Do you happen to know Dr. Johnson?

hmm, I'm guesssing you know the college. No, don't know of him.

DiGNAN

Jim!

You forgot the URL!

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

You forgot the URL!

He didn't forget, he just was referring to a URL made available earlier in the thread. Here it is again...

http://cartalk.cars.com/Radio/

___________
Tony Fabris

Just go to cartalk.cars.com and click on "Our Lousy Radio Show" (sorry, it was in an earlier post).

Jim

Reading the 1st post, i did agree with a few points (as any demanding consumer would). Cant say i realy cared too much about it much tho. Only thing that i care about is when v1.1 was coming, and if you were even bothering to do anything on it. I thought you must be busy with the takeover etc, which is fair enough.

Fortunately, all the questions have been answered anyway. I think you should make it the "whe wont empeg wash my dishes FAQ" to explain every possible winge there is ;)

I agree.

But you really do have to remember that v1.1 is like whole new software. As far as I know, they've never made this many changes to the software at one release (I haven't been around long enough). I can't believe this guy is making the deal out of it that he is. empeg made no specific promises about software releases. It's not like they said they'd be coming out with a new feature for download every 4-5 days. And the fact that they'll be coming out with new software at ALL is damn great. Hell, Microsoft releases updates to windoze every 2 years or so. And even with that, there's nothing in them (Win98 -> ME).

I think criticism should go switch his car stereo back and wait for upgrades to that one.

DiGNAN

Speaking as an owner of both a Mk1 & Mk2 empeg, and having been on the mailing list for what must be approaching two and a half years, I am perfectly happy with the way the company has treated me, both in terms of the hardware and the software. Sure I'd like the VR & tuner yesterday, but I work as a computer programmer, so I suppose I have first hand experience of deadlines and how they slip... I have the Mk1 in the car and am waiting for the tuner before replacing it with the Mk2, purely from the point of view of the installation (BMW dashes are notoriously difficult to get behind, and I don't want to do it more often than necessary - or to be more precise, I don't want to have to PAY someone to do it more than necessary!!)

I'm waiting for v1.1 of the software too, but again, I have no complaints (aside from not being on the alpha testers list ) and I am more than happy that I have been able to in some way influence the features added to previous releases through this BBS.

From Rob's posts in the past, it seems clear that the SonicBlue deal will mean I get my tuner sooner than if the deal hadn't taken place, so again, I am happy.... impatient, but happy

Most of the people I work with treat me as if I'm mad for buying TWO in car MP3 players, when I only have one car... but it's pretty clear that they are impressed with the thing, even though I think they are a long way short of 'getting it'

(The tuner is handy for listening to the news first thing in the morning, just so I keep marginally in touch with the 'real world' - for what it's worth!!)


Geoff
---- -------
Got one of the first Mark 2 empegs...

I'm so sorry folks.... I was the one posting that stuff in the first place but I wasn't really to make up that bad stink. I though you would get the point straight away, but ... noone did. So now I feel very sorry.

This was a word game. I have changed my Username to 'Critism' (should have been spelled 'criticism', sorry, but this is not my mothers language) and then I have said 'Reading this board since a while now and owning an empeg since a even longer while I have to speak up' = means, the criticism has to speak up. Everything followed was in sarcastic mode which I thought the beginning of that article made clear - But you guys got it completely different, serious - sorry. Also that post should have been ended with 'Christ' not Chis. That was cause the subject was 'religious'. Hmm.

I mean, there was a good portion meant serious in that post, and I had a good reason for posting that. I was on a trip to Holland/Amsterdam to meet with some friends to do the stuff you do in Amsterdam... I was stuck in a jam for hours since I didn't had that TUNER which could have warned me and I missed the calls from my firends since the xxxxxx phone-mute still doesn't work for me. (Oh, I have missed that one in my first mail... I found empegs answer to my first complain about that pretty embaressing - one said they couldn't check since they had no hand-free...no, at that time I didn't found that very funny...).

SO in the end I missed my friends and lots of fun and I was pretty p****ed the next morning. Mainly about the missing tuner.

