I got ripped off by ELSA when they folded...
on
VisionTek Folds
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· Score: 2
I bought a ELSA GeForce MX card that started dying about 9 months after I purchased it. I called ELSA to get it returned under warranty and they told me that they were out of stock and should have some in a few weeks and that I might want to just hold onto it if there was any usage I could get out of it in the meantime.
I checked back in a few weeks to find the web site down, the phones no longer answering, and word on the street that they were only going to honor RMAs that were already in their system.
I know IRC isn't exactly the same as an IM platform, but IMHO (not a lawyer disclaimer of course), there isn't much of a difference - both sit around monitoring conversations and have some sort of AI that drives responses.
I used to have a blast unleashing the bot onto IRC channels and watching as people would try and carry on conversations with it.
The *basic* personality was defined in a text file and consisted of a number of keywords/phrases that it would look for and then a number of responses for each of those keywords. If you were careful in how you picked them, you could put together entire potential conversations.
The "personality" I had the most fun/success with was a rather depressed and drugged out one. People would assume he was "stoned".. etc and feel sorry for him.
I guess it was sort of mean. But... well.. I still thought it was funny.:)
I use WebWasher. It has a lot of fairly decent features. One of the things I love about Mozilla is that its popup blocking appears to be fairly robust + you can toggle whether or not you use proxies (i.e. Webwasher) with a single click.
So now I use WebWasher for advertising blocking + privacy enhancement and use Mozilla to do the pop up blocking. If I need popups for a site or Webwasher munges some legit javascript, I can usually fix with a click and a reload.
I'd say that this fits in the category of "risky" activities I mentioned before:):)
Even so, it is often times possible to plan around those sorts of things -- for example -- temporarily re-enable telnet on the back network so you can make a connection if the SSH server fails.... or make sure you have serial access to the console..
I know it isn't a "perfect fix" -- and maybe I've just been "lucky" -- but I've survived for years w/o a IP KVM, and I'm just not sure that the tech is worth the $s in many cases
Am I missing the point??
on
Cheap KVM Over IP?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
How often do you really need "true console" access on a box that has no network connectivity?
I've found that having the ability to remote power cycle (preferably through an interface -- but an ISP that can get someone to the box fast can do in a $ pinch) + some remote network admin tools (VNC, Terminal Services, Telnet/SSH, etc etc) goes a *long* way.
Yes, once in a while the box crashes *so* hard that Terminal services/VNC (assuming a Windows platform) becomes useless -- time for a reboot! The only way that you can really screw yoursel is if you mess with the network settings and configure yourself off the network.
Rather than spend $$$s for that possibility, why not just pick up the phone and call some hands-on support (or if it is your datacenter.. send in the geeks)...?? If you know you are going to be messing with "dangerous" settings, you should be prepared for these sorts of possibilities anyways..
I moved into an apartment, which may explain why I was selected (previous owners?? who knows...)
When I got the guide, I had a hard time figuring out how to explain my DirecTivo (dual tuner.. etc) usage in their format. I had a call with a very confused customer service represenatitive who had no idea what a Tivo was or what its capabilities were. I ended up just pretending like I had two TVs each w/ a VCR and wrote it up that way.
I recently was "selected" to do one of the Nielson TV ratings. As my taste in television programming is probably "off beat" from that of most of America, I wanted to make sure that my favorite shows got some respect..:)
The system that they use for logging TV shows may make sense for the old days of rabbit ears, but it was completely ridiculous for me (a DirecTivo user). They actually want you to write down a list of all of the channels you receive!! Ha!!
Also, as a Tivo user, I usually don't watch live TV. As a DirecTivo user, I have dual tuners and can record two different live shows while watching a third. Trying to capture my recording/viewing habits on their grid was pretty ridiculous.
I don't mind sharing my viewing habits back to Tivo -- it would be nice though if I was given a discount on the service for providing them the data.
I hate to say it, but this is true. The geeks are going to need to learn how to dramatize it. At the "super clubs" in LA (i.e. Spundae) where we regularly book the worlds top Trance talent, the DJ booth is usually showcased and a lot of people spend portions of the evening watching the DJ.
For example, I don't even like Carl Cox, but it was fun to watch him rock out on the turntables...
I hate to be a troll, but I'm a little bummed this article made it to slashdot. I read it last night on Yahoo and was only impressed with it's lack of newsworthyness.
