Personaly I think it's great! Among the many stores I frequent, there are supermarkets that are not well staffed in the week hours, esp around bar'o'clock (regional closing time for bars). Where it is common place for people to shoplift after making a good an honest effort to wait for the human. I my self like to be more honest about the subject, and this seems a very viable solution to that end.
Those automated coupon despencers, well ok, those are a pain in the tookus. While I feel it's a far better system then just a stack of coupons in prevention of mixed-paper waste, it is a touch of a power waste. A nice nifty little role would be far superior IMHO, serve the fuction and not need batteries.
I've used the automated checkout at Home Depot, with a stack of $20.00s without difficulty, though I typicaly only use the automated checkout for a few small items. Not so much because i'm a fan of the new fangled system, but simply because most people who shop there have carts filled with home improvement shinola, when all I need is a bit of sandpaper.
But hey, to each their own, i'd respect the fact that people like your self prefer dealing with a human. Not that would nessicarly resolve the issue of a klaxon sounding, but atleast you have someone to blame to look at funny if it does.
I mean, typicaly speaking most checking accounts have an automatic debit and a credit card compatabile number. I'm not under the age of 18 any more, so I don't know how difficult it is to get checking account if you are under age.
I do know that some bank offer something called a kids credit card or some such. Basicly it's like a credit card as far as the machines are concerned, you transfer money into it much like a checking account, but is something marketed to for parents to give to their kids. I'm not sure how widespread the use of such products are, but I can imagine it would be a viable alternative for parents who need to give their kids money for expences, yet be able to control how much and have some ability to declair it lost or stolen.
It still requires kids to have parents willing to do this, but in this day and age, I don't see how a credit card number would nessicarly prove a person is of age. And this doesn't take into account kids who peek in their parents wallet and sign on for permission.
You could say it's genius though, being able to dodge accountability. "It's your fault for giving your kids your credit card/bank card", or "it's the kid's fault for lying to us". I guess that's the art of bussiness, making it look good on paper but not nessicarly being realistic.
I might have the state wrong, this is a vague memory. I remember that many states have home brewing somewhat regulated and taxed, where if you bottle your own beer for example you must purchace offical state taxed caps for the beverage in question.
This is about as high tech as a piece of paper, but never the less doesn't require much in the way of software to maintain. In the event of major failure in the system, you can resort to lower tech means do to your accounting until such time you can get your accounting software back online and working.
While this would wouldn't nessicarly help those who import from other states, a simple tag across the cap that is broken upon opening it would do the trick as well. Can you bypass this, sure! But it's a hell of alot better then the "let's just not allow new booze to be sold till we get our software fixed".
Very low tech... requires only printing of specific ammounts, printers are more then happy to handle this aspect.
As for power users being the trendsetters, I ask why Windows is the OS of choice and AOL is the number 1 ISP is this is really true.
Less you forget pre 1990 time, where there really wasn't public internet access as we know it. There were a vast number of services which include on the top of my head
Compu$erve GEnie (noted for their 1/2 duplex mode) American Online Prodigy
The only people in the market for the above service pretty much were power users who needed the ability to access files, and e-mail. I had a Compu$erve account for a very simple reason, e-mail and access to a vast file library. In 1982, it was brillent!
Times are diffrent now, but we must not forget that these popular services provided content and services long before internet access was available. Compu$erve didn't suck all that much in 1982-1988, it was among of the oldest pay networks around.
Regarding Windows... well like it or not it's very popular. Just because someone uses windows doesn't mean they are not what you'd consider to be a power user. Many of my best friends run windows. There is alot of major power applications for Windows that have yet to be produced for Linux or other platforms. Lot's of Mac power users too. The power users seek those power applications that make the investment in the computer and software possible.
AOL though, flat out sucks, probally not your typical power user's choice. But hey, what person with a clue doesn't reccomend "drop your AOL it sucks". They do have a strong foothold over the present market, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. Like it or not, it's still a very legit choice for those people who travel over seas, who want a local dialup in places like Australia and England. Compu$erve too is also a legit choice due to the vast number of lines. They both *suck* but have an important the important feature of wide spread availablity. It still sucks, but who else but the megaISPs offer such a feature.
Third party users are not potential viewers. The only people who can view the ads are users of th official client
I guess this depends on how microsoft bills for their adverts. We're not talking amature website with a click on me banner, we're talking about a multi-billion dollar corp. I can not believe that 10% of even 3rd party users doesn't add to the value. They are users, even if they can't see the adverts doesn't mean they are not listed as being potentical viewers. If I was microsoft, and I was selling ad space, I wouldn't even put that on paper, i'd just look at the number of passport users as tell companies that this is the user base.
Now... if Microsoft was smart, they would spam anyone not viewing the mandatory adverts to folks who are not getting them via the normal way. Problem solved.
Microsoft discovered a MAJOR flaw in their naming convention. It seems it's far too easy to confuse MSN Messenger with Windows Messenger do in part they are both called Messenger, also due to the fact that Windows Messenger isn't widly used, except by sys/net admins telling their users the system is going down.
Getting users to actually peform updates when they don't have the ability to tell the diffrence between the diffrent products has proven to be most troublesome to Microsoft.
This flaw was noticed by technical support when users asked for assistance with "outlook" not knowing that "express" was a diffrent product. Not to speak of the diffrences between Windows Explorer, Microsoft Explorer, and the new hardly ever works MSN explorer.
"The idea that users know the diffrence between Windows, Microsoft, and MSN is ridiculous" --- typical power user.
A new convention is required based on the following facts
Windows - the operating system side of things Microsoft - the software side of things, stuff you actually use MSN - the ISP side of things, fluffy click shit that causes your computer to crash and burn.
