I am really tired of the fact that so many phones are tied to providers/network types.
More people chose a provider based on the phone they want, than the service they will get.
I am on a 2 year contract with Verizon. While the service is better in my area than with the GSM providers like T-Mobile, Cingular, etc (Horrid coverage in Alameda, CA), I have become really fed up with the fact that my service is HALF DUPLEX.
It makes having a phone conversating very pain full as the person you are talking to cuts out everytime there is a noise on your side of the conversation (A loud bus, fire engine, pet, etc).
One day I would like a handspring or other combo PDA, Phone, MP3 player, coffee maker, and it is obvious that I wont get that from Verizon. At least, not a good one.
I can only hope that number portability will force providers to give better service.
You don't realise how much you love it...
on
Rabid TiVo Fanaticism
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You don't realize how much you love it, until it is dead.
I have found that safety deposit boxes are good safe storage facilities for off site backups, if you can live with the fact that your backups are only available during banking hours.
I was slightly annoyed by this "Sheryl Crow video", more so than the Joe Montana/Ronnie Lott Tivo marketing (That is from Tivo who I pay, but the Sheryl Crow stuff is from BestBuy).
But, it did make me enable back doors and the feature that lists the content in the "Now Playing" screen so that I could delete it. When you do this, you can also see the full unsplit version of the program it recorded (more on this below).
As far as I know, this content gets stored seperately from the normal media, a special reserved bit of hd space designed for this stuff (/icebox/).
Also: It does NOT download this content through the modem. In my area, Tivo is sent instructions to record from the Discovery channel every Monday and Thursday at around 4:30 AM. This program (listed as "Advanced Paid Program" or "Teleworld") is something that Tivo pays for and is testing for use in delivering schedule info. When the Tivo watches this channel, it blanks out the screen so that you can not see the data and or video, or hear it.
Right now, from what I can tell, it always starts with a black & white display with what looks like a moving bar code or binary block display that I assume the Tivo can read for its information. Following this is normal video that it then saves to disk. The leading data also contains instructions to the Tivo on out to split the video (where/when/what details/text to give the program) into seperate entries, and what to name the new menus where they will be accessable from, and when to make the menu appear. Much of it sits silently waiting for the moment to appear.
The same content appears at that time slot multiple times, and with different orders of the video. This allows the tivo to miss one and get it later (if you were recording something else that day/time). I suspect there are other time slots used as well.
I am not sure how I feel about this, but I am interested in the fact that it can get its schedule info this way as that should mean less calls at some point, and could open the door to some open source version of Tivo that can piggy back on this data.
At least with backdoors enabled, I can delete the content in 2 clicks.
I think the article is biased against MS for various reasons (prices quoted, differences in topology, etc).
But my biggest concern would be, why not mix them?
500 Cheapish Windows Boxes (maybe some of the newer sealed desktops that many vendors sell) running Windows 2000 (or XP) with a good ssh client and a good x-server.
You could use the Sun server+Samba as the server, or have both an NT Server (not sure if having one is really important if you are just going to use it for file sharing/user profiles) and the Sun Box.
Students used to Windows would have everything they want (Outlook, IE, etc), and people wanting unix would have a good SSH client to use, and a local x-server to run GUI apps (Or a full desktop environment) with.
This does pretty much describe my development environment. Win2k desktop with Secure CRT SSH and X-WinPro. 90% of my work being done in the SSH clients and X apps ([x]emacs, PGAccess, Gimp) and the rest using various Win32 based software (IE, Photoshop, etc.).
It really does (for me at least) make a productive environment. I can run anything I want on one desktop and use the best tool for the job in all situations.
I find it surprising that nobody has mentioned that Google has licenced its technology to other sites such as yahoo.com (They used to use Inktomi stuff)
Besides jumping off the Altavista boat like everyone else, I started noticing that Google's index was updated so frequently and was so complete that there was no reason not to use it as the search on my website.
For free they allow you to set up a branded search page limited to a particular site. That is a pretty nice feature. It works so good that I am now wondering how much better it would be if I spent money and got the more advanced features.
This is an excellent way of marketing a product IMHO.
I also find my self using it more and more in debugging various applications. Just today I did a search for "NOTICE: trying to delete portal name that does not exist." to try to track down a postgresql issue and the first 5 results had more than enough info to tell me more than I needed to know.
A friend has also talked about writing a white paper titled "Using Google's cache as an emergency backup" after having a disk failure.
