"Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good decision, but I'm just saying it helps to have billionnaire multinational corporations fighting for your rights. Or are they really fighting for their right to charge you $50/mo so you can download stuff for "free"?
Also: Karen Lee Joachimmi, 20 who was arrested after robbing a Howard Johnson hotel. Her arrest was not difficult, as her weapon of choice, an electric chainsaw, was not plugged in.
"Create a label called "spam". Anything that gmail filters into the Spam folder will also automatically appear under the "spam" label, which also shows the number of unread messages."
"How did you go about creating this filter? There is no way to setup a filter based on which folder gmail puts it into, yet you have to tell it to match something."
Labels and filters are different. He said to create a label. You don't need to set up any matching rules for labels.
"Hate to say it, but odds are a laptop extended warranty will pay for itself, assuming you keep your gear for long enough."
"First think about whether any manufacturer, would sell a warranty at a loss, and then think about your last sentence again. A warranty is no different from an insurance policy: if they're to make a profit, then the overall probability of you needing repairs costing more than the warranty must be less than one."
Or it could be that the AppleCare revenues from desktops (which have few moving parts and would probably break infrequently) are balancing off the higher AppleCare service costs on laptops (where the whole computer is a moving part and thus more likely to break.)
"My iBook has been trouble-free for the two and a half years I've owned it, but I cannot say the same of the batteries.... and at $130 a pop, it's not hard to imagine applecare being worthwhile over the span of 3 years... Hate to say it, but odds are a laptop extended warranty will pay for itself, assuming you keep your gear for long enough."
Same here. My iBook 800 MHz battery totally died 16 months after the purchase. Fortunately I did have AppleCare and they sent me a new battery, free of charge. Shipping for it and for me to return the old one was on the house. They guy did warn me that batteries/consumables are normally not covered, but since I appeared to have a *defective* one, they replaced it.
(And FYI my iBook is an early 2003 dual USB with a serial number in the logic board problems batch, but I have had zero symptoms.)
" And what happens at the next update? And the one after that?"
Personally I would get around it all by just burning the files to an AudioCD and then re-ripping, which is perfectly legitimate under the iTunes license. Poof, all DRM is gone! (That is, if iTMS was available in my country.)
Sure, the quality is reduced a little but you are not in violation of the license, and you'll never have to worry about iTMS DRM again.
"Hey, while I was writing, I called Telus (a competing cellphone company) customer service on behalf of a friend. Can't say anything negative about the experience - it was exactly what I expect of customer service."
The only thing you really need to know about telus customer service is that if you want to pass all the automated menus on how to check your voice mail or the stupid shit that 95% of customers don't know, press 0 and you will be immediately transferred to a live person. I use this every time I call them for something related to my own Telus Mobility service (which is infrequently) and the service is very good.
"But damn do they make those phones tempting. I wish that the manufacturers didn't charge you out the arse for them if you buy them directly..."
The cost of buying the phone directly and then using prepaid or month to month is considerably less than going on a contract plan, unless you use A LOT of airtime.
I only spend CDN$11.50 (prepaid) per month including taxes on airtime, and my phone cost CDN$250 in 2002. I did the math and it's cheaper. I hope you do the math as well.
"Is the laptop SUPPOSED to be bleeding heat through the case rather than the fan vent out the back anyway?"
Yeah, the iBooks rid themselves of heat via convection through keyboards. That's why you can't have them not sleep when they are closed anymore, unless you override the factory settings.
"Teaching in Ontario is considered a cushy, fat paying government job by most of this province's citizens. You're guaranteed 3 months+ per year of time off..."
And how exactly is this different from being a Member of Parliament?
"It's likely that they're going to try to limit the number of copies by screwing with the disc in some way that degrades the bitstream to the point that by the sixth time you copy it the disc is so badly damaged it is unusable."
You mean they're bringing back analogue cassette tapes?
"In fact, its even hard proof for them selling your message, so you can back-track the user agreement and see if they're allowed to do that."
Unless they were hacked and their DB was stolen. (This is of course a good excuse for them to use because you can't really disprove it. But then again, my former ISP was hacked and we started receiving spam at our account.)
