1. You don't have to buy an iPod. You can buy any music player you want; and there are plenty of vendors. Furthermore, you can use any of your music players with Windows or OS X. 2. You don't have to buy songs from iTunes. You can use any online service you want; and there are plenty of vendors. Unlike the OS scene, lower marketshare for Microsoft's online music store, or Real's online music store does != less content. Napster has 1.5 million pay-for songs on it. MSN music has millions, as does Rhapsody. Nobodies forcing you to use iTunes. 3. iTunes *will* rip MP3 or AAC without an iPod, on both Windows and OS X. iTunes *will* copy MP3s or AACs to _any_ USB block device-style MP3 player, without you having to own an iPod. However you purchase non-DRM MP3s or AACs, you can manage them with iTunes, and copy them to _any_ USB block style device; including iPods. 4. The iPod can be access without using iTunes. There's plenty of Linux tools, and a fair number of OS X and Windows tools. MP3s and/or AACs can be copied to your iPod.
The ONLY limitation on the iPod/iTunes combination is AACs purchased on iTunes protected by FairPlay. Now, if iTunes had exclusive marketing agreements with the RIAA regarding content, or if the iTunes music store was the only online music store out there, or if no one made MP3 players but Apple; then there would be an anti-trust argument. As it is, the consumer *is not hurt* in *any* way by iTunes/iPod. You can buy a Samsung MP3 player, and play the _same_ exact music from the MSN Music store as you would have purchased from iTunes. Better yet, if you purchased non-DRMd music, you could managed it via iTunes and play it on your Samsung MP3 player.
The iPod/iTunes combination is less of an anti-trust problem than Windows/Windows software, or Xbox360/Xbox games, or Blu-ray/BD-ROMS, and HD-DVD/HD-DVD disks. Out of all of these product "tie-ins", the online music market is the *only* one where you can purchase the same _exact_ content from multiple providers. It's actually a competitive landscape.
Context is very important for antitrust. It's not about principle; in no way does Apple DRM limit market availability for RIAA music, unless the RIAA decides to exclusively license Apple, which they _have not done_. Now, I do believe that DRM is bad, but antitrust legislation is not the correct way to resolve it.
Any argument you can come up with regarding iPod/iTunes applies 100 fold to Windows/Windows Media/Software/Music. Win32-only, or WMV only is a far bigger problem in terms of competition, and you can easily see that by comparing the online libraries of OS X content versus Win32 content.
That all being said, product-tie-ins is one of the weakest forms of monopoly abuse. I suspect that all this noise regarding iTunes/iPod is being generated by Microsoft funding. Nothing else really makes sense. For god sakes, Apple has even started to license FairPlay, in terms of usage on Motorola's phones; and don't forget that Apple is NOT vertically integrated with content providers (RIAA).
I'm all in favor of generalized legislation protecting the consumers right to reverse engineer DRM for us on . Should I be able to try and crack FairPlay in order to play DRMd AACs on my Rio Karma? Sure. It's retarded that reverse engineering content you've paid for for usage on a hardware you own is illegal. But legally busting Apple without going after Microsoft/Sony/Real/AACS/CSS/HDMI ? What fucking sense does that make?
Google and Yahoo's entire business model is web-based and advertisement based. One could just as easily argue that they deserve blame for having such a fragile model. It's not clear if building these web-based applications will be profitable or sustainable. Google in particular seems to be enjoying the same kind of unquestioning support that many dead dot-comms enjoyed.
And Microsoft's entire business model is monopoly based. One could just as easily argue that it deserves the blame for having such a fragile model. It's not clear that Microsoft will be profitable or sustainable, in a world where their monopoly starts to fade (look at the multi-billion dollar losses in the Xbox division, or the losses in the MSN division). In particular, Microsoft seems to enjoy the same kind of unquestioning support that AT&T once did. Where's AT&T now? That's right; dead and bought for the name rights.
On the other hand, Google's balance sheet is solidly positive. Might be a bit overvalued at $391.00 per share, but that's neither here nor there.
