Yes, it has a SATA controller... Which costs 20$ retail. Together with at least 1 SATA disk, you are already over 100$. I'm not implying anything...
I'm typing this on a "vintage" P-IV HT 2.6GHz with 2Gigs of RAM. It's my wifes machine and was bought in 2002. Originally it had 512Meg and I just upgraded to 2Gig because the RAM was on sale. It runs WinXP Pro SP2, and does not feel sluggish at all. CPU usage is pretty much at an all time 1%. Memory usage, rarely exceeds 600Meg, even tough both me and my wife are logged and have quite a few applications running. I sure hope you do something really memory or CPU intensive on your home computer because, the only place where I exceeed the 1Gig mark is my work computer with numerous servers, Eclipse and the whole shebang of classic Office applications. I don't know what CPU you have, but it can support 1.5Gig RAM, so it isn't that old. (Okay, CPU's don't support memory, it's the motherboards that do... My wifes computer can maximum support 2Gigs. More is not allowed even tough she has a 32-bit CPU) I'd really like to know what you do on your machine so that it feels sluggish. My own desktops memory is 266MHz RAM and I can assure you it doesn't feel sluggish. Compared to my workstation, my wifes computer is a racehorse. The age of your RAM doesn't say anything about it speed, especially that it's mostly motherboard bound. Old hardware doesn't go "stale", contrary to popular belief.
I want to remind you that you said that you couldn't do a backup because you couldn't afford it. I cite: "Like me, everyone says 'you have to back up your stuff', but I don't know how to do it... burning backups even to DVD would take forever. I can't afford fancier solutions.". I wanted to help, and I think you need tutoring in making a budget.
Sure, your data is on the schools server. That's good and I'm happy for you that you can pester the local admins if you lose something.
Do with this comment as you like, but I tried to help.
If you are that short on money, you shouldn't have a car. I didn't have a car when I was a student. Sorry, that's one luxury that doesn't fit in the student lifestyle. You'll have a hard time maintaining a car if you only have 300$ per month...
Finally, I want to point you out to something: you have frigging SATA drives! None of my computers have SATA drives because SATA has only been released in 2003! It hasn't become mainstream since 2005. This means you had a brand new high-end computer in mid-2005. WTF? All my computers predate that.
You, sir, should seriously reconsider your financial priorities and not bitch about a 100$ you miss to make backups of critical data. This data is your future, you do realize that, don't you?
As a final note: RAID 0 or RAID 1 on consumer-end motherboards are unreliable and actually just software RAID on a chip. Don't use them, it is a bad idea: you will get bitten. Use software RAID as provided by the Operating System. I know Linux does it, so does FreeBSD. Windows only does in the higher end versions, I think.
(like an entire hard drive devoted to Star Trek TNG episodes I recorded off of TV back when I was in the dorms and still had cable
This is *exactly* what I mean with setting your priorities straight. *sigh*
Yeah, try finding a good AGP card these days.... Do you start to see a problem? My wifes computer has my old Ti4200 and I've got a FX5500. Yeah, the Ti4200 is faster than the FX5500, but it doesn't support DirectX 9.0, which the FX5500 does.
Neither those cards is strong enough to run Vista, and you can't find AGP cards (good performance ones, that is) in my country anymore. Finally, why should I give up performance for a new operating system. (Which Vista will take away) The current one works fine and the new one offers absolutely nothing interesting to me.
The new laptop won't run Vista fully. Sure, that's also due to the graphics card, but try upgrading the graphics card of a laptop. *grin*
I'm looking forward to dumpster diving after Vista hits the shelves.
Even a hundred bucks for a hard drive just for backup would be pushing it.
Whola. I've been a grad student too. Lay low on the partying for a while and you'll have that 100 bucks in no time. Heck, I have two unused 250Gig USB disks lying around because I thought "heck, it's only 89€ and I could use them for backup". Which I never did because my server has enough space to keep my stuff on it (so I have my data on the desktop, the server and the laptop) Sure, I understand that such a situation is not financeable to you.
