Granted it's a few years old, the laptop I'm using now, a Dell Latitude D410 has IR. I think I've seen them more often on the Latitude series. That said, there's a ton of current laptop's I've seen with IR...certainly not restricted to machines 13 years old or older...in fact, what are those...486's?
One of my users has the mouse on the left, and the mouse buttons swapped...using her account and then switching to admin really throws you for a loop because the mouse buttons change back. Remoting into her PC is the same story.
The real oddball though is a girl that I went to high school with holds her mouse upside down...so up is down, left is right, and the right mouse button is actually the left...I can't grasp that one in my mind....
2) solid color borders and constant flashing cause bandwidth issues to crop up, making the content illegible
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that in an analog signal, the entire picture is refreshed, whereas digital just refreshes the parts of the picture that is changing. If that's the case, wouldn't you use about the same amount of bandwidth regardless of what's on the screen?
Sounds like WLI*ReservationRewards. I know they have a new company name now...same scam. I saw their stuff on the back end of a purchase from buy.com the other day. Blogged about it a couple years ago, and had literally hundreds of people state the same thing happened to them. And you literally have to ready very carefully and select the right option to get your order confirmation without "joining" their scam.
I hate wireless. You have to mess with multiple batteries, a higher likelihood of false alarms due to loss of contact, dead batteries, interference, etc. Wired is by far the most reliable way to go, but for DIY folks, wireless is convenient to install. Don't forget you have to find a company to do the monitoring as well...there's lots of third party companies to do monitoring so you don't have to sign a contact or buy a system from one of the big vendors (ADT, Brinks, etc) and most existing systems can be reprogrammed for those 3rd party monitoring companies (from my experience, Brinks systems are difficult to reprogram).
Back when I had a Nextel 7 years ago, it happened on everything to PC speakers, projectors, big screen TV's, etc. In fact, we would know that someone was going to get a call on their Nextel before the phone even rang by at least 1-2 seconds.
Although I will agree that many companies out there are old-school and don't want to change, most legitimate real estate brokers understand the value of an internet presence. I work for a large real estate company in the mid-west, and the competition in creating a better web site between my company and the local Home affiliate is pretty fierce trying to innovate the most interactive maps, easiest to use sites, more useful calculators and searching tools, etc.
I feel sorry for you in that you had to deal with another one of those companies that don't realize the value of technology. I feel very fortunate to work for a company who realizes that tech is the way of the future.
The only time Computrace fails is if a) the CMOS is physically replaced or b) the laptop never sees an internet connection again. Or c) The Computrace installation is fouled up and not calling in any more. I've had this happen.
Speaking from a recoving a machine that was stolen, if they plan on selling it and their buyers don't give a damn if there's sticker residue on it, they won't care....there were asset tags and service tags and all kinds of stuff on the machine that we had stolen, and when we got it back, all of the tags had been removed with the residue still present...just so long as they had supposedly gotten rid of any of the identifying stickers.
This is an advantage of Computrace...they take care of all if it for you. Once the machine is reported stolen, and they get a beacon with the IP address, they coordinate everything with the ISP/Law Enforcement.
Recent products like Computrace/LoJack (same product, different brands) can be installed in the BIOS so a disk wipe doesn't affect them. The catch is that it has to be installed at the factory, so you have to buy the security software (and an annual subscription) when you buy a new laptop. Also, it isn't that hard to reflash a BIOS.... Not true at all...we install Computrace on all laptops and random desktops/servers in my business....we're a dell shop, so all the new dell laptops have the module for Computrace in the BIOS. Installing computrace activates the "persistence" module in the laptop. The annual subscription that we pay Dell is something like 36/year, so for 3 bucks a month, it's worthwhile.