The Razor has teflon feet, but a crappy grip. All of the other mice are similar; most without teflon feet. And the difference to me, between 600 DPI, and 1000 DPI? 1600 DPI? 2000 DPI? Laser? Optical?
Meh.
A decent wireless mouse with a decent optical sensor is indistinguishable from other "high-end" mice for non-twitch gaming. At least to me; maybe its because I'm getting old.
I feel like I notice a slight accuracy increase in things like CounterStrike. That maybe a psychosomatic effect; who knows.
The funny part is these "unfixable" vulnerabilities have been there since day one.
I love it. Each and every one of you out there using Windows XP should truly understand that one day, MS will say the same thing about XP, too.
"It's so broken we can't fix it. Buy a new computer."
Only in a Microsoft world would still-supported products be abandoned since they were, "just too broken." But the irony is that this "breakage" is not something that appears over time; it's not bitrot. These are security vulernabilities that have always been present.
The Microsoft patch cycle is a joke. Needing a torrent of patches in order to stay "secure" means that you probably aren't secure anyways. Within 100,000 issues waiting to be 0-day'd, and with a significant fraction of those both _critical_ and _unfixable_ (EOL, or now, it seems, "near EOL"), how the hell can you sleep at night, unless you fix computers?
And if you are an MS maintenance drone, I guess you can sleep really well at night.
1) you are dumb 2) you don't understand the situation 3) you are blindly parroting anti-americanism as a defense of your ignorance 4) you bring up irrelevant anecdotes to prove your position 5) you are dumb 6) calling a secret, properitary technology a "standard" doesn't make it one. 7) i have been trolled. i should learn not to feed the trolls.
Why would the Chinese be dumb enough to think that the world would adopt such a standard? Do they really think that proprietary protocols that can only be manufactured by Chinese companies would be popular with non-Chinese companies?
Are they really that arrogant?
WAPI, in terms of internation acceptance, is doomed. There are so many flaws that I can't see the ISO seriously considering it. It's a goofy "standard", and it has nothing going for it.
In trying to make WAPI the international standard for Wireless Encryption, China is trying to position itself as the defacto manufacturer for all wireless devices, software and/or hardware.
If China did that, manufacturing would shift elsewhere. It is a mistake to think that in a globalized economy we are beholden to any one supplier.
India is the most likely candidate, but there isn't any reason we couldn't manufacture this stuff anywhere else, including the E.U. or good ole US of A.
Price would go up, sure. But we aren't _that_ beholden to the Chinese that we would stick to an inferior technology.
Imagine if China required all computer manufacturers to use home-built Dragon chips. All computer manufacturers would move to another country; its really just that simple.
They proposed a secret standard, with a central key repository (located on Chinese government servers). Implementation of this standard was given to 12 Chinese companies, and developing any devices based on this standard requires partnering with these Chinese manufacturers.
It isn't patent-encumbered, but that's because its a secret, and patenting it would require releasing the details.
There isn't any debate to win. Not only is it proprietary versus open, its proprietary and exclusively controlled-and-licensed-and-manufactured by the Chinese government and Chinese state-owned companies.
The standard is unpublished, and will not be published. It checks in security keys with a centralized Chinese government server.
I cannot imagine a world that would permit this to become an international standard, and if China insists on all equipment manufactured within its borders to have this technology it'll just push electronics manufacturing out of China.
For a long time, people have predicted that the heavy hand of the Chinese government will one day disrupt the economic boom happening there. I hope to god not; an unstable, economically volatile China sounds like a nightmare to me.
Future game consoles are targeting HDTV, not regular TV. This means TVs that you can use as a monitor.
Mac Minis make nice DVD/DiVX/whatever else consoles. (Front Row, etc ..)
Now, imagine a Nintendo System that utilized OS X, played all the next-gen Nintendo games, had a built-in wifi connection/hard drive, and could run OS X applicaions. IMHO, these would be great selling points, and this is the direction that Sony and Microsoft's multimedia center efforts are going.
