I had DSL installed by PacBell a little over a year ago. There is simply no going back once you've had broadband.
The install was simple. I already had the computers on a network. I paid for the enhanced service, meaning 5 fixed IP address, so I don't even run their software, I just boot up and am online.
From what I know of the simple plan, they are handing out PPPoE setups that mean you get a different IP everytime you log on. It is meant for hooking up one computer only. Supposedly, you can setup a firewall/DHCP server and host more computers off of it, but I haven't tried it.
The net connection is good. I regularly get T1 speeds on downloading. There have been 3 major (>4 hours) service interruption in a year. Not bad.
The usenet server is pathetic. If you are a usenet junkie, you probably need to find another server than news.pacbell.net.
The email service is also pathetic. The POP server is often down for extended periods. The SMTP is relatively stable. Since I have a vanity domain and get my mail from another POP server, it doesn't affect me much.
I'd take whatever broadband service you can afford. As long as the 1 year commitment has a clause about being off the hook if you move, you'll be good to go.
I've moved from nitty gritty technical work to management of technical projects & people. There are tons of books to read, but here are the two things I'd recommmend taking to heart.
1) When managing, you must let your people do things their own way. Unless the method they choose won't work or is critically flawed, let them choose how to solve a problem. Resist the temptation to make them do things your way. If you show faith in your people, they will support you. If you micromanage people, they will fight it and the projects will suffer.
2) Learn finances. In any company, the beancounters drive most of the decisions. You must learn to justify your requests on a financial basis. If you need to buy new widgets, you will be asked to show how the new widgets will help the bottom line. When you save money in a project, make sure your higher ups know you did.
Yes it has the cool DVD/MP3/CD/VCD playback capability and storage capability for the audio, but that's not the 'killer app' they are providing.
The real move that they are trying to make here is with downloading video files off the net. The box demands a broadband connection right? It's for downloading mpeg movies. Most broadband owners can suck down huge files with ease these days.
The idea is that people don't sit in front of their computers to watch TV, they sit in front of their TV to watch TV. They want you to watch the net based mpeg movies on your tv.
Right now if you go to atomfilms.com or ifilm.com, you need to stream the tiny window version of the films to watch them. The Zapstation is capable of going out and grabbing 200-500 MB (or larger) files and storing them on the internal hard drive. So when you want to watch the latest kewl new video, you get it in high quality, full screen mode instead of in computer tiny window mode.
I work for one of those trans-national media megacorps, and the ZapStation peopel wanted us to work with them to provide the high quality mpegs they need to show people. Yes, the initial price is high, but it will drop down soon enough.
Think of it as a Tivo for internet video. Make sense?
I agree that a person that can haxx0r is not necessarily ready for stileproject.com
When I was in Junior High School, I hacked into BBS, wardialed for calling card numbers, dove in dumpsters for phone company manuals, and used linesmen's handsets at neighborhood telco crossconnects for free calls.
My father, an electrical engineer, knew none of this, simply because it was out of his realm of experience. There was no way he could have configured my computer to stop my ph/c/hacking forays.
As good as I may consider myself with computers, my children will be better. They will reach an age where technical measures will not be able to restrict them from getting to information/ideas/images they want. I doubt removing net access from the house will be a reasonable idea, so I will have to accept that they will see things I wish they wouldn't.
What my wife and I must do is prepare them for the day when they do see pornography or get a come on from the chat room perv.
We are going to have to teach them about the dangers of the net, just like we will teach them how to drive a car and balance a budget.
The reality is that the net is full of stuff some people shouldn't see. My daughters, 2 & 4, are already on the net playing games at zoogdisney.com, mamamedia.com, etc. I really don't think it's for them to see porn. I'm not a prude but banner ads of animated oral sex is too much for children. Currently, my wife or I are with them while on the computer. As they get older, they get censorware on their computer. Once they can haxx0r it out of their box, they are free to surf where they please.
There is a place for censorship, but not for adults.
A simple solution to the problem is a hardware key that is issued to adults at the library desk. If your ID says your over 18, you get the dongle that tells the computer to let you see what you want on the terminal. If you are underage, you get censorship. Sorry but that's the breaks.
