good luck getting a form or e-banking page in which you can enter an IBAN acct number - and if you, the bank, or the receiver screws up, the banks don't accept any liability what so ever.
Good, I can't tell you much more, but I have been implementing a webbanking application for a large bank (at least in my country) and I was assigned the transfers. Go figure: you can't screw up an IBAN account if it's implemented well. It's not possible. On top of that banks (should) prefer IBAN accounts because it tells them about everything about the target bank and country. And if you want to go really secure, make sure that the BIC number is there and you're safe. All other information is just for redundancy.
Oh, and my country is switched 100%: you can't get a bill where there isn't a IBAN number written on it and all major banks switched to it on their webbanking applications. Heck, I haven't seen a normal account number in over a year.
Credit cards come closest to an international standard for funds transfer, but few Europeans have them, and even fewer would give out the number on the internet
I haven't met a person under 50 (and over 18 of course) that doesn't have one. They might be reluctant to use it on the internet, but not as much as you state. Most of my friends (including non-techs) have already bought at Amazon, and that implies credit card (unless you live in Germany, where you can pay per bank order if I recall correctly)
Opening up a pan-European shopping site is no mean feat.
I agree with that, but it's not the lack of financial possibilities that do that. The main reason is that Europe is not a country. Every country has its own equivalent of the RIAA and Apple must negociate with all of them. (But then I'm not going to rehash your first paragraph;-) )
Come and live for a while in Luxembourg! That's still "Europe" you know... Want ADSL? Be prepared to pay 47€ for a 256kbps/128kbps (down/up) connection. You want faster? Be prepared to open up your wallet.
Cheap? I don't call that cheap.... I still have it, but that's because dial-up would be more expensive for me (due to my insane amount of time online, I need to get a life)
Well, I usually vote socialist. Making me a pinko-communist-bastard on slashdot. This time I'll vote green, making me a tree-hugger.
*sigh* Dunno which one is better;-) But you're right, they can't understand the problems that patents on software will induce because most people do not understand software is something way different that a "manufacturable product".
Luxembourg here... As from I get it (from ffii.org) my country is too much in favour for software patents. Urks... even the socialists! Fuck, I thought that the socialists were supposed to care about people and not corporations.
It is quite simple, a lot of people being really hand-on with computers know about Microsoft behaviour, and not even all considering some Microsoft fanboys I have met. The problem is that those people - the people who know *and* care - are not in power.
All the rest (meaning your parents, joe-six-pack-next-door, your PHB, the CEO of your company, anyone who doesn't fall in the power-user-ms-wary-class) either know and don't care about Microsoft behaviour or don't even know about the molopolistic abuse that MS is guilty of. We read these articles as "victories for Linux" or "finally MS gets what it deserves", but other people read this as "it's not a time to invest in Microsoft shares" (or it is a time, I'm no financial wizkid)
Worse: for people like your PHB and the CEO, Microsoft is the *absolute* rolemodel. You see how successful they are and they can even break the law and get away of it. It's every managers wet dream to have a company like that.
So in our eyes (a minority) Microsoft doesn't foor "anyone" (read: us). They fool every one else: meaning the majority.
Re:they need updated docs for todays ram amounts
on
Is Swap Necessary?
·
· Score: 1
Stupid question: if I have 4Gigs of RAM, what kind of swap space do I need? 8Gigs? I forgot everything about my classes about virtual memory, but isn't it a fact that 32-bit machines can only access 4Gigs of RAM? So what's the point of a swap once you hit that limit?
I indeed knew about the 2xRAM=SWAP, and have used it since my 486 days (before that my system was a 286, so no swap there). My situation is the same as yours: 1Gig RAM, 2 Gigs swap. It rarely gets used though.
None... Networks using Windows NT4 are usually cut off from the internet. At least, at the client where I work it is that way. Want to go on the internet? Over there is a machine connected to the "Yellow Network", where you can surf all you want... This has the added effect of employees not wasting time on the internet because it is very "visbile" when you're surfing.
Are you sure that the phone number for work is correct? I just called and a lady picked up and I asked for Mr. Metzeleschjong and she just said "you're at the ministry of economy". I apologized and told her I misdailled.
