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You are waiting for it to have BNC connectors?

Well, it seem these days, most of the power user just care to get something like 200fps in Quake III. Why ? Beat's me ! I'm not on a quest to get the ultimate frame rate, I just want my box to be quiet as possibly can be.

To help you understand my take on the subject, here is the background :
My PC has the following components :

• A OEM case
• A 235W OEM power supply
• ASUS P3B-F
• Intel Pentium II rated 400Mhz @ 400Mhz
• A cheap OEM SECC2 Heat-Sink made of aluminum
• A 128MB CAS2 no-name DIMM
• Two 32MB CAS3 Samsung DIMM slowing down my memory timing, but preventing the appearance of the all mighty evil SwaP
• A ATI All-In-Wonder Rage128 16MB
• A Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
• A Realtek 8139 Ethernet NIC
• My beloved USR 56Kbps ISA Real Modem. Sorry but to me a component that uses CPU power to do it's processing instead of taking the load off is not worthy of being in my computer. Not to mention the M$ Win part...
• A Creative 48x CD-ROM drive. It's the loudest damned thing in my computer when it's spinning
• A Quantum Fireball AS PLUS 40GB (7200RPM) in a removable tray
• A Quantum Fireball CX1 10GB (5400RPM) mounted inside the case
• Of course the stupid old 1.44 MB floppy drive only used for booting Tomsbrt in case of emergency

Soon to be :

• A Adaptec 2940UW
• A Diamond Monster 3D II for Glide games

It turn out that the Quantum Fireball AS makes less noise than the Quantum Fireball CX1. I still have to figure it out ...

I use my PC for :

• Running Linux and learning as much as time allows me (Jez I had so much time when I was a student... Think of all the time I wasted in High-School running the evil W monster)
• Doing some gaming i.e. : Diablo II, Unreal, UT, Undying (Although that thing is going to cost me a new box)
• Spending numerous nights filling my brain @ Slashdot, Tomshardware, Anandtech, Arstechnica, StorageReview, Developper.Intel.com, and most importantly, hounding the web for all the case manufacturers and their take at a quiet box.

As I'm writing this post, that is probably going to be the base documentation for my Silent Case Project, you're guessing that my sleepless night of browsing have not yielded the desired result.

I've check out many options such as water cooling, moving the PC to the closet, returning to the forest where a PC is pretty far from your everyday quest for survival. None of them suits me.

The objective of my project is to build a case that meets the following criteria :

• A silent as possible
• Accessible
• Provides sufficient ventilation to maintain all the components running within thermal specs
• Be light enough to be easily transportable (Let's not forget the Lan parties ;-)

To attain those goals I have to :

• Read all I can about noise, sound, aerodynamics, PC specs
• Find suitable materials : A case is not just a protection against unwanted fingers and dust ; it must provide EMI shielding, proper grounding, resist to impacts, and fit into my conception of the king of object you want in your bedroom (If you were thinking about plywood and a box of rusted leftover nails, forget it)
• Find the tools or the companies or individuals with the means to work the materials I choose to build the casing

For the sound isolation I was thinking about some kind of foam. Mineral lint would be affective but that takes too much space and it's not the kind of thing I want beside my bed. Form the casing itself, metal is almost inevitable if you want EMI shielding and grounding. And as for you who wonder why I have not mentioned water cooling yet, the greatest source of noise is not my CPU cooler and your just moving the problem out of the case (Nice ; you have water heating up but unless your reservoir is like a bathtub or something you will have to transfer the heat for the water to the air).

That about as far as I am. If you have any idea that might help me, please fell free to send me some bits forming ASCII characters at Prozzaks@operamail.com

To finish up, here is a list of thing that might help people wanting to achieve similar goals :

• http://www.formfactors.org/ You should be able to find all the documents regarding the ATX form factor and thermal design guides. A must if you want to build a quiet PC.
• http://developer.intel.com/ Intel has contributed a great deal to the ATX definition ; here you will find many relevant documents including thermal design guides for all Intel processors.
• Etract from my favorite's :
  
  

  Hardware\cases PC CASE
  Fong Kai
  PowerOn
  Enlight Corporation
  dir.yahoo Enclosures Manufacturers
  procase
  YY Computer
  Psi
  IN WIN
  Amtrade
  American Suntek
  Addtronics
  A-Top Technology, Inc
  Nikao
  Palo Alto Products
  Antec
  Lian-Li
  amaquest
  Koolance
  Quietpc
  PC Power & Cooling
  
