We run a commercial haunt, and use this software I wrote exclusively for our automation. There's two versions of it available at http://www.hauntcontroller.com/. It's pretty generic and simple, you can wire up your own relay boards or buy pre-made ones.
Essentially, the software monitors 5 switches fed into the parallel port. When the state of one of those switches is set, the software respons by firing any of 8 relays tied to the parallel port. Scripting is supported.
In our current setup, I use a weird setup of old PC's, relay cards, input boards, etc, to switch 110VAC, 12VDC, and 24VAC. We tie these lines to our air valves, lights, and whatnot. The software can also play audio files, so it is pretty trivial to create Thunder and Lighting effects.
And, along the effect lines, check out the super-easy to make light flicker circuit. Go fetch a standard extension cord, cut one of the sides (as if you were going to install a switch), and install a 4 watt flourscent lamp starter. Plug a low-wattage lamp into the cord, and the cord into the wall. You will get a nice flicker effect.
Things to note:
Be careful and keep an eye on it. I've had these things melt, and you don't want to burn down your house.
Use low-wattage starters. The smaller the better. Seems like anything over 10 won't work.
If your bulb (or combination thereof) adds up to any significant wattage, it might not work. I've have great success with 25 and 40 watt bulbs.
I just wanted to comment and thank slashdot for carrying this information. Just like on 9/11, once again Slashdot seems to be the only news site I can get to for information. CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX, everything else is difficult, if not impossible, to get to.
I knew something like this would happen... and it's going to come bite the record companies in the ass.
We will keep seeing poorly tested copy-right protection being released to the market, and it will ruin more that just a few audio components. Eventaully we will become sick of it and downright *scared* to purchase and play cd's that come from the record company, and turn right around and download it from the internet, where we know it won't damage our equipment.
I have now recieved 1.1 gigabytes of sircam virus email attachments. I'm just glad I don't pay for my bandwidth per k.
Wow, talk about a lot of stupid friends. I've only gotten a few of the SirCam virus emails, so I have to assume either a) people don't like me enough to put me in their address book, b) my friends are smarter than CmdrTaco's, c) my friends don't use outlook
Go ahead and use cases intended for musical equipment. The beauty of rack mounted stuff is that it is all the same size, so you don't need to worry so much about it. Try American Musical Supply (http://www.americanmusical.com) or Musicians Friend (http://www.musiciansfriend.com) for a good selection. If you want, you can also buy just the rails and build a cabinet yourself.
I hate to admit it, but I don't mind legit spam. Say I sign up for an account with a website, I fully expect them to send me information via email. I also expect them to respect my wishes if I unsubscribe, etc.
Spoofed spam (spam with forged hearers, email address, ip addresses, etc) I fully support maximum punishment by law.
Offer up your time and visit them. Have management and a techie from thier orginization present, and have them go break into thier system, with your step-by-step instructions, of course.
When they see what kind of info is available, hopefully their horror will get them listening to you. At this point, offer up your suggestions of how *you* would go about fixing this. Don't put down thier system(s) saying ASP/NT sucks or whatever, because they probably put a lot of work into it, and the last thing they want to hear is how they made bad decisions.
if you play the good guy, hopefully they will drop thier current development house in favor of you. If not, at least you have made them aware of the problem, and they should do something to fix it, saving personal data of many many people.
Be the good guy and take the higher road, even if it dosen't directly benefit you, your actions will speak louder than words.
The above is a little too convuluted;-) Will this make development on Linux systems earlier, or is this just an effort to collectively index common linux libraries?
Best I could tell, Microsoft dosen't beleive in the same kind of open source that the rest of us do. What was that whole mess last week with MSFT claiming open source will be the death of us all?
Guys,
I just installed Mozilla 0.9 and I must say, it's much much better than I expected.
The last version of Mozilla I used was.6, I think... Before they even really had an "Installer" of any sort.
