Better yet is to use the basement ballroom. The cement is a great attenuater so outside connectivity is mostly gone. Run netstumbler and project the results for all to see on the screen. Investigate anything picked up. Basicaly a no very visable we are all watching, no cheats here. This would not violate any FCC regulation.
If they leave evan an old copy of Microsoft office on the computers student will go with what they are comfortable with and Star Office will never be used.
Are Business Software Alliance (BSA) audit threats only a thing in the US or should the Canadian schools prohibit MS software to prevent very expensive liability?
That's like saying the electrical rate crisis in California was caused by "deregulation", when it was actually caused by changes to regulations that resulted in mandating a trap for the distribution utility and the consumers.
For those who don't know, the issue with California power was a rate cap imposed on providers of power. There was not enough profit to build capitol (build new plants & transmission lines to meet demand). This was followed by rising fuel costs and a heat wave. The non-cost effective power plants were simply scheduled for repairs/maitenance/upgrades as running them on high cost fuel to produce low price electric power made absolutely no sense. It was cheaper to import power from states that could produce the power cheaper (NW hydro from Idaho, Washington, Oregon etc). Unfortunately the heat wave created a hydro shortage and the transmission system couldn't handle moving huge amounts of power long distances, hence the in-ability to handle the demand. This is a good example of how regulating a price in a free market economy creates over-demand for a product that can make more money elsewhere and therefore a shortage in supply. The shortage in supply was due to price regulation and compounded by lack of online generation and transmission capacity (caused by price regulation). Without the price regulation, many utilities would have increased capacity, not planned a shut-down for repairs during high fuel cost.
Try price caps with automobile gas prices and you will suddnly be faced with rationing. (remember the gas lines of the '70's. The $2 limit simply meant sitting in 5 or 6 lines to get a tankful for your trip. (each station now had 6X the cars queuing up for gas as they hopped from station to station to fillup) Rationing by rising prices would have eliminated the long lines.) The supply will go elsewhere and we will be left fighting for the scraps of domestic supply. Price controls create problems in a free market that would otherwise adjust to supply and demand. When gas prices become unreasonable, then alternatives will start to compete. This includes ethanol, natural gas, vegitable oil deritives, fuel effecient cars, and other currently expensive alternatives. (I've already got a hybrid to cut my fuel use in half.)
It is true that fraud and market manipulation will need to be watched by regulators (Enron) when there is not enough competition between suppliers.
Frankly, as a credit card holder, this scenario frightens me, even though the chance of it actually happening to me is next to nothing.
Due to the very high transaction fee (figure the APR on a 2-3 week loan) added to the non-free grace period for cash advances, I never use a credit card in an ATM. I have no idea what my PIN is for any CC. I never use it. Explaining it to a theif might be difficult, except most of the time my CC's are not carried but are in the fire safe at the house. I'm just not a very big mugging target.
The FA mentions the fact early deduced, that these work by detecting a pattern of 5 small circles I'm thinking of using my old scanner and clipping the dots, then paste them into all my e-mail. Should help keeping my e-mail showing up in unwanted places.
With the 70 degree pattern of the bow-tie antenna, it would make an excelent feed for an old Dish Network antenna. It would beat a quarter wave feed many use. I have an old dish. When I get some time I think I'll make the bow-tie and use it with the dish and see how many open networks I can find.;-)
You haven't priced the retail box of XP pro and Office Pro.
If they didn't do the OEM deal (all or none) and they were limited to retal sales seprate from PC sales, think how the landscape would be different if MS office was sold next to Star Office, Word Perfect, Open Office (retail boxed version) and XP sold next to SUSE and Red Hat. Hmm. Word Perfect, Open Office, and Star Office will all run on Windows and Linux. Hmm, the Licence agreement for Star Office says I can run the one copy on business machine and all my home machines including desktop and laptop without needing another license. Hmm Open Office is downloadable for free. It can be put on all the machines at home or work including the Linux and Windows boxes.
I think MS needs to watch the distribution model. It's under attack (Walmart) and side by side, MS doesn't look too good. It looks even worse when you factor in the TCO items Worms and Viruses that MS didn't when doing a TCO study.
Just yesterday, I spent some time extracting Precision Time and Date Manager and it's associated GAIN and Gator junk off my PC (kindly left by a co-worker). So what's an hour and a half worth in the TCO study? How as an end user on a company machine prevent a re-infestation? Does GAIN and Gator run on linux PC's. If not, a non-MS OS looks pretty good about now.
So the liscence is free IF you never use it? hmmm...
This is true. Don't overlook the details of the required Software Assurance Program. It may make up for it with the subscription fee and EULA fine print.
