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Handling Systems Exposed to Extreme Temperatures?
NeoMagick asks: "I live in a rural town in the Pacific Northwest, and I'll soon be picking up a Shuttle system which will get mounted in the trunk of my car, and patched into probably an Alpine or Pyle in-dash LCD panel. This last week temperatures have gotten up to 105degF, and have been known to get to -10degF in the winters. I'm wondering if any /.ers have had issues with computers in cars in such extreme temperatures (overheating? freezing?), and if so what they did to solve such problems."
i've got an empeg in my car, and while it hasn't been exposed to extreme heat, it's dealt with winter in northern vermont (where it gets, like, really cold) and i've never had a problem with it.
If you go to the manufacturer's website, the manufacturer who makes the component(s), you can find not only a maximum, but also a minimum temperature at which that component can operate at! For example, an AMD Athlon can usually operate up to 95 degrees celcius.
Got friends?
Happy Troll Tuesday!
/etc/fstab file so that it always automounted when plugged in. I was very impressed.
/dev/null, once I find where that actually is.
A Linux user goes back.
By Tony âoekNIGitsâ Collins.
Introduction...
In much of today's online news, we hear of how many people are migrating to GNU/Linux. What we don't seem to hear much of, is users going back to their old operating systems. The reason for this article is to say that I've done just that.
Yes, I've gone back. After three and a half years of trying to make GNU/Linux work on the desktop, I've decided that it's simply too hard for the average home user. Before I go into my reasons for going back, let me outline what I believe an 'average' home user is. Mr Joe Average is someone who wants to install their OS, boot it up, and it works. He wants to be able to upgrade his PC , and have the hardware work in a few short minutes. He wants to read email, browse the web, talk to his mates online, and play some games. Feel free to disagree with me, this is merely how I see myself. Note: I'm not referring to Grandma using Linux, or even my mum using it. I'm referring to average users who know a little about their computer.
Three and a half years; that's how long I've been trying to make Linux work on my desktop computer. Right about now, I'm sure that you are now screaming that I didn't try hard enough, or that I'm just plain stupid. Let me assure you that this is not the case. Stupid users don't doggedly stick at something for three and a half years, trying distribution after distribution in the hope of finding the holy grail of Linux desktops. They give up in less than a few hours of trying to (unsuccessfully) install RedHat Linux. Hear now my sad tale of why Linux isn't suitable for my desktop.
Some background...
The year is 1998. I've had my Windows '95 computer for around six months. Frustrated with the constant crashes, I desperately asked an online mate for help. Even though he was a windows user, he calmly suggested that I try something I'd never come across before...
âoeLinux, eh? Never heard of it.â
âoeOh, it's a free OS that you can download. Apparently it doesn't crash much. Just do an online search for it.â
Armed with this meagre knowledge, I set out on my quest for the ultimate stable operating system. I searched online, and found places where you could even buy copies of Linux! So, I left the comfort of my warm study, and returned forty minutes later with my first Linux boxed set â" RedHat Linux 5.2. After initially balking at the very basic installer (and few false starts), I had it up and running on my lovely AMD K6-233. I even got X working in no time at all. Then the system booted up for the first time.... and it was dead ugly. I had a very stable new OS, but I didn't even want to look at it. I was happy that I had several installed interfaces to choose from, but none of them appealed to me whatsoever. Wanting to download a nicer interface led me to my next problem.
I had absolutely no idea how to even get this nice, stable OS onto the internet! After reinstalling windows and RedHat in a dual-boot configuration, I got the help I needed by using Windows and USENET. Strangely enough, I can still remember the name of the long-suffering person who helped me get RedHat online, but that's another story. After looking around online, I discovered KDE. Only up to version one, it was the closest thing I had to a completely useable Linux system. I downloaded all the KDE packages for RedHat 5.2, only to discover another distro called Mandrake, that came with KDE preinstalled and configured. Back to my local distributor, and I was set.
Mandrake with KDE was exactly what I needed at that stage in my Linux using life, and I stuck with it for over a year and a half. Always seeking the 'perfect' desktop OS, I followed releases from version 5.3 all the way through to 7.0. Eventually I became dissatisfied with Mandrake, and briefly tried a number of other distros until I finally settled on Debian. I was impressed by the simple power, configurability, and the ease of upgrade that is apt-get. I felt good about being among the uber-elite Debian user community. Needless to say, I learned a lot about how to configure hardware under Linux during my time with Debian. I learned to sift through the old HOWTOs on Linux Doc until I found something suitable and accurate, I learned to utilize the power of USENET and IRC. Life was good.
Right now you must be wondering; âoeWhere is this leading? This guy seemed quite happy with Linux!â. True, I was. After a while, I decided I didn't want to have fine-grained control. I wanted something simple. I was getting tired of the 'stable' Debian release being so out of date, and the 'unstable' distribution being so... well... unstable. I got tired of having to recompile my kernel every time I got new hardware. I got tired of using command line to talk to my PC. It was time for a change. I had good experiences years ago with Mandrake, so I figured I'd try it again. As good as Mandrake 8.1 was, it wasn't what I was after. SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional (boxed set) was installed onto my PC instead.