Renaming should be as follows
Dont touch me crap - reserved for operating system level software Play with me crap - the software you typicaly get to do stuff Can't do crap - the stuff internet related that never works right
Now saying that there are patches for the "don't touch me crap messenger" has some meaning to the average user, vs their "Can't do crap Messenger" product.
This message was brought to you by Microsoft Crap, where did your document go today?
I don't see how nothaving extra people whogenerate no revenue hurts them
Very simple... the cost of advertising is based on viewer ship. Even 3rd party clients are *users* included in the viewship calculations.
If you are using a third party client, you are costing them money by using their servers and they are making no money in return from their client advertising.
When your getting the ratings of a TV show, you don't take into account that they might go to the bathroom during the comercial break, or might actually be recording it and killing the comercials. A 3rd party client is still a possible viewer of adverts, and does serve to increase their numbers.
While the internet is a little bit diffrent, in the fact you can actually establish whether or not a specific file was accessed, and that would be taken into account as well. But you can't tell if it was actually viewed by a person, or if they were AFK or it was sent to/dev/null.
So they lose some power users who are costing them money, and you don't see the benefit of it?
No I don't, when it's the power user who acts as a trendsetter to many. They get money based on how many people use the service. Power users get frustrated and dont' use the product. Power user informs others that they are being boneheads and encourage others not to use the product.
If you ask me, restricting/curtailing chat rooms is a great thing. Let the kids talk to their existing friends on IM, but not venture into some public forum where anyone can accost/be"friend" them.
With all due respect, MSN is not chat. They offered a very popular chat service but they are not chat. The techncique they are using was coined by Douglas Adams as SEP (Someone Elses Problem). If the kids can't chat or can't get their parents credit card, heck they'll go to yahoo, irc.
So.. what happens when MSN stops dropping their 3rd party IM support... as well as their online chat support? Adults and kids alike go elsewhere, it's not about restricting/curtailing at all IMHO it's just now someone else's problem.
Heck, I know with the room I maintained, part of my mission was to collect the names of all who used it... and either tossed either either an e-mail from MSN's friendly profiles, or invited them into a moderated room to give them the url with the correct information. Lastly was the "add me to messenger" for the remaining users who who didn't get the memo. My target were people who used the room on the regular basis... the same procedure coudl be done by someone who's agenst is to accost/befriend folk. Esp easy when given given MSN's pulling of the plug.
I feel part of the problem is the fact that it was so remarkably easy to stalk people on MSN messenger and chat service, and you still can with ease regardless of the age specified in profiles. That issue clearly has not even been addressed.
This is not directly attached to Messenger but rather their chat service.
Oct 14th was the day they decided to also nix their free chat service in favor of their charge people roughly $20 a year for it.
TK2CHATCHATA06 are 984 users and 45 invisible on 1 servers, this is roughly a 90% reduction from oct 13th.
Why I bring this up you ask. Well very simple, msn is shooting them selves in the foot really. Their chat service it's very much possible they wanted roughly 90% of their population to leave, heck it's easier to manage. But the policy on Messenger clients, well I can't imagine anything really good will come out of banning 3rd party clients. Your typical user won't notice anyway, where as your power user with multi-clients will make a stand and leave for other services that work.
But it looks good on paper, I imagine that's their pressent mission is with both Messenger and chat, making a good case for the shareholders why such services are money markers.
If i'm dead due to car wreck... they can have the data. I'm not going to care, might as well figure out why i'm dead.
If i'm alive, then not without a court order. This is reasonable because this is MY data.
Maybe it should be mandatory that you be allowed to deactivate or remove these things, like you can with airbags.
You can do this NOW with airbags because they have been proven to be unsafe for small children, not sure how specific the reg is, as in can you disable the drivers side airbag? I know here in washington there seems to be no issue selling referbished autos without airbags, and there seems to be no legal quam about the subject, but that's neither here nor there.
How exactly was the data going to get used without a court order?
Also in the state of washington... the state emitions test require them to hook up to your onboard computer, where data is used to determine whether or not your car passes or fails, though i'm unsure about the details. It could be argued very easily because you give permission to the state to hook up to your data port that you are also giving them permission to download your logs. A state enforcement agent who can see evidence of wrong doing would be irresponcible not to follow up on it, which is why we need such laws in place, so they can't.
Personaly I feel that the state is forcing me to choose an invasive option where if they were actually concerned with my emmitions they can stick a tube up my pipe. The amount of data these stations should be limited to milage and whether or not the car is to par with regulated standards.
This was a couple of years back. I can't remember if they were model M, they were attached to PS/2s, had a ps/2 interface with a detachable cable and flat pin connectors. Telling you the location now would be pointless. Needless to say I still see them from time to time. many were donated with the keys rearanged to say "keyboard" probally about 10 out of 100 or so.
Boeing suplus though, in case you are interested, did at one point have this series of keyboard, but I think by now they are dumping all their replacement keyboards.
I know it's really DIFFICULT to find hardware that even the luddite can get a grip on.
One printer i've noted that seems to have the average user in mind is the HP psc 950, though this particular model is a few years old... I'm sure there is something newer that is equilivent. Among it's features are printer, scanner, fax, copier with nice buttons ontop that allow you to "scan" to "fax, printer and PC save". Easy peasy. Further, it takes smart memory / memory sticks, further more it prints out a proof sheat of your photos and to enlarge one you don't even need a PC. Just using a #2 pencil you fill in the bubbles on the proof sheet and it takes that input on the scan bed. While I see some advantages to having solid state removable media accesable on your PC... I find that this solution is far superior to the inexperenced user who pretty much wants hardcopy of their images without any fuss.
