I hate replying to myself, but FWIW, the ZyWall 2s I have also support a serial modem connection that will auto-dialup if the broadband fails. Pretty slick, especially for something like a retail environment.
We're using ZyWall 2 boxes for NAT/routing/IPsec VPN. At ~US$200 each they are pretty economical, and very easy to setup via http config. Even has support for being a DynDNS client, which is just fantastic for DSL without static IP. You would need a beefier model as the concentrator, but they arent much more expensive - eg Zywall 35 supports 35 sessions @ around US$600. They also can be configured to play nice with just about any other hardware (Sonicwall, etc) with proper IPsec support.
I've always done mine by hand as well (close to 30 years of filing now) and have never been able to understand why most people pay someone else to prepare their return.
Pretty simple really - I value my time more than the money it costs to have my taxes prepared. Having done it myself both by hand and with Turbotax, etc, I know how easy it can be to do yourself -- but am still very willing to pay a reasonable fee to just make it go away.
I like my NEC DVD writers - cheap, reliable, and very quiet. I assume that at the very least the "cheap" part will change, and if we're lucky, we'll get some bonus "DRM up the ass" to boot.
XP starter edition has such great "features" as limiting the number of simultaneously open application (3, IIRC), number of open windows each app can have (3?), screen resolution (1024 x 768 [!]), etc. Let's hope Microsoft continues their freedom to innovate in Vista Starter./sarcasm
The fastest processor speed is never [well, 99.9999% of the time...] worth it on a price/performance basis, no matter what chip or what company is making the computer.
Large numbers of very poorly paid people play WoW for hours with the sole purpose of collecting (in-game) gold. Said gold is then resold to players who dont mind putting $70 worth of WoW gold on their Visa cards. Since the "farmers" are so poorly paid, there is plenty of money left to pay the workers and give the middleman a hefty cut.
The New York Times had an article about this a few months back. I don't remember it being interesting enough to pay for, but you never know:)
As a result, players are asking anyone who wants to join a group to type one or two sentences in English. If the sentences contain spelling or grammar mistakes, the player is rejected.
If this were the standard WoW players were held to, there would be very, very few groups indeed!
However, I do know plenty of people who have kicked group members for not being able to type well enough to communicate with the group. I have grouped with people like that (Chinese or otherwise, I have no idea), and I must say it sucks. The whole point of grouping is cooperation after all, which is pretty damn difficult without communication. I have a pretty high tolerance for all manner of bad grammar and spelling in MMORPGs, but if I flat out cannot make heads nor tails of what another character is saying? Some multiplayer quests in WoW take several hours -- if my hours are wasted because a party member can't understand an instruction, I'm going to be understandably pissed off and reticent to group with such people in the future.
Keep an open mind? Absolutely.
Put up with people who do all manner of stupid shit AND we can't communicate with each other? I don't think so.
Psst....XML *is* text! And even better, it can be *validated*!
And I realize that XML is an incredibly complex technology, but it is actually possible to edit XML directly using a text editor. No "super perl scripts" needed!
Arguably more people kill themselves with Internet addiction than say marijuana. I've never heard of somebody dying after a four day streak of getting stoned.
Indeed. I can't imagine too many people on a four-day weed bender forgetting to eat, for instance:)
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They actually fit standard CD cases two rows wide by two rows deep as well. Milk crates for all!
You'll just wish you had your two minutes back, like me.
I hate replying to myself, but FWIW, the ZyWall 2s I have also support a serial modem connection that will auto-dialup if the broadband fails. Pretty slick, especially for something like a retail environment.
We're using ZyWall 2 boxes for NAT/routing/IPsec VPN. At ~US$200 each they are pretty economical, and very easy to setup via http config. Even has support for being a DynDNS client, which is just fantastic for DSL without static IP. You would need a beefier model as the concentrator, but they arent much more expensive - eg Zywall 35 supports 35 sessions @ around US$600. They also can be configured to play nice with just about any other hardware (Sonicwall, etc) with proper IPsec support.
