I'd suggest definately buying from iDOT instead of TigerDirect.
I've never heard of iDOT, and I'd still recommend them over TigerDirect.
Tiger Direct has a 5.01 lifetime rating. Compare that to Newegg's 9.69 lifetime rating (one of my favorite e-tailers). iDOT doesn't have enough reviews to get a rating, but the five that are there are favorable.
Hey, my boss was just up at Ferris State for the RESNET conference! I'm down at Ball State...
We have a domain here, but us Housing Techs don't have any admin rights on the domain controllers... Can't do login scripts, set profile locations, group policies across the domain, blah blah blah. We asked for a simple login script, the-powers-that-be flat out said no.
This summer we're (supposedly) dropping Win98 and moving on to XP. For our staff computers, I've created a generic user that I setup just the way I like it. I image a machine and take it to someone. First time the computer boots up I run NewSID just to be safe. Then I have the person login to their domain account to create their local profile (some just give me their password even though I ask them to type it in... sigh). I take over, log them out and login as the administrator. Then I go into the "User Profiles" tab of the system properties (right click on my computer, properties) and copy over my oh-so-perfect profile over to their domain user's profile. I'll add the user as a power user, just to avoid any complaints about why they can't do this-or-that when they could in Win98.
I've been setting up a Win2k file server for the Housing staff to use. I have to use a little batch file in the local startup folder to call a login script on my server so I don't have to visit each computer if/when I need to make a change.
Student computers are simple -- we don't require students to login to use the labs. The account they use is just a "user", and I have Deep Freeze installed on all em. Let em screw the system up, just hit reboot and it goes back to normal.
Kinda lame the way things are setup, but what can ya do?
I'd imagine that even the newest of AOL users would still be able to type in www.amazon.com in thier web browser.
You'd be surprised... My grandma has been using AOL for 4 or 5 years now. A couple years ago she signed up for online banking with our small local bank. Instead of typing in the bank's URL in the AOL address bar, she types in the full bank name. That takes her to AOL's search page, and the bank is the first site listed, so she clicks that. I've tried explaining the whole "dubya-dubya-dubya dot com" thing to her, but she can't grasp it and keeps doing it her way. Less typing, one less page to load -- it'd be easier.
Whenever I'm at her house to help her find something, I'll minimize AOL and start up IE.. At least I get a real (sic) browser. She's always amazed.
They sure do. In the past three or four months I've heard a weird beep from my phone on two occassions. Both times they turned out to be text messages from Cingular trying to get me to sign up for their SMS service. I pay them almost $45/month after taxes and fees, but they still want more from me! I signed up for the plan I'm on because it suits my needs; I'll let them know when my needs change -- I don't need them asking me every couple months.
I think I'll call and threaten to cancel next time (not under contract any more), maybe I can get some money off my bill.
How long do you think it will be before colleges in the US start following suit?
It'll probably be a while at my school.. This past academic year the school signed up for the Microsoft Academic Agreement, or whatever the hell it's called. We get WinXP and Office XP for $5. A couple years ago they switched from Novell Groupwise to Exchange for email. I'm currently helping the department I work for migrate over from a Novell server to a Win2k server.
We have a few first gen iMacs floating around the Housing labs that are being replaced this summer. Not with newer Macs, but with Gateways running WinXP. We even had one dorm "vote" to get rid of all the Macs in their lab and have them replaced with Windows machines.. they didn't care if the machines were slow, they just wanted Windows! We gave em P2-400MHz machines running Win98, and didn't hear from em again.
I was in a "Linux Lab" in the CS department yesterday for class.. The machines in there were running RedHat 7.1 and the 2.4.2-something kernel, IIRC.
It seems as if MS is strengthening its foothold here, can't see Linux making headway anytime soon... I'd bet we're typical of non-geek schools in the country. At least the Teacher's College is recommending that incoming freshman buy iBooks.
If you're using Mozilla / Firebird / Phoenix, add this to your profiledir/chrome/userContent.css and links to goatse and tubgirl will be in brown with a line through them, reminding you not to click.
I've often thought about filing an anonymous complaint with the BSA saying that I just quit my job with the RIAA and they had all sorts of illegal software all over the place.