Yes, I know the 'nannie' software strips out stuff like breast cancer research. But at 7 years old, should my children be confronted with full frontal internet? I think not.
Adults on the other hand, should always have free access to any and all information on the net at a publicly funded terminal. -----
For high speed transmission, you options are limited. But if you got the cash, the technology exists to provide realtime IP traffic to anywhere in the world.
The newest set of digital satellite transmission systems have the capability to send IP traffic. The systems are mainly designed for television transmission of MPEG video, so conditional access (what we TV guys call encryption) is a basic part of the system. The security level is quite high.
To make this system work, both ends needs satellite transmission gear, dishes, and obviously access to a satellite transponder. This ain't cheap, you are talking hundreds of thousands of US$ in capital to buy, building a transmission structure, and the cost of a transponder (>$125,000) per month.
IF you are still interested, you should talk to Scientific Atlanta, General Instruments, or Philips. -----
While I read and understood most of the article, a newb like me would have trouble actually doing it. All I want to do is play Unreal Tournament happily on the net.
I could understand a $5-10 charge to send out CDs. I does cost money to print/distribute the discs. But at $30 a pop, Apple is making money off the BETA!
AFAIK, you don't even get a discount on the final version of OS X. If you got the $30 back in a discount off the probable $99 price for OS X, it wouldn't be so bad.
Apple's business practices are becoming and more anti-consumer lately. Sueing web sites, throwing a tantrum at ATI, and now paying for beta code. Even if OS X is a sweet OS, how is Apple behaving any less disgusting than Microsoft?
I'm sure I'll get flamed or modded down for this, but Ask your self, when was the last time you paid for beta software?
While I felt that Cryptonomicon was a better book, I didn't think it was science fiction. It's no more SF than Tom Clancy's books.
I loved A Deepness in the Sky, but A Fire upon the Deep was probably one of the best and most innovative SF books I've ever read. Vinge's Across Realtime is another great book (actually a collection of three shorter stories).
'Hard' SF has dominated the Hugo's in the past and will probably continue to do so. Cryptonomicon was just too real. How long after the book was published did we hear about Sealand and their data haven?
I'm of two minds on this. The ATX design has been a godsend for people like us that fiddle with our boxes all the time. I can't imagine getting rid of my trusted Inwin full tower.
However, this would be the chance to get a sexy new case with blowholes, lucite, and neon lights. Did anyone read the spec in detail to determine if they include fittings for cooling your overclocked CPU with chilled water?
The main problem will be the time it takes for case manufacturers to ramp up production. Making two distinct lines of cases has got to lower their profit margins. Lower profit margins means higher prices to us, the consumer.
Anyone know what AMD thinks about ATX 2.0? Their chips suck power like nobodies business.
As a linux newb I bought and read several books to help guide me. Some of you may only touch How-Tos but many of us less l33t need a good old fashioned reference book to assist learning.
The
No BS Guide to Linux - This book is a great introduction to the commandline interface. Nothing much on X, but everything you need to find your way around a shell.
Idiot's
Guide to Linux My favorite book. Manuel Ricart wrote this excellent guide to running X on linux with emphasis on KDE. Good tips on backing up, security, and other basics that many books take for granted.
Teach
Yourself KDE 1.1 Simply a good guide to learning how to fully use KDE. Each lesson is simple and focused, allowing those that need to learn in short amounts of time a concise lesson.
Apache
Server for Dummies A straightforward book on configuring Apache. It's not meant as a handbook for a business, more as a way for someone to understand and configure Apache for the first time to understand the concepts behind the software. It allowed me to get a server up and running and even running CGI scripts for intranet use.
If you are already a GNUGod, you won't need these books. But if you are like me and trying to learn these things without the benefit of live human tutor, these books are handy.
Also, the two of the books deal mainly with KDE. If you like Gnome, bewarned that Idiot's
Guide to Linux deals mainly with KDE and not Gnome.
The gutting of TV news is far different than the gutting of TV as a whole.
The news is an easily consumed bit of information that can be distributed by TV, radio, paper, and the web. Of course the recent addition of web available news has dropped TV news viewship.
Entertainment TV won't go so easily. For all the hype and bravado, internet streaming media still is horrible. Face it, even with broadband access, the picture is terrible and choices quite limited. Not to mention the social experience. TV watching is often a group function as opposed to computer usage which is a solitary pursuit.