Let's just hope that "someone" isn't Uncle Sam and "put them in order" isn't accomplished with tax payers' dollars a la Chrystler in the 80s.
The tax payers didn't give Chrysler any money - we guaranteed loans for them, which they paid back [early].
Love the culture of blaming anything on everyone except the person who actually did it to begin with. /disgusted
Agreed, not a troll, but there is no "-1, Fanboy" moderation available, so....
What the hell happened?
A foray into the music and movie businesses.
Do people honestly believe that consumers are the ones who benefit most from a new operating system?
I've always done mine by hand as well (close to 30 years of filing now) and have never been able to understand why most people pay someone else to prepare their return.
Pretty simple really - I value my time more than the money it costs to have my taxes prepared. Having done it myself both by hand and with Turbotax, etc, I know how easy it can be to do yourself -- but am still very willing to pay a reasonable fee to just make it go away.
In short, it sounds like a name the programmers would have chosen. See, marketing goons *are* useful sometimes.
*sniff* brings back memories of my first C program
./a.out
%
Segmentation Fault
%
So long as there are no jackasses talking on their phone, I'll be ok with the reasoning. I might even be willing to accept some pseudo science...
I like my NEC DVD writers - cheap, reliable, and very quiet. I assume that at the very least the "cheap" part will change, and if we're lucky, we'll get some bonus "DRM up the ass" to boot.
XP starter edition has such great "features" as limiting the number of simultaneously open application (3, IIRC), number of open windows each app can have (3?), screen resolution (1024 x 768 [!]), etc. Let's hope Microsoft continues their freedom to innovate in Vista Starter. /sarcasm
The fastest processor speed is never [well, 99.9999% of the time...] worth it on a price/performance basis, no matter what chip or what company is making the computer.
Barely, but yes -
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=amd
*cringe*
:)
I hath been pwn3d.
Nicely played
Gold Farming:
:)
Large numbers of very poorly paid people play WoW for hours with the sole purpose of collecting (in-game) gold. Said gold is then resold to players who dont mind putting $70 worth of WoW gold on their Visa cards. Since the "farmers" are so poorly paid, there is plenty of money left to pay the workers and give the middleman a hefty cut.
The New York Times had an article about this a few months back. I don't remember it being interesting enough to pay for, but you never know
As a result, players are asking anyone who wants to join a group to type one or two sentences in English. If the sentences contain spelling or grammar mistakes, the player is rejected.
If this were the standard WoW players were held to, there would be very, very few groups indeed!
However, I do know plenty of people who have kicked group members for not being able to type well enough to communicate with the group. I have grouped with people like that (Chinese or otherwise, I have no idea), and I must say it sucks. The whole point of grouping is cooperation after all, which is pretty damn difficult without communication. I have a pretty high tolerance for all manner of bad grammar and spelling in MMORPGs, but if I flat out cannot make heads nor tails of what another character is saying? Some multiplayer quests in WoW take several hours -- if my hours are wasted because a party member can't understand an instruction, I'm going to be understandably pissed off and reticent to group with such people in the future.
Keep an open mind? Absolutely.
Put up with people who do all manner of stupid shit AND we can't communicate with each other? I don't think so.
Podcasting has to be the most useless word ever. Last year we were "downloading audio", this year we're "listening to podcasts" - right.
Psst....XML *is* text! And even better, it can be *validated*!
And I realize that XML is an incredibly complex technology, but it is actually possible to edit XML directly using a text editor. No "super perl scripts" needed!
FWIW, H.264 = MPEG4 Part 10. Different standards organizations, different names, same end result.
whilst at the same time feels fair to the consumer.
Not to this consumer. The whole supply/demand economic model is based on finite supply -- this is most certainly NOT the case with digital movies.
Arguably more people kill themselves with Internet addiction than say marijuana. I've never heard of somebody dying after a four day streak of getting stoned.
:)
Indeed. I can't imagine too many people on a four-day weed bender forgetting to eat, for instance