It sounds like they may use 100 volts instead of 120. You may have to pick up a transformer at the airport to use with it. I still have one I got when I was in Japan. It works both ways 120-100 & 100-120. If it uses a wall wart, you may be able to replace it with a 120 volt replacement that outputs the right voltage and current.
Forget the kits. Look for bulk supplies instead. I've been happy with bulk supplies. Instead of 2 or 4 oz. bottles, get the pints. Search the web for instructions for dealing with the chips, tools needed, and other supplies. Black ink at $30/pint goes a lot further than a $20 kit with a 2 oz bottle. For color photo printing on my HP 950, this has been a big moneysaver. I run the cartridge till it burns out.
I found most all inexpensive printers were all Winprinters. They were too cheap to provide a controller. Since they are not in the printer business but in the ink business, they don't want to spend much on the razor. I think many printer manufactures get support from MS with strings attached to entice them to produce WIN only printers. MS provides the software support so the manufacture can save a bundle on hardware costs. Of course MS is not going to help the manufacture provide cross platform driver support. They are only targeting the largest protion of the market. That is why my main printer is a networked HP Laserjet III (off a hardware printserver with linux support). The Windows box drives the photo printer. It didn't take long to figure the diffrence in operating costs.
Is it really FUD? Add a sound or video recording to your presentation. Forget to uncheck an obscure box. Transfer it to the auditorium computer. Do the presentation minus the audio you recorded yourself and minus the video from your camcorder. Is it really FUD? See www.sdmi.org for details. Sorry to those who are PDF limited. Your own created content is to be encoded upon creation and bandwidth limited to monural voice grade recording. It won't play when transferred to the auditorium computer. It is not FUD, it is in the specification.
I wonder if a DDOS attacks on the clearing house will convince very many people this is a bad idea?
"My Power Point presentation died... I want it fixed NOW!. What do you mean the copy can not be authorized with the clearinghouse? I wrote and transfered it to the auditorium computer! Make it play!"
Read the review. They mentioned in the review which benchmark was the one mentioned as favoring Intel. They posted that along with the other well known benchmarks. They did not hide the fact one of the benchmarks is being disputed as favoring Intel. If the results were bad on all benchmarks except the one favoring Intel, it would stick out like a sore thumb. The other benchmarks also favored Intel, even though they didn't have the optimum MB and memory for the test, even when the AMD setup was optimum. I would love to see the test again with the preferred hardware for the P4.
I'll wait until the price gets reasonable". I'm still waiting
I'm in the same boat. I have a laserdisk player. I've been buying tapes waiting for the promise that disks are cheaper to make because they can be pressed in high volume. They changed from laser disk to a macrovision and region encumbered format that is even cheaper to press, but sadly it's still more expensive than tape. I also am still waiting.
There is a MP3 jukebox recorder by Arcos that does a fine job preserving my audio tapes and disks by enabling encoding to MP3. Maybe someone will do the same for me in the future so I can back up my video collection to a more stable medium.
After I bought the rights to a song on tape or disk (LP) I was even hoping they would provide an exchange where I could turn in stretched tapes and scratched LP's for a small media exchange fee. It never happened. You have to back it up yourself or buy a new copy of the medium and license. (new CD)
The music industry severly lacks in consumer support in supporting the products the consumers have purchased. At least I can find a mechanic to repair my older car when it gets scratched. No such support exists with the music industry. Too bad.. I have boxes of cassettes and LP's in need of service. It looks like I have to do it myself.
Actualy, I finaly read the first article after reading the second. I was under the impression it was for music. This isn't redbook at all. It is for data CD's. I guess it is targeted at the Adobe books, or Photoshop or other high ticket items. The article explains it well. It is powered by the laser using a photocell. How it is going to get the laser the wink it a coded message for the handshaking is not clear. It will answer by shining some LED's back at the pickup. It sounds like something that could cause some tracking errors. Anyway the whole concept sounds expensive. I wouldn't expect it in anything mass produced. It could be used to protect sensitive encrypted data.
