... I would rather it be BR-DVD that wins the fight. Especially since they are the only ones to announce that they will support full 1080i over component (at least for the time being). Once they start supporting something like that, they will be able to clearly see the number of people they were going to screw if and when they try to test using only DVI/HDMI+HDCP connections. I predict a decent amount of complains of "This movie looks like crap", or "Why is the picture so horrible on this movie?", etc., kind of reactions which will spread around and people will not buy it because of poor quality causing the sales of said movie to bomb. Other movie producers etc., will see that statistic and say "Hell no you can't release that movie crippled like that"....
I can tell you right away why I havn't purchased any CD's lately. It is because the crap that is made now is just that, crap. I mean I am sure there are some songs here and there that are good, but certainly not enough to cause me to go to a store and buy a CD for 1 song...
What ever happened to "albums"? I mean actual pieces of work which as a WHOLE are something more then the individual songs? When was the last time there was something like that?
Let me put it this way, I am probably the quintesential, ideal, perfect market that the Music Industry is looking for. I have lots of disposible income, I have invested tens of thousands of dollars in high quality speakers, pre-processors, amplifiers, tuners, and CD transports (including DVD audio and SACD transports). But there is one big problem here. Just about everything produced now is crap. Even if the songs themselves are good songs, the post production that occurs completely destroys the music. Songs are all "compressed" and "boosted" (in other words, they remove all the dynamics of the music by "compressing" the amplitude of instruments/sounds/effects to make the overall "loudness" of the song higher, because heaven forbid the song that plays after mine have be 3-4db louder on the radio, people will think that it is because the music is worse...).
The music has been removed from the song. Go listen to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and listen to the dynamics within the songs. Listen to how the album itself is an entire work in itself. Focus on the quality of the post production work. This is the problem with having good systems, you hear ALL the flaws in the CD itself. A high quality piece of music will sound unbelievably realistic and immerse you into the music. But a poorly done CD will sould like garbage with all the audio artifacts caused by compressing the sound amplitude or loss of signal detail caused by using poor analog to digital converters or conversion dropoff being displayed for everyone to hear in all its ugliness.
P.S. yes, I own an iPod, but prefer to use WAV files on it when possible. It doesn't make a huge difference on the cheap headphones I use with it on the go, but it if very noticible when connected to my car, or home stereo...
Again, produce QUALITY work and a lot of people will buy it. Make crap, well, don't expect me to even take a sniff, let alone think of purchasing.
Yes, and you do know that HDMI+HDCP is converted to DVI+HDCP with the simple change of a few pin positions don't you? There is no electical or algorithm needed to "transcode" from a HDMI to a DVI connection. The only thing at issue is the loss of the audio portion of the signal. There are MANY devices out there that are capible to grabbing that data and putting it onto another wire, Gefen for example makes several devices that convert from HDMI v1.1+HDCP to DVI+HDCP and analog L+R, or DVI+HDCP and optical toshlink, or DVI+HDCP and copper SPDIF. There are also HUNDREDS of other converts that simply drop the audio portion of the stream and will convert the cable from HDMI+HDCP to DVI+HDCP, since the "stream" itself is never changed, only the form-factor of the connection device (just like how you can take an ethernet cable with a RJ45 endpiece and instead of it being a straight patch cable, cut one end off, re-wire a few of the pins, crimp on another RJ45 endpice and bingo, you now have a crossover, well that is exactly how it works with HDMI->DVI, you cut off the end, strip out a few of the wires which will not be used, re-arrange the others, and crimp on a DVI end piece...).
Guys, these devices already exist. They are DVI+HDCP to VGA converters. If you don't have a VGA input, you can get a VGA to component transcoder. There is a way around this, just costs money.
This isn't the only place that sells these types of things. Component can not send a 1080p signal, so that you will lose, but at least you can get 720p or 1080i out of it.
Ok, where to begin. Laptops are a great "addition" to any and all computing infrastructures, but they will in no way ever replace good desktop systems with current hardware limitations. Yes, laptops are absolutely wonderfull for in class work and great for bringing your work to professors and TA's.
But look above, I emphasize "addition" for a reason. They are not a replacement for true computing labs with high performance hardware and licensed software, especially since the colledge/university does not own OR maintain the systems. Yes, they are great from the standpoint that they will reduce your out of pocket costs of maintaining a lab full of high end computers, since the school no longer needs to support that infrastructure, but they are simply moving the costs around. The costs will now move to the students and IT help centers because you no longer have the ability to roll out massive patch sets, automate software installations, upgrades, or security patches. Now you are relying on students to keep their systems running properly, and most if not all of those students can bairly tell you the difference between a Mac or an IBM, let alone be expected to be able to patch their system or configure it to connect to your networks securely. The overhead for fixing these systems will easilly overwhelm your current IT department if they are the ones expected to handle the problems that crop up.
Let us not even get into the issues with software such as photoshop licenses, since you are now no longer in control of the license due to the student being the owner of the computer. You will effectively be requiring the students to need to purchase a full license of photoshop or AutoCAD or Mathmatica for their own use since there will no longer be any school operated systems which they can gain access to the programs. This is adding several thousands of dollars of cost burden onto all students, many of who may decide that they do not like graphics art and change to become an english major or some other major that will never use a full version of photoshop, which means they just wasted all that money.
