.. a global IME as good as that in W2k/WinXP. I know bits of Thai, Chinese and Japanese, and would really like to be able to type all these languages into the same document without messing around with three different input programs.
Truth be told, I'd also like the IME to be easy to set up, and usable without having to switch the locale and having everything change languages. I installed Redhat 8 a couple of days ago, and it came with a nice Gnome Language panel applet that should give me Thai Kedmanee support. Shame it doesn't seem to do anything by default; xcin is also on here, as is kinput2, but there was nothing obvious telling me about the existence of these programs.
Did you see the pictures of the mm02 xda? It's quite a sweet looking device; GSM and PocketPC2002. The pen-handset idea is interesting, but I would simply prefer a smaller unit. I believe Motorola also have a new Accompli model out (008?), but of course, this doesn't have quite the same functionality.
I personally wouldn't entertain any of these suggestions regarding 802.11b. 45 miles is a long distance, and more likely than not, you'll require at least one active repeater system along the way. Given the cost, and the fact that this will be your primary connection to the 'Net, it's important that you get a real microwave system with your own frequency.
I'm not familiar with the States, but in Australia there are Telcos happy to provide these - I worked for Telstra doing Radio projects.
The designer/installer will be able to accurately model the path for you, taking into account fresnel, earth bulge, terrain, multipath, rain etc. Depending on circumstances, they may offer a 1+1 hot standby system with diversity antennae; for microwave links they will give you a reliability figure based upon environmental effects for the given path. They will also be able to negotiate repeater sites and assist with frequency licensing, equipment selection.
None of this is cheap, unfortunately, so shop around.;)
(a)has only a standardised written form, not spoken form
If you consider the standardised written form to be "simplified characters", then the standardised spoken form is Putonghua (Mandarin).
(b)that written form is especially annoying to represent digitally.
Do you mean to store, or to input the data? Both are easy. There are many popular input schemes used (based upon personal preference) and a proficient typist will have no issue with this. As for storage, I believe the most popular encoding atm (for simplified chinese) is GB2312.
c) it is a tonal language, and therefore not very easy to learn unless you have been raised from birth speaking it, since your brain won't have developed the requisite pitch analysis. There are many more non-tonal than tonal language speakers in the world, so standardising on a tonal language would place ALL of them at a disadvantage. It's easy for a tonal language speaker to go the other way though.
I've met plenty of people who have had no issues in learning Chinese due to their "non-tonal" upbringing. Hell, there seems to be plenty of Mormon missionaries walking around Chinatown speaking with near perfect Mandarin.
Because Chinese-speaking people can speak English but not many non-Chinese can speak Chinese.
Most Chinese (the majority living in P.R.China) do _not_ speak English.
Hell, most Chinese can't talk to most other Chinese due to two primary written forms (old, simplified), 31 major dialects (Mandarin now primary, Cantonese losing place) and hundreds of "minor" dialects.
(a) Given that a person has a good grasp of either simplified or traditional characters, it is normally not a major issue for them to read the other character set. (b) Mandarin (Putonghua) is the Chinese national language. People retain their spoken dialects from speaking with their parents and local community, but learn Putonghua in the PRC.
My understanding of 802.1x is that it only provides a more secure authentication system. After the initial authentication, it utilises WEP for the remainder of the session.
Aww shucks. Having studied Computer Systems Engineering, this topic is one that irks me no end. Very few people outside of these fields are able to distringuish between the two, and it especially pisses me off when someone tells me so-and-so also studied computer science and is earning $X. (computing jobs pay more in general, as there is a greater scope for engineering jobs.. more on this later)
Okay, before I start my rant, a few disclaimers:
1. I'm Australian, and don't know how systems work in other countries.
2. I'm an engineer, and naturally believe engineering to be "better", despite lower average pay and poor community respect. Take all comparisons with a spoon of salt.