For their part, Apple has the FrontRow type media center interface down pat. And Nintendo has the solidly designed console down pat. Mix the internals together, and the combined cost of production for a Wii+Mac Mini is probably less than a PS3, and potentially similar to an Xbox360.
Yes, because the first thing ANY responsible business does is buy a $2,000-$5,000 quad processsor rack mount server, than wipe out the existing RHEL install, and pirate a copy of Win 2K3.
Plhuuuuease......
I'd wage the opposite (wiping out Windows something-or-other) for Linux is far more common. Most business over ~30 employees or so (at least in the developed world) don't balk at paying software costs anymore; the costs of switching to Linux are generally smaller than the costs of a BSA audit.
Hell, if they have DSL/Cable/Whatever, I tend to install NX, and SSH; enable remote access for a particular account (with my password). Open a port in their firewall, and have the machine phone home to setup a DDNS name for me (so_and_so.remoteaccess.mydyndns.com) .
If I really like 'em I'll even throw in a new-ish motherboard (currently running around the cheapest "good" stuff I can get in my area, which is Athlon XP 2000+ to 3000+ type stuff).
As I've said in other discussions, I don't do Windows support anymore. If you're grandfathered in, I'll give it a good one-two (but I won't reformat), but if I tell you my "view", and you go ahead and purchase a new system with XP, I won't support it.
On the other hand, with either Linux or OS X I'll do remote support, and I'll work my ass off to get it working properly and to your satistfaction. MS has marketing dollars, but Linux and OS X have my grass-roots marketing support.
Ethical Capitalism and Libertarianism is not about $$ at all costs; it's about voting with your dollar, helping out those around you, and expressing your social and economic preferences in your microeconomic decision making.
I've probably done 10 of these Linux conversions so far, and in only one case has the person reverted to Windows. (Apparently the college IT people told her Linux was a joke operating system) Subsequently, that person gave up, reversed, and asked someone else to put a pirated XP on their system.
After 3 months, she asked me for help, got the, "You're on your own, sorry", and purchased a Mac. Hasn't ever been happier.
Because many of us don't bother to read documentation on MS formats distributed in other proprietary formats.
Not to mention that the very _definition_ of a decent printer is one that supports PostScript, and PostScript 3 printers can pretty much print raw PDFs.
PDF/PS = cross platform.
XPS = Vista. Not to mention that even looking at the damn documentation requires a Word-alike, and viewing this videos you keep spamming requires illegally redistribution WMV runtimes; unless, of course, you run Windows.
It's a stupid idea, but then IMHO, the Microsoft implementation is a stupid idea, too.
The big deal is that Microsoft is pushing non-volatile RAM as an alternative to disk-based swap and disk-based hibernation. Given that Linux "sees" disks as disks, it doesn't matter whether you use platters, flash-ram, or packet-based DVD-ROM as swap space.
If you've got spare flash ram lying around, its not totally stupid;-)
Advantage? Internal Disadvantage? No open PCMCIA slots. Most modern notebooks (unlike my Inspiron 8200) only have 1. Notebook must support booting from PCMCIA IDE
If you are really handy with wiring inside your notebook, you could probably stack these tiny Lexar USB Flashcards. They are slightly larger than a USB port; pretty damn small, in other words.
I guess I misunderstood you the first time (in terms of price/convenience), but I know the tech is out there. A couple guys with some basic soldering capabilities could probably through your dream, 2.5" IDE/Flash adapter together in a matter of days, with either using the IDE connection, or slapping together something via internal USB. Either way, what you are asking for is probably only not avaliable because of lack of market demand.
1. Acquire Flash memory. USB or whatever, it doesn't matter. 2. Insure you have the correct interface connections to the computer (USB port, USB cable, CF/SD drive, weird built-in hybrid device). 3. Boot Linux 4. Find location of Flash device. A modern distro will point this out to you on the desktop. 5. Use your GUI partitioner to define the flash device as your swap space. Be sure you purchased a flash device with size > system ram. 6. Suspend2Disk really, really fast.
