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An LCD that size must use a fair amount of batteries and be reasonably large.

If you really want to make you're GameCube or PS2 portable ( Xbox's themselves aren't portable so I'll skip them ) you can get a pair of Sony Glasstrons. These are glasses that do TV resolution. Unfortunately they have been discontinued.

You can pick them up on Ebay for ~$350. I've used these things once or twice and I was quite impressed. Has anyone else used them for any length of time ?

• OMG, 10 Mbps is even less than the 12 Mbps of (theoretical) USB peak bandwidth!
• OMG, 10 Mbps is 1/40:th of the (again, theoretical) FireWire/IEEE1394/i.Link peak bandwidth of 400 Mbps!!

• OMG, 10 Mbps is even less than the 12 Mbps of (theoretical) USB peak bandwidth!
• OMG, 10 Mbps is 1/40:th of the (again, theoretical) FireWire/IEEE1394/i.Link peak bandwidth of 400 Mbps!!

You might want to take a look at this. 8x CD-RW over USB.

Environments are important. You could be a crack hack wizard and still suck because of distractions.

The first and foremost important piece of your work environment is your chair. Make sure it's something you can be comfortable in for hours at a time, especially when coding. Get your feet off the floor and onto something. I personally use a high back leather chair and matching footstool. Medically, having your feet dangling or poorly supported for long periods of time is bad for you. Make sure you can lean back in your chair, and you're not working hunched over.

Match your chair to your desk, with regard to height. Find a working position between the two that's comfortable, or work out a way to get your keyboard lower. Ergonomics, while froofy, aren't a joke.

Noise suppression. If you're a coder, get some good noise cancellation going. Background noise reduction cuts down on a lot of distractions. Even if you're not pumping music into it, having your ears covered will quickly become a sign to people that you're busy. Train the mammals to send email instead of pop into your cube. I personally use Sony's noise reduction earbuds, which by shape alone are a functional earplug.

Lighting is important. I've had several cases of janitor combat by disengaging overhead flourescents in favor of a gentle incandescent lamp. Don't work in the dark, though. Hormonally, humans (and other diurnal creatures (this excludes Solaris admins)) are stimulated into various modes by light levels. One argument you'll be presented with should you decide to tamper with overheads is 'Safety Reasons'. Don't let this slide. It's YOUR work environment. Ground level strip lighting is just as effective, and less intrusive. Use indirect lighting where possible.

If you're in a heavy corporate environment, it's entirely plausible that certain management types will immediately single you out as a deviant, so use caution.

Some ammunition:
Oklahoma State Doc on Ergonomics and Environments: This is a good common sense doc about computer heavy work environments. You can draft a simple checklist based on the contents to see how your work environs stack up.

This document points out something important: OSHA does NOT have a standing (read: enforcable) ruling or standard for computer operation environments. Your employer can simply tell you to take a hike and get away with it. In some cases, I'd say take this up with HR, or rally your like minded coworkers, but given that most corporate HR teams simply don't give a damn, caveat emptor.

In the event your management doesn't go for it, here's a piece on combatting violence in the office.

In any case, do some homework before embarking on this quest. If nothing else, present it in simple financial terms. Personally controlled light environments tend to be less expensive to maintain than mass overhead lighting. No ladders required, less maintenance impact. Lights turned off when cubes are vacated at beer o' clock serve as pro-active energy management.

Single user monitor lamps, like these from Think Geek ($29.99 each) work very well. They did their homework about lighting advantages, as well. This brings cubespace lighting down from the ceiling and into the cube.

The drawback to this, and one of the first things managers (and site security) like to point out, is the reduced light level for the rest of the office. It's a perfectly valid argument, and generally brings lighting wars to a screaming halt. This can be replied to with something simple and inexpensive, like these Mini Lights, which would sit well on the exterior of any cube wall, illuminating the aisle.

As for general office lighting a few well placed torchiere style lamps (check your lamp types, though. Some suck more power than others) provide excellent indirect lighting.

Environments are important. You could be a crack hack wizard and still suck because of distractions.