Well, all I can say is forgive me, it wasn't meant that harsh. I still like the empeg a lot and it's still in my car. And I did like the 'rob' reply with all the pictures (even thought I don't belive the M$ part...maybe no lunch, but please please tell me they gave you something in return - besides wma! :-)

Oh, and did tell me one other thing - reading some replies, some guys for sure are taking the empeg WAY to religious.

So I promise no more word games noone exept me understands. :-/

J.

J,

if you really meant your post to be interpreted other than literally, I missed that totally. OK, some answers did sound a bit overzealous, but I think that most of people answering showed quite realistic attitude toward the situation.

Your MS comments were insulting. What, you supposed Evil Empire bribed (wining and dining is a bribe) some guys from empeg to smuggle WMA into software past Hugo? Or that Hugo decided that nice lunch was a good reason to pay his own money (remember, Hugo founded the company) to MS for presumably unneccesary feature? Nonsense. MS does not pay, it expects the whole world to be paying them. I don't plan to use WMA in forseeable future, but find Rob's reasoning for including it (and so aiding the Bad Guys) convincing.

Now, if some high-placed SonicBlue salaried guy were all of a sudden to start insisting on switching from Linux to WinCE on their entire product line, that would be a reason for doubt...

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Well, drive over to Amersfoort and stop in so I can fix your phone mute. I bet it just needs a pull-down resistor...

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

I just love that the topic of Microsoft being the Evil Empire and purposely screwing customers can appear in just any forum on the internet. All these comments about MS are just down right wrong. I'm been a software engineer for MS for the past 5 years (in the Macintosh group, even I have issues with Windows). I bet anyone, if you could hang out in our offices for a week, you would change all your views about MS. Our office is filled with thousands of hard working techno geeks whose passions are creating great software and making customers happy. Do you think we would work 60-80 hours a week slaving in front of a computer to create a piece of crap software product? I don't think so. When we release a new version of our software, we begin crawling the internet for every review and set of customer comments we can find. Everything is compiled and forwarded to everyone on the team and the managers up the chain to Steve and Bill. We then have meeting after meeting of what we can do to improve the software. Never is there a meeting of how we can screw the customer, or plant some little program that sends all their email to us, or anything else people imagine Microsoft does. People talk about Microsoft as being a money hungry big corporation that is out to rob the pockets of computer users. HELLO!! What company doesn't want money? How can they survive without it? Take for example, the new Window ME. MS spent billions of dollars developing it. Now how many copies do you think we need to sell at $50 a pop in order to make back the $4 billion we spent to make it? Or how about my team. I work on Outlook Express for the Mac. Say we have about 30 people on our team. With salary, stock, bonus and benefits, MS probably shells out an average of $100K per person. That's $3 million a year. Throw in marketing and customer research and the number is probably around $5 million. Now how much do we make on the software? NOTHING! It's FREE!

That's it.. I'm getting off my Soapbox and shutting up. Just please believe me, Microsoft is not the enemy. Every time you feel like making a nasty comment about MS and have no data to backup your claim, remember your putting down thousands of hard working employees who dedicate their lives to making great software for Microsoft. Sure we make mistakes too, nothing is perfect.

Rob

I'd agree with your argument if I hadn't wasted months of my time (as a programmer) trying to find out why our software wasn't working only to discover that installing IE3 (for example) changed an event interface to call it three times instead of twice...
Look at any programming forum to find problems caused by sneak system file upgrades and api changes from installing MS software, and perhaps you'll feel sorry for the several million software developers outside of MS who spend most of their time working round bugs/changes in the different versions of windows.

You're lucky you work in the Mac division...

Jazz
(List 112, Mk2 12 gig #40. Mk1 4 gig #30. Mk3 1.6 16v)

Take for example, the new Window ME

I'm sorry if you worked on it, but I (as an end-user) saw almost absolutely no difference between WinME and Win98. If I was unable to see these slight differences, I'm sorry, but they sure weren't evident to me. It looked a little "smoother" and things moved differently and a few other things, but for me, I stuck to Win98 and didn't have to spend $50 to upgrade something I was happy with.

Oh well, that's enough from me.

DiGNAN

That's $3 million a year. Throw in marketing and customer research and the number is probably around $5 million. Now how much do we make on the software? NOTHING! It's FREE!

So Microsoft spends 5mill a year on a product that no one in the Macintosh community wanted, needed, or would use if Apple wasn't bundling it with the OS. What's your point?

