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Gates vs. GM

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  • Gates vs. GM

    For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.



    At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

    "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."



    In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release
    stating:



    If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars
    with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):



    1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........
    Twice a day.



    2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a
    new car.



    3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would
    have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the
    car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some
    reason you would simply accept this.



    4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your
    car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to
    reinstall the engine.



    5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable,
    five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five
    percent of the roads.



    6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be
    replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning
    light.



    I love the next one!!!



    7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.



    8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and
    refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned
    the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.



    9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to
    drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same
    manner as the old car.



    10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
    What I once considered boring, I now consider paradise.
    Faust

  • #2
    I read this one before by Shaggy and I only wished that automobiles and clean fuels to propel them would have advanced as fast as computers have. We would be driving cars today that would improve the air instead of pollute it.

    I admire Bill Gates and the founders of Apple too. I can't wait for getting my hands on an iPhone with the Internet in my pocket too.

    Comment


    • #3
      Get it now

      Originally posted by iconnections View Post
      I admire Bill Gates and the founders of Apple too. I can't wait for getting my hands on an iPhone with the Internet in my pocket too.
      Emmy - Why wait? That feature(Internet in your pocket) and much more such as touch screen PDA with phone linked to your contact list, real time email with live links to the web, open/edit Word/Excel/Powerpoint and read PDF files, camera and video recorder, MP3 player all come standard on the Palm 700P. You can easily add a movie player, GPS, live TV, thousands of programs and much much more. All in one small smart phone for around $400 from about 5 different suppliers. The Apple unit isn't going to do half that at 1/3 more cost and be limited, at least at first, to one of the worst high speed suppliers - AT&T (Cingular). Not everything Apple decides to do turns to gold and this one may not live up to the hype. Doesn't anyone remember their last failed PDA attempt? The thing was a brick and had a seriously flawed hand writing input that got beat by the original Palm Pilot. That one got a ton of press too but never sold well.

      Comment


      • #4
        John, do you have a web site handy where I can compare the two and read more about all these features. Also, can we keep the service we have now which is Cingular or the new at&t? My little phone does simple email and rather poor photo images and a little better short movie clips but I haven't really used the Internet with it.

        When we were in Palm Desert last week, I had the notebook with me and could upload the photo images immediately on our computer and send a beautiful sunset to our family. The quality of the pictures are so much better plus they are backed up already on a CD.

        Do you recommend a wireless air card instead? Right now, Verizon seems to be faster but we don't like switching providers constantly. We always have had this one and tried several others for the second phone but never kept them. However, we are a Verizon customer for local phone and FiOS.

        I love to have your input. TIA.

        Comment


        • #5
          Here

          dupe - sorry

          Comment


          • #6
            Here's a site to visit

            Emmy - Here
            is one of the most complete reviews I have seen and it doesn't even touch the add on ability of GPS, Movies, TV, etc. But a great review of the features the Treo 700P starts out with. I'm sure there are sites that review the proposed iPhone but I don't know of any specific ones. Plus it isn't a production model they'd be looking at.

            If you have a Treo 700P you already have an AirCard. It's built in and works great. They talk about it in that review. I have has zero luck using it with Bluetooth to my laptop but the USB cable is easy to hook up and keept the Treo charged while using it as an aircard. That also keeps the Bluetooth free for the ear piece you'll want to have for the car and to keep your hands free to view the Treo screen while you talk on the phone. Cingular/AT&T does offer the Treo line.

            If you want to see how fanatical the world of Treo owners can be, much like timeshares, visit some of the Treo blogs at Everything Treo.com, treonauts.com and many others. It's a gadget cult for sure.

            Comment


            • #7
              Why isn't this in "Post a Joke?" I take life way too literally and had to do a quick search to check if this was true or not. Of course, it was in the "Snopes urban legends" site.

              still very funny though!

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by timeos2
                Emmy - Here

                If you want to see how fanatical the world of Treo owners can be, much like timeshares, visit some of the Treo blogs at Everything Treo.com, treonauts.com and many others. It's a gadget cult for sure.
                Thanks a lot, John. I have started to read it already. It looks like the Palm Treo 750 (Multimedia Phone) is for Cingular users. I am going to spend some time here. How long have you had yours?

                I know that you are not so keen on Cingular either. Doesn't have Frank a Treo too? I believe that he wasn't so pleased with using the phone part of it. I will search the old posts.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by iconnections View Post
                  Thanks a lot, John. I have started to read it already. It looks like the Palm Treo 750 (Multimedia Phone) is for Cingular users. I am going to spend some time here. How long have you had yours?