There are many schools that have embraced laptops, but they are an addition to the rest of their computing systems. My college converted at least 3 major computer labs from your standard desktop setups to hot stations for use with student owned laptops. BUT they still kept very close to the same number of desktop systems throughout the campus, basically moving the desktops to smaller new labs. The students mostly purchased laptops on their own because the entire campus had wireless connectivity which made it easy to just bring the laptop to class and take your notes, etc., on it and work on assignments between class. But when things required true horsepower, they used the regular computer labs or a regular home desktop system to do the work. The laptops were and still are a convience system, not a real replacement for true dedicated computing labs.
So I personnally would try to convince they person who has this hairbrained idea in his or her head that it isn't going to fly for reason X, Y, and Z, or go job hunting because when the stuff starts hitting the fan it will be blowing in the direction of the IT department staff who doesn't have the power or ability to fix the problems generated on systems they do not own, but will be blaimed by the students because the students can not get their assignments completed on their laptops...
Computer Infrastructure:
Sun UltraSparc60 w/ 2x 450 Sparc 2i CPU's, 2 GB RAM, 2x 10GB 10k RPM SCSI (Webserver, Database Server)
Intel P4C 3.0GHz, 4GB RAM, 1.5 TB disk space (Fileserver)
AMD Athlon X2 4400+, 2GB RAM, 600GB disk space, nVidia 7800GTX, Dual TV Tuners (Home Theater PC/media center)
2 laptops
2 other PC's used for webbrowsing and word processing
Yeah, my network is a little overkill now that I have the GigE switch. I also have some other appliances in the home which use the network, GameCube, PS2, etc., which use up a number of my network ports, which is the reason that I have so many. But out of all this, my battery backup is what really keeps me going strong. I can keep my main infrastructure (fileserver, wireless router, GigE, cable modem, media center PC, etc.) all powered for about 45 minutes before the computers are automatically shutdown. I have been debating getting the extended battery packs for the UPS's I have which would make them 3000VA each, but I think that might be a little overkill.....
There is a very simple solution here that will alieviate a LOT of the reasons people will hack or want to get the hacked OS. Just sell it seperate. Yeah I know, that means a lot more hardware support, well, there is a VERY simple solution to that, leave the hardware support up to the hardware manufacturers, and let the customers know that if it is not on the "approved hardware" list, that it is unsupported and they are on their own to get it working, or SOL. The biggest reason that Apple has always had about not selling the OS itself is the fact that it only worked on their own hardware. In a sense, they did sell it, though, as upgrades to older systems. Well, guess what, now it runs on x86 hardware... why in the world would you want to limit your market? You have a product, and a good one, but you put an artificial limit of your own on what you will allow it to be used on, which effectively cuts you out of 99% of the market that would potentially purchase your product, and for what reason? Because you don't want to support all that different hardware? Guys get a clue from Sun Microsystems, Solaris 10 x86 is out there available for purchase, but if you don't have supported hardware, well you are SOL for that piece of hardware. You are free to hack away at it to see if you can get that hardware to work, but don't go crying to Sun if it doesn't because they warned you ahead of time. All Apple needs to do is the same thing and I am certain that there would be a LOT of sales generated, which to Apple is basically FREE MONEY!!! I mean, really, it is like they have their own money printing machines, but they stamp out CD's or DVD's and place them in boxes, which then get "exchanged" at the going exchange rate. It only costs a few dollars to make the copy of the physical media, box it, and ship it, why not bring in all the money they can? It is just assinine if they do not.
It had some overheating problems a couple years back. Turns out it needed a new fan (imagin that a fan would die in 20 years of use and dust, dirt, fuzz... ). Once I took it apart and replaced the fan and cleaned out all the dust, it is running like it's good old self. Now if I could just find the hard disk enclosure or a disk drive for it, the tape load system is just painfully slow, although it is nothing like having your favorite program's "song" memorized to let you know how far it is in the load process...
This is no different then using biometrics to secure the door, and there is a huge flaw in that. If a group of people attack an installation that uses biometrics (or in this case RFID), all this means is that they attack/kill/capture a guard/other who has access to the area and uses their handprint, eyes, or in this case arm with the RFID chip to open the door. The same will go for key cards, the tactics change very little, the armed group finds and kills the first guard they can find and if they can do so without that guard getting out an alarm, they will usually have at least several minutes before their presence will even be known.
They just want our email addresses now so they can sell to every spam company in existance, that is all. I mean, its a great plan. They know for a fact that everyone has access to mail, but not everyone has access to the web. I think the only real good thing about this now is that we will no longer need to send in the UPC code which may get "lost" and deny you the rebate.
At first glance it looks like the groupings have MS as a better OS in terms of CERT warnings, but not even that, look at how the bins are made which group the numbers together.
