Unless you're a real videophile, you're probably better off just buying two really nice speakers instead of 7 average ones.
I agree. Of all the components that contribute to a sound system, the speakers are the most important. Recievers typicaly are flat within a db or less from 20HZ to 20KHZ. Speakers are not nearly as flat. Good speakers do make a differance.
My speakers are now over 20 years old. I bought good ones. They are still the most valuable part of my stereo.
Windows 98, I've always felt, was a drastically underrated version of Windows.
I agree. My wire got a new computer with XP Home to replace a box that became a hand-me-down to one of the kids. The XP box had a bigger hard drive. We decided to configure some shared folders the same way as the Windows 98 box. We found out very quickly that is not possible. To protect shared folders on the Windows 98 box we had set the permission to Read Only. (media files) so the kids don't mess with them but can play them.
Windows XP home no longer supports this configuration. The choice is full access share or not shared.
To solve the problem, I bought a NAS box running Linux. It is a much better fileserver. I can set up shares with permissions per user. Linux is better at sharing files than XP home or Windows 98. Per user I can set No access, Read only, or Full Access. The drive is encrypted to protect against physical theft. MS missed the boat on setting up XP home. It's access control should have been better than Windows 98, not worse. I wasn't looking to downgrade.
Sure it will work nicely on your old 386 sitting in the closet, but will it really increase the lifespan of your old vacuum tube monstrosity that takes up your entire garage? Might make an interesting experiment!
I finaly retired the old 386 SAMBA server. The BIOS was quite limited on the size of the hard drive that could be installed and the first partition was severly limited in size. Maybe I'll use the old SAMBA box for Apachie on the intranet.
I bought a NAS box. It runs Linux. It uses the Reiser file system. It encrypts the drive. It supports CIFS as well as NFS. It uses net time servers. It can do raid with USB drives. It uses a lot less power. It has access control lists for the shares. If stolen the data is secure.
The best part, it's a turnkey solution for under $300 including a much bigger hard drive.
I'll bet if you looked closer, you'd see that the idiots who "lose concentration" don't really know how to use the system. The nice thing about a map is that everyone understands how to use it. It's still massively dangerous. If you know how to use your nav system, it's easier than a map.
I second that one. Before I got a car with GPS, I spent too much time looking in the trees trying to read street signs. It's an easy way to hit the kid on the bicycle crossing from the other way.
Now I watch where I am going and know to take the next turn when the car announces "Next Left". I no longer bother trying to read the street signs. Who decided on green signs? They blend in nicely in the row of trees in residencial streets.
After dark, I use the display off feature to reduce the dash glare and clutter.
I have a Prius. It is one of the systems that disable input while in motion.
When they went to toys and phones instead of answers and parts, I stopped visiting. There are lots of places to get good prices on toys and phones. Why did they go from a niche market to an overpriced K-B Toys and cellphones? When I'm breadboarding a hardware project, I order online. I know the local Radio Shack doesn't have parts.
I actually just had an interview this morning for an electronics assembly position that pays minimum wage!
Stuffing boards is considered unskilled labor. It uses about the same talent as picking strawberries. It is tedious work. It uses fine motor skills. It does not need a degree.
always find it funny when they require ten years of experience
That weeds out the beginners who can't meet a production quota and bail because it's too much work for too little money. An employer looking for 2-4 years is looking for talent. An employer looking for 10 years is looking for steady cheap labor old enough to work and not play around.
As in, things for a bright college student to do, without needing 10 years of experience in everything.
That is the big reason I went military in the advanced electronics field instead of just school. Takes care of the experiance requirement. After that, got more schooling. It's a quicker path from an apprentice to journeyman. No student loan was a bonus.
I just did a search for Sound Engineer for grins. Nothing close on the first page. Lots of matches for Engineer, but nothing related to the sound recording or broadcast industry.
Google does better. I did a search for Sound Engineer Job and had matches on the first page.