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Home theater I setup for a family member who had the following plan in mind. They wanted DVD, replacment of their big ass speakers with small bookshelf varity to maximize on space, the ability to access their legacy media (vinyl, cassette, video tape), as well as reducing the size of the stack. All with the ease of pushing a button. To this end I went with a bargin bin solution offered by Circuit city. They had a Magnavox 5 disk home theater with smallish speakers and 5.1 sound. The important feature I was looking for was line level input and output as well as independent buttons for each fuction. What it lacks is video input for each fuction, which detracts from the intuitiveness of it. The existing amp cross wired into the tape input and output so the aux fuction would listen to whatever the old amp was listing to, which seemed to make the number of button pressing minimal. I also went with a simple radio shack switchbox which has one very important feature, not only does it accept svideo input, but will output both svideo and composite, making it ideal to pigtail to the vcr's input and record what ever you happen to be watching. (Note: recording something diffrent then what you are watching is an advanced concept). Also since I had a seperate amp, I set it up in a diffrent room, made a wire run and picked some jenson bookshelf speakers.
Thigns added... 5 disk DVD player, two bookshelf speakers, switchbox, 4 small speakers and subwoofer.
Things subtracted FM tuner, 4 large speakers.
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Ease of use....
Remote controls.... the stock digital cable remote doesn't control the sound levels, and it's common for the user to use the "wrong" remote to adjust the sound levels. There are three places to adjust the volume, the cable box, the TV, and dvd home theater amp. [not to speak of the aux amp with turntable and tapedeck]. In theory the next version of the Motorola cable box will come with a remote that handels the home theater. If I was doing this professionaly, i'd make sure to BUY a remote that supported all the above. For now, the instructions are clear, use the dvd remote for sound, use the Cable remote for channel.
Manual controls...
One thing important to people is a manual control for volume when they can't find the regular remote. This home theater unit has a traditional volume control.
Also, the whole system is dependent on the TV being on aux 1, and the VCR being on aux for recording and such. When ever anyone changes the station, the whole thing doesn't work and a phone call is needed. This would be resolved in a couple of ways
1. Have a menu option on the TV to disable the Turner and other unused inputs so people don't get confused.
2. Have a Home Theater amp that accepts video input so the buttons on the front that say "TV" will show you TV.
While the home theater offers 4 speakers and a sub... there really isn't an option like there is on other older amps to just output stereo to all 4 speakers. There is the prologic decoding that makes a valued judgement of what i
AAMOF, the A500+ shipped with AmigaOS 2.0 and later 2.1.
While this is true... I discovered later on that having 2.x roms wasn't really all that spiffy. Near as I could tell you couldn't softload the 3.x romimage if you had 2.x roms.
I have a microsoft "un-natural" keyboard. I can't very well re-arange my keys.
I know exactly what you mean though.... I remember an old IBM keyboard I beliece was stock on the PS/2 which had shells around each key. Before I donated a large batch to goodwill I re-aranged the keys on the keyboard.
remaping a series a keys can be done by the end user by using the following technique
1. Use sandpaper to remove the old letters (220 grit, 400 wet/dry grit, 600 grit
2. Apply clear coat with flex adheasive to the letters. While this is best done with a paint gun / compressor, you can often find paint shops that will sell you cans of spray paint custom mixed, I believe the cost is about $12.00 a can. So long as you pick a brand that will dry without an activator you should be cool. There are also small airbrushes you purchace that are nothing more then a glass bottle, compressed air in a can, and applicator.
[Note, the laws on professional spray paint need to be researched. For example, in my region I don't need a license nor a booth so long as I buy my paint in quarts and use a HPLF gun or limit my painting to 9 cubic feet daily.]
Re:Amiga Forever and ever and ever and...
on
Mini-ITX AmigaONE Board
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· Score: 4, Informative
A500 computers did have AmigaOS 1.3 or i.2 and that looks ugly when look it today. It was not possible to configure those much.
Yes, what people have to keep in mind the fact that their mental image of workbench 1.3 is very much vintage. The only fair contrast would be windows 3.0, Atari ST os, and mac pre system 7 (lovely monochrome). While you can argue that a 3 (or was it 4) color workbench does *suck* keep also in mind that on the same workbench you could have running boink and a, a newteck demo (welcome to newtech... anew new new new newtech) and a 4096 digipaint image. This does not suck by modern standard... if i'm not mistaken win2k / winxp can't really do diffrent windows with independent bitdepth, nor that lovely pull down graphic screen which I will say would be damn useful when playing quake if I could just with a mouse swipe pull down and peek at my desktop.
While you "could" possibly upgrade an 500 with either 3.x roms or soft boot to the 3.x roms, you are pretty limited on the desktop front to the stock amiga graphics unless you were to invest in a graphics board, which is a pain in the tookus unless you have a card cadge for the 500. These things are a touch rare, and doing it your self is a whole bunch of no fun as each zorro card is 100 pins if you can even find a 100pin edgecard connector. I have a few, I was going to do this, but said fuck it and bought a 2000.
If you think Amiga workbench is ugly, just look at STos (gem or whatever it was).
Actually.... I believe you could define the names of your drives... though my memory is a touch vague on the subject about how workbench would react to a diffrent name. I do doubt that you could have "a:" but i'm sure "a0: might be possible. I'd have to turn on my amiga to check my facts, but to see jack squat i'd need one of those damn 23-pin monitor cables, oh, and a damn monitor too!
I can understand the confusion though... esp for an infidel who wouldn't know a dh0 from a/dev/hda
Water is most unique among most liquids as when it freezes into ice, it gets physical larger and less dence per volume unlike most liquids that this effect is reverse. You can observe this process your self by putting water in any sorta vessle and place it in the freezer. I would reccomend something plastic, you'll note the fact that if you fill something to the brim it spews out out, expands, and sometimes breaks the bottle.
Righto, because when what becomes less dence when frozen, it floats. I can see this in my ice tea, my ice is floating just like you can actually see the arctic ice sheet. You wouldn't very well notice it if it wasn't less dence then water and floating would you. Now I'll agree for the most part that Arctic ice is mostly under water, but there is a good segment that peeks above water as well. Actual volumes I don't happen to have access to, but needless to say there would likely be an effect on global sea level as a direct result of this ice sheet who you can see above sea level.