I don't know of any processor that does not require power. They are a little short of info in the article, but what do you do when the battery on the CD dies? It's not like a smart chip that is powered by the socket during the transaction. I can't see this being compatible with the redbook standard in any way providing compatibility with any of my exixting hardware. It looks like another obscure new kid on the block that will have to crack the chicken and egg problem.
It sounds like they are using the automation hardware for 300mm that Intel is using. The only diffrence is they are using silicon on insulator and a diffrent OS to control the automation. The rest of the FAB is about 2-3 fabs behind intel. Intel D1C, RP1 are all fully automated 300mm fabs and D1D is currently finishing up construction with tool instalation and qualification currently in progress. A photo of an intel 300mm clean room showing the overhead delivery vehicles and the load ports of the processing tools can be seen here; http://www.intel.com/jobs/logictech/ The tools themselves are on the other side of the walls.
You can't make it illegal and you can't prevent it technically
Wana bet?? Check the recording specs for SDMI compliant hardware here.
http://www.sdmi.org/
Sorry about the documents in PDF.
They are making it very hard to record anything of your own creation that isn't Monural voice grade bandwidth limited. This is collateral damage limiting indi creation using new hardware. Watch out for this to become mandentory instead of optional and anything else not legal.
In the USA, having a lockpick is illegal if you are not a locksmith. Expect audio and video recorders to have the same restrictions soon.
Actualy that's not a bad idea because it inspired a soulution. Cell phone towers have had a bad name being ugly. To hide them, many radomes (fiberglass) are made to blend in un-noticed. Beautiful country can remain beautiful if the top of the farmers silo has a new fiberglass top that looks like the original. With that in mind, a fiberglass dummy birdhouse on the end of the building would look like it belonged there (decorated to look like wood of course). A tile chimney for a coal stove (now unused) could be replaced with a fiberglass one that looks like the original. The attic vent in the peak of the building could be replaced with a fiberglass one. There are many possibilities to hide a small 2 inch antenna.
Last week it captured more than six million copies of the same spam mail
SSsshhhh... Not so loud. Spamers may find it an easy way to harvest 6 million addresses for free. Just put up a honeypot and wait for a spammer provide you the addresses free of charge.
the broadcasting industry go into the shitter Umm, I thought they were already headed there. Most of the filth (sex sells) is unsuitable for the church ladies. Did you know there is only a few of the words left on George Carlin's list of seven words that still can't be said on TV? I certianly can not use the over the air TV as entertainment for young children anymore. (A PBS childrens program even has an AIDS muppet now)
You can make the case that one useful item built into new color copiers is their ability to recognize when currency is being photocopied and prevent it -- You could also make a case that the copier does not have to recognise the currency, but must distort everything copied by 20% in size or more. That's very much like the SDMI standard for audio recording. To meet the standard, the analog input must be Monural Voice quality bandwidth limited. That sounds like a photocopier that can't make correct size/color/resolution copies, but can output your online purchased e-newspaper with finely detailed advertisements. Basicaly, it's to be an output device, not a copying device.
Too bad the Xeon was not used as intended. A Xeon is not the best graphics rendering chip. It makes a great data and transaction server (it is a server chip). A Truck may have lots of torque for pulling a 5th wheel trailer up a hill, but it won't corner well in an indy circuit. Use the right tool for the job for best results.
Computers are no longer general purpose arithmic logic units anymore. They have become specialized. Some are better at some tasks than others. That is why there are many benchmarks. Choice of OS and applications also play a big role.
Re:What can the average computer user do
on
Lessig @ OSCON
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
What can the average computer user do Number one, Vote with your pocketbook!
Issues, DRM enabled devices... I did not buy the new Magellan Meridian GPS because it used SD media.
I bought a CD burner
I bought a CD MP3 Player. It does not support WMA, Liquid Audio, etc. It only supports red book audio and MP3 audio.
