A couple years ago I got a demo of an Ergotron adjustable arm, and have been using it every since. I like it a lot, but it isn't without its flaws.
First off, make sure you have an anti-stress mat to stand on. When I first started to use the arm, my feet became really sore. Standing all day on what was essentially a concrete floor with a few millimeters worth of "carpet" was too hard on my soles. The anti-stress mat relieved that completely.
Second, once you stand and raise your computer screen, you now have to raise everything else with it. This likely won't be an issue if your entire desk surface is up high, but whereas I have an arm that mounts to a normal desk it is something I've had to deal with. My keyboard, mouse, and monitors are at standing level, but my phone and anything else on my desk is down where I have to reach for it. Being in IT support, my primary computer (Windows) is on the arm while my secondary (MacBook) is on a stand on a box.
Third, standing takes getting used to, and eventually you will stand most of the time. However, sometimes you will want to sit. You'll want to have an option to sit down, whether it's an adjustable desk/arm or you can go somewhere else and work for a time.
Finally, and this is an issue mainly for my current solution with a desk-attached arm, be sure your desk/arm can hold everything you want. My Ergotron arm model is capable of dual displays, but the 23" Dells I use strain the weight limit of the arm. If I add anything more with any appreciable weight, the arm sinks down to the desk.
Overall I like my solution, and will not go back to a sitting-only desk.
So new users before the old, safe choice they're familiar with instead of something radically new and different. How does this surprise anyone?
Look, I had the same inclination when I switched from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. I was one of those early adopters who bought it launch day and ran home and installed it. I, and many others, had the same feelings when the Ribbon debuted for MS Office. And yes, I thought the same thing trying out Windows 8. There is always that moment of "panic" when you realize you don't know where things are anymore like you did with the previous version.
But, each time, if you stick with it for a bit, you get familiar with new interface. You pick it up just as you did with the old one--and you even start to realize the advantages of the new layout versus the old. Sorry, Slashdot, but this is FUD and you're guilty of spreading it.
All IT people have heard the joke, "Well, if I take a hammer to it..." But that doesn't mean they do it. From the article, the headline reads as though users are causing deliberate damage to their computers in order to receive an upgrade. Read the actual text however, and while users are saying that, there isn't anything presented to show there are widespread acts of vandalism happening. The only real takeaway from this article is that some UK offices are using significantly outdated equipment. The headline is just sensationalism. I hate to say it, but I think/. fell for this one.
It was more that the episode was just bad satire
on
An Inconvenient Truth
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
Good satire uses humor to expose some truth. One of my favorite South Park moments was during the episode about tolerance. The characters had just toured the Museum of Tolerance where they learned to respect people of other races and cultures. Leaving the museum they see a smoker sitting at a fountain smoking and start ripping on him, calling him names and telling him to get lost. It was funny because there is some truth there, that we preach tolerance of other races yet condemn smokers so easily.
With "Manbearpig" the satirical truth Matt and Trey went for was the global warming is just as real as the creature manbearpig. Both are figments of Al Gore's imagination. If global warming was false, and the alarm over it was as overblown as South Park Al Gore's fear of manbearpig, then the satire would work.
But we know global warming is happening, and that current practices of humanity are the primary causes of it. So, the satire just doesn't work. A much better environmental-focused South Park satire was of the smugness of hybrid car owners in the episode "Smug." I love hybrid cars, but that episode was funny because it took to task the superiority complex of some hybrid owners.
or any other spyware removal tool. That is not to say that you shouldn't use any of them, but instead you should use two or three different ones. In doing residential support for a small college I've discovered that each removal program detects different things.
I currently use Windows Defender and Ad-Aware for spyware, and we have Symantec Antivirus for virus protection. Additionally, sometimes I'll whip out Panda Titanium for bad infections. Plus there are the numerous specific removal tools out there for certain spyware packages
I used to use Spybot S&D, but its bugs are too much. I can't spend 10, 15, or 20 minutes trying to find an update server that doesn't return a bad checksum, or when Spybot mysteriously takes exactly three seconds to scan a computer and says it's clean. Fixing that requires reinstalled Spybot. These may not be a big deal on one computer, but when they happen numerous times over the course of setting up several hundred machines, it's unacceptable.
