I've used "standalone" DVR's for a long time, and have always been a huge advocate. I never really persued the "home-brew" route mainly because of the cost and time investments. I preferred the non-cable company ReplayTV models for control, but was always plagued by limitations imposed by the cable/satellite providers. Things as simple as controlling STB's and as esoteric as HD recordings were always hurdles, but what I was able to get to work worked well. As for cable company-specific DVR's, I used a MOXI dual tuner HD DVR, and it was excellent, but again, its specific feature set was controlled by the cable company, so I was at their mercy.
Recently, I chose to abandon abandoned the standalone versions to build an HTPC running SageTV. The end result, like MythTV, is an amazingly tailorable, controllable PVR system that gives me exactly what I want in a PVR. I can record and playback SD and HD content, edit videos, burn them to DVD, remotely access my content and schedule recordings remotely, and a host osf other excellent features. (I can record unencrypted HD broadcasts over cable using the HDHomeRun and its SageTV integration.) But all this "greatness" comes with some limitations: I cannot record encrypted HD channels that I pay for. I must have an STB to receive and record any premium content including premium movie channels, PPV, and On Demand. The very nature of non-integrated recording means that recording quality will degrade slightly from the original.
The good news in all this is that the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is very high, so the limitations are certainly non-issues.
But this all boils down to the simple fact that if you expect full cable/satellite company compatibility, you will be disappointed with any non-integrated solution. Until a viable CableCARD solution surfaces that lets PC's record and playback SD & HD recordings, your expectations will NEVER be met with a legal home-brewed system. Your best solution is to look to your cable/satellite provider for their DVR offerings.
That said, if you are willing to put up with the limitations imposed by the cable/satellite providers, then you can enjoy amazing flexibility and features. that will really transform how you watch and manage your TV, DVD, Music, and general information content.
What you want is a dumb terminal, and these already exist and are widely available. Most support X11/XDMCP or RDP.
While that's certainly true, wouldn't simply replacing a BIOS chip be much cheaper? I'd gladly pay a reasonably priced (something like $25-$50) for a replacement BIOS chip for use in existing PC's as opposed to ponying up for the much higher cost of terminals.
The article does mention other applications like carr PC's, etc. but this could have lots of household PC uses. I would LOVE to have something like this, but for "consumer use", it would need to automatically boot, connect to the network using either presets or DHCP, and then present a menu (text or graphical--doesn't matter) displaying a list of available VNC and rdp servers to connect to (I use Windows primarily, so that's MY need, but Linux (aka X) connections could be useful too.) Then launch the graphical session.
Better still, let me just define a dedicated server, and have it auto-boot and connect.
My desire is to use older PC's as quick-booting "terminals" accessing Windows servers. Then, from the users' perspective, it's a seamless Windows environment.
OK, I know it's not quite the same...
on
Is Vista a Trap?
·
· Score: 1
...but I had Vista running on a VMWare virtual machine in under 30 minutes on my laptop. Connecting to the Internet was a snap. OK, so it was a clean install, it was on a VM, so the hardware issues weren't that complex, and I didn't put it through rigorous paces, but really, is it as diffucult as people make it out to be?
In two weeks we (I and someone else from my company) are going to VMWare presentation. We are already using VMWare, but currently only for testing. Our plan is to move several systems over to a few new servers (from Dell) running VMWare with Linux guest OS's. Why is VMWare doomed? I can't see the connection between anything MS does and what VMWare get from us...
Right now, we've got one computer left here running Windows. The rest are all OSX or Ubuntu.
In your case, it's a non-issue.
His point is two-fold when taken in the context of the article.
1. Microsoft Is As Microsoft Does Like so many other Microsoft products, Microsoft's virtualization products may overtake VMWare simply because of its better "compatibility" and "compliance" to Microsoft licensing. And not because the product is innovative or technically "better" product, but because it can leverage Microsoft itself. If Microsoft words the license to favor its products over competitors, they may run into legal issues.
2. Licensing If Microsoft changes its licensing favoring Microsoft products over competitors, it could affect using Windows under VMWare. Not because of specific technical reasons, but because of pure license issues. In your case, where everything is non-Windows, it'a a non-issue.
Some people are just very trustworthy with high integrity while others will abuse whatever they can. Of course, the challenge is determining that at the interview stage...
...back in the early 90's when I managed single DEC MicroVAX minicomputer with over 60 connected VT terminals and 25 printers. System Management was easy, centralized, and completely controllable--users only had access to what we gave them and absolutely nothing else. OK, so character-based Word Perfect, Lotus 123, Pine, and Lynx could be difficult at times, but people were honestly very productive, and things hummed along nicely.
Enter the mandatory Windows world, and that's when things really went to Hell....
