..last year, and after a lot of research, settled on the D-Link DNS-323 GigE NAS box with a pair of mirrored 500GB SATA drives. After that was full (of archived digitized Hi-8 video footage, not porn, no really), I bought a second box and put a pair of 750GB drives in it.
My requirements were -- hardware RAID 1 (mirroring), using a standard (non-proprietary) format (ext2), standard OS (Linux), and GigE connectivity. The DNS-323 has all of these things, and comes bare so I can drop whatever drives I want into it. It's also a breeze to install and configure, and does most of the bells and whistles if you like (iTunes music server, etc). At the price point I got, the whole thing including drives was well under $500, and has the advantage of being simple and small, and in my experience, reliable.
To put it simply, because the benefits of processes which cause pollution, accrue to the individual or groups of individuals which create the pollution, but the costs of pollution are paid by all. Duh. Basic ethics.
Yes, WiFi is much faster, than real-world speed of either GPRS or 1xRTT. You're lucky to get 22.8/33.6kbps modem speeds on GPRS. But GPRS brings the service to me, and with Wi-Fi, I have to go to where the service is. We're really comparing wireless LAN (wi-fi) to wireless LAN (802.11a/b/g) technology.
As wireless WAN technology becomes better, it will inevitably win out, so long as the provider has decent coverage, a reasonable pricing plan *and* a strong revenue model. My blissful few years with a Ricochet modem made that clear (R.I.P. Metricom)-- the price was right, but coverage was too limited to attract a mass audience, and the buildout costs were too high for Metricom to turn a profit before running out of cash. But the cellular providers have a big advantage over Metricom, since they can subsidize the buildout of data services on top of their existing voice customers, and they already have the tower permits which they'll need to deploy 2.5G/3G data-- Metricom had to build a data network essentally from scratch, and the process of obtaining the local permits (different in each locality) was a killer right there.
And the big news, T-Mobile has just started an unlimited data GPRS plan, at $20/mo for voice customers with at least a $30/mo voice plan, and $30/mo as a stand-alone offering-- no service commitment, no contract. Schweet...that's the kind of pricing that will attract more users, and AT&T Wireless, Verizon, etc, are going to have to match that or lose huge numbers of data customers.
So now my Sony-Ericsson T68i is a full-time Bluetooth-enabled wireless hub for my Palm Tungsten T, my G4 Powerbook, and the phone-based data services. No, it's not fast, but it's better than doing data via regular cell dialup, and it's available all the time, anywhere, and for $20/month with all-you-can-eat service, it's the thing for me. When I'm at a hotspot, I'll use Wi-Fi, but for the rest of the time, GPRS does the job.
Not true. The patent office has always rejected "bad" patents. The criteria for and definition of "bad" has changed over time, but your description of the function of the office is factually incorrect.
And in this case, the change in policy I describe was, by the report of someone who has been a patent examiner throughout multiple administrations, specifically made by Bush political appointees directly following their arrival on the scene. This may well compound problems which existed prior to the Bush administration, but it would logically deepen a serious problem.
Smaller companies and individuals often cannot afford the court costs to challenge patent-wielding corporations, even if the patents in question are seemingly likely to be found invalid. That does, I would argue, have a immensely chilling impact on innovation. It also tends to further concentrate wealth into the hands of those who already have the considerable means necessary to file and defend reams of patents. This is an example of a situation where what is good for business, is bad for technological progress, and ultimately harmful to society.
--Chelidon
------- "The most dementing of all modern sins: the inability to distinguish excellence from success." -- David Hare
Actually, in this case, it hasn't. The change in policy regarding patent submissions was a direct result of Bush political appointees, and directly followed their arrival on the scene, as reported by someone who has been a patent examiner throughout multiple administrations. In a nutshell, the new policy is not to reject "too many" patents, "too many" apparently being defined as on the close order of >0.
Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't true.
That is exactly what's happening. I've got a friend who has worked for many years in the patent office, and he tells me that the senior management appointed by the Bush administration has made it known that you can be disciplined and potentially fired for rejecting too many patents (presumably because patents are "good for business."
The person I know told me a tale about having to go to the mat to reject a particularly bad application, but he still got serious grief for it, and was on the road to being disciplined until his supervisor stepped in and supported the rejection on the merits. This was a ridiculously bad application, BTW, but if his supervisor hadn't decided to stick his own neck out, that would have likely been one more bad patent on the books...
Is it any wonder that so many bad patents are showing up?
Microsoft is not inevitable, nor ubiquitous in the IT world, thank goodness. I've had a 22+ year career as a mainstream IT software developer and technical architect and I rarely, if ever, have to deal with Microsoft development products other than, perhaps, Visio. There is *plenty* to do in "real world" IT development which has nothing to do with M$.
Slashdot Mirror
So the new hard drive I put in my PS3 is a figment of my imagination? Well, don't I feel stupid.
Both the new (June 2012) Macbook Pro and the new MacBook Air models fully support USB 3.0, as well as Thunderbolt.