On my machine, the speed of mozilla starting up and running is just as good as IE, and advanced things like DHTML and Javascript pretty much work!!! (On all the thing's I've tried so far)
If improvements like this keep coming with Mozilla, I may be switching! One thing I'd like to have with Mozilla is IE style handling of plugins (unmanned, auto).
On one hand, I feel that this is just Microsoft getting thier little greedy hands back into the cookie jar. It is a way for them to charge for software that has already been paid for. Imagine spending $500 on Office 2000, and then 3 years later, having to spend $500 again, just to use the same software for another 3 years? I'm not sure if this is how it would work, but it's a scary possibility.
On the other hand, I totally agree with the cost of software being spread out over time. It would be much more beneficial to smaller companies that do not have the cash to shell out for a lot of software at once. However, this is just one step closer to the.NET architecture, which I don't think anyone is looking forward to.
I have a feeling I'm going to be using Office 2000 and Windows 2000 for a long long time to come, as Whistler and Office XP go too far in trying to implement this subscription based model, the.NET architecture, and other privacy invasions that Microsoft feels is standard business.
Of course, Linux will remain popular on all my desktop PC's.
Having stated and run an ISP back in 1998, I have a few things that I'd like to point out to anyone interested in starting thier own:
First off, it's very expensive. Depending on whom you decide to use for equipment, don't expect to spend any less than 25,000 solely for dial-in equipment. Don't forget that you can buy more equiment as you grow, so don't go too overboard with startup.
Second, you will NOT survive on providing dial-up alone. When we were up running at full capacity, we were actually losing $1 per port when charging 19.95 / mo. Make sure you have some income from web development / hosting as well, or you will have a hard time making it.
consider having support from the community. Investigate a co-op or other solution where the community has a larger stake in the success of the company instead of trying to just be anohter business out there.
PRI lines, T1 (or better) line, etc are very very expensive. Investigate options for bandwith. Check to see if you can find a DSL provider that will let you re-sell thier dsl links as multiple-user dial in links. The $300+ a month you spend doing that for a DSL link with 1.55 Mbps is far cheaper than a 1.55 Mbps T1 that will cost you 1200 / mo for the line and then 350 local loop charges.
Unfortuantely you are basically stuck paying whatever the local telco wants you to pay for PRI's or channelized T1 service.
Another good rule of thumb is "10% of your users will utilitize 90% of your resources". This a far more true than anyone would like to beleive. We had users that would be logged into the system 24/7/365 and we couldn't charge them a dime over the $19.95 since we were advertising "unlimited hours".
Make sure people pay you. Get a good collection agency and don't let people go too long without paying. It will just kill you faster than anything.
Stay away from leases if at all possible!
Things you should be familiar with:
Linux
-- How to configure and optimize your kernel
-- How to setup mail, dns, reverse dns, www, news, virtual servers, virtual email, ftp accounts, suspending/deleting users, radius, postgres, mysql
-- Reading logs
-- Maintinence
Programming:
-- C/C++ experience. Writing little programs for customers or yourself can make/save a TON of money.
-- cgi languages (c, c++, perl, php, etc) Small web scripts for your customers can be sold for a lot of money.
-- HTML, DHTML, other web languages
Feel free to mail me if any of you are intrested in prusuing this. I've got a lot more to say that I'm will to write here, and if you have specific questions, I'd be more than happy to address them.
As my primary job function, I work with these 802.11 LAN radios on a daily basis. And although I cannot prevent anyone from sniffing the raw data out of the air, there are some things that have been done that help hinder this:
1. Data Encryption: (read: WEP)
2. Refusial of AP's to accept connections from clients set to "ANY" (thus preventing same-protocol sniffing)
3. MAC Address blocking/accepting. Accepting connection based on MAC address will not prevent wireless side sniffing, but it helps keep the data on your wired network a little bit more secure.
Lets remember that with any medium there are always ways to sniff data, including wired networks, but we can do our best to make it more difficult for those who want to.
