Local media has said they expect 6,500 new jobs to come from the factory and associated support services, so it's a significant employment boost no matter how many robots are in the factory.
Yep, there was an upgrade released a couple months after I purchased my truck. I applied it. It did improve things, but only to the point that I described above. It really seems like there are significant problems with the support for SD cards that impact the rest of the system. I should probably give up on the SD card and try limiting myself to the music that's on my phone.
I have SYNC in my 2013 F-250 and it blows. It keeps trying to re-index my SD card, so I can rarely use the voice commands to play music from it, and sometimes it'll switch by itself from playing SiriusXM to playing the SD card. It's also slow to respond sometimes (probably an artifact of it trying to re-index the SD card), and the UI to select music from the SD card is cumbersome.
I guess most of my gripes are about the SD card functionality; the rest of the functionality seems to work OK when it isn't being screwed over by the SD card, but again I find the interface cumbersome to use. For example, scrolling through the SiriusXM stations takes way too many taps.
My hope is that QNX, given its history as an RTOS, will be more responsive and robust. It might even give the developers a chance to improve the UI.
You don't say what kind of work you do, but if you can get away with a smaller screen there are plenty of 12" notebooks with very good battery life. That's my favorite screen size since I can still use it in cramped coach airline seats, especially if I can hook it up to a larger display (ideally 20" or better, but even 17" helps) when I get to my destination or home. (Unfortunately there isn't a new Mac laptop w/ a 12" screen available any longer, but Lenovo has a decent one.) If you need the screen real estate all the time, or can't get a larger display at the office, then suck it up and go with a 15" laptop.
Get a good wireless mouse (the Logitech laser ones have worked well for me), too, as you just can't get the same level of speed or precision with trackpads or sticks.
As for phones, the BlackBerry 8800 is excellent (assuming your company runs BES or Good), although you will need to charge it every day if you get a fair amount of email. It also includes the built-in TeleNav software that works pretty well, so it meets your need for GPS assistance. You can also store some MP3s on it as well if you don't need a ton of music with you. Personally, I use an iPod Shuffle because I keep a bunch of aggro music on it to listen to while working out, and its solid-state flash memory doesn't mind getting bounced around while running. (The 8800 is just too big to run with.) The Shuffle works well and lasts a long time on the plane, too. The rest of the time I'll listen to slacker.com, last.fm, or similar streaming services when I have network and power connections.
You're right that a full-sized DSLR is too big, so go with the Canon G9--very good quality and RAW output make it the perfect every-day-carry camera. I'm wishing my Canon S500 would die so that I'd have an excuse to get a G9, but Canon's compact cameras are built quite tough. I've even taken mine scuba diving (with the Canon waterproof case, of course) about half a dozen times and it does very well for the price. I'm a Nikon fan when it comes to full-sized DSLRs, but Canon gets my money in the compact market.
Huh? Apple owns the "low-margin, commodity business" of flash-based MP3 players, as well as disk-based MP3 players. And, they seem to be doing quite well selling those "low-margin, commodity business" Intel-based PCs at competitive prices with good margins (c.f. record profits for Apple).
The original iPod was also quite expensive compared to everything else out in the market when it was introduced, but it offered a superior way to listen to music. It broke open the market and now eight year-olds are running around with $200 nanos. (Just think what Apple can do to co-brand a kid's iPhone with Disney?)
Apple has a superior device on a customized network that provides a better user experience--protected by over 200 patents--and has legs like you wouldn't believe (different form factors/capabilities, plus future function expansion with custom apps, games, and more). There's going to be a long line for these things assuming Apple continues to execute well.
It appears that Spocko had clips that ran as long as five minutes. That's beyond fair use in most circumstances. Those are probably what gives Disney a leg to stand on. His short clips (5-15 seconds) were within the bounds of fair use, though.
> What? Why do you consider the survival of our whole planet is just a left-wing issue?
The way this story (and most others) are presented are from the left-end of the political spectrum. Not that I have a problem with people espousing leftist (note the little "l", not the big "L") politics *in the proper forum*, but as an old-timer I don't believe that/. is the proper forum.
Now, if the story talked about some cool technology that ExxonMobil funded, that'd be fair game (IMHO).
I've been a/. participant for ages, and really enjoyed the news and commentary about technology issues. But, in the last year or so this site has taken to posting a lot of political stories which have generally taken a large step to the left. This story is another example of such. There's no techno-centric value to this story, merely polemics. I enjoy political discourse, but I go to political blogs to do so. Please, kdawson et al., we don't need/. to become another Daily Kos or FreeRepublic.
