Sorry not for the customers (unfortunately, DTV's structure made it nigh-impossible for good service to happen,) but for the employees.
I used to work in their Advanced Technical Support department, and still know quite a few people there. (Including Phroggy. Hey, man, email me, I'll see if I can find work for you.) DirecTV Broadband had problems right after they bought Telocity because their technical support call center was outsourced, and they had problems with the outsourced companies. I was in the first batch of techs that were DirecTV employees. (Well, we were still 'contractors', so we didn't get benefits, but we were contractors in a DirecTV-owned building, with DirecTV-employed bosses.) Service got MUCH better when the techs were in-house. Yes, people still complained, but that was more due to the fact that there were long hold times because DirecTV couldn't hire techs fast enough.
And that is why this REALLY sucks. DirecTV was hiring techs right when the tech job market in Portland was on its way down. ALOT of their techs were laid-off from other jobs, and by taking the DirecTV job, were being paid less than half what they had been making less than a year before. (I know of about 10 workers whose salaries combined from the previous year (and previous jobs) was probably more than the combined salaries of all 400 workers in the DirecTV call center.)
The Portland tech job market sucks right now. Intel recently laid off almost 5000 local workers, lots of small startups are failing (or have failed,) and now we've got another couple hundred good techs flooding in.
My solution? I started my own company. If any DTV techs that know me are reading this, drop me a line at ed@rent-a-geek-portland.com and I'll see what I can do for you. My business isn't booming yet, but I've got alot of marketing going out, so hopefully it will get big in the near future.
I can't see ATA-100 IDE disks realistically competing with Ultra-320 disks. Instead of trying to pinch pennies and hope that it would satisfy the requirements, we decided to go with what works.
Why not? Go to StorageReview.com and check out their leaderboard. The ATA Western Digital 2000JB is as fast as most 10,000 RPM SCSI drives. And when ATA moves to 10,000 RPM, it may very well equal some 15,000 RPM SCSI drives. It's not the interface itself that is the problem anymore, it's the drives themselves. With the new Serial ATA, we've got 150MB/s PER DISK at our disposal. On four disks, that would be a possible 600MB/s, which is way more than even the Ultra320 SCSI interface is capable of. Of course, we're not going to get near those speeds from the drive anytime soon, as a single Seagate X15.3 tops out at around 75MB/s. So if they were to release a Serial ATA version, each channel would have plenty of headroom, whereas two of them is enough to flood Ultra160, and four is enough for Ultra320. (And to replace the 8-drive array I've got in a server, you'd have to get a four-channel RAID card. I haven't seen any of those around. I HAVE seen an eight channel Serial ATA card, though. Yes, it's hardware RAID.)
I have seen those as well, but real field experience has told me otherwise. There's just not enough quality built into IDE disks to realistically call them server-class material. I have a few old compaq pentium class machines pushing 7 years old that have been running non-stop for all 7 years and not dropped a disk. I've yet to see a IDE disk pull that off.
I've had worse experience with SCSI than with ATA, personally. I used to be a SCSI head, back in '97, I completely emptied my desktop of ATA, for the same pregidouses you quote. Then I had three 'server-class' SCSI drives fail on me within the span of one year. My son's computer is 5 years old, and it's ATA drive is still chugging away with no problems, even though it has gotten absolutely constant use/abuse. (It's not on a UPS, with very unstable power. It has been hard powered down at least a hundred times, and still doesn't have a single bad sector on the drive. One of my SCSI drives failed after a normal, controlled shutdown.)
With ATA becoming more prevalent in enterprise situations (Especially with the new Serial ATA RAID cards coming out from major, reputable, RAID companies,) it's only a matter of time before hard drive companies start releasing ATA drives specifically marketed for servers. They'll be more expensive than 'desktop' drives, but they will be just as robust as any SCSI drive out there. (From my personal experience, that's not exactly a selling point, though.)
How do you 'pay more' for a RAID-5 disk failure than with any other RAID level? About the only 'free' RAID level is RAID-1. Because you suffer absolutely no penalty, since you just read from an exact copy.
With any parity-based RAID level, you lose some speed when a drive fails. In RAID-5, if one fails, the hardware (I *HOPE* you're using hardware RAID-5) calculates the original data based on the surviving data and parity. Yes, it's slightly slower than full speed, but it's still there.
With RAID-3, you've just got a RAID-0 plus a parity drive. Yes, it's redundant, but if one of the striped drives fails, you STILL have to do the same calculations as with a RAID-5. The only difference is that with a dedicated parity drive, you're constantly trashing the parity drive. (If you've got a 4-drive array, with 3 striped and 1 parity, the parity drive is written to 3 times as often as the data drives.)
Yes, I find it particularly funny that it's doubly redundant. Not only is his comment redundantly repeating what was said in the submitter's comments, but he's redundant within his own comment!!
A third drive storing a XOR of the other two? That is very similar to the RAID-4 specification, which nobody uses because it's silly.
