Re:Could someone tell me why it was bad?
on
DIVX is dead
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· Score: 1
Well, suppose you don't have a BlockBuster card, and you pay cash to buy movies. After all, many of them nowadays don't cost more than a few days rental.
If you used DivX, even "buying" movies (aka getting DivX Silver) would still register your purchase with a central database. If new movies were then released only in DivX, you wouldn't have a choice but to sacrifice your privacy in order to view those films.
And, to make matters worse, even "DivX Silver" is hooked to the serial number of your player. So if you bought a new player a couple of years down the road, you'd have to purchase your "silver" disks again.
Finally, with DivX going away, those "silver" discs will cease to function on June 30, 2001. So buying DiviX Silver was a risk (which has now proven to be a bad one).
You know, I think BeOS actually has more interesting applications than Linux. How about GoBe Productive, an office suite that doesn't slavishly imitate Microsoft? I was pretty impressed at how fast and smooth it was. And there's always NetPositive, a browser that may not have all the features we love, but is amazingly fast and smooth. (Guess I see a pattern here).
Now, it's true that there are definitely fewer free applications, but we're talking about tiny companies trying to make a buck or two. GoBe Productive is under $ 100 and has a very nice word processor and spreadsheet (I haven't tried the other modules).
Everything I've tried on BeOS includes an effort to be creative and original, and I love that in a company. Due to hardware compatibility problems, I'm not using the BeOS right now, but I have fond memories of it and don't regret the money I spent to support software companies that dare to Be (ahem) original.
Also, Jean-Louise Gasse answers your email in his charming French way. Gotta love it.
When BeOS gets FireWire support and video editing software, I'm definitely going to give it a try. I'll be frankly relieved if I can give PC users a better video editing solution than "Get a Mac".
The only serious weakness of BeOS is hardware compatibility problems. Hopefully R4.5 will help.
His article reads as though he ingested a bunch of Microsoft press releases without reading anything on the other side. Others have dissected the article far better than I would have, but I do want to add that KDE's KPPP has really done a great job at simplifying PPP configuration. Give it a try.
Based on his writings, Rasterman is an illiterate moron. Based on his design for Enlightenment, he's a creative genius. I think the reason many of us care enough to read and write on this topic is that we recognize this genius, and therefore wish Rasterman well.
I know that people with this kind of genius can be very shy when not around their kind, and I think this explains a lot of what happened. Then things just fester until they suddenly appear as they have here.
I do wonder if some of this is out of a desire to move to the Bay Area, however. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he could have easily fixed up his differences at Red Hat. He didn't like North Carolina, so it was time to go.
Can't say I blame him, although he's likely to find housing prices up there a rude shock:-(.
MiniDV is 9 minutes per 2GB, so it takes even more space. So if you're determined to use up all the space, start by getting a new digital video camera...
Didn't they start doing this before their IPO announcement, though? I seem to remember it started almost immediately after they put up their portal site.
I'm very much afraid that they are scared of negative publicity from the stories - in which case they shouldn't carry Slashdot at all. Anyone who checks out Slashdot in any depth will eventually find the anti-RH viewpoints, so this whole censorship scheme is just plain silly. It makes them look like censors, which is Not a Good Thing.
They're not going to change the APIs because it would ruin their reputation with the developers Be needs to make the OS exciting. Be needs an exciting OS more than it needs Office.
Incidentally, although I'm not writing this on a Be machine, I love GoBe Productive. True, it's not as feature rich as Office, but what it does it does very well.
But they are far less likely to be opened by accident. If I tell someone to FTP something to me, s/he knows I want it and that it will be sent. I'll ignore anything FTPd to me that I don't already know about.
But access to email is much looser. People tend to read attachments without thinking, so they get caught. Personally, I read all my email on a Unix box and never look at attachments unless someone begs me to do so. That makes me invunerable to any similar virus.
Having an extremely rare computing platform definitely makes me feel more secure. Nobody's going to bother with a virus for Irix.:-).
D
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Re:Just nuke the journals? Maybe not. -- follow-up
on
Buffy and Dr. Varnus
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· Score: 1
There is a big difference between the old and new worlds, though. I've met exactly two individuals who owned PDP-11s, and I haven't seen either of them in ages. But I know a lot of people who still have 386s and 5 1/4 inch floppies, even though that technology is "dead" now. Just today, I was fixing a minor Y2k issue in a program I wrote seven years ago that's still going strong. It's still running on a Compaq 386 that has both types of disk.
