That's my dilema. For my personal stuff, I buy things locally -- I want to see them and check them out before I purchase, especially big ticket items like computers, notebooks, PDAs.
I do purchase online, but here's the gotcha. These purchases are almost exclusively for gifts for out of state family and friends, which I have shipped to a state other than the one I live in (since I'd have to ship it to them anyway).
For example, I live in NJ, but purchase something in CA, for delivery to NY/CT/CT/VA/CA, etc. Since I don't get the product, as far as I can figure out, the use tax doesn't apply.
Many of the web site I deal with do charge NJ tax anyway -- should I get that refunded?
I'm less inclined to believe that TV is to blame, and more inclined to believe it's caused by a known neurological toxin, like low levels of mercury (a great deal of which comes from coal burning plants, by the way).
I'm very interested in this device (it's more of a nano-computer than a PDA). I think it's great that every online news source is carrying this story, but a near verbatim reprint of the press release isn't very useful.
1- What is the battery life under continuous use with the WiFi active?
2- Do the CF and SD cards protrude from the case? If so, how much?
3- I've seen pictures of the unit with a clear flip-up cover for the display. Is that included with the unit? What "comes in the box"?
4- Are there special requirements or restrictions on the CF/SD cards? Do 1GB SD cards work? What about SDIO? Does it support CF Microdrives? CF I/II? 10x speed cards OK?
5- What is the audio quality for playing MP3?
6- Is the video fast enough for movie playback? How long will the battery last doing this (can I play back an entire two hour movie on a charge)?
7- What services are included in the installed distribution? sshd? rsyncd? SSH and rsync clients?
8- Does the 802.11b support WEP-128?
9- Is an X-Server included, so I can run remote X applications (important in an enterprise environment)?
10- How long does the battery last? I've seen reports that Lithium-polymer batteries can only sustain about 200 charges. Does that mean that it will need a new battery every 6-9 months?
I agree. I have three PCs with Firewire (all running Linux -- Fedora Core). Three different chipsets. I can't get any of them to work (at least not reliably). Sometimes they'll work continuously for several days before failing. Yes, I've reported the problems to the Linux IEEE1394 project; the problems remain even two years later. Yes, I even tried with the 2.6 kernel.
You may find a specific chipset/platform combination that works reliably on the PC, but that may mean buying a new PC and/or Firewire card if the one you have doesn't work the way you want. This isn't just limited to Linux; my brother's two new Dells (different models) with Windows XP will lockup periodically when using the Firewire.
I also have an Apple PowerBook (also running Linux - YellowDog). The Firewire ports work 24x7, flawlessly.
I'm sure that the Linux IEEE1394 implementation will become equally flawless in a couple more years, as will the XP implementation. At least for the more common chipsets. But if you want something today that's Firewire-based and *production stable*, use a Mac (Linux or OSX).
You probably meant to buy one of these. Everything you're likely to want/need is available in a wireless configuration. You probably paid less for a wired unit, but how much did you pay for the wiring and conduit (in today's dollars)?
Ah, SIE (Start Interpretive Execution)! I wondered when that mainframe functionality would make to PC silicon. It's about as old as Linux, so I guess it's about time.
Water won't damage most keyboards. My wife spilled sweetened tea into my desktop keyboard. I disconnected it and rinsed it off in the shower. I towel dried it, then left a fan blowing on it overnight. In the morning (and ever since, about two years), it has worked perfectly. The "trick" is not to operate the keyboard with water in it (plug it out as quickly as possible), and let it dry completely before plugging it back in.
I probably should have built a noise canceling tower or some similar nonsense, so I could get published.
Instead of all the research and electronics, I put a drop of oil on the axle and removed the dust from the blades with a q-tip. It's been silent ever since.
Users coming from Microsoft Windows get blindsided when a Linux app freezes up from audio IO contention, as in their experience that problem was solved back in 1997.
The same is true for most Linux distributions; it just works for most users. A given machine configuration with a given OS (or distribution) may or may not be ideally configured, but it's usually usable.
In both environments, you can certainly tweak configurations and setting to get things better, but 100% perfect for 100% of user expectations just isn't there.
I had my house pre-wired in 1980 (back then, everyone, including the builder and electricians, thought I was nuts).
My advice? Don't do it.
For the cost of installation (in 2004 dollars), I could have upgraded my wireless infrastructure about a half-dozen times. Not to mention all the time wasted on the terminations, debugging dead lines, protection gear (all that wire is one big antenna), and interface equipment.
With Ultra-Wide-Band offering gigabit speeds in a few years, it won't matter anymore. The components (video, speakers, stereo, etc.) can all be wireless. There's more than enough bandwidth with today's technology, and it's cheap.
