have you used one of the newer archos devices? the only ones I've messed about with were the ancient ones that looked like they were a portable hard drive enclosure. I'd forgotten about them, until your post. Some of their devices look pretty keen...
Honestly, I've got the Archos, and they're feature rich, but quite annoying.
Firstly, the 5th gen (x05 models) are ad-laden. And apparently, the latest Archos 5/7 are even worse. Copy over an h.264 encoded file, or an MPEG file, and it'll say "Please buy the plugin - click BUY NOW!". (I have a 4th gen, and if you don't have the plugin, it just doesn't recognize the file). (h.264 is important to me - as is AAC - these are the next-gen formats, and even the lamest MP3 player can do AAC, but it's another $30 for the Archos). Or on the 5th gens, if you didn't buy the web browser ($20), it'll say if you click on the icon "You need the web plugin - click BUY NOW!". Ditto with the Recorder app - "You need the dock - BUY IT NOW!". Or plug in the USB cable, and you get "Charge your Archos faster - buy a dock - BUY NOW!" (at least this one you can disable that one so it doesn't show every time you plug it into a computer).
The 5/7's are worse, since the menu invites you to try all the options, with good portions of them requiring payment for it to work.
As for openness, they are not the sign of openness. Sure the Archos runs Linux, and they do provide the source, but you can't load your own firmware (it's signed - a la TiVo), and last I tried, I couldn't build it.
Minor hacking is allowed due to a system() exploit, but firmware changes may have eliminated that backdoor.
Oh yeah, the hardware's cheaply made - nice LCD display, but make sure you buy it from a store with a good return policy because there will almost always be a dead pixel or three on the screen (you need 5 before Archos will accept a return). Nothing nicer than looking at a movie with a bright white spot on the screen.
I want to know the logic that girl fallowed. I might die so instead I'll kill myself? My math might be a little rusty but I'm pretty sure that even the slimmest chance of living is better than no chance. I imagine I'm going to die someday, guess I should just get it out of the way now....
I think when someone is already irrational, then logic flies out the window. Honestly, I really suspect someone who's already deranged enough to commit suicide (and not seek help about it - there are tons of anonymous support groups/phone lines/etc) was just looking for a reason to do it. Blaming LHC for creating black holes is certainly quite trendy. Better to go out with a bang than a whimper, and get 15 minutes of posthumous fame.
I tried 3.0 when it first came out and uninstalled it in 2 days because I couldn't switch tabs. The tabs switched, but the window content didn't repaint, to be exact - so you could switch tabs, and not know you did it. the only way to repaint it was to scroll the window down and back up. A similar thing happened if you loaded a page as it reflowed - the old screen elements didn't erase, and you ended up with the reflowed elements overdrawing each other, leading to a huge drawing mess...
It's probably fixed... I should try the latest updates and see.
namely because they are still using the monkey-horde development technique, which is get a bunch of third-world programmers in a room and churn out very lackluster code, and then keep redeveloping it until it works "good enough"
Er, citation needed? Have you ever worked at Microsoft?
Or the fact that Microsoft is composed of little fiefdoms and each major "team" often has a snapshot of code from other teams that doesn't get synced? E.g., Windows teams use a compiler that is older than the dev tools team is creating, Office uses DLL code that's been branched/modified/extended from the WIndows Shell, and is quite incompatible (ditto on dev tools as well). Which is why you can end up with 3 incompatible versions of the same DLL - one that ships with Windows, one that ships with Office, and another one that developers use for their projects (that ships with Visual Studio) - I believe one such DLL is common controls or common dialogs.
Or how about this - Office 2007 introduced the ribbon. A third-party developed a library to emulate the ribbon. Said library was purchased by Microsoft to be provided with Visual Studio? Thus, developers will be using a different ribbon library than what the Office people use, and who knows what horrible merge the Windows team will (eventually) use?
So not only is DLL hell created from different versions of a DLL with the same code lineage, there's also the troubles caused by the same DLL with different code lineages living on the same system.
It appears to be functional and otherwise looks nice.
Hurrh? I still see no seatbelts... you'd think at the speeds they were going they'd be using crash seats and stuff...
Expect the obligatory staggering about like drunken louts and bad camera shaking after the oblig hits to the Enterprise in ship-to-ship battles!:D
What about fuses or circuit breakers or other circuit-protection devices? You know, something that'll keep panels from exploding in a shower of sparks whenever the ship takes a hit? Sure it won't eliminate all explosions, but surely they can go with that as a plot line too!
Ah newegg... I wouldn't trust them to ship a drive, at least, OEM-packaged ones...
From this report on someone buy 10 drives (with pictures), and getting them stacked together, and wrapped in bubble wrap, then peanut filling... it's no wonder the drives fail. You can't stack drives on top of each other (they rattle around, and when they rattle, large shock forces are generated when they bang off each other). And bubblewrap? And peanuts? No drive manufacturer allows even such packaging when they do warranty claims because that's practically a recipe for destroying all drives.
Newegg's drive shipping leaves much to be desired...
When will they allow regular users to upload movies longer than 10 minutes? I have a few rugby games I want to share with friends. If you encode it right, it's passable for my needs.
Instead I have to do a system of hacks to make a playlist, etc.
They did until a couple of years ago, when they were forced to do the limits because people were uploading complete TV shows (sans ads) and movies and decided the majority of stuff posted on YouTube that was original and not broadcasting for someone else were under 10 minutes in length.