Does anybody know if the Software Assurance Program requires all the other PC's to be running MS software as a term of the contract? In short, does it do anything to discourage your running an Apache server or other workstations or servers on your network?
Good summary of why I don't permit Macromedia Flash on my system. Lack of simple user controls such as play, stop, rewind, and close in the user interface (missing most of the time) shows the software is pointed to the content developers and the users can take a flying leap if they don't like it. They took the MS advertising to heart. Where would you like to be dragged off to today?
Hey, Macromedia, are you listening. How about some consideration for the end users?
Disclaimer, I didn't download the free stoftware to find out the billing end, but I couldn't find this answer on the website (yes I did read the article and checked the connect site)
Not to mention that ATRAC3 has some of the worst DRM and restrictive software I've ever seen.. You have to check music into and out of your portable player device, I believe. It's just wacky as hell.
Nobody mentioned if an account including a CC number has to be set up to play the free music. I could not find anything about this online. I have a 10 year old and a 12 year old. They don't have CC's They are minors so private information is not to be supplied. They can go to a music store and buy CD's with cash. Is the Mc'Dees offer set up so kids can't get free tunes simply because they don't have a credit card and are not permitted to provide personal information? Is there a provision so the kids can set up a minor's account, not provide protected information (privacy of minors), not provide a credit card number and still receive free tunes (and play them)?
The grade school ages are the biggest purchaser of retail music. Why would a free promotion exclude them simply by requiring financial and personal information that should be not given online?
My hope is if they addressed this issue, they would not offer M rated material to minors for free. It just doesn't seem right for kids to get free emminen tracks from McDees.
I'd have thought that the discussion would be about how to circumvent the Sony DRM. or building a beowulf cluster of McDonalds pedometers -
DRM and DMCA for me simply means an incompatible format. I have a Panasonic CD/MP3 jogger, a Kenwood in-dash CD-MP3 stereo and the living room has a DVD that plays MP3's. Due to DRM and the liability of attempting to play the music, using McDee's as a music source is out of the question. They said "don't copy or we'll sue." I said "OK". They said "come get it". I said, "I can't play it, why buy it?"
Now that you mentioned the pedometers, they make a great coin counter to replace broken mechanical ones on arcade games. The handy reset button makes counting the take each time simple. Other than use in an arcade, I haven't figured out how to do the cluster of them.
Didn't have the balls to play on the short side, because I can't tell who all is in that bed...
That's why I'm not shorting MS stock. They may lose the server market and some desktop market to Linux, but this being in bed with Hollywood with the DRM thing may make them the next living room cable TV subscription box. There are enough people that don't want in bed with MS, it could go either way.
Consider a geocache located in a landfill - Delorme ain't gonna warn ya!:) -Tyler
The State series TOPO maps do show gravel pits, caves, rock outcrops, clifs, park borders, state and national parks, forests, BLM land, lava fields, springs, tunnels, trails, swamps, wetlands, and some refuse pits. Delorme may not warn you but National Geographic 7.5 minute state series might.
That employee, Desmond McQuoid, was the custodial supervisor of the district. He pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, according to Mr. Havian, the lawyer for the school district. Mr. Havian said the suit against Video Network Communications was still pending.
Someone still may be in line to spend time for that one. The fines and restitutitution is just the beginning. Stay tuned..
Don't overlook commercial software. Much of it uses common data, but provides a nice user interface and features that may make the price reasonable. The price for map packages are falling rapidly as the early adoptors that will pay anything have already paid. Now the rush is on for market share. Take advantage of the corner gas station price wars. There is a war between Microsoft (no suprise) and Rand McNally for vector street maps. Microsoft is trying to keep the percieved value high by keeping the list price high but it trying to get market share with a heavy rebate. Street level vector maps are in the under $20 range for ones that work well with your GPS and PDA. Delorme got skunked on the unexpeded fight. They tried selling a map, then having the GPS and PDA stuff as seprate packages. Ooops sorry Delorme, you missed the boat.
On the TOPO side the war is between Delorme, and Natiional Geographic. Delorme sells a vector based topo map which is nice. National Geographic sells Rastor Maps of the USGS maps. The state series is a little spendy, but detailed. It's a clear winner if it is out for your state if you do off road and back road stuff. However having a picture of the streets is it's weak spot if you are trying to use it for street navigation. In a nutshell, if you use the TOPO maps by National Geographic, you will want another map for street use.
Just out from National Geographic is an answer the vector street problem. The Back Roads Explorer map combined the Raster Maps with a real time overlay of the street vector maps. The 17 CD set can be bought for under $40. It contains the entire USA TOPO and vector street maps. It's detail in the TOPO isn't as good as the state series, but you can load the state series into the package for the best of both.
