You don't need a 6600GT, but its not because its lacking a TV tuner. A lot of people that build an HTPC for Tivo-like functionality (and are demanding a full ATX board in the first place) intend to use standalone hardware-encoding cards like the Hauppauge PVR150 card. The 6600GT is a fine card for gaming, possibly overkill for HTPC duty unless you're outputting to a HDTV and using it to decode DVDs.
I had a Geforce 4 Ti4200 in my HTPC until the fan on it died recently (for the 3rd time). I picked up a GF5200 to replace it, and haven't notice a great deal of improvement in DVD playback (I get an occasional jitter).
I have to agree. I used the Ahanix D5 as the basis for my HTPC. Full ATX board, extremely clean and high quality design/build. People think its a large DVD player until I tell them otherwise.
What doesn't feel right about the D5? Its shorter than most full-size HTPC cases that allow an ATX motherboard, at the expense of using a proprietary compact PSU. Its all aluminum and comes in silver or black (I chose black). All of my standard components fit without modification.
Yeah, that's exactly why they did it. But EOL doesn't always mean the end of use. Just look at Windows NT... If it works, and its paid for, and it still runs on current hardware, and the new stuff out there doesn't offer serious productivity gains, and you're operating in a closed security environment, then why upgrade? That's how they see it, and to a certain degree I can't argue with that.
I just used AutoCAD as an example, but there are a lot of other software packages that clients use that don't get upgraded 'just because'. Project 2000 is one of them. When the upgrades happen, though, they happen fast. Unfortunately for us the clients, being large corporations, usually have massive software licensing discounts available to them that we do not, so they move fast and far (like the Acad2000 to 2006 jump). Luckily we beat them to it by a few months.
I hate to say it, but a lot of your spending will depend on your clients. If your clients run Autodesk CAD software, then so should you, and that will make a huge dent in your bottom line. Our clients stagnated on AutoCAD 2000 for years, then just this month decided (and these are fortune-500 retailers, mind you) "oh, lets upgrade to AutoCAD 2006, so should YOU"...
I'm the sole IT person in a 50-person architecture/construction management firm. Our spending varies year-to-year but there are a certain amount of annual expenditures. Things like antivirus software (both at the server and desktop level, CAD upgrades (we stagger our and are getting onto Autodesk subscription... it hurts in the beginning but pays off after a couple of years).
I do my best to save on the software side and apply the savings to better hardware. By this I don't mean go out and pirate what you can't afford, I mean look for OSS alternatives to things you may think are a must-buy. I run sendmail with Mailscanner/spamassassin on FreeBSD and linux, instead of Exchange. I run supplemental Samba servers on quality HP servers. I do run a windows domain, because its just easier for me to manage than a Samba-based domain. Believe or not, MS stuff just works in my organization. Our industry-specific accounting software is windows-only also, so we're kind of stuck there.
Like someone before said, you need to take into account your corporate growth goals and decide if you want to invest in a lot of good hardware that should last a long time, or buy cheap initially and replace things when needed.
We're using a Toshiba CTX670 and a 100 in a remote office. Its all web-configurable (except the voicemail on the smaller 100, its not as advanced). We have all kinds of lines coming and going, POTS, PRI, digital over cat3, digital over cat5. We even link the offices over our data VPN, that saves a LOT of money in long distance calling.
A previous poster mentioned the high cost of office-to-office VPN... its nothing compared to 6 months of daily calls across the country.
Bottom line is, there's a lot of systems already out there that are bridging the gap between basic phone service PBX and desktop integration.
I'll second this one. Qubes are nice, compact server appliances. If you pick up a recent one (Qube3) then you can even run a somewhat supported OS with available (albeit slowly) security patches. Or, you can wipe it and install your own OS on it. The qube is intended to run headless but has 2 10/100 ports, an extra PCI slot and a serial port.
But, if you want to be a do-it-your-selfer, I'd suggest a Mini-ITX solution. I've built them with flashcard storage and hard drive storage, either works fine, but if you go for flashcard get a FAST flashcard otherwise the install and general day to day operations will take forever as the OS waits for the flashcard to catch up.
