It says they are collecting data anonymously by ID number. This is no worse than when you use a shopper's club card at the supermarket or when the scan your license at the bar. This is something that Sonic Blue has already reserved the right to do, so they shouldn't be pandering to us with this "spying" propoganda just because it's convenient at the moment. Both sides are being unethical if you ask me. I don't agree with this kind of data collection and it's becoming near impossible to avoid without paying penalties.
Actually the above mentioned overclock uses the very feat you mention. A BX based ASUS P2B board, hacked to take a new Celeron. Talk about longevity, I've rarely seen hardware last this long.
I run a P3-800 at 1066Mhz by bumping the bus speed up to 133Mhz. It barely gets warm with the stock retail-boxed Intel heatsink/fan. Watercooling and overclocking a 966Mhz processor to this speed doesn't show anything.
Most schools have a search engine set up independently by students to search the "Network Neighborhood" as Microsoft calls it. Phynd doesn't seem all the useful except for the few schools that don't have this. The administration typically turns a blind eye to the local search engines and the whole file sharing thing, else they'd be liable. On a couple occasions I talked to the IT lawyer for a big 10 school and he said the best policy is not to look. This is the same thing scour.net did for years but at a local level, and I don't see any precedent for liability in running such server. If your school doesn't have such a server, download femfind and install it on your Linux box, you'll make lots of students very happy.
I do find it odd that scour.net never got sued, they were effectively doing the same thing napster did, without centralized authentication and without their own peer to peer client.They were right in the middle of the fuzzy line, knowing users were searching their database for pirated material, but allowing Microsoft networking to do the actual hosting. They didn't encourage sharing of pirated files. So is it illegal to randomomly go out and index every computer's shared files, even if most of the shared files are pirated and the dominant queries are for pirated files?
Yes it would be illegal if you and your spouse were listening to separate copies of the CD.
If the server software limited connections so any particular album could only be played by one client at a time, then IIS may have been able to escape liability. Of course they would have had to buy all those CD's too, I'll assume they did.
Think of the CD as a book, you can buy it and lend it out - thanks to those who fought the publishers earlier - but you can't lend out copies if more than one copy or any copy and the original will be used at the same time. If only one client were able to listen to any particular album at once, the company would have been in the clear. IANAL, but from my reading I believe this to be true.
There are some additional problems I've thought of that arise from this - what if I were to rip a book into chapters, and lend them out individually? Would that be legal? I wouldn't think so. Based on my reasoning above, what if I were to allow different people to listen to different tracks, with no more than one person listening to a track at the same time? This sounds just as legal as ripping a book into chapters and lending those out. But now think of multiple people listening to the same track, but different parts of the track. User #1 could say be "borrowing" offset 0:32 of a track but will have returned it by the time User #2 gets to it. This raises some problems, I haven't seen it discussed so far though. Technically, it seems ok as long as the same part of a song isn't sent to two users at once, it would appear that two people can listen to the same track at once. The server could simply wait a second to begin additional streams, in the unlikely event the same song is called for by separate clients at the same exact time. Can someone clarify on this?
You mention a single source of jamming could be blocked out quite easily and that an isolated environment plus simulated constellation must be set up to trick a receiver. How does GPS test equipment work then? Are antennae set up around the receiver?
This also raises the question of whether a GPS receiver has multiple antennas that are out of phase with each other. This is the only way I can see the receiver being dependent on and knowing satellite positions(angles mainly) relative it itself, independant of the data stream. I suppose accurate distance could be figured by timing differences between the signals.
If this is the case, I could see the unit cancelling input at the antennas receiving the strongest signals from the flawed source, as you said a receiver is capable of.
I had always figured each satellite identifies itself somewhere in the stream and that the receiver knows where satellite X is relative to Y, because they are in a regular orbit. That was a pretty uneducated guess. I still don't understand how GPS can pinpoint someone on land unless it is known exactly where at least one satellite is relative to the ground. Is that in the signal? Where can I do more reading?
