This is not so much a uniquely US problem, as a uniquely Verizon problem. Their CDMA network is huge, but T-Mobile and Cingular are just two examples of nationwide GSM networks, complete with SIM-unlocked phones. Verizon has great coverage across the US, but for the technically inclined or anyone wanting "cutting edge," they're rarely the best choice, with outdated, locked phones and limited, expensive data capabilities.
Still, it's great to see them getting their due. Their attempt to lock up basic features in the US market is ridiculous, and hopefully this practice will end soon.
It's been _sort of_ mentioned before, but there is no comparison for photo printing.
A color laser, even the best out there, simply can't print a decent photo, and dye-sub devices are nowhere near the speed or quality of a good inkjet.
I'm in love with my Canon i9900; it's cheaper than a lab, it's as fast as a laser (draft text, anyway), and the photo quality far, far surpasses any non-professional photo lab. As soon as I can afford a decent 18 or 24" printer, I'll grab it.
I also adore my canon multi-function device; fast, duplex printing and decent quality scans/fax/copy.
For any serious photo enthusiast or professional, inkjets are going to dominate for a long time; it's fine to disparage a technology for certain uses, but it's always nice to avoid that/. group-think where everyone jumps on the "let's bash the technology i don't like" bandwagon.
The idea of a national ID card doesn't bother me, but the idea that a cop on the street can randomly stop people to ask for their papers? I'm sorry, but that scares both the willies and their little monkeys too out of me.
As I mentioned, if someone wants to give me a national ID card, cool. But if I'm required to carry it on me at all times, if my freedom of movement, speech, participation, whatever is restricted based on that card, then we've instantly lost an enormous amount of our freedom, and that's just scary.
Which I then squandered writing this post. Still, I'm going to put this on my parents' machine with their ghetto-ass cable connection, and see if it helps.
I think this is great; in addition to rabid political debate, there are also bound to be some gemlike stories that combine politics and technology. I for one have had several stories I thought would be of interest rejected from Slashdot over the past year or so; perhaps they'll find a happier home in the Politics section.
I haven't had a floppy in any of my systems for several years now, but every once in a while it comes back to bite me in the ass.
Windows XP, installs, for instance, STILL have to laod driver extras (RAID, SCSI, etc) from a floppy at boot -- even if the computer in question doesn't have one.
Companies such as Dell often package their driver and BIOS releases only onto floppy disk images; it's damn near impossible to pull out these files and install them from the hard drive or CD. That drives me nuts, but it happens.
So I keep a couple of old drives, cables and all, hanging around in a box, and I plug 'em in to the desktop systems when needed. Luckily my laptop has never needed one... I'd feel just plain silly going out and buying a USB floppy drive these days.
As long as the boom is still there...
on
Disney Goes Boom!
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm pretty excited about eventually seeing one of these shows in action. I don't think I'll miss the smoke of the rockets, as integral as that might be to a traditional show.
As long as the big boys still make that oh-so-satisfying "BOOM" when they go off, I'll be thrilled as ever.
I'm with you; I almost laughed when I saw this. From the side, a la apple.com, it's gorgeous. But from the front, it's hideous. I don't see this being an Apple best-seller at all.
I've been holding off buying the 600 because of the bluetooth issue -- the bluetooth headset is just too useful to pass up. But all there have been are rumors.
I wonder if this is the only product they'll be launching... all the Tro sites have been talking about 610s and 620s with about these specs.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to this phone greatly. If it can prove as reliable and useful, but with a better screen and Bluetooth, it's going to be a killer product.
Now if I can just afford it without having to sign up for a new cell plan...
My only question is, how does a backyard telescope track the periodic dimming of a star? To my eyes, the things dim and brighten -- twinkle, if you will -- pretty much constantly.
Err, wait, never mind. Just read the Harvard press release and the "It took several Ph.D. scientists working full-time to develop the data analysis methods for this search program," bit.
