Indeed, most of these problems come from the vendors with support staff that are indifferent to such specific problems.
However, it's easy to integrate drivers into a Windows XP CD, be it OEM, retail, VLM, etc, if you've got the INFs (and supporting files). That way, you're able to use the OEM CD with the OEM key and still get it to recognize the newer hardware. I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in comments further down the page, but nLite is the tool I use for this sort of thing.
Of course, that's only one benefit of customizing a WinXP install CD. One of the other major things I find useful is the ability to integrate all current patches into the installer. That makes for a faster overall install, prevents many reboots, and there's no worry about being hit by unpatched vulnerabilities. The CDs I build are also nearly hands-off installers that only ask to select and/or format a hard disk prior to running. I do have an optional post-installer utility that allows selective software installs after Windows is all done, as well.
nLite is a much more powerful tool than what I've made it out to be in the examples above. If you're interested, give it a try. There's also many active forums at MSFN dedicated to making custom Windows installer images.
Anti-disclaimer: No, I'm not affiliated with nLite or MSFN in any way. I'm just a very happy user.
All excellent points. I'd mod your comment up if I were able to.
I have a few additions:
1: Windows itself marks a date/time stamp deep in it's bowels upon initial installation (it's accessible via a WMI query - go search for it). And though the computer in question may have been re-imaged 'recently', that built-in date/time stamp is only relevant if a Windows Install CD were used - even if was heavily modified by an OEM. However, some OEMs will include image-based recovery disks that have a operating system 'snapshot' as it was configured in the factory and would be laid down bit-for-bit on the hard disk. As a result, that built-in date/time stamp would be the same date as it was imaged at the factory, even if it was used to re-image a PC many years later. There are even 3rd-party products that end-users can purchase on their own for the same purpose.
Q's - First, how can it be determined that any re-installation or re-imaging took place at all? If so, how can the 'expert' know which method was used? How did s/he validate when any alleged re-installation was performed? What tools were used? How that data be guaranteed as accurate?
This data can only be an advantage for the plaintiff(s) as a recent date should mean it was imaged with a Windows installer CD and not a laid-down image. This is assuming, of course, that the computer's clock hasn't been tampered with in any way.
2: Dates/times mean nothing unless they can be matched to and compared against the clock on the computer on which the date/time stamps were written or modified. For example, I can set my computer's clock back to 1997 (or earlier) if I really wanted to and have all sorts of files that show they were written back then, even if moved to another computer. The only way to know for sure is to compare the dates/times on the files with the date/time on my PC.
Q's - It appears the determination that the computer in question wasn't used for the alleged infringing file-sharing due to a possible formatting of the hard disk and re-installation of the operating system. This is indicated by the lack of both file-sharing applications and user-created files. It was noted that at least one user-created file was on the hard disk. Obviously, that file would have a date/time stamp on it. Since that date/time stamp is only relevant in relation to the date/time on the system on which it was last modified on, how can the date/time on that file (or any other file recovered from the computer in question) be of any value without comparing the date/time on the computer in question?
3: Even comparing the date/time stamp on a file with the date/time on the originating computer means very little as nearly any computer owner can change the date/time on their computer at will. It can be reasonably controlled with some rights restrictions on the PC by some sort of administrator. However, because the date/time can usually be modified in the BIOS settings and Windows has given the primary user full administrative rights since the day it was conceived, this scenario is more than plausible (although it is rather unlikely - what motive is there, really?).
Q's - How can the 'expert' be certain that the date/time settings on the computer are, in fact, accurate? What tools were used to guarantee that data? Isn't it possible that the date/time on the computer could have been modified, intentionally or otherwise, to show a different date/time before, during, or after the alleged re-installation of the OS?
So, picking apart the date/time of the alleged re-imaging, files on the disk, etc. is certainly a good idea. It is both one of the more relevant points and is easy to poke enormous holes in if the 'expert' wasn't diligent in corroborating all the evidence.
That greatly depends on the type of formatting chosen.
1: A 'quick' format does exactly what you describe. The formatting tool tells the hard disk to mark the TOC as having all sectors blank but does not actually go to the actual sectors to write data. It's slightly more complicated than that (like telling it how many sectors go into a cluster, for instance), but this is what it boils down to in terms of the disk surface.
2: A 'full' format will cover every sector of the disk (in addition to the TOC) to verify that the sector is in proper working order. It does so by writing some data and verifying the contents afterwards. This is the default method Windows XP uses when you ask it to reformat your hard disk. Afterwards, you'll know that every sector in the TOC is in good working order and can read and write data successfully. It is the recommended method of formatting if you think you have a disk starting to fail.