I work tech support for my school's Housing Department. Most of our computers have Deep Freeze on them so people can't screw up Windows too badly. One particular computer was at the front desk of a residence hall.. Bored kids playing on the computer all day made Deep Freeze a necessity. The hall director wanted the workers to save Excel files on the hard drive instead of a floppy or zip disk. So he emails my boss and asks her to remove Deep Freeze. Instead of sending a tech over, she just emails him the password. This password is used on every system that has Deep Freeze, and is also her personal password for everything she uses (admin account on Novell and Win2k machines, school email, etc). She just emailed it right off without thinking.
When she hires a new tech, one of the first things she tells em is her password so they can get in to systems and do admin type things. Luckily, most of them are clueless and couldn't figure out how to do any damage if they wanted to.
Last summer when we were upgrading computers for staff I would ask folks to login to the computer so I could go setup Outlook and put some icons on their desktop. I'd say a good 50% would just tell me their password.. Passwords that they use for every system they need to get in to. Imagine what kinds of info Housing Dept employees have access to -- student records, payroll type stuff, etc. They just hand over their passwords, without even being asked, to some college kid they really don't know.
I used the info on blkviper for our machines in the computer labs at school. Took out all the unnecessary services and had the Celeron 800's w/ 128MB of RAM to the XP desktop in 28 seconds after the POST. Win98, on those same machines, took 31 seconds according to my Timex.
I could actually tell a difference in web surfing and such on the computers... stripped down XP felt faster than Win98.
Somehow I don't find stories too good if there's a green box saying "Note: this is an April Fools joke" at the top... but I guess that just proves how many slashdotters actually follow the links and read the stories;-))
I get the weekly newsletter in email and was gotten pretty good by this joke. I noticed it in my inbox around 7:30PM Monday night, east coast US time, and wasn't ready for April Fool's jokes yet. They didn't put the little blurb about it being a joke in the email. I hopped on the forums to see what people were saying, and then it hit me...
Another vote for Gallery if you can. I have it installed on my domain and just love it. No real space restrictions (I get 200MB on my host..), images aren't resized, great organization of different galleries, you can add comments to the pictures, etc etc etc.
It's made my life much easier. I used to make thumbnails and HTML pages by hand until I found Gallery. It's made sharing my photos a rather enjoyable experience.. click, click, done!
I work for the Housing Dept at my school, doing tech support. We're just responsible from the jack in the room out, don't deal with routers/switches or wiring in the walls. All the rooms just have one jack, so if both roommates want to get a connection, they have to use a hub or switch (we won't help them with those little Linksys router type deals).
When Network Services (the folks that watch the routers/switches) find someone that is abusing the network, they just turn off the port. Sometimes they'll call the person, sometimes not. My dept then gets to listen to the kids complaining that their connection is dead. We'll tell them why, usually some virus sending out hundreds of emails, and that they need to clean their machine. How they do it is their business, we tell em to go to a computer store if they can't do it themselves. Then we'll send someone out to make sure its clean, usually by installing the school's corp version of Norton AV. Day or so later, and they are turned back on.
People that are sucking down bandwidth w/ P2P apps will get a letter under their door. If it doesn't stop, they're turned off, and Network Services becomes pretty lazy about turning them back on.
FWIW, every computer on campus, not just in the dorms, gets a private IP address.
I help run a mailing list for my car club on a friend's cable modem.. At the time, there were about 500 users between the direct mail and the digest versions of the list. Roughly 10% were AOL users. A couple years ago, AOL users just stopped getting email. Everything in the logs looked normal. As far as we could tell, AOL was accepting the email, but users weren't getting it. AOL was just sending them off to/dev/null without telling anyone. After about a year of this, we took the AOL users out of the subscription lists, and still don't have any in there.
This is just your normal majordomo list... confirmation email is required before you start getting list email, list and server owner addresses are read, footer at the bottom of each message gives info on unsubscribing, and we have a FAQ on the website. Sendmail wasn't relaying any messages. We never did figure out why AOL decided to block us.
My sister's boyfriend interned for them during the summer of 2001. They promised him a job when he graduated in December of 2001... When he called his recruiter/handler/storm trooper in November 01, he was told there was a hiring freeze. Doh! He sat unemployed for about 6 months before he could finally find something.
