When I worked for Metro Regional Government at the Oregon Zoo, I discovered that micros makes flat panel touch screen POS terms (the black panel barely identifiable in the poor maretroid picture) using some form of embedded X for the UI. Worked on the user end of those every day for about a year before I got a job in tech support...
Well, I got the nickname Baloo from working at a Scout camp and helping with a Cub Scout den as a Den Cheif when I was a Boy Scout.
Baloo Ursidae came from an alter ego I developed after having many Cub Scouts describe my facial appearance to be similar to that of the bear on the Cub Scout book (I took it as a compliment).
There's one set of MX servers for each market, the information is simply replicated. Its called load balancing. Some cable companies tweek thier policies a little bit.
What is really needed is a way for a geek to say "I have mad Kung Fu and have a Black Belt in Network Engineering" and they would say... "oh... excuse me... I will connect you to our third tier tech support right now". Of course that is not realistic. But what they could do is keep track of people with mad Kung Fu so they can go right through the line.
Currently working for a major provider (not AOL, I wouldn't sell out) in tech support, I have to say I get a lot of callers who say they've got an MCSE and a CS degree and they've been in the field for 20 years calling me that make most AOL users look like Linus Torvalds.
Best way to handle tech support is to tell them what you think the problem is, let them run through thier checklist so they can properly document the trouble ticket as required, and if you're cool and cooperative about it and try and be on the same level as the support geek, they'll escalate it for you.
To be honest, I love it when someone outside the Winmac realm calls, because they're almost always the easiest calls for me, ie they're the first to notice a widespread network outage and are very cooperative in giving me details I need to document while I run my tests and document that, it gets escalated to NOC and the problem's fixed by the end of the day, or they just had to reinstall thier OS and lost thier TCP/IP settings and all I have to do is read them off the user ticket...
One problem that slows down reporting of network issues a lot are technically illiterate people who get mad because they can't check thier email right now and won't cooperate with us making sure they're set up right or variations on that theme.
Saying that @home does anything worldwide is pretty rediculous. @home has a few dozen regional providers in five countries worldwide. Saying that @home blocks 25 is entirely false, that's your local cable company doing that.
So, when you're complaining about @home, BE SPECIFIC! What cable company are you complaining about?
Webinbox rules all. Seriously. If you have an email address on any ISP that accepts POP connections, and you can enter your email address on that account, and your password, and it displays the messages in a nice, easy to use interface.
I use that when for some bizarre reason I need email right now and can't telnet to my box...
You have two choices: Go to the grocery store (Microsoft), or plant a garden (Linux, BSD, etc.).
I am not sure why it's such a bad thing for Microsoft to lock their software to a single computer.
OK, I'm going to go with your grocery store analogy here, because its a very good one.
You say you're not sure why it's such a bad thing for Microsoft to lock thier software to a single computer. Here's why: If I go to an actual store (say, Fred Meyer), and I buy a 24 pack of store brand toilet paper, I can go use all that toilet paper myself, or I can give my neighbors a few rolls, and I can even put rolls of toilet paper from that package next to different toilets in the house. Hell, I can even go string the toilet paper through the trees of that asshole down the street who always runs the stop sign...
So if Microsoft's the grocery store, why do they think that I should be legally bound to not share thier $300 toilet paper with somebody else (if nothing else but to split the cost)?
My company, which does outsourced tech support (and thus needs vast ammounts of coffee) has a vending machine that operates for free. Grinds its own coffee before making every cup, takes a total of about 30 a cup. The vending machine coffee is just about as good as do-it-yourself coffee done the right way (teakettle, funnel, filter, thermos).
Might also want to take a look at the usenet coffee faqs over on faqs.org.
The Linux CoolKeyboard on sale at ThinkGeek is really cool in my opinion, despite the fact that the \ key is in the improper behind-the-shift position...
Comcast is an @home market. If you bring your own modem to @home, you don't get tech support on anything but the Windows software which you can figure out anyway. I'm assuming everybody will be bringing thier own network card, which means you won't get support for that, either. @home's cheap that way sometimes.
But that is a really huge "maybe." You have to ask yourself, can the worlds largest "wrong" population actually be expected not to use thier hardware as a cupholder? 8:o)
U.S. space scientists put the odds at nearly 1 in 250 that debris from the proposed burn-up of the world's first global satellite telephone mesh would hit someone on Earth.
Odds of winning Oregon Megabucks (4 out of 6 numbers matched, estimated prize $23.70): 1 in 335. --Oregon Lottery
The odds are 1 in 496,870 that this participant will find the key before anyone else does. --Distributed.net.
Alright! So I'm more likely to get hit by a deorbiting satellite than winning $25 from the State or finding the winning key to RC5!
I take it you feel so strongly about this that you'll be renouncing your US citizenship and applying to be naturalized as a Canadian citizen, right?
Yes, I will be. I can't say I've been proud to be labelled anything other than Oregonian.
It will be interesting to see you come crawling back when you need to have surgery or get tired of paying out half or more of your income in taxes.
