I photographed a load of pictures for a friend with my digital camera. What you need is a digital camera with a connection for an external flash (i.e. don't use the one built in). Use a tripod with a boom arm to hold the camera over a table pointing straight down onto it. Have the seperate flash positioned to one side and angled at 45 degrees so that the centre of the flash area is in the centre of the cameras view area. The angling at 45 degrees is to stop light reflecting off the subject going directly into the camera. Place the picture under a sheet of glass to keep it flat, frame and take the picture. if you fix the glass on a hinge, it can make the operation very quick, much faster than a flatbed scanner - you could do 6 a minute if they're all the same size (i.e. you don't need to reframe them).
I wish you'd tell my family that XP "just works" then. I've taken to wearing my "I'm not here to fix your computer" t-shirt whenever I go and see family, because I tend to spend most of my time when I'm visiting running malware destroyers, anti-virus and trying to find why bits of hardware that used to work fine are now not working. Windows has wasted more of my life than I care to think about.. the only windows systems I have used that "just worked" have been at work, where they have teams of dedicated professionals keeping them running 24/7. I'm not saying that Linux would necessarily be any better, I'm just saying that the old saw "Linux is not for mom and pop" is getting old; Windows is not for mom and pop either, unless son doesn't mind spending all his visits fixing the computer.
One reason that computer retailers are vague about specs is that it means that they can change the spec at any time without customers having any comeback. So if the start off using 8bpp screens and then want to change suppliers for cheaper 6bpp, if they have specified in the specs they are 8bpp they are stuffed. If all the spec says is the resolution and that the viewing angle is "better than x degrees" they can go shopping with little to worry about.
I had 2 "identical" HP flat panel displays in my job-before-last. The colour on one seemed far superior on the older screen, despite them having the same model number. At the time it didn't occur to me they might be internally different.
Computer manufacturers often redesign products without changing the part number - just look at wifi adapters for an example. It's all about the Benjamins!
I just find it unbeleivable that a standards organisation would not make it a condition of participation that any IP interest in ideas being submitted should be declared up front! It's like offering your colleague a lift to work and then presenting them with a bill years later. I think that information proposals to a standards committee should be assumed to be non-proprietary unless explicitly stated. The correct action for the companies affected by this troll should simply to withdraw sale of any infringing products from territories in the USA's jurisdiction. When Dell, HP et al run out of memory chips in the US then perhaps the US government will start to treat the US patent shambles seriously.
I've only been pulled over for speeding three times in my 20 years on the road,once was on a motorway through road works, I got off that by being really apologetic and going "yes Sir,...Sorry Sir...", the second time I was doing 49 in a 30 limit (no excuse!) and got points & a fine, and the last time I was in town and got stopped for 40 in a 30 limit - asked "Do you know what speed you were doing?" I just said "No, I was keeping a look out for kids behind the parked cars and forgot to keep a check on it". I got the usual lecture, but he ended up warning me and I drove away.
I think the outcome depends on 3 factors - how behind "quota" they are (a.k.a. how much fuss the local press is making about speeding), your attitude and demeanour, and how much the last driver they stopped pissed them off!
The prize is not to DO the job, but for the successful submission of the idea. The cost of performing the task could be funded seperately. In fact, the best ideas should be self-funding.
I think the point of the 'learning curve' reason was that there are so few 'plus' points to vista that the amount of re-learning required is not warranted by those improvements. The upgrade from Windows 3.11 to 95 required a huge amount of retraining because microsoft changed the user interface so radically but the effort was worth it because W95 (and the operationally similar W98) offered so much more to the user in terms of productivity and application interoperability. From what I have read the principle features of vista are the shiny chrome and that the movie industry approves of it. The fact that Microsoft have actively degraded the functionality of the applications (wordpad, backup, SMB just to mention the few mentioned in the article) shows that their principle interest is not necessarily with the user. In fact the majority of the effort MS has put in seems to be directed at implementing increasingly intrusive DRM features. If I was a CTO of a big company, I'd want to be really careful about upgradinig hundreds of computers without more actual business benefit to the company - not just so that we can have shiny new UI's that stop users from being naughty.
I had used the free ZoneAlarm on my W98 boxen for years, always happy with it and (AFAIK) never got hacked (plenty of attempts though!). When I upgraded the machines to W2K I found that ZoneAlarm screwed up the user profiles. The, apparently was a "known problem" and I chose to uninstall it. Shorly after I got broadband and am using a router/hub which has its own built in firewall.
But Zonealarm was good, easy to use. I imagine the 'Pro' version would be just as good.
There is no "Golden Bullet" for archival. Any technology can fail. The only answer is good archival management - that is, at the very least, you should keep copies, and regularly (e.g every few years) copy onto fresh media, and compare with the "old" media. Keep a few generations of copies.