The Archos Digital Jukebox/recorder is on my to get list. It viloates the SDMI standard by allowing a stereo analog high fidelity recording to be made. It allows the recording to be exported and copied in an unprotected format (MP3). I plan on transferring my pre-recorded tapes and vinyl to CD. The SDMI standard includes the requirement for voice grade mono analog recording and nothing better. A good stereo cassette deck will outperform a SDMI recorder everytime! Is a HI-FI VHS or 8mm VCR going to be my next audio recorder? I hope not! I will not support the SDMI audio recording standard. Voice grade mono recording does not meet my needs to back up my aging music collection. SDMI stuff is analog input bandwidth limited This input will be restricted to voice-grade mono and band-limited (-3dB at 100 hZ and -60 dB at 8 khZ) It is also to be imediately converted to SDMI protocol for local use. This translates to "it'll never be burnt to a CD or shared with your friends" This is useless to use to record the baby's first words to share with the grandparants. A tape deck is more capable in this regard. The SDMI compliant hardware is uncompetive in the marketplace due to the severe restrictions placed on it. Read the SDMI spec here if you need to know the rest of the restrictions.
http://www.sdmi.org/
Most people have no idea this spec even exists.
Don't buy anything supporting these standards. This includes portable media (memory cards).
Support companies that provide useful quality products and support open standards.
This is the biggest reason I use Compact Flash and CDr.
What I don't have... A DVD player, A DRM enabled book reader, audio player, TV/ computer monitor/ USB speakers, music in WMA or Liquid Audio format, portable devices supporting SD memory, etc.. I'm picky about my hardware and the content providers will have to cater to my needs or miss my purchases when they move into protected media.
I do not buy software that requires "activation" or a "dongle". The only exception is software that is part of an access to a service. An example is the firmware in my cell phone and pager.
You could have a 'helipad' bolted to your window-ledge, you program it as home (by GPS), I hope you help assist it in landing. My GPS us usualy acurate within 20 feet most of the time in the horizontal plane and 50 feet verticaly. It would need to be a big landing pad to avoid broken windows.
In an off grid home, due to the fact the system mentioned in the article has a rating of 1.2KW, most items on your list of energy hogs are not supported. In an off grid situation, the stove, water heater, and central heat are not electric. Most off grid homes do have a TV and Microwave. They are simply not on for extended periods. My parents RV is designed to be "off grid" It has 800 watts of panels and a 2 kw inverter with a 60 AH battery. The fridge (7 cu ft) is an energy effecient model. None of the lighting is incandecent. The heating and cooking is all gas except for the microwave. They often will park by a favorite lake somewhere for a week and not have to run a generator. They do have a gas generator for the few dog days of summer to run the AC, but running that is rare due to the high cost of operation.
Re-do the math. It's true if you only allow a 5 volt drop from the breaker to the 120 volt outlet at full load of say 1800 watts. However a 5 volt drop to a 12 volt 1800 watt appliance (1 tenth the voltage at 10 times the current) does not do the appliance much good even if you are not overheating the wire. Losing 5 volts of 120 is one thing. Losing 5 volts of 12 is entirely diffrent. To keep your loss to say 5% instead of 5 volts, the cross section will need to be more than 10 times bigger cross section. 10 times bigger wire will only maintain your original 5 volt drop at 10 times the current (for the same wattage) but the percentage of power lost is much greater at the lower supply voltage.
If they want me to watch their commercials, they need to find a way to make that compelling to me.
Unfortunately, unless someone gets a clue, most of the over the air TV will become dead in about 4 years in the US. The only digital TV's on the market seem aimed to the home theatre group. Almost nothing comes with a digital tuner in a price range joe sixpack will pay to watch over the air TV. There is nothing on the air that will convince me to spend $600 and up for a digital ready monitor and another $400 and up for the optional tuner. When are the small digital TV's going to hit the market? All small sets I have seen so far (under counter flip down sets, combo TV-VCR, & TV-DVD, & portable TV) have all been analog. There seems to be nothing in the small digital TV product lineup.
