I wonder if going to the launchcast feedback page and telling them they're screwing up by not recognizing 10 million potential users in OS X would get them to actually do something...
It might, seeing as how they've got a "new media focus" according to press releases, and they've recently posted job openings for that division.
Hmm. Take the inner workings of the Mini, put it in a bigger case, then put a larger removeable firewire drive inside. Add TiVo-like functionality. That'd work.
Funny you should say that. I have a G4 tower sitting here that I just acquired, and it has OSX Panther on it. The first thing I did was install to dual-boot Debian testing (gnome) on it.
I played around with OSX for a while (I normally use an x86 box, so it was a novelty), then flipped over to debian with gnome. Honestly, and I'm as surprised as anyone else, I found that I liked it better. Obviously, being used to it has a lot to do with it, and compared to Windows 2000, OSX looks amazing, but...well...I guess everyone's taste is different.
I guess I'm a freak. I -like- the aliased corners, because it reminds me of an old mac desktop. For me, anti-aliased everything is just blurry and overrated -- I'll take crisp well-defined edges any day of the week.
Funny, when I run KDE I feel like there are so many toolbars, and the icons are so big, that it takes up too much real estate...and when I use gnome (debian), I feel like it's simple and small and tidy.
Doesn't it make you wonder if each of us is missing some obscure setting somewhere?
I believe (someone else correct me if I'm wrong) that without the restart, the clock doesn't STOP, it just keeps on ticking. So, if it takes (just guessing here) six months of hearings to get the patent legistlation passed, and we're three months through it right now, restart == six months before possible legislation passed, and no restart == three months before possible legislation passed.
Hope that helps (and that it's accurate, although I obviously pulled the timeframes out of my behind)
First off, this is more annoying than a paper passport that's damaged because you can TELL that your paper passport is damaged before you head for the airport. With this, I could have what I believe to be a perfectly-functioning passport, get to the airport in time for a critical flight, then discover I can't get on because it's damaged. Bluh.
Also worth noting (but not as a follow-up to what you've said) I remember reading that these RFID-equipped passports would be lined with a grid of metal wires, meaning that it would have a faraday cage around it -- so nobody could read your passport RFID without your knowledge unless you opened the passport. Is that still the case?
Seems like, if so, the only risk to your data is if you're sloppy with closing your passport or if someone's stationed with a reader in the airport -- and someone pointing a gun-like antenna towards the passport screening area WILL be noticed by security.
It's funny, but when you try to do something really hard, you need a lot of money and a lot of talent. Projects like that throw off a lot of extra useful knowledge, and people who don't have the talent or money to tackle the big thing can look for a lesser problem and solve it with the spillover knowledge.
Besides, even the smallest things are worth doing better. Read "The Evolution of Useful Things" to see just how much time and effort have gone into the creation of the Gem paper clip (the one you picture in your head when you think "paper clip").
Re:where are the clients?
on
MP3beamer Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Easy answer: check out Slim Devices Squeezebox. Here's how it addresses your needs:
1. The box is barely wider or taller than the display, and it's not very deep, either.
2. The output is analog or digital stereo, not 5.1 or 7.1, but it doesn't funnel video anyway so there's no need for surround sound support (unless there's 5.1 and 7.1 non-movie audio out there?)
3. You can use the remote and the surprisingly large and bright screen to configure your player, search through your music, build playlists, adjust the volume, change the screensaver, pull up internet radio streams, play pacman and tetris...okay, those last two might be gratuitous.
4. You can use any computer on your network to change the playlist on and control all aspects of every player you have. Not only can you start Ben Folds and Beastie Boys playing on two different players from a computer in another room (or over the internet), you can also sync them so that they both play the same music AT THE SAME TIME in both rooms.
I highly recommend the wired version, because it's cheap, in stock, and reliable as hell.
Re:Not a troll... does it do ogg vorbis?
on
MP3beamer Released
·
· Score: 1
SlimServer does Ogg Vorbis with re-encoding to mp3 or wav on the fly, so presumably MP3Beamer might be able to as well.