I am sorry, that is an obvious flame and I would not normally post such a thing to this board, but I just don't follow your logic. Eudora light, Netscape Email, Claris Emailer where all vastly better (and also free) products that Microsoft is trying to whipe out with OE. You said yourself, that MS makes no money from OE for the Mac, so why make it when there are already half a dozen perfectly good alternatives? Market share and market domination.

I have nothing against the programmers at Microsoft. They work hard to release products and do it for a job.

But I highly dislike the marketing, legal, and administration departments. They are the ones behind many of the things I dislike Microsoft for. Take for example a large computer company I used to work for, Gateway. They were selling computers with Windows, and one day decided to also include Netscape on the desktop. Microsoft didn't like this, and tried to strongarm Gateway into removing it. Ted Waitt has been quoted as saying "Bill Gates hates my guts". And Gateway suffers from this act of loading software on their own computers by paying the highest prices in the OEM industry for Windows, and other MS products.

And marketing was behind the mass confusion with Windows 2000 and ME. NT 5 was renamed to 2000 because it was going to be seen as the upgrade to 98. But something happened along the development path, and it was realised 2000 wasn't quite "consumer oriented". So 2000 was aimed at the corporate enviornment, just like NT 4, and consumers were told to wait for Windows 98, third edition, (aka ME). I've had to explain this so many times to people.

Read through the findings of fact that was released from the recent legal battle against MS. It may prove quite enlightning, and show the many illegal mistakes of your company's managment and other departments.

==========
So Microsoft spends 5mill a year on a product that no one in the Macintosh community wanted, needed, or would use if Apple wasn't bundling it with the OS. What's your point?
==========

Oh that's right, you know all about the market share and Mac community. No one would use OE if it wasn't bundled with the OS? That's funny, we have had over a million downloads of OE from the Microsoft web site, and we have won Best Of Show and Best Internet Client from MacWorld. The reviews consistently review us higher than Eudora, NS and Emailer. OE on the Mac has been such a hit that the Windows version was modeled after it. Go ahead, compare the features of all the email clients out there and feel free to choose which ever one you like best. I never told you had to use OE and either did Microsoft or Apple. What's wrong with shipping the product with the OS? You get your new mac, turn it on, and you already have the number one rated email client available to you (in my opinion). You also get NS Communicator which also is bundled with the OS, it's your choice.

==========
I have nothing against the programmers at Microsoft. They work hard to release products and do it for a job.
==========
Thanks.. I appreciate it.

==========
But I highly dislike the marketing, legal, and administration departments.
=========
I'm with you. I agree that Microsoft has done some shady deals. However, that's business. It's America, a free country. Did we harm consumers? I don't think so..

==========
But something happened along the development path, and it was realized 2000 wasn't quite "consumer oriented".
==========
Oh you are so very wrong. Windows 2000 (which was NT 5) was NEVER was created for "consumer" use. The next Windows (code name Whistler) is the consumer version of Windows 2000. It is now in beta testing and when you finally get it on your computer, I bet you are going to like it. And Window ME was NEVER sold as a "must upgrade" or an entirely new version. It was a recommended upgrade for home users and added features for easier home networking and internet use. The new features and better stability were by far worth the $50 upgrade cost. If Empeg was going to charge $100 for the 1.1 upgrade, I bet you would have no problem paying for that.

==========
Read through the findings of fact that was released from the recent legal battle against MS. It may prove quite enlightening, and show the many illegal mistakes of your company's management and other departments.
=============
Have you actually read the complete findings of fact? How about the complete findings of law? Did you know those 2 documents were supposed to be the same document? However, since both of them had horrible contradictory statements, that the judge decided to split them in 2 and release them 2 weeks apart. Give me a break. Judge Jackson is so biased against Microsoft it's not enough a fair trial. Now the appeals court is looking specifically into Judge Jackson (an unheard of act by the appeals court) and my guess is the government's case is going to worth nothing. Do you think they will break Microsoft up? I'll bet you my Empeg they don't.

