I teach computers at an elementary school (see URL above). I'm too tired right now to go into all the stuff we go into there, but probably their favorite activity that we do (in the upper-grades, 4th and 5th) is HTML. I teach them to create web pages using Notepad. Of course, this starts out with them getting used to the web first (I set up a 'portal' for the school, again see web site, and feel free to use it if you have net access there any find any of it to be of any use). This starts at the end of the first grade year or beginning of the second grade year, depending on reading levels of the students in each class.
Whatever the case, I have a handout that I give the 4th and 5th graders that I created and it gives them directions to create 1) a simple web page, then 2) a still simple web page, then 3) their own web page from what they learned and what they find in the source of other web pages on the net of their choosing. I always have a problem with time constraints, but I am still always really impressed with what they come up with anyways. There are some examples of their work on the school web site (http://www.hbcsd.k12.ca.us/peterson). Unfortunately some of the better work got deleted by mistake, ironically by a teacher at the school and not a student.
I remember that feeling I had when my first writings went up on the web. It was... amazing somehow. You see that same feeling/connection happen in the kids when their work is uploaded and available for everyone to see. Not only does the web make more sense to them through the process, but they become a part of it instead of just another spectator. Some of the students that really liked it would go home or to the library and practice. A couple of them were learning Javascript on their own by the end of the year last year. Maybe not the best start towards programming, but better than nothing I suppose.
I also have students do stuff in Word (starting gr. 1), Power Point (gr2+) and Excel (gr. 2-3+) (hey, its what's available). They really like Excel - I have them do surveys and grade books using the formulas from the beginning. Web scavanger hunts are fun too, from the portal search page usually. For younger ages, graphics programs are good for mouse control and teaching copy/paste and that sort of thing. If you're on Win32 even just Paint goes a long ways. Then for the upper-grades, teaching them basic networking is always good too. How your browser loads a site from a server across the world thru routers etc. I even use traceroute and ping with the fifth graders so they can see how many hops it takes to get to their favorite web site and that sort of thing.
I think the key to the whole thing is to lead them to discover things; they don't enjoy learning the stuff nearly as much when they're told about them as when they feel like they're the first to discover it. Then they learn other things along the way and remember what they learned. It's really a shame that more teachers don't remember that.
I'm really rambling but I hope I gave you at least a few remote ideas. Good luck, and be sure to have a look at our school web site. My e-mail address is the only one on there - feel free to use it. Hopefully my respose will be a little more coherant than this one.:P
I work at an elementary school, and a significant number of the computers we have here were donated. However, the key to our whole donation program (dated page) has been our dedicated volunteers. Most of the donated equipment, if not all of it, arrives in an unusable state. They tear everything down that arrives, test everything, then assemble the parts to create usable computers. Then we do actually recycle the broken equipment.
The 'old' computers some people here are calling useless get quite a bit of use here, all the way down to 486 machines. These work great for word processing and Internet access, among other things such as older (but still good) educational software. Ultimately the machines we have will need to be recycled somehow, but they're obviously of great use to us until then.
It's a shame that there aren't more *UGs and retirees out there contributing to this cause. Our two volunteers come to our site one or two days a week for a few hours and they keep us running very comfortably. One is a retired engineer and the other is his son. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have had any computers here the first two years we were open. Having visited a dozen or so other campuses, I can say that there are many other schools in the same position we were in a few years ago. Any teacher would attest to teh fact that an old working computer in a classroom is better than no computer in a classroom.
The volunteers have also put together computers from our parts bin for students that really want a computer at home to work but can't afford one. This has also proven to be a very good way to utilize old hardware. And the fact that the computers they get don't have decent fps just might be helping their grades anyway.:P
As for equipment failure, I would guestimate that about 80% of the equipment placed three to four years ago has been running without any problems whatsoever. Actually, the failure rate really isn't that far from the new machines that we have purchased. I guess that says something about how things are made these days...
So, bottom line... without volunteers, I would have to agree - old hardware isn't of much use to schools or other institutions without the means to pay someone to get the hardware working. But this would certainly change at any school if a retiree or a member or two of a *UG would donate a few hours of their time every month to a local school.:)
It did some weird stuff to the sound on my PowerBook (Pismo) as well. I'm dual booting, and now when I boot into 9.1 it says the sound can't be adjusted because it's in use by another app. So now I have no sound in 9.1 at all. Sux.
Another gripe I have is that I can't adjust the display brightness with the keyboard buttons until I open the Display Prefs. And I can't spin my hard disk down to conserve battery power like I could in 9.1. I guess they still have a long way to go with power management in OSX.
