That's the first thing we need to know as it defines what type of system I'd recommend. Forgoing that information, what I would suggest is dropping Windows from the equation and switch to ARM processor base systems. This gives you the advantage of replacing all of the Linux VM's with standard Hardware, providing multiple redundancies. Another advantage is that the ARM systems can be spec'd to run on as little as 1watt of power (incl HD's) and since they're full linux boxes, you can easily administer them using SSH from a Windows box such as your current laptop.
The hardware redundancy offered by this is enormous and as the units they can easily be powered by a single Solar panel (sized correctly) combined with a large Deep Cycle 12 volt battery. Use Pico Power supplies (12volt input) and you've got your portable data center. The biggest thing you need to do is ensure that your Solar Panel has sufficient power to recharge the battery while powering the ARM systems. This means figure on at least 2x Solar Wattage over maximum demand to properly recharge the battery to handle a full run overnight. EG: 24 watts of demand means a single 55watt PV panel, though I'd look at using a pair of smaller 30 watt panels for redundancy in case you break a panel. It means you'd be able to run the system at reduced levels. One last item is provide an auxiliary power input for charging the battery bank from a vehicle or generator.
Blame MS for this because Comic Sans is the default font for Outlook Express and Outlook through 2003 and 85+ percent of the people don't know how or care to change the damn setting.
The vendor who released the game so far in advance of the agreed upon street date has a problem because Legally, G.P.G. can claim those pirated copies were in fact sold and demand reimbursement for them. What will probably happen is that G.P.G. and the vendor will agree to reimbursement for 1/4 of those games while G.P.G. disables the pirated keys, forcing the original individual to purchase another copy and all the pirates (try before buying folks) to actually buy the game if they want to continue playing.
On the server melt-down issue, this worked in their favor as they got a serious load test done before the release date of the game and the many problems were fixed, thus ensuring that those who purchased the game legally (after the release date) didn't have any problems activating.
On a related note: One thing I'd love to see and many have suggested this, is that these many games quit using dedicated updaters and such. Instead switch to using the Windows Update mechanism and update the damn games in the background when the system checks for normal windows updates. For those who don't care to run Windows update in Automatic mode (check for updates only) you can force them to update in game as usual. What this would do is smooth the load on the update servers while ensuring that users have any required updates/fixes that are required to play.
Don't forget that those running linux also have appropriate mount options set in fstab, such as noexec, nodev on/home and/tmp and/usr is set to read-only once things are installed.
Hell I've got an Intel Board running an e6300 (65 watt cpu) with 8GB of RAM plus a Geforce 7300GT that only draws 120 watts at full load (F@H) on the cpu. Total Cost is just under $800 with the recent RAM upgrade from 4GB to 8GB
Which is exactly why the aren't trying this in California. Changes to a service that's been advertised and run as Unlimited except for speed since it's inception would be grounds for multiple lawsuits and sanctions by both the State and any municipalities that have allowed TW to have a monopoly. In fact the politicians would be all over them in a heart beat just to keep from being recalled and voted out of office if they allowed this to go through.
I can understand this because I have a mission critical app that the vendor has already stated will not have an upgrade to Vista/Win7 until XP is 6months from EOL. That's at least another 4 years away as XP has now entered the final 5years of Extended Support and based upon my vendors statement, that means at least Win8 before any upgrades are available to a mission critical application.
The main question is do I like it, which gets a resounding HELL NO!! I don't like it but I don't have any choice as it's the only certified application in my field.
is the best Scan/OCR app you can buy with many nice features. The first is it's reasonably priced. Second is the fact that it can import PDF files directly and OCR/Index them and it handles almost every langauge on the planet. Definately worth looking into as the school may actually have a school license, which means you don't have to buy anything.
First thing I'd look at is moving him over to a FOSS solution such as Linux/*BSD. You also need to look at converting his database from its current format over to either MySQL or Postrgress for longevity because when the software is no longer supported, things will become a nightmare. The next thing I'd look at is using KDE 3.5 with the Redmond settings (works like Windows) even though the icons are a bit different. As to his Accounting app, look into either KmyMoney2 or GnuCash as they both use an open standard format (Check Quicken/QBooks format import of both).
Actually this is a CYA (covering yon ass) response by ATT because by terminating/reducing a customers internet connection based on an outside claim makes them a part of a defamation/slander lawsuit due to discovery rules. Any emails/phone records in regards to such a case can be subpena'd from them at their expense, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars for what gain? The letter is cheaper and covers their ass from any claims by the accuser, while reducing bandwidth usage sufficiently to no longer be a problem.
