More of a: "They called me a thief, I'm insulted enough to want to get them back for the insult... therefore I'm considering it" type of thing. If they keep it up, they will get to the point of downright annoyance and I tend to either deal with annoyances or route around them.
It's more annoying then the car comercials before the movie, but they are getting worse too... I only want preview to figure out what might be good to see in the future. I paid for the movie, not for a car commercial with a 2 story high kid saying "zoom zoom", a cell phone commercial with 3 story tall flying pigs(that I personally hate) and commercials for a drugstore's selection of "the perfect christmas gift" that I would only buy for my enimies, if even. I don't mind slide shows before the video, they are not as "in your face" and I can ignore them.
Having prices go up, and then getting unrelated ad's was annoying enough, but then insulting me... adding things to this list will drive me out of the theater....
anyways... enough of this rant of mine, thank you for listening...
A nice feature, but I don't want to leave a huge calendar or e-mail app open just to monitor events. I just want a small app that will allow me to open the main app when needed. (This coming for a guy with a gig of ram, I'd call myself a hypocrit if it weren't for my older systems with a lot less in them).
I pay for my movies, my friends pay for their movies, we see dozens of them each year. We all have huge, non-copied, DVD and VHS collections, usually purchased first hand.
Yet, when I walk into the movie theater tonight(leaving in about 10min here), I will see, amonth the previews, a commercial asking me to stop movie piracy! I'm being told to stop stealing movies after I paid $9(plus a ~500% markup on the food) to see one!
That's just stupid and insulting. I don't pay to go get insulted... therefore it makes me just want to hop online and watch the movie without the insults.
What we now need from the mozilla camp is a unified tray application for both windows and linux(kde/gnome/whatever) that keeps tabs on things.
For Sunbird, it would notify you of upcoming meetings/events, and let you open sunbird to work with that info.
For Thunderbird, a program that would monitor your mail server(ala biff) and let you know when new mail is in. Clicking on the notification would open the mail in that program.(like the current notifications, minus the large(not huge) running app)
For firefox, well, I don't know really, maybe nothing, maybe keep an eye on RSS feeds, I don't actually use any real features of firefox other then viewing websites. Maybe it could let me know when slashdot is updated based on the RSS feed and then let me view the story?
I think this would be a great app, definatly usefull, and could avoid the bloat of leaving both calendar and mail open all the time(I do that myself, but on a vnc system somewhere).
Where I work, we install thin client solutions as often as the user's apps will allow us. From just a few in an office to hundreds spread across the entire city, from 1 server when they could not afford redundancy to as many as needed for the client load. I think I can say that we think they are a good idea.
My suggestion: get 2 high end servers and put win2k3 on them, with load balancing and terminal services licenceses. Then just pick up any Win Terminal that anyone makes. We've found the Wyse hardware often failed on us a few years back, so we currently go with Neoware, but if you want a brand name, try IBM(made by neoware) or Compaq/HP(I used to work for them).
The configuration of the server will need someone who knows what they are doing, and they are out there. The thin clients take all of 30 seconds to setup. If your tech knows what he is doing he will have the terminal logins so locked down that it will take a lot of work to break, and he will have a backup image of the drives so that when it does break, he can get it up and running quickly.
I know that you've discounted the VPN option, but it could work for you...
I pay for a dedicated server at a cheap host($29.95/month... there is a catch thou..) and ip address's are cheap there too. You can setup a ppp based vpn that basically lets you act like one of the spare ip address's that you have assigned. (I use a ssh-ppp tunnel myself, and it works great for that.)
There are cheaper VPS hosting optins out there that you could get a spare IP at and vpn throu that to get your web connection too... I'm sure you could find a $5/month cheap-O pleace and set it up, no one would care, it's not like you will be using a terabyte or so per month bandwidth anytime soon(and if you are, that's your problem to solve).
Nice advantages of this approach: one server can be used by multiple people, you have a computer with shell access online, you have a web/mail server and my favourite - VNC desktops that you can use from anywhere!(I never close my apps, my copy of thunderbird has an uptime that rivals most systems, and the latest VNC viewer is really rather feature ritch for low bandwidth usage...)
I do a lot of junior support on 2K3 SBS networks and find it exceptionally easy to deal with in most cases(not all, I still like linux for easy modification of configurations, everything seems more logical and documented there, but that's just me, I do work for an MS shop). I personally love the new tools to join a system to the domain, and there are other features that either make life easier or just a little more logical.
