One piece of advice is that if you collect portable camping gear, you'll find yourself decently prepared, since many of the items you need for camping also assume that you don't have regular infrastructure. Camping food/water also have 5+ year shelf life, so you can go camping and use up your old supply, as well as get practice using all your gear. No point waiting 20+ years to find out you have no idea how to use it.
So... between a month of food/water, a tent, sleeping bags, portable lanterns, wood/gasoline stoves, portable cookware, water filtration kits, solar power stations, hand-crank radio/light/chargers, steel-bottom/tip shoes, kevlar gloves, household tools (hammer, nails, wrenches, etc), outdoor tools (shovel, hand-operated chainsaw, etc), real first aid kits, etc, you find yourself decently prepared.
An added luxury would be a generator... Though costly, that would help keep your fridge alive, and there's usually a week+ worth of food in there, and you don't need your generator running 24-7 to prevent the contents from spoiling. Having enough fuel (or siphon from your car), extension cables, and a safe place to safely deploy it without concentrating CO or attracting too much attention might be a challenge, though. In a pinch, you can do this without a generator by using your running car and a 120V inverter, but that means leaving your car on, and again, we run into the same issues mentioned above.
If you're concerned about personal mobility, it's worth noting that you can buy solid (but heavy) mountain bike tires that cannot have flats, and it's something I've considered, but have not acted on yet.
All in all, I hope we all can get a bit more prepared and increase our chances at making it through these challenging events...
Have you considered getting a T-Mobile phone with UMA? It's certainly not the cheapest option with standard mobile pricing of ~$30/mo and ~$5 of various taxes, but you have the added advantage of being able to have a "normal" phone when you're outside of Wi-Fi coverage.
If you're looking for the best value, you can get an Ipevo Wi-Fi Skype phone for ~$140 (a bit less than Netgear/Belkin; works fine). Add $3/mo unlimited US calling and $30 for SkypeIn so landlines can call you, and your total cost is $66/yr... That's tough to beat, and what I would do if I were you. The only downside is that the batteries for these devices may be a challenge to source, and as far as the phone, it's certainly no-frills.
The iPod Touch is not a solution I can recommend due to the lack of on-device microphone -- not to mention its battery on Wi-Fi being rather poor.
As the article on Slashdot indicates, the 2006 ruling was overturned recently, which is why it's news.
You can google for more info, but many articles fail to convey how incredibly popular this program was in Japan. In 2006, it was reported that 1 in 3 computers had this program installed. Add that to the fact that most folks in Japan had very fast Broadband speeds even in 2006, you can imagine the amount of files that exchanged hands.
I'm glad to see that the correct ruling has been made, finally...
On N270 Atoms, whole-disk AES encryption works perfectly fine, and the only time I notice a slow-down is when I'm running a benchmark program side-by-side with a model that has an unencrypted drive. For regular browsing and e-mail (which is what the person asking the question listed as a qualification), it's a non-issue.
As some others have posted, and what my local police have told me, the laptop will likely have been sold for cash in less than 24 hours. Unless you are being targeted specifically for something of significant value such as corporate IP, it's unlikely that anyone is going to spend the time to try to unencrypt your drive.
But other threats still loom...
If you plan on connecting to any network, you will expose your machine to any network-based threat, so you ought to harden your machine accordingly.
Make sure you still have a strong password for your account login. If your machine is in hibernate, the crypto authentication prompt will stop them, but if your machine was sleeping, it'll return to the OS prompt.
The one scenario where you're not protected at all is if the machine is powered on, logged in, and someone grabs it by force. I realize there are proximity-based USB dongles that will lock the screen when the remote adapter is beyond range, but this may be far too impractical to use. A USB security dongle sticking out the side is a quick recipe for a broken USB port...
I've read enough slashdot and yahoo.co.jp articles to have a feel for where that country stands -- to me, it appears as though Japan is no slacker when it comes to keeping the 'net in check... (Heck, a country that offers 45+Mbps ADSL for $30/mo *should* have some clue about policing that network...)
Sigh... Can't find the article, but I *know* for a fact they've acted on this spam law within months, and fined several companies pretty large fines (~$100k+). So... they're not afraid to pull the trigger...
Well, you get the drift... They're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it would appear to me that the government is in no way practicing any "special treatment" -- be it one way or another...
It's a shame that the study didn't include replacing a standard 4x3 aspect-ratio display with a wide-screen display. In my personal experience, I've found that the extra width is what really helps -- not so much the ability to have two desktops visible at once. Two 17" displays are better than one 17" display, but one 24" widescreen display is even better still. (no break in the middle, consistent color correction across the entire width, great for wide photo-editing, long code that wraps, and of course, ultra-long syslogs)
Of course, two standard displays are far more economical than one widescreen display...:(
Though the results of the study are undoubtedly true, I find it amusing that this study is put on by a display company, graphics company, and a university that most likely got freebies or kickbacks.
News at 7: "Dell Computer, Intel, and UCLA have found that multiple processors can increase productivity."
Somehow, I get the feeling that the list will be eaten up by a spammer, and as a result, I'll end up getting more spam...:(
Part of the problem is that not all spam is from these massive-spam companies -- quite a few are from "free" accounts which people create and throw away after a day's use...
At $15 per card, the price is definitely right, but I wonder if your data is safe... No, not in a data security point-of-view, but in simple mechanics and durability.
It helps that the r/w head is not contained within the card itself, but I wonder how resistant it is to dust, flexing, and people simply sitting on it. Such cards are begging to be placed within a wallet, where guys like me will sit on them...
