The difference, really, boils down to Open software. Treo 650 owners paid for a Palm device with an SDIO slot. This SDIO slot is sufficient for a WiFi card. However, the WiFi cards don't work, because PalmOne has not released any drivers for it, even though they've released drivers for other Palm devices with similar OS versions, SDIO slots, and a very similar NVRAM filesystem (The T5.)
It's like buying two different laptops from the same vendor, both running Windows XP, both with USB 2.0 ports, but only one of them supports your flashdrive, even though it plugs in and gets power in both systems, and no one's willing to provide you with a driver.
Antec's Aria comes close, but it's not perfect. It's quiet, but not silent, and you need to disable the damnable blue LEDs. It is, however, microATX compatible, so it supports *three* cards at once. I notice that it's on when the TV's not blasting, but with good BIOS control for the fan speed, you may not even notice.
As for that uninspiring riser-based mini-ITX case, it looks like a bland piece of A/V equipment. Figure out how to install a nice VFD, and it might be perfect for the task.
I went with building my own in an Antec Aria case when I wanted something that didn't look like I hacked it all together from chewing gum and sheet metal.
Upsides: Small, hidden optical drive (to prevent seeing a beige faceplate with "52X" printed on it,) front-facing ports, fairly quiet, well-cooled for a toaster-sized PC.
Downsides: Blue LEDs can blind you from 15 miles away. Not a system to leave running in your bedroom overnight. Plastic outer panels, while lightweight, don't have the same feel of sturdiness as a Lian Li aluminum case.
Overall, though? It's the kind of system my *girlfriend* approves of, as it's not a huge chunk of aluminum that sounds like a jet taking off. If the ladies approve, it must be good.
I read the instructions when it's mission-critical, when I'm completely new to it (first time DB install EVER, for example,) or when my brain's fried, and I care more about making it work than tweaking the hell out of the internals.
Or, of course, if I can't figure out how the hell it turns from jet to robot and back.
In all fairness, you're not running a PDA. You're running a heavily souped up PC XT, with the ability to run DOS.
When you throw out all that object-oriented database model crap and just throw everything on top of DOS, you end up with an older PC, with all the old TSR tricks which I'm sure a lot of us still remember pulling off.
Of course, I'm happy with my Palm device, even without context switching, spreadsheets, db software, or the ability to use standard AA/AAA cells. That's because it's also my phone, though. If I didn't want a smartphone, I'd probably end up with a Linux handheld, or a secondhand DOS HP Palmtop.
While it's arguably okay for them to be social online instead of outdoors, they're not respecting you.
Cut them off. When they stop acting like a couple of petulant children, then they've earned the right to get back online.
Don't restrict them for no reason. Don't cut them off just because you're the parent. Make damned sure that they know that *their* actions have triggered these consequences.
(As a side note, I was raised with next to no supervision on the Internet, and allowed to stay on pretty much as often as I wanted. I also was allowed to stay out as late as I wanted, but that all depended on me staying out of trouble.)
Funny you should mention that. I *do* plan on moving on to an LCD, and will need all the processing power I can get my grubby paws on.
I just figure that if someone's going to spend $300 on the latest and greatest card every two generations, you might as well hook them in for buying a dupe of that card for $100 in 18 months.
And, well, the target market for a $300 card does want all that eyecandy turned on. I know that I can't live without running the highest resolution textures available.:)
More like, "Hey, the last generation videocard is now obsolete, and no one wants it! How do we fix this next time?"
"I know, let's make it so that if you buy a second one a year later, it'll work WITH the first one!"
No one needs to buy two right off the bat. One is usually more than enough for any modern game. But one for a few hundred now, and the other for less than $100 later? That's a bargain basement upgrade, and one that's far more sensible than getting the new mid-range card now, and the new mid-range card a year from now.
Now, if someone *wants* to buy two top of the line cards today, more power to them. They want the ultra-high-resolution games with all the effects cranked up, and they have the money. It makes their games look nicer, while my games run well enough. We both win, and Nvidia no longer sits on piles of unused chips.