Seriously, if someone comes across it, I'm going to second calls for a major/. voyeur party. Just figure out where this thing drops its imagery...
I'm all about pictures of 15-yo gamers picking their nose in front of Doom3. I'd laugh my ******* *** off.
_Did_ anyone ever get fired for buying IBM?
on
IT Myths
·
· Score: 4, Informative
It seems like/. is the place to find out... if so, someone should write 'em and let them know;)
Server upgrades _do_ matter
on
IT Myths
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
At least in some cases.
I would never buy a server based on the ease with which I could replace a processor, but for my file servers -- both dedicated NAS boxes and Windows server machines -- upgrading things like storage space is critical. Being able to expand RAID arrays, replace disks (with larger models) individually or a few at a time, etc etc...
In storage, anyway, unless you are running an extremely predictible environment, upgradeability is one of the first things I look at.
I would never wish a child-porn cop visit or a DMCA copyright suit on you, but them's the dangers when running a public network...
I make all my clients close their networks, scaring them with made-up horror stories of cops showing up at people's doors, yada yada. But it's for their own protection.
"For the Linux buffs out there, check out PCHDTV when you get a chance. This company offers a software-based HDTV Tuner Card similar to the original Fusion I design which is exclusively for Linux. It uses the Xine engine for the HD decoding."
-- from the review. I imagine your comp will need some serious power under the hood though.
This took me forever to put together (F5 F5 F5), so you better like it. This is a very partial selection of the review; note that there are usually chunks missing between paragraphs. Go visit the site and give them ad revenue once they're stable again.
Fusion III Gold QAM Card
It has been nearly three years since I reviewed one of the first HDTV Tuner cards to hit the market. At that time, the Access DTV card retailed for $400.00 and the only HDTV station available in my area was the local CBS. While the adoption of High Definition has improved greatly, I have to admit that it has been slower than I expected. Equally as surprising is the limited availability of HDTV tuner cards. Until recently, there were few players in this market. I am happy to say that this is starting to change. Manufacturers such as Hauppauge, ATI, and Dvico have developed affordable HDTV cards. Today, we are looking at one of these cards, the Dvico Fusion III Gold QAM. What makes this card unique are some very exciting features that others do not offer. Most notably is the reception of QAM modulated streams. What is QAM you ask? Simply put, DIGITAL CABLE.
The Fusion also allows you to adjust the display ratio for virtually any screen. One of the features that we beta testers fought for was the ability to do a Pan & Scan from a 16x9 source. Nearly all HDTV broadcast are in a 16x9 aspect ratio. However, not all content is in 16x9. So, if the local news is being shown on CBS-HD, there will be black bars on the left an right of the screen. This is acceptable for a 16x9 screen. However, if the image is being shown on a 4x3 screen (computer monitor), you end up with a square image inside of a square screen. Luckily, Pan & Scan allows you to fill the entire screen with the image.
A recent feature which was added lately (not shown in this screenshot) is the ability to get analog audio through the PCI bus. Otherwise, you need to use an internal audio jumper cable for analog television. HDTV AC-3 audio is decoded through software and can be output as either 2CH analog, 5CH analog, or straight through the digital SPDIF out of your sound card.
For those of you who have still not seen HDTV up close, stop now and go download the Fusion Demo. HDTV on a computer monitor is quite impressive. I found the image quality to be remarkable on the Fusion and have included some screen shots below. Keep in mind that these are compressed JPEGs. Here you can see analog TV next to HDTV from a real broadcast that I recordeed of the same sitcom. The images speak for themselves. Click for a larger view.
