The problems occur when some code does something dependant on the current date being greater or lower than a fixed date. An example I read was code to automatically delete old files (eg: old logs) that when the integer wrapped around would delete new records instead of the actual old ones. Bugs could occur in a plane's software but they are very strict with software engineering in life/death situations like that and would have already fixed it around the time 2038 was given serious thought, so we hope. But apparent problems can already occur today for systems that involve data for future dates (eg: mortgage loans. "My home will be paid off my 1912! wtf?")
The current planned "fix" is to just use an unsigned integer for time_t which could break binary compatibility. Many systems may not get fixed in time with many embedded systems running for years with no way to update them. Another is to use a 64 bit integer which would see out the death of our star and have heaps of bits to spare.
I think the 2038 problem will be much more of a pain than 2000 because of the greater use of more complex computers. 2000 problems were in the applications themselves (many being user facing code that did stupid things like 19100) and not going down to the core of the OS itself.
Looks like Plasma is crashing on start. That will usually leave you with the black/white screen with the cursor still running about, hopefully Kwin should also be fine. Alt+F2 should still work and give you KRunner where you can open Konsole to find any startup messages when running plasma-desktop.
Often the fix is as simple as removing plasmarc and friends from your.kde4 folder.
I'm using Gmail with KMail's IMAP right now and it works fine. You have two options with creating IMAP accounts whether you have one that caches the mail or one that doesn't. Choose the one that does cache them (Disconnected IMAP) unless you like having to redownload each message when you view it again.
Make HTML messages by Options->Formatting (HTML) in KMail Composer.
Still, 4.3 already does what Windows 7 and OSX only hint at moving towards so 4.4 will be interesting.
The 6 month (give or take) release schedule does help them implement some of the fresh ideas sooner rather than later, whether 'inspired' by the competition or not.
When they inevitably reach 4.9.x in mid 2012 I bet they will use it as an excuse to break some backwards compatibility and make a 5.0. It will be an improvement but no where near as radically different as the 3.x to 4.x transition was. A Vista to 7 transition as opposed to XP to Vista.
I like it, and many of the suggestions posted here would improve it (especially key bindings, modifiable like the rest of KDE).
I personally use it as a quick to load alternative to htop as Ctrl+Esc is as fast as it gets. My sugestion is to make the context menu customisable so users can put commonly used signals one click away instead of in the nested menu. At the moment there is only kill in the top level context menu and not all signals available in htop are available in the sub-menu.
I often use STOP/CONT to hard pause apps (like Firefox when playing a Flash game that takes up 60% CPU at idle) and it would be nice if it took less time to do that.
I also managed to reliably crash System Monitor when making the Network History horizontal scale 1 px, the other two plots worked fine.
Try pdftk for that protected PDF problem. It should strip the password protection in a lossless way plus has other features like splitting and merging. GUI, Portable version
Apple solved it by discontinuing their PPC line, leaving little choice for developers to go with it. MS doesn't have such an option. No sane developer will make and test an ARM binary without a market. And there is lots of x86 specific code (optimisations, ect.) that can't be ported without significant investment.
An x86->ARM emulation layer could benefit Windows though. People get the impression that ARM processors are slow and spread the word, eventually killing ARM on the laptop. Killing ARM with a half hearted attempt is probably the path of least resistance for MS.
That looks nice, though the battery life could be better though.
Found more info on it. Looks like it uses a modded version of Mandriva. The USB flash as a hard drive replacement is interesting. Only problem is that you will have to buy the special G-key USB flash drives to have them fit nicely in the slot.
It would be best for Microsoft if ARM on the laptop/desktop was a complete flop. Sure, if what others say is true about the portability of Windows internals, Microsoft could release a version of Windows 7 for ARM. But really, what would be the point?
The biggest strength of Windows is running Win32 apps, and they are all compiled for Win/x86. Microsoft would have to provide development tools that encourage developers to make ARM binaries along side x86 binaries to even have a chance at making it happen. Look at the average computer user's software catalogue, you will find many apps (and games) that were bought long ago and would cost money to upgrade to a potential ARM port if the company that made them are sill even in business. Those programs are never going to be ported to Win/ARM. Then there are all the drivers for last years peripheral hardware (assuming that the laptop's hardware is supported) that won't work.