Ohh well, the fact that I can drop into a cozy shell environment whenever I want makes up for it.:)
I just downloaded/installed 10.0.3 today. It was 15MB, + 1.1MB for Epson drivers, plus the iTunes update (5-6MB?). 10.0.2 was ~14MB... I remember because my DSL had just crapped out and I had to drive to work to install it as my dial-up account craps out after 5MB of simultaneous download (I feel sorry for people still on dial-up heh).
Just thought I'd point that out, as 1-2MB and 14-15MB is a pretty big difference.
I do have to say though, it's really worth doing the updates. I don't care if they come out with new ones every day... my system does run a little better after each patch. Kudos to the OSX team.:)
As for the Updater, the default is for it to check Apple's ftp for updates once a week. You can change that to daily, every couple weeks, monthly, never. I do it manually. Nobody is forced to do any updates, so there is no such thing as 'too many updates'.
requirements are a bit steep (128k ram if you want to run os-x with classic)
Damn! 128k is steep! My Altair just isn't going to cut it I guess. Bummer.;)
BTW Have you checked into RAM prices lately? Under $40 US for 128MB PC133, about $60 for name-brand stuff. 128MB is by no means out of reach these days.
When I was a kid I used to have an Omnibot 2000 (robot) that would use an audio tape to record its movements, sort of like this (but different heh). I had coupled this with its built-in alarm clock so that it would come up to my bed to wake me up in the mornings. The cheaper Omnibot also had the same feature I think. I still have that thing in my garage, wonder what it goes for on ebay these days...
My last AutoCAD drawing was of the particle accelerator at Fermi for the National Department of Energy. What a bitch that was. The funny part was, they sent me cut up hard-copy drawings to go from along with what they wanted added on hand-drawn on the work (placement for a ton of fiber!); the majority of my work was piecing together what they already had (which had been drawn in AutoCAD before - and they still had the AutoCAD files). It is policy for them to do it this way so people don't pass top-secret information in the drawing files. In a way I can see what they are thinking, but in another way... what a huge waste of money. I charged them quite a bit to re-create something they already had.
Anyway, those plans were such a pain that they brought me to quitting AutoCAD completely. Even though they paid me quite well, it just wasn't worth the hassle. heh
If the US were counting votes using the popular vote, not only would leaders not campaign in states with small populations (does anyone really care about that?!), they wouldn't bother with legislation for them when it came time to, either.
Think about it. Everything that went through the White House would be completely centered on the coasts where most of the population lies in the US - the rest of the people would be forgotten. I.e. who has time to pass something that affects Idaho when most of the population is in California?
So things would be passed for the good of the people living in highly populated areas, not necessarily for the good of the country.
The use of electoral votes doesn't completely negate this problem, but the system does give the people living in states with lower populations much more of a voice than they would have if we were using the popular vote. Though it certainly has its flaws, it does serve its purpose better than any way I can come up with.
I just wanted to say that your efforts in contributing to the community aren't going unnoticed. I certainly don't have the patience you do... I would have shut it off after the first people screwed it up.:) I can't understand the bastards that try to screw it up. Wow... they have the ability to 'own' a machine when they already have root on it. Lame.
Anyhow, I'm hoping to do the same thing for some of my more advanced students (okay they're pretty young, but a few of them would do great with it) so they can access it from home etc. Hopefully it will give them a chance to learn something. One thing I know for sure, I won't be posting it to slashdot.:D
Best of luck, and I hope the idiots decide to leave your project alone.
The good: No contract, 1000 long distance anytime minutes plus 1000 off-peak/weekend minutes for $84/mo. I'm in Southern California and also use it in Maui, Hawaii with great coverage in both areas, very few dropped calls.
The bad: No free/cheap equipment. Not every city is covered, but they do make dual-band phones so you can always roam if you have to. Roaming fees aren't too bad...
The ugly: Lousey equipment line. I have a Nokia 6185 that I've had since it came out and I drop it regularly, it's hard to say how much longer it's going to last. I want a new 6260 and they don't offer it. When my phone dies so will my loyalty to Sprint PCS unless they add Nokia back to their line.
I don't know much about how their equipment works, is there any way of buying equipment from another provider and using it with Sprint PCS? From what I understand their stuff is all proprietory, which of course sucks and this proves it.:)
So anyways I'm happy with them, I just wish they would offer Nokia again. I e-mailed them over the weekend regarding this issue but haven't heard back yet...