The Nokia 6810 Also will have licensed blackberry functionality upon its release. The 6800 is Nokia's flip-open keyboard line, with the newer models supporting EDGE and bluetooth as well. 6820 has a camera, 6810 does not.
As an architect, I find your comment unedumacated and hurtful!
In reality, its not the architect to be blamed, its the greedy developers who wish to cram as many people into as little space as possible, so as to maximize profit.
Architects don't like to design unusable spaces, but are often required to by clients with other goals.
Ugh.. I barely made it through Roblimo's "review".. its nothing more than a compilation of bitching and moaning, with a little reinforcement of his laziness as a user.
Its not hard to figure out how to disable windows messenger, or add icons to the taskbar. Do what you would expect any Linux user do, RTFM, or google it.
come on.. get a clue. Is sarcasm and absurdity totally lost on you? That car was a crusher anyway, i.e. it was a test car, unregistered, given to the mag to play with. When they're done with it, they have to return it to nissan, who has to destroy it anyway.
However, the people complaining about the non-tunability of modern cars fail to realize that many of the changes you'd make with bolt-on mods have their rough equivalents in ECU tuning and you can still put in bigger injectors, more air, basically anything you could do before, you just need to be sure the computer (more specifically its programs) knows how to handle it.
Funny you mentioned the WRX, that's my next purchase. I currently own another Impreza, and another early 90's japanese sports car. They are not fundamentally different from an older car, just the systems involved are more refined and complex, with a heavy reliance on electronics.
You can do much more with cars these days, you just have be to more familiar with electronics and the actual physics of what's going on, not the rough approximations that mechanical/analog systems let us get away with.
Of course, one EMP bomb and I'd be right next to you in line getting parts for that old mustang:)
Check yer mail... Speakeasy has sent out a newsletter "assuring" subscribers that this shouldn't affect DSL end-users... something about the Covad's parent group filing the Chapter 11, not the Network service provider itself... we'll see about that.
-Cameron (Also hoping his lovely speakeasy DSL doesn't evaporate (or migrate to SBC (eek!))
We use these SecurID tokens in my company too. Every remote user (at least 10,000 of them) has one. Its used primarily for VPN and other remote connections to the main corporate network. The six-digit number on the token changes every 60 seconds and the numbers are different with each token. Then only drawback to these that I see is that they tend to fall out of syncronization requiring a call to the helpdesk which is thankfully open 24/7 (we're a major engineering company with offices and projects worldwide). A nifty product for sure.
Typically they downmix things like video and audio to make them smaller, or yank them entirely. And from what I've seen, many of the rips require 700Mb CD's, not 650.
EB's probably on Crack. All the info I've seen recently (read: in the last two days) has pointed to a 1st week of January release.
HOWEVER, for those enterprising individuals, I think the Japanese "Broadband Adapter" is preconfigured for DHCP, so if you use that then you can just import the Japanese one. I've been trying to track one down (I saw one for sale on a Hong Kong distributer's site) but can't seem to find any.
For the record, mod-chipped Dreamcast will NOT play burned games. I should know, I installed a modchip in mine last March to play import games. Imports work fine, copies do not. For that, you need the boot loader CD.
I understand what you're saying but consider this: I bought and played through SOF, knowing exactly what I could expect in term of violence and gore (I read the previews, etc). Having played FPS games from day 1 (Wolfestein 3D) I've accepted that they get progressively more accurately graphic. The game box depicts a sniper and through his scope you can see a man's head in the crosshairs. In large letters (inset in an octagonal stop-sign-like bubble) is a warning about violent content. Then there's the M MATURE rating label. Its pretty obvious what to expect.
However, sitting there watching cartoons that I know I watched dozens of times as a kid, but can't particularly recall, I was practically appalled at the guillotine thing. My jaw actually dropped. I would be shocked (if I had a child) if I found them watching this at a young age... It didn't matter that it wasn't explicitly graphic, it only mattered a minimalist technique succeeded in portraying a brutal execution.
For me, its all about the packaging. With SOF (presuming you didn't warez it) You know what you're getting into. With Cartoon Network I'd expect some discretion as to what they show, with young children in mind...