RAID-5 is much better. It stores the parity bit, but instead of dedicating a single drive, it stripes the parity bit along with the data bits. (So on pass 1, drives 1 and 2 get data, and drive 3 gets parity; on pass 2, drive 1 gets data, drive 2 gets parity, and drive 3 gets data; on pass 3, drive 1 gets parity, and drives 2 and 3 get data.) Much faster than RAID-4, and alot less stress on the disk that would otherwise be the 'parity' disk.
The special edition DVD of FOTR improves on the passage of time. It adds a few scenes of 'filler', that each are only maybe one minute long each, but the help to promote the feeling of more time passing. There are two or three camping scenes that show that what looked like one day in the theatrical release is really longer. To me, the biggest point that shows how much time is really passing is when the barkeep in Bree says "Haven't seen him in 6 months." Assuming Gandalf stopped on his way TO the Shire the first time, that's still a multiple month journey each way. (I'm guessing 1.5-2 months on horseback, 3-5 months by foot, based on that one line. I don't remember how long it is in the book.) Plus a whole new 'marsh' sequence is added when the four hobbits are following Aragorn, which shows that the trip from Bree to Rivendell was MUCH longer (they passed through a whole different kind of terrain.)
Yes, in the book, a few years passes between the party and Gandalf's return to Bag End to tell Frodo to leave. That passage of time isn't very well explained in the movie, but it is lightly implied with all the riding around Gandalf does.
Okay, I own my own computer consulting company, Rent-A-Geek, Inc, in Portland, Oregon. I now accept payments through my web site rent-a-geek-pdx.com. So, I just emailed PanIP a letter asking them about their licensing.
Hello, I recently heard about your company's patent on using graphical and textual information on a video screen for purposes of making a sale, and am curious about your licensing requests.
My company, Rent-A-Geek, Inc. currently accepts payment through its web site, http://www.rent-a-geek-pdx.com, and I am curious how my company's activities relate to your patent.
Thank you in advance.
-- Ed Hurtley, President and CEO Rent-A-Geek, Inc. ed@rent-a-geek-portland.com (503) 244-4711
It shows me the same "This is an example" page wether I use completely unprotected IE, or completely protected Mozilla. Ironically, in IE, it does a 'refresh' after a few seconds, and it doesn't refresh in Mozilla. I'm guessing that the refresh redirects to a 'denied' page, but Mozilla has stopped the refresh! (In Mozilla, I have ALL cookies, Java, JS, etc disabled.)
called VNC on a Palm. Plus, I don't have to use such a large screen. Yeah, I also use Windows XP's 'Remote Desktop' (which is functionally the same as VNC,) to use my desktop's resources from my miniscule Sony PictureBook.
The only problem, (assuming that this uses the same basic technology as Remote Desktop,) is that you can't watch ANY kind of video due to lack of bandwidth. Even if the MPAA said it was okay, you wouldn't want to watch a DVD, as full screen video only comes through at about 2-4 frames per second. (Unless they improved that by streaming the file rather than the display pixels, like the currently do.)
I worked as System/Network admin for a small internet company (I was employee #30, it got up to 80 before the 'burst'.) Well, I left on decent terms. The CEO loved me, but my direct boss (a VP) wasn't a big fan of my working style. (He's part of the reason that I was let go before the other IT guy.) A couple months ago (after I had been gone for more than a year and a half,) I stopped in to say hi to everyone, and gave my old boss (the VP) my business card. I had recently started my own computer consulting company, and after hearing that they had laid off the last full-time IT guy, I thought they'd be interested in using my new company as an on-call IT resource. (The lead programmer was doing double duty as IT guy, and he hates Windows, so I figured they could use my company for Windows issues, and save the programmer the headaches.)
Well, a couple weeks after that, the lead programmer calls me directly, and asked a quick question about one of our servers. (A hardware question, he is defenitely not a hardware guy.) Now, I liked him, I got along great with him, so since the answer could be relayed in less than 5 minutes over the phone, I went ahead and told him.
But, if my old boss (the VP) had called instead, I would have told him point-blank "Well, Rent-A-Geek can have a technician down there for you next Tuesday for our normal rate of $100 an hour, or if you need it now, I can have someone there immediately at our emergency call rate of $200 an hour."
(If you're curious about my company, visit our website. Yes, the web page isn't the greatest, but hey, we don't do web design, we do administration and troubleshooting. I'm actually shopping around for a new web designer to give it a makeover.)
First, I've got four 'main' computers. 1. AthlonXP based desktop running Windows XP Professional. 2. Sony PictureBook notebook running Windows XP Professional. 3. Power Macintosh G3 (beige) running Mac OS X 10.2.2 4. Xeon based server running Windows XP Professional (for now.)
I've got a hardware router/firewall, so I don't need to worry (very much) about those kind of exploits (I still run Norton Internet Security, though.)