I'd advise to do what I do (and I have a day job and make "okay" money... reminds, me I'm late... need to go there asap): dumpsterdiving. With a few lucky finds, you'll have an few machines of which you can make one decent one. Slap Linux, or your favourite BSD on it, use software RAID1 and then install subversion (or CVS, if you prefer that). You don't even need to run it 24/7: only if you know you're going to work on important stuff. With a little luck, you'll find a few 40Gig harddisks (that's about the size they throw away these days) and you buy an enclosure for 20€ and you have a "cheap backup solution". Sure, it won't store your vacation pictures as a backup, but the *really* important things like your thesis can easily be backed up. Heck, that should even be backupable on a DVD, because mine fitted on a 1.44MByte floppy;-)
That's interesting that you says that. My first NT based machine was Win NT 4.0 SP3, and kept it up to SP6a. Then came Windows 2000 SP2, later SP4. I only jumped on the WinXP boat when SP2 had been released for months. Even SP1 is not good enough for me when we talk about Windows.
Besides, even tough I bought a new computer yesterday, I have no system that is capable of running Vista in all it's glory. (*) If it's just for seeing the "Vista" logo at bootup, and to revert back to WinXP mode because my hardware can't handle it, I'm simply not interested. In WinXP, I had at least two things that were worth the upgrade: Fast User Switching (useful in a family setting) and remote desktop (useful for remote support - Duh!)
I don't have "old and useless machines", my wifes desktop is a P-IV HT 2.6GHz/2Gig RAM and my desktop is a Dual AMD 2400+/4Gig RAM. Both have low-end graphics cards, but are really decent for mundane tasks in my opinion.
(*) A sticker on the box of the new computer says:
Designed for Windows XP / Windows Vista Capable
Not all Windows Vista features are available for use on all Windows Vista Capable PCs. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run the core experience of Windows Vista such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security and reliability. Some features available in premium editions of Windows Vista - like the new Windows Aero user interface - require advanced or additional hardware. Check www.windowsvista.com/getready for details
In summary: "Dear customer, you just bought a shit-ass PC to run Vista. Please shop with us again."
Now of course, you'll say: sharkie, you're a dumbass for buying such a machine. Well, depends on your point of view: the CPU is quite capable and it's got a decent amount of RAM, and well... it was extremely cheap. What will I use it for? Guess? Yup: it will run either Linux or FreeBSD.... depending on what supports the hardware better. If both fail, I still can revert to whatever it comes with (which is WinXP Home, *bwerk*). Even then, it now counts as a "Windows XP" sale and not as a "Windows Vista" sale. Take that Bill;-)
I do realise that this machine was on sale (along with a ton of other laptops) because Vista comes out in a mere 8 days. Those laptops will be unsellable then. I am an informed customer, and I chose to do this because I have other plans with the machine. Other, nontechnical, people are just being scammed, IMHO.
Of course being a comic also requires you to be funny, and material like select * from users where clue > 0 isn't funny.
Huh? Why not? I bought that t-shirt for my sister (who is not an IT person, but had to do an SQL course) and she loved it. The teacher of said SQL course did forbid her to wear it on the exam though;-) That guy who wrote this article has no sense of humour at all...
What do you mean? Normal interourse involves penetration... I know, I'm married. Blowjobs depends on both partners as does anal. That's a thing of mutual respect and acceptance.... I don't exactly like goatse or tubgirl, but I'm tolerant to people doing such things. That's what I mean...
My "nasty" must not match your idea of nasty.... "Nasty" is a personal concept, and that is what I tried to convey. Sorry if that was not clear.
But I agree, yes.... Fundamentalist US people have more in common with fundamental Islam people, than anything else. A bit like US versus French: they hate each other but both stand for Liberty... Odd, isn't it?
It's not a thing in western society. You probably will not be surprised that I live in Europe. Sex isn't as demonized as it is is in the United States. We have commercials that are considered "raunchy" by Americans. Softporn is easy to get on TV and I remember my dad allowed us to watch movies with erotic-but-really-not-much-to-see stuff. He also had his own porn collection which was not well hidden. He damn well knew that we knew where it was.
These days porn probably is mostly digital, and I could protect my own children by encrypting all stuff. Most probably, I will not and leave some harmless nudie pics around for them to find. The "harder stuff" (like blowjobs, actual penetration, nothing *really* nasty because I don't have that, etc...) will be encrypted until I find out the search for them on the Internet.
You owe me a keyboard....Damn, coffe through the nose hurts!;-)
From my point of view, I helped the kid. He's looking for it, and he's harming himself by spyware and other nasties. By pointing out to said site and Firefox, I made him "safe pron surfing". With a little luck, he told the other boys at school and they are "safe pron surfing" now too.
What I did was the equivalent of giving access to condoms instead of just saying "abstinence is the only way" and then looking away.