Side note: With RSA's solid-state SecurID cards, I typically see about 1 out of every 15 get broken from what users perceive as "normal use". Interestingly enough, both men and women manage to break them from "accidentally crushing it" -- I had imagined that most of the broken cards would come from men putting it into their wallets and sitting in them, but it seems women put their cards in purses, and purses get stepped on and what-not quite often as well... (small sample (500) though, so here's your grain of salt to go with the data...:)
Which brings up the issue of backing up the data... On a USB 2.0 bus, backing up 5GB's is not that bad, but on a USB 1.1 bus, a full backup would be quite painful... I suppose daily backups/synchronizations would help, but as you know, we humans love to procrastinate...
EQ was a great social game -- for the two years I played it, it was an awesome experience playing every other day with my friends from college (who I dearly missed, as a lot of them moved far away). Not only did I get to talk to them like I would in chat clients, I got to roam the world the kill baddies with them... hunt for treasures, get stomped on by giants... *tons* of great challenges, laughs, and memories!
And really... in my mind, it's still a great game......up to a certain point.
EQ was originally designed with 50 levels in mind -- and guess what -- it shows. Up to level 50, the leveling of your character and the gear s/he gets seems to flow at a good pace. Play a few hours a day, and you'll get a level in week or two. Play a bit longer on the weekends in order to explore a dungeon, and you'll get some neat items that make a noticable difference in appearance or stats. They wouldn't be the most powerful weapons/armor on the planet, but they would be roughly 70% effective compared to the totally awesome gear, with about 50% of the time/effort required to obtain them.
However, once my friends & I got past level 50, we found that good items were extremely difficult to come by. Sure, we could still kill stuff and gain levels, but we were finding that our equipment was a bit outdated. At level 50, we still had on equipment that we had obtained from quests and adventures when we were level 40. Unfortunately, at this point in the game, Sony/Verant forgot to populate the world with half-decent items for level 50+ folks. Small dungeon bosses no longer dropped half-decent gear, but dropped completely useless junk. So, you either stuck with old gear from the level 40 era (which made you pretty weak), or you had to spend a BIG chunk of time attending plane raids, which can take gobs of hours and organization.
So, there we were -- a small guild of 12 people, all in their level 50's, no longer able to get any useful gear within a reasonable (3-4 hours) amount of time... We still loved the game, but we couldn't advance anymore, as the game requires you to have decent gear... so we eventually quit.
It's too bad, really... there are a ton of people playing EQ like myself who are *not* uber-gamer-addicts who *must have* 9999 hitpoints. If Sony would cater to people like myself, they'd have far better profit ratio... Casual gamers like me play less, complain less (as we aren't getting into heated battles over items), and still pay the same amount per month...
Hopefully Star Wars Galaxies will realize this fact, and cater to the more casual gamer...
...not because of the desktop space that you lose, but because applications will still remember your desktop space as being double, and will leave some of your apps stranded off-screen. Maybe I was just unlucky, but neither software package fixed this for me.
Of course, you can still move main windows via keyboard shortcuts, but certain detachable, child windows of applications (eg, Winamp's Playlist) could not be accessed via keyboard shortcut to move, and were stuck off-screen. The only fix was to re-attach the second display, or uninstall/reinstall Winamp so that it would forget all of its screen positions.
I'm sure there's another way to fix window position memory configs (via registry and what-not), but really -- shouldn't the software take care of this for me? Neither software did much to help me once the second display was removed, and the screen resolution adjusted down to one display. Somewhat thoughtless, IMHO.
Thanks for the reply, and I appreciate you keeping it on-topic. It just seems to me that this is two separate threads...
My point was that while the article was valid about Kazaa not including any safety nets for unaware users, but that by default, Kazaa is set up to use a safe folder.
You seem to be talking about Win32 boxes in general...
As for "...this happens thousands of times per day in CompUSAs, Best Buys, and Circuit City locations across the nation.", that's exactly my point -- if someone is that clueless about a computer, they are risking the drive, their privacy, and their PC becoming script slaves -- all without the help of Kazaa.
Heh. It always goes back to Windows, doesn't it...?
As for salespeople... While I have my share of complaints about them, I have to continually remind myself that if I were fortunate enough to ever find a salesperson who actually knew what s/he was talking about, chances are, I would never find that person again, for they would have found employment elsewhere. (well, maybe not in California these days, but I digress...)
You may mean well, but your post full of questions that concentrate on deconstructing my method, but completely ignores the facts and observations I was interested in sharing.
I didn't mean the post to be scientific -- I was simply *sharing* what I ran into while I was performing the install with a group of people around me. The facts remain:
Is the default install directory generally safe? Yes, because it would not have existed before.
Is there a default "music directory" for most Windows OS's? Yes. It's C:\My Documents\My Music - even for newbies.
Does it require effort on the part of a user to share their entire hard drive? Yes.
Your comment of: "Find a group of people who don't know what a mouse is for, and see if they can share files without putting their entire drive at risk..."
is not very constructive, as if a user is such a newbie that they do not know how to use a mouse, but is somehow given administrator access to a Windows PC to install Kazaa, they are putting the entire drive at risk simply by having access to the keyboard.
Just out of curiosity, I ran the install myself, and I observed that while the sharing scheme isn't 100% clear or too concerned about the user's privacy, it's still not nearly as bad as the outright installation of spyware, which Kazaa does anyway. I also asked a small group of novice users to try it out, and found that:
1) The default shared folder is C:\Program Files\Kazaa\My Shared Folder. A vanilla user with a vanilla install would not have had that directory, and would not have any private files in here to begin with. Most novice users I polled understood that this was the folder which the public would access, and that private files should never be placed there. So... simply clicking "Next" on the install repeatedly doesn't endanger the person's privacy. (well, spyware is still installed, but you get my point)
2) When selecting another folder to share, I found that all of the novice users I polled stored their music in a directory strictly for music, and that subdirectories would contain nothing but music. So, if someone is sharing C:\My Documents\My Music\, they would not be sharing files in the parent directory, where private documents are stored. Realistically, I can't think of too many cases where someone would store private files in a directory made specifically for music. Granted, the user could still accidentally put files there, or accidentally share C:\My Documents, but at that point, it's user error. 3) When selecting an entire drive to share and download music, eg, C:\, all (yes, all) of the users were unwilling to proceed, as they didn't want files piling up in the root directory, and they didn't like the idea of sharing the entire drive. (though this was never specified in the software)
So... what I'm saying is: Common sense and "install: next, next, next" seemed to prevail in the small group of novice users I polled... While I agree wholeheartedly that Kazaa does *NOTHING* to discourage or warn users of sharing their entire drives, I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise considering the company's history.