Ok, I follow you through most of that except one part. Where can I learn a little more about implementing public/private key encryption? The thought occured to me to use this, but I'm not certain how it works or where to find the algorithms to implement it. It would seem that it is impossible with current technology to create a keygen for such a system.
I realize as another poster noted that some assembly work to skip the check routine could be done, but that is another problem. Maybe by varying releases with different checks in different places I can minimize that effect.
On a side note - yeesh, why do I feel like I'm treating my users like criminals here? I've done a bit of pirating myself in the past, particularly as a student. I don't really blame them, since their not exactly rolling in the dough. I just want to thwart all but the most determined users, typically the students who have the time to search all over IRC for the right crack. In some strange way I can relate to them, and consider it an acceptable loss. People earning money usually don't care enough or have the time to do that, the cost is too high to find the right crack so they'll buy it.
Some helpful links with reg code generation info?
on
More On Policing Shareware
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Ok, strange that slashdot posts something like this just as I am in the process of writing some copy protection (due in the morning!). I just read the Ambrosia Software story while searching google for some tips and techniques for writing copy protection. I am trying to avoid the very problems they had. All I hear is that the key is "use polynomials!," wherever I go. If you can't tell yet, I'm a complete newbie to this, I've been programming a while but haven't had to protect my applications before. So how about some helpful advice on how to write a decently secure registration system. Some links with mathematical explanations would be nice.
Right now I am just creating a 32-bit value from a random 32-bit number the application gives the user and a name. The name is hashed using something like (2^0 * char0 + 2^1 * char1 +... + 2^N * charN), with a 31 char limit to keep the number 32 bits. I'm wondering if there are ways to check parts of such a hash without actually regenerating it, so that I don't give away the key generation algorithm in the software. I know it can't be bulletproof, I just need something that's not so simple it'll be breakable by a casual cracker.
Correction - The slash engine took out the less than sign before the 1.3 in the subject line, since it can be interpreted as an html tag. I meant to say "So what?, Only versions (less_than_sign)1.3, which stunk anyway."
Re:So what? Only versions 1.3, which stunk anyway
on
The Sad Parable of OS/2
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
"OS/2 1.30 (SE and EE) was the first version which was written entirely by IBM. There was still some Microsoft code in it - that would not go away for a couple years yet - but all of the new code and a good portion of the existing code for OS/2 1.30 was written by IBM. As a result, OS/2 1.30 was smaller and faster than previous versions, more stable, and there were far more device drivers available, though still not nearly enough."
This is from your own link #2. Many users agree that the quality of OS/2 peaked around version 2.1. At this point there was very little Microsoft code left in there. Reading the original article that \. linked to, these early releases weren't very good at all. Only after IBM re-wrote it and brought it beyond the simple *text-mode* support of 1.0, did it gain a following. If Microsoft was able to create a system as good as the OS/2 written by IBM, it wouldn't have tripped and stumbled through NT 3.51 and 4.0 before releasing something decent like 2000. This comment sounds real juicy at first glance but is highly misleading. Sheesh, if only I had some moderator points.
Ok, I got a little curious when this guy started mentioning "US Code Umptifratz" and after searching with google I couldn't find any reference to "Umptifratz" that relates to US law. In fact, only 2 search results came up. Could this guy be jerking our collective chain?
Pain Releases Endorphins
on
To The Pain
·
· Score: 2
This is the same principle we see when people eat hot chilly peppers or engage in saddism. Pain release endorphins that cause pleasure and the body learns to want the effect. So do you shock the loser or the winner?
Not so standard is an RF modem that enables you to connect to the Internet through a data cable and operate as you would from a PC.
Many manufacturers have been including the ability for a cell phone to emulate a modem - for years. Motorola and Samsung are prime examples, most of their models have done this for a while. The cell phone has a serial port that makes the modem AT command set. It pretends like it is dialing but connects directly to the digital network, all you need is a ppp enabled machine. This has allowed speeds to go from ~9600bps to 19200bps, since the modem no longer has to modulate data over a compressed 19.2kbps voice link. The only catch is older phones didn't always come with the cable. If you want one get an oem cable through an online vendor, Motorla wants 150 big ones for a cable + CD for an older phone.
