The 100 Best Tech Products of 2006 364
prostoalex writes "You've read about the 25 worst tech products, now it's time to check out a list of the 100 best tech products of 2006 from the same publication. PC World named Intel Core Duo, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core, Craigslist.org, Apple iPod Nano and Seagate 160GB Portable Hard Drive the best tech products of this year."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Sad for MS (Score:5, Interesting)
They have two products listed: a keyboard (#54) and the Xbox 360 (#89). Odd for a company that focuses mainly on software. Apple has a decent showing, even Ubuntu Linux shows up at #27.
Re:Sad for MS (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks more like a "Oooo shiny" list ot me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sad for MS (Score:2)
uhhh... I think you need to dictionary those words.
Dual Core Processors (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dual Core Processors (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Dual Core Processors (Score:2)
No, Athlon 64 made AMD gain market share, if you look at the numbers [amd.com] spinning off their memory division made them the most profit (they cut their cost of sales almost in half).
1st (Score:3, Funny)
uh... wait. dang it!
Seriously... Re:1st (Score:2)
I'm impressed. I've always hated Debian because it was arcane and hard to use/learn. Ubuntu takes all the rough edges off.
Anyway these lists are pretty subjective. Nice way to use a non-story to introduce the new layout.
Re:Seriously... Re:1st (Score:2, Informative)
Nice way to use a non-story to introduce the new layout.
They kicked it in at 9:30 my time (32 minutes ago). I was editing a journal entry, reloaded and thought I was having an acid flashback for a sec.
Congratulations on the new layout (Score:2)
Craigslist (Score:5, Informative)
People on Craigslist tend to be really flaky- we're talking the stoned kind of flaky, or the "I'm going to try and cheat you because I think I'm clever" kind of flaky; I'm not sure which is worse. Then there are all the wierdos posting in the various personals section- if you want a great laugh (no matter your gender), read those sections; makes you think of someone walking into McDonalds with $2 and expecting a rare Filet Mignon with sauteed mushrooms. Or the ever popular "I'm hot. Send a picture. Sexiest one wins." I laughed for about 5 minutes so hard I couldn't breathe, and resolved never to look in w4m again because it was dangerous to my health, even if it was a fantastic laugh.
Top problem though, is that people are complete IDIOTS when it comes to listing their items. "Printer. Best offer." Inkjet? Laser? Dot matrix? Made this decade? God forbid they tell us what company made it. I also love it when useless, worthless stuff is offered up- like cheapo computer speakers. People, I'm all for the recycling bit, but take that shit to the RECYCLING CENTER, don't waste anyone's time putting it up for sale for $5. Round trip subway fare costs at least half that...
The hysterical bit is that Craiglist supposedly has an "advisory committee" that handles how the site is presented to users. When I complained that even basic instructions were never shown to users as part of the posting procedure and it was clear there was a problem, Craig just replied, "thanks, the committee will think about it".
Then there are the people who post the "free" iPod/plasma/whatever emails (which are usually flagged by the community)...the problem is that there's nothing to keep them from posting over and over, because (to my knowledge) there is no automatic blacklist after X number of posts flagged...so spamming is pretty easy.
Then there are the ripoffs. Go read your city's /sys/ for a few minutes, and see how many times you say "WHAT?!"...like people asking $500 for a Pentium 3 system. Go read /ele/ and see how many times you see "Theater Research" speakers being offered for $500; the more honest (or naive) ones admit to buying it from some guys in a white van...the others just think "oh well, I'll get some other sucker to buy 'em".
Classic example of the try-to-sucker-you-by-omission-and-feined-ignorance approach was a Phaser printer being offered for sale for a few hundred $ with no mention of WHY nobody uses wax printers anymore. In short- you MUST cover your ass like crazy. If it's too good to be true, it most certainly is someone trying to sucker you.
Typical, but when you consider it against Craig's motivations (community building and other crunchy-granola-ness), Craigslist has ultimately been a pretty spectacular failure. I used to report at least 5-6 posts a day to the abuse department for various reasons (all were accepted, and the abuse group IS very nice; they ALWAYS write you back! To the CL abuse staff, you have my sympathies and admiration), and I just got tired of it...it was like throwing a sandbag into a levee break and watching it disappear.
I also have a policy now, which I inform sellers of upfront. If the item is different from how it was represented in the post or follow-up emails, both of which I will have with me, I walk out the door- this is after several sellers presented something that was nothing like what they described (like a PC missing half its ram, being sold by a software programmer who played dumb. Riight).