One thing we found out from experience is you want to followup with Absolute and make sure the machine is calling in daily, or whenever it's on (it tries once a day). If the machine is stolen but it hasn't been called in for 30 days or more, the recovery guarantee is not in place. They'll still try and recover it, but they won't give you the $1000 or whatever if it's not found. Also, you have the option to void the recovery guarantee and instead have a "data delete" option, so that any sensitive data on the machine is wiped with the hard drive.
I've never seen a statistic on wiping the BIOS, but I'd be willing to be it'd be more difficult than beneficial. Besides, if someone's going to be so thorough to wipe the BIOS, they know the software is on there, and will be taking steps to avoid it getting it's beacon out to the net.
Disclaimer: I have no relationship with Absolute (Computrace) other than I am a paying customer.
The ONLY thing they can do is either drastically reduce the number of anaglog channels they offer their subscribers... Fixed.
FTTP is a great idea, but a huge cost because the cable networks were never designed for that. After spending billions upgrading their networks, cable providers simply cannot afford to do it all over again with the latest and greatest. The phone companies sat around on their old tech for a long time and now some are willing to invest in their network.
Analog channels still take way more bandwidth than HD as I recall. Clearing up that space would help a lot. I have noticed though the compression, not necessarily with HD, but with regular channels from Dish and DirecTV. On their regular channels, there's much more tiling and artifacts vs my Cox digital channels.
I've never had an interference issue with a cell phone. Of course my cell phone is using a licensed band...... My Nextel used to interfere with TV's, especially big-screens and projectors all the time. In fact, I could tell when someone was going to call be because I'd here the static "click-click-click" a couple seconds before my phone even rang. It did it both on the two-way and cell call....
Nice features, but piece of crap network....
At least here in Omaha, some of the builders or new homes will daisy-chain from one outlet to another. The better way for a phone installer's standpoint is do a hub and spoke, but not everyone does it. What really sucks is when the electrician daisy-chains and you need to install a third line....and they only cut the line and hook up lines 1 and 2. That means you have to hit up each jack and connect the wires again for line 3...not much fun.
This doesn't even account for people who buy Vista, and then downgrade to XP legally. At my business, we have at least 20 computers that were purchased with Vista, but we immediately RIS them back down to XP. Same for Office 2007 (Downgraded to 2003 for the time being). Of course, we can always upgrade back to Vista later on, but we don't have any plans for that in the near future.
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Granted it's a few years old, the laptop I'm using now, a Dell Latitude D410 has IR. I think I've seen them more often on the Latitude series. That said, there's a ton of current laptop's I've seen with IR...certainly not restricted to machines 13 years old or older...in fact, what are those...486's?
I've switched over to the new Antivirus 360....
One of my users has the mouse on the left, and the mouse buttons swapped...using her account and then switching to admin really throws you for a loop because the mouse buttons change back. Remoting into her PC is the same story. The real oddball though is a girl that I went to high school with holds her mouse upside down...so up is down, left is right, and the right mouse button is actually the left...I can't grasp that one in my mind....
2) solid color borders and constant flashing cause bandwidth issues to crop up, making the content illegible
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that in an analog signal, the entire picture is refreshed, whereas digital just refreshes the parts of the picture that is changing. If that's the case, wouldn't you use about the same amount of bandwidth regardless of what's on the screen?
Sounds like WLI*ReservationRewards. I know they have a new company name now...same scam. I saw their stuff on the back end of a purchase from buy.com the other day. Blogged about it a couple years ago, and had literally hundreds of people state the same thing happened to them. And you literally have to ready very carefully and select the right option to get your order confirmation without "joining" their scam.
My Dell rep actually called the XP downgrade from Vista an "upgrade" the other day in an email...
I hate wireless. You have to mess with multiple batteries, a higher likelihood of false alarms due to loss of contact, dead batteries, interference, etc. Wired is by far the most reliable way to go, but for DIY folks, wireless is convenient to install. Don't forget you have to find a company to do the monitoring as well...there's lots of third party companies to do monitoring so you don't have to sign a contact or buy a system from one of the big vendors (ADT, Brinks, etc) and most existing systems can be reprogrammed for those 3rd party monitoring companies (from my experience, Brinks systems are difficult to reprogram).