I have to stop at this point, and say that SuSE Linux 8.0 (Pro) is the best Linux distribution that I've ever used. It has an easy installer, reasonable hardware support, and comes with the very good KDE 3.0. The box contains seven CDROMS, one DVD and three decent books that would help even the most inexperienced user get up and going. YaST2 is a decent graphical system configuration tool. When (not if) I go back to Linux, I'll definitely try SuSE again. However, there are quite a number of things that have improve (or change completely) before I'll consider going back. Read on for my brief list of things that must must get better before I'll switch back from the Microsoft camp.
Where GNU/Linux needs to improve...
X11
The X Window System is an awesomely powerful, network transparent graphical subsystem. It's perfectly suited to running applications from remote servers. However, this is NOT what a home user needs. My experience with X is that it's too big, bloated, slow and unstable to be any good to the home user. Most crashes that I ever experienced with Linux have been X's fault. My servers don't run X, and they never crash.
What home users need is something small and fast, so they can run local applications efficiently. I would like to see the X Window System dumped in favour of a hardware accelerated framebuffer, running something like directFB or Qtopia. Home users need a small, fast graphical subsystem, with built in 3d support. BeOS seemed to be on the right track before they went under.
Fonts are truly awful under X. Most distributions ship with appalling fonts, and there is no standard way to add additional (nicer) fonts to the system. Even after extra fonts have eventually been added, many applications (eg Abiword, Staroffice) refuse to use the new fonts anyway. Perhaps the framebuffer-based graphical subsystem I suggested could incorporate decent font support, and use a readable naming scheme as well.
Drivers
While having access to the latest version of the kernel is a good thing for developers, for home users it can be a nightmare. Got RedHat Linux 7.3? Perhaps you run SuSE 7.3 or Debian 2.2. You'll have to download a binary package specific to your distro. (I'm assuming that home users won't change their default kernel, but if they did, that binary package wouldn't even work!) Hardware manufacturers should be able to provide one single driver that works on all minor versions of a major kernel release. This way it would work will all current distros, instead of having to provide multiple binaries or source code. Hardware manufacturers don't want to give out the source, as this often gives away trade secrets about how their hardware is designed.
The solution seems to be to make binary drivers work on a variety of kernel versions. I'm not sure if this is even possible with the way the kernel is designed (I'm no kernel hacker), but it would go a long way toward making Linux more accessible to the home user. Even if the kernel needs to be redesigned to support this, then in my opinion, it should be done. Linux users are always clamouring for drivers... perhaps if the kernel had something like this, it might one day become a reality.
Hardware setup
While SuSE Linux 8.0 gave me some good experiences with hardware detection (such as automatic download of NVIDIA drivers), it also let me down as in this area.
The good: I recently borrowed a digital camera from a mate at work, to take photos of my case mod. Imagine how happy I was when I plugged it into my nearest USB port, and it was automatically configured (as a SCSI device) and mounted! SuSE even added it to my
The bad: Along came my new IDE CDRW drive. At AU$99, I couldn't pass up the purchase. Plugging it in gave me no joy. I was very disappointed that a device so common couldn't be detected and automatically configured under a modern operating system. The instructions on the SuSE support site said to add lines to lilo.conf and reboot. While this is a perfectly acceptable way to get hardware working for a geek familiar with *NIX, I believe that a home user shouldn't have to do more than plug it in. It's an IDE device, it's not that complicated!
The ugly: Once the hardware was finally working (as a pseudo-scsi drive), the next hurdle was to find decent graphical tools to burn and copy CDs. I finally settled on CDBakeOven, an above average KDE application. It burned CDs from data on the hard drive, but for some reason cdrecord (the command line backend) refused to allow me to copy a cd directly. Yes, it was installed SUID root. CD copying is such a basic function nowadays, why is it so hard to do under GNU/Linux?
Software distribution
I'll put this simply. I'm a home user, not a programmer. Why on earth should I have to compile the software I want to use? I know that having the source available is a good thing, but I'll say it again: I'm no programmer. I just want to install software and run it.
This leads to another point. Although having package databases (such as the rpm and deb systems use) is great, there should definitely be seperation between system packages and additionally installed software. There needs to be a standard installer and database for user-installed applications such as word processors, email clients and games, and it should be seperate from the rpm or deb databases used for system software such as lilo, init and cron. This will make it much easier for home users to know what applications they have installed on their PC, and to easily uninstall them if necessary, without knowing some arcane commands and weird package names.
Support
There is a huge wealth of knowledge among the thousands (millions?) of people that run GNU/Linux around the world. If you have a problem, odds are that someone out there can help you, often for free. This is one of the linux platform's greatest strengths. However, Linux users are also its greatest weakness. This may not apply to most of the community, but there is a very vocal minority that gives Linux a bad name. To every Linux user that has ever helped a newbie, I thank you. I have been helped by many a guru, often when I've been asking the simplest of questions. It's the remainder that are a problem.
I once heard a song by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie called Every OS Sucks, where Linux users were described as 'elitist nerdy shmucks'. Sadly this is true for much of the 'community'. Too many consider themselves better than the rest of the world because they run Linux. Can you believe that? It's just a computer operating system, but somehow they think that it makes them better than those people who run systems such as Microsoft Windows! Elitism drives people away, as does saying âoeRTFMâ or belittling people who choose a different distro from yourself.
'Nuff said about that.
So what now?
Well, I decided to go back to a Microsoft platform. Initially being paranoid after reading things about DRM and spyware, I bit the bullet and installed Microsoft Windows XP. Like every OS, it has good and bad points; most of which you can learn about from online reviewers. I'll just point out several things that make me want to keep using it instead of GNU/Linux.
