Likely to ensure that any developers living under a rock do find out about it, and get their hands on the technology they need to fully ensure that their Mac application runs on new machines day 1. Apple is very concerned with third party application compatibility on the new platform, as they know many of the Mac users depend on not only Apple solutions, but those also from Microsoft (Office), Adobe (Photoshop) and many others.
(and, presumably, the ancient creaky ought-to-be-obsolete DOS partitioning format).
No actually. It uses GUID Partition Table (GPT). http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/GPT_F AQ.mspx is a good link to what GPT is, and also how different versions of Windows supports GPT today. If Apple goes with EFI (strongly hinted at by Apple devs) and GPT, Windows XP 32 will not boot off this solution, however, 64 bit versions will. Given that most of Intels chips will be 64 bit by the time Apple ships consumer products, it looks like this should be fine.
Dual booting doesn't interest me though, as it's a bunch of wasted time. Instead, I'm more interested in an OS X Apple Intel box that can run DarWine.
I just installed SSHBlack.pl the other day on my server to deal with this. It is at http://www.pettingers.org/code/sshblack.html . What it does is monitor/var/log/secure or whatever file has the failed attempts. If it sees 5 failed attempts in a recent time from an IP, it by default adds a new iptables rule fo X amount of days. It also has some protection to prevent a DOS issue from two many IPs being added.
For me, since I run shorewall, I changed one line to run shorewall drop instead of adding its own iptables rules.
Did you look at numbers for games released in the US, or games released in Japan? By my understanding, the big reason the DS is keeping ahead of the PSP by a noticible lead in Japan is that the initial hype carried the DS long enough, until software like Nintendogs came out. The US still hasn't seen this title yet, but it is being described as a major system seller.
Honestly owning both the DS and the PSP, I'm rather disappointed in both. They both launched with a bang, and neither have done anything since then. Every game title I considered for either came out within two weeks of the system release.The same applies to my friend stwo who own one or both. Neither have any new games.
If I had mod points, the marketing post above would have points added.
Anyhow, I have to agree. By pushing not only a big new release, but also a date around this release, you build up a lot of anticipation. By doing this, the marketing people can ensure all the hardcore fans are all lined up at once, buy the book right away, and start blathering to friends about how they should read it soon. The previous big date and single release time will more then likely generate news coverage, and the person being recommended to the book might consider it more, as they remember the hype and figure it must be worth a look. Without the single release date, that person only has his friend recommending it, and no hype from the press.
The fans of the book seem to be very rabid at times. Considering in the past it was a big story when a truck got stolen containing a shipment of the last book.
This type of tatic works well for Apple as well. I'm sure they have sold a fair number of copies of OS X to existing users at the release parties not only getting the new release, but seeing demos of what is new. They then spread this to friends, and so more people consider buying it. Without a single release date, it would be less likely that someone would attend these release events at a local Apple dealer, as their big chain store down the road was likely to have a copy sooner, but with no hype around the release.
There's always the possibility of coding up your own portal page too. And RSS does much of what you're asking for here too.
Ahh, the good old "code it yourself" answer. Howabout I don't and just keep using the widgets.
Even better, lets use the parents/grandparents example. Is it easier to show them F12 to get a widget for a phonebook, or get them to learn HTML/CSS/Javascript so they can code their own portal with the forecast, phonebook lookup and such?
Lastly, Widgets do more then act as something a web portal can do. Since they have access to local data, they can be quicker then opening the local application. For example, the address book widget. Or the stickies that I prefer to not have on screen all the time, just hwen I poke my head into dashboard a few times a day.
To me though the best part of Dashboard, and to some extent Sherlock 3 is the lack of ads. That, and the layout stays consisstent. In a year from now, when I go to look up a local pizza place in Dahsboard, the interface will be the same. USWestDex.com, sorry, I mean QwestDex, nono, now it is DexOnline.com hasn't remained consistant for 12 months.
Video out on the PSP would look hideous on a big screen. 480x272 is the resolution of the screen, while DVDs are 720x480. DVDs are already noticibially lower quality then true HD content on a 1280x720(720p) or 1920x1080(1080i/p) display.
Universal means it can hold music, or video, or game data according to Sony. It could be an odd translation issue, but it does lead to some highly ironic things.
