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20 Things They Don't Want You to Know
theodp writes "PC World spills the beans about a bunch of things technology companies would rather you didn't know, including the lowdown on exploiting Windows' bad security, unlocking cell phones, using an IPod to move music and useless specs." Nothing groundbreaking, but might be a good primer for the non-techie in your life.
"Know anyone who uses Windows Messenger as their instant messaging client? Me neither."
That's strange, because I don't know anyone who doesn't. Except for a new guy who uses Trillian, but he'll come around when he gets tired of fighting the firewall.
PC World seems to be in a kind of limbo. It's not technical enough for anyone serious about computers, and it's way over the head of anyone who isn't familiar with computers. I guess that makes it prime reading material for CIOs.
But seriously folks. I was at the bookstore the other day and picked up a Computer Shopper. When did this new thin format happen? What happened to 500 pages of advertisements?
I wonder why Slashdot never gets any links to Dr. Dobbs Journal.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
http://pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,ai d,122094,00.asp
Original poster mentioned it would be a good intro for a non-techie person. I'd say you're restating the obvious in hopes of a first post.
BITTORRENT...! o_O
// bleh, 3rd post!
/ bet you were expecting something creative like Linux eh?
You mean my speakers can't sink 1,000 watts?!? The deuce you say!
I love the power ratings on speakers. If those numbers were half true, playing an MP3 would make the streetlights dim in time to the music. And all that power somehow coming from a little 500 mA wall-wart. Science, wonders, and miracles!
We all know this but I can't believe that PC World are actually saying it. They are one of the hardest sellers of extended warranties that I know. They once tried to sell me a warranty for a £10 mouse. IIRC the warranty was £15 but covered me for 3 years! No I don't shop there on a regular basis I just needed a mouse quickly.
As far as I can tell they make their money from running virus scanners on ill informed customers PC's. Their customer service is awful at best even when they are taking large sums of your money. I suppose that is the result of them being the only show in town. The last thing that really bugs me though is that they always have a security guard on the door.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
They recommend buying things from Dell. For those who are already stuck with things from Dell it is possible to get replacement parts from third parties (even Dell laptop batteries) without having to spend hours on the phone.
every hacker or geek had to start somewhere -
maybe learning how to copy Ipod tunes to multiple computers is just what the Dr. ordered to start someone down the road to unlocking the next propritary file format -
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Soylent Green is PEOPLE!
There's a reason I don't read brain-mushing, dumbed-down trash mags like PC World. /. is in many ways a horrible waste of time and brain cells, but I learn more from it than I would from PC World.
And yes, I once read a few issues of PC World, so my opinion is not completely unfounded. TFA just substantiates it a little more.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
Your average user should not be doing that.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
...now that I have made the front page of slashdot.
:) j/k
Perhaps I can move out of my parents basement now.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I always wondered where they got this shit. The first time I encountered it, I literally did a double take. I was poking around computer speakers, I don't remember why, and I came across a little set of desktop speakers. Nothing remarkable except that they were rated to about 300watts.
Ok now WTF? As it happens, I own professional speakers. They are about 5 feet tall, dual bass drivers, 3-way, etc. Serious speakers in other words. I check on them and they are rated to 200 watts a peice. Sounds reasonable for their size, but would still be pushing it. I'm sure they could handle 200 watts of RMS power, but I really wouldn't want to try it.
So how the hell can these little speakers handle 300 watts? I mean I can't even figure out a peak computation that would figure it. So I find that it's "PMPO" power. I don't know what PMPO means, Peak Momentary Power Output I've heard but I think SWPOOA would be a better term, Shit We Pulled Out of Our Ass. It seems to have no relation to reality, purely somebody's fantasy.
For that matter I can't figure out why you'd want that kind of power out of computer speakers. I drive my speakers with a 150 watt amp, that's 75 watts per channel so a little less than half of what they are rated to take. It's overkill in the purest sense of the word. For normal, modern music I rarely drive them beyond 1 watt each. For classical dynamic music, maybe 5 watts. This drives it to nearly painful levels.
More power is useful in large venues but for computers, who the fuck cares? Speakers are right next to you.
20 things any geek worth his salt already knows
The submitter has an AOL address! What do you expect?!
Nothing groundbreaking, but might be a good primer for the non-techie in your life.
Most geeks can read however.