Now, granted, I would expect real problems reading ancient versions of Word. But HTML documents and JPEG files are going to be around for a long time to come, and today's browsers can still read HTML from the dawn of the web. In fact, they can even read GOPHER documents and FTP sites, which are/really/ the dawn of Internet time!
For as long as Unix and Unix-compatible systems last - and I think that will be a very long time - TeX documents will still be readable. So if you need to typeset math stuff, TeX is going to be pretty good for you. And if my memory serves, it's not difficult to learn their equation formatting system. If and when Unix dies, TeX will no doubt be moved to the new platforms. Remember, even Windows NT is Posix-based.
Word, though - since Microsoft invalidates old versions of the format with each new one, I think it would be a very bad idea to count on Word documents remaining compatible. But the "open" formats like HTML and TeX should have a more or less permanent life. Store them on good quality floppies, and I see hope for an unlimited lifespan, as long as you copy the data to new disks every once in a while.
I don't know of any Linux users who reboot into Windows to use the Windows GUI. They/do/ reboot into Windows to use windows applications, and nowhere in his article did he mention the lack of solid GUI applications as a weakness of Linux. Personally, I think that's the worst problem Linux has.
For many years, it was actually illegal for AT&T to attempt to sell Linux at a profit. That might have something to do with their failure to do so. Even if we skip forward a few years to where AT&T did in fact make the effort, you have to remember that AT&T has always been a big, clumsy bureaucratic company. You can't expect them to be an entrepenurial powerhouse just because they're big; the reverse is most often the case.
I've moved C programs between SunOS, Linux and SGI Irix without incident. If you stay within a fairly simple set of parameters - quite easy in this web-based world - even C programs are very easy to port.
I think the idea that people are going to stop developing for Linux because Red Hat exists is pretty specious. People develop for Linux to solve their own problems, to scratch their own itches, and to help others scratch theirs. I don't see that vanishing from the Linux world any time soon.
D
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Re:Hehe, glad you were only referring to still fil
on
35mm Handbook
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· Score: 1
When I was making 8mm movies, I felt the same way - I thought that no matter how cheap video was, it would never be good enough to meet my quality standards.
But if you want to get creative on a limited budget, I think video's hard to beat. For one thing, it's how people see most movies nowadays, so your end-result quality may be little different. For another thing, let's face it - enough film to shoot, say, a 90 minute movie at an ultra-cheap shooting ratio would cost more than my entire camera + editing outfit (about $ 10k). That really limits your creative options. Better to make something on video than making nothing at all.
Believe me, it would be great if things weren't that way - then I'd probably own an Arriflex. But things aren't, and there we are.:-(
D
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Re:How about all-digital outputs for video and sou
on
Cool PC Cases
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· Score: 1
What you want is the SGI flat-panel screen with the Number Nine video card that you have to buy to use it. I think the whole package is around $ 2,800 at a good discount. Gives you 1600x1200 at a price point lower than the competing Viewsonic screen of a similar size, which comes without a card. Fully digital, no analogue anywhere.
D
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Re:Film Scales Better Than Digital Photography
on
35mm Handbook
·
· Score: 1
Or just get a MiniDV video camera (as I suggested in my other response on this topic). A $ 15.99 MiniDV tape can hold over 100,000 individual still frames, no lie. All in a tiny thing about twice as big as a standard 35mm film cartridge. Use Frame Movie Mode or Progressive Scan (two terms for the same thing) and you'll get gorgeous, perfect stills from any three-chip digital video camcorder.
Re:damn. Thought the stats were better
on
Empeg Shipping
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· Score: 1
Isn't it going to be awfully small for X?
And doesn't a car take a little while to heat up in the winter? It's not an issue for me since I live in Southern California, and 41 degree temperatures are extremely rare, but for those who live in freezing climates, I guess you'd have to get into your car, make sure the unit was off, and then drive without music until the heater warmed up the car. Not too cool.
High-end video as a film alternative
on
35mm Handbook
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· Score: 2
Now, I agree that the 35mm camera is hard to beat when it comes to getting the highest possible quality pictures, but unfortunately getting them into the computer is a pain, and paying for film and developing is an even bigger pain.
