I'm in pretty much the same position. I can get TW cable or AT&T (formerly SBC) DSL. The problem I think we may end up with in the situation with AT&T is that it may not matter if they're your ISP or not. They control so much of the backbone that they don't have to be directly offering you service to cause problems.
I'm *considering* something like SpeakEasy DSL (not sure I can get it here, and it is very expensive IIRC, more than $50/month over what I'm already paying) - but if AT&T controls any part of the link, we're SOL regardless of what ISP we have.
I don't know. It just seems utterly counter-productive to me. To suggest that something is "more [closely aligned]" is a relative comparison. That is, there is something which is now less closely aligned with AT&T -- perhaps their customers?
With the recent news about T/W deploying packet shaping, I was considering switching to my only local alternative, AT&T DSL. No longer. Unfortunately, without spending $500/month to lease a T1, if I want high speed those are my only two real options.
You're right, and that works great except for most sites that I've come across use a regex which disallows the use of a '+' sign in the email address.
What I've done instead is to create a catch-all email address in a subdomain and sign up as, ie amazon@subdomain.domain.com. I suppose I could first create a unique 16-character string for each one and add a new address before creating any accounts, but a) that requires additional effort and management and b) when you call, for example, amazon customer support they ask for your email address to identify your account. Good luck communicating 16 random letters and numbers over the phone to level-1 customer support.
Eventually a "dictionary" attack might end up forcing me to shut down the catch-all and be explicit.
Yeah, she's fine.:) The vet said the biggest thing to worry about was internal bleeding caused by perforations from the shards of plastic, but that wasn't an issue. I am a little surprised that the organic dye layer (whatever it is composed of) didn't seem to make her sick at all. Maybe I should start feeding her CDs I want "recycled" instead of contaminated off-the-shelf dog food.
I just bought a brand new 680i, dual-core 6600, with an NVidia 8800GTS (640MB), 4GB of memory, etc. I'm not happy because even with that system (arguably it doesn't get significantly better than that given available hardware on the market right now - assuming that buying a pair of 8800GTXs is over the top), I finally had to turn down some of the graphics options because there were several "zones" where the game became unplayable - < 6FPS and herky-jerky trying to move around. And IIRC the worst was in a rather small wooded area - not someplace with water which is where you would think that kind of crap would happen. In general, indoor areas hover around 60fps, but outdoor areas don't get much above 24. Do I need a damn SGI for this game?
I think it boils down to that the game is really buggy, and bloated based on the performance. Several times I've had the graphics get all weirded out (you could see the wall through the inside of someone's mouth, out of control plantlife that makes it look like you're clipping through a wall, etc.), the game locks up or my character can't run anymore, etc.
Besides that, the UI kind of sucks. It took me until about 1/2 way through the second chapter to realize that I had to hold the right button to get a menu of things I could do. (hey, look I'm a ranger, there's my pet!) I miss the radial menus and being able to quick-slot anything. Kind of sad because I really liked the original NWN.
A bit OT, but I called poison control (and then the "animal" poison control...) a few months ago after my dog ate most of a CD-R, thinking the same thing. They assured me there was nothing toxic, despite my insistence that while I don't understand much physics/chemistry, I was under the impression that the recordable layer is some type of organic dye.
I looked on the web at the time and wasn't able to find anything that seemed consistent about the makeup of the metal layers, so what is in those things? Alumnium, nickel, ?
So we should just cease all QA because it is just too hard? That could certainly make the products cheaper to produce, but it still sounds like a cop-out. Is this acceptable for your car? The plane you and your family are riding on? Remember that these two things as examples, especially aircraft (fly-by-wire anyone?), are increasingly driven by software. The B2 stealth bomber basically can't fly without the constant adjustments to the flight surfaces made automagically by software. I wouldn't exactly call that a case for not testing because it is "impractical" or "just too difficult"
If you say that we should test/these/ things because they involve safety and risk loss of life and property, then doesn't that suggest that the software used these things almost certainly must be *more* complex than other devices (such as a television) because of the requirement that they must take extra measures to ensure that, for example, the 737's engine computer doesn't decide reverse thrust is a good idea at 35,000 feet?
