take a look at the size of the codebase and the amount of functionality of one versus the other.
That's not fair at all. If you include functionality and size of codebase along with number and seriousness of vulnerabilities you put Windows and an even bigger disadvantage!
The actual range is 12VDC to about 14.1VDC when running.
I would add a "generally" to that. If your voltage regulator is starting to go you could easily see 10-18VDC. I've seen it happen, and it's pretty freaky, especially when your battery starts inflating like a balloon as the acid starts to boil!
Anyway, one of the boards I worked on at my previous job had a really sweet 12V to 5V convertor+regulator that involved an Op Amp. The board took 12V in and had to supply 5.000VDC +0.003/-0.000 to pin 1 of the PLC. You dialed in this Op Amp circuit to the voltage you wanted (I usually put it at 5.001V) with a trim pot attached to one of the inputs, and it held that voltage within +/-0.0001V no matter what happened on 12V (which ranged from 13.6-11.5V during normal operation).
In all honesty, I never fully understood how the circuit worked, but it was incredibly simple; just an Op Amp and a few resistors (and an assload of filter caps, since it had to sit about 5 inches away from an RF transmitter).
Yes, car power is dirty, but cleaning it up isn't that difficult.
I was looking at laser printers recently, and only the extremely hi-priced ones have NICs. (A 100Mbps Linksys NIC can be had for $5, so I don't see the problem)
A broadband router+4-port switch+print server can be had for under $60, so what's the big deal?
Yeah, they totally dominate 2d CAD, always have, always will. But in 3d they are totally irrelevant. Now that they've been shut out of 3d they're crying about the need for file standards just like all the companies they shut out of 2d were years ago. Boo-freaking-hoo!
As others have said already, there is no need for 3d on the web. Those few who have a use for it are already doing it with the tools that are available already, and apparantly that only accounts for less than 1 precent of the content on the web.
I used to publish 3d CAD drawings to our customer's personal project pages on the website of my old company. There already is a format that works great; it's called eDrawings. I know from experience that it'll convert from AutoCAD and SolidWorks, and I'm pretty sure it'll do Pro-E and SolidEdge as well. You can save it with the viewer embedded in a self-contained executable, file size is reasonable, the end-user has full control over rotation, zoom, etc., and it's as easy as printing to PDF.
So, what exactly do these guys claim to be bringing to the table?
I can tell you've never had the "pleasure" of working in the fast food industry. Here are some highlights:
Really low pay; I thnk the local ones are currently offering up to $8/hour starting.
Really crappy work with greasy stuff that seeps into your pours.
The worst management, in general, on the face of the earth. You think you have a bad manager now? Wait til you experience the horror that is the fast food restaurant manager!
Really messed up schedules, often with little regard for applicable labor laws.
I vowed that I would live under a bridge and eat out of garbage cans before I worked in fast fod again.
I hope they meant "hip barbershop" and not merely a "hip hair salon for men". There is a big difference between a hairstylist and a barber. I'm lucky enough to have one within walking distance of my house, and I recomend trying one if there's one near you.
The defining difference between a barber and a stylist is a barber is certified to use a straight razor. Mine mainly uses it to do the final trim on the neck and around the ears, and in over 2 years he's never cut me. It's a pretty cool experience. I'll probably be getting a shave from him before my best friend's wedding.
My Panasonic Mini-DV camcorder apparently doesn't exist, and it's only 1.5 years old.
The Panasonic CD-RW I got for my mother-in-laws friend wasn't supported by the Adaptec EasyCD it came bundled with (and it also, apparently, doesn't exist).
My (ex)bosses' printer was the kicker, though. We upgraded all the computers to Win2k and needed drivers for it. It was a dot-matrix, so I didn't have high hopes, but they needed it to print payroll, so obviously it was a high priority job;) I go to Panasonic's site, and it's listed on their support page, which totally shocks me since this is after the incidents with the CD-RW and Camcorder, and they even have a link and a filename. The link takes me to an FTP site (not to the file I needed, as it claimed it would) that doesn't have the driver I need. I try the one printer driver that is there, but obviously it doesn't work. After 2 hours on the phone alternating between being on hold and saying "I already tried that, it didn't work" to people with the IQ of mashed yams, I finally get transfered to a guy who's able to tell me where to find the drivers: on Panasonics Canadian site!