Basically UNIX (BSD, Solaris, AIX, IRIX, SCO, OS X), and ALL LINUX distributions are counts as ONE (1) bin, against MS Windows!!! So, have basically EVERY popular mainstream operating system other then Windows in one bin and windows in another, and you are trying to toute THAT as a stat that Windows has less flaws then Unix/Linux? Sure, it does when you count ALL VERSIONS OF UNIX AND LINUX TOGETHER AND ADD UP ALL THE VULNERBILITIES FOUND IN ALL THE DIFFERENT VERSIONS!!!!!
THEN there is the fact that different CERT warnings appear multiple times! For instance, Eric Raymond Fetchmail POP3 Client Buffer Overflow (Updated) is counted at least 4 times under the SAME NAME, and at least 1 more time under a different name, but it is still the same vulnerbility!!!
I mean come on... A 105" screen from 12 feet away... For THX standards, a 4:3 screen of 105" (diagonal assumed due to way computer screen size is measured) should actually be viewed from 10' 9 1/4", not 12 feet.
This is what they were designed to do in the first place. Group level permissions allow people who work in the same "work group" to also have a permission level to all their "group" product files.
Basically you need to have your entire filesystem layout setup properly, with "project" areas where each "project" has its own directory tree with setgid for the project's group on all the main directory and sub directories. Each major "project" would have a group setup for it. Then all file permissions would be covered by anyone in the group, or possibly a "project's lead" who keeps track of all the groups and knows what permissions should be set to different areas (i.e. for data sharing between projects etc.).
Once the infrastructure is in place, the worst thing that happens is that a person is not a member of the "group" and just needs a helpdesk call/form to gain group access ("ok'ed" by a lead member of the "group"). Basically something that can happen in 5-10 minutes time if implemented properly. With the setgid, all new files created in the areas will always be owned by the proper group, which has full access to chmod/chown those files (assuming someone doesn't do "chmod 700") but even then, cron jobs can be setup to run every hour or so that do a "chmod -R 770/" to any/all project areas (with the cron job removed if you need to lock the area down to no access).
This is how it should be done, no sudo needed. All the work is in the preperation, with true processes needing to be setup and implemented (basically a form/forms for creation of a "new group" (which includes group ownership as well as a box to transfer "ownership" to another person), another form/forms for requesting new data areas (with what group owns the area), and finally a form/forms for adding/removing members to/from the group which gets signed off by the current group owner). Optionally another form for "locking" a data area to keep all access out. Then it simply needs to go to the IT staff which then simply reads down the "process" document and verifies the data in/on the form and either creates a new directory (setting the setgid bit and setting proper group ownership), adds/remove a user to a group, creates a new group, or moves a user to the first name in the group file (for easy tracking of the group owner or updates a seperate documents with this information).
MAn have you been under a rock for the last year or so? The XBOX 360 was origionally DESIGNED for using a HD-DVD drive. But issues came up with its use (things like the standards not being finalized etc.) and since the whole plan of the XBOX 360 release was to beat everyone else to market to try and gain market share would not allow for such a delay, MS scrapped the HD-DVD in the first batch of the console.
Sony is still on track and hasn't been trying to push technology that isn't in existance/ready to market. They are still on track for spring/summer Japan release of PS3 and fall/winter USA release WITH BluRay.
Now I really don't know what format is better. Technically BluRay has the edge in capacity (54GB vs 45GB), which in reality should make it a better standard to use (9GB is a lot of extra space, almost 20% more capacity). But as you can see, since MS chose the HD-DVD standard for their XBOX line, they are now stuck in the situation of fighting against the technologically superior product. The origional reason for HD-DVD vs BluRay was due to manufacturing costs. But those issues have been overcome in the last year, making the two products about the same cost to make.
I hope that someone does sue MS on this. They should not be using their OS market to force a media standard to the public. Even without a court battle, I still feel that BluRay will win the format war. MS hasn't done as well as they were hoping with the international release of the XBox which means that most are waiting on the PS3, which WILL put a BluRay player in every home that gets one, unlike the XBox which did not even initially ship with a HD-DVD player (if it had, we might be seeing a different outcome of this format war, but it wasn't included).
Come one guys. I sure wouldn't be flaunting the it consumes less power then the AMD X2 spec too much. You are compairing a "MOBILE" CPU core against a "DESKTOP" CPU core. The only reason Anandtech used the AMD X2 as the benchmark and not the mobile Turion CPU is because the dual core Turion CPU's are not out yet, so comparing the performance of the Yonah dual core system against a single core just didn't make sense. Its like saying that a cellphone CPU uses less power then a laptop CPU.
I mean, really... It sounds a lot like CVS and even patch updates as well as partial backups, snapshot backups (from Network Appliance systems), and MANY other systems that have been in use for years.
Notible things are that the US Department of Labor statistics which are stating that there are more engineering jobs are really not tracking that. They are tracking that a person who has an engineering degree and worked as such until he/she was laid-off simply has a "job" (any job, flipping burgers, parking cars, clearing tables, etc.), so the data there can only simply state that these engineers have found a way to gain some form of income, nothing other then that.