Anyway, as I've found, each scanner detects something different. Ad-aware in particular, is much more anal about what it considers unaccetpable that Defender, as you might expect. As for Webroot Spysweeper, I'll just say this: the worst spyware infections I've seen have all been on computers with Spysweeper already installed and running on them.
I realize it's from an AC, but it should be given it's due.
I am glad that security has become an issue for id now, as the AC has pointed out, this wasn't always so. I still remember that night the RCON exploit was discovered. As I was playing Quake the server blipped for a second. I got back on, checked Gamespy, and found that the name of every Quake server on the Internet had been changed.
Fine, we'll give you all of the precious SLA agreements you want. In return however, you have to abide by the strict SLA that we, the IT department, are forced to implement so that we can ensure compliance with your SLA. Trust me, you won't like what we have to write to protect us from the likes of you.
Why did these people think adding that into the new code was a good idea? It ruins the game and should be banned. Period.
As I see it, part of the fun of TF is the balance the mod strived to achieve with the classes. The goal of the design was to level the classes by mixing the power and operation of the weapons in relation to the speed of each class. Scouts were weak but had blazing quickness, while heavyweapons guys had the most powerful weapon in the game (yes, I'm ignoring the sniper rifle in snipe mode), but became tanks with their slowness. Bunnyhopping ruins this equilibrium.
It used to be fun trying to get a hwguy across the bridge. Now some asshole hops his way all over the map using the hwguy as a scout. The class given the strongest weapon in TF now can move just as fast as the quickest class.
So maybe, perhaps, it isn't technically "cheating" because hopping is the result of a bug in the code. The letter of the law may not be in violation, but the spirit clearly is.
Exactly where was the "hilarity?" This is just a short article on how he tracked down the guy with some simple online tools and then sued him under a law he was familiar with. There isn't even any wackiness or insanity here. It's just, well, kinda boring.
I work as a computer technician for a small private college, and I know exactly what this article is talking about. As the title of this post says, we are drowning in a see of dead equipment that we can't get rid of, and we only have 1,000 students! I'm scared to see the problem at a large university.
Being that we are located in a small town, there is literally no place to take the 14" and 15" monitors, motherboards, cases, etc., that are quickly piling up. We are running out of storage space for all of the broken and useless junk that has no place to go. So far, it seems our only option is to pay to have HP to take it. How we are going to get all of this crap to them is a whole other problem, however.
I, for one, would happily pay an extra fee per computer bought if the state, or a company designated by the state, would take the old equipment for free when it dies. My fear however, is that we'll be charged this extra amount on the purchase price and then have to pay again for someone to take the machine. That would be even worse than it is now. If this is done right, it could be a great program.
Gotta love how they say how linux is too hard to switch users too but dont mention that Microsoft does the exact same thing every 2 years to their user interface.
What a load.
XP is the first time since Windows 95 that Microsoft has made a major change in the look and feel of the GUI. As 95 begat 98 which begat ME (and NT 4 begat 2000) minor things have changed such as the placement of the Windows Explorer icon and a Control Panel group or two, but the same basic grey bar at the bottom of the screen with the start button has always remained.
How sad. It would be much better for all concerned if they'd use that time to read a book. No wonder many young people are semi-literate.
What utter drivel. Once again we return to the outdated idea that because something is printed on a dead tree that automatically gives it a status above everything else. Reading, in and of itself, is no better than playing video games or watching television. Just because someone is a "reader" doesn't make them smarter or better equipped for society.
The key here is that its about what you read, what you play, or what you watch. If reading was the key to being smarter then why aren't disgruntled housewives who bury themselves in romance novels considered the smartest humans on Earth? If I turn on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel and watch it all day, I can assure you I'll be much better off than them.
Now is there more "quality" material out there in book form than in television or video games? Sure. Remember though that books have had a few thousand years head start. Given how far the electronic medium has come in less than a hundred years, that gap is going to be erased quickly.
Its time everyone got over this outdated idea that books are just plain "better" than anything else. In a hundred years or so we won't print books anymore. Do we all think the population will be a herd of illiterate drones?