This is an issue I have thought about and discussed with my wife on many occasions. My gut feeling is that for the most part, I like ads. Ads (attempt to) pay for content and keep things somewhat free.
Now, I go the other way on spamvertisements. I WILL NOT purchase anything spamvertised. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE.
But, with out commercials, there would be no broadcast TV as we know it today. Ads on web pages are supposed to serve the same purpose. The verdict seems to still be out on if it works, but the current numbers say they do not (at least to the same level as TV commercials).
In general, I tend to ignore MOST ads on web pages unless something REALLY gets my attention, which is rare.
BUT, guess what site I tend to click the most ad banners on? Slashdot. The ads here are very targeted and at least for me, tend to get my attention more times than not (Penguin Computing 1U Servers). And guess what? I like them! They are ads that I feel good about clicking and possibly making purchases (Free Dimitry Tshirts, RackSpace.com).
(For the record, one non geek ad on news.com has gotten my attention and mouse movement more than once and it was one of the worst of all kinds of ads, a flash ad. The Absolute Vodka ad. Slick. Real slick. Then again, I also willingly watch Jack in the Box commercials instead of skipping them with my Tivo)
And I think that is the trick. When ads can be so well targeted that they can in some ways be usefull content, they can actually add to the experience and not detract from it. Personally, I would not complain if there were a bunch of ads here for nifty gadgets and other things I would already be interested in purchasing (DVR's, Mp3 players, Compaq PDA's running Linux).
Then again, if we start seeing nothing but porn banners, Ads for national gym chains, VA Linux, The Backstreet Boys, and links to classmates.com, there will be a lot of people quickly installing ad filtration software.
My wife and I have argued many times about the place of ads in our society. I used to tease her that if MS made an offer, I would let them plaster my car in exchange for car payments when I was still paying for it. She would snarl her nose and look at me if I was insane.
Not much time later, there were articles in the paper about 'car wraps' where many owners of NewBeatles where getting paid the equivelent of new car payments for allowing their cars to be plastered with Yahoo! logos. (Funny thing, she seemed to like most of the wrap jobs we saw on the streets, but she still says having a baby tatooed with an ad in exchange for its college tuition is a no no).
I do wonder how far it could go and how bad it would be if it did. Could ads possibly subsidize goverment services the way SinTaxes subsidize state taxes in Nevada? Could wrapped city buildings and police cars lower our taxes? And would we want to live in a world where we could not blink with out seeing yet another advertisement.
All I do know is that from past experience around here, the slashdot crew will most likely set a good example for everyone in the way that they handle the ads. I hope to enjoy them as much in the future as I have in the past.
-----Kermit
Brought to you by the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro
What if some federal prosecutor on a mission against evil computer criminals decides the whole linux kernel is a circumvention device ???
The linux kernel *IS* a circumvention device.
It circumvents Microsoft's world wide monopoly on PC operating systems.
But, this whole topic does make me wonder about other tools, abilities we have with Linux (and just about any other OS) that may violate the DMCA.
For instance, if someone were to protect a file with:
chmod 600 metalica.mp3
chown riaa metalica.mp3
Then, the use of root (or administrator on NT) would be a circumvention device. And I guess documentation on root would be as well.
So, now root needs to be removed from linux. The ability to administrate a system could lead to circumventing the security of copyrighted works.
And lets not start talking about backup software. Most backup applications run as a priveledged user in order to be able to backup the files of all users on a system (including those mp3's that they legitamately ripped from their own CD's and any eBooks they happen to have in their PDA backup directories).
I guess it is time to look forward to using DMCA Linux. Single user mode all the time. Hey, is that a win.ini file?
Does it finnaly have the feature I want?
on
GNU Emacs 21
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I have not read the changelog yet, but I am wondering if they FINALLY added a talking paperclip to emacs?
It is the one feature I really think this product needs in order to be a usable product.
It all comes down to: People living in glass houses should not throw stones.
If you are going to sue a company over patent infringement, you better be sure your own technology is really your own.
In this industry that as of late is run more by politics and lawyers than technology, this is one of the only things that may prevent a complete downward spiral.
On the other hand, I hope Adobe goes DOWN. They deserve it right now.
-----Kermit
(Now off to finish recording a spoken mp3 version of some ebook I decrypted so I can upload it to napster)
It is pretty easy to set up sendmail to use maps on a per user basis as well (in recent versions of sendmail).