Now the issue of marking them up and such. National Geographic permits printing of maps provided the copyright remains on the map (in the boarder, not imbeded like Mapquest). I'm not sure of the quanity or uses of the maps so more research will need done especialy for commercial use, but home printing and sending maps to your friends in your hunting party all marked up to the hunting camp is a permitted use. The tools to mark up the map are included and work well. Added to the ability to export to my PDA or handheld computer and connect to my GPS and upload, and download waypoints, routes and active track are all features that make this commercial map a winner.
Disclaimer, I don't work for National Geographic. I like to Geocache and finding a road in close to the cache is half the fun.
They are getting lighter. When I started racing RC cars, the batteries were ni-cad packs of 6 sub C cells. They were 7.2 volts at 1200 mAH. Now a smaller pack is made with NiMH AA cells that are 2200 mAH at 9.6 volts. Battery life doesn't seem to be better because devices are more power hungry to support features. Cell phones light up when they get a call. They include more memory and color displays.
If you want to see an improvement, try an LED flashlight with new batteries. 4-6 hour battery life is a thing of the past. The answer to short battery life is power friendly devices.
Ever consider buying a monochrome laptop with a very low clock speed running DOS to type notes? It would have fantastic battery life, but there is no market for such a feature crippled device. The need for bright large color displays, DVD drives, and fast processers with lots of memory in a slim lightweight package is what is keeping the battery life short.
Ditch the big color display and fast processor and use a couple pound battery brick and you should be able to go a week or two on a charge. If Palm or Handspring made a PDA computer in a laptop case with a modest display and a full laptop size battery, battery life would not be an issue.
So I record an LP onto my DAT and I give it to a friend. OMG! That's just like I recorded it on an analog tape and gave it to a friend, only the sound is better. The same amount of IP is lost.
This is not what scared the RIAA. A single copy is casual copying. What scares the RIAA is serial copying that does not degrade copy to copy. The network of copies of copies is what scares the RIAA. Due to DRM your friend could not make a direct digital copy of the copy you gave him. This stoped the quality from being copied again and again down the line. 1st Generation copies simply mean to the RIAA that a purchased original is nearby which means a sale was made. There is no original nearby when a copy of a copy is made. The RIAA wanted a copy of a copy to either not be possible or measurably degraded. A perfect copy of a copy is what the RIAA is afraid of. That's what Peer to Peer provided. Lots of copies of copies that were not degrading into 11th and 12 generation analog copies, but copies as good as the first generation copy.
THis is why DAT never became affordable, and never succeeded.
I wonder if they are planning to get everyone to go to movie houses again instead of watching TV by killing over the air TV by forcing broadcast flags and making TV's for the masses too expensive?
Case in point, name any under $500 digital TV now sold in the USA. (only ones including a DTV tuner, not just DTV ready) Including a NTSC tuner does not count. I'm looking for a replacement for a 20 inch set, a 9 inch set with VCR, and a 12 inch set with VCR.
Sets being replaced were under $400 for all of them together brand new. DTV and the broadcast flag makes DTV a replacement for analog TV just the same as a DAT recorder was a replacement for a cassette recorder and for the same reasons.
1 they were much more expensive 2 they were less friendly (DRM) 3 they say the quality is better, but few got to try it to find out due to the above.
In replacing my sets, Show me the DTV's that are affordable and have the same features as the ones being replaced. The loss of functionality and high prices is what killed DAT. This is just chapter 2 of history repeating itself for digital content control.
If you want to see it in real life, go to your local Pepsi and Coke distributors. Order bags of Syrup. Now try to find the hardware to attach to the bags. They are a little hard to find other than from the Pepsi or Coke distributor. The connections are not open standard. You won't get the Pepsi bag connected to a Coke adaptor. Try buying a Pepsi connector when you don't have a Pepsi fountain with a service plan.
These two fierce competitors will want to tie you into an exclusive plan to sell you the syrup and despensor parts. Without an exclusive plan, it's hard to get parts or syrup. Microsoft is the Pepsi Company of software. They don't have a Coke competitor. The competition is Apple (7-up botteling). Needless to say the MS exclusive distribution model tend to lock out other products (Netscape, Opera, Quicktime, RA, etc) favoring their own flavors exclusively (Media Player, IE). Try going to your favorite restraunt and ordering a Pepsi, Coke and 7-up for your party. Most of the time 2 products will be substituted as only Pepsi or Coke is on hand. Only rarely will 7-up be provided. Exclusive distribution contracts are to blame. Non-soft drink products are not affected. You can get coffee, OJ, water, etc. as they are not considered a threat. Linux as has hit the software industry as a replacement for expensive soft drinks. It's the healthy tap water, free for the asking that is killing high price software market. They snuck in as water. Free, but who wants it. Now that is is improving and becoming popular it is becoming a big threat to established software. No one vendor has a monopoly on water, It can be trucked or piped in from anywhere. It can be gotten for free when it rains.
