Patching is part of it, but the biggest reason is because of internal support costs. It's easier to troubleshoot, fix, or replace a machine if it is one of a thousand mostly identical machines. And you may be/able/ to install any software, but most places have written policies prohibiting it. They only reason you are able to is because working as a non-administrative user on Windows is often impossible because of poorly written applications -- often line-of-business apps written in house that are required to get the job done.
I was just in a small, community bank in the U.S. that installed geothermal HVAC when they rebuilt a decade ago.
They recouped the cost in five years and are very, very happy with the system. It heats for almost no expense in the winter (sometimes they have to fire up the natural gas furnace when it gets way below freezing) and cools for nothing in the summer.
It's also been basically maintenance free. Nothing on the order of what some of the naysayers here would have you believe.
I've also seen several rest stops in the area that use geothermal wells to cool and heat very effectively and efficiently. Near-zero maintenance is a very important thing for rest stops.
From what I've seen, geothermal is underutilized and underhyped and should be investigated closely by anyone doing new construction.
I can't remember the last time I've turned my PowerBook off. It goes to sleep and awakes damn near instantly - less than one second - whenever I close the lid or open it up.
My ThinkPad running XP is pretty quick to go to sleep and wake up too. But I have to do both manually and it's about five seconds instead of one. It doesn't sound like much but it feels like a long, long time compared to the PowerBook.
The boot time between the two can't seriously be compared. The Mac gets to a usable state much faster.
This really sounds like Intel systems catching up to Mac systems. This coming from a guy who used Win2K on a Thinkpad for half a decade before winning a PowerBook running 10.3.
You've never actually watched Lost, have you? If you've seen the first season, you know it's simply one of the best shows on TV right now. It is character driven with outstanding production values and quality acting. What the hell more do you want? The only thing on network/basic cable TV right now that some might consider better is Battlestar Galactica or maybe The Shield.
I can understand denigrating indescriminate television wtaching ("sucking at the glass teat"), but to off-handedly criticize Lost is at best ignorant.
1) I don't watch television on the TV anymore. I download shows that have become critical and/or popular successes so I can skip the 10 minutes of commercials between five minutes of show.
2) I can flip past and ignore magazine ads much faster and easier than I can web ads.
3) If someone has a great product, sell me on it. Get me to pay for it rather than trying to give it to me and make up the difference on shitty ads with mens' pubic hair showing over their jeans (as in the Esquire ad of a couple months back. I'm just glad I can close a magazine faster than I can close a browser window.).
For the record, I liked light mode because in regular mode Slashdot looks like shit in a bowl.
The new light mode is OK, and I never used slashboxes anyway. I did like to see the poll at the bottom of the page, so if you could bring that at least back to light mode I'd really appreciate it.
I don't think many people use light mode because it's buried in the user preferences. What percent of Slashdot users change their preferences?
What are the big commercial packages in the 4gl accounting space? Are you talking about software like Microsoft Great Plains' offerings?
What do you consider the most critical features of these packages? What would a new package need to offer to be considered as a possible replacement to the established players?
Thanks for a reply, it'll give me something to work on now that I just finished some other projects.
Sure, another 12 Billion web pages probably doesn't do anything for some guy looking for a digicam review.
But that's not the point.
The real killer app of the Internet at this point is the long tail. (I'm assuming you all know abou the long tail by now, but if you don't, Google it.:)
Those extra 12 Billion pages help me out when I'm trying to find information about slobertygerbet flamjam fruit and none of the previously indexed 8-11 Billion pages had any info on that subject.
This is huge! Everyone is talking about Billions of pages like they are an unopened ream of paper you found behind a file cabinet. Take a moment to think about how huge a number a single billion is, let alone 12 billion or 20 billion. Then consider the subtleties that are hidden in those millions of millions of pages that are waiting to be discovered by someone who is searching for chamber string quartets who play trip-hop in the style of Sibelius.
Everything aside, 20 Billion web pages is a hell of a lot, and passing Google in this metric is a big deal.