About a year ago, I took a look at what was out there in digital cameras, and - like you - didn't think much of what I saw. I didn't need high resolution, since all the pictures I take are bound for the web, but I wanted something with closer to the look and feel of a "real" camera.
In the end, I bought a Canon XL1 MiniDV camcorder. It's a bit heavy to carry around (I put it around my neck like a giant still camera), but it takes fantastic pictures and draws attention like a magnet. It's very similar in operation to the Canon EOS still camera I own, so the learning curve was very gentle. And it has a real lens and camera-like manual controls that are very easy to use compared to the clunky menu systems of most digital and video cameras. It has interchangeable lenses, but the included lens is roughly equivalent to 28-500mm in 35mm context, so you probably won't need the insanely expensive other lenses.
It's a 3CCD camcorder, which means it uses imaging technology more advanced than any plain digital camera I know of.
Needless to say, I recommend it highly. Unfortunately, the $4,000-odd price puts it above the reach of most people; a good alternative is the Sony TRV-900, also a three-chip unit, for about $ 2,300.
A plea to the EMPEG folks
on
Empeg Shipping
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· Score: 2
Surely Rob deserves a unit for his birthday?
I'd say he's given you thousands of dollars worth of free publicity here, and obviously a healthy percentage of the Slashdot community is just salivating for the unit.
According to the web site - I think it's newsletter six, the one before the one advertised here - they did extensive shock testing and the unit being tested still works and is in use now. And that was with caching turned off.
D
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Re:here's the pricelist [/. effect claims another]
on
Empeg Shipping
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· Score: 1
How much music per gigabyte? That is, how many six-odd minute songs could we fit on a 4, 6, 10, 14 and 28 gigabyte disk? I'm sure this is in the FAQ, but since the site's slashdotted, I can't find it:-(.
One important note from the site - the 4-14gb capacity systems can be expanded by adding an additional drive; the 28gb system is two 14gb drives. So if you want to get the ultimate capacity, buy one 14gb system and wait for the larger capacities to come out.
It's a natural monopoly because only one entity can manage the database - there can only be one amazing.com, for instance, therefore there can only be one database, not different ones for each registering entity.
I remember when PCMCIA support was known for being bad, years ago. I remember buying a Xircom CreditCard Ethernet adapter and being heartbroken when I discovered it wouldn't work with Linux.
To show how far things have gone, I needed to get a modem and replace my old 3COM Ethernet adapter, whose cable was starting to get a bit flaky. So I bought a Xircom combo 100mbps Ethernet and 56k modem. I plugged it in, started up my ThinkPad (a Linux only machine), and it worked flawlessly without even asking me any questions or requesting a driver disk.
Linux PCMCIA support absolutely whips Windows'. No question. Incidentally, my understanding is that NT 4 has virtually no PCMCIA support, contrary to their chart (which features Windows 2000).
Incidentally, did they ever get accelerated X to work with the SGI Visual [Virtual? Ha!] Workstation? I'm not sure if I'd say Linux is relaly supported on that machine until that's in place.
Yes, it is. Your protection is better if you submit the work to the copyright office as well, but in legal theory the second you write something it has your copyright.
Royalties are in practice about 10% of the selling price, from what I understand.
So if the book sold for $ 25, you'd get about $ 2.50 a copy. So you'd have to sell about 8,000 copies to get $ 20k. However, bear in mind that if Gnome was successful, your book might remain the definitive reference on the subject for many years. I'm sure the authors of such hoary old classics as 'Managing USENET', 'Sendmail', 'Perl', etc, etc, have pulled down substantial royalty checks over the years.
I'd say that writing a book on gnome is basically a gamble that gnome will eventually take off. Ideology aside, reviews of KDE seem to be significatly more favourable than Gnome. The fact that Rasterman wants to create a total user interface that would no longer incorporate Gnome has some interesting implications in my view. I think he, like many others we've heard from, think Gnome is not the best user interface. To be fair, this could be an Rasterman's rather obvious meglomania(*), but if so, I think he's justified. I've heard too many other negative comments on Gnome the product (as opposed to Gnome the ideology).
If I were looking for a viable project, I'd consider writing a KDE manual. I've been doing some work from home, where I've had to use a modem instead of my normal 10mb Ethernet connection (oh, the horror!), and I was quite impressed by the fine job KPPP did getting me connected on my notebook.