More or less then the Antarctic ice sheet... it's difficult for me to say. Off hand i'd be agree with you just because I don't have any evidence such as how much ice there is in Antartica, nor am I aware how much of Antartica is actually presently above current sea level. For all I know, the Antartic could very well be mostly below current sea levels.
Cable companies were still using them a couple of years ago, don't know if they still are. Amiga OS 4 is being developed, There is suppose to be a new amiga coming out someday.
Yes, I noticed while under AT&T cable I did see a "Guru Meditation error", so I can verify one was in use roughly 3 years ago in washington. I think Perhaps it was an amiga 2000. Though the layout of that particular information station did change shortly afterwards, I would "guess" they may have switched platforms. Dispite the fact that I have a softspot for the Amiga I can see that it would be a pain in the tookus to support in the 21st century, esp a one with zorro based slots.
The reason I abonded my amiga was just a simple matter of moolah. To do web even in 8bit color I needed new roms, either 3.x roms or 1.x roms where I could softload the 3.x roms. The 68030 was somewhat adquate, I would have prefered a 68040 or better, and upgrading the 2000 was just too much money for the speed increase. Further that whole zorro II vs zorro III thing, the fact that my selection of graphics boards were pretty limited in the zorro II department, and there was a super major slowdown with AGA emulation. Basicly the upgrades I wanted to peform would set me back a close to a grand, and franky I could get a PC or a Mac for that.
On the cool beans level, the scsi support was superb. I could copy CDs to the hard disk with ease due to the fact that I had a nice toshiba without digital copybit proection with a simple copy command.
Is this still a viable platform? To be honest, I've not seen their lastest OS [3.9 I think was their most recent]. I must admit I was curious, but I could never find a copy online and I wasn't about to shell out cash just to look at it. Still if there is decent linux support I imagine this could be a viable alternative to the intel based machines, though a touch spendy IMHO.
I have to admit... I did indeed own when I was a kid some form of digital personal assistant. Some sorta phone number digital rolodex thingie. I bought it off some other kid for some silly low price. It had a fold out membrain keyboard, but with an alphabetial layout. I have to admit, without even thinking about it... I was up to 15 to 20wpm, which is actually adquate for such a device.
This was before any sorta formal typing classes, my method up to that point was hunting and pecking, but actually I was hunting and pecking at a reasoanble speed, about 30wpm.
While I still prefered a traditional keyboard, my speed on this rolodex like device was fast enough to make data entry practical. It's entirely possible that I would have become so familar with it that I could continue to use such a layout to this day. In fact, the only reason I went for the traditional layout is because of some assurance that I can actually use someone else's keyboard with ease.
Kids today could in theory use the numeric keypad, if it wasn't for the fact that 123 and 789 are reversed in respect to a telephone.
1. Take user to goodwill or other cheep 2nd hand store and show them the plethra of cheep vintage amps amps and speakers, many of which really whip the lama's ass.
2. Hook up this vintage amp to computer and watch user go "wow that sounds so much better".
3. Profit (from the lack of snap crackle and pop)
This is a touch off the topic, but i've observed that many 2nd hand stores are no longer stocking computer equipment and monitors. I understand the reason even, people go there and give them worthless crap, and they are stuck with the job of disposing the worthless crap. But more often then not they do still take donations of stereo equipment alot of which is pretty good for not much buckage. I say vintage because the 60's and 70's were typicaly pretty good for audio equipment.
While yes, digital to analog recording should work just fine, there is alot of money being invested in digital watermarking, one form which should in theory actually resist the Digital to Analog to Digital conversion process. The only way that this will work is if you copy your digital media onto legacy analog standards like cassette tape. The trick isn't so much the fact that this form of watermarking isn't easy enough to do, the trick is incorperating it into the music without an adverse affect on sound quality.
This brings up an interesting question and a challenge to the OSS community: Why NOT create an open source service that would mimic DRM but allow anything to run?
Perhaps because it would indeed be circumventing copy protection. Such a program if created with the proper credits would like like painting big bold friendly "sue my ass" on the developers.
Such software would be best released under the flag of a pirate group, with an appropertly garish.nfo file with PC ascii art that is only properly displayed in a dos window.
How do you figure? Is $20 free? Is $95 free? Having paid $20, which is strictly the cost of the media (huh? downloading software is cost of media what??) can I give my copy of Solaris to a friend?
I think perhaps that informoation is out of date. There was a time when you could download solaris 7 and solaris 8 freely, or pay a small fee and get cd-roms sent to you. I forget what the small fee was.... only that solaris 7 I ordered and got both sparc and intel editions.
Last time I looked, there was not a free binary license for intel based solaris.
Agreed!!! Near as I'm aware, apple doesn't offer a rackmount solution, and franky it's a pain in the butt to mount a g5 class motherboard in a standard rackmount case. I have much respect for Apple but strongly disagree with their policy on computer sales, basicly it really isn't an option to buy mac motherboards... so for the average person looking for a reliable resource for mac boards... you gotta buy the turn key solution and chuck the cases / drives / whatnot.
Apple probally should offer a rackmount solution, or at the very least offer some barebones systems for the enjoyment and pleasure of those who want to use this platform in the industrial enviroment or for the benifit of hardware hackers. Apple cases are spiffy but no replacement for a solid rack by any means.
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Personaly I think it's great! Among the many stores I frequent, there are supermarkets that are not well staffed in the week hours, esp around bar'o'clock (regional closing time for bars). Where it is common place for people to shoplift after making a good an honest effort to wait for the human. I my self like to be more honest about the subject, and this seems a very viable solution to that end.