Why do I run WinXP? Well, I'll start with my desktop: First: I'm lazy. I know a little about UNIXes, but not enough to run my own box effectively. I do have 'study guides', but I haven't found time to actually study. Second: I am a Microsoft Excel wizard. I can do amazing things without resorting to Visual Basic, but I know that most of my formula writing knowledge only applies to Excel, and I love making spreadsheets for all sorts of random things. So, I've tried using a couple other spreadsheet programs, and none work with all of my formulas. (I have a completely handwritten 12MB spreadsheet; it has all sorts of funky 'tricks' that don't translate very well.) Third: I play a couple games that are Windows-only. Specifically, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Combat Flight Simulator. For obvious reasons, this is only available for Windows. Fourth: I really do like the Windows XP interface. I am not a big fan of Microsoft, the company, by any means, but I really do like XP.
Okay, then my notebook: Simple: I have no basically no choice.
Then, the PowerMac: Well, it *IS* running OS X. In fact, it doesn't even have an OS 9 System Folder on it! I've dabbled with it's BSD core a couple times, most notably when trying to make it become a serial port ppp server for my Newton.
Finally, the most obvious choice for an alternate OS: My server... In all reality, I do plan on putting Linux on this box. I just got the computer a couple weeks ago from a friend, and had to put XP on it, just to compare it to my Athlon XP. (The Athlon XP is a single processor 1.46GHz, the server has two 700MHz Pentium III Xeons, I wanted to compare the speed difference.)
Then, I went and got two cards: An Adaptec ASC-19160, and an Adaptec AAA-UDMA. (The SCSI card I've had for a long time, I just recently gave up SCSI in my main box; the RAID card I got from the same friend who gave me the server.) Unfortunately, neither has official Linux support, and there doesn't appear to be ANY way to get the AAA-UDMA to work in Linux. (Heck, the RAID card doesn't even have XP drivers, so I'm thinking of installing Win2k Server, but then the SCSI card won't work, because it doesn't support the 'server' versions of Windows!)
Re:So? Do you think nobody paid for those tickets?
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The Last Comdex?
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Actually, my company (a small, three person company) has been getting free tickets directly from the Comdex organizers for 3-4 years now. Before that, in college, a couple friends and I had a pseudo-company, and we got free tickets every year too. (Our company was just the four of us, made into an LLC with a reseller license, so we could get computer parts direct from distributors cheaply.)
Of course, I've never been able to make it to Vegas, so I've never been able to use them. Just goes to show that lots of companies get their tickets for free.
Many local ISPs offer static IPs either as part of their normal service, or for only a few dollars extra. And for nationwide broadband, Earthlink DSL/Cable/Satellite offers a static for a small charge, and it's standard on DirecTV DSL; again, many local ISPs will offer it, too.
As has also been pointed out, 127.0.0.1 always works when referencing your own computer. And if you have a local network anyway (as you would have to to get this to work,) you can set your local IPs however you want.
Well, I have an 'L' shaped computer desk (fancy thing, got it as a Christmas present a few years ago) that, until this morning, had my main PeeCee (Abit AT7/AthlonXP 1.47GHz/512MB PC2100/200GB of RAID/WinXP/ViewSonic 17" CRT,) my server (Intel MS440GX/Dual P3Xeon 700 1MB/512MB ECC PC100/18GB of 10kRPM SCSI RAID/OpenBSD/headless,) that was right next to it in the 'closed cabinet' area of the desk, which had it's door ripped off long ago because of cooling problems. On the 'L' extension was a rev.b iMac (160MB RAM/OS X Jaguar,) and a beige G3 PowerMac (233MHz/512MB RAM/OS X Jaguar/USB and FireWire cards.) But, today I finished rewiring the house, and relocated the server (hey, the thing is almost as loud as my vacuum,) cable modem, etc, to the basement server closet, and moved the iMac to the kitchen to be a recipe computer.
Also on the network are my son's Pentium II/400 with Win95 and a VooDoo3 3500TV; my wife's Pentium 3/1000 with WinXP, my Sony PictureBook (wireless,) my PowerBook 1400c with G3 upgrade (wireless,) a PowerMac 7300 (with OS X 10.1.5 thanks to XPostFacto,) a PowerMac 6100 DOS Compatible, a Quadra 660AV, a Mac IIfx, a Color Classic II, an SE/30, an SE, and a Plus. About 20 other Macs not on the network yet. (I need to find a LocalTalk to Ethernet converter.)
I am looking to add a Athlon-based PC to the mix (via KVM switch to the keyboard and the NEC monitor) to learn FreeBSD on. I am also looking at buying one of the new iBooks to replace the very aging PowerBook Duo.
Uh... OS X is based on BSD, just much around with the command line for awhile, and you'll learn BSD. Also, when you get that iBook, I'd be more than happy to take that Duo off your hands for you.:-)
Yes, he did compare benchmarks. But again, this was not meant to compare the gaming value of the various cards, but to compare the multiple-monitor setups of them. The benchmarks were done to show that there wasn't a significant slowdown going from one monitor to two, and that the various methods of multi-monitor setups do not slow the system down. You can extrapolate that to the 9700 if you want to, their results should translate to it just fine. They probably just didn't have a 9700 handy.