The bottom line seems to be that the end player -- not the server software -- dictates the native streams that are acceptable. For instance, my Slim Devices Squeezebox can't play AAC streams unless they're re-encoded to MP3 or WAV, but if they came out with a Squeezebox that could play AAC streams, the server software could be configured to send them without re-encoding.
It kinda sucks that it doesn't at least include unprotected AAC support. It seems like, outside of Apple, AAC is turning into a flop (although I know the Roku Soundbridge supports it).
I currently run SlimServer on an old Dell Optiplex, and it supports AAC -- via re-encoding on the fly with faad2. I don't know if the Roku Soundbridge uses this method (it also uses SlimServer) or if the hardware natively supports it, but it makes sense that the MP3Beamer ALSO supports AAC via re-encoding on the fly, given that their software is based on SlimServer.
However, setting up to re-encode on the fly is likely outside the scope of the MP3Beamer's target audience (plug in, turn on, forget about it) -- as is explaining why they can play their own AACs, but not those they download from iTunes.
Oh, and for those considering the SlimServer/old boxen approach, I had SlimServer originally running on an old Pentium II 450 with 384mb of memory, which was also running web/mail/ssh/samba/NAT services. It could even do the re-encoding on the fly, unless someone hit a web site, at which point there'd be a slight hiccup in playback. I moved to a Pentium III 800 with 512 of memory, and now everything's peachy.
Note: I do my listening with a Slim Devices Squeezebox, which I love. YMMV with Soundbridge, et al.
Exactly. When I want to blow things up, I go over to a friend's house and play PS2/XBox games. When I want to play WITH friends (and my wife) even when I'm playing against them, we pull out my gamecube and play WarioWare, Donkey Konga or Mario Kart.
Once upon a time, I worked at a grocery store. One day a woman came into the store and filled her cart to the brim with groceries (putting her into the category of "we'll need another cart to bag her stuff"; I was a bagger at the time.)
Well, she walked out of the store with her groceries, all bagged, and each of us was pleased that we weren't the one who bagged them. Then somebody realized she must have bagged them herself. A quick check with the cashiers, and we all realized she had bagged them herself, all right -- and left without paying.
By the time we figured it out and went into the parking lot, she was long gone.
Similarly, I knew cashiers who had friends come into the store and buy a huge pile of groceries, but the cashiers would only scan some of the items. Their friends would walk out with hundreds of dollars in groceries for less than $50.
So theft in a retail setting comes from both sides; they put cameras that look down on your transactions to keep the cashiers and customers from working in cahoots, and they check receipts at the door to prevent the same thing.
The issue here (which isn't really related to the FPP) is that cashiers are paid so little that they thing it's worthwhile to coordinate these scams -- yet they trust the receipt checkers at the door not to be in on it. It's just as easy for a receipt checker to "check" an illegitimate receipt at the door for a friend who has just walked past the cashiers and out the door.
2048x1080 resolution is BETTER QUALITY than analog film? Not likely. They are likely referring to the absence of scratches and whatnot that build up over time, but I have a hard time believing that 2048x1080 projected on a large screen will not look pixelated.
It's not the "best sound ever!" but the Squeezebox will play back uncompressed flac and wav files, and sounds pretty darn good to me. Analog and digital outputs, wireless or wired options (I strongly recommend the wired).
I also strongly recommend you peruse the mailing list archives first, because there is much past discussion of how the product compares to others for the exact purpose you describe.
1. Illegal immigrants are working using other people's SS#s, because having an SS# is a requirement to work -- and various agencies look away, because (thanks to withholding) they collect -additional revenue- this way.
2. Illegal immigrants can't be issued real SS#s, claim people in the article, because it would make them eligible for SS benefits in the future.
3. We have an impending shortage of SS funds (supposedly), since there will be fewer workers supporting the older retirees soon.
Well, wouldn't it make sense to issue input-only SS#s to illegal immigrants? Let 'em work, let 'em pay into Social Security (which they do with the stolen SS#s already) -- but don't let 'em take SS benefits later.
The illegal immigrants would be better off (they don't have SS benefits now, but they lose jobs if their fraud is found out, so this will allow them to keep their jobs), and so would the retirees (more money going into SS now, the same amount being taken out later).