The analog display has luminous hands and indices, but the digital display is not illuminated.
This is quite a bummer to me, as a watch without backlighting, to me, is useless... Most $500+ watches "meant for the outdoors" seem to come with the backlight feature... I wonder why they chose to leave this feature out -- especially when most of the fancy features are on the digital display...
To all of you complaining about having to carry *another* item, or saying that "it's been done before"... Are you telling me that your VMU or PocketStation could make phone calls, store phone numbers, and have semi-PDA functionality?
The whole point of this product is that you *won't* be carrying anything extra, as the gaming feature will be enabled on your mobile phone. Additionally, because they claim that you'll most likely use the USB cable to synchronize your data, you won't have to have your phone plugged into your PS2 when playing with the PS2.
However, it's not without major snags. If it's going to sell, then Sony has to make it a "must-buy" product for everyone. So... while a mobile phone with gaming functions may work for adults and teenagers, what about kids? I'm guessing not too many parents want their 6-year-old to have a mobile phone just so s/he can play games, then turn around and overuse the mobile phone and run up the bill...
So... then what? Sony would have to make a non-mobile phone version of this portable gaming unit for young kids. Unfortunately, though, once Sony starts selling *just* the gaming unit for $100 or so, then all the people who already have phones won't have incentive to spend $300 on a gaming-phone when $100 will buy them the game, and they can keep their current mobile phone.
So... make the gaming/training ability not too complicated or meaningful, in efforts to lower the cost? Then people won't carry it around...
I've seen consumer spending habits for mobile phones in the last 10 years, and while I'm no expert, I think it's safe to say that very few people are willing to dish out $200-$300 on a new phone when they have a perfectly working one...
I'm surprised no one has said anything to the tune of
"Well, just make your own mail server with a webmail interface,
then!"
While I would like to do so, I admittedly haven't looked into it yet, and
instead of trolling the 'net to find a good package... Let me be lazy and
ask the wonderful resource of people here...
Does anyone have any recommendations on packages that I can install on my
Linux box that will give me a nice webmail interface?
5. Do I still need to subscribe to Yahoo! Delivers in order to access the Yahoo! Mail POP/Forwarding service?
No. After you have purchased a subscription to the Yahoo! Mail POP/Forwarding service, you do not need to subscribe to the Yahoo! Delivers mailings to access your messages via POP or forwarding. If you unsubscribe from Yahoo! Delivers, however, you will no longer receive special offers, promotions and information about Yahoo! features.
Of course, it's important to mention that $19.99 is the promotional rate, and $29.99 is their standard rate.
FlexATX, NTX, ?TX.... I admit I don't remember all the form-factors anymore, but one thing that has always bit me was the large pricetag for the cases and mini-power supplies. So... to all of you who are saying "this will make a small, quiet, cheap system..." I agree that it will be small and quiet (most 200W PS's are quiet), but I don't agree that it will be "cheap" -- the case and PS will probably cost $100. (and yes, I know PC cases can cost as high as $300, but the average, plastic case + PS is $30)
There's always two major sacrifices for size -- and they usually are performance and cost.
Still, I'm hopeful, as I would love to have a webserver the size of a Cobalt/Sun Qube, but at a comparitively low cost.
...it's not about who's copying who. Heck, you're comparing apples to oranges, as there's a considerable design difference in having all the hardware (CPU, RAM, drive, etc...) in the *base* (Apple iMac) as opposed to the LCD (Gateway Profile)
Besides, as you can see from Gateway's Support Page, they've had the Profile for over 2-3 years -- with the first model being a 400MHz machine.
In all fairness, Apple isn't the only one that "Thinks Different" -- of course, I will concede that Gateway's Profile series wasn't too successful, and that Apple once again shows that it has a keen sense of timing -- thus allowing them to "Succeed Different". But to call Gateway's Profile a "knock-off" is not quite fair...
I... initially thought about the cost, but then realized... 40GB IDE drive = $80-$120 proprietary NIC >= generic $20 NIC proprietary cable >= generic $15 VGA cable USB kb/mouse >= generic $30 USB kb/mouse
You're looking at $150-$200+ of stuff, but not counting the extra cost that comes with proprietary work and smaller production cycles. For how much? $199? And... that's without consideration to the effort which was required to get Linux to work on the PS2.
So in that light, $199 is *very* reasonable, IMHO...
not a bad piece, but...
on
NY Times on Anime
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I must agree with CmdrTaco that it's great to see Japanese Anime get some major press. However, it's going to take more than that to get people to understand what's so great about Anime. It's going to take all of us to continue sharing the art with our friends, and for studios to put up more money/risk to promote it.
Roger Ebert can talk all day about how Miyazaki has awesome films and give 2 thumbs up to "Princess Mononoke," but if Disney/Miramax think that a "blockbuster opening weekend" can be realized from opening "Mononoke" in 8 theatres US-wide, they are highly mistaken. (as you can imagine, it only made $144k in its opening week) At its height, "Mononoke" was showing in 129 screens -- a far cry from the 3000+ screens that a major movie like "Harry Potter." While "Mononoke" made over 100 million in Japan, its final US gross was under 3 million (both US dollars)
What went wrong? Well, first off, the art of Anime is definitely not as well accepted or understood in the U.S. due to historical differences in culture. In Japan, mature themes of politics, war, and tales of the human experience are spoken and told of through comics and anime. In the U.S., "animated feature" = "Bambi" Hrm...