The first and foremost important piece of your work environment is your chair. Make sure it's something you can be comfortable in for hours at a time, especially when coding. Get your feet off the floor and onto something. I personally use a high back leather chair and matching footstool. Medically, having your feet dangling or poorly supported for long periods of time is bad for you. Make sure you can lean back in your chair, and you're not working hunched over.

Match your chair to your desk, with regard to height. Find a working position between the two that's comfortable, or work out a way to get your keyboard lower. Ergonomics, while froofy, aren't a joke.

Noise suppression. If you're a coder, get some good noise cancellation going. Background noise reduction cuts down on a lot of distractions. Even if you're not pumping music into it, having your ears covered will quickly become a sign to people that you're busy. Train the mammals to send email instead of pop into your cube. I personally use Sony's noise reduction earbuds, which by shape alone are a functional earplug.

Lighting is important. I've had several cases of janitor combat by disengaging overhead flourescents in favor of a gentle incandescent lamp. Don't work in the dark, though. Hormonally, humans (and other diurnal creatures (this excludes Solaris admins)) are stimulated into various modes by light levels. One argument you'll be presented with should you decide to tamper with overheads is 'Safety Reasons'. Don't let this slide. It's YOUR work environment. Ground level strip lighting is just as effective, and less intrusive. Use indirect lighting where possible.

If you're in a heavy corporate environment, it's entirely plausible that certain management types will immediately single you out as a deviant, so use caution.

Some ammunition:
Oklahoma State Doc on Ergonomics and Environments: This is a good common sense doc about computer heavy work environments. You can draft a simple checklist based on the contents to see how your work environs stack up.

This document points out something important: OSHA does NOT have a standing (read: enforcable) ruling or standard for computer operation environments. Your employer can simply tell you to take a hike and get away with it. In some cases, I'd say take this up with HR, or rally your like minded coworkers, but given that most corporate HR teams simply don't give a damn, caveat emptor.

In the event your management doesn't go for it, here's a piece on combatting violence in the office.

In any case, do some homework before embarking on this quest. If nothing else, present it in simple financial terms. Personally controlled light environments tend to be less expensive to maintain than mass overhead lighting. No ladders required, less maintenance impact. Lights turned off when cubes are vacated at beer o' clock serve as pro-active energy management.

Single user monitor lamps, like these from Think Geek ($29.99 each) work very well. They did their homework about lighting advantages, as well. This brings cubespace lighting down from the ceiling and into the cube.

The drawback to this, and one of the first things managers (and site security) like to point out, is the reduced light level for the rest of the office. It's a perfectly valid argument, and generally brings lighting wars to a screaming halt. This can be replied to with something simple and inexpensive, like these Mini Lights, which would sit well on the exterior of any cube wall, illuminating the aisle.

As for general office lighting a few well placed torchiere style lamps (check your lamp types, though. Some suck more power than others) provide excellent indirect lighting.

This is very cool, on many levels: space-saving, open architecture, and so forth.
And sure, there's a lot of collaboration going on behind it as the press release says, but what's the likelihood that Blades will actually be a force in server hardware? A lot of companies are worried enough about financial situations without replacing large amounts of their assets.
Just seems like a helluva risk to take, with this New Cool thing. When it DOES gain popularity, though, it'll be nice to hear success stories about physically cooler server rooms(I'd imagine) with more space for NERF combat or Ultimate Frisbee.

I'll bet you a ThinkGeek T-shirt that there won't be water cooling. I take size large, thanks.

Well, you probably wanna make this a just a cool 'hang-out' place. So, I'd throw a couch and some lazyboys in there. Probably, wanna throw a mini fridge in there with your favorite drinks, too. While you at it might wanna put a big screen in there, and hookup a XBox, DC, Gamecube, PS2, etc. too it.

Thats what *I'd* put in mine. But you seem to want to have a 80s theme also. In this aspect, I'd get a couple of pinball machines, and a couple of your vintage arcade standups (i.e. classics like Pac-man and your personal favorties, mine all time fav being D&D: Tower of Doom). Then, you should look into making a standup MAME box (similar to one Taco has).