The AC is giving a better link than what the submitters gave, WITHOUT ADS AND SANS THE TON OF PAGES.
Please inform me how that is troll after you are done modding stupidly.
I've found that printers typically only last a year, at most (I'm in college, so I use them alot). I've tried most brands (canon, HP, epson, lexmark) and not one of them have lasted over a year.
Finally I bit the bullet and got a 3 year extended warranty on an all-in-one, and couldn't be happier. Whenever that thing finally breaks (and it will be soon) I'll simply turn it in for a new one.
they're not gonna let that one out...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I will agree with another poster in this thread, though, that it depends on what it is. If it's a stationary piece of equipment, don't bother (unless it's really expensive and the warranty cost is 5% or less.)
BAD fib :/? So I interrupted him and said you mean LL? He said like that... Hee so this is how they sales connections and they don't Want to know much about technology. Okay don't explain technology but don't fib... coz one day s/he will know this!
You know Upstream & downstream stuff they will say you will get 256 kbps, 512kbsp and so on. Few weeks back I was at friends place. When sales guy of local DSL Company came to give all info and started to explain how good DSL is from Dial up. He told my friend *DSL is your own lease line*
I found hardware vendor especially owners and a tech guy gives more fibs... for example somebody in shop would like to purchase 2 gig USB pen. Owner told lady that it has driver in USB that take some space so you will always not get exactly 2 gig space. Deal went very well. Some time fibs are good for example in this case you can't explain all the stuff to old lady about why you don't get 2 gig space on USB.
The important thing is not to stop questioning --Albert Einstein.
i found the find-a-human section quite helpful:
https://www.quickbase.com/db/bam6rdiey?a=q&qid=5
You Can Get a Human on the Phone
Follow the directions at Paul English's Find-A-Human IVR Phone System Shortcuts site to reach a human operator at any of more than 60 cell phone, PC, and travel firms.
when i know i can find the info online, i won't bother. i need some help that an automated system can't provide or wastes too much time trying to get it to recgonize what i'm saying.
another winner i thought was:
Useless Specs: Digital Zoom
definitely the most useless spec i can't think of at the moment. it tricks unsuspecting buyers into believing their digicam has more 'zoom' than it really has.
HD Trailers
This is stuff the average nerd already knows.
From the article:
"My PC's firewall, antivirus scanner, spyware remover, pop-up blocker, and spam filter all agree: Windows is sorely lacking in PC security. That situation may not change until Windows Vista (formerly Longhorn) comes out sometime next year."
Wonder if Vegas is giving any odds on this. Might be easy money.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
Thank you for telling me CPUs can be overclocked! I thought Intel and AMD always worked to make my life easier and provide me with the best products at the lowest possible price, enriching my multimedia and internet experience with the best technology available!
Now my world is falling back on me!
I really hope they won't tell me my precious DVD collection could be copied next...
There are inkjet printers where it would have been cheaper to buy a brand new printer than buying ink to the old one...
Jokes aside, this article really looks a little bit too specific and out of personal experience. Won't actually make your whole life easier but just give a few tips here and there. Pretty simple ones too.
Some are also, imho, quite wrong as with the dead pixel warranty. In most conuntry in fact, despite what the manufacturer claims, warranties have to cover all defects of the purchased product, and it doesn't matter really what the manufacturer says they will or will not replace.
So, as usual, please also use own brain.
lol here is more great information: LINK
thank god i read it now i am at least informaed.
lol how do i get to the contrl panal??????? SOMEBODY HELp PLEASEQ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The manufacturer has to replace any defective part. That's the starting point here.
The question is what constitutes a defective part? Luckily for LCD manufacturers (and not so luckily for consumers) is that LCDs are specified to allow x number of non-working pixels and still be considered non-defective.
The same holds true for Flash RAM. Bad memory blocks are a fact of life in Flash RAM. And you can't get a replacement if the number of bad blocks isn't above the technical standards document.
LOL POST LOL
I think part of the reason that the non-tec savy people stay non-tech savy is because they get so much conflicting bad information. Of course the DSL sales guy lies. He only knows enough about what he's selling to sell it. If he knew more, he wouldn't be selling it or installing it. He'd be doing something much more interesting. But regarding hard drives, I can't believe they are saying that the burst rate does not matter. With a 10 MB+ hard disk cache you better believe that a lot of the information you request is coming burst transfer from the cache. Sounds like they just ran out of good ideas for their list, but they are complete morons for making such an unsubstantiated claim.
