Meh, have you SEEN some of the avatars around? I mean some are damn well done, but some... jeebus save us.
The interface takes a few YEARS to get used to, but I grant you it is pretty effective, I hear there is a promised upgrade to that in the works, something about implants.
As for the graphics, meh, all the screen shots I seen look photoshopped.
Bleh, as a prequal (to second life) it sounds at least an improvement, although I hear the leveling system sucks, and gold farmers ruin it at the high end.
And who could care less to wait till lvl 18 before you can get player transportation.
I don't use adblock, I have my own proxy that drops the ad servers content silently, then run noscript on any of my machines that need a browser:)
And yeah, that would be a great way to effectively hamstring their internet presence until they pay, but the guy originally wanted something subtle (it was a nice old lady if I remember rightly, who he is hosting for) and my way would be at least that. Not many people like to see ads for their competitors every time they try and browse to their own site.
Each of the domains that would normally forward to her site, have them forward to a separate page, hosting YOUR adds (revenue for unpaid services), and have a small link at the bottom of the page saying "please let the merchant you are about to proceed to know, to pay their hosting site!".
Put a stack of google ads on them, and have a link pointing back to her site with the suggestion of "if you want to remove these ads from your site, pay your rent".
You will make some cash to cover the hosting (presuming they do have a few visitors) hopefully.
Most important thing, don't spend too much time on it, time is money and most people don't like paying.
I do load the original disk (from a live linux CD) and try mount -oro, if that doesn't work, I tell the cust sorry, no can do, if it does, rsync -Pr to our storage server and write up a bill:)
Where I work, if it ain't readable with mount -oro we don't touch it, the amount customers are willing to pay vs the time it spends on a tech bench recovering is not worth it.
When told labor costs, most customers seem to think $2 an hour is reasonable to fix computers... I wish I was making that up.
When I pre-install computers for my customers, they get both pre-loaded (use CCCP for MPC, it loads the codecs needed, and configures it for it automagically).
I agree though, MPC is much nicer interface than VLC, but when you are troubleshooting VLC is the best thing on the planet, it "just works".
You are very very kind to windows, that 4MB/min of IO was across about 20 different processes, most of which were writing a few bytes a second, not nice neat 64K writes (or even, as you add double, 32K writes).
Lets see, with firefox, steam and the performance monitor open, I am clocking about 4MB/min of writes (thats with not a lot of firefox windows open too, its using about half of that amount).
Note since most windows use 64K clusters, every time 64K of data is written, a 128K block needs to be erased and written.
Oh, and my work PC (the one the measurements were taken on) has 4GB ram under vista 64, my home is double that.
Firstly, multi platter is not the best, increased heat, increased complexity all increases rate of failure.
Secondly, you now are making a standard for the number of platters/heads in a drive, in reality everyone wants something different (reliability over density).
Hard to reach? Try installing vista on one, and letting it use it for temp files, system logs and page file.
In fact, thats all on by default! Not exactly hard.
A better idea is to install on a normal HDD, then copy all the files from program files into a SSD and mount it in an empty folder and point windows to that for its program files directory, not the neatest solution, but stops the drive dieing too young and gives a marked speed boost.
Yup, thats lower, doing that to secure a victory, is one thing, doing it just to humiliate a person, particularly one who has spent their life protecting not only their lives but their way of life, is (thanks to my aussie upbringing and slashdot for letting my say this uncensored) fucking disgusting:/
The best part is, the software I provide is free, so under my states (Victoria Australia) very strict and formal sales laws, the customer can expect nothing from it and cannot expect extensive support:)
And I agree, less is more, I have a few clients who will want specific installs, usually its vanilla windows with just firefox and java. The good thing is because its just a cmd script is I can just comment those things out when I burn the install disks for their machines.
Oh, and yes I also do all the windows updates as of the day of install, because there is nothing worse than getting a new PC and having to patch 200M into it.
As always, our shop specializes in custom PCs, if you just want a vanilla box with no software, I am happy to oblige, if you want a box with no OS on it, I am happy to do that too.
A good trick, grab a copy of nlite and vlite, work out what are the main drivers you need (in my case, nvidia and intel chipset, nvidia, ati and via graphics, and a usb LAN adapter (trust me on this, always put in a driver for your usb lan adapter, don't asky why, that will become aparent if you ever get an odd machine with a non-standard LAN adapter, atheros I am looking at you).