An earlier slashdot article stated that 90% of chipset makers have already signed on to include the low-bitrate MS codec. This post should not have been modded as "Troll".
The entire discussion neglects this complex issue. At the core of a usable interface is a good organizational structure. The tools used at and the appearance of each level is a secondary concern, worrying about these first is needless micro-management. Good organizational structure comes from a scientific analysis of user goals and a subsequent prioritization of those goals. The problem is that not all users share the same set of goals. If the designer chooses to prioritize with very broad goals(Start->Programs for example) that one level of the hierarchy suffers from clutter. This makes any task difficult. This example also shows the designer chose very broad goals based on a technical user's perspective, the interface structure clearly reflects the organization of the technical system underneath (Windows Update, Programs, Settings, Find, Help, Run, Shutdown). Help and Run near the end of course, they were clearly after-thoughts and placed early in the hierarchy for users who know technically what they are looking for. Overall, these broad categories are poorly chosen and are fit for a very limited user demographic.
Obviously a Network Admin vs. an Office User vs. an Artist have have very different goals. If you were to forget completely what you know about computers, and imagine any one of these people sitting down and turning a machine on, what are 5-8 broad categories of things these people would be trying to accomplish? Let me take a quick shot at it. The artist may want to do some video editing, some web work or maybe some sketches on their tablet. The Office user might need the use an office suite and maybe a few simple games(for lunch break of course). The network admin might want to configure some server applications or manipulate the configuration of the machine. All of these users would likely use email and the web too, these could be in an Internet category.
I propose a system to standardize broad categories of applications. Photoshop for example could register itself under Graphic Arts, Image Editing and Web Design. Image Editing and Web Design would be sub-categories of Graphic Arts. A cd-ripper could register itself under MP3 and Audio, with MP3 as a sub-category of Audio. An office suite would register under Office. A video tool like Final Cut Pro under Graphic Arts and Video, with Video as a subcategory of Graphic Arts.
The interface would sift applications down the hiearchy, only having them appear in the lowest levels. Photoshop for example would appear under Graphic Arts->Image Editing and Graphic Arts->Web Design but not under Graphic Arts. Yes, it would appear twice, but the sensible organization would make it unambiguaous how to find it. One of the few customizations allowed would be a feature to "bump up" an application so it appears in it's parent menu, for commonly used applications and users with few installed applications in a particular category. To allow this option in a usable way, a customization screen listing of all icons within their hierarchy would be suitable, with a trinary radio-like toggle associated with each. The toggle could switch between an up arrow(bump up), X or check-mark. Another customization would be the ability to shut off a sub-category and have it's options selectively bumped up to the parent, using similar trinary toggles associated with each sub-category.
This idea hasn't been developed much and could probably use some revision but I think the basic idea is there and it shouldn't be much more complex than this. Maybe some of those snazzy open-source interfaces like Gnome and KDE could pull this off. At first users would have to manually categorize their applications, but with time applications could register with a standard database. Early on, a small app could even be made to search a file system and generate such a database using known pre-categorized programs. This could also be a good thing for the litestep people to try, to truly give their system a unique and useful interface, without the massive manual config file maintainence that comes with those added strengths.
Yes, this is exactly the new technology that PDA's are using. When Palm debuted it's m505 using reflective technology, the press whined and complained how the screen was not as bright as the IIIc. What they missed was that the IIIc tried to attack the sunlight problem by using different approach, a high intensity backlight. It was a big power drain, made the device bulky and was still difficult to read in the sun. By using the reflective technology in the m505 the screen became easier to read in the sun and without a bulky backlight. The new techology uses the sun to increase visibility rather than competing in a losing battle to make the backlight brigher than the sun. This makes for thinner devices that are still plenty bright with minimal backlighting at night. Good stuff, I'm waiting for prices to come down though.
