at this point. I haven't researched it too carefully yet but it looks pretty sexy as well and might not have the same set of limitations.

Intempo Rebel records songs from FM radio, freaks out RIAA (Engadget)

Jun 20th 2008 5:43PM oh yay. now you can record FM radio.

my question is why would you want to? all FM has become since Reagan gave us "media consolidation" is CRAP ON THE RADIO. you don't hear creative music anymore. you don't hear independent voices anymore. all you here is the same old crap playlist from right coast to left coast.

FM radio was awesome when I was a kid. there was a lot of variety, creative bands, ... now all you hear is what the labels buy airtime for ...and it sucks.

cute device though...

Linspire 6.0 release: Linux for the Windows set (Download Squad)

Oct 11th 2007 10:30AM Linspire might not be a total waste of $$$ for everybody. I have an old IBM ThinkPad T40 (14" display, 1440x1050 resolution) that wouldn't run WinXP anymore. It would run Ubuntu 7.04 (and reasonably well too) and with VirtualBox I managed to make Photoshop work OK too.

what finally caused me to switch to a Mac was the fact that the free fonts that come with Ubuntu (and presumably most of the Linux distros) were problematic for this 50 year old's vision. many blogs I read got rendered in such tiny font sizes it was just too hard on my eyes.

the main difference between Linux distros and either Mac OS X or Windows are the fonts they have licensed and distribute with their OS. secondarily, Mac OS X and Windows have invested in software technology to help make fonts "look better" on the screen (...for some vendor-established value of "look better"...).

linux does not ship with $1000 worth of fonts like a Mac does ($1000 = price for you to buy those fonts from the foundry). if linspire were to include both a great set of fonts and some better LCD display font rendering software it very well could be worth the $50 to people like me whose eyes can no longer read fonts rendered at very small point sizes.

DigiTimes: Google will definitely launch its own branded handset (Engadget)

Sep 19th 2007 4:55PM @Steve Macfarlane:

no, i don't think GooglePhone would benefit from being more hardware agnostic. if Google is serious about making a phone that handles access to all of their apps, does net access, does phone calls, does WiFi, does 3G wireless internet, and whatever else has been speculated that it will do you would have to be crazy to target the entire universe of cell phones. the developers would go bonkers trying to keep up with all of the various combinations of hardware. users would be frustrated with the possible bad experiences using partially-supported hardware.

no, i think if they are doing their own hardware that is a Good Thing. they can create a controlled environement and then deliver to users an optimal device for their service.

if the goophone also includes a usb host port, that would be cool. i could take a small hard drive that i could use to off-load my camera on vacation without dragging a laptop!!

the Mac teaches that having a stable hardware base underneath you makes for a better environment. Google (if the rumors are true) has internalized that lesson...

Microsoft employee blogs about switch to Ubuntu (Download Squad)

Apr 30th 2007 10:39AM funny thing... Ubuntu + VirtualBox + {Win2K or XP install CDs} will give the best of both worlds. that is *exactly* what i recently did to revive my treasured IBM T40 laptop after it would no longer deal with USB after being repaired. (WinXP would freak out everytime a USB 2.0 device got plugged in)

i installed Ubuntu and magically the USB 2.0 issues went away. funny thing -- NOBODY could explain how to figure out if all the low-level software was actually correct for the new motherboard in that machine. and another thing -- the system runs faster than XP ever did.

to be able to run Photoshop i got a copy of VirtualBox (virtualbox.org) which allowed me to install Win2K. Win2K runs pretty snappily for the 1.5GHz Pentium M it sits on...

i will tell that i like how it runs on my laptop so much that i am going to wipe my desktop machine (an HP) and do the same thing to it.

if you have a "real" Windows install CD (not a manufacturer recovery CD) and want something other than Windows for your everyday use, i would suggest Ubuntu over all the other distros. it installs easily, recognizes most hardware, runs fast, is stable and with the right bits of virtualization, you can also run Windows to get at those bits of s/w you can't afford to leave behind.

Ubuntu comes close to passing the "grandma test"; can my computer-using, 70+ year old mother use Ubuntu to get done those things she does?

Ubuntu rocks and Chairman Bill should be afraid.

Apple tells Windows iTunes users not to install Vista (Download Squad)

Feb 4th 2007 1:03AM well, iTunes isn't the greatest bit of code on planet earth but vista will be no thrill-a-minute for its users either...

any OS that puts in its EULA that it can summarily delete code you've installed because its manufacturer doesn't like it isn't something that should be trusted by its users, period. if i buy and pay for it, I SHOULD BE THE SOLE DETERMINANT of what code runs there.

i'm with apple. don't install vista, EVER. that is MY PC, not Billy Gate's and it is not his company's right to determine the code i or anyone else install and use on their PC. he and the Big Media a$$wipes they are trying to please can kiss my fat, white Royal American a$$.

XP is the last mickeysoft OS to see the inside of a PC i own, period. i may not run right out to buy a mac but there is an alternative (Linux) and it is pretty damn close to being a complete replacement for Gate's crappy attempt at an OS...

Burton'esque Zune ad demonstrates sharing, as it should be (The Digital Music Weblog)

Dec 13th 2006 2:26PM OK.

yup, its a cool ad. M$ upped their style points.

but the zune isn't cool what with its DRM silliness and inability to talk to vista (how dumb is that?) and M$ is so far in the hole style-point-wise that it will need a million of these ads to dig out...

Linux and a 9-year-old (Download Squad)

Dec 6th 2006 10:07PM Ariel is onto the only remaining obstacle to me dumping gate's abomination into the trash... the lack of shockwave and flash plug-ins. no flash, no myspace. no shockwave, no online games. for everything else i have and use on my computers (yes, several) there are reasonable analogs to software that you shell out bucks for (audio/video editing, office stuff, email, database, ...). once we have stable shockwave and flash plugins, poof, no more windows on my boxes...

URBAN TOOL's grooveRider iPod shirt (Engadget)

Oct 18th 2006 3:52PM more like "Urban Fool"... $150 for a freakin' t-shirt? no way. the only reason i actually own a scott evest is i got one on clearance for like $40...

TVU Player: TV for free (Download Squad)

Oct 18th 2006 2:56PM ...and considering that TVUnetworks appears to be headquartered in Shanghai, China, having the TV network motorheads screaming "copyright violations" at the top of their lungs won't have much effect on this software and its availability...

...in fact, i doubt that there is much anyone can do about the TV feeds either if they are located offshore...