I put mine in my bay window (my wife is tolerant;). I made it out of foam board, tin foil (reflector), wire so I could move it easily. The best way to make one is to make a large flat box with a face large enough to contain the two zigzag wires of the antenna. The box should be 10 cm thick (see right side of diagram). Put tin foil in the bottom on the inside (reflector). Bend two wires into the zigzag shapes and tap to the top on the outside. Buy a balun (two antenna wires -> coax) and two screw/nut sets to screw the balun to the wire in the middle (as shown on the plans). Connect the balun to your converter with a coax cable. We are getting Boston signals from 50 miles or so. Our only issue has been rain degrading the signal.
Build one of these. Made a huge difference for me when I switched in Spring of 2008. I used steel picture wire. Other's have used copper wire, aluminum wire, or copper piping. It's directional so make sure you build it to be movable.
I have two firsts. My first load of Linux was in late 1998 with the help of WLUG (wlug.org). I wanted to try coloring my mecha sketches on this new beta software that people were talking about called 'The GIMP'. It was some version of RedHat. The second first was the first time I did a non-trivial install myself. I cobbled together an AXPCI Alpha PC and spent some long nights getting milo to boot without using a floppy and building the latest kernel.
Copyright is about the right to copy, right? In this case existing copies simply move around. Unless people are renting illegal copies of books, I don't see the relationship between a pay-to-use case and copyright law. Are they saying that Netflix is illegal? What about libraries? It seems like this would only be an issue if the buyers of the books accepted a shrink wrap license that prohibits rental when they opened the book for the first time - enforceability of such licenses notwithstanding.
Ya know... Someone could just construct a "rights association" for some medium and start hitting people up for cash under threat of lawsuit. Given the fear of today's lawsuit-happy media companies, such a scam could go on some time unnoticed.
In my testing, I found my cheapo Dell had two bottle-necks: Ram and disk. 1GB/VM, while not required, made playtime considerably more pleasant. I only have 3GB. Also, one VM doing heavy disk I/O pauses the machine. I am thinking about adding a software-striped pair of disks inside for the VMs and backing the VM images up regularly.
At some point, if not already, Google will realize how much power they have. In my experience, companies eventually act primarily in their own interests. I think Google will choose more and more to use that power for their benefit, rather than the benefit of their customers. "Do no evil" indicates they knew their potential power from day one. At this point, if they wanted to "do evil," it would be hard to stop them.
is similar, except simpler and AA powered. More to the point, it's actually for sale:-).
Also, while the Phillips' thermoelectric generator is really cool, I suspect it AAs+{solar,hand,etc}charger may be more available around the world. Fixing the generator might pretty challenging in certain parts of the world. OTOH, Phillips has some pretty good engineering chops, so maybe it never needs fixing!:-D
Of course, having really liked Psion's past designs, I think it would be really cool for Psion to take another crack at the (renewed) market. They have the design chops. They also have a nice non-Intel platform in the Nano. Just a thought.
Because trademark cases can sometimes take *a long time* to resolve. If the effort to clear "netbook" fails in the end, Psion may be able to get major payments from anyone who made money from it before the case was resolved. That may include regular folks, like you and I, who may get Ad Sense income from blogging about "netbooks." IANAL, but, in my humble opinion, quickly working around the situation would make everyone's lives easier.
OTOH, If Psion just settled with the big guys and then released the name, we can all move on.
Looks like netbooks may need a new name, for now... I recently did a whois search across all the prefixes and suffixes I could think of for small laptops (mobile-,mini-, -top, -book, etc.: net,com,org) All the.coms,.nets, and most.orgs were taken. Would one of you who has a short catchy one of these domains step forward to offer the name to the community?
For years everyone has been whining about the shortcomings of FAT16/32. Now everyone whines that Microsoft wants money for it. I challenge the FOSS community to create/adapt an alternative FS and write drivers for the major OSs, including an IFS driver for Windows*, all licensed in a way acceptable to hardware vendors. Lord knows, we have plenty of existing FSs to pick from...
Got my wife an Ubuntu Mini 9 (up-spec'd) for her writing. She loves it. She writes in OO.o on it, NeoOffice on the Mac, and Google Docs elsewhere. I recently started using it to do math work (python, octave, lyx), since it fits on the desk nicely next my texts and weighs less than most of 'em. Wow. I can't recommend it enough. If you have large hands though, wait for the Mini 10 or get the 12. The keys on the Mini 9 are pretty small;-).
If you don't have an immediate use, liquidate them while they still have value. IME, they will cost you hundreds to recycle later:-/... OTOH, they are a sunk cost to the business, so hanging on to them could be useful - if you think the business will need to scale up again at some point.
Slashdot Mirror
Great - more vaporware from Bill Gates... ;-)
I put mine in my bay window (my wife is tolerant ;). I made it out of foam board, tin foil (reflector), wire so I could move it easily. The best way to make one is to make a large flat box with a face large enough to contain the two zigzag wires of the antenna. The box should be 10 cm thick (see right side of diagram). Put tin foil in the bottom on the inside (reflector). Bend two wires into the zigzag shapes and tap to the top on the outside. Buy a balun (two antenna wires -> coax) and two screw/nut sets to screw the balun to the wire in the middle (as shown on the plans). Connect the balun to your converter with a coax cable. We are getting Boston signals from 50 miles or so. Our only issue has been rain degrading the signal.