It's the manner in which the tool is used I can't agree more. I have CDeX. I have a portable MP3 player. I have the original CD's. Don't ask for a MP3 copy. With that in mind, I have absolutely no use for a copy of CDeX with peer to peer and adware stitched in. The other 2 features are useless to me.
The other app appears to be made to share ripped music in violation of copyright law.
CDeX in itself is not a tool made for piracy as a primary use any more than a photocopy machine.
I don't argue the fact they can be improperly used.
They want to sell the DVD's after the theatre release. Due to the cost of a film print, the prints get sent to other markets after they were shown in the USA. They don't want the USA DVD's in the other country competing with the local movie house opening night.
am I forced to involve the telco in how I setup my PBX It entirely depends on what you want to do. Many PBX systems are perfectly happy sitting on a single POTS line. One caller ties up the entire system except extension to extension calls. This is what you commonly find at very small stores where you ring in and then punch up an extension. Busy's are common. The system is referred to as a key system. A user has to select one of the unused outside lines to place a call and has to select one of the ringing lines (or line on hold) to answer a call.
A Private Branch Exchange is much more than a fancy termination for a POTS phone line. They run on some trunk lines. This does require some work on the Telco end to make it work. On the Key system, if one line is busy, callers would have to try later or try one of the other lines numbers. The Telco can have it so if the primary number is busy, it will roll over to a secondary number. On a trunked system, it is entirely diffrent. You can select diffrent numbers of incomming and outgoing trunks. In-comming calls and outgoing calls are placed on the first avaliable trunk. (you may have seen this, Dial 9 to get an outside line, not pick up line 3) Incomming calls as well as outgoing lines are trunked seprately. An example is an order desk using an 800 number. (operators standing by...) Many calls can be received limited by the number of incomming trunk lines and avaliable operators. The call center may have as few as 2 outgoing lines. A telemarketing center may have hundreds of outgoing trunk lines but just a few incomming lines.
Another class of trunk is called DID, for Direct Inward Dial. You most likely have seen this for paging and not known it. A paging company may buy a block of 1,000 phone numbers and have them placed on 20 trunk lines. When you dial the regular phone number to call a pager, it picks up any free trunk line to the paging switch (sometimes as few as 10 trunk DID lines) and the phone company sends the last 3 digits of the dialed number. This way 1,000 phone numbers will fit on 10 or so lines. The calls are short so few callers will experiance a busy. DID lines are used for many PBX's so you direct dial a department or persons desk without dialing an extension. You can get DID for 1-5 digits to cover 2-100,000 phone numbers. A 1 digit DID does not require reserving all 10 numbers, 2 digit 100 numbers, etc. Getting 20 numbers reserved on a 2 digit DID can be done. My work phone is an example of this. To save on copper wire, all of the trunks can be multiplexed on an ISDN line or dedicated fiber optic line. Going trunked is overkill for home use. Look for stuff that will work on a POTS line. Some stuff is set up for trunked service and may support DID or ISDN.
Unfortunately without the demand for HDTV's to watch reruns of Cheers, DTV's will still remain a video eletists item and will not make it into the 13 inch DVD/TV combo units and 20 inch sets. Who needs a bigscreen to watch an infomercial anyway? I went shopping for a regular DTV for the 6 o'clock news. Nothing in the smaller TV's has a digital tuner. Many sets were Digital Ready, meaning no tuner. It's several hundred bucks more (the price of an analog set) for just the tumer. If the mass market TV's come out before 2007, I may pick up one, but NOT while they are still priced for the home theatre big buck group. I failed to find a set with a tuner for less than 2,000 dollars at the local stores. For the over the air content, I can't see spending big bucks. I have a budget of about 400.00 to replace my current set. They have a long way to go. I may have to go dark on the local news and depend on the web and radio for news until they make TV's for the rest of us who just catch the local news off air. When the over the air switches off analog, I predict a small rush for new cable subscribers as the cable will still be able to deliver the local news on an analog set. Not everyone is willing to fork over 2,000 to watch the evening news.
