One more article about this subject and I fall asleep. BORING!
On the good side, it matches what I just did yesterday: I ordered parts from QuietPC.com to replace power supply and fan in my Sun Blade 100.
What I found sucks is the shipping from UK to the US that cost about $30 or 25%. No warehouse over here makes these things more expensive than they should be. Hope they realize that the biggest market for computer stuff is in the US not in the UK.
Second thing I did was to order a Seagate 80GB ultra quiet drive. These drives rock. A friend of mine got one to replace the HD in his Apple G4 Cube. Absolutely quiet!
Now I need to a neighborhood where they ban leafblowers and I will be able to concentrate on my screen.
I've bought one, and sold it just after a couple of weeks for 2 reasons:
- video card sucks big time (not enough memory for 1280x1024 res.)
- Noise is barely standable.
I suppose you could fit it in a drawer, but cables and vent would be a problem. So, I say:
Bummer!
I am always struggling to find a nice wall paper for my 1600x1024 Apple Cinema 22" display. What I really want is something bigger that I can rescale in GIMP.
The original format should be compressed with a lossless algorithm to give me the best quality, or at least with the best JPEG settings.
I would pay for some of these images a reasonable fee just to get them the way I want.
Unfortunately, they don't even provide this option. And the JPEG compression is just plain bad. Too bad.
My neighbour lives in a high-tech house already. Oh, it's not that fancy being built 50 years ago with its original kitchy furnitures. From outside, it looks like it's falling apart as no one has been maintaining it. Last month, his toilets broke and I found out that they are not flushing anymore last time I visited him. Recently, his kitchen has been invaded by cockroaches because the dishwasher needs to be fixed. His lawn has grass about 5 feet high. Newspapers and junk mail are building up a barricade outside since he doesn't even bother fetching them anymore. Sometimes I bring him some food, but the rest of thet time he gets pizza delivered. However, the one thing he is proud about is that he's got a top notch DSL connection that I am sure bits everyone else online experience in the street. He is able to play online games as no one else can really do around here. Nothing else seems to matter to him. He looks so happy facing his screen all the time.
PPA. the girl next door
Some upcoming gadgets are already DOA
on
Gadgets of 2002
·
· Score: 1
Sony eVilla running the recently killed BeOS is one example.
One thing that worries me about the MP3 watch is battery life of such a geek toy. I would agree with the article that more functionalities are going to be popping up in day to day ware that we are used to. Even self proclaim low sighted visionaries like Gate, Ellison or Jobs could guess that. What I am wondering about is the battery life of such things (batteries didn't evolve so rapidly as processor power) and the legislation of such items. Are car insurance ok to let drivers use a camera phone and an MP3 watch all at once? Sounds like a dangerous weapon to me.
I just drove back home the other time and the idiot in front of me was making dangerous curbs on the highway as he was drunk. No such thing: he was taking notes on a PDA while talking on the phone and... driving.
Have you ever tried to set up a shared printer on a windows box attached to a LocalTalk network (Mac)? This is NOT easy:-(
Granted that is not the most popular case, but you've got to admit that MS didn't make that option too obvious. Those bastards. My HP 2000NT is still printing 2 pages of PS crap at the end of each printing session ONLY from the windows box (with latest drivers and 4 days watch in hand with MS/HP tech support.)
Improper usage of a word is part of the history and culture of its domain. Human are just er- humans. So what ever we are coming up with won't never be perfect. Language and words are part of it. Get along with it.
When I moved to the States from Japan, I thought that Metric was the best invention since the butterknife. I still puzzle people by asking them to convert from miles to inches for arbitrary long distances. They get the point quickly after trying to come up with some answer for 2 minutes.
However, as much as I like the metric system, there are things associated with the Imperial system in this country that are not worse changing. I understood that when I asked for a 4x8 piece of wood at the hardware store. For sure, metric is not going to change the way people are used to do things.
Same for Megabytes. Maybe when the word was used in a lab between a few tech guys, there could have been a way to replace the word, but look at it this way: if it didn't change at that time with only a few smart people to use it, why do you think it will change now?
For sure, manufacturers should print the correct measure on their tech specs when trying to push down the mass their products. But that doesn't stop them to print BS anyway.
One example: I just got a workstation for Sun. On the tech spec I read, it says: noise level 5 bels. I say wow! That's pretty quite! Wait a minute 5bels = 50 decibels. I say F@%&k! These people could have printed that in the first place. Hope you get my point.
Why would people put hand writing on a device. This is really bizarre. I hate writing and the last time I did it was when I wrote a check sometimes last year. Beside the design of this device is plain ugly. I wish they could resurrect this laptop you could rotate the screen on the keyboard to act as a tablet (forgot the name...) and power it with an SA-1110. But a Transmeta, bah...
During the course of the past two years, I've spent all my money on computer stuff. I bought an iPaq (which I still have and it runs Linux), a Sony Transmeta rev 2 (600MHz) which I sold because it was really slow and the keyboard barely usable. I bought an iBook with an iPod which I really like for MP3 and OS X fun. I bought a Sony Clie, which I sold on eBay, because what's the use when you have laptop with a keyboard (I hate graffiti) etc... The result of this, is that when I have serious work to do on the computer, you find me on my thinkpad which I got about 2 ago and when I have serious games to play I go to the PS2 or an AMD box which I rev up every now and then. The rest is just a waste of money.