A housewide transformer with 5V, 6V, 7.5V & 12V leads might or might not be more efficient, but I'd love it for the conveniance and clutter avoidance potential. Something like open feeds along the wall that you could just snap your device cord to. Maybe made out of some high tension wire like they hang those halogen lamps from sometimes. It could be really slick. It would only need five wires for all those voltages, and you could even make a +/- 6V supply for your electronics projects using the 0, 6 & 12 Volt leads...
Much more slick would be a ground and either a 12V or 24V rail with voltage regulators in the device itself. Voltage regulators are small and cheap, there's no reason to have all those extra wires.
Also, there is already a standard plug for 12V which would most likely be used as opposed to bare wires; it's the same plug your car cigarette lighter uses, and yes you can get wall plates for them.
Bare wires have some significant electrical mechanical disadvantages (too easy to short or damage mechanically, plus there's the labeling issue: those halogen deals are AC so polarity doesn't matter, but with DC you really need to know which is which).
I lived off-grid for almost 20 years, and the major problem was light. 12V lights suck. They just don't compare to AC lightbulbs. You can get close to a lower power AC bulb (like 55W or so) using halogen, but they're a bit spendy. For this reason, most off-grid folks hardwire an inverter into their house and effectively have 2 power systems: 110VAC for lights and certain appliances (microwave and TV, for example), and a 12V system for whatever they can get away with (you'd be surprised at the kind of stuff you can get for 12V, like soldering irons for example).
Anyway, I'm sure this is fixable, but currently it's a problem.
I'm guessing this was a while ago? Perhaps you tried Mandrake 5.2 and refuse to accept that things may have changed since then? You should try a modern distro. Personally, I like SuSE. Once you've installed SuSE 8.0 you will know the true meaning of an easy install. The hardware autodetection and configuration is excellent, and you get to skip the CD shuffle and endless reboot cycle as you install all your drivers and apps. I recommend Professional, as it includes the Reference book (previously called "The Handbook"), which is a total replacement for the "next-door-neighbor's son", and is quite possibly the only Linux book you will ever need.
As for being out of touch, well, I've done over 30 Windows installs (various flavors) and 8 Linux installs over the last year. In my experiece, SuSE has better hardware detection, better driver support in some important areas (especially network cards), and requires about 1/5 the amount of personal attention during install, and even less for upgrades (YaST Online Update rules!).
To put it another way: I'll see your "Baloney" and raise you a "Bologna"!
The computer-illiterate do exist, but the myth is that they are the El Dorado of computing - a vast untapped market that only the Perfect Interface will capture.
I would say that the myth is that there is a Perfect Interface. The term generally refers to a level of intuitiveness, and the problem with that is that there is no such thing as pure intuition. What we call intuition is really just a connection to a previous experience, usually in a way which isn't easily quantified.
It was said by some UI guy whose name I can never remember that the only intuitive interface is the nipple. This is, quite simply, false. As any breastfeeding mother can tell you; the nipple is a learned interface.
so what - these people will check the brand of their video card and Ethernet chipset for a Linux install? don't make me laugh.
But they can handle a Windows install just fine, can they? Your dad won't have any problem finding and installing his video card and ethernet drivers on Windows?
Why do people always compare using Windows to installing Linux. Using and installing are totally seperate things. Most people have no business installing Linux or Windows, and most people will find an already installed modern Linux distro no more difficult to use than an already installed copy of Windows.
Not particularly familiar with the Windows timeline, are we?
Windows 95 had at least 4 point releases, refered to as A, B, C, D, with the last one including FAT32 support IIRC. The upgrades were free, but they weren't easy to find.
Windows 98/98SE, well, I guess I can't really argue with you there. However, Microsoft caught just as much flak for that as Apple is catching now. However, the changes from 95 were significant enough for it to be more than a point release.
Windows ME, again, had significant enough changes for it to be more than a point release (that they were completely misguided is beside the point).
As for the NT timeline, we have (off the top of my head, and using Service Packs as point releases):
Windows NT4.0 - 4.6: all service packs free AFAIK
Windows 2000 aka NT5.0 - 5.2: all service packs free
Windows XP I can't really comment on, as I haven't used it. However, calling it NT5.1 seems a bit absurd to me.
The big difference here is the motives of the people involved. Under capitalism, I exploit you because I think I know what's best for me. Under communism, I exploit you because I think I know what's best for you.
Yeah, that's the theory, anyway.