In interactive TV circles, we refer to this as the sit back/ sit forward choice. Studies show that when using a computer, even for media, people sit forward and upright. Watching TV tends to make people recline and sit back in comfortable furniture. Watch someone use WebTV, when they surf or type, they sit up. When they channel surf and watch TV they lean back.
TV watchign and computer usage at this time are two completely different experiences. As net-saavy as I am, I still wouldn't consider watching where my computer is located. When I want to watch the Tom Green show, I head to the living room. When I want to play Unreal or Scour so prOn, I head to the computer.
Until computers/the net can be accepted as a sit back device, provide quality entertainment with a big picture, and has the same latency as DirecTV, the ttan of old media, television, will dominate home entertainment.
While many early technology adopters tend to watch dramatically less TV, their percentage is few. The rest of the country is still hooked on Millionaire, Survivor, and Wheel of Fortune. Until the net offers the equivalent, television will rule the mediascape.
OT: Fight the power. Don't talk about Survivor, it's a morally bankrupt show!
As a linux newb I bought and read several books to help guide me. Some of you may only touch How-Tos but many of us less l33t need a good old fashioned reference book to assist learning.
The
No BS Guide to Linux - This book is a great introduction to the commandline interface. Nothing much on X, but everything you need to find your way around a shell.
Idiot's
Guide to Linux My favorite book. Manuel Ricart wrote this excellent guide to running X on linux with emphasis on KDE. Good tips on backing up, security, and other basics that many books take for granted.
Teach
Yourself KDE 1.1 Simply a good guide to learning how to fully use KDE. Each lesson is simple and focused, allowing those that need to learn in short amounts of time a concise lesson.
Apache
Server for Dummies A straightforward book on configuring Apache. It's not meant as a handbook for a business, more as a way for someone to understand and configure Apache for the first time to understand the concepts behind the software. It allowed me to get a server up and running and even running CGI scripts for intranet use.
If you are already a GNUGod, you won't need these books. But if you are like me and trying to learn these things without the benefit of live human tutor, these books are handy.
Also, the two of the books deal mainly with KDE. If you like Gnome, bewarned that Idiot's
Guide to Linux deals mainly with KDE and not Gnome.
As an RF engineer and a broadcaster, I'm used to dealing with similar transmission system in satellites and cable distribution.
Increasing the symbol rate is not hard to understand. The ideas aren't crazy, it's just a tough idea to implement.
Like the idea of a fusion powerplant, the idea is fine, but making it happen is another issue.
The hard tech will be needed in the receivers. Making extremely narrowband filters isn't easy and from what I read, the patents are all locked up. Operating at current FM & TV frequencies lead to all kinds of multipath issues that can be solved, but add more to the reciever to deal with.
Look for impressive demos where the receiver is the size of refrigerator. Sizing down the technology to fit in a dashboard and cost $20 bucks a unit will be a real challenge. Much money will be sunk in attempting to make these systems small and rugged.
A better use might be in high end transmission systems. One transponder on a satellite give me 36MHz of bandwidth. Split the bird between two sites for duplex operation and imagine the amount of data I can squirt around the world. Satellite costs are already less than fiber rates for the amount of data they can pass. If you do the rough math you are talking about 3.24GIGAbits of transfer. What OC- is that?
It's been a while since Linear Systems & Communincation Theory, but I don't doubt the Shannon limit can be adapted to this keying system. I'll leave it to a comm theory expert to comment.
The porn sites always take the leading edge in adopting new web technologies.
Can you imagine was the clublove.com guuys are going to do when they get ahold of this tech? Hell, they'll end up giveing you the mouse if you sign up for a subscription.
Start with 7.something that shipped with computer.
Upgrade to something like 7.5.3 as Mac Tech Support suggested.
Many clean installs and repatching of 7.5.3 (or something like that to no avail as Mac Tech Support suggested.
Buy Apple brand 233Mhz processor board to replace original 120Mhz CPU. Install.
Go buy 8.0 and install. Works better than any 7.x version ever did by still has problems w/ Adobe.
D/l 8.1 and install. Problems continue.
Buy 8.5 and install. Rejoice at USB support. Adobe problems continue.