That's not a good idea [having MS developing Linux software]. Let's open the file format fro MS office to help beneficiate other products like Star Office or better Open Office and forbid the beast to change and hide things under to break the competition.
No flame here but... I heard from some people that when a top product marketing guy at Microsoft was asked to justify for the fact that IE didn't support Java in its browser under MacOS X very well (an understatement as it was buggy as hell. The support was turned on officially months after IE and OS X shipped and today, it's still broken for many applets), his reply was that Microsoft had assigned "CLASS C" engineers to do the task. Can you imagine what the level of the programmers assigned to developing Office on Linux would be and what the quality delivered would look like? And who do you think would benefit from the end result? It's like asking the German army during WWII to fight Nazism. Who's the moron who came up with this idea again?
I'm glad to read that this release is not so great. Why? Not because I work for the competition, but because Verant literally kicked me out after wrongly claiming that I was "cheating." Class action law suit anyone? I heard that I am not the only one in that boat.
I have been with the system since the beginning. I went thru their buggy eervers, buggy releases, awfull support, you name it. You have it. It appears that they made their decision when some sysop was logged in (which is something exceptional as they usually are not here when you need them, like when all your objects disappear because of long lasting bugs.) So the guy sent me a message to verify if I was in front of my machine while I was feeding the cat or on the johns. And since I didn't reply right away. The next thing I got was a mail to get lost. No proof of what they were claiming is shown, unless they scanned my machine and they would have find nothing wrong.What followed was a message exchange (think replies one week after my original message), ending to nothing, nada, zip!
Verant is the Sirius Cybertronics company as Douglas Adams defines it in the HGTTG book. A company whose complain department covers the landmasses of the 3 first planet in whatever solar system. A company so badly managed that the bulletin board needs to be censored by customers of them who can't get their hw working, connection to their servers, drops, items lost, crashes bugs. Remember their intent for scanning software on your PC. You should have read the BB.
That was fun!
I won't be able to get my character back, neither pay their subscription every month. In one way, I should tell them thank you for curing me from this habit of login and meeting friends from all around the world I was talking to every night.
Hi guys! If you wonder where I have been, you know now. My ultimate request to Verant was to be able to log one last time (even if they judged me guilty for something I didn't do) and let the people I had fun with daily online know that I wouldn't come back. I have still to read a reply from Verant support. It's been 3 weeks now...
That is an heuristic that works not only for software as read in a/. article, it's also true for documentation material.
I am glad that I burned these iso images of the past distros. That's one way to deal with the problem. They won't take it away from my CDRs (until MPAA finds a way to do that of course.)
And I wouldn't worry too much about their action of withdrawing information from their web site. According to another/. article (originally published at theregister.co.uk), thanks to google and friends, all documents who have been posted on the web are doomed to be archived for a long time in the search engines cache databases. So no worry, if you can't find it on debian.org, seek it with google.
Going back to the post: these 2 days deadline seems so unrealistic that it's almost funny to read it. Is the project of documenting a well-known-so-hard-to-install Linux distro (the worse according to Linux Journal 12/01) lacking attention so badly that its internal mailing lists don't provide enough communication to the documentation authors/maintainers? This is a puzzling decision with little thinking on the consequences that has been made at Debian.
Who is going to suffer at the end? Well, the poor lad who is trying to use Debian of course. This guy is going to move back to RH (or even worse, the dark side) in no time. Thanks guys.
...I bought an iPod and got to admit that after passing the feeling of spending too much for not much more, I love the iPod.
The not much more ends up making all the difference. Having a firewire drive I can carry with me and hot plug to my home machine and transfer music when I need it the most and the fastest I can before leaving home is just phenomenal.
Having twice as much of memory gives me 20 mins of skip free music. A must for this symphonies. The size and design are just too good. Hummm, I love the click of the wheel of the jog shuttle. The interface is also simple and so convenient and so easy to use.
Finally, the battery is a big winner: reloading the unit while connected to firewire, I never ran out of battery like I did all the time on a walkman or even a Rio.
And little people know about the fact that there is a flash eeprom that stores the firmware OS of the machine and Apple plans to release a fix for early bugs, better experience. The other units, er, you just have to buy the new model sorry.
I'll get the software that let's it connect to Windoz. Linux support is probably right at the corner when enough people will buy that device.
Two thumbs up and I am lucky enough to have it before Christmas.
It's time for Apple legal to patent the "One-Click Crack" method and go after other companies who are trying to do the same. Bah, ah haha.
What a bunch of morons! BTW, I never could understand why this company with about 500 programmers had to license the One-click order from Amazon (which has been withdrawn little time after.) It's not like you would buy a computer as quickly as a book, right?
Seems like all the good Apple programmers left the company after NeXT was brought in (and that the good programmers at NeXT left before they moved to Cupertino.)
Last year, I decided to move away from NSI. I was in the same boat : broken web site links, no email reply, etc... A total mess. I lost about one month of getting nowhere with NSI. I contacted a company to do the transfer and then took it from here. The name of the company is tigertech.com. They charge a very reasonable fee, and most importantly they offer the best support I've ever seen on the web so far. Writing a mail on Sunday gets me an answer in the following hour.
I don't have any stock in this company, don't even now if they are public, all I know is that they deserve to succeed in this market, compare to some huge sharks who don't give a darn about your problems.
Regarding the old edition that has been out-of-print for so long:
It's really a crime to let books out of print sell for over $100. Publishers should react to this and re-edit the volumes but to my great despair, not much is done from their part.