You gave a great example. The issue really isn't that the company made a mistake, but that they took it upon themselves to correct it without the consent of the purchaser. While terms of the sale and the ethicacy of the purchaser can be debated, the fact remains that the charges Amazon.com made after the transaction was completed were unauthorized by the purchaser. What Amazon.com should have done (and maybe they did--I didn't RTFA) is offer the purchaser free shipping to ship the item back or the purchaser would be charged. That would be fair. But to simply charge an unauthorized charged is not right.
Though most would cringe at the thought of adding ads, it really comes down to how it is done. Advertising is a double-edged sword. On one hand, advertisers need their ads to be seen/heard/clicked. They need their ads to be bold, prominent, and in-your-face so that you will actually watch/listen/click them. On the other hand, users (or at least users with my viewpoint) typically prefer relevant, unobtrusive, subdued ads that don't detract from the overall experience of the page they are viewing. And that's where I think Google nailed it and nailed it well. I'm all for the inclusion of targeted, relevant, and unobtrusive ads if it will help financially benefit Wikipedia, but when the ads distract from the reason for using Wikipedia, then things break down.
It sounds like the intent of these types of legislation is to simply ban MySpace.com from public access in schools and libraries. Unfortunately, they can't target a specific site, so they have to generalize the legislation which has the side effect of affecting countless other "legit" sites.
I'm not going to judge the social or moral "worth" of a site like MySpace.com, but I will give the opinion that there is a place for access to such sites, and schools or libraries may not be that place. Providing free access to the Internet doesn't necessarily imply unrestricted access.
I just set up POP on Gmail, and use Thunderbird to do the backup. Yes, the first time, it will have to download EVERYTHING, but once that is done, it's very simple on an ongoing basis.
Some tips:
1. Initial Transfer For some reason, Thunderbird wouldn't download ALL my emails at once (I had over 3000 messages at the time.) It seemed to pull them in in blocks of a few hundred at a time. It took a number of repeated download sessions to complete the entire download. Yes, it was a bit tedious, but it really wasn't that bad.
2. Downloading New Messages Once you do the initial download, Thunderbird only downloads NEW messages, so succeeding download session times are very, very short.
3. Set It Up To Work Automatically If you have an always-on connection at home (cable, DSL) then set up Thunderbird on a spare PC or on a PC you leave on all the time to auto-download messages. Just set it to download once or twice per day. Honestly, you don't need it to download any more frequently than that.
4. Take It With You Portable Thunderbird would make it a snap to move the files to another location should the need arise.
5. Just Let It Run Once you set it up and get things going, it a set-it-and-forget-it deal. Just occasionally go into Thunderbird and move the messages from the Inbox to a GMail folder and mark 'em all as read.
6. Labels are NOT transferred You lose ALL Labels, so you lose all the associated organization. Is this a potential hassle? Absolutely! But to me, the simple peace of mind of having an offline backup far outweighs that. Besides, with a client like THunderbird, searching is easy.
Per a user on the "Gmail Users" Google Groups, this may be only for certain non-United States locations. When I connect to Gmail from my home in the USA, I only get the SMS screen, but when I connect through my office (through a company proxy that hits the Internet in France) I get the non-invitation screen.
Their FAQ pages have not been updated yet. As with almost all previous Gmail enhancementsit takes time to roll things out globally. When I navigate to Gmail.com using IE7 or Firefox, I see a nice "Sign up for Gmail" panel with a link that takes you right to a signup screen--no invitation is necessary. (Now, I'm using a company proxy that hits the Internet in Europe, so YMMV depending on your location.)
Give it a day or so, and you should see the non-invitation link.
I've been using RegisterFly.com for years, and have had excellent results. There may be better ones out there, but RegisterFly.com has been very, very reliable for me.
She had to start out from law school for only $80K and slave away at that level for months before she got paid a decent wage.
I know it's all relative, and we have to compare apples to apples when comparing salaries, but I just find it amazing that $80K is not considered a decent wage.
Unlike my wife, when I wake up in the morning, I'm typically hungry, so actually eating breakfast is a no-brainer to me. It's what I eat that can put me into a rut. I find that over time, I open the fridge and pull out the same old thing, and I find myself getting bored. I have to make an effort to mix things up occasionally. Fortunately, variety gets "forced" because on Tuesday mornings, I get together with some guys from Church at a local breakfast place. It at least gives me something different from the norm.
When I was in college, they called it the "Baggy Pants" treatment... If someone left their account logged in, someone would post something to the newsgroup along the lines of "I have baggy pants!" or something even more creative like "My pants are ooooh sooo baggy..." and they get more creative and outlandish from there...
I don't have a thing to hide, and I'm sick and tired of terrorists getting away with things. It's high time that the citizenry of the U.S. enable the government to do its job.
My only question is, is this a GSM phone that will let me change out the chip so I can use it around the world?
