Err. These are some of the most morally bankrupt people on the planet and you actually WANT them taking ethics into account when making software acquisition decisions? You might as well ask your dog to do calculus.
I'm so tired of this stupid argument. Data loss due to fire will happen with or without RAID. The fact is, losing a disk is much more likely than having your house burn down by a very large margin (I'd take a rough guess that disk loss in a 8 disk system is about 10,000 times more likely than disk loss from fire).
You're taking that arguement too literally. The point is that there are many things that proper backups can protect you from that RAID cannot. For example, the most common cause of data loss by far is human error. RAID won't help with that but a backup will. Other things, breakins, silent corruption due to glitches in hardware or software , power surges etc.
There is nothing wrong with RAID but thinking of it as alternative to backing up WILL come back to bite you.
Wouldn't it be possible to write a script that reads the DVD bit by bit and places those same bits in the same order on a blank DVD?
Not with standard consumer equipment/dvds. I'm sure someone who remembers the details better will correct me but I believe that portions of the dvd required for decription cannot be written to on standard dvd blanks. Also standard dvd blanks are lower capacity by about half.
As a specific example, a small handful of these businesses run some very specialized sales tax tracking software. (Think stores that sell both taxable and tax-free goods.) Conceptually, the software is trivial. However, the software is so old that the minimum recommended operating system is DOS!
Agreed, and almost every business has something like this wheather it's a POS system or a locksmithing database, there's always something.
Let me be more clear. Sure they can run it in a DOS emulator on Linux. That's not the problem. What they want is "external support" for that particular configuration, and they don't have the time or the patience to chase down dozens of Google leads, whenever a problem comes up. They'd rather pay (and expense) for a dedicated vendor, but the market is too small to support one.
Too True. Even when the software works perfectly under Wine or Dosemu you still have to worry about how they are going to deal with updates and what strange things the vendor support is going to have them do if a problem does come up. If some of these vendors would start officially supporting runing their software under Wine (just document the install and update procedures that are already known to work and training their support folks) that would be a huge step in the right direction.
I think that he has identified a possibly profitable niche, supplying companies too small for a staff IT person, but big enough to want consistency and support. These are the people who don't want to do-it-yourself, they just want systems that work, out of the box, without headaches.
That's pretty much what I do right now and it is a good nich. If anything a lot of small businesses rely on tech. even more than larger business. Consider that if one of the computers in Amazon's shipping department is down it's an annoyance but if some small company's one and only shipping computer is down it's a much bigger deal. The hard part about servicing this nich is scaling it up beond the one or two person shop. You tend to be dealing with a hodge-podge of random hardware and software and many of these guys have one or more specialized pieces of software that you've probably never seen before. Finding help that can think on his/her feet and won't take risks with the customer's data (most of these customers don't have working backups) is hard.
There's even a subsection of every national ham organization dedicated to emergency services. Yeah, I belong to one, and was out in the last ice storm, two months ago, delivering nurses to the local hospital because the roads were otherwise impassible
Hmm... If you guys are transporting nurses over the radio I'm in the wrong business:)
One person's complexity is another's functionality. If you're not using these legacy ports then they arn't going to break and even if they do who cares. Remember as long as we have X86 compatability we are not going to get rid of most of the guts needed to support these legacy ports, just the phyiscal plugs themselves so the difference in complexity is trivial. On the other hand if you actually have something to plug into one of these ports not having the port is NOT trivial. Looking around my home I've got:
A pair of UPSes with serial ports (one with nearly 8 hours of backup time, not cheap).
A bar code reader (an expensive one with memory for doing inventory etc).
An IR receiver for my tv remote.
A RCA DSS receiver with serial port
A camera that connects via serial
A PDA (soon to be replaced)
A parallel color printer + parallel copier/scanner/fax
And this is just the stuff that I actually use. Also if you use want to use a small computer as a headless server or router being able to pipe the console output to the serial port can be handy.
