Do you really need DownloadedSoftware v0.7 when the current version is 4.2?
v0.7 may work on, say Windows NT4, while v4.2 may not. Or v4.2 may be too bloated. Or some other reason. Also, deleting the setup for v0.7 may only save me 1MB on a 250GB drive, while taking me the same time to locate it and decide if I want to keep it or not.
Do you even need that version stored locally?
In case the program is no longer available.
Are you really going to see that movie again?
I don't know. I saw it one time, kinda liked it, so, maybe I'll want to see it again sometime. I cannot be certain that I'll be able to download that movie again (torrents die), while if it is on a DVD or a LTO-1 tape, I'll be able to watch it whenever I want.
The same reason why I record a lot of TV shows (that are not available for download). Yes, the broadcaster has a copy of the TV show, but it is useless to me if I can't get access to it.
While all my computers are part of a domain (so my user name works on all of them and has full rights), I sometimes have problems with hard drives that I connect from other (people brought me to reinstall Windows). Now, ideally I would connect the drive to my PC, if the drive has enough free space left (>3GB), I would just move all current directories to a new one, say c:\__old, then install Windows. The owner of that PC would save what files are important to him and delete the rest of __old. However, if the drive is NTFS, sometimes I have problems moving or deleting the Windows directory because I do not have enough permissions and taking ownership does not work. Then I can only copy all other files to some other HDD or tape, format the drive in question and copy the files back. And then I just think how glad I am that the system drive of my main PC is FAT32.
Also, FAT32 has a second copy of the FAT on the drive, so if anything bad happens (say, a bad sector) to the first copy, you can restore it. If a bad sector appears in the $MFT of NTFS - you just lost a number of files. Anyone know of a software solution that can keep an updated copy of the MFT somewhere on the drive (or on some other drive)?
On the other hand, NTFS supports 64KB cluster size, while FAT32 supports only 32KB. That and >4GB file support made me use NTFS on some hard drives, because HD movies are usually >4GB in size...
On the other hand, there may be some people like me, who would love to see a computer that is older than me, and would really love to so something with it, at least see it working, not just put behind glass in a museum.
I have read somewhere that is is possible to recover overwritten data from a hard drive (may apply only to old drives).
1.Read the analog signal from the platters without decoding. 2.Decode the signal to bits. 3.Encode the bits back to get what would be an "ideal" analog signal (without any traces of old data). 4.Subtract the signal got in step #3 from the signal got in step #1. 5.Decode what is left. 6. ??? 7. Profit
low-level format for new (without stepper motor) drives is "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda". It will not touch the bad sectors (that still may have some data).
Depends on the encryption algorythm, but usually if you guess wrong then the decrypted data will be just random garbage (or you get a "wrong password" message), if you guess right then the decrypted data will be something meaningful (like a filesystem).
And no, it would be easier to guess 1KB long password than 100GB of data...
Your script does not work. I created a text file, pasted your script there, renamed the file to firefox.bat went to command prompt, went to the drive that this file was on, typed its name and pressed enter. Here's what I got:
T:\>#!/bin/sh '#!' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
T:\>wget "http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0.5&os=linux&lang=en-US " 'wget' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Microsoft can put a very basic browser for downloading another browser. Just like other programs that the EU does not have a problem with - Paint, Notepad, Wordpad etc. Paint does not try to be something like Photoshop, so how about a basic browser (just plain html, no plugin, javascript or java support)? You would be able to use it to do go getfirefox.com opera.com or microsoft.com and download a "full featured" browser.
In the end, I think what EU really wants is to strip down Windows 7 so it has the same functionality as the first release of Windows 95--you have to install the web browser, media player and possibly the fast disk search functionality separately.
And that would be really great. For example - if I have to use WMP for some internet radio, I use verion 6.4 (mplayer2.exe), so why the version 10 (or is it 11) takes up space in my hard drive?
Or do you really want that windows 7 or the version after 7 include a media player, MSOffice with reduced functionality (because it is bundles with the OS), MS iTunes equivalent, MS IM client, CD burning software, audio/video editing software, programming environment (something like visual C) and use 100GB of HDD space, but you still need to download all of the aplications because you do not like the integrated ones.
I have a 1GB 5.25" FH Seagate drive that still works. It's probably 16 years old... On the other hand my only SATA Seagate drive is not affected by this bug and all my other drives (up to 750GB) are IDE or SCSI.