I agree. I'm already (as I suspect most of/. is as well) almost constantly dealing with hardware and software that isn't production ready but "beats the competition to market". The Nvidia 680i boards ship with software that conflicts with itself, causing BSODs in XP - as confirmed by my emails with eVGA. It is one thing to ship patches for things discovered after shipping -- but I think most large corps today figure it in as a calculated risk. Don't even get me started on the steaming pile that is Vista. The Motorola SLVR (mostly the fault of Sprint I'm sure) with the horribly lagged and buggy UI. The list goes on.
A couple of years ago there was much talk about Netflix partnering with TiVo -- but I haven't read anything about it recently. Anyone know what happened to that?
Not sure what your location is, but we have a place in Columbus (OH) called The Laptop Guy. I had the exact same problem (charger daughterboard issues) with my Dell Inspirion 8200, and they said they could order the part for me if I wanted. If you can find a small repair shop (even some larger places like Microcenter are sometimes really helpful - found me a Winbook mini-pci wireless card that worked in the Inspirion) they might be willing to order and sell you the part.
For a geek like myself, it isn't being afraid of the technology. I've said this before -- it is about wanting my fridge, my microwave, and yes, my TV to just work. Thats why I have a TiVo and not mythTV/WinMCE/etc I don't feel like coming home after a long day of dealing with other people's code to fight with my TV. I've seen what should be highly robust kiosks (haven't we all) with a BSOD. Those kiosks have *one* thing to do - unlike our typical desktop PC - and they crash way more often than they should. I'd like to not have to buy everything in the fridge that went bad because it crashed again and started heating the inside instead of cooling it while I was at work. Like the GP said - a simple thermosat will do. Why muck it up with far more complexity than is needed?
I bought a new dual-CPU G5 tower a few months ago and it was doing the same thing. It was this absolutely grating, irritating high-pitched whine during certain graphics modes, including the RSS screen saver. Think of the noise a CRT makes, only much much louder and a slightly lower pitch.
Apple told me to take it back to the apple store. The dumbasses at the store told me the noise (pick one or more of the following) a) was the harddrive b) was a fan c) was the video card d) didn't exist e) was normal. All this despite the fact that I could on-demand demonstrate how to cause the noise - using Apple's OWN software. I was royally pissed. "Genius bar" my ass.
How does Apple expect to earn or retain customers with garbage like this? Maybe they're just following the competition's model.
Typically I can tell that someone is on the phone before I even get close, because they're driving like an idiot. One rather large woman I saw cruising down the road, unable to maintain her speed or lane - a cellphone in one hand, a cigarette in the other...
This is completely antecdotal, but I have to say - the people who I see driving stupidly and who I find are doing so because they're on the phone and not paying attention to what the hell is going on around them - tend to be women more often than not. Guys have their share of problems, and drunk driving is one of them. Hence why the insurance premiums for male drivers age 16-25 are ridiculous in the US. Be that as it may: damn, woman, get off the phone and drive. Obviously no study could ever conclude this because that wouldn't be PC. At the same time many of us paid the price, literally, for car insurance because a few guys can't figure out how incredibly stupid it is to a) drive drunk and/or b) propel an 1,800lb metal object through traffic far over the limit of their ability to control that vehicle at the chosen speed.
This is a best buy thing, not just a "geek squad" thing. The warranty support I've gotten from BB sucks badly enough I stopped shopping there, and have basically told everyone I know that they're not worth dealing with.