D/l 8.6 and install. Less problems, but wife still curses at computer during nightly crashes under Netscape and Photoshop.
*Pirate* copy of 9.0 (not giving more money until it works) Install. 8500 VERY unhappy. Revert to 8.6.
Toss in a dash of Norton Utilies along the way for taste.
This is what the Mac Tech Support suggested I do. At some point they started charging to call and I stopped calling. Probably just around the time OS 8 came out.
Does it still make you shudder?
Perhaps I should have formatted the hard drive each time and reinstalled cleanly. But this is a huge pain in the ass and shouldn't be needed for OS upgrades. Perhaps I'm spoiled by RPMs.:)
What magic koolaid did Steve Jobs give you that gives you so much arrogance?
Do I really need to post photos of the OS upgrades I've bought? Is is so hard to believe that a person that uses Macs actually finds a reason to dislike them?
Well in my experience (your mileage may differ) the Mac OS crashes much more & harder than the Win9x OSes. Others may have different experiences, but I got damn tired of seeing that bomb on screen and having to reboot. Sure, Win stuff crashes but most of the time the app goes down first, allowing you to shutdown normally.
I'd love to use linux all the time, but unfortunately, my addiction to Ultima Online, Diablo 2 and other games keeps me with a Win98 partion on my hard drive.
I don't know of a ton of apps that exist on the Mac but not in Win9x. When I bought my 8500AV it was specfically because the Adobe suite didn't exist for Wintel. It was a good setup, but now with the full Adobe suite running on Windows it's much stabler (in my experience). Macs lack of memory management made it a dangerous proposition to switch between Illustrator & Photshop, usually ending in bomb. For whatever reason even quitting one program and restarting the other didn't always work because the memory allocations got all fubarred.
Perhaps OS X and new hardware will solve Mac's reliability issues, but by then it will be too late. People like me that started with the original Macs, bought the first powerbooks (my 165c was suh-weet), and paid good money for the top end PowerPCs when they came out have simply given up on Apple. They cost alot and don't give you much more than a cool transluscent case and hardware upgrade headaches. I'll stick with Win98 and Mandrake for now on.
The OS wars will never be won. The different sides never see each others point of view. It's kind of like me understanding why people like that candy ass, do nothing Boba Fett.
I can't understand why people still like Apple and defend it to the end. The gear looks pretty and I dig the 802.11 wireless stuff, but what's behind the fluff?
Even the Mac 9 OS is unstable. Why do people put up with it? I've got a mac in the house, but it's unreliability got it replaced as a daily use machine by a Wintel box.
If you have a good reason why sane people stick by the Mac I'd love to hear it. Post here or email at the above link.
What I'd really love it to turn the Apple hardware guys loose in the x86 world. If you think a Vaio is neat looking, can you imagine what the Apple boys could turn out? Them guys building boxes at 1 Infinte Loop are smart. Too bad the software guys are allowed to be as good. Make an Apple PC that I can run Windows & Linux on and I'd put down the cash.
------
I must not fear moderation.
Fear of moderation is the mind-killer.
Fear of moderation is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my karma.
I will permit moderation to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the karma has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Don't take this as a flame, but who would be doing video editing on a laptop?
Laptops are all about maximum battery life. They achieve this by compromising speed for lower power usage. Video editing is all about high speed disc access, powerful video processors, and bright displays. Laptops deliberately lack strength in these areas.
Using a Intel or AMD chip will add more to the power usage budget than a Transmeta promises to do.
I've see demos of Sony's mini cameras designed for use with next gen mobile phones/PDAs. The lens is smaller than a dime and the whole thing is about the size of a sugar cube. The camera plugged into the side of the phone to take an image and upload via wireless data connection to the net. The camera also had a mode for close in (macro) shots of text for OCR purposes. They demonstrated shooting a business card and having the text appear on screen.
A laptop with this built-in camera feature would add little mass/bulkiness. Sony was a little slow to the PC marketplace, but they do understand ergonomics and proper feature implementation better than most other laptop makers. I've worked on a Vaio laptop and it has 'the feel' that a Toshiba or Compaq lacks.
Note to self-> Order replacement laptop at office today...
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK, this is what tripwire is designed for.
-----
Dewd, I tried everything on that box!