The only area where I can say that a US engineering job is secure is in the defense sector where the engineers are required to be a US citizen to obtain a security clearance. If you are working anywhere else, well, you are replacible by a H1B or off-shoring of the department.
Now speaking about the department of labor:
"Employment of materials engineers is expected to grow more slowly than the average for all occupations through 2012."
http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos034.htm
"Employment of civil engineers is expected to increase more slowly than the average for all occupations through 2012."
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos030.htm
"Employment of electrical and electronics engineers is expected to grow more slowly than the average for all occupations through 2012."
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos031.htm
" As with other information technology jobs, employment growth of computer software engineers may be tempered somewhat by an increase in contracting out of software development abroad."
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos267.htm
"Computer hardware engineers may face competition for jobs because the number of degrees granted in this field has increased rapidly and because employment is expected grow more slowly than average."
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos266.htm
"Overall engineering employment is expected to grow more slowly than the average for all occupations over the 2002-12 period. Engineers tend to be concentrated in slow-growing manufacturing industries, a factor which tends to hold down their employment growth. Also, many employers are increasing their use of engineering services performed in other countries."
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm
Now, why don't we start this conversation again. The jobs for US engineers are simply not there. The companies that can off-shore, have been doing so, claiming that there are not enough US engineers. The IEEE charts show that there are about 120,000 EE's over the last 4 years out there who are not employed as EE's anymore. Yes, a portion of that may have died, gone to management, etc., but I would suggest that there is probably 50% of that number who would still work as an EE if the job opertunity was there... This is the reason why their salaries have not increased as "demand" increases, because the demand is false.
Here is the problem. All the "big" companies are stating that there is an "IT shortage" for workers. There isn't. What there IS a shortage of are "dirt cheap" IT workers in the USA. Really, think about it, the companies mis-quote left and right the number of graduates from the US and compair them against numbers from India and even China. Numbers that just simply do not corolate to each other. Compairing "degrees" from 4 year accredited colleges/universities against 2 year trade schools. Is there a portion of the numbers that will corolate, yes, but the counting system used for getting those numbers from India and China do not make a distinction between an accredited degree and one from a trade school.
Are there fewer and fewer students entering accredited universities in the US studying IT fields? YES. And you know what, the reason just might be because the big companies are outsourcing the jobs. There is a direct relation to the expected number of jobs available in 5 years to the number of students entering those fields of study. By saying that they will be outsourcing the positions, the companies create the very lack of qualified personnel that they cite they need to fill the positions in the first place.
Now here is what I get. Everyone wants to make a buck. The companies want to save money and still keep the same quality "product" that they have now. The people in the field who understand the science/technology want to be paid a fair wage for their work and knowledge. They have invested upwards of $100k into learning that knowledge, and want to be compensated appropriately for it. This basically turns into a "cost of living" issue when you get down to it. In the US, it costs more to gain that education, thus the people with it demand more compensation for the knowledge. In some other contries, that same education may not cost nearly as much, and as a result, the people with that education do not demand as much compensation for the knowledge.
What I do not get is why. Labor is just another commodity to be traded. As such, how much longer will it take for all non-physical labor to be traded at the lowest going rate? As a result of this, how much longer until the economic crash of the school systems in areas that charge higher then other institutions for a degree on a global scale?
I just have one "minor" beef with the review. For all the image quality tests in this, they are compairing the current generation ATI 1800XL (the low end, high end card) against a last generation nVidia middle line card. To be fair, it should be against the nVidia 7800GT... but who is really looking at these things anyway.
Will it make a whole lot of difference if a 7800GT was used or not? I don't know for sure, but at least it would be fresh apples vs fresh oranges comparison, not fresh apples vs moldy oranges... The 7800GT's have hardware H.264 and more hardware help for de-interlacing then the 6600 does. Do a fair comparison is all I can say.
I still do not know how they can call their "Open XML" open to begin with. It was basically MS dictating what the "standard" would be with no comments accepted from anyone in the community (asside from MS's internal community).
Just wondering. Did you get any decent amount of money for that huge ad? I sure hope you did since this probably sent more traffic their way then anything else has in the past.
Seriously, it is hard to make a decision such as the one you have asked, but you need to start looking at other universities and soon. They have already laid off all the professors. Yes, the degree will "technically exist" until the cutoff, but they have already gotten rid of the professors. What this means is that you will have all brand new temporary professors. Very few will have good technical/research experience and even fewer will have more then 1 year of experience teaching, even less will even have a master's degree let alone a doctorate. Why is that? Becuase very few people will want to take a possition at an institution knowing that it will only be for a year or two, and knowing full well that there will be almost no new funding since there is no point in funding a "dead" program, everything the department recieves will be any "left-overs" that might happen to exist from something.