Our SBS 2000 clients are already looking out of date, even when we only installed 1 year ago.
sure, writing gui code in a web language is more an entertaining trick then really good practice... but I'd still prefer a binding to wxWindows(or whatever they have decided to rename it too) then just gtk...
That's one of the reasons I bothered to learn python, so I could write once, run anywhere and the code would look native on any given gui
I saw an interesting variation on this while viewing the Canada Day ceremonies in Charlottetown this year... Near the huge line of portable toilets(with similary long lines of people... it was an interesting 2 dimensional array...) there were a group of 4 sided wash stations that pumped water when you stepped on a small foot pump in the base and dispensing soapy water. The paper towel holder and disposal bin were also built in... I'd not seen those before, but they sound similar in idea.
(Of course, I just wandered over to a local resteraunt and used the washrooms with no lineup, and therefore the classical taps to dispense water...)
We've done this at my workplace using the 3com NBX systems. Basically we put in the same firewall hardware at one of our tech's house and created a VPN connection. Plug in a phone a it just works.(Cheaper then a phone line.) The agent had an extension and basically just gave that to people. The boss didn't care if it go used after hours either, because we can track who call's where, so no getting stuck with an evil long distance bill.
Aparently the latest software update allows the system to work throu a NATing firewall without a VPN(just program the phone and forward the ports, relativly simple to do), we just have not bothered to try it yet.
If I were to stay with the company and move to another city, we would definatly do this.
I use a wireless headset with my cell phone, and when in my home I can just leave it charging upstairs and answer it from almost anywhere. Bluetooth is _good_.
I have the Jabra headset with a bluetooth basestation that plugs into a standard headset jack, so it will work with a cordless phone too if I find the need to (sometimes).
Test the apps you will need. The company I work for sets up and install application servers as our base business model and you have no idea how many programmers just assume they are the only application on the machine, and only one user is running it. Even some large scall stuff.
A lot of low power apps, ones that don't need much/any horsepower are idealy suited for app servers, but just don't work, so try them first, then buy.
Anyway... someone probably said all this already...
New trick: Tab, Shift-Tab, Alt-Tab, Space, Enter and the Arrow keys... trust me, you get proficient at them and the mouse will seem slow by comparison for everyday tasks...
Not quite what they achieved, classic RTFA, but still an interesting possibility.
My Sony Ericsson T616 has a relativly crappy camera on it(good for those shots when you have no other device nearby). An option to connect as a Bluetooth mouse to my laptop and just put the phone on a flat surface with non-repeating textures would rock! I would not have to carry my wireless mouse with me, and therefore one less device to drag around.
I have the Sony-Ericsson CAR-100, it's basically a mini RC car that charges off the phone's power connector and uses bluetooth to control the steering and speed. I syspect that the S-E phones have a bluetooth serial option to allow control of properly setup devices... ie, I build a bluetooth car, and my older models can deal with it, same with the light, it probably lets the phone know what is going on with the light - maybe even turn it on and off.
Yes, these things are generally useless, but who really cares?
Read the prequels (House Atredies, House Harkonnen, House Corrino), they try to make synthetic spice, (amal) and come very close, but ultimatly they fail.
Actually, I ssh into my windows box sometimes... I use the cygwin software to run the daemon and it "just works", of course it gives me a bash prompt...
There are some userfull things that you can do using the command prompt on windows, the only problem I find is that they put unix to shame in the cryptic category, and seem more oriented toward scripting then interactive sessions.
I also only know a few tricks and never bother to leave telnet open on the servers, so usually I can't try, ssh on windows(standard, not with a cygwin install) would probably lead to more people knowing the windows command line.
I don't know a whole lot about the apple music store, as I don't download any of my tunes these days... but do they also re-sell independent musicians music?
Basically, If I actually had the skill to write good music, produced my own tracks and wanted to sell them for $0.99 on their site, would there be a way?
If so, maybe apple should consider a way to promote those artists a little more then the well known ones that are $0.26 more expensive.
Anyway...
Re:Why were MP ever such a big deal?
on
Beyond Megapixels
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Ah yes, but even if I am taking random pictures, my current camera is getting old and the pictures are losing their focus(not a dirty lens either), the flash has never really worked and the features are few. The A80 has a number of features of the better cameras, but is not a true DSLR, so I can continue with my habits, but learn more about photography as I go. I like photography, I never claimed to be good at it.