I don't believe they can do what Apple did either. Apple was able to move to x86 from PPC because the control the hardware and moved their whole product line to it (killing PPC market). Any developers that wanted to stay in business had to port to x86. MS would be introducing a side product that would have a very small fraction of the bigger x86 customer base.
In the end all that Win/ARM has left is the few open source apps that choose to build an installer for it and the familiarity of the Windows desktop environment.
It would be in their interest to do everything in their power to make sure this doesn't ever get off the ground. We will have to wait and see what their next move will be.
I would love to have one of these in a "smartbook". Even though it won't run x86 binaries (I use linux anyway) it would be useful enough to let me leave my big arse laptop at home. With hours of battery life I wouldn't need to take a power supply with me.
So far though the only ARM smartbooks currently available have very limited RAM and disk space. I will have to wait and see what comes out in the next few months.
This wouldn't work with headphones plugged into the computer unless you can get the laptop's built in speakers working independantly (it can do it, old Ubuntu 7.10 had them on separate mixer controls on my laptop). But desktop users usually have their powered speakers off when using headphones.
Does anyone have an idea on how to solve that? You could put out ultrasonic sound through the headphones that get blocked when used, but it could damage your hearing depending on how loud it needs to be to get picked up by the microphone.
TFA mentions nothing about the actual power these things can put out.
A power source that lasts forever is suddenly not very useful if it only delivers a few milliwatts. I can see its uses, but it won't be replacing lithium ion batteries in phones and laptops any time soon.
my connection did re-establish using my Gnome manager and worked flawless even though I didn't have that little icon to let me know.
Run "nm-applet" and see if that helps out. NetworkManager is the backend and there are a couple front ends like Gnome's nm-applet, networkmanager-plasmoid (still buggy) and a terminal friendly version.
This is very annoying. On my SL500 it actually pays attention to the volume control, except for when it suspends. The PCSpkr is put through the output jack if it's used and if you are unfortunate to have your headphones in at the time, you will bleed from your ears.
Good to see that I'm not the only one hearing that whining noise. It usually only occurs after I resume from suspend.
I agree with you about the declining quality of Lenovo's products but the SL series isn't too bad though if you consider the price point. For $1250AUD ($1006USD) I got the SL500 with Nvidia 9300 and C2D P8600 @2.4GHz. Which isn't too bad since it still has better build quality than most of the competition at that price range. It's a bit too thick and bulky and the battery life is bad compared to better Thinkpads.
One thing that anoys me is that Lenovo decided to use different firmware for the SL series. They used the IdeaPad firmware, which is lacking in Linux compatabiliy. The normal thinkpad_acpi module doesn't work with it, and the special keys don't work. Though luckily someone has made one for them. A nice how-to here for anyone who has any SLX00 laptop with Linux.
I don't regret buying it, way better than my old Acer 3680.
NetworkManager plasmoid worked fine with my home WPA network (Using Arch with KDEmod, not Ubuntu so the package should be more up to date). However, NM failed when trying to connect to my university's WPA Enterprise network. They are aware of the problem and will one day fix it, in the mean time I am using Wicd.
Wicd is great if you can get the network to run with wpa_supplicant but not in NM. You can create a wpa_supplicant.conf template for it customised to whatever your specific network needs in/etc/wicd/encryption/templates
The only downside it that it is GTK and looks ugly on KDE 4.
For Wine on x86_64 you could get it pre-compiled from an unofficial repository (browse them manually to find one you like the best). They also have useful things like Flash and the closed VirtualBox.
There is not much you can do about the lack of polish though (not that it's missing much anyway), other than hacking it yourself or putting up with it. But the advantages of rolling updates and PKGBUILDs and the BSD style init thing make it worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
6 bytes, whoops
tacks their 64-bit MAC on the end
MAC Addresses are 48 bits.
12:34:56:78:9a:bc = 8 bytes = 48 bits
The problems occur when some code does something dependant on the current date being greater or lower than a fixed date. An example I read was code to automatically delete old files (eg: old logs) that when the integer wrapped around would delete new records instead of the actual old ones. Bugs could occur in a plane's software but they are very strict with software engineering in life/death situations like that and would have already fixed it around the time 2038 was given serious thought, so we hope.
But apparent problems can already occur today for systems that involve data for future dates (eg: mortgage loans. "My home will be paid off my 1912! wtf?")