On the dialup speed issue, I downloaded plenty of stuff on a dialup connection simply by using a download manager (kget now). If I didn't have 3 others who share the connection along with the voip package, I could easily get by with a 128k U/D connection thanks to noscript/flashblock and the hosts file.
System refused to boot due to bios limit of 1.5GB - diagnostic charge
Reinstalled single stick of original 512M memory and incompatible with new 1GB - diagnotic charge
time spent checking Acer website to find compatible memory listing
In this case, I've seen plenty of Acer laptops that have a bios limit of 1.5GB for memory and then you have to figure out if the damn 1GB stick goes into Slot A/B. Cost of 1GB SODIMM memory for a laptop at that time was probably $75ea for 1GB sticks, so they probably installed it themselves. Current costs according to Newegg is $10 for Kingston PC2-4200 (ddr2-533) memory. but was quite higher at time of purchase: Ancedotal:I purchased 1 stick of 512M ddr-266 kingston memory in Nov 2006 at $60 from Newegg for an HP laptop as it was far cheaper then HP website. Raises question: Did they purchase memory from Acer? If so then paid double/triple what they could get it from Newegg
Nvidia also has stable driver releases and doesn't rush products to market that aren't finished (unlike the 4870 which had/still has driver issues)
Emphasis Mine:
Unlike Nvidia's so called stable drivers, ATI has released a single Unified driver that works on XP/Vista/Win7-Beta (nvidia's are still borked on Win7) and that will be easily ported to Linux and OS-X (ATI wants some of that Apple Pie) using kernel shims just as Nvidia Does. Plus their driver will be 90+ open source now that they've finished isolating the closed source code from their driver.
To me, this places ATI in a much better position then Nvidia because unlike Nvidia, ATI has (since AMD Purchased them) emphasized stable drivers over fast and buggy), though the catalyst control panel crashes frequently, which I refuse to install for that reason and no I don't hate Nvidia since I'm currently using an Asus Silencer - fanless - 7300GT in Gentoo64 multi-lib mode with the open source driver (bought card in 1qtr 2008)
superconductors is for CPU/GPU chips. If we can finally get a material that's easy to work with, we'd finally be able to get damn CPU speeds in excess of 10GHz, which is what the P4 (netburst) architecture was designed to do.
The question then becomes, what do we do with such high speed chips? and the answers include Voice Recognition, Speech Synthesys, better pron (ray traced) and maybe Duke Nukem forever. Of course I can safely state that Windows 9 would certainly need such a CPU along with Symantec (NAV) just to handle the bloated slug those apps have become.
From what I can see, this was a case of kde writing to the primary config files in/usr/kde. If this is the case, then it's definately a screwup by the KDE Devs as there is absolutely no reason for KDE to be writing to those files after it's installed simply because the base installation has no way of knowing if that directory is mounted -ro (read-only) as I do for/usr. If the data loss occured in the/home/~.kde folder, then that indicates a problem with such a long write delay. I'm sorry but although I use Ext3 with longer write delay (15 seconds) I also have a UPS connected to the system to reduce probability of data loss but I will never extend the cache delay to more then 30 seconds unless it's a laptop.
Due to issues with Firefox, I've moved almost exclusively to Konq as my browser. Of course Google Docs doesn't work with Konq (Why not Google?), which is why I even keep a copy of firefox on the system. Then there's the flash issue. For some reason flash doesn't work in 64bit Konq yet I'm able to use it on 64bit Firefox.
Overall though Konq has become my primary browser as it offers the features and tools I need (tabs and access to my file system).
avast - free for home use other then an email addy for registration code. Seems to work nicely to. Do a normal install then simply shut-off unneeded modules and only keep the background scanner running.
VirtualBox is supposed to have started solving this problem. It's beta and still experiemental but if it works well, then it's exactly what I've been looking for as it means I can finally run XP ina Vbox setup under a 64bit Gentoo Linux.
It's a loosing proposition for MS because they spent over a decade (Dos 5/6/6.2/6.22/Win1/2/3/WFW-3.11/Win95a/B/C/98/SE/Me) teaching all of their devs (MS and Third Party) that there was only a single user on the system and to change that is going to take em 5+ decades to solve unless they go for broke.
The first part is to fix all of the problems with Vista or simply dump Vista and backport dx10.1 to XP and get started on a completely new OS based around the NSA Secure NT solution that follows a proper Least Privelaged User model and ram it down everyones throat.
One of the other things they need to do is follow the Unix model of/home/~ being a seperate directory and the idea of copying the.skel folder over to it. Furthermore, they need to lock things down hard and prevent users from even seeing directories they have no permissions for such as/program files and/windows.
