Isn't it the same kind of drive that is used in the iPod Mini, MuVo 2 and the like? I don't think it is a problem. That's not to say there isn't a risk. I don't know about the others, but at least iPod tries to cache a lot and avoid using the drive as much as possible
Re:Seems a bit pricey compared to other small WISP
on
Wheat Field Wi-Fi
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· Score: 1
OK, I was thinking of starting out assuming 3:1 oversell. I had a hard time figuring out what to assume, because information on the net is very sketchy.
I knew that most people don't use the link much. Reading a page then going to another one leaves a lot of dead time, and not everyone is using the internet at one time. Not many users will be doing a massive download at one time.
Do ISPs run chaches to save link bandwidth, or is this considered unecessary or even detrimental?
Re:Seems a bit pricey compared to other small WISP
on
Wheat Field Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 1
I'm experimenting with a mesh right now, just 3 access points and a wireless card. Three wireless "hops" is still less than 10ms.
I really can't comment on that network because I don't know the topology. Obviously, the closer to a wire backhaul point, the better.
Well, technically, no one in the US can legally get a 56k connection that I know, and distance from the CO knocks down that speed. I bet that the typical connection speed is less than 28k.
Re:Shouldn't they have used Wi-Max?
on
Wheat Field Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 1
Is WiMax available yet, and what do the parts cost?
I thought WiMax wasn't supposed to be available until 2005. I certainly hadn't found any when I looked a few months ago.
That seems to be a dubious way to call them first. The innovation Apple really provides is bringing them to the consumer market. In effect, the innovation is really just putting proper marketing into it, or are the first mass market company to use the technology. First in making a consumer aware of the tech isn't a true technological innovation.
Apple considers their PowerMac towers as workstations, so I wouldn't consider them desktops. Almost no real "desktop" has true dual processing. No real desktop has PCI-X slots. Those are clearly properties of products in the workstation market. The only thing missing is ECC memory typical of the workstation market. It is impressive that they are the only company that gets workstations into chain retail stores like CompUSSR.
BTW: I've had systems with USB ports a couple years before iMac did. What Apple did manage to do is kick the USB market in gear by forcing USB to be the only way to connect peripherals to the iMac.
Re:Seems a bit pricey compared to other small WISP
on
Wheat Field Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I haven't seen a T1 cost less than $400 in my area, typical prices often go to $600. But you could split the bill between two businesses and only pay $200 each of two businesses, assuming you can set up a stable link
Re:Seems a bit pricey compared to other small WISP
on
Wheat Field Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Exactly how can the Chaska service provide such cheap service? I am trying to calculate the costs necessary to do a WISP and I simply can't see how that would work unless it is rediculously oversold, as in the 3mbps is the entire internet connection. Chaska also only covers subdivisions.
I'd say the $40 service for 256k is still a good price because the area probably doesn't get 28k modem service.
I think they put that under a different market category.
WindowsCE isn't even a viable product for headless network computers, IMO. I mean, a Linksys WRT54G costs just under $60 street price, a little less for wholesale. Even a bulk licence could nearly double the price.
Comcast is known to terminate service for anyone who actually uses their unlimited broadband
Well, yeah, I think that was a poor marketing decision in the beginning. They should have been up-front that unlimited meant always-on in terms of there's no hour count, not unlimited being that you are trying to lug down the connection 100% all the time.
Some other slashdotter was complaining that his ISP only allowed 90 gigabytes downloaded per month. I'm thinking that is a lot of data to be pulling down. That is 20 single layer DVDs loaded to the brim. With DivX encoding, that could be 200 movies. For a T1 line, 90GB is 5.5 days of constant use. Obviously, that sort of usage costs a lot of money.
I was saddened when Aureal went down. They weren't in business long enough for me to support them with a sound card purchase.
They had come out of the Media Vision company when they decided that they couldn't compete in PCB manufacturing, so they did audio chip and software design. Although some of them were resource hungry (IIRC, my Memphis took 3 IRQs, two for two different kinds of sound, making it full duplex, and the third for SCSI), they were the most advanced at the time. They had a kick-ass VLB true color XGA video card which I could play multiple video streams simultaneously on a 486. Too bad they died before PCI & AGP, although I'm not totally sure if they would have survived the transition to 3D video cards. They might have, as the engineering team that made that video card went on to form 3DfX which had a decent run given the tech field.
I'm not so sure about the weblog part being disallowed in the TOS, but using the account as a P2P service is definitely disallowed, even for legally redistributed stuff.
Not to mention that the Dual G5's are slower than the Alienware box.