Many spammers have taken advantage of "windows messenger" spamming by throwing packets at windows messenger in hopes that it will appear on the users' desktop. Disabling the messenger effectively eliminates this.
Has anybody done a UK version of find - a - person? would be really useful...
TFA states that your Windows Product Key being retrievable is a security risk. What??
Not to mention the fact that the author uses Windows to manage his passwords, which he cites as another of the software's "security risks". The only security risk in this situation is the article's author.
The average small to medium hi-fi loudspeaker tends to have an efficiency in the mid eighty-something dB/W. With something like 50 W of power, this is is quite sufficient for moderate volumes.
If you want something loud for the party cellar, look for something with 90 dB/W or better. This kind of efficiency is usually found in larger loudspeakers, which can also handle 100W RMS or more. I guess Handyman's speakers belong in that category and would do fine in the party cellar.
Big P.A. systems for rock concerts tend to have around 100 dB/W, combined with a few thousand watts of power. The resulting volume is quite impressive even in a large hall.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Slashdot
Slashdot:= (Slashdot *(t-120 Hours))
If you don't want to pay the ridiculous rates that cell phone companies charges for the luxury of putting .jpg/.png/.mid/.mp3/whatever on your cellphone, try out this site:
.mid files to my phone, it's way too much fun.
http://www.phoneuploader.stellernet.com/
I've spent the last couple hours uploading Mario
I'd add laptops to that list. I have had three of them, my first was a Toshiba which developed a broked LCD display (a month before the 1 year warranty expired) and a loose power connector (After warranty expired). The next one was an IBM laptop which I had for a loooooong time that also developed a broken LCD (After standard warranty expired but this time I bought an extended one). My current machine is a Powerbook which so far has gone through two defective LCD's (Factory flaw which Apple fixed without complaint) and an improperly re-assebled CD/DVD drive that assassinated a Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac disk (Original not pirate copy, also replaced without complaint by Apple although it was not a warranty issue). So does it pay to have an extended warranty? My opinion is a big fat YES but then perhaps I am phenominally unlucky with laptops. I am actually looking forward to finding out what will break down on the Intel-Mac PowerBook I am planning to buy as soon as they become available. One thing is for sure I will buy all the extra insurance for it that I can get.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I could have sworn this was 'news for nerds', not 'non-techies in need of primers'.
When shopping at Dell
always, and I mean always, remember to never actually buy your computer there.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I.e. a phone with IR, BlueTooth or even a USB cable interface that allows you to put exactly those kinds of files (and others) on your phone.
I have a Sagem my-V55 (Vodafone special*) that cost around $100 and allows me to do all that and then some.
Compared to my girlfriend's old phone (some Samsung clam model with T-Mobile), which doesn't even have a third of the features - most importantly of which is that you -have- to use T-Mobile to get anything on or off it.
It was more around $300.
She now as a SONY/Ericsson w800i - much, much, much better.. though also $500-something stand-alone. Eek.
--
* yes, it is locked. But not locked in features - only in whose prepaid cards / "fill up" cards I can use.. namely only Vodafone's.
I build all my desktop machines with crap parts and no extended warranties, but laptops need the 3 year full service warranty.
What PC World doesn't want you to know, is that you can read articles how Tim intended by going straight for the printable version. I give you gold here.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Fair enough.
;)
And a note to GP: that aside, they are in fact talking about Windows Messenger as in the IM client...
RTFA?
:P That's Windows Messenger (IM client).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Has anyone written a program to identify egomaniac crackpots solely by the linguistic patterns they use? Read this post, read Timecube, and go dig up your favorite physics crackpot. There is something distinctive about the word usage and arrangement (beyond a Fondness for Capitalizing Words to make them seem More Important).
regurgitated or not, it sure beats yet another "FROSTY PISS"
bah!*@%!
If you've forgotten your windows XP admin password, or just want to peek into someone's computer, boot with a windows *2000* install CD and go into recovery console. you won't need a password for anything. if you use an xp CD, this won't work.
Well at least in germany there's worse. There's a magazine named "Computer Bild" which is B-Movie grade bad.