Just like you said, have to send your device (in my case it was an aftermarket car stereo) in over and over again, and it seems to come back without problem A fixed and has new problems it never had before - which then BB says it doesn't have problem A or B. After about 2 months of bringing it back to the store to have it shipped out to be "repaired" and getting it back with "no problems found", they give me shit about how they're not going to honor the replacement policy. When it starts to turn into a scene in front of the customer service desk, it turns into they want to replace my now totally busted unit with a piece of junk nothing near as nice as what I PAID FOR. I asked flat out about a feature I had in my broken unit that the model they wanted to give me lacked, and suggested "Don't you think X is an important feature?" - the question was obviously retorical, but he had the balls to stand there and tell me "No, it isn't important"
Walk into a BB sometime and ask a moderately technical question that a consumer might ask about a computer. I'd venture to say based on people who have gone to BB and then come back to me (the real geek) to double check something that sounded dubious, 6 or 7 times out of ten the BB answer will be total coming-out-of-their-ass bullshit, because they figure you don't know any better.
BB was in some hot water a few years ago here in Ohio with the state's AG over their warranty servicing, trying to sell returned/broken goods as new, etc. I have no idea what ever became of that.
you wouldn't happen to be an affiliate Negative. I'm a happy customer. I looked at your BBB report, and there is no apparent reason for the rating:
We know of no licensing or registration requirement for companies engaged in this company's stated type of business.
We have no further comment about this company's business practices or analysis of its offer that may assist you in your consideration of this company.
Our complaint history for this company shows the company gave proper consideration to some complaints presented by the Bureau.
Although in some cases the company failed to respond to complaints.
We know of no government action taken against this company.
No question about the truth of this company's advertising has come to our attention.
We know of no other matter or practice relating to this company that may assist you in your consideration of this company.
The sole negative in the entire report is the failure to respond to some complaints... I would get an F as well for failing to properly respond a few weeks ago to an unruly and unreasonable customer who decided to attack me personally in her email...
What I can't figure out for the life of me, is why the hell all this information is being stored on portable (laptop) systems, and not on the servers behind locked doors and firewalls where it belongs....how do you get millions of SSNs stored locally on a damn laptop and not consider the consequences?
Then again, hiring agencies like usajobs.gov want you to email your SSN as part of your application materials, and if you complain, they fire back some bullshit from their privacy policy...this is what they told me:
Within the Federal job application process, Social Security Number is a unique identifier. Applicants must provide their Social Security Number (SSN) to identify their records because other people may have the same name and birth date and the Federal Government is legally authorized to require this information. This authority is provided under Public Law 104-134. While job applications may occasionally be accepted in a system without the Social Security Number, your applications will likely not be accepted/processed if they do not give the hiring agency the information requested. Please know that the personal and private information you provide is encrypted during transmission and encrypted in our databases. Please also know that all personnel with access to sensitive data are legally bound to use the information only for its intended purposes. Please see our Privacy Statement: http://www.usajobs.opm.gov/privacy.asp for additional information.
* emphasis mine to illustrate the absurdity
I never once argued about whether they could or should be asking for. I was only asking for alternative methods besides frickin e-mail on how to provide it.
I'm interested to know how folks here have handled job applications which require your SSN (or the posting requires your SSN on your resume) and then want you to email these materials to them. Until now, I have said in my cover letter "I'm unable to provide my SSN over email for security reasons" and in most cases attempted to contact the employer by phone. But I'm not sure this is enough. I assume the HR people who get the applications see the lack of an SSN and toss it in the trash. How does one best communicate with the *non-technical* HR dept that I will not email my SSN and why, without getting my app tossed? Or is that simply unavoidable?
(Assume that you want the job, and that refusing your SSN entirely is not an option, please. Some (esp gov't) jobs do in fact require it for background checks, security clearance, etc - and an incomplete application is the fastest way to not get an interview.)
I've heard much better things about the kinds of phones one can get from Cingular on that point
If you don't have a "data plan" with Cingular, you get charged by the kilobyte (which is nice compared to Verizon who won't let you do anything but 14.4k without adding "data" to your cell plan) Cingular doesn't support computer configurations that don't use their software (which you can't download if you can't get a connection, but you can't get a connection without downloading the software...is what they told me while I was on vacation trying to check my email)
The dataplans vary widely, I think they are 2MB/month, 5MB and 10MB, and "unlimited". I signed up for the unlimited for a month and the speed was stupidly slow for a simple ssh session.