D
(*) Meglomania is not used perjoratively, but descriptively. It takes a meglomaniac to build a city. ----
Slashdot Mirror
Well, suppose you don't have a BlockBuster card, and you pay cash to buy movies. After all, many of them nowadays don't cost more than a few days rental.
If you used DivX, even "buying" movies (aka getting DivX Silver) would still register your purchase with a central database. If new movies were then released only in DivX, you wouldn't have a choice but to sacrifice your privacy in order to view those films.
And, to make matters worse, even "DivX Silver" is hooked to the serial number of your player. So if you bought a new player a couple of years down the road, you'd have to purchase your "silver" disks again.
Finally, with DivX going away, those "silver" discs will cease to function on June 30, 2001. So buying DiviX Silver was a risk (which has now proven to be a bad one).
Hope that helps. A bad idea, implemented poorly.
D
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You know, I think BeOS actually has more interesting applications than Linux. How about GoBe Productive, an office suite that doesn't slavishly imitate Microsoft? I was pretty impressed at how fast and smooth it was. And there's always NetPositive, a browser that may not have all the features we love, but is amazingly fast and smooth. (Guess I see a pattern here).
Now, it's true that there are definitely fewer free applications, but we're talking about tiny companies trying to make a buck or two. GoBe Productive is under $ 100 and has a very nice word processor and spreadsheet (I haven't tried the other modules).
Everything I've tried on BeOS includes an effort to be creative and original, and I love that in a company. Due to hardware compatibility problems, I'm not using the BeOS right now, but I have fond memories of it and don't regret the money I spent to support software companies that dare to Be (ahem) original.
Also, Jean-Louise Gasse answers your email in his charming French way. Gotta love it.
When BeOS gets FireWire support and video editing software, I'm definitely going to give it a try. I'll be frankly relieved if I can give PC users a better video editing solution than "Get a Mac".
The only serious weakness of BeOS is hardware compatibility problems. Hopefully R4.5 will help.
D
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His article reads as though he ingested a bunch of Microsoft press releases without reading anything on the other side. Others have dissected the article far better than I would have, but I do want to add that KDE's KPPP has really done a great job at simplifying PPP configuration. Give it a try.
D
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Based on his writings, Rasterman is an illiterate moron. Based on his design for Enlightenment, he's a creative genius. I think the reason many of us care enough to read and write on this topic is that we recognize this genius, and therefore wish Rasterman well.
:-(.
I know that people with this kind of genius can be very shy when not around their kind, and I think this explains a lot of what happened. Then things just fester until they suddenly appear as they have here.
I do wonder if some of this is out of a desire to move to the Bay Area, however. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he could have easily fixed up his differences at Red Hat. He didn't like North Carolina, so it was time to go.
Can't say I blame him, although he's likely to find housing prices up there a rude shock
D
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MiniDV is 9 minutes per 2GB, so it takes even more space. So if you're determined to use up all the space, start by getting a new digital video camera ...
D
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Didn't they start doing this before their IPO announcement, though? I seem to remember it started almost immediately after they put up their portal site.
I'm very much afraid that they are scared of negative publicity from the stories - in which case they shouldn't carry Slashdot at all. Anyone who checks out Slashdot in any depth will eventually find the anti-RH viewpoints, so this whole censorship scheme is just plain silly. It makes them look like censors, which is Not a Good Thing.
D
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They're not going to change the APIs because it would ruin their reputation with the developers Be needs to make the OS exciting. Be needs an exciting OS more than it needs Office.
Incidentally, although I'm not writing this on a Be machine, I love GoBe Productive. True, it's not as feature rich as Office, but what it does it does very well.
D
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They aren't.
:-).
But they are far less likely to be opened by accident. If I tell someone to FTP something to me, s/he knows I want it and that it will be sent. I'll ignore anything FTPd to me that I don't already know about.
But access to email is much looser. People tend to read attachments without thinking, so they get caught. Personally, I read all my email on a Unix box and never look at attachments unless someone begs me to do so. That makes me invunerable to any similar virus.
Having an extremely rare computing platform definitely makes me feel more secure. Nobody's going to bother with a virus for Irix.
D
----
There is a big difference between the old and new worlds, though. I've met exactly two individuals who owned PDP-11s, and I haven't seen either of them in ages. But I know a lot of people who still have 386s and 5 1/4 inch floppies, even though that technology is "dead" now. Just today, I was fixing a minor Y2k issue in a program I wrote seven years ago that's still going strong. It's still running on a Compaq 386 that has both types of disk.