As noted in another comment, basic forensic software can easily handle a 'quick' formatted drive by reading raw sectors. However, a drive that's been 'full' formatted won't have any meaningful data recovered from those same basic sector-reading tools. In fact, the drive itself might not even be capable of reading data from overwritten sectors via a software tool. It is much more likely that the platters would need to be removed and inspected using expensive and specialized hardware to look beyond the current 'non-data'. Even then, successfully reading the previous data is *very* difficult and sometimes requires manual and time-consuming reconstruction.
I haven't seen all the comments below just yet, but here's reinforcement of the posts before mine: The availability (some might say ubiquity) of digital cameras is a near-perfect analog to the proverbial thousand-monkeys-in-a-room. Sure, we might see some amazing pictures of world, national, or local events, but it's not the quantity that makes the difference. It's the quality.
As an amateur photographer myself, I know how difficult it is to communicate effectively in a purely visual medium. There's a number of factors that must be considered - color, light, framing, depth-of-field, etc. All of this is before we start to get into the actual camera settings required to effectively capture the image. It's definitely an art, and it's not going to go away any time soon. And don't give me any crap about how technology can take the guesswork out of it. Yes, you can make perfectly good snapshots (NOT photographs) with a point-and-shoot camera in automatic mode. Almost always, those settings are meant to give consistent results, not artistic results. (Although, one could make the argument that using the automatic mode itself can be a tool in the artist's kit. I digress..)
Rather, what I see happening in the future is camera-phones, compact digital cameras, and fixed web-enabled security-style cameras (among others) will bring us the most current images of breaking news while actual journalists will arrive later (if deemed newsworthy) and provide a higher quality product for the public to consume. It's not very much different than the situation today.
After all, most of the people I know aren't actively looking for events to submit to news agencies. Most of the photos and videos they take are newsworthy only to themselves and perhaps their family and friends. Only if something major happens will it wind up on someone's sensor or film. I seriously doubt people are going to change all that much in the near future.
I've tried both m0n0wall and Smoothwall, but neither of them seemed as easy to use. IPCop is (to me) logically laid out and incredibly easy to configure with nothing more than the descriptions on each of the config pages in the GUI.
As for hardware config, I'm running a 1GHz P3 that I swiped out of a friend's PC that he was upgrading (long ago - a socket 370). It's got 256MB of RAM, and a 4GB disk, as well. This setup is *way* more than enough to run IPCop. One of it's advantages is a small system footprint, so it can run on things like the soekris boards. The newest model - the 4801 - is a 266MHz AMD Geode CPU w/ 128MB of RAM. That system is also fairly peppy for IPCop.
Another friend of mine is running on a P90 and 32MB of RAM. With the proxy features turned on, he'd hit the swap space pretty hard. He has since turned the proxy features off and is running a cable-modem connection into his whole house with it (about 8-10 devices).
I'm sure Smoothwall and m0n0wall are similar in their system requirements.
For me, IPCop is just much easier to figure out and use. I was considering getting the book, but I'm not so sure now that I've read the review. I've pretty much figured everything out.
To answer the original post of "Why isn't AM2 as successful as it could have been?", I offer the following:
1: Timing - Intel was already releasing chipsets that offered most of the major features that AM2 brought. Namely, that's DDR2 support. Put simply, AMD waited just a little too long to get the AM2 platfor out the door. I remember seeing (very eager) questions about when AMD would be releasing a platform that supports DDR2, but AMD stated - and I'm paraphrasing, here - "You don't need DDR2, yet. See? Look at the performance numbers." While this is true, they missed the perfect opportunity to hit a market at peak interest. As AMD delayed the rollout, interest waned. By the time they brought it to market, it appeared that most of the buzz they generated was gone.
2: Poor release - After telling everyone that they didn't yet need the features that AM2 would have brought them, they failed to re-generate the buzz and interest in the product upon release. Most people I know (myself included) really are perfectly happy with the performance of Socket 939 and DDR. I have no interest in buying an AM2 system mainly because the performance gains I'd get by upgrading nearly my entire system isn't worth it. I suspect that many others feel the same. This attitude is a direct result of AMD's earlier position on the lack of performance benefits of DDR2 and the other new technologies.
In other words, AMD missed the boat with AM2 and they have nobody but themselves to blame. I suspect their teams could feel the consumer anticipation, but just didn't have a product ready to get out the door. And, instead of releasing a half-finished platform, they decided to downplay the seemingly minor advantages until their product was made ready. Adjusting consumer expectations in that manner killed the interest in their newest offerings mainly because it they didn't bring anything new that Intel wasn't offering.
The point about how the 3D video card market has stabilized and how the sound card market has done so in a similar manner is a little off.