"MP3 never had major-label content, and seems to have been relatively successful.
Are you kidding? Did I miss something over the Napster lawsuit? MP3's have had lots of major-label content. That's what the sue a bunch of music lovers each month is all about.
Current electrical motors/generators are up to 99% efficient, and the loss is mostly in resistive loss in wire.
There is no room for any meaningful improvement unless you claim to have more than 100% efficiency, and they do. Lunatic bin right here!
A common thread I see in many rebuttals is the conception that an increase in torque is an increase in effeciency. Not so.
Anybody besides me remember some of the motor generator theory regarding the cutting of lines of flux? EMF?
If a magnet is used in conjuction with a winding to get more flux, fine. Now reverse the field in the winding. Does anybody reverse the magnet? If the winding has to provide enough flux to buck the series magnet, won't a higher applied voltage be required?
Traction motors have for a long time used a series starting resistance to limit starting current and torque. When they reach their balance speed (full voltage operating speed) speed can be increased by reducing the field current. This reduces the EMF causing the armature current to increase. The free running speed of the motor is now higher. Effeciency is lower and the magnetic flux is lower.
It sounds like they are attempting to increase flux. The result may increase the torque, but at a lower running speed. To maintain speed at the higher torque, a higher voltage is required to counter the higher EMF. This may improve torque at the same current as before. The voltage would have to be higher resulting in more power in and more torque out at the same original current. This makes a higher power motor with the same loss as a lower power motor. So they are claiming more torque in the same package as a smaller motor. The torque is generated using the same current (not power, current in amps). Therefore it's a higher power motor with the same power loss of a lower power motor. Current squared times Resistance loss is the same. Higher voltage and higher power does not increase the I squared R loss. This may increase torque by a large ammount. This does not mean effeciency can be improved to over unity. Torque increase does not mean a direct increase in effeciency in the same ammount. Pay attention. Either the applied voltage must be greater to maintain speed, or the higher torque happens at lower speed. Please do not confuse a force measurement with a power measurement.
If needed please refresh on force units.. Grams, Lbs, Volts, Ft/lbs and displacement units... Inches, feet, meters, Units of time.. Minutes, Seconds, Hours, Velocity units.. MPH, Meters/Sec, Feet/Minute and power units... Brake Hoursepower, Watt, and energy units... Watthours, BTUhours, Calories,
An increase in torque with no regard to other values is not an increase in power. Time needs to be defined to figure power. A force times a displacement is energy. Lifting a pound a foot off the ground requires energy. It does not matter if it takes 5 seconds or 5 hours.
To lift a pound one foot in one second requires power. Power is the rate of energy flow.
If the article was a true scientific paper, the force, energy, power, and effeciency would have been listed. A torque, speed, mechanical power graph would be displayed overlayed on the the current, voltage, watts graph.
The power in to power out graph is the one to watch.
A simple same current higher = torque graph is meaningless.
The sort of folk who want your data that badly are likely to be able to handle your alarm.
They may be able to handle the alarm, but handeling the alarm and not leaving any tracks is much more difficult. It is like anyone can reset the BIOS password on my PC. Returning my PC back to normal with the warranty sticker in place, my original BIOS password in place, and the case intrusion alarm reset, is much more difficult. When they break in to tamper with the alarm, I hope they bring the correct replacement tamper proof stickers with them. I love PC's with case intrusion alarms. Many motherboards support a case switch. Learn to use it. My alarm uses a cabinet tamper switch also.
Getting in and not having the alarm call the central station is one thing. Finding the main box, clearing the event log, and putting my PIN back is another. Opening the locked cabinet and breaking the seal ads another layer to the task. They gotta be very good. Especialy when they don't get a free peek of the system ahead of time.
Finding the time lapse recorder and altering it's tape and it's event counter is even more difficult. Good luck.
Dumping power does not dump the alarm or video recorder. Both have plenty of backup power.