  
  

  Hardware\Heat Sinks ALPHA
  Cooler Master
  AVC
  ekl
  GlobalWIN
  globefan
  RDJD
  Foxconn
  Spring Spread
  Sanyo Denki
  TITAN
  TaiSol
  ChipCoolers
  Orb a
  ElanVital
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Form Factor Platform Development Support
  SSI
  WTX
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Standards Fibre Channel Industry Association
  PCI SIG
  RAB
  serialata
  SPEC
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Storage RAID.edu
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Cours CS 252 - Graduate Computer Architecture
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info The PC Guide!
  Hardware Bible
  FullOn3D
  developer.intel.com
  HwB The Hardware Book
  United Overclockers
  Ars Technica
  Tech-Junkie
  HardwarePub
  Webopedia
  Illustrated Guide to the PC Hardware
  SysOpt
  2CPU
  Ace's Hardware
  Technical Support - RaidHelp v1.0 - Free RAID Technology Guide
  Computer Architecture
  OPENCORES.ORG
  TechFest
  MidWest Micro Support
  
  
  

  Hardware\Resalers GeekTek!
  Micro-Bytes
  ALCO
  ABC Micro
  2CoolTek
  Plycon Computers
  TCWO
  ABC Micro - Lprix
  Case Outlet
  The Chip Merchant, Inc
  Cimsys
  OrdiGros
  ALIENWARE
  SHENTECH
  FireStorm
  Hyper Microsystems
  TWEAKBOX
  
  
  

  Hardware\Reviews Tom's Hardware Guide
  Sharky Extreme
  StorageReview
  HardOCP
  AnandTech
  SystemLogic
  x-bit labs
  Active-Hardware
  FiringSquad
  SocketA
  Overclockers Australia
  HEXUS
  dansdata
  SysReview
  
  
  

  Hardware\Manufacturers AMD
  ASUS
  Belkin
  MassMultiples
  Promise
  StarTech
  VIA Technologies, Inc
  ABIT Computer Corp
  Comcase
  Micron Semiconductor
  ECS
  
  
  

  Hardware Freeboxen
  

Some basic info and a couple of links for folks:

• file system - basic defition -the general name given to the logical structures and software routines used to control access to the storage on a hard disk system. Operating systems use different ways of organizing and controlling access to data on the hard disk, and this choice is basically independent of the specific hardware being used--the same hard disk can be arranged in many different ways, and even multiple ways in different areas of the same disk.

• Journaled file system - Basic definition (as seen here)

  A file system in which the hard disk maintains data integrity in the event of a system crash or if the system is otherwise halted abnormally. The journaled file system (JFS) maintains a log, or journal, of what activity has taken place in the main data areas of the disk; if a crash occurs, any lost data can be recreated because updates to the metadata in directories and bit maps have been written to a serial log. The JFS not only returns the data to the pre-crash configuration but also recovers unsaved data and stores it in the location it would have been stored in if the system had not been unexpectedly interrupted.

• IBMs JFS webpage on their system, along with links for for downloads and turtorials online,etc

As far as the question about how to choose file systems, that is often a matter of what the OS will let you get away with, and your needs. Using FAT 16 is recommended if you need to maintain compatibility with MSDOS, for example. Usually, this is something like if you have a multi boot scenario, and which OSen can mount which partitions with which partitions. MS is notoriously picky in this regard, with a "My way or the Highway approach". For example, if you have a single hard drive hooked up to your computer for configuration purposes, You cannot just create anextended partition unless that drive is a salve with another master. If you want to create just an extended partition it will not permit, and tell you that you can only create a primary dos partition instead.

So you Live and you Learn

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

I love these two paragraphs on an article when they hired Allen Shaheen, "ArsDigita is positioned to become the world leader in open-source community-based solutions," Shaheen said. "This potential is underscored by its growth in the last year by going from $1 million to $20 million in revenue while remaining profitable. I look forward to working with Philip and the ArsDigita organization to scale the business rapidly." Greenspun said, "Allen brings tremendous experience at managing and accelerating the growth of a company like ours. His early work in open systems, his redefining and restructuring the professional services industry over the past 15 years, and his recent Internet startup experience all make him the perfect person to hand over the CEO responsibilities and allow me to spend more time on engineering and education." Here is the article

Sorry dont feel like making a rambling post... So here goes China's newly passed laws

I must disagree with with this statement, "Those sound like pretty good things to encourage anyhow to me." Encouraging people to break laws is not a joking matter especially in a strict system in a 3rd world country.

