However, I think the reply to is "trash them". I'm probably not using my imagination enough, so I'm eager to read to suggestions of others. I'm a tech dumpster-diver and even I had to up my standards regarding equipment. With computers, I won't take anything less than 1Ghz++ AMD XP or P-IV, preferably with DDR RAM, but I'm not all that picky since usually you have decide on the spot and can't just open the machine up first.
With networking gear, I don't bother with anything beyond 100Mbps in wired and 802.11g for wireless. It simply is not worth the hassle.
The only thing I really can think of, is use the hardware to make a wireless bridge if you have two locations to connect that are out of range (can-tenna, etc...) A 11Mbps directional link is better than no link at all. That said, considering the 802.11g prices, you can probably just do it with newer hardware that will use less power. 54Mbps gear is already to be found in dumpsters near you.... I'm not kidding.
The other option would be to re-use it for people you can help in the low-income bracket. An older P-III laptop with a 802.11b card and a 802.11b router/access point is better than no gear at all. Still, my experience says that most people -even those in the lower income bracket- don't want the old gear. The few times I did manage to give away refurbished older hardware was to a single-income mom, working as an analyst in the tech sector, so her income wasn't "low" by any stretch of imagination, for her daughters use. (It was a AMD Athlon XP 2800+, 1GB RAM running Ubuntu 8.10 back then... Haven't gotten any news since). The others were just computer enthousiasts (professional or hobbists) who wanted something to toy around with.
I've done exactly that recently... Well, okay, it was a laptop with a broken screen which I got gifted. Laptop had an XGA screen and I gambled and ordered a new SXGA+ screen of the same size. (That particular laptop was sold with both resolutions originally) It works, but really doesn't. There are several issues:
The EDID string: When I swapped the panel, the BIOS would complain that the panel wasn't supported: "F1 to resume, F2 for setup". I simply flashed the BIOS and that went away. I suspect the BIOS will accept anything from the panel when you reflash it while it's present in the laptop.
Before the BIOS flashing, the brightness did not work at all, making the screen very dim.
The cable connecting to the panel is important contrary to what I expected. While they look standard, they really aren't. The panel I have now does not display every other vertical line which gives a bit of a "vertically-interlaced" feeling. Up to 1024x768, the panel is usable (but the "interlacing" is visible). Anything above, is unusable. From my researches on the net, this seems to be that the flat cable between the graphics card and the panel misses some lines... Penny savings for the laptop manufacturer, but it stops you from upgrading.
All in all, upgrading a laptop panel is a big gamble than can backfire. I already spent 118€ for the panel (+shipping and handling) and 17€ on import taxes... That's a lot of money, and now I ordered a new cable which will surely jack up the price to at least another 25€ for the cable with shipping and handling (took the more expensive and slower "by post" shipping method, because DHL and UPS are both scammer that sur-tax you on import. They have a flat fee on top of the import tax... By postal services, low fees usually get waived. I've imported stuff from Japan for about the same price of the said panel and the import tax on that was waived... The difference being that it was sent by normal post... anyway, sorry for the rant).
It was an interesting experience, but I'm not sure if the laptop was worth 160€++ and many hours of my time. (Sure, it's a Core2Duo with 1GB RAM, but you can nearly get a new netbook for a bit more and less risk).
My advice thus: replacing a laptop panel, yes, but only with exactly the same resolution. Upgrading a laptop panel: no, not even if you have to fix it anyway in the first place.
Try Lamborghini next time... You do know that Mr Lamborghini originally made his money making tractors. The legend says he wasn't satisfied with what Ferrari offered as sports cars and thus made one himself. Originally, Lamborghini is a tractor brand.... Not kidding. I think they still make them...
Cool.... Thanks for the info. Wonder if I could upgrade the LCD of my personal laptop (only 1280x800).... Now that you say it works, I'm highly tempted.
Considering that everything in laptops is pretty much standardized these days, I was pretty confident it would work.