I think shortly before Y2K Remington came out with a new rifle system they called "EtroniX." It was inspired by a system developed by Voere in the 80's, and used electrically fired primers just like the system in this article. The idea was that this removed the mechanics behind the trigger, allowing varmint and benchrest shooters to keep the rifle much more stable while firing, thus improving accuracy.
It was a huge flop.
The ammo was easily three times as expensive as traditional ammo and the guns were no more accurate than their traditional counterparts. The system merely added complexity (and a battery that, of course, would fail at the least opportune time) and cost without any significant improvement. In theory the system offers an improvement, but in practice the difference hasn't been noticeable.
Contrary to some of the highly-modded posts above, the system charges the base of the shell that's in the chamber. It takes enough energy that it's impractical to try to set off the ammo remotely. (Think of a weak taser being applied to the base of the shell casing and you get the idea of how much energy is needed to activate the primer.)
The only problem with this idea, aside from its sheer impracticality, is that HCI and its ilk will now start telling the UN and governments that they *must* adopt this system since it'll prevent all sorts of bad behaviors. Hogwash!
I've been wearing Menicon Z's for the past couple of months and believe I've found the next best thing to Lasik. They're wearable for up to 30 days at a time. Clean and soak them overnight and you're good to go for another 30 days. They're made from a new plastic that's oxygen hyper-transmissive so I never fight with dry eyes any longer. With my old RGPs, by the end of the day I'd be pushing the lenses around, trying to get some moisture in my eyes and fight off the "sticky" feeling.
And, according to the research done by the NIH, wearers are less likely to get eye infections with these lenses than with any other extended wear lens. Oh, and they're also thinner than similar strength daily RGPs, so they're more comfortable and easier to get used to if you haven't worn RGPs in the past. (See my blog at <http://sobiloff.typepad.com/> for links to the NIH research and more.)
Comment A: "I have worked at a newspaper, and spent all day calling people, attending government meetings, doing research and asking more questions before I wrote something."
Comment B: "Bloggers [...] At best, they are information scavengers, feeding on the facts hunted down by others."
Er, um, weren't you just feeding on the facts told to you by the people you called, the meetings you attended, and the answers to questions you asked? You're an info scavenger!
Also, you're confusing "editorial commentary" with "hard news." Most bloggers are editorialists and are, by definition, offering their opinion on the events of the day. They research the issues and present their opinion.
You're just a j-school snob, and a pretty confused one at that.
Wow, I can't believe the comments I'm reading here. Film is dead, digital is riding rough-shod over everything 35mm and smaller, and it is even encroaching on some of the larger formats as well. You don't see many pros shooting film anymore, even in the outdoor market. The tools and techniques available in digital allow a photographer to extract the maximum impact from each and every shot, and to shoot orders of magnitude more to practice and hone their craft.
Contrary to the assertion of dgerman, film does not necessarily make you a better photographer. My experience has been exactly the opposite: I'm no longer afraid to try some interesting shots just to see if they turn out. I enjoy taking 30 shots of the same composition, but with different settings, to really bring home the differences in aperture, shutter speed, focal length, filters, etc. If they're a waste, big whoop--I haven't spent any more money and I've learned something about my compositional technique or the bounds of my equipment. I didn't have the same attitude with film because each shot cost me money and it was at least hours, if not days, before I could see the results of my efforts.
johnny_cashed, most lenses that are worth your time cost more than the camera back.:-) The image factor that limits your wide angle shots enhances your zooms, and I've yet to see a fisheye cost near what a 600 w/ image stabilization goes for. For me, the image factor works to my advantage for the photography I do the most.
Oracle is, for the most part, a SQL-compliant database at its core. So, you'll want to get a good handle on basic SQL first, then you can sign up for the Oracle Technical Network to get access to the Oracle-specific documentation at <http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/da tabase10gr2.html>. There are probably Oracle-specific commands that you will find useful for your specific geospatial data.
When I learned SQL I used the book "The Practical SQL Handbook" by Bowman, Emerson and Darnovsky. It was very readable, used meaningful examples, and presented the topics in an appealing order. I've recommended it to two or three others during my career and they liked the book, too.