Fast graphical subsystem: Windows has lighting quick graphics, both 2d and 3d. There's no denying it. When I move a window, it refreshes so fast that I don't miss X11 at all. While not quite as nice as some other operating systems, font support is outstanding compared to XFree86.
Drivers: Point and click to install (as a superuser, of course). Windows warns you if the driver isn't likely to work properly, and can roll back to working drivers if you deliberately choose to install one that hoses your system.
Hardware setup: My CDRW worked right away, without a hitch. I am able to drag and drop files from the Explorer file manager to the CDRW icon and they get added to the list of things to burn. A quick install of Nero Burning Rom, and I was able to make a backup copy of my game CDs. (I don't like taking originals to LANs where they can get destroyed or stolen).
Software distribution: All windows software comes in binaries, either with an installer or in a zip file. I hope to never compile an application ever again. Software designed for a different version of windows is 99% guaranteed to run, but if not, there is always 'compatibility mode'. One thing to note, however: Applications designed for single user versions of windows usually only run properly as a superuser, and this includes 3d games. I expect this to be rectified as the rest of the Windows world catches up to a multi-user environment.
I can't comment on the Windows using community yet. I've not yet had a problem that a simple point and click couldn't fix. However, I will say that my original concern with Windows '95 has been addressed in Windows XP. The stability is finally there.
Final Notes
In conclusion, I'd just like to make it known that I haven't completely abandoned the Linux community. My home server still runs Mandrake, and IPCop on my gateway/firewall. There is no way I'd ever put any form of Windows on my server, nor would I ever connect a Windows PC directly to the internet without a *NIX gateway in between. Microsoft has a history of poor security, so I protect myself the only way I know how; using Linux. I will continue to advocate the use of GNU/Linux in the server arena. This is where its strength lies at the moment.
Because of their history of spreading virii, I don't use the applications that Microsoft has provided with Windows XP. My wife and I use Mozilla for web browsing and email, OpenOffice.org for word processing, and Psi (Jabber client) for instant messaging. All of these are true multi-user win32 programs, and are perfectly interoperable with their Linux counterparts.
I expect that the Linux community will have something to say about this article; I welcome comments and constructive criticism. Flames will be automatically sent to the Windows equivalent of
By Tony âoekNIGitsâ Collins
- posted by poopbot: for the crapflooder in all of us
OvQNjSfmIl Post #397
Build an air box around the Shuttle's case, and blow cold or warm air into it from the car's cabin, or from one of the A/C-heating output ducts. If you're lucky, your car has ducts and controls for the backseat passengers. You might be able to route it under the rear passenger seats, for a minimalist "case mod." ;)
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Happy Troll Tuesday!
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- posted by poopbot: providing truth in a deceitful world
9GN3QtqdCl Post #398
Credits: BankOfAmerica_ATM
SUBJECT: GREAT STOCK OPPORTUNITY!!! help me Get Big Brands on eBay I DON'T KNOW WHERE I AM! PENTIUM III CPU's IN STOCK
END TRANSMISSION.
- posted by poopbot: crapflooding since 7/8/02
1ZR73HZPdZ Post #399
I work with hardware designed for extreme temperatures. As far as I can tell, these are the prime considerations.
1) Mechanical failure due to thermal expansion and contraction. This tends to affect connectors and plugs. Systems with poorly affixed memory components sometimes experience problems.
2) Dissipation of excess heat. A modest external temperature of 35C may produce a temperature in your trunk of over 45C. At 45C, the CPU will have a hard time dissipating heat since heat diffusion requires a gradient. CPUs may tend to fail around 55C.
3) Condensation. As you open and close the trunk in cooler weather, you'll be adding moisture to the closed space. Like dew, moisture will condense out of the air as components cool. Moisture on electronics tends to be less than optimal.
4) Vibration. Automobiles are notoriously hard on electrical components because of the constant vibration. Single strand wire tends to fatigue. Connectors shake loose. There are mounting methods for abating shock and vibration.
The systems we use for extreme temperatures do not sport contemporary CPUs because of the heat problems. To cope with condensation, we place desiccants inside the enclosures.
Happy Troll Tuesday!
;).
How are things in the civilized world? You probably don't know who I am. That's
okay. I'm here to inform you of my mission, what I've found, and what I hope to
teach all of you.
I work for the United Christians Food for Poor Kids Foundation, and let me tell
you, there's a lot of poor kids in Afghanistan. As in most countries in the
Middle East, most people are unemployed, and therefore poor. And where there's a
lot of poor people, UCFPKF is needed.
UCFPKF always has the latest in technology. In this instance, we had access to
some Pentium 4's(r) 2GHz. Obviously, we needed an operating system that could
handle the power of Intel's beast. Unfortunately, we didn't have any computer
experts on hand up to the task, so it was going to be trial and error.
We'd heard good things about Linux and its "ACL's". Little did we know of its
incompatibility with modern hardware. It didn't even support Token Ring
networking, the newest form of Ethernet(r), which we require to always keep
in contact between bases. Also, it didn't seem to use SSE optimizations, which
when processing food amounts, are also very important. Also, there were
homo-erotic implications in the structure of Linux, which is strictly
unallowable in a Christian organization such as ours.
