I would love to be using Firebird instead of MySQL. But so far I haven't found an administrative tool that compares to MySQLAdministrator. Seems like everything for Firebird is commercial, alpha, or a dead project.
The database is solid and feature rich, but GUI tools are really lacking.
Looks like Interdictor and Sigmund are the only people in NO who did any disaster planning.
I've kind of avoided commenting, because I know this is going to annoy some people, but.....
They only did half of their disaster planning. They should have worked out a plan for a hot site that they could relocate to. Once it became clear that New Orleans is not going to recover any time soon, they should have been working on getting servers co-located instead of trying to secure more diesel.
If they can secure a truck to deliver fuel, they could have secured one to take them out of there.
Are they going to try to run their generator for the next 2-4 months? Once they protected their business through the storm, it was time to start determining if the existing facilities would be able to continue to support the business. I think when the levies went is about the time the Mayor started saying the city was lost. That was the time to implement the hot site plan and get your people out. It's no longer about keeping DirectNIC on the air.
Plus, the helicopters would be used both directions, carrying victims out of the area.
Nice idea, but two different types of helicopters. The ones that can do the rescues don't have the lift capacity. And the ones that could lift, rarely have passenger space. The light trucks are 1 tons (~6500 lbs), plus tower, cell, and generator. The larger ones are semi trailers.
Then of course, you have the wonderful looters to contend with. It would suck to lift a truck in, put the tower into operation, then have it go dark the following night because some moron stole the generator or gasoline.
Sprint made the local news in KC recently when they tested their systems. I'm kind of surprised the media hasn't mentioned them being used now.
Part of the problem is logistics. You have to keep your trucks safe, but you need to get them in the area as quickly as possible afterward. I'm sure the roads in an out of the area are packed. Then some places just aren't going to be accessible. I suppose you could bring some in by helicopter, but that would compete with rescue operations.
I did see an article that said Sprint's towers were running on batteries. And cingular had brought in around 500 generators.
But then, CNN is reporting that the 911 systens are overloaded too. So who ya gonna call?
Why not pick up an old pentium and throw in a large HDD? Total cost should be less then $200.
And my point is that for around $100 more, you get a much more usable machine. Mine runs my PDC, web, ftp, file shares, and I use it as a workstation via a terminal.
Powerwise, I pulled out an old pentium 120, it used 50w to boot and settled at 45w. For comparision, my 2g laptop uses 45w under a load. A machine nearly identical to my file server used 70w to boot and settled at 65w. I don't have any non-dual proc PIIs, so I can't test one. But, here's a very important difference. The pentium will NOT support a drive larger than 8g. PII might or might not support larger than 32g, you'll have to find the right one. The much newer PowerEdge will support any PATA/SATA drive on the market, and already had a 40g installed.
And noise? Even with three of them running side by side, you can't hear them.
Or, he could pick up something like a Dell PowerEdge SC420. Depending on various deals they run between $200-300. I've got a sc400 celery that has been running 24x7 as my home server for nearly 2 years. It was a brand new machine, not some pentium retread. It is extremely quiet, and reasonbly miserly on power. My 1000va UPS will run it for over 45 minutes. That would give him SATA support and gig ethernet too.
The problem many developers have is they write interfaces based on what the program does, while the user is concerned with what they want to accomplish.
For example, using Konqueror for file management on my Linux box. A friend occasionally sends me files, so I gave him an FTP account on my server. I'm logged in, I want to move the files from his user directory to mine. Security wise, I know that my user account shouldn't have access to his user account. But I'm admin so I have access to root.
Looking at it from a developers perspective, I should start Konq in super user mode, move the files, and set the owner/group.
From a user's perspective, I should be able to click 'super user' in an existing instance of Konq, type the password, move the files and expect the user/group to be set automatically. I don't need to think about the details.
I have read studies that show that the more expensive an IT project is, the more likely it is to fail.
I think the "excess" failures are due to upper management "micromanagement". Usually, there is less upper management interference with small projects.
Or it could simply be that, in general, the more expensive a project is, the larger it's scope. (and associated risk)
If the project is just replacing the company's web presence, a screwup might just be wounded pride and a few more calls on the customer service line. But if you're replacing legacy systems with a CRM or ERP, you could be risking the company's financial health. The former isn't likely to make the news, it will simply get fixed and forgotten, the latter will get you compared to AT&T Wireless.
