I use http://www.gmail-backup.com/ to backup my gmail accounts. It works with regular gmail and google apps gmail. It has a click and backup view, but I use the cmd line interface to automate a daily backup of all my mail and labels to a folder as.eml files. It also lets you restore to gmail if needed. It has a few quirks, but over all is very useful.
You should use some sort of Image program, such as Acronis, ghost, etc. You should be able to set it up to image the system upon boot. That way, whatever the renters do, the system will be imaged, and all will be well.
On slashdot, everyone talks about what is the best tax software, but no one seems to mention much whether or not tax software is the best for your situation.
The thing to remember is that tax law is very, very complicated, and tax software is programmed to work for the lowest common denominator of user. Thus the software is not neccisarily going to give you the biggest refund. And more importently, the tax software cannot give you advice on how to best position yourself to reduce your tax liabilty in future years.
I used turbotax online few years back and got a refund, and I was happy. The following year I talked to a very experianced tax preparer, and he did my taxes that year and redid them for the past year. My refund for the past year was quadrupled. An experianced tax preparer was able (honestly and legally), to get me four times as much money back, compared to turbotax.
So before you decide what software to use to do your taxes, first decide whether software is the best way to do your taxes.
We asked the question: "Microsoft users are getting fed up. They're battered by worms, viruses, security patches and increasing enterprise licensing costs. Aggravation has users talking about switching from Microsoft software to something else. We're trying to figure out how much of that talk is just talk, and how much is serious action. Do you seriously plan to dump Microsoft software?"
A question like this is very leading, and is likely to induce a testing effect, in which the actual asking of the question, and they way it is asked, changes the answer the survey taker gives. You can't preface a question by talking about how horrible microsoft is. The question should simply say: "Do you plan to switch from Microsoft sofware?" That would be much more statistically valid, and I can almost guarantee would lead to a diffent percentage of answers. That being said, I agree with the "41%".
I use the Dlink DCS1000w (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=41) in my business. Its a IP based webcam with built in 802.11b. It supports encryption to whatever base station that you use, and you can access it from anywhere on the web, with a username and password. You can get decent streaming over a good dsl connection. Or simply look at a screenshot. Its a very nice device, if you are willing to spend the money.
Recently the Supreme Court decided against Eldred in Eldred v. Ashcroft. As you know, this means that copyright can be extended for an additional 20 years. The lawyer for Eldred in that case, Lawrence Lessig, has proposed a congressional compromise. (NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/opinion/18LESS.h tml?ex=1043470800&en=97d153dccaa9d220&ei=5007&part ner=USERLAND)
This compromise would put all works created more than 50 years ago that no longer generate revenue to to be put into the public domain. This compromise would have the effect of enriching the public domain, thus helping for more works to be created, while not damaging the revenues of any companies or persons who depend upon the copyrighted work. I urge you to look at this proprosal, and propose a bill in congress of the like.
Sincerely,
Me
You can write your congressperson in the house at http://www.house.gov/writerep/
I'm currently running a company while being in school. The number one thing that you need is time managment. I have all my classes on Mondays and weds. I spend all day on campus, and do all my homework in between classes. Then I have all the other days of the week fully open to do work and what ever needs to be done. You might be able to do the same with evening courses, but I know with my business I need to work a lot of evenings. If you schedule your time right, you can definetly get it done.
I've read just about every book you've written, and through your author notes, its pretty apparent that you're not afraid to change with the times and technology. My question for you is, through all of your years of writing, what was the hardest change in technology that you ever did? And what was the best change-over that you did?
Let say America withdraws from the Outer Space Treaty. In 20 years, 95% of mars is controlled by America. The only way that this can be seen as good is if you are looking at it with the view that america is superior to every other nation there is. We may be richer, but it is a far cry to call us superior. Then lets look at another provision of the treaty, no Weapons of Mass destruction in outer space. Under Bush's National Missile defense system, he never ruled out using a space based system, including some sort of laser platforms. So then we have weapons of mass destruction in outer space. Wonderful.
It doesn't matter why or for what reasons the treaty was accepted by AMERICANS. What matters is what it does. The outer space treaty is basis for the outer space policy of the United Nations, and therefore of the 189 member states of the United Nations. But obviosly we know better than all of them.
As far as I'm concerned, Bush has a horrible record as far as treaties go (KYOTO anyone?), and I would not trust him to withdraw from the outer space treaty and then be responsible.
Why not simply set up one of your machines as the router. Hook the internet into it. THen hook that into your network, since I assume right now your only using the switch part of the linksys box anyway. THis will turn the main machine into a router. If you want to be able to dial out from any machine in the network, you could use something like VNC or pcanywhere. You can then sell the linksys box and just get a switch, using the money for other things. Windows XP makes all of the networking INSANLY easy. Just run Network Setup Wizard.
