This page talks about that specific problem, at least with Linksys routers, and describes a simple solution using the DD-WRT firmware. Just changing a couple of network settings should fix it.
If you're getting a Linksys router you'll want the WRT54gL because that's the model that still runs Linux and has enough RAM and flash to use the full feature set of the alternative firmwares. As for running multiple security setups, I don't think even open firmwares can do that on a single router, so you'd need two. There are features that let you run as a hotspot. I'm not an expert on that so I'm not sure if you can run a single router as both a regular router and a public hotspot. It could certainly be done with two separate routers. Just make sure you run the two routers on widely spaced channels if they are in close proximity, like channel 1 and 11.
Having them on two separate networks is easy. Just leave the LAN IP of one router at the default of 192.168.1.1 and set the other one to use 192.168.2.1 with DHCP on and a gateway address of 192.168.1.1 (subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 on both routers). Any clients that connect to the "insecure router" will get an address on a different subnet.
Oh, and make sure you've turned on the connection encryption features of your BitTorrent client, that can help get around ISP bandwidth throttling, if that's a problem with your ISP.
Several people have already mentioned flashing the Linksys with the latest DD-WRT firmware, and I second that. But, I would like to point out an obscure problem that will strike you if anyone at your location is using P2P software like any BitTorrent client (Azureus, uTorrent, etc.) What happens is that the routers aren't designed to handle dozens or hundreds of short-term transient IP connections which occur with these applications. The connection cache on the router gets filled up sometimes within just a few hours and then CRASH!!! The important thing here is that this will also happen with the DD-WRT firmware unless you find and follow the instructions to change a couple of obscure network settings. The first time I tried using a WRT54g with the DD-WRT firmware I gave up after a few days because the router was so flaky I had to reboot it every couple of days. Once I found these settings I tried it again and it's been working for weeks now with no problem.
I have to assume that out of 6 male college students on a fast connection, at least one will be heavily using bittorrent or some other P2P apps that will definitely trigger this problem, and it may well be the only reason that you have to reboot your router all the time. Here are some links, first to the uTorrent FAQ page where I first found a reference to the issue, and then to a page on the DD-WRT site talking in detail about this issue. Both pages have instructions for correcting the settings with the DD-WRT firmware.
One of the nicest features these open firmwares give you is access to increasing the transmit power of the router's antenna. By just increasing mine by about 25% above normal I was able to get four bars throughout my apartment where I used to sometime lose the connection entirely. If the reason you have two wireless routers is because the one router can't cover the whole apartment, this will solve that issue.
Others have asked already why you need two wireless routers. Besides spreading the signal out I can't really imagine any reason if you're all going through one cable modem. If both routers are set up on the same channel (most default to channel 6) then they will be interfering with each other much more than any outside routers are. Heaven forbid if both routers are set up with fully identical information and you are trying to use the other router as if it were a range extender. That would probably cause additional problems as both routers would be competing to log in the same wireless card at the same time. In any case, just ditch the other router unless you know what you're doing and have a specific reason to be operating two routers in the same area. To have any chance of not interfering with each other you'd have to put one on channel 1 and the other on channel 11.
Applying the DD-WRT firmware may seem kind of scary since there are all those notes about how you can brick your router, but it's really no big deal. Just print out all the installation instructions beforehand along with the instructions for recovering from a bad flash. Before you do the flash DISABLE your wireless card entirely so that it will be impossible to even attempt the firmware update over a wireless connection. That is really the main thing that causes bricked routers. If you avoid doing that and follow the instructions about first only applying the MINI version of the firmware to the WRT54g, you will be fine and you will end up with a much more useful router.
Now, if anyone there has a Mac they can download iStumbler or MacStumbler (I don't recommend the Mac Kismet unless you know how to remove kernel extensions from the command line in safe mode). Run one of those for about 10-20 minutes and it will give you a pretty clear picture of how many routers are nearby and what channels they are using. Pick a channel for your router t
I'm not so certain this a 'screwing over' loyal customers as much as it is an incentive to give new customers a cheaper opportunity to try service. This trend doesn't apply to software alone but exists in many services (phone, cable TV, etc.)
I hope I can increase your certainty level.
You are comparing this to a service where you pay periodically according to a contract or something, and where you can only avail of the special discount one time (per household, or whatever). This is how subscriptions work. They keep track of who you are, so you can't repeatedly get a "first month free" deal by closing your cable TV account every month and signing up again. So the regular subscribers are not being penalized just because they offer a special short-term deal for new users.
When was the last time you got a subscription renewal notice (like for a magazine subscription) where they said, "Renew now and take advantage of our yearly subscription price that is 55% HIGHER than the newsstand price!" I would venture to say that you've never seen anything like that in your mailbox. The whole POINT of subscription schemes is for the seller to get a guaranteed yearly amount from you, while on your end you get a big DISCOUNT off the regular purchase price of the magazine (or whatever). Otherwise, why in the name of all that is holy would you buy a subscription for ANYTHING? You wouldn't, you'd just buy your magazine off the newsstand every month and save money.
For a product you only need to buy/renew once a year, this is even worse. They really are actively penalizing those who choose to renew their subscription if the subscription renewal costs more than just buying a new box at the software store once a year. Fortunately if you catch on to this scam there is really nothing keeping you from just buying a new box rather than submitting your renewal. Normally software like anti-virus doesn't even know who you are unless you bother to go through the registration process. You just install the new version and magically get another year of anti-virus updates. Most of the time there is no benefit to registering besides some nebulous "support" options.
I do hope you are more clear on the problem now. I know that if I had paid one or more of these subscriptions and then found out that it is cheaper just to buy the new version at the store, I would be PISSED and immediately demand a refund. Because I really can't tell the difference between this and a scam. Subscriptions are supposed to save you money, that is the ENTIRE POINT of subscriptions and the natural assumption of any reasonable person would be that paying for a subscription renewal would be the cheaper option even after taking into account any promotional discounts for new users.
"If it's possible to use these to "print" inexpensive lego pieces (within 0.005mm precision, iirc) then I am *SO* sold...."
They use 150 TONS of pressure to mold real Lego pieces, and manufacture millions of pieces every year. I don't know what's more hilarious, (A) that you think you'd be able to make copies cheaper with this machine than the mass-produced originals, or (B) that you think this machine has a snowball's chance in Hell of approaching that kind of precision, or, last but not least, (C) that you think you could make a fake Lego piece with this kind of machine that has even a fraction of the structural strength of the originals. What's the point? You do know you can buy bulk boxes of Lego pieces, right? There is no way you're ever going to make anything cheaper that would be worth using.
I also looked into this problem for storing files on large external hard drives. The conclusion that I came to in the end was that at this point in time there really is only one option if you want to be able to access the drive from Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. That option is the Mac HFS Extended file system. Yes, you do have to purchase MacDrive in order to access HFS+ with Windows, but it is a very well-established and popular product that works well and is going to be around for a long time, so it's a safe investment. There is also a driver for Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels here. HFS+ has been made more popular because of all the people who want to be able to access their Mac-formatted iPods under Linux.
Your only other choices for cross-platform compatibility are FAT32, NTFS, or Ext2, and they all failed my requirements in various ways.
FAT32 is the most universally readable/writable by most operating systems, but it has serious problems. The main issue is the 4GB file size limit, which was absolutely ridiculous even several years ago. The other problem is that Windows simply won't allow you to format a drive larger than 32GB (or is it 127GB) as FAT32 anyway, but the file size limit is much more of a problem. The only other option that Windows offers you natively for formatting large drives is NTFS. That solves the filesystem and file size limits but then you block stable read-write access from any other OS. There is no read-write NTFS support under Mac OS X, and the read-write NTFS support under Linux is still experimental.
I know a lot of people are recommending Ext2/3, and I also used to think that was the answer, but unfortunately the support for Ext2 on non-Linux platforms is dismal. There is supposedly an Ext2 driver for Mac OS X but it is basically alpha quality and highly unstable based on the user reports I've seen. Thus, Ext2 fails right there, for me. There are a couple of different options for Ext2 in Windows, and they work fairly well for the moment, but it seems to be one of those situations where one guy took some time to whip up some basic support a few years back when he had some free time. That's not the kind of thing that makes me feel good about being able to access my files easily from Windows in the future. There is no guarantee that it will be updated to work with Vista. There is no dedicated crew of people out there making sure that there is continuing stable support for Ext2 in Windows.
I was quite frankly surprised to see just how poor the cross-platform support for Ext2 was. I really was hoping that the open source world would put a little more effort into making Linux filesystems more accessible to other platforms. Instead what I've found is a situation where basically one or two hobbyists have played around with creating some support for like a summer project, and everyone else just sits back and whines that Microsoft or Apple haven't built support in for Ext2 on their own.