You also have to take into account an individual's management capability. It's easy to manage an army of one. More $$$ on a project means more people to manage and more skill required to manage successfully.
you have 2500 sq/ft with normal electric/gas heat/cooling and you're paying 130/month energy costs in what another poster mentioned was one of the most expensive energy locations in the nation?
I believe the other poster was mistaken. My actual usage for 5/24 to 6/24 was 761 KWH. After taxes that is $68. 7.25 cents/KWH for the first 600 and 7.46 cents/KWH after that.
I do get a bonus in that my house is shaded by several 50 yr old trees. With my AC set at 77, my system shuts off for long periods of time even during the day. We lost power yesterday at 5pm (blown transformer) for 45 minutes, and my house only warmed up by 1 degree. My server was about 5 minutes from shutting down though. I thought I was going to have an excuse to install that memory that has been waiting for a shutdown to get installed.
What this boils down to is, you are placing the blame on the corporation for something a fan did.
You are confused. I pay 7.25 cents a KWH for the first 600 and 7.46 cents a KWH after that. Which appears to be below the national average by about 1 cent. My service is through Aquila. KC MO proper is served by KCPL, and their rates are comparable. Where I feel I do get screwed is on gas service. Aquila passes along a 'supply charge' that tends to be outrageous.
During California's energy fiasco, utilities we charged up to 51 cents a KWH.
With a house of just less than 1500 square feet I always get an electric bill of that is less than $100.00.
You left out the one bit of info that would allow anyone to evaluate your testimonial to geothermal, where you are located.
How about this: I live near KC MO. I have an 8 year old furnace/ac unit and 2500 sq/ft of living area. 1400 upstairs, approx. 1100 in finished basement. My combined utility bill (elect/gas) is $130 a month. Level pay. 5 yr peaks are $150 in the summer and $250 in the winter. Despite having an attic fan, I switch from heating to cooling (never open windows) in the spring/fall because my office tends to overheat. And also, looking at my last bill (5/24 to 6/24) I get screwed for $35 a month for hot water (gas). My house is insulated, but could use more in the ceiling. It could stand better windows. And parking my truck in the air conditioned garage doesn't help either after it's been parked outside in 90+ degree temps, and driven home on the highway. And still my gas/electric system performs as well as yours?
But having said that, when I build my new house I'm using ground source heat pumps and passive solar to heat the ground level floor and driveway.
I just didn't find your argument compelling for 7 - 78 ft runs. BTW, my uncle heats/cools about 2500 sq/ft with 5 ground loops, trenched at 6 ft instead of drilled. Yours should be performing much better.
BTW, the terminology is air sourced and ground sourced heat pumps.
What this boils down to is, you are placing the blame on the corporation for something a fan did.
Yeah, that fan created the content, snuck into Rockstar's offices and placed it on the master so that it would get burnt onto millions of CDs and distributed worldwide.
If the content hadn't been created, the fan could not have exploited it. It's not whether or not we find the content objectional, there was a strong probability that it would reflect badly on Rockstar and it serves no useful purpose. You don't think Rockstar is responsible, you should look up 'due diligence'. Gamers have been hacking data files for computer games for as long as there have been computer games. Is it reasonable to assume that they would not find this? When the lawsuits start rolling in, that is the question the courts will most likely answer.
It was completely irresponsible. They never intended to market GTA as an Adults Only game. Why was the content created in the first place? It had no business being in the code, ever.
The result is going to cost them millions of dollars, and some juvenile programmer is going to lose his job.
Why is the ESRB involved? Because the game developer couldn't be trusted to clean their code. It doesn't matter that it's not accessible on the PS version or that they never intended for it to be accessible in any version. It didn't belong, and they got caught being sloppy.
I've seen the AVI, and personally I don't care about it one way or another. Except.... the ratings are rules, and they are there for a reason. Whether they intended for the content to be accessible or not, Rockstar created it. If they want to create that type of content, they should apply for AO ratings. Instead they bent the rules, said no one was ever supposed to see it, but never took responsibility for creating it in the first place.
That's just it... Mainframes don't have ports. They have busses.