3. Beer makes my English funny sound.;)
Engineering is a profession; it is roughly defined as "the application of a proven process or standard to the undertaking of work". Engineers are focused on maintaining quality and safety throughout a project, more often than not because the scale of work that they undertake is often quite large or critical in nature. eg. civil engineers building bridges; industrial engineers and their manufacturing plants...
More often than not, the engineer will need to assess a number of different factors. These factors may include economic constraints, environmental impacts, legislation, work safety, time etc etc. These skills are the reason why many engineers move into management roles of some form during their career.
The roles of electrical and electronics engineers began to change somewhat during the takeoff of computing and automation. Increasingly, these engineers would be required to coordinate the development of systems which would be controlled by complex computer systems etc... it was from this shift that the role of the computer engineer developed.
The types of projects that computer engineers are schooled to undertake are often large scale; incorporate other fields (such as mechanical engineering) and often involve a wide variety of systems. The best way to explain this is with examples:
Eg1: Aircraft autopilot systems
Eg2: Glass furnaces, with associated RTUs and SCADA system
Eg3: Manufacturing plants
I think the theme is large-scale... The problem with engineering, is that it is poorly understood and recognised within society. Often, jobs may be advertised as engineering roles, without actually requiring the skillset of an engineer. (wtf is a sales engineer... they should be called "technical salespeople"... wtf is an MCSE ??) In Australia, there has been a quiet push to remedy this problem through legislation (though I doubt it would ever happen) The idea is that employers advertising "engineering" positions only employ "real" engineers listed on a national register (www.ieaust.org.au)
Another problem for computer engineers, is the fact that they possess a number of the skills required to undertake a number of computing professions. Subjects such as operating systems, communications networks, software engineering, code cutting etc etc are taught alongside the math, physics, materials, project engineering, statistics, legal issues (etc etc) subjects...
Anyway, to cut a long rant short (i wanna eat dinner), computer engineering and computer science ARE very different; my summary is:
If you LURV computers and would like to work in one of the many computing roles, go COMPUTER SCIENCE. Besides, there are more girls in comp. sci. than engineering.
If you would like a broader scope, touching on electronics, electromagnetics, lotsa theorems, Standards! and don't mind LESS pay and crappy recognition, then engineering is cool. (We're more free to move to other fields, too... for example to computing, or to telecommunications etc etc)
Yes, it is "usually coming from one company". And yes, it is Telstra.
The problem herein lies in the fact that a couple of years ago, Telstra decided to start pushing its cable modem service as the ideal service for high bandwidth users. The network infrastructure was already in place, or being rolled out (in the form of the Foxtel cable tv provider) and Telstra's existing ISP business (in the form of Bigpond).
All very well and happy, since Telstra's only other major high bandwidth competitor, Optus, was having trouble keeping up with the rolling out of their own cable network. Telstra could effectively push anyone who needed high bandwidth onto their ISDN services, or their Bigpond cable.
xDSL was seen as a big problem, but the technology requires special equipment to be located in the end-user's telephone exchange. Since Telstra controls all of these, they've happily delayed and delayed and delayed the introduction of their own xDSL services.
Several months ago, the Australian Government woke up and realised that Australia was getting left far behind in terms of providing more bandwidth to Internet users. Indeed, even here in China (where I currently work), ADSL services are opening up, and prices are amazingly competitive.
Anyway, the Australia Government basically opened up the local loop to several other companies, so xDSL may soon be provided by a number of groups. Telstra, with their heavy investment in cable and ISDN internet services are probably trying to milk as much money as they can from existing users before everyone abandons the service for xDSL.
1. The roller/pulley system the Egyptians used to move those large sandstone blocks
7. Stonehenge
But we all know these two were created by aliens. Other alien accomplishments include the carved stone heads on Easter Island, the Incan temples and (of course) the creation of blue Gatorade.
There are only a handfull of true professions. Examples include: Clergy, Soldier, Doctor, Lawyer.
Engineering is, in this strict sense, not a profession.