If I were going to guess, I'd say there's a device driver problem. Some piece of hardware you have doesn't have a stable driver under Xandros. To be fair, that's the main source of Windows crashes, too -- Windows has more drivers, and since nobody writes buggy drivers on purpose, it's going to have more buggy drivers overall.
If you really want to fix it (I know you were just showing a contrarian example, but I'd want to fix it if it were crashing every few hours) pull a single piece of hardware out at a time and run it for a day. The day you stop crashing is the day you found it. If it still doesn't stop crashing, memory/mb problem, most likely.
Incidentally, when it crashes after a few hours, and you restart, does it run a few more hours before crashing? If so, I say device driver, and if not, I say heat-related failure (memory or otherwise).
I've been running a RedHat 7.3-based distribution for years on a server in my home, and the only time it has ever stopped working was when I shut it down to change hardware. I even migrated the whole thing to a new box last night -- different manufacturer, by the way -- and all was fine.
I've also been running Debian Testing on a G4 tower (works flawlessly) and a homebuilt AMD tower (works flawlessly except for FireWire and MIDI); until last night, neither had ever crashed.
Then last night, for no reason I can ascertain, my AMD box wouldn't boot. After a few reboots, it started to fsck, but slower than any fsck I have ever seen. So I left it overnight.
When I woke up this morning, the screen was full of timing errors, and it was just sitting there. So I rebooted it. And everything's fine.
Am I happy that it crashed, and that I don't know the cause? Nosir. But I've had many a Windows PC stop booting for no reason, and never ever witnessed one fix itself after a few reboots.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if going to the launchcast feedback page and telling them they're screwing up by not recognizing 10 million potential users in OS X would get them to actually do something...
It might, seeing as how they've got a "new media focus" according to press releases, and they've recently posted job openings for that division.
Hmm. Take the inner workings of the Mini, put it in a bigger case, then put a larger removeable firewire drive inside. Add TiVo-like functionality. That'd work.
Funny you should say that. I have a G4 tower sitting here that I just acquired, and it has OSX Panther on it. The first thing I did was install to dual-boot Debian testing (gnome) on it.
I played around with OSX for a while (I normally use an x86 box, so it was a novelty), then flipped over to debian with gnome. Honestly, and I'm as surprised as anyone else, I found that I liked it better. Obviously, being used to it has a lot to do with it, and compared to Windows 2000, OSX looks amazing, but...well...I guess everyone's taste is different.
I guess I'm a freak. I -like- the aliased corners, because it reminds me of an old mac desktop. For me, anti-aliased everything is just blurry and overrated -- I'll take crisp well-defined edges any day of the week.
Funny, when I run KDE I feel like there are so many toolbars, and the icons are so big, that it takes up too much real estate...and when I use gnome (debian), I feel like it's simple and small and tidy.
Doesn't it make you wonder if each of us is missing some obscure setting somewhere?
Better question: does ANYONE put a box on the internet these days without a router between them and the connection?
(actually, now that I think about it, I can name several. Methinks I need to go have a talk with some friends and family.)
I believe (someone else correct me if I'm wrong) that without the restart, the clock doesn't STOP, it just keeps on ticking. So, if it takes (just guessing here) six months of hearings to get the patent legistlation passed, and we're three months through it right now, restart == six months before possible legislation passed, and no restart == three months before possible legislation passed.
Hope that helps (and that it's accurate, although I obviously pulled the timeframes out of my behind)
...Merkin.
Um...I know what a merkin is. Has this also become a derogatory term for Americans, or is this a misspelling of something else?
Sigh.
First off, this is more annoying than a paper passport that's damaged because you can TELL that your paper passport is damaged before you head for the airport. With this, I could have what I believe to be a perfectly-functioning passport, get to the airport in time for a critical flight, then discover I can't get on because it's damaged. Bluh.
Also worth noting (but not as a follow-up to what you've said) I remember reading that these RFID-equipped passports would be lined with a grid of metal wires, meaning that it would have a faraday cage around it -- so nobody could read your passport RFID without your knowledge unless you opened the passport. Is that still the case?