As a final step, drop any support for 32bit CPU's and go to a true 64bit OS as the Hardware vendors would love that (sells more new machines) while ensuring that the specs state that it requires a CPU of such a generation and give people a decent readiness app that checks to see if the CPU is 64bit capable. If not, tell them so folks don't spend the money on an OS their hardware can't run.
I already hear the gamers beefing yet all they have to do is use the Windows On Windows (WoW Compatibility Mode) with VirtualPC and sandbox the damn game. Hell this even works for many of the older apps (simply checkmark a compatibility mode) and run the app in it's own sandbox. These steps would improve Windows so much that we'd finally be able to prevent the common user (Joe Sixpack and Friends) from having as many problems while ensuring that the RIAA and MPAA are happy with proper DRM, while also preventing the system scragging of DRM solutions like the recent Spore and Sony debacles.
that's what the "-pipe" flag does for the gcc toolchain. Instead of relying on temp files (writes to disk) it keeps as much as possible in RAM, which speeds things up quite a bit.
Surprisingly my local Walmart has had the Eve Disk available since the beginning of the year. If I played it, I'd defintely get the current DVD just for the backup purposes. Much easier as said to simply download the latest patches instead of the whole damn client, especially in light of possible future bandwidth caps.
Even better would be to show a Link to the Taliban and financial support of terrorists. That could draw in the FBI and DHS along with sveral other agencies while getting them possibly time in Gitmo
Entrapment can occur when the government or one or more of it's officers (private people working on their behalf can be officers too), entice and convince someone to do something illegal that they wouldn't ordinarily do.
Emphasis Mine: Lawyers are considered Officers of the Court, which means that under the Letter/Colour of the Law (if NYCL will explain which is correct) that the RIAA Lawyers could be part and party to an entrapment decision revoking any and all settlements while opening them to civil penalties, censure? and disbarment along with retribution based upon civil suits against said lawyers for the entrapment by the victims of the crime.
Of course this couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks could it?
Slow to copy files and still fails to copy/move some files if there are more then 2 levels of subdirectories below. This problem is partially resolved under Win7 Beta yet it is not completely solved because instead of doing a merge (overwrite Yes/No) it simply copies the files again. Very annoying and part of the reason I switched back to Gentoo.
Slashdot Mirror
Define Portable.
That's the first thing we need to know as it defines what type of system I'd recommend. Forgoing that information, what I would suggest is dropping Windows from the equation and switch to ARM processor base systems. This gives you the advantage of replacing all of the Linux VM's with standard Hardware, providing multiple redundancies. Another advantage is that the ARM systems can be spec'd to run on as little as 1watt of power (incl HD's) and since they're full linux boxes, you can easily administer them using SSH from a Windows box such as your current laptop.
The hardware redundancy offered by this is enormous and as the units they can easily be powered by a single Solar panel (sized correctly) combined with a large Deep Cycle 12 volt battery. Use Pico Power supplies (12volt input) and you've got your portable data center. The biggest thing you need to do is ensure that your Solar Panel has sufficient power to recharge the battery while powering the ARM systems. This means figure on at least 2x Solar Wattage over maximum demand to properly recharge the battery to handle a full run overnight. EG: 24 watts of demand means a single 55watt PV panel, though I'd look at using a pair of smaller 30 watt panels for redundancy in case you break a panel. It means you'd be able to run the system at reduced levels. One last item is provide an auxiliary power input for charging the battery bank from a vehicle or generator.
Blame MS for this because Comic Sans is the default font for Outlook Express and Outlook through 2003 and 85+ percent of the people don't know how or care to change the damn setting.
The vendor who released the game so far in advance of the agreed upon street date has a problem because Legally, G.P.G. can claim those pirated copies were in fact sold and demand reimbursement for them. What will probably happen is that G.P.G. and the vendor will agree to reimbursement for 1/4 of those games while G.P.G. disables the pirated keys, forcing the original individual to purchase another copy and all the pirates (try before buying folks) to actually buy the game if they want to continue playing.
On the server melt-down issue, this worked in their favor as they got a serious load test done before the release date of the game and the many problems were fixed, thus ensuring that those who purchased the game legally (after the release date) didn't have any problems activating.
On a related note: One thing I'd love to see and many have suggested this, is that these many games quit using dedicated updaters and such. Instead switch to using the Windows Update mechanism and update the damn games in the background when the system checks for normal windows updates. For those who don't care to run Windows update in Automatic mode (check for updates only) you can force them to update in game as usual. What this would do is smooth the load on the update servers while ensuring that users have any required updates/fixes that are required to play.