Of course, thats what I'd put in my game room. Its all dependent on how much space and money you have really. Good luck and have fun!

I did a quick search of the Excite web site. That same month, they promised to donate up to $3 million to a Meg Ryan-sponsered charity.

They had a revenue of $113 million for that quarter.

The 1999 news site has a ton of stuff like this. The 2000 site seems to have as much, but the last announcement is in May, 2000.

Does that shed some light on where the money went? Just another company, thinking they would keep getting exponential growth, making money out of nothing, with no provisions for an economic downturn.

I'll miss being a LPB on Counterstrike.

Support Slashdot and take a stand!

While you're at it... visit here too

...get the Compaq-designed Personal Jukebox. The price tag is high because the sound quality is the best on the market. And a new driver now allows you to copy files (any files) from the PJB back to your PC. With a choice of 6GB and 20GB drives, an intuitive interface, and OPEN SOURCE software, what more could a true geek want? ;-)

I saw this at Thinkgeek. It is a Linux-running 10 Gig HD with USBs, Ethernet, PCMCIA, etc... I don't think it records, but it sounds really cool anyway. Here's the manufacturer's link.

you can find the archos jukebox here

SDMI is about water-marking, and MP3 players (and memory sticks, etc.) refusing to do certain things with SDMI-watermarked music.

The reason that it's difficult to find MP3 players that will cat mp3 > hd[a-z] is the court case between Rio (one of the first MP3 player manufacturers) and the RIAA.

The RIAA alleged that because the Rio allowed you to copy music from PC to PC via the flash, it was guilty of contributory copyright infringement (or something).

Rio (IIRC) either lost the case, or settled out of court to not allow player > HD shifting of mp3s. Most of the other manufacturers took this as a warning sign, and now they don't allow player>HD copying either.

If you're interested in an HD-based player, this "Personal MP3 Jukebox" comes in 10, 20 and (I think) 30 gig models, <gloat>they have fantastic sound, open API's, easter-eggs(minesweeper :-) in the firmware and I haven't had any problems with mine</gloat>, other than the fact that it looks like it was made in Russia.

I think the firmware supports uploading of MP3's, but it's only actually implimented in un-official software (pjbExploder, I think), which is functional enough - in windows.

Your choice, monkey :-)

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Terrapin Mine handheld that is so heavily advertised on slashdot. It holds 10 gigs and runs on linux too.

"Although the fans alter their speed in response to temperature changes, there's no fail-safe mechanism for the entire system. "

I bet there's no failsafe for the cooling system either. Pumps can break just as easily as fans, and what happens when the water stops flowing? Or for that matter if the tubes get pinched by a geek in a hurry?

Still, it is an interesting idea. Does anyone know if ThinkGeek is going to include this in their "tricked out" computer? Tubes with liquid flowing in a case with a flourecent light would be cool... How about some tiny sparkles in it too, or some substance to make it glow in the dark? :)

this review has been out there a while and its why i bought this case. It keeps my 1600+ running ice cold. Combine this with some RAM Sinks and youve got a mad cool system ready for any hardcore OCer. :-)

At least thats what thinkgeek claims here. Too bad it is not officially supported by archos. The drivers are here.

Once you use the logitech optical wireless mouse, you won't ever want to go back using another mouse. Price is 65 dolls on thinkgeek but you can find cheaper.

Also don't forget a battery charger and another set of batteries as this mouse eats them FAST.

...gotta be one of these!

Specifically the RapidFire 20, 30 bucks from thinkgeek.com

Sure some of the new Mobos with the trouble or post/boot LEDs by the ATX block are cool and all, but I'd like to see some real wowers. Like Holographic logos or images, LEDs in the fans that make cool effects, something that reminds me of a sequential flashing dilithium containment chamber, or just some cool colors on the mobo showing off it's sections or pathways. Anything would be better than the normal old motherboard sitting there, looking all blah.

In short, I want better use of a windowed case than just seeing if my fans are still spinning.

