Well, I was going to recommend Costco, but it seems you beat me to the punch. Additionally, Costco's prices on large prints is unbeatable, from what I've found. Out of the same Noritsu printer one can also get (checks receipt) 18x12 prints for $2.99 for the exact same quality.
I don't know about you, but I think there's no way that price could be touched at home, and the photos look absolutely beautiful to boot.
Personally, I just can't see any reason to get pictures printed anywhere but Costco. Good quality output, cheap prices, they treat their employees well, and turnaround is generally under 45 minutes.
If I remember right, Windows J was the name for the Japanese version of Windows 95, waaaay back in the day. I once had to install this for someone working at the Japanese consolate in Detroit. He was having issues with an older NEC machine that had previously ran DOS-J and was havign some sort of an issue. Throughout the install I had to ask him to man the keyboard while I clicked the mouse and picked various install options. I just wasn't able to input things the way that version of Windows required.
Later on I also ended up working on an arabic version of Windows 95 (the first time I got to use Windows in right to left mode), Korean Windows 95, and Swedish Windows 98 SE.
I just wish I could figure out where four panels of core memory that I came across are from. I *think* they are out of an old IBM (the envelope they were in had IBM return address info), but when I contacted IBM they wanted serials, which aren't found anywhere on the frame. They'd clearly been cut out from a larger assembly, with some of the points desoldered. (Photo)
For now I've just got them framed and hanging on the wall of my living room.
Also, I forgot to mention that the mouse very much does have a speaker built into it, but the only sound I've heard it make is a clicking as you spin the scroll ball. It's almost like the iPod scrolling sound, but a lot quieter. It's impossible to hear in a normal, noisy office, and in a quiet room it's easy to mistake it for the standard ratcheting sound made by the wheel in almost all other scrolling-type mice. The ARS Technica article seems to have overlooked or simply not noticed this.
For my initial impressions about this mouse, check out my LiveJournal post discussing it here. In short, I rather like the mouse, although since I was using it in a near-silent house last night, I noticed that it makes a sort of squeaking sound sometimes. I think this is plastic rubbing in it somewhere...
I know this posting is a bit late and a little far down the page, but I picked up one of these at lunch today, and I've posted a first review / initial impressions over on my LiveJournal. The bit I wrote can be found here.
In short, I really like this mouse... It's got a great feel to it.
This is exactly what a lot of woman's shelters do with the phones donated to them. They just let people keep the phones in case of absolute emergency.
That reminds me, I need to grab my old analog/CDMA Nokia and toss it in the car just in case. There is either analog or CDMA coverage throughout almost all of Michigan (where I live) but GSM (which I currently use via T-Mobile) doesn't extend too far off of highways in rural areas.
One other good use for your old cell phones is to give them to grandparents or whatnot. Just simply teach them how to plug it in, turn it on, dial 911, and hit send. Let them keep the phone in their car, then if there is an emergency of some sort they'll at least have a way of calling for help.
Did you note that the also ran the vehicles at 45MPH?
Change the speed to typical highway speeds (70MPH here in Michigan) and I bet the story would change quite a bit. I know that my car (a standard smallish sedan) drags quite a bit when you open the windows at highway speeds. Windows up and AC on, the throttle doesn't have to be depressed nearly as far in order to maintain higher speeds.
I'd agree that at 45MPH and below the AC is less efficient, but start getting up to faster speeds where the turbulance caused by open windows creates a *lot* of drag and I think the difference will be pretty obvious.
If anyone is interested in seeing pictures of friends of mine and I playing what we called Super Soaker Wars, take a look here. This is back in the summer of 2001, and was quite a bit of fun. In order to make the game more interesting we generally played in a friend's rather large back yard with CTF-style games. The flag was a cylume lightstick positioned beneath a tiki torch. If you got wet, you were out.
There was (understandably) a lot of honor system involved, but it was all in good fun so it worked out rather well.
Hell, even here in the Detroit area we can only rely on one single video store having a good selection of odd videos, and they are still a good half hour from my house. The other problem is that people have a tendency to steal rare / out of print films making them hard to see.
Even in more metropolitan areas it's often hard to find smaller run films. Most people I know resort to buying everything because there is just no other way to rent them.
(There's nothing like going into Blockbuster, asking for Brazil, and being directed to the travel section.)