Queston: Why didn't/. fight the Cease and Desist letter from Sun? If you're so sure you would have won, then why not fight? If/. is going to lecture and preach about the evils of companies and their licensing, then shouldn't it be practiced as well? I realize its a question of money and time, but doesn't it make sense that a site so bent on advocacy should take up the banner when given the opportunity?
What you say in your post about the development of Unreal is certainly true. It took way too long and was riddled with bugs upon release. You stop short however of explaining what happened after Unreal's release--something that is likely to happen to Mozilla.
I was one of those people who watched Unreal's release carefully. What happened when Epic shipped a program that was unplayable over the internet and ridden with various bugs in single player was that it killed the Unreal community. For all of the copies sold that first couple weeks, all of the mods announced for the game, how many saw the light of day and were played consistently? Not many, and certainly not anywhere near the number of the game series Unreal was supposed to replace, Quake. I remember watching as Bluesnews exploded with announcements, and then became a wasteland of Unreal information.
What remained, from what I saw, was alot of bitterness and unhappy people when it came to their thoughts about Epic. I for one uninstalled my copy of Unreal and placed it on the shelf. It was only recently that I reinstalled the game, added the needed patches, and then began to play it. I was glad I did, but the game I played should have been available from Day 1. It wasn't however. It has only been recently that Epic has managed to return to favor with the game-buying public because of Unreal Tournament, although they still have yet to receive any of my money. In contrast, I had Q3A on pre-order.
Let's look at another game that fits this ananlogy: Daikatana. It too spent several years in development and upon released was also riddled with bugs. This includes at least one bug that makes it impossible to finish the game. What has this done to the public's opinion about Ion Storm? Killed it. The Daikatana community is, like Unreal's, non-existant. In my estimation it has also cost other games that have been released under the Ion Storm mantle sales. Deus Ex, a very good game, hasn't broken into the Top 20 in sales.
So what does history tell us? That perhaps these two pojects should have been aborted. During their development maybe someone should have done what suck.com is doing here for Mozilla: calling for a mercy killing. There is a certain point when continued development does more harm than good. If Mozilla uses the development of Unreal and Daikatana as a guide, that's certainly true.
No, they couldn't have. The way trademark law is written, it must be actively defended to be preserved.
With copyright the exact opposite is true, even if you never defend your copyright once, the copyright remains valid.
I understand all that and I can see your point. The law says trademarks have to protected.
Looking at it from a broader perspective however, I see it as being very hypocritcal that Napster attempts to restrict the use of anything they own with one hand while helping to distribute material they don't own with the other. The fact that they are trying to protect a trademark to me is irrelevant. Why couldn't they let the Napster trademark out into the public domain? That seems to be exactly what they want to do with the music they help to distribute. To me that's a hypocritical position to take.
If you can think of a better way they would have resolved that situation, please respond
Napster could have just let it go.
The point is that Napster threw a fit whenever anyone, be it the Offspring or open source programmers, tried to use anything Napster owned. Yet at the same time, Napster has no problem helping to distribute material that other people own.
You say Napster was just protecting what they owned, which is true, but is not Metallica, Dr. Dre, etc., just doing the exact same thing? Are not they protecting what they own? Why is it OK for Napster to hand out cease-and-desist orders but not OK for the artists to do that?
Napster freely distributes material that it does not own the rights to and has not received permission to make available. Yet, when someone takes the Napster trademark and makes it available when the person has not received permission to do so, Napster Inc. cries foul.
Its the same issue. Napster is essentially saying, "We can steal your stuff but you can't steal ours." That's hypocrisy, pure and simple.
Slashdot Mirror
A couple years ago I got a demo of an Ergotron adjustable arm, and have been using it every since. I like it a lot, but it isn't without its flaws.
First off, make sure you have an anti-stress mat to stand on. When I first started to use the arm, my feet became really sore. Standing all day on what was essentially a concrete floor with a few millimeters worth of "carpet" was too hard on my soles. The anti-stress mat relieved that completely.