At least Best Buy is somewhat smart. UMD movies on their shelves were priced at $30 initially. They just recently dropped them to $20. I still won't buy one, and will instead cheer on the firmware hackers and hope one of them enables 480x272 and H.264 off the memory stick. Right now the memory stick is limited to 320x240 and Mpeg4. This is why UMD media looks so much better on a PSP, all due to a firmware limitation and no technical reason.
Ahh, another sucker of up front prices verses Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Nearly every Proliant these days ships standard with an integrated managment board that lets you get into the system no matter if the OS is up and running fine, or if the box is powered down. That alone saves money since if something does go wrong, you could in theory VPN into work and check it, instead of driving across town to press F1 to a RAID failure prompt on boot.
A local shop I help support is getting rid of all their IBM and Dell x86 servers in favor of the Proliants for reasons like this. The recent raid explosion on a Dell box didn't help that, with it having a RAID controller barley better then the cheep ATA RAID integrated on most mainboards these days. That, and their IBM servers failing at least one power supply a week hasn't helped their confidence in IBM x86 servers.
In the end, TCO is what matters, not up front cost. Sure, you might have saved $300-$600 on that server over another unit. But how much is your company paying you to drive in after hours to fix some problem that could crop up?
Yes I know Dell has some remote managment these days, but it still trails what HP is doing. 3 years ago you could pull a Proliant out of the box, take the included toe tag to your desk, and power the box on with only power and network attached. Using only a web browser, you could load the OS and get it fully functional, including using the CD-Rom and floppy in your local workstation, or pushing an image to it.
I'm betting with as late in development the Playstation 3 was, Sony wasn't willing to budge.
For me, while I like that Blu-Ray holds more, I think HD-DVD is the way to go. DVD is still in the name because it is an evolution of existing DVDs, and many components on both the manufacturing and player side just need to be retooled slightly to support the new format. Kinda like jumping from 720k to 1.44 MB 3.5 inch floppies.
Since the switchover to the next format won't be instant, it makes sense to go with the format that allows the manufacturers continue to crank out DVDs and newer HD discs on the same line.
I'm just dreading a format war after the products hit the market here in the US. Odds are, I'll end up plopping down cash on a multi laser product to play either, and one will wither and die a year or two later.
With what? Developers now have access to what they need to release applications for products a year or more away. Apple rarley comments on future products, and this is no exception.
Comparable speed? Hard to say when the chips Apple is likely to use aren't in existance yet. WWDC 2002 didn't have a G5 2.0 system being benchmarked against a G4 1.42. Only once WWDC 2003 came around and the G5s were nearly ready to ship did they comment on speed.
Doing more then what? By what people can tell, most of the dispute is because the Safari/WebCore and the Konquer people are doing different things with the code and also use different source managment systems. Apple uses one that most of the OS X devs use. And that is completly different then the one the KDE folks use.
Thus far, most of the complaints has been "Apple isn't doing it our way." Apple shot back with "Use WebCore, we will even show you how and assist on making it multiplatform", but that got shot down by the K folks. The issue isn't just with one side, it's with both using their normal work flows and expecting the other side to change everything.
Apple doesn't ship Konquer in their OS and has no plans to. KDE has no plans to use WebCore. So diversity issues are going to happen, and either side can just live with it, or do something about it. But it seems the KDE folks would just rather sit and whine about how Apple isn't doing things their way.
Maybe I missed it, but if you can point out to me where in the GPL it says you must bend over backwards to make a group of people happy, I'll conclude Apple is doing something wrong. Until then, I'll file this under the "people are never happy" section, and be one of the few to appreciate what Apple is doing to help OSS, and to promote the adoption of Unix in many areas. Sure, it's not the Linux way of things, but Apple is doing a hell of a lot better then say Sun with Solaris or HP with Tru64/HPUX to push the Unix platform across all spaces.
The G4 stuff was what I expected it to be. And it's the same reason I normally skip the channel. They spend too much time cracking stupid jokes, or insulting their audience. Back before the G4/TechTV mess, I'd only watch shows on TechTV for gaming news. I was a bit disappointed when the game show changed into XPlay with a G4ish additude, but back then it was still better then G4 shows.
The interviews they got with some people were nice, but still not as good as I would hope.
Oh well, at least we have plenty of other methods to fill ourselves in about E3. I'm still trying to catch up, since attending the show is a sure fire way to make sure you miss a ton of it.
