All day long on Slashdot we talk about how we don't want the entertainment companies to have such strong controls/DRM on their content. I've often thought if piracy started to have as much of an impact on Movies/Music/TV that these companies claim, it would no longer be lucrative to make Movies/Music/TV. Then what would we do? Probably stop pirating, or pirate less, or send donations.
Although, this is not really a RIAA/MPAA issue it's probably not a bad thing in the grand scheme of things to be able to prove that parts of the population are willing to pay for something -- even if it's free.
Anyway, I hardly see any danger of this becoming a tactic for the networks. All they need to do is listen to NPR during a pledge drive to see how excruciating it would be to implement this as a long term business model.
I have one of these for about, 3 months now. I love it. Here are some answers to the questions I've seen.
Battery life: 10 Hours.
Danger of using a hard drive: Small. Basically the PJB-100 reads the next ten minutes of music into ram, (this takes about 10 seconds). So the odds of dropping it in a 10 second period out of a 10 minute period are roughly 1 in 60 (or even exactly). Now the dangerous part in my opinion is when you are transferring mp3s. I've dropped mine twice when doing this, with no ill effects. This reading ahead scheme also helps battery life. The funny this is, regardless of how you're listening, random, sequential, repeat, etc... the pjb reads ahead. So if you are listening in shuffle mode and you switch to sequential, there is about a 1 second pause, and you hear the hard drive chirp for about 10 seconds, then it's done.
Size : It is slightly bigger than one would want. It's about the volume of one the first sony sports walkmans. However, it's a little longer and wider, but less thick. It is by no means luggable. I have 3 pound sony laptop, I would never use it for mp3s now. For starters I can put the pjb-100 in my shirt pocket, basically keeping it out of the way while I'm working. Granted with it my pocket there is not much room for anything else. Also, it's very usable for skiing and snow boarding.
Data transfer: It takes about 18 minutes to rip the average CD. One intersting thing I noticed, was that you can listen to other CDs on the player while you're rippng new ones. That's kinda cool. One other nice feature is you can create different play lists using the same song, with only one copy of the song one the player.
Weaknesses: No graphic equalizer, you can only adjust the base from three settings. No backlighting on the LCD.
Bottom line: Great product, probably the best first generation thing I've bought (I buy a lot of first generation things, please don't ask me about replay tv).
I had the fortunate problem of trying to figure out the modelines for a 24" monitor that is capable of doing 1920x1200. I looked for weeks trying to figure it out. Finally, I found this guy's perl script that would convert, Matrox's mga.mon file to a bunch of modelines. mga.mon has a lot of monitor's including my 24" sony. I went searching on the web for this perl script, and now I can't find it. So I can't give the guy who wrote it credit, but here it is:
Anyway, you can find a copy of mga.mon, bundled with most matrox stuff. I don't remember where I found mine but I just looked on ftpsearch and found a copy (not sure how recent or complete it is)...
I also have a Network Technologies hooked up to my win95 box and and 2 linux boxes. I have a 24" monitor that runs at 1920x1200 and this is the only switch I have found that doesn't cause ghosting in the video at that resolution (they also sell really good video cables, most of my computers are 20' away in a closet). Also, I have a logitech FX trackball, and on my previous switch I would have to kill and restart X when I switched back to my linux box to get it to pick the mouse back up. This switch also solves that problem... The switch also lets you cascade more switches, has an OSD, switching from the keyboard, broadcast mode...etc.. but I paid ~ $900, well worth it.
I think BASIC is also a reasonable choice for a first language, it was the one I learned in 4th grade. But, python's nice because you can quickly move into OO concepts.
Java would be a horrible choice for beginners for example, "Hello World" in Java is :
// Java application hello.java //compile: javac hello.java // run: java hello public class hello { public static void main (String[] args) { System.out.println("Hello World!\n"); }// end of main }//end of class
The student has now learned out to output one line of text, but is left with the questions: "What is a class?", "What is static?", "What is void?", "What's the difference between javac and java?" and "What is System.out.println?" An awful lot of stuff to try to digest on the first day.