NTSC Broadcast
ATSC Broadcast
While I found the image quality to be outstanding, I cannot say the same for the decoding capabilities. Some broadcasts seem to be quite jumpy depending on which version of drivers and software that I was using. 720P broadcasts were jumpier than 1080i. What is strange is that the CPU utilization was practically nothing using DxVA, around 30%. Still, at some times I saw dropped frames. When speaking to DVico about this, I was told that they are experiencing some problem with nForce based boards. However, I also tested the card on a VIA board with similar results. DvXA did deliver a much better image than pure-software decoding. Using software-only also restricts full-scale decoding. The software decoding option offers quarter, half, and full-scale decoding. Above half-scale was unwatchable on my 3200+. The image shown above is taken from a full-scale DxVA grab.
Analog decoding was exceptional. The software has built-in deinterlacing capabilities which greatly improves the image quality of analog broadcasts. However, a full-out deinterlacer such as DScaler yields better results.
QAM Decoding
Here is where things get a bit tricky. While the Fusion III Gold QAM is capable of receiving and decoding QAM, it CANNOT decode an encrypted channel. That means that it depends entirely on what your local cable company is encrypting for their d
Was he fired? Did he leave for a better-paying job?
If he was fired, then Seagate chose to let him go and it seems to me the only legal argument they would have is if a clause was built into his contract or NDA that prevented him from working for a competitor for a set period of time.
However, if the employee left on his own, it could be argued that he intends to use Seagate trade secrets over at WD (God I hope so; maybe then WD could produce a decent hard drive).
That aside, I could see Seagate having some legal ground here, although I don't really know how far they'll get if they don't have these technologies patented and thus available for public perusal anyway.
Seems like Seagate's argument is potentially reasonable, but very shaky legally -- I'd be surprised if they got anywhere with this, at least without agreeing to compensate the worker for lost salaries, plus lost advancement opportunities for the next two years.
I am always skeptical of how this will play out in the long run, but this looks like it could have a significant impact in returning fair-use rights to consumers.
I would love to know how this might act as a precedent for computer-based sharing methods... i.e. recording a show with BeyondTV or another PVR and emailing it to a friend.
Being able to type quickly and accurately is absolutely a necessary skill for anyone going into almost any line of work today. I would consider 50-60wpm a bare minimum for someone who wanted to keep up in most offices.
That said, however, I don't think it should be a separate course in schools. Basic computer skills are essential for any student; typing should be just another basic computer skill that they need to master. We are many years from a time when voice recognition or other interfaces might make keyboards obsolete, and any student who knows how to use Word and Excel but can't keep up when writing emails is going to be in trouble.
It's been said before in this thread, but I'll repeat it -- if you need a x86 laptop, the IBM T40, T41, and T42s are the way to go hands down.
My new T40p gets 9 hours of word processing, with battery usage totally minimized, or 5ish hours of high-performance work (including DVDs).
It's also fast and built like a rock. If you're worried about cost, look for "open box returns" from big companies like Zones or CDW. These are usually awesome deals, and even if there is something wrong with it that got it returned, IBM will take care of the problem in a snap.
Communal space is a must... but so is privacy
on
Building a Better Office
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The best-designed offices I've seen have enormous amounts (percentage-wise) of communal space -- nice cafeteria/kitchen areas, with lots of public (i.e. employee-accessible) dishes, supplies, whatnot.
People work together best when they have a comfortable space to do it.
I've also seen offices with semi-partitioned work areas surrounding a central communal space; i really like that environment. Of course, plenty of private storage for personal effects, large desk areas and line-of-sight to other employees are all good.
I like community, so to some this might sound like a cube farm -- but expanded greatly to give employees the space they need to spread out and do their work.
That is a little paranoid. Microsoft is very windows and office-centric; they won't do anything to sacrifice windows to sell another product which is almost certainly regarded as a fringe item.
It was bound to happen eventually, and I for one am actually glad about it.
My guess is a lot of OEMs will start shipping this, and my guess is that Microsoft will force reminders into windows to make sure people keep their definitions updated. so many people with Norton or McAfee don't actually bother to renew subscriptions to the virus definitions, and then wonder why they get viruses.