Given that there are many other video sharing sites (vimeo's a popular one, not sure if Google Video is still around given they own YouTube, but it never had the 10 minute limit), perhaps one of those would be more suited to your content?
The point of virtualization is to isolate the hardware from the software - I fail to see how this is unique other than it being done "live" (which just means the VM is suspended, and the state of everything moved to the new machine and the VM resumed). Nor how it cna be impossible - while the x86 has many extensions, it's still a well-specified architecture with specific behaviors.
The real trick is if an application is using features not present on the other architecture - e.g., an AMD virtual machine migrating to an Intel one while running applications use 3DNow instructions (which don't exist on Intel CPUs). Or perhaps an old 16-bit application running on a 32-bit VM under a 32-bit OS migrating to a 64-bit VM (since you can't do real mode or other legacy things in x64 mode) and continuing without a hitch... (Maybe it's a VM running MS-DOS, say?)
If I remember reading right, a few years ago, TKIP client encryption was always able to be broken. The catch was that you had to capture the packets with the handshake between the access point and the client. This could be done by breaking the signal and capturing the ensuing reconnect. AES fixed this problem.
I think this may have been if you wanted to actually decrypt the data between the two though and that meant having the WPA key, which these guys have broken. Before this, as the article states, the only thing was a dictionary attack. So, I wonder if you combine the two, can you intercept data and successfully look at it.
TKIP is a nasty hack, actually. It's designed to work with chipsets with onboard WEP encryption/decryption (it re-uses the RC4 hardware), and its security was always quite low (which is why it always re-keys itself every hour by default). It has mechanisms to detect and prevent replay attacks, as well as message integrity checks in case someone manages to break through the protections. It's final defense is a complete shut down of the network and a re-keying of everyone if it detects 2 or 3 MIC failures (the network literally shuts down for a minute).
These days, modern chipsets can do AES in hardware, and there's no reason to use TKIP anymore except in legacy applications (which still exist - though modern software can often just offload the AES in software).
Right idea but if he's using sat links? Then that tells me that phone lines may not be an option. Now shortwave or some other form of wireless however...
Now for the OP I'd recommend asking himself what exactly needs to go over the link and what can stay local? Power up/down and reboot can stay local. Service start/stop? That depends.
His low-bandwidth link is Iridium - i.e., satphone. I'm sure with one of those things a regular voice call works. BTW, last time I checked, the datathroughput of Iridium was around 9600bps or so. There is a higher-speed packet option, I believe, but I don't have any details on that.
To which, DTMF works very well, and can be used to kick-boot a Linux machine that's connected via serial port into answering the data call. Maybe you can do it such that if the phone rings without anyone picking it up for 5 rings, reboot the linux machine and try again to have it pick up the phone and establish a dialup link with serial command prompt. That Linux machine can then gateway into the management functions of the other machines...
The money doesn't just *poof* disappear because one charity said "No thanks." Last time I checked there is a huge variety of charities that they can donate that money to.
Ah, but the problem is, the people may have donated because they're donating to Gygax's favorite charity. Just because it refused to accept the money doesn't mean that the money can go to another charity.
Even if the CCF name wasn't used, and something like "This donation will go to Gygax's favorite charity", people may be donating under the premise that they're helping Gygax's favorite charity, whatever that may be.
The only option is to refund the money. Even if there's an equivalent charity, some donors may object to that for whatever reason (even if it's "That's not Gygax's charity! I wouldn't have to donated!").
Of course, this is also dependent on whether or not Gen Con recorded the donators and amounts and thus can refund it.
(If you still think "they should just donate it to someone else", what would you do if that "someone else" is PETA? Greenpeace? Red Cross (American or otherwise)? SPCA? Or any one of the many charities that could be even potentially controversial? Like the Discovery Institute?)
Hopefully HD-DVD, BluRay, HD-TV will all completely fail and something else a lot more open will take its place.
Tell me, has DVD failed?
The irony of the whole HD-DVD/Blu-Ray thing was that HD-DVD has less DRM than even DVD. DVD has encryption and region coding. HD-DVD has just encryption, and the encryption key for it was discovered. (And encryption was optional on HD-DVD, like it is on DVD) Ironically, the "openness" of HD-DVD most likely lead to its demise - for the lack of region coding meant that any HD-DVD released with the DVD may be imported into countries where said movie was still showing in theatres (and thus, causing delays in the release of the HD-DVD, by which time others may have bought the DVD, and won't want to upgrade, or bought the Blu-Ray instead).
Instead, we get Blu-Ray left, which has mandatory AACS encryption, region coding, ROM-mark (basically a way to identify who made the disc, and disc type, so players can easily refuse to play BDMV from burned discs), and BD+. And history has shown that rights management on video will survive. We've had Macrovision on VHS tapes since the early 80's and everyone seemed fine with it.
Music's only going DRM-free because of the way Apple's bullying the labels - the hope being that the Amazon store will weaken the iTunes store so the labels can make both stores bend over and obey, rather than the other way around.
DRM is here to stay, unfortunately. Even new technologies are incorporating it - if you think HDMI is bad because it has HDCP, DisplayPort supports both DPCP (DisplayPort Content Protection) and HDCP. The only unencrypted links are the analog ones - VGA, component video, etc.
Which us PC users have done for a couple of decades now. Let's see, Blu-Ray doesn't even come CLOSE to Hard Drive speeds.