You know what the difference between theory and practice is, don't you? In theory there is no difference.
In reality the only difference between Capitalism and Communism is the path to power: In Capitalism one gains power through private industry, while in Communism one gains power through government service.
Well, I may not know much about nuclear material, but I do know a thing or two about Windows 98, and the idea that it would be used in any situation connected with anything sensative or potentialy hazardous frightens me.
Regarding the Berkeley hippies, though, I've always found it quite humorous that anyone wearing that much patoulli can point their finger at industrial polluters with a straight face...
If you really want to hear the "loss" in mp3 try a few Pixies songs. Jimi Hendrix would probably work, too. Both derived alot of their "feel" from overtones and harmonics, stuff that's really only noticable in it's absence, and apparently stuff the mp3 folks decided we could do without.
IMHO, nothing shows off the shortcomings of mp3 like the Pixies.
Wndows NT came out how many years ago? And how much have they charged for their point releases (AKA Service Packs)? Windows 2000 has been out for 2 years now, and I haven't had to pay for any of those service packs, either.
Charging for point releases is an insult to your customer base. Charging $130 for a point release is rubbing salt in the wound.
That's the worst! After spending some time in KDE where I never needed to doubleclick, I thought that would be cool in Windows, too. It lasted about a day, and that's just because I'm stuborn.
Interestingly, the author has decided a virgin install of Windows, complete with Welcome to Windows dialog, stupid Windows music, and Connect to the Internet icon, is cruft-free.
So, you go through the EULAs and create a summary for the ones that don't permit republication, and post the summary instead. If you really want to be a bastard, make it really obvious who doesn't want the public to know what's in their EULAs.
You'd be surprised. There have been a few studies in the US regarding the effects of polution on weather, and the results are pretty interesting. Basically, any area centered around a major population or industrial center will have consistently different weather on the weekends, when most plants are closed and there's not so much commuter traffic.
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take a look at the size of the codebase and the amount of functionality of one versus the other.
That's not fair at all. If you include functionality and size of codebase along with number and seriousness of vulnerabilities you put Windows and an even bigger disadvantage!
The actual range is 12VDC to about 14.1VDC when running.
I would add a "generally" to that. If your voltage regulator is starting to go you could easily see 10-18VDC. I've seen it happen, and it's pretty freaky, especially when your battery starts inflating like a balloon as the acid starts to boil!
Anyway, one of the boards I worked on at my previous job had a really sweet 12V to 5V convertor+regulator that involved an Op Amp. The board took 12V in and had to supply 5.000VDC +0.003/-0.000 to pin 1 of the PLC. You dialed in this Op Amp circuit to the voltage you wanted (I usually put it at 5.001V) with a trim pot attached to one of the inputs, and it held that voltage within +/-0.0001V no matter what happened on 12V (which ranged from 13.6-11.5V during normal operation).
In all honesty, I never fully understood how the circuit worked, but it was incredibly simple; just an Op Amp and a few resistors (and an assload of filter caps, since it had to sit about 5 inches away from an RF transmitter).
Yes, car power is dirty, but cleaning it up isn't that difficult.
I was looking at laser printers recently, and only the extremely hi-priced ones have NICs. (A 100Mbps Linksys NIC can be had for $5, so I don't see the problem)
A broadband router+4-port switch+print server can be had for under $60, so what's the big deal?
That's an amusing notion!
Yeah, they totally dominate 2d CAD, always have, always will. But in 3d they are totally irrelevant. Now that they've been shut out of 3d they're crying about the need for file standards just like all the companies they shut out of 2d were years ago. Boo-freaking-hoo!
As others have said already, there is no need for 3d on the web. Those few who have a use for it are already doing it with the tools that are available already, and apparantly that only accounts for less than 1 precent of the content on the web.
I used to publish 3d CAD drawings to our customer's personal project pages on the website of my old company. There already is a format that works great; it's called eDrawings. I know from experience that it'll convert from AutoCAD and SolidWorks, and I'm pretty sure it'll do Pro-E and SolidEdge as well. You can save it with the viewer embedded in a self-contained executable, file size is reasonable, the end-user has full control over rotation, zoom, etc., and it's as easy as printing to PDF.
So, what exactly do these guys claim to be bringing to the table?
I can tell you've never had the "pleasure" of working in the fast food industry. Here are some highlights:
Really low pay; I thnk the local ones are currently offering up to $8/hour starting.