-----
I had DSL installed by PacBell a little over a year ago. There is simply no going back once you've had broadband.
The install was simple. I already had the computers on a network. I paid for the enhanced service, meaning 5 fixed IP address, so I don't even run their software, I just boot up and am online.
From what I know of the simple plan, they are handing out PPPoE setups that mean you get a different IP everytime you log on. It is meant for hooking up one computer only. Supposedly, you can setup a firewall/DHCP server and host more computers off of it, but I haven't tried it.
The net connection is good. I regularly get T1 speeds on downloading. There have been 3 major (>4 hours) service interruption in a year. Not bad.
The usenet server is pathetic. If you are a usenet junkie, you probably need to find another server than news.pacbell.net.
The email service is also pathetic. The POP server is often down for extended periods. The SMTP is relatively stable. Since I have a vanity domain and get my mail from another POP server, it doesn't affect me much.
I'd take whatever broadband service you can afford. As long as the 1 year commitment has a clause about being off the hook if you move, you'll be good to go.
Good luck.
-----
I've moved from nitty gritty technical work to management of technical projects & people. There are tons of books to read, but here are the two things I'd recommmend taking to heart.
1) When managing, you must let your people do things their own way. Unless the method they choose won't work or is critically flawed, let them choose how to solve a problem. Resist the temptation to make them do things your way. If you show faith in your people, they will support you. If you micromanage people, they will fight it and the projects will suffer.
2) Learn finances. In any company, the beancounters drive most of the decisions. You must learn to justify your requests on a financial basis. If you need to buy new widgets, you will be asked to show how the new widgets will help the bottom line. When you save money in a project, make sure your higher ups know you did.
Good luck.
-----
Yes it has the cool DVD/MP3/CD/VCD playback capability and storage capability for the audio, but that's not the 'killer app' they are providing.
The real move that they are trying to make here is with downloading video files off the net. The box demands a broadband connection right? It's for downloading mpeg movies. Most broadband owners can suck down huge files with ease these days.
The idea is that people don't sit in front of their computers to watch TV, they sit in front of their TV to watch TV. They want you to watch the net based mpeg movies on your tv.
Right now if you go to atomfilms.com or ifilm.com, you need to stream the tiny window version of the films to watch them. The Zapstation is capable of going out and grabbing 200-500 MB (or larger) files and storing them on the internal hard drive. So when you want to watch the latest kewl new video, you get it in high quality, full screen mode instead of in computer tiny window mode.
I work for one of those trans-national media megacorps, and the ZapStation peopel wanted us to work with them to provide the high quality mpegs they need to show people. Yes, the initial price is high, but it will drop down soon enough.
Think of it as a Tivo for internet video. Make sense?
-----
I agree that a person that can haxx0r is not necessarily ready for stileproject.com
When I was in Junior High School, I hacked into BBS, wardialed for calling card numbers, dove in dumpsters for phone company manuals, and used linesmen's handsets at neighborhood telco crossconnects for free calls.
My father, an electrical engineer, knew none of this, simply because it was out of his realm of experience. There was no way he could have configured my computer to stop my ph/c/hacking forays.
As good as I may consider myself with computers, my children will be better. They will reach an age where technical measures will not be able to restrict them from getting to information/ideas/images they want. I doubt removing net access from the house will be a reasonable idea, so I will have to accept that they will see things I wish they wouldn't.
What my wife and I must do is prepare them for the day when they do see pornography or get a come on from the chat room perv.
We are going to have to teach them about the dangers of the net, just like we will teach them how to drive a car and balance a budget.
-----
The reality is that the net is full of stuff some people shouldn't see. My daughters, 2 & 4, are already on the net playing games at zoogdisney.com, mamamedia.com, etc. I really don't think it's for them to see porn. I'm not a prude but banner ads of animated oral sex is too much for children. Currently, my wife or I are with them while on the computer. As they get older, they get censorware on their computer. Once they can haxx0r it out of their box, they are free to surf where they please.
There is a place for censorship, but not for adults.
A simple solution to the problem is a hardware key that is issued to adults at the library desk. If your ID says your over 18, you get the dongle that tells the computer to let you see what you want on the terminal. If you are underage, you get censorship. Sorry but that's the breaks.