Even if it was so, is it worth the extra $2300 to get Alienware?
I think a single 2.5GHz G5 should almost keep up, maybe it does keep up with a 4GHz P4 because it is the slightly less IPC efficient Prescott core. With Northwoods, 3GHz P4 was about as good as G5 GHz or Athlon64 clocked at 2GHz. that is a 1.5 IPC ratio. 2.5 GHz * 1.5 the IPC gets 3.75 GHz equivalent.
Granted, there aren't many games available for G5 systems, and Alienware is marketed for gaming, I think it shows that Alienware is overpriced even when compared to a dual 2.5GHz G5, computers from the company that gets complaints from slashdotters and others about being overpriced. And I think Alienware's cases are ugly too. Why pay a premium for ugly?
LCDs don't have the same flicker as CRTs though, the decay time on an LCD doesn't correlate to the decay time on CRT, or plasma for that matter. There is no TV signal that exceeds 60Hz framerate, so 15ms is just fine.
It should be under warranty, it does sound extreme. What you want to do with any screen type that can be over driven is to calibrate it, Avia, DVD Essentials (now Digital Essentials) or THX Optimode can help.
The screens are intentionally overbright so they look good on showroom floors with bright flourescent lighting, but it eats screen life big time. The brightness & contrast need to be calibrated to maximize life.
Stalking is still stalking here. A new way to stalk doesn't always mean that the stalking is unprosecutable. I do have to ask exactly how the cellphone can be affordably rigged to call every minute. That must be expensive. Either that, or it is another detail the media has gotten wrong.
Dude, a 1.6 G5 isn't exactly the most powerful processor on the block. Think low-end pentium, at best.
I don't think it would be too bad, I would place it at the equivalent of a 2500+ rated Athlon64. It's not the latest, but I'd guess not much education-related software availalbe for the life of this thing really would be hurting for more power. I'd say maybe CAD programs or video editing, but I've done a lot with a far slower computer, and there's still the full PowerMac G5.
Actually, I think it has been a standard part of graphical web clients for a long time. Tab and shift tab to any particular form entry, button or link, press space bar or enter to follow it.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't it the same kind of drive that is used in the iPod Mini, MuVo 2 and the like? I don't think it is a problem. That's not to say there isn't a risk. I don't know about the others, but at least iPod tries to cache a lot and avoid using the drive as much as possible
OK, I was thinking of starting out assuming 3:1 oversell. I had a hard time figuring out what to assume, because information on the net is very sketchy.
I knew that most people don't use the link much. Reading a page then going to another one leaves a lot of dead time, and not everyone is using the internet at one time. Not many users will be doing a massive download at one time.
Do ISPs run chaches to save link bandwidth, or is this considered unecessary or even detrimental?
I'm experimenting with a mesh right now, just 3 access points and a wireless card. Three wireless "hops" is still less than 10ms.
I really can't comment on that network because I don't know the topology. Obviously, the closer to a wire backhaul point, the better.
The porn... er early adopter market is smaller, on the conventional wisdom that HD is simply too much detail that it will show much more skin flaws.
I will say that it is very nice to have a complete production system that might cost less than $10k to start.
Well, technically, no one in the US can legally get a 56k connection that I know, and distance from the CO knocks down that speed. I bet that the typical connection speed is less than 28k.
Is WiMax available yet, and what do the parts cost?
I thought WiMax wasn't supposed to be available until 2005. I certainly hadn't found any when I looked a few months ago.
That seems to be a dubious way to call them first. The innovation Apple really provides is bringing them to the consumer market. In effect, the innovation is really just putting proper marketing into it, or are the first mass market company to use the technology. First in making a consumer aware of the tech isn't a true technological innovation.
Apple considers their PowerMac towers as workstations, so I wouldn't consider them desktops. Almost no real "desktop" has true dual processing. No real desktop has PCI-X slots. Those are clearly properties of products in the workstation market. The only thing missing is ECC memory typical of the workstation market. It is impressive that they are the only company that gets workstations into chain retail stores like CompUSSR.
BTW: I've had systems with USB ports a couple years before iMac did. What Apple did manage to do is kick the USB market in gear by forcing USB to be the only way to connect peripherals to the iMac.
I haven't seen a T1 cost less than $400 in my area, typical prices often go to $600. But you could split the bill between two businesses and only pay $200 each of two businesses, assuming you can set up a stable link
Exactly how can the Chaska service provide such cheap service? I am trying to calculate the costs necessary to do a WISP and I simply can't see how that would work unless it is rediculously oversold, as in the 3mbps is the entire internet connection. Chaska also only covers subdivisions.