Try either of the above products--they're free, web-based organizers. You can find more info at http://www.37signals.com/>, but in a nutshell:
Ta-da List are to-do lists you'll love doing: The web's simplest, easiest, and fastest to-do list manager. Make lists for yourself or share them with friends (or the world). Addictive usefulness.
Backpack is easy: Gather your ideas, to-dos, notes, photos, and files online. Set email and mobile reminders so you don't forget the little things. Easily collaborate with others.
What's even funnier, a lot of the folks at Google have PowerBooks. However, I bet we'll see a Mac upload tool in a couple of months, just like we saw GMail and Google Maps become Safari-savvy a short time after the initial rollout. Just be patient--it totally makes sense to focus initially on the technology that 93% of their user base uses.
I've been using a Brain Bag backpack from Tom Bihn for the past year to carry an IBM ThinkPad and a 12" PowerBook G4. Add a couple of Brain Cells (padded computer sleeves) and a Snake Charmer (organizer for cables, mice, etc.) and you're good to go! I also use a Freudian Slip to organize my papers.
It ends up being nearly $300 for everything, but it protects your equipment well and it makes it possible to carry everything you need in relative comfort. The bag is made of very high quality materials and has proven to be quite durable, even though I fly around 3,000 miles a week and take my backpack with me as carry-on luggage every time. It just manages to fit under most seats, but it might not fit in some cases if you have two full-size laptops in it.
Yuck! I own one, and its the poorest phone of the seven I've owned. Most people complain about the menus being slow, but ironically that hasn't annoyed me too much. What does annoy me is the dirt-poor reception the phone gets. My girlfriend has a Motorola phone on the same network I use (AT&T's Next Generation network in the US), and she consistently gets better reception than I do. And, I'm not talking about the number of meaningless bars of signal strength the phone shows, either. I'm talking about her ability to place and receive calls when I can't. And its not just my particular phone, either; a friend got a T68i, too, and we get the same level of reception.
Another common complaint about the T68i is the joystick. It can be tricky to push straight down on it to "click" or select a menu item. The joystick will tend to push to the side instead of going down, and you'll end up having to try to select the menu item a couple of times. It gets better with practice, though, and I'm at the point where I probably only make that mistake about once a week.
Lastly, some folks have problems with their phones crashing. Mine seems to go through phases where it'll crash about once a day, but a good power on, power off, and power back on cycle seems to clear it up for a while. This doesn't work for most folks, but I've found it effective for whatever reason.
Bluetooth had a lot of intial hype, which set the consumer and manufacturer expectations too high. The standards group went way overboard and made a very complex spec, and the final silicon was far more expensive and power hungry than initially promised. Furthermore, the complex spec is a PITA to implement, and even though the spec is huge, there's lots of wiggle room that makes it difficult for different manufacturers to develop compatible products.
Having said that, Bluetooth is improving and seeing wider adoption. This is partly because there's no concrete competiton right now; all the alternatives (low-power 802.11, UWB, etc.) haven't hit silicon yet, and there's still some consumer demand and marketing advantage to having Bluetooth-enabled products. Manufacturers are learning the ins and outs of Bluetooth development, and best practices are being passed around where they can help clarify the spec.
Bluetooth is still vulnerable, though, to the newly emerging alternatives. If any of them come out of the gate with persuasive advantages and good manufacturer adoption, Bluetooth will become a dying technology. Since that hasn't happened yet, I believe Craig Mathias (the article's author) is jumping the gun a bit.
Dantz Retrospect Professional is less than $90 and will do everything you're looking for. Namely, it will allow you to backup to CD-R and will span your backups across multiple media if necessary. It keeps a catalog on your local hard drive of what files it has backed-up to which media, relieving you of having to manually specify which files have changed. (You can re-create this catalog if your HD dies by just feeding Retrospect all the media from the backup set, BTW.)
Retrospect does a full backup once, and then incremental backups from then on. This means that your incrementals happen very quickly, and your backup set will only grow as quickly as you create/change files on your computer. Retrospect also will backup the registry, so you can restore the entire system if necessary.
Lastly, Retrospect has a built-in scheduler that makes it easy to schedule nightly, unattended backups. Once you're getting a snapshot of your HD every night, you can go back to any point in time and recover a file as it existed on that particular date. Truly powerful stuff, and far, far beyond what NT Backup is capable of.
Oh, and there's a free 30-day trial version you can download from Dantz' website. Its fully-functional, and when you buy a full license you can just enter the new license key into the trial install to make it permenant. That way you don't have to re-install or copy your scripts and configurations from the trial install to the full install.