Those automated coupon despencers, well ok, those are a pain in the tookus. While I feel it's a far better system then just a stack of coupons in prevention of mixed-paper waste, it is a touch of a power waste. A nice nifty little role would be far superior IMHO, serve the fuction and not need batteries.
I've used the automated checkout at Home Depot, with a stack of $20.00s without difficulty, though I typicaly only use the automated checkout for a few small items. Not so much because i'm a fan of the new fangled system, but simply because most people who shop there have carts filled with home improvement shinola, when all I need is a bit of sandpaper.
But hey, to each their own, i'd respect the fact that people like your self prefer dealing with a human. Not that would nessicarly resolve the issue of a klaxon sounding, but atleast you have someone to blame to look at funny if it does.
Actually... I wonder about this.
I mean, typicaly speaking most checking accounts have an automatic debit and a credit card compatabile number. I'm not under the age of 18 any more, so I don't know how difficult it is to get checking account if you are under age.
I do know that some bank offer something called a kids credit card or some such. Basicly it's like a credit card as far as the machines are concerned, you transfer money into it much like a checking account, but is something marketed to for parents to give to their kids. I'm not sure how widespread the use of such products are, but I can imagine it would be a viable alternative for parents who need to give their kids money for expences, yet be able to control how much and have some ability to declair it lost or stolen.
It still requires kids to have parents willing to do this, but in this day and age, I don't see how a credit card number would nessicarly prove a person is of age. And this doesn't take into account kids who peek in their parents wallet and sign on for permission.
You could say it's genius though, being able to dodge accountability. "It's your fault for giving your kids your credit card/bank card", or "it's the kid's fault for lying to us". I guess that's the art of bussiness, making it look good on paper but not nessicarly being realistic.
I might have the state wrong, this is a vague memory. I remember that many states have home brewing somewhat regulated and taxed, where if you bottle your own beer for example you must purchace offical state taxed caps for the beverage in question.
This is about as high tech as a piece of paper, but never the less doesn't require much in the way of software to maintain. In the event of major failure in the system, you can resort to lower tech means do to your accounting until such time you can get your accounting software back online and working.
While this would wouldn't nessicarly help those who import from other states, a simple tag across the cap that is broken upon opening it would do the trick as well. Can you bypass this, sure! But it's a hell of alot better then the "let's just not allow new booze to be sold till we get our software fixed".
Very low tech... requires only printing of specific ammounts, printers are more then happy to handle this aspect.
As for power users being the trendsetters, I ask why Windows is the OS of choice and AOL is the number 1 ISP is this is really true.
Less you forget pre 1990 time, where there really wasn't public internet access as we know it. There were a vast number of services which include on the top of my head
Compu$erve
GEnie (noted for their 1/2 duplex mode)
American Online
Prodigy
The only people in the market for the above service pretty much were power users who needed the ability to access files, and e-mail. I had a Compu$erve account for a very simple reason, e-mail and access to a vast file library. In 1982, it was brillent!
Times are diffrent now, but we must not forget that these popular services provided content and services long before internet access was available. Compu$erve didn't suck all that much in 1982-1988, it was among of the oldest pay networks around.
Regarding Windows... well like it or not it's very popular. Just because someone uses windows doesn't mean they are not what you'd consider to be a power user. Many of my best friends run windows. There is alot of major power applications for Windows that have yet to be produced for Linux or other platforms. Lot's of Mac power users too. The power users seek those power applications that make the investment in the computer and software possible.
AOL though, flat out sucks, probally not your typical power user's choice. But hey, what person with a clue doesn't reccomend "drop your AOL it sucks". They do have a strong foothold over the present market, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. Like it or not, it's still a very legit choice for those people who travel over seas, who want a local dialup in places like Australia and England. Compu$erve too is also a legit choice due to the vast number of lines. They both *suck* but have an important the important feature of wide spread availablity. It still sucks, but who else but the megaISPs offer such a feature.
Third party users are not potential viewers. The only people who can view the ads are users of th official client
I guess this depends on how microsoft bills for their adverts. We're not talking amature website with a click on me banner, we're talking about a multi-billion dollar corp. I can not believe that 10% of even 3rd party users doesn't add to the value. They are users, even if they can't see the adverts doesn't mean they are not listed as being potentical viewers. If I was microsoft, and I was selling ad space, I wouldn't even put that on paper, i'd just look at the number of passport users as tell companies that this is the user base.
Now... if Microsoft was smart, they would spam anyone not viewing the mandatory adverts to folks who are not getting them via the normal way. Problem solved.
Microsoft discovered a MAJOR flaw in their naming convention. It seems it's far too easy to confuse MSN Messenger with Windows Messenger do in part they are both called Messenger, also due to the fact that Windows Messenger isn't widly used, except by sys/net admins telling their users the system is going down.
Getting users to actually peform updates when they don't have the ability to tell the diffrence between the diffrent products has proven to be most troublesome to Microsoft.
This flaw was noticed by technical support when users asked for assistance with "outlook" not knowing that "express" was a diffrent product. Not to speak of the diffrences between Windows Explorer, Microsoft Explorer, and the new hardly ever works MSN explorer.
"The idea that users know the diffrence between Windows, Microsoft, and MSN is ridiculous" --- typical power user.
A new convention is required based on the following facts
Windows - the operating system side of things
Microsoft - the software side of things, stuff you actually use
MSN - the ISP side of things, fluffy click shit that causes your computer to crash and burn.
Renaming should be as follows
Dont touch me crap - reserved for operating system level software
Play with me crap - the software you typicaly get to do stuff
Can't do crap - the stuff internet related that never works right
Now saying that there are patches for the "don't touch me crap messenger" has some meaning to the average user, vs their "Can't do crap Messenger" product.
This message was brought to you by Microsoft Crap, where did your document go today?