I'd recommend the Targus Deluxe Sport Backpack, if you're looking to carry this load on your back. You'll need a sleeve for the secondary laptop, but I can easily carry my laptop, a pile of wireless gear, assorted cables, and so on in this bag. It's not great on specialized mini compartments, though, so you'll have to augment it with additional carrying cases. I use two small bags, one with my daily essential tech gear (USB cords for my main devices, a few spare NiMH cells, a pocket NiMH charger,) and the other with the less useful gear, like A/V cables, Gameboy carts, and a Bluetooth mouse. The mouse is nice, but I have a working touchpad, so I'll live without it most of the time.
Alternately, how well designed is the laptop? I had a Toshiba which I could swap harddrives on in under a minute. You could try that, although you'd end up carrying a drive in an antistatic bag. You're already carrying 15 pounds of computer, even without wireless cards, AC adapters, mice, etc. You would be much better off with a dual boot system, unless you need to run both OSes at once.
This seems more like a problem of a suboptimal gear loadout than one of a suboptimal packing solution. I don't want to judge your methods, but I am worried about the strain you'll put on your back with a mobile office of that magnitude.
1) Good luck. Any decent biometric scanners fail if there's no bloodflow through the finger. 2) What if someone hacks the database with your password in it right now?
Biometrics, key cards, or password, they all suck, but in different ways. That's what two factor authentication is for.
Insert keycard, then scan your thumb. I'd still include a password as a third mechanism to update either of the other two as needed, assuming you scar your thumb, or lose your keycard.
Or keep a master keycard and a secondary scan, like an iris scan for that purpose. Suffice it to say, it's fairly complicated to do these things right.
SL-C3000 power consumption: 3.2 Watts. Without 802.11b/g. With an unknown number of hours to back that up, but we'll assume that 7 is correct. That's 22.4 Watt-hours from that one cell.
2200 mA NiMH AA @ 1.25 V: 2.75 Watts. Using a sample of Powerex 2200 mA cells with a tested mAh rating of about 2070 mAh, this brings one cell to about 2.6 Watt-hours. So, to match the 3.7 volts of the SL-C3000's battery pack, you'll need 3 AA's in serial, for a total watt-hour delivery of about 7.8 Watt-hours, giving you a battery life of about 2 hours and 25 minutes.
So, 9 AA cells should just about do the trick. 3 parallel banks of 3 AAs in series, just to match the one fairly small Li-Ion pack.
And again, that's without the 802.11b/g you added to the spec.
I carry NiMH cells all the time. They're what I use in my camera. There's just no way I'm loading that many cells into my PDA, boombox-style, even if I have a 12-cell charger at home.
You are giving the new employer the impression you'll quit if you don't like the conditions.
Well, why shouldn't you? If you don't like the conditions because they cancelled beer on Fridays, or decided that if you wanted to leave by 5pm, you would have to be in by 9am, then yes, you're being unreasonable.
If the crunch time at EA is anything close to what the article mentions, on the other hand, then YES. Give them EVERY impressions that you're going to quit if you don't like the conditions. And get as many people on your side as possible. Maybe these places will learn that they can't mistreat their employees if they lose enough of them to completely cripple any deadline targets.
It's okay to walk into a job with certain expectations. It's okay to make those expectations clear. The last time I interviewed for sysadmin work, I demanded that I work for a place that's willing to make the proper investments in infrastructure and create a sufficient policy that I wouldn't have to wake up at 4am more than once every few months to fix things. That a disaster would consist of someone taking high explosives to our colocated servers, and that most other things could wait until I was rested and ready to come in. I demanded humane hours and sane expectations, and I got them.
Say "I didn't like the work hours." It's fine. Just remember, they may ask what you didn't like about them, and any place that won't agree that 80 hour work weeks are excessive isn't a place you'll want to work for anyway.
I notice that you failed to mention weight, screen resolution, and exact size into consideration.
This is a good thing, as I have no idea how you would power a handheld with these requirements for 8 hours using only two AA NiMH cells, so you're clearly accounting for an extra 14 cells strapped to it.
Soy? Why not hemp? No, I don't smoke, never have, but don't see a problem with it.
Cut back on corn production, and stop paying farmers not to farm. Start paying them to grow hemp, and use that for textiles, biodiesel, ethanol, and hydrogen. It'll grow damned near anywhere, gives nitrogen back to the soil, and has tons of uses.