Really crappy work with greasy stuff that seeps into your pours.
The worst management, in general, on the face of the earth. You think you have a bad manager now? Wait til you experience the horror that is the fast food restaurant manager!
Really messed up schedules, often with little regard for applicable labor laws.
I vowed that I would live under a bridge and eat out of garbage cans before I worked in fast fod again.
I hope they meant "hip barbershop" and not merely a "hip hair salon for men". There is a big difference between a hairstylist and a barber. I'm lucky enough to have one within walking distance of my house, and I recomend trying one if there's one near you.
The defining difference between a barber and a stylist is a barber is certified to use a straight razor. Mine mainly uses it to do the final trim on the neck and around the ears, and in over 2 years he's never cut me. It's a pretty cool experience. I'll probably be getting a shave from him before my best friend's wedding.
My vote for worst customer support is Panasonic:
;) I go to Panasonic's site, and it's listed on their support page, which totally shocks me since this is after the incidents with the CD-RW and Camcorder, and they even have a link and a filename. The link takes me to an FTP site (not to the file I needed, as it claimed it would) that doesn't have the driver I need. I try the one printer driver that is there, but obviously it doesn't work. After 2 hours on the phone alternating between being on hold and saying "I already tried that, it didn't work" to people with the IQ of mashed yams, I finally get transfered to a guy who's able to tell me where to find the drivers: on Panasonics Canadian site!
My Panasonic Mini-DV camcorder apparently doesn't exist, and it's only 1.5 years old.
The Panasonic CD-RW I got for my mother-in-laws friend wasn't supported by the Adaptec EasyCD it came bundled with (and it also, apparently, doesn't exist).
My (ex)bosses' printer was the kicker, though. We upgraded all the computers to Win2k and needed drivers for it. It was a dot-matrix, so I didn't have high hopes, but they needed it to print payroll, so obviously it was a high priority job
In short, no more Panasonic for me, ever again.
Yeah!!!
Just like what happened to Macrovision!!!
Oh, wait...
Yet another reason to use an external and/or hardware firewall.
A housewide transformer with 5V, 6V, 7.5V & 12V leads might or might not be more efficient, but I'd love it for the conveniance and clutter avoidance potential. Something like open feeds along the wall that you could just snap your device cord to. Maybe made out of some high tension wire like they hang those halogen lamps from sometimes. It could be really slick. It would only need five wires for all those voltages, and you could even make a +/- 6V supply for your electronics projects using the 0, 6 & 12 Volt leads...
Much more slick would be a ground and either a 12V or 24V rail with voltage regulators in the device itself. Voltage regulators are small and cheap, there's no reason to have all those extra wires.
Also, there is already a standard plug for 12V which would most likely be used as opposed to bare wires; it's the same plug your car cigarette lighter uses, and yes you can get wall plates for them.
Bare wires have some significant electrical mechanical disadvantages (too easy to short or damage mechanically, plus there's the labeling issue: those halogen deals are AC so polarity doesn't matter, but with DC you really need to know which is which).
I lived off-grid for almost 20 years, and the major problem was light. 12V lights suck. They just don't compare to AC lightbulbs. You can get close to a lower power AC bulb (like 55W or so) using halogen, but they're a bit spendy. For this reason, most off-grid folks hardwire an inverter into their house and effectively have 2 power systems: 110VAC for lights and certain appliances (microwave and TV, for example), and a 12V system for whatever they can get away with (you'd be surprised at the kind of stuff you can get for 12V, like soldering irons for example).
Anyway, I'm sure this is fixable, but currently it's a problem.
Pretty much anything by Franz Kafka should fit the bill, though not really sci-fi. Also, Kurt Vaughagut Jr (SP?).
Wow! There's another person on the earth who liked The Postman! But, hey, I liked Waterworld, too, so what do I know...
I'm guessing this was a while ago? Perhaps you tried Mandrake 5.2 and refuse to accept that things may have changed since then? You should try a modern distro. Personally, I like SuSE. Once you've installed SuSE 8.0 you will know the true meaning of an easy install. The hardware autodetection and configuration is excellent, and you get to skip the CD shuffle and endless reboot cycle as you install all your drivers and apps. I recommend Professional, as it includes the Reference book (previously called "The Handbook"), which is a total replacement for the "next-door-neighbor's son", and is quite possibly the only Linux book you will ever need.