Sure Asia has some strict laws, but telling people to break them is not the solution, and will only enforce their government's petty stance on regulations. What the students should do is protest, make the world aware of the harsh sentences being imposed in their countries. Lobby to get them removed

If some states in the US started trying to circumvent drug laws by hiding their "stashes" their breaking the laws just as well so you can't have it one way and not the other. Fsck yea I disagree with someone like the government's bs, but at the same time a rule is a rule no matter how you cut it.

Now on the flip side of things, I hope their doing a good enough job of ridding their songs. If not they could use BCWipe to rid them, or if their laws allow for encryption, they could write an hourly cron script to tar then pgp them without destroying evidence.

Personally some of those students who are protesting, should look into getting into politics to ease things for their future kin.

use the source!

Interesting, I assumed digital cable was prevalent now since it's all I can get where I'm at (San Jose) and where I was (Columbus, Ohio)...

But you're right, it hasn't penetrated yet, here's an article on the subject.

To clarify your "solution" point though, AFAIK with digital cable all channels are scrambled, so you couldn't record two channels at once under any circumstances.

- Twid

I recently submitted an article about how I found a piece of spyware that is installed by a number of music sharing systems including AudioGalaxy and iMesh on my machine. Of course, Slashdot rejected it. Since it is ontopic for this discussion here it is:

The SpyWare Invasion

While writing a proxy server for a class I noticed that for each URL I clicked, a number of POST requests were being sent to d2.webhancer.com and d3.webhancer.com. Wondering what was up I decided to go to the Web Hancer website where I found out that WebHancer is a company that claims to have an installed base of millions of WebHancer agents that report web browsing statistics to their corporate headquarters.

WebHancer currently charges businesses $12,000 a month to access these usage statistics. I found the webHancer agent on my Windows machine (after a quick 'ps -W | grep gent')in "C:\Program Files\webHancer\Programs\whAgent.exe" and deleted it. What I am wondering is how the Web Hancer agent got on my machine since I don't recall being asked whether I wanted to install any spyware. Also exactly how many of their millions of anonymous usage statistics are being generated by unsuspecting users?

Which program did I install that decided to place this Trojan on my machine and is there a blacklist of such programs? AudioGalaxy

Finally, while searching for info on Web Hancer I found Ad-Aware which claims to locate and uninstall such spyware.

No, not like having a dorm room in college.

College dorm rooms are connected to large LANs which get their bandwidth the old-fashioned way (via routers connected to T1s and T3s which speak frame-relay or ATM).

What's being proposed here is using Ethernet signalling to carry your traffic from the phone company's CO to your house over plain old CAT3 copper, instead of using one of the DSL variants.

The concept of using Ethernet to carry signal down the last mile is not exactly new. Nortel Networks came up with a technology called Etherloop three years ago. Bob Metcalfe wrote about it extensively in his InfoWorld column back then. Nortel wound up spinning off a startup called Elastic Networks to develop and market the product.

Etherloop's biggest feature is that it automatically compensates for crosstalk in binder groups by treating them as Ethernet collision domains, although it doesn't actually incur collisions as normal half-duplex Ethernet does.

Both are properties of internet.com.

Why do people prefer MasterCard, Visa, or AMEX? These are credit companies with history, and a somewhat good repulation. When I login to a secure site, and my brouser presents me with a cert, I like to see that Verisign or Thawte has "branded" that cert. While most slashdot users remember that https = secure, more "average" users just don't have a clue. Why Verisign? be cause they are the one that the masses know, and think that they trust.

As to startig your own CA, i quote from Webopedia

The role of the CA in this process is to guarantee that the individual granted the unique certificate is, in fact, who he or she claims to be. Usually, this means that the CA has an arrangement with a financial institution, such as a credit card company, which provides it with information to confirm an individual's claimed identity

So, you have to have money and connections, but it is possable to start one, even outside the US, as proved by this artical that talks about a CA in asia. Again with references to close ties with financial institutions.

Maybe there is hope, but it seams a pretty slim chance that just anybody can come up with code for encryption and then start selling them...