So in the end I plunked down my $49 for MacDrive (and $9.99 for a second license) and started formatting all my storage drives as HFS+. An added benefit is that I can copy files to and from my Mac without having tons of those dot files show up, since HFS+ is the native Mac filesystem and supports the Mac resource forks. A final and very nice benefit is that if the drive is hooked up directly to a Mac running OS X it can support journaling, just as Ext3 does under Linux. For me, HFS+ was the only feasible solution for file storage and archiving, and it's working out pretty well. YMMV, of course.
It's not the most perfect situation, but until everyone is able to agree upon a single, standard filesystem for all platforms I don't see any other workable option. I don't see it happening. Mac OS X and Linux may converge on ZFS in a couple of years, but I doubt Windows will ever join the fold and start supporting an open standard filesystem unless somehow the market learns to demand more standardization.
All that said, I think that giving a contract like this to a commercial vendor developing proprietary software would be... unfortunate. Funding addition of missing, necessary features to TrueCrypt would be a one-time expense (rather than one which scales with the number of systems deployed), and would benefit the private sector as well.
Unfortunately we're never going to get the government to use free/open source software, no matter how good, especially for something like this, i.e. security related. What really needs to be done is for a number of genius Linux and Mac OS X developers to join the TrueCrypt project in order to bring it up to feature parity on all three of the most common platforms. Of course TrueCrypt doesn't actually do "full disk encryption" as in encrypting the entire system drive so that you have to input a password to even boot up. AFAIK TrueCrypt can only encrypt non-system partitions, disk images and disks. So that's a big hurdle to overcome, which may require assistance and cooperation from both Apple and Microsoft. Good luck with that, of course. But TrueCrypt is the only thing out there that even comes close to being able to do this.
At the same time the community needs to start a foundation to market a commercially rebranded and "certified" version of the resulting open-source product that would be acceptable to governmental and corporate entities. Sort of like the way corporations go with Netscape when they won't touch Firefox.
Without these steps, non-Windows platforms haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of being allowed in government offices after this program hits the street. Which is very unfortunate indeed.
The suit is misstating the facts. It inversed cause and effect. The truth is
the remote left the user's hand and caused the wrist strap to break.
not
the wrist strap broke and caused the remote to leave the user's hand (from the article)
Actually, since the remote has no will of its own, the only actor here is the user. And the real fact is that
the user let go of the remote and caused the wrist strap to break.
But then, if it is the user who is the cause of the problem, it is really not Nitendo's fault. There wouldn't be much of a lawsuit.
Give. Me. A. Break.
It boggles my mind how the normally fairly competent comments from the Slashdot community can degenerate into a steaming pile of "anybody who would do that is a retard" comments and nitpicky, pedantic/semantic idiocy that misses the whole point. These must be the same morons who spout off ignorant group-think about stories like the McDonald's coffee incident, where if you actually took the time to find out the facts of the case any halfway intelligent person would have sided with the jury (who quite reasonably thought that McD's should be held accountable for serving coffee hot enough to create instant 3rd degree burns after repeatedly being warned not to serve their coffee that hot). Seriously, I've seen maybe three comments so far from anyone with a brain. Let's take a little walk through the facts, shall we? Amazingly, I will do this without even having seen one of these devices in person:
1. Fact: Video games are designed such that the player will want to position themselves directly in front of their TV. 2. Fact: The Wii Remote is designed to be swung around in a way that simulates various sporting equipment, such as baseball bats, golf clubs, tennis raquets, baseballs, etc. 3. Fact: Many of said sporting equipment objects are normally swung or thrown in a quick, vigorous manner, thus it is only natural for a user to go through their normal use motions in an environment designed explicitly to simulate the normal sporting activity. Failing to do so in the real world would result in failing to play the real game properly, therefore any simulated environment designed to simulate these activities should be designed to handle the stresses of vigorous, realistic play. 4. Fact: The Wii Remote is basically cylinder shaped, i.e. there is nothing in particular sticking out to give a good solid grip. Compare, for instance, the large knob on the handle end of a baseball bat, designed specifically to keep the bat in your hands during vigorous swinging. 5. Fact: The Wii Remote is made of a smooth, non-porous plastic material. 6. Fact: Human hands get sweaty, especially during any level of physical activity or mental excitement, such as that experienced during real or simulated competitive game play. 7. Fact: Smooth, non-porous surfaces are extremely difficult to grip securely with any amount of sweat on your hands, no matter how slight. 8. Fact: The strap in question is explicitly shown in the manual as being a safety device to retain the remote should it leave the users hand during game play. 9. Fact: The strap in question is entirely inadequate for its touted purpose due to the fact that it is like those wimpy little lanyards you get "free" with many keychains, USB thumb drives and cell phones. It contains a very inadequate plastic clip and an exceedingly inadequate section section of string barely thicker than a few threads.
In other words, the whole design of this device and the games designed for it is meant to get you standing directly in front of your expensive LCD or plasma television, vigorously swinging a slipperly plastic object in various ways in an attempt to defeat your onscreen opponent. In many games that I've seen in the commercials the obvious way to play the game is to swing your arm directly and vigorously at the TV. This is normal game play as is being promoted by every aspect of the product! What the manual may
I have a Mac and a PC (XP) and I won't take sides on what's a better overall system because both have their merits. But in terms of usability, OSX has that infuriating icon bar at the bottom which doesn't nest with sublevels. The file system has a weird horizontal orientation in the 'explorer' which smacks of "we need to look different from Windows" logic. The window maximize feature (which doesn't lock to the screen) is also infuriating. But most of all... and this is something that I cannot forgive Apple for: The one button mouse is fundamentally inferior. Support for two buttons is limited in the OS.
Let me attempt to take away some of your frustration. First, set the Dock to auto hide, and ignore it. Then, use Command+Tab to move smoothly and quickly between APPLICATIONS. Within each application, use Command+` (backtick) to cycle between DOCUMENTS/WINDOWS within that application. It's easy, it's fast. If you let yourself get used to it you might even find it's just as good as the various ways Windows does it.
The Finder definitely needs and update but I find that sticking my most-used folders in the sidebar makes things run pretty smoothly. If you think it needs major improvement you aren't alone, that's for sure.
The window maximizing experience also takes some getting used to. I think it helps if you just let go of the mentality that every window in every application needs to fill up the whole screen. See, it's not really a maximize button it's a zoom button, and it's function is really defined by which application you use. I have found over time that it is nearly as useful in its own way as a real "maximize" button would be. You just have to get into a different mindset.
Don't like the one-button mouse? This is your weakest complaint, and it's been gone over a million times by now. ANY two-button USB mouse will work just fine with OS X and there are context menus in practically every application, so I don't know where you get the idea that support for two buttons is limited in any way. However I find that I very seldom need to access context menus in most applications because the keyboard shortcuts are so much easier and faster. Most of us got used to using the mouse way too much in Windows because the Control key based keyboard shortcuts are so cumbersome. The easy-to-use Mac keyboard shortcuts have replaced a vast amount of the mousing around I used to do in Windows. Furthermore, recent Apple notebooks have the ability to scroll and right-click just by using two fingers on the trackpad. So really the only problem is that you have to drop another $20 on a two-button USB mouse when you buy a Mac desktop machine. Whoopty doo.
Oh, and look up a little app called Quicksilver. It rocks, and gives you another reason to completely ignore the Dock.
It didn't work, though. My first thought when I read this article was that it's some Mozilla project. The Firebird guys would have been better off renaming their project, since few people had heard of it anyway. And my new computer doesn't even have a BIOS.
Ok, so yeah the bump in processor speed, RAM, and all the rest is nice, but they don't have an option for 7200 RPM HD on the 15" models anymore.
As others have noted if you bump up to the 160GB drive you're dealing with the new perpendicular recording technology, so that even though it is still 5400 RPM it has more areal density and thus performs similar to a 7200 RPM drive. Alternatively you can of course install a smaller 7200 RPM drive yourself by following the nice guides at ifixit.com. It looks a little daunting but it just takes a bit of patience.
I'm sure there is a 1GB SODIMM [soldered in] OOTB and just one open SODIMM slot remaining. If you add a 2GB SODIMM which is probably the maximum DIMM size on a single stick the mobo can read, that will make your maximum 3GB.
Incorrect. From the new specs:
1GB (single SO-DIMM) of PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory on 2.16GHz configuration; and 2GB (two SO-DIMMs) on 2.33GHz configuration; two SO-DIMM slots support up to 3GB
There are apparently still two slots so there must be some other reason for the 3GB cap. This is pretty frustrating. I'm sure I'm not the only one that was expecting the new models to finally support 4GB like Dell and everyone else. Still, it is an improvement.
If you're in a hurry scroll down and read my response to number 7 and 8, those are the important ones with hopefully useful information.
1. Unfortunately everything bad you say about the Finder is basically true. I've searched in vain for an Explorer style file manager or some kind of split-view file manager, but the closest I could come was Pathfinder which was way too complicated and still didn't do what I want. Fortunately the Finder does remember window sizes and positions so I've taken to simply manually creating two Finder windows one above the other that fill up the screen, so it's really easy to move files around.