I am on a mailing list where people discuss using a PC with a DSP card to do real time audio processing (often with linux I should add). Why - after expending enourmous effort to ensure that all your transducers are perfectly time aligned, crossed over optimally and your room reflections are cancelled - would you put up with fan noise? The answer is these guys don't. Here is what one list member said of his recent test running a 0.13 Celeron:
"First off, I'd like to say that Celeron.13s are officially great.:)
I bought a 1GHz.13 last week, and successfully undervolted it to 1.3V. Initial tests at 667MHz with only a passive heatsink and sideways PSU ventilation were very successful (~36C top temp)... ran it for 3 hours solid using 3DMark2001SE with no problems.
So then I tried it at the rated 1GHz, not expecting it to even boot. But absolutely no problems here either. Top temp nudged up to ~38C, and of course performance was vastly improved. Just in case you think the thermistor is lying, I did the "finger test", which suggested <40C."
The 0.13 celeron is the one made with the PIII process and is sometimes called the Celeron II. It's a good chip. I personally have one these 800Mhz chips overclocked to 1066Mhz, using the stock Intel fan and heatsink. It barely gets warm.
I see a few complaints on how not to make a site. What people need is more of a structured method to make a usable site.
1) Start with your users. Who are they? Can they be categorized? i.e. Business Men, Students, Computer geeks. Rank them in order of importance.
2) Figure out what each group wants from your site and what characteristics about them make them that way.
3) Organize the hierarchy of the site based on what each group wants, giving priority to the category of users declared most important. Organize your content based on user goals and not the other way around.
4) Design the pretty web pages to fit the hierarchy, choose the interface tools that fit the data best.
"Of course even Slashdot is planning on rolling out subscriptions-for-no-banner-ads sometime soon, so I suppose we're not entirely immune to the subscription bug either."
Now I hope the subscription plan doesn't elevate the obnoxiousness of the advertising, kind of like what happend on Salon. As much as I like Slashdot, I'd have to stop visiting then. I probably visit Salon less than 1/10th the amount I used too.
Yeah, but they also oppose *any* settlement. They feel (not think - their claims of ultra-rationality have grown from ideas based on feelings, not derived rationally) that Microsoft should be allowed to continue unpunished, because the ideal way to live is in a free, unregulated market. Their ideas are no more rational than the revolutionary socialist/communinist thinkers. They are whackos like the original poster stated, I don't know who modded him down - has has a point.
Yeah, I should be a little more clear. I do agree with copyright, but I am strongly against the new content controls being introduced. The new controls help bad power-hungry companies gain leverage in other areas, just look at what happend with decss. That's on top of the fair use issues, laws like the DMCA only make matters worse.
Now you might ask what is wrong with these companies gaining leverage. I don't want them gaining leverage because they don't represent good values and in fact they spread bad values. Like I said in the earlier post I disklike these companies because of the way they market. People are easily influenced, especially the age groups they target. They get kids locked in to the mindless "art" they put out when they are young and pliable, hindering them from making their own judgements. This country needs more widespread underage marketing restrictions, ones that go beyond alcohol and cigarrettes - coupled with an educational system that better teaches kids how to make judgement calls (courses in reasoning) and the value of being original. Real artists (read: new ideas) can't compete when marketers have already bought their influence using underhanded techniques.
Think about the music industry, if someone said, OK you can copy the music as much as you like then the recording industry would simply stop releasing music, then there would be nothing to copy!
This idea is flawed. Music would still be out there - it just wouldn't be marketed in the way it is today, which is a good thing. Such marketing has left so many brainwashed and has homogenized much of our society's thinking. Now I'm not talking about the slashdot crowd, but the rest of society, the regular Joe's and Jane's out there. There is very little room for creativity in the environment these marketers create, just look at the 90% of the pop they put out, it's meaningless, unoriginal and downright sad in the way people accept it, practically like religion.
That link appears dead, try this one. It's only available in major metropolitan areas it seems - that's too bad, something like this will need wide availability before it really begins to take off. 20mbps sounds high too, that's 2 megabytes/sec. No one offers that kind of service to my knowledge. Verizon's site posts about an express service at 144 Kbps, but nothing faster is mentioned.