/really/ the dawn of Internet time!
Now, granted, I would expect real problems reading ancient versions of Word. But HTML documents and JPEG files are going to be around for a long time to come, and today's browsers can still read HTML from the dawn of the web. In fact, they can even read GOPHER documents and FTP sites, which are
For as long as Unix and Unix-compatible systems last - and I think that will be a very long time - TeX documents will still be readable. So if you need to typeset math stuff, TeX is going to be pretty good for you. And if my memory serves, it's not difficult to learn their equation formatting system. If and when Unix dies, TeX will no doubt be moved to the new platforms. Remember, even Windows NT is Posix-based.
Word, though - since Microsoft invalidates old versions of the format with each new one, I think it would be a very bad idea to count on Word documents remaining compatible. But the "open" formats like HTML and TeX should have a more or less permanent life. Store them on good quality floppies, and I see hope for an unlimited lifespan, as long as you copy the data to new disks every once in a while.
D
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I don't know of any Linux users who reboot into Windows to use the Windows GUI. They /do/ reboot into Windows to use windows applications, and nowhere in his article did he mention the lack of solid GUI applications as a weakness of Linux. Personally, I think that's the worst problem Linux has.
For many years, it was actually illegal for AT&T to attempt to sell Linux at a profit. That might have something to do with their failure to do so. Even if we skip forward a few years to where AT&T did in fact make the effort, you have to remember that AT&T has always been a big, clumsy bureaucratic company. You can't expect them to be an entrepenurial powerhouse just because they're big; the reverse is most often the case.
I've moved C programs between SunOS, Linux and SGI Irix without incident. If you stay within a fairly simple set of parameters - quite easy in this web-based world - even C programs are very easy to port.
I think the idea that people are going to stop developing for Linux because Red Hat exists is pretty specious. People develop for Linux to solve their own problems, to scratch their own itches, and to help others scratch theirs. I don't see that vanishing from the Linux world any time soon.
D
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When I was making 8mm movies, I felt the same way - I thought that no matter how cheap video was, it would never be good enough to meet my quality standards.
:-(
But if you want to get creative on a limited budget, I think video's hard to beat. For one thing, it's how people see most movies nowadays, so your end-result quality may be little different. For another thing, let's face it - enough film to shoot, say, a 90 minute movie at an ultra-cheap shooting ratio would cost more than my entire camera + editing outfit (about $ 10k). That really limits your creative options. Better to make something on video than making nothing at all.
Believe me, it would be great if things weren't that way - then I'd probably own an Arriflex. But things aren't, and there we are.
D
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What you want is the SGI flat-panel screen with the Number Nine video card that you have to buy to use it. I think the whole package is around $ 2,800 at a good discount. Gives you 1600x1200 at a price point lower than the competing Viewsonic screen of a similar size, which comes without a card. Fully digital, no analogue anywhere.
D
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Or just get a MiniDV video camera (as I suggested in my other response on this topic). A $ 15.99 MiniDV tape can hold over 100,000 individual still frames, no lie. All in a tiny thing about twice as big as a standard 35mm film cartridge. Use Frame Movie Mode or Progressive Scan (two terms for the same thing) and you'll get gorgeous, perfect stills from any three-chip digital video camcorder.
D
DV FAQ
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Isn't it going to be awfully small for X?
And doesn't a car take a little while to heat up in the winter? It's not an issue for me since I live in Southern California, and 41 degree temperatures are extremely rare, but for those who live in freezing climates, I guess you'd have to get into your car, make sure the unit was off, and then drive without music until the heater warmed up the car. Not too cool.
D
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Oops ... Hemos it is.
Sorry about that.
D
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Now, I agree that the 35mm camera is hard to beat when it comes to getting the highest possible quality pictures, but unfortunately getting them into the computer is a pain, and paying for film and developing is an even bigger pain.
About a year ago, I took a look at what was out there in digital cameras, and - like you - didn't think much of what I saw. I didn't need high resolution, since all the pictures I take are bound for the web, but I wanted something with closer to the look and feel of a "real" camera.