I contracted for Sprint PCS when they were building their network in Atlanta. I was told that each tower cost about $100,000 to build. They signed 20 - 30 year leases, and paid a couple thousand a month rent on each tower. Each one had a T1 line going to it from Bellsouth.
When they launched the network, I think there was something like 427 towers around the metro area, with plans to build more. Not sure how many more, as my serivces were no longer needed after they launched. Sure did a lot of driving in the 9 months or so that I worked for em.
I can remember it working in pre-1.0. It'd display a Book of Mozilla entry, and change the page loading animation in the top right corner from whatever was default (I think it was just a spinning globe, but I'm probably wrong) to a lizard raising up over earth and breating fire.
I use Grandpa's old desk. BIG oak thing. I figure it's at least 60 years old. My parents had it restored back in the 70s, it's still in pretty decent shape despite lots of moving while my dad was in the Army.
Wide drawer in the center for pencils and desk supplies, drawers down both sides -- bottom right is double height for file folders. On either side of the chair, there are pull out boards for writing or holding papers -- but I use em for resting my elbows on while I'm typing.
I've never measured it, but it must be over a yard deep. With the keyboard in front of me and a few inches of open space, my 21" monitor doesn't hang off the back of it. Plenty of room on either side for a stack of books, a picture, phone, and speakers.
Only downside is the sheer size of this thing. Barely fit though my doors moving in, and it's heavy! Any future apartments will have to be on the first floor -- not sure I could convince friends to help me move it up a flight of stairs!
This seems like it'd be the perfect desk for kicking your legs up on and leaning back, but I just sit kinda normal like in my chair.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd suggest definately buying from iDOT instead of TigerDirect.
I've never heard of iDOT, and I'd still recommend them over TigerDirect.
Tiger Direct has a 5.01 lifetime rating. Compare that to Newegg's 9.69 lifetime rating (one of my favorite e-tailers). iDOT doesn't have enough reviews to get a rating, but the five that are there are favorable.
Hey, my boss was just up at Ferris State for the RESNET conference! I'm down at Ball State...
We have a domain here, but us Housing Techs don't have any admin rights on the domain controllers... Can't do login scripts, set profile locations, group policies across the domain, blah blah blah. We asked for a simple login script, the-powers-that-be flat out said no.
This summer we're (supposedly) dropping Win98 and moving on to XP. For our staff computers, I've created a generic user that I setup just the way I like it. I image a machine and take it to someone. First time the computer boots up I run NewSID just to be safe. Then I have the person login to their domain account to create their local profile (some just give me their password even though I ask them to type it in... sigh). I take over, log them out and login as the administrator. Then I go into the "User Profiles" tab of the system properties (right click on my computer, properties) and copy over my oh-so-perfect profile over to their domain user's profile. I'll add the user as a power user, just to avoid any complaints about why they can't do this-or-that when they could in Win98.
I've been setting up a Win2k file server for the Housing staff to use. I have to use a little batch file in the local startup folder to call a login script on my server so I don't have to visit each computer if/when I need to make a change.
Student computers are simple -- we don't require students to login to use the labs. The account they use is just a "user", and I have Deep Freeze installed on all em. Let em screw the system up, just hit reboot and it goes back to normal.
Kinda lame the way things are setup, but what can ya do?
I'd imagine that even the newest of AOL users would still be able to type in www.amazon.com in thier web browser.
You'd be surprised... My grandma has been using AOL for 4 or 5 years now. A couple years ago she signed up for online banking with our small local bank. Instead of typing in the bank's URL in the AOL address bar, she types in the full bank name. That takes her to AOL's search page, and the bank is the first site listed, so she clicks that. I've tried explaining the whole "dubya-dubya-dubya dot com" thing to her, but she can't grasp it and keeps doing it her way. Less typing, one less page to load -- it'd be easier.
Whenever I'm at her house to help her find something, I'll minimize AOL and start up IE.. At least I get a real (sic) browser. She's always amazed.
They sure do. In the past three or four months I've heard a weird beep from my phone on two occassions. Both times they turned out to be text messages from Cingular trying to get me to sign up for their SMS service. I pay them almost $45/month after taxes and fees, but they still want more from me! I signed up for the plan I'm on because it suits my needs; I'll let them know when my needs change -- I don't need them asking me every couple months.