I came to look for some great books that I wanted to buy again and was so sad to see their prices being so high and therefore unaffordable to me. I contacted the publisher at the time and the response I got were that it was not a big market enough for them to do the reprint. Even when I mentioned that these books had a regular waiting line of 10 people on half.com with a minimum price tag of $400-$600 (or about 500x what the book was selling at the time.)
Unfortunately, with them having the publishing rights, there is not much one can do to solve this problem.
I usually don't reply to AC but since you are asking politely...
First, let me add that I had a good reason to open the case as I needed to replace the hard drive to a 30GB model in the first place and add more RAM to it for a total of 384MB (you don't need to open the case completly for the RAM but you do for the HD), things that any Apple stores won't offer to you on their BTO system. So by making sure the parts came up before I starting this project, I killed 2 birds with one stone.
To come back to your question, it reminds me about a story I read about Steve Jobs who was telling about a neighbor of him a while back. The guy was working on his VW and putting all his money on extra equipment and working his butt off every weekends to make it look like a Porsche. At the end, Jobs concludes that whatever the guy was going to spend on his vehicle, timewise, and moneywise, the car would still be a VW !
In the same line of thoughs , I read somewhere that Linux is free only if you don't value your time. Dam, I like this sig !
So, yes, my iBook is still an entry level machine on the Apple catalog even after the mod. And on top of that, I probably wasted a couple of hours to do the job, time that I could have spent watching (or playing) a game or walking the dog.
The bottom line is : If you get the dough and want something right away by just opening your wallet, then go for it, you lucky b...;-)
On the other hand, I got some satisfaction out of my little afternoon, and somehow enjoyed putting some of my own sweat into this little hobby project. And I now have something to talk about too;-)
The article on xlr8yourmac.com is quite old, so I am quite surprise about the big fuzz that it generates today on '/.'.
I applied the mod about a month ago, when I decided to invest into a decent and not too expensive Linux laptop. I was quite happy with the speed of the machine, but heard from a friend of mine who knew someone at Apple who told her that the machine was originally designed for 100MHz mem bus. The only thing that required Apple to move back to 66MHz was to be able to give the machine a four hour battery run as the marketing brochures showing these figures were already printing when the tests were being ran (!)
With this in mind, I just overclocked the memory bus of the machine, because I believe that it is the main bottleneck for my application of the iBook: basically watching a DVD, playing MP3 files with iTunes (great player by the way) and being able to type a report for my boss at the same time. Yes, I can do that, but the laptop had some troubles keeping up;-)
There are a few catches though. Part of the RAM is located on the motherboard (64MB or 128MB depending on the model you get) and the memory controller would need to be reprogrammed in theory. Not doing so can will cause some RAM not to function properly and that could be the reason for the mod not to succeed. The other problem is having the speed bus directly encoded in the OpenFirmware ROM (kinda like a BIOS thing on PC.) You can patch the value by adding an extra Forth patch in non-volatile RAM, so it's ok. This is required for some OS to calibrate properly. In my case, that didn't matter because the CPU bus was the same.
Doing this mod, I ended up using the same number of resistors. I just add to move them around. If you go for another config and end up using less resistors, keep them in a safe place as you never know what is going to happen (some people want to purchase only genuine speed laptops, so you may want to revert the mod if you sell your laptop in the future.)
I didn't add the extra metal plate as it is described in the article, because I didn't want to create to much pressure on the components or get a bended keyboard (which would have made the keys touch the screen as on the TiBook.) I just added some clear heatsink paste (the one that doesn't get messy.) I never had a heat problem with this machine, before or after the mod, even under Linux. Linux kernel is not really energy savvy on the PowerPC at this time (some bugs and lots of hacks to get the fastest context switch doesn't goes along with good energy saving.)
The last point I want to cover, is that you need to make sure you are really careful about disassembling and reassembling the unit. Aesthetic is a big thing on this particular brand of machines, so don't mess with it. I used a soft flat spoon (the kind you can find at your supermarket for mixing stuff with soft flat edges) to lever the side of the machine. I also used surgeon gloves during the all operation (no pun) and worked in the kitchen area the only place without carpet in my house. I touched the fridge before putting the gloves to make sure I didn't carry any static. You are never too careful and because this mod voids the warranty you may want to think again before going for it.
It would seem that D-Link is the problem. At work, we have D-Link Access Points and D-Link USB/PC-cards. I can't close the door of my office! At home, I am using wavelan and Apple airport base station (which is basically an lucent card orinoco.) Here everything works fine. I can surf the web from the back of my house with 2 rooms and the main wall in between.
On top of this, the Apple base station is more pleasing for the eyes than the grey color D-Link "Sharper Image" gizmo look.
Take the example of my startup: 4 individuals: 4 laptops and 2 desktops, (not including 2 servers) and 2 PDAs, all running Linux 2.2.x and Linux 2.4.x. The distro is Debian on all of these puppies except for the ipaqs are running Familiar.
That puts the number of systems at 8, or 2 per individuals all running Linux (200%)
The decision came after evaluating the cost of development for a client/server application. We just didn't have the dough to go the MS way (SQL+Windows 2000 Server IS expensive.) We decided unanimously to go Linux (even for the assistant when we hire one.)
We prefered instead of getting expensive software that we don't control, buying better equipment and even pay little extra to hire smart people. Being smart of course, the new hires are able to use Linux by themselves, so we cut on the cost of support and everybody can help each others and expand the capabilities of the systems on a day to day bases (Don't have to wait for these darn software updates coming from vendors.) I also noticed that running proprietary software puts you in a lethargic mode where you don't question so much the problems you are getting with the system.