The software industry (MS) is trying to fight both competition from Apple, Sun, IBM, HP, and the threat of free as in rain water software.
unlimited incoming call plan (10$ a month for no limit on incoming calls and no per minute charges)
Watch your bill.
Prepare for customer service hell.
My wife signed up for an AT&T plan that included 2 phones, unlimited phone to phone, shared minutes, free weekend and evening minutes..yada..
The wife spent over 3 hours last week fighting consumer service, billing, accounts, trying to get the bill corrected. Weekend time and phone to phone time was billed. This ran over the plan total. Consumer service finaly agreed (after voice mail hell) that she was right that the included plan minutes were not supposed to be billed. Transfer over to billing and accounts was hell trying to get past "when can we expect payment to avoid disconnection?" Um what part of contested bill didn't they get. Expect the run-around. It's standard. We are looking to flee as soon as the contract is up.
Bottom line, What's your time worth? Do you want to spend it fighting billing and service problems? We'll never get into a long term phone contract again. It's a gurantee of service. We can flee if service is bad and not be stuck in consumer service hell for years.
Re:metal interfering with the signal
on
Where's Your 'D-Spot?'
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I can move around the room and I'm still dropping off. I live in a wood-frame house so I very much doubt it's metal interfering with the signal in any way, and the living room is on the main floor.
Many houses in northern climates are wood frame construction. Just because you don't have stucco doesn't mean you don't have metal shielding in the walls. Most fiberglass insulation now has a paper backed moisture barrier. For a while, most fiberglass batting and roll insulation had a paper/aluminum moisture barrier backing. This lining the walls with aluminum foil is great shielding. Only doors, windows and studs are the only openings in this aluminum box. Needless to say, high frequency radio signals inside the box is marginal at best with lots of low strength signals that are mostly multipath reflections inside the box. How is your UHF TV reception on rabbit ears in the same room? If UHF TV is full of ghosting on rabbit ears, don't expect a cell phone to not have the same signal problems.
Don't forget to use a high gain directional antenna outside. It will make up for the loss in the cable. Keep your cable short. A 12 DB antenna pointed at a cell tower is much cheaper than a 12 DB cell bi-directional repeater. It works better too.
I prefer the Brother labeling units. The per-unit cost of the labels is cheaper than the Casio models -- same razor/blades and printer/ink argument.
I saw the razor/blade model and decided to use Labels Unlimited and Avery labels. I can add my own graphic from my clip art collection and can print all the popular barcodes. I can print labels up to full sheet in size. I can create an inventory list and do a batch printing job. I can create my own layout for any un-supported label stock I find surplus. The only downside is the lack waterproof plastic labels. I don't have much need for plastic waterproof labels, so the software solution works better for me. I have been tempted to pick up one of the label tape printers, but I haven't justified it's very limited use yet.
Hopefully HP won't be run out of business if Dell is successful in undermining their market, and the next time I want a good, dependable printer I won't have to buy a re-branded Lexmark or some other similar junk.
I don't think that will be a problem. Dell is another middleman. I have an HP722 and Laserjet III. My wife bought a new DEL computer and the companion all in one printer. The cartridges for both are about the same price. I can get the HP carts with no postage and no wait just down the street. S&H makes the dell carts cost more. The DEL carts are about 1/4 the size of the HP carts. The DEL carts don't mention anywhere (website included) what the estimated yield or amount of ink is. It's obvious to anyone replacing a printer that the DEL with the itty bitty carts is no bargan. My HP 722 printer and Laserjet is on the local network using a Hawking printservers (great investment!). The DEL printer is now just a scanner for the wife's computer. We have no plans on replacing the cartridges when they expire. (added bonus, the HP black cart is easly refilled). The DEL all in one could not be used as a replacement for the HP inkjet on my network because it has drivers for WIN 2K and WIN XP only. That means it is incompatible with both our laptops, and 2 other PC's on the network. None of them run the required OS. DELL printers are not a high volume (or moderate volume) cost effective printing solution. DELL printers may be OK for the lady of the house to print the occasional E-mail, and scan a baby photo, but little else. More cost effective printing can be found almost anywhere else. DELL is not competitive in printing value.
Unless HP goes for smaller carts at higher prices, they have no worries from DELL.
Slashdot Mirror
Better yet is to use the basement ballroom. The cement is a great attenuater so outside connectivity is mostly gone. Run netstumbler and project the results for all to see on the screen. Investigate anything picked up. Basicaly a no very visable we are all watching, no cheats here. This would not violate any FCC regulation.