I don't see how nothaving extra people whogenerate no revenue hurts them
/dev/null.
Very simple... the cost of advertising is based on viewer ship. Even 3rd party clients are *users* included in the viewship calculations.
If you are using a third party client, you are costing them money by using their servers and they are making no money in return from their client advertising.
When your getting the ratings of a TV show, you don't take into account that they might go to the bathroom during the comercial break, or might actually be recording it and killing the comercials. A 3rd party client is still a possible viewer of adverts, and does serve to increase their numbers.
While the internet is a little bit diffrent, in the fact you can actually establish whether or not a specific file was accessed, and that would be taken into account as well. But you can't tell if it was actually viewed by a person, or if they were AFK or it was sent to
So they lose some power users who are costing them money, and you don't see the benefit of it?
No I don't, when it's the power user who acts as a trendsetter to many. They get money based on how many people use the service. Power users get frustrated and dont' use the product. Power user informs others that they are being boneheads and encourage others not to use the product.
If you ask me, restricting/curtailing chat rooms is a great thing. Let the kids talk to their existing friends on IM, but not venture into some public forum where anyone can accost/be"friend" them.
With all due respect, MSN is not chat. They offered a very popular chat service but they are not chat. The techncique they are using was coined by Douglas Adams as SEP (Someone Elses Problem). If the kids can't chat or can't get their parents credit card, heck they'll go to yahoo, irc.
So.. what happens when MSN stops dropping their 3rd party IM support... as well as their online chat support? Adults and kids alike go elsewhere, it's not about restricting/curtailing at all IMHO it's just now someone else's problem.
Heck, I know with the room I maintained, part of my mission was to collect the names of all who used it... and either tossed either either an e-mail from MSN's friendly profiles, or invited them into a moderated room to give them the url with the correct information. Lastly was the "add me to messenger" for the remaining users who who didn't get the memo. My target were people who used the room on the regular basis... the same procedure coudl be done by someone who's agenst is to accost/befriend folk. Esp easy when given given MSN's pulling of the plug.
I feel part of the problem is the fact that it was so remarkably easy to stalk people on MSN messenger and chat service, and you still can with ease regardless of the age specified in profiles. That issue clearly has not even been addressed.
This is not directly attached to Messenger but rather their chat service.
Oct 14th was the day they decided to also nix their free chat service in favor of their charge people roughly $20 a year for it.
TK2CHATCHATA06 are 984 users and 45 invisible on 1 servers, this is roughly a 90% reduction from oct 13th.
Why I bring this up you ask. Well very simple, msn is shooting them selves in the foot really. Their chat service it's very much possible they wanted roughly 90% of their population to leave, heck it's easier to manage. But the policy on Messenger clients, well I can't imagine anything really good will come out of banning 3rd party clients. Your typical user won't notice anyway, where as your power user with multi-clients will make a stand and leave for other services that work.
But it looks good on paper, I imagine that's their pressent mission is with both Messenger and chat, making a good case for the shareholders why such services are money markers.
My personal attitude on the subject...
If i'm dead due to car wreck... they can have the data. I'm not going to care, might as well figure out why i'm dead.
If i'm alive, then not without a court order. This is reasonable because this is MY data.
Maybe it should be mandatory that you be allowed to deactivate or remove these things, like you can with airbags.
You can do this NOW with airbags because they have been proven to be unsafe for small children, not sure how specific the reg is, as in can you disable the drivers side airbag? I know here in washington there seems to be no issue selling referbished autos without airbags, and there seems to be no legal quam about the subject, but that's neither here nor there.
How exactly was the data going to get used without a court order?
Also in the state of washington... the state emitions test require them to hook up to your onboard computer, where data is used to determine whether or not your car passes or fails, though i'm unsure about the details. It could be argued very easily because you give permission to the state to hook up to your data port that you are also giving them permission to download your logs. A state enforcement agent who can see evidence of wrong doing would be irresponcible not to follow up on it, which is why we need such laws in place, so they can't.
Personaly I feel that the state is forcing me to choose an invasive option where if they were actually concerned with my emmitions they can stick a tube up my pipe. The amount of data these stations should be limited to milage and whether or not the car is to par with regulated standards.
You have 3 days to do a project... you really don't want to fuss around with installing parts, operating system, software. This takes time.
Your local indy shop usually requires 2 days min for a custom machine. Even their stock specials decent parts often also take 2 days.
An off the shelf system is decent enough these days, comes with software pre-installed, and saves you a hell of alot of work.
You could go with someone other then dell, but that leaves
Gateway... Ouch! I just cut my self on the case
Compaq.... what the hell where they thinking
HP.... stupid missing agp port
Sony... poof
Dell usually uses decent quality cases, usually intel produced motherboards, and on the whole not actually very remarkable but stable and predictable.
This was a couple of years back. I can't remember if they were model M, they were attached to PS/2s, had a ps/2 interface with a detachable cable and flat pin connectors. Telling you the location now would be pointless. Needless to say I still see them from time to time. many were donated with the keys rearanged to say "keyboard" probally about 10 out of 100 or so.
Boeing suplus though, in case you are interested, did at one point have this series of keyboard, but I think by now they are dumping all their replacement keyboards.
Agreed.
I know it's really DIFFICULT to find hardware that even the luddite can get a grip on.
One printer i've noted that seems to have the average user in mind is the HP psc 950, though this particular model is a few years old... I'm sure there is something newer that is equilivent. Among it's features are printer, scanner, fax, copier with nice buttons ontop that allow you to "scan" to "fax, printer and PC save". Easy peasy. Further, it takes smart memory / memory sticks, further more it prints out a proof sheat of your photos and to enlarge one you don't even need a PC. Just using a #2 pencil you fill in the bubbles on the proof sheet and it takes that input on the scan bed. While I see some advantages to having solid state removable media accesable on your PC... I find that this solution is far superior to the inexperenced user who pretty much wants hardcopy of their images without any fuss.