Sometimes my desktop needs a new power supply which is an easy fix - but not at all easy on a laptop (basically impossible).
A new power supply is hard to get for a laptop?!? Wow... They pretty much all have external power bricks, so replace that and you're done. Back in 2001, when I had an iBook, I damaged the power supply and even that was easy to get (considering it was a power supply unlike anything I've ever seen on a laptop). The power supply of my Asus EEE broke (power wire damaged). I got a new one for about 40€ at Duracell Direct. Quick delivery and it's a better one that the stock one!
Power supplies are very easy to replace for laptops these days. Granted, in the Pentium I days, it was harder since the power supply was often built into the laptop. (Thinking back to my Toshiba Satellite 210CT). Back in those days everything was "custom" on laptops. In the last 10 years this has very much changed. Virtually all laptops can be upgraded with the following components: harddisk and memory.
The laptop on which I'm typing this has already been equipped with a bigger harddisk and double RAM. Few screws, and you're done.
CPU and Graphics cards are another matter. CPU being hard and Graphics Card being mostly impossible. The screen too is harder, but it might be possible. Recently, a friend of my sister gave me her Fujitsu-Siemens S7110. She didn't want it anymore because the screen was cracked, the rest was 100% okay. That particular model comes in two resolutions 1024x768 and 1400x1050. That laptop had a 1024x768 LCD and I ordered a 1400x1050 model for it. I admit, it is a bet... It might not work and you're warned on every site that sells LCDs that you shouldn't do it. I just think they put those warnings there because people don't go and look what the maximum possible resolution was for their particular laptop model. Of course, right now, I can't assert I'm right. I'll see when the new panel arrives.
People always note the bad longevity of laptops... It is indeed shorter, but not that much shorter. All my laptops, with exception of the iBook, lived over 5 years. My dad replaced his 2001 P-III laptop with a new one, this year... I expect it to outlive him. Given good care, laptops can last just as long.... Now, with computer power plateau-ing, I expect to see 5++ year old laptops more often.
Oh, and for the Apple fanbois: the iBook lived a measly 3 years. After that the graphics circuit broke. It was a known problem and it arrived to me just 3 days after their extended replacement program stopped. Boy, was I pissed...
Depends... Because even when doing this, you won't be using up a full blown 5 starters per year. You'll perhaps use one more over the lifetime of a car. I'm pretty sure that the environmental footprint of that one extra starter is going to be easily offset by the gas saved in the long run.
So, as a matter of fact, I also thought about the environmental impact but somehow I expected that to be self-evident. Seems it was not....
For the record: I did do the turn off/turn on thing for over a year (2008 to be precise) with my car. As of 2010, I'm still using that starter. Heck, it's still the same starter that came with the car in (February) 2000 when I bought it. Why did I stop using the technique? Gas got cheaper again and it is quite a lot of self-discipline if it's not done automatically for you. The times you turn it off and need to turn it on again after a second are especially frustrating. That said, on the routes you usually do, you get to know the lights and can usually anticipate when it makes sense to turn of the engine and when not. Fuel savings were real but with my car, really not in the "worth doing" it range. More like 0.2 l/100km, which translates (using 16000km per year, aka 10000 miles per year) to 32 litres saved per year.
Also, be very careful with the phrase "A fuel efficiency increase of 5 MPG is a few hundred bucks a year" because MPG doesn't work as you think it works. There is a reason I used a 20 MPG to 25 MPG increase: MPG "increases" are not linear (and which is why most other countries work with "consumption" using litres/100km). Consider a 15MPG car that suddenly does 20MPG. That's accounts 666 gallons versus 500 gallons.... That "5 MPG increase" is much more significant that the one used in my illustration. (Link you should read)
A fuel efficiency increase of 5 MPG is a few hundred bucks a year
Let's see.... Assume a 20 MPG car can be brought up to 25 MPG. Assume 10000 miles per year. We are talking 500 gallons used versus 400 gallons used. Difference is 100 gallons... Of course, at 1$/gallon, you don't care. Where I live a litre easily costs 1.2€, 100 gallons is 378.6 litres, which translates to 454,32€ per year.