Yes, I know the 'nannie' software strips out stuff like breast cancer research. But at 7 years old, should my children be confronted with full frontal internet? I think not.
Adults on the other hand, should always have free access to any and all information on the net at a publicly funded terminal.
-----
For high speed transmission, you options are limited. But if you got the cash, the technology exists to provide realtime IP traffic to anywhere in the world.
The newest set of digital satellite transmission systems have the capability to send IP traffic. The systems are mainly designed for television transmission of MPEG video, so conditional access (what we TV guys call encryption) is a basic part of the system. The security level is quite high.
To make this system work, both ends needs satellite transmission gear, dishes, and obviously access to a satellite transponder. This ain't cheap, you are talking hundreds of thousands of US$ in capital to buy, building a transmission structure, and the cost of a transponder (>$125,000) per month.
IF you are still interested, you should talk to Scientific Atlanta, General Instruments, or Philips.
-----
C'mon man, you know Steve is hoping to sell millions of beta CDs. It looks good on the bottom line.
Next time you need a Mandrake CD, I'll send you a CDR burn off my d/led iso. :)
While I read and understood most of the article, a newb like me would have trouble actually doing it. All I want to do is play Unreal Tournament happily on the net.
Perhaps a tasty new choice the Mandrake install?
AFAIK, you don't even get a discount on the final version of OS X. If you got the $30 back in a discount off the probable $99 price for OS X, it wouldn't be so bad.
Apple's business practices are becoming and more anti-consumer lately. Sueing web sites, throwing a tantrum at ATI, and now paying for beta code. Even if OS X is a sweet OS, how is Apple behaving any less disgusting than Microsoft?
I'm sure I'll get flamed or modded down for this, but Ask your self, when was the last time you paid for beta software?
OT: Read my brother's new weblog: crookdimwit.com
I loved A Deepness in the Sky, but A Fire upon the Deep was probably one of the best and most innovative SF books I've ever read. Vinge's Across Realtime is another great book (actually a collection of three shorter stories).
'Hard' SF has dominated the Hugo's in the past and will probably continue to do so. Cryptonomicon was just too real. How long after the book was published did we hear about Sealand and their data haven?
For fatbrain fans, try:
A Deepness in the Sky
A Fire upon the Sky
For out of print books try alibris.com
I'm of two minds on this. The ATX design has been a godsend for people like us that fiddle with our boxes all the time. I can't imagine getting rid of my trusted Inwin full tower.
However, this would be the chance to get a sexy new case with blowholes, lucite, and neon lights. Did anyone read the spec in detail to determine if they include fittings for cooling your overclocked CPU with chilled water?
The main problem will be the time it takes for case manufacturers to ramp up production. Making two distinct lines of cases has got to lower their profit margins. Lower profit margins means higher prices to us, the consumer.
Anyone know what AMD thinks about ATX 2.0? Their chips suck power like nobodies business.
Did he have a little steering wheel and buttons to work the lights?
The No BS Guide to Linux - This book is a great introduction to the commandline interface. Nothing much on X, but everything you need to find your way around a shell.
Idiot's Guide to Linux My favorite book. Manuel Ricart wrote this excellent guide to running X on linux with emphasis on KDE. Good tips on backing up, security, and other basics that many books take for granted.
Teach Yourself KDE 1.1 Simply a good guide to learning how to fully use KDE. Each lesson is simple and focused, allowing those that need to learn in short amounts of time a concise lesson.
Apache Server for Dummies A straightforward book on configuring Apache. It's not meant as a handbook for a business, more as a way for someone to understand and configure Apache for the first time to understand the concepts behind the software. It allowed me to get a server up and running and even running CGI scripts for intranet use.
If you are already a GNUGod, you won't need these books. But if you are like me and trying to learn these things without the benefit of live human tutor, these books are handy.
Also, the two of the books deal mainly with KDE. If you like Gnome, bewarned that Idiot's Guide to Linux deals mainly with KDE and not Gnome.
The gutting of TV news is far different than the gutting of TV as a whole.
The news is an easily consumed bit of information that can be distributed by TV, radio, paper, and the web. Of course the recent addition of web available news has dropped TV news viewship.