In a way, this is good life experience for you, since this can happen out in the working world (and does more often then you think). You need to learn to jump ship when the first signs of major trouble occur. Well, knowing that the department will be gone most definitely is a "sign" of "major trouble". Your degree is something that is seen as a certificate of your worth and accomplishments. Many places will look at the reputation of your university and equate that with a level of knowledge/skill you possess. In 5-10 years from now when someone see's your degree from a place that doesn't even offer any related majors, your percieved worth will be much lower then some other university that still has a very strong engineering college. True, most of this can be easily explained in the interview process, but getting to that interview in the first place will be that much more difficult, since most large corporations have a huge disconnect already in terms of hiring engineering staff, so any small "possible red flag" on your resume and you are simple in the "out pile".
I say no, they won't need lots of real programmers. They only need 1 or 2 per game team to do the overall design and let the compilers do the rest. Since the real guts of it will be compiler optimization. If your lead designers do their job, the compiler will be able to do its job and everything will work like it should.
Its when you take old code from previous things and then try to do a direct port that you will see some issues in performance hits. But if designed from the ground up in terms of the code for a cell environment (or ANY CPU architecture), it is all in the hands of the few top level software design architechs to properly structure the overall workings of the game's code. Once the structure is correct, sending the bits and pieces that need to be made to the rest of the code monkeys is no problem, they just need to follow the UML or whatever other design docs they are specifically suppose to implement.
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I got a 26ms response and I am 27 years old. Now if I can only figure out how this can get me a raise...
I got first post!!!!
... I would rather it be BR-DVD that wins the fight. Especially since they are the only ones to announce that they will support full 1080i over component (at least for the time being). Once they start supporting something like that, they will be able to clearly see the number of people they were going to screw if and when they try to test using only DVI/HDMI+HDCP connections. I predict a decent amount of complains of "This movie looks like crap", or "Why is the picture so horrible on this movie?", etc., kind of reactions which will spread around and people will not buy it because of poor quality causing the sales of said movie to bomb. Other movie producers etc., will see that statistic and say "Hell no you can't release that movie crippled like that"....
What ever happened to "albums"? I mean actual pieces of work which as a WHOLE are something more then the individual songs? When was the last time there was something like that?
Let me put it this way, I am probably the quintesential, ideal, perfect market that the Music Industry is looking for. I have lots of disposible income, I have invested tens of thousands of dollars in high quality speakers, pre-processors, amplifiers, tuners, and CD transports (including DVD audio and SACD transports). But there is one big problem here. Just about everything produced now is crap. Even if the songs themselves are good songs, the post production that occurs completely destroys the music. Songs are all "compressed" and "boosted" (in other words, they remove all the dynamics of the music by "compressing" the amplitude of instruments/sounds/effects to make the overall "loudness" of the song higher, because heaven forbid the song that plays after mine have be 3-4db louder on the radio, people will think that it is because the music is worse...).
The music has been removed from the song. Go listen to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and listen to the dynamics within the songs. Listen to how the album itself is an entire work in itself. Focus on the quality of the post production work. This is the problem with having good systems, you hear ALL the flaws in the CD itself. A high quality piece of music will sound unbelievably realistic and immerse you into the music. But a poorly done CD will sould like garbage with all the audio artifacts caused by compressing the sound amplitude or loss of signal detail caused by using poor analog to digital converters or conversion dropoff being displayed for everyone to hear in all its ugliness.
P.S. yes, I own an iPod, but prefer to use WAV files on it when possible. It doesn't make a huge difference on the cheap headphones I use with it on the go, but it if very noticible when connected to my car, or home stereo...
Again, produce QUALITY work and a lot of people will buy it. Make crap, well, don't expect me to even take a sniff, let alone think of purchasing.
Yes, and you do know that HDMI+HDCP is converted to DVI+HDCP with the simple change of a few pin positions don't you? There is no electical or algorithm needed to "transcode" from a HDMI to a DVI connection. The only thing at issue is the loss of the audio portion of the signal. There are MANY devices out there that are capible to grabbing that data and putting it onto another wire, Gefen for example makes several devices that convert from HDMI v1.1+HDCP to DVI+HDCP and analog L+R, or DVI+HDCP and optical toshlink, or DVI+HDCP and copper SPDIF. There are also HUNDREDS of other converts that simply drop the audio portion of the stream and will convert the cable from HDMI+HDCP to DVI+HDCP, since the "stream" itself is never changed, only the form-factor of the connection device (just like how you can take an ethernet cable with a RJ45 endpiece and instead of it being a straight patch cable, cut one end off, re-wire a few of the pins, crimp on another RJ45 endpice and bingo, you now have a crossover, well that is exactly how it works with HDMI->DVI, you cut off the end, strip out a few of the wires which will not be used, re-arrange the others, and crimp on a DVI end piece...).
http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/ DCDA1.ASP
http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/ DCDA1.ASP
This isn't the only place that sells these types of things. Component can not send a 1080p signal, so that you will lose, but at least you can get 720p or 1080i out of it.
But look above, I emphasize "addition" for a reason. They are not a replacement for true computing labs with high performance hardware and licensed software, especially since the colledge/university does not own OR maintain the systems. Yes, they are great from the standpoint that they will reduce your out of pocket costs of maintaining a lab full of high end computers, since the school no longer needs to support that infrastructure, but they are simply moving the costs around. The costs will now move to the students and IT help centers because you no longer have the ability to roll out massive patch sets, automate software installations, upgrades, or security patches. Now you are relying on students to keep their systems running properly, and most if not all of those students can bairly tell you the difference between a Mac or an IBM, let alone be expected to be able to patch their system or configure it to connect to your networks securely. The overhead for fixing these systems will easilly overwhelm your current IT department if they are the ones expected to handle the problems that crop up.