I have a Nokia 6230 (and their free software) but the BT [modem] is a pain to get working right on a win32 laptop (had it working once or twice, but not since then - and no clue how to get something like that working in linux). The helpdesk person at cingular actually had a really good suggestion that worked like a charm - IR. I used the IR so often I had it disabled in the system bios. Slow as hell, but it worked for pine. Downside, phone and laptop have to pretty much be stationary for line-of-sight IR comms to work. Maybe there is a way to make it go faster, I dunno.
In addition to the things the parent mentioned about privilege seperaration and permissions, sudo (if configured correctly) gives you an audit trail of what was done by whom and when. If someone fscks the database server, you'll know exactly who to beatdown and where to look for a restore point in your backups.
It will also let you know if someone is trying to do something you haven't authorized for them in the sudoers file.
On systems where I'm the only user, I almost always use a non-root account to do normal tasks. sudo lets me elevate privileges for the command I need to, ie
$ apt-get install reallycoolwidget
, and then drops back down so I don't forget to exit myself. sudo (generally) does not require you to retype your password for every command, there is a timer. If you're dumb|busy enough to walk away and leave your terminal unlocked, after a few minutes the next sudo attempt will ask for your password again.
One thing to remember, use visudo, not vi/etc/sudoers. The syntax check will likely save your ass one day.
In all seriousness, what are you using to listen to content online that is only available in realaudio/video or wma streams? Or do you just say "screw it, not listening to that"? VLC? mplayer? I've not tried in a couple of years, but the last time I did, both of those were a nightmare to get working. I finally just gave up. The Helix player when I last tried about 6 months ago, sort of worked, sometimes. But isn't that from RealNetworks? I'm not a coder, but I think I know my way around a linux box pretty well.
At least with a windoze box (ugh) I can get a working version of Realplayer (don't like it) and WMP (hate it, bloated piece of crap) and I have StreamboxVCR to download and re-encode.rm files into mp3.
I've run into two situations recently where the "BIOS" did a really crappy job of hiding devices from the OS. Both boards are mid-range PC, not expensive servers or anything like that, but still. The first was my ABIT board with a SATA RAID controller. Apparently, the RAID BIOS did a lousy job of reporting that the two drives were RAIDed, because Linux saw two different drives. WinXP saw two drives, but seemed happy enough using them as a RAID - with drivers.
The second one was a buddy who was having trouble disabling the Intel graphics chip on his mobo. He had it disabled in the BIOS, but once again, Linux was able to see the chipset. But only enough to know that it was there, not enough to actually do anything with it. So until he ENabled the card in the BIOS, he couldn't properly use his AGP card.
My point being, that it seems like the BIOS in both these cases was able to "hide" something from Windoze because Windoze was willing to cooperate and aware of the BIOS. What if the BIOS only suggests that Win shouldn't use the TPM? I don't trust the MOBO to hide jack from the OS.
you feel that the $20,000 dollar you plot down on a car gives you the right to make as many copies as you like to sell or give away
No, you're right. What I was referring was more the modification of the car - a better mouse trap - rather than the straight duplication. A vehicle is a tangible object that would be extremely difficult to create a copy of, hence the comment about DVD duplication. *However* I am allowed to buy as many cars as I can afford, modify them (obviously within the limits of things like the odometer and other fraud), and then turn around and resell them. I can sell them as whole cars or I can sell them as pieces of cars.
The problem I see, as it relates to innovation is that I'm not allowed to build a better mouse trap any longer - even for personal use. Permissions are so restrictive that I'm technically not even permitted to examine your mousetrap to see how it works. If you give me an EULA when I buy your trap which specifies gray mice then I can't use it to catch small rats.
I'm all about granting reasonable credit (payment) where credit is due. I'm not so keen on being told that I'm only permitted to use your mousetrap to catch gray mice between 1.5 and 4 ounces, and there will be hell to pay if I upgrade the spring or use it for a practical joke.
It really did used to be that we were allowed to tinker with things, and if we made a better product, we were allowed to profit from it. No longer it seems. As I understand it, this is the argument surrounding IPR. Where does profit become greed becomes the unwarranted suppression of innovation?