I've seen a bit of that magazine some years ago, they had little pronounciation tips. The nice thing about them was that the tips were completely ununderstandable. They even wrote words everybody knew, phonetically. This results in nice words like "Preimäri" or "Mänädscha". (primary, manager)
"This is anecdotal at best. I actually don't know anyone who uses MSN messenger (or windows messenger). So he's getting modded up insightful for being surrounded by n00bs?"
MSN is used pretty much exclusively by everyone who isn't in the US.
US domestic IM usage stats
Welp, I stopped RTFA right after the site started vomiting javascript popups on my screen.
Just wanted to let you know that there are lots of site's on the internet that let you unlock your cell phone for FREE (especially Nokias). All you have to do is to enter the IMEI of your phone in some web form, plus some additional info. There's a list at:
http://www.yesss.at/index.php?id=W01
It worked great for 'a friend of mine', who had an older Nokia phone.
Not sure how legal it is to do this, after all you OWN the phone after you bought it, you are allowed to through it against a wall and destroy it, why shouldn't you be allowed to unlock it?
what language is the parent written in?
AccountKiller
I have been trying to get IMEI Unblocking codes for my Motorola and its impossible.
Wanted : A Signature.
Slashdot. News for imaginary friends. Stuff you already know.
Secret #576:
That if you switch to the printer friendly version of most websites you can read the full article without switching pages or having to go through tons of advertisements.
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
Imitation Soylent Green is MANNEQUINS!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
At first, I misread the title "20 Things you don't want to know".
I thought "Wow, Zonk is working to increase his dupe-posting efficiency!"
617B3B7F7E7C7D7F00EOF
This guy is a nut: http://www.nothingisreal.com/mentifex_faq.html
Go to the menu. Hit 6 (display). Hit *. System Prog password is 000000. Your ESN will show up. I strongly suggest you now hit end and then exit unless you really know what you're doing. And don't tell anyone your ESN. That can be used to clone your phone.
There are other hidden screens that are easy to get to too. The one thing I haven't figured out is how to brew test enable the phone, this way I can run self-signed brew apps. Supposedly you have to turn it in to the manufacturer to do that, but there must be another way...
I also haven't gotten the GPS screen to work, but I believe the problem there is that verizon hasn't yet turned on the service for non-911 calls. It'd be nice to at least get the raw data, but this doesn't seem to be accessible either.
Okay - so maybe the extended warranty isn't worth it to you and me as we know what components cost and what to do when we're staring down a BSOD, but what about the man in the street?
Now I'll have to admit I'm biased here (You'll never guess where I'm sat typing this from... ) but most people do get a lot of peace of mind from being able to call up when their machine 'is ***ed' (the usual description I get) and roughly 85% of the time the 'hardware fault' they're experiencing is down to a mass of spyware, which gets removed and advice given on how to prevent it happening.
And I know we ask what you may term 'stupid questions' (is it plugged in? where is it plugged in?) - but if I gave you free run of our call logger for a day or so you'd more than appreciate why - it's because it works.
So far as speed of service is concerned in the last few weeks the only queue I've seen is us waiting to answer....
I've found it's a lot easier to disable it in services rather than go through this convoluted procedure. It's another nearly useless Microsoft product as most third party Antivirus and Firewall products don't hook into it.
The difference is: with digital zoom, the image is enlarged before compressing. If you just take the image, and enlarge it in Photoshop afterwards, you're also enlarging the compression artefacts. Here's a test with a simple Canon Ixus-i camera:o mDigital.jpg o mPhotoshop.jpg
Digital zoom: http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~athomas/images/Zo
Photoshop: http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~athomas/images/Zo
The 'stains' you see on the car's hood in the digital zoom image are not artefacts, but raindrops. As you can see, modern cameras do have quite good interpolation algorithms, maybe even better than Photoshop's bicubic interpolation. The contrast in the digital zoom image is also better because the camera can adapt to the zoomed part only, instead of having to make sure all the irrelevant parts of the image look good as well. In the photoshop image, you would need to increase the contrast to have the same effect, further amplifying the artefacts.
Nevertheless, the use of digital zoom is never justified unless optical zoom is not available, like with my Ixus-i camera. Or, when you really want to photograph something tiny in the distance and you're already at the maximum of your optical zoom.
Well after reading thry them Ican honestly say I half expected a how to do my shoe laces, least from my point of view. But there again I'm a geek so the only aspect of an article like this is all the people who didn;t actualy know this stuff and will now bore the crap out of me down the pub. I'm supposed to bore them! Articles like this are bad Hmmmk - just say no to mind-dupes.