With 3D video cards, there's 2 major players - ATI and nVidia. Both support Direct3D and OpenGL. The only real differences are what extras are thrown in the mix for each new revision of their respective chips.
With sound cards (for gaming purposes, anyway), it's pretty much all Creative Labs. There's really only multiple variations of EAX for accelerated sound in games. With Creative being the only major player in the market, they can do pretty much anything they want with the direction of EAX. Some other manufacturers have licensed the older EAX versions to be included on their own cards (don't ask me now, I'm too lazy to go look it up).
The major *realistic* difference is that slightly bad video is so much more noticable to the average person than slightly bad sound. Furthermore, it's easy to compare two screenshots on the web than it is to compare two audio clips. Therefore, the ability to do an A/B comparison to detect differences is much easier with visual content than audio content. Not that it's impossible, but the internet as it is today is still primarily a visual medium.
Chaff does little to prevent ballistic projectiles from actually reaching their target. The purpose of chaff is, instead, to confuse radar receivers by overwhelming them with an abundance of reflected radar energy. It's like shining a bright light at a camera so it can't see anything through the glare.
This system, it appears, is a point-defense system. It's not unlike the Navy's CIWS (pronounced Sea-Wiz) defense guns. That system fires thousands of rounds per minute at an incoming ballistic target and essentially wears the casing down until it self-destructs at a safe distance from the ship. Employing such a system on a ground-based vehicle seems to be the next logical step.
Yes, there will still be a market, but not for the reasons I've seen anyone mention.
Microsoft is a single entity. Large as it is, and as many people as it employs, it's still a single entity that acts as such. Everyone under the Microsoft umbrella will be addressing the malware (and I include such things as viruses, spyware, installware, etc. under that term) from a single point of view. That's inherently dangerous, no matter how much money, people, effort, or any other resource they want to throw at the problem. It's not a matter of how much they can throw at it because there will always be something they didn't predict would be a problem or just got by because of limited focus on the approach.
Good security measures come from multiple points of view, much like threats can attack from multiple vectors. Microsoft, as a single entity, is not going to be able to 'fix' the malware problem all on it's own. It would be foolish to think they can, even assuming the best of intentions.
Ultimately, the best security is going to be prevention, and Microsoft is at least making an effort to give some basic tools to end-users.
The one thing that has me worried is that the tools Microsoft is providing with the OS will be integrated into the OS itself. That approach is short-sighted in that it very well might be the tool *itself* that has a vulnerability. If it's so integrated with the OS, it could present problems with other future threats that take advantage of that integration.
Your analogy is flawed. Before I get flamed into oblivion, let me explain.
Food is a 'need' item. Baseball gloves are (typically) a 'want' item. Both movies and games are 'want' items in absolute terms. Most ordinary consumers *could* do without either and still survive on a daily basis. Same goes for baseball gloves. The same cannot be said about food. I'm ignoring the fact that the primary audience here certainly would suggest that games and/or movies are more than 'want' items, though.
However, your point still stands that comparing games and movies for the same dollar(s) isn't always fair. What balances pricing in the market is a complex equasion that I won't even try to fully lay out. There are some obvious items that might help explain the general price difference:
1: Movies have a larger base of consumers than games. Perhaps not as much as pricing might suggest, but it could be fair to say that there are certainly households that have DVD players (and purchase movies on DVD) and do not purchase games (PC or console). I would think that the inverse - PC/Console owners that buy games and do not buy movies - is *very* unlikely. The demand for a product from a smaller set of consumers would naturally lead to higher prices than if the set of consumers were larger, all else being equal. The target audience for movies is intentionally very broad. The target audience for games is, by comparison, rather narrow. Keep in mind, this is strictly my perception, and it might be a long way from reality. No need to give me counter-examples, as I'm perfectly aware they're out there.
2: Cost per shipped unit is higher. Ignore the costs of production (including bug testing, buying computers to write code on, hiring developers, buying master film, hiring actors, editing, etc.) for just a moment, and consider only the physical material in the package. In most games, there are disc(s) and manual(s), and usually contained in a cardboard box of some type. The typical DVD has a molded plastic case and a sheet or small fold-out of content with the disc. From a materials point of view, the DVD should be less expensive. Again, simply my perception. And again, no need for counter-examples - I'm aware they're out there.
3: Perceived value for games is higher than that of movies. Spending $50 on a game that will give you unique content for 10+ hours seems (to me) to be a better value than a $20 DVD with about 3 hours of unique content. My 'bang for buck' is better with games than for movies.
There are going to be many more factors than can be explored by the crowd at/., but the market will usually figure itself out over time. I think pricing for both DVDs and games is just fine where it is, so long as my perceived value per dollar is sufficiently high.