I should of course add that I'm European and have a tad bit of different opinions on sex.:-P
...meaning they already look for porn actively themselves. (At least the boys, I don't know for girls) I have personally give a porn linking website to a 13 year old that I know was safe. I told him to browse such sites (best all sites) with Firefox. His PC was so junked up by spyware due to his pron surfing that it was simply the best alternative.
I probably should go to jail now...
Of course, I'm not a teacher, and if I were, I wouldn't say anything like that to my pupils....
Is that so? As a kid I once saw a blowjob picture and I found it exceedingly gross. Did I recover? Sure... Even goatse, bestiality and tubgirl do nothing to me anymore. Would I enjoy doing anything of those things? Hell, no! But, hey, other people can do what they want.... Tolerance is something you learn over the years.
You want to know the one thing that scarred me as a kid, which I still remember with disgust to this day? I saw a charred corpse on TV. (I think it was on the news) I had nightmares for months after that. Still today, I ca't stand watching pictures of charred corpses.
My wife is as tech-illiterate as it gets. Sure she played SNES as a kid (or was it NES, I don't know, I wasn't around...) I have a PlayStation 2 and I never managed to get her even somewhat interested. Never... It is all dumb to her.
Last week her brother bought a Wii... Guess who was playing, laughing and giggling with her brother last weekend? A PS3 is a HD upgrade with more power of a PS2, the Wii is something novel. I have to admit I forced on the wine a bit that evening, and I asked her if I could buy a Wii.... She said yes.... Didn't buy one because I think we have to save money for other things, but the dunken me got my wife to agree for a completely superflous expense.
I believe that everyone who has a flashing 12:00 on their VCR/DVD player should be fined until they know how to fix it.
I've got a flashing 0:00 on my stereo and I'm a computer programmer. Do I know how to set it to the correct time? Sure! Thing is, the clock resets whenever the electricity goes out. It's not that it happens that much, but there was a period here (I think they were working on the grid) that it failed for a minute every few days. I got sick 'n tired of putting in back the time and that is why it's still flashing.
According to you, I should get fined.
It will never change: a computer can do no "big harm" (according to the public) as can a grill combined with gasoline. Sure, idenitity theft, aiding spambot networks, and "degraded performance" are things that these no-technical people can and will experience but none of these exactly "harms them". At least not in the short term, because long term is not in their scope. Sure, worst case they get their identity stolen, but they will not "link" this to "bad security habits" they had in the past: it will be the "Evil Hackers" that did it. (Exactly "How" is magic to them, and to them they did nothing wrong) It's a bit like coming home and finding that your dog pooped in your slippers. You hold his nose into the poop to "teach him a lesson", alas, the poor dog doesn't understand the punishment because he pooped there hours ago and doesn't link the punishment with the "offense". (Note, I don't have a dog and I only heard that this. Don't take it as a "fact" but as an illustration.)
I used to be for a "internet capability license", but I just ditched that idea. I had the unfortunate experience to teach "initiation to information technology" (=Glorified Word course) to 13 year olds in a "technical school". Now, you have a bunch of 13 year olds that don't even know how to use a keyboard correctly! Sure, that should have been the first thing I should have explained, but I didn't know better! I was in the illusion that keyboards were self-explaining. (Hint: they are not) So, they all know how to surf (with Flash games and MySpace-style homepages being favourites) but they type their capital letters by pushing in "Caps Lock" then pushing the letter they want and then pushing "Caps Lock" again. These habits are hard to get out, because they have been doing this forever at home.
The general "computing public" is no more than these 13 year olds, and worse: those 13 year olds will learn eventually because they are young and their minds still absorb a lot. Now, for adults, the picture is not so rosy.
Hey, I don't care anymore! I've gone back to IT, and am happy with people that know shit: Because ofthis
Yeah, I had a SparcClassic, but my wife didn't like my collection of old computers.... So along with my Sinclair QL, I gave it away to a computer museum that a high school teacher maintained.
The only old computer I have left now is a C=64, with original monitor, and tape drives. I'd give it away, but the computer museum owner already had a few. Can't bring it to my heart to throw it away, so I wait for another geek that will take it from my hands and give it a nice place in his collection... (Warning: before saying that you want it... I live in Europe)
I believe you: found a P-IV 1.9GHz/512Meg RAM in the bin at the recycling centre. Completely spyware infested, but well, nothing that a fresh install couldn't fix.