Last night I was watching Tom & Jerry on Cartoon Network.. it was one of the old 3 Muskateers-themed episodes.. at the end, Tom gets the GUILLOTINE! While with was not directly shown, it was made clear through the expressions of the surviving characters (Jerry and the little mouse) that it was Tom who got it. Now, anyone who lets their kids watch this but won't allow SOF is seriously messed in the head. Granted, there's no blood in T&J, but the same things are happening, animal violence, decapitation, not to mention all the other pain-inducing gags found throughout the cartoon.
I'm using Pioneer 6X SCSI DVD-rom, Hollywood + decoder (Win98 blech.....) Overall, it works flawlessly for me, both on-screen and out to the TV, but I noticed that when I have the main menu playing full-screen (SVGA @ 1024x768) I get these funky green noise/bars about 1" up the bottom of the screen... doesn't do it for TV-out, I suspect its a problem with the hardware, not the disc. Such is life in Windoze... I can't wait for Sigma to get off their asses and produce a linux-friendly card... The only reason I have windows is play games and watch DVDs... grumble grumble...
my bad, I forgot to mention that and DVD's I watch on my new TV are STILL decoded on the PC, as Sigma's (and subsequently Creative's) S-Video and Dolby out are quite nice.
I wrote Sigma a few weeks back and that's exactly what they told me, that they are "currently discussing Linux support in a future product.." glad I only spent $55 on my Sigma Decoder, which, btw, kicks ass (but only in windoze:( ). Not content to sit in front of my computer to watch DVD, I bought a 27" trinitron TV to feed my nasty DSS/DVD habit. I have complete faith in sigma's ability to create a quality product for Linux (they've done a fine job for windows thus far) and I'm willing to wait for a GOOD product for linux, rather than a quickie.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't need a 6600GT, but its not because its lacking a TV tuner. A lot of people that build an HTPC for Tivo-like functionality (and are demanding a full ATX board in the first place) intend to use standalone hardware-encoding cards like the Hauppauge PVR150 card. The 6600GT is a fine card for gaming, possibly overkill for HTPC duty unless you're outputting to a HDTV and using it to decode DVDs.
I had a Geforce 4 Ti4200 in my HTPC until the fan on it died recently (for the 3rd time). I picked up a GF5200 to replace it, and haven't notice a great deal of improvement in DVD playback (I get an occasional jitter).
I have to agree. I used the Ahanix D5 as the basis for my HTPC. Full ATX board, extremely clean and high quality design/build. People think its a large DVD player until I tell them otherwise.
What doesn't feel right about the D5? Its shorter than most full-size HTPC cases that allow an ATX motherboard, at the expense of using a proprietary compact PSU. Its all aluminum and comes in silver or black (I chose black). All of my standard components fit without modification.
Yeah, that's exactly why they did it. But EOL doesn't always mean the end of use. Just look at Windows NT... If it works, and its paid for, and it still runs on current hardware, and the new stuff out there doesn't offer serious productivity gains, and you're operating in a closed security environment, then why upgrade? That's how they see it, and to a certain degree I can't argue with that.
I just used AutoCAD as an example, but there are a lot of other software packages that clients use that don't get upgraded 'just because'. Project 2000 is one of them. When the upgrades happen, though, they happen fast. Unfortunately for us the clients, being large corporations, usually have massive software licensing discounts available to them that we do not, so they move fast and far (like the Acad2000 to 2006 jump). Luckily we beat them to it by a few months.
I hate to say it, but a lot of your spending will depend on your clients. If your clients run Autodesk CAD software, then so should you, and that will make a huge dent in your bottom line. Our clients stagnated on AutoCAD 2000 for years, then just this month decided (and these are fortune-500 retailers, mind you) "oh, lets upgrade to AutoCAD 2006, so should YOU"...
I'm the sole IT person in a 50-person architecture/construction management firm. Our spending varies year-to-year but there are a certain amount of annual expenditures. Things like antivirus software (both at the server and desktop level, CAD upgrades (we stagger our and are getting onto Autodesk subscription... it hurts in the beginning but pays off after a couple of years).