Why do people prefer MasterCard, Visa, or AMEX? These are credit companies with history, and a somewhat good repulation. When I login to a secure site, and my brouser presents me with a cert, I like to see that Verisign or Thawte has "branded" that cert. While most slashdot users remember that https = secure, more "average" users just don't have a clue. Why Verisign? be cause they are the one that the masses know, and think that they trust.

As to startig your own CA, i quote from Webopedia

The role of the CA in this process is to guarantee that the individual granted the unique certificate is, in fact, who he or she claims to be. Usually, this means that the CA has an arrangement with a financial institution, such as a credit card company, which provides it with information to confirm an individual's claimed identity

So, you have to have money and connections, but it is possable to start one, even outside the US, as proved by this artical that talks about a CA in asia. Again with references to close ties with financial institutions.

Maybe there is hope, but it seams a pretty slim chance that just anybody can come up with code for encryption and then start selling them...

And other sites on internet.com's marketing channel.

And other sites on internet.com's marketing channel.

That is the percentage of home internet users that have broadband access right now - 12% (see recent internet.com survey for more details. Two-thirds of the rest "say" they have a 56k connection - they may have a 56k modem but I doubt if many actually get a true 50k+ connection with their ISP - in fact, I venture that many of those who could get 56K have now opted for DSL - since being within a certain radius of the switching station an office hub (or whatever the correct term for it is ...), more than likely had the option of affordable DSL.

Until the market is represented by at least 75% broadband saturation, I don't think ignoring the modem players is a wise choice for any game producing company. Granted, the figure last December was like 7%, so it almost doubled in a year - maybe next year it will be 25% - at any rate, it will be at least a couple of years ...

I think the broadband factor is more an issue with the 3D FPS games - if you have a good ISP and get latency of 200-300ms on a dial-up - you can engage in enjoyable multiplayer gaming ... Other factors for RTS games like Age of Empires/Age of Kings are memory and processor speed as all of those AI pathfinding algorithms eat up both - especially when the grand total unit deployment goes into the 1000's. One player with a P-200 and 64 meg can make the game lag as all others will have to wait while his/her box tries to "keep up" with the action and faster computers.

I don't understand why broadband isn't more available in metropolitan areas at least - here in the Phoenix area, I live in the city but do not have any option (except Sprint broadband which really doesn't count - don't know what piece of the 12% of that survey are represented here either ... the initial latency makes multiplayer gaming for RTS or FPS or anything except turn based games tedious ...) for DSL or cable modems. Cable modems are coming soon, but then they said that last year ... Meanwhile, the giant media conglomerates that are Qwest and Cox are laying people off while there are residents clamoring for high speed internet ... go figure ...

• http://browsers.evolt.org/
• http://cws.internet.com/web.html
• http://www.rwcp.or.jp/people/yk/WWW/browsers.html (Remark: isn't the blink tag annoying?)
• http://www.freebrowsers.com/list.htm Those are all free
• http://browserwatch.internet.com

• http://browsers.evolt.org/
• http://cws.internet.com/web.html
• http://www.rwcp.or.jp/people/yk/WWW/browsers.html (Remark: isn't the blink tag annoying?)
• http://www.freebrowsers.com/list.htm Those are all free
• http://browserwatch.internet.com

Yeah, there are still a few versions of Lemonade stand out there, and it's actually a great Idea. It's a simple game that still stresses the qualities he's looking for.

http://www.classicgaming.com/vault/roms/appleiirom s.LemonadeStand33375.shtml
There's the classic Apple 2 rom.

http://thebest.00go.com/DownLoads.html
Theres another clone someone made for the PC

http://javaboutique.internet.com/Lemonade/
Here's a Java version.

That's all I could find with a quick look.

Definitive answer!

sorry, The proper link is:
proper link

1.Entering computer information networks involved with national affairs, national defense or advanced technology

2.Spreading slander and rumors or publicizing harmful information on the Internet

3.Stealing or disclosing state, intelligence or military secrets through the Internet

4.Inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination or sabotaging national unity through the Internet

5.Organizing a cult and keeping in touch with cult members, or undermining the enforcement of state laws and regulations through the Internet

6.Selling fake or substandard products, or advertising goods and services in a deceitful way through the Internet

7.Damaging the reputation of a business or a commodity through the Internet

8.Infringing upon the intellectual property of others through the Internet

9.Fabricating false information affecting securities and futures trading or otherwise disturbing the financial order through the Internet

10.Setting up pornographic Web sites or Web pages, providing access to pornographic Web sites, or spreading pornographic books, movies, video products and photos on the Internet

11.Insulting or defaming other people on the Internet

12.Illegally intercepting, altering or deleting others' e-mail or data, infringing upon citizens' freedom and confidentiality of communication, and

13.Committing theft, fraud and atrocities through the Internet.