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It sounds like they may use 100 volts instead of 120. You may have to pick up a transformer at the airport to use with it. I still have one I got when I was in Japan. It works both ways 120-100 & 100-120. If it uses a wall wart, you may be able to replace it with a 120 volt replacement that outputs the right voltage and current.
Forget the kits. Look for bulk supplies instead. I've been happy with bulk supplies. Instead of 2 or 4 oz. bottles, get the pints. Search the web for instructions for dealing with the chips, tools needed, and other supplies. Black ink at $30/pint goes a lot further than a $20 kit with a 2 oz bottle.
For color photo printing on my HP 950, this has been a big moneysaver. I run the cartridge till it burns out.
I found most all inexpensive printers were all Winprinters. They were too cheap to provide a controller. Since they are not in the printer business but in the ink business, they don't want to spend much on the razor. I think many printer manufactures get support from MS with strings attached to entice them to produce WIN only printers. MS provides the software support so the manufacture can save a bundle on hardware costs. Of course MS is not going to help the manufacture provide cross platform driver support. They are only targeting the largest protion of the market.
That is why my main printer is a networked HP Laserjet III (off a hardware printserver with linux support).
The Windows box drives the photo printer. It didn't take long to figure the diffrence in operating costs.
Is it really FUD? Add a sound or video recording to your presentation. Forget to uncheck an obscure box. Transfer it to the auditorium computer. Do the presentation minus the audio you recorded yourself and minus the video from your camcorder. Is it really FUD? See www.sdmi.org for details. Sorry to those who are PDF limited. Your own created content is to be encoded upon creation and bandwidth limited to monural voice grade recording. It won't play when transferred to the auditorium computer. It is not FUD, it is in the specification.
I wonder if a DDOS attacks on the clearing house will convince very many people this is a bad idea?
"My Power Point presentation died... I want it fixed NOW!. What do you mean the copy can not be authorized with the clearinghouse? I wrote and transfered it to the auditorium computer! Make it play!"
Read the review. They mentioned in the review which benchmark was the one mentioned as favoring Intel. They posted that along with the other well known benchmarks. They did not hide the fact one of the benchmarks is being disputed as favoring Intel. If the results were bad on all benchmarks except the one favoring Intel, it would stick out like a sore thumb. The other benchmarks also favored Intel, even though they didn't have the optimum MB and memory for the test, even when the AMD setup was optimum. I would love to see the test again with the preferred hardware for the P4.
I'll wait until the price gets reasonable". I'm still waiting
I'm in the same boat. I have a laserdisk player. I've been buying tapes waiting for the promise that disks are cheaper to make because they can be pressed in high volume. They changed from laser disk to a macrovision and region encumbered format that is even cheaper to press, but sadly it's still more expensive than tape. I also am still waiting.
There is a MP3 jukebox recorder by Arcos that does a fine job preserving my audio tapes and disks by enabling encoding to MP3. Maybe someone will do the same for me in the future so I can back up my video collection to a more stable medium.
After I bought the rights to a song on tape or disk (LP) I was even hoping they would provide an exchange where I could turn in stretched tapes and scratched LP's for a small media exchange fee. It never happened. You have to back it up yourself or buy a new copy of the medium and license. (new CD)
The music industry severly lacks in consumer support in supporting the products the consumers have purchased. At least I can find a mechanic to repair my older car when it gets scratched. No such support exists with the music industry. Too bad.. I have boxes of cassettes and LP's in need of service. It looks like I have to do it myself.
Actualy, I finaly read the first article after reading the second. I was under the impression it was for music. This isn't redbook at all. It is for data CD's. I guess it is targeted at the Adobe books, or Photoshop or other high ticket items. The article explains it well. It is powered by the laser using a photocell.
How it is going to get the laser the wink it a coded message for the handshaking is not clear. It will answer by shining some LED's back at the pickup. It sounds like something that could cause some tracking errors. Anyway the whole concept sounds expensive. I wouldn't expect it in anything mass produced. It could be used to protect sensitive encrypted data.