Nevertheless, this trick with using a unique e-mail alias is very effective IMO. I use it, and my main inbox that I actually use is 99% spam-free. I receive less than 10 spam per year in it.
"I own an NEC1300A 4xDVD +/- rewriter. The 1300A is *very* sensitive about which media you use. I bought some name brand DVD-R's from PCWorld when I first bought the drive a year ago and they wouldn't work. I then bought 25 cheap blank disks and they didn't work either. I thought the drive was faulty, until I bought the Ritek G04 dye (purple) disks. They work like a charm and I've had no problems since.
Do these same problems exist on the 2500? (I assume yes, since they are supposed to be the same drive, except the 2500 is faster). If so, I imagine it's going to be a PITA to get this drive burning reliably with hacked firmware and potentially incompatile disks."
The NEC-2500A is known to work well with both high end and low end DVD media. It has the best results for ultra cheap Princo discs of all major single layer DVD writers right now. (But don't expect the princo crap to last a long time. Their dyes are known to be unstable. I always get Taiyo Yuden or Ricoh-manufactured discs.) But the 2500A will give better results (in terms of PI/PO errors) than even the much more expensive Plextor 708A on high end Ricoh and TY media, and also far better results on burning CD-R. (The 708A is known to be an inferior CD-R burner. I put my old PX-W4012A back into my box for those purposes.)
The thing about the 2500A is that NEC was very careful in adhering to standards for error tolerances. This means that small fingerprints will render a disc unreadable in the 2500A. Of course Plextor has the best error correction out there, and will pull data off all but the most dead discs.
The last things to realise are that a) the 2500A does not pass all Digital Audio Extraction tests with flying colours, and b) does not support all the idea DAO-RAW writing modes. This means that if you want to back up protected audio and data CDs, the NEC is not for you. (Plextor is my choice for audio, and Lite-on is still the best for backing up software.)
"Also, on the second link I posted, the NEC 2500 bioses are region unlocked and rip unlocked (apparently most drives slow down on purpose when they detect a video DVD to discourage ripping, these unlocked firmwares will rip at full speed...go figure)."
Actually, they lock the video DVD speeds so that the drive will be nice and quiet while you watch the movie. (High RPM == High Noise.) But I like Plextor's solution to this which can be found on my PX-708A DVD burner: The drive reads DVD video at 2X by default. If you want to go faster, hold the eject button down for three seconds while the drive is empty. The light flashes 3 times, the tray opens, and if you put in a DVD-video disc, it reads at full speed.
" I used to have a bird that crashed into my window every morning at 6:30 sharp. Then one day it stopped. I wondered if it moved but I guess it died."
This is very common for certain types of birds during mating season. For weeks this one bird flew into my bedroom window repeatedly at 7 in the morning. Eventually I put up something opaque behind the window and it got the idea that it was not seeing a potential mate there.
Would be nice if I could get 56K. Nope, we've got an 8 machine LAN all using NAT over a 28.8 dialup line. (Yeah, we have more computers than users at home. Some of us have a laptop and desktop.)
I also feel sorry for the/. readers pulling in at 21.6 and such. Very sorry. Consider yourself lucky, Rob. Your connection is better than what many other/. readers must endure.
I don't know if this is too new. One guy living in England told some me years ago that you can't photocopy currency on photocopiers. They just come out black.
In all honesty, I think that something like this is a bad idea because it relieves governments of the responsibility of making currency that is hard to counterfeit. Sooner or later, someone hardcore (probably a crime ring) with their own equipment will come along and duplicate poorly designed currency, making a whole bunch of fake currency that is undetectable.
This is the same as what's going on with the DMCA. People are afraid to reveal vulnerabilities they have found in software so the things go unpatched, and then someone with a very evil agenda will come along exploit the problems that were not fixed due to silly restrictions.
The 'release now, patch later' doctrine is widely used in software... but I would not want to see it applied in something like currency.
" Just thinking... Thumb drives will be come almost obselete.. Why tranfer data on to slow as hell flash chips. Thumb Hard Drives here we come. Just imagine 2gb storage, USB2 and I imagine cheaper than flash cards."
It's a nice idea but I don't see it working.