I recently ordered a cell phone from Amazon (Motorola e815), and I selected 3-5 day shipping. The phone was on backorder for a week, though at the time I placed the order the product page said that it was in stock and ready to ship.
:-P
After a couple of days of waiting, I decided that I needed it fast, so I logged in and upgraded the shipping to two days. At that point, I lost my place in the backorder queue, and had to wait an additional 10 days beyond the initial estimated shipping date.
Amazon's customer support told me there was nothing they could do about it.
Moral of the story, Don't ever upgrade the shipping on backordered items on amazon.
Why is this modded troll. I knew most things and I am far from a hard-boiled geek. 'overclocking is possible', 'look for discounts', 'watch out with warranty deals'... Quid novi?
Your CPU May Be Much Faster Than You Think
When you overclock your cpu, its "lifetime" will be reduced.
High-End Manufacturers Don't Always Make Their Products
This one its true, but AFAIK the difference will be in the tests that the product has passed. That way they set the brand.
My opinion about the other points, already has been treated in others posts. But in general the article is poor and somehow little useful.
Good Bye
PS: The other day I wrote an article, which was not published, so taking advantage of this space, check this out Nmap 3.90 Released!
Rock and Roll
The probable cause of your problem is that you don't use your printer very much and it dries out/gets full of dust/gets dropped.
Most cheap all-in-ones are actually designed for low use SOHO owners, but a Canon LIDE series scanner, a cheap base model photo printer and a basic laser together are more capable, more reliable, and cheap to fix if something goes wrong (replacing one item is cheaper than buying the extended warranty on the all-in-one.)
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
From TFA: "You Too Can Exploit Windows' Bad Security
My PC's firewall, antivirus scanner, spyware remover, pop-up blocker, and spam filter all agree: Windows is sorely lacking in PC security. That situation may not change until Windows Vista (formerly Longhorn) comes out sometime next year. Meanwhile here are a few ways to turn Windows' poor security to your advantage."
As most people here already know, Microsoft does not focus on bug fixes in their new releases. Their primary focus is on new features. Sure, some of the old bugs may be gone -- but some new ones will be sure to pop up with the new functionality. Just because Longhorn is newer, that doesn't make it better or more secure.
In my personal opinion, Microsoft deliberately ships shoddy software so everyone will flock to the new releases. It's human nature to believe that "newer is better" but that is not always the case. It has proven to be a highly successful business model for M$.
Most of the people who use MSN are those who needed a free e-mail account during the years 1999-2004. Now that gmail's out, it's a much better solution to that problem.
Naturally, that means mainly teenagers. "I already have a hotmail account, I'm already giving out my hotmail address to all my friends. Signing up for things is hard!"
For me, though, MSN was the smoothest, simplest, least cluttered IM client in 2002. It isn't that way anymore, but of course I have my contact list.
What's the beef with Trillian. I've used it for years without any problems.
Honestly, I don't know. Until now, no one's used Trillian on the network. It just doesn't get any of the guy's accounts online.
When he tries with MSN Messenger, he has no problem. And when he circumvents the firewall, it works great.
Any ideas?
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
I have a samsung printer it rocks!. I have had it for 12 years now. I have replaced the ink in it twice. Once because the demo cart that came with it ran out. The other two because for some reason just about every prof I had at my 4 year wanted me "just" to write 4-5 papers averaging 30 plus pages.-The warentee? Collecting dust. My Old POS e-machine has outlasted all my "better" desktops-Two hard drives one with FreeBSD the other with windows, does all that I could ever ask it to do and then some it's 10 years old and counting. so far it just works. ---What's happend to computer electronics where they kinda breakdown out of the blue?
If the speakers have an 8 Ohm impeadance, and the power rating is over 1800 Watts, simply plug the speaker into the nearest 120VAC outlet (7200 Watts for you 240VAC guys). (Double the numbers for 4 Ohm speakers.)
When the speakers explode in a violently loud manner, simply return them to the place of purchase.
hahaha the AC that rips on someone else, yet uses starwars quotes... wow.
;)
everything you just said applies to you, ya know
That rag is full of the worst spin doctoring in the industry. So why is this posted here?
Yeah, I know, hardly relivant anymore, but somewhere along the line 21 inch (19.8 inch viewable) monitors started being called 22 inch (19.8 inch viewable). What's up with that?