I don't know of any processor that does not require power. They are a little short of info in the article, but what do you do when the battery on the CD dies? It's not like a smart chip that is powered by the socket during the transaction. I can't see this being compatible with the redbook standard in any way providing compatibility with any of my exixting hardware. It looks like another obscure new kid on the block that will have to crack the chicken and egg problem.
It sounds like they are using the automation hardware for 300mm that Intel is using. The only diffrence is they are using silicon on insulator and a diffrent OS to control the automation. The rest of the FAB is about 2-3 fabs behind intel. Intel D1C, RP1 are all fully automated 300mm fabs and D1D is currently finishing up construction with tool instalation and qualification currently in progress.
A photo of an intel 300mm clean room showing the overhead delivery vehicles and the load ports of the processing tools can be seen here;
http://www.intel.com/jobs/logictech/
The tools themselves are on the other side of the walls.
You can't make it illegal and you can't prevent it technically
Wana bet?? Check the recording specs for SDMI compliant hardware here.
http://www.sdmi.org/
Sorry about the documents in PDF.
They are making it very hard to record anything of your own creation that isn't Monural voice grade bandwidth limited. This is collateral damage limiting indi creation using new hardware.
Watch out for this to become mandentory instead of optional and anything else not legal.
In the USA, having a lockpick is illegal if you are not a locksmith. Expect audio and video recorders to have the same restrictions soon.
Actualy that's not a bad idea because it inspired a soulution. Cell phone towers have had a bad name being ugly. To hide them, many radomes (fiberglass) are made to blend in un-noticed. Beautiful country can remain beautiful if the top of the farmers silo has a new fiberglass top that looks like the original. With that in mind, a fiberglass dummy birdhouse on the end of the building would look like it belonged there (decorated to look like wood of course). A tile chimney for a coal stove (now unused) could be replaced with a fiberglass one that looks like the original. The attic vent in the peak of the building could be replaced with a fiberglass one. There are many possibilities to hide a small 2 inch antenna.
Last week it captured more than six million copies of the same spam mail
SSsshhhh...
Not so loud. Spamers may find it an easy way to harvest 6 million addresses for free. Just put up a honeypot and wait for a spammer provide you the addresses free of charge.
the broadcasting industry go into the shitter
Umm, I thought they were already headed there. Most of the filth (sex sells) is unsuitable for the church ladies. Did you know there is only a few of the words left on George Carlin's list of seven words that still can't be said on TV? I certianly can not use the over the air TV as entertainment for young children anymore. (A PBS childrens program even has an AIDS muppet now)
You can make the case that one useful item built into new color copiers is their ability to recognize when currency is being photocopied and prevent it --
You could also make a case that the copier does not have to recognise the currency, but must distort everything copied by 20% in size or more. That's very much like the SDMI standard for audio recording. To meet the standard, the analog input must be Monural Voice quality bandwidth limited.
That sounds like a photocopier that can't make correct size/color/resolution copies, but can output your online purchased e-newspaper with finely detailed advertisements. Basicaly, it's to be an output device, not a copying device.
Too bad the Xeon was not used as intended. A Xeon is not the best graphics rendering chip. It makes a great data and transaction server (it is a server chip).
A Truck may have lots of torque for pulling a 5th wheel trailer up a hill, but it won't corner well in an indy circuit. Use the right tool for the job for best results.
Computers are no longer general purpose arithmic logic units anymore. They have become specialized. Some are better at some tasks than others. That is why there are many benchmarks. Choice of OS and applications also play a big role.
What can the average computer user do
Number one, Vote with your pocketbook!
Issues, DRM enabled devices...
I did not buy the new Magellan Meridian GPS because it used SD media.
I bought a CD burner
I bought a CD MP3 Player. It does not support WMA, Liquid Audio, etc. It only supports red book audio and MP3 audio.