Also, given a reasonably long up-time, enjoy the perks of a system with high-speed swap space. Applications, data, kernel; whatever! It all gets faster! Be sure to crank up your swappiness value for maximum effect; this'll have Linux swapping out just about everything it can get its hands on.
Given a modern flash device, with 1 million or so read/write cycles, and defect balancing, even under very high-usage you should get years of use.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand.
1. You don't have to buy an iPod. You can buy any music player you want; and there are plenty of vendors. Furthermore, you can use any of your music players with Windows or OS X.
2. You don't have to buy songs from iTunes. You can use any online service you want; and there are plenty of vendors. Unlike the OS scene, lower marketshare for Microsoft's online music store, or Real's online music store does != less content. Napster has 1.5 million pay-for songs on it. MSN music has millions, as does Rhapsody. Nobodies forcing you to use iTunes.
3. iTunes *will* rip MP3 or AAC without an iPod, on both Windows and OS X. iTunes *will* copy MP3s or AACs to _any_ USB block device-style MP3 player, without you having to own an iPod. However you purchase non-DRM MP3s or AACs, you can manage them with iTunes, and copy them to _any_ USB block style device; including iPods.
4. The iPod can be access without using iTunes. There's plenty of Linux tools, and a fair number of OS X and Windows tools. MP3s and/or AACs can be copied to your iPod.
The ONLY limitation on the iPod/iTunes combination is AACs purchased on iTunes protected by FairPlay. Now, if iTunes had exclusive marketing agreements with the RIAA regarding content, or if the iTunes music store was the only online music store out there, or if no one made MP3 players but Apple; then there would be an anti-trust argument. As it is, the consumer *is not hurt* in *any* way by iTunes/iPod. You can buy a Samsung MP3 player, and play the _same_ exact music from the MSN Music store as you would have purchased from iTunes. Better yet, if you purchased non-DRMd music, you could managed it via iTunes and play it on your Samsung MP3 player.
The iPod/iTunes combination is less of an anti-trust problem than Windows/Windows software, or Xbox360/Xbox games, or Blu-ray/BD-ROMS, and HD-DVD/HD-DVD disks. Out of all of these product "tie-ins", the online music market is the *only* one where you can purchase the same _exact_ content from multiple providers. It's actually a competitive landscape.
Context is very important for antitrust. It's not about principle; in no way does Apple DRM limit market availability for RIAA music, unless the RIAA decides to exclusively license Apple, which they _have not done_. Now, I do believe that DRM is bad, but antitrust legislation is not the correct way to resolve it.
Any argument you can come up with regarding iPod/iTunes applies 100 fold to Windows/Windows Media/Software/Music. Win32-only, or WMV only is a far bigger problem in terms of competition, and you can easily see that by comparing the online libraries of OS X content versus Win32 content.
That all being said, product-tie-ins is one of the weakest forms of monopoly abuse. I suspect that all this noise regarding iTunes/iPod is being generated by Microsoft funding. Nothing else really makes sense. For god sakes, Apple has even started to license FairPlay, in terms of usage on Motorola's phones; and don't forget that Apple is NOT vertically integrated with content providers (RIAA).
I'm all in favor of generalized legislation protecting the consumers right to reverse engineer DRM for us on . Should I be able to try and crack FairPlay in order to play DRMd AACs on my Rio Karma? Sure. It's retarded that reverse engineering content you've paid for for usage on a hardware you own is illegal. But legally busting Apple without going after Microsoft/Sony/Real/AACS/CSS/HDMI ? What fucking sense does that make?
Google and Yahoo's entire business model is web-based and advertisement based. One could just as easily argue that they deserve blame for having such a fragile model. It's not clear if building these web-based applications will be profitable or sustainable. Google in particular seems to be enjoying the same kind of unquestioning support that many dead dot-comms enjoyed.