If Microsoft can at least build reminders into their Windows Update Services, maybe this will help slow the flood.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not so much a uniquely US problem, as a uniquely Verizon problem. Their CDMA network is huge, but T-Mobile and Cingular are just two examples of nationwide GSM networks, complete with SIM-unlocked phones. Verizon has great coverage across the US, but for the technically inclined or anyone wanting "cutting edge," they're rarely the best choice, with outdated, locked phones and limited, expensive data capabilities.
Still, it's great to see them getting their due. Their attempt to lock up basic features in the US market is ridiculous, and hopefully this practice will end soon.
It's been _sort of_ mentioned before, but there is no comparison for photo printing.
/. group-think where everyone jumps on the "let's bash the technology i don't like" bandwagon.
A color laser, even the best out there, simply can't print a decent photo, and dye-sub devices are nowhere near the speed or quality of a good inkjet.
I'm in love with my Canon i9900; it's cheaper than a lab, it's as fast as a laser (draft text, anyway), and the photo quality far, far surpasses any non-professional photo lab. As soon as I can afford a decent 18 or 24" printer, I'll grab it.
I also adore my canon multi-function device; fast, duplex printing and decent quality scans/fax/copy.
For any serious photo enthusiast or professional, inkjets are going to dominate for a long time; it's fine to disparage a technology for certain uses, but it's always nice to avoid that
My 2c...
Or Comedy Central's The Daily Show, or Battlestar Galactica with its new cult following, or the brilliant satire of Family Guy...
In every medium there's trash and gems. TV is no different from print, cinema, photography...
The idea of a national ID card doesn't bother me, but the idea that a cop on the street can randomly stop people to ask for their papers? I'm sorry, but that scares both the willies and their little monkeys too out of me.
As I mentioned, if someone wants to give me a national ID card, cool. But if I'm required to carry it on me at all times, if my freedom of movement, speech, participation, whatever is restricted based on that card, then we've instantly lost an enormous amount of our freedom, and that's just scary.
Which I then squandered writing this post. Still, I'm going to put this on my parents' machine with their ghetto-ass cable connection, and see if it helps.
I think this is great; in addition to rabid political debate, there are also bound to be some gemlike stories that combine politics and technology. I for one have had several stories I thought would be of interest rejected from Slashdot over the past year or so; perhaps they'll find a happier home in the Politics section.
I haven't had a floppy in any of my systems for several years now, but every once in a while it comes back to bite me in the ass.
Windows XP, installs, for instance, STILL have to laod driver extras (RAID, SCSI, etc) from a floppy at boot -- even if the computer in question doesn't have one.
Companies such as Dell often package their driver and BIOS releases only onto floppy disk images; it's damn near impossible to pull out these files and install them from the hard drive or CD. That drives me nuts, but it happens.
So I keep a couple of old drives, cables and all, hanging around in a box, and I plug 'em in to the desktop systems when needed. Luckily my laptop has never needed one... I'd feel just plain silly going out and buying a USB floppy drive these days.
I'm pretty excited about eventually seeing one of these shows in action. I don't think I'll miss the smoke of the rockets, as integral as that might be to a traditional show.
As long as the big boys still make that oh-so-satisfying "BOOM" when they go off, I'll be thrilled as ever.
I'm with you; I almost laughed when I saw this. From the side, a la apple.com, it's gorgeous. But from the front, it's hideous. I don't see this being an Apple best-seller at all.
I've been holding off buying the 600 because of the bluetooth issue -- the bluetooth headset is just too useful to pass up. But all there have been are rumors.
I wonder if this is the only product they'll be launching... all the Tro sites have been talking about 610s and 620s with about these specs.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to this phone greatly. If it can prove as reliable and useful, but with a better screen and Bluetooth, it's going to be a killer product.
Now if I can just afford it without having to sign up for a new cell plan...
My only question is, how does a backyard telescope track the periodic dimming of a star? To my eyes, the things dim and brighten -- twinkle, if you will -- pretty much constantly.