2. The Dock has its problems but the main problem is the one you mentioned where people can have applications running with no open windows. That's really confusing to a lot of people. I have to continually point out the little black triangles and the fact that the name of the current application is always displayed up in the menu bar.
3. I have noticed that most applications do a pretty good job of getting close to maximized, but I agree that this can be very annoying to those of use who are used to the Windows style of totally filling the screen. Mac OS has been doing it that way since the beginning of time but I do hope they change it someday. It really comes down to how the application developers implement the feature, because it does work differently in different applications, which is weird.
4. Macs do have some strange filesystem problems sometimes. Disk Warrior should be bundled with every Mac, as far as I'm concerned. On the flip side it's so incredibly easy to do total backups of any Mac running OS X that in my opinion these problems are less important. Cloning rocks.
5. Yep. However I am so efficient with the keyboard and Quicksilver that I couldn't care less that applications are a little slower to load.
6. Yep. I usually recommend people get a cheap Microsoft optical scroll mouse to use with their Mac. Problem solved. You could probably find even cheaper off-brand two-button optical scroll mouses to outfit your school's Macs. After the educational discount and buying in bulk it probably wouldn't cost you more than $5 per computer, and in most cases they will probably outlast the computer.
7. You can't alt-tab between windows in the same application. You can switch between programs that way, but not between windows. So if you're typing something in one window (say in Word or whatever) and you need to switch to another document, you can press one of the function keys to get expose up, take you hand off the keyboard, grab the mouse, select the window you want, then put your hand back on the keyboard. This takes far longer and requires much more thought than just pressing alt-tab. You can also select the wind you want from the "window" menu or click and hold the application's icon in the dock until the menu comes up and then select it. Both of these are slower than having a context switch that shows all windows.
Hey buddy, you're going to love this one, it works in most OS X applications (besides a few like Photoshop that haven't caught up yet). Load up your typical multi-window or multi-document application and get several windows open. Now press Command-backtick (`). That's the one right above the Tab key on US keyboards. Voilá, you are now switching between documents (or just windows) within a single application. Words in the Finder and lots of other applications. I use it constantly. Little things like this are why I love my Mac because it makes me feel more efficient than I am in Windows.
8. There's no eject button for the cd drive. There's an eject button on the keyboard, but in order to use it you have the OS loaded. If you have a tray loaded cd drive, you can't turn the computer on and throw in a cd to boot from.
Not quite true. There is a way to load and eject boot disks without booting into the OS. In the olden days you could boot up with the mouse button held down and it would eject the flo
What kind of retarded rant was that? The readers are fully justified in expecting to get at least a faint idea of the point of the article from the title and submission text. If the information was so easy to find then the original idiot poster (a relation of yours perhaps?) should have included it in the submission so hundreds of thousands of/. readers could easily decide whether they gave a crap about continuing on to the linked article or reading the/. discussion. I don't think that's really too much to ask. If you had to do even 30 seconds of googling for such basic information on every/. submission I think even you would get pretty tired of it pretty quickly.
BTW, your comparison to common words is specious. The vast majority of the readers will know what words like "volcano", "Hawaii", or "iPod" mean. In comparison, this "SlingPlayer" doesn't have enough mindshare for most people to know what it is. Thus the number of perfectly reasonable posts asking why we should care. But congratulations on your simply mind-bogglingly magnificent googling skillz. I'm sure none of us could have figured it out without you.
Dinosaurs (Greek for "monstrous lizards") were reptiles. Frogs are amphibians. Isn't a modern reptile, like an alligator, more closely related to dinosaurs, and thus its DNA is better suited for filling the gaps, than a frog's DNA?
Actually I believe there are theories, based on the internal structure of "dinosaur" bones, that sauropods were either warm-blooded like mammals or physiologically somewhere in-between mammalian (warm-blooded) and reptilian (cold-blooded) animals. Note that sauropods are just one group of "dinosaurs", but they are probably the ones most people think of when they refer to dinosaurs as a group. T-Rex, brontosaurs, triceratops and other types of commonly identifiable dinosaurs were all sauropods, IIRC. Of course there were also actual reptiles like the ichthysaurs (ancestors of modern-day reptiles like crocodiles and alligators). But thinking that all dinosaurs were just reptiles has I think been proven to be an overly simplistic view despite the misnomer of "lizard" that was first applied to dinosaur bones over a hundred years ago. Forensic science at the time was a little less advanced.
Honestly I am not sure why all the keyboards and mice are USB now, the plug is no smaller, and you also give up at least one USB port to something that every non-server computer has.
Reason #1: USB is hotpluggable. PS/2 often isn't. Some computers will lock up or crash if you plug in PS/2 devices while they're running.
Reason #2: USB has become a cross-platform standard. Most USB devices will work on Windows, Macs, even Linux with the right drivers. Most keyboards and mice don't require drivers except for advanced non-standard features. Mostly they just work, and have done so for years. I applaud PC manufacturers for getting rid of PS/2, just like many people applauded Apple for getting rid of their proprietary ADB ports in favor of USB.
Reason #3: Cost. Consolidating devices into using a standard port means motherboards require fewer controller chips, which means cheaper, simpler computers.
Many computers these days are coming with at least four USB ports specifically to deal with the loss of the PS/2 ports. Things are really better this way, I promise. Although it would be even better if keyboard manufacturers would wise up and start putting a USB 2.0 hub in their keyboards like Apple has been doing for years.
And can we get a Mac with a USB port on the front of the box? I know that it's supposed to look like a simple design, but when I have to drag the expensive and fragile screen of the iMac I have at work around to get at the back of it so I can plug in the cable/thumb drive, so I can turn the screen around again so I can see it, so I can copy a file off of it, then turn it around and unplug it again, before turning it straight again so I can go back to work, it suddenly stops seeming like such a simple design.
I agree that there should be a port or two up front for thumb drives and such, but a lot of people like the fact that their AREN'T ports all over the place on Macs. If you have devices that you need to be plugging and unplugging they make these things called extension cables, you may have heard of them. You can even get cute ones with little lights in them in various lengths and colors. There is also a great way to solve the problem of not having enough ports by getting a miniStack V2 which also covers backups. You know, those backups that are so incredibly easy to do on a Mac. Some people even run their Mac mini right off the external Firewire drive for a little speed boost versus the slow internal drive. The miniStack V2 also has a couple of easily accessible USB and Firewire ports on the side. It's a great addition for any Mac mini, and I always recommend it over the Macally Minimate for many reasons.
By the way, the new Intel Mac minis have four USB ports so the problem with the keyboard/mouse taking up all the ports is solved, at least on the new machines.
I think Slate got it right when it comes to these ads. They're kinda funny, but really mean-spirited. They're "Haha...you suck!!"-ads that don't appeal to me. That, and the fact that they kinda make me happy that I'm running windows (not right now, right now it's Fedora all the way, I double-boot) instead of apple.
I disagree. To me they are cleverly hitting on a lot of percieved and real weaknesses of the PC world, which is good marketing strategy. They don't seem particularly mean-spirited either, to me. I don't see the Mac guy being particularly disrespectful or saying "Haha, you suck!"
It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
Newsflash: Computers moved out of the office a LONG time ago. I think they are mostly advertising to consumers, and consumers want computers that "just work", don't give them problems and let them do fun things. Besides which, being serious doesn't automatically make one productive and vice versa.
They also contain alot of stuff that's plain wrong. For instance, Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it. Set the date and time, account password and keyboard configuration, and bobs your uncle! Same thing with my digital camera, that works fine with windows, contrary to what one of the ads say.
I haven't reached this particular ad yet, but I'll bet what they're talking about with the camera is how much easier it will be using it with OS X. A lot of cameras come with their own lame software for Windows which makes it a total pain to use them. Sure, most cameras these days will work as a drive in Windows, but there is no iPhoto equivalent that makes it mind-bogglingly simple to get the photos off and do fun things with them.
Don't get me wrong, I think Mac OS X is a stellar OS, far superior to windows,
Let me be the third or fourth person to say that having a monthly kernel panic for no discernable reason is very far from normal. I'm hoping you've gone through the recommended steps for solving such problems:
- Repair permissions from the install disc. - Run DiskWarrior on your startup drive. - Run Apple Hardware Test from the install disc to check the RAM (extended test) - Create a new user and run as that user for a while. - Re-run the latest combo updater and security patches. It can't hurt anything. - If all else fails, Archive and Install and use the latest combo updater and security patches to get back to a clean install of the latest version of OS X.
Usually when I run into random problems with any computer it turns out to be bad RAM. The tests may even come up clean unless you do some hardcore testing with something like Memtest from a Linux bootable CD. Macs have a history of being even more picky about bad RAM and RAM quality than either Linux or Windows. Since your problems are fairly random I doubt that it is one specific application unless you always have some piece of third-party software running in the background whenever one of these kernel panics happen.