And Microsoft's entire business model is monopoly based. One could just as easily argue that it deserves the blame for having such a fragile model. It's not clear that Microsoft will be profitable or sustainable, in a world where their monopoly starts to fade (look at the multi-billion dollar losses in the Xbox division, or the losses in the MSN division). In particular, Microsoft seems to enjoy the same kind of unquestioning support that AT&T once did. Where's AT&T now? That's right; dead and bought for the name rights.
On the other hand, Google's balance sheet is solidly positive. Might be a bit overvalued at $391.00 per share, but that's neither here nor there.
No. Shit.
Did anyone think they _were_ rushing it?
Not that it'll be any good when its done. I'm guessing Daikatana, Version 2.0
What the hell is an MMO/RTS mouse?
I looked at this thing when I was buying a mouse yesterday. I eventually decided to get a Kensington Optical Pilot mouse instead.
DPI is useless for non-FPS non-twitch gaming
Notwithstanding the excellent price ($19.99), I actually preferred the mouse I was getting to all the other ones on the shelf. Why?
1. Comfortable shape, rubber grip.
2. Teflon feet.
The Razor has teflon feet, but a crappy grip. All of the other mice are similar; most without teflon feet. And the difference to me, between 600 DPI, and 1000 DPI? 1600 DPI? 2000 DPI? Laser? Optical?
Meh.
A decent wireless mouse with a decent optical sensor is indistinguishable from other "high-end" mice for non-twitch gaming. At least to me; maybe its because I'm getting old.
I feel like I notice a slight accuracy increase in things like CounterStrike. That maybe a psychosomatic effect; who knows.
The funny part is these "unfixable" vulnerabilities have been there since day one.
I love it. Each and every one of you out there using Windows XP should truly understand that one day, MS will say the same thing about XP, too.
"It's so broken we can't fix it. Buy a new computer."
Only in a Microsoft world would still-supported products be abandoned since they were, "just too broken." But the irony is that this "breakage" is not something that appears over time; it's not bitrot. These are security vulernabilities that have always been present.
The Microsoft patch cycle is a joke. Needing a torrent of patches in order to stay "secure" means that you probably aren't secure anyways. Within 100,000 issues waiting to be 0-day'd, and with a significant fraction of those both _critical_ and _unfixable_ (EOL, or now, it seems, "near EOL"), how the hell can you sleep at night, unless you fix computers?
And if you are an MS maintenance drone, I guess you can sleep really well at night.
1) you are dumb
2) you don't understand the situation
3) you are blindly parroting anti-americanism as a defense of your ignorance
4) you bring up irrelevant anecdotes to prove your position
5) you are dumb
6) calling a secret, properitary technology a "standard" doesn't make it one.
7) i have been trolled. i should learn not to feed the trolls.
Nonsense. I know a guy who told me the whole thing is just one big wine wrapper; not even a Winelib project! Who is this clown, "Chris", anyways...
;-)
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Oh... Well.. Open Source Program Manager at Google.
That's not really TOO different from a random slashbot or AC, right?
Thanks for clarifying, Mr. DiBona
Most likely a problem with your OpenGL drivers, not Google Earth.
;-)
Hard locks like that should not occur from user space programs, and in this case the likely culprit is ATI or Nvidia
To me, its less scary than goofy.
Why would the Chinese be dumb enough to think that the world would adopt such a standard? Do they really think that proprietary protocols that can only be manufactured by Chinese companies would be popular with non-Chinese companies?
Are they really that arrogant?
WAPI, in terms of internation acceptance, is doomed. There are so many flaws that I can't see the ISO seriously considering it. It's a goofy "standard", and it has nothing going for it.
Actually, the I stands for "Institute", as in Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
You can't license WAPI.
WAPI is only avaliable for Chinese manufactures.
In trying to make WAPI the international standard for Wireless Encryption, China is trying to position itself as the defacto manufacturer for all wireless devices, software and/or hardware.
This is not going to work.
If China did that, manufacturing would shift elsewhere. It is a mistake to think that in a globalized economy we are beholden to any one supplier.
India is the most likely candidate, but there isn't any reason we couldn't manufacture this stuff anywhere else, including the E.U. or good ole US of A.