Heh, Slashdot is essentially already a gateway for ThinkGeek's 'Apparel' store, where the fashion and slogans are sub-par in wittiness. Can't tell you how many times I've seen the banner for some stupid 'Free Dmitry' t-shirt.

I have been wanting exactly what you are talking about for at least 6 years now. I've been looking for off-the-shelf because I've felt that I didn't quite know enough about hardware to build one and really don't have the time. A few years ago when Sun was talking about Java chips that could natively handle the language and perhaps it's own OS I thought they might head this direction with some hardware... but alas.

There are certainly enough (net|sys)admins out there to support a 'community' for this effort. After all this hardware setup is perfect for us at work or on the road. (Even at work we are away from our desks at racks of computers or in foreign data centers!) My company (Steem) will gladly step up the web resources , maybe even hardware purchasing if we could begin producing something 'sell'able. I would even venture to guess that ThinkGeek would support the endevour on some level.

I'll keep an eye on this story and see what develops. Obviously the more off-the-shelf (COTS as the gov businesses call it) stuff we can find the better. I have looked at the PC104 hardware and it seems do-able but we'll need to work at getting all the other pieces together.

BTW, if you haven't read through the MIT wearable web pages or wearables central, I suggest that you should. Lots of good hardware suggestions there.

Are you talking about SCSI cables like these?

This is unacceptable. I could understand a project admin not disclosing trivial changes that didn't go into a release of a product/system, but failing to disclose non-trivial changes that did go in is inexcusable.

And did you write your representative in United States Congress yet? Did you submit an amica brief at Dmitry's preliminary hearing? Did you join the EFF to help battle the DMCA? Did you at least buy a Free Dmitry t-shirt so some of your purchase goes to stop the DMCA?

If you have, then I applaud your actions and encourage you to continue engaging in constructive solutions. If not, then put up or shut up. Far too many people are bitching about this problem and taking no substantive action.

It is unreasonable to expect Cox to behave differently. He's seen what happened to Dmitry. He knows what could happen if he were to disclose this information to Americans, then set foot in the United States. Cox did the right thing.

You don't need to worry about being "someone who knows something about computers" as long as you've got the right attire.

ThinkGeek has a 20 gig version of this already. See ithere.

Whenever I think of what the slashdot editors actually do, I'm oddly reminded of this t-shirt

$999? Doesn't this seem a bit steep? That hard drive can't be worth much more than $100 at bulk pricing and the CDRW is probably worth about the same, if that.

I'd just recommend to anyone thinking of buying this thing to get a low powered home computer, and an external DA.

But then again, I'm a nerd.

The Archos 6GB recorder mentioned further up the page does exactly that. The Creative/Nomad Jukebox also has a mic input, but (AFAIK) only records to WAV.

Sig?Senior Citizens read Slashdot

A quick search on thinkgeek revealed that currently all MP3 players are USB driven (including the nomad). Me thinks that having a firewire driven MP3 player is anything but lame. Too bad for all those geeks out there still using PCs - guess you'll need to invest in a Firewire extension card :). And as far as the disk-space goes, expect that to increase in the next release of the iPod. I'm sure Apple wants to sell a few of these babies before it pours a bunch more money into it. Expect this one to come down in price and be superseded by one with more disk-space.

Also, note that this player is just slightly bigger than the Rio500/600 players w/ far more space ... something that the nomad can't stake a claim on - the nomad is far to horsey to fit in any of MY pockets!

Finally - design matters. If you like 'em or not, Apple is definitely putting out products that look ultra-cool and dovetail nicely with their other product lines. Most of the players on thinkgeek look ultra-geeky, even the nomad (though its design and the design of the Rios aren't bad). I'm no designer, but I've come to appreciate good design and I'm willing to pay a bit extra for it.

I would rather buy 20 gig hard drive based mp3 player that offers about the same for less money. Seriously, there are a few out there already that promise the same thing and more, but cost less or equal to $400. Most of these players support Macintosh as well as Linux and Windows.

Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 Player. (Supports Macintosh, Linux, Windows)

Creative Labs 20 Gig MP3 Jukebox (Supports Macintosh, Windows)

20 Gig Personal MP3 Jukebox (Supports Macintosh, Linux, Windows)

The only things I can see that is different about this is that they don't use USB for transfer like most players and their claim of a 20 minute buffer. Also since Apple is behind this they will have a lot better Macintosh support. If they actually had OGG support and allowed us to program additional audio format support (like Mods, SID,SPC, etc) I might reconsider :).

The good thing is that some companies are finally getting it and are now selling reasonable players at reasonable prices. I will be getting a Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 player when I earn enough cash. I just hope that the SSSCA doesn't get passed and forces these companies to either cripple their products or go out of business.

I would rather buy 20 gig hard drive based mp3 player that offers about the same for less money. Seriously, there are a few out there already that promise the same thing and more, but cost less or equal to $400. Most of these players support Macintosh as well as Linux and Windows.

Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 Player. (Supports Macintosh, Linux, Windows)

Creative Labs 20 Gig MP3 Jukebox (Supports Macintosh, Windows)

20 Gig Personal MP3 Jukebox (Supports Macintosh, Linux, Windows)

The only things I can see that is different about this is that they don't use USB for transfer like most players and their claim of a 20 minute buffer. Also since Apple is behind this they will have a lot better Macintosh support. If they actually had OGG support and allowed us to program additional audio format support (like Mods, SID,SPC, etc) I might reconsider :).

The good thing is that some companies are finally getting it and are now selling reasonable players at reasonable prices. I will be getting a Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 player when I earn enough cash. I just hope that the SSSCA doesn't get passed and forces these companies to either cripple their products or go out of business.

I would rather buy 20 gig hard drive based mp3 player that offers about the same for less money. Seriously, there are a few out there already that promise the same thing and more, but cost less or equal to $400. Most of these players support Macintosh as well as Linux and Windows.

Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 Player. (Supports Macintosh, Linux, Windows)

Creative Labs 20 Gig MP3 Jukebox (Supports Macintosh, Windows)

20 Gig Personal MP3 Jukebox (Supports Macintosh, Linux, Windows)

The only things I can see that is different about this is that they don't use USB for transfer like most players and their claim of a 20 minute buffer. Also since Apple is behind this they will have a lot better Macintosh support. If they actually had OGG support and allowed us to program additional audio format support (like Mods, SID,SPC, etc) I might reconsider :).

The good thing is that some companies are finally getting it and are now selling reasonable players at reasonable prices. I will be getting a Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 player when I earn enough cash. I just hope that the SSSCA doesn't get passed and forces these companies to either cripple their products or go out of business.

Speaking of comparisons... Let's compare the iPod to a sampling of other units that share its form-factor... that excludes all CD-MP3 based units AND it excludes units such as the Nomad. So how does the iPod stack up to it's form-factor matched competitors? What are it's competitors? Looking at the ever-cool ThinkGeek's MP3 player selection, here are the competition:

1. 20 Gig Personal MP3 Jukebox (Designed by Compaq)
   Price: $499
   Capacity: 20 GB
   I/O Interface: USB
   Desktop OS Compatibility: Windows, & Linux (??)
   Battery Type/Life(playtime): Internal rechargable/ 12 Hrs
   Dimensions: 150 x 80 x 26 mm
   Weight: 9.9oz.
   
2. Archos Jukebox 6000:
   Price: $249
   Capacity: 6 GB
   I/O Interface: USB
   Desktop OS Compatibility: Windows and Mac
   Battery Type/Life(playtime): 4 AA/ Max 8 hours
   Dimensions: 4.5" x 3.2" x 1.3"
   Weight: 12oz.
   Additional features: Can function as USB hardrive. Also, Archo's website is unclear as to whether the unit can charge "it's 4-AA rechargables" with the included power adapter but such is hinted at...
   
3. Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 Player
   Same as above, with 20GB of storage, for $349
   
4. Toshiba Portable MP3 Player - MEA210
   Price: $199.99
   Capacity: 32MB int. Expandable w/ SD card
   I/O Interface: USB
   Desktop OS Compatibility: Windows only
   Battery Type/Life(playtime): 1 AAA/ Max 4 hours
   Dimensions: 2" x 2" x 0.5"
   Weight: 1.5 oz w/out battery
   
5. Rio 600 64MB MP3 Player
   Price: $159.99
   Capacity: 64MB int. Expandable w/ add-on back of up to 340 MB
   I/O Interface: USB
   Desktop OS Compatibility: Mac & Windows
   Battery Type/Life(playtime): 1 AA/ Max 8 hours
   Dimensions: 3.5" x 2.5" x 5/8"
   Weight: ??
   
6. Rio 800 128 MB MP3 Player
   Price: $219.99
   Capacity: 128MB int. Expandable w/ add-on back up to 340 MB
   I/O Interface: USB
   Desktop OS Compatibility: Mac & Windows
   Battery Type/Life(playtime): 1 Ni-MH AA Rechargable (built in recharger)/ ??
   Dimensions: 3.5" x 2.5" x 1"
   Weight: ??
   
7. Apple iPod
   Price: $399.00
   Capacity: 5GB
   I/O Interface: Firewire
   Desktop OS Compatibility: Mac only (?)
   Battery Type/Life(playtime): Internal, (rechargable via external adaptor or via firewire bus)/ 10 hrs max.
   Dimensions: 4.02"x2.3"x0.78"
   Weight: 6.5 oz
   Additional features: may be used as firewire disk
   

First, why exclude such different form-factor units such as the nomad? IMHO, size plays a major part in dictating what one of these units will be used for. A CD player, or Nomad is simply too big for me to take to the gym and use while I am running, biking or using any of the machines. Therefore, it's gotta be small..

So how does the iPod stack up? It looks like it's middle of the road, but if certain features are or are not important to you, the choice may be easier (for or against the iPod.) For instance, the Mac only (??) status of this unit makes it unacceptable for many consumers (I love my macs but single OS support IS a handicap for any MP3 player and when that one OS is not the numerically superior one, it's a real issue. On the other hand, the iPod is the only unit that supports firewire. That speed advantage can be really big. Additionally, the iPod blows many of the other units away as far as storage goes (such as the Rio's, Toshiba's, Samsung's, Iomega's and Intel's offerings) but it is matched and exceeded by the Archos units.

My take, overall is that this is a good start and there is a lot of potential in the iPod, but for my $$, right now, I'd buy one of the Archos units.

iPod is a good product, but nothing to get excited over.

I'll stay with my RioVolt [thinkgeek.com]. Instead of a hard disk, it uses CD-R or CD-RW, and can play regular audio CDs.

iPod is a good product, but nothing to get excited over.

I'll stay with my RioVolt [thinkgeek.com]. Instead of a hard disk, it uses CD-R or CD-RW, and can play regular audio CDs.

Well, they'd fit on this:

Runs Linux!

And at 9.9 OZ and 150x80x26mm (5.9x3.15x1.0 in.), it's not too bad, size-wise.

Of course, with a USB interface, it would take about 3.79 hours to load up (at theoretical 12Mbits/sec).

Check out the mine, it's certainly more expensive but I think it lends itself to a greater versatility, USB is a limitation though.

(OK, it's a semi-troll - it's just fun to theorize about CmdrTaco / VA Linux / OSDN conspiracies)

(OK, it's a semi-troll - it's just fun to theorize about CmdrTaco / VA Linux / OSDN conspiracies)

Why? It's pretty and light, and it auto-syncs. Style and convenience matter!

Yes. Buy shirts, mugs, soda, and other crap from ThinkGeek. I often buy stuff there, and I like to think that some of it helps out slashdot.

Funny thing is, I have the shirt too, but am wearing another thinkgeek one today.

The other funny thing is that I got laid this morning.

Link

It's time to get a new keyboard when half your keys work half of the time. It's also time to goto bed when you're sloppy enough to click submit instead of preview. (either that or get some caffeine!)

Sounds like you need this.