I wrote a wrapper class for the CueCat barcode scanner to decode the output into something useful. It's easy to use and documented. Version 1.0 is available at http://ian.sitenation.com/cuecat/ if you want it.
First off, how many time have we heard that something is 'pirate-proof', just to have one of us smart types reverse engineer it several months later? I have a hard time beleiveing anything is pirate-proof.
second of all, I sure don't want to be rewinding tapes all the time.
Don't forget that a lot of ISP's are now blocking port 25 out of thier routers, to prevent spam. So, even if you can use yahoo's outgoing mail servers, there is nothing saything that you can even *talk* to them. Try telneting to port 25 of their SMTP mail server and see if you can even get the socket to open.
good luck
Many years ago I coughed up the dough for the Red Book, and I must say that it still sits on my shelf here at work. It's an indespensible reference, and I'm sure the latest edition is just as good, if not better due to it's more current coverage.
First off guys, there are some things you can do to help trim down problems you may have with interference from other 2.4 devices.
1. If you are experiencing problems with your cordless phone, try adjusting the operating frequency of your access point. Any AP worth thier weight will allow you to choose different frequencys to operate on, all within the 2.4 GHz band. Most commonly: 2412, 2417, 2422, 2427, 2432, 2437, 2442, 2447, 2452, 2457, and 2462.
2. Access Point placement: Make sure to place your AP in a strategic location at your home/office. Central locations work best, and make sure your orientation is correct for the kind of radio you use. A bad place to set one of these things is next to your microwave (for obvious reasons)
3. Cordless Phone base placement. Minimize multipath transmissions by keeping your base station away from corners. Multipath transmissions from your cordless base station can and will take down your wireless network as it confuses your client radios on your other PCs due to all the 2.4 GHz traffic in the air.
4. The new Lucent 6.0 driver for their ORINICO WaveLAN cards has a new feature called "Microwave Oven Robustness." When this feature is enabled it prevents the radio from falling back to less than 2 MBit/sec when it thinks it is in poor coverage. This should only be enable in environments that will not experience fringe/poor coverage, however it should help your problems with interference if it is enabled in a good coverage area.
Numbers two and three are probably the most vital in getting multiple 2.4GHz devices to co-exist, so try many different placements! Try not to get discouraged, it does work!
So far I'm not that impressed with the quality of WAP in wireless devices. I don't really care to search the web or view stock quotes on a 1/4 or 1/8 vga screen (or even less!)
Gimmie something like a pocket PC, or at least larger, color screens on these cell phones.
I'm gonna wait a while, and stick with my Intermec 6642.
Slashdot Mirror
Essentially, the software monitors 5 switches fed into the parallel port. When the state of one of those switches is set, the software respons by firing any of 8 relays tied to the parallel port. Scripting is supported.
In our current setup, I use a weird setup of old PC's, relay cards, input boards, etc, to switch 110VAC, 12VDC, and 24VAC. We tie these lines to our air valves, lights, and whatnot. The software can also play audio files, so it is pretty trivial to create Thunder and Lighting effects.
And, along the effect lines, check out the super-easy to make light flicker circuit. Go fetch a standard extension cord, cut one of the sides (as if you were going to install a switch), and install a 4 watt flourscent lamp starter. Plug a low-wattage lamp into the cord, and the cord into the wall. You will get a nice flicker effect.
Things to note:
Have fun, good luck!
-- I
The ReplayTV is not based on a Micsoft OS.
Silicon Valley Biz Ink is indicating that all current customers will be retained. Hopefully, it works out that way.
-- I
It seems like an awesome idea, but how does it handle stereo? And I'd love to hear a wav file or something of how it sounds...
Shouldn't it be:
31 OCT == 25 DEC
You know, being a programmer and all... and assuming we are doing a comparison operation.
Thanks slashdot, your coverage is crucial!
how fast could I get to work on one of these babies?