Yes, but with your typical modem you must modulate onto audible frequencies, there is a big difference. Audible frequencies can't carry as much data as higher ones. Although current cell phones already modulate data directly onto the higher frequncies they use - for internet access too, ask your provider - but for some reason they still say the speed limit is 19200bps. Presumably because so many other users are sharing that high bandwidth.
Current digital cell phones allow direct serial connection to the network with a phone company provided ip. It doesn't use slip or ppp directly, instead the phone emulates a modem so your dialer thinks it's connecting to an isp via the plain old telephone system. So what's the big advance? speed? At 19200 bps, serial is all you need.
Slashdot Mirror
It says they are collecting data anonymously by ID number. This is no worse than when you use a shopper's club card at the supermarket or when the scan your license at the bar. This is something that Sonic Blue has already reserved the right to do, so they shouldn't be pandering to us with this "spying" propoganda just because it's convenient at the moment. Both sides are being unethical if you ask me. I don't agree with this kind of data collection and it's becoming near impossible to avoid without paying penalties.
Actually the above mentioned overclock uses the very feat you mention. A BX based ASUS P2B board, hacked to take a new Celeron. Talk about longevity, I've rarely seen hardware last this long.
I run a P3-800 at 1066Mhz by bumping the bus speed up to 133Mhz. It barely gets warm with the stock retail-boxed Intel heatsink/fan. Watercooling and overclocking a 966Mhz processor to this speed doesn't show anything.
See my earlier post
Most schools have a search engine set up independently by students to search the "Network Neighborhood" as Microsoft calls it. Phynd doesn't seem all the useful except for the few schools that don't have this. The administration typically turns a blind eye to the local search engines and the whole file sharing thing, else they'd be liable. On a couple occasions I talked to the IT lawyer for a big 10 school and he said the best policy is not to look. This is the same thing scour.net did for years but at a local level, and I don't see any precedent for liability in running such server. If your school doesn't have such a server, download femfind and install it on your Linux box, you'll make lots of students very happy.
I do find it odd that scour.net never got sued, they were effectively doing the same thing napster did, without centralized authentication and without their own peer to peer client.They were right in the middle of the fuzzy line, knowing users were searching their database for pirated material, but allowing Microsoft networking to do the actual hosting. They didn't encourage sharing of pirated files. So is it illegal to randomomly go out and index every computer's shared files, even if most of the shared files are pirated and the dominant queries are for pirated files?
Yes it would be illegal if you and your spouse were listening to separate copies of the CD.
If the server software limited connections so any particular album could only be played by one client at a time, then IIS may have been able to escape liability. Of course they would have had to buy all those CD's too, I'll assume they did.
Think of the CD as a book, you can buy it and lend it out - thanks to those who fought the publishers earlier - but you can't lend out copies if more than one copy or any copy and the original will be used at the same time. If only one client were able to listen to any particular album at once, the company would have been in the clear. IANAL, but from my reading I believe this to be true.
There are some additional problems I've thought of that arise from this - what if I were to rip a book into chapters, and lend them out individually? Would that be legal? I wouldn't think so. Based on my reasoning above, what if I were to allow different people to listen to different tracks, with no more than one person listening to a track at the same time? This sounds just as legal as ripping a book into chapters and lending those out. But now think of multiple people listening to the same track, but different parts of the track. User #1 could say be "borrowing" offset 0:32 of a track but will have returned it by the time User #2 gets to it. This raises some problems, I haven't seen it discussed so far though. Technically, it seems ok as long as the same part of a song isn't sent to two users at once, it would appear that two people can listen to the same track at once. The server could simply wait a second to begin additional streams, in the unlikely event the same song is called for by separate clients at the same exact time. Can someone clarify on this?
You mention a single source of jamming could be blocked out quite easily and that an isolated environment plus simulated constellation must be set up to trick a receiver. How does GPS test equipment work then? Are antennae set up around the receiver?
This also raises the question of whether a GPS receiver has multiple antennas that are out of phase with each other. This is the only way I can see the receiver being dependent on and knowing satellite positions(angles mainly) relative it itself, independant of the data stream. I suppose accurate distance could be figured by timing differences between the signals.
If this is the case, I could see the unit cancelling input at the antennas receiving the strongest signals from the flawed source, as you said a receiver is capable of.