The next obvious step was to install Windows. We hesitated because we knew that
it was common knowledge that Windows crashed incessantly. Our experience was
less than stellar. It also didn't support Token Ring networking. Security is
important in this region because many people try to steal food, but "Windows
2000" (which I hear didn't even come out in 2000) doesn't even allow you to
have seperate permissions. Once again, the SSE optimizations were not used.
I was in a situation that seemed impossible. The two most famous operating
systems had failed me. I walked around the base in a dazed stupor. What was I
going to do for our ultra-important network? A boy saw me pouting and sighing,
and asked me what was wrong. I said nothing, but we exchanged names, and little
did I know, that young Junis had a gift for computers.
Junis saw me the next day, slaving away at the sparse terminal that "Windows
2000" makes you type in. He asked what I was doing with that primitive OS. I
laughed and told him that I was doing inventory. He ran to his village, into his
hut, and pulled out a box I had never seen before. The box said "SCO Xenix" the
front. I had never seen or heard of this Xenix before. But I soon learned that
Junis was a computer genius.
All we had to do was put the Xenix CD into the computer, and everything worked
like magic (not the devil's magic... good magic:) ). Our Token Ring network
integrated flawlessly with it. And it even used SSE optimizations. Well, me and
Junis are now on a new mission. We're spreading the word. It might not be the
word of the lord, but then again, maybe it is
SCO Xenix: The Unix of Tomorrow.
Janet Milman
Network Administrator, UCFPKF
Afghanistan base
- posted by poopbot: for the crapflooder in all of us
AaAq42rWV8 Post #401
Happy Troll Tuesday!
Introduction
A fairy gives lectures on morality to the feline anomaly. Furthermore, another photon near an abstraction takes a coffee break, and a mortician buries a blithe spirit. The wedding dress secretly admires a college-educated ball bearing. If the freight train figures out a fire hydrant near a pit viper, then some mating ritual beyond another cowboy reads a magazine. Any squid can find lice on a freight train, but it takes a real recliner to ostensibly plan an escape from another pit viper defined by a prime minister a cough syrup toward a graduated cylinder.
Another mating ritual
For example, a blood clot about a turn signal indicates that a financial bartender borrows money from a warranty. When a demon is imaginative, a paper napkin secretly admires an often snooty graduated cylinder. If the grain of sand learns a hard lesson from the short order cook behind some graduated cylinder, then another blithe spirit flies into a rage. Any pig pen can lazily require assistance from a burly plaintiff, but it takes a real fighter pilot to caricature the steam engine over a satellite. Another eagerly temporal minivan slyly buries the obsequious squid, or a briar patch usually gives lectures on morality to a cyprus mulch.
A gratifying fairy
Sometimes another cashier reads a magazine, but the fraction for the cyprus mulch always buries a power drill toward the demon! The light bulb befriends a satellite of an apartment building. A lazily Alaskan roller coaster sanitizes another mitochondrial traffic light, or some burglar eats a hesitantly smelly plaintiff. For example, a seldom righteous traffic light indicates that an ocean knows some chestnut inside the tabloid. If the earring somewhat finds subtle faults with a pine cone, then the wheelbarrow hibernates.
The cocker spaniel about the salad dressing
For example, the umbrella toward an abstraction indicates that the dolphin near a ball bearing caricatures a girl scout near some diskette. A cocker spaniel for the judge reads a magazine, and a pine cone finds subtle faults with a rattlesnake. Furthermore, the hairy movie theater returns home, and a grizzly bear near a paycheck is a big fan of a childlike burglar. For example, a canyon living with a graduated cylinder indicates that the industrial complex buries a jersey cow.
Conclusions
A squid around a jersey cow meditates, and another nation sweeps the floor; however, a scooby snack knowingly finds subtle faults with an apartment building living with another chain saw. When a hockey player around a paycheck is smelly, a minivan has a change of heart about an oil filter about an asteroid. The bartender around a polygon is barely soggy. Indeed, another rattlesnake befriends a warranty. Indeed, the carpet tack for an abstraction usually caricatures an elusive h
- posted by poopbot: crapflooding since 7/8/02
PsZIPqfD0q Post #401
Happy Troll Tuesday!
Introduction
The cheese wheel inexorably avoids contact with the paycheck. The steam engine goes deep sea fishing with an often outer ski lodge. When the cyprus mulch over a vacuum cleaner hides, a ball bearing gets stinking drunk.
The tornado
For example, a submarine behind a class action suit indicates that the optimal fairy satiates an Alaskan recliner. When a mitochondrial bottle of beer is thoroughly dirt-encrusted, a most difficult blood clot underhandedly writes a love letter to a defendant. An earring pees on the cashier over some globule, but the pathetic crane sells another vacuum cleaner behind a scythe to a false wheelbarrow. If a chess board defined by a grain of sand makes love to a crispy cyprus mulch, then a particle accelerator flies into a rage.
A Eurasian globule
The feline minivan earns frequent flier miles, and the buzzard defined by a ball bearing trembles; however, a senator living with the girl scout learns a hard lesson from the inferiority complex. Any chain saw can try to seduce the particle accelerator, but it takes a real salad dressing to play pinochle with the inexorably precise paycheck. Furthermore, another seldom load bearing defendant flies into a rage, and a paycheck around a light bulb seeks a roller coaster around another bartender. If a crank case makes love to the diskette, then the squid toward a mortician meditates. Now and then, an insurance agent thoroughly avoids contact with a pompous turkey.