People may be interested in my write-up on Badfruit's BadApple which I posted to LiveJournal here.
In short, this tool modifies your HOSTS file to point the iTunes Music Store link in iTunes to a local copy of IIS. That copy of IIS serves a python app which hosts a fake music store to offer Podcasts. This copy of IIS is open to the entire world (listening on *:80) running some rather untested software, and the redirection (via the HOSTS file) essentially 'breaks' iTunes Music Store functionality. This behavior (still) does not appear to be documented on BadFruit's site.
It also appears to have some hooks into mp3tunes.com, but I wasn't able to completely determine what. BadFruit may be selling music or collecting referrals, I'm not sure which.
In short, please use lots of caution before installing this software. It makes some rather drastic changes to one's machine, and these aren't documented on BadFruit's site.
This is similar to why I personally prefer FreeBSD. It just feels like a more polished, coheasive, professional OS. 'man drivername' always returns useful info, one doesn't have to check both man and info pages, and documentation tends to be fairly complete, concise, coheasive, and up to date. FreeBSD x.x always means kernel Y, C libraries Z, etc. It feels like less of a hodge podge and more of a older, structured, professional OS.
Now sure, this isn't good in all cases. If I want to really experiment with something I'm back with Slackware or Ubuntu or something... Or if you need a GUI that works with the oddest hardware, Linux is preferred.
For servers I'm installing for clients, colocated webservers, or whatever, FreeBSD is what I prefer to use.
Well, since Apple will soon be on Intel, this means that EMC could develop VMware for Mac, allowing Windows apps to be easily run. This means the possibility no more VPC and it's crappy PC performance. Given enough memory, it'd be possible to have Windows running on OS X via virtualization in VMware at near 80% native performance, as opposed to the 30%-50% one typically sees with VPC.
Without even touching the heat issues, I think this could be a very, very good change.
There's a couple of keyboard shortcuts, but mostly just Exposé. I also use them in various terminal apps at times, too... On my PowerBook I really don't use them that often, either.
Still, I think it's nice that they are right up against the top of the keyboard. The same goes for the lack of blank space along the right half of the keyboard, too. It's all full-size keys, but there's much less reaching that has to be done.
Actually, give it a go. The keyboard *is* mushy, but it's also really well built. When I got my G5 a year and a half ago I thought that the keyboard was crappy, but I gave it some time. After a while you realize that the smooth, squishy keys are really nice, and most standard PC keyboards start to feel clunky in comparison.
Also, removing the standard gap between the number row and the F-keys seems odd at first, but after a while you'll start to appreciate not having to stretch your fingers as far when typing.
This is good to hear. I've been using my 15" under a under-cabinet fluorescent light at work quite often for the past few days, and it almost looks like the backlight will flicker along with the light.
Also, did you notice that your logs tend to fill with requests to change the brightness almost constantly? Have you noticed (yet) if this fixes that?
As a rule of thumb I'll probably wait until tomorrow night to apply this update...
Well, also, this is completely different from someone like you or I downloading old ROMs to play them. This is some folks profiting off of such copies, and doing so in a manner which can demonstrably damage the reputation of Nintendo.
I think NOA is completely in the right here... In fact, I've called NOA before to report such items for sale, and ended up in a conversation with one of the employees about how copying old games for personal use is not that bad, but this sort of thing just isn't right.
They obviously aren't obsolete if they are still selling.
And also, these are the crappy 1000-in-1 games-in-a-controller things for sale at malls. The problem isn't so much that they cause Nintendo to lose money, but instead diminish Nintendo's brand.
See, many of the games in these systems are literally hacked ROMs with various sprites replaced, and often the ROMs don't work and simply crash. Since the consumer thinks "this Nintendo sucks", they are less likely to buy a Nintendo product down the line, thinking it'll be similarly crappy.
Not to mention that the consumer got ripped off in the first place, as these systems tend to be sold for US$60 or so in mall kiosks and are of absolutely piss poor quality which would likely break under moderate use.
Hmm... I got mine about a year and a half ago. Maybe they did sort out whatever "production problems" he said they were having. Regardless, they were so unhelpful that I will never speak good of the company again.
Yep.:) Unfortunately I did all that reading after I'd ordered one of his products...