Seems like, if so, the only risk to your data is if you're sloppy with closing your passport or if someone's stationed with a reader in the airport -- and someone pointing a gun-like antenna towards the passport screening area WILL be noticed by security.
It's funny, but when you try to do something really hard, you need a lot of money and a lot of talent. Projects like that throw off a lot of extra useful knowledge, and people who don't have the talent or money to tackle the big thing can look for a lesser problem and solve it with the spillover knowledge.
Besides, even the smallest things are worth doing better. Read "The Evolution of Useful Things" to see just how much time and effort have gone into the creation of the Gem paper clip (the one you picture in your head when you think "paper clip").
Easy answer: check out Slim Devices Squeezebox. Here's how it addresses your needs:
1. The box is barely wider or taller than the display, and it's not very deep, either.
2. The output is analog or digital stereo, not 5.1 or 7.1, but it doesn't funnel video anyway so there's no need for surround sound support (unless there's 5.1 and 7.1 non-movie audio out there?)
3. You can use the remote and the surprisingly large and bright screen to configure your player, search through your music, build playlists, adjust the volume, change the screensaver, pull up internet radio streams, play pacman and tetris...okay, those last two might be gratuitous.
4. You can use any computer on your network to change the playlist on and control all aspects of every player you have. Not only can you start Ben Folds and Beastie Boys playing on two different players from a computer in another room (or over the internet), you can also sync them so that they both play the same music AT THE SAME TIME in both rooms.
I highly recommend the wired version, because it's cheap, in stock, and reliable as hell.
SlimServer does Ogg Vorbis with re-encoding to mp3 or wav on the fly, so presumably MP3Beamer might be able to as well.
The bottom line seems to be that the end player -- not the server software -- dictates the native streams that are acceptable. For instance, my Slim Devices Squeezebox can't play AAC streams unless they're re-encoded to MP3 or WAV, but if they came out with a Squeezebox that could play AAC streams, the server software could be configured to send them without re-encoding.
It kinda sucks that it doesn't at least include unprotected AAC support. It seems like, outside of Apple, AAC is turning into a flop (although I know the Roku Soundbridge supports it).
I currently run SlimServer on an old Dell Optiplex, and it supports AAC -- via re-encoding on the fly with faad2. I don't know if the Roku Soundbridge uses this method (it also uses SlimServer) or if the hardware natively supports it, but it makes sense that the MP3Beamer ALSO supports AAC via re-encoding on the fly, given that their software is based on SlimServer.
However, setting up to re-encode on the fly is likely outside the scope of the MP3Beamer's target audience (plug in, turn on, forget about it) -- as is explaining why they can play their own AACs, but not those they download from iTunes.
Oh, and for those considering the SlimServer/old boxen approach, I had SlimServer originally running on an old Pentium II 450 with 384mb of memory, which was also running web/mail/ssh/samba/NAT services. It could even do the re-encoding on the fly, unless someone hit a web site, at which point there'd be a slight hiccup in playback. I moved to a Pentium III 800 with 512 of memory, and now everything's peachy.
Note: I do my listening with a Slim Devices Squeezebox, which I love. YMMV with Soundbridge, et al.
Exactly. When I want to blow things up, I go over to a friend's house and play PS2/XBox games. When I want to play WITH friends (and my wife) even when I'm playing against them, we pull out my gamecube and play WarioWare, Donkey Konga or Mario Kart.
Once upon a time, I worked at a grocery store. One day a woman came into the store and filled her cart to the brim with groceries (putting her into the category of "we'll need another cart to bag her stuff"; I was a bagger at the time.)
Well, she walked out of the store with her groceries, all bagged, and each of us was pleased that we weren't the one who bagged them. Then somebody realized she must have bagged them herself. A quick check with the cashiers, and we all realized she had bagged them herself, all right -- and left without paying.
By the time we figured it out and went into the parking lot, she was long gone.
Similarly, I knew cashiers who had friends come into the store and buy a huge pile of groceries, but the cashiers would only scan some of the items. Their friends would walk out with hundreds of dollars in groceries for less than $50.