Just to clarify, IBM mainframes may not have ports. Vaxen most certainly do. It has been about 15 years, but I seem to recall at a minimum at console port and a system printer port.
Oddly enough, my $30 timex keeps great time. But my cell phone loses a couple minutes a month, my $200 linux based dvr does too, and my computers have to sync their time to the network to remain reliable.
I've wondered for a while; why can we have 3ghz CPUs with gigs of ram, yet the clocks are less reliable than my original 10 mhz XT.
A lot of us ran BBSs under OS/2. If you wanted to run multi node or do other things with your machine, it was the only thing that got the job done. Beat the hell out of Desqview. Had to suffer through that for a few years as well, learned pretty quick how to change my code to do fast DV screen writes without bleeding through. Loved using SIO for COM drivers and redirecting my BBS to telnet. I wish that trend would have taken off instead of Web boards.
And for my part, already went Linux. Although I have to keep Win machines too. Tried Mac (mini), found the OS annoying. At least I finally got a PPC, even if OS/2 didn't survive to support it.
In smaller organizations, it's easier to convince people to deploy innovative solutions like thin clients, but the advantages are minimal since the organization is rarely so large that there are big savings ocer conventional systems.
Ever spent 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon running Ad Aware on their PCs? I worked on a machine a few months ago that thrashed the drive constantly and the CPU was pegged at 100%. It was a 128m XP machine and the mem usage was over 300m. And yet nothing but XP and IE were running. I got called because their brand new machine was running really, really slow. It was really killing employee productivity, and had it been a billable call (instead of a friend), it would have put a dent in their pocketbook too. And all I did was normal maintenance stuff. (ad aware, virus scan, defrag, recommend another 128m)
Once I get my software ported to Linux, I'll be pitching thin clients to lots of small businesses. (3-7 clients plus a server) The cost savings are there, and many of these businesses are still struggling with Win 95/98.
Except that companies are feeding the Microsoft money machine and migrating to terminal services. PC management has become a nightmare. But with TS you can keep everyone on the same version of Office and the rest of your standard app suite. And if it starts to get slow you just upgrade/add a server. Network? 100mbit at the desktop and gigabit in the server room works fine. RDP and X are really not that bad compared to HTTP.
MS started by giving free TS client licenses with W2K and XP, now that they've started to hook enterprise size companies, they roll out 2003 and force new licenses. But they will nicely bundle it in your software assurance package for you.
Personally, I've recently invested in a thin client for home. $150 plus a monitor. In the future I'll probably upgrade my server (debian), and start replacing PCs with more thin clients. At $300 a pop (terminal and LCD), it's not a problem to put one in the living room, kitchen, etc. Even in a home environment it saves a lot of time on administration. Network isn't a big deal, my cheap server (Dell 400sc) has a gigabit network card. My 8 port PowerConnect gigabit switch was less than $100.
That's an interesting device, but it has a couple problems.
First, the display is too small. It can't be much larger than 4x5 or 4x6. It really needs to be closer to 8x10.
It needs the ability to highlight text.
And I'm not sold on the keyboard. It would have to be high quality and completely silent. And then I'm still not sure that it would be useable by anyone with large hands. A scratch pad capability for 'margin' notes might be a better solution.
The value of a book depends a lot on it's intended use. For instance, I keep a small library of books at work that cover various topics and versions of the tools that I use. There are many times I have thought as I searched the index; "I wish I had these in PDF." Those books are predominately for research, and generally used when I want more in-depth info than I can find on usenet. (a dying resource, unfortunately) OTOH, I regularly buy books for entertainment. I read them cover to cover, and wouldn't want them in electronic form. I tried audio books, but found that I missed things because it was too easy to be distracted.
Textbooks should be read cover to cover (which means many should also be shortened), not searched. So at least until we have a device that is sub $100 and about as durable as a cell phone, I think getting rid of textbooks is premature.
Also, along these lines, I think that before computers are installed in any classroom, the teachers need to be certified on their use (and common problems) and have an approved curriculum that makes use of them. Even at the college level with technically proficient instructors, it seems to be uncommon for computers to be used for anything more than a white board with a projector.