Get your price quotes for conduit and Cat5E/6 and all the rest, then compare it to what it will cost for a really good wireless implementation. You'll find that you can save quite a bit -- and use it to upgrade when the technology improves.
This wasn't an option when I did my network, burglar alarm, media cabling and termination. Rather than go through the cost of upgrading that outdated cable, I moved most everything to wireless. I'll never go back.
They are already using open source, but many probably don't know it. Case in point, TCL/Expect and Perl are very popular in telecoms, both for testing and production scripting. I had written a 10k-line TCL/TK/Expect script for automating production maintenance activities back in 1999, and it ran on an 8-CPU system running Linux. Similarly, Cisco provided TCL scripts for many production maintenance activities (which we ran from the big Linux machine). However, most managers and execs only see the web-based front ends and GUIs, so they are completely clueless about what keeps the networks running.
Periodically looking at 3D stereograms has helped me relax my eyes quite a bit. The regular exercise has even corrected an astigmatism, according to my eye doctor.
Let's see, the high-priced white collar jobs are going overseas, and the menial work will be done by robots. What does that leave for the rest of us? Organ donors?
Not to nit-pick, but a 1 hour episode of a TV show is about 45 minutes, making them 3-hour discs, not 4.
Yes, you're right. There is usually some additional content on the disks, but lets just call it 3hrs.
I don't know where you are seeing commercial-free movies on cable, unless you are talking about a premium channel.
Yes, I meant the movie channels. Originally, that's all cable had, now they are "premium". As you indicated, movies on the non-premium channels are interrupted with commercials.
You must have had a lot of extra channels, because cable TV here is only about double what netflix charges.
Yes, I was paying $67 (including box rentals, taxes, and other charges) for cable TV. At the lowest level I'm on now, it's about $17/month.
I've adjusted; I get my news from online sources. Many of the DVDs have over 4 hours of content (we're working through the first two seasons of CSI for example, which we never watched, and there are 4 episodes on a disk).
I remember when cable TV had no commercials (after all, you were paying for it!). Then it had commercials between the movies. Now, cable shows have commercials just like broadcast (though the movies are shown uninterrupted).
In a perfect world, everything on demand, paid for by the subscription fees instead of advertising would be great. That seems to be a moving target, and services like Netflix (and the Walmart version and soon Blockbuster's entry) seem to be taking the lead.
The cable companies version of "on demand" is an inventory of 700 titles (at least on my cable service). That's just pathetic. The DVD services have over 15,000 titles available for delivery within a day or two, and that's good enough for me. Until the next thing comes along.
It's also about a third the price of cable, which leaves more funds for toys. And I do need my toys.:-)
The wacky seasons, the reality shows, the lack of any script writing, 30% commercials... it all pissed me off.
I dropped my cable TV to the lowest possible tier and signed up for Netflix instead. When I'm sure my cable company can properly separate cable and Internet services, I'll drop the cable TV altogether.
At a DVD per day, it should take me a little more than 40 years to get through the Netflix inventory. No commercials, and I get to watch what I want when I want it -- the reason I signed up for cable to begin with.
Nothing beats the bandwidth of a USPS mail truck full of DVDs.
You folks are thinking too hard. You need a low tech solution, that a burglar with a third grade education would use.:-)
Just put a little graphite-oil (used in regular locks) in the optical lock. Then, when the owner tears it out because it doesn't work (optical paths obscured by the graphite), the burglars can go back to business as usual.
You can get a perfectly good laptop for about $700 new (retail), less used. These are fine for watching movies, playing non-bleeding edge games, or even school work. As a bonus, when it gets smashed, stollen, or fried, you're not out your life savings.
An alternative might be to aggregate the required bandwidth using available connectivity (DSL, business cable internet, T1, lower-speed point-to-point links). Depending on local costs, this may not be cost prohibitive.
As a side benefit, since your connectivity will be diverse, individual carrier and facility outages will only degrade your connection, not sever it.
People get all excited over this kind of thing, but it's nothing new. Long before there were piezo anythings, there were magnets and coils. Use a lever to disrupt the magnetic field through a coil, and the magnetic field colapses, generating power. I've even got one of these little thing embedded in epoxy, that was used as a gas igniter. You can replace the LED in the article with a capacitor and Neon bulb, and your've got the same thing -- only using technology that's been around for ages. Nothing really clever was done with that, and I doubt anything clever will come of this piezo-electric update.
And these are the ones that will be using Dell's linux pages? Most people I know that use 800x600 don't actually know how to change i. When I show them they are amazed. I doubt many people over 50 "choose" 800x600 because they prefer it.
Who do you think is teaching you young whippersnappers how to compile your kernels? Yes, those with poor vision prefer 800x600 (sometimes on a 19 inch monitor). Get back to me after you get cataracts. Yeah, I know, you think you'll be young forever.:-)
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That's my dilema. For my personal stuff, I buy things locally -- I want to see them and check them out before I purchase, especially big ticket items like computers, notebooks, PDAs.