So theft in a retail setting comes from both sides; they put cameras that look down on your transactions to keep the cashiers and customers from working in cahoots, and they check receipts at the door to prevent the same thing.
The issue here (which isn't really related to the FPP) is that cashiers are paid so little that they thing it's worthwhile to coordinate these scams -- yet they trust the receipt checkers at the door not to be in on it. It's just as easy for a receipt checker to "check" an illegitimate receipt at the door for a friend who has just walked past the cashiers and out the door.
When did we start caring more about things that offend us than about things that can hurt us?
2048x1080 resolution is BETTER QUALITY than analog film? Not likely. They are likely referring to the absence of scratches and whatnot that build up over time, but I have a hard time believing that 2048x1080 projected on a large screen will not look pixelated.
by ccmay (116316)
What, was username aynrand taken?
I kid, I kid. Just the "point of a gun" thing tickled the back of my brain.
You know, it's funny -- what happens if they manufacture wireless chips with their own standard, and sell them alongside the other gear?
I mean, if the standard is actually BETTER (more reliable, more secure) perhaps the marketplace will pick it up...?
Man, I'm not jewish OR gay. I don't control ANYTHING. :(
It's not the "best sound ever!" but the Squeezebox will play back uncompressed flac and wav files, and sounds pretty darn good to me. Analog and digital outputs, wireless or wired options (I strongly recommend the wired).
I also strongly recommend you peruse the mailing list archives first, because there is much past discussion of how the product compares to others for the exact purpose you describe.
...I couldn't help but think about three things:
1. Illegal immigrants are working using other people's SS#s, because having an SS# is a requirement to work -- and various agencies look away, because (thanks to withholding) they collect -additional revenue- this way.
2. Illegal immigrants can't be issued real SS#s, claim people in the article, because it would make them eligible for SS benefits in the future.
3. We have an impending shortage of SS funds (supposedly), since there will be fewer workers supporting the older retirees soon.
Well, wouldn't it make sense to issue input-only SS#s to illegal immigrants? Let 'em work, let 'em pay into Social Security (which they do with the stolen SS#s already) -- but don't let 'em take SS benefits later.
The illegal immigrants would be better off (they don't have SS benefits now, but they lose jobs if their fraud is found out, so this will allow them to keep their jobs), and so would the retirees (more money going into SS now, the same amount being taken out later).
I'm just sayin'.
If I were going to guess, I'd say there's a device driver problem. Some piece of hardware you have doesn't have a stable driver under Xandros. To be fair, that's the main source of Windows crashes, too -- Windows has more drivers, and since nobody writes buggy drivers on purpose, it's going to have more buggy drivers overall.
If you really want to fix it (I know you were just showing a contrarian example, but I'd want to fix it if it were crashing every few hours) pull a single piece of hardware out at a time and run it for a day. The day you stop crashing is the day you found it. If it still doesn't stop crashing, memory/mb problem, most likely.
Incidentally, when it crashes after a few hours, and you restart, does it run a few more hours before crashing? If so, I say device driver, and if not, I say heat-related failure (memory or otherwise).
I've been running a RedHat 7.3-based distribution for years on a server in my home, and the only time it has ever stopped working was when I shut it down to change hardware. I even migrated the whole thing to a new box last night -- different manufacturer, by the way -- and all was fine.
I've also been running Debian Testing on a G4 tower (works flawlessly) and a homebuilt AMD tower (works flawlessly except for FireWire and MIDI); until last night, neither had ever crashed.
Then last night, for no reason I can ascertain, my AMD box wouldn't boot. After a few reboots, it started to fsck, but slower than any fsck I have ever seen. So I left it overnight.
When I woke up this morning, the screen was full of timing errors, and it was just sitting there. So I rebooted it. And everything's fine.
Am I happy that it crashed, and that I don't know the cause? Nosir. But I've had many a Windows PC stop booting for no reason, and never ever witnessed one fix itself after a few reboots.
It's not like they're sticking their ads on every website you visit withotut he site's approval.
:)
True. That's what Gator is for.