As for being out of touch, well, I've done over 30 Windows installs (various flavors) and 8 Linux installs over the last year. In my experiece, SuSE has better hardware detection, better driver support in some important areas (especially network cards), and requires about 1/5 the amount of personal attention during install, and even less for upgrades (YaST Online Update rules!).
To put it another way: I'll see your "Baloney" and raise you a "Bologna"!
The computer-illiterate do exist, but the myth is that they are the El Dorado of computing - a vast untapped market that only the Perfect Interface will capture.
I would say that the myth is that there is a Perfect Interface. The term generally refers to a level of intuitiveness, and the problem with that is that there is no such thing as pure intuition. What we call intuition is really just a connection to a previous experience, usually in a way which isn't easily quantified.
It was said by some UI guy whose name I can never remember that the only intuitive interface is the nipple. This is, quite simply, false. As any breastfeeding mother can tell you; the nipple is a learned interface.
so what - these people will check the brand of their video card and Ethernet chipset for a Linux install? don't make me laugh.
But they can handle a Windows install just fine, can they? Your dad won't have any problem finding and installing his video card and ethernet drivers on Windows?
Why do people always compare using Windows to installing Linux. Using and installing are totally seperate things. Most people have no business installing Linux or Windows, and most people will find an already installed modern Linux distro no more difficult to use than an already installed copy of Windows.
Not particularly familiar with the Windows timeline, are we?
Windows 95 had at least 4 point releases, refered to as A, B, C, D, with the last one including FAT32 support IIRC. The upgrades were free, but they weren't easy to find.
Windows 98/98SE, well, I guess I can't really argue with you there. However, Microsoft caught just as much flak for that as Apple is catching now. However, the changes from 95 were significant enough for it to be more than a point release.
Windows ME, again, had significant enough changes for it to be more than a point release (that they were completely misguided is beside the point).
As for the NT timeline, we have (off the top of my head, and using Service Packs as point releases):
Windows NT4.0 - 4.6: all service packs free AFAIK
Windows 2000 aka NT5.0 - 5.2: all service packs free
Windows XP I can't really comment on, as I haven't used it. However, calling it NT5.1 seems a bit absurd to me.
The big difference here is the motives of the people involved. Under capitalism, I exploit you because I think I know what's best for me. Under communism, I exploit you because I think I know what's best for you.
Yeah, that's the theory, anyway.
You know what the difference between theory and practice is, don't you? In theory there is no difference.
In reality the only difference between Capitalism and Communism is the path to power: In Capitalism one gains power through private industry, while in Communism one gains power through government service.
Well, I may not know much about nuclear material, but I do know a thing or two about Windows 98, and the idea that it would be used in any situation connected with anything sensative or potentialy hazardous frightens me.
Regarding the Berkeley hippies, though, I've always found it quite humorous that anyone wearing that much patoulli can point their finger at industrial polluters with a straight face...
If you really want to hear the "loss" in mp3 try a few Pixies songs. Jimi Hendrix would probably work, too. Both derived alot of their "feel" from overtones and harmonics, stuff that's really only noticable in it's absence, and apparently stuff the mp3 folks decided we could do without.
IMHO, nothing shows off the shortcomings of mp3 like the Pixies.
Wndows NT came out how many years ago? And how much have they charged for their point releases (AKA Service Packs)? Windows 2000 has been out for 2 years now, and I haven't had to pay for any of those service packs, either.
Charging for point releases is an insult to your customer base. Charging $130 for a point release is rubbing salt in the wound.
That's the worst! After spending some time in KDE where I never needed to doubleclick, I thought that would be cool in Windows, too. It lasted about a day, and that's just because I'm stuborn.
Read the article, it's not what you think.
Interestingly, the author has decided a virgin install of Windows, complete with Welcome to Windows dialog, stupid Windows music, and Connect to the Internet icon, is cruft-free.
So, you go through the EULAs and create a summary for the ones that don't permit republication, and post the summary instead. If you really want to be a bastard, make it really obvious who doesn't want the public to know what's in their EULAs.
You'd be surprised. There have been a few studies in the US regarding the effects of polution on weather, and the results are pretty interesting. Basically, any area centered around a major population or industrial center will have consistently different weather on the weekends, when most plants are closed and there's not so much commuter traffic.
Whatever, it all sounds like "Mmmm, Bork! Bork! Bork!" to me... ;-D