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I'm not sure how much different this situation is, from say, Lexmark inkjet printers.

Just something to think about, when next you purchase something that is a controlled consumable (such as a console has become)...

First, there's the need to keep things around long-term. Second, there's the need to have things protected from disaster in the short term.

I once used an external firewire HD for backup, and was reminded of the importance of burning things as well when that HD went tango-uniform on me, destroying months of work.

I'd suggest looking into some sort of RAID - even just a simple mirror - for the short-term protection. That way you don't have quite as much a single point of failure that can wipe out your data, so you can do backups more because you need the space than because you need to sleep well at night.

As for the backups, optical discs are very convenient, but magnetic tape might have a longer lifetime depending on environmental conditions, and although I've seen CD-R comparisons, I've yet to see something similar for DVDs.

There are times where a high-capacity removable hard disk looks very attractive. Shades of the old Bernoulli's or whatever.

(This may not be first post, though there were none when I started. Maybe I'll have to settle for first useful post.)

I had that in OS/2 Warp v4 back in 96. Speech Recognition becanse available on windows around 97/98.

I did not say that added stability was actual but if you want to see some references to chip set related problems okay.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q270715/
http://www.overclockers.com/tips59/
http://www.tech-report.com/news_reply.x/929/
http://www.beowulf.org/archive/2002-October/008407 .html
http://pcbuyersguide.com/hardware/motherboards/VIA -Problems.html

I do not think that any of these problems are current but they did or do exist. While Intel motherboards are almost never the fastest or most feature rich they do tend to be super stable. I like AMD. I plan on using AMD in my next server and I use use AMD at home for most of my boxes. I do not think that AMD is any less stable than Intel but that the combination of an Intel CPU and motherboard has a track record of stability that AMD + a non AMD chipset lacks. If you read my post you would understand that I am saying AMD needs to make a chipset and motherboard so it like Intel can be a one stop shop. There motherboards should be reference boards. Not the fastest, not the most cutting edge, but super stable.

There is a section of the server market where stablity is the number one metric and an Intel CPU on an Intel Motherboard has earned the reputation as the ultimate in stablity in the x86 market. If you want to see really stable look past the x86 to the Sparc and Power lines. For stability they make the x86 look like... Well the x86.

Meanwhile, people may try this trick to hack expiry date on ink cartridges, which might have been proven to work.

Do these cartridges have expiry date printed on them?

One: It's another proprietary crap-pile from Apple.

Two: You're forced to pay for MacOS X, when you'd rather just put your own Linux distro in for Free.

Three: It's $499. Considering items one and two, that's highway fucking robbery for vendor lock-in.

= 9J =

Informative? WinXP _sucks_ with 128 MB of memory. It is really, really bad. There is nothing fine about it.

I'm running Windows XP with 128 MB of RAM right now (because the only SDRAM I have here is apparently too dense for this mobo), and it's very snappy, even with Firefox and Winamp running. This is from the perspective of someone whose primary machine is a 3 GHz P4 with the 800 MHz FSB and 1 GB of DDR400 RAM (dual-booting XP and FreeBSD 5.3). The only time the paging gets ridiculous is when I run Photoshop (all of my good computers are at college, so I have to do insane things like that occasionally when I'm home). Here's my MSInfo file, even (in case you want to see what processes or services I have running or just want to harvest my MAC addresses, heh).

I was running it with 64 MB over the summer, and it was still usable enough for the summer courses I was taking and the occasional web design project (although I had to use Opera instead of my beloved Firefox, and it did page out a lot when switching apps). No lie.

Windows XP is the best NT if stripped down properly. You can say a lot of things about it, but it isn't slow. There are plenty of benchmarks online (here's one) that demonstrate this. I can't think of any reason to use Windows 2000 instead of Windows XP if you have the choice.

I'd be more worried about that crappy VIA processor than the memory if I were trying to put Windows on this lappy.

Free Flat Screen HERE!

Actually you are quite incorrect:

2003 Levy Guide

or the CPCC:

Canadian Private Copyright Collective

The media levy is applied to ANY and ALL media that can or could be used for copying music. So if you're buying a data cd for use with your backup software (or whatnot) the levy IS STILL APPLIED. The levy is applied to Flash RAM and hard disks for god sake in portable devices, not just cd's and tapes.