There is a (rather indirect) relationship:
High efficiency is promoted by either
1) light membranes or
2) a horn
Unfortunately, 1) translates into a high resonance frequency, below which the response curve falls off. And 2) requires uncomfortably large enclosures to work for deep frequencies.
If you don't mind going for big and expensive speakers, however, huge enclosure volumes help with 1) and 2) becomes an option as well. Especially as a "corner horn" that uses your walls as an extension of the horn:
http://www.klipsch.com/product/product.aspx?cid=2
C - the footgun of programming languages
But keep in mind, there are still plenty of mod points left over for TripMaster Monkey.
--
Bonk the Zonk!
This is stuff the average nerd already knows.
Some is and some is not. I don't believe you already knew Amazon's customer support phone number, that Philips has a zero-dead-pixel warranty, how to get to a human on 60+ companies' phone systems, and where to download a utility to reveal a Windows license key. You may have known some of what was in the article, but I'll bet that you didn't know it all.
Sure, the article was not a revelation with each and every paragraph, but it probably provided some useful information to most of the people on Slashdot who read it. I even found one of the linked utilities to be handy.
a pretty clean, high-end sound to them -- not the kind of thing you want for your party cellar
;-)
Well, I would like a clean, distortion-free sound in the party cellar too. So that would not disqualify the Linn Keilidhs to me.
My own speakers are a pair of JBL L 90A from the late 90s. Very clean and neutral sound, but with the capability of getting quite loud. 90dB/W, rated at 200 W RMS and with a bass driver that can take high amplitudes. On a few occasions where consideration for the neighbors allowed it, I cranked them up with Heavy Metal. I found that the sound was MUCH preferable to that of cheap "disco" loudspeakers. Perfect for the party cellar
C - the footgun of programming languages
"Nothing groundbreaking, but might be a good primer for the non-techie in your life."
Cuz that's what I read slashdot for anyway, finding good primers for my non-techie friends to read.
MikeAtIF*ckStuffedAnimalsDotCom
"Your CPU May Be Much Faster Than You Think"
In related news, the resulting fires from morons trying to overclock their Dells can be seen from space!
This article is in the How-To section of the PCWorld site for some reason. They should write another article called 'How to paginate a 4 page article into 20 pages to maximize your ad revenue.'
Forget the mod questions, why was this posted to /.?
/. reader? Give me one of those insightful Roland P. posts over this any day.
So far there seem to be several posts to this thread basically saying "the article is shit". They're all modded troll, fair enough. Mod however you like but I gotta say I think they're right.
I went to read the article and learned on the first page about overclocking something called a C-P-U. Truly amazing. I would have hung around for more wisdom, but the pop-up ad in the center of my screen kind of pissed me off, so I left.
This article might be good for my Mom, or maybe my manager, but any regular
http://request-header.info
Let's look at this from another perspective:
"I don't think any of us really choose our mailer. At work I use Compuserve because everyone else at work uses it. BUt I also use AOL, because my little sister is away at school, and she uses AOL. I hate AOL, but if I choose not to use AOL, I am only hurting myself because then I couldn't mail my sister.
The next logical Question- Why can't I get my sister to switch? All her friends use AOL. And so it goes."
If only there was some kind of simple message ttransport protocol that could communicate between servers, allowing the server type itself to be abstracted out of the equation. People on different ISPs could mail people on others! It'd be a miracle.
Why do we have the same problem we had with email in th 80s, now with IM clients? The Jabber protocol is designed to work just like SMTP was designed to allow messages between servers. Google's talk service is Jabber (mind you, their Jabber won't connect out to other Jabber servers, which is a pretty lame thing to do).
Personally, I'm looking into setting up a Jabber server on the same system that does my email/web stuff. When it's working, I'll begin to try and migrate people over (Kopete works with it just fine).
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
yeah, fuck that guy.
The talk manpage says that the talk command appeared in 4.2BSD, which was released in August, 1983, according to this history of BSD. Does Windows Messenger Service predate that?
... i much prefer Irivers, so I didn't know you had to shell out actual dough to copy your songs. Is this true? I know it said the Ipodrip only *automates* the process, but why not just stop at the instructions they gave? The point here is to try to save the end-user money, after all? I thought there must be a OSS/freeware program that does the same thing, but then i wouldn't really know, the UMS system on my Iriver does everything I need in that regard...