Then the fun bit, finding.msi files for all your programs you want to load, not too hard, and for those that don't have them there is usually a silent install option, throw em in a command script throw in sysprep (for XP) or just leave the thing without a CD key (for vista) and it makes a nice professional installer.
As for your choices, good selection, just remember, AVG free has no firewall (I would lean toward avast if you absolutely have to use a free one), don't let spybot install its teatimer (arrgggg) itunes, yeah I would load it, but so far of the systems I see coming back less than 2% of them have it on em, so I don't see a reason to, acrobat... ouch, I let people install their own choice of security exploit, been thinking of pushing skype onto my pre-installs, get a lot of people using that these days, I don't put on thunderbird, most users prefer windows mail/outlook express, or so I have found.
And I have NEVER seen a vid CCCP won't play:)
Oh, for those wondering how to silent install firefox cleanly? Check out Frontmotion
Thats always your option, and its not really for people like you I load this, but in terms of the software I load...
openoffice (set not to run unless you use it, doesn't interfere with anything else)
firefox (again, only if you use it, doesn't mess with other programs)
java (auto runs its updater, and likely most people will install it at some point anyway)
CCCP (installs codecs for video and audio playback, loads mediaplayerclassic, again, doesn't run unless you ask it to)
VLC (media player that uses its own codecs, doesn't mess with anything else)
Nero Express (runs updater and has a lower filter for optical drives)
Latest drivers, as of about a week in age (pre install media is updated weekly)
Sometimes people will get filezilla as well, if data needs moving to or from their machine, we use that.
I know some will have opinions about the software, but tbh, its the best mix I have found and its mostly stuff the end user will have to go hunting for anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Meh, have you SEEN some of the avatars around? I mean some are damn well done, but some... jeebus save us.
The interface takes a few YEARS to get used to, but I grant you it is pretty effective, I hear there is a promised upgrade to that in the works, something about implants.
As for the graphics, meh, all the screen shots I seen look photoshopped.
Yeah, no one has bothered to reply to my tells after that point, so the game must get REALLY frickin good then...
They already do, I heard they changed one guys name to pirate...
Don't worry if your sick that day, I am sure we could find another virgin here to sacrifice instead...
Bleh, as a prequal (to second life) it sounds at least an improvement, although I hear the leveling system sucks, and gold farmers ruin it at the high end.
And who could care less to wait till lvl 18 before you can get player transportation.
Interesting PK system though.
Yeah, but this is a government bureaucracy, so they would stop accepting changes just before processing his to have his name fixed...
I don't use adblock, I have my own proxy that drops the ad servers content silently, then run noscript on any of my machines that need a browser :)
And yeah, that would be a great way to effectively hamstring their internet presence until they pay, but the guy originally wanted something subtle (it was a nice old lady if I remember rightly, who he is hosting for) and my way would be at least that. Not many people like to see ads for their competitors every time they try and browse to their own site.
Ok, will run it past you again.
Each of the domains that would normally forward to her site, have them forward to a separate page, hosting YOUR adds (revenue for unpaid services), and have a small link at the bottom of the page saying "please let the merchant you are about to proceed to know, to pay their hosting site!".
Put a stack of google ads on them, and have a link pointing back to her site with the suggestion of "if you want to remove these ads from your site, pay your rent".
You will make some cash to cover the hosting (presuming they do have a few visitors) hopefully.
Most important thing, don't spend too much time on it, time is money and most people don't like paying.
I do load the original disk (from a live linux CD) and try mount -oro, if that doesn't work, I tell the cust sorry, no can do, if it does, rsync -Pr to our storage server and write up a bill :)
Where I work, if it ain't readable with mount -oro we don't touch it, the amount customers are willing to pay vs the time it spends on a tech bench recovering is not worth it.
When told labor costs, most customers seem to think $2 an hour is reasonable to fix computers... I wish I was making that up.
I think his first post counted as drooling over the latest release.
That is a damn good idea.
One thing though, how to redirect /users/ while you mount the drive? (or is there a recovery console command to link a drive into an empty NTFS dir?
Then, load both :)
When I pre-install computers for my customers, they get both pre-loaded (use CCCP for MPC, it loads the codecs needed, and configures it for it automagically).