The same code in python :
#!/usr/bin/python print "Hello World!"
Pretty self explanatory. Also, Java's got plenty of wierdness that came from being based on c++. For instance, how would you explain the difference on and int and Integer to a new student.
Slashdot Mirror
Put it in your shopping cart, it will say its going to ship on our around 10/25.
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start;sid=uat PyV9-gjlPUxwo6HVFwhBwahpn-XnwTyA=?CategoryName=cpu _VAIONotebookComputers_TXSeries&Dept=computers
Carbon Fiber, same specs, goes on sale here next week - no Korean required.
I have to totally disagree with this.
All day long on Slashdot we talk about how we don't want the entertainment companies to have such strong controls/DRM on their content. I've often thought if piracy started to have as much of an impact on Movies/Music/TV that these companies claim, it would no longer be lucrative to make Movies/Music/TV. Then what would we do? Probably stop pirating, or pirate less, or send donations.
Although, this is not really a RIAA/MPAA issue it's probably not a bad thing in the grand scheme of things to be able to prove that parts of the population are willing to pay for something -- even if it's free.
Anyway, I hardly see any danger of this becoming a tactic for the networks. All they need to do is listen to NPR during a pledge drive to see how excruciating it would be to implement this as a long term business model.
Reading the first couple of pages where all of Linus' quotes are in red text, I had some Deja Vu. Reminds me a bit of the New Testament.
I have one of these for about, 3 months now. I love it. Here are some answers to the questions I've seen.
Battery life: 10 Hours.
Danger of using a hard drive: Small. Basically the PJB-100 reads the next ten minutes of music into ram, (this takes about 10 seconds). So the odds of dropping it in a 10 second period out of a 10 minute period are roughly 1 in 60 (or even exactly). Now the dangerous part in my opinion is when you are transferring mp3s. I've dropped mine twice when doing this, with no ill effects. This reading ahead scheme also helps battery life. The funny this is, regardless of how you're listening, random, sequential, repeat, etc... the pjb reads ahead. So if you are listening in shuffle mode and you switch to sequential, there is about a 1 second pause, and you hear the hard drive chirp for about 10 seconds, then it's done.
Size : It is slightly bigger than one would want. It's about the volume of one the first sony sports walkmans. However, it's a little longer and wider, but less thick. It is by no means luggable. I have 3 pound sony laptop, I would never use it for mp3s now. For starters I can put the pjb-100 in my shirt pocket, basically keeping it out of the way while I'm working. Granted with it my pocket there is not much room for anything else. Also, it's very usable for skiing and snow boarding.
Data transfer: It takes about 18 minutes to rip the average CD. One intersting thing I noticed, was that you can listen to other CDs on the player while you're rippng new ones. That's kinda cool. One other nice feature is you can create different play lists using the same song, with only one copy of the song one the player.
Weaknesses: No graphic equalizer, you can only adjust the base from three settings. No backlighting on the LCD.
Bottom line: Great product, probably the best first generation thing I've bought (I buy a lot of first generation things, please don't ask me about replay tv).