It's disappointing to see spec sheet writers using units that don't exist.
I find that I quite like Dells...they keep me imployed :)
JOsh
Rise up in the cafeteria and STAB them with your plastic forks!
Windows sucks.
Use Linux or MacOS X.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
If a company buys enough advertising in their magazine, they'll give their product a nice review regardless of how crappy it is.
Sorry if this is a repeat...didn't find it.
Swear...swear...SWEAR. No kidding...next time you're confronted with a menu and want to bypass that waste of time, swear up a storm. Random or a string of expletives...result is ususally the same - a real human being on the other end in no time.
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand". -Milton F.
How about getting to the beep for leaving voiocemail faster? Some people have the fucking longest greeting, and then the provider's voice adds options for other bullshit never used. Christ, say your name and get it over with, get to the beep, let me leave a meaningful voicemail and get on with our goddamn lives. This beer won't drink itself.
I think for verizon you can press the pound key to skip all that. But what about cingular and such?
J
Really, if you want to transfer things to and from your phone for free, it'd be best to show phone companies that it matters to you by buying a phone which doesn't have these restrictions.
I have no problems moving files up and down to my phone with Bluetooth, because I bought a phone which could do so.
Note that following these rules will lock you out of almost all Verizon phones. I solved this problem by leaving Verizon.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Problem solved.
They STILL lie about hard drive capacities. For example, it kind of irks me that a device sold as having a 5 GB capacity really is only approximately 4.65. AFAIK, both Creative and Apple do this with their mp3 players.
Of course, the majority of the public doesn't realize that there is a substantial difference in the correct, base 2 definition of these capacities and the decimal lie the manufacturers are pushing, as capacities increase. 1000000000 bytes != 1073741824 bytes!
As an aside, it always bothers me when co-workers don't account for this when quoting filesystem sizes. For example, when df reports 1048526848 kbytes... Some might say, oh, that's like 1.05 TB, when in fact it's more like 0.97 TB, or 999.95 GB. When you're talking about sizes like those, there is a substantial-enough difference!
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
Oh wait that's not a secret. Every SprintPCS customer knows that.
More power isn't always just to get more loudness, it can also increase clarity. With more power given to the speakers, there is less need to increase the gain all the way up to listen at normal volumes, which increases distortion. Using an amp that puts out more power than your speakers can produce won't blow them unless you crank the volume to absurd levels. I've seen more speakers blown from having a low power amp cranked causing distortion than ones blown by using a powerful amp with clean sound joined with weaker speakers.
today is spelling optional day.
Not really. They've left out a couple important pieces of information:
- The actual focal lengths at the extremes of the range, and their 35mm camera field-of-view equivalents. How "far" it can zoom is not necessarily more important than wide-angle capability. Your typical point-and-shoot digital camera has, on the short end of its zoom range, the equivalent of a 38mm lens on a 35mm camera. But that is within the range that photographers call "normal perspective"--that is, neither wide angle nor telephoto. With such a camera, you have a choice between two kinds of perspective: normal, and telephoto. A much more versatile deal is a camera with a lens that can reach the equivalent of 28mm on the short range of the zoom. That way you have the additional choice of a wide-angle perspective, which is very useful in many, many situations, and can be used to create its own range of perspective effects.
- Zoom lenses with smaller zoom factors, as a general rule, have better optical performance. Zoom lenses compromise sharpness and contrast for the flexibility of variable focal length--and the more variable the focal length, the more the compromise. In selecting a lens, ideally, you want to seriously evaluate how much of a focal length range you need, and whether the reduced optical performance for that range is acceptable to you.
- Zoom lenses on digital cameras can often reach very long focal lengths, but you may not be able to hold the camera steady enough to take a sharp picture at that focal length. There's a term called motion blur, which means the unsharpness in a picture that's due to the fact that the camera wasn't completely stable while the picture was taken. Long focal lengths, such as the ones that many point-and-shoot digital cameras provide, magnify motion blur. Ways to control motion blur involve using a tripod, and increasing shutter speed. The latter means that less light hits the sensor during the exposure, so this means that motion blur limits your ability to use the long end of your zoom in low light.