Build one of these. Made a huge difference for me when I switched in Spring of 2008. I used steel picture wire. Other's have used copper wire, aluminum wire, or copper piping. It's directional so make sure you build it to be movable.
http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/design.htm
In my experience, making sure kids get enough daily exercise really helps with ADHD symptoms in the classroom.
I have two firsts. My first load of Linux was in late 1998 with the help of WLUG (wlug.org). I wanted to try coloring my mecha sketches on this new beta software that people were talking about called 'The GIMP'. It was some version of RedHat. The second first was the first time I did a non-trivial install myself. I cobbled together an AXPCI Alpha PC and spent some long nights getting milo to boot without using a floppy and building the latest kernel.
Just for fun, someone should program two botnets to adapt themselves and hate each other and then see what happens. ;-)
Copyright is about the right to copy, right? In this case existing copies simply move around. Unless people are renting illegal copies of books, I don't see the relationship between a pay-to-use case and copyright law. Are they saying that Netflix is illegal? What about libraries? It seems like this would only be an issue if the buyers of the books accepted a shrink wrap license that prohibits rental when they opened the book for the first time - enforceability of such licenses notwithstanding.
-Ghostis
Ya know... Someone could just construct a "rights association" for some medium and start hitting people up for cash under threat of lawsuit. Given the fear of today's lawsuit-happy media companies, such a scam could go on some time unnoticed.
This may be a good method to help parts of the ocean where the food chain is in trouble.
In my testing, I found my cheapo Dell had two bottle-necks: Ram and disk. 1GB/VM, while not required, made playtime considerably more pleasant. I only have 3GB. Also, one VM doing heavy disk I/O pauses the machine. I am thinking about adding a software-striped pair of disks inside for the VMs and backing the VM images up regularly.
-Adam
You managed to include both Nazis and Communists in a comparison regarding a cell phone. You, sir, win an Internet for hyperbole.
Where you're not just a name.. You're a number!
Fear of Anonymous Cowards is a serious issue. They should get help.
At some point, if not already, Google will realize how much power they have. In my experience, companies eventually act primarily in their own interests. I think Google will choose more and more to use that power for their benefit, rather than the benefit of their customers. "Do no evil" indicates they knew their potential power from day one. At this point, if they wanted to "do evil," it would be hard to stop them.
-Ghostis
http://www.zzstove.com/sierra.html
is similar, except simpler and AA powered. More to the point, it's actually for sale :-).
Also, while the Phillips' thermoelectric generator is really cool, I suspect it AAs+{solar,hand,etc}charger may be more available around the world. Fixing the generator might pretty challenging in certain parts of the world. OTOH, Phillips has some pretty good engineering chops, so maybe it never needs fixing! :-D
-Ghostis
Of course, having really liked Psion's past designs, I think it would be really cool for Psion to take another crack at the (renewed) market. They have the design chops. They also have a nice non-Intel platform in the Nano. Just a thought.
Because trademark cases can sometimes take *a long time* to resolve. If the effort to clear "netbook" fails in the end, Psion may be able to get major payments from anyone who made money from it before the case was resolved. That may include regular folks, like you and I, who may get Ad Sense income from blogging about "netbooks." IANAL, but, in my humble opinion, quickly working around the situation would make everyone's lives easier.
OTOH, If Psion just settled with the big guys and then released the name, we can all move on.
-Ghostis
Looks like netbooks may need a new name, for now... I recently did a whois search across all the prefixes and suffixes I could think of for small laptops (mobile-,mini-, -top, -book, etc.: net,com,org) All the .coms, .nets, and most .orgs were taken. Would one of you who has a short catchy one of these domains step forward to offer the name to the community?
-Ghostis
For years everyone has been whining about the shortcomings of FAT16/32. Now everyone whines that Microsoft wants money for it. I challenge the FOSS community to create/adapt an alternative FS and write drivers for the major OSs, including an IFS driver for Windows*, all licensed in a way acceptable to hardware vendors. Lord knows, we have plenty of existing FSs to pick from...
My .02,
-Ghostis
Also, I zapped the cutesy Dell menu (it's a menu setting) and the yahoo toolbar package on day one.
Got my wife an Ubuntu Mini 9 (up-spec'd) for her writing. She loves it. She writes in OO.o on it, NeoOffice on the Mac, and Google Docs elsewhere. I recently started using it to do math work (python, octave, lyx), since it fits on the desk nicely next my texts and weighs less than most of 'em. Wow. I can't recommend it enough. If you have large hands though, wait for the Mini 10 or get the 12. The keys on the Mini 9 are pretty small ;-).
-Ghostis
If you don't have an immediate use, liquidate them while they still have value. IME, they will cost you hundreds to recycle later :-/... OTOH, they are a sunk cost to the business, so hanging on to them could be useful - if you think the business will need to scale up again at some point.
-Ghostis
and thus zmollusc was enlightened.
I use a Neuros OSD and the cheapest DTV converter box I could find. If you can, find a converter that the Neuros OSD universal remote understands.
-ghostis
That's a great suggestion. Hmmm... It could be the core of a business plan ;-).
-Ghostis