What apps\utilities run on Darwin? I have been looking all over the place on the net to find this out with no luck. Can you compile *BSD apps on Darwin (on Apple hardware)?
For example, if I wanted to run Samba, Apache, tcpdump, MRTG, or even just use grep, would it be currently possible on Darwin? Anyone know of any web sites that list apps that can be used?
I have a chance to pick up a new Powerbook for dirt cheap this week... if Darwin can run these things now I'll jump on it.
Apparently you haven't traveled much. It's funny how environmentalists in the US tend to always blame the US for the world's problems (you only mentioned US cities). Try going to Asia or Africa or India, where garbage and raw shit is routinely pumped into rivers and oceans, and people who can afford them wear bandannas over their mouths and noses whenever they go outside because the air is so bad. The air burns your eyes and your lungs. It makes the air in LA seem as clear as a pristine national park in comparison.
Ohh yeah, the US still attributes to all this, because we are such huge consumers of international goods, right? Please. Place the blame where it belongs for a change.
I gave up TV completely in '95, cold-turkey... before that I used to watch 5 hours/day. Since then I have watched pretty much nothing, with only one exception...
I had to watch one program as a class requirement last year, I couldn't believe how horrible it was. Not so much the program as everything else (it was an 'educational' program). People really don't realize how much they're being brianwashed with all those advertisements and junk programming. And the way the film editing is done... things flash around SO much now. Most people I point this out to are so attinuated to this phenomenoa that they don't even realize it. No wonder why people are getting shorter attention spans.
Besides, there's so much you can do with your life that's so much more important. I started volunteering at a school with my free time and had more 'real' time for my friends and family (not 'hey lets watch mindless tv and not say a word the whole time' time together). Instead of watching someone else live their life on TV, I lived mine for a change. It really is pathetic how many people today are watching people live life for them on TV. What a waste.
"This has no relevance, but I'm abusing Slashdot to say that I think Bush is a rotten candidate, and while I don't like Gore, I would vote for a malignant carbon rod for president before I would vote for GWB)."
Yes, your bias does have relevance. If you were a Republican or even a Libertarian, would you have even posted this article (among others - that's the more important question)? Probably not, because the article is not particularly well-written and I have yet to find how it has any significance here. Sure, this happened to a guy from 2600, which I suppose makes him a geek. Lots of things happen to geeks every day, that doesn't necessarily make them newsworthy. Maybe last week I was in a store where an armed robbery took place. Should you post a story about that? "A geek almost got killed in a store, lets ban guns!!!" I come here for technology-related news, not political propaganda.
It will be interesting to see whether or not you post things about the Democratic Convention protests in Los Angles. Actually, it will be more interesting to see if you look for 'pro-Democrat' propaganda about the event and post that instead of the 'facts' from the opposing side as you did here.
Honestly, I knew the information I have been reading here daily over the past two years has been biased since day one, but this pushes it over the edge. You have the right to free speech, but this was totally unnecessary and unprofessional. Once Kiro is back, I won't be coming to slashdot anymore.
I spent several weeks trying to make something like this work. It isn't as cheap as you might wish.
The video card required, which has a non-standard digital (not analog) output, is extremely expensive relative to the LCD you want to hook it up to. Also it doesn't quite work as smoothly as they (vendors/manuf.) might lead you to believe.
If you look around the EIO site a bit, you'll come across a testimonial for a Sage card. Don't believe it!! After weeks of looking around, I finally called the guy who wrote the testimonial at his house. What he basically told me was that the card was given to him by the company to test, and he didn't want to write a bad review because of it. He said it was an absolute nightmare to get working, and it didn't perform well at all when it finally did work.
His final advice was to just look around for cheap LCD's. Fry's had one on sale... a Viewsonic 15"... for $650. The Sage card will come in around $350 + tax and shipping, and may never work. Then you need a case for the display and an inverter, if you can find one.
Another thing to keep in mind is the length of the cable. I think you only get like 18" or something for these. In your application, that might work. But for what most people are probably trying to do, it won't.
I know I know, I didn't want to believe it either. But sometimes you just can't beat the system.:(
If you find a way, I'd love to hear about it!! I have several LCD's sitting around waiting for me to set up a Matrix-like 12 display system for my house.:)
If you haven't read the whole Gambit page, they have it at PalmGear HQ (and they haven't removed it yet). My guess is that they didn't want to get Slashdotted, but who knows maybe they'll remove it from PalmGear as well. Get it quick if you want it!