After seeing the SightFlex, I've got some ideas of how I could make one that really actually does work. I just haven't given in a go yet. It really is a great idea, and if someone made one that didn't tip over nor break so easily, and actually contained a proper firewire cable, they'd have something pretty decent on their hands.
Too bad this is being sponsored by a manufacturer of rather poor-quality products. For example, they make a product called the SightFlex which appears to be the ideal iSight stand. So, I bought one... The camera caused all sorts of problems on the FireWire bus, so I contacted Jack at MacMice. The long thread of emails ended in my not receiving a response to a request for a working product, although Jack did suggest opening up the SightFlex and wrapping aluminum foil around the wires in the base.
Great, huh? Nicely random scattered, poorly soldered wires in the base, not all twisted up like they are supposed to be in a FireWire cable.
I would have pursued the issue further, but the cheap plastic base of the device ended up breaking when I was moving it around one day. It seems that the flexible metal of the neck is just threaded into some fairly thin plastic in the base (again, see pictures) and the rather brittle plastic just up and broke one day.
Great idea, piss poor execution.
And, it is exactly becuase of this sort of product why I will never trust DVForge / MacMice again, no matter how noble the cause may be.
After my experience, I'd think that they are offering $25,000 in monopoly money. Note that they never say US Dollars, so you can't fault them if they pay up in fake bills.;)
Yeah, I agree... And ZyXEL makes really good products. Sure, it's only.b, but who cares? They are likely sharing a DSL or cable connection anyway. And with the lack of need for training of clerks minimal infrastructure, it's a great idea.
Personally I'd just throw some signs up around the store saying "Ask For Four Hours Free Internet Access with Purchase" (since four hours is more than anyone can really argue with) and then have some print that says that 24 hours of access is available for... Say... $5.
I can't see how any customer would argue with those amounts, and the clerk just needs to press the button for Four Hours or 24 Hours. Also, I believe the default (non-authenticated user) web page can direct them how to gain access. It's been about a year since I read the manual about it, though...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I was going to recommend Costco, but it seems you beat me to the punch. Additionally, Costco's prices on large prints is unbeatable, from what I've found. Out of the same Noritsu printer one can also get (checks receipt) 18x12 prints for $2.99 for the exact same quality.
I don't know about you, but I think there's no way that price could be touched at home, and the photos look absolutely beautiful to boot.
Personally, I just can't see any reason to get pictures printed anywhere but Costco. Good quality output, cheap prices, they treat their employees well, and turnaround is generally under 45 minutes.
If I remember right, Windows J was the name for the Japanese version of Windows 95, waaaay back in the day. I once had to install this for someone working at the Japanese consolate in Detroit. He was having issues with an older NEC machine that had previously ran DOS-J and was havign some sort of an issue. Throughout the install I had to ask him to man the keyboard while I clicked the mouse and picked various install options. I just wasn't able to input things the way that version of Windows required.
Later on I also ended up working on an arabic version of Windows 95 (the first time I got to use Windows in right to left mode), Korean Windows 95, and Swedish Windows 98 SE.
That I agree with completely... iptables seems like such a nightmare. It may be flexible, but it's horribly obtuse. pf just makes sense straight away.
I just wish I could figure out where four panels of core memory that I came across are from. I *think* they are out of an old IBM (the envelope they were in had IBM return address info), but when I contacted IBM they wanted serials, which aren't found anywhere on the frame. They'd clearly been cut out from a larger assembly, with some of the points desoldered. (Photo)
For now I've just got them framed and hanging on the wall of my living room.
Sounds to me like you want to use OpenBSD's carp. Nice, open-source, easy to configure firewall fail-over solution.
Also, I forgot to mention that the mouse very much does have a speaker built into it, but the only sound I've heard it make is a clicking as you spin the scroll ball. It's almost like the iPod scrolling sound, but a lot quieter. It's impossible to hear in a normal, noisy office, and in a quiet room it's easy to mistake it for the standard ratcheting sound made by the wheel in almost all other scrolling-type mice. The ARS Technica article seems to have overlooked or simply not noticed this.
For my initial impressions about this mouse, check out my LiveJournal post discussing it here. In short, I rather like the mouse, although since I was using it in a near-silent house last night, I noticed that it makes a sort of squeaking sound sometimes. I think this is plastic rubbing in it somewhere...
I know this posting is a bit late and a little far down the page, but I picked up one of these at lunch today, and I've posted a first review / initial impressions over on my LiveJournal. The bit I wrote can be found here.