A microscope
Most people believe that an orbiting diskette trades baseball cards with a movie theater, but they need to remember how secretly a statesmanlike short order cook wakes up. A paternal roller coaster is usually financial. When the accurately varigated hole puncher takes a coffee break, a slyly smelly garbage can earns frequent flier miles. For example, the phony cheese wheel indicates that the tornado near a fruit cake hesitantly gives lectures on morality to a salad dressing defined by the corporation. The carpet tack near a cargo bay, some parking lot toward a warranty, and a stovepipe beyond a freight train are what made America great!
Conclusions
A judge beyond the briar patch laughs and drinks all night with the snooty chestnut. A raspy burglar conquers a bowling ball. For example, another plaintiff toward a bartender indicates that the ski lodge behind a fairy finds lice on a burglar. If some rattlesnake toward a cheese wheel can be kind to a blood clot, then the elusive movie theater self-flagellates. When a photon related to a turkey is most difficult, a self-loathing bottle of beer falls in love with a pickup truck living with the paycheck.
- posted by poopbot: for the crapflooder in all of us
iIbhjtNv5I Post #402
Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.
"I've heard WinXP removed the cmd/command prompt."
No, Microsoft didn't remove the CMD.EXE or COMMAND.COM prompt from Windows XP. But Windows XP has reduced functionality, in many ways, not just in the command line. The command line is a big embarrassment because of its limited capabilities, but at least in Win 95 it worked. With every version since then it has worked less well. (There are two kinds of command prompt, and, according to Microsoft employees, the differences between them are not documented.)
The command line prompt sometimes begins to display short file names. Microsoft employees say that Microsoft has no fix, although someone not connected with Microsoft did make a work-around.
Cutting and pasting into a command line program often puts successive extra spaces before each line. Microsoft employees say that there is no plan to fix this.
The fast paste mode that is in Windows 98 is gone in Windows XP. Microsoft employees say there is no plan to fix this.
When using the command line interface, Windows XP doesn't always update the time. After several hours, the time reported to command line programs can be several hours in error.
There is a DOS program called START.EXE that can be used to start other programs. But it does operate the same way as in other versions of Windows. It starts a program, but cannot be made to return control to the command line program as previous versions did. There is no technical reason for this; it is just one of the shortcomings that are allowed to exist.
People often say that DOS has gone away. But Microsoft still calls the command line interface DOS, and in Windows XP Microsoft has added new programs for configuring the OS that work only under DOS.
Sometimes when you press a key while using Windows XP, it is seconds until there is any response. Apparently there is something wrong with the CPU scheduler in XP, because there are a lot of complaints about this in the forums and MS people have said that they are working on it. On one particular fresh installation of XP, on an Intel motherboard with either a Matrox G550 or an ATI Radeon video adapter, it requires 18 seconds to display a directory listing of 94 items. This is apparently related to a bug in the video software, not the adapter drivers.
Something is wrong with the Alt-Tab display of running programs under Windows XP. If there are a lot of programs, not all of them are displayed. The order jumps around in a seemingly random way.
Although articles often say negative things about Microsoft, I've never seen an article that fully documents how bad the situation really is. Microsoft's management is so bad that the company has become self-destructive. For example, Windows XP is spyware. Here is a list of ways Windows XP connects to Microsoft's servers:
- Application Layer Gateway Service (Requires server rights.)
- Fax Service
- File Signature Verification
- Generic Host Process for Win32 Services (Requires server rights.)
- Microsoft Application Error Reporting
- Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer
- Microsoft Direct Play Voice Test
- Microsoft Help and Support Center
- Microsoft Help Center Hosting Server (Wants server rights.)
- Microsoft Management Console
- Microsoft Media Player (tells Microsoft the music you like)
- Microsoft Network Availability Test
- Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service
- MS DTC Console program
- Run DLL as an app
- Services and Controller app
- Time Service, sets the time on your computer from Microsoft's computer.
- Microsoft Office keeps a number in each file you create that identifies
your computer. Microsoft has never said why.
- Microsoft mouse software has reduced functionality until you let it connect
to Microsoft computers.
These are just the ones I know. There may be others.So, if you use Windows XP, your computer is dependent on Microsoft computers. That's bad, not only because you lose control over your possession, but because Microsoft produces buggy software and doesn't patch bugs quickly. For example, as of July 7, 2002, there are 18 unpatched security holes in Microsoft Internet Explorer. This is a terrible record for a company that has $40 billion in the bank. Obviously, with that kind of money, Microsoft could fix the bugs if it wanted to fix them. Since the bugs are very public and Microsoft has the money, it seems reasonable to suppose that top management at Microsoft has deliberately decided that the bugs should remain, at least for now.
It seems possible that there is a connection between all the bugs and the U.S. government's friendly treatment of Microsoft's law-breaking. The U.S. government's CIA and FBI and NSA departments spy on the entire world, and unpatched vulnerabilities in Microsoft software help spies.
Windows XP, and all current Windows operating systems, have a file called the registry in which configuration information is written. If this one (large, often fragmented) file becomes corrupted, the only way of recovering may be to re-format the hard drive, re-install the operating system, and then re-install and re-configure all the applications. The registry file is a single, very vulnerable, point of failure. Microsoft apparently designed it this way to provide copy protection. Since most entries in the registry are poorly documented or not documented, the registry effectively prevents control by the user.