Most people do this "accidently" over time by moving their data to newer technologies (e.g. floppy->cd->DVD) and no storage technology remains king forever. about 20 years seems the average, so if your cheapo CD's only manage 30 years, and you're not stupid enough to only keep 1 copy, then you don't have any worries.
Storing archival data on powered up RAID storage seems to me to be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Why not just make 3 copies, store them in different places, and periodically copy/compare them to make sure they don't deterioate? Not so many geek-points I guess.
If you want DRM free sci-fi to read and or download, then try Baen Free Library. I've passed many a happy hour reading some excellent books there. Eric Flint, an author and acting librarian for the above library, points out that sales of the in-print versions of some of his books actually went up after posting them for free in the online library. I read some of David Webers books there, and went out and bought them; despite the fact that the genre (space-opera) was not one I would usually go for. Eric points out in one of his articles on the site (Prime Palaver #1) that the biggest obstacle facing little known authors (and thats the vast majority of them) is their obscurity. Publish free on the internet, and people will read your books, tell their friends, and go on to buy the books you subsequently write. Perhaps that explains why sales go up when you give stuff away for free; I can't see how the same logic wouldn't apply to music.
Eric Flint at Baen Books said that publishing his books online for free actually increased the sales of his in-print books. Mind you, they are sci-fi, not documentary books. However, I think that media owners that learn to embrace the free model might find that they spend less on lawsuits, get more on sales, and get many more readers/viewers. Why worry about the person who read but didn't buy your book, but ignore the 10 who did by the book because they heard about it from someone who read it online? I have books by authors I would never have read if I or a friend hadn't read their earlier books for free online.
Hmmm.. that sounds interesting! What transparent shell do you use? The ones on my linux box just show a darkened version of the desktop. I can't see windows that are under the shell window. Perhaps I'm just using the wrong one...
It sees the move as a way of generating more money for the record industry, which would use it to discover new talent.
Because, like, record companies are soooo hard up for cash. And like they spend so much money on promoting bands. Without this legislation the poor dears might have to rely on lame TV shows to manufacture bands for them to rape.... oh, wait! never mind...
I was saving some PD J'pegs by the time-honoured right-click-save-as from an FTP site in Firefox the other day; every 30 or so pix the disk started to thrash and the system ground to standstill. This was on XP (I was at work) but I've noticed similar stuff with the Linux version at home. I assumed it was FF cleaning up the image cache but it still ain't right. It doesn't happen often enough to bother me so I'd not thought about reporting it. I've never had lockups/slowdowns on actual downloads, but then I'm on dialup at home so I never try more than a couple at a time!
"they do not know"... they == infringers "you have the rights"... you == copyright owner "other guy may be guilty"... who? "case can't be brought"... by whom against whom?
No, "they do not know"... they == The Court "you have the rights"... you == copyright owner "other guy may be guilty"... alleged infringer "case can't be brought"... by Copyright owner against infringer
Don't tell anyone, but I heard someone whisper that their friend overheard a rumour that someone else thought that people sometimes mod +1 Insightful rather that +1 funny because you can give karma with 'insightful' but not 'funny' to the funny person. If someone has enough karma they get the +1 bonus and appear on the radar of people that don't like reading slashdot at '0'. Perhaps some people read Slashdot for the humour? Maybe.
What they have done is taken some old ideas and implemented them very well.
Which, I would imagine, is where Google have scored over other corporations and research organisations. They are good at making things work. And, unlike many corporations, they have a good track record for delivering the results of their efforts at nil cost, or at least very low cost. This project shows how access to free information on the internet enables innovation; if the UN documents had the usual IP overheads then this project would not be practical.
Don't forget that many works of fiction are translated into several languages. The only problem with that is persuading the copyright holders to permit their use in training computer translation systems. I'm not sure where you would stand with this legally (After all, IANAL!), so I suspect this is why Google has been using the UN documents. I would imagine these are effectively public domain; and if not, I would imagine the UN would see a reliable machine translation project worth supporting. The only downside I can see is that the UN texts are unlikely to have many idioms or colloqualisms, which would limit the resulting translators usefulness in a more general context.
Speaking as someone who's using a computer bought in 1995 and which has been serially upgraded over the years (mind you, by now I think only the monitor, floppy cable and the AC lead are components that came from the original PC), I am coming slowly to the conclusion that its becoming less and less worthwhile. The cost of a new system box with all the goodies is just too low. That's unless you have specific requirements for an unusual configuration, but for Joe Normal who wants to do email and web surfing, he may never need to upgrade; if he wants something faster its just makes sense to go to the supermarket and buy a new system for £400.