In short, I really like this mouse... It's got a great feel to it.
This is exactly what a lot of woman's shelters do with the phones donated to them. They just let people keep the phones in case of absolute emergency.
That reminds me, I need to grab my old analog/CDMA Nokia and toss it in the car just in case. There is either analog or CDMA coverage throughout almost all of Michigan (where I live) but GSM (which I currently use via T-Mobile) doesn't extend too far off of highways in rural areas.
One other good use for your old cell phones is to give them to grandparents or whatnot. Just simply teach them how to plug it in, turn it on, dial 911, and hit send. Let them keep the phone in their car, then if there is an emergency of some sort they'll at least have a way of calling for help.
Did you note that the also ran the vehicles at 45MPH?
Change the speed to typical highway speeds (70MPH here in Michigan) and I bet the story would change quite a bit. I know that my car (a standard smallish sedan) drags quite a bit when you open the windows at highway speeds. Windows up and AC on, the throttle doesn't have to be depressed nearly as far in order to maintain higher speeds.
I'd agree that at 45MPH and below the AC is less efficient, but start getting up to faster speeds where the turbulance caused by open windows creates a *lot* of drag and I think the difference will be pretty obvious.
If anyone is interested in seeing pictures of friends of mine and I playing what we called Super Soaker Wars, take a look here. This is back in the summer of 2001, and was quite a bit of fun. In order to make the game more interesting we generally played in a friend's rather large back yard with CTF-style games. The flag was a cylume lightstick positioned beneath a tiki torch. If you got wet, you were out.
There was (understandably) a lot of honor system involved, but it was all in good fun so it worked out rather well.
Hell, even here in the Detroit area we can only rely on one single video store having a good selection of odd videos, and they are still a good half hour from my house. The other problem is that people have a tendency to steal rare / out of print films making them hard to see.
Even in more metropolitan areas it's often hard to find smaller run films. Most people I know resort to buying everything because there is just no other way to rent them.
(There's nothing like going into Blockbuster, asking for Brazil, and being directed to the travel section.)
People may be interested in my write-up on Badfruit's BadApple which I posted to LiveJournal here.
In short, this tool modifies your HOSTS file to point the iTunes Music Store link in iTunes to a local copy of IIS. That copy of IIS serves a python app which hosts a fake music store to offer Podcasts. This copy of IIS is open to the entire world (listening on *:80) running some rather untested software, and the redirection (via the HOSTS file) essentially 'breaks' iTunes Music Store functionality. This behavior (still) does not appear to be documented on BadFruit's site.
It also appears to have some hooks into mp3tunes.com, but I wasn't able to completely determine what. BadFruit may be selling music or collecting referrals, I'm not sure which.
In short, please use lots of caution before installing this software. It makes some rather drastic changes to one's machine, and these aren't documented on BadFruit's site.
As I started reading this article and came across the word 'Tetris', I immediately started whistling the 'A' music from the NES version of Tetris.
Thanks, Slashdot. 8:40am and I'm already stuck with an earworm that'll take me through bed time!
This is similar to why I personally prefer FreeBSD. It just feels like a more polished, coheasive, professional OS. 'man drivername' always returns useful info, one doesn't have to check both man and info pages, and documentation tends to be fairly complete, concise, coheasive, and up to date. FreeBSD x.x always means kernel Y, C libraries Z, etc. It feels like less of a hodge podge and more of a older, structured, professional OS.
Now sure, this isn't good in all cases. If I want to really experiment with something I'm back with Slackware or Ubuntu or something... Or if you need a GUI that works with the oddest hardware, Linux is preferred.
For servers I'm installing for clients, colocated webservers, or whatever, FreeBSD is what I prefer to use.
Well, since Apple will soon be on Intel, this means that EMC could develop VMware for Mac, allowing Windows apps to be easily run. This means the possibility no more VPC and it's crappy PC performance. Given enough memory, it'd be possible to have Windows running on OS X via virtualization in VMware at near 80% native performance, as opposed to the 30%-50% one typically sees with VPC.
Without even touching the heat issues, I think this could be a very, very good change.
There's a couple of keyboard shortcuts, but mostly just Exposé. I also use them in various terminal apps at times, too... On my PowerBook I really don't use them that often, either.