1.Create a porn site that has a domain name that is one letter away from the opposing party's website. 2.Block that site, but introduce a typo in the list, blocking the opposing party's website by accident. 3. ??? 4.Profit
And then people will use steganography + encryption at which point it will no longer be possible to even detect (automatically) that something is more than the "allowed" content. Yes, you still would be able to extract the "real" information out of the transmission, but that will take more analysis that is possible to do on each and every transmission.
And this is the main reason that I use a 21" CRT. Sure, it weighs 35kg, but I had to carry it to my room only once. And I can enjoy all resolutions up to 1920x1440@85Hz (if I want to, I can set it to 2048x1536 but only at 75Hz, so I don't do that).
What I would like to have is a widescreen CRT such as Sony GDM-FW900, but they are not available locally and the shipping price is too high for me if I were to buy one on ebay.
I don't have a backup T1 line (though I would love to have a T1 for my main, 1.5mbps upload is more than 768kbps I have now), however, if my DSL connection fails for some reason, I have two connections on my cell phone (one is faster, but only 500MB/month, the other is slower, but cheaper and gives more data), I can use dialup (if my phone line is working but DSL isn't), I also see about 40 Wi-Fi networks, while only about 6 are unsecured, if my connection didn't work for a long time, I could hack the ~20 WEP networks just to distribute my load on many networks, so that none of my neighbors feel the impact of me using their network.
As for TV, I have cable which is analog (also I have one digital tuner for cable, to get stereo sound on some channels), but if the service breaks at exactly the wrong moment (a basketball game for instance) then I can just watch over-the-air broadcast, which won't be digital until 2012 where I live.
Also, digital needs higher SNR to work. While digital may look better than analog at some signal strength, when the signal is low, digital stops working, while analog may continue to work, but the picture may lose color and have a lot of snow, but you can still see the players.
What the hell is an interlaced picture doing in a REWRITE of broadcast standards?
50i is better (smoother video) than 25p, and uses less bandwidth than 50p, and if you have a non-CRT TV it can deinterlace the video just fine (my PC can also do that).
WTF is MPEG-2 doing in a rewrite of broadcast standards when more modern codecs (all more appropriate for HD content) were available at the time?
In Lithuania MPEG4 is used for DVB-T broadcasts, and if you want good SD picture quality you have to get a stronger signal than you do with analog or MPEG2. Also, you need a MPEG4->MPEG2 conversion module for TVs that have a digital tuner.
1. Government sells the airwaves that were used to be for analog TV (for a lot of $$$) 2. People with old TVs have to buy TVs or a converter boxes. 3. When people buy TVs or boxes, they pay VAT and other taxes. 4. Profit.
Yes, I understand that a piano roll is a midi file on punchcard, and that it can be converted back to midi without any kind of loss (unlike A->D conversion required when copying from vinyl to CD), however, my initial post was about the longevity of the media, not the format.
We don't know if some material used in making of CDs and LaserDiscs (I have a few of them - It's the only legal format that does not have DRM and has higher quality than VHS) will start breaking down after some number of years (recordable CDs and DVDs break down faster). Paper lasts a long time, and while it becomes brittle after some time, it still can be scanned (the data is intact and can be restored but it no longer works as intended), I have a vinyl record released in 1966 and it still plays fine (the audio is intact and the media works as intended).
sorry, when I read the original post and saw "since digital methods are overwhelmingly superior" I thought of newer digital data storage devices, like a CD. The I replied and forgot to write "these newer digital methods" instead of "these digital methods"
We will see how these digital methods will sound after 50 years... Paper lasts a long time, vinyl (shellac) records too (especially if not played a lot), how about CDs?
As I said before, my idea would have greater (but not 100%) backward compatibility, and some applications would still need for the server to have a separate IP (hardcoded ports, usage of protocols other than tcp/udp).
And again... are you suggesting that all server applications should require their own unique DNS names?
At least some of them have their own DNS names already: ftp.example.com pop3.example.com smtp.example.com etc, while I fully understand that these meant to be used so that different services can be located on separate hosts, this could be used in reverse (multiple services, one IP).
For old applications that have the port hardcoded, if the server is also hardcoded, you can use your router to intercept the connection request and change the destination ip/port accordingly, or (server address is not hardcoded) you can use some sort of proxy application on your PC. While this way is not that convenient it would still be better than your old application not being able to access its server at all.
It still has more backward compatibility than IPv6.
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No, but, when you see that you have little gas left, you can drive to a gas station and fill your tank in a few minutes.
You can't do that with electric cars (well, unless, of course, you are near a nuclear power plant)...
If you want to charge the electric car in the same time as you would fill a gas tank, you'd better have 1.21 gigawatt power plant nearby...