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Home theater I setup for a family member who had the following plan in mind. They wanted DVD, replacment of their big ass speakers with small bookshelf varity to maximize on space, the ability to access their legacy media (vinyl, cassette, video tape), as well as reducing the size of the stack. All with the ease of pushing a button. To this end I went with a bargin bin solution offered by Circuit city. They had a Magnavox 5 disk home theater with smallish speakers and 5.1 sound. The important feature I was looking for was line level input and output as well as independent buttons for each fuction. What it lacks is video input for each fuction, which detracts from the intuitiveness of it. The existing amp cross wired into the tape input and output so the aux fuction would listen to whatever the old amp was listing to, which seemed to make the number of button pressing minimal. I also went with a simple radio shack switchbox which has one very important feature, not only does it accept svideo input, but will output both svideo and composite, making it ideal to pigtail to the vcr's input and record what ever you happen to be watching. (Note: recording something diffrent then what you are watching is an advanced concept). Also since I had a seperate amp, I set it up in a diffrent room, made a wire run and picked some jenson bookshelf speakers.
Thigns added... 5 disk DVD player, two bookshelf speakers, switchbox, 4 small speakers and subwoofer.
Things subtracted FM tuner, 4 large speakers.
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Ease of use....
Remote controls.... the stock digital cable remote doesn't control the sound levels, and it's common for the user to use the "wrong" remote to adjust the sound levels. There are three places to adjust the volume, the cable box, the TV, and dvd home theater amp. [not to speak of the aux amp with turntable and tapedeck]. In theory the next version of the Motorola cable box will come with a remote that handels the home theater. If I was doing this professionaly, i'd make sure to BUY a remote that supported all the above. For now, the instructions are clear, use the dvd remote for sound, use the Cable remote for channel.
Manual controls...
One thing important to people is a manual control for volume when they can't find the regular remote. This home theater unit has a traditional volume control.
Also, the whole system is dependent on the TV being on aux 1, and the VCR being on aux for recording and such. When ever anyone changes the station, the whole thing doesn't work and a phone call is needed. This would be resolved in a couple of ways
1. Have a menu option on the TV to disable the Turner and other unused inputs so people don't get confused.
2. Have a Home Theater amp that accepts video input so the buttons on the front that say "TV" will show you TV.
While the home theater offers 4 speakers and a sub... there really isn't an option like there is on other older amps to just output stereo to all 4 speakers. There is the prologic decoding that makes a valued judgement of what i
AAMOF, the A500+ shipped with AmigaOS 2.0 and later 2.1.
While this is true... I discovered later on that having 2.x roms wasn't really all that spiffy. Near as I could tell you couldn't softload the 3.x romimage if you had 2.x roms.
I have a microsoft "un-natural" keyboard. I can't very well re-arange my keys.
I know exactly what you mean though.... I remember an old IBM keyboard I beliece was stock on the PS/2 which had shells around each key. Before I donated a large batch to goodwill I re-aranged the keys on the keyboard.
remaping a series a keys can be done by the end user by using the following technique
1. Use sandpaper to remove the old letters (220 grit, 400 wet/dry grit, 600 grit
2. Apply clear coat with flex adheasive to the letters. While this is best done with a paint gun / compressor, you can often find paint shops that will sell you cans of spray paint custom mixed, I believe the cost is about $12.00 a can. So long as you pick a brand that will dry without an activator you should be cool. There are also small airbrushes you purchace that are nothing more then a glass bottle, compressed air in a can, and applicator.
[Note, the laws on professional spray paint need to be researched. For example, in my region I don't need a license nor a booth so long as I buy my paint in quarts and use a HPLF gun or limit my painting to 9 cubic feet daily.]
A500 computers did have AmigaOS 1.3 or i.2 and that looks ugly when look it today. It was not possible to configure those much.
Yes, what people have to keep in mind the fact that their mental image of workbench 1.3 is very much vintage. The only fair contrast would be windows 3.0, Atari ST os, and mac pre system 7 (lovely monochrome). While you can argue that a 3 (or was it 4) color workbench does *suck* keep also in mind that on the same workbench you could have running boink and a, a newteck demo (welcome to newtech... anew new new new newtech) and a 4096 digipaint image. This does not suck by modern standard... if i'm not mistaken win2k / winxp can't really do diffrent windows with independent bitdepth, nor that lovely pull down graphic screen which I will say would be damn useful when playing quake if I could just with a mouse swipe pull down and peek at my desktop.
While you "could" possibly upgrade an 500 with either 3.x roms or soft boot to the 3.x roms, you are pretty limited on the desktop front to the stock amiga graphics unless you were to invest in a graphics board, which is a pain in the tookus unless you have a card cadge for the 500. These things are a touch rare, and doing it your self is a whole bunch of no fun as each zorro card is 100 pins if you can even find a 100pin edgecard connector. I have a few, I was going to do this, but said fuck it and bought a 2000.
If you think Amiga workbench is ugly, just look at STos (gem or whatever it was).
Actually.... I believe you could define the names of your drives... though my memory is a touch vague on the subject about how workbench would react to a diffrent name. I do doubt that you could have "a:" but i'm sure "a0: might be possible. I'd have to turn on my amiga to check my facts, but to see jack squat i'd need one of those damn 23-pin monitor cables, oh, and a damn monitor too!
/dev/hda
I can understand the confusion though... esp for an infidel who wouldn't know a dh0 from a
Water is most unique among most liquids as when it freezes into ice, it gets physical larger and less dence per volume unlike most liquids that this effect is reverse. You can observe this process your self by putting water in any sorta vessle and place it in the freezer. I would reccomend something plastic, you'll note the fact that if you fill something to the brim it spews out out, expands, and sometimes breaks the bottle.