Of course, people still equate hemp with marijuana, so it won't happen. I, for one, welcome our Canadian hemp-biodiesel-producing overlords.
Re:The Mac is better than it was a few years ago
on
Jef Raskin On The Mac
·
· Score: 1
I agree on the shift keys on the Mac. There needs to be more consistency in the symbols used.
On the other hand, my sole experience on the Mac has been on a Powerbook. I've used a mouse, but more often than not, I use the touchpad. It's simply easier to have only one button in this setup, as I rarely have to leave the home row. To right-click, I just hold control while my other hand clicks away. To scroll, I have an extension so that I can hold Fn and use the trackpad.
I'm sure that a desktop would benefit from a scroll mouse, but I'll have to admit that many times, I haven't even missed the additional button, and I use the functions inherent to that button all the time.
I'll happily make my Linux box a 64-bit system. My Sempron 3100+ box, however, is there mainly for gaming under Windows. I save $20, reduce the noise and heat problems, but still get the advantages of the higher IPC and HyperTransport, and I don't pay for functionality which I won't need.
And the best part? If I'm wrong, and games need 64-bit capability in the future, I just grab a then-discounted Socket 754 Athlon64 chip, pop it in, and upgrade to 64-bit Windows.
Space requirements, really. Maybe he didn't want a large desktop cluttering up his home. Also, Shuttle systems tend to come with some fairly intelligent bells and whistles which won't always be available for other desktops. Front panel ports, memory card readers, integrated bluetooth and wifi.
Admittedly, I went up a notch to the Antec Aria case, which is large enough to support 3 cards, but the concept remains the same. You get a lot more room to store things *other* than computers, and you're generally not sacrificing much in the way of usability when it's done right.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference, really, boils down to Open software. Treo 650 owners paid for a Palm device with an SDIO slot. This SDIO slot is sufficient for a WiFi card. However, the WiFi cards don't work, because PalmOne has not released any drivers for it, even though they've released drivers for other Palm devices with similar OS versions, SDIO slots, and a very similar NVRAM filesystem (The T5.)
It's like buying two different laptops from the same vendor, both running Windows XP, both with USB 2.0 ports, but only one of them supports your flashdrive, even though it plugs in and gets power in both systems, and no one's willing to provide you with a driver.
Antec's Aria comes close, but it's not perfect. It's quiet, but not silent, and you need to disable the damnable blue LEDs. It is, however, microATX compatible, so it supports *three* cards at once. I notice that it's on when the TV's not blasting, but with good BIOS control for the fan speed, you may not even notice.
As for that uninspiring riser-based mini-ITX case, it looks like a bland piece of A/V equipment. Figure out how to install a nice VFD, and it might be perfect for the task.
I went with building my own in an Antec Aria case when I wanted something that didn't look like I hacked it all together from chewing gum and sheet metal.
Upsides: Small, hidden optical drive (to prevent seeing a beige faceplate with "52X" printed on it,) front-facing ports, fairly quiet, well-cooled for a toaster-sized PC.
Downsides: Blue LEDs can blind you from 15 miles away. Not a system to leave running in your bedroom overnight. Plastic outer panels, while lightweight, don't have the same feel of sturdiness as a Lian Li aluminum case.
Overall, though? It's the kind of system my *girlfriend* approves of, as it's not a huge chunk of aluminum that sounds like a jet taking off. If the ladies approve, it must be good.
I read the instructions when it's mission-critical, when I'm completely new to it (first time DB install EVER, for example,) or when my brain's fried, and I care more about making it work than tweaking the hell out of the internals.
Or, of course, if I can't figure out how the hell it turns from jet to robot and back.
In all fairness, you're not running a PDA. You're running a heavily souped up PC XT, with the ability to run DOS.
When you throw out all that object-oriented database model crap and just throw everything on top of DOS, you end up with an older PC, with all the old TSR tricks which I'm sure a lot of us still remember pulling off.
Of course, I'm happy with my Palm device, even without context switching, spreadsheets, db software, or the ability to use standard AA/AAA cells. That's because it's also my phone, though. If I didn't want a smartphone, I'd probably end up with a Linux handheld, or a secondhand DOS HP Palmtop.
