I'm working with my friend who just moved from a broadband rich area to an area with no broadband and no likelihood of it anytime soon. He's a reasonable distance from a CO, so a DS-1 or DS-3 is very possible and he's looking to bring WiFi or WiMax access from his area and to the north of him. We're at the business plan stage right now, but it's looking good for us to finance it ourselves or to get the government to give us a loan or a grant to make it happen even better and quicker than we could do it otherwise.
The main reason why you don't see rural broadband service in most of the areas around Texas and elsewhere is that of pure greed. The Telcos could do it, but the margins on that sort of service isn't "good" for them- they'd make a profit, just nothing like the insane amounts they're used to making off of us here in town.
Fine. I'll do it my damn self, one region at a time.
Doesn't make it un-doable. I could do it nicely enough (...since I know more about ActiveX and GDI than is healthy for a Linux/Unix developer... GAH!) but I don't have time or a need to be involved with the work.
In the case of the aforementioned one on here, yes, don't feed them. In the case of Troll Tech, the people who came up with Qt, one should find a way to feed these folks wherever possible (incl. buying copies of the commercial product when feasible...).
He said "port' which is what I've been wondering about. If Qt's as modular as I think it is, what's stopping someone from adding the code to hook into the GDI layer on Windows? For me, it's lack of interest as I don't need Qt under Windows for any of my GPL licensed projects (Fltk does well enough for what I'm needing...) and my preferred platform is Linux. I'm just wondering why there's not someone out there with the needs or desire to do this act.
In actuality, the practice is grossly in violation with the UCC as it has been enacted in the various States of the Union. Unfortunately, they're acting as policing agents of the providers of Software, etc. because they Software companies won't take back opened content (even though thier damn EULAs say that the customers CAN return the same...) and the various organizations like the BSA have pressured them into it. There's no laws requiring them to do this- it's just their policies.
...unfortunately, not a single one of them is easy to use and the connectors for Outlook (Or, is that "Look Out!"...) cost money. The Toltec one's the cheapest, weighing in at $14 per user, but Kolab's NOT at all easy to make work right. Many things can and do tend to go wrong on it's install.
Now, if someone could come up with an Outlook connector (they're working on it, but it's not there yet...) that could connect to Kolab, OpenGroupware, or Open-Xchange, well it'd be a different story altogether.
The people talking about Outlook being a cut above don't know anything about Kontact or Evolution, obviously and the rest is a muddle right at the moment.
Many proprietary software companies operate by talking out of both sides of their collective mouths. They say buy the new version or product, when in reality, they're trying to get you to renew a lease of the stuff instead. Well, at least that's what the EULAs really claim.
I had bought a piece of software from them for a Palm Pilot. Piece of mapping software. Unfortunately, it was not capable of the advertised abilities, but there was no way to find out until it was returned. Stated policy was if it's been opened, it's a no-return no matter what. Exchange, yes. Return, no. Not willing to see that, no the damn software did not, in fact, work as advertised and it was something that I'd have to take up with the software producer directly (And you all know how that goes...)
Flys in the face of the UCC, but I'm not in a financial position to stick it to Fry's over the principal of the thing.
For hardware, depending on values of hardware (Some of that stuff's only got a 15-day rental period...:-) it's as much a rental place as it's a store. For software, you're buying a pig-in-a-poke. This is one of the main reasons I switched over to pretty much nothing but Open Source Software where possible.
You're confusing EULA and Copyright- which are completely two different things.
Copyright deals with the production and distribution of literary and other works of art. Nothing more, nothing less.
An End User License covers whatever in the hell the licenseor wants. It covers usage, etc.
Big damn difference there. With pure Copyright, the rules for use are anything that doesn't infringe- including copying snippets and even copying your friend's instance of the work for your own purpose if it's music (American Home Recording Act covers the compulsory license to be able to do so...). With an EULA, they can prohibit you telling anyone you're a user, whether or not it performs as well as they claim, and so forth.
Not everyone's online. Furthermore, that is skirting the legal requirements to begin with- how do you know you're reading the agreement that the software's supposed to have, how can you be sure that others didn't get a better deal than you?
Therefore, in order to fufill the requirements of the settlement, they're going to have to prominently place it in a manner that can be read with the ability to return it to a retailer- period. If that means putting it on there so it'll fit on the outside packaging, so be it.
You don't pay a cent for broadcast TV or Radio. Apparently this guy's beef is that people that rent cars don't pay for the service, much like people that get broadcast radio. Problem is, he's using circular logic. The people renting the vehicles ARE paying for the service in the car by way of the rental of the same. They didn't subscribe themselves, but the rental agency DID.
Once with the PA-RISC (from which the Itanium was actually derived...) and the Alpha when they picked up Compaq (which had picked it up from Digital...).