That's funny you mention it: back in the day, pretty much all DVD player came with at least "The Matrix" DVD. I suspect that it was to "launch the medium". Not sure though.
I don't understand what all the fuss is about. It used to be that way in the first place. I remember when I bought my second laptop, a Toshiba 210CT, it came with two sets of "operating systems": one with DOS 6.22 / Win 3.11 and one with Windows 95. I could choose one, but not both. The machine was "empty" when I got it. Sure, those were two Microsoft OSes, but that's not the point. One would be wiped upon the first installation. (Of course, I booted with a diskette, and recovered both OSes *grin*)
Years later, I bought my third laptop, an Apple iBook G3 600MHz. Same thing: it was empty and came with a little booklet, telling me that I had to install the OS. Again, I had the choice between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X 10.1. I still had to install my OS.
Besides, some manufacturers still do it. When my brother bought his new Acer PC, it came technically "preinstalled", but it frankly wasn't because when I turned it on, it booted into something else: an application that let me choose which language of Windows XP that I wanted. French, Dutch or English. When selecting the language it went through the full Windows XP installation and after that I had to install the drivers. Not even the NVidia driver was preinstalled.
Apparently, customers can cope with installing a few CDs....
I had the same problem with my wife. It's amazing how much clip art kindergarten teachers use. Anyways, she now just uses "Google Images" and find stuff that works. She also understands now that it's easier to find images when searching in all the languages she knows, not only German. (As if that wasn't evident, in the first place!) It it legal and in public domain? Probably not, but that's not going to bother the kids & parents she needs to communicate with. Besides, "fair use for education";-)
Myself? Clip art? Haven't used it since my Wordperfect 5.1 days, and then I was a 12 year old.
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Yes, it has a SATA controller... Which costs 20$ retail. Together with at least 1 SATA disk, you are already over 100$. I'm not implying anything...
I'm typing this on a "vintage" P-IV HT 2.6GHz with 2Gigs of RAM. It's my wifes machine and was bought in 2002. Originally it had 512Meg and I just upgraded to 2Gig because the RAM was on sale. It runs WinXP Pro SP2, and does not feel sluggish at all. CPU usage is pretty much at an all time 1%. Memory usage, rarely exceeds 600Meg, even tough both me and my wife are logged and have quite a few applications running. I sure hope you do something really memory or CPU intensive on your home computer because, the only place where I exceeed the 1Gig mark is my work computer with numerous servers, Eclipse and the whole shebang of classic Office applications. I don't know what CPU you have, but it can support 1.5Gig RAM, so it isn't that old. (Okay, CPU's don't support memory, it's the motherboards that do... My wifes computer can maximum support 2Gigs. More is not allowed even tough she has a 32-bit CPU) I'd really like to know what you do on your machine so that it feels sluggish. My own desktops memory is 266MHz RAM and I can assure you it doesn't feel sluggish. Compared to my workstation, my wifes computer is a racehorse. The age of your RAM doesn't say anything about it speed, especially that it's mostly motherboard bound. Old hardware doesn't go "stale", contrary to popular belief.
I want to remind you that you said that you couldn't do a backup because you couldn't afford it. I cite: "Like me, everyone says 'you have to back up your stuff', but I don't know how to do it... burning backups even to DVD would take forever. I can't afford fancier solutions.". I wanted to help, and I think you need tutoring in making a budget.
Sure, your data is on the schools server. That's good and I'm happy for you that you can pester the local admins if you lose something.
Do with this comment as you like, but I tried to help.
If you are that short on money, you shouldn't have a car. I didn't have a car when I was a student. Sorry, that's one luxury that doesn't fit in the student lifestyle. You'll have a hard time maintaining a car if you only have 300$ per month...
Finally, I want to point you out to something: you have frigging SATA drives! None of my computers have SATA drives because SATA has only been released in 2003! It hasn't become mainstream since 2005. This means you had a brand new high-end computer in mid-2005. WTF? All my computers predate that.
You, sir, should seriously reconsider your financial priorities and not bitch about a 100$ you miss to make backups of critical data. This data is your future, you do realize that, don't you?
As a final note: RAID 0 or RAID 1 on consumer-end motherboards are unreliable and actually just software RAID on a chip. Don't use them, it is a bad idea: you will get bitten. Use software RAID as provided by the Operating System. I know Linux does it, so does FreeBSD. Windows only does in the higher end versions, I think.