I had always figured each satellite identifies itself somewhere in the stream and that the receiver knows where satellite X is relative to Y, because they are in a regular orbit. That was a pretty uneducated guess. I still don't understand how GPS can pinpoint someone on land unless it is known exactly where at least one satellite is relative to the ground. Is that in the signal? Where can I do more reading?
Ok, I follow you through most of that except one part. Where can I learn a little more about implementing public/private key encryption? The thought occured to me to use this, but I'm not certain how it works or where to find the algorithms to implement it. It would seem that it is impossible with current technology to create a keygen for such a system.
I realize as another poster noted that some assembly work to skip the check routine could be done, but that is another problem. Maybe by varying releases with different checks in different places I can minimize that effect.
On a side note - yeesh, why do I feel like I'm treating my users like criminals here? I've done a bit of pirating myself in the past, particularly as a student. I don't really blame them, since their not exactly rolling in the dough. I just want to thwart all but the most determined users, typically the students who have the time to search all over IRC for the right crack. In some strange way I can relate to them, and consider it an acceptable loss. People earning money usually don't care enough or have the time to do that, the cost is too high to find the right crack so they'll buy it.
Ok, strange that slashdot posts something like this just as I am in the process of writing some copy protection (due in the morning!). I just read the Ambrosia Software story while searching google for some tips and techniques for writing copy protection. I am trying to avoid the very problems they had. All I hear is that the key is "use polynomials!," wherever I go. If you can't tell yet, I'm a complete newbie to this, I've been programming a while but haven't had to protect my applications before. So how about some helpful advice on how to write a decently secure registration system. Some links with mathematical explanations would be nice.
... + 2^N * charN), with a 31 char limit to keep the number 32 bits. I'm wondering if there are ways to check parts of such a hash without actually regenerating it, so that I don't give away the key generation algorithm in the software. I know it can't be bulletproof, I just need something that's not so simple it'll be breakable by a casual cracker.
Right now I am just creating a 32-bit value from a random 32-bit number the application gives the user and a name. The name is hashed using something like (2^0 * char0 + 2^1 * char1 +
Correction -
The slash engine took out the less than sign before the 1.3 in the subject line, since it can be interpreted as an html tag. I meant to say "So what?, Only versions (less_than_sign)1.3, which stunk anyway."
"OS/2 1.30 (SE and EE) was the first version which was written entirely by IBM. There was still some Microsoft code in it - that would not go away for a couple years yet - but all of the new code and a good portion of the existing code for OS/2 1.30 was written by IBM. As a result, OS/2 1.30 was smaller and faster than previous versions, more stable, and there were far more device drivers available, though still not nearly enough."
This is from your own link #2. Many users agree that the quality of OS/2 peaked around version 2.1. At this point there was very little Microsoft code left in there. Reading the original article that \. linked to, these early releases weren't very good at all. Only after IBM re-wrote it and brought it beyond the simple *text-mode* support of 1.0, did it gain a following. If Microsoft was able to create a system as good as the OS/2 written by IBM, it wouldn't have tripped and stumbled through NT 3.51 and 4.0 before releasing something decent like 2000. This comment sounds real juicy at first glance but is highly misleading. Sheesh, if only I had some moderator points.
Ok, I got a little curious when this guy started mentioning "US Code Umptifratz" and after searching with google I couldn't find any reference to "Umptifratz" that relates to US law. In fact, only 2 search results came up. Could this guy be jerking our collective chain?
This is the same principle we see when people eat hot chilly peppers or engage in saddism. Pain release endorphins that cause pleasure and the body learns to want the effect. So do you shock the loser or the winner?
Here is some more info:
GRPS Phones
For Infra-Red connectivity - Linux HOWTO
An earlier slashdot article stated that 90% of chipset makers have already signed on to include the low-bitrate MS codec. This post should not have been modded as "Troll".