Err, wait, never mind. Just read the Harvard press release and the "It took several Ph.D. scientists working full-time to develop the data analysis methods for this search program," bit.
Cool.
Seriously, if someone comes across it, I'm going to second calls for a major /. voyeur party. Just figure out where this thing drops its imagery...
I'm all about pictures of 15-yo gamers picking their nose in front of Doom3. I'd laugh my ******* *** off.
It seems like /. is the place to find out... if so, someone should write 'em and let them know ;)
At least in some cases.
I would never buy a server based on the ease with which I could replace a processor, but for my file servers -- both dedicated NAS boxes and Windows server machines -- upgrading things like storage space is critical. Being able to expand RAID arrays, replace disks (with larger models) individually or a few at a time, etc etc...
In storage, anyway, unless you are running an extremely predictible environment, upgradeability is one of the first things I look at.
I would never wish a child-porn cop visit or a DMCA copyright suit on you, but them's the dangers when running a public network...
I make all my clients close their networks, scaring them with made-up horror stories of cops showing up at people's doors, yada yada. But it's for their own protection.
"For the Linux buffs out there, check out PCHDTV when you get a chance. This company offers a software-based HDTV Tuner Card similar to the original Fusion I design which is exclusively for Linux. It uses the Xine engine for the HD decoding."
-- from the review. I imagine your comp will need some serious power under the hood though.
This took me forever to put together (F5 F5 F5), so you better like it. This is a very partial selection of the review; note that there are usually chunks missing between paragraphs. Go visit the site and give them ad revenue once they're stable again.
Fusion III Gold QAM Card
It has been nearly three years since I reviewed one of the first HDTV Tuner cards to hit the market. At that time, the Access DTV card retailed for $400.00 and the only HDTV station available in my area was the local CBS. While the adoption of High Definition has improved greatly, I have to admit that it has been slower than I expected. Equally as surprising is the limited availability of HDTV tuner cards. Until recently, there were few players in this market. I am happy to say that this is starting to change. Manufacturers such as Hauppauge, ATI, and Dvico have developed affordable HDTV cards. Today, we are looking at one of these cards, the Dvico Fusion III Gold QAM. What makes this card unique are some very exciting features that others do not offer. Most notably is the reception of QAM modulated streams. What is QAM you ask? Simply put, DIGITAL CABLE.
The Fusion also allows you to adjust the display ratio for virtually any screen. One of the features that we beta testers fought for was the ability to do a Pan & Scan from a 16x9 source. Nearly all HDTV broadcast are in a 16x9 aspect ratio. However, not all content is in 16x9. So, if the local news is being shown on CBS-HD, there will be black bars on the left an right of the screen. This is acceptable for a 16x9 screen. However, if the image is being shown on a 4x3 screen (computer monitor), you end up with a square image inside of a square screen. Luckily, Pan & Scan allows you to fill the entire screen with the image.
A recent feature which was added lately (not shown in this screenshot) is the ability to get analog audio through the PCI bus. Otherwise, you need to use an internal audio jumper cable for analog television. HDTV AC-3 audio is decoded through software and can be output as either 2CH analog, 5CH analog, or straight through the digital SPDIF out of your sound card.
For those of you who have still not seen HDTV up close, stop now and go download the Fusion Demo. HDTV on a computer monitor is quite impressive. I found the image quality to be remarkable on the Fusion and have included some screen shots below. Keep in mind that these are compressed JPEGs. Here you can see analog TV next to HDTV from a real broadcast that I recordeed of the same sitcom. The images speak for themselves. Click for a larger view.