Lets recap this article. Some people have figured out that you can put a bunch of music on a computer or ipod and play that at events. Wow! You say this technology allows you to put together a list of songs and then play then in a row one after another???
Look at who they interviewed:
But Kirkendoll, who calls himself "The Podiatrist," was hired for his collection of music and penchant for feeling the vibe of a crowd, not his ability to mix or scratch.
In other words, this is the guy who plays music at your wedding.
What the story should be about is about some of the developments in technology that allow *real DJs* to perform instead of vinyl. When I say *real DJs", I mean those that perform at clubs that use beatchmatching, effects, and other techniques to create a fluid music listening experience.
AtomixMP3 has been making some good progress at allowing people to use MP3s like turntables. Unfortunately, it still doesn't have anything that allows DJs to be able to "see" the CD the same way real DJs can apparently visually check out the grooves on the record.
Many of us "nerds" also have interested in science fiction, sword & sorcery / dungeons and dragons, animation (computer and anime), electronic toys (gadgets and gizmos aplenty)... etc
It's all part of our shared, socially maladjusted heritage. While you may or may not share all of these interests, it shouldn't be too difficult to be able to understand why Slashdot covers them...
They show you a mono waveform (the zoom level is of course dependent on your choices) that I've found to be fairly useful for making some educated guesses about where to mix in a track.
Acid drives me crazy because it insists on drawing the stereo waveform which just doesn't give me the same visual feedback.. I wish there was a way (or I knew how) to get it to display in mono...
You can see the waveforms of the next x seconds of music that will be played -- what some of the DJs were talking about is that they want to be able to see the waveform of the entire track so that they can cue into it immeediately...
When you use tools like Acid and Mixmeister (note - these aren't "realtime" DJ tools though), you can see the waveform of the song (which IMHO has got to be better than "grooves").
If someone would incorporate this technology into a program like AtomixMP3 (yes -- you'd need to build the waveform graphs ahead of time in a database) then I don't see why this would be a problem.
Most of the big club DJs aren't taking requests -- they could get their music collection prescanned on a computer...
AtomixMP3 is set up a lot like turntables -- i.e. it is optimized for real-time DJing. If you have multiple sound cards (or as SBlive using front/rear speakers), you can cue up the next song in the headphones while the other is playing on the speakers. It gives you some visual feedback (waveform) as to what is coming up in the song.
Mixmeister is better for creating CD compilations -- you can set up tempo, volume, and frequency envelopes in a set up similar to a multitrack recorder. I've used it to make some fun beatmixed compilations.
You can also use more advanced tools like Sonic Foundry Acid Pro which are better w/ loops and effects -- but Acid is sadly missing a tempo envelope tool and it's technology for changing the tempo w/o changing the pitch doesn't seem to be as good as Mixmeister's...
When I was a grad student, I spent some time working on a force feedback system for one of the Army's distributed VR combat systems.
The system itself was sort of cool -- all sorts of different vehicles / soldiers could interact within the world. I remember that there was a serious lack of standards due to all of the proprietary BS -- so if you didn't have the various servers synched up with each other's databases, your A-10 might look like a flying tank!
I also remember that the "clients" were Indigo Impacts (the purple ones) -- at the time, these boxes provided the most bang for the buck in terms of high end 3D processing -- the next best thing were the Onyx (sp?) which were $500K - $1M. I remember being really disappointed with the quality / FPS of the simulations compared to what quake would do on my Riva 128 card (if my memory serves)..
I know that the Quake engine had its share of cheats that allowed it to gain the performance advantages it did, but I thought it was funny that a $2K PC was seriously outperforming a $40K workstation.
I remember writing a proposal for a better version of the system that would be java based where each of the vehicles would be an object/thread running in the environment (i.e. like those old programming contests where everyone would write C code that would fight each other). That way you could program intelligence into the vehicles and just pass the object around -- no need to have huge synchronized databases describing the vehicles properties.. they would just be properties of the object.. I proposed that they use VRML or something like that to allow the objects to describe themselves..
Hell.. you can play DivX titles on your $50 Dreamcast (asuming you can still find)...
I believe the URL is www.projectmayo.com
Last time I checked they were at beta 3.
The player has a number of limitations though -- I don't remember the specifics, but you can't go up to full DVD resolution and I think that the bit rate is limited to 700kbs (not high enough for my taste)...
I'm sure it is possible to get flash and java working for Mozilla, but if you follow the process laid out in front of you the first time you run into a need for these, it doesn't work.. or at least didn't work for me.