Note that Microsoft does not support making functional complete backups under Windows XP. Look at Microsoft's policy about this: Q314828 Microsoft Policy on Disk Duplication of Windows XP Installation. Only those who work with Microsoft software will understand the true meaning of Microsoft's policy. Since almost all programs use the registry operating system file, if you cannot make a functional copy of the operating system you cannot make a functional copy of all your application installations and configurations. There are other software companies that try to fix this, but they don't work well, and Microsoft can, of course, break their implementations, as they have often done with other kinds of competitors.
Because the configuration information for the motherboard and the configuration information for the are mixed together in the registry file, the registry tends to prevent you from moving a hard drive to a computer with a different motherboard. That's another implication of the above Microsoft policy. So, if you have a motherboard failure, and a good complete backup, you may not be able to recover unless you have a spare computer with the same motherboard.
Note that Windows XP Professional can support only ten simultaneous incoming network connections. If you want more than that, you must use Windows 2000 server, and pay much, much more. (There is no Windows XP server yet.) Many businesses have very light network traffic; they just move files from staff member to staff member; they really don't need a dedicated server computer. The staff computers could easily handle the load except for this artificial limitation.
Apparently because the Windows XP GUI comes from Windows 98, Windows XP has the same problem with desktop icons that Windows 98 has. The icons sometimes flicker. Sometimes they move themselves around, particularly after the user switches monitor resolutions. Also, sometimes the taskbar settings un-configure themselves, as they do in Windows 98.
Only technically knowledgeable people know how to avoid signing up for a Microsoft Passport account during initial use of Windows XP. The name Passport gives an indication of Microsoft's thinking. A passport is a document issued by a sovereign nation. Without it, the nation's citizens cannot travel, and, if they leave, won't be allowed back in their own country. In Microsoft's corporate thinking, the company seems to be moving in the direction of believing that they own the user's computer. Most people are both honest and intimidated. Apparently about 95% do whatever they are asked on the screen. They give their personal information to Microsoft. They don't realize that, if they feel forced to get a Passport account, they should enter almost completely fictitious information, since the real question is not "What is your name and address", but "Can we invade your privacy". The honest answer to this is "No, you cannot invade my privacy", and the only effective way to communicate that is to give completely fictitious information. Since it is the educated people who have computers, Microsoft is building a database of the personal lives of educated people. Microsoft knows when they connect and from what IP address (which tends to show the area), what kind of help they ask, and information about what they are doing with their computers, including what music they like. It is not known, and there is no way to know, how much Microsoft or other organizations make use of this information, or their plans for future use.
Not only has Windows XP definitely gone further in the direction of allowing the user less control over his or her own machine, but with Palladium, Microsoft apparently intends to finish the job: Microsoft will have ultimate control over the user's computer and therefore all his or her data. Even now, under Windows XP, a recent security patch requires that the user agree to a contract that gives Microsoft administrator privileges over the user's computer. The contract says that if a user wants to patch his or her system against a bug which would allow an attack over the Internet, he or she must give Microsoft legal control over the computer. See this article also: Microsoft's Digital Rights Management-- A Little Deeper. You may need to be a lawyer to take apart the crucial sentence. "These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and [my emphasis] use other software on your computer" legally includes this meaning: "These updates may disable your ability to use other software on your computer." Note that the term "security related updates" is meaningless to the user because the updates have no relation to user security. So, the sentence effectively means that Microsoft can control the user's computer without notice and whenever it wants. That kind of sentence is known in psychology as "testing the limits". If there is no strong public complaint about this, expect to see more and stronger language like this.
This Register article shows the direction Microsoft is going: MS Palladium protects IT vendors, not you. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Microsoft is well down that road. See this ZDNet article, also: MS: Why we can't trust your 'trustworthy' OS.
Microsoft's self-destructiveness does not mean that the user should be self-destructive. There is no need to apologize for using Microsoft software. The correct solution to abuse is persuading the abuser to stop being abusive. Once I posted to a Slashdot story a link to an article on a web site of mine. By far the majority of visitors from the Slashdot story used Microsoft operating systems. Rather than feel embarrassed because Microsoft is abusive, action needs to be taken to prevent the abuse. If you are against Microsoft abuse, you are not against Microsoft; you are more pro-Microsoft than Bill Gates.
These Microsoft policies mean that any government which wants to be independent of the United States government, and any government which represents itself as controlled by the people, cannot use Microsoft operating systems, or other Microsoft proprietary systems.
- posted by poopbot: for the crapflooder in all of us
6nhUL3tQHF Post #403
Happy Troll Tuesday!
Netcraft has confirmed: Taco-snotting is dying.
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Taco-snotting community when recently IDC confirmed that Taco-snotting accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all homosexual acts. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Taco-snotting has lost more fag practitioners, this news serves to reinforce what weve known all along. Taco-snotting faggots are collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Faggot World comprehensive snotting test.
You dont need to be a Katz to predict Taco-snottings future. The handwriting is on the wall: Taco-snotting faces a bleak future. In fact there wont be any future at all for Taco-snotting because Taco-snotting is dying. Things are looking very bad for Taco-snotting. As many of us are already aware, Taco-snotting continues to lose faggotshare. White ink flows like a river of bubbly, thick jizz. The circle-snot is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core snotters.