I find it way more stimulating and interesting to talk about Linux development around the coffee machine, than any other propreritary software I have been dealing in the past.
Boring subject. But let me tell you: I've switch a while ago from proprietary OS (Windows and OS X) to a more open-minded one, LInux. Even if at first it wasn't perfect and a little painful, all I can say when I read this, is that I am really glad to have made the move. Thinking I could have given my money to such an arrogant and stupid company brings me chills in my backspin. Apple may be thinking they are after a golden goose with Aqua and their OS X, but they apparently don't even listen to their own users who are all bitching and complaining at their unusable semi-transparent windows and unproductive dock.
You obviously didn't read carefully my original post.
Adobe just announced Illustrator 10, which runs native in OS X, and InDesign 2.0, which is also a native app.
Illustrator 10 will be shipping before year is over. InDesign 2.0 in first half of 2002. Come on! Don't hold you breath on that, because we all know how it goes as far as software deadlines (see MacOS X 10.1 slipping dates for a short reminder.) Beside I use only Photoshop so why should I care about Adobe other annoucements? But, thanks for the info and check your calendar dates to see how it's coming. Good luck!
At work I run 9.1, and can go all week without a crash, except for MSIE,
Of course, I don't see myself crashing when I run the clock in the menu bar ONLY. Seriously, being it MSIE or Mail or any other app, a crash most of the time brings the system down (on a USB machine with 9.2.1 because of buggy USB drivers. Don't ask me how I know, I just know.)
At home I run OS X 10.0.4 90% of the time, and there is no problem running Photoshop 6, Illustrator 9, or QuarkXPress 4.11
Are you just running OS X for the beauty of saying that and then missing the point by ultimately running Classic (aka BlueBox) and then losing about 80MB of RAM just for the hell of it? Reboot in 9 and run with 384 MB of memory. I'm sure you can make better use of the memory than by just running 1 bloatware OS under another one.
I paid $1650 for my G4, with 384 MB of RAM
I paid the same for a P4 Dell with 1.6GHz and 256MB of RDRAM dam it. this not only account for more memory in as far as CISC code goes, the memory bus is 300% faster, the IDE is faster and I get room for expansion. Your G4 is twice as fast (if you really want to believe that), maybe but still half of what you can buy on the PC side. Wake up! You've been listening to SJ too much!
What the hell would you use the "ins" key for anyway?
You maybe, but that's your business. Making a complete extended keyboard and missing ins, which I would use under emacs (running OS X or Linux), Apple had no excuses for missing the key from the mapping. Moving the function keys close to the upper row and other details (like using a green LED for capslock to lower cost: great design my ass!)
In about 2 or 3 years, Apple will come up with a new "killer" design of a 2 button wheel mouse optical and wireless. By that time, it'll probably be completly outdated, and they have you buy a new machine just to plug the thing into (see the ADC connector stories), but at least people like you will appreciate it.
By 2005, Apple will be a religion, and they'll convince you to make donations when you buy their hardware. Great future!
I'm running MacOS 9, thanks to (Free Dmitry) Adobe, who haven't move their ass to OS X, and therefore, are alienating mac users on the prone crashing 9 version (and it's getting worse as Apple energy diverges from it with time).
Under MacOS 9, if you press the mouse while doing anything else in the background (playing a Quicktime movie or MP3) the machine comes to a still and will only care about what is happening to your cursor. Not a bandwidth problem really, but it may look like the mouse events are suddenly being treated exclusively by your embedded PowerPC chip.
A design based fault caused by a system designed about 20 years ago. Having this behavior these days is barely acceptable (well for 4% of the market only, so that's okay.) The single mouse button is another concept based on the original design that has not evolved with time neither.
If you look at how long it took for Apple to replace the hockey puck mouse from the first iMac to the more ergonomic version (2 years and half), knowing that world+dog were complaining about the design flaw for this device, then you will obviously notice that this company is not as innovative as they would like you to believe.
Now, not having a wheel on the new mouse, let alone, a wireless connection, is at the minimum a joke.
Taking simply the keyboard and looking at the functions keys positions, missing 'ins' key, and other discrepancies, and you just have to rush to Fry's and get at least another $100 bucks of technology to replace Apple stubborn butt head crappy "cool" design.
If like me, you didn't want to invest more than what you already did (as it is already about $1000 more than what Dell would let you buy), then put your translucent keyboard upside down and take a look at the hair, nails and skin deposit that this wonderful clear design lets you admire. And if you are trying to clean it up, beware that the fragile plastic will probably break up, this of course if you are lucky to get the right torx screwdriver size to start with.
I believe that you misunderstood what the previous post was saying. Basically, using volunteer work protected by GPL to make a descent product, then withdrawing the very same product to make some $$$.
At least, that is how I understood it. Which I am totally against. Bringing people with a convincing argument (OSS, GPL), then conveniently taking the fruit of the labor or hundreds of individuals and cashing some bucks from a proprietary software company.
Ugly! And there seems to be nothing from stopping people from doing that.
Slashdot Mirror
One more article about this subject and I fall asleep. BORING!
On the good side, it matches what I just did yesterday: I ordered parts from QuietPC.com to replace power supply and fan in my Sun Blade 100.