In the case of the PA-RISC/Itanium, they screwed up on compatibility, cost, and overall performance. The Itanium and the Itanium 2 were far, far more expensive proportionate to the performance of the Athlon64 and Power series (Power 5 and G5) CPUs- and worse yet, they had a mediocre support for legacy apps. In this one, AMD got it dead to rights. The Athon64's a better performer on 32-bit code than any other x86 architechture machine and if you recompile your code for 64-bits, you get an average 25-40% speed boost and all the benefits of 64-bit architechture on top of it. The same could NOT be said for Itanium, and if you're going to have to recompile for a new architechture, you're better off with a PPC machine if you're not using AMD's 64-bit architechture- much bigger bang for your buck.
As for Alpha, I'm still not sure what in the hell happened there- it's in the performance class of the Power 4/5 architechture and if they'd gone for the mass production on it like everyone does with PPC and x86 chips, it'd have been as cheap or cheaper. I just guess those that had it in their hands just simply had absolutely no clue whatsoever what they had.
Actually, what multiple antennas let you do is reduce multipath issues considerably when you combine them with DSP techniques. Two antennas doesn't increase interfereance- all it does is allow you to emit more RF power into the air effectively. Same goes for more than two.
The main reason for not using multiple antennas has been cost and you really couldn't use them for recieveing in the past because of things like multipath playing merry hob with your reception. Nowadays, things are quite different.
It's mathematics and a solid understanding of signal propagation that made the antennas possible.
It's mathematics and tuning of the algorithms used to work through that mathematics that made the DSP firmware possible. You have to thoroughly understand the math behind the DSP stuff to optimize it right.
Just because there's code involved, doesn't mean that there were just code-monkeys doing the work.
However, we got out far enough in the country last night for a party that we got to see about 20-30 events before getting in the car to head home. It simply rocked. Hoping to get out somewhere in the countryside again tomorrow night to try and catch more of them.
...I'm at least passingly interested in C# and if Mono can help my clients kick their MS habits, then it's all right in my book. As for ASP.NET being a right tool for the job- that's quite debateable. In all honesty, a Java Servlets and JSP engine is in the same class- in fact, it seems more robust (At least on the Linux side of things...) than IIS and ASP.NET is- or IIS/Apache and Mono's rendition of the same.
Having delegates seems to be nice, but I can't say that it produces better code- just easier to follow code. Until I see that it's better all the way around, I'm going to be sititng on the fence on that one...
That you can actually GET a machine of this calibre assembled for about $250 or so off the shelf at Fry's with the locked down OS and all- I wouldn't doubt that VIA's made a purpose built Eden setup for them at that price-point. If you've seen a VIA EPIA M-6000 or better, you've seen the SolarPC for all intents and purposes.
It's a hell of a lot better than the Geode GX2 and it also provides mediocre support for 3D and superior support for MPEG2 decode- in the same general price range or less. Now, regardless of what you might think, it's not vapor- and it IS more powerful overall than the Geode based offering from AMD. Again, had they based this off of the NX series, it'd be a different story altogether.
Just the other day, we had a $100 machine discussed on Slashdot that was more powerful and consumed just as little in the power department- less actually.
A SolarPC lite is a more powerful computer with the same advantages and is nearly half the price.
Considering that you can get the same sort of PC with more power for nearly HALF the price, which do YOU think they'll go for?
I'll say it again, using the GeodeNX series of chips for anything other than a specific set of embedded applications is a waste of time and resources. This is coming from someone who intimately knows the weaknesses and strengths of this CPU line because of all the set-top box work he's done with Linux...
The Zaurus was pretty much a killer PDA, but it was competing against Palm and WinCE and while it's rather easy to port apps to it, most of the major players didn't want to bother with yet another platform- even if the platform brought more power than either of the other two at the price point it was offered at.
Combine this with a higher entry price than most of the other PDA OS offerings and poor availability for the things (BestBuy carried them for a while, but Fry's was really the only place other than online to get them...), well, you get the idea.
...that the SolarPC lite is $89 less, with a CPU that runs faster (Yes, faster... A GX2 is a good old-fashioned MediaGX CPU with a slightly faster FSB- it's still going to be slower than an Eden CPU...) and isn't borked like this one, why would you want something like this?
Paperweight or Doorstop, take your pick- either would be an effective use of this box.
Now, if they'd used an NX Geode instead, that'd been a different story altogether.
If you can't boot anything other than WinCE or XP Embedded, then it becomes a little harder at the minimum. Combine a goof-ball video adapter and sound adapter with no available specs and you've got a doorstop instead of a hacking project.