I've had my 12" PB for a little over a week now, and it hasn't exhibited this problem at all. The only problem I've had with it was the "B" keytop wouldn't stay attached to the keyboard. I brought it in to my local Apple store and they replaced a broken plastic bit underneath the keytop in about 30 seconds (and for free).
Which hard drive do you have? Its the hard drive that generates the heat folks complain about. I have the 60GB hard drive, and I've measured 110 degrees (F) at the worst. It doesn't really bother me since my hand tends to rest on the outside of my palm, where the case is much cooler, but I can understand it'd be bothersome for others.
You weren't clear on what kind of work you'd be doing with your new company, but you should take concrete steps to make sure your boss and colleagues are aware of what you're working on and how you're positively contributing. When you're not physically present and visibly working hard, human nature will tend to discount your efforts, targeting you as the first to be let go during tough times.
With an RCS or trouble ticket system, it's pretty easy to track your successes. Keep a work blog, if that excites you; it doesn't matter what method you use, just that you consistently track everything you've done. Show, on a daily basis, what you've accomplished--not just what you've worked on. Focus on achievements ("Completed module foo.pm per project plan."), not work in progress.
This way, if anyone ever asks (and they will!), you can quickly reference exactly what you did, and when. Just having this information puts you greatly ahead of everyone else and makes a big, positive impression on your management.
Yes, Arkeia is commercial, but sometimes you get what you pay for. Arkeia has a decent UI (but you can do everything from the command prompt, too), and it can backup just about any flavor of UNIX (including OS X) and Windows. It works with any SCSI tape device, including tape libraries. It embraces the standard full/incremental backup paradigm, so its pretty straight-forward to migrate to Arkeia from dump, etc. It has features that expedite disaster recovery (full-box rebuild), and can do on-line backups of MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, DB2, etc.
Note that Arkeia offers a free Linux version if you only need to backup the local machine and a couple of clients--perfect for the SOHO user.
And, no, I don't work for them--I just used the software for a couple of years when I was responsible for a tiny server farm. Arkeia always worked, unlike some of the tempermental WinNT boxes I had to support...
Slashdot Mirror
Whoops, 6,500 direct factory jobs, 9,000 associated jobs.
http://www.rgj.com/story/money/reno-rebirth/2014/06/15/reno-rebirth-tesla-game-changer/10406441/
Local media has said they expect 6,500 new jobs to come from the factory and associated support services, so it's a significant employment boost no matter how many robots are in the factory.
Yep, there was an upgrade released a couple months after I purchased my truck. I applied it. It did improve things, but only to the point that I described above. It really seems like there are significant problems with the support for SD cards that impact the rest of the system. I should probably give up on the SD card and try limiting myself to the music that's on my phone.
But even doing that won't fix the crappy UI...
I have SYNC in my 2013 F-250 and it blows. It keeps trying to re-index my SD card, so I can rarely use the voice commands to play music from it, and sometimes it'll switch by itself from playing SiriusXM to playing the SD card. It's also slow to respond sometimes (probably an artifact of it trying to re-index the SD card), and the UI to select music from the SD card is cumbersome.
I guess most of my gripes are about the SD card functionality; the rest of the functionality seems to work OK when it isn't being screwed over by the SD card, but again I find the interface cumbersome to use. For example, scrolling through the SiriusXM stations takes way too many taps.
My hope is that QNX, given its history as an RTOS, will be more responsive and robust. It might even give the developers a chance to improve the UI.
You don't say what kind of work you do, but if you can get away with a smaller screen there are plenty of 12" notebooks with very good battery life. That's my favorite screen size since I can still use it in cramped coach airline seats, especially if I can hook it up to a larger display (ideally 20" or better, but even 17" helps) when I get to my destination or home. (Unfortunately there isn't a new Mac laptop w/ a 12" screen available any longer, but Lenovo has a decent one.) If you need the screen real estate all the time, or can't get a larger display at the office, then suck it up and go with a 15" laptop.
Get a good wireless mouse (the Logitech laser ones have worked well for me), too, as you just can't get the same level of speed or precision with trackpads or sticks.