The entire discussion neglects this complex issue. At the core of a usable interface is a good organizational structure. The tools used at and the appearance of each level is a secondary concern, worrying about these first is needless micro-management. Good organizational structure comes from a scientific analysis of user goals and a subsequent prioritization of those goals. The problem is that not all users share the same set of goals. If the designer chooses to prioritize with very broad goals(Start->Programs for example) that one level of the hierarchy suffers from clutter. This makes any task difficult. This example also shows the designer chose very broad goals based on a technical user's perspective, the interface structure clearly reflects the organization of the technical system underneath (Windows Update, Programs, Settings, Find, Help, Run, Shutdown). Help and Run near the end of course, they were clearly after-thoughts and placed early in the hierarchy for users who know technically what they are looking for. Overall, these broad categories are poorly chosen and are fit for a very limited user demographic.
Obviously a Network Admin vs. an Office User vs. an Artist have have very different goals. If you were to forget completely what you know about computers, and imagine any one of these people sitting down and turning a machine on, what are 5-8 broad categories of things these people would be trying to accomplish? Let me take a quick shot at it. The artist may want to do some video editing, some web work or maybe some sketches on their tablet. The Office user might need the use an office suite and maybe a few simple games(for lunch break of course). The network admin might want to configure some server applications or manipulate the configuration of the machine. All of these users would likely use email and the web too, these could be in an Internet category.
I propose a system to standardize broad categories of applications. Photoshop for example could register itself under Graphic Arts, Image Editing and Web Design. Image Editing and Web Design would be sub-categories of Graphic Arts. A cd-ripper could register itself under MP3 and Audio, with MP3 as a sub-category of Audio. An office suite would register under Office. A video tool like Final Cut Pro under Graphic Arts and Video, with Video as a subcategory of Graphic Arts.
The interface would sift applications down the hiearchy, only having them appear in the lowest levels. Photoshop for example would appear under Graphic Arts->Image Editing and Graphic Arts->Web Design but not under Graphic Arts. Yes, it would appear twice, but the sensible organization would make it unambiguaous how to find it. One of the few customizations allowed would be a feature to "bump up" an application so it appears in it's parent menu, for commonly used applications and users with few installed applications in a particular category. To allow this option in a usable way, a customization screen listing of all icons within their hierarchy would be suitable, with a trinary radio-like toggle associated with each. The toggle could switch between an up arrow(bump up), X or check-mark. Another customization would be the ability to shut off a sub-category and have it's options selectively bumped up to the parent, using similar trinary toggles associated with each sub-category.
This idea hasn't been developed much and could probably use some revision but I think the basic idea is there and it shouldn't be much more complex than this. Maybe some of those snazzy open-source interfaces like Gnome and KDE could pull this off. At first users would have to manually categorize their applications, but with time applications could register with a standard database. Early on, a small app could even be made to search a file system and generate such a database using known pre-categorized programs. This could also be a good thing for the litestep people to try, to truly give their system a unique and useful interface, without the massive manual config file maintainence that comes with those added strengths.
Yes, this is exactly the new technology that PDA's are using. When Palm debuted it's m505 using reflective technology, the press whined and complained how the screen was not as bright as the IIIc. What they missed was that the IIIc tried to attack the sunlight problem by using different approach, a high intensity backlight. It was a big power drain, made the device bulky and was still difficult to read in the sun. By using the reflective technology in the m505 the screen became easier to read in the sun and without a bulky backlight. The new techology uses the sun to increase visibility rather than competing in a losing battle to make the backlight brigher than the sun. This makes for thinner devices that are still plenty bright with minimal backlighting at night. Good stuff, I'm waiting for prices to come down though.
I am on a mailing list where people discuss using a PC with a DSP card to do real time audio processing (often with linux I should add). Why - after expending enourmous effort to ensure that all your transducers are perfectly time aligned, crossed over optimally and your room reflections are cancelled - would you put up with fan noise? The answer is these guys don't. Here is what one list member said of his recent test running a 0.13 Celeron:
.13s are officially great. :)
.13 last week, and successfully undervolted it to 1.3V. Initial tests at 667MHz with only a passive heatsink and sideways PSU ventilation were very successful (~36C top temp)... ran it for 3 hours solid using 3DMark2001SE with no problems.
