h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just happened on to this thread recently.

"(or where can I buy a Guide)"...

I've often thought that selling copies of the guide on DVD or external hard drive, might be quite a good way of getting up some money to help support the site and also, providing a foundation for cloud computing, improve its resiliency.

We recently moved onto a content delivery network to provide a bit more resilience, and it is. We've also done a lot of code alterations to make the site a lot more stable. Our monitoring shows that we're now down to one quarter of the errors (server and code) that we had a month ago.

There's plans to produce a "Guide" as we'd imagine it, but there's only a couple of coders and we're concentrating on stability to start with

Pastey, we are appreciating your efforts!

broelan, my biggest problem with the ads is that when I see the row at the bottom which says, "other customers who bought this book also bought..." I can't see well enough (from partial blindness) to distinguish those from books which I bought, so I click on images I think I recognize, and ... nope, not mine. Wouldn't be so bad, but what they think I might like is laughable!

I really hate those recommended titles stuff. It doesn't work.

It got to the point where I wrote an email of complaint into a certain web shopping place. I'd pre-ordered a hardback first edition of a book that was coming out. I don't collect many hard backs these days, and I never pre-order. But this was the first one from the author in quite a few years, and I really wanted to get it. Release date came, no book. A week later, still no book. Double checked, yup, the money had gone out of my bank. Emailed them, got a reply that they were struggling to meet demand, but my book would be with me soon.
A fortnight later, no book. Another email, their suppliers had let them down. I gave up, went to the bookshop in town and bought their last hardback. I was lucky to get it.
So, I managed to get hold of the online store in question over the phone to cancel the order and get my money back, before I could tell them though, they'd offered to refund.

Two months later, browsing said site I got recommended the book they weren't able to supply!

Insert grrr here.

^^

Just remember, you're angry with an algorithm. They don't feel your frustration. They only feel page views and purchases.

But they could work

Again, it's a tall order for machines and algorithms to predict the tastes of humans as that article I linked to explains.

Can't see a link?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/m...3Netflix-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

(from 2 days ago)

2 days?! That's like, *forever*

I don't speak German, but I want the tablet this fellow is selling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=32bUIa--6GM

I understand sleight of hand magic
and admire the way he can manipulate
the tablet's images to match his actions...
but he blew my mind with the orange drop!

His hand is nowhere near it when it falls.

~jwf~

I have to say now having had my Nexus 7 for a few months that I am utterly sold on the 7" form factor.

With a blue tooth keyboard it is actually a suprisingly decent (though this is a relative concept) productive device too.

On that check this out, I wonder just how long the PC, and by extension Microsoft actually have left?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nh2NSLgaII&feature=youtube_gdata_player

FB

Windows 8 seems to be the death knell for Microsoft unless they change things quickly. Even Steve Balmer could describe sales as merely "modest" which translates to abysmal. They're trying so hard to force their users to integrate all their devices by being exclusive. If you want to use Office files, you need to use a Windows 8 PC, tablet and smart phone. What they're doing though is chasing off long time customers because the cost of doing that is just too high and the reward is too small. Plus, using an operating system that's optimized for touch screen devices is just simply annoying on a desktop computer.

On another note, I still haven't managed to talk any of my friends into buying a Nexus 7 so I can play with it. But I do think a couple of them will be getting one for Crimbo.


Oh, and one other thing that that video didn't address but you might have a good answer for... What's a practical method of printing from your android devices? I D/Led some Hewlett Packard app for my TransPrime but haven't tested it out yet with my printer. This is a question several prospective tablet buyers have asked me and I don't have a simple answer.

I don't really do any printing so I don't know. I would have imagined though that printing to a network connected printer would be reasonably straightforward.

I'll look into it like.

On the other I reckon ordinary "tech muggles" would probably be a bit nervous about using their phone as their PC and just plugging it into a monitor/keyboard.

But the truth is from an enterprise point of view it makes perfect sense. You can easily work from wherever you are, (including at home!) connected to work provided server space without them having to shell out for a physical computer and software licences.

On top of that as more and more people have smart phones and Android/IOS embrace user profiles and enterprise level server stuff they increasingly might not even need to actually provide the phone as most people will be able to log into an encypted workspace server then just plug their own phone into the monitor.

That has got to represent potentially huge savings to businesses and I am sure that is the direction of travel they will go in.

And of course "tech muggles" might not really go for this off their own back. But as soon as people see how easy it is at work it will osmotically move into the domestic normal market.

I think Microsoft is toast, they needed Windows 8 to be a success but they were just to late. I think IOS and Android will lap this market up.

FB

I recently had some transmission/clutch repair done and the mechanic used a credit card reader on his iPhone to make the transaction.

The thing is even some of the stuff like hard core gamers, and people who have to use things like Adobe CS will soon be able to do that through phones.

By the Time Tegra 5 lands in high end devices Mid 2014 you will probably have cheap "sytem on a chip" devices that are as powerful as a mid range gaming PC now.

All but those needing to do pro level CGI will have all the computing power they need, in their phone. And with more and more of the software being sever side (which is the direction of travel) the PC is rapidly becoming an ex parrot I reckon.

FB

I don't have a functioning desktop. I've been using a laptop for years. At home, I can completely agree that in a few years, desktop PCs will disappear. However, they're not going away from offices anytime soon. They may change a bit of form and function, but the general aesthetic will remain.

I wouldn't write Win8 off, I'm using it at work and it's wonderful. They've taken all the little niggles out of Win7, and they've made it faster.

It takes a little bit of getting used to, in that the start menu is now a screen designed for touch surfaces, but other than that it really is good. I got to play with a Win8 phone the other day too, and the integration really is good.

Apple may be expanding their market share, but I'm not sure how long that'll last. The built quality of the last few products has been a bit ropey, and their solidness and stability was always one of the major selling points, along with the exclusivity and we all know where that's gone.

As for Android, I'm still waiting to see. The problem is that a few years ago when netbooks came out they were initially running bespoke versions of Linux, and when people tried to use them as they'd expect, they didn't work. Android has that once bitten twice shy thing to over come.