Most PC widescreen monitors are not 16:9, but instead 16:10. The Powerbook 17 inch falls under the 16:10 ratio, as do the Dell and Apple widescreen LCDs people lust over.
The Powerbook 15 inch is odd though at 3:2, or 15:10. Most PC laptops I've seen with a "15 inch widescreen" are the normal 16:10.
And honestly, the $200 rebate is an insult. Voom has been touting the eventual move to MPEG4 for a while, so many of the owners know about it. All the equipment Voom shipped was customer upgradable. While we had no clue when it might happen, we knew equipment wise we wern't screwed.
DirecTV on the other hand hints at MPEG4 one day, but no info on what they plan to do with the equipment. Considering the Voom customers will be looking at the HD stuff, they will be the first ones interested in the migration. For me, it's just stupid to buy equipment I know won't work to see more then the pitiful selection of existing HD channels they have.
The $200 rebate is a nice, but pitiful offer. At least it expires June 30th, so hopefully by then DirecTV might be more talkative.
It was funny too, my Voom installer (who also does DirecTV) called to tell me about it. I was the third person that day who asked about MPEG4.
What else does a level 60 person have to do? Well for starters, they could shelve the character and make another one, since the game does offer variety. Or, they could play other games and wait for battlegrounds.
Sorry, that all sounds logical. I still don't see why people get so much joy out of "ganking" lower level characters in a game. It shows no skill at all.
In Shadowbane, we did use the strategy of trying to attack the enemy no matter what level simply to introduce a resource drain. The more gold they had to spend on repairs meant less gold spent on city defense, or siege weapons. But Shadowbane was a player controlled world where actions like that actually changed things. In WoW, killing lower players simply irritates them. From there, they either grow in levels and do the same thing "for revenge" or quit the server and go elsewhere.
Mourning Realms of Krel (used to be Realms of Torment) is planning on having permadeath. You also have the possibility of having kids and passing traits onto them before death, then being able to play the kid when your character dies. One of the possible death paths is growing old, based on actual play time.
Now, an interesting twist on permadeath is that in certain situations, you can become infamous enough to be executed. Their hope behind this is to have an honor system of sorts in PvP, and if you are dishonorable, in the end your character will die forever. Hard to say how it will work in practice, but it does seem like an interesting theory. If I could somehow get some level 60 twit that much closer to losing his character in WoW for corpse camping my level 25 guy, I'd be happy.
You were definitly cautious at times in Steel Battalion. But, due to the emergancy eject, you could still take risks and survive, as long as you had enough cash for another mech. Run out of cash, and you did have to end your career.
The most annoyning permadeath for me in that came came on a midrange mission. I was fignting in a canyon, came so close to finishing the mission, and got hit hard in the front of the mech. It fell onto its back, got hit again and blew up. Hitting the eject failed, because it ejected you out the back, not the top. So since my mechs back was on the ground I died, and had to climb up the missions again.
Quakecon is in Texas because id is in Texas. They pay for it, why should they move it away from their home city?
E3, well, it's trade only, and much of the industry in the US is on the west coast. It was in Atlanta GA for a few years though.
CPL, not sure why they pick Texas.
There are probably smaller LANs in your area though. Everlan is a big one here in Southern Colorado attracting 300-500 people. If you want to have one on the East Coast, start organizing it. Most LAN parties just started by someone one year, and grew into the huge events they are now.
And for big LANs, a central location does make sense for drive times, since people are likely to drive to it, instead of flying.
Basic and simple answer, USB adds complexity. If the phone had only a USB plug, it would have to be a USB host to be able to allow things like corded headsets and such to attach. Then the headsets would have to be more complex, going from somethign that just passes analog data over the right pins on the connector to a full digital headset.
Power wise, USB really can't do more then 500mA of power at 5V. This is fine for cell phones like my T610 that get 450mA from the official charger at 4.7V. But for devices like the PSP, it would mean 4 times as long to charge, as the PSP power adaptor pushes out 2A or power at 5V.
This guy seems to think WoW is doomed because it is not "epic" enough.
A MMORPG cannot just be a game: When you start charging a subscription, you're promising it to be more than that. It has to genuinely interest players in investing time in it for meaningfully compelling reasons. World of Warcraft is far too trivialized, it's evident in the quick grind, the artificial world, and the punch-out trade skill system. World of Warcraft, in matching casual friendly (even console-game like) design expectations, is simply not built to last as a top 5 MMORPG.