Agreed, I got some fairly rare op-amps and transistors back when I was a student. In addition some companies (National Semiconductor for one) will send out free copies of their databooks as well. That said, it seems like a waste of everyone's time to do this with an lm317 though.
One thing that would solve a lot of these problems would be if patents only covered copying of the idea/method in the patent and explicitly didn't block people from coming up with the same idea independantly. It could even be taken a step farther and if someone could prove that say 2 or more others had come up with the same idea independantly then the patent would be revoked on the grounds that it failed the obviousness test.
One possibility I forgot to mention in my other reply is that your problem could be interference from some other 2.4GHz equipment such as a cordless phone. Using a laptop to test your conection in various locations between the two sites would probably help track this down. Then again, it could just be that every 30 minutes a (large metal) bus passes by on the street blocking the signal for a few seconds.
I have a wireless network on one side of the street, and want to connect a computer on the other side of the street to it. Unfortunately this computer is behind a nice solid metal wall, and can't really be positioned near the signal.
Just some random thoughts:
Well, how far away IS this computer from a location that would have good LOS to the wireless network? Do you have access to a laptop so you can do a sight survey in the area of your client?
As others have mentioned, -65db is actually quite strong assuming that it is correct. Any chance there is something else going wrong like another nearby AP using the same SSID or maybe your client is set to just connect to the strongest nearby AP and it is "bouncing" between the two? If you're using a fixed address instead of DHCP are you SURE noone else is using the same address?
Also as another poster mentioned, RG58 really isn't suitable for 2.4GHz, LMR400 is pretty much the standard for 5-50 foot runs.
What kind of antenna are you using? I know you said it's a 14dB antenna but is it a pannel, omni or what?
I'm sure a lot of people will take the "I did it, therefore it's easy enough for my mom to do it" tack, but that's just not the case.
Well, I wouldn't go that far but this is/. so a complicated setup procedure shouldn't be a problem.
and if you want to play DVD's or Windows Media files, you've still gotta install that support separately, which is another headache under Linux.
I'm not sure what you mean by the above. The same "apt-get" that installs MythTV also installs the above as well. That's probably the easiest thing about installing Myth.
Once it's set up MythTV is far easier and more integrated than any Windows based solution I've seen and far more functional than a TiVo.
The biggest problem with EULAs as they are generally implemented is the fact that they cannot be legally binding since the user doesn't actually sign anything either on paper or in the electronic signature sense. Also, the user cannot read them before opening the shrinkwrap, which, if I remember correctly, invalidates the agreement.
That makes perfect sense but unfortunatley court cases havn't been going that way lately. The reasoning seems to be that since shrinkwrap contracts are the industry norm then they are therefore enforcable. That's one reason I cringe whenever I point out a particularly unreasonable clause in one of these and the other person says "so what, they would never try to enforce that one anyway".
I would guess that if you took the time to try to find a publication dated prior to December 30, 1996 (the priority date of this application) that proves that this concept was obvious or previously existed you would find it an annoyingly difficult task.
And if that is what is truly necessary then you are just proving the parent poster's point about the monkeys. The basic steps listed in the patent have been done by people for decades if not centuries. Just following along the same steps on a general purpose programable computer is not an invention, it's what computers are for. The first guy who just happened to own both a microwave and a cold piece of pizza shouldn't automatically get a pantent on "heating up pizza in a microwave"... not even if he writes down every little half step involved in the process of opening the pizza box. The first CPA to get their hands on an electronic calculator didn't deserve a patent on "A system of prepairing taxes using an electronic calculator" because that was an obvious thing for a person with that problem to do with that tool. I've been waiting for my flying car since at least the 70s and now it looks like the first guy to get one is going to patent every possible use one might make of a flying car and no one else will be able to actually go anywhere in one without violating a patent.
I do not believe that the total wattage consumed by the processor would equal the total wattage produced by the processor as waste heat.
I don't know what you're definition of "waste" is but it's true that virtually all of the energy used by the cpu ends up as heat.