A quick google on a VW starter (I drive an Audi... close enough): 90.38$ list price. That's a lot of starters a year.
What's the big deal? One programming language is like the other, at least within the same paradigm. If you can program in Pascal, you can program in C. If you can't you learned a syntax and not "how to program". Basically, when I was a computer science student, we got one language taught for the concepts and the rest was just "swim or sink". That's the way it should be. I really have a problem with programmers who have problems switching from their preferred-language to another because it's unfamiliar. Well, no, it's not... It's the damned same thing with diverging syntax.
Basically, the premise of the Exam Board is quite right: the goal of programming is to have problem solving skills. Whatever language conveys that is completely uninteresting to me.
Oh, and just for the record: programming is just a small part of the computer science curriculum... or at least it should be.
I have installed a Atom 330 ION motherboard (So, only SATA, no IDE, PCIe slot, no PCI slots) with that CD. No drivers needed. Qualifies as 2005 and later. No hassles.
Granted, since this was quite recent (a few months ago), I used my SP3 CD. May not have gone with SP2: I have no way to tell. Also, people here mention nLite for slipstreaming. Not needed, you can do it with the original CD, the downloaded SP and a CD burner program.
I guess it happens with non-standard SATA chipsets. I don't know, I really never had it happen to me from SP2 onwards and I've installed a lot of machines.
Mine most definitely isn't an OEM disk and I didn't add anything except SP2 and later SP3. I keep hearing the claim, but I never experienced it myself.
I have installed XP on numerous SATA-only machines using a WinXP Pro Volume License CD with only SP2 (and later SP3) without any problem. No, they didn't have emulation at all.
Yes, a SP1 or even SP0 will need the manufacturer disks, but not anything beyond.
Try running most Windows XP software and see what happens.
I keep hearing this repeated ad infintum. Since Win XP SP2, most software got adapted so it could run as Limited user. Even game developers got the message. The Sims 2 initially came out as "Admin only". That was patched within months when people complained.
Anyway, even for non-behaving software, it is usually a matter of setting User-Write-Permissions on the folder of the misbehaving application. If that doesn't help, set User-Write-Permission to the subkey the application created in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Fixes 99% of the applications. If anyone bothered, this could be automated with a script or an appplication that has a database with known misbehaving applications and the necessary fixes. If people can make something like "the PC decrapiefer", this should be feasible too.
Anyone with a remote clue can run Windows XP entirely as Limited User (for day to day operations, of course).
Only slightly related: this is why removing the Security tab in the Home Version of XP was a bad idea. I know there was a way to install it again, but I never found it back.
No, absolutely not... Physics uses Math: Physics without Math is unthinkable. Math without Physics is absolutely possible. There was pretty much maths before physics. The old Greeks were more Mathematicians than Physicists.
There is little need for calculatign stuff you don't know what it's your calculating.
I present to you Complex Numbers. For all intents and purposes we don't know what we're calculating *but* they are used in all kinds of engineering to find actual useful results. (Scroll down to the Applications part). Understand that Complex Numbers were first, then came the applications.
I am by no means a Mathematician and I wasn't a big fan of it in school, but loved physics and excelled in it. In a way, I was like you, but I understand that Maths is used in Physics but not limited to Physics.
Finally: Obligatory XKCD Link. (Of course, if you feel bitter about this comment, read the mouse-over text)
So? I think these points are obvious - and you're only the 20th or so person to point this out.
When I started typing my comment, there were no comments attached to the article. I just took the time to write more than one sentence which results in the fact that I'm the 20th and not the first. This is how slashdot has alway worked. Go compare timestamps next time, mmmkay? (First post in for this article is 2010-03-24 13:13CET and my post was at 2010-03-24 13:17CET.)