You could add: FEATURE(`delay_checks', `haters') to your sendmail.mc so that it only checks for MAPS/ORBS/ThinksInYourAccessFile after it knows the intended recipient.
Then for people who want to have MAPS/ORBS/Etc working for them, you just add them to your access file as:
To:JoeHatesSpam@example.com SPAMHATER
This way you can give your users a choice. Only the users listed will have MAPS/ORBS filters working for them.
I recently had to enable a simular setup as I started hosting mail for a new business, and potentially blocking email from valid customers would be a big no no, and my own private RBLish list contains some pretty harsh filters (Sorry to the many isp's/countries who have sent nothing but 100% spam in the past and now find themselves on my private block list).
I am hoping for (or will end up trying to write) more granular configuration options where I can chose which filters to use on a per user bases (Use ORBS but not MAPS for my email).
What I would really like to see (or write) is a combination Spamcop/Maps where multiple submissions of the same email automaticly adds a block to a DNS based list. This way only a few quick folks have to get any particular spam before it gets blocked for other users of the service.
When it comes to streaming Audio, there are open options such as icecast and etc... But, when it comes to video, there is only Real, Apple, and MS. Unfortuantely, Real is trying to RAPE companies who want to use its format, charging them on the server side PER STREAM. MS on the other hand does not charge for the server side software or the stream (Other than the fact that it runs on NT Server). THIS is why companies are dropping Real left and right and heading to the MS camp. One of my favorite WebVideo Broadcasts recently made this hard choice and lost any Linux viewers it had. Why? They lacked the funding to keep paying for Real streams. When it came down to the bottom line it was a choice between being able to offer more content and higher bandwidth as oppsed to keeping the Real streams open. The only way for this to be fixed is for real to rethink its pricing model and spend more time on Linux Development, OR find an open source alternative that people can us. If its free/cheap and supports multiple platforms, the content providers will be more than happy to support it.
Slashdot Mirror
Today I remove Timothy from my list of Authors.
Anyone else notice that most of the dupes and suspicious stories are posted by Timothy?
Or, is this really old news too?
LG510.
As soon as my contract is up, I plan to switch to sprint. I have verified that they are full duplex, and I can have a Handspring Treo.
I am really tired of the fact that so many phones are tied to providers/network types.
More people chose a provider based on the phone they want, than the service they will get.
I am on a 2 year contract with Verizon. While the service is better in my area than with the GSM providers like T-Mobile, Cingular, etc (Horrid coverage in Alameda, CA), I have become really fed up with the fact that my service is HALF DUPLEX.
It makes having a phone conversating very pain full as the person you are talking to cuts out everytime there is a noise on your side of the conversation (A loud bus, fire engine, pet, etc).
One day I would like a handspring or other combo PDA, Phone, MP3 player, coffee maker, and it is obvious that I wont get that from Verizon. At least, not a good one.
I can only hope that number portability will force providers to give better service.
You don't realize how much you love it, until it is dead.
My Tivo died this morning. WAH!!!
I have found that safety deposit boxes are good safe storage facilities for off site backups, if you can live with the fact that your backups are only available during banking hours.
I always suggest 2 copies for that reason.
They tend to run around $35-70/year.
I was slightly annoyed by this "Sheryl Crow video", more so than the Joe Montana/Ronnie Lott Tivo marketing (That is from Tivo who I pay, but the Sheryl Crow stuff is from BestBuy).
But, it did make me enable back doors and the feature that lists the content in the "Now Playing" screen so that I could delete it. When you do this, you can also see the full unsplit version of the program it recorded (more on this below).
As far as I know, this content gets stored seperately from the normal media, a special reserved bit of hd space designed for this stuff (/icebox/).
Also: It does NOT download this content through the modem. In my area, Tivo is sent instructions to record from the Discovery channel every Monday and Thursday at around 4:30 AM. This program (listed as "Advanced Paid Program" or "Teleworld") is something that Tivo pays for and is testing for use in delivering schedule info. When the Tivo watches this channel, it blanks out the screen so that you can not see the data and or video, or hear it.
Right now, from what I can tell, it always starts with a black & white display with what looks like a moving bar code or binary block display that I assume the Tivo can read for its information. Following this is normal video that it then saves to disk. The leading data also contains instructions to the Tivo on out to split the video (where/when/what details/text to give the program) into seperate entries, and what to name the new menus where they will be accessable from, and when to make the menu appear. Much of it sits silently waiting for the moment to appear.