When they talk about Computer Science sliding are they including Software Engineering.
It seems to me that if I were entering college and wanted to be a computer programmer these days, I'd take a software engineering courseload.
Computer science, in my perception, is more academic, research oriented, ivory tower stuff while the real work is getting done in software engineering.
Again, that's just my impression, but also my guess as to why computer science enrollment is dropping.
I can't see Apple making a video ipod while Jobs is there.
It's been pointed out time and again that while listening to music can be a passive activity, watching video is active. You just can't watch video in all the places you can throw on the headphones.
Plus, watching video on a tiny screen is a terrible experience.
I just don't see it.
I can see a video iTunes. That makes sense. Watching video on you computer screen or piped from your computer to your TV isn't bad at all.
None of the Dell, Gateway, or Compaq/HP machines we looked at buying this Spring offered booting from anything that wasn't ATA/SATA/floppy except the Dells that allowed booting from USB as an option hidden in the BIOS that had to be turned on.
1. PCs that finally boot from USB and FireWire. 2. PCs that can boot into target disk mode. 3. PCs that go to sleep and wake up instantly.
My Mac laptops have had this for many years -- a decade already? -- but I still can't find any PCs that have this standard. This is brain dead stuff that should be there but isn't. Come on PC manufacturers, catch up before you try and "innovate".
Their are four or five books I've found to be the standards that should be on any C++ coder's bookshelf:
The C++ Programming Language (Special 3rd Edition) by Bjarne Stroustrup
The C++ Standard Library : A Tutorial and Reference by Nicolai M. Josuttis
Accelerated C++: Practical Programming by Example by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo
Effective C++: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Design (2nd Edition) and More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs by Scott Meyers
Stroustrup is the reference book for the language. It could be used as a textbook or tutorial since it has good pedagogy and problems to solve at the end of each section. But Koenig and Moo is better for the tutorial aspect and Stroustrup is better as a reference. Their is a paperback version of the 3rd edition, but the special edition, with its stiff spine and ribbon bookmark, is worth the money because you will be frequently referring to it.
Josuttis is the reference to the standard library and standard template library. This is an advanced book, and could probably be the last one of these you purchase. He covers everything the C++ standard library has to offer, especially including templates. Don't worry about these too much as you start out. Stroustrup and Koenig and Moo both touch on these topics and give a gentler introduction.
Koenig and Moo is the tutorial that every C++ programmer should start with, IMHO, and should be the standard intro university text. It doesn't carry baggage from other languages or bad style. Even though you've gotten through Deitel, I'd suggest going through Koenig and Moo next, skipping Horton completely.
Meyers two books used to be the standard on best practice. I guess this new 3rd edition, of which I was not aware, is the new standard. There are some things you can do in c++ that you shouldn't do, as well as some pitfalls that can be avoided if you are aware of them. Meyers points these out and is essential to creating strong code. I would get the new 3rd edition of Effective C++ and wait on More Effective C++ until it comes out in 3rd edition.
To sum up: Go through Keonig and Moo first to learn the language, but get Stroustrup at the same time to use as your reference. Pick up Myers 3rd edition when you finish Keonig and Moo, then start working through the problems in Stroustrup. As you get to the advanced sections of Stroustrup, pick up Josuttis to use as an additional reference. When you've finished all of these you should be very well versed in c++ and a better c++ programmer than probably 80% of the coders out there.
If you are done with school and out there working, you should be able to get through these in about a year of independent study. If you are still in school, focus on the classes you are paying for, and use these books as outside reading and references to inform your classwork.
Some other books to check out: The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie and The C Standard Library by P.J. Plauger. This is actually a great place to start learning to program, since you work very close to the hardware, but in a much more portable fashion than assembly.
Code Complete, Second Edition by Steve McConnell and The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt. These contain essential knowledge about being a programmer beyond the nuts and bolts of the code. Reading these and applying the knowledge to your work will take you into 90% territory.