Righto, because when what becomes less dence when frozen, it floats. I can see this in my ice tea, my ice is floating just like you can actually see the arctic ice sheet. You wouldn't very well notice it if it wasn't less dence then water and floating would you. Now I'll agree for the most part that Arctic ice is mostly under water, but there is a good segment that peeks above water as well. Actual volumes I don't happen to have access to, but needless to say there would likely be an effect on global sea level as a direct result of this ice sheet who you can see above sea level.
More or less then the Antarctic ice sheet... it's difficult for me to say. Off hand i'd be agree with you just because I don't have any evidence such as how much ice there is in Antartica, nor am I aware how much of Antartica is actually presently above current sea level. For all I know, the Antartic could very well be mostly below current sea levels.
Cable companies were still using them a couple of years ago, don't know if they still are. Amiga OS 4 is being developed, There is suppose to be a new amiga coming out someday.
Yes, I noticed while under AT&T cable I did see a "Guru Meditation error", so I can verify one was in use roughly 3 years ago in washington. I think Perhaps it was an amiga 2000. Though the layout of that particular information station did change shortly afterwards, I would "guess" they may have switched platforms. Dispite the fact that I have a softspot for the Amiga I can see that it would be a pain in the tookus to support in the 21st century, esp a one with zorro based slots.
The reason I abonded my amiga was just a simple matter of moolah. To do web even in 8bit color I needed new roms, either 3.x roms or 1.x roms where I could softload the 3.x roms. The 68030 was somewhat adquate, I would have prefered a 68040 or better, and upgrading the 2000 was just too much money for the speed increase. Further that whole zorro II vs zorro III thing, the fact that my selection of graphics boards were pretty limited in the zorro II department, and there was a super major slowdown with AGA emulation. Basicly the upgrades I wanted to peform would set me back a close to a grand, and franky I could get a PC or a Mac for that.
On the cool beans level, the scsi support was superb. I could copy CDs to the hard disk with ease due to the fact that I had a nice toshiba without digital copybit proection with a simple copy command.
Is this still a viable platform? To be honest, I've not seen their lastest OS [3.9 I think was their most recent]. I must admit I was curious, but I could never find a copy online and I wasn't about to shell out cash just to look at it. Still if there is decent linux support I imagine this could be a viable alternative to the intel based machines, though a touch spendy IMHO.
I have to admit... I did indeed own when I was a kid some form of digital personal assistant. Some sorta phone number digital rolodex thingie. I bought it off some other kid for some silly low price. It had a fold out membrain keyboard, but with an alphabetial layout. I have to admit, without even thinking about it... I was up to 15 to 20wpm, which is actually adquate for such a device.
This was before any sorta formal typing classes, my method up to that point was hunting and pecking, but actually I was hunting and pecking at a reasoanble speed, about 30wpm.
While I still prefered a traditional keyboard, my speed on this rolodex like device was fast enough to make data entry practical. It's entirely possible that I would have become so familar with it that I could continue to use such a layout to this day. In fact, the only reason I went for the traditional layout is because of some assurance that I can actually use someone else's keyboard with ease.
Kids today could in theory use the numeric keypad, if it wasn't for the fact that 123 and 789 are reversed in respect to a telephone.
1. Take user to goodwill or other cheep 2nd hand store and show them the plethra of cheep vintage amps amps and speakers, many of which really whip the lama's ass.
2. Hook up this vintage amp to computer and watch user go "wow that sounds so much better".
3. Profit (from the lack of snap crackle and pop)
This is a touch off the topic, but i've observed that many 2nd hand stores are no longer stocking computer equipment and monitors. I understand the reason even, people go there and give them worthless crap, and they are stuck with the job of disposing the worthless crap. But more often then not they do still take donations of stereo equipment alot of which is pretty good for not much buckage. I say vintage because the 60's and 70's were typicaly pretty good for audio equipment.
While yes, digital to analog recording should work just fine, there is alot of money being invested in digital watermarking, one form which should in theory actually resist the Digital to Analog to Digital conversion process. The only way that this will work is if you copy your digital media onto legacy analog standards like cassette tape. The trick isn't so much the fact that this form of watermarking isn't easy enough to do, the trick is incorperating it into the music without an adverse affect on sound quality.
This brings up an interesting question and a challenge to the OSS community: Why NOT create an open source service that would mimic DRM but allow anything to run?
.nfo file with PC ascii art that is only properly displayed in a dos window.
Perhaps because it would indeed be circumventing copy protection. Such a program if created with the proper credits would like like painting big bold friendly "sue my ass" on the developers.
Such software would be best released under the flag of a pirate group, with an appropertly garish
How do you figure? Is $20 free? Is $95 free? Having paid $20, which is strictly the cost of the media (huh? downloading software is cost of media what??) can I give my copy of Solaris to a friend?
I think perhaps that informoation is out of date. There was a time when you could download solaris 7 and solaris 8 freely, or pay a small fee and get cd-roms sent to you. I forget what the small fee was.... only that solaris 7 I ordered and got both sparc and intel editions.
Last time I looked, there was not a free binary license for intel based solaris.
d'oh
My mistake... but still tower cases are not well suited to that enviroment
Agreed!!! Near as I'm aware, apple doesn't offer a rackmount solution, and franky it's a pain in the butt to mount a g5 class motherboard in a standard rackmount case. I have much respect for Apple but strongly disagree with their policy on computer sales, basicly it really isn't an option to buy mac motherboards... so for the average person looking for a reliable resource for mac boards... you gotta buy the turn key solution and chuck the cases / drives / whatnot.
Apple probally should offer a rackmount solution, or at the very least offer some barebones systems for the enjoyment and pleasure of those who want to use this platform in the industrial enviroment or for the benifit of hardware hackers. Apple cases are spiffy but no replacement for a solid rack by any means.