As for the basics of SLR user, I use one on a random basis, and know most of what I'm doing(not everything, but definatly the basics).
Anyway...
Re:Why were MP ever such a big deal?
on
Beyond Megapixels
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Exactly what I use now... a low end laptop, with a reasonable good screen and wireless card.(Toshiba tecra and a linksys card) I use it to generally check mail and view the web, and a little bit of coding. If I need the horsepower, I remote into my main system and use it(windows XP using RDP or just forward an X connection throu ssh).
I generaly use my laptop to get images of my camera's because it's easier to work with wherever I want, and move them to the main system for editing later.
I'm currently looking to pick up an Canon A80, but with some of the comments here, and in the article, I may re-consider the DSLR's out there... hmmm.
Actually, there was a short segment on Daily Planet the other day that mentioned mouse hand pains. They stated that researchers had determined that just moving your mouse to the other side of the keyboard and using your other hand was enough to make a lot of the pains go away and never come back!
Basic idea: you reach past your number keys to get to the mouse, so moving to the other side reduces hand travel to get there. And anyone can adapt to the mouse on the other side, even without changing buttons... Try it, and you may not have to spend money to solve your problems.
Well, the mechs may not be that far off... Take the article about the powered backpack that was on a few weeks back, and extrapolate the technology over a few years. First you get loading assistants like seen in the Alien movies. Then, as the military (or militant corporations like the RIAA) get into it, larger versions with heavy weaponry as standard features. Not too long later you will have people make some simple transforming ones, think new dominion tank police. The more advanced transforming onese come later, leading to space frames, like Nadesico, and land/air/space versions with mind control like in Macross Plus.
And yes I know that most of those are not the first to use any given concept, I just happen to remember the names on those ones... I've not watched much anime lately.
Slashdot Mirror
More of a: "They called me a thief, I'm insulted enough to want to get them back for the insult... therefore I'm considering it" type of thing. If they keep it up, they will get to the point of downright annoyance and I tend to either deal with annoyances or route around them.
It's more annoying then the car comercials before the movie, but they are getting worse too... I only want preview to figure out what might be good to see in the future. I paid for the movie, not for a car commercial with a 2 story high kid saying "zoom zoom", a cell phone commercial with 3 story tall flying pigs(that I personally hate) and commercials for a drugstore's selection of "the perfect christmas gift" that I would only buy for my enimies, if even. I don't mind slide shows before the video, they are not as "in your face" and I can ignore them.
Having prices go up, and then getting unrelated ad's was annoying enough, but then insulting me... adding things to this list will drive me out of the theater....
anyways... enough of this rant of mine, thank you for listening...
A nice feature, but I don't want to leave a huge calendar or e-mail app open just to monitor events. I just want a small app that will allow me to open the main app when needed. (This coming for a guy with a gig of ram, I'd call myself a hypocrit if it weren't for my older systems with a lot less in them).
Anyway...
I pay for my movies, my friends pay for their movies, we see dozens of them each year. We all have huge, non-copied, DVD and VHS collections, usually purchased first hand.
Yet, when I walk into the movie theater tonight(leaving in about 10min here), I will see, amonth the previews, a commercial asking me to stop movie piracy! I'm being told to stop stealing movies after I paid $9(plus a ~500% markup on the food) to see one!
That's just stupid and insulting. I don't pay to go get insulted... therefore it makes me just want to hop online and watch the movie without the insults.
Anyway...
What we now need from the mozilla camp is a unified tray application for both windows and linux(kde/gnome/whatever) that keeps tabs on things.
For Sunbird, it would notify you of upcoming meetings/events, and let you open sunbird to work with that info.
For Thunderbird, a program that would monitor your mail server(ala biff) and let you know when new mail is in. Clicking on the notification would open the mail in that program.(like the current notifications, minus the large(not huge) running app)
For firefox, well, I don't know really, maybe nothing, maybe keep an eye on RSS feeds, I don't actually use any real features of firefox other then viewing websites. Maybe it could let me know when slashdot is updated based on the RSS feed and then let me view the story?
I think this would be a great app, definatly usefull, and could avoid the bloat of leaving both calendar and mail open all the time(I do that myself, but on a vnc system somewhere).