Best part...
Maybe you're comfortable with being lost in a crowd of millions of Internet surfers, enjoying the same kind of anonymity an ant enjoys in his hive. But did you click on that suggestive banner ad out of random curiosity or because they gotcha?
A outfit such as AccessMicro could save you some serious time too. I just built a system, and I got the MB, RAM(DDR333) and Proc(XP1700), pre-assembled from them. They test it all and it comes with a warrenty. ANd they're not bad priced either. With as many as your getting, you may even get a break. If you figure the amount of time it would take you to build what they're giving you, plus the time you save on not dealing with lemon MB, Proc or Ram,(which your bound to get with that many machines.) It couls well be something to look at.
Just this last week, I was attempting to set up the VPN in a netscreen 5xp. I got all the IPs from my TI company, set my router up, and then got down to the 5xp. First, the documentation was absolutly horrible, as in almost non-existent. The extent that I had was in the WebUI, (accesible via the IP address of the router) They had a help button and a support button in there. Unfortently, the buttons just opened up a web browser pointing to a section of their web site. This didn't work all that well, the the firewall decided to block all my outgoing traffic. I call the tech support, average hold time of 10-15 minutes. I called a total of 6 times, and talked to 5 differnet people. Mostly they would read from scripts (I did get 2 people who seemed to know a little), telling me to do things that had no relation to the problem. Then they would tell me that it was my T1 providers fault, and to call them, and then call back. That was over 8 hours spent, and the problem still isn't solved. I got so sick of talking to them, I gave up for the week. I think the most annoying part was I would say something, and the "tech" wouldn't say anything for a minute or two, while he read his script. I probelly spent over an hour friday just listening to silence!
I've been thinking about building a similar type thing myself. Take a good, metal briefcase. Go to your local computer hobby shop, and pick up a small motherboard, perferably with intigrated ethernet/modem, etc. Throw in a video and sound card, whatever proc you like, etc. Put it in the bottom of the briefcase so that the sound and video are flush with the side. Cut two rectangular holes in the side, so that the cards can have the plugs sticking out, just like in a case. Mount a sheet of metal above this. The keyboard and mouse rest there. In the top of the briefcase, take a flat screen (15in for under 300 now) cut off the stand and mount it in the top. Run the cords to a small surge that fits in the case, and cut a door for the cable to come out and plug in. I'm sure something could be done for battery power. There, for not much more than a normal desktop, you have a portable powerhouse, that will do whatever you want.
High school is the final stage between being a child and being an adult. It is a time when you mature, and start to think as an adult. With less oversight from parents, you are forced to think for yourself, and this prepares you for the world after you turn the magical age of 18. However, with a system like this, where does the independent thinking come in? With parents controlling not only your life at home, but also your life at school, where do you learn the necessary skills to be an adult. Where do you learn independence, free-thinking, and most importantly, the real-life consequences of you decisions, not the parent consequences for your decisions?
I always wished I had joined in it, never had time I guess. But I knew people in it, and like other extracuricular activities, they gained more from robotics than from any classes. This is what we need more of in K-12. It is the learning that one gains from activities such as this that stay with someone, not what they learned in some Health class. These are our future engineers, and hey, they may actually enjoy their jobs.
I don't see a problem with having ads in games as long as they are part of the scenery. I.E., billboards in racing, coke machine on a corner, something that you would normally see in really life. By adding realism, it could improve the gameplay. I think the problems would occur when the ads are too there, such as a scenery composed entirely of billboard, or putting ads where they don't belong, such as a character wearing a coke tee-shirt in everquest.
There is also the possibility that this could bring down the price of games, if game companies use the extra profits from advertising to lower the cost of games, making them more accessible, thus gaining a bigger advertising base. Sounds like a impossible idea, but odder things have happened.
A process wherein through the vibration of certain throat muscles in a certain way and order, sound waves emit from the mouth, in such a way that anyone in a 5 mile radias may hear. Otherwise known as shouting.
I remember reading an article many months ago concerning the speed of the Crusoe processor(No clue where at, anyone know?). In the article it talked of how when designing the chip, the people at Transmeta, being of mostly non-windows backgrounds, didn't take into account all the intricacies that Microsoft puts in their OS, and thus when they finally tested it on Windows, to bombed, vs. great performance on other OS's. They then went back and did some redesigning to bring the performance up, however, it still acts slower than it is under windows. This was quite a while ago, so hopefully someone can point to a newer source of news on this.
-_-CarpeDiem_-_
Slashdot Mirror
I use http://www.gmail-backup.com/ to backup my gmail accounts. It works with regular gmail and google apps gmail. It has a click and backup view, but I use the cmd line interface to automate a daily backup of all my mail and labels to a folder as .eml files. It also lets you restore to gmail if needed. It has a few quirks, but over all is very useful.