..last year, and after a lot of research, settled on the D-Link DNS-323 GigE NAS box with a pair of mirrored 500GB SATA drives. After that was full (of archived digitized Hi-8 video footage, not porn, no really), I bought a second box and put a pair of 750GB drives in it.
My requirements were -- hardware RAID 1 (mirroring), using a standard (non-proprietary) format (ext2), standard OS (Linux), and GigE connectivity. The DNS-323 has all of these things, and comes bare so I can drop whatever drives I want into it. It's also a breeze to install and configure, and does most of the bells and whistles if you like (iTunes music server, etc). At the price point I got, the whole thing including drives was well under $500, and has the advantage of being simple and small, and in my experience, reliable.
re: "overall socialist agenda to try and deindustrailize western nations..."
n s
Ludicrous troll.
re: "Why else would the first world have to pay the third world for the 'right to pollute.'" (sic)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commo
To put it simply, because the benefits of processes which cause pollution, accrue to the individual or groups of individuals which create the pollution, but the costs of pollution are paid by all. Duh. Basic ethics.
Yes, WiFi is much faster, than real-world speed of either GPRS or 1xRTT. You're lucky to get 22.8/33.6kbps modem speeds on GPRS. But GPRS brings the service to me, and with Wi-Fi, I have to go to where the service is. We're really comparing wireless LAN (wi-fi) to wireless LAN (802.11a/b/g) technology.
As wireless WAN technology becomes better, it will inevitably win out, so long as the provider has decent coverage, a reasonable pricing plan *and* a strong revenue model. My blissful few years with a Ricochet modem made that clear (R.I.P. Metricom)-- the price was right, but coverage was too limited to attract a mass audience, and the buildout costs were too high for Metricom to turn a profit before running out of cash. But the cellular providers have a big advantage over Metricom, since they can subsidize the buildout of data services on top of their existing voice customers, and they already have the tower permits which they'll need to deploy 2.5G/3G data-- Metricom had to build a data network essentally from scratch, and the process of obtaining the local permits (different in each locality) was a killer right there.
And the big news, T-Mobile has just started an unlimited data GPRS plan, at $20/mo for voice customers with at least a $30/mo voice plan, and $30/mo as a stand-alone offering-- no service commitment, no contract. Schweet...that's the kind of pricing that will attract more users, and AT&T Wireless, Verizon, etc, are going to have to match that or lose huge numbers of data customers.
So now my Sony-Ericsson T68i is a full-time Bluetooth-enabled wireless hub for my Palm Tungsten T, my G4 Powerbook, and the phone-based data services. No, it's not fast, but it's better than doing data via regular cell dialup, and it's available all the time, anywhere, and for $20/month with all-you-can-eat service, it's the thing for me. When I'm at a hotspot, I'll use Wi-Fi, but for the rest of the time, GPRS does the job.
Not true. The patent office has always rejected "bad" patents. The criteria for and definition of "bad" has changed over time, but your description of the function of the office is factually incorrect.
And in this case, the change in policy I describe was, by the report of someone who has been a patent examiner throughout multiple administrations, specifically made by Bush political appointees directly following their arrival on the scene. This may well compound problems which existed prior to the Bush administration, but it would logically deepen a serious problem.
Smaller companies and individuals often cannot afford the court costs to challenge patent-wielding corporations, even if the patents in question are seemingly likely to be found invalid. That does, I would argue, have a immensely chilling impact on innovation. It also tends to further concentrate wealth into the hands of those who already have the considerable means necessary to file and defend reams of patents. This is an example of a situation where what is good for business, is bad for technological progress, and ultimately harmful to society.
--Chelidon
-------
"The most dementing of all modern sins: the inability to distinguish excellence from success."
-- David Hare
Actually, in this case, it hasn't. The change in policy regarding patent submissions was a direct result of Bush political appointees, and directly followed their arrival on the scene, as reported by someone who has been a patent examiner throughout multiple administrations. In a nutshell, the new policy is not to reject "too many" patents, "too many" apparently being defined as on the close order of >0.
Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it isn't true.
--Chelidon
That is exactly what's happening. I've got a friend who has worked for many years in the patent office, and he tells me that the senior management appointed by the Bush administration has made it known that you can be disciplined and potentially fired for rejecting too many patents (presumably because patents are "good for business."
The person I know told me a tale about having to go to the mat to reject a particularly bad application, but he still got serious grief for it, and was on the road to being disciplined until his supervisor stepped in and supported the rejection on the merits. This was a ridiculously bad application, BTW, but if his supervisor hadn't decided to stick his own neck out, that would have likely been one more bad patent on the books...
Is it any wonder that so many bad patents are showing up?
Microsoft is not inevitable, nor ubiquitous in the IT world, thank goodness. I've had a 22+ year career as a mainstream IT software developer and technical architect and I rarely, if ever, have to deal with Microsoft development products other than, perhaps, Visio. There is *plenty* to do in "real world" IT development which has nothing to do with M$.
Interestingly, Mac OS X was used for at least one of the keynote demos. It's good to finally see decent Java support for a Mac OS, and long overdue.