The idiots that modded me down to zero are just that - idiots. There's not *ONE* consumer optical drive, hell there's not even ONE COMMERCIAL optical drive that can outperform a platter HDD in ANYTHING. HDDs have the higher throughput, better seek times, better random access times.
Ironically, the PS3's Blu-Ray drive is slower than the Xbox360's DVD drive! That's partly why the drive is so loud - the Xbox360's DVD drive is faster and has a higher throughput than the PS3's Blu-Ray drive. (This was with at least the older PS3s and Xbox360s - I don't know if part changes have resolved this issue).
It's probably why a some PS3 games require "installation" before use - the game loads data onto the hard drive so it's faster to access than the Blu-Ray drive, and helps cut down load times. Some games really seem to abuse it too - loading 5GB of data on the hard disk.
That's one thing I hate about my car - the goddamn "open trunk" button. Previous cars I'd leave the doors unlocked and nothing of value inside, and windows down if the weather permitted (because thieves are stupid and don't care about your property, they'll break the window just assuming it's locked).
With that damned button all they have to do to break into my trunk is break the driver window and push the button. I'm wondering what lazy idiot designed that "feature"? Especially since there's another button to open the trunk on my keychain? Duh!!!!
Hrm. I've known many vehicles to have an "open trunk" button/lever/pull-handle accessible within the car - this being even before electronic door locks became common. It's usually a mechanical cable linking the trunk release to the control, though. So it's not a particularly new feature since it's been around for over 30-odd years, if not longer.
The objective being that the driver can pull up, pop the trunk, and the passengers can then load/unload the trunk as they get in/out...
Um, they've since dropped all backwards compatibility for PS2 from the new machines. The PS3 machines being manufactured today don't have support for any PS2 games anymore..
The interesting thing is, on the product page, Sony makes the following statement about the $400 PS3 (80GB, 2 USB ports):
This product has limited backward compatibility with PlayStation®2 and PlayStation format software. Many PlayStation®2 format software titles will work, but full compatibility is not guaranteed. Updating the system software may improve compatibility.
The more expensive $500 PS3 (80 GB, bundled with Metal Gear Solid, has 4 USB ports and card reader) just says "Backwards compatibility".
So it looks like Sony's got something going on here... the more expensive one probably has the GS chip in it (or was it EE?), while the cheaper one has got pure software...
Re:Too Expensive these days
on
The IDA Pro Book
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· Score: 2, Informative
I used to use IDAPro a lot -- but then they went to the new pricing model which increased the cost dramatically. So while it is a great product it really isn't affordable for people that don't have a corporate expense account.
That, and when I was checking it out, they only sold to established companies - you couldn't buy it even if you wanted to... which is probably why it cost so much. I'd go with the free version, but that had a number of limitations.
It appears the only way to actually get full IDA Pro is to... torrent it.
What would be smart for Windows to do is to not randomly reboot. For example, I was asked to run a PowerPoint presentation at a funeral. No problems there, except the laptop was running Vista, midway through the presentation the computer showed "Logging Off" and the computer rebooted. Naturally, there wasn't anything I could do about it, I rebooted the thing and it ran mostly smoothly the rest of the way, but seriously MS, by default don't reboot I don't care if its a patch that if not applied it can turn your computer into a script kiddy's toy, I care that my computer doesn't randomly shut down (but then again, I run Linux:))
Upgrade your software. Seriously, if you're a business, you shouldn't be using Home versions of the software.
The HOME versions of XP and Vista (XP Home, Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium) do this automatically. Supposedly there's a way around it with some registry hacking, but I've never bothered. You get around 5 minutes from when the dialog pops up to hit the "Reboot later" button, which just silences it for another 5 minutes.
Windows XP Pro, Vista Business, Vista Enterprise, and Vista Ultimate pop up a dialog asking you to reboot, but they won't force the nasty cannot-save-force-quits-everything reboot. Considering what you get, the only reason to use the Home versions for work is if work is too cheap to get you a laptop and you use your own. The price difference between Home Premium and Business isn't that much, and will be made up in not having your computer reboot unexpectedly on you.
Now tell me that those 30 seconds don't convey more via video than could be conveyed through 30 seconds of reading abstract symbols.
But to get to that 30 seconds, if you didn't tell me the time to look at, I would have to wait 2m30s to get to the point. (Which is an unfortunate problem with video - it's not easily scannable like text, where I can try some search terms and see if the rest of the abstract symbols are worth investigation.
This is hampered by long-winded folks who show 9 minutes of everything and nothing, then get to the point.
There is a happy medium - a combination of text, graphics and video - the video should be used to highly the dynamic part that no text could describe clearly, while the text and pictures can highlight your setup - being static, it's far easier to examine and replicate than to keep seeking 10 seconds back in the video...
Alas, the problem is, video is the new gimmicky feature, so it's video everything even when there are better methods of communicating things. Video for dynamics, graphics for illustration, and text for description. Littering text around a video also helps index it. Or for others, it seems, video is the lazy man's pad of paper - don't want to write it up, so I'll just film it all.
Well, I can certainly see why interest is growing in selling prepaid cards, they are basically just an online rehash of the old gift card scam. What I find harder to understand is why interest would be growing in buying them(underage gamers with no other way of paying excepted). The whole gift card/prepaid "value" card thing is a gigantic scam.
Easy.
Three reasons:
1) Avoid linking your account against a credit card. This way, if the company somehow does something nasty, you're just out the value of your card, but you won't have to keep dealing with the bank if the nastiness involves the company repeatedly billing you over and over again. (Mistakes happen, too - so it just avoids customer support calls to get refunds if double/triple bills).