If they leave evan an old copy of Microsoft office on the computers student will go with what they are comfortable with and Star Office will never be used.
Are Business Software Alliance (BSA) audit threats only a thing in the US or should the Canadian schools prohibit MS software to prevent very expensive liability?
That's like saying the electrical rate crisis in California was caused by "deregulation", when it was actually caused by changes to regulations that resulted in mandating a trap for the distribution utility and the consumers.
For those who don't know, the issue with California power was a rate cap imposed on providers of power. There was not enough profit to build capitol (build new plants & transmission lines to meet demand). This was followed by rising fuel costs and a heat wave. The non-cost effective power plants were simply scheduled for repairs/maitenance/upgrades as running them on high cost fuel to produce low price electric power made absolutely no sense. It was cheaper to import power from states that could produce the power cheaper (NW hydro from Idaho, Washington, Oregon etc). Unfortunately the heat wave created a hydro shortage and the transmission system couldn't handle moving huge amounts of power long distances, hence the in-ability to handle the demand. This is a good example of how regulating a price in a free market economy creates over-demand for a product that can make more money elsewhere and therefore a shortage in supply. The shortage in supply was due to price regulation and compounded by lack of online generation and transmission capacity (caused by price regulation). Without the price regulation, many utilities would have increased capacity, not planned a shut-down for repairs during high fuel cost.
Try price caps with automobile gas prices and you will suddnly be faced with rationing. (remember the gas lines of the '70's. The $2 limit simply meant sitting in 5 or 6 lines to get a tankful for your trip. (each station now had 6X the cars queuing up for gas as they hopped from station to station to fillup) Rationing by rising prices would have eliminated the long lines.) The supply will go elsewhere and we will be left fighting for the scraps of domestic supply. Price controls create problems in a free market that would otherwise adjust to supply and demand. When gas prices become unreasonable, then alternatives will start to compete. This includes ethanol, natural gas, vegitable oil deritives, fuel effecient cars, and other currently expensive alternatives. (I've already got a hybrid to cut my fuel use in half.)
It is true that fraud and market manipulation will need to be watched by regulators (Enron) when there is not enough competition between suppliers.
Frankly, as a credit card holder, this scenario frightens me, even though the chance of it actually happening to me is next to nothing.
Due to the very high transaction fee (figure the APR on a 2-3 week loan) added to the non-free grace period for cash advances, I never use a credit card in an ATM. I have no idea what my PIN is for any CC. I never use it. Explaining it to a theif might be difficult, except most of the time my CC's are not carried but are in the fire safe at the house. I'm just not a very big mugging target.
The FA mentions the fact early deduced, that these work by detecting a pattern of 5 small circles
I'm thinking of using my old scanner and clipping the dots, then paste them into all my e-mail. Should help keeping my e-mail showing up in unwanted places.
With the 70 degree pattern of the bow-tie antenna, it would make an excelent feed for an old Dish Network antenna. It would beat a quarter wave feed many use. I have an old dish. When I get some time I think I'll make the bow-tie and use it with the dish and see how many open networks I can find. ;-)
And it seems to be working.
You haven't priced the retail box of XP pro and Office Pro.
If they didn't do the OEM deal (all or none) and they were limited to retal sales seprate from PC sales, think how the landscape would be different if MS office was sold next to Star Office, Word Perfect, Open Office (retail boxed version) and XP sold next to SUSE and Red Hat. Hmm. Word Perfect, Open Office, and Star Office will all run on Windows and Linux. Hmm, the Licence agreement for Star Office says I can run the one copy on business machine and all my home machines including desktop and laptop without needing another license. Hmm Open Office is downloadable for free. It can be put on all the machines at home or work including the Linux and Windows boxes.
I think MS needs to watch the distribution model. It's under attack (Walmart) and side by side, MS doesn't look too good. It looks even worse when you factor in the TCO items Worms and Viruses that MS didn't when doing a TCO study.
Just yesterday, I spent some time extracting Precision Time and Date Manager and it's associated GAIN and Gator junk off my PC (kindly left by a co-worker). So what's an hour and a half worth in the TCO study? How as an end user on a company machine prevent a re-infestation? Does GAIN and Gator run on linux PC's. If not, a non-MS OS looks pretty good about now.
So the liscence is free IF you never use it? hmmm...
This is true. Don't overlook the details of the required Software Assurance Program. It may make up for it with the subscription fee and EULA fine print.
Does anybody know if the Software Assurance Program requires all the other PC's to be running MS software as a term of the contract? In short, does it do anything to discourage your running an Apache server or other workstations or servers on your network?