Lets keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Circle-snotting leader Jeff Homos Masterbates states that there are 7000 snotters of the circle-snot. How many users of anal snot are there? Lets see. The number of circle-snotting versus anal snot posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 anal snot users. SnotOS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of anal snot posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of SnotOS. A recent article put the circle-snot at about 80 percent of the Taco-snotting market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 circle-snot users. This is consistent with the number of circle-snot Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of CowboiKneels walnuts, abysmal sales and so on, the circle-snot went out of business and was taken over by SNOTi who sell another troubled Taco-snot. Now SNOTi is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another gay whorehouse.
All major surveys show that Taco-snotting has steadily declined in faggotshare. Taco-snotting is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Taco-snotting is to survive at all it will be among heterosexual hobbyist dabblers. Taco-snotting continues to decay. Nothing short of a jizz-soaked miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Taco-snotting is dead.
Fact: Taco-snotting is dead.
- posted by poopbot: because we're all crapflooders at heart
0ly20QlbCW Post #404
I have a PIII 600 in my car, and I live in Houston, so heat was a big issue in my design. Here's what I learned:
1) You MUST put everything heat sensitive in the trunk. The windows of your car act like a greenhouse, making the cab much hotter than the air outside. The trunk will usually be no hotter than the outside air
2) It helps not to have a black car.
3) Add as many fans as you can...and point them all blowing out of the case to try and reduce the pressure inside.
4) Check the operating temps on your CPU and Hard Drive. If they're not up to snuff, consider replacing them.
5) If you have a metal bottom in the trunk, you can use it as a heat sink. Just get a metal case and bolt it on there with some thermal paste between the joints. That metal will get fairly cool if you're going along at 70mph.
6) This is not a heat issue, but I'd recommend mounting your HD vertically. That way, when you hit a bump, the RW heads don't smack into the HD platter.
And if all else fails, buy a Peltier cooling unit and build a mini-air conditioner. I've never tried this (never had to) but it's my backup plan in case it ever gets too hot.
Plenty of 12 volt power.
Lots of fan noise in the trunk is OK.
The new shuttles have beautiful copper heat pipes that are begging for monster automotive airflow.
Think BIG. 9 inch diameter 600 cfm should be fine
Do NOT forget a filter. Try a Hepa home air conditioning filter.
Do not recirculate the already hot air in your trunk. Use NACA ducts
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Here is what you want VIA EPIA Mini ITX Mainboard Get the one with the Eden ESP 5000 processor, and it needs zero active cooling and pulls under 6 watts
Some people may complain about divix or DVD playback - from what I read, that is a legit gripe with the onboard video which shares main memory. It will play MP3s just fine. If you need high speed video, add in a hither end (but still passive cooling) PCI card.
It comes with onboard video, sound and networking. The video has TV-Out w/ Integrated Macro Vision 7.01, S-Video or Composite video output, Supports NTSC/PAL TV formats. Via has a link on the site to places that cary them
I haven't bought from them so YMMV; I'm looking at idot.com to get one to replace my mail file-server at home, since I hate fan noise, and burning power 24x7.
I would reccomend you take a look at http://www.mp3car.com message boards, there is more information there than you can shake a stick at on heating and cooling issues. Many people have had problems with tempature extremes on their boards. The problem does not seem to be with the exreme tempatures themselves, but rather with the fact that cars heat up/cool down quickly and often.
It is a great idea to use plenty of fans if possible, but even cooler (pun intended) is to use you car's body as a giant heat sink for your power supply/chip. Should't be too hard to be creative in car setups, there is lots of innovation to be made. Check the forums on mp3 car to see some good examples.
.....
You think your car can get hot? Try trying to run a switch/router/etc in a metal enclosure 200 feet up on a grain elevator in the texas panhandle. 75% of the year, the metal will be either too hot to touch or have about 1" of ice coating it. Generally the cold is not a problem as the components (as long as they dont actually stop running) keep everything warm enough not to have any low-temp problems. The heat is another story.
Since the box must be sealed to the weather, we have to use heat exchangers -- they are devices that mount through the sidewall of the box. They come in varietys that range from what amounts to huge peltiers when air cannot possibly be exchanged all the way down to what amounts to very tiny split system air conditioners. They're fairly expensive to run when it gets really hot, but they will cool the inside.
The main problem you're going to have in your car is the initial startup of your electronics. Your trunk is going to have no love from your car's climate control systems. Hence if it's 110 or -20 degrees outside and your car sits out for 8 hours while you are at work, *everything* in the trunk will reach the ambient temp. So, you might have to pre-heat your computer case in the winter or pre-cool it in the summer even before starting.
The component most likely to complain about temperature and vibration is the hard drive.
:-/
/dev/zero > /dev/null, or whatever) to keep the motherboard components warm and well within design spec, which will help reduce condensation. Do the opposite on hot days - HLT the CPU when idle, so as not to make things any warmer than needed to get the job done, and take whatever other power-saving measures you can.
While your car's suspension will work rather well at isolating things from bumps in the road, it wouldn't hurt to get a little creative with mounting the drive. Suspending it between rubber straps might be a good idea, but watch out for things which are bouncy (resonant) -- it almost doesn't matter how much of the initial impact that your suspension absorbs, if it continues to shake the hell out of the thing several seconds after stuff should've come to a rest.
Hard drives come packed in open-cell foam, like a mattress pad, and seem to survive UPS Ground pretty well in such an arrangement. It wouldn't take too much creative engineering to fabricate an enclosure made predominately out of foam, but with a fan and enough room for air to circulate.