I think I'll call and threaten to cancel next time (not under contract any more), maybe I can get some money off my bill.
/me runs off to email the Salt Lake Tribune about the good Senator's website...
How long do you think it will be before colleges in the US start following suit?
It'll probably be a while at my school.. This past academic year the school signed up for the Microsoft Academic Agreement, or whatever the hell it's called. We get WinXP and Office XP for $5. A couple years ago they switched from Novell Groupwise to Exchange for email. I'm currently helping the department I work for migrate over from a Novell server to a Win2k server.
We have a few first gen iMacs floating around the Housing labs that are being replaced this summer. Not with newer Macs, but with Gateways running WinXP. We even had one dorm "vote" to get rid of all the Macs in their lab and have them replaced with Windows machines.. they didn't care if the machines were slow, they just wanted Windows! We gave em P2-400MHz machines running Win98, and didn't hear from em again.
I was in a "Linux Lab" in the CS department yesterday for class.. The machines in there were running RedHat 7.1 and the 2.4.2-something kernel, IIRC.
It seems as if MS is strengthening its foothold here, can't see Linux making headway anytime soon... I'd bet we're typical of non-geek schools in the country. At least the Teacher's College is recommending that incoming freshman buy iBooks.
My Comcast account isn't too bad really. One or two per day, on average. Seems that BrightMail is doing a decent job on my inbox.
The address I use on my domain gets about 30 per day that SpamAssassin picks up, 5 or 6 that get by it.
I sure wish I had his tax problem... :\
If you're using Mozilla / Firebird / Phoenix, add this to your profiledir/chrome/userContent.css and links to goatse and tubgirl will be in brown with a line through them, reminding you not to click.
a[href*="goatse.cx/"]
{
text-decoration: line-through ! important;
color: brown ! important;
}
a[href*="tubgirl.com/"]
{
text-decoration: line-through ! important;
color: brown ! important;
}
I've often thought about filing an anonymous complaint with the BSA saying that I just quit my job with the RIAA and they had all sorts of illegal software all over the place.
There's a joke in there somewhere, involving the letter "t", but I can't quite put my finger on it..
I work tech support for my school's Housing Department. Most of our computers have Deep Freeze on them so people can't screw up Windows too badly. One particular computer was at the front desk of a residence hall.. Bored kids playing on the computer all day made Deep Freeze a necessity. The hall director wanted the workers to save Excel files on the hard drive instead of a floppy or zip disk. So he emails my boss and asks her to remove Deep Freeze. Instead of sending a tech over, she just emails him the password. This password is used on every system that has Deep Freeze, and is also her personal password for everything she uses (admin account on Novell and Win2k machines, school email, etc). She just emailed it right off without thinking.
When she hires a new tech, one of the first things she tells em is her password so they can get in to systems and do admin type things. Luckily, most of them are clueless and couldn't figure out how to do any damage if they wanted to.
Last summer when we were upgrading computers for staff I would ask folks to login to the computer so I could go setup Outlook and put some icons on their desktop. I'd say a good 50% would just tell me their password.. Passwords that they use for every system they need to get in to. Imagine what kinds of info Housing Dept employees have access to -- student records, payroll type stuff, etc. They just hand over their passwords, without even being asked, to some college kid they really don't know.
I used the info on blkviper for our machines in the computer labs at school. Took out all the unnecessary services and had the Celeron 800's w/ 128MB of RAM to the XP desktop in 28 seconds after the POST. Win98, on those same machines, took 31 seconds according to my Timex.
I could actually tell a difference in web surfing and such on the computers... stripped down XP felt faster than Win98.
Just goes to show you that people really do not read the articles..
Somehow I don't find stories too good if there's a green box saying "Note: this is an April Fools joke" at the top... but I guess that just proves how many slashdotters actually follow the links and read the stories ;-))
I get the weekly newsletter in email and was gotten pretty good by this joke. I noticed it in my inbox around 7:30PM Monday night, east coast US time, and wasn't ready for April Fool's jokes yet. They didn't put the little blurb about it being a joke in the email. I hopped on the forums to see what people were saying, and then it hit me...