Slashdot Mirror
I photographed a load of pictures for a friend with my digital camera. What you need is a digital camera with a connection for an external flash (i.e. don't use the one built in). Use a tripod with a boom arm to hold the camera over a table pointing straight down onto it. Have the seperate flash positioned to one side and angled at 45 degrees so that the centre of the flash area is in the centre of the cameras view area. The angling at 45 degrees is to stop light reflecting off the subject going directly into the camera. Place the picture under a sheet of glass to keep it flat, frame and take the picture. if you fix the glass on a hinge, it can make the operation very quick, much faster than a flatbed scanner - you could do 6 a minute if they're all the same size (i.e. you don't need to reframe them).
I wish you'd tell my family that XP "just works" then. I've taken to wearing my "I'm not here to fix your computer" t-shirt whenever I go and see family, because I tend to spend most of my time when I'm visiting running malware destroyers, anti-virus and trying to find why bits of hardware that used to work fine are now not working.
Windows has wasted more of my life than I care to think about.. the only windows systems I have used that "just worked" have been at work, where they have teams of dedicated professionals keeping them running 24/7.
I'm not saying that Linux would necessarily be any better, I'm just saying that the old saw "Linux is not for mom and pop" is getting old; Windows is not for mom and pop either, unless son doesn't mind spending all his visits fixing the computer.
One reason that computer retailers are vague about specs is that it means that they can change the spec at any time without customers having any comeback. So if the start off using 8bpp screens and then want to change suppliers for cheaper 6bpp, if they have specified in the specs they are 8bpp they are stuffed. If all the spec says is the resolution and that the viewing angle is "better than x degrees" they can go shopping with little to worry about.
I had 2 "identical" HP flat panel displays in my job-before-last. The colour on one seemed far superior on the older screen, despite them having the same model number. At the time it didn't occur to me they might be internally different.
Computer manufacturers often redesign products without changing the part number - just look at wifi adapters for an example. It's all about the Benjamins!
I just find it unbeleivable that a standards organisation would not make it a condition of participation that any IP interest in ideas being submitted should be declared up front! It's like offering your colleague a lift to work and then presenting them with a bill years later.
I think that information proposals to a standards committee should be assumed to be non-proprietary unless explicitly stated.
The correct action for the companies affected by this troll should simply to withdraw sale of any infringing products from territories in the USA's jurisdiction. When Dell, HP et al run out of memory chips in the US then perhaps the US government will start to treat the US patent shambles seriously.
Or maybe it's square? Those goofy physicists, what will they do next!
I've only been pulled over for speeding three times in my 20 years on the road,once was on a motorway through road works, I got off that by being really apologetic and going "yes Sir, ...Sorry Sir...", the second time I was doing 49 in a 30 limit (no excuse!) and got points & a fine, and the last time I was in town and got stopped for 40 in a 30 limit - asked "Do you know what speed you were doing?" I just said "No, I was keeping a look out for kids behind the parked cars and forgot to keep a check on it". I got the usual lecture, but he ended up warning me and I drove away.
I think the outcome depends on 3 factors - how behind "quota" they are (a.k.a. how much fuss the local press is making about speeding), your attitude and demeanour, and how much the last driver they stopped pissed them off!
The prize is not to DO the job, but for the successful submission of the idea. The cost of performing the task could be funded seperately. In fact, the best ideas should be self-funding.
I think the point of the 'learning curve' reason was that there are so few 'plus' points to vista that the amount of re-learning required is not warranted by those improvements.
The upgrade from Windows 3.11 to 95 required a huge amount of retraining because microsoft changed the user interface so radically but the effort was worth it because W95 (and the operationally similar W98) offered so much more to the user in terms of productivity and application interoperability.
From what I have read the principle features of vista are the shiny chrome and that the movie industry approves of it. The fact that Microsoft have actively degraded the functionality of the applications (wordpad, backup, SMB just to mention the few mentioned in the article) shows that their principle interest is not necessarily with the user. In fact the majority of the effort MS has put in seems to be directed at implementing increasingly intrusive DRM features.
If I was a CTO of a big company, I'd want to be really careful about upgradinig hundreds of computers without more actual business benefit to the company - not just so that we can have shiny new UI's that stop users from being naughty.
I had used the free ZoneAlarm on my W98 boxen for years, always happy with it and (AFAIK) never got hacked (plenty of attempts though!). When I upgraded the machines to W2K I found that ZoneAlarm screwed up the user profiles. The, apparently was a "known problem" and I chose to uninstall it. Shorly after I got broadband and am using a router/hub which has its own built in firewall.
But Zonealarm was good, easy to use. I imagine the 'Pro' version would be just as good.