Anyway...
Where I work, we install thin client solutions as often as the user's apps will allow us. From just a few in an office to hundreds spread across the entire city, from 1 server when they could not afford redundancy to as many as needed for the client load. I think I can say that we think they are a good idea.
My suggestion: get 2 high end servers and put win2k3 on them, with load balancing and terminal services licenceses. Then just pick up any Win Terminal that anyone makes. We've found the Wyse hardware often failed on us a few years back, so we currently go with Neoware, but if you want a brand name, try IBM(made by neoware) or Compaq/HP(I used to work for them).
The configuration of the server will need someone who knows what they are doing, and they are out there. The thin clients take all of 30 seconds to setup. If your tech knows what he is doing he will have the terminal logins so locked down that it will take a lot of work to break, and he will have a backup image of the drives so that when it does break, he can get it up and running quickly.
Anyway...
Enjoy!
I know that you've discounted the VPN option, but it could work for you...
I pay for a dedicated server at a cheap host($29.95/month... there is a catch thou..) and ip address's are cheap there too. You can setup a ppp based vpn that basically lets you act like one of the spare ip address's that you have assigned. (I use a ssh-ppp tunnel myself, and it works great for that.)
There are cheaper VPS hosting optins out there that you could get a spare IP at and vpn throu that to get your web connection too... I'm sure you could find a $5/month cheap-O pleace and set it up, no one would care, it's not like you will be using a terabyte or so per month bandwidth anytime soon(and if you are, that's your problem to solve).
Nice advantages of this approach: one server can be used by multiple people, you have a computer with shell access online, you have a web/mail server and my favourite - VNC desktops that you can use from anywhere!(I never close my apps, my copy of thunderbird has an uptime that rivals most systems, and the latest VNC viewer is really rather feature ritch for low bandwidth usage...)
Anyway...
Enjoy!
I do a lot of junior support on 2K3 SBS networks and find it exceptionally easy to deal with in most cases(not all, I still like linux for easy modification of configurations, everything seems more logical and documented there, but that's just me, I do work for an MS shop). I personally love the new tools to join a system to the domain, and there are other features that either make life easier or just a little more logical.
Our SBS 2000 clients are already looking out of date, even when we only installed 1 year ago.
Anyway...
Enjoy!
sure, writing gui code in a web language is more an entertaining trick then really good practice... but I'd still prefer a binding to wxWindows(or whatever they have decided to rename it too) then just gtk...
That's one of the reasons I bothered to learn python, so I could write once, run anywhere and the code would look native on any given gui
ah well
I saw an interesting variation on this while viewing the Canada Day ceremonies in Charlottetown this year... Near the huge line of portable toilets(with similary long lines of people... it was an interesting 2 dimensional array...) there were a group of 4 sided wash stations that pumped water when you stepped on a small foot pump in the base and dispensing soapy water. The paper towel holder and disposal bin were also built in... I'd not seen those before, but they sound similar in idea.
(Of course, I just wandered over to a local resteraunt and used the washrooms with no lineup, and therefore the classical taps to dispense water...)
Anyway, just thought you should know!
We've done this at my workplace using the 3com NBX systems. Basically we put in the same firewall hardware at one of our tech's house and created a VPN connection. Plug in a phone a it just works.(Cheaper then a phone line.) The agent had an extension and basically just gave that to people. The boss didn't care if it go used after hours either, because we can track who call's where, so no getting stuck with an evil long distance bill.
Aparently the latest software update allows the system to work throu a NATing firewall without a VPN(just program the phone and forward the ports, relativly simple to do), we just have not bothered to try it yet.
If I were to stay with the company and move to another city, we would definatly do this.
Anyway...
I use a wireless headset with my cell phone, and when in my home I can just leave it charging upstairs and answer it from almost anywhere. Bluetooth is _good_.
I have the Jabra headset with a bluetooth basestation that plugs into a standard headset jack, so it will work with a cordless phone too if I find the need to (sometimes).
Anyway...
Test the apps you will need. The company I work for sets up and install application servers as our base business model and you have no idea how many programmers just assume they are the only application on the machine, and only one user is running it. Even some large scall stuff.
A lot of low power apps, ones that don't need much/any horsepower are idealy suited for app servers, but just don't work, so try them first, then buy.