Let us not even get into the issues with software such as photoshop licenses, since you are now no longer in control of the license due to the student being the owner of the computer. You will effectively be requiring the students to need to purchase a full license of photoshop or AutoCAD or Mathmatica for their own use since there will no longer be any school operated systems which they can gain access to the programs. This is adding several thousands of dollars of cost burden onto all students, many of who may decide that they do not like graphics art and change to become an english major or some other major that will never use a full version of photoshop, which means they just wasted all that money.
There are many schools that have embraced laptops, but they are an addition to the rest of their computing systems. My college converted at least 3 major computer labs from your standard desktop setups to hot stations for use with student owned laptops. BUT they still kept very close to the same number of desktop systems throughout the campus, basically moving the desktops to smaller new labs. The students mostly purchased laptops on their own because the entire campus had wireless connectivity which made it easy to just bring the laptop to class and take your notes, etc., on it and work on assignments between class. But when things required true horsepower, they used the regular computer labs or a regular home desktop system to do the work. The laptops were and still are a convience system, not a real replacement for true dedicated computing labs.
So I personnally would try to convince they person who has this hairbrained idea in his or her head that it isn't going to fly for reason X, Y, and Z, or go job hunting because when the stuff starts hitting the fan it will be blowing in the direction of the IT department staff who doesn't have the power or ability to fix the problems generated on systems they do not own, but will be blaimed by the students because the students can not get their assignments completed on their laptops...
Network Gear:
Linksys WRT54G Hardware Ver 2 Wireless 802.11g
Linksys SRW2016 16 Port GigE 10/100/1000 + 2 mGBic Port Managed Switch (network backbone)
Netgear ProSafe JFS524F 10/100Mbps Switch + 1 100FX Slot
Linksys WET54G 54Mbps Wireless Ethernet Bridge
UPS Units:
2x APC Back-UPS XS 1500VA UPS's
Computer Infrastructure:
Sun UltraSparc60 w/ 2x 450 Sparc 2i CPU's, 2 GB RAM, 2x 10GB 10k RPM SCSI (Webserver, Database Server)
Intel P4C 3.0GHz, 4GB RAM, 1.5 TB disk space (Fileserver)
AMD Athlon X2 4400+, 2GB RAM, 600GB disk space, nVidia 7800GTX, Dual TV Tuners (Home Theater PC/media center)
2 laptops
2 other PC's used for webbrowsing and word processing
Yeah, my network is a little overkill now that I have the GigE switch. I also have some other appliances in the home which use the network, GameCube, PS2, etc., which use up a number of my network ports, which is the reason that I have so many. But out of all this, my battery backup is what really keeps me going strong. I can keep my main infrastructure (fileserver, wireless router, GigE, cable modem, media center PC, etc.) all powered for about 45 minutes before the computers are automatically shutdown. I have been debating getting the extended battery packs for the UPS's I have which would make them 3000VA each, but I think that might be a little overkill.....
There is a very simple solution here that will alieviate a LOT of the reasons people will hack or want to get the hacked OS. Just sell it seperate. Yeah I know, that means a lot more hardware support, well, there is a VERY simple solution to that, leave the hardware support up to the hardware manufacturers, and let the customers know that if it is not on the "approved hardware" list, that it is unsupported and they are on their own to get it working, or SOL. The biggest reason that Apple has always had about not selling the OS itself is the fact that it only worked on their own hardware. In a sense, they did sell it, though, as upgrades to older systems. Well, guess what, now it runs on x86 hardware... why in the world would you want to limit your market? You have a product, and a good one, but you put an artificial limit of your own on what you will allow it to be used on, which effectively cuts you out of 99% of the market that would potentially purchase your product, and for what reason? Because you don't want to support all that different hardware? Guys get a clue from Sun Microsystems, Solaris 10 x86 is out there available for purchase, but if you don't have supported hardware, well you are SOL for that piece of hardware. You are free to hack away at it to see if you can get that hardware to work, but don't go crying to Sun if it doesn't because they warned you ahead of time. All Apple needs to do is the same thing and I am certain that there would be a LOT of sales generated, which to Apple is basically FREE MONEY!!! I mean, really, it is like they have their own money printing machines, but they stamp out CD's or DVD's and place them in boxes, which then get "exchanged" at the going exchange rate. It only costs a few dollars to make the copy of the physical media, box it, and ship it, why not bring in all the money they can? It is just assinine if they do not.
It had some overheating problems a couple years back. Turns out it needed a new fan (imagin that a fan would die in 20 years of use and dust, dirt, fuzz... ). Once I took it apart and replaced the fan and cleaned out all the dust, it is running like it's good old self. Now if I could just find the hard disk enclosure or a disk drive for it, the tape load system is just painfully slow, although it is nothing like having your favorite program's "song" memorized to let you know how far it is in the load process...