I do my best to save on the software side and apply the savings to better hardware. By this I don't mean go out and pirate what you can't afford, I mean look for OSS alternatives to things you may think are a must-buy. I run sendmail with Mailscanner/spamassassin on FreeBSD and linux, instead of Exchange. I run supplemental Samba servers on quality HP servers. I do run a windows domain, because its just easier for me to manage than a Samba-based domain. Believe or not, MS stuff just works in my organization. Our industry-specific accounting software is windows-only also, so we're kind of stuck there.
Like someone before said, you need to take into account your corporate growth goals and decide if you want to invest in a lot of good hardware that should last a long time, or buy cheap initially and replace things when needed.
We're using a Toshiba CTX670 and a 100 in a remote office. Its all web-configurable (except the voicemail on the smaller 100, its not as advanced). We have all kinds of lines coming and going, POTS, PRI, digital over cat3, digital over cat5. We even link the offices over our data VPN, that saves a LOT of money in long distance calling.
A previous poster mentioned the high cost of office-to-office VPN... its nothing compared to 6 months of daily calls across the country.
Bottom line is, there's a lot of systems already out there that are bridging the gap between basic phone service PBX and desktop integration.
I'll second this one. Qubes are nice, compact server appliances. If you pick up a recent one (Qube3) then you can even run a somewhat supported OS with available (albeit slowly) security patches. Or, you can wipe it and install your own OS on it. The qube is intended to run headless but has 2 10/100 ports, an extra PCI slot and a serial port.
But, if you want to be a do-it-your-selfer, I'd suggest a Mini-ITX solution. I've built them with flashcard storage and hard drive storage, either works fine, but if you go for flashcard get a FAST flashcard otherwise the install and general day to day operations will take forever as the OS waits for the flashcard to catch up.
The Nokia 6810 Also will have licensed blackberry functionality upon its release. The 6800 is Nokia's flip-open keyboard line, with the newer models supporting EDGE and bluetooth as well. 6820 has a camera, 6810 does not.
As an architect, I find your comment unedumacated and hurtful!
In reality, its not the architect to be blamed, its the greedy developers who wish to cram as many people into as little space as possible, so as to maximize profit.
Architects don't like to design unusable spaces, but are often required to by clients with other goals.
Ugh.. I barely made it through Roblimo's "review".. its nothing more than a compilation of bitching and moaning, with a little reinforcement of his laziness as a user.
Its not hard to figure out how to disable windows messenger, or add icons to the taskbar. Do what you would expect any Linux user do, RTFM, or google it.
come on.. get a clue. Is sarcasm and absurdity totally lost on you? That car was a crusher anyway, i.e. it was a test car, unregistered, given to the mag to play with. When they're done with it, they have to return it to nissan, who has to destroy it anyway.
You've got it absolutely right...
:)
However, the people complaining about the non-tunability of modern cars fail to realize that many of the changes you'd make with bolt-on mods have their rough equivalents in ECU tuning and you can still put in bigger injectors, more air, basically anything you could do before, you just need to be sure the computer (more specifically its programs) knows how to handle it.
Funny you mentioned the WRX, that's my next purchase. I currently own another Impreza, and another early 90's japanese sports car. They are not fundamentally different from an older car, just the systems involved are more refined and complex, with a heavy reliance on electronics.
You can do much more with cars these days, you just have be to more familiar with electronics and the actual physics of what's going on, not the rough approximations that mechanical/analog systems let us get away with.
Of course, one EMP bomb and I'd be right next to you in line getting parts for that old mustang
Check yer mail... Speakeasy has sent out a newsletter "assuring" subscribers that this shouldn't affect DSL end-users... something about the Covad's parent group filing the Chapter 11, not the Network service provider itself... we'll see about that. -Cameron (Also hoping his lovely speakeasy DSL doesn't evaporate (or migrate to SBC (eek!))
We use these SecurID tokens in my company too. Every remote user (at least 10,000 of them) has one. Its used primarily for VPN and other remote connections to the main corporate network. The six-digit number on the token changes every 60 seconds and the numbers are different with each token. Then only drawback to these that I see is that they tend to fall out of syncronization requiring a call to the helpdesk which is thankfully open 24/7 (we're a major engineering company with offices and projects worldwide). A nifty product for sure.