In Australia (where I am), Engineering is a recognised profession. One has to be certified by the Institute of Engineers, Australia (thereby abiding by their documented code of ethics). Professional engineers are given the same status as doctors, lawyers etc. This allows declarations on such forms as those annoying passport applications and other such things which even para-professionals (police) and JPs (justice of the peace) can't.
It seems to me that the most indispensable undergrad degree is an engineering degree, as it is one requirement in many places to legally call yourself an engineer (which has special legal advantages).
I shouldn't preach, but engineering is a PROFESSION. You don't just receive your degree and tack on a little "I'm an engineer!" badge; you have to apply yourself to a standard of work and behaviour and abide by a tight code of ethics, much in the same way as doctors. (I won't mention any other professions - like lawyers - since the cynical would say they have a very flexible set of ethics)
Learning to be an engineer is completely different to learning to cut code. Confusion in recent years has arisen due to the popularity of new courses such as "Computer Engineering" or "Computer Systems Engineering". Whilst these courses (and even basic Electrical and Electronic Eng.) teach programming and computer hardware and computer networks etc, the area of work that they focus on are different.
Whilst your comp sci. degree may take you into business situations designing in-house software systems for companies, an eng. degree is aimed at taking you into failure-critical systems such as aircraft autopilot systems, or coal-furnace controllers. Working in these types of situations requires team members to apply themselves very thoroughly to standards of work, and to always, always put the safety of the public first.
Gates is going to have to wait, then, because piracy is rampant, and will remain rampant, so long as the majority of the population have difficulty affording the software.
University students here live six in a room in their dormitories. At 10:30pm in the evening, their electricity and lights are turned off for curfew / power saving. If they pool together, some of them can afford a computer to tuck into the corner of their room.
When these guys graduate though, they often work hard and save every little penny they have and then go out and buy themselves a decent machine. Rarely have they much money left over, and even if they had a lot, they'ld still buy pirated software. VCDs, music CDs, and computer CDroms are all pirated here, and are easily available in all but the largest of department stalls.
But back to Mr Gates; I am of the opinion that Microsoft has done more for software in China than any other company has. Windows may suck, but at least it comes in a chinese version, and I believe Microsoft is poising itself very nicely in the webtv market with very low cost units. Whilst there is an economic gap between the average chinese and the average american, the chinese will utilise every cheap opportunity to make their lives better - be it use pirated software, be it use linux, be it use windows.
Yes, there are linux developers, but they seem to focus more on having the chinese character set being integrated in more than anything else.
I attended a Shanghai Linux Users Group meeting a few months ago, and they attracted a fairly decent 300~400 people sized crowd; all of whom are interested in cutting edge technology.
These people are hungry for success, and you can rest assured that they will go and study the books and learn what they need to learn. Linux's "free" nature is a boon in this situation, as few individuals have money to buy licensed development tools etc. (unfortunately, that's why everything here is pirated)
Whilst recently it has been the "in thing" to connect stranger and stranger devices to the Internet, I personally believe that the majority of these types of systems will be networked privately. (sortof like having ATMs connecting to banks in their own private network and not connecting them over the Internet)
Having Coke machines connected with webcams and such to the net may be a novel idea, but lacks a certain practicality that may be found in, say, having them connected in a private network to a local HQ for monitoring if the machine is damaged, supplies are low, or if it isn't even turned on, etc! A nice closed network make this a little more feasible by cutting out the script-kiddie crowd who'ld otherwise be portscanning the vending machines...
As for refrigerators, home security and air-conditioning etc., connecting them into your home network might make it nice to program everything...
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Thank you for 20 years of nerd-news addiction! Happy, happy birthday!
.. a global IME as good as that in W2k/WinXP. I know bits of Thai, Chinese and Japanese, and would really like to be able to type all these languages into the same document without messing around with three different input programs.
Truth be told, I'd also like the IME to be easy to set up, and usable without having to switch the locale and having everything change languages. I installed Redhat 8 a couple of days ago, and it came with a nice Gnome Language panel applet that should give me Thai Kedmanee support. Shame it doesn't seem to do anything by default; xcin is also on here, as is kinput2, but there was nothing obvious telling me about the existence of these programs.