I just looked, and the Chem 101 text at my old University is up to $148. And that does NOT include the lab or extra needed stuff (probably an extra $50).
My recent experience with textbooks.... $80 for a 20 year old IBM 360 ASM programming textbook. And you need the bookstore copied, out of print, IBM reference card as well. As if we weren't getting raped enough having to take the class in the first place. And then there was the $104 Data Structures textbook that we never touched. For reference, students used their C++ textbook to do their homework since the class turned into a semester on templates. And then there's the horrible $100 Analysis and Design textbook that was chosen because the instructor was a former student of the author. At the college level, just expect to average $100 per class for textbooks that change every year or two and have little or no resale value. But covers the exact same material that has been taught, unchanged, for a decade.
Not bitter, just disappointed in the quality of our institutions of higher education.
I'm not willing to say that big budget makes a good movie/TV show. Battlefield Earth was a good book and the movie had top rated stars and funding, and it still sucked. Ideally they would take some of that money and sponsor some aspiring directors. Do something like Project Greenlight for SciFi. Of course, they need some experienced actor/directors to mentor these projects, and Hollywood doesn't want too much of that because they like their $100 million budgets with $20 million actors.
I wouldn't be surprised if the property taxes on a California studio would be enough to build a studio in the midwest. Cheap doesn't have to mean cheesy. I could walk in to the local public library and in minutes, find a dozen good SciFi novels that would make good movies, or with the right writers, a series. Something like Larry Nivan's Destiny Road shouldn't require too much CGI.
I agree, I don't want a camera. But I had to accept one to get a 4-band phone.
Apparently you didn't have to. If Samsung doesn't have anything to offer, it looks like next time I may be talking to Motorola. I just hope they have one that doesn't require TMobile.
Slashdot Mirror
Instead, it's time to look at Firebird
I would love to be using Firebird instead of MySQL. But so far I haven't found an administrative tool that compares to MySQLAdministrator. Seems like everything for Firebird is commercial, alpha, or a dead project.
The database is solid and feature rich, but GUI tools are really lacking.
Looks like Interdictor and Sigmund are the only people in NO who did any disaster planning.
I've kind of avoided commenting, because I know this is going to annoy some people, but.....
They only did half of their disaster planning. They should have worked out a plan for a hot site that they could relocate to. Once it became clear that New Orleans is not going to recover any time soon, they should have been working on getting servers co-located instead of trying to secure more diesel.
If they can secure a truck to deliver fuel, they could have secured one to take them out of there.
Are they going to try to run their generator for the next 2-4 months? Once they protected their business through the storm, it was time to start determining if the existing facilities would be able to continue to support the business. I think when the levies went is about the time the Mayor started saying the city was lost. That was the time to implement the hot site plan and get your people out. It's no longer about keeping DirectNIC on the air.
Plus, the helicopters would be used both directions, carrying victims out of the area.
Nice idea, but two different types of helicopters. The ones that can do the rescues don't have the lift capacity. And the ones that could lift, rarely have passenger space. The light trucks are 1 tons (~6500 lbs), plus tower, cell, and generator. The larger ones are semi trailers.
Then of course, you have the wonderful looters to contend with. It would suck to lift a truck in, put the tower into operation, then have it go dark the following night because some moron stole the generator or gasoline.
Is there any technical reason why any cellphone company couldn't fit a trailer with a generator, a tower, and a cellphone repeater??
6 05-c.php
COWs and COLTs.
http://www.wins-news.com/top_stories/2005/jun/060
Sprint made the local news in KC recently when they tested their systems. I'm kind of surprised the media hasn't mentioned them being used now.
Part of the problem is logistics. You have to keep your trucks safe, but you need to get them in the area as quickly as possible afterward. I'm sure the roads in an out of the area are packed. Then some places just aren't going to be accessible. I suppose you could bring some in by helicopter, but that would compete with rescue operations.
I did see an article that said Sprint's towers were running on batteries. And cingular had brought in around 500 generators.
But then, CNN is reporting that the 911 systens are overloaded too. So who ya gonna call?
Here is what you originally suggested.
Why not pick up an old pentium and throw in a large HDD? Total cost should be less then $200.
And my point is that for around $100 more, you get a much more usable machine. Mine runs my PDC, web, ftp, file shares, and I use it as a workstation via a terminal.