Correct. Someone above mentioned the TiVo subscription fees. Microsoft does the same thing with the Xbox with their XBoxLive deal. You pay them a service fee to add a function to your xbox that you would not otherwise have, that being joining other players in a game. So you pay for the xbox, the game, and the service - Microsoft makes money off of you three times for what amounts to one thing.
However, you can skip Microsoft and use Kai to join your friends online. I'm pretty sure this violates the EULA, and certainly doesn't give money to Microsoft that they intended would be for them. Why MSFT hasn't gone after these guys and other like them I'm not really sure. Blizzard did, IIRC.
In any case, MSFT does care what you do with your xBox after you buy it, and that is the point - they have no business telling me what to do with something I bought, short of voiding my warranty if I break the terms.
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I'm in pretty much the same position. I can get TW cable or AT&T (formerly SBC) DSL. The problem I think we may end up with in the situation with AT&T is that it may not matter if they're your ISP or not. They control so much of the backbone that they don't have to be directly offering you service to cause problems.
I'm *considering* something like SpeakEasy DSL (not sure I can get it here, and it is very expensive IIRC, more than $50/month over what I'm already paying) - but if AT&T controls any part of the link, we're SOL regardless of what ISP we have.
I don't know. It just seems utterly counter-productive to me. To suggest that something is "more [closely aligned]" is a relative comparison. That is, there is something which is now less closely aligned with AT&T -- perhaps their customers?
With the recent news about T/W deploying packet shaping, I was considering switching to my only local alternative, AT&T DSL. No longer. Unfortunately, without spending $500/month to lease a T1, if I want high speed those are my only two real options.
You're right, and that works great except for most sites that I've come across use a regex which disallows the use of a '+' sign in the email address.
What I've done instead is to create a catch-all email address in a subdomain and sign up as, ie amazon@subdomain.domain.com. I suppose I could first create a unique 16-character string for each one and add a new address before creating any accounts, but a) that requires additional effort and management and b) when you call, for example, amazon customer support they ask for your email address to identify your account. Good luck communicating 16 random letters and numbers over the phone to level-1 customer support.
Eventually a "dictionary" attack might end up forcing me to shut down the catch-all and be explicit.
Yeah, she's fine. :) The vet said the biggest thing to worry about was internal bleeding caused by perforations from the shards of plastic, but that wasn't an issue. I am a little surprised that the organic dye layer (whatever it is composed of) didn't seem to make her sick at all. Maybe I should start feeding her CDs I want "recycled" instead of contaminated off-the-shelf dog food.
I just bought a brand new 680i, dual-core 6600, with an NVidia 8800GTS (640MB), 4GB of memory, etc. I'm not happy because even with that system (arguably it doesn't get significantly better than that given available hardware on the market right now - assuming that buying a pair of 8800GTXs is over the top), I finally had to turn down some of the graphics options because there were several "zones" where the game became unplayable - < 6FPS and herky-jerky trying to move around. And IIRC the worst was in a rather small wooded area - not someplace with water which is where you would think that kind of crap would happen. In general, indoor areas hover around 60fps, but outdoor areas don't get much above 24. Do I need a damn SGI for this game?
I think it boils down to that the game is really buggy, and bloated based on the performance. Several times I've had the graphics get all weirded out (you could see the wall through the inside of someone's mouth, out of control plantlife that makes it look like you're clipping through a wall, etc.), the game locks up or my character can't run anymore, etc.
Besides that, the UI kind of sucks. It took me until about 1/2 way through the second chapter to realize that I had to hold the right button to get a menu of things I could do. (hey, look I'm a ranger, there's my pet!) I miss the radial menus and being able to quick-slot anything. Kind of sad because I really liked the original NWN.
The metal in the foil is considered toxic
A bit OT, but I called poison control (and then the "animal" poison control...) a few months ago after my dog ate most of a CD-R, thinking the same thing. They assured me there was nothing toxic, despite my insistence that while I don't understand much physics/chemistry, I was under the impression that the recordable layer is some type of organic dye.