What I found sucks is the shipping from UK to the US that cost about $30 or 25%. No warehouse over here makes these things more expensive than they should be. Hope they realize that the biggest market for computer stuff is in the US not in the UK.
Second thing I did was to order a Seagate 80GB ultra quiet drive. These drives rock. A friend of mine got one to replace the HD in his Apple G4 Cube. Absolutely quiet!
Now I need to a neighborhood where they ban leafblowers and I will be able to concentrate on my screen.
This thing is awefully loud my friend.
I've bought one, and sold it just after a couple of weeks for 2 reasons:
- video card sucks big time (not enough memory for 1280x1024 res.)
- Noise is barely standable.
I suppose you could fit it in a drawer, but cables and vent would be a problem. So, I say:
Bummer!
1024x768 is the correct size you want.
I am always struggling to find a nice wall paper for my 1600x1024 Apple Cinema 22" display. What I really want is something bigger that I can rescale in GIMP.
The original format should be compressed with a lossless algorithm to give me the best quality, or at least with the best JPEG settings.
I would pay for some of these images a reasonable fee just to get them the way I want.
Unfortunately, they don't even provide this option. And the JPEG compression is just plain bad. Too bad.
PPA
My neighbour lives in a high-tech house already. Oh, it's not that fancy being built 50 years ago with its original kitchy furnitures. From outside, it looks like it's falling apart as no one has been maintaining it. Last month, his toilets broke and I found out that they are not flushing anymore last time I visited him. Recently, his kitchen has been invaded by cockroaches because the dishwasher needs to be fixed. His lawn has grass about 5 feet high. Newspapers and junk mail are building up a barricade outside since he doesn't even bother fetching them anymore. Sometimes I bring him some food, but the rest of thet time he gets pizza delivered. However, the one thing he is proud about is that he's got a top notch DSL connection that I am sure bits everyone else online experience in the street. He is able to play online games as no one else can really do around here. Nothing else seems to matter to him. He looks so happy facing his screen all the time.
PPA. the girl next door
Sony eVilla running the recently killed BeOS is one example.
One thing that worries me about the MP3 watch is battery life of such a geek toy. I would agree with the article that more functionalities are going to be popping up in day to day ware that we are used to. Even self proclaim low sighted visionaries like Gate, Ellison or Jobs could guess that. What I am wondering about is the battery life of such things (batteries didn't evolve so rapidly as processor power) and the legislation of such items. Are car insurance ok to let drivers use a camera phone and an MP3 watch all at once? Sounds like a dangerous weapon to me.
I just drove back home the other time and the idiot in front of me was making dangerous curbs on the highway as he was drunk. No such thing: he was taking notes on a PDA while talking on the phone and... driving.
PPA
Have you ever tried to set up a shared printer on a windows box attached to a LocalTalk network (Mac)? This is NOT easy :-(
Granted that is not the most popular case, but you've got to admit that MS didn't make that option too obvious. Those bastards. My HP 2000NT is still printing 2 pages of PS crap at the end of each printing session ONLY from the windows box (with latest drivers and 4 days watch in hand with MS/HP tech support.)
PPA -- the girl next door.
Improper usage of a word is part of the history and culture of its domain. Human are just er- humans. So what ever we are coming up with won't never be perfect. Language and words are part of it. Get along with it.
When I moved to the States from Japan, I thought that Metric was the best invention since the butterknife. I still puzzle people by asking them to convert from miles to inches for arbitrary long distances. They get the point quickly after trying to come up with some answer for 2 minutes.
However, as much as I like the metric system, there are things associated with the Imperial system in this country that are not worse changing. I understood that when I asked for a 4x8 piece of wood at the hardware store. For sure, metric is not going to change the way people are used to do things.
Same for Megabytes. Maybe when the word was used in a lab between a few tech guys, there could have been a way to replace the word, but look at it this way: if it didn't change at that time with only a few smart people to use it, why do you think it will change now?
For sure, manufacturers should print the correct measure on their tech specs when trying to push down the mass their products. But that doesn't stop them to print BS anyway.
One example: I just got a workstation for Sun. On the tech spec I read, it says: noise level 5 bels. I say wow! That's pretty quite! Wait a minute 5bels = 50 decibels. I say F@%&k! These people could have printed that in the first place. Hope you get my point.
PPA
Why would people put hand writing on a device. This is really bizarre. I hate writing and the last time I did it was when I wrote a check sometimes last year. Beside the design of this device is plain ugly. I wish they could resurrect this laptop you could rotate the screen on the keyboard to act as a tablet (forgot the name...) and power it with an SA-1110. But a Transmeta, bah...
During the course of the past two years, I've spent all my money on computer stuff. I bought an iPaq (which I still have and it runs Linux), a Sony Transmeta rev 2 (600MHz) which I sold because it was really slow and the keyboard barely usable. I bought an iBook with an iPod which I really like for MP3 and OS X fun. I bought a Sony Clie, which I sold on eBay, because what's the use when you have laptop with a keyboard (I hate graffiti) etc... The result of this, is that when I have serious work to do on the computer, you find me on my thinkpad which I got about 2 ago and when I have serious games to play I go to the PS2 or an AMD box which I rev up every now and then. The rest is just a waste of money.
So what's this thing will do for me?
That's not a good idea [having MS developing Linux software]. Let's open the file format fro MS office to help beneficiate other products like Star Office or better Open Office and forbid the beast to change and hide things under to break the competition.