Wow, aren't we wildly misinformed today? Do we always believe "Bus from Canada" propaganda ads run by the Republicans? For all you know, the bus was 17 guys from New Jersey (or any other Random Non-Canadian location)
Canada enjoys the highest standard of living anywhere in the world (source: UN) because of the fact thier government works and takes care of thier people. Most Canadians enjoy the fact that thier health system is socialised instead of everybody threatening your health if you don't cough up absurd amounts of money.
Forget the tax rate. When I see the tax dollars at work for something that is overall A Good Thing, I like that. Our Federal government is stuck with its thumb up its ass because we've got a man who wants to jeopardize the social security you've paid in to and many blindly think it's a Good Thing (among other things).
And, even in the unlikely event that the Canadian health care system gets as bad as you make it sound outside of Toronto, I'd much rather die on Canadian soil than pay to keep me alive on American soil.
In the mean time, I am no American, I'm Oregonian. The America I know wouldn't make the Bush mistake twice. The America I know is smarter than that.
Let's see: Gov. Bush has a Master's is Business and GRADUATED from Yale and Harvard.
Goes to show that Harvard will graduate anyone these days. (I side with MIT)
Gov. Bush used to be a jet pilot.
And lost his wings twice. And had his discharge classified. Possible he was dishonorably discharged. Likely with his history of drinking and drug abuse.
Spoken like a true resident of California. Do you live in CA??
No, sir, I do not, and I am seriously offended that you even think that I'm Californian. I'm Oregonian, and proud of it.
Liberal politics is what protects the world from being shafted into oblivion by everyone. If conservatives ran the world, we'd be still stuck in the industrial age, with no minimum wage, 16 hour days, no sick leave, child labor, no public health, no public education. The rich would remain astronomically rich, the poor remain literally penniless no matter how hard they work.
You're the primary example of the stupid Americans I plan on escaping once the paperwork goes through and I move to Vancouver.
Eh. As far as Canadian politics go, I'm royalist. Yeah, the parlimentary system has its faults, but its sane compared to ours. You're the first non-American I've heard to rip on the parlimentary system in well over a year. And certainly not during this election. 8:o)
If the positions were switched, you wouldn't be bitching.
I would be bitching. Except top priority would be abolishing the EC. Our elections system is not fault tolerant, and we found the showstopper.
I like the Canadian method of voting myself: Everybody is counted by hand. From a nationally standardized ballot. The entire election cost CN$90M. Can't remember if that included campaigns, but still. And it all happens in 36 days.
Canada will know who thier next Prime Minister is on New Years Day (and be damned if its DorisDay), will we know who rightfully won the presidency for sure, with all our different ballots and standards of counting, by then, if at all?
If the election was done by popular vote than they could visit California, New York, Texas, and Florida over and over again and only worry about issues there.
Yup, that's right folks, you heard it here first: When Gore and Bush both shut down the nine busiest square blocks in downtown Portland and disconnecting 52 transit lines and light rail during the evening rush hour, delaying 750,000 people for more than an hour, people actually cared about them taking the time to come to Oregon. Never mind it cost taxpayers millions in police overtime pay. Never mind they didn't speak about any issues that matter to Oregonians.
Seriously, we could do without shutting down Portland every few weeks every four years for Presidential wannabes that don't talk about anything that matters to 90% of Oregonians.
Slashdot Mirror
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Baloo Ursidae came from an alter ego I developed after having many Cub Scouts describe my facial appearance to be similar to that of the bear on the Cub Scout book (I took it as a compliment).
I've since discovered my fur.
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Currently working for a major provider (not AOL, I wouldn't sell out) in tech support, I have to say I get a lot of callers who say they've got an MCSE and a CS degree and they've been in the field for 20 years calling me that make most AOL users look like Linus Torvalds.
Best way to handle tech support is to tell them what you think the problem is, let them run through thier checklist so they can properly document the trouble ticket as required, and if you're cool and cooperative about it and try and be on the same level as the support geek, they'll escalate it for you.
To be honest, I love it when someone outside the Winmac realm calls, because they're almost always the easiest calls for me, ie they're the first to notice a widespread network outage and are very cooperative in giving me details I need to document while I run my tests and document that, it gets escalated to NOC and the problem's fixed by the end of the day, or they just had to reinstall thier OS and lost thier TCP/IP settings and all I have to do is read them off the user ticket...
One problem that slows down reporting of network issues a lot are technically illiterate people who get mad because they can't check thier email right now and won't cooperate with us making sure they're set up right or variations on that theme.
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So, when you're complaining about @home, BE SPECIFIC! What cable company are you complaining about?
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I use that when for some bizarre reason I need email right now and can't telnet to my box...
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I am not sure why it's such a bad thing for Microsoft to lock their software to a single computer.
OK, I'm going to go with your grocery store analogy here, because its a very good one.