I looked on the web at the time and wasn't able to find anything that seemed consistent about the makeup of the metal layers, so what is in those things? Alumnium, nickel, ?
So we should just cease all QA because it is just too hard? That could certainly make the products cheaper to produce, but it still sounds like a cop-out. Is this acceptable for your car? The plane you and your family are riding on? Remember that these two things as examples, especially aircraft (fly-by-wire anyone?), are increasingly driven by software. The B2 stealth bomber basically can't fly without the constant adjustments to the flight surfaces made automagically by software. I wouldn't exactly call that a case for not testing because it is "impractical" or "just too difficult"
/these/ things because they involve safety and risk loss of life and property, then doesn't that suggest that the software used these things almost certainly must be *more* complex than other devices (such as a television) because of the requirement that they must take extra measures to ensure that, for example, the 737's engine computer doesn't decide reverse thrust is a good idea at 35,000 feet?
If you say that we should test
I agree. I'm already (as I suspect most of /. is as well) almost constantly dealing with hardware and software that isn't production ready but "beats the competition to market". The Nvidia 680i boards ship with software that conflicts with itself, causing BSODs in XP - as confirmed by my emails with eVGA. It is one thing to ship patches for things discovered after shipping -- but I think most large corps today figure it in as a calculated risk. Don't even get me started on the steaming pile that is Vista. The Motorola SLVR (mostly the fault of Sprint I'm sure) with the horribly lagged and buggy UI. The list goes on.
Ohio also provides a free and mostly painless site to file state taxes.
B) Can't put it on your TV easily (again)
A couple of years ago there was much talk about Netflix partnering with TiVo -- but I haven't read anything about it recently. Anyone know what happened to that?
Not sure what your location is, but we have a place in Columbus (OH) called The Laptop Guy. I had the exact same problem (charger daughterboard issues) with my Dell Inspirion 8200, and they said they could order the part for me if I wanted. If you can find a small repair shop (even some larger places like Microcenter are sometimes really helpful - found me a Winbook mini-pci wireless card that worked in the Inspirion) they might be willing to order and sell you the part.
For a geek like myself, it isn't being afraid of the technology. I've said this before -- it is about wanting my fridge, my microwave, and yes, my TV to just work. Thats why I have a TiVo and not mythTV/WinMCE/etc I don't feel like coming home after a long day of dealing with other people's code to fight with my TV. I've seen what should be highly robust kiosks (haven't we all) with a BSOD. Those kiosks have *one* thing to do - unlike our typical desktop PC - and they crash way more often than they should. I'd like to not have to buy everything in the fridge that went bad because it crashed again and started heating the inside instead of cooling it while I was at work. Like the GP said - a simple thermosat will do. Why muck it up with far more complexity than is needed?
I bought a new dual-CPU G5 tower a few months ago and it was doing the same thing. It was this absolutely grating, irritating high-pitched whine during certain graphics modes, including the RSS screen saver. Think of the noise a CRT makes, only much much louder and a slightly lower pitch.
Apple told me to take it back to the apple store. The dumbasses at the store told me the noise (pick one or more of the following) a) was the harddrive b) was a fan c) was the video card d) didn't exist e) was normal. All this despite the fact that I could on-demand demonstrate how to cause the noise - using Apple's OWN software. I was royally pissed. "Genius bar" my ass.
How does Apple expect to earn or retain customers with garbage like this? Maybe they're just following the competition's model.
Typically I can tell that someone is on the phone before I even get close, because they're driving like an idiot. One rather large woman I saw cruising down the road, unable to maintain her speed or lane - a cellphone in one hand, a cigarette in the other...
This is completely antecdotal, but I have to say - the people who I see driving stupidly and who I find are doing so because they're on the phone and not paying attention to what the hell is going on around them - tend to be women more often than not. Guys have their share of problems, and drunk driving is one of them. Hence why the insurance premiums for male drivers age 16-25 are ridiculous in the US. Be that as it may: damn, woman, get off the phone and drive. Obviously no study could ever conclude this because that wouldn't be PC. At the same time many of us paid the price, literally, for car insurance because a few guys can't figure out how incredibly stupid it is to a) drive drunk and/or b) propel an 1,800lb metal object through traffic far over the limit of their ability to control that vehicle at the chosen speed.