You should use some sort of Image program, such as Acronis, ghost, etc. You should be able to set it up to image the system upon boot. That way, whatever the renters do, the system will be imaged, and all will be well.
Lining the walls with lead...
On slashdot, everyone talks about what is the best tax software, but no one seems to mention much whether or not tax software is the best for your situation.
The thing to remember is that tax law is very, very complicated, and tax software is programmed to work for the lowest common denominator of user. Thus the software is not neccisarily going to give you the biggest refund. And more importently, the tax software cannot give you advice on how to best position yourself to reduce your tax liabilty in future years.
I used turbotax online few years back and got a refund, and I was happy. The following year I talked to a very experianced tax preparer, and he did my taxes that year and redid them for the past year. My refund for the past year was quadrupled. An experianced tax preparer was able (honestly and legally), to get me four times as much money back, compared to turbotax.
So before you decide what software to use to do your taxes, first decide whether software is the best way to do your taxes.
This is not a statically valid survey.
We asked the question: "Microsoft users are getting fed up. They're battered by worms, viruses, security patches and increasing enterprise licensing costs. Aggravation has users talking about switching from Microsoft software to something else. We're trying to figure out how much of that talk is just talk, and how much is serious action. Do you seriously plan to dump Microsoft software?"
A question like this is very leading, and is likely to induce a testing effect, in which the actual asking of the question, and they way it is asked, changes the answer the survey taker gives. You can't preface a question by talking about how horrible microsoft is. The question should simply say: "Do you plan to switch from Microsoft sofware?" That would be much more statistically valid, and I can almost guarantee would lead to a diffent percentage of answers. That being said, I agree with the "41%".
I use the Dlink DCS1000w (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=41) in my business. Its a IP based webcam with built in 802.11b. It supports encryption to whatever base station that you use, and you can access it from anywhere on the web, with a username and password. You can get decent streaming over a good dsl connection. Or simply look at a screenshot. Its a very nice device, if you are willing to spend the money.
http://www.dlink.com/products/multimedia/dvc1000/ and a tv, and a broadband internet connection.
Recently the Supreme Court decided against Eldred in Eldred v. Ashcroft. As you know, this means that copyright can be extended for an additional 20 years. The lawyer for Eldred in that case, Lawrence Lessig, has proposed a congressional compromise. (NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/opinion/18LESS.h tml?ex=1043470800&en=97d153dccaa9d220&ei=5007&part ner=USERLAND)
This compromise would put all works created more than 50 years ago that no longer generate revenue to to be put into the public domain. This compromise would have the effect of enriching the public domain, thus helping for more works to be created, while not damaging the revenues of any companies or persons who depend upon the copyrighted work. I urge you to look at this proprosal, and propose a bill in congress of the like.
Sincerely,
Me
You can write your congressperson in the house at http://www.house.gov/writerep/
House and Senate:
http://www.congress.org/
I was in a question/answer session with them a couple years ago, and at that time they said they didn't have a problem with it.
I'm currently running a company while being in school. The number one thing that you need is time managment. I have all my classes on Mondays and weds. I spend all day on campus, and do all my homework in between classes. Then I have all the other days of the week fully open to do work and what ever needs to be done. You might be able to do the same with evening courses, but I know with my business I need to work a lot of evenings. If you schedule your time right, you can definetly get it done.
I've read just about every book you've written, and through your author notes, its pretty apparent that you're not afraid to change with the times and technology. My question for you is, through all of your years of writing, what was the hardest change in technology that you ever did? And what was the best change-over that you did?
Let say America withdraws from the Outer Space Treaty. In 20 years, 95% of mars is controlled by America. The only way that this can be seen as good is if you are looking at it with the view that america is superior to every other nation there is. We may be richer, but it is a far cry to call us superior. Then lets look at another provision of the treaty, no Weapons of Mass destruction in outer space. Under Bush's National Missile defense system, he never ruled out using a space based system, including some sort of laser platforms. So then we have weapons of mass destruction in outer space. Wonderful.
It doesn't matter why or for what reasons the treaty was accepted by AMERICANS. What matters is what it does. The outer space treaty is basis for the outer space policy of the United Nations, and therefore of the 189 member states of the United Nations. But obviosly we know better than all of them.
As far as I'm concerned, Bush has a horrible record as far as treaties go (KYOTO anyone?), and I would not trust him to withdraw from the outer space treaty and then be responsible.
