A lot of people are talking about NAS devices and so on, but they all come back to "filesharing" as the software portion of their solution.

I use Plex to serve out media and love it. Transcodes a Blue-Ray rip to my iPad. I hit pause and bring the movie up on my television and start where I left off. You can run the server on a Windows machine, a Mac, or even some NAS devices.

I can be on the road and bring up any movie I have.

Client-wise they have iOS, OS X, Windows, and Android.

Totally right. We would have been better off without those damn dirty immigrants. People like Albert Einstein, Sergey Brin, and Andrew Grove polluted our country with their crazy scientific and business ideas. Surely we would be better off if we completely closed our borders and our minds such that outsiders could never corrupt our great country...

Actually not true. Anti-theft measures, custom sizes, plus sane after market prices have all contributed significantly to the reduction in car break ins to steal stereo equipment... come on dude, this was even part of the summary.

My thoughts as well. The victim is rarely the one who should be blamed, but it is often so much easier that people do it anyway. Same concept... if only those first graders had their own assault rifles...

I hate Apple's philosophy. That said, I believe they make great software. The Apple TV is better than any product for my kids and I that I can find. I have a Nexus Q, and it sucks. There is a reason Google pulled it from the market. Anyhow, even with my love for the Apple TV, I recognize the home sharing works much better from iTunes and Windows. The OSX version runs out of connections and can't free them properly. In this case, Windows spanks the OSX version. You have to constantly restart the OSX iTunes version to keep home sharing working. Windows iTunes "just works" and does so really well. Yes, plural of anecdote is not data, but look it up yourself and I think the data speaks for itself. Apple may pretend to prefer their OS, but Windows and iTunes just works better if you want to network the devices.

Exactly. That is why Bush was able to nominate someone so unqualified that even the Republicans couldn't stomach the idea of approving her.

I think you might be off by a factor of 10. I was definitely reading Slashdot for a while (month or so?) before signing up for an account, but I am not sure I remember a time before accounts. Maybe 1500 people signed up once accounts were created?

If I were at my home machine I could definitely figure out when Slashdot sent my "Welcome" message, but it was probably October of 1998.

The amount of time I spend on Slashdot has definitely decreased over the years, but I still load the homepage 2-3 times a day.

Happy 15th, Slashdot!

My 0% loan for a new Prius disagrees... In seriousness, I think you should include cars as they.are a pre-req for most people to have or maintain a job.

As an owner of both devices, I can tell you that the iPhone battery absolutely stomps the Galaxy S3's.

Damn newbies...

ObTopic: I agree with a previous poster, that Slashdot's comment system is the worst, except for all of the other ones. I do not post nearly as often as I used to, but for getting a relatively informed take on tech stories? Slashdot is hard to beat. I still read 3-4 stories a day. This is probably down from my maximum back in the early 2000s.

I do agree that Slashdot (and similar comment websites) tend to have a major issue of groupthink. It seems that to have a reasonable discussion on the Internet you not only need a niche subject matter, but also a well-done comment and moderation system. The downside is that both of these requirements tend to encourage groupthink.

Oh, and get off of my lawn!

My biggest pet peeve with Slashdot is that there is no "-1, Factually Incorrect" moderation. When I have moderation points I frequently have to use "Overrated" to fill that niche.

There are not a lot of times, but I have seen a comment that is simply wrong be moderated up (oftentimes a groupthink assumption that turns out to be incorrect).

I find the moderation system one of the best on the Internet. I wish when people had moderation Slashdot would ignore their preferences and instead show comments at "-1, Newest First" to avoid older, higher moderated comments from simply getting moderated even higher at the expense of newer comments that have not had a chance to get moderated up.

But that is just me.

And you should listen to me because I have a four-digit UID, damnit! And get off my lawn!

I guess my point was simply that "important enough" is a bar so high, virtually no one is likely to meet it. In my own case, my application was making just shy of $50k/yr when it was shut down without expressed reason, notice, or appeals process. Even in that situation, the lawyers said it wasn't worth it. Given the lost income, I was probably at the top 5% of people for a potential claim for damages, so what chance does the super majority of people really have if Google gives them the middle finger?

I'm really not anti-Google, and I hope I don't read like I am. In general, I do really like their services, technologies, etc. My sole complaint is simply that if you have a problem with them, they flip the bird and disappear. You have no ability to even try to reason with them. They are like the "Judge Dredd" of internet services. Once they decided on something (completely without any input from you), it's done and you're f---ed. They don't even bother to pretend otherwise, the "We are unable to provide further details regarding this issue" pretty much proves that.

As someone who had my Android developer account down without explanation, I can attest to the lack of redress. They shut down my developer account for "violating the Terms of Service." I had a banking application and when I asked what I did that violated their ToS, they replied back with (emphasis mine):

Thank you for your replies. We have completed the review of your appeal. Your Android Market Publisher account has been suspended due to repeat violations of our Terms of Service. You may view these terms here: http://www.android.com/us/developer-distribution-agreement.html http://www.android.com/market/terms/developer-content-policy.html We will not be restoring your account at this time. Please note that Android Market Publisher suspensions may span multiple account registrations and related Google services. Should your account become reinstated, we will notify you. We are unable to provide further details regarding this issue . Please do not register another new developer account. We recommend your utilizing an alternative application distribution system and payment method for future orders.

So basically, they shut down my account, but are unable to provide any details why. In speaking with lawyers, it is simply not cost effective to try to sue them. I would spend far more in lawyer fees than I could ever hope to earn back. Verizon and Amazon both specifically requested my application for their stores, and it is still happily listed and selling in them.

I have reported about 8 or so in the last year. A few have been fixed (usually as a result of several other people reporting they were having the same issue). I had to fix a couple of bugs myself. The other half were never fixed. One I reported in a Bugzilla type database and within 24 hours it was marked as "Closed" without any comment from a developer. The next release of the software had the same bug. One I reported on a forum for a closed-source application and immediate a dozen or so other users agreed with me (it was a memory leak, causing a background daemon to consume 10-15MB of additional RAM each day it continued to run). The company representative said that they could not reproduce the problem.

Most recently I reported a bug in an exercise tracking piece of shareware. The software imports data from Garmin's software and is able to do a lot more with it. Due to what the shareware developer sees as a bug in the Garmin software, distance for a given activity might change a bit on import. This is fine, and the developer goes to great lengths to explain the discrepancy and why he believes his calculations are more precise. I agree with him and continue to use the software. I eventually realize, however, that while the distance changes and the activity duration (time) stays constant on import, the pace for the activity does not agree with the distance/time. I report this and the developer responds that his software trusts and uses the pace value passed on input, and says that users would bother him to see why the pace value does not match what is in the Garmin software. He explains a way to change the value manually and marks the problem "Resolved".

Note that one of my activities was off by over 40 seconds per mile. What should have been a 6:57 min/mile pace was marked as a 7:49 min/mile. This is a very large discrepancy.

Not very reassuring.