Considering some of these laws it should come as no surprise they would attempt something like this. What strikes some odd notes is the buddhists practices in China which teach so much about life. Its pretty sad.

So let everyone rant on about Chinese people who can go about using proxy servers but the fact of the matter is not too many Chinese people will risk going to jail trying to circumvent issues. Sure there will be those who will attempt to circmvent the systems there, but I highly doubt anyone will be risking penalties.

Circumventing Carnivore

Everyone.. please note that it is NOT the Indian Government doing the hiring here. It is actually a private organization called NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) that is doing the "hiring".

Check out either this article or this one to find out that its not "India" doing the recruitment but an independant association

I don't think corporations mean to strip anyone of anything, but common sense would point out most of the things they are being restrictive to are possibly done in an effort to avoid lawsuits, and this can be seen with earlier actions such as companies blocking certain types of emails floating around.

We still have groups like the A.C.L.U., EPIC, and others who continuously fight to retain what can be seen as questionable issues. These people are often unsung heroes who operate mainly out of the hopes of not becoming somewhat of communist country.

As to whether we're becoming too restrictive if you'd take a quick minute to view this article on strict regulations that were just passed on to the chinese, you would see that no matter how hard you think things are over here, things are much more difficult to live abroad.

It is a strange thing to see politicians playing games especially when we can't fully determine a rightful president without falling into some sort of 'agenda' from some right wing like sector who may have been afraid to fully count votes. Its also annoying to have politicians try to sneak in some shady bills in hopes no one would notice.

Thats life no matter where you go I guess...

Recently I went to Sweden in which I found things more relaxing although their taxes were higher I heard little complaints their and things were much more relaxed and I plan on heading out there within the next 2 years.

In the industry they're called pen computers . Most pen computers are Palm-like devices, although some are clipboard-sized (other names are "clipboard computer" or "pen tablet"). Telxon, Norand, Microslate, and Fujitsu make some. There also are notebook-like convertibles which hide or remove the keyboard, such as the Clio.

A sarcastic term used to designate software and hardware products that have been announced and advertised but are not yet available.

Read ;th is article that gives statistics to show 11% of American homes have high speed access right now - that's a combination of cable modems and DSL.

Furthermore, look at the rate of growth. That's the figure for Fall 2000, yet in the spring of 2000 that figure was only 5%. Don't you think that by spring of 2001 it will be a lot higher still?

Once you've used a DSL line or cable modem there is simply no going back - and everyone who has one raves on and on about it so much that co-workers are easily sold on the idea.

Check out http://linuxnewbie.internet.com/ if you are interested in the site. It is just something like Slashdot, so I would not bother. Basically, you should read http://bugzilla.redhat .co m/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18033

InterNet News Radio ran an interview with me this morning about the CueCat. I have it mirrored
here. It runs today, Sept 18, 2000, so you'll have to look for it in their archives starting tomorrow. However, I'll keep the mirror at my site.



---- ----

Dilger (a writing teacher) sounds like a typical customer who senses the need for an engineering solution. He correctly senses that something's wrong. Rather than explain what he sees as the symptoms of the problem, he diagnoses the problem and offers solutions. The broad premise is that users of modern GUIs don't understand enough about computer/network system structure to make effective use of current systems. His diagnoses and treatments, on the other hand, seem way off the mark.

For instance, he says that "ease of use" is the problem. Clearly silly. A well designed system should provide both an easy path to get the simple task done, and a flexible path, perhaps one that requires more dexterity, to perform more complex tasks. Such system designs go quite far back into our history.

Consider the text editor. A short digression: 25 or 30 years ago, any text editor was considered a luxury, most users poked holes in cards or ribbons of paper (and before that, they juggled patch cables). Eventually, we had the soft luxury of keying our input to magnetic media, disk or tape, still in batch mode. Any ability to edit a line of text, without retyping a card, was considered ease of use. In time, terminals were connected directly to computers, and people could actually interact with them.