I'd say the $40 service for 256k is still a good price because the area probably doesn't get 28k modem service.
I think they put that under a different market category.
WindowsCE isn't even a viable product for headless network computers, IMO. I mean, a Linksys WRT54G costs just under $60 street price, a little less for wholesale. Even a bulk licence could nearly double the price.
Comcast is known to terminate service for anyone who actually uses their unlimited broadband
Well, yeah, I think that was a poor marketing decision in the beginning. They should have been up-front that unlimited meant always-on in terms of there's no hour count, not unlimited being that you are trying to lug down the connection 100% all the time.
Some other slashdotter was complaining that his ISP only allowed 90 gigabytes downloaded per month. I'm thinking that is a lot of data to be pulling down. That is 20 single layer DVDs loaded to the brim. With DivX encoding, that could be 200 movies. For a T1 line, 90GB is 5.5 days of constant use. Obviously, that sort of usage costs a lot of money.
Given that Slashdot's audience is supposed to be people with critical thinking skills
You haven't been here long, have you?
I was saddened when Aureal went down. They weren't in business long enough for me to support them with a sound card purchase.
They had come out of the Media Vision company when they decided that they couldn't compete in PCB manufacturing, so they did audio chip and software design. Although some of them were resource hungry (IIRC, my Memphis took 3 IRQs, two for two different kinds of sound, making it full duplex, and the third for SCSI), they were the most advanced at the time. They had a kick-ass VLB true color XGA video card which I could play multiple video streams simultaneously on a 486. Too bad they died before PCI & AGP, although I'm not totally sure if they would have survived the transition to 3D video cards. They might have, as the engineering team that made that video card went on to form 3DfX which had a decent run given the tech field.
How this is rated as mostly "interesting" and not just straight "funny" is beyond me, but I like the $3 crack theory.
Supposedly you can store 1024MB of email, just that somewhere after 1000MB email sending gets disabled.
I'm not so sure about the weblog part being disallowed in the TOS, but using the account as a P2P service is definitely disallowed, even for legally redistributed stuff.
I can't find much other than this line:
Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of the Gmail Service
Not to mention that the Dual G5's are slower than the Alienware box.
Even if it was so, is it worth the extra $2300 to get Alienware?
I think a single 2.5GHz G5 should almost keep up, maybe it does keep up with a 4GHz P4 because it is the slightly less IPC efficient Prescott core. With Northwoods, 3GHz P4 was about as good as G5 GHz or Athlon64 clocked at 2GHz. that is a 1.5 IPC ratio. 2.5 GHz * 1.5 the IPC gets 3.75 GHz equivalent.
Granted, there aren't many games available for G5 systems, and Alienware is marketed for gaming, I think it shows that Alienware is overpriced even when compared to a dual 2.5GHz G5, computers from the company that gets complaints from slashdotters and others about being overpriced. And I think Alienware's cases are ugly too. Why pay a premium for ugly?
LCDs don't have the same flicker as CRTs though, the decay time on an LCD doesn't correlate to the decay time on CRT, or plasma for that matter. There is no TV signal that exceeds 60Hz framerate, so 15ms is just fine.
It should be under warranty, it does sound extreme. What you want to do with any screen type that can be over driven is to calibrate it, Avia, DVD Essentials (now Digital Essentials) or THX Optimode can help.
The screens are intentionally overbright so they look good on showroom floors with bright flourescent lighting, but it eats screen life big time. The brightness & contrast need to be calibrated to maximize life.
Stalking is still stalking here. A new way to stalk doesn't always mean that the stalking is unprosecutable. I do have to ask exactly how the cellphone can be affordably rigged to call every minute. That must be expensive. Either that, or it is another detail the media has gotten wrong.
Dude, a 1.6 G5 isn't exactly the most powerful processor on the block. Think low-end pentium, at best.
I don't think it would be too bad, I would place it at the equivalent of a 2500+ rated Athlon64. It's not the latest, but I'd guess not much education-related software availalbe for the life of this thing really would be hurting for more power. I'd say maybe CAD programs or video editing, but I've done a lot with a far slower computer, and there's still the full PowerMac G5.
Actually, I think it has been a standard part of graphical web clients for a long time. Tab and shift tab to any particular form entry, button or link, press space bar or enter to follow it.
Wasn't the article more specific than that? To me it read like "most iMac G4 users", not "most people"...
The mount shown on Apple's site shows a third party mount that seems to clamp down on the table.
I think with a properly sized and located base, it shouldn't matter too much.