I hope you found this useful and that this helps guide you to where you want to be.
I'm no fan of liberal release/version number inflation. But this seems way too conservative. Isn't this a major release for Debian? Why in the world isn't this Debian 4? What is that going to take?
I have a Tungsten T3 that I really love and that is practically glued to my back pocket.
I love having a PDA for several reasons. * I have a complicated schedule that often changes and a poor memory. The Calendar on the T3 is great and a real life saver for me. Color-labeled calendars are awesome. Vibrating alarms are a must have feature for me. I hate cell phone rings, I hate pda alarm rings, I hate any stupid noise like that. Plus it's fun to legitemately have buzzing things in your pants pocket. * Having my next-tasks list on the same screen as that day's appointments - on the Agenda view - is great, a real productivity boost for me. * Having my entire address book in the T3 is also fantastic. My wife keeps her addresses in a traditional paper book and it is a mess of crossed out entries, personal contacts next to business contacts, etc. With the T3 I can easily enter, edit, categorize, and look up phone numbers and addresses (real and e). * I have a ton of lists: next actions, projects, waiting for, follow ups, someday, DVDs/Books/CDs/Websites to buy/rent/borrow/bookmark, Wine & Beer I like, etc. Between Tasks (which should be called Lists), Notes, and Memos it's easy to keep these things always at hand, categorized and easily editable. I could keep these in a paper notebook, but I again run into the problem of the notebook becoming a mess of crossed out items where I can't easily find what I'm looking for and that has to be manually copied when I fill up one book and get another.
Bluetooth is nice to wirelessly sync the T3 to my PowerBook. It's cool to have family pictures and a pr0n stash readily viewable on a very nice display. The slider keeps the T3 nice and small in my pocket and nice and big in my hand.
The lack of wi-fi isn't too big of a deal. It would be nice for email, but web surfing on that tiny screen is a bit masochistic. Also, the pathetic battery life would be worse with wi-fi. That's the biggest problem with the T3. A hard day's use makes it worthless that evening until you've charged it up again.
Yes, my cell phone (Motorola V265) can do most of that stuff, but entering and editing the information is a *huge* pain in the ass. The tiny screen is also annoying and I basically just use the thing to hold other people's phone numbers, which aren't too bad to enter.
I was looking to the Lifedrive to be a replacement for my aging T3. What I really want from my next PDA is a T3 with better battery life, a more modern operating system (ie Palm OS 6) for better multitasking and network connectivity, and wi-fi.
OK, I got the wi-fi. But battery life doesn't look to be any better even though the Lifedrive has a bigger battery than the T3. Also, the included web browser looks to be almost useless to actually surf the web.
I guess the brilliant slider is gone forever, which is really a crying shame. The Lifedrive is huge and heavy and not suitable for back pocket glueing. And no vibrating alarms! Ack! It still uses OS 5. Blech!
I have no idea why anyone wants 4GB of storage in their PDA. From the reviews it seems all it does is slow down app loading times and suck battery life. I have a 1GB iPod flash that I use to listen to music and carry files. I have several.5GB SD cards scattered around for carrying files.
I guess the "killer feature" of 4GB of storage is handheld video. Personally I think handheld video is completely braindead, as is anyone who seriously thinks it is a good idea. The Lifedrive can't even play standard TV resolution without dropping tons of frames. Why would you want to look at that? I doubt you could watch a feature length movie before the battery died. If I had very long commutes on public transportation I'd pull out my Powerbook or just a book.
Oh, and having to pay extra for decent Mac connectivity is just assinine. (Palm Desktop is a dead horse. The Missing Sync from Markspace is necessary for proper T3-OS X interaction and costs $40.) I think the people who actually like
> "That's a pretty painful process, and it's not obvious that it > produces a useful result."
It's not a useful result to consumers, but it's a very useful result to government.
Forcing alcohol shipments through wholesalers/distributers creates a bottleneck that makes it easier to enforce alcohol taxes.