Early interactive editors were designed for paper-output ttys or for "glass ttys" which may not have provided any random access to screen locations, and thus, no wysiwyg. In those days, wysiwyg was considered "ease of use" as GUIs are today, and many hardcore hackers considered wysiwyg users as soft. This spirit of ease of use is reflected in the following classic tale: (Ken Thompson is a father of UNIX, and its original editor, ed. For a long time, ed would respond any errant input with a simple "?" - in fact, many users found this sufficient.)

Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong."

Anyway, back to the point. In time, powerful editors emerged, teco, ed, and variants. Eventually, xy-addressable crt's arose, and folks wrote extensions of these editors to provide user-friendly wysiwyg (emacs for teco, vi for ed).

The point of this digression: If you look at the design of emacs or vi, you will find that they provide a wysiwyg interface and a command line interface as well! A user-friendly interface and a separate more powerful interface with iterative control and so forth. We can have our cake and eat it too. Software should be powerful and easy to use. What is infuriating about most modern software isn't that it makes simple tasks easy, it's that it makes complex tasks terribly difficult.

I think Dilger totally misses this point.

Seems like Prairie iNet are using the 2.4 GHz band, which is generally unlicensed around the world - assuming they are using the same technology as Midcoast Wireless, a Maine ISP, which has a very useful FAQ

This is all based on IEEE 802.11 technology, which is normally used for wireless LANs with a range of a few hundred feet. The trick here seems to be using more power and directional antennae so that you can go up to 9 miles (or maybe much more).

One company making this sort of kit is Breezecom, who have an overview of wireless Internet access here.

This technology, along with the competing licensed LMDS technology, may make mincemeat of DSL and Cable - it involves no rights of way hassles, no cable laying, and can give very low latency plus bandwidths in the 1-2Mbps range. Having used Wireless LANs at conferences and trade shows, I found the latency and bandwidth very similar to a T1 line.

For info on 802.11, see the Linux Wireless LAN FAQ, which also has good links to generic WLAN info at the end. Although the technology for 802.11 long-distance (i.e. wireless local loop) is not identical, it should give you an idea of how things work.

For info on LMDS (Local Multipoint Distribution System), see the Webopedia entry for LMDS, which has links to related pages. One new European telco that is rolling out LMDS quite aggressively is FirstMark - they are also doing cool things with MPLS VPNs, which is how I know about them since my company just sold them the software to manage this :) MPLS is a way of getting the best of the ATM and IP worlds at the same time.

Low latency is important because it's a key determinant of web response time, particularly for sites with many small GIF buttons, and also because Internet routers tend to treat high-latency sessions less fairly, so they get even less bandwidth then they should. It's also essential to winning at Quake, which is clearly the critical driver here :)

This story matters more for the technology than for the particular ISP using it - it will affect most Slashdot readers in the next year or so, particularly those not covered by DSL or cable. In the UK, BT is being astonishingly slow at rolling out ADSL, and the cable companies have very little coverage, so wireless technology may be the only way to get broadband for many people...

I think many of you will be interested.

Based upon the approximate order of the figures at this link . Just over 1%, which contrasts to about the 22% of the UK population, acording to OFTEL (boo hiss)

Bubble Memory.

From this site there is this def. A type of non-volatile memory composed of a thin layer of material that can be easily magnetized in only one direction. When a magnetic field is applied to circular area of this substance that is not magnetized in the same direction, the area is reduced to a smaller circle, or bubble.
It was once widely believed that bubble memory would become one of the leading memory technologies, but these promises have not been fulfilled. Other non-volatile memory types, such as EEPROM, are both faster and less expensive than bubble memory.

A better link has actual tech trawings and data sheets.

And the final link for today tells of 128K and 512K devices in 1981! (Hint: that was alot of memory!)

The only problem is that no linguist who has done any serious experimentation on the subject has been able to support Sapir-Whorf to any reasonable degree. Furthermore, they pretty much managed to undermine their own argument: in saying that an Inuit might have one word for snow lying on the ground, and another for snow falling, for example, you can see that we don't need a specific lexeme to grok the difference between falling snow and lying snow.

With that in mind, I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that language ain't got much to do with it. Maybe our keyboards would look different, and we'd all having Unicode native operating systems - which, now that I think about it, would be pretty damn cool - but I don't see that programming languages would be otherwise greatly affected.