Firstly you have to power the small hard drive somehow. The flash drives just use the power from the USB ports. Although technically you could use make them firewire devices, but then again not all FW ports are powered.
My 256MB Lexar Jumdrive 2.0 flash drive is already plenty fast as it does use USB 2.0. The 1 GB version of my flash drive costs CDN$430 right now. I wonder how much this super-microdrive will cost.
Additionally, flash drives are and will continue to be a lot more durable and resistant to shock than miniature hard drives as they have absolutely no moving parts.
"The fact of the matter is that 0.01% of Ogg users use it because they're convinced it's superior way to encode music. The rest of them do because they are contrary, self-important egomaniacs. Ogg as a technology is unimportant, no matter how many soon-to-be out of business Korean electronics manufacturers support it, because (almost) NO ONE CARES ABOUT IT!"
Are you implying that apple is not going out of business?
One thing that also helps with sleeping patterns is getting sunlight in the morning. If you wake in a room that doesn't get sunlight, then IMO it's hard to wake up.
As an experiment, try sleeping near a window that gets sunlight in the morning. Does the light shining in help wake you up? I does for me.
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Good point. Though I'd like to point out that broadband is canada is much cheaper than it is in the USA. 3.0/640K DSL for CDN$35/month, no caps, limits, or threatening letters when you go over your 'unlimited' quota. (I don't work for this company and I am not their customer either. But my friends who live in DSL capable areas like them.)
Also: Karen Lee Joachimmi, 20 who was arrested after robbing a Howard Johnson hotel. Her arrest was not difficult, as her weapon of choice, an electric chainsaw, was not plugged in.
"How did you go about creating this filter? There is no way to setup a filter based on which folder gmail puts it into, yet you have to tell it to match something."
Labels and filters are different. He said to create a label. You don't need to set up any matching rules for labels.
"First think about whether any manufacturer, would sell a warranty at a loss, and then think about your last sentence again. A warranty is no different from an insurance policy: if they're to make a profit, then the overall probability of you needing repairs costing more than the warranty must be less than one."
Or it could be that the AppleCare revenues from desktops (which have few moving parts and would probably break infrequently) are balancing off the higher AppleCare service costs on laptops (where the whole computer is a moving part and thus more likely to break.)
Same here. My iBook 800 MHz battery totally died 16 months after the purchase. Fortunately I did have AppleCare and they sent me a new battery, free of charge. Shipping for it and for me to return the old one was on the house. They guy did warn me that batteries/consumables are normally not covered, but since I appeared to have a *defective* one, they replaced it.
(And FYI my iBook is an early 2003 dual USB with a serial number in the logic board problems batch, but I have had zero symptoms.)
This is a troll. Nothing prevents you from opening Office 97 documents in Office XP. I do it frequently. (Also works with Office X for OS X.)
Personally I would get around it all by just burning the files to an AudioCD and then re-ripping, which is perfectly legitimate under the iTunes license. Poof, all DRM is gone! (That is, if iTMS was available in my country.)
Sure, the quality is reduced a little but you are not in violation of the license, and you'll never have to worry about iTMS DRM again.
The only thing you really need to know about telus customer service is that if you want to pass all the automated menus on how to check your voice mail or the stupid shit that 95% of customers don't know, press 0 and you will be immediately transferred to a live person. I use this every time I call them for something related to my own Telus Mobility service (which is infrequently) and the service is very good.
The cost of buying the phone directly and then using prepaid or month to month is considerably less than going on a contract plan, unless you use A LOT of airtime.
I only spend CDN$11.50 (prepaid) per month including taxes on airtime, and my phone cost CDN$250 in 2002. I did the math and it's cheaper. I hope you do the math as well.
Yeah, the iBooks rid themselves of heat via convection through keyboards. That's why you can't have them not sleep when they are closed anymore, unless you override the factory settings.
And how exactly is this different from being a Member of Parliament?
Obviously you have never experienced the "joys" of Clown++.
You mean they're bringing back analogue cassette tapes?
Unless they were hacked and their DB was stolen. (This is of course a good excuse for them to use because you can't really disprove it. But then again, my former ISP was hacked and we started receiving spam at our account.)
Nevertheless, this trick with using a unique e-mail alias is very effective IMO. I use it, and my main inbox that I actually use is 99% spam-free. I receive less than 10 spam per year in it.