Because, as was mentioned multiple times, the point of the benchmarks wasn't to compare video cards (as had been done multiple times before in previous reviews) but to compare single versus dual monitors.
I agree with your overall assessment (nice to see someone simply explain the difference between shooting down a slug and a missile,) but....
Missiles are often used in artillary due to a higher accuracy and laser-guided controls. Slugs, one advantage had been near instoppability. This is why Iowa class battleships are still used as super-longe range artillary platforms.
All of the Iowas have been out of service since just after the gulf war. In fact, the U.S. Navy doesn't have a single 'battleship' left. Only destroyers and frigates. The only two true battleships left in the possession of the Navy (and not in a museum) are the Iowa and Wisconsin, which are decommissioned, awaiting final disposition.
Almost all commercial database software has the 'can't publish benchmarks' clause. Oracle, MS SQL, etc. That one has become common practice nowadays, because none of the companies actually WANT to know which one is faster. It's "we don't care if we're not fastest, as long as nobody can prove it."
those "made for windows 2k stickers" that get the screen all nasty when you close it.
Uh, doesn't Windows 2k get your screen all nasty when you open it?:-)
Re:Network not found when logged in over the netwo
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Gnarly Error Messages
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Yeah, yeah... My lame attempt at security. I know that the hostname by itself won't reveal anything actually security related, but didn't want to reveal TOO much.
Network not found when logged in over the network?
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Gnarly Error Messages
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Well, I was just doing a Windows XP 'Remote Desktop Connection' (Sorry, no choice in the matter; and if you don't know what a Remote Desktop Connection is, think: Terminal Services lite) and got a funny error. I'm going from my PC to another desktop PC. The other desktop PC uses a wireless network connection, which, I must admit, Windows XP usually handles nicely. Well, my login dialog box came up just fine, I logged in just fine, and up came the desktop of the offending PC.
Down in the corner by the clock (in the 'systray') is the little 'two dark computers with a red x between them' icon. Meaning: No network connection found. In this case, when I hover over it, it says 'Wireless connection unavailable'. Good trick, since the only way I am able to view that screen is THROUGH THE WIRELESS CONNECTION! (In fact, I've got that connection minimized right now, and I think I'll put it in a window and take a screenshot. Okay, you can view the screenshot here.
Okay, for those that haven't paid enough attention (i.e. didn't actually go and read the article,) here is the short of it:
This was a Technology Demonstrator. It was not a prototype of any aircraft that will be built.
It flies too slow (260 knots), and too low (20,000 ft.) to be of any use whatsoever as a military vehicle.
It was fully funded by Boeing. It was a Boeing project, NOT an Air Force project.
The entire point of this aircraft was to validate concepts for use on future vehicles.
Now, what this means:
This aircraft was made by Boeing so they could make sure that developmental technologies would work. They did this because they had other contracts with the DoD that would benefit from this technology. As the press release says, technology from this aircraft was used in development of the X-45A.
This is very common for defense companies. They know that they need to work on some piece of technology to get their DoD project working right, but they already told the DoD that they had said technology. So what do they do? They develop the technology in secret (seperately from the DoD project,) do it cheaply, and do it with in-house money. This way, the DoD project gets its technology, and they don't have egg on their face from the fact that they didn't actually have this technology developed in the first place.
Okay, I'm not a small person, I'm 6'0" (a touch under 2m for you metric-type folks out there,) 185 lb. (again, about 80kg for you metricies.) I have slightly larger than average hands, although since mine are in the form of longer fingers, not wider, maybe it's just me.
But, I find that the U1's keyboard is most likely NOT too small. I can touch type just fine on my Sony PictureBook (80-100wpm,) and I used to own a Hewlett-Packard 200LX, which has 'calculator keys' in QWERTY layout, and I could type 50-60wpm on it. (Hell, I could type 25wpm on my 48SX, which truly did have a calculator setup, with an ABCDEF layout.
Of course, I have yet to actually SEE a U1, so maybe the keys are too close together to be useful, I don't know. (The 200LX had small hard plastic keys that weren't touching each other, so I could easily hit one with the very tips of my fingers without hitting its neighbor. They also clicked nicely. Man do I wish a company would release a real x86 palmtop that size again. I used to do all my programming classwork on it because it was faster than the lab's machines! Imagine a little one, with maybe a Crusoe 600, even, 128 (or even 64)MB of RAM, a small 640x480 or 800x640 screen, one USB port (maybe even a FireWire port that could also charge the palmtop!) I'd buy one in a heartbeat.)
Like I said, it's in Intel's best intrest to support the standard that relies more and more on their faser CPUs. It only makes sense, from a marketing standpoint.
