When I was at university doing my engineering degrees, I was able to type equations in to LaTeX on my Psion 5 faster than most were able to write. And I could then read and index my notes afterwards.
Learn LaTeX. It's the fastest way to record notes, be they mathematical or just text.
For diagrams it gets more complicated, but the Psion comes with some good drawing tools and you can just draw on the screen. Very easy.
I wrote a library system many years ago for school (I was about 12) which worked well for their volumes (many times more than yours).
For only 3500 books though, digitalising it is probably a complete waste of time. And even if you do, you will still have to put them in some sort of order on the shelf.
Just label the shelves and shuffle the books around so you end up with category and then author name.
If you want to play with tech, try taking a hi-res photo of the bookshelf and using OCR on it.
I travelled around the world (inc. USA, Oz, NZ and HK) with my Psion Series 5 in the late 1990s.
I had full web browsing, email and was able to write a 200,000 word diary with ease on my journey. It also played a good game of chess. Two AA batteries would last 24 hours of constant use, or months of standby.
People were amazed at the technology, but it seems we haven't really moved on. The keyboard in particular on the Series 5 is a joy to use. PDA's just don't cut it for serious road use.
These days I seem forced to lug around a small laptop.
If they're already throttling BitTorrent, why don't they also throttle other activity? Such as open mail relays? Let advanced users opt out, but please stop the huge amount of junk mail floating around from some average Joe's insecure PC attached to broadband.
I agree with that. Most of the people who get hit by botnets have no real security at all (as I cite in my blog summary). But then how does one confirm the users are running firewalls? Port-scan them?
Why don't ISPs just block all ports except 80 and 443, unless the user requests otherwise? Make it easy to unblock the ports.
Alternatively, they could do what Easynet UK did for the Nyxem virus and contact users whose machines were sending/receiving traffic matching the Nyxem profile.
Admittedly I'm biased, but for most people the added complexity of distributed revision control is not required. While the benefits of advanced merge mechanisms cannot be denied, there is a steeper learning curve.
We recommend Windows users use TortoiseSVN and have had few problems- it's a fantastically easy to use interface on Windows to the power of Subversion.
Once you're used to version control, it's hard to work without it. I use it for almost everything.
We've had some security audits done and they generally come back to the same point: one can make a system secure against most threats, but the easiest means of entry is always the human angle.
People divulge their passwords/access tokens easily in comparison to spending days/weeks cracking a system.
You should also be careful of where you are- for example, people quite willingly use public terminals to check confidential emails and systems without knowing how to check for wire taps or scanners.
The paypal sucks website has some scary stories (perhaps they should manage them with our service?!). However, for many sites, Paypal just makes the most sense financially.
I'd always thought about having a shared bookmark facility and only now, ten years later, have I managed to get around to doing it. It's great when you're using several computers at once; all I miss is the really simple list format from clicking Bookmarks in Firefox or IE. Sometimes all I want is a list, devoid of clever tags or links.
However, now that Google Toolbar is being released with similar functionality, the "average" user will probably use it in preference.
Will Simpy and del.icio.us be able to compete with the Google Toolbar?
In the UK, rebates are very rare. Personally, I think it's better just to have a simpler price structure- the infrastructure must cost at least 10 dollars per successfully claimed rebate.
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When I was at university doing my engineering degrees, I was able to type equations in to LaTeX on my Psion 5 faster than most were able to write. And I could then read and index my notes afterwards.
Learn LaTeX. It's the fastest way to record notes, be they mathematical or just text.
For diagrams it gets more complicated, but the Psion comes with some good drawing tools and you can just draw on the screen. Very easy.
I wrote a library system many years ago for school (I was about 12) which worked well for their volumes (many times more than yours).
For only 3500 books though, digitalising it is probably a complete waste of time. And even if you do, you will still have to put them in some sort of order on the shelf.
Just label the shelves and shuffle the books around so you end up with category and then author name.
If you want to play with tech, try taking a hi-res photo of the bookshelf and using OCR on it.
Then use Skype. It may be closed source, but at least it's encrypted. To some degree.
Shadows in the Gimp are easy; just a little bit hard to find.
It's in the Script-fu menu, along with some other goodies: the (simple) process is explained here: Drop shadows and borders in the Gimp.
And you can even use R within PostgreSQL with plr.