NTSC Broadcast
ATSC Broadcast
While I found the image quality to be outstanding, I cannot say the same for the decoding capabilities. Some broadcasts seem to be quite jumpy depending on which version of drivers and software that I was using. 720P broadcasts were jumpier than 1080i. What is strange is that the CPU utilization was practically nothing using DxVA, around 30%. Still, at some times I saw dropped frames. When speaking to DVico about this, I was told that they are experiencing some problem with nForce based boards. However, I also tested the card on a VIA board with similar results. DvXA did deliver a much better image than pure-software decoding. Using software-only also restricts full-scale decoding. The software decoding option offers quarter, half, and full-scale decoding. Above half-scale was unwatchable on my 3200+. The image shown above is taken from a full-scale DxVA grab.
Analog decoding was exceptional. The software has built-in deinterlacing capabilities which greatly improves the image quality of analog broadcasts. However, a full-out deinterlacer such as DScaler yields better results.
QAM Decoding
Here is where things get a bit tricky. While the Fusion III Gold QAM is capable of receiving and decoding QAM, it CANNOT decode an encrypted channel. That means that it depends entirely on what your local cable company is encrypting for their d
Was he fired? Did he leave for a better-paying job?
If he was fired, then Seagate chose to let him go and it seems to me the only legal argument they would have is if a clause was built into his contract or NDA that prevented him from working for a competitor for a set period of time.
However, if the employee left on his own, it could be argued that he intends to use Seagate trade secrets over at WD (God I hope so; maybe then WD could produce a decent hard drive).
That aside, I could see Seagate having some legal ground here, although I don't really know how far they'll get if they don't have these technologies patented and thus available for public perusal anyway.
Seems like Seagate's argument is potentially reasonable, but very shaky legally -- I'd be surprised if they got anywhere with this, at least without agreeing to compensate the worker for lost salaries, plus lost advancement opportunities for the next two years.
I am always skeptical of how this will play out in the long run, but this looks like it could have a significant impact in returning fair-use rights to consumers.
I would love to know how this might act as a precedent for computer-based sharing methods... i.e. recording a show with BeyondTV or another PVR and emailing it to a friend.
Being able to type quickly and accurately is absolutely a necessary skill for anyone going into almost any line of work today. I would consider 50-60wpm a bare minimum for someone who wanted to keep up in most offices.
That said, however, I don't think it should be a separate course in schools. Basic computer skills are essential for any student; typing should be just another basic computer skill that they need to master. We are many years from a time when voice recognition or other interfaces might make keyboards obsolete, and any student who knows how to use Word and Excel but can't keep up when writing emails is going to be in trouble.
It's been said before in this thread, but I'll repeat it -- if you need a x86 laptop, the IBM T40, T41, and T42s are the way to go hands down.
My new T40p gets 9 hours of word processing, with battery usage totally minimized, or 5ish hours of high-performance work (including DVDs).
It's also fast and built like a rock. If you're worried about cost, look for "open box returns" from big companies like Zones or CDW. These are usually awesome deals, and even if there is something wrong with it that got it returned, IBM will take care of the problem in a snap.
The best-designed offices I've seen have enormous amounts (percentage-wise) of communal space -- nice cafeteria/kitchen areas, with lots of public (i.e. employee-accessible) dishes, supplies, whatnot.
People work together best when they have a comfortable space to do it.
I've also seen offices with semi-partitioned work areas surrounding a central communal space; i really like that environment. Of course, plenty of private storage for personal effects, large desk areas and line-of-sight to other employees are all good.
I like community, so to some this might sound like a cube farm -- but expanded greatly to give employees the space they need to spread out and do their work.
That is a little paranoid. Microsoft is very windows and office-centric; they won't do anything to sacrifice windows to sell another product which is almost certainly regarded as a fringe item.
oh please let this happen. /. will have a field day.
It was bound to happen eventually, and I for one am actually glad about it.
My guess is a lot of OEMs will start shipping this, and my guess is that Microsoft will force reminders into windows to make sure people keep their definitions updated. so many people with Norton or McAfee don't actually bother to renew subscriptions to the virus definitions, and then wonder why they get viruses.
If Microsoft can at least build reminders into their Windows Update Services, maybe this will help slow the flood.
Maybe.