Why not simply set up one of your machines as the router. Hook the internet into it. THen hook that into your network, since I assume right now your only using the switch part of the linksys box anyway. THis will turn the main machine into a router. If you want to be able to dial out from any machine in the network, you could use something like VNC or pcanywhere. You can then sell the linksys box and just get a switch, using the money for other things. Windows XP makes all of the networking INSANLY easy. Just run Network Setup Wizard.
Best part...
Maybe you're comfortable with being lost in a crowd of millions of Internet surfers, enjoying the same kind of anonymity an ant enjoys in his hive.
But did you click on that suggestive banner ad out of random curiosity or because they gotcha?
A outfit such as AccessMicro could save you some serious time too. I just built a system, and I got the MB, RAM(DDR333) and Proc(XP1700), pre-assembled from them. They test it all and it comes with a warrenty. ANd they're not bad priced either. With as many as your getting, you may even get a break. If you figure the amount of time it would take you to build what they're giving you, plus the time you save on not dealing with lemon MB, Proc or Ram,(which your bound to get with that many machines.) It couls well be something to look at.
Just this last week, I was attempting to set up the VPN in a netscreen 5xp. I got all the IPs from my TI company, set my router up, and then got down to the 5xp. First, the documentation was absolutly horrible, as in almost non-existent. The extent that I had was in the WebUI, (accesible via the IP address of the router) They had a help button and a support button in there. Unfortently, the buttons just opened up a web browser pointing to a section of their web site. This didn't work all that well, the the firewall decided to block all my outgoing traffic. I call the tech support, average hold time of 10-15 minutes. I called a total of 6 times, and talked to 5 differnet people. Mostly they would read from scripts (I did get 2 people who seemed to know a little), telling me to do things that had no relation to the problem. Then they would tell me that it was my T1 providers fault, and to call them, and then call back. That was over 8 hours spent, and the problem still isn't solved. I got so sick of talking to them, I gave up for the week. I think the most annoying part was I would say something, and the "tech" wouldn't say anything for a minute or two, while he read his script. I probelly spent over an hour friday just listening to silence!
I've been thinking about building a similar type thing myself. Take a good, metal briefcase. Go to your local computer hobby shop, and pick up a small motherboard, perferably with intigrated ethernet/modem, etc. Throw in a video and sound card, whatever proc you like, etc. Put it in the bottom of the briefcase so that the sound and video are flush with the side. Cut two rectangular holes in the side, so that the cards can have the plugs sticking out, just like in a case. Mount a sheet of metal above this. The keyboard and mouse rest there. In the top of the briefcase, take a flat screen (15in for under 300 now) cut off the stand and mount it in the top. Run the cords to a small surge that fits in the case, and cut a door for the cable to come out and plug in. I'm sure something could be done for battery power. There, for not much more than a normal desktop, you have a portable powerhouse, that will do whatever you want.
High school is the final stage between being a child and being an adult. It is a time when you mature, and start to think as an adult. With less oversight from parents, you are forced to think for yourself, and this prepares you for the world after you turn the magical age of 18. However, with a system like this, where does the independent thinking come in? With parents controlling not only your life at home, but also your life at school, where do you learn the necessary skills to be an adult. Where do you learn independence, free-thinking, and most importantly, the real-life consequences of you decisions, not the parent consequences for your decisions?
I always wished I had joined in it, never had time I guess. But I knew people in it, and like other extracuricular activities, they gained more from robotics than from any classes. This is what we need more of in K-12. It is the learning that one gains from activities such as this that stay with someone, not what they learned in some Health class. These are our future engineers, and hey, they may actually enjoy their jobs.
I don't see a problem with having ads in games as long as they are part of the scenery. I.E., billboards in racing, coke machine on a corner, something that you would normally see in really life. By adding realism, it could improve the gameplay. I think the problems would occur when the ads are too there, such as a scenery composed entirely of billboard, or putting ads where they don't belong, such as a character wearing a coke tee-shirt in everquest.
There is also the possibility that this could bring down the price of games, if game companies use the extra profits from advertising to lower the cost of games, making them more accessible, thus gaining a bigger advertising base. Sounds like a impossible idea, but odder things have happened.
A process wherein through the vibration of certain throat muscles in a certain way and order, sound waves emit from the mouth, in such a way that anyone in a 5 mile radias may hear. Otherwise known as shouting.
I remember reading an article many months ago concerning the speed of the Crusoe processor(No clue where at, anyone know?). In the article it talked of how when designing the chip, the people at Transmeta, being of mostly non-windows backgrounds, didn't take into account all the intricacies that Microsoft puts in their OS, and thus when they finally tested it on Windows, to bombed, vs. great performance on other OS's. They then went back and did some redesigning to bring the performance up, however, it still acts slower than it is under windows. This was quite a while ago, so hopefully someone can point to a newer source of news on this. -_-CarpeDiem_-_