This is no different then using biometrics to secure the door, and there is a huge flaw in that. If a group of people attack an installation that uses biometrics (or in this case RFID), all this means is that they attack/kill/capture a guard/other who has access to the area and uses their handprint, eyes, or in this case arm with the RFID chip to open the door. The same will go for key cards, the tactics change very little, the armed group finds and kills the first guard they can find and if they can do so without that guard getting out an alarm, they will usually have at least several minutes before their presence will even be known.
They just want our email addresses now so they can sell to every spam company in existance, that is all. I mean, its a great plan. They know for a fact that everyone has access to mail, but not everyone has access to the web. I think the only real good thing about this now is that we will no longer need to send in the UPC code which may get "lost" and deny you the rebate.
Basically UNIX (BSD, Solaris, AIX, IRIX, SCO, OS X), and ALL LINUX distributions are counts as ONE (1) bin, against MS Windows!!! So, have basically EVERY popular mainstream operating system other then Windows in one bin and windows in another, and you are trying to toute THAT as a stat that Windows has less flaws then Unix/Linux? Sure, it does when you count ALL VERSIONS OF UNIX AND LINUX TOGETHER AND ADD UP ALL THE VULNERBILITIES FOUND IN ALL THE DIFFERENT VERSIONS!!!!!
THEN there is the fact that different CERT warnings appear multiple times! For instance, Eric Raymond Fetchmail POP3 Client Buffer Overflow (Updated) is counted at least 4 times under the SAME NAME, and at least 1 more time under a different name, but it is still the same vulnerbility!!!
See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200512311 42317870 for more details.
I mean come on... A 105" screen from 12 feet away... For THX standards, a 4:3 screen of 105" (diagonal assumed due to way computer screen size is measured) should actually be viewed from 10' 9 1/4", not 12 feet.
Basically you need to have your entire filesystem layout setup properly, with "project" areas where each "project" has its own directory tree with setgid for the project's group on all the main directory and sub directories. Each major "project" would have a group setup for it. Then all file permissions would be covered by anyone in the group, or possibly a "project's lead" who keeps track of all the groups and knows what permissions should be set to different areas (i.e. for data sharing between projects etc.).
Once the infrastructure is in place, the worst thing that happens is that a person is not a member of the "group" and just needs a helpdesk call/form to gain group access ("ok'ed" by a lead member of the "group"). Basically something that can happen in 5-10 minutes time if implemented properly. With the setgid, all new files created in the areas will always be owned by the proper group, which has full access to chmod/chown those files (assuming someone doesn't do "chmod 700") but even then, cron jobs can be setup to run every hour or so that do a "chmod -R 770 /" to any/all project areas (with the cron job removed if you need to lock the area down to no access).
This is how it should be done, no sudo needed. All the work is in the preperation, with true processes needing to be setup and implemented (basically a form/forms for creation of a "new group" (which includes group ownership as well as a box to transfer "ownership" to another person), another form/forms for requesting new data areas (with what group owns the area), and finally a form/forms for adding/removing members to/from the group which gets signed off by the current group owner). Optionally another form for "locking" a data area to keep all access out. Then it simply needs to go to the IT staff which then simply reads down the "process" document and verifies the data in/on the form and either creates a new directory (setting the setgid bit and setting proper group ownership), adds/remove a user to a group, creates a new group, or moves a user to the first name in the group file (for easy tracking of the group owner or updates a seperate documents with this information).
Sony is still on track and hasn't been trying to push technology that isn't in existance/ready to market. They are still on track for spring/summer Japan release of PS3 and fall/winter USA release WITH BluRay.
Now I really don't know what format is better. Technically BluRay has the edge in capacity (54GB vs 45GB), which in reality should make it a better standard to use (9GB is a lot of extra space, almost 20% more capacity). But as you can see, since MS chose the HD-DVD standard for their XBOX line, they are now stuck in the situation of fighting against the technologically superior product. The origional reason for HD-DVD vs BluRay was due to manufacturing costs. But those issues have been overcome in the last year, making the two products about the same cost to make.
I hope that someone does sue MS on this. They should not be using their OS market to force a media standard to the public. Even without a court battle, I still feel that BluRay will win the format war. MS hasn't done as well as they were hoping with the international release of the XBox which means that most are waiting on the PS3, which WILL put a BluRay player in every home that gets one, unlike the XBox which did not even initially ship with a HD-DVD player (if it had, we might be seeing a different outcome of this format war, but it wasn't included).
Come one guys. I sure wouldn't be flaunting the it consumes less power then the AMD X2 spec too much. You are compairing a "MOBILE" CPU core against a "DESKTOP" CPU core. The only reason Anandtech used the AMD X2 as the benchmark and not the mobile Turion CPU is because the dual core Turion CPU's are not out yet, so comparing the performance of the Yonah dual core system against a single core just didn't make sense. Its like saying that a cellphone CPU uses less power then a laptop CPU.