Do you really need DownloadedSoftware v0.7 when the current version is 4.2?
v0.7 may work on, say Windows NT4, while v4.2 may not. Or v4.2 may be too bloated. Or some other reason. Also, deleting the setup for v0.7 may only save me 1MB on a 250GB drive, while taking me the same time to locate it and decide if I want to keep it or not.
Do you even need that version stored locally?
In case the program is no longer available.
Are you really going to see that movie again?
I don't know. I saw it one time, kinda liked it, so, maybe I'll want to see it again sometime. I cannot be certain that I'll be able to download that movie again (torrents die), while if it is on a DVD or a LTO-1 tape, I'll be able to watch it whenever I want.
The same reason why I record a lot of TV shows (that are not available for download). Yes, the broadcaster has a copy of the TV show, but it is useless to me if I can't get access to it.
This.
While all my computers are part of a domain (so my user name works on all of them and has full rights), I sometimes have problems with hard drives that I connect from other (people brought me to reinstall Windows). Now, ideally I would connect the drive to my PC, if the drive has enough free space left (>3GB), I would just move all current directories to a new one, say c:\__old, then install Windows. The owner of that PC would save what files are important to him and delete the rest of __old. However, if the drive is NTFS, sometimes I have problems moving or deleting the Windows directory because I do not have enough permissions and taking ownership does not work. Then I can only copy all other files to some other HDD or tape, format the drive in question and copy the files back. And then I just think how glad I am that the system drive of my main PC is FAT32.
Also, FAT32 has a second copy of the FAT on the drive, so if anything bad happens (say, a bad sector) to the first copy, you can restore it. If a bad sector appears in the $MFT of NTFS - you just lost a number of files. Anyone know of a software solution that can keep an updated copy of the MFT somewhere on the drive (or on some other drive)?
On the other hand, NTFS supports 64KB cluster size, while FAT32 supports only 32KB. That and >4GB file support made me use NTFS on some hard drives, because HD movies are usually >4GB in size...
On the other hand, there may be some people like me, who would love to see a computer that is older than me, and would really love to so something with it, at least see it working, not just put behind glass in a museum.
Well, there are "HD-ready" and "HD compatible" TVs...
I have read somewhere that is is possible to recover overwritten data from a hard drive (may apply only to old drives).
1.Read the analog signal from the platters without decoding.
2.Decode the signal to bits.
3.Encode the bits back to get what would be an "ideal" analog signal (without any traces of old data).
4.Subtract the signal got in step #3 from the signal got in step #1.
5.Decode what is left.
6. ???
7. Profit
low-level format for new (without stepper motor) drives is "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda". It will not touch the bad sectors (that still may have some data).
Depends on the encryption algorythm, but usually if you guess wrong then the decrypted data will be just random garbage (or you get a "wrong password" message), if you guess right then the decrypted data will be something meaningful (like a filesystem).
And no, it would be easier to guess 1KB long password than 100GB of data...
Your script does not work. I created a text file, pasted your script there, renamed the file to firefox.bat went to command prompt, went to the drive that this file was on, typed its name and pressed enter. Here's what I got:
T:\>#!/bin/sh
'#!' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
T:\>wget "http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.0.5&os=linux&lang=en-US
"
'wget' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Microsoft can put a very basic browser for downloading another browser. Just like other programs that the EU does not have a problem with - Paint, Notepad, Wordpad etc. Paint does not try to be something like Photoshop, so how about a basic browser (just plain html, no plugin, javascript or java support)? You would be able to use it to do go getfirefox.com opera.com or microsoft.com and download a "full featured" browser.
In the end, I think what EU really wants is to strip down Windows 7 so it has the same functionality as the first release of Windows 95--you have to install the web browser, media player and possibly the fast disk search functionality separately.
And that would be really great. For example - if I have to use WMP for some internet radio, I use verion 6.4 (mplayer2.exe), so why the version 10 (or is it 11) takes up space in my hard drive?
Or do you really want that windows 7 or the version after 7 include a media player, MSOffice with reduced functionality (because it is bundles with the OS), MS iTunes equivalent, MS IM client, CD burning software, audio/video editing software, programming environment (something like visual C) and use 100GB of HDD space, but you still need to download all of the aplications because you do not like the integrated ones.
I have a 1GB 5.25" FH Seagate drive that still works. It's probably 16 years old... On the other hand my only SATA Seagate drive is not affected by this bug and all my other drives (up to 750GB) are IDE or SCSI.
...German parties don't host porn.
1.Create a porn site that has a domain name that is one letter away from the opposing party's website.
2.Block that site, but introduce a typo in the list, blocking the opposing party's website by accident.