Another vote for Gallery if you can. I have it installed on my domain and just love it. No real space restrictions (I get 200MB on my host..), images aren't resized, great organization of different galleries, you can add comments to the pictures, etc etc etc.
It's made my life much easier. I used to make thumbnails and HTML pages by hand until I found Gallery. It's made sharing my photos a rather enjoyable experience.. click, click, done!
I work for the Housing Dept at my school, doing tech support. We're just responsible from the jack in the room out, don't deal with routers/switches or wiring in the walls. All the rooms just have one jack, so if both roommates want to get a connection, they have to use a hub or switch (we won't help them with those little Linksys router type deals).
When Network Services (the folks that watch the routers/switches) find someone that is abusing the network, they just turn off the port. Sometimes they'll call the person, sometimes not. My dept then gets to listen to the kids complaining that their connection is dead. We'll tell them why, usually some virus sending out hundreds of emails, and that they need to clean their machine. How they do it is their business, we tell em to go to a computer store if they can't do it themselves. Then we'll send someone out to make sure its clean, usually by installing the school's corp version of Norton AV. Day or so later, and they are turned back on.
People that are sucking down bandwidth w/ P2P apps will get a letter under their door. If it doesn't stop, they're turned off, and Network Services becomes pretty lazy about turning them back on.
FWIW, every computer on campus, not just in the dorms, gets a private IP address.
I help run a mailing list for my car club on a friend's cable modem.. At the time, there were about 500 users between the direct mail and the digest versions of the list. Roughly 10% were AOL users. A couple years ago, AOL users just stopped getting email. Everything in the logs looked normal. As far as we could tell, AOL was accepting the email, but users weren't getting it. AOL was just sending them off to /dev/null without telling anyone. After about a year of this, we took the AOL users out of the subscription lists, and still don't have any in there.
This is just your normal majordomo list... confirmation email is required before you start getting list email, list and server owner addresses are read, footer at the bottom of each message gives info on unsubscribing, and we have a FAQ on the website. Sendmail wasn't relaying any messages. We never did figure out why AOL decided to block us.
My sister's boyfriend interned for them during the summer of 2001. They promised him a job when he graduated in December of 2001... When he called his recruiter/handler/storm trooper in November 01, he was told there was a hiring freeze. Doh! He sat unemployed for about 6 months before he could finally find something.
I contracted for Sprint PCS when they were building their network in Atlanta. I was told that each tower cost about $100,000 to build. They signed 20 - 30 year leases, and paid a couple thousand a month rent on each tower. Each one had a T1 line going to it from Bellsouth.
When they launched the network, I think there was something like 427 towers around the metro area, with plans to build more. Not sure how many more, as my serivces were no longer needed after they launched. Sure did a lot of driving in the 9 months or so that I worked for em.
I used my Gentoo 1.4_rc1 CD to save some a system last September. When I got mad, I played a little Unreal to vent my frustrations :)
I can remember it working in pre-1.0. It'd display a Book of Mozilla entry, and change the page loading animation in the top right corner from whatever was default (I think it was just a spinning globe, but I'm probably wrong) to a lizard raising up over earth and breating fire.
Yup. altavista.digital.com. Still works too.
That's in Kentucky. I got such a kick out of the name, that I just had to stop and take a picture on my way through one time.
I use Grandpa's old desk. BIG oak thing. I figure it's at least 60 years old. My parents had it restored back in the 70s, it's still in pretty decent shape despite lots of moving while my dad was in the Army.
Wide drawer in the center for pencils and desk supplies, drawers down both sides -- bottom right is double height for file folders. On either side of the chair, there are pull out boards for writing or holding papers -- but I use em for resting my elbows on while I'm typing.
I've never measured it, but it must be over a yard deep. With the keyboard in front of me and a few inches of open space, my 21" monitor doesn't hang off the back of it. Plenty of room on either side for a stack of books, a picture, phone, and speakers.
Only downside is the sheer size of this thing. Barely fit though my doors moving in, and it's heavy! Any future apartments will have to be on the first floor -- not sure I could convince friends to help me move it up a flight of stairs!
This seems like it'd be the perfect desk for kicking your legs up on and leaning back, but I just sit kinda normal like in my chair.