Don't forget that those running linux also have appropriate mount options set in fstab, such as noexec, nodev on /home and /tmp and /usr is set to read-only once things are installed.
Hell I've got an Intel Board running an e6300 (65 watt cpu) with 8GB of RAM plus a Geforce 7300GT that only draws 120 watts at full load (F@H) on the cpu. Total Cost is just under $800 with the recent RAM upgrade from 4GB to 8GB
Which is exactly why the aren't trying this in California. Changes to a service that's been advertised and run as Unlimited except for speed since it's inception would be grounds for multiple lawsuits and sanctions by both the State and any municipalities that have allowed TW to have a monopoly. In fact the politicians would be all over them in a heart beat just to keep from being recalled and voted out of office if they allowed this to go through.
I can understand this because I have a mission critical app that the vendor has already stated will not have an upgrade to Vista/Win7 until XP is 6months from EOL. That's at least another 4 years away as XP has now entered the final 5years of Extended Support and based upon my vendors statement, that means at least Win8 before any upgrades are available to a mission critical application.
The main question is do I like it, which gets a resounding HELL NO!! I don't like it but I don't have any choice as it's the only certified application in my field.
is the best Scan/OCR app you can buy with many nice features. The first is it's reasonably priced. Second is the fact that it can import PDF files directly and OCR/Index them and it handles almost every langauge on the planet. Definately worth looking into as the school may actually have a school license, which means you don't have to buy anything.
Actually that legal code goes back to biblical times and the original 10 commandments, which didn't fit into a single book but on 2 stone slabs.
First thing I'd look at is moving him over to a FOSS solution such as Linux/*BSD. You also need to look at converting his database from its current format over to either MySQL or Postrgress for longevity because when the software is no longer supported, things will become a nightmare. The next thing I'd look at is using KDE 3.5 with the Redmond settings (works like Windows) even though the icons are a bit different. As to his Accounting app, look into either KmyMoney2 or GnuCash as they both use an open standard format (Check Quicken/QBooks format import of both).
Actually this is a CYA (covering yon ass) response by ATT because by terminating/reducing a customers internet connection based on an outside claim makes them a part of a defamation/slander lawsuit due to discovery rules. Any emails/phone records in regards to such a case can be subpena'd from them at their expense, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars for what gain? The letter is cheaper and covers their ass from any claims by the accuser, while reducing bandwidth usage sufficiently to no longer be a problem.
On the dialup speed issue, I downloaded plenty of stuff on a dialup connection simply by using a download manager (kget now). If I didn't have 3 others who share the connection along with the voip package, I could easily get by with a 128k U/D connection thanks to noscript/flashblock and the hosts file.
Well I did RTFA and will throw out my suspicions
In this case, I've seen plenty of Acer laptops that have a bios limit of 1.5GB for memory and then you have to figure out if the damn 1GB stick goes into Slot A/B. Cost of 1GB SODIMM memory for a laptop at that time was probably $75ea for 1GB sticks, so they probably installed it themselves. Current costs according to Newegg is $10 for Kingston PC2-4200 (ddr2-533) memory. but was quite higher at time of purchase: Ancedotal:I purchased 1 stick of 512M ddr-266 kingston memory in Nov 2006 at $60 from Newegg for an HP laptop as it was far cheaper then HP website. Raises question: Did they purchase memory from Acer? If so then paid double/triple what they could get it from Newegg
Nvidia also has stable driver releases and doesn't rush products to market that aren't finished (unlike the 4870 which had/still has driver issues)
Emphasis Mine:
Unlike Nvidia's so called stable drivers, ATI has released a single Unified driver that works on XP/Vista/Win7-Beta (nvidia's are still borked on Win7) and that will be easily ported to Linux and OS-X (ATI wants some of that Apple Pie) using kernel shims just as Nvidia Does. Plus their driver will be 90+ open source now that they've finished isolating the closed source code from their driver.
To me, this places ATI in a much better position then Nvidia because unlike Nvidia, ATI has (since AMD Purchased them) emphasized stable drivers over fast and buggy), though the catalyst control panel crashes frequently, which I refuse to install for that reason and no I don't hate Nvidia since I'm currently using an Asus Silencer - fanless - 7300GT in Gentoo64 multi-lib mode with the open source driver (bought card in 1qtr 2008)
to jump start local economy with a bang
superconductors is for CPU/GPU chips. If we can finally get a material that's easy to work with, we'd finally be able to get damn CPU speeds in excess of 10GHz, which is what the P4 (netburst) architecture was designed to do.