No flame here but... I heard from some people that when a top product marketing guy at Microsoft was asked to justify for the fact that IE didn't support Java in its browser under MacOS X very well (an understatement as it was buggy as hell. The support was turned on officially months after IE and OS X shipped and today, it's still broken for many applets), his reply was that Microsoft had assigned "CLASS C" engineers to do the task. Can you imagine what the level of the programmers assigned to developing Office on Linux would be and what the quality delivered would look like? And who do you think would benefit from the end result? It's like asking the German army during WWII to fight Nazism. Who's the moron who came up with this idea again?
PPA
...and so long to the fishes.
I'm glad to read that this release is not so great. Why? Not because I work for the competition, but because Verant literally kicked me out after wrongly claiming that I was "cheating." Class action law suit anyone? I heard that I am not the only one in that boat.
I have been with the system since the beginning. I went thru their buggy eervers, buggy releases, awfull support, you name it. You have it. It appears that they made their decision when some sysop was logged in (which is something exceptional as they usually are not here when you need them, like when all your objects disappear because of long lasting bugs.) So the guy sent me a message to verify if I was in front of my machine while I was feeding the cat or on the johns. And since I didn't reply right away. The next thing I got was a mail to get lost. No proof of what they were claiming is shown, unless they scanned my machine and they would have find nothing wrong.What followed was a message exchange (think replies one week after my original message), ending to nothing, nada, zip!
Verant is the Sirius Cybertronics company as Douglas Adams defines it in the HGTTG book. A company whose complain department covers the landmasses of the 3 first planet in whatever solar system. A company so badly managed that the bulletin board needs to be censored by customers of them who can't get their hw working, connection to their servers, drops, items lost, crashes bugs. Remember their intent for scanning software on your PC. You should have read the BB.
That was fun!
I won't be able to get my character back, neither pay their subscription every month. In one way, I should tell them thank you for curing me from this habit of login and meeting friends from all around the world I was talking to every night.
Hi guys! If you wonder where I have been, you know now. My ultimate request to Verant was to be able to log one last time (even if they judged me guilty for something I didn't do) and let the people I had fun with daily online know that I wouldn't come back. I have still to read a reply from Verant support. It's been 3 weeks now...
PPA
That is an heuristic that works not only for software as read in a /. article, it's also true for documentation material.
/. article (originally published at theregister.co.uk), thanks to google and friends, all documents who have been posted on the web are doomed to be archived for a long time in the search engines cache databases. So no worry, if you can't find it on debian.org, seek it with google.
I am glad that I burned these iso images of the past distros. That's one way to deal with the problem. They won't take it away from my CDRs (until MPAA finds a way to do that of course.)
And I wouldn't worry too much about their action of withdrawing information from their web site. According to another
Going back to the post: these 2 days deadline seems so unrealistic that it's almost funny to read it. Is the project of documenting a well-known-so-hard-to-install Linux distro (the worse according to Linux Journal 12/01) lacking attention so badly that its internal mailing lists don't provide enough communication to the documentation authors/maintainers? This is a puzzling decision with little thinking on the consequences that has been made at Debian.
Who is going to suffer at the end? Well, the poor lad who is trying to use Debian of course. This guy is going to move back to RH (or even worse, the dark side) in no time. Thanks guys.
PPA
...I bought an iPod and got to admit that after passing the feeling of spending too much for not much more, I love the iPod.
The not much more ends up making all the difference. Having a firewire drive I can carry with me and hot plug to my home machine and transfer music when I need it the most and the fastest I can before leaving home is just phenomenal.
Having twice as much of memory gives me 20 mins of skip free music. A must for this symphonies. The size and design are just too good. Hummm, I love the click of the wheel of the jog shuttle. The interface is also simple and so convenient and so easy to use.
Finally, the battery is a big winner: reloading the unit while connected to firewire, I never ran out of battery like I did all the time on a walkman or even a Rio.
And little people know about the fact that there is a flash eeprom that stores the firmware OS of the machine and Apple plans to release a fix for early bugs, better experience. The other units, er, you just have to buy the new model sorry.
I'll get the software that let's it connect to Windoz. Linux support is probably right at the corner when enough people will buy that device.
Two thumbs up and I am lucky enough to have it before Christmas.
It's time for Apple legal to patent the "One-Click Crack" method and go after other companies who are trying to do the same. Bah, ah haha.
What a bunch of morons! BTW, I never could understand why this company with about 500 programmers had to license the One-click order from Amazon (which has been withdrawn little time after.) It's not like you would buy a computer as quickly as a book, right?
Seems like all the good Apple programmers left the company after NeXT was brought in (and that the good programmers at NeXT left before they moved to Cupertino.)
-- PPA
Last year, I decided to move away from NSI. I was in the same boat : broken web site links, no email reply, etc... A total mess. I lost about one month of getting nowhere with NSI. I contacted a company to do the transfer and then took it from here. The name of the company is tigertech.com. They charge a very reasonable fee, and most importantly they offer the best support I've ever seen on the web so far. Writing a mail on Sunday gets me an answer in the following hour.
I don't have any stock in this company, don't even now if they are public, all I know is that they deserve to succeed in this market, compare to some huge sharks who don't give a darn about your problems.
Try them, you won't regret it.
--PPA
Regarding the old edition that has been out-of-print for so long:
It's really a crime to let books out of print sell for over $100. Publishers should react to this and re-edit the volumes but to my great despair, not much is done from their part.