The same content appears at that time slot multiple times, and with different orders of the video. This allows the tivo to miss one and get it later (if you were recording something else that day/time). I suspect there are other time slots used as well.
I am not sure how I feel about this, but I am interested in the fact that it can get its schedule info this way as that should mean less calls at some point, and could open the door to some open source version of Tivo that can piggy back on this data.
At least with backdoors enabled, I can delete the content in 2 clicks.
-----Kermit
How does CARP affect the rates broadcasters are already required to pay to ASCAP, SESAC, and BMI?
Does it replaces those fees, or will those fees be adjusted to match?
It seems to me that CARP adds to the fees, and means paying twice for the same thing.
-----Kermit
I think the article is biased against MS for various reasons (prices quoted, differences in topology, etc).
But my biggest concern would be, why not mix them?
500 Cheapish Windows Boxes (maybe some of the newer sealed desktops that many vendors sell) running Windows 2000 (or XP) with a good ssh client and a good x-server.
You could use the Sun server+Samba as the server, or have both an NT Server (not sure if having one is really important if you are just going to use it for file sharing/user profiles) and the Sun Box.
Students used to Windows would have everything they want (Outlook, IE, etc), and people wanting unix would have a good SSH client to use, and a local x-server to run GUI apps (Or a full desktop environment) with.
This does pretty much describe my development environment. Win2k desktop with Secure CRT SSH and X-WinPro. 90% of my work being done in the SSH clients and X apps ([x]emacs, PGAccess, Gimp) and the rest using various Win32 based software (IE, Photoshop, etc.).
It really does (for me at least) make a productive environment. I can run anything I want on one desktop and use the best tool for the job in all situations.
I find it surprising that nobody has mentioned that Google has licenced its technology to other sites such as yahoo.com (They used to use Inktomi stuff)
= 0& hs=13
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=slashdot&hc
I will just say this about google:
Besides jumping off the Altavista boat like everyone else, I started noticing that Google's index was updated so frequently and was so complete that there was no reason not to use it as the search on my website.
For free they allow you to set up a branded search page limited to a particular site. That is a pretty nice feature. It works so good that I am now wondering how much better it would be if I spent money and got the more advanced features.
This is an excellent way of marketing a product IMHO.
I also find my self using it more and more in debugging various applications. Just today I did a search for "NOTICE: trying to delete portal name that does not exist." to try to track down a postgresql issue and the first 5 results had more than enough info to tell me more than I needed to know.
A friend has also talked about writing a white paper titled "Using Google's cache as an emergency backup" after having a disk failure.
-----Kermit
You do not like any ads anywhere?
This is an issue I have thought about and discussed with my wife on many occasions. My gut feeling is that for the most part, I like ads. Ads (attempt to) pay for content and keep things somewhat free.
Now, I go the other way on spamvertisements. I WILL NOT purchase anything spamvertised. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE.
But, with out commercials, there would be no broadcast TV as we know it today. Ads on web pages are supposed to serve the same purpose. The verdict seems to still be out on if it works, but the current numbers say they do not (at least to the same level as TV commercials).
In general, I tend to ignore MOST ads on web pages unless something REALLY gets my attention, which is rare.
BUT, guess what site I tend to click the most ad banners on? Slashdot. The ads here are very targeted and at least for me, tend to get my attention more times than not (Penguin Computing 1U Servers). And guess what? I like them! They are ads that I feel good about clicking and possibly making purchases (Free Dimitry Tshirts, RackSpace.com).
(For the record, one non geek ad on news.com has gotten my attention and mouse movement more than once and it was one of the worst of all kinds of ads, a flash ad. The Absolute Vodka ad. Slick. Real slick. Then again, I also willingly watch Jack in the Box commercials instead of skipping them with my Tivo)
And I think that is the trick. When ads can be so well targeted that they can in some ways be usefull content, they can actually add to the experience and not detract from it. Personally, I would not complain if there were a bunch of ads here for nifty gadgets and other things I would already be interested in purchasing (DVR's, Mp3 players, Compaq PDA's running Linux).
Then again, if we start seeing nothing but porn banners, Ads for national gym chains, VA Linux, The Backstreet Boys, and links to classmates.com, there will be a lot of people quickly installing ad filtration software.
