I use a Zero Halliburton case (no relation, as far as I'm aware, with Dick Cheney's old employer) with my Sony Vaio PCG-R505. The aluminium shell is supposedly aircraft grade and, from my experiences with it, it is extremely durable. I've carried my notebook everywhere with me to client sites around the world for the past 2 years or so and dropped it a few times but the insides have always been well protected. You get a lifetime warranty as well, although I've never had to test that feature out.
Disadvantages of this case, though, include:
Expensive - although I was lucky enough to get mine in a clearance sale where the price of the case was reduced from US$ 300 to about US$ 100.
Heavy - the case weighs about 3 kg or so, so you should factor that into your consideration. You do get top-class protection for your notebook for the weight, though.
Attention grabber - some might view this as an advantage rather than a drawback. I don't like the attention, though, and I get rather suspicious when people stare at the case in airports. Keep it close to you.
Some will mourn the loss of a man who vocally advocated the a strong national defense and who made great contributions to the development of the hydrogen bomb. I'm sure as well that others will castigate the man for those very same achievements.
However, I remember myself as a geeky kid in Malaysia interested in science and technology, writing a letter to one of the 'great names'. I was quite amazed to receive a personal reply to my letter, typewritten but signed by hand. His reply was humble (he never put down any of what must have seemed to him to be naive and silly observations), encouraging (the words "I am pleased that there are children from all over the world like you who are interested in science." aren't much to an adult, but they sure meant a lot to me as a kid!) and inspiring.
That sums up the man in my mind, and I mourn the loss of that man.
A little background story. I've always been a Malaysian citizen although I went to school and university in the UK. My first job was in the IT department of a rather large investment bank and I recently got made redundant.
As a graduate of a university of some repute and with 18 months of work experience under my belt, I would expect to have exactly the same job prospects as any other British university graduate here in the UK. Unfortunately (for me), work permits are hard to come by as companies have to prove that they've advertised for positions in local newspapers/trade journals for a minimum of two months before they are allowed to tap the international job market and, as a result, I've had no jobs coming my way. The result of this is that I've accepted a job in my home country for an 80% pay cut (my new job is paying US$ 790 per month).
Folks, I've seen a few posts which either directly or indirectly imply that we Third World workers are nowhere as productive as Americans. I agree this is most probably true for world-class programmers, you can't realistically expect me to believe that EVERY SINGLE American university graduate is that much better. The company that I'll be working for was founded by an Oxford graduate, several of the directors have been educated in England and the United States, and we're all working for substantially less than what you in the West are used to.
Keeping that in mind, please tell me what incentive large corporations actually have for employing an American (or European) worker if you can get quality work done for much cheaper elsewhere.
It's not all doom and gloom, guys. I've been thinking about the situation and there are sectors in which jobs should still be available. I doubt it's that worthwhile for smaller IT outfits to offshore their work, having no infrastructure in place in India (for example). You also have many more contacts and knowledge about your respective countries (be it the USA, the UK, Finland, or whatever) than Ranjit from Bangalore or Abu from Kuala Lumpur. Use that as leverage.
I do wish everyone the best of luck, though I don't expect it to be very pretty in the short term.
I'm looking at my identity card right now and all it's got is my name, home address (cool, huh?) and date of birth. No mention of ethnicity anywhere. The government is actively promoting a new card now called MyKad that is intended to be used as a one-stop shop for everything, including an ATM card, international passport, drivers licence, etc. etc. I'm not sure if ethnicity is going to be recorded on that, though - I haven't 'upgraded' to it yet as I haven't been in the country for a good few years.
However, many documents do have a field called "Ethnicity" which have to be filled in. I'm thinking of things like examination forms - in fact, one of them has only two options: "Bumiputera" (literally, "prince of the Earth" which includes the Malay and the various natives) and "non-Bumiputera" (everybody else, including both the Chinese and Indian races which collectively constitute 32% of the country's population).
Ethnicity is certainly an important issue in the country since being "Bumiputera" means that you've got the ability to buy property at lower prices, and there are quotas to university entry according to ethnic origin.
They are using a "hot-button" to destroy your privacy on the web, as well as mine and everyone elses. For the sake of catching a few, all are considered guilty and denied privacy.
What privacy? In most cases, you leave your IP address behind on the server hosting whatever Web page you're viewing as far as I'm aware, which could be traced back to your ISP and it doesn't take that much more effort to get to you.
However, you've got me thinking further about my earlier post and you raise an excellent point of discussion: how far should the right to privacy extend? But that probably extends far beyond the scope of any single posting.
... we have an identity card (IC) which every citizen must have and carry on their person at all times (not doing so constitutes a criminal offense, but the police are pretty lenient about it).