Without that bottleneck, alcohol is being shipped willy-nilly straight from producers to consumers and it's much more difficult for the government to audit and collect tax receipts.
I expect that as a result of this ruling states will change their laws to prohibit all intra- and inter-state alcohol shipping that isn't between producers to wholesalers/distributors and wholesalers/distributors to retailers.
I was a Windows guy until I bought a used iBook G3 that was running Mac OS X 10.1.
Then 10.2 came out and I was in your exact same position.
I've discovered that upgrading Mac OS X is absolutely nothing like upgrading Windows.
The biggest thing is that their is no "Upgrade version" vs. "Full version". Just drop your money at the counter for the OS and take it home.
The second biggest thing is that upgrades just work. It's still prudent to backup your disk [See Note: below]. But after the upgrade all of your "just-so" preferences are still there, all of your apps still run, and your operating system is running the latest major version with zero problems and 30 minutes of time invested.
I bought a used iBook G3 with 10.1, then 10.2 came out. I had the exact same worries you have, but the upgrade was not only flawless, with my preferences carried along, but it actually made the computer faster.
Just last week I bought a new 12" PowerBook. During the initial setup it asks if you have an old Mac. If you say yes, it walks you through the three steps required to copy your old settings over to the new Mac. When you finally log into your new Mac, you find your environment just like your old one.
Note: The easiest way to back up your Mac is the spend $50 as PC Connection for a Firewire 3.5" hard drive enclosure. Backup to a disk you already have, unhook your backup, then upgrade. If anything goes wrong you just restore your disk. http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductDetail?sku=5435 505&SourceID=k22350
I've encountered the damned, frozen Finder as well. If even apple-option-esc doesn't work (the "Force Quit" keyboard chord, similar to control-alt-delete or control-shift-esc on Windows) you can always just hold the power button in for about 10 seconds and the computer will hard power down.
This isn't Windows switching from their ACL model to a UNIX permission model.
One, they are pushing for 3rd-party developers to finally stop requiring simple apps like kid's software and low-end desktop publishing to be run with escalated privileges.
I mean, these application developers have had since '98 or '99 to work this out. But Window's lax defaults and lack of user education didn't force the issue. Microsoft is finally,/finally/, forcing the issue.
Two, it is Microsoft finally realigning their default ACLs to be at once more secure and more common sense.
It makes no sense for a home user to not be able to control their power settings or change their system time unless they have escalated privileges.
Really, this isn't so much Windows following UNIX as it is Windows following OS X.
Finally, and this is IMHO, going to a permission model would be a *huge* step backwards. I know UNIX die-hards will flame me for this, but it is my experience that ACLs are much more flexible and lucid than permissions.
People keep talking about VOIP like its a standard. But it's not.
Try using off-brand phones on a Cisco VOIP network. Try using any regular phone on your home VOIP network.
It just doesn't work.
Maybe this Motorola phone works on the Skype network. (I wouldn't bet on it based on my past experiences with Motorola as well as Skype.)
But what about your open source, small office/home office/home VOIP setup? It's not gonna work! Until we have some real standards and maturity in the VOIP industry we aren't going to have voice over internet protocal (VOIP) we can really trust to work when we need it.
There's at least 20-25 minutes of ads before the feature presentation at all of my local Carmike Cinema's shows. That's not counting the cycling local advertising slide show of course.
It's easily 30 minutes if there's a couple of extended length trailers or a couple more than the usual 5-6 trailers.
I'm not exagerating.
I very rarely go to the theater anymore unless it's a movie I think will look great on the huge screen but won't hit the dollar theater in a month. When I do go, I always leave home about 15 minutes after it's scheduled to start and I haven't missed the beginning of a feature yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Patching is part of it, but the biggest reason is because of internal support costs. It's easier to troubleshoot, fix, or replace a machine if it is one of a thousand mostly identical machines. And you may be /able/ to install any software, but most places have written policies prohibiting it. They only reason you are able to is because working as a non-administrative user on Windows is often impossible because of poorly written applications -- often line-of-business apps written in house that are required to get the job done.