Oh, I fully agree. That's why Intel likes controllerless modems (i.e. 'WinModems',) and why they're starting to support controllerless WiFi. (Their new 'Banias' mobile CPU will have built-in software-based WiFi capability.) That's also why Intel dislikes nVidia, ATI, et al. Because a slower computer can run games with one of their 'GPUs' better than a faster one without. That is why Intel's newest integrated-graphics chipsets (845G, with 'Extreme Graphics') are still software-based. Because they know that their primary job is to sell fast processors. All else is extra. Just look at the xBox. It only has a Pentium 3 733MHz processor in it, but because of the nVidia video processor, it can perform at least as well as a Pentium 4 2.8GHz with Intel's own 'Extreme Graphics' in most circumstances.
And, so you know, because I used to work for Intel, I currently have a few Intel systems around the house, including a nice dual Pentium III Xeon 700MHz system. But... My main PC, built myself out of parts I bought at normal stores, is an AthlonXP 1.46GHz machine. (My Intel machines are the above-mentioned Xeon, a P3/1000, and a P2/400.)
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry not for the customers (unfortunately, DTV's structure made it nigh-impossible for good service to happen,) but for the employees.
I used to work in their Advanced Technical Support department, and still know quite a few people there. (Including Phroggy. Hey, man, email me, I'll see if I can find work for you.) DirecTV Broadband had problems right after they bought Telocity because their technical support call center was outsourced, and they had problems with the outsourced companies. I was in the first batch of techs that were DirecTV employees. (Well, we were still 'contractors', so we didn't get benefits, but we were contractors in a DirecTV-owned building, with DirecTV-employed bosses.) Service got MUCH better when the techs were in-house. Yes, people still complained, but that was more due to the fact that there were long hold times because DirecTV couldn't hire techs fast enough.
And that is why this REALLY sucks. DirecTV was hiring techs right when the tech job market in Portland was on its way down. ALOT of their techs were laid-off from other jobs, and by taking the DirecTV job, were being paid less than half what they had been making less than a year before. (I know of about 10 workers whose salaries combined from the previous year (and previous jobs) was probably more than the combined salaries of all 400 workers in the DirecTV call center.)
The Portland tech job market sucks right now. Intel recently laid off almost 5000 local workers, lots of small startups are failing (or have failed,) and now we've got another couple hundred good techs flooding in.
My solution? I started my own company. If any DTV techs that know me are reading this, drop me a line at ed@rent-a-geek-portland.com and I'll see what I can do for you. My business isn't booming yet, but I've got alot of marketing going out, so hopefully it will get big in the near future.
Why not? Go to StorageReview.com and check out their leaderboard. The ATA Western Digital 2000JB is as fast as most 10,000 RPM SCSI drives. And when ATA moves to 10,000 RPM, it may very well equal some 15,000 RPM SCSI drives. It's not the interface itself that is the problem anymore, it's the drives themselves. With the new Serial ATA, we've got 150MB/s PER DISK at our disposal. On four disks, that would be a possible 600MB/s, which is way more than even the Ultra320 SCSI interface is capable of. Of course, we're not going to get near those speeds from the drive anytime soon, as a single Seagate X15.3 tops out at around 75MB/s. So if they were to release a Serial ATA version, each channel would have plenty of headroom, whereas two of them is enough to flood Ultra160, and four is enough for Ultra320. (And to replace the 8-drive array I've got in a server, you'd have to get a four-channel RAID card. I haven't seen any of those around. I HAVE seen an eight channel Serial ATA card, though. Yes, it's hardware RAID.)
I've had worse experience with SCSI than with ATA, personally. I used to be a SCSI head, back in '97, I completely emptied my desktop of ATA, for the same pregidouses you quote. Then I had three 'server-class' SCSI drives fail on me within the span of one year. My son's computer is 5 years old, and it's ATA drive is still chugging away with no problems, even though it has gotten absolutely constant use/abuse. (It's not on a UPS, with very unstable power. It has been hard powered down at least a hundred times, and still doesn't have a single bad sector on the drive. One of my SCSI drives failed after a normal, controlled shutdown.)
With ATA becoming more prevalent in enterprise situations (Especially with the new Serial ATA RAID cards coming out from major, reputable, RAID companies,) it's only a matter of time before hard drive companies start releasing ATA drives specifically marketed for servers. They'll be more expensive than 'desktop' drives, but they will be just as robust as any SCSI drive out there. (From my personal experience, that's not exactly a selling point, though.)
How do you 'pay more' for a RAID-5 disk failure than with any other RAID level? About the only 'free' RAID level is RAID-1. Because you suffer absolutely no penalty, since you just read from an exact copy.
With any parity-based RAID level, you lose some speed when a drive fails. In RAID-5, if one fails, the hardware (I *HOPE* you're using hardware RAID-5) calculates the original data based on the surviving data and parity. Yes, it's slightly slower than full speed, but it's still there.