2) Controlling spending. With a card, you are limited to what you can buy. If your credit card is linked, and you have some buddies over, they may decide you "need" some things and happily get them for you, billing your card in the process. (Or if you get drunk and end up clicking on the "buy now" button). I think there was at least one accidental purchase of that "I Am Rich" application from the iTunes store...
3) Sales. I know for gift cards that sell points (Microsoft Points, Nintendo Points), the in-console exchange rate is fixed - X points per dollar. But I also know that places like Dell often have good discounts on these cards, making them cheaper to buy than the official rate. This is important for stuff like digital downloads - these discounts make them ever so slightly cheaper. But hey, saving money's saving money
As for other reasons why people buy them as gifts - one is they can get them at a discount - e.g., companies may buy $10 gift cards to the coffee place for their employees, and you can be sure the company didn't pay $10/card for them. Or, perhaps the giving of cash is considered tacky in some situations - western nations frown on asking or receiving cash (look at any Ann Landers column and you'll find someone talking about asking for cash, or getting an invite and requesting cash), and not so much Asian culture (where giving money is seen as good). But there are celebrations where the cash is considered a tacky simply because it's a thoughtless gift - it shows the giver couldn't even spend time to try to get a gift. Hence, a gift card - giver isn't sure if recipient already has the item, but knows recipient can make use of it anyways.
If anyone wants to try - I suggest giving cash to your friends/relatives/parents this holiday season equivalent to the value of the gift you were going to buy them. Heck, include shipping and taxes, too. (The fact that people still run around getting gifts for the holidays, and wait in long return lines the week after... why not cut out the trouble and just give cash?)
Sure, it's a scam - as the Dilmom put it, you're converting universal cash for something far more restrictive. And maybe your family loves giving/receiving cash. But there are also cultural and practical reasons for them to exist, and be extremely popular.
How does Amazon get their music distribution so right (DRM free, good tools), and their ebook distribution so wrong (DRM laden, attempts to lock ebook sales to kindle)? One can only scratch their heads!
I will continue to use my N810 for ebook reading, and BAEN BOOKS and others for ebooks with no DRM at reasonable prices.
Easy, actually.
Amazon has to sell books. Publishers won't give them books to sell on Kindle unless it's got DRM.
Let's translate this to the Amazon MP3 store... Amazon goes to labels asking for music, but mentioning it's DRM free. Labels thing it over, realizing the following: 1) #1 portable music player is an iPod 2) iTunes Store provides DRM'd music for an iPod 3) Windows Media DRM does not work on an iPod 4) Other music stores are limited to the population who doesn't have an iPod 5) Apple holds all the keys to the iTunes Store. 6) Apple holds the key to selling DRM'd music for the #1 portable player. 7) Apple is near the top in music sellers 8) Apple demands far too much - music at 99 cents, rather than "flexible pricing", other contract terms. (Apple insists on one contract for all labels) 9) Lack of competition for music sales on iPods means labels either go without selling music on the #1 player, or agree to Apple's draconian contract terms.
Thus, their only options is to sell Windows Media DRM on the remaining market, or see that Amazon potentially has the size and power to break the grasp that Apple has on music sales for iPods. No other company is large enough nor powerful enough to do this, except Amazon.
So labels acquiesce to Amazon's DRM free scheme, hoping people will flock from iTunes to Amazon to buy their music. Once this happens, the labels can dictate their terms to Amazon and Apple, not Apple dictating their terms to the labels. If one doesn't want to play ball, sell on the other store (e.g., if Jobs insists on not having flexible pricing, well, walk away, and sell to Amazon since it also works on iPods). Let the stores battle it out in attracting labels.
The iTunes store has too much power over the labels, and the labels hate when they don't have control. Amazon is the only company large enough to take on Apple, and the only way to do that is get music onto iPods via DRM-free MP3s. It's one of the reasons why the iTunes Store experiment started with "limited Mac market" as a feature!
There's no equivalent in the book market where the publishers are being squeezed by a book seller, so publishers get to dictate terms.
The only way the music market can continue to be as good as it is now is if both Apple and Amazon end up powerful enough to force the labels. Else we'll start to see DRM'd music in the Amazon store, and whatever else the labels want (demand-based pricing, etc) on both stores.
I thought the major companies offer a way to evaluate them before committing to buying one. I am pretty sure Tek has such a program. I would look into that first.
I second this - if you really don't know what to buy, then do the following:
Find your local Agilent (HP), Tek and LeCroy sales reps and give them a call with your needs, and let them recommend you which line of 'scopes will fit your needs best (do you need mixed signal, digital decode, etc). Then go to their websites and research those scopes to narrow down the models to 1 or 2 at most. (They all make tons of scope models, and each has their own ton of options that can be bought with them. The sales guy will help you narrow down that list.)
Call up the reps again and ask for a loaner to try them out - they'll normally give you a week or two to play with them. Play with all the scopes and try to do what the people in the lab do. At the end, find out what features you like, which were redundant, and phone the reps again asking to see if a different model may suit your needs better after having used them.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
If you're going to be buying many of them, mention it to the sales rep, and also the fact you're buying for university - they'll be more accommodating in loaning you units. One thing they would appreciate is feedback on the units - if something really sucks, they want to know about it
Once you've got a list of several scopes that will suit your needs, it's discussion time about prices and discounts.