"First off, I'd like to say that Celeron
I bought a 1GHz
So then I tried it at the rated 1GHz, not expecting it to even boot. But absolutely no problems here either. Top temp nudged up to ~38C, and of course performance was vastly improved. Just in case you think the thermistor is lying, I did the "finger test", which suggested <40C."
The 0.13 celeron is the one made with the PIII process and is sometimes called the Celeron II. It's a good chip. I personally have one these 800Mhz chips overclocked to 1066Mhz, using the stock Intel fan and heatsink. It barely gets warm.
I see a few complaints on how not to make a site. What people need is more of a structured method to make a usable site.
1) Start with your users. Who are they? Can they be categorized? i.e. Business Men, Students, Computer geeks. Rank them in order of importance.
2) Figure out what each group wants from your site and what characteristics about them make them that way.
3) Organize the hierarchy of the site based on what each group wants, giving priority to the category of users declared most important. Organize your content based on user goals and not the other way around.
4) Design the pretty web pages to fit the hierarchy, choose the interface tools that fit the data best.
"Of course even Slashdot is planning on rolling out subscriptions-for-no-banner-ads sometime soon, so I suppose we're not entirely immune to the subscription bug either."
Now I hope the subscription plan doesn't elevate the obnoxiousness of the advertising, kind of like what happend on Salon. As much as I like Slashdot, I'd have to stop visiting then. I probably visit Salon less than 1/10th the amount I used too.
Yeah, but they also oppose *any* settlement. They feel (not think - their claims of ultra-rationality have grown from ideas based on feelings, not derived rationally) that Microsoft should be allowed to continue unpunished, because the ideal way to live is in a free, unregulated market. Their ideas are no more rational than the revolutionary socialist/communinist thinkers. They are whackos like the original poster stated, I don't know who modded him down - has has a point.
Yeah, I should be a little more clear. I do agree with copyright, but I am strongly against the new content controls being introduced. The new controls help bad power-hungry companies gain leverage in other areas, just look at what happend with decss. That's on top of the fair use issues, laws like the DMCA only make matters worse.
Now you might ask what is wrong with these companies gaining leverage. I don't want them gaining leverage because they don't represent good values and in fact they spread bad values. Like I said in the earlier post I disklike these companies because of the way they market. People are easily influenced, especially the age groups they target. They get kids locked in to the mindless "art" they put out when they are young and pliable, hindering them from making their own judgements. This country needs more widespread underage marketing restrictions, ones that go beyond alcohol and cigarrettes - coupled with an educational system that better teaches kids how to make judgement calls (courses in reasoning) and the value of being original. Real artists (read: new ideas) can't compete when marketers have already bought their influence using underhanded techniques.
This idea is flawed. Music would still be out there - it just wouldn't be marketed in the way it is today, which is a good thing. Such marketing has left so many brainwashed and has homogenized much of our society's thinking. Now I'm not talking about the slashdot crowd, but the rest of society, the regular Joe's and Jane's out there. There is very little room for creativity in the environment these marketers create, just look at the 90% of the pop they put out, it's meaningless, unoriginal and downright sad in the way people accept it, practically like religion.
That link appears dead, try this one. It's only available in major metropolitan areas it seems - that's too bad, something like this will need wide availability before it really begins to take off. 20mbps sounds high too, that's 2 megabytes/sec. No one offers that kind of service to my knowledge. Verizon's site posts about an express service at 144 Kbps, but nothing faster is mentioned.
Yes, but with your typical modem you must modulate onto audible frequencies, there is a big difference. Audible frequencies can't carry as much data as higher ones. Although current cell phones already modulate data directly onto the higher frequncies they use - for internet access too, ask your provider - but for some reason they still say the speed limit is 19200bps. Presumably because so many other users are sharing that high bandwidth.
Current digital cell phones allow direct serial connection to the network with a phone company provided ip. It doesn't use slip or ppp directly, instead the phone emulates a modem so your dialer thinks it's connecting to an isp via the plain old telephone system. So what's the big advance? speed? At 19200 bps, serial is all you need.