I have no idea which Craigslist you are using. (Score:2)
Re:Craigslist (Score:2, Informative)
For a "spectacular failure" it sure gets a lot of postings every day, in an awful lot of cities. Person
Re:Craigslist (Score:3, Informative)
The problems you're describing have always been true about newspaper classifieds; the only difference is in scale. But the scale factor is transforming industries ranging from real
Well, let's face it... (Score:2)
Re:Well, let's face it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Craigslist (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, I have been thinking about an even more extreme version of that. Basically I think the seller should reimburse you for
i'm okay with the new design but.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:i'm okay with the new design but.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Behold It's Glory (Score:4, Funny)
MY EYES!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thank you! (Score:2)
Mostly blank column (Score:4, Insightful)
The way it is now looks like a xanga page 'customized' by someone with maybe some aesthetic ability. It looks ok, but it's still generic as hell. The front page is pretty good, but the format doesn't support area where the real value of the site is.
another "please consider advertising with us" list (Score:5, Insightful)
So apple gets two listing for the ipod. Both Intel and AMD gets the top two spots. Hey, I wonder who makes chips for most computers? Googles gets a number of spots all the way through, and even Amazon, someone who probably advertises a lot but has done almost nothing interesting, gets an honorable mention for it's lame search facility. Throw in an award for every printer, every camera, and a few nods to popular technology, and can we say suck up.
I know that people like to complain about stealth ads on /. In this case, the complaints are warrented. This has no editorial content, and simply is a way for pcworld to prove to advertisers that pcworld cares about them.
Should have posted a separate story (Score:3, Insightful)
Now the poor 100 best product story will be filled with NOTHING but comments on Slashdot itself.
Re:Should have posted a separate story (Score:2)
Apple List entries (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely the trip-proof magnetic AC adapter is far more important than Boot camp?
Apple got Windows working on Intel hardware, Big Whoppee, Windows on Intel, like fifty billion other people haven't already?
-----------------------
If this is nuts then excuse me but I having a hyper-fit with this new Slashdot layout. I'll just go lie down in dark room for a bit.
The old Slashdot look... (Score:2)
Flickr (Score:3, Insightful)
OT: Fix the damn CSS (Score:2)
People using Light Mode *were not* eagerly awaiting the latest eye candy redesign.
Unnecessary white space (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I like it (Score:2, Insightful)
And to the current mods who are modding down all the comments on the change, maybe you should all chill out and realize that this is a big topic for the loyal Slashdotters and a bit more interesting that the story these comments fall under.
Best new design rollout strategy evar! (Score:5, Funny)
Bad 100 Best List! Here's a better one. (Score:3, Interesting)
1. YouTube.com - Who the hell put in in 9th place?
2. Google Earth - Google Maps: good. Google Earth: f***ing awesome!
3. eBay - Great spot to browse for technology products. Though the virtual mall is great, it is a good idea to browse the real mall to compare prices and features first.
4. Sony Viao Notebooks smaller than 12 inches - Any notebook with a screen larger than 15 inches is NOT a notebook. It is a freaking TV. Computers are suppost to be small as well as fast.
5. Any MP3 player not by Apple or Dell - As much as technological convergence is a convience, I prefere to buy things for what they were used for. An MP3 player is for playing MUSIC, not videos, not "podcasts", not these overated technology that turns everything into TV or as I call it "The Virus". Televison is stupid!
6. Texas Instruments graphing calculators with the USB port - FINALLY, TI gets with the program.
7. Sony PSP - Who cares what the critics say! This would be the greatest gaming platform since the Sega Game Gear if only Sony didn't keep trying to kill itself like a 15 year-old emo kid. Why does Sony keep trying to kill itself? By the time the PS3 gets here, Nintendo and XBox will be on to the next thing. Why does Sony keep procrastinating? The people who create the Sony products want what they are making as badly as their consumers, but their Marketing (marketing, the sworn enemy of any computer sciencist!) keeps pushing it back saying things like "people are going to hack into it" or "DRM". These Japanese guys need to grow a little backbone and stop letting these salarymen with hidden agendas kill their company.
8. Yahoo! Answers - I must get up to 20 answers sometimes with the questions I ask. Some times I ask questions to test peoples knowledge or to express their opinions about things.