Learn to use the home court advantage when securing a system. Unauthorised access should always leave some evidence record that is extremely hard to eradicate without proper credentials.
Am I reading it correctly that CNet doesn't understand the difference between launching an executeable stored on an external media device, and somehow running it "on" the media device?
You are reading it right. I just finished viewing a Power Point Presentation titled something like "Owned by an i-Pod". The discussion was not about USB, but Fireware which is peer to peer. It can scan memory, do direct reads and writes, etc without the host OS. I would recommend going through the list of seminar materials and find the Power Point presentation.
I saw in another post USB has some of the same features as Firewire. It may be possible for code running on a USB device to slurp the host just like in the movies.
There's nothing you could do with the iPod that you couldn't do with your normal computer and any random external hard drive. And your access will be logged (or not logged) just the same as if you'd just run some normal program. What's the big deal that an iPod can do it?
Maybe...
What I don't know is if this will function on a machine where the screensaver has kicked in. If it does, than screensaver protected keyboard/monitor does not protect your PC from a visitor while you are at lunch. Does anybody know if it's possible for this to run while the screen is locked with a screensaver? In this case, the logs would point to the owner of the PC, not the visitor who recharged his ipod on your USB port.
I don't know the law in the UK (or the US for that matter), but wouldn't it make logical sense to just have the police install a hardware keylogger on the computer in question? Why break open an operating and file system and make it vulnerable when they could JUST as easily record the key's passphrase when it is used?
In my case, the physical access is the difficult part. All entry attempts trip the security system. Tampering with the alarm would leave it's own traces. In short, I don't have unknown visitors that come in un-detected to install a key logger. The number of alarm events is a running count much like an odometer. The monitored alarm displays any past alarms. I hope they are experts at clearing saved alarm logs without the user PIN.
Tripping the tamper switch on the alarm cabinet is also not a good idea. They can re-rig the alarm, and entry log, but can they put back my PIN?
I noticed the maximum for not giving up the key is 2 years and or a fine. Depending what may be on some hard drives, that will be the best choice.
Re:$$$$ for nothing but higher res? Sure, guys. Su
on
The Great HDCP Fiasco
·
· Score: 1
I keep looking at the soon to happen transition from analog to digital over the air TV. How come nobody in the stores will bother to put up an antenna and display real world digital TV? It's either one of the demo channels on one of the pay services (sat or cable) or in house loop. So far this makes it difficult to judge what to buy that works. The in store demos are great if you plan on connecting to cable or a dish. Connecting to an antenna seperates the monitors from the recievers. How can you sell me a TV for over the air television if you can't even demo it in the store. I need better assurance I can make it work at home.
The other thing I was looking for was the plan on getting rid of excess global heat that is trapped by greenhouse gasses. How do they plan on making ice out of sea water? Where is the heat going? How is it getting there. Melting ice takes in heat in the process of melting. To make ice, heat must be taken away. Spraying a lot of water in the air may warm the air and raise the humidity due to evaporation. After the air is saturated, where is the heat going? If the air is cooled, the heat required to evaporate the water is returned to condense it back into warm rain. Unless there is a way to get rid of trapped heat, ice will not form. Existing ice will continue to melt.
So I didnt have to enter a password each time, the first thing I did was go into the BIOS. I entered the current password and when asked for a new password, I simply hit 'Enter' and 'Enter' to confirm.
I have one of those HP's. I'll shed some insight into the issue since it happened at my house. The BIOS supports 2 passwords. One is a master password. It protects the CMOS settings. The other is the user password. Either can be used to boot the machine. Only the master will permit changing the CMOS settings. If the user password is deleted, it defaults to the master password. My wife had a friend over to do something to the machine and told me they deleted the password and now can't get in. I punched in the master password and reset a user password. System fixed. The only way to get a password free boot from a HP is to have both passwords blank. This leaves the BIOS freely accessable to anyone. See if the owner has a record of the original master CMOS setup password. Using that will get you in.