Please everyone.. My post about Microsoft was not a flame towards anyone. It was a defense against people putting down the company I have devoted my life to when all they are doing is repeating rumors and hate statements that they read or hear in the media. The last thing I wanted was to get into this Empeg forum and start reading that people think Microsoft has ANYTHING to do with Empeg. Paying Empeg to use WMA and setting them up with Free lunches and stuff.. GIVE ME A BREAK!

This is my last post about this topic. Feel free to flame me or MS as much as you want. I just recommend you get your facts straight first because you can look like a idiot when you state completely untrue statements that you really know nothing about.

For those that want to continue talking about this. I'll be at the Northern California meeting in March. You should come on over and tell me exactly what you think, and maybe you can even convince me that I am wrong.

Rob

ok, all those images there may proof that there's really been done some work on the tuner...
But! after being stuck in several traffic jams since I got my Mk.II :( I just can't decide wether I still should sit there, waiting for something that right now looks to me as probable as a bug free MS windows, or should I just try to sell off my Mk.II and get some old fashioned FM Cassette head unit...
Not to mention the phone bill for my cellular's traffic service, and the loss of income (sitting in my car for 1 1/2h does not pay me $$...)

so, here's the ObQuestion:

When will the tuner be available?

Sorry, I'm not going to repeat myself yet again.

Rob

I'm been a software engineer for MS for the past 5 years ...

That was a paid advertisement by Microsoft Corporation.


No seriously, microsoft do pay to have fake 'grass roots' supporters. This sounds like one to me. Are you sure you are a real person CruzThs?

> since the xxxxxx phone-mute still doesn't work for me

Works fine for everyone else - I know many owners use this feature, because we get support enquiries about how to set it up. If your hands free kit switches between 0V and 12V then it's easy to get working - just configure the player from emplode to know which state is active mute. If the kit switches between 0V and open circuit, you need to add a 10K resistor between the mute line and 12V, then configure the player to mute on 0V. Our support people know this so I don't know why you weren't told as much.

> one said they couldn't check since they had no hand-free

Nobody here has a car kit because we tend to change mobile phone models every few months. In any case we don't need a car kit to test something as trivial as phone mute - a piece of wire is all thats needed! This is the first time I've heard of anyone being unable to get it working (assuming you've tried what I said above).

> even thought I don't belive the M$ part...maybe no lunch, but please please tell me they gave you
> something in return

Believe what you want, but WMA is Microsoft's product which they licence. The pricing is very competitive against MP3, but they're not giving it away. You seem to think we're supporting WMA because Microsoft have talked us into it which I find a little odd - we're supporting it to deliver on our promise of CODEC upgradability.

Rob

Sorry, my computer is screwing up.

DiGNAN

Edited by DiGNAN17 on 12/02/01 05:22 PM.

In reply to:

---

==========
But I highly dislike the marketing, legal, and administration departments.
=========
I'm with you. I agree that Microsoft has done some shady deals. However, that's business. It's America, a free country. Did we harm consumers? I don't think so..

---

WHAT? Yes MS did hurt consumers.

Put aside the stupid treatment of Gateway, but forcing consumers to use IE rather than allow free competition between NS and IE was hurting the consumer directly.

That's called abusing a monopoly - someone should take MS to court... oh they did - wasn't it most of the US?.

Enough - this is a troll.

Paul.

Paul Haigh, Reg. 4120
(mk1) 6GB, Blue, 00254
(mk2) 12GB, Red, 00357

I think this post has just proven the theorem I posted here.

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

>> you need to add a 10K resistor between the mute line and 12V

Can someone explain how a resistor gets installed? Does it just get installed inline?

I'm just trying to work out if there's any significance in the fact that Rex_Oah's name spelt backwards is (almost) HOAXER.

Or maybe I've been looking for the hidden cameras too long.

Paul

Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.

>> you need to add a 10K resistor between the mute line and 12V
> Can someone explain how a resistor gets installed? Does it just get installed inline?

Err, just do exactly what I said Install it between the mute line and 12V (which you can conveniently get from one of the power lines). Take care to insulate the exposed leads of the resistor to prevent shorting to other lines or bodywork.

Rob

In reply to:

---

Enough - this is a troll.

---

Hey, people, give the guy a break! It is quite understandable that a hard-working programmer is quite biased towards his company, if it treats him half decently. On the other hand, please do share your MS horror stories with him at the meet!

Cheers!


Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green