There is no "Golden Bullet" for archival. Any technology can fail. The only answer is good archival management - that is, at the very least, you should keep copies, and regularly (e.g every few years) copy onto fresh media, and compare with the "old" media. Keep a few generations of copies.
Most people do this "accidently" over time by moving their data to newer technologies (e.g. floppy->cd->DVD) and no storage technology remains king forever. about 20 years seems the average, so if your cheapo CD's only manage 30 years, and you're not stupid enough to only keep 1 copy, then you don't have any worries.
Storing archival data on powered up RAID storage seems to me to be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Why not just make 3 copies, store them in different places, and periodically copy/compare them to make sure they don't deterioate? Not so many geek-points I guess.
I Just watched that last night! I was tidying up at home (yeah, it happens sometimes!) and found the DVD.
Darryl Hannah.. Grrrrooowwlll!
..would be dandy. Just imagine, in the off-licence:
"No darling, it's not for me, it's for my 'phone!"
If you want DRM free sci-fi to read and or download, then try Baen Free Library. I've passed many a happy hour reading some excellent books there.
Eric Flint, an author and acting librarian for the above library, points out that sales of the in-print versions of some of his books actually went up after posting them for free in the online library. I read some of David Webers books there, and went out and bought them; despite the fact that the genre (space-opera) was not one I would usually go for. Eric points out in one of his articles on the site (Prime Palaver #1) that the biggest obstacle facing little known authors (and thats the vast majority of them) is their obscurity. Publish free on the internet, and people will read your books, tell their friends, and go on to buy the books you subsequently write. Perhaps that explains why sales go up when you give stuff away for free; I can't see how the same logic wouldn't apply to music.
Eric Flint at Baen Books said that publishing his books online for free actually increased the sales of his in-print books. Mind you, they are sci-fi, not documentary books. However, I think that media owners that learn to embrace the free model might find that they spend less on lawsuits, get more on sales, and get many more readers/viewers. Why worry about the person who read but didn't buy your book, but ignore the 10 who did by the book because they heard about it from someone who read it online? I have books by authors I would never have read if I or a friend hadn't read their earlier books for free online.
Hmmm.. US has largest growth in Software Patents; US has shrinking software industry.
<sarcasm>No connection, surely?</sarcasm>
I wonder how the employment rate for lawyers employed by US software companies is doing? That would make interesting reading.
Hmmm.. that sounds interesting! What transparent shell do you use? The ones on my linux box just show a darkened version of the desktop. I can't see windows that are under the shell window. Perhaps I'm just using the wrong one...
I was saving some PD J'pegs by the time-honoured right-click-save-as from an FTP site in Firefox the other day; every 30 or so pix the disk started to thrash and the system ground to standstill. This was on XP (I was at work) but I've noticed similar stuff with the Linux version at home. I assumed it was FF cleaning up the image cache but it still ain't right. It doesn't happen often enough to bother me so I'd not thought about reporting it.
I've never had lockups/slowdowns on actual downloads, but then I'm on dialup at home so I never try more than a couple at a time!
No,
"they do not know"
"you have the rights"
"other guy may be guilty"
"case can't be brought"
Simple!
Ian
Psssst!
Don't tell anyone, but I heard someone whisper that their friend overheard a rumour that someone else thought that people sometimes mod +1 Insightful rather that +1 funny because you can give karma with 'insightful' but not 'funny' to the funny person. If someone has enough karma they get the +1 bonus and appear on the radar of people that don't like reading slashdot at '0'.
Perhaps some people read Slashdot for the humour? Maybe.
Latest. Ever. April. Fool.
C'mon, sure this didn't start out on fark.com???
This project shows how access to free information on the internet enables innovation; if the UN documents had the usual IP overheads then this project would not be practical.
Don't forget that many works of fiction are translated into several languages. The only problem with that is persuading the copyright holders to permit their use in training computer translation systems. I'm not sure where you would stand with this legally (After all, IANAL!), so I suspect this is why Google has been using the UN documents. I would imagine these are effectively public domain; and if not, I would imagine the UN would see a reliable machine translation project worth supporting. The only downside I can see is that the UN texts are unlikely to have many idioms or colloqualisms, which would limit the resulting translators usefulness in a more general context.
Speaking as someone who's using a computer bought in 1995 and which has been serially upgraded over the years (mind you, by now I think only the monitor, floppy cable and the AC lead are components that came from the original PC), I am coming slowly to the conclusion that its becoming less and less worthwhile. The cost of a new system box with all the goodies is just too low. That's unless you have specific requirements for an unusual configuration, but for Joe Normal who wants to do email and web surfing, he may never need to upgrade; if he wants something faster its just makes sense to go to the supermarket and buy a new system for £400.
Alien didn't have Darryl Hannah.
I rest my case.