I do purchase online, but here's the gotcha. These purchases are almost exclusively for gifts for out of state family and friends, which I have shipped to a state other than the one I live in (since I'd have to ship it to them anyway).
For example, I live in NJ, but purchase something in CA, for delivery to NY/CT/CT/VA/CA, etc. Since I don't get the product, as far as I can figure out, the use tax doesn't apply.
Many of the web site I deal with do charge NJ tax anyway -- should I get that refunded?
I'm less inclined to believe that TV is to blame, and more inclined to believe it's caused by a known neurological toxin, like low levels of mercury (a great deal of which comes from coal burning plants, by the way).
I'm very interested in this device (it's more of a nano-computer than a PDA). I think it's great that every online news source is carrying this story, but a near verbatim reprint of the press release isn't very useful.
1- What is the battery life under continuous use with the WiFi active?
2- Do the CF and SD cards protrude from the case? If so, how much?
3- I've seen pictures of the unit with a clear flip-up cover for the display. Is that included with the unit? What "comes in the box"?
4- Are there special requirements or restrictions on the CF/SD cards? Do 1GB SD cards work? What about SDIO? Does it support CF Microdrives? CF I/II? 10x speed cards OK?
5- What is the audio quality for playing MP3?
6- Is the video fast enough for movie playback? How long will the battery last doing this (can I play back an entire two hour movie on a charge)?
7- What services are included in the installed distribution? sshd? rsyncd? SSH and rsync clients?
8- Does the 802.11b support WEP-128?
9- Is an X-Server included, so I can run remote X applications (important in an enterprise environment)?
10- How long does the battery last? I've seen reports that Lithium-polymer batteries can only sustain about 200 charges. Does that mean that it will need a new battery every 6-9 months?
I agree. I have three PCs with Firewire (all running Linux -- Fedora Core). Three different chipsets. I can't get any of them to work (at least not reliably). Sometimes they'll work continuously for several days before failing. Yes, I've reported the problems to the Linux IEEE1394 project; the problems remain even two years later. Yes, I even tried with the 2.6 kernel.
You may find a specific chipset/platform combination that works reliably on the PC, but that may mean buying a new PC and/or Firewire card if the one you have doesn't work the way you want. This isn't just limited to Linux; my brother's two new Dells (different models) with Windows XP will lockup periodically when using the Firewire.
I also have an Apple PowerBook (also running Linux - YellowDog). The Firewire ports work 24x7, flawlessly.
I'm sure that the Linux IEEE1394 implementation will become equally flawless in a couple more years, as will the XP implementation. At least for the more common chipsets. But if you want something today that's Firewire-based and *production stable*, use a Mac (Linux or OSX).
You probably meant to buy one of these. Everything you're likely to want/need is available in a wireless configuration. You probably paid less for a wired unit, but how much did you pay for the wiring and conduit (in today's dollars)?
Ah, SIE (Start Interpretive Execution)! I wondered when that mainframe functionality would make to PC silicon. It's about as old as Linux, so I guess it's about time.
Water won't damage most keyboards. My wife spilled sweetened tea into my desktop keyboard. I disconnected it and rinsed it off in the shower. I towel dried it, then left a fan blowing on it overnight. In the morning (and ever since, about two years), it has worked perfectly. The "trick" is not to operate the keyboard with water in it (plug it out as quickly as possible), and let it dry completely before plugging it back in.
I probably should have built a noise canceling tower or some similar nonsense, so I could get published.
Instead of all the research and electronics, I put a drop of oil on the axle and removed the dust from the blades with a q-tip. It's been silent ever since.
Silly me.
Windows has its share of sound problems. When Windows works the way you expect, it's great. When it doesn't it's a nightmare.
The same is true for most Linux distributions; it just works for most users. A given machine configuration with a given OS (or distribution) may or may not be ideally configured, but it's usually usable.
In both environments, you can certainly tweak configurations and setting to get things better, but 100% perfect for 100% of user expectations just isn't there.
Alsa already does software mixing. What wrong with the implementation (I use it all the time)?
I had my house pre-wired in 1980 (back then, everyone, including the builder and electricians, thought I was nuts).
My advice? Don't do it.
For the cost of installation (in 2004 dollars), I could have upgraded my wireless infrastructure about a half-dozen times. Not to mention all the time wasted on the terminations, debugging dead lines, protection gear (all that wire is one big antenna), and interface equipment.
With Ultra-Wide-Band offering gigabit speeds in a few years, it won't matter anymore. The components (video, speakers, stereo, etc.) can all be wireless. There's more than enough bandwidth with today's technology, and it's cheap.