Entertainment TV won't go so easily. For all the hype and bravado, internet streaming media still is horrible. Face it, even with broadband access, the picture is terrible and choices quite limited. Not to mention the social experience. TV watching is often a group function as opposed to computer usage which is a solitary pursuit.
In interactive TV circles, we refer to this as the sit back/ sit forward choice. Studies show that when using a computer, even for media, people sit forward and upright. Watching TV tends to make people recline and sit back in comfortable furniture. Watch someone use WebTV, when they surf or type, they sit up. When they channel surf and watch TV they lean back.
TV watchign and computer usage at this time are two completely different experiences. As net-saavy as I am, I still wouldn't consider watching where my computer is located. When I want to watch the Tom Green show, I head to the living room. When I want to play Unreal or Scour so prOn, I head to the computer.
Until computers/the net can be accepted as a sit back device, provide quality entertainment with a big picture, and has the same latency as DirecTV, the ttan of old media, television, will dominate home entertainment.
While many early technology adopters tend to watch dramatically less TV, their percentage is few. The rest of the country is still hooked on Millionaire, Survivor, and Wheel of Fortune. Until the net offers the equivalent, television will rule the mediascape.
OT: Fight the power. Don't talk about Survivor, it's a morally bankrupt show!
The No BS Guide to Linux - This book is a great introduction to the commandline interface. Nothing much on X, but everything you need to find your way around a shell.
Idiot's Guide to Linux My favorite book. Manuel Ricart wrote this excellent guide to running X on linux with emphasis on KDE. Good tips on backing up, security, and other basics that many books take for granted.
Teach Yourself KDE 1.1 Simply a good guide to learning how to fully use KDE. Each lesson is simple and focused, allowing those that need to learn in short amounts of time a concise lesson.
Apache Server for Dummies A straightforward book on configuring Apache. It's not meant as a handbook for a business, more as a way for someone to understand and configure Apache for the first time to understand the concepts behind the software. It allowed me to get a server up and running and even running CGI scripts for intranet use.
If you are already a GNUGod, you won't need these books. But if you are like me and trying to learn these things without the benefit of live human tutor, these books are handy.
Also, the two of the books deal mainly with KDE. If you like Gnome, bewarned that Idiot's Guide to Linux deals mainly with KDE and not Gnome.
As an RF engineer and a broadcaster, I'm used to dealing with similar transmission system in satellites and cable distribution.
Increasing the symbol rate is not hard to understand. The ideas aren't crazy, it's just a tough idea to implement.
Like the idea of a fusion powerplant, the idea is fine, but making it happen is another issue.
The hard tech will be needed in the receivers. Making extremely narrowband filters isn't easy and from what I read, the patents are all locked up. Operating at current FM & TV frequencies lead to all kinds of multipath issues that can be solved, but add more to the reciever to deal with.
Look for impressive demos where the receiver is the size of refrigerator. Sizing down the technology to fit in a dashboard and cost $20 bucks a unit will be a real challenge. Much money will be sunk in attempting to make these systems small and rugged.
A better use might be in high end transmission systems. One transponder on a satellite give me 36MHz of bandwidth. Split the bird between two sites for duplex operation and imagine the amount of data I can squirt around the world. Satellite costs are already less than fiber rates for the amount of data they can pass. If you do the rough math you are talking about 3.24GIGAbits of transfer. What OC- is that?
It's been a while since Linear Systems & Communincation Theory, but I don't doubt the Shannon limit can be adapted to this keying system. I'll leave it to a comm theory expert to comment.
The Feel-Me (tm) sites are coming soon.
The porn sites always take the leading edge in adopting new web technologies.
Can you imagine was the clublove.com guuys are going to do when they get ahold of this tech? Hell, they'll end up giveing you the mouse if you sign up for a subscription.
Here's what I did to the 'poor ole 8500':
:)
Start with 7.something that shipped with computer.
Upgrade to something like 7.5.3 as Mac Tech Support suggested.
Many clean installs and repatching of 7.5.3 (or something like that to no avail as Mac Tech Support suggested.
Buy Apple brand 233Mhz processor board to replace original 120Mhz CPU. Install.
Go buy 8.0 and install. Works better than any 7.x version ever did by still has problems w/ Adobe.
D/l 8.1 and install. Problems continue.