9. Holograms - yet another suppressed technology. You know what would be a great application for these things: automobile decals. You've seen these cars with the hydrolics at car shows with teh airbrush. Why not airbrush a hologram onto a car. One of those 3D projected holograms with a half-naked valkyre warrior woman with a battle axe or sword riding horse with wings that breaths fire! Something worthy of Heavy Metal magazine and Popular Science! 10. The new Slashdot layout - Do I really need to explain why?
#1 & #2 (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously? I have an AMD 64X2 system and I love it, so I'm just curious... all the research I did pre-purchase certainly put the AMD way ahead of Intel... true 64bit, shared memory space, better performance, and definitely better performance per purchase dollar as well as performance per electricity dollar.
Is this all the hub-bub I've been hearing about the last couple weeks about the brand new not yet out Intels that're supposed to be better yet?
Re:#1 & #2 (Score:3, Informative)
Me, nerd? (Score:2)
Re:And now it's time... fooor.... completely OT po (Score:4, Informative)
Usability was definately not considered here.
Re:And now it's time... fooor.... completely OT po (Score:2, Insightful)
I also hated that, it makes no sense. On my wide screen, by the time my eye reaches the right side of the monitor I've forgotten which post I'm looking for. Short memory, or wide monitor? Or crappy skin? voting for the latter.
The colors are way too contrasting, the sans-serif fonts make formatting less distinctive (like italics) and it looks really wrong.
Damn it
On the other hand, maybe I'll do some work now
Re:And now it's time... fooor.... completely OT po (Score:2)
I have a Dell 2005FPW, and I keep my firefox window taking up 2/3 the screen width, with an IRC window right below it and IMs taking up the rest. Works great for multitasking. I never did this up until a few months ago, when I had a Powerbook for about 2 months and got hooked on the not maximizing thing.
Re:And now it's time... fooor.... completely OT po (Score:2)
too far off to the right.
They wouldn't even pass your lameness filter.
Please bring them back.
It's like confirming moving a file into a trash bin. Takes much too much time to get it done.
Re:And now it's time... fooor.... completely OT po (Score:3, Insightful)
- The 'Sections' header in the sidebar should not open up a (kludgy) preferences window. People only change that kind of thing once in a blue moon; there's no need for it to be on the front page. I'd much rather it be a link (like the 'Vendors' header), pointing to the search page or something
- The open/collapsed state of the lefthand sidebar seems to be preseved between browser sessions, but only on the front page: Once you enter a story, it defau
Re:New layout? (Score:4, Interesting)
(Yeah, yeah, this is off-topic)
Looks like you're not hallucinating. However, it also looks like they didn't really bother testing it, either.
Re:New layout? (Score:2)
Re:New layout? (Score:2)
That's okay, no one meta moderates anyway.
I don't like the font (Score:2, Insightful)
There are two types of fonts. Serif fonts have little squigglies coming off the sides of the letters (like Times New Roman, Courier) whereas sans serif fonts are smooth-edged and end sharply. When you read text, serif fonts tend to slow your eye down whereas sans serif fonts cause your eye to move quickly and smoothly across the text.
When I read comments, I want to be slowed down so I absorb. I want titles to be smooth and continuous while text-heavy cont
Re:New layout? (Score:2)
I'd love to be able to hide the left-hand nav bar. (Score:3, Insightful)
I like the design, overall, so I figure it's time to pick nits. And what's with using Tahoma? Not as bad as Verdana, but still, ugh. What's next,
Re: (Score:2)
Re:New layout? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it looks horrible. Kind of feels like a vague attempt to look "90's future", like a computer screen on Babylon 5 or ST:TNG.
Also, whoever designed it clearly has no experience with fonts. The logo on the top banner is blurry, the Helviticarial all-caps "tagline" is crisper and looks tacked-on at the last minute. The bold-white-on-green headlines are also blurry (and
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2, Offtopic)
I think it'll take a bit of getting used to... but I think the "read more" links back on the front page should move back to their old location. There was a bit of a shock when I couldn't find it at first. I don't think this is a "wait 'till you're used to it thing" because my cursor tends to hang out in the middle of the screen, so the links used to be closer to their common position.
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2)
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The faded icons on the sidebar look like any html template look you'd find on a website. They don't look nice, just cheesy.
2. It's brighter, which for some reason gets on my nerves. I like being able to fade into the lull of the old colors.
3. It looks like any other blog. I like to pretend that Slashdot isn't just a blog, but a professional website full of incompetent writers.
We will all get used to it, but it sucks. It didn't need
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2)
I don't like the colors either. They are lame.