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I'm working with my friend who just moved from a broadband rich area to an area with no broadband and no likelihood of it anytime soon. He's a reasonable distance from a CO, so a DS-1 or DS-3 is very possible and he's looking to bring WiFi or WiMax access from his area and to the north of him. We're at the business plan stage right now, but it's looking good for us to finance it ourselves or to get the government to give us a loan or a grant to make it happen even better and quicker than we could do it otherwise.
The main reason why you don't see rural broadband service in most of the areas around Texas and elsewhere is that of pure greed . The Telcos could do it, but the margins on that sort of service isn't "good" for them- they'd make a profit, just nothing like the insane amounts they're used to making off of us here in town.
Fine. I'll do it my damn self, one region at a time.
Doesn't make it un-doable. I could do it nicely enough (...since I know more about ActiveX and GDI than is healthy for a Linux/Unix developer... GAH!) but I don't have time or a need to be involved with the work.
In the case of the aforementioned one on here, yes, don't feed them. In the case of Troll Tech, the people who came up with Qt, one should find a way to feed these folks wherever possible (incl. buying copies of the commercial product when feasible...).
He said "port' which is what I've been wondering about. If Qt's as modular as I think it is, what's stopping someone from adding the code to hook into the GDI layer on Windows? For me, it's lack of interest as I don't need Qt under Windows for any of my GPL licensed projects (Fltk does well enough for what I'm needing...) and my preferred platform is Linux. I'm just wondering why there's not someone out there with the needs or desire to do this act.
In actuality, the practice is grossly in violation with the UCC as it has been enacted in the various States of the Union. Unfortunately, they're acting as policing agents of the providers of Software, etc. because they Software companies won't take back opened content (even though thier damn EULAs say that the customers CAN return the same...) and the various organizations like the BSA have pressured them into it. There's no laws requiring them to do this- it's just their policies.
...unfortunately, not a single one of them is easy to use and the connectors for Outlook (Or, is that "Look Out!"...) cost money. The Toltec one's the cheapest, weighing in at $14 per user, but Kolab's NOT at all easy to make work right. Many things can and do tend to go wrong on it's install.
Now, if someone could come up with an Outlook connector (they're working on it, but it's not there yet...) that could connect to Kolab, OpenGroupware, or Open-Xchange, well it'd be a different story altogether.
The people talking about Outlook being a cut above don't know anything about Kontact or Evolution, obviously and the rest is a muddle right at the moment.
And I can understand why it's so for you.
Many proprietary software companies operate by talking out of both sides of their collective mouths. They say buy the new version or product, when in reality, they're trying to get you to renew a lease of the stuff instead. Well, at least that's what the EULAs really claim.
I had bought a piece of software from them for a Palm Pilot. Piece of mapping software. Unfortunately, it was not capable of the advertised abilities, but there was no way to find out until it was returned. Stated policy was if it's been opened, it's a no-return no matter what. Exchange, yes. Return, no. Not willing to see that, no the damn software did not, in fact, work as advertised and it was something that I'd have to take up with the software producer directly (And you all know how that goes...)
:-) it's as much a rental place as it's a store. For software, you're buying a pig-in-a-poke. This is one of the main reasons I switched over to pretty much nothing but Open Source Software where possible.
Flys in the face of the UCC, but I'm not in a financial position to stick it to Fry's over the principal of the thing.
For hardware, depending on values of hardware (Some of that stuff's only got a 15-day rental period...
You're confusing EULA and Copyright- which are completely two different things.
Copyright deals with the production and distribution of literary and other works of art. Nothing more, nothing less.
An End User License covers whatever in the hell the licenseor wants. It covers usage, etc.
Big damn difference there. With pure Copyright, the rules for use are anything that doesn't infringe- including copying snippets and even copying your friend's instance of the work for your own purpose if it's music (American Home Recording Act covers the compulsory license to be able to do so...). With an EULA, they can prohibit you telling anyone you're a user, whether or not it performs as well as they claim, and so forth.
Come on, wise up.
Not everyone's online. Furthermore, that is skirting the legal requirements to begin with- how do you know you're reading the agreement that the software's supposed to have, how can you be sure that others didn't get a better deal than you?
Therefore, in order to fufill the requirements of the settlement, they're going to have to prominently place it in a manner that can be read with the ability to return it to a retailer- period. If that means putting it on there so it'll fit on the outside packaging, so be it.
You don't pay a cent for broadcast TV or Radio. Apparently this guy's beef is that people that rent cars don't pay for the service, much like people that get broadcast radio. Problem is, he's using circular logic. The people renting the vehicles ARE paying for the service in the car by way of the rental of the same. They didn't subscribe themselves, but the rental agency DID.
Once with the PA-RISC (from which the Itanium was actually derived...) and the Alpha when they picked up Compaq (which had picked it up from Digital...).