Get your price quotes for conduit and Cat5E/6 and all the rest, then compare it to what it will cost for a really good wireless implementation. You'll find that you can save quite a bit -- and use it to upgrade when the technology improves.
This wasn't an option when I did my network, burglar alarm, media cabling and termination. Rather than go through the cost of upgrading that outdated cable, I moved most everything to wireless. I'll never go back.
They are already using open source, but many probably don't know it. Case in point, TCL/Expect and Perl are very popular in telecoms, both for testing and production scripting. I had written a 10k-line TCL/TK/Expect script for automating production maintenance activities back in 1999, and it ran on an 8-CPU system running Linux. Similarly, Cisco provided TCL scripts for many production maintenance activities (which we ran from the big Linux machine). However, most managers and execs only see the web-based front ends and GUIs, so they are completely clueless about what keeps the networks running.
Periodically looking at 3D stereograms has helped me relax my eyes quite a bit. The regular exercise has even corrected an astigmatism, according to my eye doctor.
Let's see, the high-priced white collar jobs are going overseas, and the menial work will be done by robots. What does that leave for the rest of us? Organ donors?
Yes, you're right. There is usually some additional content on the disks, but lets just call it 3hrs.
I don't know where you are seeing commercial-free movies on cable, unless you are talking about a premium channel.
Yes, I meant the movie channels. Originally, that's all cable had, now they are "premium". As you indicated, movies on the non-premium channels are interrupted with commercials.
You must have had a lot of extra channels, because cable TV here is only about double what netflix charges.
Yes, I was paying $67 (including box rentals, taxes, and other charges) for cable TV. At the lowest level I'm on now, it's about $17/month.
I've adjusted; I get my news from online sources. Many of the DVDs have over 4 hours of content (we're working through the first two seasons of CSI for example, which we never watched, and there are 4 episodes on a disk).
:-)
I remember when cable TV had no commercials (after all, you were paying for it!). Then it had commercials between the movies. Now, cable shows have commercials just like broadcast (though the movies are shown uninterrupted).
In a perfect world, everything on demand, paid for by the subscription fees instead of advertising would be great. That seems to be a moving target, and services like Netflix (and the Walmart version and soon Blockbuster's entry) seem to be taking the lead.
The cable companies version of "on demand" is an inventory of 700 titles (at least on my cable service). That's just pathetic. The DVD services have over 15,000 titles available for delivery within a day or two, and that's good enough for me. Until the next thing comes along.
It's also about a third the price of cable, which leaves more funds for toys. And I do need my toys.
The wacky seasons, the reality shows, the lack of any script writing, 30% commercials... it all pissed me off.
I dropped my cable TV to the lowest possible tier and signed up for Netflix instead. When I'm sure my cable company can properly separate cable and Internet services, I'll drop the cable TV altogether.
At a DVD per day, it should take me a little more than 40 years to get through the Netflix inventory. No commercials, and I get to watch what I want when I want it -- the reason I signed up for cable to begin with.
Nothing beats the bandwidth of a USPS mail truck full of DVDs.
You folks are thinking too hard. You need a low tech solution, that a burglar with a third grade education would use. :-)
Just put a little graphite-oil (used in regular locks) in the optical lock. Then, when the owner tears it out because it doesn't work (optical paths obscured by the graphite), the burglars can go back to business as usual.
Should be suing SCO for extortion and racketeering. On second thought, sue them both.
You can get a perfectly good laptop for about $700 new (retail), less used. These are fine for watching movies, playing non-bleeding edge games, or even school work. As a bonus, when it gets smashed, stollen, or fried, you're not out your life savings.
An alternative might be to aggregate the required bandwidth using available connectivity (DSL, business cable internet, T1, lower-speed point-to-point links). Depending on local costs, this may not be cost prohibitive.
As a side benefit, since your connectivity will be diverse, individual carrier and facility outages will only degrade your connection, not sever it.
People get all excited over this kind of thing, but it's nothing new. Long before there were piezo anythings, there were magnets and coils. Use a lever to disrupt the magnetic field through a coil, and the magnetic field colapses, generating power. I've even got one of these little thing embedded in epoxy, that was used as a gas igniter. You can replace the LED in the article with a capacitor and Neon bulb, and your've got the same thing -- only using technology that's been around for ages. Nothing really clever was done with that, and I doubt anything clever will come of this piezo-electric update.
They should have just called it WebBrowser. :-)
Maybe we need an open source name registration site, so folks can self-register their software names and avoid conflicts.
Who do you think is teaching you young whippersnappers how to compile your kernels? Yes, those with poor vision prefer 800x600 (sometimes on a 19 inch monitor). Get back to me after you get cataracts. Yeah, I know, you think you'll be young forever. :-)
I wish someone would package this environment for old 386 and 486 systems.