(like an entire hard drive devoted to Star Trek TNG episodes I recorded off of TV back when I was in the dorms and still had cable
This is *exactly* what I mean with setting your priorities straight. *sigh*
Yeah, try finding a good AGP card these days.... Do you start to see a problem? My wifes computer has my old Ti4200 and I've got a FX5500. Yeah, the Ti4200 is faster than the FX5500, but it doesn't support DirectX 9.0, which the FX5500 does.
Neither those cards is strong enough to run Vista, and you can't find AGP cards (good performance ones, that is) in my country anymore. Finally, why should I give up performance for a new operating system. (Which Vista will take away) The current one works fine and the new one offers absolutely nothing interesting to me.
The new laptop won't run Vista fully. Sure, that's also due to the graphics card, but try upgrading the graphics card of a laptop. *grin*
I'm looking forward to dumpster diving after Vista hits the shelves.
Even a hundred bucks for a hard drive just for backup would be pushing it.
Whola. I've been a grad student too. Lay low on the partying for a while and you'll have that 100 bucks in no time. Heck, I have two unused 250Gig USB disks lying around because I thought "heck, it's only 89€ and I could use them for backup". Which I never did because my server has enough space to keep my stuff on it (so I have my data on the desktop, the server and the laptop) Sure, I understand that such a situation is not financeable to you.
I'd advise to do what I do (and I have a day job and make "okay" money... reminds, me I'm late... need to go there asap): dumpster diving. With a few lucky finds, you'll have an few machines of which you can make one decent one. Slap Linux, or your favourite BSD on it, use software RAID1 and then install subversion (or CVS, if you prefer that). You don't even need to run it 24/7: only if you know you're going to work on important stuff. With a little luck, you'll find a few 40Gig harddisks (that's about the size they throw away these days) and you buy an enclosure for 20€ and you have a "cheap backup solution". Sure, it won't store your vacation pictures as a backup, but the *really* important things like your thesis can easily be backed up. Heck, that should even be backupable on a DVD, because mine fitted on a 1.44MByte floppy ;-)
That's interesting that you says that. My first NT based machine was Win NT 4.0 SP3, and kept it up to SP6a. Then came Windows 2000 SP2, later SP4. I only jumped on the WinXP boat when SP2 had been released for months. Even SP1 is not good enough for me when we talk about Windows.
Besides, even tough I bought a new computer yesterday, I have no system that is capable of running Vista in all it's glory. (*) If it's just for seeing the "Vista" logo at bootup, and to revert back to WinXP mode because my hardware can't handle it, I'm simply not interested. In WinXP, I had at least two things that were worth the upgrade: Fast User Switching (useful in a family setting) and remote desktop (useful for remote support - Duh!)
I don't have "old and useless machines", my wifes desktop is a P-IV HT 2.6GHz/2Gig RAM and my desktop is a Dual AMD 2400+/4Gig RAM. Both have low-end graphics cards, but are really decent for mundane tasks in my opinion.
(*) A sticker on the box of the new computer says:
Designed for Windows XP / Windows Vista Capable
Not all Windows Vista features are available for use on all Windows Vista Capable PCs. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run the core experience of Windows Vista such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security and reliability. Some features available in premium editions of Windows Vista - like the new Windows Aero user interface - require advanced or additional hardware. Check www.windowsvista.com/getready for details
In summary: "Dear customer, you just bought a shit-ass PC to run Vista. Please shop with us again."
Now of course, you'll say: sharkie, you're a dumbass for buying such a machine. Well, depends on your point of view: the CPU is quite capable and it's got a decent amount of RAM, and well... it was extremely cheap. What will I use it for? Guess? Yup: it will run either Linux or FreeBSD.... depending on what supports the hardware better. If both fail, I still can revert to whatever it comes with (which is WinXP Home, *bwerk*). Even then, it now counts as a "Windows XP" sale and not as a "Windows Vista" sale. Take that Bill ;-)
I do realise that this machine was on sale (along with a ton of other laptops) because Vista comes out in a mere 8 days. Those laptops will be unsellable then. I am an informed customer, and I chose to do this because I have other plans with the machine. Other, nontechnical, people are just being scammed, IMHO.
From the Article:
Of course being a comic also requires you to be funny, and material like select * from users where clue > 0 isn't funny.