I know that Iomega is something like the devil around here, but that has not been my experience. A few years ago, I had a Jaz drive that wouldn't eject the disk in it. (I still have said drive, and it still works, thank you very much)
I called tech support, and came into the automated system. While I did have to go through all the automated question in order to verfy that it wasn't drivers or anything like that, I finally came to a live person. The (very sweet sounding) lady helped me at once, and within 5 minutes the disk was ejected and I never had that problem ever again. No, I didn't get charged at all.
Perhaps their policies changed by now. I haven't bought Iomega in ages, and in a general rule I don't call technical support anyways. Mostly I manage to fix my own problems.
Uhm, and I'll point out (again) that an increase in the barrel will increase our gas prices more because the tax stays a percentage. So a small increase in barrel price, results in a bigger increase in gas price.
Re:Grmbl...
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Since the Iraq war wasn't about oil in the first place according to US officials your question isn't really relevant. I cannot say if the Iraq war is the cause of the price raises, I only know that I was better off before the Iraq war.
And, no, I did not and do not support the war in Iraq (which is not a war anymore, since it's over, or so we have been told by US officials) Besides, just assuming that the Iraq war was because of oil, the prices in the US should be lower than ever and in Europe even higher than now. After all, we would probably not get any of the oil of Iraq pushing up our prices.
There is probably not a "next country on the hitlist", because for that the US needs more troops, resulting in more bloodshed and that doesn't look good just before an election.
Re:Find a map first you clueless....
on
Out of Gas
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· Score: 1
Hehe, well, yes dear AC. My country is small, but I don't think that many Americans go cross country every day. Don't most of you just commute to work and do grocery shopping, just like we do? The Americans I know and met certainly do mostly that. I don't think many Americans drive from New York to Los Angeles every week either. Some might, but I know people here that manage 200000km/year in Europe too.
Oh, and I've been to North America, I have driven there and I know how big the country is.
Finally: I didn't give you any lessons, nor did I say how you should drive. I only stated that gas is more expensive at my side of the ocean. You guys complain about high beer prices too;-)
Re:Grmbl...
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Yes, an average fuel car (like my dad, mom and brother have) goes about for 7.5litre/100km. They all have smaller cars (Audi A2, Seat Ibiza and Peugeot 206 in order) than I do. The picture changes quickly once you go to the "bigger" sedans. I indeed made the mistake of buying a more powerful car, but that seemed reasonable four years ago. You'll find diesels that do less than that, but the smaller diesels (like the Lupo 3L) aren't really that widespread. Diesels are a choice for people who need a larger car for their family. Those rarely do 5l/100km, even though being diesels.
So what do you suggest I do? Sell my four year old gas guzzler (which was 35000€ at purchase and I could perhaps sell for 15000€ now) and buy me a Smart Diesel? A nice Audi A3 TDI still costst about 25000€. So I'd need to find about 10000€ to replace my current car. For that I trade in performance and "coolness" (that's how you take it), and for that amount I fill my car up for 167 times at current gas prices. At two refills per month, I can keep it for 83,5 months, resulting in nearly 7 years of usage, at which time my car will be really old and will need replacement anyways.
For the moment I'll stick to it and complain about gas prices;-)
I happen to write down the gas price every time I fill up my car. I don't have the figures from two years ago around, but I have those of last year:
15/05/2003 was 0.777 €/litre
17/05/2004 is 0.982 €/litre
Which makes a 0.205 €/litre increase over one year. You can imagine that two years ago would even make a bigger difference. Now, I don't know where you got that 0.1€/l increase from but our gas prices are just as much dependent of market prices as yours.
Hehe... I love the car, indeed. It still makes me cringe when I have to pay up 60€ to fill her up. I just try to accelerate a bit less, but that takes a lot of fun out of it;-) I managed to get 8.5litres/100km (nearly 30mpg) out of her last weekend by doing only highway at 130kmh. Speeding has become expensive without even getting speeding tickets. *grin*
Yes, you are right. According to my own knowlegde about 70% of the gas price is taxes. It has been that way for years. The amount of taxes hasn't increased substantially in my country. Hey, when I started driving in 1994, gas prices were around 0.650€ per litre. That's still 2.6$ per gallon.
As noted in severeal other posts, the tax just makes the increases more noticable.
Hmmm, yes, you're right... I shouldn't complain too much. Especially that a month ticket for the bus is only 20.50€, for which I can't even fill up my car.