But do take advantage of the fact that the sales reps will often loan you equipment.
we are switching over from analog to digital television transmission in february 2009. at that date, analog tv will simply disappear. if you have an older tv without a converter, it simply won't work. to get this to happen, the government and broadcasters had to sit down, make a timetable, and implement it
Except that a majority of TV viewers don't have to do anything when the switchover happens. That's because analog over-the-air is switching to digital. The few people who still receive analog OTA signals will need a digital-capable receiver. (The people who are using OTA because they get better HDTV signals aren't affected - they already are picking up digital signals).
The majority who don't have to do anything? They have cable, satellite, FiOS, or IPTV.
There isn't any equivalent to this in the internet world - it's not like people are using other protocols and the few using IPv4 will be affected.
Let me know when there's a nice ipod-like device with 8-16GB of flash, a nice touch screen (with or without keyboard), sans-phone that runs Android, for about $250. Then I'll get excited about Android. In the meantime my ipodtouch is everything I've ever wanted in a PDA, except that the open source ecosystem is very stunted, thanks to Apple's controlling view of things, and also the so-called shareware scene that has always pervaded Macdom. Paying a buck for some stupid little app doesn't sit well with me, especially when I'd often write the app for myself for free based on OSS if I could, but I can't. I don't own a Mac that I can run Xcode 3.1 on, I don't want to pay apple for a provisioning key.
So why not go the next step and jailbreak your iPod Touch? It is still a valid option, and there's tons of little apps (many of which Apple obviously won't allow in their app store). If you had an iPhone, you could download a tethering app rather than pay for NetShare (which is gone). Heck, Podcaster started as a jailbreak application. And given the installer of choice is Cydia, well, apt-get and dpkg are your friends. And you can develop your own apps, too!
Here's a small list of 10 must-have apps for your jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch. In particular, I do recommend MxTube - download and watch YouTube videos (rather than stream the videos). I don't think there's any other mobile platform that has a YouTube app that downloads the videos for later replay (offline).
Sure it's not a true open platform, but more like console systems that everyone finds fun in hacking.
Why are players bothering with online games that can be manipulated by manipulating the local client's RAM? Isn't the whole point of "Online" supposed to make client side vulnerabilities moot?
Except it's not using a client-side vulnerability to achieve its goals. It's not modifying the client to say to the server "the player just earned 1000 gold". Instead, it's manipulating the client to perform actions that the server will award the player stuff. At worse, it would peek inside the RAM to find out where monsters are. In effect, Glider is the MMO equivalent of an FPS aimbot. Except in the case of an MMO, the visibility in the field is a lot lower than an FPS since latency is less of an issue.
If it was using client side vulnerabilities, people would use it to kill on just touching monsters/other players, really, by telling the server "I did 1,000,000 HP damage". At best, all it can do is send the "I hit monster" command to the server as fast as possible.
Yes, and they often sound like deep-fried ass, and are partly responsible for the continuing reputation of MIDI as "cheezy sounding", despite it being the same technology used for most of the soundtrack work we hear every day.
That's just because they use crappy MIDI synths with crappy samples. (MOst just used the Microsoft provided MIDI synth, which comes with a tiny sample library).
One of the better MIDI soft-synths around is Timidity (GPL!). Couple that with some of the more humongous patches/soundfonts, and they can sound quite spectacular. (There are a few other GPL'd synths around, as well - Timidity works great with GUS ones)
Heck, properly rendering a MIDI file is actually quite CPU intensive, especially if you have a huge sample library since that has to be held in RAM (unless you want to prerender to another format). I'm fairly certain it can bring a good PC to its knees if you have multiple channels with different effects plus mixing. Probably even more than decoding say, MP3s or OGGs.
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Honestly, I've got the Archos, and they're feature rich, but quite annoying.
Firstly, the 5th gen (x05 models) are ad-laden. And apparently, the latest Archos 5/7 are even worse. Copy over an h.264 encoded file, or an MPEG file, and it'll say "Please buy the plugin - click BUY NOW!". (I have a 4th gen, and if you don't have the plugin, it just doesn't recognize the file). (h.264 is important to me - as is AAC - these are the next-gen formats, and even the lamest MP3 player can do AAC, but it's another $30 for the Archos). Or on the 5th gens, if you didn't buy the web browser ($20), it'll say if you click on the icon "You need the web plugin - click BUY NOW!". Ditto with the Recorder app - "You need the dock - BUY IT NOW!". Or plug in the USB cable, and you get "Charge your Archos faster - buy a dock - BUY NOW!" (at least this one you can disable that one so it doesn't show every time you plug it into a computer).
The 5/7's are worse, since the menu invites you to try all the options, with good portions of them requiring payment for it to work.
As for openness, they are not the sign of openness. Sure the Archos runs Linux, and they do provide the source, but you can't load your own firmware (it's signed - a la TiVo), and last I tried, I couldn't build it.
Minor hacking is allowed due to a system() exploit, but firmware changes may have eliminated that backdoor.
Oh yeah, the hardware's cheaply made - nice LCD display, but make sure you buy it from a store with a good return policy because there will almost always be a dead pixel or three on the screen (you need 5 before Archos will accept a return). Nothing nicer than looking at a movie with a bright white spot on the screen.
I think when someone is already irrational, then logic flies out the window. Honestly, I really suspect someone who's already deranged enough to commit suicide (and not seek help about it - there are tons of anonymous support groups/phone lines/etc) was just looking for a reason to do it. Blaming LHC for creating black holes is certainly quite trendy. Better to go out with a bang than a whimper, and get 15 minutes of posthumous fame.