I'd say no, because according to the keynote video, many of the functions are very tightly integrated with back-end stuff partnered between Cingular and Apple. For example, the cool random access "visual voice mail" function requires back-end processing on Cingular's part that wouldn't be available on other carriers.
But who is to say that the "spoof" file is not itself copyrighted?
I think a big misinterpretation here is the assumption that just because the file's contents don't match the filename makes the file not copyrighted. Say you went into a library and checked out a book on Astronomy. The cover shows a title about astronomy. You get home, open the book, and discover that the actual book inside is about cooking. Does that mis-labeling itself necessarily make the cookbook not copyrighted?
Slashdot Mirror
I've used "standalone" DVR's for a long time, and have always been a huge advocate. I never really persued the "home-brew" route mainly because of the cost and time investments. I preferred the non-cable company ReplayTV models for control, but was always plagued by limitations imposed by the cable/satellite providers. Things as simple as controlling STB's and as esoteric as HD recordings were always hurdles, but what I was able to get to work worked well. As for cable company-specific DVR's, I used a MOXI dual tuner HD DVR, and it was excellent, but again, its specific feature set was controlled by the cable company, so I was at their mercy.
Recently, I chose to abandon abandoned the standalone versions to build an HTPC running SageTV. The end result, like MythTV, is an amazingly tailorable, controllable PVR system that gives me exactly what I want in a PVR. I can record and playback SD and HD content, edit videos, burn them to DVD, remotely access my content and schedule recordings remotely, and a host osf other excellent features. (I can record unencrypted HD broadcasts over cable using the HDHomeRun and its SageTV integration.) But all this "greatness" comes with some limitations: I cannot record encrypted HD channels that I pay for. I must have an STB to receive and record any premium content including premium movie channels, PPV, and On Demand. The very nature of non-integrated recording means that recording quality will degrade slightly from the original.
The good news in all this is that the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is very high, so the limitations are certainly non-issues.
But this all boils down to the simple fact that if you expect full cable/satellite company compatibility, you will be disappointed with any non-integrated solution. Until a viable CableCARD solution surfaces that lets PC's record and playback SD & HD recordings, your expectations will NEVER be met with a legal home-brewed system. Your best solution is to look to your cable/satellite provider for their DVR offerings.
That said, if you are willing to put up with the limitations imposed by the cable/satellite providers, then you can enjoy amazing flexibility and features. that will really transform how you watch and manage your TV, DVD, Music, and general information content.
The article does mention other applications like carr PC's, etc. but this could have lots of household PC uses. I would LOVE to have something like this, but for "consumer use", it would need to automatically boot, connect to the network using either presets or DHCP, and then present a menu (text or graphical--doesn't matter) displaying a list of available VNC and rdp servers to connect to (I use Windows primarily, so that's MY need, but Linux (aka X) connections could be useful too.) Then launch the graphical session.
Better still, let me just define a dedicated server, and have it auto-boot and connect.
My desire is to use older PC's as quick-booting "terminals" accessing Windows servers. Then, from the users' perspective, it's a seamless Windows environment.
...but I had Vista running on a VMWare virtual machine in under 30 minutes on my laptop. Connecting to the Internet was a snap. OK, so it was a clean install, it was on a VM, so the hardware issues weren't that complex, and I didn't put it through rigorous paces, but really, is it as diffucult as people make it out to be?
In your case, it's a non-issue.
His point is two-fold when taken in the context of the article.
1. Microsoft Is As Microsoft Does
Like so many other Microsoft products, Microsoft's virtualization products may overtake VMWare simply because of its better "compatibility" and "compliance" to Microsoft licensing. And not because the product is innovative or technically "better" product, but because it can leverage Microsoft itself. If Microsoft words the license to favor its products over competitors, they may run into legal issues.
2. Licensing
If Microsoft changes its licensing favoring Microsoft products over competitors, it could affect using Windows under VMWare. Not because of specific technical reasons, but because of pure license issues. In your case, where everything is non-Windows, it'a a non-issue.
Some people are just very trustworthy with high integrity while others will abuse whatever they can. Of course, the challenge is determining that at the interview stage...
...back in the early 90's when I managed single DEC MicroVAX minicomputer with over 60 connected VT terminals and 25 printers. System Management was easy, centralized, and completely controllable--users only had access to what we gave them and absolutely nothing else. OK, so character-based Word Perfect, Lotus 123, Pine, and Lynx could be difficult at times, but people were honestly very productive, and things hummed along nicely.
Enter the mandatory Windows world, and that's when things really went to Hell....
You gave a great example. The issue really isn't that the company made a mistake, but that they took it upon themselves to correct it without the consent of the purchaser. While terms of the sale and the ethicacy of the purchaser can be debated, the fact remains that the charges Amazon.com made after the transaction was completed were unauthorized by the purchaser. What Amazon.com should have done (and maybe they did--I didn't RTFA) is offer the purchaser free shipping to ship the item back or the purchaser would be charged. That would be fair. But to simply charge an unauthorized charged is not right.