Price would go up, sure. But we aren't _that_ beholden to the Chinese that we would stick to an inferior technology.
Imagine if China required all computer manufacturers to use home-built Dragon chips. All computer manufacturers would move to another country; its really just that simple.
What they did?
They proposed a secret standard, with a central key repository (located on Chinese government servers). Implementation of this standard was given to 12 Chinese companies, and developing any devices based on this standard requires partnering with these Chinese manufacturers.
It isn't patent-encumbered, but that's because its a secret, and patenting it would require releasing the details.
There isn't any debate to win. Not only is it proprietary versus open, its proprietary and exclusively controlled-and-licensed-and-manufactured by the Chinese government and Chinese state-owned companies.
Everything about WAPI is wrong.
You have to partner with a bloody Chinese company to build equipment based on it.
That's fucking ridiculous.
The standard is unpublished, and will not be published. It checks in security keys with a centralized Chinese government server.
I cannot imagine a world that would permit this to become an international standard, and if China insists on all equipment manufactured within its borders to have this technology it'll just push electronics manufacturing out of China.
For a long time, people have predicted that the heavy hand of the Chinese government will one day disrupt the economic boom happening there. I hope to god not; an unstable, economically volatile China sounds like a nightmare to me.
It does, but it also prohibits you from transferring any "virtual" assets (characters, gold) for real money. Without exception.
It's very contradictory.
But there are certain interesting synergies.....
.)
Future game consoles are targeting HDTV, not regular TV. This means TVs that you can use as a monitor.
Mac Minis make nice DVD/DiVX/whatever else consoles. (Front Row, etc .
Now, imagine a Nintendo System that utilized OS X, played all the next-gen Nintendo games, had a built-in wifi connection/hard drive, and could run OS X applicaions. IMHO, these would be great selling points, and this is the direction that Sony and Microsoft's multimedia center efforts are going.
For their part, Apple has the FrontRow type media center interface down pat. And Nintendo has the solidly designed console down pat. Mix the internals together, and the combined cost of production for a Wii+Mac Mini is probably less than a PS3, and potentially similar to an Xbox360.
Yes, because the first thing ANY responsible business does is buy a $2,000-$5,000 quad processsor rack mount server, than wipe out the existing RHEL install, and pirate a copy of Win 2K3.
Plhuuuuease......
I'd wage the opposite (wiping out Windows something-or-other) for Linux is far more common. Most business over ~30 employees or so (at least in the developed world) don't balk at paying software costs anymore; the costs of switching to Linux are generally smaller than the costs of a BSA audit.
I third this.
Hell, if they have DSL/Cable/Whatever, I tend to install NX, and SSH; enable remote access for a particular account (with my password). Open a port in their firewall, and have the machine phone home to setup a DDNS name for me (so_and_so.remoteaccess.mydyndns.com) .
If I really like 'em I'll even throw in a new-ish motherboard (currently running around the cheapest "good" stuff I can get in my area, which is Athlon XP 2000+ to 3000+ type stuff).
As I've said in other discussions, I don't do Windows support anymore. If you're grandfathered in, I'll give it a good one-two (but I won't reformat), but if I tell you my "view", and you go ahead and purchase a new system with XP, I won't support it.
On the other hand, with either Linux or OS X I'll do remote support, and I'll work my ass off to get it working properly and to your satistfaction. MS has marketing dollars, but Linux and OS X have my grass-roots marketing support.
Ethical Capitalism and Libertarianism is not about $$ at all costs; it's about voting with your dollar, helping out those around you, and expressing your social and economic preferences in your microeconomic decision making.
I've probably done 10 of these Linux conversions so far, and in only one case has the person reverted to Windows. (Apparently the college IT people told her Linux was a joke operating system) Subsequently, that person gave up, reversed, and asked someone else to put a pirated XP on their system.
After 3 months, she asked me for help, got the, "You're on your own, sorry", and purchased a Mac. Hasn't ever been happier.