In the case of the PA-RISC/Itanium, they screwed up on compatibility, cost, and overall performance. The Itanium and the Itanium 2 were far, far more expensive proportionate to the performance of the Athlon64 and Power series (Power 5 and G5) CPUs- and worse yet, they had a mediocre support for legacy apps. In this one, AMD got it dead to rights. The Athon64's a better performer on 32-bit code than any other x86 architechture machine and if you recompile your code for 64-bits, you get an average 25-40% speed boost and all the benefits of 64-bit architechture on top of it. The same could NOT be said for Itanium, and if you're going to have to recompile for a new architechture, you're better off with a PPC machine if you're not using AMD's 64-bit architechture- much bigger bang for your buck.
As for Alpha, I'm still not sure what in the hell happened there- it's in the performance class of the Power 4/5 architechture and if they'd gone for the mass production on it like everyone does with PPC and x86 chips, it'd have been as cheap or cheaper. I just guess those that had it in their hands just simply had absolutely no clue whatsoever what they had.
Actually, what multiple antennas let you do is reduce multipath issues considerably when you combine them with DSP techniques. Two antennas doesn't increase interfereance- all it does is allow you to emit more RF power into the air effectively. Same goes for more than two.
The main reason for not using multiple antennas has been cost and you really couldn't use them for recieveing in the past because of things like multipath playing merry hob with your reception. Nowadays, things are quite different.
It's mathematics and a solid understanding of signal propagation that made the antennas possible.
It's mathematics and tuning of the algorithms used to work through that mathematics that made the DSP firmware possible. You have to thoroughly understand the math behind the DSP stuff to optimize it right.
Just because there's code involved, doesn't mean that there were just code-monkeys doing the work.
However, we got out far enough in the country last night for a party that we got to see about 20-30 events before getting in the car to head home. It simply rocked. Hoping to get out somewhere in the countryside again tomorrow night to try and catch more of them.
...I'm at least passingly interested in C# and if Mono can help my clients kick their MS habits, then it's all right in my book. As for ASP.NET being a right tool for the job- that's quite debateable. In all honesty, a Java Servlets and JSP engine is in the same class- in fact, it seems more robust (At least on the Linux side of things...) than IIS and ASP.NET is- or IIS/Apache and Mono's rendition of the same.
Having delegates seems to be nice, but I can't say that it produces better code- just easier to follow code. Until I see that it's better all the way around, I'm going to be sititng on the fence on that one...
That you can actually GET a machine of this calibre assembled for about $250 or so off the shelf at Fry's with the locked down OS and all- I wouldn't doubt that VIA's made a purpose built Eden setup for them at that price-point. If you've seen a VIA EPIA M-6000 or better, you've seen the SolarPC for all intents and purposes.
It's a hell of a lot better than the Geode GX2 and it also provides mediocre support for 3D and superior support for MPEG2 decode- in the same general price range or less. Now, regardless of what you might think, it's not vapor- and it IS more powerful overall than the Geode based offering from AMD. Again, had they based this off of the NX series, it'd be a different story altogether.
I mean, we've damn near deep-fried as many things as the Brits have.
Just the other day, we had a $100 machine discussed on Slashdot that was more powerful and consumed just as little in the power department- less actually.
A SolarPC lite is a more powerful computer with the same advantages and is nearly half the price.
This little box uses the GX series of chips. I meant to type GX there. Look at the piccies- it's a GX2 CPU.
Considering that you can get the same sort of PC with more power for nearly HALF the price, which do YOU think they'll go for?
I'll say it again, using the GeodeNX series of chips for anything other than a specific set of embedded applications is a waste of time and resources. This is coming from someone who intimately knows the weaknesses and strengths of this CPU line because of all the set-top box work he's done with Linux...
The Zaurus was pretty much a killer PDA, but it was competing against Palm and WinCE and while it's rather easy to port apps to it, most of the major players didn't want to bother with yet another platform- even if the platform brought more power than either of the other two at the price point it was offered at.
Combine this with a higher entry price than most of the other PDA OS offerings and poor availability for the things (BestBuy carried them for a while, but Fry's was really the only place other than online to get them...), well, you get the idea.
...that the SolarPC lite is $89 less, with a CPU that runs faster (Yes, faster... A GX2 is a good old-fashioned MediaGX CPU with a slightly faster FSB- it's still going to be slower than an Eden CPU...) and isn't borked like this one, why would you want something like this?
Paperweight or Doorstop, take your pick- either would be an effective use of this box.
Now, if they'd used an NX Geode instead, that'd been a different story altogether.
If you can't boot anything other than WinCE or XP Embedded, then it becomes a little harder at the minimum. Combine a goof-ball video adapter and sound adapter with no available specs and you've got a doorstop instead of a hacking project.
I downloaded all 3 4Gb DVD's worth of it a little while back...