I travelled around the world (inc. USA, Oz, NZ and HK) with my Psion Series 5 in the late 1990s.
I had full web browsing, email and was able to write a 200,000 word diary with ease on my journey. It also played a good game of chess. Two AA batteries would last 24 hours of constant use, or months of standby.
People were amazed at the technology, but it seems we haven't really moved on. The keyboard in particular on the Series 5 is a joy to use. PDA's just don't cut it for serious road use.
These days I seem forced to lug around a small laptop.
We're using Skype for client business engagements at the moment; it works very well.
Simp is also used (Secure MSN).
I've used Zoph for ages. It's really good and I've submitted a script to allow it to host videos sensibly.
I haven't used Gallery 2. I would look into flickr more but it won't host videos and I need them to be kept together.
TrueCrypt on Windows is great.
But why should I use it in Linux over the normal device-mapper tools?
Anyone know?
ext3 syncs by default every 5 seconds- if you're using ext3 this could be your problem.
:-)
You can change the settings for how often it flushes and also the criteria e.g. flush when buffers are 20% dirty.
This was in bdflush in Linux 2.4- I'm not sure where it is now in 2.6. Google will have it somewhere though
We won't ask if he had Google's "SafeSearch" thing-u-ma-jig on or off...
Well, an "edit this article" button would certainly cut down on dupes.
This (comment) might feed the trolls though.
I wasn't able to be there in person (it's a bit far from England) but the MP3s of the talks were very informative.
Here is the link to the recordings. (Coralised)
I have some other associated bookmarks.
If they're already throttling BitTorrent, why don't they also throttle other activity? Such as open mail relays? Let advanced users opt out, but please stop the huge amount of junk mail floating around from some average Joe's insecure PC attached to broadband.
I agree with that. Most of the people who get hit by botnets have no real security at all (as I cite in my blog summary). But then how does one confirm the users are running firewalls? Port-scan them?
Why don't ISPs just block all ports except 80 and 443, unless the user requests otherwise? Make it easy to unblock the ports.
Alternatively, they could do what Easynet UK did for the Nyxem virus and contact users whose machines were sending/receiving traffic matching the Nyxem profile.
Zimbra is getting a lot of press time at the moment.
Have you used it significantly? how does it compare to the competition?
Admittedly I'm biased, but for most people the added complexity of distributed revision control is not required. While the benefits of advanced merge mechanisms cannot be denied, there is a steeper learning curve.
We recommend Windows users use TortoiseSVN and have had few problems- it's a fantastically easy to use interface on Windows to the power of Subversion.
Once you're used to version control, it's hard to work without it. I use it for almost everything.
We've had some security audits done and they generally come back to the same point: one can make a system secure against most threats, but the easiest means of entry is always the human angle.
_ password_to_complete/ people willing to hand over their passwords.
People divulge their passwords/access tokens easily in comparison to spending days/weeks cracking a system.
There's an article here about http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/04/11/give_your
You should also be careful of where you are- for example, people quite willingly use public terminals to check confidential emails and systems without knowing how to check for wire taps or scanners.
The paypal sucks website has some scary stories (perhaps they should manage them with our service?!). However, for many sites, Paypal just makes the most sense financially.
Until something goes wrong.
Absolutely right.
The database is almost always the limiting factor- you can chuck in more web servers easily, but to expand the DB gets very complicated very fast.
Even when you work with decent mainframes, as I do.
Ah, if only I had mod points!
We have one (small) TV in the house.
It's on for less than 2 hours each day, I would say. That gives us a dozen more hours in the day to use over some people.
I only signed up to http://www.simpy.com/ yesterday and I'm already a fan.
I'd always thought about having a shared bookmark facility and only now, ten years later, have I managed to get around to doing it. It's great when you're using several computers at once; all I miss is the really simple list format from clicking Bookmarks in Firefox or IE. Sometimes all I want is a list, devoid of clever tags or links.
However, now that Google Toolbar is being released with similar functionality, the "average" user will probably use it in preference.
Will Simpy and del.icio.us be able to compete with the Google Toolbar?
In the UK, rebates are very rare. Personally, I think it's better just to have a simpler price structure- the infrastructure must cost at least 10 dollars per successfully claimed rebate.
... whoosh!
bofh == Everon?? Hope not.
And the whole point of the exercise was to ignite discussion and thence branding and sales. Not that x is 20% faster than y.
I think he's succeeded.