If I wanted to first post, I could have written "Just a PC. Lame! First Post!"...
There are Apple stickers coming with the retail copy OS X? I know I got some with my (long dead) iBook and some with my wifes iPod... It's the typical "workaround" I hear about on slashdot. Doesn't change the DMCA problem I described, which stays valid. The sticker only takes care of the EULA problem.
Slashdot Mirror
However, I think the reply to is "trash them". I'm probably not using my imagination enough, so I'm eager to read to suggestions of others. I'm a tech dumpster-diver and even I had to up my standards regarding equipment. With computers, I won't take anything less than 1Ghz++ AMD XP or P-IV, preferably with DDR RAM, but I'm not all that picky since usually you have decide on the spot and can't just open the machine up first.
With networking gear, I don't bother with anything beyond 100Mbps in wired and 802.11g for wireless. It simply is not worth the hassle.
The only thing I really can think of, is use the hardware to make a wireless bridge if you have two locations to connect that are out of range (can-tenna, etc...) A 11Mbps directional link is better than no link at all. That said, considering the 802.11g prices, you can probably just do it with newer hardware that will use less power. 54Mbps gear is already to be found in dumpsters near you.... I'm not kidding.
The other option would be to re-use it for people you can help in the low-income bracket. An older P-III laptop with a 802.11b card and a 802.11b router/access point is better than no gear at all. Still, my experience says that most people -even those in the lower income bracket- don't want the old gear. The few times I did manage to give away refurbished older hardware was to a single-income mom, working as an analyst in the tech sector, so her income wasn't "low" by any stretch of imagination, for her daughters use. (It was a AMD Athlon XP 2800+, 1GB RAM running Ubuntu 8.10 back then... Haven't gotten any news since). The others were just computer enthousiasts (professional or hobbists) who wanted something to toy around with.
All in all, upgrading a laptop panel is a big gamble than can backfire. I already spent 118€ for the panel (+shipping and handling) and 17€ on import taxes... That's a lot of money, and now I ordered a new cable which will surely jack up the price to at least another 25€ for the cable with shipping and handling (took the more expensive and slower "by post" shipping method, because DHL and UPS are both scammer that sur-tax you on import. They have a flat fee on top of the import tax... By postal services, low fees usually get waived. I've imported stuff from Japan for about the same price of the said panel and the import tax on that was waived... The difference being that it was sent by normal post... anyway, sorry for the rant).
It was an interesting experience, but I'm not sure if the laptop was worth 160€++ and many hours of my time. (Sure, it's a Core2Duo with 1GB RAM, but you can nearly get a new netbook for a bit more and less risk).
My advice thus: replacing a laptop panel, yes, but only with exactly the same resolution. Upgrading a laptop panel: no, not even if you have to fix it anyway in the first place.
Hehehe... Good one :-)
Try Lamborghini next time... You do know that Mr Lamborghini originally made his money making tractors. The legend says he wasn't satisfied with what Ferrari offered as sports cars and thus made one himself. Originally, Lamborghini is a tractor brand.... Not kidding. I think they still make them...
Actually, considering you're talking SUVs.... You're making exactly his point... :-)
Cool.... Thanks for the info. Wonder if I could upgrade the LCD of my personal laptop (only 1280x800).... Now that you say it works, I'm highly tempted.
Considering that everything in laptops is pretty much standardized these days, I was pretty confident it would work.
Morale of the story: Don't buy Compaq ;-)
A new power supply is hard to get for a laptop?!? Wow... They pretty much all have external power bricks, so replace that and you're done. Back in 2001, when I had an iBook, I damaged the power supply and even that was easy to get (considering it was a power supply unlike anything I've ever seen on a laptop). The power supply of my Asus EEE broke (power wire damaged). I got a new one for about 40€ at Duracell Direct. Quick delivery and it's a better one that the stock one!