I entered the current password and when asked for a new password, I simply hit 'Enter' and 'Enter' to confirm.
Warning! Before doing this on any system, check if you can get into the CMOS without a password. If a CMOS password is set, you will be faced with the unknown master password. Be sure it is clear before deleting a CMOS boot password.
Hey, don't we need gargage men, factory workers, and clerks?
Yes. In the bell curve of the social economic scale, there are plenty of positions for those who have no interest in a higher education. I on the other hand am not on that end of the scale so I don't do the sanatiation engineer thing. I have other things that keep me busy. (I was one of the few who turned a hobby into a full time job and enjoy every minute of it!) There are lots of other people more suited to the position and do a good job of it.
No idea at all. But i guess if I run a single X10 for a number of devices, including IR, transformers, and charges, maybe it starts to pay?
Be a true geek. Instead of just tossing money at a solution, research the power draw of all the components. Eliminate the wastefull ones. (the nightlight in my bathroom uses 0.25 watts, not 6 watts) Does anyone know the power consumption of an X-10 relay module?
Some perspective please. Turning your TV on or off with a physical switch is hardly the biggest hardship in the world. A TV which physically turns itself off after (for example) a few hours on standby is not a hardship. It might even reduce power brown outs, smog, respiratory diseases, global warming and of course your electricity bill.
Some items draw secondayr power that many people ignore. A simple timer is the solution. I have installed fan timers in my bathrooms. Now when one of the family leaves the room smelly and the fan running, they done't have to remember to come back to turn the fan off in 10 minutes. The fan uses just a few hundred watts. The heated or cooled air it dumps out, when left on, is much more.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you're a real videophile, you're probably better off just buying two really nice speakers instead of 7 average ones.
I agree. Of all the components that contribute to a sound system, the speakers are the most important. Recievers typicaly are flat within a db or less from 20HZ to 20KHZ. Speakers are not nearly as flat. Good speakers do make a differance.
My speakers are now over 20 years old. I bought good ones. They are still the most valuable part of my stereo.
"Allow network users to change my files" is off.
thanks, I'll see if I can find it. I'll also check if that is a global switch or can be set per share.
I remeber fighting that and giving up looking for something that works.
Windows 98, I've always felt, was a drastically underrated version of Windows.
I agree. My wire got a new computer with XP Home to replace a box that became a hand-me-down to one of the kids. The XP box had a bigger hard drive. We decided to configure some shared folders the same way as the Windows 98 box. We found out very quickly that is not possible. To protect shared folders on the Windows 98 box we had set the permission to Read Only. (media files) so the kids don't mess with them but can play them.
Windows XP home no longer supports this configuration. The choice is full access share or not shared.
To solve the problem, I bought a NAS box running Linux. It is a much better fileserver. I can set up shares with permissions per user. Linux is better at sharing files than XP home or Windows 98. Per user I can set No access, Read only, or Full Access. The drive is encrypted to protect against physical theft. MS missed the boat on setting up XP home. It's access control should have been better than Windows 98, not worse. I wasn't looking to downgrade.
Sure it will work nicely on your old 386 sitting in the closet, but will it really increase the lifespan of your old vacuum tube monstrosity that takes up your entire garage? Might make an interesting experiment!
I finaly retired the old 386 SAMBA server. The BIOS was quite limited on the size of the hard drive that could be installed and the first partition was severly limited in size. Maybe I'll use the old SAMBA box for Apachie on the intranet.
I bought a NAS box. It runs Linux. It uses the Reiser file system. It encrypts the drive. It supports CIFS as well as NFS. It uses net time servers. It can do raid with USB drives. It uses a lot less power. It has access control lists for the shares. If stolen the data is secure.
The best part, it's a turnkey solution for under $300 including a much bigger hard drive.
I'll bet if you looked closer, you'd see that the idiots who "lose concentration" don't really know how to use the system. The nice thing about a map is that everyone understands how to use it. It's still massively dangerous. If you know how to use your nav system, it's easier than a map.