I'm a technology coordinator and computer lab instructor for an elementary school. We opened three years ago, and ever since a large chunk of our budget has been set aside each year and used for buying classroom computers.
I think this article is based on schools that use computers for several hours during an average school day. I'll be the first to say that most classrooms aren't like that at the elementary level. Even in elementary classrooms with 5-8 computers (or even 20 computers), for each student to spend 30 minutes on a computer (average) per day is very unusual. There are just too many other things to do. And yes, I realize there are some schools that have students on computers for the majority of the day. After visiting dozens of schools in the US I think I'm qualified to say that those schools are the exception and not the rule. Most schools certainly don't strive for such an arrangement, either. Obsticles aside (financial, spacial, etc), there's much more to teaching and learning than just sticking a kid in front of a computer all day.
The fact that most teachers aren't comfortable with the technology is an entirely different subject. Even when well-integrated into curriculum (which I have witnessed in several classrooms), computers just can't realistically make up that much of the day in an elementary school setting.
As an aside, I have to point out that students who are more easily distracted and have problems learning typically perform their best (by a wide margin) on computers. I'm not talking about playing games, I'm talking about actual learning. I have conducted some informal little experiments with this and they have consistantly yeilded the same results. Just had to throw that in.:)
Promotional Statement: Check out some of the mini-web pages 9-11 year old students created using HTML! Student-created Web Pages
Waiver: Nothing I say reflects the values of my employer.
The main problem I have with cordless mice is that they are too easy to lose. I lose my Palm Pilot on my desks regularly (at home and at work). Who has time to be organized these days... and with so many gadgets to keep track of it's easy to make a mess of things on any desk.
Most GUIs aren't configured to be *easy* to use without a mouse, so losing your mouse could be a Bad Thing(tm). I wonder if Apple has considered this.
Perhaps the people over at Apple will be clever and include a built-in Clapper(tm) in their new mice. Lost your mouse? Just clap a few times and it will squeek back at you, or better yet it will scurry around a bit till you see some papers on your desk moving around.
I think something that would be awesome to include in something like this would be a form of redundancy. I'm not sure how it could be done, but one drawback of HTML is that if you can only provide a single location that the browser can grab an image from an image tag for example. If you could list several locations in the code for the same image and have it be transparent to the browser, that would be helpful for example if a web server went down that was holding your images. Or if you could do the same with links, where there's only one place for the viewer to click, but it will try all of them in the list until the browser finds one that works. This could even be extended to randomly choose one of the servers in the list. This could be a form of HA for people that can't afford the Real Thing(tm), and it goes without saying that it could help at least meet some of the shortcomings of today's web.
Another thought that I had was a [somewhat primative] form of load balancing for servers that actually took place on the client side (which would sort of crudly happen with the randomized link idea above). Before downloading everything off a site (images, video, etc.) the browser could go through some sort of ping function to see which server was closest to it in terms of latency or availability, or better yet it could be coded into the server to report it's bandwidth/CPU load or some sort of combination of relevant data to the browser and let the browser decide which server would be best to obtain the data from. This routine would be outlined at the beginning of the code for the web page. This could also be extended a great deal to even include things like distinguish between data types to help choose servers accordingly, etc.
If you think about it, HTML/web servers could be much more intelligent than they are now, and the best time to add intelligence would be when adopting a new format like this. While we're at it, we should also do a bit more to protect privacy. Intelligence combined with privacy... could it be possible?:P
Something similar to this in terms of redundancy also needs to happen with DNS and is long overdue. Just had to add that.
I only worked through May this year just to pay taxes, that wasn't enough. I want to work 'till June next year. In fact, if they don't add more taxes next year I'll just send them the extra money anyway. Just because the government is so damned efficient at how they spend my money and fund such streamlined programs.
Actually, now that I think about it I'll just work and pay all my money directly to the government and live in a government-funded shelter. I'll go to the library for Internet access... it's not as good as my DSL but at least it's funded by the government and everyone is sharing the bandwidth instead of me just hogging my own DSL.
Thanks for starting the ball rolling on this great idea!
Just a clue: if you currently reside in a country that embraces capitalism, I suggest you leave as soon as possible and see what life is like elsewhere (I would bet you have never experienced this - otherwise I'm sure your tune would be different). I guarantee you'll be back.