I tried 3.0 when it first came out and uninstalled it in 2 days because I couldn't switch tabs. The tabs switched, but the window content didn't repaint, to be exact - so you could switch tabs, and not know you did it. the only way to repaint it was to scroll the window down and back up. A similar thing happened if you loaded a page as it reflowed - the old screen elements didn't erase, and you ended up with the reflowed elements overdrawing each other, leading to a huge drawing mess...
It's probably fixed... I should try the latest updates and see.
Or the fact that Microsoft is composed of little fiefdoms and each major "team" often has a snapshot of code from other teams that doesn't get synced? E.g., Windows teams use a compiler that is older than the dev tools team is creating, Office uses DLL code that's been branched/modified/extended from the WIndows Shell, and is quite incompatible (ditto on dev tools as well). Which is why you can end up with 3 incompatible versions of the same DLL - one that ships with Windows, one that ships with Office, and another one that developers use for their projects (that ships with Visual Studio) - I believe one such DLL is common controls or common dialogs.
Or how about this - Office 2007 introduced the ribbon. A third-party developed a library to emulate the ribbon. Said library was purchased by Microsoft to be provided with Visual Studio? Thus, developers will be using a different ribbon library than what the Office people use, and who knows what horrible merge the Windows team will (eventually) use?
So not only is DLL hell created from different versions of a DLL with the same code lineage, there's also the troubles caused by the same DLL with different code lineages living on the same system.
What about fuses or circuit breakers or other circuit-protection devices? You know, something that'll keep panels from exploding in a shower of sparks whenever the ship takes a hit? Sure it won't eliminate all explosions, but surely they can go with that as a plot line too!
Ah newegg... I wouldn't trust them to ship a drive, at least, OEM-packaged ones...
From this report on someone buy 10 drives (with pictures), and getting them stacked together, and wrapped in bubble wrap, then peanut filling... it's no wonder the drives fail. You can't stack drives on top of each other (they rattle around, and when they rattle, large shock forces are generated when they bang off each other). And bubblewrap? And peanuts? No drive manufacturer allows even such packaging when they do warranty claims because that's practically a recipe for destroying all drives.
Newegg's drive shipping leaves much to be desired...
They did until a couple of years ago, when they were forced to do the limits because people were uploading complete TV shows (sans ads) and movies and decided the majority of stuff posted on YouTube that was original and not broadcasting for someone else were under 10 minutes in length.
Given that there are many other video sharing sites (vimeo's a popular one, not sure if Google Video is still around given they own YouTube, but it never had the 10 minute limit), perhaps one of those would be more suited to your content?
The point of virtualization is to isolate the hardware from the software - I fail to see how this is unique other than it being done "live" (which just means the VM is suspended, and the state of everything moved to the new machine and the VM resumed). Nor how it cna be impossible - while the x86 has many extensions, it's still a well-specified architecture with specific behaviors.
The real trick is if an application is using features not present on the other architecture - e.g., an AMD virtual machine migrating to an Intel one while running applications use 3DNow instructions (which don't exist on Intel CPUs). Or perhaps an old 16-bit application running on a 32-bit VM under a 32-bit OS migrating to a 64-bit VM (since you can't do real mode or other legacy things in x64 mode) and continuing without a hitch... (Maybe it's a VM running MS-DOS, say?)
TKIP is a nasty hack, actually. It's designed to work with chipsets with onboard WEP encryption/decryption (it re-uses the RC4 hardware), and its security was always quite low (which is why it always re-keys itself every hour by default). It has mechanisms to detect and prevent replay attacks, as well as message integrity checks in case someone manages to break through the protections. It's final defense is a complete shut down of the network and a re-keying of everyone if it detects 2 or 3 MIC failures (the network literally shuts down for a minute).
These days, modern chipsets can do AES in hardware, and there's no reason to use TKIP anymore except in legacy applications (which still exist - though modern software can often just offload the AES in software).
His low-bandwidth link is Iridium - i.e., satphone. I'm sure with one of those things a regular voice call works. BTW, last time I checked, the datathroughput of Iridium was around 9600bps or so. There is a higher-speed packet option, I believe, but I don't have any details on that.
To which, DTMF works very well, and can be used to kick-boot a Linux machine that's connected via serial port into answering the data call. Maybe you can do it such that if the phone rings without anyone picking it up for 5 rings, reboot the linux machine and try again to have it pick up the phone and establish a dialup link with serial command prompt. That Linux machine can then gateway into the management functions of the other machines...
Ah, but the problem is, the people may have donated because they're donating to Gygax's favorite charity. Just because it refused to accept the money doesn't mean that the money can go to another charity.
Even if the CCF name wasn't used, and something like "This donation will go to Gygax's favorite charity", people may be donating under the premise that they're helping Gygax's favorite charity, whatever that may be.
The only option is to refund the money. Even if there's an equivalent charity, some donors may object to that for whatever reason (even if it's "That's not Gygax's charity! I wouldn't have to donated!").
Of course, this is also dependent on whether or not Gen Con recorded the donators and amounts and thus can refund it.
(If you still think "they should just donate it to someone else", what would you do if that "someone else" is PETA? Greenpeace? Red Cross (American or otherwise)? SPCA? Or any one of the many charities that could be even potentially controversial? Like the Discovery Institute?)