The processor does more than just convert electricity to heat.
No, that really is about it.
It uses some of the energy provided to it to redirect electrons around its circuits.
Which generates heat.
That energy is not lost as waste heat.
If you ever make a processor that doesn't emit back out all of the energy that went in then get to the patent office in a hurry because we would no longer need seperate batteries for our laptops.
On most of the APC units I've used this is an adjustable setting. If there isn't a physical button on the back for this check in the software that came with the unit for a "sensitivity" setting. I'm curious however exactly what kinds of "dirty" power you are expecting it to filter out. All UPSes have a built in surge surpressor to filter sharp spikes. For the less sharp deviations it's actually low voltages that put more of a strain on your PSU than high. An input voltage of 135V is not going to hurt any PSU but running at 95V for an extended period can easily push a borderline unit over the edge. Remember that you don't want it kicking in too often because then you won't have any battery left when you really need it.
I think you're confusing pairs with wires (or possibly thinking about gigabit ethernet). 100TX uses wires 1,2,3,6 and that's it. The other 4 wires (2 pairs) are NOT used.
Of course the counter to your arguement is that in order to "use" software you must copy it and therefore any "use" is a copyright violation unless you have a valid licence. Not that I agree with that mind you but that seems to be the rationale.
....And since when does an e-commerce site involve "layers of information needed for internal control of the resort"? Didn't anyone tell them that that guy from Jurassic Park wasn't a real programmer?
I think popular music is "popular" for basically the same reason McDonalds is popular. It's not that everyone (or even anyone) thinks it's the best but it's familiar and fairly consistant. If you walk into a music store you can't possibly make an informed choice in an hour or two so people just tend to choose something by an artist they've heard of. Wheather having thousands of additional choices freely/quickly available in hundreds of nooks and crannies on the internet will make things better I don't know.
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Err. These are some of the most morally bankrupt people on the planet and you actually WANT them taking ethics into account when making software acquisition decisions? You might as well ask your dog to do calculus.
You're taking that arguement too literally. The point is that there are many things that proper backups can protect you from that RAID cannot. For example, the most common cause of data loss by far is human error. RAID won't help with that but a backup will. Other things, breakins, silent corruption due to glitches in hardware or software , power surges etc.
There is nothing wrong with RAID but thinking of it as alternative to backing up WILL come back to bite you.
Not with standard consumer equipment/dvds. I'm sure someone who remembers the details better will correct me but I believe that portions of the dvd required for decription cannot be written to on standard dvd blanks. Also standard dvd blanks are lower capacity by about half.
I rember hearing a while back that several state unemployment and/or welfare offices had started outsourcing most of their work.
That and it only covers those on bulk licensing plans. That leaves out most individuals and small businesses.
As a specific example, a small handful of these businesses run some very specialized sales tax tracking software. (Think stores that sell both taxable and tax-free goods.) Conceptually, the software is trivial. However, the software is so old that the minimum recommended operating system is DOS!
Agreed, and almost every business has something like this wheather it's a POS system or a locksmithing database, there's always something.
Let me be more clear. Sure they can run it in a DOS emulator on Linux. That's not the problem. What they want is "external support" for that particular configuration, and they don't have the time or the patience to chase down dozens of Google leads, whenever a problem comes up. They'd rather pay (and expense) for a dedicated vendor, but the market is too small to support one.
Too True. Even when the software works perfectly under Wine or Dosemu you still have to worry about how they are going to deal with updates and what strange things the vendor support is going to have them do if a problem does come up. If some of these vendors would start officially supporting runing their software under Wine (just document the install and update procedures that are already known to work and training their support folks) that would be a huge step in the right direction.
I think that he has identified a possibly profitable niche, supplying companies too small for a staff IT person, but big enough to want consistency and support. These are the people who don't want to do-it-yourself, they just want systems that work, out of the box, without headaches.