Powerwise, I pulled out an old pentium 120, it used 50w to boot and settled at 45w. For comparision, my 2g laptop uses 45w under a load. A machine nearly identical to my file server used 70w to boot and settled at 65w. I don't have any non-dual proc PIIs, so I can't test one. But, here's a very important difference. The pentium will NOT support a drive larger than 8g. PII might or might not support larger than 32g, you'll have to find the right one. The much newer PowerEdge will support any PATA/SATA drive on the market, and already had a 40g installed.
And noise? Even with three of them running side by side, you can't hear them.
Or, he could pick up something like a Dell PowerEdge SC420. Depending on various deals they run between $200-300. I've got a sc400 celery that has been running 24x7 as my home server for nearly 2 years. It was a brand new machine, not some pentium retread. It is extremely quiet, and reasonbly miserly on power. My 1000va UPS will run it for over 45 minutes. That would give him SATA support and gig ethernet too.
The problem many developers have is they write interfaces based on what the program does, while the user is concerned with what they want to accomplish.
For example, using Konqueror for file management on my Linux box. A friend occasionally sends me files, so I gave him an FTP account on my server. I'm logged in, I want to move the files from his user directory to mine. Security wise, I know that my user account shouldn't have access to his user account. But I'm admin so I have access to root.
Looking at it from a developers perspective, I should start Konq in super user mode, move the files, and set the owner/group.
From a user's perspective, I should be able to click 'super user' in an existing instance of Konq, type the password, move the files and expect the user/group to be set automatically. I don't need to think about the details.
I have read studies that show that the more expensive an IT project is, the more likely it is to fail.
I think the "excess" failures are due to upper management "micromanagement". Usually, there is less upper management interference with small projects.
Or it could simply be that, in general, the more expensive a project is, the larger it's scope. (and associated risk)
If the project is just replacing the company's web presence, a screwup might just be wounded pride and a few more calls on the customer service line. But if you're replacing legacy systems with a CRM or ERP, you could be risking the company's financial health. The former isn't likely to make the news, it will simply get fixed and forgotten, the latter will get you compared to AT&T Wireless.
You also have to take into account an individual's management capability. It's easy to manage an army of one. More $$$ on a project means more people to manage and more skill required to manage successfully.
you have 2500 sq/ft with normal electric/gas heat/cooling and you're paying 130/month energy costs in what another poster mentioned was one of the most expensive energy locations in the nation?
I believe the other poster was mistaken. My actual usage for 5/24 to 6/24 was 761 KWH. After taxes that is $68. 7.25 cents/KWH for the first 600 and 7.46 cents/KWH after that.
I do get a bonus in that my house is shaded by several 50 yr old trees. With my AC set at 77, my system shuts off for long periods of time even during the day. We lost power yesterday at 5pm (blown transformer) for 45 minutes, and my house only warmed up by 1 degree. My server was about 5 minutes from shutting down though. I thought I was going to have an excuse to install that memory that has been waiting for a shutdown to get installed.
What this boils down to is, you are placing the blame on the corporation for something a fan did.
You are confused. I pay 7.25 cents a KWH for the first 600 and 7.46 cents a KWH after that. Which appears to be below the national average by about 1 cent. My service is through Aquila. KC MO proper is served by KCPL, and their rates are comparable. Where I feel I do get screwed is on gas service. Aquila passes along a 'supply charge' that tends to be outrageous.
During California's energy fiasco, utilities we charged up to 51 cents a KWH.
With a house of just less than 1500 square feet I always get an electric bill of that is less than $100.00.
You left out the one bit of info that would allow anyone to evaluate your testimonial to geothermal, where you are located.
How about this: I live near KC MO. I have an 8 year old furnace/ac unit and 2500 sq/ft of living area. 1400 upstairs, approx. 1100 in finished basement. My combined utility bill (elect/gas) is $130 a month. Level pay. 5 yr peaks are $150 in the summer and $250 in the winter. Despite having an attic fan, I switch from heating to cooling (never open windows) in the spring/fall because my office tends to overheat. And also, looking at my last bill (5/24 to 6/24) I get screwed for $35 a month for hot water (gas). My house is insulated, but could use more in the ceiling. It could stand better windows. And parking my truck in the air conditioned garage doesn't help either after it's been parked outside in 90+ degree temps, and driven home on the highway. And still my gas/electric system performs as well as yours?