Second, once you stand and raise your computer screen, you now have to raise everything else with it. This likely won't be an issue if your entire desk surface is up high, but whereas I have an arm that mounts to a normal desk it is something I've had to deal with. My keyboard, mouse, and monitors are at standing level, but my phone and anything else on my desk is down where I have to reach for it. Being in IT support, my primary computer (Windows) is on the arm while my secondary (MacBook) is on a stand on a box.
Third, standing takes getting used to, and eventually you will stand most of the time. However, sometimes you will want to sit. You'll want to have an option to sit down, whether it's an adjustable desk/arm or you can go somewhere else and work for a time.
Finally, and this is an issue mainly for my current solution with a desk-attached arm, be sure your desk/arm can hold everything you want. My Ergotron arm model is capable of dual displays, but the 23" Dells I use strain the weight limit of the arm. If I add anything more with any appreciable weight, the arm sinks down to the desk.
Overall I like my solution, and will not go back to a sitting-only desk.
So new users before the old, safe choice they're familiar with instead of something radically new and different. How does this surprise anyone?
Look, I had the same inclination when I switched from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. I was one of those early adopters who bought it launch day and ran home and installed it. I, and many others, had the same feelings when the Ribbon debuted for MS Office. And yes, I thought the same thing trying out Windows 8. There is always that moment of "panic" when you realize you don't know where things are anymore like you did with the previous version.
But, each time, if you stick with it for a bit, you get familiar with new interface. You pick it up just as you did with the old one--and you even start to realize the advantages of the new layout versus the old. Sorry, Slashdot, but this is FUD and you're guilty of spreading it.
All IT people have heard the joke, "Well, if I take a hammer to it..." But that doesn't mean they do it. From the article, the headline reads as though users are causing deliberate damage to their computers in order to receive an upgrade. Read the actual text however, and while users are saying that, there isn't anything presented to show there are widespread acts of vandalism happening. The only real takeaway from this article is that some UK offices are using significantly outdated equipment. The headline is just sensationalism. I hate to say it, but I think /. fell for this one.
Good satire uses humor to expose some truth. One of my favorite South Park moments was during the episode about tolerance. The characters had just toured the Museum of Tolerance where they learned to respect people of other races and cultures. Leaving the museum they see a smoker sitting at a fountain smoking and start ripping on him, calling him names and telling him to get lost. It was funny because there is some truth there, that we preach tolerance of other races yet condemn smokers so easily. With "Manbearpig" the satirical truth Matt and Trey went for was the global warming is just as real as the creature manbearpig. Both are figments of Al Gore's imagination. If global warming was false, and the alarm over it was as overblown as South Park Al Gore's fear of manbearpig, then the satire would work. But we know global warming is happening, and that current practices of humanity are the primary causes of it. So, the satire just doesn't work. A much better environmental-focused South Park satire was of the smugness of hybrid car owners in the episode "Smug." I love hybrid cars, but that episode was funny because it took to task the superiority complex of some hybrid owners.
or any other spyware removal tool. That is not to say that you shouldn't use any of them, but instead you should use two or three different ones. In doing residential support for a small college I've discovered that each removal program detects different things.
I currently use Windows Defender and Ad-Aware for spyware, and we have Symantec Antivirus for virus protection. Additionally, sometimes I'll whip out Panda Titanium for bad infections. Plus there are the numerous specific removal tools out there for certain spyware packages
I used to use Spybot S&D, but its bugs are too much. I can't spend 10, 15, or 20 minutes trying to find an update server that doesn't return a bad checksum, or when Spybot mysteriously takes exactly three seconds to scan a computer and says it's clean. Fixing that requires reinstalled Spybot. These may not be a big deal on one computer, but when they happen numerous times over the course of setting up several hundred machines, it's unacceptable.
Anyway, as I've found, each scanner detects something different. Ad-aware in particular, is much more anal about what it considers unaccetpable that Defender, as you might expect. As for Webroot Spysweeper, I'll just say this: the worst spyware infections I've seen have all been on computers with Spysweeper already installed and running on them.
I realize it's from an AC, but it should be given it's due.