That's pretty much what I do right now and it is a good nich. If anything a lot of small businesses rely on tech. even more than larger business. Consider that if one of the computers in Amazon's shipping department is down it's an annoyance but if some small company's one and only shipping computer is down it's a much bigger deal. The hard part about servicing this nich is scaling it up beond the one or two person shop. You tend to be dealing with a hodge-podge of random hardware and software and many of these guys have one or more specialized pieces of software that you've probably never seen before. Finding help that can think on his/her feet and won't take risks with the customer's data (most of these customers don't have working backups) is hard.
There's even a subsection of every national ham organization dedicated to emergency services. Yeah, I belong to one, and was out in the last ice storm, two months ago, delivering nurses to the local hospital because the roads were otherwise impassible
:)
Hmm... If you guys are transporting nurses over the radio I'm in the wrong business
One person's complexity is another's functionality. If you're not using these legacy ports then they arn't going to break and even if they do who cares. Remember as long as we have X86 compatability we are not going to get rid of most of the guts needed to support these legacy ports, just the phyiscal plugs themselves so the difference in complexity is trivial. On the other hand if you actually have something to plug into one of these ports not having the port is NOT trivial. Looking around my home I've got:
A pair of UPSes with serial ports (one with nearly 8 hours of backup time, not cheap).
A bar code reader (an expensive one with memory for doing inventory etc).
An IR receiver for my tv remote.
A RCA DSS receiver with serial port
A camera that connects via serial
A PDA (soon to be replaced)
A parallel color printer + parallel copier/scanner/fax
And this is just the stuff that I actually use. Also if you use want to use a small computer as a headless server or router being able to pipe the console output to the serial port can be handy.
It is however a good idea that all the old connections are gone.
Why?
Agreed, I got some fairly rare op-amps and transistors back when I was a student. In addition some companies (National Semiconductor for one) will send out free copies of their databooks as well. That said, it seems like a waste of everyone's time to do this with an lm317 though.
One thing that would solve a lot of these problems would be if patents only covered copying of the idea/method in the patent and explicitly didn't block people from coming up with the same idea independantly. It could even be taken a step farther and if someone could prove that say 2 or more others had come up with the same idea independantly then the patent would be revoked on the grounds that it failed the obviousness test.
A number of companies did this including Epson and HP (with scanners).
One possibility I forgot to mention in my other reply is that your problem could be interference from some other 2.4GHz equipment such as a cordless phone. Using a laptop to test your conection in various locations between the two sites would probably help track this down. Then again, it could just be that every 30 minutes a (large metal) bus passes by on the street blocking the signal for a few seconds.
I have a wireless network on one side of the street, and want to connect a computer on the other side of the street to it. Unfortunately this computer is behind a nice solid metal wall, and can't really be positioned near the signal.
Just some random thoughts:
Well, how far away IS this computer from a location that would have good LOS to the wireless network? Do you have access to a laptop so you can do a sight survey in the area of your client?
As others have mentioned, -65db is actually quite strong assuming that it is correct. Any chance there is something else going wrong like another nearby AP using the same SSID or maybe your client is set to just connect to the strongest nearby AP and it is "bouncing" between the two? If you're using a fixed address instead of DHCP are you SURE noone else is using the same address?
Also as another poster mentioned, RG58 really isn't suitable for 2.4GHz, LMR400 is pretty much the standard for 5-50 foot runs.
What kind of antenna are you using? I know you said it's a 14dB antenna but is it a pannel, omni or what?
I'm sure a lot of people will take the "I did it, therefore it's easy enough for my mom to do it" tack, but that's just not the case.
/. so a complicated setup procedure shouldn't be a problem.
Well, I wouldn't go that far but this is
and if you want to play DVD's or Windows Media files, you've still gotta install that support separately, which is another headache under Linux.
I'm not sure what you mean by the above. The same "apt-get" that installs MythTV also installs the above as well. That's probably the easiest thing about installing Myth.
Once it's set up MythTV is far easier and more integrated than any Windows based solution I've seen and far more functional than a TiVo.