The current planned "fix" is to just use an unsigned integer for time_t which could break binary compatibility. Many systems may not get fixed in time with many embedded systems running for years with no way to update them.
Another is to use a 64 bit integer which would see out the death of our star and have heaps of bits to spare.
I think the 2038 problem will be much more of a pain than 2000 because of the greater use of more complex computers. 2000 problems were in the applications themselves (many being user facing code that did stupid things like 19100) and not going down to the core of the OS itself.
Looks like Plasma is crashing on start. That will usually leave you with the black/white screen with the cursor still running about, hopefully Kwin should also be fine. Alt+F2 should still work and give you KRunner where you can open Konsole to find any startup messages when running plasma-desktop.
Often the fix is as simple as removing plasmarc and friends from your .kde4 folder.
I'm using Gmail with KMail's IMAP right now and it works fine. You have two options with creating IMAP accounts whether you have one that caches the mail or one that doesn't. Choose the one that does cache them (Disconnected IMAP) unless you like having to redownload each message when you view it again.
Make HTML messages by Options->Formatting (HTML) in KMail Composer.
Still, 4.3 already does what Windows 7 and OSX only hint at moving towards so 4.4 will be interesting.
The 6 month (give or take) release schedule does help them implement some of the fresh ideas sooner rather than later, whether 'inspired' by the competition or not.
When they inevitably reach 4.9.x in mid 2012 I bet they will use it as an excuse to break some backwards compatibility and make a 5.0. It will be an improvement but no where near as radically different as the 3.x to 4.x transition was. A Vista to 7 transition as opposed to XP to Vista.
I like it, and many of the suggestions posted here would improve it (especially key bindings, modifiable like the rest of KDE).
I personally use it as a quick to load alternative to htop as Ctrl+Esc is as fast as it gets.
My sugestion is to make the context menu customisable so users can put commonly used signals one click away instead of in the nested menu. At the moment there is only kill in the top level context menu and not all signals available in htop are available in the sub-menu.
I often use STOP/CONT to hard pause apps (like Firefox when playing a Flash game that takes up 60% CPU at idle) and it would be nice if it took less time to do that.
I also managed to reliably crash System Monitor when making the Network History horizontal scale 1 px, the other two plots worked fine.
Try pdftk for that protected PDF problem. It should strip the password protection in a lossless way plus has other features like splitting and merging.
GUI, Portable version
Apple solved it by discontinuing their PPC line, leaving little choice for developers to go with it. MS doesn't have such an option. No sane developer will make and test an ARM binary without a market. And there is lots of x86 specific code (optimisations, ect.) that can't be ported without significant investment.
An x86->ARM emulation layer could benefit Windows though. People get the impression that ARM processors are slow and spread the word, eventually killing ARM on the laptop. Killing ARM with a half hearted attempt is probably the path of least resistance for MS.
That looks nice, though the battery life could be better though.
Found more info on it. Looks like it uses a modded version of Mandriva. The USB flash as a hard drive replacement is interesting. Only problem is that you will have to buy the special G-key USB flash drives to have them fit nicely in the slot.
Not bad at all.
It would be best for Microsoft if ARM on the laptop/desktop was a complete flop. Sure, if what others say is true about the portability of Windows internals, Microsoft could release a version of Windows 7 for ARM. But really, what would be the point?
The biggest strength of Windows is running Win32 apps, and they are all compiled for Win/x86. Microsoft would have to provide development tools that encourage developers to make ARM binaries along side x86 binaries to even have a chance at making it happen.
Look at the average computer user's software catalogue, you will find many apps (and games) that were bought long ago and would cost money to upgrade to a potential ARM port if the company that made them are sill even in business. Those programs are never going to be ported to Win/ARM. Then there are all the drivers for last years peripheral hardware (assuming that the laptop's hardware is supported) that won't work.
I don't believe they can do what Apple did either. Apple was able to move to x86 from PPC because the control the hardware and moved their whole product line to it (killing PPC market). Any developers that wanted to stay in business had to port to x86. MS would be introducing a side product that would have a very small fraction of the bigger x86 customer base.
In the end all that Win/ARM has left is the few open source apps that choose to build an installer for it and the familiarity of the Windows desktop environment.
It would be in their interest to do everything in their power to make sure this doesn't ever get off the ground. We will have to wait and see what their next move will be.