Back when I had a Nextel 7 years ago, it happened on everything to PC speakers, projectors, big screen TV's, etc. In fact, we would know that someone was going to get a call on their Nextel before the phone even rang by at least 1-2 seconds.
AFAIK, there are non-broker agents that are Realtors.
Although I will agree that many companies out there are old-school and don't want to change, most legitimate real estate brokers understand the value of an internet presence. I work for a large real estate company in the mid-west, and the competition in creating a better web site between my company and the local Home affiliate is pretty fierce trying to innovate the most interactive maps, easiest to use sites, more useful calculators and searching tools, etc. I feel sorry for you in that you had to deal with another one of those companies that don't realize the value of technology. I feel very fortunate to work for a company who realizes that tech is the way of the future.
This just isn't a feasible solution....it's using a Goto command...
Speaking from a recoving a machine that was stolen, if they plan on selling it and their buyers don't give a damn if there's sticker residue on it, they won't care....there were asset tags and service tags and all kinds of stuff on the machine that we had stolen, and when we got it back, all of the tags had been removed with the residue still present...just so long as they had supposedly gotten rid of any of the identifying stickers.
This is an advantage of Computrace...they take care of all if it for you. Once the machine is reported stolen, and they get a beacon with the IP address, they coordinate everything with the ISP/Law Enforcement.
One thing we found out from experience is you want to followup with Absolute and make sure the machine is calling in daily, or whenever it's on (it tries once a day). If the machine is stolen but it hasn't been called in for 30 days or more, the recovery guarantee is not in place. They'll still try and recover it, but they won't give you the $1000 or whatever if it's not found. Also, you have the option to void the recovery guarantee and instead have a "data delete" option, so that any sensitive data on the machine is wiped with the hard drive.
I've never seen a statistic on wiping the BIOS, but I'd be willing to be it'd be more difficult than beneficial. Besides, if someone's going to be so thorough to wipe the BIOS, they know the software is on there, and will be taking steps to avoid it getting it's beacon out to the net.
Disclaimer: I have no relationship with Absolute (Computrace) other than I am a paying customer.
Or often the balance is below $0.
I was going to mention this, but got beat to it. It was a pretty good episode though...
FTTP is a great idea, but a huge cost because the cable networks were never designed for that. After spending billions upgrading their networks, cable providers simply cannot afford to do it all over again with the latest and greatest. The phone companies sat around on their old tech for a long time and now some are willing to invest in their network. Analog channels still take way more bandwidth than HD as I recall. Clearing up that space would help a lot. I have noticed though the compression, not necessarily with HD, but with regular channels from Dish and DirecTV. On their regular channels, there's much more tiling and artifacts vs my Cox digital channels.
While Sweden may not have a strong army, they do have one. My counterpart sitting across my office from me served during his 6 month conscript.
I bet that voter turnout would be a lot better with rockets as well...
Hell...I remember when MTV2 played music as well....thats pretty much gone too!
At least here in Omaha, some of the builders or new homes will daisy-chain from one outlet to another. The better way for a phone installer's standpoint is do a hub and spoke, but not everyone does it. What really sucks is when the electrician daisy-chains and you need to install a third line....and they only cut the line and hook up lines 1 and 2. That means you have to hit up each jack and connect the wires again for line 3...not much fun.
What would be the difference if your keys are so close to the car. What prevents someone from grabbing the keys and unlocking the doors anyway?
This doesn't even account for people who buy Vista, and then downgrade to XP legally. At my business, we have at least 20 computers that were purchased with Vista, but we immediately RIS them back down to XP. Same for Office 2007 (Downgraded to 2003 for the time being). Of course, we can always upgrade back to Vista later on, but we don't have any plans for that in the near future.