With RAID-3, you've just got a RAID-0 plus a parity drive. Yes, it's redundant, but if one of the striped drives fails, you STILL have to do the same calculations as with a RAID-5. The only difference is that with a dedicated parity drive, you're constantly trashing the parity drive. (If you've got a 4-drive array, with 3 striped and 1 parity, the parity drive is written to 3 times as often as the data drives.)
Yes, I find it particularly funny that it's doubly redundant. Not only is his comment redundantly repeating what was said in the submitter's comments, but he's redundant within his own comment!!
A third drive storing a XOR of the other two? That is very similar to the RAID-4 specification, which nobody uses because it's silly.
RAID-5 is much better. It stores the parity bit, but instead of dedicating a single drive, it stripes the parity bit along with the data bits. (So on pass 1, drives 1 and 2 get data, and drive 3 gets parity; on pass 2, drive 1 gets data, drive 2 gets parity, and drive 3 gets data; on pass 3, drive 1 gets parity, and drives 2 and 3 get data.) Much faster than RAID-4, and alot less stress on the disk that would otherwise be the 'parity' disk.
The special edition DVD of FOTR improves on the passage of time. It adds a few scenes of 'filler', that each are only maybe one minute long each, but the help to promote the feeling of more time passing. There are two or three camping scenes that show that what looked like one day in the theatrical release is really longer. To me, the biggest point that shows how much time is really passing is when the barkeep in Bree says "Haven't seen him in 6 months." Assuming Gandalf stopped on his way TO the Shire the first time, that's still a multiple month journey each way. (I'm guessing 1.5-2 months on horseback, 3-5 months by foot, based on that one line. I don't remember how long it is in the book.)
Plus a whole new 'marsh' sequence is added when the four hobbits are following Aragorn, which shows that the trip from Bree to Rivendell was MUCH longer (they passed through a whole different kind of terrain.)
Yes, in the book, a few years passes between the party and Gandalf's return to Bag End to tell Frodo to leave. That passage of time isn't very well explained in the movie, but it is lightly implied with all the riding around Gandalf does.
Okay, I own my own computer consulting company, Rent-A-Geek, Inc, in Portland, Oregon. I now accept payments through my web site rent-a-geek-pdx.com. So, I just emailed PanIP a letter asking them about their licensing.
Can't wait to hear back from them. :-)
It shows me the same "This is an example" page wether I use completely unprotected IE, or completely protected Mozilla. Ironically, in IE, it does a 'refresh' after a few seconds, and it doesn't refresh in Mozilla. I'm guessing that the refresh redirects to a 'denied' page, but Mozilla has stopped the refresh! (In Mozilla, I have ALL cookies, Java, JS, etc disabled.)
Not much of an example, to me.
called VNC on a Palm. Plus, I don't have to use such a large screen. Yeah, I also use Windows XP's 'Remote Desktop' (which is functionally the same as VNC,) to use my desktop's resources from my miniscule Sony PictureBook.
The only problem, (assuming that this uses the same basic technology as Remote Desktop,) is that you can't watch ANY kind of video due to lack of bandwidth. Even if the MPAA said it was okay, you wouldn't want to watch a DVD, as full screen video only comes through at about 2-4 frames per second. (Unless they improved that by streaming the file rather than the display pixels, like the currently do.)
I worked as System/Network admin for a small internet company (I was employee #30, it got up to 80 before the 'burst'.) Well, I left on decent terms. The CEO loved me, but my direct boss (a VP) wasn't a big fan of my working style. (He's part of the reason that I was let go before the other IT guy.) A couple months ago (after I had been gone for more than a year and a half,) I stopped in to say hi to everyone, and gave my old boss (the VP) my business card. I had recently started my own computer consulting company, and after hearing that they had laid off the last full-time IT guy, I thought they'd be interested in using my new company as an on-call IT resource. (The lead programmer was doing double duty as IT guy, and he hates Windows, so I figured they could use my company for Windows issues, and save the programmer the headaches.)
Well, a couple weeks after that, the lead programmer calls me directly, and asked a quick question about one of our servers. (A hardware question, he is defenitely not a hardware guy.) Now, I liked him, I got along great with him, so since the answer could be relayed in less than 5 minutes over the phone, I went ahead and told him.
But, if my old boss (the VP) had called instead, I would have told him point-blank "Well, Rent-A-Geek can have a technician down there for you next Tuesday for our normal rate of $100 an hour, or if you need it now, I can have someone there immediately at our emergency call rate of $200 an hour."
(If you're curious about my company, visit our website. Yes, the web page isn't the greatest, but hey, we don't do web design, we do administration and troubleshooting. I'm actually shopping around for a new web designer to give it a makeover.)
First, I've got four 'main' computers.
1. AthlonXP based desktop running Windows XP Professional.
2. Sony PictureBook notebook running Windows XP Professional.
3. Power Macintosh G3 (beige) running Mac OS X 10.2.2
4. Xeon based server running Windows XP Professional (for now.)
I've got a hardware router/firewall, so I don't need to worry (very much) about those kind of exploits (I still run Norton Internet Security, though.)