I would love to have one of these in a "smartbook". Even though it won't run x86 binaries (I use linux anyway) it would be useful enough to let me leave my big arse laptop at home. With hours of battery life I wouldn't need to take a power supply with me.
So far though the only ARM smartbooks currently available have very limited RAM and disk space. I will have to wait and see what comes out in the next few months.
This wouldn't work with headphones plugged into the computer unless you can get the laptop's built in speakers working independantly (it can do it, old Ubuntu 7.10 had them on separate mixer controls on my laptop). But desktop users usually have their powered speakers off when using headphones.
Does anyone have an idea on how to solve that? You could put out ultrasonic sound through the headphones that get blocked when used, but it could damage your hearing depending on how loud it needs to be to get picked up by the microphone.
But if it doesn't have three corners it wouldn't be my hat
I was aiming for Funny by pointing out that he spelt FTFY (TFTY) wrong. Being a FTFY post it should count for some level of irony.
Anyway, many of these projects could be so much more useful and even get outside contributions if the docs were in better shape.
FTFY. See the GtkMM Documentation as well as the mainline GTK documentation.
FTFY :p
TFA mentions nothing about the actual power these things can put out.
A power source that lasts forever is suddenly not very useful if it only delivers a few milliwatts. I can see its uses, but it won't be replacing lithium ion batteries in phones and laptops any time soon.
my connection did re-establish using my Gnome manager and worked flawless even though I didn't have that little icon to let me know.
Run "nm-applet" and see if that helps out. NetworkManager is the backend and there are a couple front ends like Gnome's nm-applet, networkmanager-plasmoid (still buggy) and a terminal friendly version.
This is very annoying. On my SL500 it actually pays attention to the volume control, except for when it suspends. The PCSpkr is put through the output jack if it's used and if you are unfortunate to have your headphones in at the time, you will bleed from your ears.
Good to see that I'm not the only one hearing that whining noise. It usually only occurs after I resume from suspend.
I agree with you about the declining quality of Lenovo's products but the SL series isn't too bad though if you consider the price point. For $1250AUD ($1006USD) I got the SL500 with Nvidia 9300 and C2D P8600 @2.4GHz. Which isn't too bad since it still has better build quality than most of the competition at that price range. It's a bit too thick and bulky and the battery life is bad compared to better Thinkpads.
One thing that anoys me is that Lenovo decided to use different firmware for the SL series. They used the IdeaPad firmware, which is lacking in Linux compatabiliy. The normal thinkpad_acpi module doesn't work with it, and the special keys don't work. Though luckily someone has made one for them. A nice how-to here for anyone who has any SLX00 laptop with Linux.
I don't regret buying it, way better than my old Acer 3680.
I wonder if this can be applied to other purposes like bypassing damaged sections of a paraplegics spinal cord.
We would need to develop a neuron to laser device at the other end first, but the possibilities of making people walk again are worth investment.
NetworkManager plasmoid worked fine with my home WPA network (Using Arch with KDEmod, not Ubuntu so the package should be more up to date). However, NM failed when trying to connect to my university's WPA Enterprise network. They are aware of the problem and will one day fix it, in the mean time I am using Wicd.
Wicd is great if you can get the network to run with wpa_supplicant but not in NM. You can create a wpa_supplicant.conf template for it customised to whatever your specific network needs in /etc/wicd/encryption/templates
The only downside it that it is GTK and looks ugly on KDE 4.
Check out the terrible JPEG distortions of the one and only image. Other than the video, that image is the whole site.
This Arbirtron Ad Agency must have really been the lowest bidder. I wouldn't be surprised if they used MS Paint.
alias sex `updatedb; locate; talk; date; cd; unzip; strip; look; touch; finger; join; fsck; make clean`
But wait, there's more:
alias sex `updatedb; locate; talk; date; cd; unzip; strip; look; touch; finger; join; mount; fsck; umount; make clean`
Someone had a good version in their sig if you want to find it
For Wine on x86_64 you could get it pre-compiled from an unofficial repository (browse them manually to find one you like the best). They also have useful things like Flash and the closed VirtualBox.
There is not much you can do about the lack of polish though (not that it's missing much anyway), other than hacking it yourself or putting up with it. But the advantages of rolling updates and PKGBUILDs and the BSD style init thing make it worth it.