I agree though, MPC is much nicer interface than VLC, but when you are troubleshooting VLC is the best thing on the planet, it "just works".
Btw, a good read on what some of the bad things could be for them.
http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=29361
You are very very kind to windows, that 4MB/min of IO was across about 20 different processes, most of which were writing a few bytes a second, not nice neat 64K writes (or even, as you add double, 32K writes).
Lets see, with firefox, steam and the performance monitor open, I am clocking about 4MB/min of writes (thats with not a lot of firefox windows open too, its using about half of that amount).
Note since most windows use 64K clusters, every time 64K of data is written, a 128K block needs to be erased and written.
Oh, and my work PC (the one the measurements were taken on) has 4GB ram under vista 64, my home is double that.
Firstly, multi platter is not the best, increased heat, increased complexity all increases rate of failure.
Secondly, you now are making a standard for the number of platters/heads in a drive, in reality everyone wants something different (reliability over density).
Hard to reach? Try installing vista on one, and letting it use it for temp files, system logs and page file.
In fact, thats all on by default! Not exactly hard.
A better idea is to install on a normal HDD, then copy all the files from program files into a SSD and mount it in an empty folder and point windows to that for its program files directory, not the neatest solution, but stops the drive dieing too young and gives a marked speed boost.
Got me, but... Imagine a beowulf cluster of them! :P
Yeah, and when he gets so depressed about it and commits suicide, you will have a clear conscience that it was "that evil game that did it" to him :)
Yup, thats lower, doing that to secure a victory, is one thing, doing it just to humiliate a person, particularly one who has spent their life protecting not only their lives but their way of life, is (thanks to my aussie upbringing and slashdot for letting my say this uncensored) fucking disgusting :/
The best part is, the software I provide is free, so under my states (Victoria Australia) very strict and formal sales laws, the customer can expect nothing from it and cannot expect extensive support :)
And I agree, less is more, I have a few clients who will want specific installs, usually its vanilla windows with just firefox and java. The good thing is because its just a cmd script is I can just comment those things out when I burn the install disks for their machines.
Oh, and yes I also do all the windows updates as of the day of install, because there is nothing worse than getting a new PC and having to patch 200M into it.
As always, our shop specializes in custom PCs, if you just want a vanilla box with no software, I am happy to oblige, if you want a box with no OS on it, I am happy to do that too.
A good trick, grab a copy of nlite and vlite, work out what are the main drivers you need (in my case, nvidia and intel chipset, nvidia, ati and via graphics, and a usb LAN adapter (trust me on this, always put in a driver for your usb lan adapter, don't asky why, that will become aparent if you ever get an odd machine with a non-standard LAN adapter, atheros I am looking at you).
Then the fun bit, finding .msi files for all your programs you want to load, not too hard, and for those that don't have them there is usually a silent install option, throw em in a command script throw in sysprep (for XP) or just leave the thing without a CD key (for vista) and it makes a nice professional installer.
As for your choices, good selection, just remember, AVG free has no firewall (I would lean toward avast if you absolutely have to use a free one), don't let spybot install its teatimer (arrgggg) itunes, yeah I would load it, but so far of the systems I see coming back less than 2% of them have it on em, so I don't see a reason to, acrobat... ouch, I let people install their own choice of security exploit, been thinking of pushing skype onto my pre-installs, get a lot of people using that these days, I don't put on thunderbird, most users prefer windows mail/outlook express, or so I have found.
And I have NEVER seen a vid CCCP won't play :)
Oh, for those wondering how to silent install firefox cleanly? Check out Frontmotion
Thats always your option, and its not really for people like you I load this, but in terms of the software I load...
openoffice (set not to run unless you use it, doesn't interfere with anything else)
firefox (again, only if you use it, doesn't mess with other programs)
java (auto runs its updater, and likely most people will install it at some point anyway)
CCCP (installs codecs for video and audio playback, loads mediaplayerclassic, again, doesn't run unless you ask it to)
VLC (media player that uses its own codecs, doesn't mess with anything else)
Nero Express (runs updater and has a lower filter for optical drives)
Latest drivers, as of about a week in age (pre install media is updated weekly)
Sometimes people will get filezilla as well, if data needs moving to or from their machine, we use that.
I know some will have opinions about the software, but tbh, its the best mix I have found and its mostly stuff the end user will have to go hunting for anyway.