Good luck with permanently solving this problem. In my experience with many new and old Macs over the last few years, if it's running OS X there will almost always be a way to permanently solve any issue that comes up. Don't just sit back and accept the problems unless you've gone through all the available solutions.
It didn't matter to me what package format was chosen as the standard, but RPM format (actually an RPM format subset) was chosen. All those Debian distributions are doing more harm than good by not adopting it. There are areas where diversity is good, such as the back-end implementation), and areas where diversity is not good (the presentation layer).
The installer falls squarely in the presentation layer, with the package format arguably having a foot in both places: users will be looking for a specific type of distributable, so they should have to look for only one type. They shouldn't have to care about the container format (RPM or Deb).
It's not just Debian's fault. Even though many distros supposedly use RPM as their default package format they still can't cooperate enough to make it possible to download a single RPM package and install it on any RPM-compatible distro. There are still packages specific to Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE, etc. Linux is a joke when it comes to installing any third-party software that can't be found in your distro's package management system.
As a couple of other posters have already mentioned, this is one of the reasons so many of us are running OS X now on our desktops, although many of us still run a Linux-based server of some kind. We just got disgusted with the total lack of cooperation and advancement in this and many other areas.
My penance will be go to back and watch Star Wars 4 through 6 in a loop all weekend.
Can I re-apply for another Jedi card after?
That's no penance, that's a celebration! Unless you meant Episodes 1-3 (movies 4-6). In which case if you survive the weekend you get a lifetime Jedi card... and a free ticket to the local psych ward. Good luck!
TrueCrypt is your (our) only hope. They are Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I thought Luke was our (your) only hope, not Obi-Wan.
"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope... pssht-Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope... pssht-Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope... pssht-Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope -pssht... "
Ring a bell?
Please hand in your Jedi card and as you leave the building.
Original poster: "Dear Slashdot, I don't use FEATURE. Why don't you all band together with me to help get FEATURE permanently removed? After all, I'm sure no one else in the world actually uses or needs FEATURE. I don't need it, so logically nobody else needs it either. Even if they do it doesn't matter to me because I'm the most important person here."
Why don't we do something useful like lobbying to have the main keyboard shortcuts standardized across all platforms based on the actually-useful Mac OS keyboard shortcuts. First step, move the Ctrl key next to the space bar, or designate the Alt key as the main meta key for keyboard shortcuts. I used Windows for YEARS and about the only keyboard command I ever found useful was Alt-Tab. A few weeks using BeOS/Mac OS and I was regularly using a dozen common keyboard commands because they all use the keys right next to the spacebar. They're so easy to use that I use them all day long!
Obviously not every keyboard command translates between operating systems but there are a couple dozen commands that could be standardized everywhere for general desktop users, like (Q)uit, Close (W)indow, (E)ject, (R)efresh, New (T)ab, (O)pen, (P)rint, Select (A)ll, (S)ave, (D)uplicate, (F)ind, Find a(G)ain, Z/X/C/V (undo, cut, copy, paste), (B)old, (N)ew, etc. All of these keyboard commands are a total pain in the ass in Windows because of the position of the Ctrl key in the corner of the keyboard, so most people never use them even if they know about them. Sadly every Linux desktop environment seems to have copied this incredibly flawed Windows-style keyboard shortcut setup. What I wouldn't give for good Mac-like keyboard presets for KDE/GNOME. I tried to make one myself but guess what? KDE and GNOME used separate keybindings, and various applications used their own keybindings so I found that I would have to create new keybindings in a half dozen different ways in different locations in order to have any semblance of order. Guess what again? This is one of the reasons I bought an iBook. Standards. Consistency.
Seriously, if you want to make the world a better place for keyboarding just start by moving the Ctrl key to either side of the spacebar and work on creating standard keyboard shortcuts for ALL applications to use on ALL operating systems. I know, craaaazy talk. I'm not holding my breath either. But it sure would be something, wouldn't it?
This question comes up every few months here, and as far as I can tell TrueCrypt is really the only solution that even approaches what you and almost everyone else here is looking for. First off it's open source (check), it's under active development unlike many other encryption projects (check), it's already partially cross-platform (semi-check) with plans for a Mac OS X version, and it's the only free, open source encryption software to have a decent GUI, as far as I can tell.
If you have the backing of a real enterprise organization what you need to do is donate some time and/or money to the TrueCrypt project so that you can get the features you want. At this point there is really only one thing holding TrueCrypt back from becoming as ubiquitous as Firefox, which is that it hasn't yet been ported to Mac OS X and its GUI hasn't been ported to Linux yet. Feature-wise it will do just about exactly what you want, but the project needs resources and programmers to help make it totally cross-platform.
The day that there is a stable GUI version that runs on OS X, Windows and Linux is the day that you and the rest of us will FINALLY have a solution to cross-platform encryption needs. It will also be the ONLY cross-platform solution available, if current trends continue. Believe me, I have LOOKED, and looked hard, and there is NOTHING on the market that isn't either Windows-dependent on both ends (as you've seen) or some half-assed clunky little command-line program only suitable for statically encrypting and decrypting files (google bcrypt and ccrypt, cross-platform but useless except to a few geeks). TrueCrypt mounts the encrypted file or drive as a drive letter and lets you transparently work with the files without ever writing them to disk in an unencrypted format. Regular users aren't going to accept anything less than TrueCrypt's already proven ease of use.
Seriously, I can't emphasize this enough. TrueCrypt is your (our) only hope. They are Obi-Wan Kenobi. It's so close to what we all want, and nothing else even compares. Go ahead, keep looking. You won't find anything. If you have some resources behind you, as in money or programmers, aim them square at the TrueCrypt project and get things moving to get it completely cross-platform. The world will thank you and your enterprise needs will be met by free, open source software that will never die or cost you $100 per seat per year. Isn't that worth a little initial investment?
Hey, you were modded funny and you were probably being facetious, but let's just think about that for a moment. This blade senses your skin on contact. They test it with a hot dog. What if you wore gloves that were somehow designed with the same electrical signature of skin? Hot dog gloves, so to speak. They could have an outer layer with some gel or something in it, along with a more cut-resistent inner layer. I think you've accidentally hit on a great idea.
In fact I don't know why these SawStop guys aren't marketing something like this already, as it would greatly increase the safety factor with their machines. Which would you prefer, a 1/16th inch slice ripped out of the skin of your thumb, or the same slice ripped out of the surface layer of your glove? If they did this right it would be practically impossible to even get a scratch from the saw blade since it would stop before it even penetrated the various layers of the glove. We could go from dismemberment to deep scratches to zero injuries whatsoever. Wow. Just, wow. They could even extend the idea to gauntlets, tunics, head/neck coverings, etc. All designed specifically to set off this safety feature before the blade even touches your skin. I wonder if they could extend this to things like drill presses, wouldn't that be something?
On another tack, I say those big companies were quite right to turn down the immediate licensing and production of this technology. Why? The inventor wants too much money, for one thing. For another, it will cost megabucks to redesign every saw model and implement this across the board, with no real return for them. Last but not least, in this ridiculously litigation-happy country these companies would probably be setting themeselves up for huge lawsuits whenever a single one of these safety units fails to stop a serious injury. Right now they have the protection of "user beware" which is perfectly reasonable. If they implement this kind of safety technology and it ever fails (one in a million times is all it will take) thats when you get the idiot users suing the company for failing to protect them. If they are not extremely careful about this they could end up paying out millions in lawsuit settlements that never could have happened before they implemented these safety features. What happens if they accidentally put out a run of machines that have a flaw, where the blade gets stopped in 12ms rather than 3ms, resulting in the loss of a thumb? Can we say "class-action lawsuit"? I knew we could. Millions down the drain.
The author mentions that there is no economic incentive for the companies to implement this kind of thing, as if they should be required to pay for all accidents rather than just those resulting from faulty manufacturing, which would be just wrong. That would be like all those people who sued the gun manufacturers because somebody decided to shoot somebody. Companies should not be held responsible for injuries resulting from actions undertaken by individuals. What the inventor wasn't quoted as mentioning in the article is the flip side of the economic coin which I outlined above. Unfortunately, companies that do the right thing at cost to themselves often end up getting screwed for it. That has to change before there will be any economic incentive for those big companies to implement this. Nothing else short of a complete boycott of all products that don't contain this feature will get them moving quickly on it. And that probably won't happen overnight because this technology makes the products more expensive. I can see a lot of commercial shops that will be willing to shell out the extra cash just to avoid workman's comp payouts, but a lot of regular people and small shops just won't. This is going to take some time to catch on.
Personally I'd be interested to know how well this "world's fastest" kayak would do against someone in a Hobie Cat with their pedal-operated Mirage drives (based on penguin fins!). They probably wouldn't even allow one in the race due to the fact that you can propel it with arms and legs at the same time. When the other racers are resting their arms you can be gaining another hundred yards.