If the studios who push Japanese Anime want to make it worth their time/money, they're going to have an uphill battle, as they're going to have to convince everyone in the US to go see the film on opening night, and promote the hell out of the film... (eg, money) Ultimately, they have to try to change the culture of a nation, and it's probably not going to happen overnight.
Solution? Keep making money off of $30 DVD's with 4 episodes of "Cowboy Bebop" and "Evangelion" -- one day, the sales will reach a high enough point that statistically -- it'll be worth bringing to the theatres... Until then... the safest thing is to keep selling those pricey DVD's... And... keep sharing them with your friends who have no idea what anime is...
...as someone who has played Final Fantasy I through X (yes, the Japanese versions, too), I can honestly say that the FF-formula has always been: good graphics, good characters/storyline, good "world", and an always-changing magic/battle system.
Of course, the magic/battle system wasn't always perfect, and made some games painful to play. (FF II in Japan, where you couldn't save in 3-hour dungeons, or in FF VIII, where all you did was steal magic all day in combat)
With those things in mind, I will say that X's gameplay "feels" like the original FF I -- in a good way! The battles are quick, not overly complicated, not insanely difficult, and you aren't forced to summon Shiva 12 times to beat the common mob. Experience and cash flow without "crunching" (playing *just* for xp/cash). It's unfortunate that I am unable to select the "Japanese voice track," as the English voice acting is quite horrible compared to the Japanese voice acting (which I enjoyed on my friend's import PS2 + import FF X).
Most of all, for the first time in YEARS, this Final Fantasy game will actually allow you to play about 15-20 minutes at a time and SAVE. (other than the PC versions of VII and VIII which allowed you to save anywhere) The cutscenes happen often, but are short enough that you can bear, and you can actually pause them (unlike MGS2).
The 3D world presents a problem when you need to look for doors and treasure chests, as they become hidden. FF VII's simple graphics made it easy to find things, but in FF VIII and IX, I often found myself trying to find the door that opens. X solves this by giving you a overhead map with doors and goals highlighted.
Okay, so all of this sounds like X is stupifying the game -- but it's not. If you have 18 hours a day to spend on a game, maybe this game is too smooth-flowing for you. But for folks like me who have about an hour a day to goof off playing games, FF X's no-load-time, quick-save, fast-gameplay, short-cutscenes are a treat.
While I am tickled pink to see such new devices emerge (especially those with linux), I just pray that these companies spend money/effort in moderation when looking into such workpads. For all intensive purposes, these workpads are one-way devices with very little input meant to come from the user.
In order for that to be useful, it has to come with the ability to accept a variety of data from a variety of sources (IR, Radio, Laser, etc) and display it back to the user. In a world where you can gather information simply by walking around and grabbing datastreams, I can see the workpad being a useful and hip thing to carry around for the traveling businessperson, or the college student (less books!)
But... until that day, the $1000 laptop + 56k modem will still be the reliable source to get connected when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. So... I just hope that these companies don't expend too much of their energy in making devices that are a bit too ahead of their time...
As for the article, it's great... hope ya'll get a chance to read it... Me? I've already mastered the art of anti-slashdotting...
1) Open Article
2) "Open in New Window" all the relevant pages
3) Read, enjoy, ignore screams of/.'d-ness.
While I wholeheartedly agree with you folks who point out that games like Doom and Quake should not be for 10-year-olds, I don't agree with the review site that come down hard on these TOYS simply by association with violence, COMPLETELY neglecting to check out the storyline/theme behind the game/TV series.
---
Two examples.
Recently...
"Metal Gear Solid" has a HEAVY anti-war theme, and reminds the gamer that war is about killing people, and that it's often filled with sadness. I was already an adult when "MGS" came out, but I've watched 10-12-year-old kids play "MGS" and after a while, I've seen them actually feel sorry for the genome soldiers, and they start avoiding them in-game instead of just mindlessly killing them. When asked about the game, they've all asked me things like, "Wow, war is sad, isn't it?" "Boy, being a soldier is a tough job."
---
For the story about when I was a kid... "Gundam" is, and always has been about war, and "...why people fight each other, when they can understand each other."
In virtually every Gundam, a early-teens child gets involved in battle. It tears his/her family apart, tears countries apart, friends and loved ones sacrifice their lives for each other, etc, etc... It reminds us that soldiers are people too, and most would much rather prefer peace if they had a choice. I was only 7-8 when I watched the 1979 series, but I vividly remember the scenes where Amuro had to fight in the Gundam against people he befriended, respected, and sometimes even loved. If you watch ANY of the Gundam series, you will hear over and over -- "Why must we fight? Why can we not simply understand each other?" (yet the main character has to pull the trigger to shoot down the enemy in order to protect his loved ones)
Was I scathed for life? Did I grow up violent? Heck no... I grew up respecting the men and women who fight for our country. I grew up understanding that much sadness comes from conflict. I grew up believing, to this day, that people can get along if they try. And yes.. I try. Thank you, Gundam.
So... while I can't expect the "toy review site" to put THAT much time into their review, I truly wonder if they've actually given these game/anime titles a chance. Heck, if you don't have time, at least go watch "Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket" -- that'll take all of 180 minutes or so to watch, and you'll have a VERY good idea what "Gundam" is about, and why there is such an insane following in Japan.
What I'm just saying is... take these review sites with a BIG grain of salt, and always check out things for yourself. Quake/Doom for 10-year-olds can't be good, but to blindly say "anything with guns is bad" is really short-sighted.