Still, I think it's nice that they are right up against the top of the keyboard. The same goes for the lack of blank space along the right half of the keyboard, too. It's all full-size keys, but there's much less reaching that has to be done.
Actually, give it a go. The keyboard *is* mushy, but it's also really well built. When I got my G5 a year and a half ago I thought that the keyboard was crappy, but I gave it some time. After a while you realize that the smooth, squishy keys are really nice, and most standard PC keyboards start to feel clunky in comparison.
Also, removing the standard gap between the number row and the F-keys seems odd at first, but after a while you'll start to appreciate not having to stretch your fingers as far when typing.
This is good to hear. I've been using my 15" under a under-cabinet fluorescent light at work quite often for the past few days, and it almost looks like the backlight will flicker along with the light.
Also, did you notice that your logs tend to fill with requests to change the brightness almost constantly? Have you noticed (yet) if this fixes that?
As a rule of thumb I'll probably wait until tomorrow night to apply this update...
Well, also, this is completely different from someone like you or I downloading old ROMs to play them. This is some folks profiting off of such copies, and doing so in a manner which can demonstrably damage the reputation of Nintendo.
I think NOA is completely in the right here... In fact, I've called NOA before to report such items for sale, and ended up in a conversation with one of the employees about how copying old games for personal use is not that bad, but this sort of thing just isn't right.
They obviously aren't obsolete if they are still selling.
And also, these are the crappy 1000-in-1 games-in-a-controller things for sale at malls. The problem isn't so much that they cause Nintendo to lose money, but instead diminish Nintendo's brand.
See, many of the games in these systems are literally hacked ROMs with various sprites replaced, and often the ROMs don't work and simply crash. Since the consumer thinks "this Nintendo sucks", they are less likely to buy a Nintendo product down the line, thinking it'll be similarly crappy.
Not to mention that the consumer got ripped off in the first place, as these systems tend to be sold for US$60 or so in mall kiosks and are of absolutely piss poor quality which would likely break under moderate use.
Hmm... I got mine about a year and a half ago. Maybe they did sort out whatever "production problems" he said they were having. Regardless, they were so unhelpful that I will never speak good of the company again.
Yep. :) Unfortunately I did all that reading after I'd ordered one of his products...
After seeing the SightFlex, I've got some ideas of how I could make one that really actually does work. I just haven't given in a go yet. It really is a great idea, and if someone made one that didn't tip over nor break so easily, and actually contained a proper firewire cable, they'd have something pretty decent on their hands.
Too bad this is being sponsored by a manufacturer of rather poor-quality products. For example, they make a product called the SightFlex which appears to be the ideal iSight stand. So, I bought one... The camera caused all sorts of problems on the FireWire bus, so I contacted Jack at MacMice. The long thread of emails ended in my not receiving a response to a request for a working product, although Jack did suggest opening up the SightFlex and wrapping aluminum foil around the wires in the base.
t ing
;)
So, I opened it up and here's what I found: http://www.nuxx.net/gallery/sightflex_troubleshoo
Great, huh? Nicely random scattered, poorly soldered wires in the base, not all twisted up like they are supposed to be in a FireWire cable.
I would have pursued the issue further, but the cheap plastic base of the device ended up breaking when I was moving it around one day. It seems that the flexible metal of the neck is just threaded into some fairly thin plastic in the base (again, see pictures) and the rather brittle plastic just up and broke one day.
Great idea, piss poor execution.
And, it is exactly becuase of this sort of product why I will never trust DVForge / MacMice again, no matter how noble the cause may be.
After my experience, I'd think that they are offering $25,000 in monopoly money. Note that they never say US Dollars, so you can't fault them if they pay up in fake bills.
Yeah, I agree... And ZyXEL makes really good products. Sure, it's only .b, but who cares? They are likely sharing a DSL or cable connection anyway. And with the lack of need for training of clerks minimal infrastructure, it's a great idea.
Personally I'd just throw some signs up around the store saying "Ask For Four Hours Free Internet Access with Purchase" (since four hours is more than anyone can really argue with) and then have some print that says that 24 hours of access is available for... Say... $5.
I can't see how any customer would argue with those amounts, and the clerk just needs to press the button for Four Hours or 24 Hours. Also, I believe the default (non-authenticated user) web page can direct them how to gain access. It's been about a year since I read the manual about it, though...