I've been using Mozilla since RC1 and have found it to be a suitable IE replacement. How does Mozilla compare w/ Netscape 7? Who should use one vs the other?
Pros: Tabbed browsing Form manager
Cons: Installing plug-ins is a nightmare compared to the simplicity of installing them in IE.
I can't copy and paste formatted content from the browser window into Word / Outlook
I can't figure out how to get it to launch Outlook when I click a mail to link instead of the internal mail client.
It has been years, but when I was a college student, we were working on a research project for PacBell on how to transmit more data over twisted pair transmission lines.
My recollection is that getting data pushed through telco lines is complicated because of "loading" (I think it has something to do with inductors -- can't remember anymore) -- a technique that they used to extend the range of voice signals.
Basically, once you got too far past 4khz, the signal would start to get seriously attentuated. In order to install ISDN lines, they had to actually send people out to remove the loading.
I've never maintained enough interest in electrical/systems engineering to understand how DSL works, but I guess they must have figured something out..
So the point of all of this ramble, is pushing signal through POTS lines isn't the same as pushing signal over a pair of twisted pair lines in your house...
I am the "proud" owner of a Radeon All In Wonder. I dropped close to $300 on the card. I bought it hoping to set up a home theatre PC. I was looking forward to experimenting with broadcasting the video via 802.11 to the downstairs office so that my GF could watch while working.. etc.
ATI totally caved to Microsoft and only supports their "latest" video capture API (DirectShow). Well guess what even though DirectShow has been out for a long time, there doesn't seem to be a lot of support for it -- even from Microsoft. So if you want to use NetMeeting or Windows Media Server or Real Server -- you can go suck an egg.
The video capture software they bundle it seems to capture into a proprietary MPEG2 format that doesn't play on other computers. If you want to share something you captured, you need to re-encode it.
There are third party applicaitons available -- I think that FlashMPEG can do capture for it now.
All in all, I am *REALLY* disappointed with the card. The hardware seems fine, but the software & support just blow.
The relavance is simple -- I'd like to know more about the specific issues involved in porting ASP from IIS to Apache.
The other comments about ASP in general were meant to deflect anyone from "helpfully" suggesting that I use PHP/PERL or some other language instead of answering the portability question.
Slashdot Mirror
I bought a ELSA GeForce MX card that started dying about 9 months after I purchased it. I called ELSA to get it returned under warranty and they told me that they were out of stock and should have some in a few weeks and that I might want to just hold onto it if there was any usage I could get out of it in the meantime.
I checked back in a few weeks to find the web site down, the phones no longer answering, and word on the street that they were only going to honor RMAs that were already in their system.
Ripped off good... but what are you gonna do???
I know IRC isn't exactly the same as an IM platform, but IMHO (not a lawyer disclaimer of course), there isn't much of a difference - both sit around monitoring conversations and have some sort of AI that drives responses.
:)
I used to have a blast unleashing the bot onto IRC channels and watching as people would try and carry on conversations with it.
The *basic* personality was defined in a text file and consisted of a number of keywords/phrases that it would look for and then a number of responses for each of those keywords. If you were careful in how you picked them, you could put together entire potential conversations.
The "personality" I had the most fun/success with was a rather depressed and drugged out one. People would assume he was "stoned".. etc and feel sorry for him.
I guess it was sort of mean. But... well.. I still thought it was funny.
I use WebWasher. It has a lot of fairly decent features. One of the things I love about Mozilla is that its popup blocking appears to be fairly robust + you can toggle whether or not you use proxies (i.e. Webwasher) with a single click.
So now I use WebWasher for advertising blocking + privacy enhancement and use Mozilla to do the pop up blocking. If I need popups for a site or Webwasher munges some legit javascript, I can usually fix with a click and a reload.
I'd say that this fits in the category of "risky" activities I mentioned before :) :)
Even so, it is often times possible to plan around those sorts of things -- for example -- temporarily re-enable telnet on the back network so you can make a connection if the SSH server fails.... or make sure you have serial access to the console..
I know it isn't a "perfect fix" -- and maybe I've just been "lucky" -- but I've survived for years w/o a IP KVM, and I'm just not sure that the tech is worth the $s in many cases
How often do you really need "true console" access on a box that has no network connectivity?