It looks to me like it uses the PCMCIA slot, which our US PS2 kinda lacks...
Typically they downmix things like video and audio to make them smaller, or yank them entirely. And from what I've seen, many of the rips require 700Mb CD's, not 650.
Try www.ebworld.com for the mouse, or any large game retailer. Or any mall game retailer. Even Fry's (**shudder**) has the mouse and keyboard.
EB's probably on Crack. All the info I've seen recently (read: in the last two days) has pointed to a 1st week of January release.
HOWEVER, for those enterprising individuals, I think the Japanese "Broadband Adapter" is preconfigured for DHCP, so if you use that then you can just import the Japanese one. I've been trying to track one down (I saw one for sale on a Hong Kong distributer's site) but can't seem to find any.
Its also an issue of where the data is placed on the disc. The DC piracy community has made a lot of fuss over proper file ordering.
For the record, mod-chipped Dreamcast will NOT play burned games. I should know, I installed a modchip in mine last March to play import games. Imports work fine, copies do not. For that, you need the boot loader CD.
I understand what you're saying but consider this:
I bought and played through SOF, knowing exactly what I could expect in term of violence and gore (I read the previews, etc). Having played FPS games from day 1 (Wolfestein 3D) I've accepted that they get progressively more accurately graphic. The game box depicts a sniper and through his scope you can see a man's head in the crosshairs. In large letters (inset in an octagonal stop-sign-like bubble) is a warning about violent content. Then there's the M MATURE rating label. Its pretty obvious what to expect.
However, sitting there watching cartoons that I know I watched dozens of times as a kid, but can't particularly recall, I was practically appalled at the guillotine thing. My jaw actually dropped. I would be shocked (if I had a child) if I found them watching this at a young age... It didn't matter that it wasn't explicitly graphic, it only mattered a minimalist technique succeeded in portraying a brutal execution.
For me, its all about the packaging. With SOF (presuming you didn't warez it) You know what you're getting into. With Cartoon Network I'd expect some discretion as to what they show, with young children in mind...
Last night I was watching Tom & Jerry on Cartoon Network.. it was one of the old 3 Muskateers-themed episodes.. at the end, Tom gets the GUILLOTINE! While with was not directly shown, it was made clear through the expressions of the surviving characters (Jerry and the little mouse) that it was Tom who got it. Now, anyone who lets their kids watch this but won't allow SOF is seriously messed in the head. Granted, there's no blood in T&J, but the same things are happening, animal violence, decapitation, not to mention all the other pain-inducing gags found throughout the cartoon.
of course you wouldn't be sued, cuz its spelled "Berkeley" :)
-Cameron, student at UC Berkeley...
One of these days I'll graduate...
I'm using Pioneer 6X SCSI DVD-rom, Hollywood + decoder (Win98 blech.....) Overall, it works flawlessly for me, both on-screen and out to the TV, but I noticed that when I have the main menu playing full-screen (SVGA @ 1024x768) I get these funky green noise/bars about 1" up the bottom of the screen... doesn't do it for TV-out, I suspect its a problem with the hardware, not the disc. Such is life in Windoze... I can't wait for Sigma to get off their asses and produce a linux-friendly card... The only reason I have windows is play games and watch DVDs... grumble grumble...
my bad, I forgot to mention that and DVD's I watch on my new TV are STILL decoded on the PC, as Sigma's (and subsequently Creative's) S-Video and Dolby out are quite nice.
I wrote Sigma a few weeks back and that's exactly what they told me, that they are "currently discussing Linux support in a future product.." glad I only spent $55 on my Sigma Decoder, which, btw, kicks ass (but only in windoze :( ). Not content to sit in front of my computer to watch DVD, I bought a 27" trinitron TV to feed my nasty DSS/DVD habit. I have complete faith in sigma's ability to create a quality product for Linux (they've done a fine job for windows thus far) and I'm willing to wait for a GOOD product for linux, rather than a quickie.