As for phones, the BlackBerry 8800 is excellent (assuming your company runs BES or Good), although you will need to charge it every day if you get a fair amount of email. It also includes the built-in TeleNav software that works pretty well, so it meets your need for GPS assistance. You can also store some MP3s on it as well if you don't need a ton of music with you. Personally, I use an iPod Shuffle because I keep a bunch of aggro music on it to listen to while working out, and its solid-state flash memory doesn't mind getting bounced around while running. (The 8800 is just too big to run with.) The Shuffle works well and lasts a long time on the plane, too. The rest of the time I'll listen to slacker.com, last.fm, or similar streaming services when I have network and power connections.
You're right that a full-sized DSLR is too big, so go with the Canon G9--very good quality and RAW output make it the perfect every-day-carry camera. I'm wishing my Canon S500 would die so that I'd have an excuse to get a G9, but Canon's compact cameras are built quite tough. I've even taken mine scuba diving (with the Canon waterproof case, of course) about half a dozen times and it does very well for the price. I'm a Nikon fan when it comes to full-sized DSLRs, but Canon gets my money in the compact market.
Huh? Apple owns the "low-margin, commodity business" of flash-based MP3 players, as well as disk-based MP3 players. And, they seem to be doing quite well selling those "low-margin, commodity business" Intel-based PCs at competitive prices with good margins (c.f. record profits for Apple).
The original iPod was also quite expensive compared to everything else out in the market when it was introduced, but it offered a superior way to listen to music. It broke open the market and now eight year-olds are running around with $200 nanos. (Just think what Apple can do to co-brand a kid's iPhone with Disney?)
Apple has a superior device on a customized network that provides a better user experience--protected by over 200 patents--and has legs like you wouldn't believe (different form factors/capabilities, plus future function expansion with custom apps, games, and more). There's going to be a long line for these things assuming Apple continues to execute well.
Reported by the MediaPost blog http://blogs.mediapost.com/online_minute/?p=1409.
It appears that Spocko had clips that ran as long as five minutes. That's beyond fair use in most circumstances. Those are probably what gives Disney a leg to stand on. His short clips (5-15 seconds) were within the bounds of fair use, though.
> What? Why do you consider the survival of our whole planet is just a left-wing issue?
/. is the proper forum.
The way this story (and most others) are presented are from the left-end of the political spectrum. Not that I have a problem with people espousing leftist (note the little "l", not the big "L") politics *in the proper forum*, but as an old-timer I don't believe that
Now, if the story talked about some cool technology that ExxonMobil funded, that'd be fair game (IMHO).
I've been a /. participant for ages, and really enjoyed the news and commentary about technology issues. But, in the last year or so this site has taken to posting a lot of political stories which have generally taken a large step to the left. This story is another example of such. There's no techno-centric value to this story, merely polemics. I enjoy political discourse, but I go to political blogs to do so. Please, kdawson et al., we don't need /. to become another Daily Kos or FreeRepublic.
And the one hit wonder is born...
I think shortly before Y2K Remington came out with a new rifle system they called "EtroniX." It was inspired by a system developed by Voere in the 80's, and used electrically fired primers just like the system in this article. The idea was that this removed the mechanics behind the trigger, allowing varmint and benchrest shooters to keep the rifle much more stable while firing, thus improving accuracy.
It was a huge flop.
The ammo was easily three times as expensive as traditional ammo and the guns were no more accurate than their traditional counterparts. The system merely added complexity (and a battery that, of course, would fail at the least opportune time) and cost without any significant improvement. In theory the system offers an improvement, but in practice the difference hasn't been noticeable.
Contrary to some of the highly-modded posts above, the system charges the base of the shell that's in the chamber. It takes enough energy that it's impractical to try to set off the ammo remotely. (Think of a weak taser being applied to the base of the shell casing and you get the idea of how much energy is needed to activate the primer.)
The only problem with this idea, aside from its sheer impracticality, is that HCI and its ilk will now start telling the UN and governments that they *must* adopt this system since it'll prevent all sorts of bad behaviors. Hogwash!
I've been wearing Menicon Z's for the past couple of months and believe I've found the next best thing to Lasik. They're wearable for up to 30 days at a time. Clean and soak them overnight and you're good to go for another 30 days. They're made from a new plastic that's oxygen hyper-transmissive so I never fight with dry eyes any longer. With my old RGPs, by the end of the day I'd be pushing the lenses around, trying to get some moisture in my eyes and fight off the "sticky" feeling.
And, according to the research done by the NIH, wearers are less likely to get eye infections with these lenses than with any other extended wear lens. Oh, and they're also thinner than similar strength daily RGPs, so they're more comfortable and easier to get used to if you haven't worn RGPs in the past. (See my blog at <http://sobiloff.typepad.com/> for links to the NIH research and more.)