I was just in a small, community bank in the U.S. that installed geothermal HVAC when they rebuilt a decade ago.
They recouped the cost in five years and are very, very happy with the system. It heats for almost no expense in the winter (sometimes they have to fire up the natural gas furnace when it gets way below freezing) and cools for nothing in the summer.
It's also been basically maintenance free. Nothing on the order of what some of the naysayers here would have you believe.
I've also seen several rest stops in the area that use geothermal wells to cool and heat very effectively and efficiently. Near-zero maintenance is a very important thing for rest stops.
From what I've seen, geothermal is underutilized and underhyped and should be investigated closely by anyone doing new construction.
Where are you buying your new CDs, that they cost $30-$35?!
The only time I ever payed close to that was for a special 4-disc set of a Classic recording.
I can't remember the last time I've turned my PowerBook off. It goes to sleep and awakes damn near instantly - less than one second - whenever I close the lid or open it up.
My ThinkPad running XP is pretty quick to go to sleep and wake up too. But I have to do both manually and it's about five seconds instead of one. It doesn't sound like much but it feels like a long, long time compared to the PowerBook.
The boot time between the two can't seriously be compared. The Mac gets to a usable state much faster.
This really sounds like Intel systems catching up to Mac systems. This coming from a guy who used Win2K on a Thinkpad for half a decade before winning a PowerBook running 10.3.
You've never actually watched Lost, have you? If you've seen the first season, you know it's simply one of the best shows on TV right now. It is character driven with outstanding production values and quality acting. What the hell more do you want? The only thing on network/basic cable TV right now that some might consider better is Battlestar Galactica or maybe The Shield.
I can understand denigrating indescriminate television wtaching ("sucking at the glass teat"), but to off-handedly criticize Lost is at best ignorant.
1) I don't watch television on the TV anymore. I download shows that have become critical and/or popular successes so I can skip the 10 minutes of commercials between five minutes of show.
2) I can flip past and ignore magazine ads much faster and easier than I can web ads.
3) If someone has a great product, sell me on it. Get me to pay for it rather than trying to give it to me and make up the difference on shitty ads with mens' pubic hair showing over their jeans (as in the Esquire ad of a couple months back. I'm just glad I can close a magazine faster than I can close a browser window.).
For the record, I liked light mode because in regular mode Slashdot looks like shit in a bowl.
The new light mode is OK, and I never used slashboxes anyway. I did like to see the poll at the bottom of the page, so if you could bring that at least back to light mode I'd really appreciate it.
I don't think many people use light mode because it's buried in the user preferences. What percent of Slashdot users change their preferences?
I'm looking for a project to work on.
What are the big commercial packages in the 4gl accounting space? Are you talking about software like Microsoft Great Plains' offerings?
What do you consider the most critical features of these packages? What would a new package need to offer to be considered as a possible replacement to the established players?
Thanks for a reply, it'll give me something to work on now that I just finished some other projects.
Sure, another 12 Billion web pages probably doesn't do anything for some guy looking for a digicam review.
:)
But that's not the point.
The real killer app of the Internet at this point is the long tail. (I'm assuming you all know abou the long tail by now, but if you don't, Google it.
Those extra 12 Billion pages help me out when I'm trying to find information about slobertygerbet flamjam fruit and none of the previously indexed 8-11 Billion pages had any info on that subject.
This is huge! Everyone is talking about Billions of pages like they are an unopened ream of paper you found behind a file cabinet. Take a moment to think about how huge a number a single billion is, let alone 12 billion or 20 billion. Then consider the subtleties that are hidden in those millions of millions of pages that are waiting to be discovered by someone who is searching for chamber string quartets who play trip-hop in the style of Sibelius.
Everything aside, 20 Billion web pages is a hell of a lot, and passing Google in this metric is a big deal.
What the hell is wrong with /.?