802.11 is covered by an FCC "Class License". (Or in Australia where I am, the corresponding ACA Class License).
l ass/spread.h tm
You may not need to apply for a license specifically, but the product is governed by the conditions of the class license.
Here's a link to the Australian Licensing:
http://www.aca.gov.au/legal/licence/c
I believe it's Section 15.247 of the FCC Rules.
It spreads through your contacts, so the recipients are more than likely receiving the URL from someone they know.
What about a compromise where Microsoft would be required to set up dual boot Windows/Linux systems for the schools?
Personally, I think this would be of a lot more benefit to the schools, and students.
Did you see the pictures of the mm02 xda? It's quite a sweet looking device; GSM and PocketPC2002. The pen-handset idea is interesting, but I would simply prefer a smaller unit. I believe Motorola also have a new Accompli model out (008?), but of course, this doesn't have quite the same functionality.
I personally wouldn't entertain any of these suggestions regarding 802.11b. 45 miles is a long distance, and more likely than not, you'll require at least one active repeater system along the way. Given the cost, and the fact that this will be your primary connection to the 'Net, it's important that you get a real microwave system with your own frequency.
;)
I'm not familiar with the States, but in Australia there are Telcos happy to provide these - I worked for Telstra doing Radio projects.
The designer/installer will be able to accurately model the path for you, taking into account fresnel, earth bulge, terrain, multipath, rain etc. Depending on circumstances, they may offer a 1+1 hot standby system with diversity antennae; for microwave links they will give you a reliability figure based upon environmental effects for the given path. They will also be able to negotiate repeater sites and assist with frequency licensing, equipment selection.
None of this is cheap, unfortunately, so shop around.
(a)has only a standardised written form, not spoken form
If you consider the standardised written form to be "simplified characters", then the standardised spoken form is Putonghua (Mandarin).
(b)that written form is especially annoying to represent digitally.
Do you mean to store, or to input the data? Both are easy. There are many popular input schemes used (based upon personal preference) and a proficient typist will have no issue with this. As for storage, I believe the most popular encoding atm (for simplified chinese) is GB2312.
c) it is a tonal language, and therefore not very easy to learn unless you have been raised from birth speaking it, since your brain won't have developed the requisite pitch analysis. There are many more non-tonal than tonal language speakers in the world, so standardising on a tonal language would place ALL of them at a disadvantage. It's easy for a tonal language speaker to go the other way though.
I've met plenty of people who have had no issues in learning Chinese due to their "non-tonal" upbringing. Hell, there seems to be plenty of Mormon missionaries walking around Chinatown speaking with near perfect Mandarin.
Because Chinese-speaking people can speak English but not many non-Chinese can speak Chinese.
Most Chinese (the majority living in P.R.China) do _not_ speak English.
Hell, most Chinese can't talk to most other Chinese due to two primary written forms (old, simplified), 31 major dialects (Mandarin now primary, Cantonese losing place) and hundreds of "minor" dialects.
(a) Given that a person has a good grasp of either simplified or traditional characters, it is normally not a major issue for them to read the other character set. (b) Mandarin (Putonghua) is the Chinese national language. People retain their spoken dialects from speaking with their parents and local community, but learn Putonghua in the PRC.
My understanding of 802.1x is that it only provides a more secure authentication system. After the initial authentication, it utilises WEP for the remainder of the session.
Can someone clear me up re. this?
1 Reason?
Cheap company. Free database.
Aww shucks. Having studied Computer Systems Engineering, this topic is one that irks me no end. Very few people outside of these fields are able to distringuish between the two, and it especially pisses me off when someone tells me so-and-so also studied computer science and is earning $X. (computing jobs pay more in general, as there is a greater scope for engineering jobs.. more on this later)
;)
Okay, before I start my rant, a few disclaimers:
1. I'm Australian, and don't know how systems work in other countries.
2. I'm an engineer, and naturally believe engineering to be "better", despite lower average pay and poor community respect. Take all comparisons with a spoon of salt.