Good summary of why I don't permit Macromedia Flash on my system. Lack of simple user controls such as play, stop, rewind, and close in the user interface (missing most of the time) shows the software is pointed to the content developers and the users can take a flying leap if they don't like it. They took the MS advertising to heart. Where would you like to be dragged off to today?
Hey, Macromedia, are you listening. How about some consideration for the end users?
Disclaimer, I didn't download the free stoftware to find out the billing end, but I couldn't find this answer on the website (yes I did read the article and checked the connect site)
Not to mention that ATRAC3 has some of the worst DRM and restrictive software I've ever seen.. You have to check music into and out of your portable player device, I believe. It's just wacky as hell.
Nobody mentioned if an account including a CC number has to be set up to play the free music. I could not find anything about this online. I have a 10 year old and a 12 year old. They don't have CC's They are minors so private information is not to be supplied. They can go to a music store and buy CD's with cash. Is the Mc'Dees offer set up so kids can't get free tunes simply because they don't have a credit card and are not permitted to provide personal information? Is there a provision so the kids can set up a minor's account, not provide protected information (privacy of minors), not provide a credit card number and still receive free tunes (and play them)?
The grade school ages are the biggest purchaser of retail music. Why would a free promotion exclude them simply by requiring financial and personal information that should be not given online?
My hope is if they addressed this issue, they would not offer M rated material to minors for free. It just doesn't seem right for kids to get free emminen tracks from McDees.
I'd have thought that the discussion would be about how to circumvent the Sony DRM. or building a beowulf cluster of McDonalds pedometers -
DRM and DMCA for me simply means an incompatible format. I have a Panasonic CD/MP3 jogger, a Kenwood in-dash CD-MP3 stereo and the living room has a DVD that plays MP3's. Due to DRM and the liability of attempting to play the music, using McDee's as a music source is out of the question.
They said "don't copy or we'll sue."
I said "OK".
They said "come get it".
I said, "I can't play it, why buy it?"
Now that you mentioned the pedometers, they make a great coin counter to replace broken mechanical ones on arcade games. The handy reset button makes counting the take each time simple. Other than use in an arcade, I haven't figured out how to do the cluster of them.
Didn't have the balls to play on the short side, because I can't tell who all is in that bed...
That's why I'm not shorting MS stock. They may lose the server market and some desktop market to Linux, but this being in bed with Hollywood with the DRM thing may make them the next living room cable TV subscription box. There are enough people that don't want in bed with MS, it could go either way.
Consider a geocache located in a landfill - Delorme ain't gonna warn ya! :) -Tyler
The State series TOPO maps do show gravel pits, caves, rock outcrops, clifs, park borders, state and national parks, forests, BLM land, lava fields, springs, tunnels, trails, swamps, wetlands, and some refuse pits. Delorme may not warn you but National Geographic 7.5 minute state series might.
From the article,
That employee, Desmond McQuoid, was the custodial supervisor of the district. He pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, according to Mr. Havian, the lawyer for the school district. Mr. Havian said the suit against Video Network Communications was still pending.
Someone still may be in line to spend time for that one. The fines and restitutitution is just the beginning. Stay tuned..
Don't overlook commercial software. Much of it uses common data, but provides a nice user interface and features that may make the price reasonable. The price for map packages are falling rapidly as the early adoptors that will pay anything have already paid. Now the rush is on for market share. Take advantage of the corner gas station price wars. There is a war between Microsoft (no suprise) and Rand McNally for vector street maps. Microsoft is trying to keep the percieved value high by keeping the list price high but it trying to get market share with a heavy rebate. Street level vector maps are in the under $20 range for ones that work well with your GPS and PDA. Delorme got skunked on the unexpeded fight. They tried selling a map, then having the GPS and PDA stuff as seprate packages. Ooops sorry Delorme, you missed the boat.
On the TOPO side the war is between Delorme, and Natiional Geographic. Delorme sells a vector based topo map which is nice. National Geographic sells Rastor Maps of the USGS maps. The state series is a little spendy, but detailed. It's a clear winner if it is out for your state if you do off road and back road stuff. However having a picture of the streets is it's weak spot if you are trying to use it for street navigation. In a nutshell, if you use the TOPO maps by National Geographic, you will want another map for street use.
Just out from National Geographic is an answer the vector street problem. The Back Roads Explorer map combined the Raster Maps with a real time overlay of the street vector maps. The 17 CD set can be bought for under $40. It contains the entire USA TOPO and vector street maps. It's detail in the TOPO isn't as good as the state series, but you can load the state series into the package for the best of both.