You say you're not sure why it's such a bad thing for Microsoft to lock thier software to a single computer. Here's why: If I go to an actual store (say, Fred Meyer), and I buy a 24 pack of store brand toilet paper, I can go use all that toilet paper myself, or I can give my neighbors a few rolls, and I can even put rolls of toilet paper from that package next to different toilets in the house. Hell, I can even go string the toilet paper through the trees of that asshole down the street who always runs the stop sign...
So if Microsoft's the grocery store, why do they think that I should be legally bound to not share thier $300 toilet paper with somebody else (if nothing else but to split the cost)?
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Might also want to take a look at the usenet coffee faqs over on faqs.org.
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Although if you like things to just randomly break, why aren't you using Windows?
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But that is a really huge "maybe." You have to ask yourself, can the worlds largest "wrong" population actually be expected not to use thier hardware as a cupholder? 8:o)
AOL. Because 26 megapeople can be wrong.
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1. Start by cranking the brightness to nothing.
2. Adjust contrast until text becomes crisp and clear.
3. Turn up brightness until the border around the image that's still on the tube is black under normal lighting conditions.
If the resulting image is hard to read, adjust contrast or try bumping up the brightness slightly. A little goes a long way.
If its washed out, blurry, or you can see a grey border around the image, you're varying degrees of much too bright.
Running a monitor much too bright will eventually make the blurriness permanent for the monitor, and possibly for your eyes.
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Odds of winning Oregon Megabucks (4 out of 6 numbers matched, estimated prize $23.70): 1 in 335 . --Oregon Lottery
The odds are 1 in 496,870 that this participant will find the key before anyone else does. --Distributed.net.
Alright! So I'm more likely to get hit by a deorbiting satellite than winning $25 from the State or finding the winning key to RC5!
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I'm amazed nobody has considered giving to Software in the Public Interest. Support open hardware and Debian at the same time!
Yes, I will be. I can't say I've been proud to be labelled anything other than Oregonian.
It will be interesting to see you come crawling back when you need to have surgery or get tired of paying out half or more of your income in taxes.
Wow, aren't we wildly misinformed today? Do we always believe "Bus from Canada" propaganda ads run by the Republicans? For all you know, the bus was 17 guys from New Jersey (or any other Random Non-Canadian location)
Canada enjoys the highest standard of living anywhere in the world (source: UN) because of the fact thier government works and takes care of thier people. Most Canadians enjoy the fact that thier health system is socialised instead of everybody threatening your health if you don't cough up absurd amounts of money.
Forget the tax rate. When I see the tax dollars at work for something that is overall A Good Thing, I like that. Our Federal government is stuck with its thumb up its ass because we've got a man who wants to jeopardize the social security you've paid in to and many blindly think it's a Good Thing (among other things).
And, even in the unlikely event that the Canadian health care system gets as bad as you make it sound outside of Toronto, I'd much rather die on Canadian soil than pay to keep me alive on American soil.
In the mean time, I am no American, I'm Oregonian. The America I know wouldn't make the Bush mistake twice. The America I know is smarter than that.
Goes to show that Harvard will graduate anyone these days. (I side with MIT)
Gov. Bush used to be a jet pilot.
And lost his wings twice. And had his discharge classified. Possible he was dishonorably discharged. Likely with his history of drinking and drug abuse.
No, sir, I do not, and I am seriously offended that you even think that I'm Californian. I'm Oregonian, and proud of it.
Liberal politics is what protects the world from being shafted into oblivion by everyone. If conservatives ran the world, we'd be still stuck in the industrial age, with no minimum wage, 16 hour days, no sick leave, child labor, no public health, no public education. The rich would remain astronomically rich, the poor remain literally penniless no matter how hard they work.
You're the primary example of the stupid Americans I plan on escaping once the paperwork goes through and I move to Vancouver.
Eh. As far as Canadian politics go, I'm royalist. Yeah, the parlimentary system has its faults, but its sane compared to ours. You're the first non-American I've heard to rip on the parlimentary system in well over a year. And certainly not during this election. 8:o)
I would be bitching. Except top priority would be abolishing the EC. Our elections system is not fault tolerant, and we found the showstopper.
I like the Canadian method of voting myself: Everybody is counted by hand. From a nationally standardized ballot. The entire election cost CN$90M. Can't remember if that included campaigns, but still. And it all happens in 36 days.
Canada will know who thier next Prime Minister is on New Years Day (and be damned if its Doris Day), will we know who rightfully won the presidency for sure, with all our different ballots and standards of counting, by then, if at all?
Yup, that's right folks, you heard it here first: When Gore and Bush both shut down the nine busiest square blocks in downtown Portland and disconnecting 52 transit lines and light rail during the evening rush hour, delaying 750,000 people for more than an hour, people actually cared about them taking the time to come to Oregon. Never mind it cost taxpayers millions in police overtime pay. Never mind they didn't speak about any issues that matter to Oregonians.
Seriously, we could do without shutting down Portland every few weeks every four years for Presidential wannabes that don't talk about anything that matters to 90% of Oregonians.
Ah, but Bush is from Havahd. Nuff said. The fact that they graduated Bush obviously shows thier inferiority to MIT. And I see a hack in that.