This is a best buy thing, not just a "geek squad" thing. The warranty support I've gotten from BB sucks badly enough I stopped shopping there, and have basically told everyone I know that they're not worth dealing with.
Just like you said, have to send your device (in my case it was an aftermarket car stereo) in over and over again, and it seems to come back without problem A fixed and has new problems it never had before - which then BB says it doesn't have problem A or B. After about 2 months of bringing it back to the store to have it shipped out to be "repaired" and getting it back with "no problems found", they give me shit about how they're not going to honor the replacement policy. When it starts to turn into a scene in front of the customer service desk, it turns into they want to replace my now totally busted unit with a piece of junk nothing near as nice as what I PAID FOR. I asked flat out about a feature I had in my broken unit that the model they wanted to give me lacked, and suggested "Don't you think X is an important feature?" - the question was obviously retorical, but he had the balls to stand there and tell me "No, it isn't important"
Walk into a BB sometime and ask a moderately technical question that a consumer might ask about a computer. I'd venture to say based on people who have gone to BB and then come back to me (the real geek) to double check something that sounded dubious, 6 or 7 times out of ten the BB answer will be total coming-out-of-their-ass bullshit, because they figure you don't know any better.
BB was in some hot water a few years ago here in Ohio with the state's AG over their warranty servicing, trying to sell returned/broken goods as new, etc. I have no idea what ever became of that.
Negative. I'm a happy customer. I looked at your BBB report, and there is no apparent reason for the rating:
Although in some cases the company failed to respond to complaints.
The sole negative in the entire report is the failure to respond to some complaints
you get to spend the next week looking for hosting
:)
dreamhost, which has RoR hosting
Then again, hiring agencies like usajobs.gov want you to email your SSN as part of your application materials, and if you complain, they fire back some bullshit from their privacy policy...this is what they told me:
* emphasis mine to illustrate the absurdity
I never once argued about whether they could or should be asking for. I was only asking for alternative methods besides frickin e-mail on how to provide it.
I'm interested to know how folks here have handled job applications which require your SSN (or the posting requires your SSN on your resume) and then want you to email these materials to them. Until now, I have said in my cover letter "I'm unable to provide my SSN over email for security reasons" and in most cases attempted to contact the employer by phone. But I'm not sure this is enough. I assume the HR people who get the applications see the lack of an SSN and toss it in the trash. How does one best communicate with the *non-technical* HR dept that I will not email my SSN and why, without getting my app tossed? Or is that simply unavoidable?
(Assume that you want the job, and that refusing your SSN entirely is not an option, please. Some (esp gov't) jobs do in fact require it for background checks, security clearance, etc - and an incomplete application is the fastest way to not get an interview.)
I've heard much better things about the kinds of phones one can get from Cingular on that point
If you don't have a "data plan" with Cingular, you get charged by the kilobyte (which is nice compared to Verizon who won't let you do anything but 14.4k without adding "data" to your cell plan) Cingular doesn't support computer configurations that don't use their software (which you can't download if you can't get a connection, but you can't get a connection without downloading the software...is what they told me while I was on vacation trying to check my email)
The dataplans vary widely, I think they are 2MB/month, 5MB and 10MB, and "unlimited". I signed up for the unlimited for a month and the speed was stupidly slow for a simple ssh session.
I have a Nokia 6230 (and their free software) but the BT [modem] is a pain to get working right on a win32 laptop (had it working once or twice, but not since then - and no clue how to get something like that working in linux). The helpdesk person at cingular actually had a really good suggestion that worked like a charm - IR. I used the IR so often I had it disabled in the system bios. Slow as hell, but it worked for pine. Downside, phone and laptop have to pretty much be stationary for line-of-sight IR comms to work. Maybe there is a way to make it go faster, I dunno.