Slashdot Mirror
I would suggest reading up on http://www.sf72.org/home if you haven't already.
One piece of advice is that if you collect portable camping gear, you'll find yourself decently prepared, since many of the items you need for camping also assume that you don't have regular infrastructure. Camping food/water also have 5+ year shelf life, so you can go camping and use up your old supply, as well as get practice using all your gear. No point waiting 20+ years to find out you have no idea how to use it.
So... between a month of food/water, a tent, sleeping bags, portable lanterns, wood/gasoline stoves, portable cookware, water filtration kits, solar power stations, hand-crank radio/light/chargers, steel-bottom/tip shoes, kevlar gloves, household tools (hammer, nails, wrenches, etc), outdoor tools (shovel, hand-operated chainsaw, etc), real first aid kits, etc, you find yourself decently prepared.
An added luxury would be a generator... Though costly, that would help keep your fridge alive, and there's usually a week+ worth of food in there, and you don't need your generator running 24-7 to prevent the contents from spoiling. Having enough fuel (or siphon from your car), extension cables, and a safe place to safely deploy it without concentrating CO or attracting too much attention might be a challenge, though. In a pinch, you can do this without a generator by using your running car and a 120V inverter, but that means leaving your car on, and again, we run into the same issues mentioned above.
If you're concerned about personal mobility, it's worth noting that you can buy solid (but heavy) mountain bike tires that cannot have flats, and it's something I've considered, but have not acted on yet.
All in all, I hope we all can get a bit more prepared and increase our chances at making it through these challenging events...
Have you considered getting a T-Mobile phone with UMA? It's certainly not the cheapest option with standard mobile pricing of ~$30/mo and ~$5 of various taxes, but you have the added advantage of being able to have a "normal" phone when you're outside of Wi-Fi coverage.
If you're looking for the best value, you can get an Ipevo Wi-Fi Skype phone for ~$140 (a bit less than Netgear/Belkin; works fine). Add $3/mo unlimited US calling and $30 for SkypeIn so landlines can call you, and your total cost is $66/yr... That's tough to beat, and what I would do if I were you. The only downside is that the batteries for these devices may be a challenge to source, and as far as the phone, it's certainly no-frills.
The iPod Touch is not a solution I can recommend due to the lack of on-device microphone -- not to mention its battery on Wi-Fi being rather poor.
Good luck, and way to go on saving some cash! ;)
As the article on Slashdot indicates, the 2006 ruling was overturned recently, which is why it's news.
You can google for more info, but many articles fail to convey how incredibly popular this program was in Japan. In 2006, it was reported that 1 in 3 computers had this program installed. Add that to the fact that most folks in Japan had very fast Broadband speeds even in 2006, you can imagine the amount of files that exchanged hands.
I'm glad to see that the correct ruling has been made, finally...
On N270 Atoms, whole-disk AES encryption works perfectly fine, and the only time I notice a slow-down is when I'm running a benchmark program side-by-side with a model that has an unencrypted drive. For regular browsing and e-mail (which is what the person asking the question listed as a qualification), it's a non-issue.
As some others have posted, and what my local police have told me, the laptop will likely have been sold for cash in less than 24 hours. Unless you are being targeted specifically for something of significant value such as corporate IP, it's unlikely that anyone is going to spend the time to try to unencrypt your drive.
But other threats still loom...
If you plan on connecting to any network, you will expose your machine to any network-based threat, so you ought to harden your machine accordingly.
Make sure you still have a strong password for your account login. If your machine is in hibernate, the crypto authentication prompt will stop them, but if your machine was sleeping, it'll return to the OS prompt.
The one scenario where you're not protected at all is if the machine is powered on, logged in, and someone grabs it by force. I realize there are proximity-based USB dongles that will lock the screen when the remote adapter is beyond range, but this may be far too impractical to use. A USB security dongle sticking out the side is a quick recipe for a broken USB port...
Fair question.
I've read enough slashdot and yahoo.co.jp articles to have a feel for where that country stands -- to me, it appears as though Japan is no slacker when it comes to keeping the 'net in check... (Heck, a country that offers 45+Mbps ADSL for $30/mo *should* have some clue about policing that network...)
They actually have a spam law -- heck, they've had it for quite some time -- way before us...
Sigh... Can't find the article, but I *know* for a fact they've acted on this spam law within months, and fined several companies pretty large fines (~$100k+). So... they're not afraid to pull the trigger...
They've raided Japanese p2p authors, users, and shut down websites
Well, you get the drift... They're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it would appear to me that the government is in no way practicing any "special treatment" -- be it one way or another...
Just my 2 yen...
It's a shame that the study didn't include replacing a standard 4x3 aspect-ratio display with a wide-screen display. In my personal experience, I've found that the extra width is what really helps -- not so much the ability to have two desktops visible at once. Two 17" displays are better than one 17" display, but one 24" widescreen display is even better still. (no break in the middle, consistent color correction across the entire width, great for wide photo-editing, long code that wraps, and of course, ultra-long syslogs)
:(
Of course, two standard displays are far more economical than one widescreen display...
Though the results of the study are undoubtedly true, I find it amusing that this study is put on by a display company, graphics company, and a university that most likely got freebies or kickbacks.
News at 7: "Dell Computer, Intel, and UCLA have found that multiple processors can increase productivity."
Somehow, I get the feeling that the list will be eaten up by a spammer, and as a result, I'll end up getting more spam... :(
Part of the problem is that not all spam is from these massive-spam companies -- quite a few are from "free" accounts which people create and throw away after a day's use...
btw.. fp... almost...
At $15 per card, the price is definitely right, but I wonder if your data is safe... No, not in a data security point-of-view, but in simple mechanics and durability.