I am glad that security has become an issue for id now, as the AC has pointed out, this wasn't always so. I still remember that night the RCON exploit was discovered. As I was playing Quake the server blipped for a second. I got back on, checked Gamespy, and found that the name of every Quake server on the Internet had been changed.
Oh the fur that flew then...
Fine, we'll give you all of the precious SLA agreements you want. In return however, you have to abide by the strict SLA that we, the IT department, are forced to implement so that we can ensure compliance with your SLA. Trust me, you won't like what we have to write to protect us from the likes of you.
What, exactly, am I supposed to learn from solving a puzzle like this?
Why did these people think adding that into the new code was a good idea? It ruins the game and should be banned. Period.
As I see it, part of the fun of TF is the balance the mod strived to achieve with the classes. The goal of the design was to level the classes by mixing the power and operation of the weapons in relation to the speed of each class. Scouts were weak but had blazing quickness, while heavyweapons guys had the most powerful weapon in the game (yes, I'm ignoring the sniper rifle in snipe mode), but became tanks with their slowness. Bunnyhopping ruins this equilibrium.
It used to be fun trying to get a hwguy across the bridge. Now some asshole hops his way all over the map using the hwguy as a scout. The class given the strongest weapon in TF now can move just as fast as the quickest class.
So maybe, perhaps, it isn't technically "cheating" because hopping is the result of a bug in the code. The letter of the law may not be in violation, but the spirit clearly is.
Don't be a lamer. Stop the hop.
Exactly where was the "hilarity?" This is just a short article on how he tracked down the guy with some simple online tools and then sued him under a law he was familiar with. There isn't even any wackiness or insanity here. It's just, well, kinda boring.
I drive a Porsche 911, special ordered to have NO sunroof, NO power locks, NO heated seats, NO power windows, and yes folks... NO stereo.
Good luck trying to resell that one!
I work as a computer technician for a small private college, and I know exactly what this article is talking about. As the title of this post says, we are drowning in a see of dead equipment that we can't get rid of, and we only have 1,000 students! I'm scared to see the problem at a large university.
Being that we are located in a small town, there is literally no place to take the 14" and 15" monitors, motherboards, cases, etc., that are quickly piling up. We are running out of storage space for all of the broken and useless junk that has no place to go. So far, it seems our only option is to pay to have HP to take it. How we are going to get all of this crap to them is a whole other problem, however.
I, for one, would happily pay an extra fee per computer bought if the state, or a company designated by the state, would take the old equipment for free when it dies. My fear however, is that we'll be charged this extra amount on the purchase price and then have to pay again for someone to take the machine. That would be even worse than it is now. If this is done right, it could be a great program.
If its done right...
Er...uh...wait a minute...
Gotta love how they say how linux is too hard to switch users too but dont mention that Microsoft does the exact same thing every 2 years to their user interface.
What a load.
XP is the first time since Windows 95 that Microsoft has made a major change in the look and feel of the GUI. As 95 begat 98 which begat ME (and NT 4 begat 2000) minor things have changed such as the placement of the Windows Explorer icon and a Control Panel group or two, but the same basic grey bar at the bottom of the screen with the start button has always remained.
Every 2 years? Complete FUD.
http://www.bluesnews.com/plans/1/
Carmack has quite a bit to say on the subject as this .plan update is rather long (a little too long for a /. comment I think).
How sad. It would be much better for all concerned if they'd use that time to read a book.
No wonder many young people are semi-literate.
What utter drivel. Once again we return to the outdated idea that because something is printed on a dead tree that automatically gives it a status above everything else. Reading, in and of itself, is no better than playing video games or watching television. Just because someone is a "reader" doesn't make them smarter or better equipped for society.
The key here is that its about what you read, what you play, or what you watch. If reading was the key to being smarter then why aren't disgruntled housewives who bury themselves in romance novels considered the smartest humans on Earth? If I turn on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel and watch it all day, I can assure you I'll be much better off than them.
Now is there more "quality" material out there in book form than in television or video games? Sure. Remember though that books have had a few thousand years head start. Given how far the electronic medium has come in less than a hundred years, that gap is going to be erased quickly.
Its time everyone got over this outdated idea that books are just plain "better" than anything else. In a hundred years or so we won't print books anymore. Do we all think the population will be a herd of illiterate drones?