Because many of us don't bother to read documentation on MS formats distributed in other proprietary formats.
Not to mention that the very _definition_ of a decent printer is one that supports PostScript, and PostScript 3 printers can pretty much print raw PDFs.
PDF/PS = cross platform.
XPS = Vista. Not to mention that even looking at the damn documentation requires a Word-alike, and viewing this videos you keep spamming requires illegally redistribution WMV runtimes; unless, of course, you run Windows.
Spamming and Trolling. There should be a check box.
Interesting how Microsoft distributes information about one of its new formats (XPS) in other proprietary MS formats (DOC and WMV).
No Thank You.
A little bit of both.
;-)
It's a stupid idea, but then IMHO, the Microsoft implementation is a stupid idea, too.
The big deal is that Microsoft is pushing non-volatile RAM as an alternative to disk-based swap and disk-based hibernation. Given that Linux "sees" disks as disks, it doesn't matter whether you use platters, flash-ram, or packet-based DVD-ROM as swap space.
If you've got spare flash ram lying around, its not totally stupid
Well, here are three posibilities. None are perfect, but I'm guessing they are workable:
o rd=2105
0 03.html
8 29.html
1. Desktop usage:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?keyw
And a 2 or 4 port PATA raid card,
or
http://www.topmicrousa.com/st-123cf.html
and a SATA capable motherboard or SATA raid card.
The second has the advantage of being easily hotswappable.
Disadvantage: Not as cheap as you might like. Probably $50-$100 investment required.
2. Notebook usage:
http://americanesuperstore.stores.yahoo.net/cfad-
Get two. Assumes your notebook has 2 PCMCIA slots, and you don't mind wasting them both.
Advantage? Internal
Disadvantage? No open PCMCIA slots. Most modern notebooks (unlike my Inspiron 8200) only have 1. Notebook must support booting from PCMCIA IDE
3. Notebook usage:
http://www.lexar.com/readers/pro_reader.html
Lexar daisy chainnable USB/Fireware CF reader.
Advantage? Does exactly what you want.
Disadvantage? Probably pricey. (~$80) External. Notebook must support booting from USB/Firewire.
Other items of note:
http://www.sprysoft.com/card-reader-internal/p_28
This allows you to plug in a combination of flash devices. SD, CF, whatever else. You could probably get up to 10 or so GB. Requires a 5.25" bay.
http://www.lexar.com/ufc/index.html
If you are really handy with wiring inside your notebook, you could probably stack these tiny Lexar USB Flashcards. They are slightly larger than a USB port; pretty damn small, in other words.
I guess I misunderstood you the first time (in terms of price/convenience), but I know the tech is out there. A couple guys with some basic soldering capabilities could probably through your dream, 2.5" IDE/Flash adapter together in a matter of days, with either using the IDE connection, or slapping together something via internal USB. Either way, what you are asking for is probably only not avaliable because of lack of market demand.
Exactly. The second should become the first, and Google should leave filtering to China's ISPs.
1. Acquire Flash memory. USB or whatever, it doesn't matter.
2. Insure you have the correct interface connections to the computer (USB port, USB cable, CF/SD drive, weird built-in hybrid device).
3. Boot Linux
4. Find location of Flash device. A modern distro will point this out to you on the desktop.
5. Use your GUI partitioner to define the flash device as your swap space. Be sure you purchased a flash device with size > system ram.
6. Suspend2Disk really, really fast.
Also, given a reasonably long up-time, enjoy the perks of a system with high-speed swap space. Applications, data, kernel; whatever! It all gets faster! Be sure to crank up your swappiness value for maximum effect; this'll have Linux swapping out just about everything it can get its hands on.
Given a modern flash device, with 1 million or so read/write cycles, and defect balancing, even under very high-usage you should get years of use.
If you want a Flash drive..... buy one ;-)
http://www.bitmicro.com/products_edisk_25_ide.php
I'm not 100% certain where you can purchase them, but when I looked into it ~6 months ago I did find some avaliable for online ordering.