Buy 8.5 and install. Rejoice at USB support. Adobe problems continue.
D/l 8.6 and install. Less problems, but wife still curses at computer during nightly crashes under Netscape and Photoshop.
*Pirate* copy of 9.0 (not giving more money until it works) Install. 8500 VERY unhappy. Revert to 8.6.
Toss in a dash of Norton Utilies along the way for taste.
This is what the Mac Tech Support suggested I do. At some point they started charging to call and I stopped calling. Probably just around the time OS 8 came out.
Does it still make you shudder?
Perhaps I should have formatted the hard drive each time and reinstalled cleanly. But this is a huge pain in the ass and shouldn't be needed for OS upgrades. Perhaps I'm spoiled by RPMs.
What magic koolaid did Steve Jobs give you that gives you so much arrogance?
Do I really need to post photos of the OS upgrades I've bought? Is is so hard to believe that a person that uses Macs actually finds a reason to dislike them?
Well in my experience (your mileage may differ) the Mac OS crashes much more & harder than the Win9x OSes. Others may have different experiences, but I got damn tired of seeing that bomb on screen and having to reboot. Sure, Win stuff crashes but most of the time the app goes down first, allowing you to shutdown normally.
I'd love to use linux all the time, but unfortunately, my addiction to Ultima Online, Diablo 2 and other games keeps me with a Win98 partion on my hard drive.
I don't know of a ton of apps that exist on the Mac but not in Win9x. When I bought my 8500AV it was specfically because the Adobe suite didn't exist for Wintel. It was a good setup, but now with the full Adobe suite running on Windows it's much stabler (in my experience). Macs lack of memory management made it a dangerous proposition to switch between Illustrator & Photshop, usually ending in bomb. For whatever reason even quitting one program and restarting the other didn't always work because the memory allocations got all fubarred.
Perhaps OS X and new hardware will solve Mac's reliability issues, but by then it will be too late. People like me that started with the original Macs, bought the first powerbooks (my 165c was suh-weet), and paid good money for the top end PowerPCs when they came out have simply given up on Apple. They cost alot and don't give you much more than a cool transluscent case and hardware upgrade headaches. I'll stick with Win98 and Mandrake for now on.
The OS wars will never be won. The different sides never see each others point of view. It's kind of like me understanding why people like that candy ass, do nothing Boba Fett.
I can't understand why people still like Apple and defend it to the end. The gear looks pretty and I dig the 802.11 wireless stuff, but what's behind the fluff?
Even the Mac 9 OS is unstable. Why do people put up with it? I've got a mac in the house, but it's unreliability got it replaced as a daily use machine by a Wintel box.
If you have a good reason why sane people stick by the Mac I'd love to hear it. Post here or email at the above link.
What I'd really love it to turn the Apple hardware guys loose in the x86 world. If you think a Vaio is neat looking, can you imagine what the Apple boys could turn out? Them guys building boxes at 1 Infinte Loop are smart. Too bad the software guys are allowed to be as good. Make an Apple PC that I can run Windows & Linux on and I'd put down the cash.
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I must not fear moderation.
Fear of moderation is the mind-killer.
Fear of moderation is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my karma.
I will permit moderation to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the karma has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Don't take this as a flame, but who would be doing video editing on a laptop?
Laptops are all about maximum battery life. They achieve this by compromising speed for lower power usage. Video editing is all about high speed disc access, powerful video processors, and bright displays. Laptops deliberately lack strength in these areas.
Using a Intel or AMD chip will add more to the power usage budget than a Transmeta promises to do.
I've see demos of Sony's mini cameras designed for use with next gen mobile phones/PDAs. The lens is smaller than a dime and the whole thing is about the size of a sugar cube. The camera plugged into the side of the phone to take an image and upload via wireless data connection to the net. The camera also had a mode for close in (macro) shots of text for OCR purposes. They demonstrated shooting a business card and having the text appear on screen.
A laptop with this built-in camera feature would add little mass/bulkiness. Sony was a little slow to the PC marketplace, but they do understand ergonomics and proper feature implementation better than most other laptop makers. I've worked on a Vaio laptop and it has 'the feel' that a Toshiba or Compaq lacks.
Note to self-> Order replacement laptop at office today...