In other words, he believes that due to the fact that WoW is simple and easy to pick up, and doesn't have tedious things like trade skills of old EQ, this will somehow drive people away. How someone can think a grind in a game is a good thing is beyond me. EQ1 subscription numbers are now dropping quickly, even with a new "epic" expansion filled with yet more content accessable to uber guilds only. I would dare say the players in EQ1 in the last year were simply their due to the social experience with their uber guilds, as much better games have since come out.
I see WoWs success in another way. The game is simple, easy to learn and thus people are enjoying themselves. Friends are having a much easier time convincing someone to play WoW over other games. There isn't any talk about the problems of old EQ1 when WoW comes up, like the 15-30 minutes of downtime EQ1 used to have to regenerate health. Since WoW is so easy to get into, people are more tempted to run a character to 60, then try a completly different race. The diversity in the game is quite nice.
Only time will tell though. So far, it seems the server issues haven't scared off a noticible amount of people. And for many, the server issues are their only complaint with the game.
In the private sector, yes certifications matter. They see them as a way of judging someones skills if their resume lacks the needed education or experience. I personally am working on having a good OS certification, SAN certifications, and hardware certifications to hopefully skip the bottom rung of the IT ladder if I move jobs, since I am not at the bottom at my current one.
It all depends on the certification and company though. One military contractor place I am looking at also has a high amount of network positions. Nearly all mandate some type of Cisco certification.
I just took the RCHE two weeks ago (and passed with a high score). The current RCHE exam is on RHEL3. Basicially the test goes as follows:
First part is 2.5 hours. You have that much time in front of a box to fix 10 problems. 5 of them are mandatory to fix. They cover many things, and when I took this part, I had no need to really ever use RedHat specific tools.
Second part is 3 hours, and is a network install and configuration of RHEL3. Here you need to know about the installer (duh), and package managment, but that pretty much ends the Red Hat specific part once again. If you admin Linux, and sit down for a few hours with RHEL 3 and the checklist. and you can pass it.
Honestly, it is one of the better certificaiton exams I have taken, due to it being practical. If they throw you a mail server setup situation, you can use your choice of server if it is in RedHat. You have to be aware of security, but they don't demand a specific method. The end result is you pass if you get the job done, it doesn't matter how.
Now, RCHE is a good first step, however as someone said, it isn't specificially a certificate to prove someone can hand full data center control to you. And let me explain:
RCHT: This is their lowest certification. It means "Hi, I can install Linux and configure some things, but not really do much on the network side". The test for this is embedded in the RCHE test now. Basicially if you don't pass the RCHE, you may still walk away with an RCHT
RCHE: This is the median certification. It means "Hi, I can install Linux, and get basic networking services up and secure. I can also integrate the box into the directory if it is simple".
RCHA: This is the highest level one Red Hat takes, and I would advise to get RCHE first. It is "Hi, I can install Linux, configure network services, design the directory services, secure and tune the box, and expand the box when the time comes. I can layout plans for an entire data center."
Or in Red Hat's words:
RHCEs provide the technical leadership for managing Linux servers and network services, as well as escalation of issues from the larger group of RHCTs. A smaller number of RHCAs provide leadership for technical planning, design and integration of an organization's worldwide open source architecture.
All it means for me is a longer wait. I've already been getting tired of buying games at $50 and watching the publisher suck up most of that money. Usually I only buy games at $40 or less. I have such a backlog of games anyhow that by the time I can play something new, it is already $20-$30.
The third option is, of course, buy a Mac laptop. Unfortunately, these are much more attractive (look sweeter, are known to be more expensive) and therefore more vulnerable to theft. On the other hand, they are reliable enough that a backup drive shouldn't be needed all that often.
The OS is more reliable then Windows, however the hardware can still fail. They use standard disks, standard memory, and a system board with electronics the same as other companies. My Powerbook is in the shop currently due to a weird disk corruption issue that looks to be due to bad memory.
On the plus side, all Mac laptops have 6 pin powered firewire ports, for a 100gb backup option using a 2.5 inch disk that the Mac will also happially boot from.
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Question is, why are they having to do this?
Likely to ensure that any developers living under a rock do find out about it, and get their hands on the technology they need to fully ensure that their Mac application runs on new machines day 1. Apple is very concerned with third party application compatibility on the new platform, as they know many of the Mac users depend on not only Apple solutions, but those also from Microsoft (Office), Adobe (Photoshop) and many others.