Power supplies are very easy to replace for laptops these days. Granted, in the Pentium I days, it was harder since the power supply was often built into the laptop. (Thinking back to my Toshiba Satellite 210CT). Back in those days everything was "custom" on laptops. In the last 10 years this has very much changed. Virtually all laptops can be upgraded with the following components: harddisk and memory.
The laptop on which I'm typing this has already been equipped with a bigger harddisk and double RAM. Few screws, and you're done.
CPU and Graphics cards are another matter. CPU being hard and Graphics Card being mostly impossible. The screen too is harder, but it might be possible. Recently, a friend of my sister gave me her Fujitsu-Siemens S7110. She didn't want it anymore because the screen was cracked, the rest was 100% okay. That particular model comes in two resolutions 1024x768 and 1400x1050. That laptop had a 1024x768 LCD and I ordered a 1400x1050 model for it. I admit, it is a bet... It might not work and you're warned on every site that sells LCDs that you shouldn't do it. I just think they put those warnings there because people don't go and look what the maximum possible resolution was for their particular laptop model. Of course, right now, I can't assert I'm right. I'll see when the new panel arrives.
People always note the bad longevity of laptops... It is indeed shorter, but not that much shorter. All my laptops, with exception of the iBook, lived over 5 years. My dad replaced his 2001 P-III laptop with a new one, this year... I expect it to outlive him. Given good care, laptops can last just as long.... Now, with computer power plateau-ing, I expect to see 5++ year old laptops more often.
Oh, and for the Apple fanbois: the iBook lived a measly 3 years. After that the graphics circuit broke. It was a known problem and it arrived to me just 3 days after their extended replacement program stopped. Boy, was I pissed...
Guilty as charged.
... and we're lucky that the dollar is low. It would be worse if it wasn't the case.
Depends... Because even when doing this, you won't be using up a full blown 5 starters per year. You'll perhaps use one more over the lifetime of a car. I'm pretty sure that the environmental footprint of that one extra starter is going to be easily offset by the gas saved in the long run.
So, as a matter of fact, I also thought about the environmental impact but somehow I expected that to be self-evident. Seems it was not....
For the record: I did do the turn off/turn on thing for over a year (2008 to be precise) with my car. As of 2010, I'm still using that starter. Heck, it's still the same starter that came with the car in (February) 2000 when I bought it. Why did I stop using the technique? Gas got cheaper again and it is quite a lot of self-discipline if it's not done automatically for you. The times you turn it off and need to turn it on again after a second are especially frustrating. That said, on the routes you usually do, you get to know the lights and can usually anticipate when it makes sense to turn of the engine and when not. Fuel savings were real but with my car, really not in the "worth doing" it range. More like 0.2 l/100km, which translates (using 16000km per year, aka 10000 miles per year) to 32 litres saved per year.
Also, be very careful with the phrase "A fuel efficiency increase of 5 MPG is a few hundred bucks a year" because MPG doesn't work as you think it works. There is a reason I used a 20 MPG to 25 MPG increase: MPG "increases" are not linear (and which is why most other countries work with "consumption" using litres/100km). Consider a 15MPG car that suddenly does 20MPG. That's accounts 666 gallons versus 500 gallons.... That "5 MPG increase" is much more significant that the one used in my illustration. (Link you should read)
Let's see.... Assume a 20 MPG car can be brought up to 25 MPG. Assume 10000 miles per year. We are talking 500 gallons used versus 400 gallons used. Difference is 100 gallons... Of course, at 1$/gallon, you don't care. Where I live a litre easily costs 1.2€, 100 gallons is 378.6 litres, which translates to 454,32€ per year.
A quick google on a VW starter (I drive an Audi... close enough): 90.38$ list price. That's a lot of starters a year.
What's the big deal? One programming language is like the other, at least within the same paradigm. If you can program in Pascal, you can program in C. If you can't you learned a syntax and not "how to program". Basically, when I was a computer science student, we got one language taught for the concepts and the rest was just "swim or sink". That's the way it should be. I really have a problem with programmers who have problems switching from their preferred-language to another because it's unfamiliar. Well, no, it's not... It's the damned same thing with diverging syntax.