I mean, really... It sounds a lot like CVS and even patch updates as well as partial backups, snapshot backups (from Network Appliance systems), and MANY other systems that have been in use for years.
"2004 saw 220,000 fewer employed U.S. electrical engineers than in 2000, despite falling unemployment, according to BLS data." http://www.todaysengineer.org/2005/Sep/pulse.asp
Notible things are that the US Department of Labor statistics which are stating that there are more engineering jobs are really not tracking that. They are tracking that a person who has an engineering degree and worked as such until he/she was laid-off simply has a "job" (any job, flipping burgers, parking cars, clearing tables, etc.), so the data there can only simply state that these engineers have found a way to gain some form of income, nothing other then that.
The only area where I can say that a US engineering job is secure is in the defense sector where the engineers are required to be a US citizen to obtain a security clearance. If you are working anywhere else, well, you are replacible by a H1B or off-shoring of the department.
Now speaking about the department of labor:
"Employment of materials engineers is expected to grow more slowly than the average for all occupations through 2012." http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos034.htm
"Employment of aerospace engineers is expected to decline over the projection period." http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos028.htm
"Employment of civil engineers is expected to increase more slowly than the average for all occupations through 2012." http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos030.htm
"Employment of electrical and electronics engineers is expected to grow more slowly than the average for all occupations through 2012." http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos031.htm
" As with other information technology jobs, employment growth of computer software engineers may be tempered somewhat by an increase in contracting out of software development abroad." http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos267.htm
"Computer hardware engineers may face competition for jobs because the number of degrees granted in this field has increased rapidly and because employment is expected grow more slowly than average." http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos266.htm
"Overall engineering employment is expected to grow more slowly than the average for all occupations over the 2002-12 period. Engineers tend to be concentrated in slow-growing manufacturing industries, a factor which tends to hold down their employment growth. Also, many employers are increasing their use of engineering services performed in other countries." http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm
Now, why don't we start this conversation again. The jobs for US engineers are simply not there. The companies that can off-shore, have been doing so, claiming that there are not enough US engineers. The IEEE charts show that there are about 120,000 EE's over the last 4 years out there who are not employed as EE's anymore. Yes, a portion of that may have died, gone to management, etc., but I would suggest that there is probably 50% of that number who would still work as an EE if the job opertunity was there... This is the reason why their salaries have not increased as "demand" increases, because the demand is false.
Are there fewer and fewer students entering accredited universities in the US studying IT fields? YES. And you know what, the reason just might be because the big companies are outsourcing the jobs. There is a direct relation to the expected number of jobs available in 5 years to the number of students entering those fields of study. By saying that they will be outsourcing the positions, the companies create the very lack of qualified personnel that they cite they need to fill the positions in the first place.
Now here is what I get. Everyone wants to make a buck. The companies want to save money and still keep the same quality "product" that they have now. The people in the field who understand the science/technology want to be paid a fair wage for their work and knowledge. They have invested upwards of $100k into learning that knowledge, and want to be compensated appropriately for it. This basically turns into a "cost of living" issue when you get down to it. In the US, it costs more to gain that education, thus the people with it demand more compensation for the knowledge. In some other contries, that same education may not cost nearly as much, and as a result, the people with that education do not demand as much compensation for the knowledge.
What I do not get is why. Labor is just another commodity to be traded. As such, how much longer will it take for all non-physical labor to be traded at the lowest going rate? As a result of this, how much longer until the economic crash of the school systems in areas that charge higher then other institutions for a degree on a global scale?
Will it make a whole lot of difference if a 7800GT was used or not? I don't know for sure, but at least it would be fresh apples vs fresh oranges comparison, not fresh apples vs moldy oranges... The 7800GT's have hardware H.264 and more hardware help for de-interlacing then the 6600 does. Do a fair comparison is all I can say.
The process was, this is the standard.
Just wondering. Did you get any decent amount of money for that huge ad? I sure hope you did since this probably sent more traffic their way then anything else has in the past.
In a way, this is good life experience for you, since this can happen out in the working world (and does more often then you think). You need to learn to jump ship when the first signs of major trouble occur. Well, knowing that the department will be gone most definitely is a "sign" of "major trouble". Your degree is something that is seen as a certificate of your worth and accomplishments. Many places will look at the reputation of your university and equate that with a level of knowledge/skill you possess. In 5-10 years from now when someone see's your degree from a place that doesn't even offer any related majors, your percieved worth will be much lower then some other university that still has a very strong engineering college. True, most of this can be easily explained in the interview process, but getting to that interview in the first place will be that much more difficult, since most large corporations have a huge disconnect already in terms of hiring engineering staff, so any small "possible red flag" on your resume and you are simple in the "out pile".
Its when you take old code from previous things and then try to do a direct port that you will see some issues in performance hits. But if designed from the ground up in terms of the code for a cell environment (or ANY CPU architecture), it is all in the hands of the few top level software design architechs to properly structure the overall workings of the game's code. Once the structure is correct, sending the bits and pieces that need to be made to the rest of the code monkeys is no problem, they just need to follow the UML or whatever other design docs they are specifically suppose to implement.