Slashdot Mirror
This page talks about that specific problem, at least with Linksys routers, and describes a simple solution using the DD-WRT firmware. Just changing a couple of network settings should fix it.
If you're getting a Linksys router you'll want the WRT54gL because that's the model that still runs Linux and has enough RAM and flash to use the full feature set of the alternative firmwares. As for running multiple security setups, I don't think even open firmwares can do that on a single router, so you'd need two. There are features that let you run as a hotspot. I'm not an expert on that so I'm not sure if you can run a single router as both a regular router and a public hotspot. It could certainly be done with two separate routers. Just make sure you run the two routers on widely spaced channels if they are in close proximity, like channel 1 and 11.
Having them on two separate networks is easy. Just leave the LAN IP of one router at the default of 192.168.1.1 and set the other one to use 192.168.2.1 with DHCP on and a gateway address of 192.168.1.1 (subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 on both routers). Any clients that connect to the "insecure router" will get an address on a different subnet.
Oh, and make sure you've turned on the connection encryption features of your BitTorrent client, that can help get around ISP bandwidth throttling, if that's a problem with your ISP.
Several people have already mentioned flashing the Linksys with the latest DD-WRT firmware, and I second that. But, I would like to point out an obscure problem that will strike you if anyone at your location is using P2P software like any BitTorrent client (Azureus, uTorrent, etc.) What happens is that the routers aren't designed to handle dozens or hundreds of short-term transient IP connections which occur with these applications. The connection cache on the router gets filled up sometimes within just a few hours and then CRASH!!! The important thing here is that this will also happen with the DD-WRT firmware unless you find and follow the instructions to change a couple of obscure network settings. The first time I tried using a WRT54g with the DD-WRT firmware I gave up after a few days because the router was so flaky I had to reboot it every couple of days. Once I found these settings I tried it again and it's been working for weeks now with no problem.
I have to assume that out of 6 male college students on a fast connection, at least one will be heavily using bittorrent or some other P2P apps that will definitely trigger this problem, and it may well be the only reason that you have to reboot your router all the time. Here are some links, first to the uTorrent FAQ page where I first found a reference to the issue, and then to a page on the DD-WRT site talking in detail about this issue. Both pages have instructions for correcting the settings with the DD-WRT firmware.
uTorrent FAQ
DD-WRT: Router Slowdown
One of the nicest features these open firmwares give you is access to increasing the transmit power of the router's antenna. By just increasing mine by about 25% above normal I was able to get four bars throughout my apartment where I used to sometime lose the connection entirely. If the reason you have two wireless routers is because the one router can't cover the whole apartment, this will solve that issue.
Others have asked already why you need two wireless routers. Besides spreading the signal out I can't really imagine any reason if you're all going through one cable modem. If both routers are set up on the same channel (most default to channel 6) then they will be interfering with each other much more than any outside routers are. Heaven forbid if both routers are set up with fully identical information and you are trying to use the other router as if it were a range extender. That would probably cause additional problems as both routers would be competing to log in the same wireless card at the same time. In any case, just ditch the other router unless you know what you're doing and have a specific reason to be operating two routers in the same area. To have any chance of not interfering with each other you'd have to put one on channel 1 and the other on channel 11.
Applying the DD-WRT firmware may seem kind of scary since there are all those notes about how you can brick your router, but it's really no big deal. Just print out all the installation instructions beforehand along with the instructions for recovering from a bad flash. Before you do the flash DISABLE your wireless card entirely so that it will be impossible to even attempt the firmware update over a wireless connection. That is really the main thing that causes bricked routers. If you avoid doing that and follow the instructions about first only applying the MINI version of the firmware to the WRT54g, you will be fine and you will end up with a much more useful router.
Now, if anyone there has a Mac they can download iStumbler or MacStumbler (I don't recommend the Mac Kismet unless you know how to remove kernel extensions from the command line in safe mode). Run one of those for about 10-20 minutes and it will give you a pretty clear picture of how many routers are nearby and what channels they are using. Pick a channel for your router t
I hope I can increase your certainty level.
You are comparing this to a service where you pay periodically according to a contract or something, and where you can only avail of the special discount one time (per household, or whatever). This is how subscriptions work. They keep track of who you are, so you can't repeatedly get a "first month free" deal by closing your cable TV account every month and signing up again. So the regular subscribers are not being penalized just because they offer a special short-term deal for new users.
When was the last time you got a subscription renewal notice (like for a magazine subscription) where they said, "Renew now and take advantage of our yearly subscription price that is 55% HIGHER than the newsstand price!" I would venture to say that you've never seen anything like that in your mailbox. The whole POINT of subscription schemes is for the seller to get a guaranteed yearly amount from you, while on your end you get a big DISCOUNT off the regular purchase price of the magazine (or whatever). Otherwise, why in the name of all that is holy would you buy a subscription for ANYTHING? You wouldn't, you'd just buy your magazine off the newsstand every month and save money.
For a product you only need to buy/renew once a year, this is even worse. They really are actively penalizing those who choose to renew their subscription if the subscription renewal costs more than just buying a new box at the software store once a year. Fortunately if you catch on to this scam there is really nothing keeping you from just buying a new box rather than submitting your renewal. Normally software like anti-virus doesn't even know who you are unless you bother to go through the registration process. You just install the new version and magically get another year of anti-virus updates. Most of the time there is no benefit to registering besides some nebulous "support" options.
I do hope you are more clear on the problem now. I know that if I had paid one or more of these subscriptions and then found out that it is cheaper just to buy the new version at the store, I would be PISSED and immediately demand a refund. Because I really can't tell the difference between this and a scam. Subscriptions are supposed to save you money, that is the ENTIRE POINT of subscriptions and the natural assumption of any reasonable person would be that paying for a subscription renewal would be the cheaper option even after taking into account any promotional discounts for new users.
"If it's possible to use these to "print" inexpensive lego pieces (within 0.005mm precision, iirc) then I am *SO* sold...."
They use 150 TONS of pressure to mold real Lego pieces, and manufacture millions of pieces every year. I don't know what's more hilarious, (A) that you think you'd be able to make copies cheaper with this machine than the mass-produced originals, or (B) that you think this machine has a snowball's chance in Hell of approaching that kind of precision, or, last but not least, (C) that you think you could make a fake Lego piece with this kind of machine that has even a fraction of the structural strength of the originals. What's the point? You do know you can buy bulk boxes of Lego pieces, right? There is no way you're ever going to make anything cheaper that would be worth using.
I also looked into this problem for storing files on large external hard drives. The conclusion that I came to in the end was that at this point in time there really is only one option if you want to be able to access the drive from Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. That option is the Mac HFS Extended file system. Yes, you do have to purchase MacDrive in order to access HFS+ with Windows, but it is a very well-established and popular product that works well and is going to be around for a long time, so it's a safe investment. There is also a driver for Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels here. HFS+ has been made more popular because of all the people who want to be able to access their Mac-formatted iPods under Linux.
Your only other choices for cross-platform compatibility are FAT32, NTFS, or Ext2, and they all failed my requirements in various ways.
FAT32 is the most universally readable/writable by most operating systems, but it has serious problems. The main issue is the 4GB file size limit, which was absolutely ridiculous even several years ago. The other problem is that Windows simply won't allow you to format a drive larger than 32GB (or is it 127GB) as FAT32 anyway, but the file size limit is much more of a problem. The only other option that Windows offers you natively for formatting large drives is NTFS. That solves the filesystem and file size limits but then you block stable read-write access from any other OS. There is no read-write NTFS support under Mac OS X, and the read-write NTFS support under Linux is still experimental.
I know a lot of people are recommending Ext2/3, and I also used to think that was the answer, but unfortunately the support for Ext2 on non-Linux platforms is dismal. There is supposedly an Ext2 driver for Mac OS X but it is basically alpha quality and highly unstable based on the user reports I've seen. Thus, Ext2 fails right there, for me. There are a couple of different options for Ext2 in Windows, and they work fairly well for the moment, but it seems to be one of those situations where one guy took some time to whip up some basic support a few years back when he had some free time. That's not the kind of thing that makes me feel good about being able to access my files easily from Windows in the future. There is no guarantee that it will be updated to work with Vista. There is no dedicated crew of people out there making sure that there is continuing stable support for Ext2 in Windows.
I was quite frankly surprised to see just how poor the cross-platform support for Ext2 was. I really was hoping that the open source world would put a little more effort into making Linux filesystems more accessible to other platforms. Instead what I've found is a situation where basically one or two hobbyists have played around with creating some support for like a summer project, and everyone else just sits back and whines that Microsoft or Apple haven't built support in for Ext2 on their own.
So in the end I plunked down my $49 for MacDrive (and $9.99 for a second license) and started formatting all my storage drives as HFS+. An added benefit is that I can copy files to and from my Mac without having tons of those dot files show up, since HFS+ is the native Mac filesystem and supports the Mac resource forks. A final and very nice benefit is that if the drive is hooked up directly to a Mac running OS X it can support journaling, just as Ext3 does under Linux. For me, HFS+ was the only feasible solution for file storage and archiving, and it's working out pretty well. YMMV, of course.