I second that one. Before I got a car with GPS, I spent too much time looking in the trees trying to read street signs. It's an easy way to hit the kid on the bicycle crossing from the other way.
Now I watch where I am going and know to take the next turn when the car announces "Next Left". I no longer bother trying to read the street signs. Who decided on green signs? They blend in nicely in the row of trees in residencial streets.
After dark, I use the display off feature to reduce the dash glare and clutter.
I have a Prius. It is one of the systems that disable input while in motion.
When they went to toys and phones instead of answers and parts, I stopped visiting. There are lots of places to get good prices on toys and phones. Why did they go from a niche market to an overpriced K-B Toys and cellphones? When I'm breadboarding a hardware project, I order online. I know the local Radio Shack doesn't have parts.
I actually just had an interview this morning for an electronics assembly position that pays minimum wage!
Stuffing boards is considered unskilled labor. It uses about the same talent as picking strawberries. It is tedious work. It uses fine motor skills. It does not need a degree.
always find it funny when they require ten years of experience
That weeds out the beginners who can't meet a production quota and bail because it's too much work for too little money.
An employer looking for 2-4 years is looking for talent. An employer looking for 10 years is looking for steady cheap labor old enough to work and not play around.
As in, things for a bright college student to do, without needing 10 years of experience in everything.
That is the big reason I went military in the advanced electronics field instead of just school. Takes care of the experiance requirement. After that, got more schooling. It's a quicker path from an apprentice to journeyman. No student loan was a bonus.
I just did a search for Sound Engineer for grins. Nothing close on the first page. Lots of matches for Engineer, but nothing related to the sound recording or broadcast industry.
Google does better. I did a search for Sound Engineer Job and had matches on the first page.
Plus I'll probably have much better equipment and more experienced ears in the future.
Now that I'm getting older, I would rather have less experienced ears to hear clearly with.
"MP3 never had major-label content, and seems to have been relatively successful.
;-)
Are you kidding? Did I miss something over the Napster lawsuit? MP3's have had lots of major-label content. That's what the sue a bunch of music lovers each month is all about.
Smile
Current electrical motors/generators are up to 99% efficient, and the loss is mostly in resistive loss in wire.
There is no room for any meaningful improvement unless you claim to have more than 100% efficiency, and they do. Lunatic bin right here!
A common thread I see in many rebuttals is the conception that an increase in torque is an increase in effeciency. Not so.
Anybody besides me remember some of the motor generator theory regarding the cutting of lines of flux? EMF?
If a magnet is used in conjuction with a winding to get more flux, fine. Now reverse the field in the winding. Does anybody reverse the magnet? If the winding has to provide enough flux to buck the series magnet, won't a higher applied voltage be required?
Traction motors have for a long time used a series starting resistance to limit starting current and torque. When they reach their balance speed (full voltage operating speed) speed can be increased by reducing the field current. This reduces the EMF causing the armature current to increase. The free running speed of the motor is now higher. Effeciency is lower and the magnetic flux is lower.
It sounds like they are attempting to increase flux. The result may increase the torque, but at a lower running speed. To maintain speed at the higher torque, a higher voltage is required to counter the higher EMF. This may improve torque at the same current as before. The voltage would have to be higher resulting in more power in and more torque out at the same original current. This makes a higher power motor with the same loss as a lower power motor. So they are claiming more torque in the same package as a smaller motor. The torque is generated using the same current (not power, current in amps). Therefore it's a higher power motor with the same power loss of a lower power motor. Current squared times Resistance loss is the same. Higher voltage and higher power does not increase the I squared R loss. This may increase torque by a large ammount. This does not mean effeciency can be improved to over unity. Torque increase does not mean a direct increase in effeciency in the same ammount. Pay attention. Either the applied voltage must be greater to maintain speed, or the higher torque happens at lower speed. Please do not confuse a force measurement with a power measurement.