We will keep seeing poorly tested copy-right protection being released to the market, and it will ruin more that just a few audio components. Eventaully we will become sick of it and downright *scared* to purchase and play cd's that come from the record company, and turn right around and download it from the internet, where we know it won't damage our equipment.
Wow, talk about a lot of stupid friends. I've only gotten a few of the SirCam virus emails, so I have to assume either a) people don't like me enough to put me in their address book, b) my friends are smarter than CmdrTaco's, c) my friends don't use outlook
Go ahead and use cases intended for musical equipment. The beauty of rack mounted stuff is that it is all the same size, so you don't need to worry so much about it. Try American Musical Supply (http://www.americanmusical.com) or Musicians Friend (http://www.musiciansfriend.com) for a good selection. If you want, you can also buy just the rails and build a cabinet yourself.
I hate to admit it, but I don't mind legit spam. Say I sign up for an account with a website, I fully expect them to send me information via email. I also expect them to respect my wishes if I unsubscribe, etc. Spoofed spam (spam with forged hearers, email address, ip addresses, etc) I fully support maximum punishment by law.
When they see what kind of info is available, hopefully their horror will get them listening to you. At this point, offer up your suggestions of how *you* would go about fixing this. Don't put down thier system(s) saying ASP/NT sucks or whatever, because they probably put a lot of work into it, and the last thing they want to hear is how they made bad decisions.
if you play the good guy, hopefully they will drop thier current development house in favor of you. If not, at least you have made them aware of the problem, and they should do something to fix it, saving personal data of many many people.
Be the good guy and take the higher road, even if it dosen't directly benefit you, your actions will speak louder than words.
The above is a little too convuluted ;-) Will this make development on Linux systems earlier, or is this just an effort to collectively index common linux libraries?
Best I could tell, Microsoft dosen't beleive in the same kind of open source that the rest of us do. What was that whole mess last week with MSFT claiming open source will be the death of us all?
The last version of Mozilla I used was .6, I think... Before they even really had an "Installer" of any sort.
On my machine, the speed of mozilla starting up and running is just as good as IE, and advanced things like DHTML and Javascript pretty much work!!! (On all the thing's I've tried so far)
If improvements like this keep coming with Mozilla, I may be switching! One thing I'd like to have with Mozilla is IE style handling of plugins (unmanned, auto).
On one hand, I feel that this is just Microsoft getting thier little greedy hands back into the cookie jar. It is a way for them to charge for software that has already been paid for. Imagine spending $500 on Office 2000, and then 3 years later, having to spend $500 again, just to use the same software for another 3 years? I'm not sure if this is how it would work, but it's a scary possibility.
On the other hand, I totally agree with the cost of software being spread out over time. It would be much more beneficial to smaller companies that do not have the cash to shell out for a lot of software at once. However, this is just one step closer to the .NET architecture, which I don't think anyone is looking forward to.
I have a feeling I'm going to be using Office 2000 and Windows 2000 for a long long time to come, as Whistler and Office XP go too far in trying to implement this subscription based model, the .NET architecture, and other privacy invasions that Microsoft feels is standard business.
Of course, Linux will remain popular on all my desktop PC's.
First off, it's very expensive. Depending on whom you decide to use for equipment, don't expect to spend any less than 25,000 solely for dial-in equipment. Don't forget that you can buy more equiment as you grow, so don't go too overboard with startup.
Second, you will NOT survive on providing dial-up alone. When we were up running at full capacity, we were actually losing $1 per port when charging 19.95 / mo. Make sure you have some income from web development / hosting as well, or you will have a hard time making it.
consider having support from the community. Investigate a co-op or other solution where the community has a larger stake in the success of the company instead of trying to just be anohter business out there.
PRI lines, T1 (or better) line, etc are very very expensive. Investigate options for bandwith. Check to see if you can find a DSL provider that will let you re-sell thier dsl links as multiple-user dial in links. The $300+ a month you spend doing that for a DSL link with 1.55 Mbps is far cheaper than a 1.55 Mbps T1 that will cost you 1200 / mo for the line and then 350 local loop charges.