In the end, I bought a Canon XL1 MiniDV camcorder. It's a bit heavy to carry around (I put it around my neck like a giant still camera), but it takes fantastic pictures and draws attention like a magnet. It's very similar in operation to the Canon EOS still camera I own, so the learning curve was very gentle. And it has a real lens and camera-like manual controls that are very easy to use compared to the clunky menu systems of most digital and video cameras. It has interchangeable lenses, but the included lens is roughly equivalent to 28-500mm in 35mm context, so you probably won't need the insanely expensive other lenses.
It's a 3CCD camcorder, which means it uses imaging technology more advanced than any plain digital camera I know of.
Needless to say, I recommend it highly. Unfortunately, the $4,000-odd price puts it above the reach of most people; a good alternative is the Sony TRV-900, also a three-chip unit, for about $ 2,300.
For more information, check out my DV FAQ or take a look at some XL1 pictures I took
D
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Surely Rob deserves a unit for his birthday?
:-)
I'd say he's given you thousands of dollars worth of free publicity here, and obviously a healthy percentage of the Slashdot community is just salivating for the unit.
Don't be cheap. Give him one.
D
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According to the web site - I think it's newsletter six, the one before the one advertised here - they did extensive shock testing and the unit being tested still works and is in use now. And that was with caching turned off.
D
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How much music per gigabyte? That is, how many six-odd minute songs could we fit on a 4, 6, 10, 14 and 28 gigabyte disk? I'm sure this is in the FAQ, but since the site's slashdotted, I can't find it :-(.
One important note from the site - the 4-14gb capacity systems can be expanded by adding an additional drive; the 28gb system is two 14gb drives. So if you want to get the ultimate capacity, buy one 14gb system and wait for the larger capacities to come out.
D
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It's a natural monopoly because only one entity can manage the database - there can only be one amazing.com, for instance, therefore there can only be one database, not different ones for each registering entity.
D
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I remember when PCMCIA support was known for being bad, years ago. I remember buying a Xircom CreditCard Ethernet adapter and being heartbroken when I discovered it wouldn't work with Linux.
To show how far things have gone, I needed to get a modem and replace my old 3COM Ethernet adapter, whose cable was starting to get a bit flaky. So I bought a Xircom combo 100mbps Ethernet and 56k modem. I plugged it in, started up my ThinkPad (a Linux only machine), and it worked flawlessly without even asking me any questions or requesting a driver disk.
Linux PCMCIA support absolutely whips Windows'. No question. Incidentally, my understanding is that NT 4 has virtually no PCMCIA support, contrary to their chart (which features Windows 2000).
Incidentally, did they ever get accelerated X to work with the SGI Visual [Virtual? Ha!] Workstation? I'm not sure if I'd say Linux is relaly supported on that machine until that's in place.
D
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Yes, it is. Your protection is better if you submit the work to the copyright office as well, but in legal theory the second you write something it has your copyright.
D
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I mean, isn't the whole point basically the database, and isn't that a natural monopoly?
/is/ their business.
I thought most people were faulting NSI's database administration more than any other part of their business - mainly because that
So what's the point of having "competition" when the only value added a competitor can bring to the table is friendlier web forms?
D
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Try xemacs. It's the hipper, non-monochrome, JWZ-version. Syntax highlighting with colours works great for me.
D
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Royalties are in practice about 10% of the selling price, from what I understand.
So if the book sold for $ 25, you'd get about $ 2.50 a copy. So you'd have to sell about 8,000 copies to get $ 20k. However, bear in mind that if Gnome was successful, your book might remain the definitive reference on the subject for many years. I'm sure the authors of such hoary old classics as 'Managing USENET', 'Sendmail', 'Perl', etc, etc, have pulled down substantial royalty checks over the years.
I'd say that writing a book on gnome is basically a gamble that gnome will eventually take off. Ideology aside, reviews of KDE seem to be significatly more favourable than Gnome. The fact that Rasterman wants to create a total user interface that would no longer incorporate Gnome has some interesting implications in my view. I think he, like many others we've heard from, think Gnome is not the best user interface. To be fair, this could be an Rasterman's rather obvious meglomania(*), but if so, I think he's justified. I've heard too many other negative comments on Gnome the product (as opposed to Gnome the ideology).
If I were looking for a viable project, I'd consider writing a KDE manual. I've been doing some work from home, where I've had to use a modem instead of my normal 10mb Ethernet connection (oh, the horror!), and I was quite impressed by the fine job KPPP did getting me connected on my notebook.
D
(*) Meglomania is not used perjoratively, but descriptively. It takes a meglomaniac to build a city.
----