3. Beer makes my English funny sound.
Engineering is a profession; it is roughly defined as "the application of a proven process or standard to the undertaking of work". Engineers are focused on maintaining quality and safety throughout a project, more often than not because the scale of work that they undertake is often quite large or critical in nature. eg. civil engineers building bridges; industrial engineers and their manufacturing plants...
More often than not, the engineer will need to assess a number of different factors. These factors may include economic constraints, environmental impacts, legislation, work safety, time etc etc. These skills are the reason why many engineers move into management roles of some form during their career.
The roles of electrical and electronics engineers began to change somewhat during the takeoff of computing and automation. Increasingly, these engineers would be required to coordinate the development of systems which would be controlled by complex computer systems etc... it was from this shift that the role of the computer engineer developed.
The types of projects that computer engineers are schooled to undertake are often large scale; incorporate other fields (such as mechanical engineering) and often involve a wide variety of systems. The best way to explain this is with examples:
Eg1: Aircraft autopilot systems
Eg2: Glass furnaces, with associated RTUs and SCADA system
Eg3: Manufacturing plants
I think the theme is large-scale... The problem with engineering, is that it is poorly understood and recognised within society. Often, jobs may be advertised as engineering roles, without actually requiring the skillset of an engineer. (wtf is a sales engineer... they should be called "technical salespeople"... wtf is an MCSE ??) In Australia, there has been a quiet push to remedy this problem through legislation (though I doubt it would ever happen) The idea is that employers advertising "engineering" positions only employ "real" engineers listed on a national register (www.ieaust.org.au)
Another problem for computer engineers, is the fact that they possess a number of the skills required to undertake a number of computing professions. Subjects such as operating systems, communications networks, software engineering, code cutting etc etc are taught alongside the math, physics, materials, project engineering, statistics, legal issues (etc etc) subjects...
Anyway, to cut a long rant short (i wanna eat dinner), computer engineering and computer science ARE very different; my summary is:
If you LURV computers and would like to work in one of the many computing roles, go COMPUTER SCIENCE. Besides, there are more girls in comp. sci. than engineering.
If you would like a broader scope, touching on electronics, electromagnetics, lotsa theorems, Standards! and don't mind LESS pay and crappy recognition, then engineering is cool. (We're more free to move to other fields, too... for example to computing, or to telecommunications etc etc)
donny
If you set up a company in another country, you abide by that country's laws. Yahoo operates a French subsidiary.
The point is not what you or I think about Nazi memorabilia; it is about Yahoo doing the right thing and complying with French laws.
This is no cop-out.
Yes, it is "usually coming from one company". And yes, it is Telstra.
The problem herein lies in the fact that a couple of years ago, Telstra decided to start pushing its cable modem service as the ideal service for high bandwidth users. The network infrastructure was already in place, or being rolled out (in the form of the Foxtel cable tv provider) and Telstra's existing ISP business (in the form of Bigpond).
All very well and happy, since Telstra's only other major high bandwidth competitor, Optus, was having trouble keeping up with the rolling out of their own cable network. Telstra could effectively push anyone who needed high bandwidth onto their ISDN services, or their Bigpond cable.
xDSL was seen as a big problem, but the technology requires special equipment to be located in the end-user's telephone exchange. Since Telstra controls all of these, they've happily delayed and delayed and delayed the introduction of their own xDSL services.
Several months ago, the Australian Government woke up and realised that Australia was getting left far behind in terms of providing more bandwidth to Internet users. Indeed, even here in China (where I currently work), ADSL services are opening up, and prices are amazingly competitive.
Anyway, the Australia Government basically opened up the local loop to several other companies, so xDSL may soon be provided by a number of groups. Telstra, with their heavy investment in cable and ISDN internet services are probably trying to milk as much money as they can from existing users before everyone abandons the service for xDSL.
donny
1. The roller/pulley system the Egyptians used to move those large sandstone blocks
7. Stonehenge
But we all know these two were created by aliens. Other alien accomplishments include the carved stone heads on Easter Island, the Incan temples and (of course) the creation of blue Gatorade.