The Archos Digital Jukebox/recorder is on my to get list. It viloates the SDMI standard by allowing a stereo analog high fidelity recording to be made. It allows the recording to be exported and copied in an unprotected format (MP3). I plan on transferring my pre-recorded tapes and vinyl to CD. The SDMI standard includes the requirement for voice grade mono analog recording and nothing better. A good stereo cassette deck will outperform a SDMI recorder everytime! Is a HI-FI VHS or 8mm VCR going to be my next audio recorder? I hope not! I will not support the SDMI audio recording standard. Voice grade mono recording does not meet my needs to back up my aging music collection. SDMI stuff is analog input bandwidth limited This input will be restricted to voice-grade mono and band-limited (-3dB at 100 hZ and -60 dB at 8 khZ) It is also to be imediately converted to SDMI protocol for local use. This translates to "it'll never be burnt to a CD or shared with your friends" This is useless to use to record the baby's first words to share with the grandparants. A tape deck is more capable in this regard. The SDMI compliant hardware is uncompetive in the marketplace due to the severe restrictions placed on it.
Read the SDMI spec here if you need to know the rest of the restrictions.
http://www.sdmi.org/
Most people have no idea this spec even exists.
Don't buy anything supporting these standards.
This includes portable media (memory cards).
Support companies that provide useful quality products and support open standards.
This is the biggest reason I use Compact Flash and CDr.
What I don't have...
A DVD player,
A DRM enabled book reader, audio player, TV/ computer monitor/ USB speakers, music in WMA or Liquid Audio format, portable devices supporting SD memory, etc..
I'm picky about my hardware and the content providers will have to cater to my needs or miss my purchases when they move into protected media.
I do not buy software that requires "activation" or a "dongle". The only exception is software that is part of an access to a service. An example is the firmware in my cell phone and pager.
You could have a 'helipad' bolted to your window-ledge, you program it as home (by GPS),
I hope you help assist it in landing. My GPS us usualy acurate within 20 feet most of the time in the horizontal plane and 50 feet verticaly. It would need to be a big landing pad to avoid broken windows.
In an off grid home, due to the fact the system mentioned in the article has a rating of 1.2KW, most items on your list of energy hogs are not supported.
In an off grid situation, the stove, water heater, and central heat are not electric. Most off grid homes do have a TV and Microwave. They are simply not on for extended periods. My parents RV is designed to be "off grid" It has 800 watts of panels and a 2 kw inverter with a 60 AH battery. The fridge (7 cu ft) is an energy effecient model. None of the lighting is incandecent. The heating and cooking is all gas except for the microwave. They often will park by a favorite lake somewhere for a week and not have to run a generator. They do have a gas generator for the few dog days of summer to run the AC, but running that is rare due to the high cost of operation.
Re-do the math. It's true if you only allow a 5 volt drop from the breaker to the 120 volt outlet at full load of say 1800 watts. However a 5 volt drop to a 12 volt 1800 watt appliance (1 tenth the voltage at 10 times the current) does not do the appliance much good even if you are not overheating the wire. Losing 5 volts of 120 is one thing. Losing 5 volts of 12 is entirely diffrent. To keep your loss to say 5% instead of 5 volts, the cross section will need to be more than 10 times bigger cross section. 10 times bigger wire will only maintain your original 5 volt drop at 10 times the current (for the same wattage) but the percentage of power lost is much greater at the lower supply voltage.
If they want me to watch their commercials, they need to find a way to make that compelling to me.
Unfortunately, unless someone gets a clue, most of the over the air TV will become dead in about 4 years in the US. The only digital TV's on the market seem aimed to the home theatre group. Almost nothing comes with a digital tuner in a price range joe sixpack will pay to watch over the air TV. There is nothing on the air that will convince me to spend $600 and up for a digital ready monitor and another $400 and up for the optional tuner. When are the small digital TV's going to hit the market?
All small sets I have seen so far (under counter flip down sets, combo TV-VCR, & TV-DVD, & portable TV) have all been analog. There seems to be nothing in the small digital TV product lineup.