I came to look for some great books that I wanted to buy again and was so sad to see their prices being so high and therefore unaffordable to me. I contacted the publisher at the time and the response I got were that it was not a big market enough for them to do the reprint. Even when I mentioned that these books had a regular waiting line of 10 people on half.com with a minimum price tag of $400-$600 (or about 500x what the book was selling at the time.)
Unfortunately, with them having the publishing rights, there is not much one can do to solve this problem.
PPA
I usually don't reply to AC but since you are asking politely...
;-)
;-)
First, let me add that I had a good reason to open the case as I needed to replace the hard drive to a 30GB model in the first place and add more RAM to it for a total of 384MB (you don't need to open the case completly for the RAM but you do for the HD), things that any Apple stores won't offer to you on their BTO system. So by making sure the parts came up before I starting this project, I killed 2 birds with one stone.
To come back to your question, it reminds me about a story I read about Steve Jobs who was telling about a neighbor of him a while back. The guy was working on his VW and putting all his money on extra equipment and working his butt off every weekends to make it look like a Porsche. At the end, Jobs concludes that whatever the guy was going to spend on his vehicle, timewise, and moneywise, the car would still be a VW !
In the same line of thoughs , I read somewhere that Linux is free only if you don't value your time. Dam, I like this sig !
So, yes, my iBook is still an entry level machine on the Apple catalog even after the mod. And on top of that, I probably wasted a couple of hours to do the job, time that I could have spent watching (or playing) a game or walking the dog.
The bottom line is : If you get the dough and want something right away by just opening your wallet, then go for it, you lucky b...
On the other hand, I got some satisfaction out of my little afternoon, and somehow enjoyed putting some of my own sweat into this little hobby project. And I now have something to talk about too
Cheers,
PPA
The article on xlr8yourmac.com is quite old, so I am quite surprise about the big fuzz that it generates today on '/.'.
;-)
I applied the mod about a month ago, when I decided to invest into a decent and not too expensive Linux laptop. I was quite happy with the speed of the machine, but heard from a friend of mine who knew someone at Apple who told her that the machine was originally designed for 100MHz mem bus. The only thing that required Apple to move back to 66MHz was to be able to give the machine a four hour battery run as the marketing brochures showing these figures were already printing when the tests were being ran (!)
With this in mind, I just overclocked the memory bus of the machine, because I believe that it is the main bottleneck for my application of the iBook: basically watching a DVD, playing MP3 files with iTunes (great player by the way) and being able to type a report for my boss at the same time. Yes, I can do that, but the laptop had some troubles keeping up
There are a few catches though. Part of the RAM is located on the motherboard (64MB or 128MB depending on the model you get) and the memory controller would need to be reprogrammed in theory. Not doing so can will cause some RAM not to function properly and that could be the reason for the mod not to succeed. The other problem is having the speed bus directly encoded in the OpenFirmware ROM (kinda like a BIOS thing on PC.) You can patch the value by adding an extra Forth patch in non-volatile RAM, so it's ok. This is required for some OS to calibrate properly. In my case, that didn't matter because the CPU bus was the same.
Doing this mod, I ended up using the same number of resistors. I just add to move them around. If you go for another config and end up using less resistors, keep them in a safe place as you never know what is going to happen (some people want to purchase only genuine speed laptops, so you may want to revert the mod if you sell your laptop in the future.)
I didn't add the extra metal plate as it is described in the article, because I didn't want to create to much pressure on the components or get a bended keyboard (which would have made the keys touch the screen as on the TiBook.) I just added some clear heatsink paste (the one that doesn't get messy.) I never had a heat problem with this machine, before or after the mod, even under Linux. Linux kernel is not really energy savvy on the PowerPC at this time (some bugs and lots of hacks to get the fastest context switch doesn't goes along with good energy saving.)
The last point I want to cover, is that you need to make sure you are really careful about disassembling and reassembling the unit. Aesthetic is a big thing on this particular brand of machines, so don't mess with it. I used a soft flat spoon (the kind you can find at your supermarket for mixing stuff with soft flat edges) to lever the side of the machine. I also used surgeon gloves during the all operation (no pun) and worked in the kitchen area the only place without carpet in my house. I touched the fridge before putting the gloves to make sure I didn't carry any static. You are never too careful and because this mod voids the warranty you may want to think again before going for it.
-- PPA
It would seem that D-Link is the problem. At work, we have D-Link Access Points and D-Link USB/PC-cards. I can't close the door of my office! At home, I am using wavelan and Apple airport base station (which is basically an lucent card orinoco.) Here everything works fine. I can surf the web from the back of my house with 2 rooms and the main wall in between.
On top of this, the Apple base station is more pleasing for the eyes than the grey color D-Link "Sharper Image" gizmo look.
and the RIAA issuing the lamest statement ever.
What do you expect from them? They've got the best lawyers on the planet that money can buy.
PPA
Take the example of my startup: 4 individuals: 4 laptops and 2 desktops, (not including 2 servers) and 2 PDAs, all running Linux 2.2.x and Linux 2.4.x. The distro is Debian on all of these puppies except for the ipaqs are running Familiar.
That puts the number of systems at 8, or 2 per individuals all running Linux (200%)
The decision came after evaluating the cost of development for a client/server application. We just didn't have the dough to go the MS way (SQL+Windows 2000 Server IS expensive.) We decided unanimously to go Linux (even for the assistant when we hire one.)