:)
It helps that the r/w head is not contained within the card itself, but I wonder how resistant it is to dust, flexing, and people simply sitting on it. Such cards are begging to be placed within a wallet, where guys like me will sit on them...
Side note: With RSA's solid-state SecurID cards, I typically see about 1 out of every 15 get broken from what users perceive as "normal use". Interestingly enough, both men and women manage to break them from "accidentally crushing it" -- I had imagined that most of the broken cards would come from men putting it into their wallets and sitting in them, but it seems women put their cards in purses, and purses get stepped on and what-not quite often as well... (small sample (500) though, so here's your grain of salt to go with the data...
Which brings up the issue of backing up the data... On a USB 2.0 bus, backing up 5GB's is not that bad, but on a USB 1.1 bus, a full backup would be quite painful... I suppose daily backups/synchronizations would help, but as you know, we humans love to procrastinate...
EQ was a great social game -- for the two years I played it, it was an awesome experience playing every other day with my friends from college (who I dearly missed, as a lot of them moved far away). Not only did I get to talk to them like I would in chat clients, I got to roam the world the kill baddies with them... hunt for treasures, get stomped on by giants... *tons* of great challenges, laughs, and memories!
.. ...up to a certain point.
And really... in my mind, it's still a great game.
EQ was originally designed with 50 levels in mind -- and guess what -- it shows. Up to level 50, the leveling of your character and the gear s/he gets seems to flow at a good pace. Play a few hours a day, and you'll get a level in week or two. Play a bit longer on the weekends in order to explore a dungeon, and you'll get some neat items that make a noticable difference in appearance or stats. They wouldn't be the most powerful weapons/armor on the planet, but they would be roughly 70% effective compared to the totally awesome gear, with about 50% of the time/effort required to obtain them.
However, once my friends & I got past level 50, we found that good items were extremely difficult to come by. Sure, we could still kill stuff and gain levels, but we were finding that our equipment was a bit outdated. At level 50, we still had on equipment that we had obtained from quests and adventures when we were level 40. Unfortunately, at this point in the game, Sony/Verant forgot to populate the world with half-decent items for level 50+ folks. Small dungeon bosses no longer dropped half-decent gear, but dropped completely useless junk. So, you either stuck with old gear from the level 40 era (which made you pretty weak), or you had to spend a BIG chunk of time attending plane raids, which can take gobs of hours and organization.
So, there we were -- a small guild of 12 people, all in their level 50's, no longer able to get any useful gear within a reasonable (3-4 hours) amount of time... We still loved the game, but we couldn't advance anymore, as the game requires you to have decent gear... so we eventually quit.
It's too bad, really... there are a ton of people playing EQ like myself who are *not* uber-gamer-addicts who *must have* 9999 hitpoints. If Sony would cater to people like myself, they'd have far better profit ratio... Casual gamers like me play less, complain less (as we aren't getting into heated battles over items), and still pay the same amount per month...
Hopefully Star Wars Galaxies will realize this fact, and cater to the more casual gamer...
- retired level 52 cleric, level 40 druid
...not because of the desktop space that you lose, but because applications will still remember your desktop space as being double, and will leave some of your apps stranded off-screen. Maybe I was just unlucky, but neither software package fixed this for me.
Of course, you can still move main windows via keyboard shortcuts, but certain detachable, child windows of applications (eg, Winamp's Playlist) could not be accessed via keyboard shortcut to move, and were stuck off-screen. The only fix was to re-attach the second display, or uninstall/reinstall Winamp so that it would forget all of its screen positions.
I'm sure there's another way to fix window position memory configs (via registry and what-not), but really -- shouldn't the software take care of this for me? Neither software did much to help me once the second display was removed, and the screen resolution adjusted down to one display. Somewhat thoughtless, IMHO.
Thanks for the reply, and I appreciate you keeping it on-topic. It just seems to me that this is two separate threads...
My point was that while the article was valid about Kazaa not including any safety nets for unaware users, but that by default, Kazaa is set up to use a safe folder.
You seem to be talking about Win32 boxes in general...
As for "...this happens thousands of times per day in CompUSAs, Best Buys, and Circuit City locations across the nation.", that's exactly my point -- if someone is that clueless about a computer, they are risking the drive, their privacy, and their PC becoming script slaves -- all without the help of Kazaa.
Heh. It always goes back to Windows, doesn't it...?
As for salespeople... While I have my share of complaints about them, I have to continually remind myself that if I were fortunate enough to ever find a salesperson who actually knew what s/he was talking about, chances are, I would never find that person again, for they would have found employment elsewhere. (well, maybe not in California these days, but I digress...)
You may mean well, but your post full of questions that concentrate on deconstructing my method, but completely ignores the facts and observations I was interested in sharing.
I didn't mean the post to be scientific -- I was simply *sharing* what I ran into while I was performing the install with a group of people around me. The facts remain:
Is the default install directory generally safe? Yes, because it would not have existed before.
Is there a default "music directory" for most Windows OS's? Yes. It's C:\My Documents\My Music - even for newbies.
Does it require effort on the part of a user to share their entire hard drive? Yes.
Your comment of:
"Find a group of people who don't know what a mouse is for, and see if they can share files without putting their entire drive at risk..."
is not very constructive, as if a user is such a newbie that they do not know how to use a mouse, but is somehow given administrator access to a Windows PC to install Kazaa, they are putting the entire drive at risk simply by having access to the keyboard.