Comment A: "I have worked at a newspaper, and spent all day calling people, attending government meetings, doing research and asking more questions before I wrote something."
Comment B: "Bloggers [...] At best, they are information scavengers, feeding on the facts hunted down by others."
Er, um, weren't you just feeding on the facts told to you by the people you called, the meetings you attended, and the answers to questions you asked? You're an info scavenger!
Also, you're confusing "editorial commentary" with "hard news." Most bloggers are editorialists and are, by definition, offering their opinion on the events of the day. They research the issues and present their opinion.
You're just a j-school snob, and a pretty confused one at that.
Wow, I can't believe the comments I'm reading here. Film is dead, digital is riding rough-shod over everything 35mm and smaller, and it is even encroaching on some of the larger formats as well. You don't see many pros shooting film anymore, even in the outdoor market. The tools and techniques available in digital allow a photographer to extract the maximum impact from each and every shot, and to shoot orders of magnitude more to practice and hone their craft.
:-) The image factor that limits your wide angle shots enhances your zooms, and I've yet to see a fisheye cost near what a 600 w/ image stabilization goes for. For me, the image factor works to my advantage for the photography I do the most.
Contrary to the assertion of dgerman, film does not necessarily make you a better photographer. My experience has been exactly the opposite: I'm no longer afraid to try some interesting shots just to see if they turn out. I enjoy taking 30 shots of the same composition, but with different settings, to really bring home the differences in aperture, shutter speed, focal length, filters, etc. If they're a waste, big whoop--I haven't spent any more money and I've learned something about my compositional technique or the bounds of my equipment. I didn't have the same attitude with film because each shot cost me money and it was at least hours, if not days, before I could see the results of my efforts.
johnny_cashed, most lenses that are worth your time cost more than the camera back.
Oracle is, for the most part, a SQL-compliant database at its core. So, you'll want to get a good handle on basic SQL first, then you can sign up for the Oracle Technical Network to get access to the Oracle-specific documentation at <http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/da tabase10gr2.html>. There are probably Oracle-specific commands that you will find useful for your specific geospatial data.
When I learned SQL I used the book "The Practical SQL Handbook" by Bowman, Emerson and Darnovsky. It was very readable, used meaningful examples, and presented the topics in an appealing order. I've recommended it to two or three others during my career and they liked the book, too.
Try either of the above products--they're free, web-based organizers. You can find more info at http://www.37signals.com/>, but in a nutshell: Ta-da List are to-do lists you'll love doing: The web's simplest, easiest, and fastest to-do list manager. Make lists for yourself or share them with friends (or the world). Addictive usefulness. Backpack is easy: Gather your ideas, to-dos, notes, photos, and files online. Set email and mobile reminders so you don't forget the little things. Easily collaborate with others.
What's even funnier, a lot of the folks at Google have PowerBooks. However, I bet we'll see a Mac upload tool in a couple of months, just like we saw GMail and Google Maps become Safari-savvy a short time after the initial rollout. Just be patient--it totally makes sense to focus initially on the technology that 93% of their user base uses.
It ends up being nearly $300 for everything, but it protects your equipment well and it makes it possible to carry everything you need in relative comfort. The bag is made of very high quality materials and has proven to be quite durable, even though I fly around 3,000 miles a week and take my backpack with me as carry-on luggage every time. It just manages to fit under most seats, but it might not fit in some cases if you have two full-size laptops in it.
Yuck! I own one, and its the poorest phone of the seven I've owned. Most people complain about the menus being slow, but ironically that hasn't annoyed me too much. What does annoy me is the dirt-poor reception the phone gets. My girlfriend has a Motorola phone on the same network I use (AT&T's Next Generation network in the US), and she consistently gets better reception than I do. And, I'm not talking about the number of meaningless bars of signal strength the phone shows, either. I'm talking about her ability to place and receive calls when I can't. And its not just my particular phone, either; a friend got a T68i, too, and we get the same level of reception.
Another common complaint about the T68i is the joystick. It can be tricky to push straight down on it to "click" or select a menu item. The joystick will tend to push to the side instead of going down, and you'll end up having to try to select the menu item a couple of times. It gets better with practice, though, and I'm at the point where I probably only make that mistake about once a week.