Huh? Why not? I bought that t-shirt for my sister (who is not an IT person, but had to do an SQL course) and she loved it. The teacher of said SQL course did forbid her to wear it on the exam though ;-) That guy who wrote this article has no sense of humour at all...
What do you mean? Normal interourse involves penetration... I know, I'm married. Blowjobs depends on both partners as does anal. That's a thing of mutual respect and acceptance.... I don't exactly like goatse or tubgirl, but I'm tolerant to people doing such things. That's what I mean...
My "nasty" must not match your idea of nasty.... "Nasty" is a personal concept, and that is what I tried to convey. Sorry if that was not clear.
Your opinion. I do not disagree with what you say. For me it is not arousing at all.
But do remember, that there are people aroused by Zoophilia, others get aroused by killing people, or by commiting rape, or even dead corpses. So Coprophilia is quite mild compared to those I mentioned..
Look up Paraphilia .
Ooooh.... .dk ;-) I see where that comes from ;-))
But I agree, yes.... Fundamentalist US people have more in common with fundamental Islam people, than anything else. A bit like US versus French: they hate each other but both stand for Liberty... Odd, isn't it?
It's not a thing in western society. You probably will not be surprised that I live in Europe. Sex isn't as demonized as it is is in the United States. We have commercials that are considered "raunchy" by Americans. Softporn is easy to get on TV and I remember my dad allowed us to watch movies with erotic-but-really-not-much-to-see stuff. He also had his own porn collection which was not well hidden. He damn well knew that we knew where it was.
These days porn probably is mostly digital, and I could protect my own children by encrypting all stuff. Most probably, I will not and leave some harmless nudie pics around for them to find. The "harder stuff" (like blowjobs, actual penetration, nothing *really* nasty because I don't have that, etc...) will be encrypted until I find out the search for them on the Internet.
You owe me a keyboard....Damn, coffe through the nose hurts! ;-)
From my point of view, I helped the kid. He's looking for it, and he's harming himself by spyware and other nasties. By pointing out to said site and Firefox, I made him "safe pron surfing". With a little luck, he told the other boys at school and they are "safe pron surfing" now too.
What I did was the equivalent of giving access to condoms instead of just saying "abstinence is the only way" and then looking away.
I should of course add that I'm European and have a tad bit of different opinions on sex. :-P
...meaning they already look for porn actively themselves. (At least the boys, I don't know for girls) I have personally give a porn linking website to a 13 year old that I know was safe. I told him to browse such sites (best all sites) with Firefox. His PC was so junked up by spyware due to his pron surfing that it was simply the best alternative.
I probably should go to jail now...
Of course, I'm not a teacher, and if I were, I wouldn't say anything like that to my pupils....
Is that so? As a kid I once saw a blowjob picture and I found it exceedingly gross. Did I recover? Sure... Even goatse, bestiality and tubgirl do nothing to me anymore. Would I enjoy doing anything of those things? Hell, no! But, hey, other people can do what they want.... Tolerance is something you learn over the years.
You want to know the one thing that scarred me as a kid, which I still remember with disgust to this day? I saw a charred corpse on TV. (I think it was on the news) I had nightmares for months after that. Still today, I ca't stand watching pictures of charred corpses.
Do you have a technical reason why this is? I don't see why this should happend. Have you filed a bugreport? Just wondering....
My wife is as tech-illiterate as it gets. Sure she played SNES as a kid (or was it NES, I don't know, I wasn't around...) I have a PlayStation 2 and I never managed to get her even somewhat interested. Never... It is all dumb to her.
Last week her brother bought a Wii... Guess who was playing, laughing and giggling with her brother last weekend? A PS3 is a HD upgrade with more power of a PS2, the Wii is something novel. I have to admit I forced on the wine a bit that evening, and I asked her if I could buy a Wii.... She said yes.... Didn't buy one because I think we have to save money for other things, but the dunken me got my wife to agree for a completely superflous expense.
Think about it...
I believe that everyone who has a flashing 12:00 on their VCR/DVD player should be fined until they know how to fix it.
I've got a flashing 0:00 on my stereo and I'm a computer programmer. Do I know how to set it to the correct time? Sure! Thing is, the clock resets whenever the electricity goes out. It's not that it happens that much, but there was a period here (I think they were working on the grid) that it failed for a minute every few days. I got sick 'n tired of putting in back the time and that is why it's still flashing.
According to you, I should get fined.