Slashdot Mirror
I teach computers at an elementary school (see URL above). I'm too tired right now to go into all the stuff we go into there, but probably their favorite activity that we do (in the upper-grades, 4th and 5th) is HTML. I teach them to create web pages using Notepad. Of course, this starts out with them getting used to the web first (I set up a 'portal' for the school, again see web site, and feel free to use it if you have net access there any find any of it to be of any use). This starts at the end of the first grade year or beginning of the second grade year, depending on reading levels of the students in each class.
:P
Whatever the case, I have a handout that I give the 4th and 5th graders that I created and it gives them directions to create 1) a simple web page, then 2) a still simple web page, then 3) their own web page from what they learned and what they find in the source of other web pages on the net of their choosing. I always have a problem with time constraints, but I am still always really impressed with what they come up with anyways. There are some examples of their work on the school web site (http://www.hbcsd.k12.ca.us/peterson). Unfortunately some of the better work got deleted by mistake, ironically by a teacher at the school and not a student.
I remember that feeling I had when my first writings went up on the web. It was... amazing somehow. You see that same feeling/connection happen in the kids when their work is uploaded and available for everyone to see. Not only does the web make more sense to them through the process, but they become a part of it instead of just another spectator. Some of the students that really liked it would go home or to the library and practice. A couple of them were learning Javascript on their own by the end of the year last year. Maybe not the best start towards programming, but better than nothing I suppose.
I also have students do stuff in Word (starting gr. 1), Power Point (gr2+) and Excel (gr. 2-3+) (hey, its what's available). They really like Excel - I have them do surveys and grade books using the formulas from the beginning. Web scavanger hunts are fun too, from the portal search page usually. For younger ages, graphics programs are good for mouse control and teaching copy/paste and that sort of thing. If you're on Win32 even just Paint goes a long ways. Then for the upper-grades, teaching them basic networking is always good too. How your browser loads a site from a server across the world thru routers etc. I even use traceroute and ping with the fifth graders so they can see how many hops it takes to get to their favorite web site and that sort of thing.
I think the key to the whole thing is to lead them to discover things; they don't enjoy learning the stuff nearly as much when they're told about them as when they feel like they're the first to discover it. Then they learn other things along the way and remember what they learned. It's really a shame that more teachers don't remember that.
I'm really rambling but I hope I gave you at least a few remote ideas. Good luck, and be sure to have a look at our school web site. My e-mail address is the only one on there - feel free to use it. Hopefully my respose will be a little more coherant than this one.
--SONET
The 'old' computers some people here are calling useless get quite a bit of use here, all the way down to 486 machines. These work great for word processing and Internet access, among other things such as older (but still good) educational software. Ultimately the machines we have will need to be recycled somehow, but they're obviously of great use to us until then.
It's a shame that there aren't more *UGs and retirees out there contributing to this cause. Our two volunteers come to our site one or two days a week for a few hours and they keep us running very comfortably. One is a retired engineer and the other is his son. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have had any computers here the first two years we were open. Having visited a dozen or so other campuses, I can say that there are many other schools in the same position we were in a few years ago. Any teacher would attest to teh fact that an old working computer in a classroom is better than no computer in a classroom.
The volunteers have also put together computers from our parts bin for students that really want a computer at home to work but can't afford one. This has also proven to be a very good way to utilize old hardware. And the fact that the computers they get don't have decent fps just might be helping their grades anyway. :P
As for equipment failure, I would guestimate that about 80% of the equipment placed three to four years ago has been running without any problems whatsoever. Actually, the failure rate really isn't that far from the new machines that we have purchased. I guess that says something about how things are made these days...
So, bottom line... without volunteers, I would have to agree - old hardware isn't of much use to schools or other institutions without the means to pay someone to get the hardware working. But this would certainly change at any school if a retiree or a member or two of a *UG would donate a few hours of their time every month to a local school. :)
--SONET
It did some weird stuff to the sound on my PowerBook (Pismo) as well. I'm dual booting, and now when I boot into 9.1 it says the sound can't be adjusted because it's in use by another app. So now I have no sound in 9.1 at all. Sux.
:)
Another gripe I have is that I can't adjust the display brightness with the keyboard buttons until I open the Display Prefs. And I can't spin my hard disk down to conserve battery power like I could in 9.1. I guess they still have a long way to go with power management in OSX.
Ohh well, the fact that I can drop into a cozy shell environment whenever I want makes up for it.
--SONET
I just downloaded/installed 10.0.3 today. It was 15MB, + 1.1MB for Epson drivers, plus the iTunes update (5-6MB?). 10.0.2 was ~14MB... I remember because my DSL had just crapped out and I had to drive to work to install it as my dial-up account craps out after 5MB of simultaneous download (I feel sorry for people still on dial-up heh).