Ironically, the PS3's Blu-Ray drive is slower than the Xbox360's DVD drive! That's partly why the drive is so loud - the Xbox360's DVD drive is faster and has a higher throughput than the PS3's Blu-Ray drive. (This was with at least the older PS3s and Xbox360s - I don't know if part changes have resolved this issue).
It's probably why a some PS3 games require "installation" before use - the game loads data onto the hard drive so it's faster to access than the Blu-Ray drive, and helps cut down load times. Some games really seem to abuse it too - loading 5GB of data on the hard disk.
Hrm. I've known many vehicles to have an "open trunk" button/lever/pull-handle accessible within the car - this being even before electronic door locks became common. It's usually a mechanical cable linking the trunk release to the control, though. So it's not a particularly new feature since it's been around for over 30-odd years, if not longer.
The objective being that the driver can pull up, pop the trunk, and the passengers can then load/unload the trunk as they get in/out...
The interesting thing is, on the product page, Sony makes the following statement about the $400 PS3 (80GB, 2 USB ports):
The more expensive $500 PS3 (80 GB, bundled with Metal Gear Solid, has 4 USB ports and card reader) just says "Backwards compatibility".
So it looks like Sony's got something going on here... the more expensive one probably has the GS chip in it (or was it EE?), while the cheaper one has got pure software...
That, and when I was checking it out, they only sold to established companies - you couldn't buy it even if you wanted to... which is probably why it cost so much. I'd go with the free version, but that had a number of limitations.
It appears the only way to actually get full IDA Pro is to ... torrent it.
Upgrade your software. Seriously, if you're a business, you shouldn't be using Home versions of the software.
The HOME versions of XP and Vista (XP Home, Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium) do this automatically. Supposedly there's a way around it with some registry hacking, but I've never bothered. You get around 5 minutes from when the dialog pops up to hit the "Reboot later" button, which just silences it for another 5 minutes.
Windows XP Pro, Vista Business, Vista Enterprise, and Vista Ultimate pop up a dialog asking you to reboot, but they won't force the nasty cannot-save-force-quits-everything reboot. Considering what you get, the only reason to use the Home versions for work is if work is too cheap to get you a laptop and you use your own. The price difference between Home Premium and Business isn't that much, and will be made up in not having your computer reboot unexpectedly on you.
But to get to that 30 seconds, if you didn't tell me the time to look at, I would have to wait 2m30s to get to the point. (Which is an unfortunate problem with video - it's not easily scannable like text, where I can try some search terms and see if the rest of the abstract symbols are worth investigation.
This is hampered by long-winded folks who show 9 minutes of everything and nothing, then get to the point.
There is a happy medium - a combination of text, graphics and video - the video should be used to highly the dynamic part that no text could describe clearly, while the text and pictures can highlight your setup - being static, it's far easier to examine and replicate than to keep seeking 10 seconds back in the video...
Alas, the problem is, video is the new gimmicky feature, so it's video everything even when there are better methods of communicating things. Video for dynamics, graphics for illustration, and text for description. Littering text around a video also helps index it. Or for others, it seems, video is the lazy man's pad of paper - don't want to write it up, so I'll just film it all.
Easy.
Three reasons:
1) Avoid linking your account against a credit card. This way, if the company somehow does something nasty, you're just out the value of your card, but you won't have to keep dealing with the bank if the nastiness involves the company repeatedly billing you over and over again. (Mistakes happen, too - so it just avoids customer support calls to get refunds if double/triple bills).
2) Controlling spending. With a card, you are limited to what you can buy. If your credit card is linked, and you have some buddies over, they may decide you "need" some things and happily get them for you, billing your card in the process. (Or if you get drunk and end up clicking on the "buy now" button). I think there was at least one accidental purchase of that "I Am Rich" application from the iTunes store...
3) Sales. I know for gift cards that sell points (Microsoft Points, Nintendo Points), the in-console exchange rate is fixed - X points per dollar. But I also know that places like Dell often have good discounts on these cards, making them cheaper to buy than the official rate. This is important for stuff like digital downloads - these discounts make them ever so slightly cheaper. But hey, saving money's saving money
As for other reasons why people buy them as gifts - one is they can get them at a discount - e.g., companies may buy $10 gift cards to the coffee place for their employees, and you can be sure the company didn't pay $10/card for them. Or, perhaps the giving of cash is considered tacky in some situations - western nations frown on asking or receiving cash (look at any Ann Landers column and you'll find someone talking about asking for cash, or getting an invite and requesting cash), and not so much Asian culture (where giving money is seen as good). But there are celebrations where the cash is considered a tacky simply because it's a thoughtless gift - it shows the giver couldn't even spend time to try to get a gift. Hence, a gift card - giver isn't sure if recipient already has the item, but knows recipient can make use of it anyways.
If anyone wants to try - I suggest giving cash to your friends/relatives/parents this holiday season equivalent to the value of the gift you were going to buy them. Heck, include shipping and taxes, too. (The fact that people still run around getting gifts for the holidays, and wait in long return lines the week after... why not cut out the trouble and just give cash?)
Sure, it's a scam - as the Dilmom put it, you're converting universal cash for something far more restrictive. And maybe your family loves giving/receiving cash. But there are also cultural and practical reasons for them to exist, and be extremely popular.
Easy, actually.
Amazon has to sell books. Publishers won't give them books to sell on Kindle unless it's got DRM.