Why do I run WinXP? Well, I'll start with my desktop:
First: I'm lazy. I know a little about UNIXes, but not enough to run my own box effectively. I do have 'study guides', but I haven't found time to actually study.
Second: I am a Microsoft Excel wizard. I can do amazing things without resorting to Visual Basic, but I know that most of my formula writing knowledge only applies to Excel, and I love making spreadsheets for all sorts of random things. So, I've tried using a couple other spreadsheet programs, and none work with all of my formulas. (I have a completely handwritten 12MB spreadsheet; it has all sorts of funky 'tricks' that don't translate very well.)
Third: I play a couple games that are Windows-only. Specifically, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Combat Flight Simulator. For obvious reasons, this is only available for Windows.
Fourth: I really do like the Windows XP interface. I am not a big fan of Microsoft, the company, by any means, but I really do like XP.
Okay, then my notebook: Simple: I have no basically no choice.
Then, the PowerMac: Well, it *IS* running OS X. In fact, it doesn't even have an OS 9 System Folder on it! I've dabbled with it's BSD core a couple times, most notably when trying to make it become a serial port ppp server for my Newton.
Finally, the most obvious choice for an alternate OS: My server...
In all reality, I do plan on putting Linux on this box. I just got the computer a couple weeks ago from a friend, and had to put XP on it, just to compare it to my Athlon XP. (The Athlon XP is a single processor 1.46GHz, the server has two 700MHz Pentium III Xeons, I wanted to compare the speed difference.)
Then, I went and got two cards: An Adaptec ASC-19160, and an Adaptec AAA-UDMA. (The SCSI card I've had for a long time, I just recently gave up SCSI in my main box; the RAID card I got from the same friend who gave me the server.) Unfortunately, neither has official Linux support, and there doesn't appear to be ANY way to get the AAA-UDMA to work in Linux. (Heck, the RAID card doesn't even have XP drivers, so I'm thinking of installing Win2k Server, but then the SCSI card won't work, because it doesn't support the 'server' versions of Windows!)
Actually, my company (a small, three person company) has been getting free tickets directly from the Comdex organizers for 3-4 years now. Before that, in college, a couple friends and I had a pseudo-company, and we got free tickets every year too. (Our company was just the four of us, made into an LLC with a reseller license, so we could get computer parts direct from distributors cheaply.)
Of course, I've never been able to make it to Vegas, so I've never been able to use them. Just goes to show that lots of companies get their tickets for free.
Many local ISPs offer static IPs either as part of their normal service, or for only a few dollars extra. And for nationwide broadband, Earthlink DSL/Cable/Satellite offers a static for a small charge, and it's standard on DirecTV DSL; again, many local ISPs will offer it, too.
As has also been pointed out, 127.0.0.1 always works when referencing your own computer. And if you have a local network anyway (as you would have to to get this to work,) you can set your local IPs however you want.
Well, I have an 'L' shaped computer desk (fancy thing, got it as a Christmas present a few years ago) that, until this morning, had my main PeeCee (Abit AT7/AthlonXP 1.47GHz/512MB PC2100/200GB of RAID/WinXP/ViewSonic 17" CRT,) my server (Intel MS440GX/Dual P3Xeon 700 1MB/512MB ECC PC100/18GB of 10kRPM SCSI RAID/OpenBSD/headless,) that was right next to it in the 'closed cabinet' area of the desk, which had it's door ripped off long ago because of cooling problems. On the 'L' extension was a rev.b iMac (160MB RAM/OS X Jaguar,) and a beige G3 PowerMac (233MHz/512MB RAM/OS X Jaguar/USB and FireWire cards.) But, today I finished rewiring the house, and relocated the server (hey, the thing is almost as loud as my vacuum,) cable modem, etc, to the basement server closet, and moved the iMac to the kitchen to be a recipe computer.
Also on the network are my son's Pentium II/400 with Win95 and a VooDoo3 3500TV; my wife's Pentium 3/1000 with WinXP, my Sony PictureBook (wireless,) my PowerBook 1400c with G3 upgrade (wireless,) a PowerMac 7300 (with OS X 10.1.5 thanks to XPostFacto,) a PowerMac 6100 DOS Compatible, a Quadra 660AV, a Mac IIfx, a Color Classic II, an SE/30, an SE, and a Plus. About 20 other Macs not on the network yet. (I need to find a LocalTalk to Ethernet converter.)
Uh... OS X is based on BSD, just much around with the command line for awhile, and you'll learn BSD. Also, when you get that iBook, I'd be more than happy to take that Duo off your hands for you. :-)
Yes, he did compare benchmarks. But again, this was not meant to compare the gaming value of the various cards, but to compare the multiple-monitor setups of them. The benchmarks were done to show that there wasn't a significant slowdown going from one monitor to two, and that the various methods of multi-monitor setups do not slow the system down. You can extrapolate that to the 9700 if you want to, their results should translate to it just fine. They probably just didn't have a 9700 handy.