I had the fortunate problem of trying to figure out the modelines for a 24" monitor that is capable of doing 1920x1200. I looked for weeks trying to figure it out. Finally, I found this guy's perl script that would convert, Matrox's mga.mon file to a bunch of modelines. mga.mon
/^\[\*/ ) {
/([0-9]+X[0-9]+)[^0-9]/i; _ sync_pol=$v_disp=""; e _enable="";
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
/([0-9]+)/;
a trox/MGA/WINNT/mga.mon
has a lot of monitor's including my 24" sony. I went searching on the web for this perl script, and now I can't find it. So I can't give the guy who wrote it credit, but here it is:
#!/usr/bin/perl
open(MGA, 'mga.mon');
while () {
if (
$_ =~ s/\r//; # chop ^Ms
($name = $_) =~ s/^\[\*([^\]]*)\].*/\1/;
print "# ".$name;
($mode = $1) =~ s/X/x/;
print "Modeline \"$mode\" ";
$pixel_clk=$h_disp=$h_fporch=$h_sync=$h_bporch=$h
$v_fporch=$v_sync=$v_bporch=$v_sync_pol=$interlac
do {
$_=;
chop;
$_ =~ s/\r//; # chop ^Ms
$go="";
if (/^PIXEL_CLK/) {
($pixel_clk = $_) =~ s/PIXEL_CLK\s*=\s*//;
print !$pixel_clk;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^H_DISP/) {
$h_disp = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^H_FPORCH/) {
$h_fporch = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^H_SYNC_POL/) {
$h_sync_pol = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^H_SYNC/) {
$h_sync = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^H_BPORCH/) {
$h_bporch = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^V_DISP/) {
$v_disp = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^V_FPORCH/) {
$v_fporch = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^V_SYNC_POL/) {
$v_sync_pol = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^V_SYNC/) {
$v_sync = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^V_BPORCH/) {
$v_bporch = $1;
$go="yes";
} elsif (/^INTERLACE_ENABLE/) {
$interlace_enable = $1;
$go="yes";
}
} while ( $go );
print $pixel_clk / 1000 . " ";
print "$h_disp ";
$h_disp += $h_fporch;
print "$h_disp ";
$h_disp += $h_sync;
print "$h_disp ";
$h_disp += $h_bporch;
print "$h_disp ";
print "$v_disp ";
$v_disp += $v_fporch;
print "$v_disp ";
$v_disp += $v_sync;
print "$v_disp ";
$v_disp += $v_bporch;
print "$v_disp ";
print $h_sync_pol == 0 ? "+HSync " : "-HSync ";
print $v_sync_pol == 0 ? "+VSync\n" : "-VSync\n";
}
}
close(MGA);
Anyway, you can find a copy of mga.mon, bundled
with most matrox stuff. I don't remember where I found mine but I just looked on ftpsearch and
found a copy (not sure how recent or complete it is)...
ftp://ftp.univ-st-etienne.fr/pub/driver/Video/M
I also have a Network Technologies hooked up to my win95 box and and 2 linux boxes. I have a 24" monitor that runs at 1920x1200 and this is the only switch I have found that doesn't cause ghosting in the video at that resolution (they also sell really good video cables, most of my computers are 20' away in a closet). Also, I have a logitech FX trackball, and on my previous switch I would have to kill and restart X when I switched back to my linux box to get it to pick the mouse back up. This switch also solves that problem... The switch also lets you cascade more switches, has an OSD, switching from the keyboard, broadcast mode...etc.. but I paid ~ $900, well worth it.
Or try VNC, free way to remotely use windows from unix, or vice versa. http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
Cold Fusion is a server side programming environment, however, they are talking about
CODE Fusion.
I think BASIC is also a reasonable choice
for a first language, it was the one I
learned in 4th grade. But, python's nice
because you can quickly move into OO concepts.
Java would be a horrible choice for beginners
for example, "Hello World" in Java is :
// Java application hello.java
//compile: javac hello.java
// run: java hello
public class hello {
public static void main (String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World!\n");
}// end of main
}//end of class
The student has now learned out to output one
line of text, but is left with the questions:
"What is a class?", "What is static?", "What is
void?", "What's the difference between javac and java?" and "What is System.out.println?" An
awful lot of stuff to try to digest on the
first day.
The same code in python :
#!/usr/bin/python
print "Hello World!"
Pretty self explanatory. Also, Java's got plenty
of wierdness that came from being based on c++.
For instance, how would you explain the difference
on and int and Integer to a new student.
Which leaves the student with the questions
No, I'm pretty sure that is a ps/2 keyboard port. I think you connect a pass through from that to the keyboard port on the motherboard.