Now the issue of marking them up and such. National Geographic permits printing of maps provided the copyright remains on the map (in the boarder, not imbeded like Mapquest). I'm not sure of the quanity or uses of the maps so more research will need done especialy for commercial use, but home printing and sending maps to your friends in your hunting party all marked up to the hunting camp is a permitted use. The tools to mark up the map are included and work well. Added to the ability to export to my PDA or handheld computer and connect to my GPS and upload, and download waypoints, routes and active track are all features that make this commercial map a winner.
Disclaimer, I don't work for National Geographic. I like to Geocache and finding a road in close to the cache is half the fun.
They are getting lighter. When I started racing RC cars, the batteries were ni-cad packs of 6 sub C cells. They were 7.2 volts at 1200 mAH. Now a smaller pack is made with NiMH AA cells that are 2200 mAH at 9.6 volts. Battery life doesn't seem to be better because devices are more power hungry to support features. Cell phones light up when they get a call. They include more memory and color displays.
If you want to see an improvement, try an LED flashlight with new batteries. 4-6 hour battery life is a thing of the past. The answer to short battery life is power friendly devices.
Ever consider buying a monochrome laptop with a very low clock speed running DOS to type notes? It would have fantastic battery life, but there is no market for such a feature crippled device. The need for bright large color displays, DVD drives, and fast processers with lots of memory in a slim lightweight package is what is keeping the battery life short.
Ditch the big color display and fast processor and use a couple pound battery brick and you should be able to go a week or two on a charge. If Palm or Handspring made a PDA computer in a laptop case with a modest display and a full laptop size battery, battery life would not be an issue.
MS is a cola, nice packaged and ready to drink, but pretty unhealthy in the long run.
Apple is a diet Coke, nice packaged, somewhat healthy (the NutraSweet discussion).
Bad comparison. Coke and Diet Coke come from the same place like XP and XP Pro.
A better comparison is Coke and 7-up. One is not caffinated.
So I record an LP onto my DAT and I give it to a friend. OMG! That's just like I recorded it on an analog tape and gave it to a friend, only the sound is better. The same amount of IP is lost.
This is not what scared the RIAA. A single copy is casual copying. What scares the RIAA is serial copying that does not degrade copy to copy. The network of copies of copies is what scares the RIAA. Due to DRM your friend could not make a direct digital copy of the copy you gave him. This stoped the quality from being copied again and again down the line. 1st Generation copies simply mean to the RIAA that a purchased original is nearby which means a sale was made. There is no original nearby when a copy of a copy is made. The RIAA wanted a copy of a copy to either not be possible or measurably degraded. A perfect copy of a copy is what the RIAA is afraid of. That's what Peer to Peer provided. Lots of copies of copies that were not degrading into 11th and 12 generation analog copies, but copies as good as the first generation copy.
THis is why DAT never became affordable, and never succeeded.
I wonder if they are planning to get everyone to go to movie houses again instead of watching TV by killing over the air TV by forcing broadcast flags and making TV's for the masses too expensive?
Case in point, name any under $500 digital TV now sold in the USA. (only ones including a DTV tuner, not just DTV ready) Including a NTSC tuner does not count. I'm looking for a replacement for a 20 inch set, a 9 inch set with VCR, and a 12 inch set with VCR.
Sets being replaced were under $400 for all of them together brand new. DTV and the broadcast flag makes DTV a replacement for analog TV just the same as a DAT recorder was a replacement for a cassette recorder and for the same reasons.
1 they were much more expensive
2 they were less friendly (DRM)
3 they say the quality is better, but few got to try it to find out due to the above.
In replacing my sets, Show me the DTV's that are affordable and have the same features as the ones being replaced. The loss of functionality and high prices is what killed DAT. This is just chapter 2 of history repeating itself for digital content control.
I like your analogy.
If you want to see it in real life, go to your local Pepsi and Coke distributors. Order bags of Syrup. Now try to find the hardware to attach to the bags. They are a little hard to find other than from the Pepsi or Coke distributor. The connections are not open standard. You won't get the Pepsi bag connected to a Coke adaptor. Try buying a Pepsi connector when you don't have a Pepsi fountain with a service plan.
These two fierce competitors will want to tie you into an exclusive plan to sell you the syrup and despensor parts. Without an exclusive plan, it's hard to get parts or syrup. Microsoft is the Pepsi Company of software. They don't have a Coke competitor. The competition is Apple (7-up botteling). Needless to say the MS exclusive distribution model tend to lock out other products (Netscape, Opera, Quicktime, RA, etc) favoring their own flavors exclusively (Media Player, IE). Try going to your favorite restraunt and ordering a Pepsi, Coke and 7-up for your party. Most of the time 2 products will be substituted as only Pepsi or Coke is on hand. Only rarely will 7-up be provided. Exclusive distribution contracts are to blame. Non-soft drink products are not affected. You can get coffee, OJ, water, etc. as they are not considered a threat. Linux as has hit the software industry as a replacement for expensive soft drinks. It's the healthy tap water, free for the asking that is killing high price software market. They snuck in as water. Free, but who wants it. Now that is is improving and becoming popular it is becoming a big threat to established software. No one vendor has a monopoly on water, It can be trucked or piped in from anywhere. It can be gotten for free when it rains.