There are only a handfull of true professions. Examples include: Clergy, Soldier, Doctor, Lawyer.
Engineering is, in this strict sense, not a profession.
In Australia (where I am), Engineering is a recognised profession. One has to be certified by the Institute of Engineers, Australia (thereby abiding by their documented code of ethics). Professional engineers are given the same status as doctors, lawyers etc. This allows declarations on such forms as those annoying passport applications and other such things which even para-professionals (police) and JPs (justice of the peace) can't.
It seems to me that the most indispensable undergrad degree is an engineering degree, as it is one requirement in many places to legally call yourself an engineer (which has special legal advantages).
I shouldn't preach, but engineering is a PROFESSION. You don't just receive your degree and tack on a little "I'm an engineer!" badge; you have to apply yourself to a standard of work and behaviour and abide by a tight code of ethics, much in the same way as doctors. (I won't mention any other professions - like lawyers - since the cynical would say they have a very flexible set of ethics)
Learning to be an engineer is completely different to learning to cut code. Confusion in recent years has arisen due to the popularity of new courses such as "Computer Engineering" or "Computer Systems Engineering". Whilst these courses (and even basic Electrical and Electronic Eng.) teach programming and computer hardware and computer networks etc, the area of work that they focus on are different.
Whilst your comp sci. degree may take you into business situations designing in-house software systems for companies, an eng. degree is aimed at taking you into failure-critical systems such as aircraft autopilot systems, or coal-furnace controllers. Working in these types of situations requires team members to apply themselves very thoroughly to standards of work, and to always, always put the safety of the public first.
Gates is going to have to wait, then, because piracy is rampant, and will remain rampant, so long as the majority of the population have difficulty affording the software.
University students here live six in a room in their dormitories. At 10:30pm in the evening, their electricity and lights are turned off for curfew / power saving. If they pool together, some of them can afford a computer to tuck into the corner of their room.
When these guys graduate though, they often work hard and save every little penny they have and then go out and buy themselves a decent machine. Rarely have they much money left over, and even if they had a lot, they'ld still buy pirated software. VCDs, music CDs, and computer CDroms are all pirated here, and are easily available in all but the largest of department stalls.
But back to Mr Gates; I am of the opinion that Microsoft has done more for software in China than any other company has. Windows may suck, but at least it comes in a chinese version, and I believe Microsoft is poising itself very nicely in the webtv market with very low cost units. Whilst there is an economic gap between the average chinese and the average american, the chinese will utilise every cheap opportunity to make their lives better - be it use pirated software, be it use linux, be it use windows.
Donny
Yes, there are linux developers, but they seem to focus more on having the chinese character set being integrated in more than anything else.
I attended a Shanghai Linux Users Group meeting a few months ago, and they attracted a fairly decent 300~400 people sized crowd; all of whom are interested in cutting edge technology.
These people are hungry for success, and you can rest assured that they will go and study the books and learn what they need to learn. Linux's "free" nature is a boon in this situation, as few individuals have money to buy licensed development tools etc. (unfortunately, that's why everything here is pirated)
Donny
Whilst recently it has been the "in thing" to connect stranger and stranger devices to the Internet, I personally believe that the majority of these types of systems will be networked privately. (sortof like having ATMs connecting to banks in their own private network and not connecting them over the Internet)
Having Coke machines connected with webcams and such to the net may be a novel idea, but lacks a certain practicality that may be found in, say, having them connected in a private network to a local HQ for monitoring if the machine is damaged, supplies are low, or if it isn't even turned on, etc! A nice closed network make this a little more feasible by cutting out the script-kiddie crowd who'ld otherwise be portscanning the vending machines...
As for refrigerators, home security and air-conditioning etc., connecting them into your home network might make it nice to program everything...
Donny