Unfortuantely you are basically stuck paying whatever the local telco wants you to pay for PRI's or channelized T1 service.
Another good rule of thumb is "10% of your users will utilitize 90% of your resources". This a far more true than anyone would like to beleive. We had users that would be logged into the system 24/7/365 and we couldn't charge them a dime over the $19.95 since we were advertising "unlimited hours".
Make sure people pay you. Get a good collection agency and don't let people go too long without paying. It will just kill you faster than anything.
Stay away from leases if at all possible!
Things you should be familiar with: Linux
-- How to configure and optimize your kernel
-- How to setup mail, dns, reverse dns, www, news, virtual servers, virtual email, ftp accounts, suspending/deleting users, radius, postgres, mysql
-- Reading logs
-- Maintinence
Programming:
-- C/C++ experience. Writing little programs for customers or yourself can make/save a TON of money.
-- cgi languages (c, c++, perl, php, etc) Small web scripts for your customers can be sold for a lot of money.
-- HTML, DHTML, other web languages
Feel free to mail me if any of you are intrested in prusuing this. I've got a lot more to say that I'm will to write here, and if you have specific questions, I'd be more than happy to address them.
-- Ian
1. Data Encryption: (read: WEP)
2. Refusial of AP's to accept connections from clients set to "ANY" (thus preventing same-protocol sniffing)
3. MAC Address blocking/accepting. Accepting connection based on MAC address will not prevent wireless side sniffing, but it helps keep the data on your wired network a little bit more secure.
Lets remember that with any medium there are always ways to sniff data, including wired networks, but we can do our best to make it more difficult for those who want to.
I wrote a wrapper class for the CueCat barcode scanner to decode the output into something useful. It's easy to use and documented. Version 1.0 is available at http://ian.sitenation.com/cuecat/ if you want it.
second of all, I sure don't want to be rewinding tapes all the time.
i'm going out to buy another DVD!
Don't forget that a lot of ISP's are now blocking port 25 out of thier routers, to prevent spam. So, even if you can use yahoo's outgoing mail servers, there is nothing saything that you can even *talk* to them. Try telneting to port 25 of their SMTP mail server and see if you can even get the socket to open. good luck
Many years ago I coughed up the dough for the Red Book, and I must say that it still sits on my shelf here at work. It's an indespensible reference, and I'm sure the latest edition is just as good, if not better due to it's more current coverage.
I personally work with wireless networks for a living, and we are working with 36 Mb radios beginning next month!
1. If you are experiencing problems with your cordless phone, try adjusting the operating frequency of your access point. Any AP worth thier weight will allow you to choose different frequencys to operate on, all within the 2.4 GHz band. Most commonly: 2412, 2417, 2422, 2427, 2432, 2437, 2442, 2447, 2452, 2457, and 2462.
2. Access Point placement: Make sure to place your AP in a strategic location at your home/office. Central locations work best, and make sure your orientation is correct for the kind of radio you use. A bad place to set one of these things is next to your microwave (for obvious reasons)
3. Cordless Phone base placement. Minimize multipath transmissions by keeping your base station away from corners. Multipath transmissions from your cordless base station can and will take down your wireless network as it confuses your client radios on your other PCs due to all the 2.4 GHz traffic in the air.
4. The new Lucent 6.0 driver for their ORINICO WaveLAN cards has a new feature called "Microwave Oven Robustness." When this feature is enabled it prevents the radio from falling back to less than 2 MBit/sec when it thinks it is in poor coverage. This should only be enable in environments that will not experience fringe/poor coverage, however it should help your problems with interference if it is enabled in a good coverage area.
Numbers two and three are probably the most vital in getting multiple 2.4GHz devices to co-exist, so try many different placements! Try not to get discouraged, it does work!
-- Ian
Gimmie something like a pocket PC, or at least larger, color screens on these cell phones.
I'm gonna wait a while, and stick with my Intermec 6642.