Queston: Why didn't /. fight the Cease and Desist letter from Sun? If you're so sure you would have won, then why not fight? If /. is going to lecture and preach about the evils of companies and their licensing, then shouldn't it be practiced as well? I realize its a question of money and time, but doesn't it make sense that a site so bent on advocacy should take up the banner when given the opportunity?
his militia group paranoia or the fact that the post was actually moderated up.
He'd just as soon bust a cap in your ass as look at you.
MC Hawking's Crib
(Seriously, this site is hilarious! Any Stephen Hawking fan must check it out. And for those wondering, no, I'm not affiliated with the site.)
Why am I not surprised?
The more I read Slashdot the more I wish I wasn't a geek. Where can I resign my membership?
Where did you find that info? The charts I've seen haven't had Deus Ex in them at all.
What you say in your post about the development of Unreal is certainly true. It took way too long and was riddled with bugs upon release. You stop short however of explaining what happened after Unreal's release--something that is likely to happen to Mozilla.
I was one of those people who watched Unreal's release carefully. What happened when Epic shipped a program that was unplayable over the internet and ridden with various bugs in single player was that it killed the Unreal community. For all of the copies sold that first couple weeks, all of the mods announced for the game, how many saw the light of day and were played consistently? Not many, and certainly not anywhere near the number of the game series Unreal was supposed to replace, Quake. I remember watching as Bluesnews exploded with announcements, and then became a wasteland of Unreal information.
What remained, from what I saw, was alot of bitterness and unhappy people when it came to their thoughts about Epic. I for one uninstalled my copy of Unreal and placed it on the shelf. It was only recently that I reinstalled the game, added the needed patches, and then began to play it. I was glad I did, but the game I played should have been available from Day 1. It wasn't however. It has only been recently that Epic has managed to return to favor with the game-buying public because of Unreal Tournament, although they still have yet to receive any of my money. In contrast, I had Q3A on pre-order.
Let's look at another game that fits this ananlogy: Daikatana. It too spent several years in development and upon released was also riddled with bugs. This includes at least one bug that makes it impossible to finish the game. What has this done to the public's opinion about Ion Storm? Killed it. The Daikatana community is, like Unreal's, non-existant. In my estimation it has also cost other games that have been released under the Ion Storm mantle sales. Deus Ex, a very good game, hasn't broken into the Top 20 in sales.
So what does history tell us? That perhaps these two pojects should have been aborted. During their development maybe someone should have done what suck.com is doing here for Mozilla: calling for a mercy killing. There is a certain point when continued development does more harm than good. If Mozilla uses the development of Unreal and Daikatana as a guide, that's certainly true.
No, they couldn't have. The way trademark law is written, it must be actively defended to be preserved.
With copyright the exact opposite is true, even if you never defend your copyright once, the copyright remains valid.
I understand all that and I can see your point. The law says trademarks have to protected.
Looking at it from a broader perspective however, I see it as being very hypocritcal that Napster attempts to restrict the use of anything they own with one hand while helping to distribute material they don't own with the other. The fact that they are trying to protect a trademark to me is irrelevant. Why couldn't they let the Napster trademark out into the public domain? That seems to be exactly what they want to do with the music they help to distribute. To me that's a hypocritical position to take.
If you can think of a better way they would have resolved that situation, please respond
Napster could have just let it go.
The point is that Napster threw a fit whenever anyone, be it the Offspring or open source programmers, tried to use anything Napster owned. Yet at the same time, Napster has no problem helping to distribute material that other people own.
You say Napster was just protecting what they owned, which is true, but is not Metallica, Dr. Dre, etc., just doing the exact same thing? Are not they protecting what they own? Why is it OK for Napster to hand out cease-and-desist orders but not OK for the artists to do that?
Napster freely distributes material that it does not own the rights to and has not received permission to make available. Yet, when someone takes the Napster trademark and makes it available when the person has not received permission to do so, Napster Inc. cries foul.
Its the same issue. Napster is essentially saying, "We can steal your stuff but you can't steal ours." That's hypocrisy, pure and simple.