My wife and I have argued many times about the place of ads in our society. I used to tease her that if MS made an offer, I would let them plaster my car in exchange for car payments when I was still paying for it. She would snarl her nose and look at me if I was insane.
Not much time later, there were articles in the paper about 'car wraps' where many owners of NewBeatles where getting paid the equivelent of new car payments for allowing their cars to be plastered with Yahoo! logos. (Funny thing, she seemed to like most of the wrap jobs we saw on the streets, but she still says having a baby tatooed with an ad in exchange for its college tuition is a no no).
I do wonder how far it could go and how bad it would be if it did. Could ads possibly subsidize goverment services the way SinTaxes subsidize state taxes in Nevada? Could wrapped city buildings and police cars lower our taxes? And would we want to live in a world where we could not blink with out seeing yet another advertisement.
All I do know is that from past experience around here, the slashdot crew will most likely set a good example for everyone in the way that they handle the ads. I hope to enjoy them as much in the future as I have in the past.
-----Kermit
Brought to you by the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro
The linux kernel *IS* a circumvention device.
It circumvents Microsoft's world wide monopoly on PC operating systems.
But, this whole topic does make me wonder about other tools, abilities we have with Linux (and just about any other OS) that may violate the DMCA.
For instance, if someone were to protect a file with:
chmod 600 metalica.mp3
chown riaa metalica.mp3
Then, the use of root (or administrator on NT) would be a circumvention device. And I guess documentation on root would be as well.
So, now root needs to be removed from linux. The ability to administrate a system could lead to circumventing the security of copyrighted works.
And lets not start talking about backup software. Most backup applications run as a priveledged user in order to be able to backup the files of all users on a system (including those mp3's that they legitamately ripped from their own CD's and any eBooks they happen to have in their PDA backup directories).
I guess it is time to look forward to using DMCA Linux. Single user mode all the time. Hey, is that a win.ini file?
I have not read the changelog yet, but I am wondering if they FINALLY added a talking paperclip to emacs?
It is the one feature I really think this product needs in order to be a usable product.
It all comes down to: People living in glass houses should not throw stones.
If you are going to sue a company over patent infringement, you better be sure your own technology is really your own.
In this industry that as of late is run more by politics and lawyers than technology, this is one of the only things that may prevent a complete downward spiral.
On the other hand, I hope Adobe goes DOWN. They deserve it right now.
-----Kermit
(Now off to finish recording a spoken mp3 version of some ebook I decrypted so I can upload it to napster)
It is pretty easy to set up sendmail to use maps on a per user basis as well (in recent versions of sendmail).
You could add: FEATURE(`delay_checks', `haters') to your sendmail.mc so that it only checks for MAPS/ORBS/ThinksInYourAccessFile after it knows the intended recipient.
Then for people who want to have MAPS/ORBS/Etc working for them, you just add them to your access file as:
To:JoeHatesSpam@example.com SPAMHATER
This way you can give your users a choice. Only the users listed will have MAPS/ORBS filters working for them.
I recently had to enable a simular setup as I started hosting mail for a new business, and potentially blocking email from valid customers would be a big no no, and my own private RBLish list contains some pretty harsh filters (Sorry to the many isp's/countries who have sent nothing but 100% spam in the past and now find themselves on my private block list).
I am hoping for (or will end up trying to write) more granular configuration options where I can chose which filters to use on a per user bases (Use ORBS but not MAPS for my email).
What I would really like to see (or write) is a combination Spamcop/Maps where multiple submissions of the same email automaticly adds a block to a DNS based list. This way only a few quick folks have to get any particular spam before it gets blocked for other users of the service.
-----Kermit
When it comes to streaming Audio, there are open options such as icecast and etc... But, when it comes to video, there is only Real, Apple, and MS. Unfortuantely, Real is trying to RAPE companies who want to use its format, charging them on the server side PER STREAM. MS on the other hand does not charge for the server side software or the stream (Other than the fact that it runs on NT Server). THIS is why companies are dropping Real left and right and heading to the MS camp. One of my favorite WebVideo Broadcasts recently made this hard choice and lost any Linux viewers it had. Why? They lacked the funding to keep paying for Real streams. When it came down to the bottom line it was a choice between being able to offer more content and higher bandwidth as oppsed to keeping the Real streams open. The only way for this to be fixed is for real to rethink its pricing model and spend more time on Linux Development, OR find an open source alternative that people can us. If its free/cheap and supports multiple platforms, the content providers will be more than happy to support it.