The software industry (MS) is trying to fight both competition from Apple, Sun, IBM, HP, and the threat of free as in rain water software.
unlimited incoming call plan (10$ a month for no limit on incoming calls and no per minute charges)
Watch your bill.
Prepare for customer service hell.
My wife signed up for an AT&T plan that included 2 phones, unlimited phone to phone, shared minutes, free weekend and evening minutes..yada..
The wife spent over 3 hours last week fighting consumer service, billing, accounts, trying to get the bill corrected. Weekend time and phone to phone time was billed. This ran over the plan total. Consumer service finaly agreed (after voice mail hell) that she was right that the included plan minutes were not supposed to be billed. Transfer over to billing and accounts was hell trying to get past "when can we expect payment to avoid disconnection?" Um what part of contested bill didn't they get. Expect the run-around. It's standard. We are looking to flee as soon as the contract is up.
Bottom line, What's your time worth? Do you want to spend it fighting billing and service problems?
We'll never get into a long term phone contract again. It's a gurantee of service. We can flee if service is bad and not be stuck in consumer service hell for years.
I can move around the room and I'm still dropping off. I live in a wood-frame house so I very much doubt it's metal interfering with the signal in any way, and the living room is on the main floor.
Many houses in northern climates are wood frame construction. Just because you don't have stucco doesn't mean you don't have metal shielding in the walls. Most fiberglass insulation now has a paper backed moisture barrier. For a while, most fiberglass batting and roll insulation had a paper/aluminum moisture barrier backing. This lining the walls with aluminum foil is great shielding. Only doors, windows and studs are the only openings in this aluminum box. Needless to say, high frequency radio signals inside the box is marginal at best with lots of low strength signals that are mostly multipath reflections inside the box. How is your UHF TV reception on rabbit ears in the same room? If UHF TV is full of ghosting on rabbit ears, don't expect a cell phone to not have the same signal problems.
Don't forget to use a high gain directional antenna outside. It will make up for the loss in the cable. Keep your cable short. A 12 DB antenna pointed at a cell tower is much cheaper than a 12 DB cell bi-directional repeater. It works better too.
I prefer the Brother labeling units. The per-unit cost of the labels is cheaper than the Casio models -- same razor/blades and printer/ink argument.
I saw the razor/blade model and decided to use Labels Unlimited and Avery labels. I can add my own graphic from my clip art collection and can print all the popular barcodes. I can print labels up to full sheet in size. I can create an inventory list and do a batch printing job. I can create my own layout for any un-supported label stock I find surplus. The only downside is the lack waterproof plastic labels. I don't have much need for plastic waterproof labels, so the software solution works better for me. I have been tempted to pick up one of the label tape printers, but I haven't justified it's very limited use yet.
Hopefully HP won't be run out of business if Dell is successful in undermining their market, and the next time I want a good, dependable printer I won't have to buy a re-branded Lexmark or some other similar junk.
I don't think that will be a problem. Dell is another middleman. I have an HP722 and Laserjet III. My wife bought a new DEL computer and the companion all in one printer. The cartridges for both are about the same price. I can get the HP carts with no postage and no wait just down the street. S&H makes the dell carts cost more. The DEL carts are about 1/4 the size of the HP carts. The DEL carts don't mention anywhere (website included) what the estimated yield or amount of ink is. It's obvious to anyone replacing a printer that the DEL with the itty bitty carts is no bargan. My HP 722 printer and Laserjet is on the local network using a Hawking printservers (great investment!). The DEL printer is now just a scanner for the wife's computer. We have no plans on replacing the cartridges when they expire. (added bonus, the HP black cart is easly refilled). The DEL all in one could not be used as a replacement for the HP inkjet on my network because it has drivers for WIN 2K and WIN XP only. That means it is incompatible with both our laptops, and 2 other PC's on the network. None of them run the required OS. DELL printers are not a high volume (or moderate volume) cost effective printing solution. DELL printers may be OK for the lady of the house to print the occasional E-mail, and scan a baby photo, but little else. More cost effective printing can be found almost anywhere else. DELL is not competitive in printing value.
Unless HP goes for smaller carts at higher prices, they have no worries from DELL.