(and, presumably, the ancient creaky ought-to-be-obsolete DOS partitioning format).
F AQ.mspx is a good link to what GPT is, and also how different versions of Windows supports GPT today. If Apple goes with EFI (strongly hinted at by Apple devs) and GPT, Windows XP 32 will not boot off this solution, however, 64 bit versions will. Given that most of Intels chips will be 64 bit by the time Apple ships consumer products, it looks like this should be fine.
No actually. It uses GUID Partition Table (GPT). http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/GPT_
Dual booting doesn't interest me though, as it's a bunch of wasted time. Instead, I'm more interested in an OS X Apple Intel box that can run DarWine.
I just installed SSHBlack.pl the other day on my server to deal with this. It is at http://www.pettingers.org/code/sshblack.html . What it does is monitor /var/log/secure or whatever file has the failed attempts. If it sees 5 failed attempts in a recent time from an IP, it by default adds a new iptables rule fo X amount of days. It also has some protection to prevent a DOS issue from two many IPs being added.
For me, since I run shorewall, I changed one line to run shorewall drop instead of adding its own iptables rules.
In 2 days I now have 3 IPs blocked.
Did you look at numbers for games released in the US, or games released in Japan? By my understanding, the big reason the DS is keeping ahead of the PSP by a noticible lead in Japan is that the initial hype carried the DS long enough, until software like Nintendogs came out. The US still hasn't seen this title yet, but it is being described as a major system seller.
Honestly owning both the DS and the PSP, I'm rather disappointed in both. They both launched with a bang, and neither have done anything since then. Every game title I considered for either came out within two weeks of the system release.The same applies to my friend stwo who own one or both. Neither have any new games.
If I had mod points, the marketing post above would have points added.
Anyhow, I have to agree. By pushing not only a big new release, but also a date around this release, you build up a lot of anticipation. By doing this, the marketing people can ensure all the hardcore fans are all lined up at once, buy the book right away, and start blathering to friends about how they should read it soon. The previous big date and single release time will more then likely generate news coverage, and the person being recommended to the book might consider it more, as they remember the hype and figure it must be worth a look. Without the single release date, that person only has his friend recommending it, and no hype from the press.
The fans of the book seem to be very rabid at times. Considering in the past it was a big story when a truck got stolen containing a shipment of the last book.
This type of tatic works well for Apple as well. I'm sure they have sold a fair number of copies of OS X to existing users at the release parties not only getting the new release, but seeing demos of what is new. They then spread this to friends, and so more people consider buying it. Without a single release date, it would be less likely that someone would attend these release events at a local Apple dealer, as their big chain store down the road was likely to have a copy sooner, but with no hype around the release.
There's always the possibility of coding up your own portal page too. And RSS does much of what you're asking for here too.
Ahh, the good old "code it yourself" answer. Howabout I don't and just keep using the widgets.
Even better, lets use the parents/grandparents example. Is it easier to show them F12 to get a widget for a phonebook, or get them to learn HTML/CSS/Javascript so they can code their own portal with the forecast, phonebook lookup and such?
Lastly, Widgets do more then act as something a web portal can do. Since they have access to local data, they can be quicker then opening the local application. For example, the address book widget. Or the stickies that I prefer to not have on screen all the time, just hwen I poke my head into dashboard a few times a day.
To me though the best part of Dashboard, and to some extent Sherlock 3 is the lack of ads. That, and the layout stays consisstent. In a year from now, when I go to look up a local pizza place in Dahsboard, the interface will be the same. USWestDex.com, sorry, I mean QwestDex, nono, now it is DexOnline.com hasn't remained consistant for 12 months.
Video out on the PSP would look hideous on a big screen. 480x272 is the resolution of the screen, while DVDs are 720x480. DVDs are already noticibially lower quality then true HD content on a 1280x720(720p) or 1920x1080(1080i/p) display.
Universal means it can hold music, or video, or game data according to Sony. It could be an odd translation issue, but it does lead to some highly ironic things.
At least Best Buy is somewhat smart. UMD movies on their shelves were priced at $30 initially. They just recently dropped them to $20. I still won't buy one, and will instead cheer on the firmware hackers and hope one of them enables 480x272 and H.264 off the memory stick. Right now the memory stick is limited to 320x240 and Mpeg4. This is why UMD media looks so much better on a PSP, all due to a firmware limitation and no technical reason.