Anyway... someone probably said all this already...
New trick: Tab, Shift-Tab, Alt-Tab, Space, Enter and the Arrow keys... trust me, you get proficient at them and the mouse will seem slow by comparison for everyday tasks...
Not quite what they achieved, classic RTFA, but still an interesting possibility.
My Sony Ericsson T616 has a relativly crappy camera on it(good for those shots when you have no other device nearby). An option to connect as a Bluetooth mouse to my laptop and just put the phone on a flat surface with non-repeating textures would rock! I would not have to carry my wireless mouse with me, and therefore one less device to drag around.
I have the Sony-Ericsson CAR-100, it's basically a mini RC car that charges off the phone's power connector and uses bluetooth to control the steering and speed. I syspect that the S-E phones have a bluetooth serial option to allow control of properly setup devices... ie, I build a bluetooth car, and my older models can deal with it, same with the light, it probably lets the phone know what is going on with the light - maybe even turn it on and off.
Yes, these things are generally useless, but who really cares?
I'm reading this while playing with a piece of teflon tape left over from a pipe fitting... weird...
Sorry, way offtopic, but I had to say it...
Read the prequels (House Atredies, House Harkonnen, House Corrino), they try to make synthetic spice, (amal) and come very close, but ultimatly they fail.
Among other things that happen.
Anyway...
Actually, I ssh into my windows box sometimes... I use the cygwin software to run the daemon and it "just works", of course it gives me a bash prompt...
There are some userfull things that you can do using the command prompt on windows, the only problem I find is that they put unix to shame in the cryptic category, and seem more oriented toward scripting then interactive sessions.
I also only know a few tricks and never bother to leave telnet open on the servers, so usually I can't try, ssh on windows(standard, not with a cygwin install) would probably lead to more people knowing the windows command line.
Anyway...
That's fine, It took 13 minutes to download...
I just dug around the mirrors list, FTP from the Indiana state site are giving me about 1.15M/s on my work link.
I don't know a whole lot about the apple music store, as I don't download any of my tunes these days... but do they also re-sell independent musicians music?
Basically, If I actually had the skill to write good music, produced my own tracks and wanted to sell them for $0.99 on their site, would there be a way?
If so, maybe apple should consider a way to promote those artists a little more then the well known ones that are $0.26 more expensive.
Anyway...
Ah yes, but even if I am taking random pictures, my current camera is getting old and the pictures are losing their focus(not a dirty lens either), the flash has never really worked and the features are few. The A80 has a number of features of the better cameras, but is not a true DSLR, so I can continue with my habits, but learn more about photography as I go. I like photography, I never claimed to be good at it.
As for the basics of SLR user, I use one on a random basis, and know most of what I'm doing(not everything, but definatly the basics).
Anyway...
Exactly what I use now... a low end laptop, with a reasonable good screen and wireless card.(Toshiba tecra and a linksys card) I use it to generally check mail and view the web, and a little bit of coding. If I need the horsepower, I remote into my main system and use it(windows XP using RDP or just forward an X connection throu ssh).
I generaly use my laptop to get images of my camera's because it's easier to work with wherever I want, and move them to the main system for editing later.
I'm currently looking to pick up an Canon A80, but with some of the comments here, and in the article, I may re-consider the DSLR's out there... hmmm.
Anyway...
Actually, there was a short segment on Daily Planet the other day that mentioned mouse hand pains. They stated that researchers had determined that just moving your mouse to the other side of the keyboard and using your other hand was enough to make a lot of the pains go away and never come back!
Basic idea: you reach past your number keys to get to the mouse, so moving to the other side reduces hand travel to get there. And anyone can adapt to the mouse on the other side, even without changing buttons... Try it, and you may not have to spend money to solve your problems.
Anyway...
Well, the mechs may not be that far off... Take the article about the powered backpack that was on a few weeks back, and extrapolate the technology over a few years. First you get loading assistants like seen in the Alien movies. Then, as the military (or militant corporations like the RIAA) get into it, larger versions with heavy weaponry as standard features. Not too long later you will have people make some simple transforming ones, think new dominion tank police. The more advanced transforming onese come later, leading to space frames, like Nadesico, and land/air/space versions with mind control like in Macross Plus.
And yes I know that most of those are not the first to use any given concept, I just happen to remember the names on those ones... I've not watched much anime lately.
Anyway...