Lastly, some folks have problems with their phones crashing. Mine seems to go through phases where it'll crash about once a day, but a good power on, power off, and power back on cycle seems to clear it up for a while. This doesn't work for most folks, but I've found it effective for whatever reason.
Bluetooth had a lot of intial hype, which set the consumer and manufacturer expectations too high. The standards group went way overboard and made a very complex spec, and the final silicon was far more expensive and power hungry than initially promised. Furthermore, the complex spec is a PITA to implement, and even though the spec is huge, there's lots of wiggle room that makes it difficult for different manufacturers to develop compatible products.
Having said that, Bluetooth is improving and seeing wider adoption. This is partly because there's no concrete competiton right now; all the alternatives (low-power 802.11, UWB, etc.) haven't hit silicon yet, and there's still some consumer demand and marketing advantage to having Bluetooth-enabled products. Manufacturers are learning the ins and outs of Bluetooth development, and best practices are being passed around where they can help clarify the spec.
Bluetooth is still vulnerable, though, to the newly emerging alternatives. If any of them come out of the gate with persuasive advantages and good manufacturer adoption, Bluetooth will become a dying technology. Since that hasn't happened yet, I believe Craig Mathias (the article's author) is jumping the gun a bit.
Dantz Retrospect Professional is less than $90 and will do everything you're looking for. Namely, it will allow you to backup to CD-R and will span your backups across multiple media if necessary. It keeps a catalog on your local hard drive of what files it has backed-up to which media, relieving you of having to manually specify which files have changed. (You can re-create this catalog if your HD dies by just feeding Retrospect all the media from the backup set, BTW.)
Retrospect does a full backup once, and then incremental backups from then on. This means that your incrementals happen very quickly, and your backup set will only grow as quickly as you create/change files on your computer. Retrospect also will backup the registry, so you can restore the entire system if necessary.
Lastly, Retrospect has a built-in scheduler that makes it easy to schedule nightly, unattended backups. Once you're getting a snapshot of your HD every night, you can go back to any point in time and recover a file as it existed on that particular date. Truly powerful stuff, and far, far beyond what NT Backup is capable of.
Oh, and there's a free 30-day trial version you can download from Dantz' website. Its fully-functional, and when you buy a full license you can just enter the new license key into the trial install to make it permenant. That way you don't have to re-install or copy your scripts and configurations from the trial install to the full install.
I've had my 12" PB for a little over a week now, and it hasn't exhibited this problem at all. The only problem I've had with it was the "B" keytop wouldn't stay attached to the keyboard. I brought it in to my local Apple store and they replaced a broken plastic bit underneath the keytop in about 30 seconds (and for free).
Which hard drive do you have? Its the hard drive that generates the heat folks complain about. I have the 60GB hard drive, and I've measured 110 degrees (F) at the worst. It doesn't really bother me since my hand tends to rest on the outside of my palm, where the case is much cooler, but I can understand it'd be bothersome for others.
You weren't clear on what kind of work you'd be doing with your new company, but you should take concrete steps to make sure your boss and colleagues are aware of what you're working on and how you're positively contributing. When you're not physically present and visibly working hard, human nature will tend to discount your efforts, targeting you as the first to be let go during tough times.
With an RCS or trouble ticket system, it's pretty easy to track your successes. Keep a work blog, if that excites you; it doesn't matter what method you use, just that you consistently track everything you've done. Show, on a daily basis, what you've accomplished--not just what you've worked on. Focus on achievements ("Completed module foo.pm per project plan."), not work in progress.
This way, if anyone ever asks (and they will!), you can quickly reference exactly what you did, and when. Just having this information puts you greatly ahead of everyone else and makes a big, positive impression on your management.
Yes, Arkeia is commercial, but sometimes you get what you pay for. Arkeia has a decent UI (but you can do everything from the command prompt, too), and it can backup just about any flavor of UNIX (including OS X) and Windows. It works with any SCSI tape device, including tape libraries. It embraces the standard full/incremental backup paradigm, so its pretty straight-forward to migrate to Arkeia from dump, etc. It has features that expedite disaster recovery (full-box rebuild), and can do on-line backups of MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, DB2, etc.
Note that Arkeia offers a free Linux version if you only need to backup the local machine and a couple of clients--perfect for the SOHO user.
And, no, I don't work for them--I just used the software for a couple of years when I was responsible for a tiny server farm. Arkeia always worked, unlike some of the tempermental WinNT boxes I had to support...