T1 used to infer DS1 over copper. T1 is both a protocol and a speed reference now. T1 is commonly used to refer to the standard 1.54 meg abit speed it offers. Those of us in the industry long enough now just refer to 'fractional T1' when refering to partial megabit divisions of bandwidth ... as they were when I used copper at all.

Note: PC Webopedia T1 Definition for a not-too-bad reference.

Also cf. the T1 standards committee for the picky version, and specifically T1E1, the standards committee for "consideration and development of optical, electrical and mechanical characteristics of interfaces".

Cyber grans needle sewing industry

On the back of the Napster scandal, a terrifying new copyright-defying threat has appeared on the Internet. Sinister bands of underground grannies with a "hacker mentality" are needling the cross-stitch industry by trading their sewing patterns online.
,br> Although the problem should be easy to unravel as there are less thieving grannies than Napster users, the scale of the illicit trading still threatens to stitch up the sewing industry. The actions of the old age pirates have forced the needlepoint industry - which refuses to have the wool pulled over its eyes - to consider legal action: "This pierces at the heart of the needlepoint industry," said Jo Weiss, executive secretary of the International Needleart Retailers Guild.

"The people who are doing this seem to have a hacker's mentality and if necessary, we will show them that we mean business," added Weiss. But the underground oldies, who have cottoned on to the new technology, continue to use PCs, digital scanners and internet chat rooms to reproduce and upload the cross-stitch designs. They are saving themselves nearly £10 a pattern and proving that a stitch in time really does save nine.

Apparently, the pirates operate out of eleven or so groups on the net and there is currently little sign of the issue being patched up. "I signed up to one such group and within a few days I got sent so many charts that I couldn't download my email," said Jim Hedgepath, president of Pegasus Originals needlepoint designers.

• Stroud's Mail Client Review from CWSApps
• E-mail Software page from EverythingEmail.net.
• Free E-mail software from TheFreeSite.com.

From my first google search, I found this. From that page I found out that HPA stands for and googled for it: High.Performance.Addressing

Why the dots between the words? Because this way google knows to only find pages where the words are connected. Anyway this search lead to a very nice definition at our friendly Webopedia site:

Short for High-Performance Addressing, an passive-matrix display technology the provides better response rates and contrast than conventional LCD displays. Although HPA displays aren't quite as crisp or fast as active-matrix (TFT) displays, they're considerably less expensive to produce. Consequently, HPA is being used by a number of computer manufacturers for their low-end notebook computers.

Like your computer, google is a tool. Use it wisely.

Where does 86% come from? The only site that I know of that tracks usage is browserwatch, which claims that IE has 59.3% market share...

It's nice to see PHPBuilder/LinuxStart back online after, what, nine days of downtime? I hope they don't blame *this* on Microsoft!

From the staff and management... There is no worse feeling for an Internet professional than when a site goes down -- except maybe the feelings of the loyal customer who relies on that site. As many of you know, we suffered through a massive hardware failure that essentially wiped out LinuxStart and crippled our mail and Web capabilities at a time when we were transitioning to a new disaster-recovery plan. Of course, disasters always happen at the worst possible time. The LinuxStart team has been working around the clock to restore the site and to make sure that such a disaster won't occur again. Meanwhile, please accept our apologies. We're working hard to make LinuxStart your complete source of Linux information. We value your participation in the site.
-- Kevin Reichard, managing editor, Linux/Open Source Channel, internet.com We are aware that some features of the site are not yet functional, but we wanted to get the basic search and directory features online as quickly as possible. Please do not report errors at this time, because we are already working on most of them. Thank you for your patience as we continue to rebuild after a massive hardware problem.
-- The LinuxStart webmasters

It's not like splicing is anything new - hell we've been making corn that poisons butterflys for a while now - it's not new. Why is this news? What is the nature of the chromosome, is that what makes it so special? What does it do? Anything?

Just out of curiosity, who here thinks there is any chance that MSFT, probably the only software company with billion$ of dollars in cash reserves will either a.)go out of business or b.) quit development on a product in which from various statistics is the dominant player in its market.

Secondly, who believes that if AOL fired all the Netscape developers (who outnumber Open-Source contributors) there'd still be a Mozilla? Considering that several laudable open source projects have languished without corporate support including IBM's JFS and almost everything SGI has GPLed for Linux.