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2, Funny)
It's clean and modern.
KFG
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:4, Insightful)
2. Too much white, like there's too much space in between everything.
3. Posts not indented enough, it's hard to tell what's a reply to what without much pointless scrolling up and down.
4. Accidentally clicking on the "sections" header opens a settings box which won't go away for a minimum of 5 seconds after you click the [x].
5. The "Read More" link is far away from where my eyes and cursor end up after reading the summary.
6. Scores on the wrong side of the comment header.
7. Why the hell isn't the old layout an option? CmdrTaco was explicit in his statements that it was just a superficial redesign with no drastic changes, it can't require much more than an extra variable in the code.
I'm sure I'll keep discovering reasons to hate it as time goes on. If you'd like updates, just say so and I'll post them here.
get yourself a userstylesheet, fixes it for me (Score:2, Informative)
i added this to my userstylesheet (available in every decent browser) for slashdot.org
fixes (at least the frontpage) for me...
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2, Informative)
Gladly. The short version:
-The score being on the far right of the comment rather than near the title.
-The colors look like too sharp a contrast (not to the point of eye-hurtiness... just enough to look wrong)
-Newspost boxes separate all the info into small boxes without defining the newspost box (it just looks screwy)
-Overuse of gradients
And that's a small sampling. I couldn't tell you if any of them are real design faux pas
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2)
The colours are wrong though, I don't remember it looking this bad in the preview.
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2)
Anyway, I'll give you that there is some definite improvement here -- certainly there is a better use of contrast (that ugly grey isn't nearly as prevalent, and the green is dar
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:5, Interesting)
Took me a few minutes to put my finger on it, but I finally figured out why I hate it:
Too much negative space. (Read: blinding fscking WHITE). Sure, it's cleaner, with all that space, but now its little bits of black on white. Too hard on the eyes.
How about a green-on-black CSS option, CmdrTaco?
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:3)
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:3, Informative)
Very well. Here's what I've got so far.
- First up: Big pages load and render SLOW. Pages with a large number of comments like this one [slashdot.org] make IE crap it's pants
- Score and 'Read More' on the right away from other relevant information.
- The 'Sections' link is worthless and annoying.
- Spacing in IE is flunky. Various elements don't line up with others. Yes, it's probably IE's fault, but you can't ignore IE.
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2)
Re:Thank you for your opinion - now here's mine. (Score:2)
In Konqueror, on every fresh page load, the sidebar elements are all stuck at the top of the screen until I resize the browser window.
Otherwise, I don't mind it.
Re:Slashdot new layout crashes my Opera 9 (Score:2)
The new slahsdot also causes my opera 9 to crash when I open comments pages.
I'm not sure who's fault it is (slashdot or opera's), since Opera 9 is still in beta... but I've yet to have opera crash more than once on the same page which leads me to wonder if there may be something wrong with slashdot
Re:Slashdot new layout crashes my Opera 9 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot new layout crashes my Opera 9 (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot new layout crashes my Opera 9 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Slashdot new layout crashes my Opera 9 (Score:2)
Re:We need a way to choose CSS styles. (Score:2)
Re:IS THIS A FUCKING JOKE??!? (Score:2)
No hard feelings if modded off-topic, but man, I hope the dudes in charge consider this.
Nope (Score:2)
Looks terrible on the macintosh as well. You get some kind of unholy resonance with the built-in text antialiasing that just slaughters readability. It's just one big blur, like the page is all antialiasing and no text.
The only good thing about this is that I'm going to get about an hour of my time back every day I avoid reading Slashdot.
I'm thinking maybe I sho
Re:Nope (Score:2)
Sounds like something wrong with your Mac / display / graphics card. It looks gorgeous on my G5/23" cinema displays/Ati X800 setup
Simon
Re:Breaks Opera Browser (Score:2)
Re:Nope (Score:2)
Re:I agree, it's been fun (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:4, Insightful)
Please for the love of god fix that, or give us the option of going back to the old way. If it aint broke, don't fix it.
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2, Interesting)
Slashdot totally needs some sort of meta-discussion category. And here, on-site, not that silly sf.net bug tracking thing that's used for *slash* right now. Slashdot used to be so cool, but now, although the 3-day old "news" aggregation is still *sort-of* neat, it could so easily be so much better...
A few ideas...
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2)
I think you've hit the nail on the head there
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot CSS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Best of 2006? (Score:2)