The only problem would be when I stay at my girlfriends place, where there isn't even a bus or train anywhere close. I really need to reconsider the bus... but staying in bed in the morning is so much more fun than waiting for the bus in the cold;-)
The only reason I included that was to make sure I didn't get the "but you guys don't have huge commutes", or something along the lines. My commutes is even pretty moderate compared to many of my coworkers.
You guys complain? Bah! In Europe we're worse off. I live in one of the countries with the lowest gas prices in the EU, but we nearly reached the 1€/litre mark last week. That's 4$ per gallon for you American folks. My commute being 16 miles single way (which seems to be the norm according to this slashdot poll ) doesn't really help. Yes, I know, I could take the bus, but that would take me 60 minutes instead of 30 minutes with the car.
It would be way worse if the dollar was higher, I guess... after all the barrel is quoted in dollars.
Damn, I should have bought a diesel instead of a roadster that does 10l/100km (25mpg). *sigh*
I still have my Game Gear. I bought a battery pack so that I could play longer. Recently I removed the dust from my Game Gear to show it to someone who thought that the backlit Game Boy Advance was the best thing since sliced bread. I could show him that I had the same thing ten years ago. Yeah, I know the games were more primitive, but still.
I wonder what would happen if I tried using those high-power NiMh AA batteries thought for digital cameras. The Game Gear lasted about 2 hours on normal NiCad batteries back in the day. Perhaps now I could squeeze 4 hours out of it;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Mod redundant... I saw other people post this further on. Next time I promise to read the whole thread. :-(
I usually use example@example.com, because that domain is not available for registration .
Good, I can't tell you much more, but I have been implementing a webbanking application for a large bank (at least in my country) and I was assigned the transfers. Go figure: you can't screw up an IBAN account if it's implemented well. It's not possible. On top of that banks (should) prefer IBAN accounts because it tells them about everything about the target bank and country. And if you want to go really secure, make sure that the BIC number is there and you're safe. All other information is just for redundancy.
Oh, and my country is switched 100%: you can't get a bill where there isn't a IBAN number written on it and all major banks switched to it on their webbanking applications. Heck, I haven't seen a normal account number in over a year.
Credit cards come closest to an international standard for funds transfer, but few Europeans have them, and even fewer would give out the number on the internet
I haven't met a person under 50 (and over 18 of course) that doesn't have one. They might be reluctant to use it on the internet, but not as much as you state. Most of my friends (including non-techs) have already bought at Amazon, and that implies credit card (unless you live in Germany, where you can pay per bank order if I recall correctly)
Opening up a pan-European shopping site is no mean feat.
I agree with that, but it's not the lack of financial possibilities that do that. The main reason is that Europe is not a country. Every country has its own equivalent of the RIAA and Apple must negociate with all of them. (But then I'm not going to rehash your first paragraph ;-) )
Cheap? I don't call that cheap.... I still have it, but that's because dial-up would be more expensive for me (due to my insane amount of time online, I need to get a life)
*sigh* Dunno which one is better ;-) But you're right, they can't understand the problems that patents on software will induce because most people do not understand software is something way different that a "manufacturable product".
Guess, I'll have to vote green.... :-/
I charge a case of beer. Cheap, eh? But then I like to get drunk ;-)
It is quite simple, a lot of people being really hand-on with computers know about Microsoft behaviour, and not even all considering some Microsoft fanboys I have met. The problem is that those people - the people who know *and* care - are not in power.
All the rest (meaning your parents, joe-six-pack-next-door, your PHB, the CEO of your company, anyone who doesn't fall in the power-user-ms-wary-class) either know and don't care about Microsoft behaviour or don't even know about the molopolistic abuse that MS is guilty of. We read these articles as "victories for Linux" or "finally MS gets what it deserves", but other people read this as "it's not a time to invest in Microsoft shares" (or it is a time, I'm no financial wizkid)
Worse: for people like your PHB and the CEO, Microsoft is the *absolute* rolemodel. You see how successful they are and they can even break the law and get away of it. It's every managers wet dream to have a company like that.
So in our eyes (a minority) Microsoft doesn't foor "anyone" (read: us). They fool every one else: meaning the majority.
I indeed knew about the 2xRAM=SWAP, and have used it since my 486 days (before that my system was a 286, so no swap there). My situation is the same as yours: 1Gig RAM, 2 Gigs swap. It rarely gets used though.