Just thought I'd point that out, as 1-2MB and 14-15MB is a pretty big difference.
I do have to say though, it's really worth doing the updates. I don't care if they come out with new ones every day... my system does run a little better after each patch. Kudos to the OSX team.
As for the Updater, the default is for it to check Apple's ftp for updates once a week. You can change that to daily, every couple weeks, monthly, never. I do it manually. Nobody is forced to do any updates, so there is no such thing as 'too many updates'.
--SONET
Damn! 128k is steep! My Altair just isn't going to cut it I guess. Bummer. ;)
BTW Have you checked into RAM prices lately? Under $40 US for 128MB PC133, about $60 for name-brand stuff. 128MB is by no means out of reach these days.
SONET
When I was a kid I used to have an Omnibot 2000 (robot) that would use an audio tape to record its movements, sort of like this (but different heh). I had coupled this with its built-in alarm clock so that it would come up to my bed to wake me up in the mornings. The cheaper Omnibot also had the same feature I think. I still have that thing in my garage, wonder what it goes for on ebay these days...
--SONET
I can send you a topo if you want it. :)
--SONET
My last AutoCAD drawing was of the particle accelerator at Fermi for the National Department of Energy. What a bitch that was. The funny part was, they sent me cut up hard-copy drawings to go from along with what they wanted added on hand-drawn on the work (placement for a ton of fiber!); the majority of my work was piecing together what they already had (which had been drawn in AutoCAD before - and they still had the AutoCAD files). It is policy for them to do it this way so people don't pass top-secret information in the drawing files. In a way I can see what they are thinking, but in another way... what a huge waste of money. I charged them quite a bit to re-create something they already had.
Anyway, those plans were such a pain that they brought me to quitting AutoCAD completely. Even though they paid me quite well, it just wasn't worth the hassle. heh
--SONET
I think you're missing the point.
If the US were counting votes using the popular vote, not only would leaders not campaign in states with small populations (does anyone really care about that?!), they wouldn't bother with legislation for them when it came time to, either.
Think about it. Everything that went through the White House would be completely centered on the coasts where most of the population lies in the US - the rest of the people would be forgotten. I.e. who has time to pass something that affects Idaho when most of the population is in California?
So things would be passed for the good of the people living in highly populated areas, not necessarily for the good of the country.
The use of electoral votes doesn't completely negate this problem, but the system does give the people living in states with lower populations much more of a voice than they would have if we were using the popular vote. Though it certainly has its flaws, it does serve its purpose better than any way I can come up with.
--SONET
I just wanted to say that your efforts in contributing to the community aren't going unnoticed. I certainly don't have the patience you do... I would have shut it off after the first people screwed it up. :) I can't understand the bastards that try to screw it up. Wow... they have the ability to 'own' a machine when they already have root on it. Lame.
:D
Anyhow, I'm hoping to do the same thing for some of my more advanced students (okay they're pretty young, but a few of them would do great with it) so they can access it from home etc. Hopefully it will give them a chance to learn something. One thing I know for sure, I won't be posting it to slashdot.
Best of luck, and I hope the idiots decide to leave your project alone.
--SONET
I'm using Sprint PCS right now...
:)
The good: No contract, 1000 long distance anytime minutes plus 1000 off-peak/weekend minutes for $84/mo. I'm in Southern California and also use it in Maui, Hawaii with great coverage in both areas, very few dropped calls.
The bad: No free/cheap equipment. Not every city is covered, but they do make dual-band phones so you can always roam if you have to. Roaming fees aren't too bad...
The ugly: Lousey equipment line. I have a Nokia 6185 that I've had since it came out and I drop it regularly, it's hard to say how much longer it's going to last. I want a new 6260 and they don't offer it. When my phone dies so will my loyalty to Sprint PCS unless they add Nokia back to their line.
I don't know much about how their equipment works, is there any way of buying equipment from another provider and using it with Sprint PCS? From what I understand their stuff is all proprietory, which of course sucks and this proves it.
So anyways I'm happy with them, I just wish they would offer Nokia again. I e-mailed them over the weekend regarding this issue but haven't heard back yet...
--SONET
Anyone know where I can find 'Sheepshaver'? I tried Freshmeat and Google with no luck.
Thanks
--SONET
Hmm, from what I can find FreeBSD no longer supports PPC. I think NetBSD is the only one that supports PPC, with OpenBSD only supporting 68K.