Because, as was mentioned multiple times, the point of the benchmarks wasn't to compare video cards (as had been done multiple times before in previous reviews) but to compare single versus dual monitors.
All of the Iowas have been out of service since just after the gulf war. In fact, the U.S. Navy doesn't have a single 'battleship' left. Only destroyers and frigates. The only two true battleships left in the possession of the Navy (and not in a museum) are the Iowa and Wisconsin, which are decommissioned, awaiting final disposition.
Visit the ICPA for more info.
Almost all commercial database software has the 'can't publish benchmarks' clause. Oracle, MS SQL, etc. That one has become common practice nowadays, because none of the companies actually WANT to know which one is faster. It's "we don't care if we're not fastest, as long as nobody can prove it."
Uh, doesn't Windows 2k get your screen all nasty when you open it? :-)
Yeah, yeah... My lame attempt at security. I know that the hostname by itself won't reveal anything actually security related, but didn't want to reveal TOO much.
Well, I was just doing a Windows XP 'Remote Desktop Connection' (Sorry, no choice in the matter; and if you don't know what a Remote Desktop Connection is, think: Terminal Services lite) and got a funny error. I'm going from my PC to another desktop PC. The other desktop PC uses a wireless network connection, which, I must admit, Windows XP usually handles nicely. Well, my login dialog box came up just fine, I logged in just fine, and up came the desktop of the offending PC.
Down in the corner by the clock (in the 'systray') is the little 'two dark computers with a red x between them' icon. Meaning: No network connection found. In this case, when I hover over it, it says 'Wireless connection unavailable'. Good trick, since the only way I am able to view that screen is THROUGH THE WIRELESS CONNECTION! (In fact, I've got that connection minimized right now, and I think I'll put it in a window and take a screenshot. Okay, you can view the screenshot here.
Okay, for those that haven't paid enough attention (i.e. didn't actually go and read the article,) here is the short of it:
Now, what this means:
This aircraft was made by Boeing so they could make sure that developmental technologies would work. They did this because they had other contracts with the DoD that would benefit from this technology. As the press release says, technology from this aircraft was used in development of the X-45A.
This is very common for defense companies. They know that they need to work on some piece of technology to get their DoD project working right, but they already told the DoD that they had said technology. So what do they do? They develop the technology in secret (seperately from the DoD project,) do it cheaply, and do it with in-house money. This way, the DoD project gets its technology, and they don't have egg on their face from the fact that they didn't actually have this technology developed in the first place.
Okay, I'm not a small person, I'm 6'0" (a touch under 2m for you metric-type folks out there,) 185 lb. (again, about 80kg for you metricies.) I have slightly larger than average hands, although since mine are in the form of longer fingers, not wider, maybe it's just me.
But, I find that the U1's keyboard is most likely NOT too small. I can touch type just fine on my Sony PictureBook (80-100wpm,) and I used to own a Hewlett-Packard 200LX, which has 'calculator keys' in QWERTY layout, and I could type 50-60wpm on it. (Hell, I could type 25wpm on my 48SX, which truly did have a calculator setup, with an ABCDEF layout.
Of course, I have yet to actually SEE a U1, so maybe the keys are too close together to be useful, I don't know. (The 200LX had small hard plastic keys that weren't touching each other, so I could easily hit one with the very tips of my fingers without hitting its neighbor. They also clicked nicely. Man do I wish a company would release a real x86 palmtop that size again. I used to do all my programming classwork on it because it was faster than the lab's machines! Imagine a little one, with maybe a Crusoe 600, even, 128 (or even 64)MB of RAM, a small 640x480 or 800x640 screen, one USB port (maybe even a FireWire port that could also charge the palmtop!) I'd buy one in a heartbeat.)
Oh, I fully agree. That's why Intel likes controllerless modems (i.e. 'WinModems',) and why they're starting to support controllerless WiFi. (Their new 'Banias' mobile CPU will have built-in software-based WiFi capability.) That's also why Intel dislikes nVidia, ATI, et al. Because a slower computer can run games with one of their 'GPUs' better than a faster one without. That is why Intel's newest integrated-graphics chipsets (845G, with 'Extreme Graphics') are still software-based. Because they know that their primary job is to sell fast processors. All else is extra. Just look at the xBox. It only has a Pentium 3 733MHz processor in it, but because of the nVidia video processor, it can perform at least as well as a Pentium 4 2.8GHz with Intel's own 'Extreme Graphics' in most circumstances.
And, so you know, because I used to work for Intel, I currently have a few Intel systems around the house, including a nice dual Pentium III Xeon 700MHz system. But... My main PC, built myself out of parts I bought at normal stores, is an AthlonXP 1.46GHz machine. (My Intel machines are the above-mentioned Xeon, a P3/1000, and a P2/400.)