That keyboard looks just like mine, except mine wasn't case-modded. I just didn't clean it in ages ;-)
None... Networks using Windows NT4 are usually cut off from the internet. At least, at the client where I work it is that way. Want to go on the internet? Over there is a machine connected to the "Yellow Network", where you can surf all you want... This has the added effect of employees not wasting time on the internet because it is very "visbile" when you're surfing.
Are you sure that the phone number for work is correct? I just called and a lady picked up and I asked for Mr. Metzeleschjong and she just said "you're at the ministry of economy". I apologized and told her I misdailled.
I called tech support, and came into the automated system. While I did have to go through all the automated question in order to verfy that it wasn't drivers or anything like that, I finally came to a live person. The (very sweet sounding) lady helped me at once, and within 5 minutes the disk was ejected and I never had that problem ever again. No, I didn't get charged at all.
Perhaps their policies changed by now. I haven't bought Iomega in ages, and in a general rule I don't call technical support anyways. Mostly I manage to fix my own problems.
Uhm, and I'll point out (again) that an increase in the barrel will increase our gas prices more because the tax stays a percentage. So a small increase in barrel price, results in a bigger increase in gas price.
And, no, I did not and do not support the war in Iraq (which is not a war anymore, since it's over, or so we have been told by US officials) Besides, just assuming that the Iraq war was because of oil, the prices in the US should be lower than ever and in Europe even higher than now. After all, we would probably not get any of the oil of Iraq pushing up our prices.
There is probably not a "next country on the hitlist", because for that the US needs more troops, resulting in more bloodshed and that doesn't look good just before an election.
Oh, and I've been to North America, I have driven there and I know how big the country is.
Finally: I didn't give you any lessons, nor did I say how you should drive. I only stated that gas is more expensive at my side of the ocean. You guys complain about high beer prices too ;-)
So what do you suggest I do? Sell my four year old gas guzzler (which was 35000€ at purchase and I could perhaps sell for 15000€ now) and buy me a Smart Diesel? A nice Audi A3 TDI still costst about 25000€. So I'd need to find about 10000€ to replace my current car. For that I trade in performance and "coolness" (that's how you take it), and for that amount I fill my car up for 167 times at current gas prices. At two refills per month, I can keep it for 83,5 months, resulting in nearly 7 years of usage, at which time my car will be really old and will need replacement anyways. ;-)
For the moment I'll stick to it and complain about gas prices
- 15/05/2003 was 0.777 €/litre
- 17/05/2004 is 0.982 €/litre
Which makes a 0.205 €/litre increase over one year. You can imagine that two years ago would even make a bigger difference. Now, I don't know where you got that 0.1€/l increase from but our gas prices are just as much dependent of market prices as yours.Hehe... I love the car, indeed. It still makes me cringe when I have to pay up 60€ to fill her up. I just try to accelerate a bit less, but that takes a lot of fun out of it ;-) I managed to get 8.5litres/100km (nearly 30mpg) out of her last weekend by doing only highway at 130kmh. Speeding has become expensive without even getting speeding tickets. *grin*
Yes, you are right. According to my own knowlegde about 70% of the gas price is taxes. It has been that way for years. The amount of taxes hasn't increased substantially in my country. Hey, when I started driving in 1994, gas prices were around 0.650€ per litre. That's still 2.6$ per gallon.
As noted in severeal other posts, the tax just makes the increases more noticable.
The only problem would be when I stay at my girlfriends place, where there isn't even a bus or train anywhere close. I really need to reconsider the bus... but staying in bed in the morning is so much more fun than waiting for the bus in the cold ;-)
No, an Audi TT, but most equivalent roadsters have about the same mileage. (To my knowledge, at least)
The only reason I included that was to make sure I didn't get the "but you guys don't have huge commutes", or something along the lines. My commutes is even pretty moderate compared to many of my coworkers.
It would be way worse if the dollar was higher, I guess... after all the barrel is quoted in dollars.
Damn, I should have bought a diesel instead of a roadster that does 10l/100km (25mpg). *sigh*
I wonder what would happen if I tried using those high-power NiMh AA batteries thought for digital cameras. The Game Gear lasted about 2 hours on normal NiCad batteries back in the day. Perhaps now I could squeeze 4 hours out of it ;-)