:)
Thanks though
--SONET
What apps\utilities run on Darwin? I have been looking all over the place on the net to find this out with no luck. Can you compile *BSD apps on Darwin (on Apple hardware)?
For example, if I wanted to run Samba, Apache, tcpdump, MRTG, or even just use grep, would it be currently possible on Darwin? Anyone know of any web sites that list apps that can be used?
I have a chance to pick up a new Powerbook for dirt cheap this week... if Darwin can run these things now I'll jump on it.
Thanks!
--SONET
2.4??? Sheesh I'm still on 2.0 :)
It seems like 2.2 just came out not too long ago... what's the rush!?
--SONET
Apparently you haven't traveled much. It's funny how environmentalists in the US tend to always blame the US for the world's problems (you only mentioned US cities). Try going to Asia or Africa or India, where garbage and raw shit is routinely pumped into rivers and oceans, and people who can afford them wear bandannas over their mouths and noses whenever they go outside because the air is so bad. The air burns your eyes and your lungs. It makes the air in LA seem as clear as a pristine national park in comparison.
Ohh yeah, the US still attributes to all this, because we are such huge consumers of international goods, right? Please. Place the blame where it belongs for a change.
I gave up TV completely in '95, cold-turkey... before that I used to watch 5 hours/day. Since then I have watched pretty much nothing, with only one exception...
:)
I had to watch one program as a class requirement last year, I couldn't believe how horrible it was. Not so much the program as everything else (it was an 'educational' program). People really don't realize how much they're being brianwashed with all those advertisements and junk programming. And the way the film editing is done... things flash around SO much now. Most people I point this out to are so attinuated to this phenomenoa that they don't even realize it. No wonder why people are getting shorter attention spans.
Besides, there's so much you can do with your life that's so much more important. I started volunteering at a school with my free time and had more 'real' time for my friends and family (not 'hey lets watch mindless tv and not say a word the whole time' time together). Instead of watching someone else live their life on TV, I lived mine for a change. It really is pathetic how many people today are watching people live life for them on TV. What a waste.
Just my two cents
--SONET
Yes, your bias does have relevance. If you were a Republican or even a Libertarian, would you have even posted this article (among others - that's the more important question)? Probably not, because the article is not particularly well-written and I have yet to find how it has any significance here. Sure, this happened to a guy from 2600, which I suppose makes him a geek. Lots of things happen to geeks every day, that doesn't necessarily make them newsworthy. Maybe last week I was in a store where an armed robbery took place. Should you post a story about that? "A geek almost got killed in a store, lets ban guns!!!" I come here for technology-related news, not political propaganda.
It will be interesting to see whether or not you post things about the Democratic Convention protests in Los Angles. Actually, it will be more interesting to see if you look for 'pro-Democrat' propaganda about the event and post that instead of the 'facts' from the opposing side as you did here.
Honestly, I knew the information I have been reading here daily over the past two years has been biased since day one, but this pushes it over the edge. You have the right to free speech, but this was totally unnecessary and unprofessional. Once Kiro is back, I won't be coming to slashdot anymore.
Just my abuse on slashdot :)
--SONET
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
:)
Ohh please. You can append to that statement: Those who haven't tried teaching probably can't, either.
You, sir, are an idiot.
I spent several weeks trying to make something like this work. It isn't as cheap as you might wish.
:(
:)
The video card required, which has a non-standard digital (not analog) output, is extremely expensive relative to the LCD you want to hook it up to. Also it doesn't quite work as smoothly as they (vendors/manuf.) might lead you to believe.
If you look around the EIO site a bit, you'll come across a testimonial for a Sage card. Don't believe it!! After weeks of looking around, I finally called the guy who wrote the testimonial at his house. What he basically told me was that the card was given to him by the company to test, and he didn't want to write a bad review because of it. He said it was an absolute nightmare to get working, and it didn't perform well at all when it finally did work.
His final advice was to just look around for cheap LCD's. Fry's had one on sale... a Viewsonic 15"... for $650. The Sage card will come in around $350 + tax and shipping, and may never work. Then you need a case for the display and an inverter, if you can find one.
Another thing to keep in mind is the length of the cable. I think you only get like 18" or something for these. In your application, that might work. But for what most people are probably trying to do, it won't.
I know I know, I didn't want to believe it either. But sometimes you just can't beat the system.
If you find a way, I'd love to hear about it!! I have several LCD's sitting around waiting for me to set up a Matrix-like 12 display system for my house.