Mod parent up.
Though most would cringe at the thought of adding ads, it really comes down to how it is done. Advertising is a double-edged sword. On one hand, advertisers need their ads to be seen/heard/clicked. They need their ads to be bold, prominent, and in-your-face so that you will actually watch/listen/click them. On the other hand, users (or at least users with my viewpoint) typically prefer relevant, unobtrusive, subdued ads that don't detract from the overall experience of the page they are viewing. And that's where I think Google nailed it and nailed it well. I'm all for the inclusion of targeted, relevant, and unobtrusive ads if it will help financially benefit Wikipedia, but when the ads distract from the reason for using Wikipedia, then things break down.
It sounds like the intent of these types of legislation is to simply ban MySpace.com from public access in schools and libraries. Unfortunately, they can't target a specific site, so they have to generalize the legislation which has the side effect of affecting countless other "legit" sites.
I'm not going to judge the social or moral "worth" of a site like MySpace.com, but I will give the opinion that there is a place for access to such sites, and schools or libraries may not be that place. Providing free access to the Internet doesn't necessarily imply unrestricted access.
supernova77a,
I just set up POP on Gmail, and use Thunderbird to do the backup. Yes, the first time, it will have to download EVERYTHING, but once that is done, it's very simple on an ongoing basis.
Some tips:
1. Initial Transfer
For some reason, Thunderbird wouldn't download ALL my emails at once (I had over 3000 messages at the time.) It seemed to pull them in in blocks of a few hundred at a time. It took a number of repeated download sessions to complete the entire download. Yes, it was a bit tedious, but it really wasn't that bad.
2. Downloading New Messages
Once you do the initial download, Thunderbird only downloads NEW messages, so succeeding download session times are very, very short.
3. Set It Up To Work Automatically
If you have an always-on connection at home (cable, DSL) then set up Thunderbird on a spare PC or on a PC you leave on all the time to auto-download messages. Just set it to download once or twice per day. Honestly, you don't need it to download any more frequently than that.
4. Take It With You
Portable Thunderbird would make it a snap to move the files to another location should the need arise.
5. Just Let It Run
Once you set it up and get things going, it a set-it-and-forget-it deal. Just occasionally go into Thunderbird and move the messages from the Inbox to a GMail folder and mark 'em all as read.
6. Labels are NOT transferred
You lose ALL Labels, so you lose all the associated organization. Is this a potential hassle? Absolutely! But to me, the simple peace of mind of having an offline backup far outweighs that. Besides, with a client like THunderbird, searching is easy.
I detailed this on my Gmail Tips site...
-Jim
Per a user on the "Gmail Users" Google Groups, this may be only for certain non-United States locations. When I connect to Gmail from my home in the USA, I only get the SMS screen, but when I connect through my office (through a company proxy that hits the Internet in France) I get the non-invitation screen.
Give it a day or so, and you should see the non-invitation link.
I've been using RegisterFly.com for years, and have had excellent results. There may be better ones out there, but RegisterFly.com has been very, very reliable for me.
OK, I certainly don't live under a rock, but $700,000 in legal fees? Holy crap! Maybe IT wasn't the right field to get into!!!!!
For IT-related stuff, it's Google or your favorite industry-specific newsgroups.
For general "gadget" related items, I typically check out The Gadgeteer first, then Google.
For digital cameras, it's Steve's Digicams all the way, then Google.
For cars, it's AutoTrend or Consumer Reports Autos, then Google.
For general household stuff, it's Consumer Reports, then Google.
And in pretty much every case, I check Google.
Unlike my wife, when I wake up in the morning, I'm typically hungry, so actually eating breakfast is a no-brainer to me. It's what I eat that can put me into a rut. I find that over time, I open the fridge and pull out the same old thing, and I find myself getting bored. I have to make an effort to mix things up occasionally. Fortunately, variety gets "forced" because on Tuesday mornings, I get together with some guys from Church at a local breakfast place. It at least gives me something different from the norm.
It really sucks when the people at work post something on your account while you're not looking! There goes my karma.
I don't have a thing to hide, and I'm sick and tired of terrorists getting away with things. It's high time that the citizenry of the U.S. enable the government to do its job.
Medieval priest to scribe:
"No, you idiot, that's celebrate!"
But who is to say that the "spoof" file is not itself copyrighted?
I think a big misinterpretation here is the assumption that just because the file's contents don't match the filename makes the file not copyrighted. Say you went into a library and checked out a book on Astronomy. The cover shows a title about astronomy. You get home, open the book, and discover that the actual book inside is about cooking. Does that mis-labeling itself necessarily make the cookbook not copyrighted?