I've found that having the ability to remote power cycle (preferably through an interface -- but an ISP that can get someone to the box fast can do in a $ pinch) + some remote network admin tools (VNC, Terminal Services, Telnet/SSH, etc etc) goes a *long* way.
Yes, once in a while the box crashes *so* hard that Terminal services/VNC (assuming a Windows platform) becomes useless -- time for a reboot! The only way that you can really screw yoursel is if you mess with the network settings and configure yourself off the network.
Rather than spend $$$s for that possibility, why not just pick up the phone and call some hands-on support (or if it is your datacenter.. send in the geeks)...?? If you know you are going to be messing with "dangerous" settings, you should be prepared for these sorts of possibilities anyways..
Just my $.02...
I moved into an apartment, which may explain why I was selected (previous owners?? who knows...)
When I got the guide, I had a hard time figuring out how to explain my DirecTivo (dual tuner.. etc) usage in their format. I had a call with a very confused customer service represenatitive who had no idea what a Tivo was or what its capabilities were. I ended up just pretending like I had two TVs each w/ a VCR and wrote it up that way.
I recently was "selected" to do one of the Nielson TV ratings. As my taste in television programming is probably "off beat" from that of most of America, I wanted to make sure that my favorite shows got some respect.. :)
The system that they use for logging TV shows may make sense for the old days of rabbit ears, but it was completely ridiculous for me (a DirecTivo user). They actually want you to write down a list of all of the channels you receive!! Ha!!
Also, as a Tivo user, I usually don't watch live TV. As a DirecTivo user, I have dual tuners and can record two different live shows while watching a third. Trying to capture my recording/viewing habits on their grid was pretty ridiculous.
I don't mind sharing my viewing habits back to Tivo -- it would be nice though if I was given a discount on the service for providing them the data.
For example, I don't even like Carl Cox, but it was fun to watch him rock out on the turntables...
The recent Slashdot article on Digital DJ Turntable was far more interesting.
Lets recap this article. Some people have figured out that you can put a bunch of music on a computer or ipod and play that at events. Wow! You say this technology allows you to put together a list of songs and then play then in a row one after another???
Look at who they interviewed:
In other words, this is the guy who plays music at your wedding.
What the story should be about is about some of the developments in technology that allow *real DJs* to perform instead of vinyl. When I say *real DJs", I mean those that perform at clubs that use beatchmatching, effects, and other techniques to create a fluid music listening experience.
AtomixMP3 has been making some good progress at allowing people to use MP3s like turntables. Unfortunately, it still doesn't have anything that allows DJs to be able to "see" the CD the same way real DJs can apparently visually check out the grooves on the record.
Many of us "nerds" also have interested in science fiction, sword & sorcery / dungeons and dragons, animation (computer and anime), electronic toys (gadgets and gizmos aplenty)... etc
It's all part of our shared, socially maladjusted heritage. While you may or may not share all of these interests, it shouldn't be too difficult to be able to understand why Slashdot covers them...
They show you a mono waveform (the zoom level is of course dependent on your choices) that I've found to be fairly useful for making some educated guesses about where to mix in a track.
Acid drives me crazy because it insists on drawing the stereo waveform which just doesn't give me the same visual feedback.. I wish there was a way (or I knew how) to get it to display in mono...
You can see the waveforms of the next x seconds of music that will be played -- what some of the DJs were talking about is that they want to be able to see the waveform of the entire track so that they can cue into it immeediately...
When you use tools like Acid and Mixmeister (note - these aren't "realtime" DJ tools though), you can see the waveform of the song (which IMHO has got to be better than "grooves").
If someone would incorporate this technology into a program like AtomixMP3 (yes -- you'd need to build the waveform graphs ahead of time in a database) then I don't see why this would be a problem.
Most of the big club DJs aren't taking requests -- they could get their music collection prescanned on a computer...
AtomixMP3 is set up a lot like turntables -- i.e. it is optimized for real-time DJing. If you have multiple sound cards (or as SBlive using front/rear speakers), you can cue up the next song in the headphones while the other is playing on the speakers. It gives you some visual feedback (waveform) as to what is coming up in the song.
Mixmeister is better for creating CD compilations -- you can set up tempo, volume, and frequency envelopes in a set up similar to a multitrack recorder. I've used it to make some fun beatmixed compilations.
You can also use more advanced tools like Sonic Foundry Acid Pro which are better w/ loops and effects -- but Acid is sadly missing a tempo envelope tool and it's technology for changing the tempo w/o changing the pitch doesn't seem to be as good as Mixmeister's...