When they talk about Computer Science sliding are they including Software Engineering.
It seems to me that if I were entering college and wanted to be a computer programmer these days, I'd take a software engineering courseload.
Computer science, in my perception, is more academic, research oriented, ivory tower stuff while the real work is getting done in software engineering.
Again, that's just my impression, but also my guess as to why computer science enrollment is dropping.
I can't see Apple making a video ipod while Jobs is there.
It's been pointed out time and again that while listening to music can be a passive activity, watching video is active. You just can't watch video in all the places you can throw on the headphones.
Plus, watching video on a tiny screen is a terrible experience.
I just don't see it.
I can see a video iTunes. That makes sense. Watching video on you computer screen or piped from your computer to your TV isn't bad at all.
Firewire booting wasn't an option on any of the Dells, Gateways, or Compaq/HPs we looked at purchasing this Spring.
USB-booting was only an option on the Dells, but it was buried in the BIOS config menu and had to be turned on manually.
Sleep doesn't work on PCs. I use PCs for a living, but have two Macs at home. Macs do sleep right.
You come across as a PC fan-boy/apologist
Really?
None of the Dell, Gateway, or Compaq/HP machines we looked at buying this Spring offered booting from anything that wasn't ATA/SATA/floppy except the Dells that allowed booting from USB as an option hidden in the BIOS that had to be turned on.
Yeah, it's reliable.
But it takes almost as long to wake from sleep or hibernate on a PC as it does to boot up.
On my Macs, waking from sleep is basically instantaneous.
It's slashdotted, but here's my top three wishes:
1. PCs that finally boot from USB and FireWire.
2. PCs that can boot into target disk mode.
3. PCs that go to sleep and wake up instantly.
My Mac laptops have had this for many years -- a decade already? -- but I still can't find any PCs that have this standard. This is brain dead stuff that should be there but isn't. Come on PC manufacturers, catch up before you try and "innovate".
by Bjarne Stroustrup
by Nicolai M. Josuttis
by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo
Stroustrup is the reference book for the language. It could be used as a textbook or tutorial since it has good pedagogy and problems to solve at the end of each section. But Koenig and Moo is better for the tutorial aspect and Stroustrup is better as a reference. Their is a paperback version of the 3rd edition, but the special edition, with its stiff spine and ribbon bookmark, is worth the money because you will be frequently referring to it.
Josuttis is the reference to the standard library and standard template library. This is an advanced book, and could probably be the last one of these you purchase. He covers everything the C++ standard library has to offer, especially including templates. Don't worry about these too much as you start out. Stroustrup and Koenig and Moo both touch on these topics and give a gentler introduction.
Koenig and Moo is the tutorial that every C++ programmer should start with, IMHO, and should be the standard intro university text. It doesn't carry baggage from other languages or bad style. Even though you've gotten through Deitel, I'd suggest going through Koenig and Moo next, skipping Horton completely.
Meyers two books used to be the standard on best practice. I guess this new 3rd edition, of which I was not aware, is the new standard. There are some things you can do in c++ that you shouldn't do, as well as some pitfalls that can be avoided if you are aware of them. Meyers points these out and is essential to creating strong code. I would get the new 3rd edition of Effective C++ and wait on More Effective C++ until it comes out in 3rd edition.
To sum up: Go through Keonig and Moo first to learn the language, but get Stroustrup at the same time to use as your reference. Pick up Myers 3rd edition when you finish Keonig and Moo, then start working through the problems in Stroustrup. As you get to the advanced sections of Stroustrup, pick up Josuttis to use as an additional reference. When you've finished all of these you should be very well versed in c++ and a better c++ programmer than probably 80% of the coders out there.
If you are done with school and out there working, you should be able to get through these in about a year of independent study. If you are still in school, focus on the classes you are paying for, and use these books as outside reading and references to inform your classwork.
Some other books to check out:
The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie and The C Standard Library by P.J. Plauger. This is actually a great place to start learning to program, since you work very close to the hardware, but in a much more portable fashion than assembly.