The levy does allow us to copy discs for our own use. I submit that if the labels start to implement anti-copying technology on Cds and whatnot that the levy be lifted (since this is EXACTLY what the levy is there to remedy) and if this is not done, I suggest a citizen's rebellion becuase it's now "double-dipping" and an unfair subisdy when we can't do what the "levy" is there to remedy anyhow. Be it a further stoppage of buying music (which I don't do anyhow now due to the current draconian mesaures and price-fixing - which have even been proven in court) or force our MP's to remove the levy (like Sheilagh "Dumbass" Copps - the Heritage Minister - would remove the levy or be smart enough to force the labels to not include copy protection, I'm sad that I am a Liberal). I suggest removing the Levy because it seems the labels are going to do what they want anyhow.

The major difference between "audio" and "data" blank cd's are the recording surface and (supposedly) greater compatibility with audio devices (which I have *bever* came across a problem with a "data" cd in any audio device yet). They expect to be able to charge you more because of simple marketing and end user ignorance.

So, you think that Canada has a progressive approach regarding copyright issues, eh? Then why does it tax blank recording media to supposedly pay recording artists? The lobby group that receives all this money hasn't distributed any of it! The current 21-cent or 77-cent tax per CD-R amounts to about the value of the disc itself. Despite the fact that demand and capacity go up and prices fall as technology improves, they want to increase the levies.

Canadians now "pay" recording artists when buying writable CD and DVD media even if they are used to backup your computer data or store a copy of your favorite Linux distro. They may soon have to pay this tax for flash memory for their digital cameras.

The point is, the Canadian industry is not taking any more of a conciliatory approach to the problem of filesharing as you suggest.

If you are using an Athlon XP, are you using a VIA Chipset? I was running Windows XP on my Athlon system and consistantly locked up when using some 3D Graphics programs like Battlefield 1942 and Unreal2003 while running just fine with Quake3.

The following site VIA-Problems.html has a link in its graphics section which was supposed to be incorporated into the VIA Driver but never seems to have been. After applying it, my system has worked fine since. As always use at your own risk.

Thus far, for me XP has worked better then I ever remember NT4... Though we use everything here at work.
Win XP, Win 2000, NT 4, Win 98, Red Hat (not sure what version the sysadmins are on) for various application support. The forced migration can be used as a good thing at times... Forcing people to find a better solution rather then leaving a rat's nest behind.

... doesn't inspire confidence in me with their past track record of problems. Given my past experience with the Asus AV7266, I steer clear of all products using their chips.

this page, has plenty of info on tcp/ip over firewire.. w/ a quick read looks like length is the biggest problem, 2nd to no implimentation supporting more then 2 devices.

Could be a very good idea. Just googled-it and found a few cool links: TCP/IP over IEEE1394 ; 1394, i.Link, Firewire Networking
The speed of FireWire sure seems adequate to substitute some small network ethernet connections...

Google is your friend

that was the whole purpose of the tariff in the first place. To give back some money to the record labels that were losing money from dubbing of CDs that people would buy otherwise.

Funny thing about that levy - same thing happened to it that happens to most money that gets sent to the government: none of it has gone to the people it was supposed to.

It is all in mp3 or ogg format and it is all from CDs that I personally own or have borrowed from friends (emphasis added)

Ummm...this is illegal, dude. There's no problem borrowing you're friend's CD to listen to it, but making a COPY is a violation of COPYright.

Not in Canada, it isn't. We pay a levy (that goes directly to music publishers) every time we purchase recordable media. In exchange, we can make copies of CDs (and not just CDs we own) for personal use (so I can't, for example, make copies and sell or probably even give them away...)

Some details are here: http://pcbuyersguide.com/hardware/storage/2003_Lev y_FAQ.html. Note particularly question 18 and the answer. Also note that even though the date says 2003, that's only because there's a proposed rate increase. We've been paying this levy since 1998 or so. The link I had for the full text of the Copyright Act, including the amendments from 1998, unfortunately appears to be broken, but if you can find it, the relevant text is in Part VIII: Private Copying.