On systems where I'm the only user, I almost always use a non-root account to do normal tasks. sudo lets me elevate privileges for the command I need to, ie , and then drops back down so I don't forget to exit myself. sudo (generally) does not require you to retype your password for every command, there is a timer. If you're dumb|busy enough to walk away and leave your terminal unlocked, after a few minutes the next sudo attempt will ask for your password again.
One thing to remember, use visudo, not vi
In all seriousness, what are you using to listen to content online that is only available in realaudio/video or wma streams? Or do you just say "screw it, not listening to that"? VLC? mplayer? I've not tried in a couple of years, but the last time I did, both of those were a nightmare to get working. I finally just gave up. The Helix player when I last tried about 6 months ago, sort of worked, sometimes. But isn't that from RealNetworks? I'm not a coder, but I think I know my way around a linux box pretty well.
.rm files into mp3.
At least with a windoze box (ugh) I can get a working version of Realplayer (don't like it) and WMP (hate it, bloated piece of crap) and I have StreamboxVCR to download and re-encode
I've run into two situations recently where the "BIOS" did a really crappy job of hiding devices from the OS. Both boards are mid-range PC, not expensive servers or anything like that, but still. The first was my ABIT board with a SATA RAID controller. Apparently, the RAID BIOS did a lousy job of reporting that the two drives were RAIDed, because Linux saw two different drives. WinXP saw two drives, but seemed happy enough using them as a RAID - with drivers.
The second one was a buddy who was having trouble disabling the Intel graphics chip on his mobo. He had it disabled in the BIOS, but once again, Linux was able to see the chipset. But only enough to know that it was there, not enough to actually do anything with it. So until he ENabled the card in the BIOS, he couldn't properly use his AGP card.
My point being, that it seems like the BIOS in both these cases was able to "hide" something from Windoze because Windoze was willing to cooperate and aware of the BIOS. What if the BIOS only suggests that Win shouldn't use the TPM? I don't trust the MOBO to hide jack from the OS.
you feel that the $20,000 dollar you plot down on a car gives you the right to make as many copies as you like to sell or give away
No, you're right. What I was referring was more the modification of the car - a better mouse trap - rather than the straight duplication. A vehicle is a tangible object that would be extremely difficult to create a copy of, hence the comment about DVD duplication. *However* I am allowed to buy as many cars as I can afford, modify them (obviously within the limits of things like the odometer and other fraud), and then turn around and resell them. I can sell them as whole cars or I can sell them as pieces of cars.
The problem I see, as it relates to innovation is that I'm not allowed to build a better mouse trap any longer - even for personal use. Permissions are so restrictive that I'm technically not even permitted to examine your mousetrap to see how it works. If you give me an EULA when I buy your trap which specifies gray mice then I can't use it to catch small rats.
I'm all about granting reasonable credit (payment) where credit is due. I'm not so keen on being told that I'm only permitted to use your mousetrap to catch gray mice between 1.5 and 4 ounces, and there will be hell to pay if I upgrade the spring or use it for a practical joke.
It really did used to be that we were allowed to tinker with things, and if we made a better product, we were allowed to profit from it. No longer it seems. As I understand it, this is the argument surrounding IPR. Where does profit become greed becomes the unwarranted suppression of innovation?
Correct. Someone above mentioned the TiVo subscription fees. Microsoft does the same thing with the Xbox with their XBoxLive deal. You pay them a service fee to add a function to your xbox that you would not otherwise have, that being joining other players in a game. So you pay for the xbox, the game, and the service - Microsoft makes money off of you three times for what amounts to one thing.
However, you can skip Microsoft and use Kai to join your friends online. I'm pretty sure this violates the EULA, and certainly doesn't give money to Microsoft that they intended would be for them. Why MSFT hasn't gone after these guys and other like them I'm not really sure. Blizzard did, IIRC.
In any case, MSFT does care what you do with your xBox after you buy it, and that is the point - they have no business telling me what to do with something I bought, short of voiding my warranty if I break the terms.