3. ???
4.Profit
And then people will use steganography + encryption at which point it will no longer be possible to even detect (automatically) that something is more than the "allowed" content. Yes, you still would be able to extract the "real" information out of the transmission, but that will take more analysis that is possible to do on each and every transmission.
Here's a shock: I can buy a used one assuming it still works. That's how I got my current Dell P1130.
And this is the main reason that I use a 21" CRT. Sure, it weighs 35kg, but I had to carry it to my room only once. And I can enjoy all resolutions up to 1920x1440@85Hz (if I want to, I can set it to 2048x1536 but only at 75Hz, so I don't do that).
What I would like to have is a widescreen CRT such as Sony GDM-FW900, but they are not available locally and the shipping price is too high for me if I were to buy one on ebay.
I don't have a backup T1 line (though I would love to have a T1 for my main, 1.5mbps upload is more than 768kbps I have now), however, if my DSL connection fails for some reason, I have two connections on my cell phone (one is faster, but only 500MB/month, the other is slower, but cheaper and gives more data), I can use dialup (if my phone line is working but DSL isn't), I also see about 40 Wi-Fi networks, while only about 6 are unsecured, if my connection didn't work for a long time, I could hack the ~20 WEP networks just to distribute my load on many networks, so that none of my neighbors feel the impact of me using their network.
As for TV, I have cable which is analog (also I have one digital tuner for cable, to get stereo sound on some channels), but if the service breaks at exactly the wrong moment (a basketball game for instance) then I can just watch over-the-air broadcast, which won't be digital until 2012 where I live.
Also, digital needs higher SNR to work. While digital may look better than analog at some signal strength, when the signal is low, digital stops working, while analog may continue to work, but the picture may lose color and have a lot of snow, but you can still see the players.
It won't work. Any decline in sales will be blamed on piracy (and not on DRM or the fact that the game sucks).
And since only piracy is responsible for decline in sales, EA will need stronger DRM.
What the hell is an interlaced picture doing in a REWRITE of broadcast standards?
50i is better (smoother video) than 25p, and uses less bandwidth than 50p, and if you have a non-CRT TV it can deinterlace the video just fine (my PC can also do that).
WTF is MPEG-2 doing in a rewrite of broadcast standards when more modern codecs (all more appropriate for HD content) were available at the time?
In Lithuania MPEG4 is used for DVB-T broadcasts, and if you want good SD picture quality you have to get a stronger signal than you do with analog or MPEG2. Also, you need a MPEG4->MPEG2 conversion module for TVs that have a digital tuner.
1. Government sells the airwaves that were used to be for analog TV (for a lot of $$$)
2. People with old TVs have to buy TVs or a converter boxes.
3. When people buy TVs or boxes, they pay VAT and other taxes.
4. Profit.
Yes, I understand that a piano roll is a midi file on punchcard, and that it can be converted back to midi without any kind of loss (unlike A->D conversion required when copying from vinyl to CD), however, my initial post was about the longevity of the media, not the format.
We don't know if some material used in making of CDs and LaserDiscs (I have a few of them - It's the only legal format that does not have DRM and has higher quality than VHS) will start breaking down after some number of years (recordable CDs and DVDs break down faster). Paper lasts a long time, and while it becomes brittle after some time, it still can be scanned (the data is intact and can be restored but it no longer works as intended), I have a vinyl record released in 1966 and it still plays fine (the audio is intact and the media works as intended).
How about a CD? Or a flash card?
sorry, when I read the original post and saw "since digital methods are overwhelmingly superior" I thought of newer digital data storage devices, like a CD. The I replied and forgot to write "these newer digital methods" instead of "these digital methods"
We will see how these digital methods will sound after 50 years... Paper lasts a long time, vinyl (shellac) records too (especially if not played a lot), how about CDs?
As I said before, my idea would have greater (but not 100%) backward compatibility, and some applications would still need for the server to have a separate IP (hardcoded ports, usage of protocols other than tcp/udp).
And again... are you suggesting that all server applications should require their own unique DNS names?
At least some of them have their own DNS names already: ftp.example.com pop3.example.com smtp.example.com etc, while I fully understand that these meant to be used so that different services can be located on separate hosts, this could be used in reverse (multiple services, one IP).
For old applications that have the port hardcoded, if the server is also hardcoded, you can use your router to intercept the connection request and change the destination ip/port accordingly, or (server address is not hardcoded) you can use some sort of proxy application on your PC. While this way is not that convenient it would still be better than your old application not being able to access its server at all.
It still has more backward compatibility than IPv6.
Oh well, at least I tried.