If needed please refresh on force units.. Grams, Lbs, Volts, Ft/lbs
and displacement units... Inches, feet, meters,
Units of time.. Minutes, Seconds, Hours,
Velocity units.. MPH, Meters/Sec, Feet/Minute
and power units... Brake Hoursepower, Watt,
and energy units... Watthours, BTUhours, Calories,
An increase in torque with no regard to other values is not an increase in power.
Time needs to be defined to figure power. A force times a displacement is energy. Lifting a pound a foot off the ground requires energy. It does not matter if it takes 5 seconds or 5 hours.
To lift a pound one foot in one second requires power. Power is the rate of energy flow.
If the article was a true scientific paper, the force, energy, power, and effeciency would have been listed. A torque, speed, mechanical power graph would be displayed overlayed on the the current, voltage, watts graph.
The power in to power out graph is the one to watch.
A simple same current higher = torque graph is meaningless.
The sort of folk who want your data that badly are likely to be able to handle your alarm.
They may be able to handle the alarm, but handeling the alarm and not leaving any tracks is much more difficult. It is like anyone can reset the BIOS password on my PC. Returning my PC back to normal with the warranty sticker in place, my original BIOS password in place, and the case intrusion alarm reset, is much more difficult. When they break in to tamper with the alarm, I hope they bring the correct replacement tamper proof stickers with them. I love PC's with case intrusion alarms. Many motherboards support a case switch. Learn to use it. My alarm uses a cabinet tamper switch also.
Getting in and not having the alarm call the central station is one thing. Finding the main box, clearing the event log, and putting my PIN back is another. Opening the locked cabinet and breaking the seal ads another layer to the task. They gotta be very good. Especialy when they don't get a free peek of the system ahead of time.
Finding the time lapse recorder and altering it's tape and it's event counter is even more difficult. Good luck.
Dumping power does not dump the alarm or video recorder. Both have plenty of backup power.
Learn to use the home court advantage when securing a system. Unauthorised access should always leave some evidence record that is extremely hard to eradicate without proper credentials.
Am I reading it correctly that CNet doesn't understand the difference between launching an executeable stored on an external media device, and somehow running it "on" the media device?
You are reading it right. I just finished viewing a Power Point Presentation titled something like "Owned by an i-Pod". The discussion was not about USB, but Fireware which is peer to peer. It can scan memory, do direct reads and writes, etc without the host OS. I would recommend going through the list of seminar materials and find the Power Point presentation.
The link to the Powere Point presentation;
http://pacsec.jp/psj04/psj04-dornseif-e.ppt
I saw in another post USB has some of the same features as Firewire. It may be possible for code running on a USB device to slurp the host just like in the movies.
There's nothing you could do with the iPod that you couldn't do with your normal computer and any random external hard drive. And your access will be logged (or not logged) just the same as if you'd just run some normal program. What's the big deal that an iPod can do it?
Maybe...
What I don't know is if this will function on a machine where the screensaver has kicked in. If it does, than screensaver protected keyboard/monitor does not protect your PC from a visitor while you are at lunch. Does anybody know if it's possible for this to run while the screen is locked with a screensaver? In this case, the logs would point to the owner of the PC, not the visitor who recharged his ipod on your USB port.
I don't know the law in the UK (or the US for that matter), but wouldn't it make logical sense to just have the police install a hardware keylogger on the computer in question? Why break open an operating and file system and make it vulnerable when they could JUST as easily record the key's passphrase when it is used?
In my case, the physical access is the difficult part. All entry attempts trip the security system. Tampering with the alarm would leave it's own traces. In short, I don't have unknown visitors that come in un-detected to install a key logger. The number of alarm events is a running count much like an odometer. The monitored alarm displays any past alarms. I hope they are experts at clearing saved alarm logs without the user PIN.