Just out of curiosity, I ran the install myself, and I observed that while the sharing scheme isn't 100% clear or too concerned about the user's privacy, it's still not nearly as bad as the outright installation of spyware, which Kazaa does anyway. I also asked a small group of novice users to try it out, and found that:
1) The default shared folder is C:\Program Files\Kazaa\My Shared Folder. A vanilla user with a vanilla install would not have had that directory, and would not have any private files in here to begin with. Most novice users I polled understood that this was the folder which the public would access, and that private files should never be placed there. So... simply clicking "Next" on the install repeatedly doesn't endanger the person's privacy. (well, spyware is still installed, but you get my point)
2) When selecting another folder to share, I found that all of the novice users I polled stored their music in a directory strictly for music, and that subdirectories would contain nothing but music. So, if someone is sharing C:\My Documents\My Music\, they would not be sharing files in the parent directory, where private documents are stored. Realistically, I can't think of too many cases where someone would store private files in a directory made specifically for music. Granted, the user could still accidentally put files there, or accidentally share C:\My Documents, but at that point, it's user error.
3) When selecting an entire drive to share and download music, eg, C:\, all (yes, all) of the users were unwilling to proceed, as they didn't want files piling up in the root directory, and they didn't like the idea of sharing the entire drive. (though this was never specified in the software)
So... what I'm saying is: Common sense and "install: next, next, next" seemed to prevail in the small group of novice users I polled... While I agree wholeheartedly that Kazaa does *NOTHING* to discourage or warn users of sharing their entire drives, I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise considering the company's history.
Just thought I'd share...
...I wonder if additional counterweight will be added to the base to sustain the heavier LCD panels...
To all of you complaining about having to carry *another* item, or saying that "it's been done before"... Are you telling me that your VMU or PocketStation could make phone calls, store phone numbers, and have semi-PDA functionality?
The whole point of this product is that you *won't* be carrying anything extra, as the gaming feature will be enabled on your mobile phone. Additionally, because they claim that you'll most likely use the USB cable to synchronize your data, you won't have to have your phone plugged into your PS2 when playing with the PS2.
However, it's not without major snags. If it's going to sell, then Sony has to make it a "must-buy" product for everyone. So... while a mobile phone with gaming functions may work for adults and teenagers, what about kids? I'm guessing not too many parents want their 6-year-old to have a mobile phone just so s/he can play games, then turn around and overuse the mobile phone and run up the bill...
So... then what? Sony would have to make a non-mobile phone version of this portable gaming unit for young kids. Unfortunately, though, once Sony starts selling *just* the gaming unit for $100 or so, then all the people who already have phones won't have incentive to spend $300 on a gaming-phone when $100 will buy them the game, and they can keep their current mobile phone.
So... make the gaming/training ability not too complicated or meaningful, in efforts to lower the cost? Then people won't carry it around...
I've seen consumer spending habits for mobile phones in the last 10 years, and while I'm no expert, I think it's safe to say that very few people are willing to dish out $200-$300 on a new phone when they have a perfectly working one...
We shall see...
I'm surprised no one has said anything to the tune of
While I would like to do so, I admittedly haven't looked into it yet, and instead of trolling the 'net to find a good package... Let me be lazy and ask the wonderful resource of people here...
Does anyone have any recommendations on packages that I can install on my Linux box that will give me a nice webmail interface?
Thanks in advance.
Of course, it's important to mention that $19.99 is the promotional rate, and $29.99 is their standard rate.
FlexATX, NTX, ?TX.... I admit I don't remember all the form-factors anymore, but one thing that has always bit me was the large pricetag for the cases and mini-power supplies. So... to all of you who are saying "this will make a small, quiet, cheap system..." I agree that it will be small and quiet (most 200W PS's are quiet), but I don't agree that it will be "cheap" -- the case and PS will probably cost $100. (and yes, I know PC cases can cost as high as $300, but the average, plastic case + PS is $30)
There's always two major sacrifices for size -- and they usually are performance and cost.
Still, I'm hopeful, as I would love to have a webserver the size of a Cobalt/Sun Qube, but at a comparitively low cost.
...it's not about who's copying who. Heck, you're comparing apples to oranges, as there's a considerable design difference in having all the hardware (CPU, RAM, drive, etc...) in the *base* (Apple iMac) as opposed to the LCD (Gateway Profile)
Besides, as you can see from Gateway's Support Page, they've had the Profile for over 2-3 years -- with the first model being a 400MHz machine.
In all fairness, Apple isn't the only one that "Thinks Different" -- of course, I will concede that Gateway's Profile series wasn't too successful, and that Apple once again shows that it has a keen sense of timing -- thus allowing them to "Succeed Different". But to call Gateway's Profile a "knock-off" is not quite fair...
Oh well.
I... initially thought about the cost, but then realized...
40GB IDE drive = $80-$120
proprietary NIC >= generic $20 NIC
proprietary cable >= generic $15 VGA cable
USB kb/mouse >= generic $30 USB kb/mouse
You're looking at $150-$200+ of stuff, but not counting the extra cost that comes with proprietary work and smaller production cycles. For how much? $199? And... that's without consideration to the effort which was required to get Linux to work on the PS2.
So in that light, $199 is *very* reasonable, IMHO...
I must agree with CmdrTaco that it's great to see Japanese Anime get some major press. However, it's going to take more than that to get people to understand what's so great about Anime. It's going to take all of us to continue sharing the art with our friends, and for studios to put up more money/risk to promote it.
Roger Ebert can talk all day about how Miyazaki has awesome films and give 2 thumbs up to "Princess Mononoke," but if Disney/Miramax think that a "blockbuster opening weekend" can be realized from opening "Mononoke" in 8 theatres US-wide, they are highly mistaken. (as you can imagine, it only made $144k in its opening week) At its height, "Mononoke" was showing in 129 screens -- a far cry from the 3000+ screens that a major movie like "Harry Potter." While "Mononoke" made over 100 million in Japan, its final US gross was under 3 million (both US dollars)
What went wrong? Well, first off, the art of Anime is definitely not as well accepted or understood in the U.S. due to historical differences in culture. In Japan, mature themes of politics, war, and tales of the human experience are spoken and told of through comics and anime. In the U.S., "animated feature" = "Bambi" Hrm...