It's the manner in which the tool is used
I can't agree more. I have CDeX. I have a portable MP3 player. I have the original CD's. Don't ask for a MP3 copy.
With that in mind, I have absolutely no use for a copy of CDeX with peer to peer and adware stitched in. The other 2 features are useless to me.
The other app appears to be made to share ripped music in violation of copyright law.
CDeX in itself is not a tool made for piracy as a primary use any more than a photocopy machine.
I don't argue the fact they can be improperly used.
They want to sell the DVD's after the theatre release. Due to the cost of a film print, the prints get sent to other markets after they were shown in the USA. They don't want the USA DVD's in the other country competing with the local movie house opening night.
am I forced to involve the telco in how I setup my PBX
It entirely depends on what you want to do. Many PBX systems are perfectly happy sitting on a single POTS line. One caller ties up the entire system except extension to extension calls. This is what you commonly find at very small stores where you ring in and then punch up an extension. Busy's are common. The system is referred to as a key system. A user has to select one of the unused outside lines to place a call and has to select one of the ringing lines (or line on hold) to answer a call.
A Private Branch Exchange is much more than a fancy termination for a POTS phone line. They run on some trunk lines. This does require some work on the Telco end to make it work. On the Key system, if one line is busy, callers would have to try later or try one of the other lines numbers. The Telco can have it so if the primary number is busy, it will roll over to a secondary number.
On a trunked system, it is entirely diffrent. You can select diffrent numbers of incomming and outgoing trunks. In-comming calls and outgoing calls are placed on the first avaliable trunk. (you may have seen this, Dial 9 to get an outside line, not pick up line 3) Incomming calls as well as outgoing lines are trunked seprately. An example is an order desk using an 800 number. (operators standing by...) Many calls can be received limited by the number of incomming trunk lines and avaliable operators. The call center may have as few as 2 outgoing lines. A telemarketing center may have hundreds of outgoing trunk lines but just a few incomming lines.
Another class of trunk is called DID, for Direct Inward Dial. You most likely have seen this for paging and not known it. A paging company may buy a block of 1,000 phone numbers and have them placed on 20 trunk lines. When you dial the regular phone number to call a pager, it picks up any free trunk line to the paging switch (sometimes as few as 10 trunk DID lines) and the phone company sends the last 3 digits of the dialed number. This way 1,000 phone numbers will fit on 10 or so lines. The calls are short so few callers will experiance a busy.
DID lines are used for many PBX's so you direct dial a department or persons desk without dialing an extension. You can get DID for 1-5 digits to cover 2-100,000 phone numbers. A 1 digit DID does not require reserving all 10 numbers, 2 digit 100 numbers, etc. Getting 20 numbers reserved on a 2 digit DID can be done. My work phone is an example of this. To save on copper wire, all of the trunks can be multiplexed on an ISDN line or dedicated fiber optic line.
Going trunked is overkill for home use. Look for stuff that will work on a POTS line. Some stuff is set up for trunked service and may support DID or ISDN.
Unfortunately without the demand for HDTV's to watch reruns of Cheers, DTV's will still remain a video eletists item and will not make it into the 13 inch DVD/TV combo units and 20 inch sets. Who needs a bigscreen to watch an infomercial anyway? I went shopping for a regular DTV for the 6 o'clock news. Nothing in the smaller TV's has a digital tuner. Many sets were Digital Ready, meaning no tuner. It's several hundred bucks more (the price of an analog set) for just the tumer. If the mass market TV's come out before 2007, I may pick up one, but NOT while they are still priced for the home theatre big buck group. I failed to find a set with a tuner for less than 2,000 dollars at the local stores. For the over the air content, I can't see spending big bucks. I have a budget of about 400.00 to replace my current set. They have a long way to go. I may have to go dark on the local news and depend on the web and radio for news until they make TV's for the rest of us who just catch the local news off air. When the over the air switches off analog, I predict a small rush for new cable subscribers as the cable will still be able to deliver the local news on an analog set. Not everyone is willing to fork over 2,000 to watch the evening news.