Finally from a PointyHairedBoss perspective which is more likely a.)MSFT goes out of business or quits developing IE or b.) AOL decides to stop flogging a dead horse and concedes defeat by keeping IE as its default browser instead of spending money developing a second stringer to IE?

This is not a troll but a genuine counter-opinion, being Open Source does not mean diddly to most PHBs unless there is still someone to point at Apache has the Apache Group while Linux has Red Hat, SuSe, etc...Mozilla has AOL. Almost four years later, it is still primarily a Netscape operation with a minority of Open Source developers. Your argument would not hold sway with most bosses (heck, it didn't hold sway with my project manager and he's a developer) since it is unlikely that they are either a.) going to say "yeah, we can carry on development if it ever gets scrapped by AOL" or b.)We'll trust our entire corporate decision making on the hope that a bunch of random hackers will work on this software in their spare time.

Coincidentally enough, I'm actually looking to do this with 2+ analog cell phones with modems attached, so I can transmit a live voice Ogg Vorbis stream in the field to a relay station at high quality. ;)

How about setting up Multilink PPP? That's what it's designed for. Have two or more modems at your new office dial into your current office using the MP patch to pppd, and poof, instant channel bonding type stuff.

The other suggestion someone had (on the linux-router mailing list, actually) was to use BGP to split up your data between two or more links (multi-homing). I don't know how that works, though.

--Vito

Coincidentally enough, I'm actually looking to do this with 2+ analog cell phones with modems attached, so I can transmit a live voice Ogg Vorbis stream in the field to a relay station at high quality. ;)

How about setting up Multilink PPP? That's what it's designed for. Have two or more modems at your new office dial into your current office using the MP patch to pppd, and poof, instant channel bonding type stuff.

The other suggestion someone had (on the linux-router mailing list, actually) was to use BGP to split up your data between two or more links (multi-homing). I don't know how that works, though.

--Vito

Nope, Moore's law started out as doubling every one year, as quoted 25 years ago in The Mythical Man-Month, and more recently in the Internet.com Webopedia.

Kevin Fox

Bruce Ward the technical director of NetPD did an interview with InternetNews Radio yesterday. You can find the interview here: stream.internet.com click on the 05/03/00 radio archive. The interview tells how NetPD approached Metallica with their services.

Alex Bischoff
---

One of my main goals in writing the article was to bring OpenBSD's work to light. After talking to Jordan Hubbard about FreeBSD, it's clear that their goal is to "eat OpenBSD's lunch" and move FreeBSD ahead in security reputation. However, I think that all comes down to a question of philosophy: "is security worth sacrificing features?"

My job at Boardwatch is to cover all free *nixes, but I'll admit that I prefer *BSD over Linux (for a variety of personal reasons). Which *BSD do I use for my personal servers? FreeBSD. But I see OpenBSD as being valuable for a number of reasons which return to the difference of philosophies.

I think that it boils down to this: OpenBSD is willing to miss out on the "latest and greatest" for various apps in order to maintain security. This is a very justifiable choice. Since, however, much of the user base I support demands the "latest and greatest," I use FreeBSD (but NetBSD on my Mac machines ... I hope to switch to Darwin soon). I'll admit that I'm willing to sacrifice some level of security for new features (and hope that reading buqtraq will fill in the holes), but that's also because the users I support on my personal boxes don't demand absolute security (e.g., CinemArcade or SchnellNet).

So, I guess the moral of the story is: is security your number one concern? If so, then you are far better off with OpenBSD. If not, then Linux or Free/NetBSD is where you want to be. I'd be very happy to hear what others think about this, as well as comments on the article itself (or ideas for future people/projects to interview).

Unmoderated troll threads available here.

• Quake 3 running on stinking big SGI machines (always fun to watch - but get a network boys!)
  
• Intel stand - big signs saying "Intel supports RedHat, Mandrake, Corel Linux, etc etc" - shouldn't that be the OTHER way around AndyG?!
  
• TurboLinux ice creams and tattoo's - a perpetual supply throughout the day to exhibitors, mucho gratias
  
• The plethora of American accents - maybe not interesting, or even different - a taste of things to come during the Olympics?
  
• IBM? Hello Lou Gerstner?! IBM have a small (3x3 metre) stand in the far corner, not their usual huge whopping glowing bright red 'e-everywhere' - and IBM is fully behind Linux now?
  
• The great guys at the australia.internet.com stand - ok, slightly biased.