If the studios who push Japanese Anime want to make it worth their time/money, they're going to have an uphill battle, as they're going to have to convince everyone in the US to go see the film on opening night, and promote the hell out of the film... (eg, money) Ultimately, they have to try to change the culture of a nation, and it's probably not going to happen overnight.
Solution? Keep making money off of $30 DVD's with 4 episodes of "Cowboy Bebop" and "Evangelion" -- one day, the sales will reach a high enough point that statistically -- it'll be worth bringing to the theatres... Until then... the safest thing is to keep selling those pricey DVD's... And... keep sharing them with your friends who have no idea what anime is...
...as someone who has played Final Fantasy I through X (yes, the Japanese versions, too), I can honestly say that the FF-formula has always been: good graphics, good characters/storyline, good "world", and an always-changing magic/battle system.
Of course, the magic/battle system wasn't always perfect, and made some games painful to play. (FF II in Japan, where you couldn't save in 3-hour dungeons, or in FF VIII, where all you did was steal magic all day in combat)
With those things in mind, I will say that X's gameplay "feels" like the original FF I -- in a good way! The battles are quick, not overly complicated, not insanely difficult, and you aren't forced to summon Shiva 12 times to beat the common mob. Experience and cash flow without "crunching" (playing *just* for xp/cash). It's unfortunate that I am unable to select the "Japanese voice track," as the English voice acting is quite horrible compared to the Japanese voice acting (which I enjoyed on my friend's import PS2 + import FF X).
Most of all, for the first time in YEARS, this Final Fantasy game will actually allow you to play about 15-20 minutes at a time and SAVE. (other than the PC versions of VII and VIII which allowed you to save anywhere) The cutscenes happen often, but are short enough that you can bear, and you can actually pause them (unlike MGS2).
The 3D world presents a problem when you need to look for doors and treasure chests, as they become hidden. FF VII's simple graphics made it easy to find things, but in FF VIII and IX, I often found myself trying to find the door that opens. X solves this by giving you a overhead map with doors and goals highlighted.
Okay, so all of this sounds like X is stupifying the game -- but it's not. If you have 18 hours a day to spend on a game, maybe this game is too smooth-flowing for you. But for folks like me who have about an hour a day to goof off playing games, FF X's no-load-time, quick-save, fast-gameplay, short-cutscenes are a treat.
Happy Holidays, ya'll!
While I am tickled pink to see such new devices emerge (especially those with linux), I just pray that these companies spend money/effort in moderation when looking into such workpads. For all intensive purposes, these workpads are one-way devices with very little input meant to come from the user.
/.'d-ness.
In order for that to be useful, it has to come with the ability to accept a variety of data from a variety of sources (IR, Radio, Laser, etc) and display it back to the user. In a world where you can gather information simply by walking around and grabbing datastreams, I can see the workpad being a useful and hip thing to carry around for the traveling businessperson, or the college student (less books!)
But... until that day, the $1000 laptop + 56k modem will still be the reliable source to get connected when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. So... I just hope that these companies don't expend too much of their energy in making devices that are a bit too ahead of their time...
As for the article, it's great... hope ya'll get a chance to read it... Me? I've already mastered the art of anti-slashdotting...
1) Open Article
2) "Open in New Window" all the relevant pages
3) Read, enjoy, ignore screams of
While I wholeheartedly agree with you folks who point out that games like Doom and Quake should not be for 10-year-olds, I don't agree with the review site that come down hard on these TOYS simply by association with violence, COMPLETELY neglecting to check out the storyline/theme behind the game/TV series.
:)
---
Two examples.
Recently...
"Metal Gear Solid" has a HEAVY anti-war theme, and reminds the gamer that war is about killing people, and that it's often filled with sadness. I was already an adult when "MGS" came out, but I've watched 10-12-year-old kids play "MGS" and after a while, I've seen them actually feel sorry for the genome soldiers, and they start avoiding them in-game instead of just mindlessly killing them. When asked about the game, they've all asked me things like, "Wow, war is sad, isn't it?" "Boy, being a soldier is a tough job."
---
For the story about when I was a kid... "Gundam" is, and always has been about war, and "...why people fight each other, when they can understand each other."
In virtually every Gundam, a early-teens child gets involved in battle. It tears his/her family apart, tears countries apart, friends and loved ones sacrifice their lives for each other, etc, etc... It reminds us that soldiers are people too, and most would much rather prefer peace if they had a choice. I was only 7-8 when I watched the 1979 series, but I vividly remember the scenes where Amuro had to fight in the Gundam against people he befriended, respected, and sometimes even loved. If you watch ANY of the Gundam series, you will hear over and over -- "Why must we fight? Why can we not simply understand each other?" (yet the main character has to pull the trigger to shoot down the enemy in order to protect his loved ones)
Was I scathed for life? Did I grow up violent? Heck no... I grew up respecting the men and women who fight for our country. I grew up understanding that much sadness comes from conflict. I grew up believing, to this day, that people can get along if they try. And yes.. I try. Thank you, Gundam.
So... while I can't expect the "toy review site" to put THAT much time into their review, I truly wonder if they've actually given these game/anime titles a chance. Heck, if you don't have time, at least go watch "Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket" -- that'll take all of 180 minutes or so to watch, and you'll have a VERY good idea what "Gundam" is about, and why there is such an insane following in Japan.
What I'm just saying is... take these review sites with a BIG grain of salt, and always check out things for yourself. Quake/Doom for 10-year-olds can't be good, but to blindly say "anything with guns is bad" is really short-sighted.
er.. sorry for the mini-rant..