It's not the most perfect situation, but until everyone is able to agree upon a single, standard filesystem for all platforms I don't see any other workable option. I don't see it happening. Mac OS X and Linux may converge on ZFS in a couple of years, but I doubt Windows will ever join the fold and start supporting an open standard filesystem unless somehow the market learns to demand more standardization.
All that said, I think that giving a contract like this to a commercial vendor developing proprietary software would be... unfortunate. Funding addition of missing, necessary features to TrueCrypt would be a one-time expense (rather than one which scales with the number of systems deployed), and would benefit the private sector as well.
Unfortunately we're never going to get the government to use free/open source software, no matter how good, especially for something like this, i.e. security related. What really needs to be done is for a number of genius Linux and Mac OS X developers to join the TrueCrypt project in order to bring it up to feature parity on all three of the most common platforms. Of course TrueCrypt doesn't actually do "full disk encryption" as in encrypting the entire system drive so that you have to input a password to even boot up. AFAIK TrueCrypt can only encrypt non-system partitions, disk images and disks. So that's a big hurdle to overcome, which may require assistance and cooperation from both Apple and Microsoft. Good luck with that, of course. But TrueCrypt is the only thing out there that even comes close to being able to do this.
At the same time the community needs to start a foundation to market a commercially rebranded and "certified" version of the resulting open-source product that would be acceptable to governmental and corporate entities. Sort of like the way corporations go with Netscape when they won't touch Firefox.
Without these steps, non-Windows platforms haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of being allowed in government offices after this program hits the street. Which is very unfortunate indeed.
The suit is misstating the facts. It inversed cause and effect. The truth is
the remote left the user's hand and caused the wrist strap to break.
not
the wrist strap broke and caused the remote to leave the user's hand (from the article)
Actually, since the remote has no will of its own, the only actor here is the user. And the real fact is that
the user let go of the remote and caused the wrist strap to break.
But then, if it is the user who is the cause of the problem, it is really not Nitendo's fault. There wouldn't be much of a lawsuit.
Give. Me. A. Break.
It boggles my mind how the normally fairly competent comments from the Slashdot community can degenerate into a steaming pile of "anybody who would do that is a retard" comments and nitpicky, pedantic/semantic idiocy that misses the whole point. These must be the same morons who spout off ignorant group-think about stories like the McDonald's coffee incident, where if you actually took the time to find out the facts of the case any halfway intelligent person would have sided with the jury (who quite reasonably thought that McD's should be held accountable for serving coffee hot enough to create instant 3rd degree burns after repeatedly being warned not to serve their coffee that hot). Seriously, I've seen maybe three comments so far from anyone with a brain. Let's take a little walk through the facts, shall we? Amazingly, I will do this without even having seen one of these devices in person:
1. Fact: Video games are designed such that the player will want to position themselves directly in front of their TV.
2. Fact: The Wii Remote is designed to be swung around in a way that simulates various sporting equipment, such as baseball bats, golf clubs, tennis raquets, baseballs, etc.
3. Fact: Many of said sporting equipment objects are normally swung or thrown in a quick, vigorous manner, thus it is only natural for a user to go through their normal use motions in an environment designed explicitly to simulate the normal sporting activity. Failing to do so in the real world would result in failing to play the real game properly, therefore any simulated environment designed to simulate these activities should be designed to handle the stresses of vigorous, realistic play.
4. Fact: The Wii Remote is basically cylinder shaped, i.e. there is nothing in particular sticking out to give a good solid grip. Compare, for instance, the large knob on the handle end of a baseball bat, designed specifically to keep the bat in your hands during vigorous swinging.
5. Fact: The Wii Remote is made of a smooth, non-porous plastic material.
6. Fact: Human hands get sweaty, especially during any level of physical activity or mental excitement, such as that experienced during real or simulated competitive game play.
7. Fact: Smooth, non-porous surfaces are extremely difficult to grip securely with any amount of sweat on your hands, no matter how slight.
8. Fact: The strap in question is explicitly shown in the manual as being a safety device to retain the remote should it leave the users hand during game play.
9. Fact: The strap in question is entirely inadequate for its touted purpose due to the fact that it is like those wimpy little lanyards you get "free" with many keychains, USB thumb drives and cell phones. It contains a very inadequate plastic clip and an exceedingly inadequate section section of string barely thicker than a few threads.
In other words, the whole design of this device and the games designed for it is meant to get you standing directly in front of your expensive LCD or plasma television, vigorously swinging a slipperly plastic object in various ways in an attempt to defeat your onscreen opponent. In many games that I've seen in the commercials the obvious way to play the game is to swing your arm directly and vigorously at the TV. This is normal game play as is being promoted by every aspect of the product! What the manual may
I have a Mac and a PC (XP) and I won't take sides on what's a better overall system because both
have their merits. But in terms of usability, OSX has that infuriating icon bar at the bottom
which doesn't nest with sublevels. The file system has a weird horizontal orientation in the
'explorer' which smacks of "we need to look different from Windows" logic. The window maximize
feature (which doesn't lock to the screen) is also infuriating. But most of all... and this is
something that I cannot forgive Apple for: The one button mouse is fundamentally inferior.
Support for two buttons is limited in the OS.
Let me attempt to take away some of your frustration. First, set the Dock to auto hide, and ignore it. Then, use Command+Tab to move smoothly and quickly between APPLICATIONS. Within each application, use Command+` (backtick) to cycle between DOCUMENTS/WINDOWS within that application. It's easy, it's fast. If you let yourself get used to it you might even find it's just as good as the various ways Windows does it.
The Finder definitely needs and update but I find that sticking my most-used folders in the sidebar makes things run pretty smoothly. If you think it needs major improvement you aren't alone, that's for sure.
The window maximizing experience also takes some getting used to. I think it helps if you just let go of the mentality that every window in every application needs to fill up the whole screen. See, it's not really a maximize button it's a zoom button, and it's function is really defined by which application you use. I have found over time that it is nearly as useful in its own way as a real "maximize" button would be. You just have to get into a different mindset.
Don't like the one-button mouse? This is your weakest complaint, and it's been gone over a million times by now. ANY two-button USB mouse will work just fine with OS X and there are context menus in practically every application, so I don't know where you get the idea that support for two buttons is limited in any way. However I find that I very seldom need to access context menus in most applications because the keyboard shortcuts are so much easier and faster. Most of us got used to using the mouse way too much in Windows because the Control key based keyboard shortcuts are so cumbersome. The easy-to-use Mac keyboard shortcuts have replaced a vast amount of the mousing around I used to do in Windows. Furthermore, recent Apple notebooks have the ability to scroll and right-click just by using two fingers on the trackpad. So really the only problem is that you have to drop another $20 on a two-button USB mouse when you buy a Mac desktop machine. Whoopty doo.
Oh, and look up a little app called Quicksilver. It rocks, and gives you another reason to completely ignore the Dock.
Hope that helps.
It didn't work, though. My first thought when I read this article was that it's some Mozilla project. The Firebird guys would have been better off renaming their project, since few people had heard of it anyway. And my new computer doesn't even have a BIOS.
One word: ThunderCougarFalconBird.
Ok, so yeah the bump in processor speed, RAM, and all the rest is nice, but they don't have an option for 7200 RPM HD on the 15" models anymore.
As others have noted if you bump up to the 160GB drive you're dealing with the new perpendicular recording technology, so that even though it is still 5400 RPM it has more areal density and thus performs similar to a 7200 RPM drive. Alternatively you can of course install a smaller 7200 RPM drive yourself by following the nice guides at ifixit.com. It looks a little daunting but it just takes a bit of patience.
I'm sure there is a 1GB SODIMM [soldered in] OOTB and just one open SODIMM slot remaining. If you add a 2GB SODIMM which is probably the maximum DIMM size on a single stick the mobo can read, that will make your maximum 3GB.
Incorrect. From the new specs:
1GB (single SO-DIMM) of PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory on 2.16GHz configuration; and 2GB (two SO-DIMMs) on 2.33GHz configuration; two SO-DIMM slots support up to 3GB
There are apparently still two slots so there must be some other reason for the 3GB cap. This is pretty frustrating. I'm sure I'm not the only one that was expecting the new models to finally support 4GB like Dell and everyone else. Still, it is an improvement.
If you're in a hurry scroll down and read my response to number 7 and 8, those are the important ones with hopefully useful information.
1. Unfortunately everything bad you say about the Finder is basically true. I've searched in vain for an Explorer style file manager or some kind of split-view file manager, but the closest I could come was Pathfinder which was way too complicated and still didn't do what I want. Fortunately the Finder does remember window sizes and positions so I've taken to simply manually creating two Finder windows one above the other that fill up the screen, so it's really easy to move files around.