The question then becomes, what do we do with such high speed chips? and the answers include Voice Recognition, Speech Synthesys, better pron (ray traced) and maybe Duke Nukem forever. Of course I can safely state that Windows 9 would certainly need such a CPU along with Symantec (NAV) just to handle the bloated slug those apps have become.
From what I can see, this was a case of kde writing to the primary config files in /usr/kde. If this is the case, then it's definately a screwup by the KDE Devs as there is absolutely no reason for KDE to be writing to those files after it's installed simply because the base installation has no way of knowing if that directory is mounted -ro (read-only) as I do for /usr. If the data loss occured in the /home/~.kde folder, then that indicates a problem with such a long write delay. I'm sorry but although I use Ext3 with longer write delay (15 seconds) I also have a UPS connected to the system to reduce probability of data loss but I will never extend the cache delay to more then 30 seconds unless it's a laptop.
Due to issues with Firefox, I've moved almost exclusively to Konq as my browser. Of course Google Docs doesn't work with Konq (Why not Google?), which is why I even keep a copy of firefox on the system. Then there's the flash issue. For some reason flash doesn't work in 64bit Konq yet I'm able to use it on 64bit Firefox.
Overall though Konq has become my primary browser as it offers the features and tools I need (tabs and access to my file system).
avast - free for home use other then an email addy for registration code. Seems to work nicely to. Do a normal install then simply shut-off unneeded modules and only keep the background scanner running.
VirtualBox is supposed to have started solving this problem. It's beta and still experiemental but if it works well, then it's exactly what I've been looking for as it means I can finally run XP ina Vbox setup under a 64bit Gentoo Linux.
It's a loosing proposition for MS because they spent over a decade (Dos 5/6/6.2/6.22/Win1/2/3/WFW-3.11/Win95a/B/C/98/SE/Me) teaching all of their devs (MS and Third Party) that there was only a single user on the system and to change that is going to take em 5+ decades to solve unless they go for broke.
The first part is to fix all of the problems with Vista or simply dump Vista and backport dx10.1 to XP and get started on a completely new OS based around the NSA Secure NT solution that follows a proper Least Privelaged User model and ram it down everyones throat.
One of the other things they need to do is follow the Unix model of /home/~ being a seperate directory and the idea of copying the .skel folder over to it. Furthermore, they need to lock things down hard and prevent users from even seeing directories they have no permissions for such as /program files and /windows.
As a final step, drop any support for 32bit CPU's and go to a true 64bit OS as the Hardware vendors would love that (sells more new machines) while ensuring that the specs state that it requires a CPU of such a generation and give people a decent readiness app that checks to see if the CPU is 64bit capable. If not, tell them so folks don't spend the money on an OS their hardware can't run.
I already hear the gamers beefing yet all they have to do is use the Windows On Windows (WoW Compatibility Mode) with VirtualPC and sandbox the damn game. Hell this even works for many of the older apps (simply checkmark a compatibility mode) and run the app in it's own sandbox. These steps would improve Windows so much that we'd finally be able to prevent the common user (Joe Sixpack and Friends) from having as many problems while ensuring that the RIAA and MPAA are happy with proper DRM, while also preventing the system scragging of DRM solutions like the recent Spore and Sony debacles.
that's what the "-pipe" flag does for the gcc toolchain. Instead of relying on temp files (writes to disk) it keeps as much as possible in RAM, which speeds things up quite a bit.
Surprisingly my local Walmart has had the Eve Disk available since the beginning of the year. If I played it, I'd defintely get the current DVD just for the backup purposes. Much easier as said to simply download the latest patches instead of the whole damn client, especially in light of possible future bandwidth caps.
Even better would be to show a Link to the Taliban and financial support of terrorists. That could draw in the FBI and DHS along with sveral other agencies while getting them possibly time in Gitmo
Entrapment can occur when the government or one or more of it's officers (private people working on their behalf can be officers too), entice and convince someone to do something illegal that they wouldn't ordinarily do.
Emphasis Mine: Lawyers are considered Officers of the Court, which means that under the Letter/Colour of the Law (if NYCL will explain which is correct) that the RIAA Lawyers could be part and party to an entrapment decision revoking any and all settlements while opening them to civil penalties, censure? and disbarment along with retribution based upon civil suits against said lawyers for the entrapment by the victims of the crime.
Of course this couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks could it?
Vista SP2/Beta 6006
Slow to copy files and still fails to copy/move some files if there are more then 2 levels of subdirectories below. This problem is partially resolved under Win7 Beta yet it is not completely solved because instead of doing a merge (overwrite Yes/No) it simply copies the files again. Very annoying and part of the reason I switched back to Gentoo.