Basically, the premise of the Exam Board is quite right: the goal of programming is to have problem solving skills. Whatever language conveys that is completely uninteresting to me.
Oh, and just for the record: programming is just a small part of the computer science curriculum... or at least it should be.
I have installed a Atom 330 ION motherboard (So, only SATA, no IDE, PCIe slot, no PCI slots) with that CD. No drivers needed. Qualifies as 2005 and later. No hassles.
Granted, since this was quite recent (a few months ago), I used my SP3 CD. May not have gone with SP2: I have no way to tell. Also, people here mention nLite for slipstreaming. Not needed, you can do it with the original CD, the downloaded SP and a CD burner program.
I guess it happens with non-standard SATA chipsets. I don't know, I really never had it happen to me from SP2 onwards and I've installed a lot of machines.
Mine most definitely isn't an OEM disk and I didn't add anything except SP2 and later SP3. I keep hearing the claim, but I never experienced it myself.
I have installed XP on numerous SATA-only machines using a WinXP Pro Volume License CD with only SP2 (and later SP3) without any problem. No, they didn't have emulation at all.
Yes, a SP1 or even SP0 will need the manufacturer disks, but not anything beyond.
I knew I bookmarked it somewhere
I keep hearing this repeated ad infintum. Since Win XP SP2, most software got adapted so it could run as Limited user. Even game developers got the message. The Sims 2 initially came out as "Admin only". That was patched within months when people complained.
Anyway, even for non-behaving software, it is usually a matter of setting User-Write-Permissions on the folder of the misbehaving application. If that doesn't help, set User-Write-Permission to the subkey the application created in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Fixes 99% of the applications. If anyone bothered, this could be automated with a script or an appplication that has a database with known misbehaving applications and the necessary fixes. If people can make something like "the PC decrapiefer", this should be feasible too.
Anyone with a remote clue can run Windows XP entirely as Limited User (for day to day operations, of course).
Only slightly related: this is why removing the Security tab in the Home Version of XP was a bad idea. I know there was a way to install it again, but I never found it back.
Check you humour detector.... If smilies aren't enough for you, what is?
I think so too, the grandparent has some issues with reading comprehension ;-)
I always keep hearing that claim. I've never found one and actually never heard of one reported in the wild.
As for the article: Online Banking has worked perfectly fine the last years.... At least for me :-) It needs no saving...
No, absolutely not... Physics uses Math: Physics without Math is unthinkable. Math without Physics is absolutely possible. There was pretty much maths before physics. The old Greeks were more Mathematicians than Physicists.
I present to you Complex Numbers. For all intents and purposes we don't know what we're calculating *but* they are used in all kinds of engineering to find actual useful results. (Scroll down to the Applications part). Understand that Complex Numbers were first, then came the applications.
I am by no means a Mathematician and I wasn't a big fan of it in school, but loved physics and excelled in it. In a way, I was like you, but I understand that Maths is used in Physics but not limited to Physics.
Finally: Obligatory XKCD Link. (Of course, if you feel bitter about this comment, read the mouse-over text)
When I started typing my comment, there were no comments attached to the article. I just took the time to write more than one sentence which results in the fact that I'm the 20th and not the first. This is how slashdot has alway worked. Go compare timestamps next time, mmmkay? (First post in for this article is 2010-03-24 13:13CET and my post was at 2010-03-24 13:17CET.)
If I wanted to first post, I could have written "Just a PC. Lame! First Post!"...
There are Apple stickers coming with the retail copy OS X? I know I got some with my (long dead) iBook and some with my wifes iPod... It's the typical "workaround" I hear about on slashdot. Doesn't change the DMCA problem I described, which stays valid. The sticker only takes care of the EULA problem.