                  I know that you are not so keen on Cingular either. Doesn't have Frank a Treo too? I believe that he wasn't so pleased with using the phone part of it. I will search the old posts.
                  Emmy - I've had a Treo since the 650 came out about 3 years ago. I upgraded to the 700P as soon as it was available. About 8 months ago I think. I've had no issues with the phone service - very reliable (speaking of the Treo functions as well as the Verizon service I use it with). There are a few quirks in some of the non-phone features - the text messaging being the one I deal with the most - as with any complicated electronics but nothing fatal. They occasionally do system updates to address the most common ones. Overall I've been extremely pleased with both models I've owned. The high speed Internet on the 700P is a real icing on an already great cake. I don't even pay for wireless Internet anymore at hotels or airports if there is a charge as it's very easy to simply use the EDVO service on the phone with my laptop. By month end there is supposed to be a Sling Box client for the Palm - that should be really cool. I've seen the pre-beta version and it was really slick. Right now I can use the EDVO service to get the Slingbox on my laptop wirelessly but the Treo Client will put it right on the phone as well. Cool. I don't know of anyone with a Treo (Palm OS based - not the inferior Windows based models) that doesn't like it. I think its the single greatest piece of electronics I've ever owned. That from a long time audio/video/computer nut who always wants the latest and greatest.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Thanks again, John. I also searched our forum and found all these old threads here. They are interesting to read again but I realize too how fast this technology changes constantly. I was correct that Frank wasn't too thrilled with the phone part of what he bought first but he exchanged it for a better deal. You can read it in one of these threads.

                    Frank may have gotten used to what he has now as it worked great when he was here in Anaheim as I called him and John several times while my SO was driving and trying to find where the parking area was near Disneyland where our dinner was that night. We got so lost that evening and we don't even live too far away from the park but it has all changed so much since we were there.

                    John, I also read about the camera part and it takes a lot better pictures than what I have now but I want to buy something that I can keep for a while so will take my time to decide between one or the other. My SO is not a gadget man at all so I am the one who does all that stuff here at home like keeping the computers up to date and down and uploading photo images, etc. He bought our PC notebook but never used it so I claimed it but it is too heavy for traveling on airplanes.

                    Shouldn't we transfer this thread to the computer/photography help section? Why don't we add "PDA / Smartphones" to this section too?

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      TREO gets Sling Client

                      As promised Sling met the delivery date of "first quarter 2007" by releasing the free, public beta of their Sling Box client for PALM OS on Wednesday, 3/28/07. All I can say is Microsoft has never had a shipping product as good as this beta software is out of the box. I'll hazard a guess that those who are techno-nuts are likely to have both the most advanced PDA/phone (TREO 700/750p), unlimited high speed data service for that phone (why else would you have it?) and some model of the Sling Box for remote tv viewing anywhere in the world. The product is a study in simplicity. You connect a software client to your Sling Box and you control the channel and video sources from your PC and now your TREO phone to watch or optionally get only the sound (lets not be watching a tiny screen while driving folks) whatever you'd like thats on your tv, dvd, tivo - anything you've connected to the Sling Box.

                      The beta works flawlessly and delivers a very good picture, mostly thanks to the higher resolution and brightness of the Palm OS based Treo over the Windows based model, and with a few touches of the screen or using the 5 way navigator button you are surfing not only the net with your Treo but holding your home entertainment center in your hand in a 5oz miracle of electronic wizardry. I had previously subscribed to a TV service for smartphones called MobiTV at $9/month but both my daugtehr and I found the channel selection thin and we tired of it rather quickly. They didn't offer any network stations and only a few real time networks such as MSNBC and Cartoon Network. Not worth the $9. The Verizon video service at around $7/month was even worse. It only offered short clips of movie trailers, some music videos and previews - nothing I was at all interested in. Save your money on that one too. Now the Sling Box service is free except for the hardware ($129 after rebate for my "classic" version) and the PC version of the client comes with it. They plan to charge $29 for the Palm client once it is out of beta test but thats a bargain compared to a monthly fee for the far more limited services from others.

                      So now my one little Treo handles the traditional PDA stuff that my Palms since the 90's had - calendar, contacts, calculator, games, etc - plus a great cell phone that I used to have to carry as a separate item which is integrated seamlessly with the contacts of the PDA and uses bluetooth for a hands free voice setup. Plus a high speed modem for my PC/Laptop using the USB cable that works anywhere Verizon has digital service, a web browser on the phone, real time POP3 based email on the phone, an MP3 player, a 1.3 megapixel camera and video recorder, natively reads/writes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files and handles text messaging all out of the box. With some inexpensive software, a high capacity SD card and a GPS receiver I easily added the ability to watch movies and TV transferred from DVD or any digital source to the SD card (and the compressed videos are so small you can fit 5 or 6 easily on a 1GB SD card), serves as a full featured TomTom or other brand of GPS and now has the full capability of a Sling Box client. Is it any wonder I think this may be the most versatile chunk of electronics I've ever had the pleasure to use?

                      I hear Motorola may buy out Palm to round out their line of smartphones. While I hate to see a pioneer like Palm disappear as a standalone company if it gets them the long term financial backing required to continue the true innovation they have provided over 10 years in deliverable product vs the marketing slogan that Microsoft brandishes around it could be a good thing. But even if this was the last product they ever made they have set the bar about as high as it can go for future whiz kids to beat. Can you tell I like what Palm has to offer? If you are looking for a smart phone that can do it all it's out there for about $400 and available from all the Cell providers.

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