It will never change: a computer can do no "big harm" (according to the public) as can a grill combined with gasoline. Sure, idenitity theft, aiding spambot networks, and "degraded performance" are things that these no-technical people can and will experience but none of these exactly "harms them". At least not in the short term, because long term is not in their scope. Sure, worst case they get their identity stolen, but they will not "link" this to "bad security habits" they had in the past: it will be the "Evil Hackers" that did it. (Exactly "How" is magic to them, and to them they did nothing wrong) It's a bit like coming home and finding that your dog pooped in your slippers. You hold his nose into the poop to "teach him a lesson", alas, the poor dog doesn't understand the punishment because he pooped there hours ago and doesn't link the punishment with the "offense". (Note, I don't have a dog and I only heard that this. Don't take it as a "fact" but as an illustration.)
I used to be for a "internet capability license", but I just ditched that idea. I had the unfortunate experience to teach "initiation to information technology" (=Glorified Word course) to 13 year olds in a "technical school". Now, you have a bunch of 13 year olds that don't even know how to use a keyboard correctly! Sure, that should have been the first thing I should have explained, but I didn't know better! I was in the illusion that keyboards were self-explaining. (Hint: they are not) So, they all know how to surf (with Flash games and MySpace-style homepages being favourites) but they type their capital letters by pushing in "Caps Lock" then pushing the letter they want and then pushing "Caps Lock" again. These habits are hard to get out, because they have been doing this forever at home.
The general "computing public" is no more than these 13 year olds, and worse: those 13 year olds will learn eventually because they are young and their minds still absorb a lot. Now, for adults, the picture is not so rosy.
Hey, I don't care anymore! I've gone back to IT, and am happy with people that know shit: Because of this
Next time, use this .
Yeah, I had a SparcClassic, but my wife didn't like my collection of old computers.... So along with my Sinclair QL, I gave it away to a computer museum that a high school teacher maintained.
The only old computer I have left now is a C=64, with original monitor, and tape drives. I'd give it away, but the computer museum owner already had a few. Can't bring it to my heart to throw it away, so I wait for another geek that will take it from my hands and give it a nice place in his collection... (Warning: before saying that you want it... I live in Europe)
I believe you: found a P-IV 1.9GHz/512Meg RAM in the bin at the recycling centre. Completely spyware infested, but well, nothing that a fresh install couldn't fix.
Do you really want to spend Christmas Eve assembling that bicycle for your kid?
If the bicycle would be sold by IKEA.... Then yes ;-)
That's funny you mention it: back in the day, pretty much all DVD player came with at least "The Matrix" DVD. I suspect that it was to "launch the medium". Not sure though.
I don't understand what all the fuss is about. It used to be that way in the first place. I remember when I bought my second laptop, a Toshiba 210CT, it came with two sets of "operating systems": one with DOS 6.22 / Win 3.11 and one with Windows 95. I could choose one, but not both. The machine was "empty" when I got it. Sure, those were two Microsoft OSes, but that's not the point. One would be wiped upon the first installation. (Of course, I booted with a diskette, and recovered both OSes *grin*)
Years later, I bought my third laptop, an Apple iBook G3 600MHz. Same thing: it was empty and came with a little booklet, telling me that I had to install the OS. Again, I had the choice between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X 10.1. I still had to install my OS.
Besides, some manufacturers still do it. When my brother bought his new Acer PC, it came technically "preinstalled", but it frankly wasn't because when I turned it on, it booted into something else: an application that let me choose which language of Windows XP that I wanted. French, Dutch or English. When selecting the language it went through the full Windows XP installation and after that I had to install the drivers. Not even the NVidia driver was preinstalled.
Apparently, customers can cope with installing a few CDs....
Most people in the US don't have "AltGR" keys...
Sure they do. Alt-Gr is a "shortcut" for "ctrl+alt". ;-)
(I forget how to get the euro symbol)
On slashdot simply use the html entity: € = €
If you have configured your US keyboard as "US International", then it is Ctrl-Alt-5
I had the same problem with my wife. It's amazing how much clip art kindergarten teachers use. Anyways, she now just uses "Google Images" and find stuff that works. She also understands now that it's easier to find images when searching in all the languages she knows, not only German. (As if that wasn't evident, in the first place!) It it legal and in public domain? Probably not, but that's not going to bother the kids & parents she needs to communicate with. Besides, "fair use for education" ;-)
Myself? Clip art? Haven't used it since my Wordperfect 5.1 days, and then I was a 12 year old.