--SONET
http://www.hbcsd.k12.ca.us/peterson/technology
Liberty at PalmGear
--SONET
http://www.hbcsd.12.ca.us/peterson/technology
I think this article is based on schools that use computers for several hours during an average school day. I'll be the first to say that most classrooms aren't like that at the elementary level. Even in elementary classrooms with 5-8 computers (or even 20 computers), for each student to spend 30 minutes on a computer (average) per day is very unusual. There are just too many other things to do. And yes, I realize there are some schools that have students on computers for the majority of the day. After visiting dozens of schools in the US I think I'm qualified to say that those schools are the exception and not the rule. Most schools certainly don't strive for such an arrangement, either. Obsticles aside (financial, spacial, etc), there's much more to teaching and learning than just sticking a kid in front of a computer all day.
The fact that most teachers aren't comfortable with the technology is an entirely different subject. Even when well-integrated into curriculum (which I have witnessed in several classrooms), computers just can't realistically make up that much of the day in an elementary school setting.
As an aside, I have to point out that students who are more easily distracted and have problems learning typically perform their best (by a wide margin) on computers. I'm not talking about playing games, I'm talking about actual learning. I have conducted some informal little experiments with this and they have consistantly yeilded the same results. Just had to throw that in. :)
Promotional Statement: Check out some of the mini-web pages 9-11 year old students created using HTML! Student-created Web Pages
Waiver: Nothing I say reflects the values of my employer.
--SONET "Open bombay doors!" Peterson Elementary School
The main problem I have with cordless mice is that they are too easy to lose. I lose my Palm Pilot on my desks regularly (at home and at work). Who has time to be organized these days... and with so many gadgets to keep track of it's easy to make a mess of things on any desk.
:)
Most GUIs aren't configured to be *easy* to use without a mouse, so losing your mouse could be a Bad Thing(tm). I wonder if Apple has considered this.
Perhaps the people over at Apple will be clever and include a built-in Clapper(tm) in their new mice. Lost your mouse? Just clap a few times and it will squeek back at you, or better yet it will scurry around a bit till you see some papers on your desk moving around.
Just a thought.
--SONET
"Open bombay doors!"
I think something that would be awesome to include in something like this would be a form of redundancy. I'm not sure how it could be done, but one drawback of HTML is that if you can only provide a single location that the browser can grab an image from an image tag for example. If you could list several locations in the code for the same image and have it be transparent to the browser, that would be helpful for example if a web server went down that was holding your images. Or if you could do the same with links, where there's only one place for the viewer to click, but it will try all of them in the list until the browser finds one that works. This could even be extended to randomly choose one of the servers in the list. This could be a form of HA for people that can't afford the Real Thing(tm), and it goes without saying that it could help at least meet some of the shortcomings of today's web.
:P
Another thought that I had was a [somewhat primative] form of load balancing for servers that actually took place on the client side (which would sort of crudly happen with the randomized link idea above). Before downloading everything off a site (images, video, etc.) the browser could go through some sort of ping function to see which server was closest to it in terms of latency or availability, or better yet it could be coded into the server to report it's bandwidth/CPU load or some sort of combination of relevant data to the browser and let the browser decide which server would be best to obtain the data from. This routine would be outlined at the beginning of the code for the web page. This could also be extended a great deal to even include things like distinguish between data types to help choose servers accordingly, etc.
If you think about it, HTML/web servers could be much more intelligent than they are now, and the best time to add intelligence would be when adopting a new format like this. While we're at it, we should also do a bit more to protect privacy. Intelligence combined with privacy... could it be possible?
Something similar to this in terms of redundancy also needs to happen with DNS and is long overdue. Just had to add that.
My two cents...
--SONET
"Open bombay doors!"
Yes, you are right. We need more taxes!
I only worked through May this year just to pay taxes, that wasn't enough. I want to work 'till June next year. In fact, if they don't add more taxes next year I'll just send them the extra money anyway. Just because the government is so damned efficient at how they spend my money and fund such streamlined programs.
Actually, now that I think about it I'll just work and pay all my money directly to the government and live in a government-funded shelter. I'll go to the library for Internet access... it's not as good as my DSL but at least it's funded by the government and everyone is sharing the bandwidth instead of me just hogging my own DSL.
Thanks for starting the ball rolling on this great idea!
Just a clue: if you currently reside in a country that embraces capitalism, I suggest you leave as soon as possible and see what life is like elsewhere (I would bet you have never experienced this - otherwise I'm sure your tune would be different). I guarantee you'll be back.