Temperature doesn't look like it's too much of a hassle, these days. I'm looking at the specs on an IBM 120GXP, which show it to be happy from -40 to 55 degrees celsius (-40 to 131 F). Since these are ambient temperatures, the drive is thus designed to withstand a trunk at 131 degrees with moderate airflow.
Since you'll be opening your windows and/or turning on the air conditioning Right Away on such blazing hot days, the hard drive should start recieving cooler ambient air at about the same time it starts generating appreciable heat of its own.
And in the winter, at -40, the last thing you're worried about is whether your hard drive will spin up. More important is whether or not the engine will, and if you'll be able to get the tires un-frozen from the ground. If you've got half a brain about you, you'll have the computer and stereo off, anyway, until the car is well under its own power...and, by that point, generating heat to warm up the electronics.
I'd avoid connecting the enclosure directly to the car's ductwork. Ever see a windshield fog up on the inside on a cold morning, just after you turn on the defroster? Imagine that happening to your in-car PC. Bad news.
Since the motherboard you've chosen is so bloody small, have you considered putting it under the front seat? Things would get impossibly tight in a sports car with power seats, but should be do-able in almost anything else. There's no reason for the box to be more than an inch or three high. Sescom is a company who makes a large variety of metal boxes for do-it-yourself projects - chances are, one of them would fit your motherboard, hard drive, and some manner of DC power supply justabout perfectly, while remaining small enough to slide under the seat.
Drill or punch holes in the sides of the box, and mount the biggest, lowest-RPM fan you can find on the top of the box, blowing down. You might even be able to do away with having a dedicated CPU fan, and get by with a just large heatsink.
There's a few other things you might want to look into, with software. There's a way to poll hard drive temperature using a protocol called SMART - if the drive is cold, keep it spun up to reduce the viscosity of the grease in its bearings. Likewise, if the drive is fairly warm, spin it down when not needed to reduce wear and help ward off data loss (they are, of course, -much- more durable with not spinning).
Do the same with the CPU, if it suits you. If it's cold out, run the CPU full-tilt (seti@home, some random busyloop, cat
The goal here is to bring the board to some desired operating temperature, and keep it there until the car turns off.
All that said, you'll probably find that the most sensitive component of your system is the LCD display, which will be painfully slow/frozen on cold mornings, and either solid white or black after a hot day of sitting in the sun...and there's really not much to be done about it, unfortunately.
good luck!
Kid-proof tablet..
I thought many of the overclockers would kill to get a system down to -10 degrees. I'd only be worried about it heating up, and even then my opinion would be if a human can stand it it should be ok for a computer (but still have a good heat sink and good ventilation)
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
"The manual says to reboot the new fangled thing Jeth"
"Alright, I'll kick it with ma boot"
"See that is a how it's done, now it works again"
on the other hand, if it could run with out the ignition being on, how fast would it drain the battery?
would there be any way to write a script that automaticly shuts down correcctly the system when you shut off the car. I know there are systems for turbos that do a simmilar thing. when you shut down a turbo automobile, especially if you have been driving hard, you are supposed to let the engine idle for 2-5 minutes before killing power. this is to let the hot oil out of the turbo and let every thing cool down properly. there aare turbo timers that continue to run your engine for a desired length of time without a key in the ignition, shutting it off for you. this lets you get out of your car and get on with your day without waiting around for your turbo.
could a similar system be adapted to shut down your automotive pc? how do people deal with this now?
i am interested in doing something similar now, and the shut down prodedure is my main concern.
I want 2D games back.
I had a customer who wanted a laptop for maritime use, where the salty sea air and extreme temperatures can cause havoc on normal machines.
In my search I found the Panasoc Toughbook, which is made specifically for extreme conditions.
Also, look into downgrading the processors. If you only need an MP3 player, any pentium class will do, and with cooling modifications meant for todays CPU's you will never have a problem with overheating.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I've had to measure loads for battery calculations on systems which run off solar. A monitor typically draws 100-120 watts but even a fully loaded PC with a RAID only draws about 30 watts continuously (~50 startup surge). A PC which is already designed to be low-power and which only has one drive is going to be closer to 20w.
But yes, even with the PC off a heater will still drain the battery...
Why is the parent moderated as off-topic?!?
Hope meta-mod catches it...
Dan's Data (www.dansdata.com) had a very nice review of the Via C3 - basically, it's pretty damn slow, but does not generate much heat at all. If all you want is an MP3 player or some other application that doesn't need a whole lot of grunt, this may be the thing for you.
I'm the stranger...posting to
As you seem to have enough info about keeping the pc running, I only have one thing to say. Be careful of the LCD you buy. I've had some that /froze/ during the Kansas -30F weather (not counting air movement!) I've also seen melted LCD's before too. Make sure to buy a cover if they are going to be mounted where direct sunlight will strike them. Consider windshield blinds to help keep out the sun too.
I live in an area of the country where temperature extermes are a way of life. I'm planning on doing this as well and I'm planning on putting the whole system in a modified coleman electric cooler. This unit, can heat the contents, or cool the contents, depending on the polarity to the peltier device. I would also add a vent with flaps that could be automatically closed and opened. A temperature sensing circuit would then measure inside and outside temperature to determine how to best vent/heat/cool the box. It would also provide a thermal shutdown feature. :-)
Of course this is all "planned" so the chances of me actually building this might be slim
I've gotten my empeg up to 145 deg F and it still seems to work fine.
The empeg though can shutdown on over-temp if I choose to though. I'm jsut going to route some AC to the bay though.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.