Cut them off.
While it's arguably okay for them to be social online instead of outdoors, they're not respecting you.
Cut them off. When they stop acting like a couple of petulant children, then they've earned the right to get back online.
Don't restrict them for no reason. Don't cut them off just because you're the parent. Make damned sure that they know that *their* actions have triggered these consequences.
(As a side note, I was raised with next to no supervision on the Internet, and allowed to stay on pretty much as often as I wanted. I also was allowed to stay out as late as I wanted, but that all depended on me staying out of trouble.)
Funny you should mention that. I *do* plan on moving on to an LCD, and will need all the processing power I can get my grubby paws on.
:)
I just figure that if someone's going to spend $300 on the latest and greatest card every two generations, you might as well hook them in for buying a dupe of that card for $100 in 18 months.
And, well, the target market for a $300 card does want all that eyecandy turned on. I know that I can't live without running the highest resolution textures available.
More like, "Hey, the last generation videocard is now obsolete, and no one wants it! How do we fix this next time?"
"I know, let's make it so that if you buy a second one a year later, it'll work WITH the first one!"
No one needs to buy two right off the bat. One is usually more than enough for any modern game. But one for a few hundred now, and the other for less than $100 later? That's a bargain basement upgrade, and one that's far more sensible than getting the new mid-range card now, and the new mid-range card a year from now.
Now, if someone *wants* to buy two top of the line cards today, more power to them. They want the ultra-high-resolution games with all the effects cranked up, and they have the money. It makes their games look nicer, while my games run well enough. We both win, and Nvidia no longer sits on piles of unused chips.
I'd recommend the Targus Deluxe Sport Backpack, if you're looking to carry this load on your back. You'll need a sleeve for the secondary laptop, but I can easily carry my laptop, a pile of wireless gear, assorted cables, and so on in this bag. It's not great on specialized mini compartments, though, so you'll have to augment it with additional carrying cases. I use two small bags, one with my daily essential tech gear (USB cords for my main devices, a few spare NiMH cells, a pocket NiMH charger,) and the other with the less useful gear, like A/V cables, Gameboy carts, and a Bluetooth mouse. The mouse is nice, but I have a working touchpad, so I'll live without it most of the time.
Alternately, how well designed is the laptop? I had a Toshiba which I could swap harddrives on in under a minute. You could try that, although you'd end up carrying a drive in an antistatic bag. You're already carrying 15 pounds of computer, even without wireless cards, AC adapters, mice, etc. You would be much better off with a dual boot system, unless you need to run both OSes at once.
This seems more like a problem of a suboptimal gear loadout than one of a suboptimal packing solution. I don't want to judge your methods, but I am worried about the strain you'll put on your back with a mobile office of that magnitude.
Jack Tycho and John Gabriel, I think. From Tycho's first attempt at drawing a strip, which proved why he does the writing.
*digs around*
Here, from Names at Last!
1) Good luck. Any decent biometric scanners fail if there's no bloodflow through the finger.
2) What if someone hacks the database with your password in it right now?
Biometrics, key cards, or password, they all suck, but in different ways. That's what two factor authentication is for.
Insert keycard, then scan your thumb. I'd still include a password as a third mechanism to update either of the other two as needed, assuming you scar your thumb, or lose your keycard.
Or keep a master keycard and a secondary scan, like an iris scan for that purpose. Suffice it to say, it's fairly complicated to do these things right.
SL-C3000 power consumption: 3.2 Watts. Without 802.11b/g. With an unknown number of hours to back that up, but we'll assume that 7 is correct. That's 22.4 Watt-hours from that one cell.
2200 mA NiMH AA @ 1.25 V: 2.75 Watts. Using a sample of Powerex 2200 mA cells with a tested mAh rating of about 2070
mAh, this brings one cell to about 2.6 Watt-hours. So, to match the 3.7 volts of the SL-C3000's battery pack, you'll need 3 AA's in serial, for a total watt-hour delivery of about 7.8 Watt-hours, giving you a battery life of about 2 hours and 25 minutes.
So, 9 AA cells should just about do the trick. 3 parallel banks of 3 AAs in series, just to match the one fairly small Li-Ion pack.