Ahh, another sucker of up front prices verses Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Nearly every Proliant these days ships standard with an integrated managment board that lets you get into the system no matter if the OS is up and running fine, or if the box is powered down. That alone saves money since if something does go wrong, you could in theory VPN into work and check it, instead of driving across town to press F1 to a RAID failure prompt on boot.
A local shop I help support is getting rid of all their IBM and Dell x86 servers in favor of the Proliants for reasons like this. The recent raid explosion on a Dell box didn't help that, with it having a RAID controller barley better then the cheep ATA RAID integrated on most mainboards these days. That, and their IBM servers failing at least one power supply a week hasn't helped their confidence in IBM x86 servers.
In the end, TCO is what matters, not up front cost. Sure, you might have saved $300-$600 on that server over another unit. But how much is your company paying you to drive in after hours to fix some problem that could crop up?
Yes I know Dell has some remote managment these days, but it still trails what HP is doing. 3 years ago you could pull a Proliant out of the box, take the included toe tag to your desk, and power the box on with only power and network attached. Using only a web browser, you could load the OS and get it fully functional, including using the CD-Rom and floppy in your local workstation, or pushing an image to it.
I'm betting with as late in development the Playstation 3 was, Sony wasn't willing to budge.
For me, while I like that Blu-Ray holds more, I think HD-DVD is the way to go. DVD is still in the name because it is an evolution of existing DVDs, and many components on both the manufacturing and player side just need to be retooled slightly to support the new format. Kinda like jumping from 720k to 1.44 MB 3.5 inch floppies.
Since the switchover to the next format won't be instant, it makes sense to go with the format that allows the manufacturers continue to crank out DVDs and newer HD discs on the same line.
I'm just dreading a format war after the products hit the market here in the US. Odds are, I'll end up plopping down cash on a multi laser product to play either, and one will wither and die a year or two later.
"Steve should have been more forthcoming."
With what? Developers now have access to what they need to release applications for products a year or more away. Apple rarley comments on future products, and this is no exception.
Comparable speed? Hard to say when the chips Apple is likely to use aren't in existance yet. WWDC 2002 didn't have a G5 2.0 system being benchmarked against a G4 1.42. Only once WWDC 2003 came around and the G5s were nearly ready to ship did they comment on speed.
shouldn't Apple be doing more?
Doing more then what? By what people can tell, most of the dispute is because the Safari/WebCore and the Konquer people are doing different things with the code and also use different source managment systems. Apple uses one that most of the OS X devs use. And that is completly different then the one the KDE folks use.
Thus far, most of the complaints has been "Apple isn't doing it our way." Apple shot back with "Use WebCore, we will even show you how and assist on making it multiplatform", but that got shot down by the K folks. The issue isn't just with one side, it's with both using their normal work flows and expecting the other side to change everything.
Apple doesn't ship Konquer in their OS and has no plans to. KDE has no plans to use WebCore. So diversity issues are going to happen, and either side can just live with it, or do something about it. But it seems the KDE folks would just rather sit and whine about how Apple isn't doing things their way.
Maybe I missed it, but if you can point out to me where in the GPL it says you must bend over backwards to make a group of people happy, I'll conclude Apple is doing something wrong. Until then, I'll file this under the "people are never happy" section, and be one of the few to appreciate what Apple is doing to help OSS, and to promote the adoption of Unix in many areas. Sure, it's not the Linux way of things, but Apple is doing a hell of a lot better then say Sun with Solaris or HP with Tru64/HPUX to push the Unix platform across all spaces.
The G4 stuff was what I expected it to be. And it's the same reason I normally skip the channel. They spend too much time cracking stupid jokes, or insulting their audience. Back before the G4/TechTV mess, I'd only watch shows on TechTV for gaming news. I was a bit disappointed when the game show changed into XPlay with a G4ish additude, but back then it was still better then G4 shows.
The interviews they got with some people were nice, but still not as good as I would hope.
Oh well, at least we have plenty of other methods to fill ourselves in about E3. I'm still trying to catch up, since attending the show is a sure fire way to make sure you miss a ton of it.
Most PC widescreen monitors are not 16:9, but instead 16:10. The Powerbook 17 inch falls under the 16:10 ratio, as do the Dell and Apple widescreen LCDs people lust over.