Let's translate this to the Amazon MP3 store... Amazon goes to labels asking for music, but mentioning it's DRM free. Labels thing it over, realizing the following:
1) #1 portable music player is an iPod
2) iTunes Store provides DRM'd music for an iPod
3) Windows Media DRM does not work on an iPod
4) Other music stores are limited to the population who doesn't have an iPod
5) Apple holds all the keys to the iTunes Store.
6) Apple holds the key to selling DRM'd music for the #1 portable player.
7) Apple is near the top in music sellers
8) Apple demands far too much - music at 99 cents, rather than "flexible pricing", other contract terms. (Apple insists on one contract for all labels)
9) Lack of competition for music sales on iPods means labels either go without selling music on the #1 player, or agree to Apple's draconian contract terms.
Thus, their only options is to sell Windows Media DRM on the remaining market, or see that Amazon potentially has the size and power to break the grasp that Apple has on music sales for iPods. No other company is large enough nor powerful enough to do this, except Amazon.
So labels acquiesce to Amazon's DRM free scheme, hoping people will flock from iTunes to Amazon to buy their music. Once this happens, the labels can dictate their terms to Amazon and Apple, not Apple dictating their terms to the labels. If one doesn't want to play ball, sell on the other store (e.g., if Jobs insists on not having flexible pricing, well, walk away, and sell to Amazon since it also works on iPods). Let the stores battle it out in attracting labels.
The iTunes store has too much power over the labels, and the labels hate when they don't have control. Amazon is the only company large enough to take on Apple, and the only way to do that is get music onto iPods via DRM-free MP3s. It's one of the reasons why the iTunes Store experiment started with "limited Mac market" as a feature!
There's no equivalent in the book market where the publishers are being squeezed by a book seller, so publishers get to dictate terms.
The only way the music market can continue to be as good as it is now is if both Apple and Amazon end up powerful enough to force the labels. Else we'll start to see DRM'd music in the Amazon store, and whatever else the labels want (demand-based pricing, etc) on both stores.
I second this - if you really don't know what to buy, then do the following:
Find your local Agilent (HP), Tek and LeCroy sales reps and give them a call with your needs, and let them recommend you which line of 'scopes will fit your needs best (do you need mixed signal, digital decode, etc). Then go to their websites and research those scopes to narrow down the models to 1 or 2 at most. (They all make tons of scope models, and each has their own ton of options that can be bought with them. The sales guy will help you narrow down that list.)
Call up the reps again and ask for a loaner to try them out - they'll normally give you a week or two to play with them. Play with all the scopes and try to do what the people in the lab do. At the end, find out what features you like, which were redundant, and phone the reps again asking to see if a different model may suit your needs better after having used them.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
If you're going to be buying many of them, mention it to the sales rep, and also the fact you're buying for university - they'll be more accommodating in loaning you units. One thing they would appreciate is feedback on the units - if something really sucks, they want to know about it
Once you've got a list of several scopes that will suit your needs, it's discussion time about prices and discounts.
But do take advantage of the fact that the sales reps will often loan you equipment.
Except that a majority of TV viewers don't have to do anything when the switchover happens. That's because analog over-the-air is switching to digital. The few people who still receive analog OTA signals will need a digital-capable receiver. (The people who are using OTA because they get better HDTV signals aren't affected - they already are picking up digital signals).
The majority who don't have to do anything? They have cable, satellite, FiOS, or IPTV.
There isn't any equivalent to this in the internet world - it's not like people are using other protocols and the few using IPv4 will be affected.
So why not go the next step and jailbreak your iPod Touch? It is still a valid option, and there's tons of little apps (many of which Apple obviously won't allow in their app store). If you had an iPhone, you could download a tethering app rather than pay for NetShare (which is gone). Heck, Podcaster started as a jailbreak application. And given the installer of choice is Cydia, well, apt-get and dpkg are your friends. And you can develop your own apps, too!
Here's a small list of 10 must-have apps for your jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch. In particular, I do recommend MxTube - download and watch YouTube videos (rather than stream the videos). I don't think there's any other mobile platform that has a YouTube app that downloads the videos for later replay (offline).
Sure it's not a true open platform, but more like console systems that everyone finds fun in hacking.
Except it's not using a client-side vulnerability to achieve its goals. It's not modifying the client to say to the server "the player just earned 1000 gold". Instead, it's manipulating the client to perform actions that the server will award the player stuff. At worse, it would peek inside the RAM to find out where monsters are. In effect, Glider is the MMO equivalent of an FPS aimbot. Except in the case of an MMO, the visibility in the field is a lot lower than an FPS since latency is less of an issue.
If it was using client side vulnerabilities, people would use it to kill on just touching monsters/other players, really, by telling the server "I did 1,000,000 HP damage". At best, all it can do is send the "I hit monster" command to the server as fast as possible.
That's just because they use crappy MIDI synths with crappy samples. (MOst just used the Microsoft provided MIDI synth, which comes with a tiny sample library).
One of the better MIDI soft-synths around is Timidity (GPL!). Couple that with some of the more humongous patches/soundfonts, and they can sound quite spectacular. (There are a few other GPL'd synths around, as well - Timidity works great with GUS ones)
Heck, properly rendering a MIDI file is actually quite CPU intensive, especially if you have a huge sample library since that has to be held in RAM (unless you want to prerender to another format). I'm fairly certain it can bring a good PC to its knees if you have multiple channels with different effects plus mixing. Probably even more than decoding say, MP3s or OGGs.