Tripping the tamper switch on the alarm cabinet is also not a good idea. They can re-rig the alarm, and entry log, but can they put back my PIN?
Why not just use the front door like everyone else?
Because it is locked tight and they don't have the key.
I noticed the maximum for not giving up the key is 2 years and or a fine. Depending what may be on some hard drives, that will be the best choice.
I keep looking at the soon to happen transition from analog to digital over the air TV. How come nobody in the stores will bother to put up an antenna and display real world digital TV? It's either one of the demo channels on one of the pay services (sat or cable) or in house loop. So far this makes it difficult to judge what to buy that works. The in store demos are great if you plan on connecting to cable or a dish. Connecting to an antenna seperates the monitors from the recievers. How can you sell me a TV for over the air television if you can't even demo it in the store. I need better assurance I can make it work at home.
Assuming that the arctic air is super cold
I'm assumming it's become warmer and it is the reason the artic ice is melting in the first place.
Hot damn, I never thought of it that way!
The other thing I was looking for was the plan on getting rid of excess global heat that is trapped by greenhouse gasses. How do they plan on making ice out of sea water? Where is the heat going? How is it getting there. Melting ice takes in heat in the process of melting. To make ice, heat must be taken away. Spraying a lot of water in the air may warm the air and raise the humidity due to evaporation. After the air is saturated, where is the heat going? If the air is cooled, the heat required to evaporate the water is returned to condense it back into warm rain. Unless there is a way to get rid of trapped heat, ice will not form. Existing ice will continue to melt.
So I didnt have to enter a password each time, the first thing I did was go into the BIOS. I entered the current password and when asked for a new password, I simply hit 'Enter' and 'Enter' to confirm.
I have one of those HP's. I'll shed some insight into the issue since it happened at my house. The BIOS supports 2 passwords. One is a master password. It protects the CMOS settings. The other is the user password. Either can be used to boot the machine. Only the master will permit changing the CMOS settings. If the user password is deleted, it defaults to the master password. My wife had a friend over to do something to the machine and told me they deleted the password and now can't get in. I punched in the master password and reset a user password. System fixed. The only way to get a password free boot from a HP is to have both passwords blank. This leaves the BIOS freely accessable to anyone. See if the owner has a record of the original master CMOS setup password. Using that will get you in.
I entered the current password and when asked for a new password, I simply hit 'Enter' and 'Enter' to confirm.
Warning! Before doing this on any system, check if you can get into the CMOS without a password. If a CMOS password is set, you will be faced with the unknown master password. Be sure it is clear before deleting a CMOS boot password.
Hey, don't we need gargage men, factory workers, and clerks?
Yes. In the bell curve of the social economic scale, there are plenty of positions for those who have no interest in a higher education. I on the other hand am not on that end of the scale so I don't do the sanatiation engineer thing. I have other things that keep me busy. (I was one of the few who turned a hobby into a full time job and enjoy every minute of it!) There are lots of other people more suited to the position and do a good job of it.
No idea at all. But i guess if I run a single X10 for a number of devices, including IR, transformers, and charges, maybe it starts to pay?
Be a true geek. Instead of just tossing money at a solution, research the power draw of all the components. Eliminate the wastefull ones. (the nightlight in my bathroom uses 0.25 watts, not 6 watts) Does anyone know the power consumption of an X-10 relay module?
Some perspective please. Turning your TV on or off with a physical switch is hardly the biggest hardship in the world. A TV which physically turns itself off after (for example) a few hours on standby is not a hardship. It might even reduce power brown outs, smog, respiratory diseases, global warming and of course your electricity bill.
Some items draw secondayr power that many people ignore. A simple timer is the solution. I have installed fan timers in my bathrooms. Now when one of the family leaves the room smelly and the fan running, they done't have to remember to come back to turn the fan off in 10 minutes. The fan uses just a few hundred watts. The heated or cooled air it dumps out, when left on, is much more.
Do you have timers on your bathroom fans?