In short, you shouldn't blindly assume that a bigger optical zoom factor is better than a lower one. You should evaluate what focal length range is best for you, and buy a camera with that. And I think for most people in that calculation, point (1) above should be a really big one, when it comes to point-and-shoots: wide-angle capability is a really, really big plus that only comes in some cameras, which tend to have smaller zoom factors.Are you adequate?
I can't come up the those kinds of numbers. You often see peak numbers advertised for amps and subwoofers and such. It's generally about twice the RMS. It is a somewhat useful spec, I suppose, as it tells you how high it could peak in theory if needed to.
Well in the case of the 300watt PMPO spec it was for little like 5 watt (collectively) desktop speakers. I cannot figureout any combination that might allow you to reach that number through anything other than just making shit up.
Viewing it in lynx is barely worth the bother, even. Some people complain about the dupes. I complain about these sites.
Indeed, nothing between the covers of PC World has ever been groundbreaking. In fact it is generally way dumbed down, with articles that are little more than an advertisements.
... the headline was something like '101 windows tricks no one knows'
I recall a PC World article some time ago
The first trick was using the ' X ' in the top right corner of a window to close the window.
If you believe that was unknown, i bet you also believed in WMD's in Iraq, and that 'no one could have anticipated a levee break' in New Orleans.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Extended warranties are worth it. I use to work the tech bench at best buy. Trust me if it were a rip off I wouldn't give it a second thought. For sometihng cheap like a printer I'd say don't worry about it. You can get a printer for $30 at walmart. But, for a high dollar item like a PC, big screen TV, appliance or some high end car stereos I wouldn't buy those without an extended warranty. I've seen plenty of customers come up to the desk with something a year and a half old that broke and they had to shell out some major cash to get it fixed because their warranty is run out. That happens once and it's payed for itself. And I'm not sure about other places but I know at best buy if it breaks more than 3 times and you have the extended warranty they will replace it. Not only that but when it runs out you can renew it! True it's mostly profit. Without them they couldn't stay in business. But saying they aren't worth it is pure bull crap. Lets see someone pay $8000 for a big screen plasma tv and have to pay to fix it in 1.5 years and see if he doesn't think $100 extra for the extended warranty was worth it.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Half the point of moderation is to get the teenagers modded down so that people can view at a threshold of 1 or even 0 and not get their screen flooded with that crap. You can't "waste" something that's automatically generated by the system. There are too many lame posts being modded up anyway.
Actually the differences you are seeing there I think are all from differences in exposure - which in one way is helpful, a person using digital zoom will get more accurate exposure for the section of picture they care about when using an all-around exposure mode. But they could probably also have gotten then same exposure just by using the spot meter.
The photoshop version actually appears sharper to me, just more washed out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"I keep my Windows system pretty well secured, but somehow that doesn't prevent Windows' Security Center from informing me that 'Your computer might be at risk' every morning when I turn on my computer. That message gets old fast. To banish it for good, go to Start, Control Panel, Security Center. Then click Change the way Security Center alerts me in the resources box and uncheck all of the boxes on the resulting screen."
Another way is to disable Security Center all together...
Go to "Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Services" and find the one for Security Center, then disable it.
Also in the services window you can disable many other annoying features, like messenger, not the IM client, but the client that lets any one send those annoying messages to your desktop... You know, the grey boxes that say "Go to this website and pay us $50 to stop these annoying messages with our message blocker!"
i bought me a cheap 22" refurbed monitor from fry's electronics and got the warranty on it (just in case)... and wouldn't you know, two rows of pixels died all the way across the middle of the monitor!
good thing i got the 3 year plan for $20.
That's what most commercial pet food is made of. And these dead animals are purchased from vets and SPCAs. (Ask a vet.) The process wherein pet corpses are turned into pet food is called "rendering." http://www.sniksnak.com/ac/petfood2.html
"We're millions of miles from earth, inside a giant white face, what's impossible?"
With low-use inkjets it's possible to use more ink in the head cleaning process than in actual printing. For anybody else reading this, the real bargain in inkjets is an HP Business Inkjet. The quality isn't as good as the consumer models but it isn't bad, and they are almost as cheap as lasers to run. I couldn't possibly comment on the (totally unfounded) idea that HP could probably produce an inkjet as fast and cheaper to run than a laser, with better color, but doesn't want to because they want to get the full amortisation out of all their laser families first.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I love having power-rated items that come with a DC adaptor that can provide max-juice of like 50W, but claim to have power output in the hundreds of watts...