And again, that's without the 802.11b/g you added to the spec.
I carry NiMH cells all the time. They're what I use in my camera. There's just no way I'm loading that many cells into my PDA, boombox-style, even if I have a 12-cell charger at home.
You are giving the new employer the impression you'll quit if you don't like the conditions.
Well, why shouldn't you? If you don't like the conditions because they cancelled beer on Fridays, or decided that if you wanted to leave by 5pm, you would have to be in by 9am, then yes, you're being unreasonable.
If the crunch time at EA is anything close to what the article mentions, on the other hand, then YES. Give them EVERY impressions that you're going to quit if you don't like the conditions. And get as many people on your side as possible. Maybe these places will learn that they can't mistreat their employees if they lose enough of them to completely cripple any deadline targets.
It's okay to walk into a job with certain expectations. It's okay to make those expectations clear. The last time I interviewed for sysadmin work, I demanded that I work for a place that's willing to make the proper investments in infrastructure and create a sufficient policy that I wouldn't have to wake up at 4am more than once every few months to fix things. That a disaster would consist of someone taking high explosives to our colocated servers, and that most other things could wait until I was rested and ready to come in. I demanded humane hours and sane expectations, and I got them.
Say "I didn't like the work hours." It's fine. Just remember, they may ask what you didn't like about them, and any place that won't agree that 80 hour work weeks are excessive isn't a place you'll want to work for anyway.
I notice that you failed to mention weight, screen resolution, and exact size into consideration.
This is a good thing, as I have no idea how you would power a handheld with these requirements for 8 hours using only two AA NiMH cells, so you're clearly accounting for an extra 14 cells strapped to it.
Wasn't Metroid Prime done by Retro Studios, yet another American company?
Soy? Why not hemp? No, I don't smoke, never have, but don't see a problem with it.
Cut back on corn production, and stop paying farmers not to farm. Start paying them to grow hemp, and use that for textiles, biodiesel, ethanol, and hydrogen. It'll grow damned near anywhere, gives nitrogen back to the soil, and has tons of uses.
Of course, people still equate hemp with marijuana, so it won't happen. I, for one, welcome our Canadian hemp-biodiesel-producing overlords.
... In a row?
I agree on the shift keys on the Mac. There needs to be more consistency in the symbols used.
On the other hand, my sole experience on the Mac has been on a Powerbook. I've used a mouse, but more often than not, I use the touchpad. It's simply easier to have only one button in this setup, as I rarely have to leave the home row. To right-click, I just hold control while my other hand clicks away. To scroll, I have an extension so that I can hold Fn and use the trackpad.
I'm sure that a desktop would benefit from a scroll mouse, but I'll have to admit that many times, I haven't even missed the additional button, and I use the functions inherent to that button all the time.
Yes. Sharks are very much afraid of the water.
/Volume/[iPod Name]/iPod Control/
That is all.
Hrm. I thought Orange beat out Sprint, even.
As for avoiding a provider because they blow, I know how you feel. The whole 650 Bluetooth fiasco has me prepared to ditch Sprint.
I was under the impression that Orange was one of the first carriers in the world to get the Treo 600. Wouldn't that satisfy your UK requirement?
You're absolutely right. If you're running Linux.
I'll happily make my Linux box a 64-bit system. My Sempron 3100+ box, however, is there mainly for gaming under Windows. I save $20, reduce the noise and heat problems, but still get the advantages of the higher IPC and HyperTransport, and I don't pay for functionality which I won't need.
And the best part? If I'm wrong, and games need 64-bit capability in the future, I just grab a then-discounted Socket 754 Athlon64 chip, pop it in, and upgrade to 64-bit Windows.
Space requirements, really. Maybe he didn't want a large desktop cluttering up his home. Also, Shuttle systems tend to come with some fairly intelligent bells and whistles which won't always be available for other desktops. Front panel ports, memory card readers, integrated bluetooth and wifi.
Admittedly, I went up a notch to the Antec Aria case, which is large enough to support 3 cards, but the concept remains the same. You get a lot more room to store things *other* than computers, and you're generally not sacrificing much in the way of usability when it's done right.
How much?
I'm betting that I can build a comparable SFF desktop for less, and that's *with* the portable LCD.