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Comment Re:Anti-opiate forces actually "pro pain"? (Score 1) 217

There's a lot of evidence that opiates aren't useful for treating non-cancer, non-end-of-life pain. For most regular stuff, people just get addicted and a burden on society. Most doctors are compensated on patient satisfaction, not outcomes or efficient use of healthcare resources. Patients are more satisfied when they get the opiates that they ask for, at least in terms of rating their doctors, even if they are long-term worse off for it..

Comment Re:Who can I buy from (Score 1) 1184

Take a look at SageTV Media Center (sagetv.com). It's a great mult-platform DVR / media center. It's easy to set up and use, has great hardware support, has an active user community, and has a nice low-power hardware extender. It's also reasonably priced.

Comment Re:Hey, that's us! (Score 1) 814

This is very interesting. Does she use Parallels and do a "side by side" virtualization, or does she use a more traditional "windows in a box" type"?

I'm contemplating that my next machine will be a Mac, but I still have to run some Windows software. I am researching alternatives though, but I suspect that I won't be able to find them for everything.

Thanks.

Comment Re:So the Pre 1.0 makes me appreciate my Treo 755p (Score 1) 283

My impression is that apps running in Classic won't sync with anything. Agendus does not pull calendar data from the Pre's WebOS calendar.

Perhaps it will sync if you buy a third-party syncing solution.

Also keep in mind that Classic costs $30.

Here's a link to their FAQ: http://www.motionapps.com/classic/?p=faq#mid

Comment Re:So the Pre 1.0 makes me appreciate my Treo 755p (Score 1) 283

See, I'm in your situation with a 700p that I've had for 2.5 years that is slowly biting the dust.

I worry about Palm's ability to follow through and keep supporting the Pre. Signs indicate that they will have to, since people have come to expect this since the iPhone. Also, Palm has been making noises that the Pre will be a longer term sort of device rather than the current year's model that gets forgotten about. Another change that speaks in terms of the Pre being a longer-lasting device is the potential for the app store. By getting part of the sales from apps in the app store, Palm generates revenue that encourages them to support the device.

I do find the stylus to be a hack though. The Treo's screens are small, so a stylus is needed since the controls were equally small. Another reason for the stylus is that older touchscreens did not have as fine a sensitivity as that in the Pre or the iPhone.

The thing about the Treos was that most of the hardware was fairly similar from the 600 all the way to the 700p and the Centro. It keeps costs down.

Comment Re:Heh... (Score 1) 264

I've been a Palm user since the Palm Pro and I don't recall them having a good onscreen keyboard.

There's no way that PalmOS could have supported anything like the iPhone. Additionally, Palm never had the balls to challenge the wireless providers in order to have the kind of control over their phones that Apple does over the iPhone. I think that each of the Treos that I owned (600, 650, 700p) had at most one firmware upgrade.

Additionally, PalmOS remained basically unchanged. It was great as an organizer, but does not really work well for in a modern multi-media device. For example, they never updated their browser, and if you want to use Opera, you always have to approve the network usage before you can start using it.

PalmOS has been dead for years, it just didn't really know it.

The Palm, WinMo, and BB app situations were very similar: there were many places where you could get software, but prices were too high. For WinMo and BB, you also had the additional concerns of figuring out if the app you wanted was the right one for your device. At least Palm had the right idea in making their OS standardized across all their (few) devices.

Comment Re:Palm has been generally neutral towards my site (Score 1) 247

If there's no real information about the platform and no dev tools yet released, what exactly is there to promote? That's the problem I have with the hype, like over at treonauts.com.

I've been a Palm owner for a long time (7 devices, from the Pro to the 700p), and this summer I suspect that I'm going to get an iPhone. I got excited about the Pre when it was first announced, but there's been such a paucity of actual information that's reliable, that I haven't been able to stay excited, or even interested. In addition, Palm's support for their devices has grown to be horrible. I think my each of my Treos only ever got one firmware upgrade apiece.

A lot of the iPhone's continued success has been the app store. Sure, it could be better organized, and the rules for app approval could be more clear and less capricious, but overall it's been a success.

I was interested in Android, as a Sprint phone would supposedly be forthcoming, but that hasn't materialized, and there hasn't been a critical mass of apps. I suspect that with shenanigans like this, there won't be for the Pre either. And that's why I won't be getting the phone, even if it is awesome. Perhaps when my contract w/ ATT runs out in 2 years, the ecosystem will be different and I'll make a different choice. Who knows?

I've been happy with Sprint overall, but feel that they do little to try to keep someone as a customer. Additionally, their phone selection has historically been pathetic.

Comment Re:Considering now...NOT (Score 1) 229

Yes, SageTV has it's problems (just check their forums) but when I was evaluating media center servers + front ends, it offered the best feature set and ease of use. I love the fact that you can buy client boxes (like the MVP or the HD one) that entail no maintenance, are silent, and use less electricity.

There are a lot of things in SageTV that point to the fact that it was originally developed by developers for developers. The default interface is butt ugly and not very user friendly. If it wasn't for the SageMC interface that some guy developed, I would not have purchased Sage. Many people still have to make a registry change to increase their Java heap size. Lots of people do report problems with their setups though. However, the software is now present on Mac, Linux, and Windows, which is great.

Also, the company is not very communicative. There is one "community liaison" type who frequents the forum, but he often gives snarky or non-helpful answers. There is a core of long-time users who answer lots of people's questions and in a sense throw their weight around. It's a lot like the typical open source community... :)

If you want to, you can tweak the hell out of the software and install all sorts of stuff (like a NetFlix watch it now viewer, etc). Most of the tweaking can be done via a remote control through the client box. However, the architecture for plugins makes them difficult to install and get working. They also offer a software client that you can use from a PC.

I don't like the fact that they have an obfuscated database format.

Overall though, I've been very happy with SageTV. It was easy to set up and get working and I've had no major problems. Plus, the transition from Tivo was pretty easy in terms of the user interface.

Todd

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