The NEC-2500A is known to work well with both high end and low end DVD media. It has the best results for ultra cheap Princo discs of all major single layer DVD writers right now. (But don't expect the princo crap to last a long time. Their dyes are known to be unstable. I always get Taiyo Yuden or Ricoh-manufactured discs.) But the 2500A will give better results (in terms of PI/PO errors) than even the much more expensive Plextor 708A on high end Ricoh and TY media, and also far better results on burning CD-R. (The 708A is known to be an inferior CD-R burner. I put my old PX-W4012A back into my box for those purposes.)
The thing about the 2500A is that NEC was very careful in adhering to standards for error tolerances. This means that small fingerprints will render a disc unreadable in the 2500A. Of course Plextor has the best error correction out there, and will pull data off all but the most dead discs.
The last things to realise are that a) the 2500A does not pass all Digital Audio Extraction tests with flying colours, and b) does not support all the idea DAO-RAW writing modes. This means that if you want to back up protected audio and data CDs, the NEC is not for you. (Plextor is my choice for audio, and Lite-on is still the best for backing up software.)
"Also, on the second link I posted, the NEC 2500 bioses are region unlocked and rip unlocked (apparently most drives slow down on purpose when they detect a video DVD to discourage ripping, these unlocked firmwares will rip at full speed...go figure)."
Actually, they lock the video DVD speeds so that the drive will be nice and quiet while you watch the movie. (High RPM == High Noise.) But I like Plextor's solution to this which can be found on my PX-708A DVD burner: The drive reads DVD video at 2X by default. If you want to go faster, hold the eject button down for three seconds while the drive is empty. The light flashes 3 times, the tray opens, and if you put in a DVD-video disc, it reads at full speed.
This is very common for certain types of birds during mating season. For weeks this one bird flew into my bedroom window repeatedly at 7 in the morning. Eventually I put up something opaque behind the window and it got the idea that it was not seeing a potential mate there.
Don't let the spammers get your address to begin with. That's why I don't get spam. I managed my address properly from the very start.
As to the pr0n issue, that's what a girlfriends or boyfriends are for. (*cue obvious jokes about how slashdotters don't have SOs*)
Would be nice if I could get 56K. Nope, we've got an 8 machine LAN all using NAT over a 28.8 dialup line. (Yeah, we have more computers than users at home. Some of us have a laptop and desktop.)
/. readers pulling in at 21.6 and such. Very sorry. Consider yourself lucky, Rob. Your connection is better than what many other /. readers must endure.
I also feel sorry for the
I don't know if this is too new. One guy living in England told some me years ago that you can't photocopy currency on photocopiers. They just come out black.
... but I would not want to see it applied in something like currency.
In all honesty, I think that something like this is a bad idea because it relieves governments of the responsibility of making currency that is hard to counterfeit. Sooner or later, someone hardcore (probably a crime ring) with their own equipment will come along and duplicate poorly designed currency, making a whole bunch of fake currency that is undetectable.
This is the same as what's going on with the DMCA. People are afraid to reveal vulnerabilities they have found in software so the things go unpatched, and then someone with a very evil agenda will come along exploit the problems that were not fixed due to silly restrictions.
The 'release now, patch later' doctrine is widely used in software
It's a nice idea but I don't see it working.
Firstly you have to power the small hard drive somehow. The flash drives just use the power from the USB ports. Although technically you could use make them firewire devices, but then again not all FW ports are powered.
My 256MB Lexar Jumdrive 2.0 flash drive is already plenty fast as it does use USB 2.0. The 1 GB version of my flash drive costs CDN$430 right now. I wonder how much this super-microdrive will cost.
Additionally, flash drives are and will continue to be a lot more durable and resistant to shock than miniature hard drives as they have absolutely no moving parts.
Are you implying that apple is not going out of business?
Jeez, get with the program! ;-)
As an experiment, try sleeping near a window that gets sunlight in the morning. Does the light shining in help wake you up? I does for me.
I was talking about C programming where a float plus a float equals a float (i.e. 5.0) and not an integer (i.e. 5).
Not quite: 2.5 + 2.5 = 5.0