The Powerbook 15 inch is odd though at 3:2, or 15:10. Most PC laptops I've seen with a "15 inch widescreen" are the normal 16:10.
And honestly, the $200 rebate is an insult. Voom has been touting the eventual move to MPEG4 for a while, so many of the owners know about it. All the equipment Voom shipped was customer upgradable. While we had no clue when it might happen, we knew equipment wise we wern't screwed.
DirecTV on the other hand hints at MPEG4 one day, but no info on what they plan to do with the equipment. Considering the Voom customers will be looking at the HD stuff, they will be the first ones interested in the migration. For me, it's just stupid to buy equipment I know won't work to see more then the pitiful selection of existing HD channels they have.
The $200 rebate is a nice, but pitiful offer. At least it expires June 30th, so hopefully by then DirecTV might be more talkative.
It was funny too, my Voom installer (who also does DirecTV) called to tell me about it. I was the third person that day who asked about MPEG4.
What else does a level 60 person have to do? Well for starters, they could shelve the character and make another one, since the game does offer variety. Or, they could play other games and wait for battlegrounds.
Sorry, that all sounds logical. I still don't see why people get so much joy out of "ganking" lower level characters in a game. It shows no skill at all.
In Shadowbane, we did use the strategy of trying to attack the enemy no matter what level simply to introduce a resource drain. The more gold they had to spend on repairs meant less gold spent on city defense, or siege weapons. But Shadowbane was a player controlled world where actions like that actually changed things. In WoW, killing lower players simply irritates them. From there, they either grow in levels and do the same thing "for revenge" or quit the server and go elsewhere.
Mourning Realms of Krel (used to be Realms of Torment) is planning on having permadeath. You also have the possibility of having kids and passing traits onto them before death, then being able to play the kid when your character dies. One of the possible death paths is growing old, based on actual play time.
Now, an interesting twist on permadeath is that in certain situations, you can become infamous enough to be executed. Their hope behind this is to have an honor system of sorts in PvP, and if you are dishonorable, in the end your character will die forever. Hard to say how it will work in practice, but it does seem like an interesting theory. If I could somehow get some level 60 twit that much closer to losing his character in WoW for corpse camping my level 25 guy, I'd be happy.
You were definitly cautious at times in Steel Battalion. But, due to the emergancy eject, you could still take risks and survive, as long as you had enough cash for another mech. Run out of cash, and you did have to end your career.
The most annoyning permadeath for me in that came came on a midrange mission. I was fignting in a canyon, came so close to finishing the mission, and got hit hard in the front of the mech. It fell onto its back, got hit again and blew up. Hitting the eject failed, because it ejected you out the back, not the top. So since my mechs back was on the ground I died, and had to climb up the missions again.
Quakecon is in Texas because id is in Texas. They pay for it, why should they move it away from their home city?
E3, well, it's trade only, and much of the industry in the US is on the west coast. It was in Atlanta GA for a few years though.
CPL, not sure why they pick Texas.
There are probably smaller LANs in your area though. Everlan is a big one here in Southern Colorado attracting 300-500 people. If you want to have one on the East Coast, start organizing it. Most LAN parties just started by someone one year, and grew into the huge events they are now.
And for big LANs, a central location does make sense for drive times, since people are likely to drive to it, instead of flying.
Basic and simple answer, USB adds complexity. If the phone had only a USB plug, it would have to be a USB host to be able to allow things like corded headsets and such to attach. Then the headsets would have to be more complex, going from somethign that just passes analog data over the right pins on the connector to a full digital headset.
Power wise, USB really can't do more then 500mA of power at 5V. This is fine for cell phones like my T610 that get 450mA from the official charger at 4.7V. But for devices like the PSP, it would mean 4 times as long to charge, as the PSP power adaptor pushes out 2A or power at 5V.
This guy seems to think WoW is doomed because it is not "epic" enough.
A MMORPG cannot just be a game: When you start charging a subscription, you're promising it to be more than that. It has to genuinely interest players in investing time in it for meaningfully compelling reasons. World of Warcraft is far too trivialized, it's evident in the quick grind, the artificial world, and the punch-out trade skill system. World of Warcraft, in matching casual friendly (even console-game like) design expectations, is simply not built to last as a top 5 MMORPG.