But having said that, when I build my new house I'm using ground source heat pumps and passive solar to heat the ground level floor and driveway.
I just didn't find your argument compelling for 7 - 78 ft runs. BTW, my uncle heats/cools about 2500 sq/ft with 5 ground loops, trenched at 6 ft instead of drilled. Yours should be performing much better.
BTW, the terminology is air sourced and ground sourced heat pumps.
What this boils down to is, you are placing the blame on the corporation for something a fan did.
Yeah, that fan created the content, snuck into Rockstar's offices and placed it on the master so that it would get burnt onto millions of CDs and distributed worldwide.
If the content hadn't been created, the fan could not have exploited it. It's not whether or not we find the content objectional, there was a strong probability that it would reflect badly on Rockstar and it serves no useful purpose. You don't think Rockstar is responsible, you should look up 'due diligence'. Gamers have been hacking data files for computer games for as long as there have been computer games. Is it reasonable to assume that they would not find this? When the lawsuits start rolling in, that is the question the courts will most likely answer.
Voluntary only to the extent that if they don't self regulate, the government will do it for them.
It was completely irresponsible. They never intended to market GTA as an Adults Only game. Why was the content created in the first place? It had no business being in the code, ever.
The result is going to cost them millions of dollars, and some juvenile programmer is going to lose his job.
Why is the ESRB involved? Because the game developer couldn't be trusted to clean their code. It doesn't matter that it's not accessible on the PS version or that they never intended for it to be accessible in any version. It didn't belong, and they got caught being sloppy.
I've seen the AVI, and personally I don't care about it one way or another. Except.... the ratings are rules, and they are there for a reason. Whether they intended for the content to be accessible or not, Rockstar created it. If they want to create that type of content, they should apply for AO ratings. Instead they bent the rules, said no one was ever supposed to see it, but never took responsibility for creating it in the first place.
That's just it... Mainframes don't have ports. They have busses.
Just to clarify, IBM mainframes may not have ports. Vaxen most certainly do. It has been about 15 years, but I seem to recall at a minimum at console port and a system printer port.
* a) no 'cd' command -
:== SET DEFAULT
SET DEF
No, I literally mean 'cd'. 'cd' is a pretty standard way of changing directory and it applies to AmigaDOS, DOS, UNIX and CP/M (I think).
Simplest solution, put this in your login.com
CD
You still need to remember that you aren't using / and \, but there are even some CD.COMs on usenet that appear to address that too.
And that is all I will admit to remembering about VMS. Oh, and file versioning.
Oddly enough, my $30 timex keeps great time. But my cell phone loses a couple minutes a month, my $200 linux based dvr does too, and my computers have to sync their time to the network to remain reliable.
I've wondered for a while; why can we have 3ghz CPUs with gigs of ram, yet the clocks are less reliable than my original 10 mhz XT.
A lot of us ran BBSs under OS/2. If you wanted to run multi node or do other things with your machine, it was the only thing that got the job done. Beat the hell out of Desqview. Had to suffer through that for a few years as well, learned pretty quick how to change my code to do fast DV screen writes without bleeding through. Loved using SIO for COM drivers and redirecting my BBS to telnet. I wish that trend would have taken off instead of Web boards.
And for my part, already went Linux. Although I have to keep Win machines too. Tried Mac (mini), found the OS annoying. At least I finally got a PPC, even if OS/2 didn't survive to support it.
In smaller organizations, it's easier to convince people to deploy innovative solutions like thin clients, but the advantages are minimal since the organization is rarely so large that there are big savings ocer conventional systems.
Ever spent 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon running Ad Aware on their PCs? I worked on a machine a few months ago that thrashed the drive constantly and the CPU was pegged at 100%. It was a 128m XP machine and the mem usage was over 300m. And yet nothing but XP and IE were running. I got called because their brand new machine was running really, really slow. It was really killing employee productivity, and had it been a billable call (instead of a friend), it would have put a dent in their pocketbook too. And all I did was normal maintenance stuff. (ad aware, virus scan, defrag, recommend another 128m)
Once I get my software ported to Linux, I'll be pitching thin clients to lots of small businesses. (3-7 clients plus a server) The cost savings are there, and many of these businesses are still struggling with Win 95/98.