2. The Dock has its problems but the main problem is the one you mentioned where people can have applications running with no open windows. That's really confusing to a lot of people. I have to continually point out the little black triangles and the fact that the name of the current application is always displayed up in the menu bar.
3. I have noticed that most applications do a pretty good job of getting close to maximized, but I agree that this can be very annoying to those of use who are used to the Windows style of totally filling the screen. Mac OS has been doing it that way since the beginning of time but I do hope they change it someday. It really comes down to how the application developers implement the feature, because it does work differently in different applications, which is weird.
4. Macs do have some strange filesystem problems sometimes. Disk Warrior should be bundled with every Mac, as far as I'm concerned. On the flip side it's so incredibly easy to do total backups of any Mac running OS X that in my opinion these problems are less important. Cloning rocks.
5. Yep. However I am so efficient with the keyboard and Quicksilver that I couldn't care less that applications are a little slower to load.
6. Yep. I usually recommend people get a cheap Microsoft optical scroll mouse to use with their Mac. Problem solved. You could probably find even cheaper off-brand two-button optical scroll mouses to outfit your school's Macs. After the educational discount and buying in bulk it probably wouldn't cost you more than $5 per computer, and in most cases they will probably outlast the computer.
7. You can't alt-tab between windows in the same application. You can switch between programs that way, but not between windows. So if you're typing something in one window (say in Word or whatever) and you need to switch to another document, you can press one of the function keys to get expose up, take you hand off the keyboard, grab the mouse, select the window you want, then put your hand back on the keyboard. This takes far longer and requires much more thought than just pressing alt-tab. You can also select the wind you want from the "window" menu or click and hold the application's icon in the dock until the menu comes up and then select it. Both of these are slower than having a context switch that shows all windows.
Hey buddy, you're going to love this one, it works in most OS X applications (besides a few like Photoshop that haven't caught up yet). Load up your typical multi-window or multi-document application and get several windows open. Now press Command-backtick (`). That's the one right above the Tab key on US keyboards. Voilá, you are now switching between documents (or just windows) within a single application. Words in the Finder and lots of other applications. I use it constantly. Little things like this are why I love my Mac because it makes me feel more efficient than I am in Windows.
8. There's no eject button for the cd drive. There's an eject button on the keyboard, but in order to use it you have the OS loaded. If you have a tray loaded cd drive, you can't turn the computer on and throw in a cd to boot from.
Not quite true. There is a way to load and eject boot disks without booting into the OS. In the olden days you could boot up with the mouse button held down and it would eject the flo
What kind of retarded rant was that? The readers are fully justified in expecting to get at least a faint idea of the point of the article from the title and submission text. If the information was so easy to find then the original idiot poster (a relation of yours perhaps?) should have included it in the submission so hundreds of thousands of /. readers could easily decide whether they gave a crap about continuing on to the linked article or reading the /. discussion. I don't think that's really too much to ask. If you had to do even 30 seconds of googling for such basic information on every /. submission I think even you would get pretty tired of it pretty quickly.
BTW, your comparison to common words is specious. The vast majority of the readers will know what words like "volcano", "Hawaii", or "iPod" mean. In comparison, this "SlingPlayer" doesn't have enough mindshare for most people to know what it is. Thus the number of perfectly reasonable posts asking why we should care. But congratulations on your simply mind-bogglingly magnificent googling skillz. I'm sure none of us could have figured it out without you.
Dinosaurs (Greek for "monstrous lizards") were reptiles. Frogs are amphibians. Isn't a modern reptile, like an alligator, more closely related to dinosaurs, and thus its DNA is better suited for filling the gaps, than a frog's DNA?
Actually I believe there are theories, based on the internal structure of "dinosaur" bones, that sauropods were either warm-blooded like mammals or physiologically somewhere in-between mammalian (warm-blooded) and reptilian (cold-blooded) animals. Note that sauropods are just one group of "dinosaurs", but they are probably the ones most people think of when they refer to dinosaurs as a group. T-Rex, brontosaurs, triceratops and other types of commonly identifiable dinosaurs were all sauropods, IIRC. Of course there were also actual reptiles like the ichthysaurs (ancestors of modern-day reptiles like crocodiles and alligators). But thinking that all dinosaurs were just reptiles has I think been proven to be an overly simplistic view despite the misnomer of "lizard" that was first applied to dinosaur bones over a hundred years ago. Forensic science at the time was a little less advanced.
Honestly I am not sure why all the keyboards and mice are USB now, the plug is no smaller, and you also give up at least one USB port to something that every non-server computer has.
Reason #1: USB is hotpluggable. PS/2 often isn't. Some computers will lock up or crash if you plug in PS/2 devices while they're running.
Reason #2: USB has become a cross-platform standard. Most USB devices will work on Windows, Macs, even Linux with the right drivers. Most keyboards and mice don't require drivers except for advanced non-standard features. Mostly they just work, and have done so for years. I applaud PC manufacturers for getting rid of PS/2, just like many people applauded Apple for getting rid of their proprietary ADB ports in favor of USB.
Reason #3: Cost. Consolidating devices into using a standard port means motherboards require fewer controller chips, which means cheaper, simpler computers.
Many computers these days are coming with at least four USB ports specifically to deal with the loss of the PS/2 ports. Things are really better this way, I promise. Although it would be even better if keyboard manufacturers would wise up and start putting a USB 2.0 hub in their keyboards like Apple has been doing for years.
And can we get a Mac with a USB port on the front of the box? I know that it's supposed to look like a simple design, but when I have to drag the expensive and fragile screen of the iMac I have at work around to get at the back of it so I can plug in the cable/thumb drive, so I can turn the screen around again so I can see it, so I can copy a file off of it, then turn it around and unplug it again, before turning it straight again so I can go back to work, it suddenly stops seeming like such a simple design.
I agree that there should be a port or two up front for thumb drives and such, but a lot of people like the fact that their AREN'T ports all over the place on Macs. If you have devices that you need to be plugging and unplugging they make these things called extension cables, you may have heard of them. You can even get cute ones with little lights in them in various lengths and colors. There is also a great way to solve the problem of not having enough ports by getting a miniStack V2 which also covers backups. You know, those backups that are so incredibly easy to do on a Mac. Some people even run their Mac mini right off the external Firewire drive for a little speed boost versus the slow internal drive. The miniStack V2 also has a couple of easily accessible USB and Firewire ports on the side. It's a great addition for any Mac mini, and I always recommend it over the Macally Minimate for many reasons.
By the way, the new Intel Mac minis have four USB ports so the problem with the keyboard/mouse taking up all the ports is solved, at least on the new machines.
I think Slate got it right when it comes to these ads. They're kinda funny, but really mean-spirited. They're "Haha...you suck!!"-ads that don't appeal to me. That, and the fact that they kinda make me happy that I'm running windows (not right now, right now it's Fedora all the way, I double-boot) instead of apple.
I disagree. To me they are cleverly hitting on a lot of percieved and real weaknesses of the PC world, which is good marketing strategy. They don't seem particularly mean-spirited either, to me. I don't see the Mac guy being particularly disrespectful or saying "Haha, you suck!"
It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
Newsflash: Computers moved out of the office a LONG time ago. I think they are mostly advertising to consumers, and consumers want computers that "just work", don't give them problems and let them do fun things. Besides which, being serious doesn't automatically make one productive and vice versa.
They also contain alot of stuff that's plain wrong. For instance, Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it. Set the date and time, account password and keyboard configuration, and bobs your uncle! Same thing with my digital camera, that works fine with windows, contrary to what one of the ads say.
I haven't reached this particular ad yet, but I'll bet what they're talking about with the camera is how much easier it will be using it with OS X. A lot of cameras come with their own lame software for Windows which makes it a total pain to use them. Sure, most cameras these days will work as a drive in Windows, but there is no iPhoto equivalent that makes it mind-bogglingly simple to get the photos off and do fun things with them.
Don't get me wrong, I think Mac OS X is a stellar OS, far superior to windows,
I agree.
Let me be the third or fourth person to say that having a monthly kernel panic for no discernable reason is very far from normal. I'm hoping you've gone through the recommended steps for solving such problems:
- Repair permissions from the install disc.
- Run DiskWarrior on your startup drive.
- Run Apple Hardware Test from the install disc to check the RAM (extended test)
- Create a new user and run as that user for a while.
- Re-run the latest combo updater and security patches. It can't hurt anything.
- If all else fails, Archive and Install and use the latest combo updater and security patches to get back to a clean install of the latest version of OS X.
Usually when I run into random problems with any computer it turns out to be bad RAM. The tests may even come up clean unless you do some hardcore testing with something like Memtest from a Linux bootable CD. Macs have a history of being even more picky about bad RAM and RAM quality than either Linux or Windows. Since your problems are fairly random I doubt that it is one specific application unless you always have some piece of third-party software running in the background whenever one of these kernel panics happen.
Good luck with permanently solving this problem. In my experience with many new and old Macs over the last few years, if it's running OS X there will almost always be a way to permanently solve any issue that comes up. Don't just sit back and accept the problems unless you've gone through all the available solutions.