We prefered instead of getting expensive software that we don't control, buying better equipment and even pay little extra to hire smart people. Being smart of course, the new hires are able to use Linux by themselves, so we cut on the cost of support and everybody can help each others and expand the capabilities of the systems on a day to day bases (Don't have to wait for these darn software updates coming from vendors.) I also noticed that running proprietary software puts you in a lethargic mode where you don't question so much the problems you are getting with the system.
I find it way more stimulating and interesting to talk about Linux development around the coffee machine, than any other propreritary software I have been dealing in the past.
PPA
Boring subject. But let me tell you: I've switch a while ago from proprietary OS (Windows and OS X) to a more open-minded one, LInux. Even if at first it wasn't perfect and a little painful, all I can say when I read this, is that I am really glad to have made the move. Thinking I could have given my money to such an arrogant and stupid company brings me chills in my backspin. Apple may be thinking they are after a golden goose with Aqua and their OS X, but they apparently don't even listen to their own users who are all bitching and complaining at their unusable semi-transparent windows and unproductive dock.
You obviously didn't read carefully my original post.
Adobe just announced Illustrator 10, which runs native in OS X, and InDesign 2.0, which is also a native app.
Illustrator 10 will be shipping before year is over. InDesign 2.0 in first half of 2002. Come on! Don't hold you breath on that, because we all know how it goes as far as software deadlines (see MacOS X 10.1 slipping dates for a short reminder.) Beside I use only Photoshop so why should I care about Adobe other annoucements? But, thanks for the info and check your calendar dates to see how it's coming. Good luck!
At work I run 9.1, and can go all week without a crash, except for MSIE,
Of course, I don't see myself crashing when I run the clock in the menu bar ONLY. Seriously, being it MSIE or Mail or any other app, a crash most of the time brings the system down (on a USB machine with 9.2.1 because of buggy USB drivers. Don't ask me how I know, I just know.)
At home I run OS X 10.0.4 90% of the time, and there is no problem running Photoshop 6, Illustrator 9, or QuarkXPress 4.11
Are you just running OS X for the beauty of saying that and then missing the point by ultimately running Classic (aka BlueBox) and then losing about 80MB of RAM just for the hell of it? Reboot in 9 and run with 384 MB of memory. I'm sure you can make better use of the memory than by just running 1 bloatware OS under another one.
I paid $1650 for my G4, with 384 MB of RAM
I paid the same for a P4 Dell with 1.6GHz and 256MB of RDRAM dam it. this not only account for more memory in as far as CISC code goes, the memory bus is 300% faster, the IDE is faster and I get room for expansion. Your G4 is twice as fast (if you really want to believe that), maybe but still half of what you can buy on the PC side. Wake up! You've been listening to SJ too much!
What the hell would you use the "ins" key for anyway?
You maybe, but that's your business. Making a complete extended keyboard and missing ins, which I would use under emacs (running OS X or Linux), Apple had no excuses for missing the key from the mapping. Moving the function keys close to the upper row and other details (like using a green LED for capslock to lower cost: great design my ass!)
In about 2 or 3 years, Apple will come up with a new "killer" design of a 2 button wheel mouse optical and wireless. By that time, it'll probably be completly outdated, and they have you buy a new machine just to plug the thing into (see the ADC connector stories), but at least people like you will appreciate it.
By 2005, Apple will be a religion, and they'll convince you to make donations when you buy their hardware. Great future!
Have fun.
I'm running MacOS 9, thanks to (Free Dmitry) Adobe, who haven't move their ass to OS X, and therefore, are alienating mac users on the prone crashing 9 version (and it's getting worse as Apple energy diverges from it with time).
Under MacOS 9, if you press the mouse while doing anything else in the background (playing a Quicktime movie or MP3) the machine comes to a still and will only care about what is happening to your cursor. Not a bandwidth problem really, but it may look like the mouse events are suddenly being treated exclusively by your embedded PowerPC chip.
A design based fault caused by a system designed about 20 years ago. Having this behavior these days is barely acceptable (well for 4% of the market only, so that's okay.) The single mouse button is another concept based on the original design that has not evolved with time neither.
If you look at how long it took for Apple to replace the hockey puck mouse from the first iMac to the more ergonomic version (2 years and half), knowing that world+dog were complaining about the design flaw for this device, then you will obviously notice that this company is not as innovative as they would like you to believe.
Now, not having a wheel on the new mouse, let alone, a wireless connection, is at the minimum a joke.
Taking simply the keyboard and looking at the functions keys positions, missing 'ins' key, and other discrepancies, and you just have to rush to Fry's and get at least another $100 bucks of technology to replace Apple stubborn butt head crappy "cool" design.
If like me, you didn't want to invest more than what you already did (as it is already about $1000 more than what Dell would let you buy), then put your translucent keyboard upside down and take a look at the hair, nails and skin deposit that this wonderful clear design lets you admire. And if you are trying to clean it up, beware that the fragile plastic will probably break up, this of course if you are lucky to get the right torx screwdriver size to start with.
Apple != functional design
I believe that you misunderstood what the previous post was saying. Basically, using volunteer work protected by GPL to make a descent product, then withdrawing the very same product to make some $$$.
At least, that is how I understood it. Which I am totally against. Bringing people with a convincing argument (OSS, GPL), then conveniently taking the fruit of the labor or hundreds of individuals and cashing some bucks from a proprietary software company.
Ugly! And there seems to be nothing from stopping people from doing that.
You guys could mirror using google dam it!