Except that companies are feeding the Microsoft money machine and migrating to terminal services. PC management has become a nightmare. But with TS you can keep everyone on the same version of Office and the rest of your standard app suite. And if it starts to get slow you just upgrade/add a server. Network? 100mbit at the desktop and gigabit in the server room works fine. RDP and X are really not that bad compared to HTTP.
MS started by giving free TS client licenses with W2K and XP, now that they've started to hook enterprise size companies, they roll out 2003 and force new licenses. But they will nicely bundle it in your software assurance package for you.
Personally, I've recently invested in a thin client for home. $150 plus a monitor. In the future I'll probably upgrade my server (debian), and start replacing PCs with more thin clients. At $300 a pop (terminal and LCD), it's not a problem to put one in the living room, kitchen, etc. Even in a home environment it saves a lot of time on administration. Network isn't a big deal, my cheap server (Dell 400sc) has a gigabit network card. My 8 port PowerConnect gigabit switch was less than $100.
That's an interesting device, but it has a couple problems.
First, the display is too small. It can't be much larger than 4x5 or 4x6. It really needs to be closer to 8x10.
It needs the ability to highlight text.
And I'm not sold on the keyboard. It would have to be high quality and completely silent. And then I'm still not sure that it would be useable by anyone with large hands. A scratch pad capability for 'margin' notes might be a better solution.
Books are so much convenient to use.
The value of a book depends a lot on it's intended use. For instance, I keep a small library of books at work that cover various topics and versions of the tools that I use. There are many times I have thought as I searched the index; "I wish I had these in PDF." Those books are predominately for research, and generally used when I want more in-depth info than I can find on usenet. (a dying resource, unfortunately) OTOH, I regularly buy books for entertainment. I read them cover to cover, and wouldn't want them in electronic form. I tried audio books, but found that I missed things because it was too easy to be distracted.
Textbooks should be read cover to cover (which means many should also be shortened), not searched. So at least until we have a device that is sub $100 and about as durable as a cell phone, I think getting rid of textbooks is premature.
Also, along these lines, I think that before computers are installed in any classroom, the teachers need to be certified on their use (and common problems) and have an approved curriculum that makes use of them. Even at the college level with technically proficient instructors, it seems to be uncommon for computers to be used for anything more than a white board with a projector.
I just looked, and the Chem 101 text at my old University is up to $148. And that does NOT include the lab or extra needed stuff (probably an extra $50).
My recent experience with textbooks.... $80 for a 20 year old IBM 360 ASM programming textbook. And you need the bookstore copied, out of print, IBM reference card as well. As if we weren't getting raped enough having to take the class in the first place. And then there was the $104 Data Structures textbook that we never touched. For reference, students used their C++ textbook to do their homework since the class turned into a semester on templates. And then there's the horrible $100 Analysis and Design textbook that was chosen because the instructor was a former student of the author. At the college level, just expect to average $100 per class for textbooks that change every year or two and have little or no resale value. But covers the exact same material that has been taught, unchanged, for a decade.
Not bitter, just disappointed in the quality of our institutions of higher education.
I'm not willing to say that big budget makes a good movie/TV show. Battlefield Earth was a good book and the movie had top rated stars and funding, and it still sucked. Ideally they would take some of that money and sponsor some aspiring directors. Do something like Project Greenlight for SciFi. Of course, they need some experienced actor/directors to mentor these projects, and Hollywood doesn't want too much of that because they like their $100 million budgets with $20 million actors.
I wouldn't be surprised if the property taxes on a California studio would be enough to build a studio in the midwest. Cheap doesn't have to mean cheesy. I could walk in to the local public library and in minutes, find a dozen good SciFi novels that would make good movies, or with the right writers, a series. Something like Larry Nivan's Destiny Road shouldn't require too much CGI.
I agree, I don't want a camera. But I had to accept one to get a 4-band phone.
Apparently you didn't have to. If Samsung doesn't have anything to offer, it looks like next time I may be talking to Motorola. I just hope they have one that doesn't require TMobile.