Code Complete, Second Edition by Steve McConnell and The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt. These contain essential knowledge about being a programmer beyond the nuts and bolts of the code. Reading these and applying the knowledge to your work will take you into 90% territory.
I hope you found this useful and that this helps guide you to where you want to be.
I'm no fan of liberal release/version number inflation. But this seems way too conservative. Isn't this a major release for Debian? Why in the world isn't this Debian 4? What is that going to take?
I have a Tungsten T3 that I really love and that is practically glued to my back pocket.
.5GB SD cards scattered around for carrying files.
I love having a PDA for several reasons.
* I have a complicated schedule that often changes and a poor memory. The Calendar on the T3 is great and a real life saver for me. Color-labeled calendars are awesome. Vibrating alarms are a must have feature for me. I hate cell phone rings, I hate pda alarm rings, I hate any stupid noise like that. Plus it's fun to legitemately have buzzing things in your pants pocket.
* Having my next-tasks list on the same screen as that day's appointments - on the Agenda view - is great, a real productivity boost for me.
* Having my entire address book in the T3 is also fantastic. My wife keeps her addresses in a traditional paper book and it is a mess of crossed out entries, personal contacts next to business contacts, etc. With the T3 I can easily enter, edit, categorize, and look up phone numbers and addresses (real and e).
* I have a ton of lists: next actions, projects, waiting for, follow ups, someday, DVDs/Books/CDs/Websites to buy/rent/borrow/bookmark, Wine & Beer I like, etc. Between Tasks (which should be called Lists), Notes, and Memos it's easy to keep these things always at hand, categorized and easily editable. I could keep these in a paper notebook, but I again run into the problem of the notebook becoming a mess of crossed out items where I can't easily find what I'm looking for and that has to be manually copied when I fill up one book and get another.
Bluetooth is nice to wirelessly sync the T3 to my PowerBook. It's cool to have family pictures and a pr0n stash readily viewable on a very nice display. The slider keeps the T3 nice and small in my pocket and nice and big in my hand.
The lack of wi-fi isn't too big of a deal. It would be nice for email, but web surfing on that tiny screen is a bit masochistic. Also, the pathetic battery life would be worse with wi-fi. That's the biggest problem with the T3. A hard day's use makes it worthless that evening until you've charged it up again.
Yes, my cell phone (Motorola V265) can do most of that stuff, but entering and editing the information is a *huge* pain in the ass. The tiny screen is also annoying and I basically just use the thing to hold other people's phone numbers, which aren't too bad to enter.
I was looking to the Lifedrive to be a replacement for my aging T3. What I really want from my next PDA is a T3 with better battery life, a more modern operating system (ie Palm OS 6) for better multitasking and network connectivity, and wi-fi.
OK, I got the wi-fi. But battery life doesn't look to be any better even though the Lifedrive has a bigger battery than the T3. Also, the included web browser looks to be almost useless to actually surf the web.
I guess the brilliant slider is gone forever, which is really a crying shame. The Lifedrive is huge and heavy and not suitable for back pocket glueing. And no vibrating alarms! Ack! It still uses OS 5. Blech!
I have no idea why anyone wants 4GB of storage in their PDA. From the reviews it seems all it does is slow down app loading times and suck battery life. I have a 1GB iPod flash that I use to listen to music and carry files. I have several
I guess the "killer feature" of 4GB of storage is handheld video. Personally I think handheld video is completely braindead, as is anyone who seriously thinks it is a good idea. The Lifedrive can't even play standard TV resolution without dropping tons of frames. Why would you want to look at that? I doubt you could watch a feature length movie before the battery died. If I had very long commutes on public transportation I'd pull out my Powerbook or just a book.
Oh, and having to pay extra for decent Mac connectivity is just assinine. (Palm Desktop is a dead horse. The Missing Sync from Markspace is necessary for proper T3-OS X interaction and costs $40.) I think the people who actually like
> "That's a pretty painful process, and it's not obvious that it
> produces a useful result."