But a dozen costs only a little over a buck more than a 1/2 dozen.. :) :)
Don't take away my Krispy Kreme donuts!!!!
When I was a grad student, I spent some time working on a force feedback system for one of the Army's distributed VR combat systems.
.. they would just be properties of the object .. I proposed that they use VRML or something like that to allow the objects to describe themselves..
The system itself was sort of cool -- all sorts of different vehicles / soldiers could interact within the world. I remember that there was a serious lack of standards due to all of the proprietary BS -- so if you didn't have the various servers synched up with each other's databases, your A-10 might look like a flying tank!
I also remember that the "clients" were Indigo Impacts (the purple ones) -- at the time, these boxes provided the most bang for the buck in terms of high end 3D processing -- the next best thing were the Onyx (sp?) which were $500K - $1M. I remember being really disappointed with the quality / FPS of the simulations compared to what quake would do on my Riva 128 card (if my memory serves)..
I know that the Quake engine had its share of cheats that allowed it to gain the performance advantages it did, but I thought it was funny that a $2K PC was seriously outperforming a $40K workstation.
I remember writing a proposal for a better version of the system that would be java based where each of the vehicles would be an object/thread running in the environment (i.e. like those old programming contests where everyone would write C code that would fight each other). That way you could program intelligence into the vehicles and just pass the object around -- no need to have huge synchronized databases describing the vehicles properties
Hell.. you can play DivX titles on your $50 Dreamcast (asuming you can still find)...
I believe the URL is www.projectmayo.com
Last time I checked they were at beta 3.
The player has a number of limitations though -- I don't remember the specifics, but you can't go up to full DVD resolution and I think that the bit rate is limited to 700kbs (not high enough for my taste)...
I'm sure it is possible to get flash and java working for Mozilla, but if you follow the process laid out in front of you the first time you run into a need for these, it doesn't work.. or at least didn't work for me.
I've been using Mozilla since RC1 and have found it to be a suitable IE replacement. How does Mozilla compare w/ Netscape 7? Who should use one vs the other?
Pros:
Tabbed browsing
Form manager
Cons:
Installing plug-ins is a nightmare compared to the simplicity of installing them in IE.
I can't copy and paste formatted content from the
browser window into Word / Outlook
I can't figure out how to get it to launch Outlook when I click a mail to link instead of the internal mail client.
It has been years, but when I was a college student, we were working on a research project for PacBell on how to transmit more data over twisted pair transmission lines. My recollection is that getting data pushed through telco lines is complicated because of "loading" (I think it has something to do with inductors -- can't remember anymore) -- a technique that they used to extend the range of voice signals. Basically, once you got too far past 4khz, the signal would start to get seriously attentuated. In order to install ISDN lines, they had to actually send people out to remove the loading. I've never maintained enough interest in electrical/systems engineering to understand how DSL works, but I guess they must have figured something out.. So the point of all of this ramble, is pushing signal through POTS lines isn't the same as pushing signal over a pair of twisted pair lines in your house...
Tivo Community - Link to thread
There are already 4+ pages of pissed off people..
I didn't want to deal w/ a cable run + buying additional equipment to get DSS throughout the house...
Whether or not the project has merit, I should have been able to do it...
:)
I am the "proud" owner of a Radeon All In Wonder. I dropped close to $300 on the card. I bought it hoping to set up a home theatre PC. I was looking forward to experimenting with broadcasting the video via 802.11 to the downstairs office so that my GF could watch while working.. etc.
ATI totally caved to Microsoft and only supports their "latest" video capture API (DirectShow). Well guess what even though DirectShow has been out for a long time, there doesn't seem to be a lot of support for it -- even from Microsoft. So if you want to use NetMeeting or Windows Media Server or Real Server -- you can go suck an egg.
The video capture software they bundle it seems to capture into a proprietary MPEG2 format that doesn't play on other computers. If you want to share something you captured, you need to re-encode it.
There are third party applicaitons available -- I think that FlashMPEG can do capture for it now.
All in all, I am *REALLY* disappointed with the card. The hardware seems fine, but the software & support just blow.
The relavance is simple -- I'd like to know more about the specific issues involved in porting ASP from IIS to Apache.
The other comments about ASP in general were meant to deflect anyone from "helpfully" suggesting that I use PHP/PERL or some other language instead of answering the portability question.
Or to put it more simply...
Suck my nut, troll.