In other words, he believes that due to the fact that WoW is simple and easy to pick up, and doesn't have tedious things like trade skills of old EQ, this will somehow drive people away. How someone can think a grind in a game is a good thing is beyond me. EQ1 subscription numbers are now dropping quickly, even with a new "epic" expansion filled with yet more content accessable to uber guilds only. I would dare say the players in EQ1 in the last year were simply their due to the social experience with their uber guilds, as much better games have since come out.
I see WoWs success in another way. The game is simple, easy to learn and thus people are enjoying themselves. Friends are having a much easier time convincing someone to play WoW over other games. There isn't any talk about the problems of old EQ1 when WoW comes up, like the 15-30 minutes of downtime EQ1 used to have to regenerate health. Since WoW is so easy to get into, people are more tempted to run a character to 60, then try a completly different race. The diversity in the game is quite nice.
Only time will tell though. So far, it seems the server issues haven't scared off a noticible amount of people. And for many, the server issues are their only complaint with the game.
Weird, I could swear the article didn't initially have the counter point. Oh well.
And one of these days I'll remember when I am posting on slashdot that the posting methods that work fine on most of the web boards fail here.
In the private sector, yes certifications matter. They see them as a way of judging someones skills if their resume lacks the needed education or experience. I personally am working on having a good OS certification, SAN certifications, and hardware certifications to hopefully skip the bottom rung of the IT ladder if I move jobs, since I am not at the bottom at my current one.
It all depends on the certification and company though. One military contractor place I am looking at also has a high amount of network positions. Nearly all mandate some type of Cisco certification.
I just took the RCHE two weeks ago (and passed with a high score). The current RCHE exam is on RHEL3. Basicially the test goes as follows:
First part is 2.5 hours. You have that much time in front of a box to fix 10 problems. 5 of them are mandatory to fix. They cover many things, and when I took this part, I had no need to really ever use RedHat specific tools.
Second part is 3 hours, and is a network install and configuration of RHEL3. Here you need to know about the installer (duh), and package managment, but that pretty much ends the Red Hat specific part once again. If you admin Linux, and sit down for a few hours with RHEL 3 and the checklist. and you can pass it.
Honestly, it is one of the better certificaiton exams I have taken, due to it being practical. If they throw you a mail server setup situation, you can use your choice of server if it is in RedHat. You have to be aware of security, but they don't demand a specific method. The end result is you pass if you get the job done, it doesn't matter how.
Now, RCHE is a good first step, however as someone said, it isn't specificially a certificate to prove someone can hand full data center control to you. And let me explain:
RCHT: This is their lowest certification. It means "Hi, I can install Linux and configure some things, but not really do much on the network side". The test for this is embedded in the RCHE test now. Basicially if you don't pass the RCHE, you may still walk away with an RCHT
RCHE: This is the median certification. It means "Hi, I can install Linux, and get basic networking services up and secure. I can also integrate the box into the directory if it is simple".
RCHA: This is the highest level one Red Hat takes, and I would advise to get RCHE first. It is "Hi, I can install Linux, configure network services, design the directory services, secure and tune the box, and expand the box when the time comes. I can layout plans for an entire data center."
Or in Red Hat's words:
RHCEs provide the technical leadership for managing Linux servers and network services, as well as escalation of issues from the larger group of RHCTs. A smaller number of RHCAs provide leadership for technical planning, design and integration of an organization's worldwide open source architecture.
Slashdot already covered this from the other point of view, where Mark Rein of Epic found no reason games should be jumping to $60.
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http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/07
All it means for me is a longer wait. I've already been getting tired of buying games at $50 and watching the publisher suck up most of that money. Usually I only buy games at $40 or less. I have such a backlog of games anyhow that by the time I can play something new, it is already $20-$30.
The third option is, of course, buy a Mac laptop. Unfortunately, these are much more attractive (look sweeter, are known to be more expensive) and therefore more vulnerable to theft. On the other hand, they are reliable enough that a backup drive shouldn't be needed all that often.
The OS is more reliable then Windows, however the hardware can still fail. They use standard disks, standard memory, and a system board with electronics the same as other companies. My Powerbook is in the shop currently due to a weird disk corruption issue that looks to be due to bad memory.
On the plus side, all Mac laptops have 6 pin powered firewire ports, for a 100gb backup option using a 2.5 inch disk that the Mac will also happially boot from.