The implication of this is that many large local portals, like Catcha or BlueHyppo have an IC field. Whether or not this is mandatory depends on company policy, but if legislation were introduced to make this mandatory, this would immediately provide an easy method of identification should the need arise.
I suppose an alternative would be to allow relative anonymity, but at a price to deter wanton abuse of the system.
Personally, I am intensely concerned about the importance of privacy but this needs to be balanced against the need for social accountability.
Slashdot Mirror
Disadvantages of this case, though, include:
When I was at university, a supervisor of mine wrote a program that recognises whistles and acts accordingly depending on the whistle it hears.
Take a look at it here. I don't think it's maintained, though someone might be interested in picking up where he left off.
Done. :)
Some will mourn the loss of a man who vocally advocated the a strong national defense and who made great contributions to the development of the hydrogen bomb. I'm sure as well that others will castigate the man for those very same achievements.
However, I remember myself as a geeky kid in Malaysia interested in science and technology, writing a letter to one of the 'great names'. I was quite amazed to receive a personal reply to my letter, typewritten but signed by hand. His reply was humble (he never put down any of what must have seemed to him to be naive and silly observations), encouraging (the words "I am pleased that there are children from all over the world like you who are interested in science." aren't much to an adult, but they sure meant a lot to me as a kid!) and inspiring.
That sums up the man in my mind, and I mourn the loss of that man.
A little background story. I've always been a Malaysian citizen although I went to school and university in the UK. My first job was in the IT department of a rather large investment bank and I recently got made redundant.
As a graduate of a university of some repute and with 18 months of work experience under my belt, I would expect to have exactly the same job prospects as any other British university graduate here in the UK. Unfortunately (for me), work permits are hard to come by as companies have to prove that they've advertised for positions in local newspapers/trade journals for a minimum of two months before they are allowed to tap the international job market and, as a result, I've had no jobs coming my way. The result of this is that I've accepted a job in my home country for an 80% pay cut (my new job is paying US$ 790 per month).
Folks, I've seen a few posts which either directly or indirectly imply that we Third World workers are nowhere as productive as Americans. I agree this is most probably true for world-class programmers, you can't realistically expect me to believe that EVERY SINGLE American university graduate is that much better. The company that I'll be working for was founded by an Oxford graduate, several of the directors have been educated in England and the United States, and we're all working for substantially less than what you in the West are used to.
Keeping that in mind, please tell me what incentive large corporations actually have for employing an American (or European) worker if you can get quality work done for much cheaper elsewhere.
It's not all doom and gloom, guys. I've been thinking about the situation and there are sectors in which jobs should still be available. I doubt it's that worthwhile for smaller IT outfits to offshore their work, having no infrastructure in place in India (for example). You also have many more contacts and knowledge about your respective countries (be it the USA, the UK, Finland, or whatever) than Ranjit from Bangalore or Abu from Kuala Lumpur. Use that as leverage.
I do wish everyone the best of luck, though I don't expect it to be very pretty in the short term.
I'm looking at my identity card right now and all it's got is my name, home address (cool, huh?) and date of birth. No mention of ethnicity anywhere. The government is actively promoting a new card now called MyKad that is intended to be used as a one-stop shop for everything, including an ATM card, international passport, drivers licence, etc. etc. I'm not sure if ethnicity is going to be recorded on that, though - I haven't 'upgraded' to it yet as I haven't been in the country for a good few years.
However, many documents do have a field called "Ethnicity" which have to be filled in. I'm thinking of things like examination forms - in fact, one of them has only two options: "Bumiputera" (literally, "prince of the Earth" which includes the Malay and the various natives) and "non-Bumiputera" (everybody else, including both the Chinese and Indian races which collectively constitute 32% of the country's population).
Ethnicity is certainly an important issue in the country since being "Bumiputera" means that you've got the ability to buy property at lower prices, and there are quotas to university entry according to ethnic origin.
What privacy? In most cases, you leave your IP address behind on the server hosting whatever Web page you're viewing as far as I'm aware, which could be traced back to your ISP and it doesn't take that much more effort to get to you.
However, you've got me thinking further about my earlier post and you raise an excellent point of discussion: how far should the right to privacy extend? But that probably extends far beyond the scope of any single posting.
... we have an identity card (IC) which every citizen must have and carry on their person at all times (not doing so constitutes a criminal offense, but the police are pretty lenient about it).
The implication of this is that many large local portals, like Catcha or BlueHyppo have an IC field. Whether or not this is mandatory depends on company policy, but if legislation were introduced to make this mandatory, this would immediately provide an easy method of identification should the need arise.
I suppose an alternative would be to allow relative anonymity, but at a price to deter wanton abuse of the system.
Personally, I am intensely concerned about the importance of privacy but this needs to be balanced against the need for social accountability.