It didn't matter to me what package format was chosen as the standard, but RPM format (actually an RPM format subset) was chosen. All those Debian distributions are doing more harm than good by not adopting it. There are areas where diversity is good, such as the back-end implementation), and areas where diversity is not good (the presentation layer).
The installer falls squarely in the presentation layer, with the package format arguably having a foot in both places: users will be looking for a specific type of distributable, so they should have to look for only one type. They shouldn't have to care about the container format (RPM or Deb).
It's not just Debian's fault. Even though many distros supposedly use RPM as their default package format they still can't cooperate enough to make it possible to download a single RPM package and install it on any RPM-compatible distro. There are still packages specific to Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE, etc. Linux is a joke when it comes to installing any third-party software that can't be found in your distro's package management system.
As a couple of other posters have already mentioned, this is one of the reasons so many of us are running OS X now on our desktops, although many of us still run a Linux-based server of some kind. We just got disgusted with the total lack of cooperation and advancement in this and many other areas.
My penance will be go to back and watch Star Wars 4 through 6 in a loop all weekend.
Can I re-apply for another Jedi card after?
That's no penance, that's a celebration! Unless you meant Episodes 1-3 (movies 4-6). In which case if you survive the weekend you get a lifetime Jedi card... and a free ticket to the local psych ward. Good luck!
Why is the idea of over 50 planets so abhorent?
Just think of all the extra stars we'll have to put on the flag.
TrueCrypt is your (our) only hope. They are Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I thought Luke was our (your) only hope, not Obi-Wan.
"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope... pssht-Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope... pssht-Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope... pssht-Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope -pssht... "
Ring a bell?
Please hand in your Jedi card and as you leave the building.
Righteous my shiny metal ass...
Original poster:
"Dear Slashdot, I don't use FEATURE. Why don't you all band together with me to help get FEATURE permanently removed? After all, I'm sure no one else in the world actually uses or needs FEATURE. I don't need it, so logically nobody else needs it either. Even if they do it doesn't matter to me because I'm the most important person here."
Why don't we do something useful like lobbying to have the main keyboard shortcuts standardized across all platforms based on the actually-useful Mac OS keyboard shortcuts. First step, move the Ctrl key next to the space bar, or designate the Alt key as the main meta key for keyboard shortcuts. I used Windows for YEARS and about the only keyboard command I ever found useful was Alt-Tab. A few weeks using BeOS/Mac OS and I was regularly using a dozen common keyboard commands because they all use the keys right next to the spacebar. They're so easy to use that I use them all day long!
Obviously not every keyboard command translates between operating systems but there are a couple dozen commands that could be standardized everywhere for general desktop users, like (Q)uit, Close (W)indow, (E)ject, (R)efresh, New (T)ab, (O)pen, (P)rint, Select (A)ll, (S)ave, (D)uplicate, (F)ind, Find a(G)ain, Z/X/C/V (undo, cut, copy, paste), (B)old, (N)ew, etc. All of these keyboard commands are a total pain in the ass in Windows because of the position of the Ctrl key in the corner of the keyboard, so most people never use them even if they know about them. Sadly every Linux desktop environment seems to have copied this incredibly flawed Windows-style keyboard shortcut setup. What I wouldn't give for good Mac-like keyboard presets for KDE/GNOME. I tried to make one myself but guess what? KDE and GNOME used separate keybindings, and various applications used their own keybindings so I found that I would have to create new keybindings in a half dozen different ways in different locations in order to have any semblance of order. Guess what again? This is one of the reasons I bought an iBook. Standards. Consistency.
Seriously, if you want to make the world a better place for keyboarding just start by moving the Ctrl key to either side of the spacebar and work on creating standard keyboard shortcuts for ALL applications to use on ALL operating systems. I know, craaaazy talk. I'm not holding my breath either. But it sure would be something, wouldn't it?
This question comes up every few months here, and as far as I can tell TrueCrypt is really the only solution that even approaches what you and almost everyone else here is looking for. First off it's open source (check), it's under active development unlike many other encryption projects (check), it's already partially cross-platform (semi-check) with plans for a Mac OS X version, and it's the only free, open source encryption software to have a decent GUI, as far as I can tell.
If you have the backing of a real enterprise organization what you need to do is donate some time and/or money to the TrueCrypt project so that you can get the features you want. At this point there is really only one thing holding TrueCrypt back from becoming as ubiquitous as Firefox, which is that it hasn't yet been ported to Mac OS X and its GUI hasn't been ported to Linux yet. Feature-wise it will do just about exactly what you want, but the project needs resources and programmers to help make it totally cross-platform.
The day that there is a stable GUI version that runs on OS X, Windows and Linux is the day that you and the rest of us will FINALLY have a solution to cross-platform encryption needs. It will also be the ONLY cross-platform solution available, if current trends continue. Believe me, I have LOOKED, and looked hard, and there is NOTHING on the market that isn't either Windows-dependent on both ends (as you've seen) or some half-assed clunky little command-line program only suitable for statically encrypting and decrypting files (google bcrypt and ccrypt, cross-platform but useless except to a few geeks). TrueCrypt mounts the encrypted file or drive as a drive letter and lets you transparently work with the files without ever writing them to disk in an unencrypted format. Regular users aren't going to accept anything less than TrueCrypt's already proven ease of use.
Seriously, I can't emphasize this enough. TrueCrypt is your (our) only hope. They are Obi-Wan Kenobi. It's so close to what we all want, and nothing else even compares. Go ahead, keep looking. You won't find anything. If you have some resources behind you, as in money or programmers, aim them square at the TrueCrypt project and get things moving to get it completely cross-platform. The world will thank you and your enterprise needs will be met by free, open source software that will never die or cost you $100 per seat per year. Isn't that worth a little initial investment?
hotdog gloves?
Hey, you were modded funny and you were probably being facetious, but let's just think about that for a moment. This blade senses your skin on contact. They test it with a hot dog. What if you wore gloves that were somehow designed with the same electrical signature of skin? Hot dog gloves, so to speak. They could have an outer layer with some gel or something in it, along with a more cut-resistent inner layer. I think you've accidentally hit on a great idea.
In fact I don't know why these SawStop guys aren't marketing something like this already, as it would greatly increase the safety factor with their machines. Which would you prefer, a 1/16th inch slice ripped out of the skin of your thumb, or the same slice ripped out of the surface layer of your glove? If they did this right it would be practically impossible to even get a scratch from the saw blade since it would stop before it even penetrated the various layers of the glove. We could go from dismemberment to deep scratches to zero injuries whatsoever. Wow. Just, wow. They could even extend the idea to gauntlets, tunics, head/neck coverings, etc. All designed specifically to set off this safety feature before the blade even touches your skin. I wonder if they could extend this to things like drill presses, wouldn't that be something?
On another tack, I say those big companies were quite right to turn down the immediate licensing and production of this technology. Why? The inventor wants too much money, for one thing. For another, it will cost megabucks to redesign every saw model and implement this across the board, with no real return for them. Last but not least, in this ridiculously litigation-happy country these companies would probably be setting themeselves up for huge lawsuits whenever a single one of these safety units fails to stop a serious injury. Right now they have the protection of "user beware" which is perfectly reasonable. If they implement this kind of safety technology and it ever fails (one in a million times is all it will take) thats when you get the idiot users suing the company for failing to protect them. If they are not extremely careful about this they could end up paying out millions in lawsuit settlements that never could have happened before they implemented these safety features. What happens if they accidentally put out a run of machines that have a flaw, where the blade gets stopped in 12ms rather than 3ms, resulting in the loss of a thumb? Can we say "class-action lawsuit"? I knew we could. Millions down the drain.
The author mentions that there is no economic incentive for the companies to implement this kind of thing, as if they should be required to pay for all accidents rather than just those resulting from faulty manufacturing, which would be just wrong. That would be like all those people who sued the gun manufacturers because somebody decided to shoot somebody. Companies should not be held responsible for injuries resulting from actions undertaken by individuals. What the inventor wasn't quoted as mentioning in the article is the flip side of the economic coin which I outlined above. Unfortunately, companies that do the right thing at cost to themselves often end up getting screwed for it. That has to change before there will be any economic incentive for those big companies to implement this. Nothing else short of a complete boycott of all products that don't contain this feature will get them moving quickly on it. And that probably won't happen overnight because this technology makes the products more expensive. I can see a lot of commercial shops that will be willing to shell out the extra cash just to avoid workman's comp payouts, but a lot of regular people and small shops just won't. This is going to take some time to catch on.
Personally I'd be interested to know how well this "world's fastest" kayak would do against someone in a Hobie Cat with their pedal-operated Mirage drives (based on penguin fins!). They probably wouldn't even allow one in the race due to the fact that you can propel it with arms and legs at the same time. When the other racers are resting their arms you can be gaining another hundred yards.