It's not a useful result to consumers, but it's a very useful result
to government.
Forcing alcohol shipments through wholesalers/distributers
creates a bottleneck that makes it easier to enforce alcohol
taxes.
Without that bottleneck, alcohol is being shipped willy-nilly
straight from producers to consumers and it's much more
difficult for the government to audit and collect tax receipts.
I expect that as a result of this ruling states will change their laws to prohibit all intra- and inter-state alcohol shipping that isn't between producers to wholesalers/distributors and wholesalers/distributors to retailers.
I was a Windows guy until I bought a used iBook G3 that was running Mac OS X 10.1.
5 505&SourceID=k22350
Then 10.2 came out and I was in your exact same position.
I've discovered that upgrading Mac OS X is absolutely nothing like upgrading Windows.
The biggest thing is that their is no "Upgrade version" vs. "Full version". Just drop your money at the counter for the OS and take it home.
The second biggest thing is that upgrades just work. It's still prudent to backup your disk [See Note: below]. But after the upgrade all of your "just-so" preferences are still there, all of your apps still run, and your operating system is running the latest major version with zero problems and 30 minutes of time invested.
I bought a used iBook G3 with 10.1, then 10.2 came out. I had the exact same worries you have, but the upgrade was not only flawless, with my preferences carried along, but it actually made the computer faster.
Just last week I bought a new 12" PowerBook. During the initial setup it asks if you have an old Mac. If you say yes, it walks you through the three steps required to copy your old settings over to the new Mac. When you finally log into your new Mac, you find your environment just like your old one.
Note: The easiest way to back up your Mac is the spend $50 as PC Connection for a Firewire 3.5" hard drive enclosure. Backup to a disk you already have, unhook your backup, then upgrade. If anything goes wrong you just restore your disk.
http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductDetail?sku=543
I've encountered the damned, frozen Finder as well. If even apple-option-esc doesn't work (the "Force Quit" keyboard chord, similar to control-alt-delete or control-shift-esc on Windows) you can always just hold the power button in for about 10 seconds and the computer will hard power down.
This isn't Windows switching from their ACL model to a UNIX permission model.
/finally/, forcing the issue.
One, they are pushing for 3rd-party developers to finally stop requiring simple apps like kid's software and low-end desktop publishing to be run with escalated privileges.
I mean, these application developers have had since '98 or '99 to work this out. But Window's lax defaults and lack of user education didn't force the issue. Microsoft is finally,
Two, it is Microsoft finally realigning their default ACLs to be at once more secure and more common sense.
It makes no sense for a home user to not be able to control their power settings or change their system time unless they have escalated privileges.
Really, this isn't so much Windows following UNIX as it is Windows following OS X.
Finally, and this is IMHO, going to a permission model would be a *huge* step backwards. I know UNIX die-hards will flame me for this, but it is my experience that ACLs are much more flexible and lucid than permissions.
People keep talking about VOIP like its a standard. But it's not.
Try using off-brand phones on a Cisco VOIP network. Try using any regular phone on your home VOIP network.
It just doesn't work.
Maybe this Motorola phone works on the Skype network. (I wouldn't bet on it based on my past experiences with Motorola as well as Skype.)
But what about your open source, small office/home office/home VOIP setup? It's not gonna work! Until we have some real standards and maturity in the VOIP industry we aren't going to have voice over internet protocal (VOIP) we can really trust to work when we need it.
There's at least 20-25 minutes of ads before the feature presentation at all of my local Carmike Cinema's shows. That's not counting the cycling local advertising slide show of course.
It's easily 30 minutes if there's a couple of extended length trailers or a couple more than the usual 5-6 trailers.
I'm not exagerating.
I very rarely go to the theater anymore unless it's a movie I think will look great on the huge screen but won't hit the dollar theater in a month. When I do go, I always leave home about 15 minutes after it's scheduled to start and I haven't missed the beginning of a feature yet.