There are too many things that can go wrong when drives spin up and down. Particularily if the drive hasn't been idle for a large period of time. There's actually a problem where the drive heads can acumulate material from
the disk itself, and by powering down the drive, the heads come to rest and the residue either falls in the drive platters or virtually glues the head to the platter. Not good.
This has happened to me once, a very unsettling
experience that occured after one month's
away-from-home, when I didn't want the
computers turned on for some reason.
Fortunately, I managed to recover the data by
first extracting the HD from the rest of the computer, then turning the power on to the
drive and giving it a carefull shake or two.
This dislodged the heads and the drive
started to work again.
A very nervous move of the
data to another drive followed.
The drive is still in use, but for temporary storage only. Needless to say, I'll never
turn off drives nowadays unless I really have
to.
AFAIK there is a new tax law that allows
"foreign experts" to apply for lower taxes.
I don't know what the requirements for this is
though, mostly because I realize that I'll
never be able to use that rule myself.
It will probably not be better, Nokia havn't managed to produce a working software to my satellite decoder yet, even though it supposedly was "certified" by the satellite provider in May... New software is expected before February.
I must give them credit for their excellent customer contacts though. They have been very quick in responding to my complaints, and have actually replied with substance, not the usual "go away, this is too technical for you" crap.
So, I'd say that "more expensive with better support" is probably what you'll get.
As usual, try to go somewhere and play with the stuff before you buy it. I didn't, mostly because the Nokia decoder was significantly cheaper than other less-famous-brands, and now I suffer for it.
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The real problem with Windows media is not bundling. As you say, some file formats are not viewable or processable with anything but Microsoft tools.
For examle, take a look at the forced removal of asf support in virtualdub.
(http://www.advogato.org/article/101.html)
/w.
This has happened to me once, a very unsettling experience that occured after one month's away-from-home, when I didn't want the computers turned on for some reason.
Fortunately, I managed to recover the data by first extracting the HD from the rest of the computer, then turning the power on to the drive and giving it a carefull shake or two. This dislodged the heads and the drive started to work again.
A very nervous move of the data to another drive followed.
The drive is still in use, but for temporary storage only. Needless to say, I'll never turn off drives nowadays unless I really have to.
--
AFAIK there is a new tax law that allows "foreign experts" to apply for lower taxes. I don't know what the requirements for this is though, mostly because I realize that I'll never be able to use that rule myself.
It will probably not be better, Nokia havn't managed to produce a working software to my satellite decoder yet, even though it supposedly was "certified" by the satellite provider in May... New software is expected before February.
I must give them credit for their excellent customer contacts though. They have been very quick in responding to my complaints, and have actually replied with substance, not the usual "go away, this is too technical for you" crap.
So, I'd say that "more expensive with better support" is probably what you'll get.
As usual, try to go somewhere and play with the stuff before you buy it. I didn't, mostly because the Nokia decoder was significantly cheaper than other less-famous-brands, and now I suffer for it.