The biggest problem with EULAs as they are generally implemented is the fact that they cannot be legally binding since the user doesn't actually sign anything either on paper or in the electronic signature sense. Also, the user cannot read them before opening the shrinkwrap, which, if I remember correctly, invalidates the agreement.
That makes perfect sense but unfortunatley court cases havn't been going that way lately. The reasoning seems to be that since shrinkwrap contracts are the industry norm then they are therefore enforcable. That's one reason I cringe whenever I point out a particularly unreasonable clause in one of these and the other person says "so what, they would never try to enforce that one anyway".
I would guess that if you took the time to try to find a publication dated prior to December 30, 1996 (the priority date of this application) that proves that this concept was obvious or previously existed you would find it an annoyingly difficult task.
And if that is what is truly necessary then you are just proving the parent poster's point about the monkeys. The basic steps listed in the patent have been done by people for decades if not centuries. Just following along the same steps on a general purpose programable computer is not an invention, it's what computers are for. The first guy who just happened to own both a microwave and a cold piece of pizza shouldn't automatically get a pantent on "heating up pizza in a microwave"... not even if he writes down every little half step involved in the process of opening the pizza box. The first CPA to get their hands on an electronic calculator didn't deserve a patent on "A system of prepairing taxes using an electronic calculator" because that was an obvious thing for a person with that problem to do with that tool. I've been waiting for my flying car since at least the 70s and now it looks like the first guy to get one is going to patent every possible use one might make of a flying car and no one else will be able to actually go anywhere in one without violating a patent.
Hold up now. The statement that 49% of Americans who voted hate W is a bit much.
Or is it?
Probably not since most people I've talked to don't seem to even like the person they did vote for and therefore must like the other guy even less.
Me, I voted Democrat in '92, '96 and '00. But the fucking virulent hate without much rational thought or reason is why I voted Republican this year.
I couldn't take the nonsense...the hate that was coming from some Liberals.
And that helped improve the situation exactly how?
Remember, what goes in must come out.
I do not believe that the total wattage consumed by the processor would equal the total wattage produced by the processor as waste heat.
I don't know what you're definition of "waste" is but it's true that virtually all of the energy used by the cpu ends up as heat.
The processor does more than just convert electricity to heat.
No, that really is about it.
It uses some of the energy provided to it to redirect electrons around its circuits.
Which generates heat.
That energy is not lost as waste heat.
If you ever make a processor that doesn't emit back out all of the energy that went in then get to the patent office in a hurry because we would no longer need seperate batteries for our laptops.
On most of the APC units I've used this is an adjustable setting. If there isn't a physical button on the back for this check in the software that came with the unit for a "sensitivity" setting. I'm curious however exactly what kinds of "dirty" power you are expecting it to filter out. All UPSes have a built in surge surpressor to filter sharp spikes. For the less sharp deviations it's actually low voltages that put more of a strain on your PSU than high. An input voltage of 135V is not going to hurt any PSU but running at 95V for an extended period can easily push a borderline unit over the edge. Remember that you don't want it kicking in too often because then you won't have any battery left when you really need it.
I think you're confusing pairs with wires (or possibly thinking about gigabit ethernet). 100TX uses wires 1,2,3,6 and that's it. The other 4 wires (2 pairs) are NOT used.
Of course the counter to your arguement is that in order to "use" software you must copy it and therefore any "use" is a copyright violation unless you have a valid licence. Not that I agree with that mind you but that seems to be the rationale.
....And since when does an e-commerce site involve "layers of information needed for internal control of the resort"? Didn't anyone tell them that that guy from Jurassic Park wasn't a real programmer?
I think popular music is "popular" for basically the same reason McDonalds is popular. It's not that everyone (or even anyone) thinks it's the best but it's familiar and fairly consistant. If you walk into a music store you can't possibly make an informed choice in an hour or two so people just tend to choose something by an artist they've heard of. Wheather having thousands of additional choices freely/quickly available in hundreds of nooks and crannies on the internet will make things better I don't know.