Seriously, I just hit my normal list of geek news sites whenever I have a batch process running that needs occasional attention. Most of the time, it's a CD/DVD backup, a hard disk copy, or some audio processing. During whatever process I run, I fire up the browser and hit/. and a few other sites to get up to speed on what the world has going on.
The basic point is that the CD ripping isn't a task that requires a constant monitor, nor is it one that needs to be Ronco simple ('Set-it-and-forget-it!'). If either of the two extremes aren't feasible, accept that fact and start multitasking.
Of course, that's assuming that the need to rip 300+ CDs isn't absolutely immediate, as in, 'I need it done today'. If that's the case, I have nothing for you.
This is exactly why the telcos are (to me) being seen as greedy f'n bastards. They're already getting payment from me (and their other customers) to utilize their bandwidth. Now they apparently want to double-dip and charge the party at the far end to send packets of data to the telco's paying customer. Essentially, in POTS terms, they want both the caller and the callee to pay for the same conversation.
Google pays for the bandwidth they use from their provider. I, as a broadband connected citizen, pay for the bandwidth I use to connect to Google. Essentially, the telcos are already getting paid twice - once to accept the packet and again to deliver it to it's destination.
There is *NO* reason why additional charges should be allowed. It's lunacy to think that this could be allowed to happen. Cost of access can do nothing but go up, which will further widen the gap between those that can afford to be online and those that cannot.
If the telcos aren't happy with how much they're paid to have data travel across their network, then they should re-address their pricing structure with their customers directly.
Knowing what a price increase would mean to the number of customers they'd retain, the safer alternative is clear - charge the companies that their users want data from.
Free lunch?! Ha! They've kept their lunch safe and now they're asking for the $50/plate buffet. Greedy f'n bastards...
I purchased the parts to build a new system based around the X2 4600+ and it came with the same cooler, too. This was in June '05.
The system I put the CPU into was a Shuttle SN25P. It uses it's own cooling solution which, ironically, uses the mounts for a Socket 478 P4. It works beautifully in a push-pull configuration, but it feels really odd specifying an Intel socket when looking for potential water-cooling parts.
The problem I find with the stock AMD heatsink with the heat-pipes is that most motherboards are going to be mounted vertically. This isn't the best way for the heat-pipes to their job and, in other designs, might do more harm than good.
Yeah.... I'm used to using Regex in vbscript code I write on a regular basis, and the brackets tend to help with that.
Besides, I just copy-paste the regex I want to use from my handy plain-text cheat/helper file. I had the brackets in there when I started putting it together, and I haven't really "fixed" it in any meaningful way - ever. It just works.
Of course, this isn't an all-inclusive list. But it's definitely a large chunk of what Dreamweaver's cleanup utility misses. Afterwards, manual formatting is much easier as there's much less to get in the way.
Oh, and if anyone wants to see Microsoft's regular expression reference, it can be found here.
Ummm... That isn't entirely true. The FCC has multiple classes of licensing for electronics. The majority of consumer electronics, including devices that operate in the 2.4GHz band, have this restriction. However, I'm sure the security systems for the airport have different restrictions on emitting and receiving interference-causing signals.
In fact, a quick dig at the FCC's site (here) regarding Radio Devices alone shows lots of different requirements for any various spectrum, device, etc.
Specific to my point, FM radio broadcasters are allowed protection from interference as outlined here.
Knowing just the basics about FCC licensing, however, I do know that this is all a load of crap from the airport authorities. Devices operating in the 2.4GHz band are licensed for use under the condition that they don't cause any interference with other electronics. As long as those devices are not modified to operate outside the rules under which they were licensed, they wouldn't and there's no reason the FCC should, or would, get involved. And, as others have noted, if the 2.4GHz signals from Continental's WiFi equipment are interfering with the airport's security systems, what is preventing the same interference from the airport's own WiFi equipment?
The point is that the airport is being greedy and wants control over all WiFi access so they can charge for it. It's purely profit motivated, and all rather childish.
That will last until another law is passed that makes the mere possession of string a federal offense.
Then the laws about the duscussion about string come about...
It won't end until enough of these stupid laws have passed and people realize what's really going on that it will be too late to do anything about it. We'll need to break away and colonize some other planet and implement some "future-proof" laws (impossible, but worth another try).
This sounds like a great idea for radiant floor/wall heat, but I'd be a bit concerned about consistent temperature at a given flow-rate for typical potable hot water usage. A thermostat could help keep it below a maximum, but keeping a minimum could be difficult unless a certain amount of "overkill" were built into the system. We're then talking about increasing costs for diminishing returns... Money no object? Sure. But even high-priced homes have to be built on some sort of budget (sky high as they may seem).
And I'm looking to build in the snow-belt, where, during the winter months, we only see 8 or so hours of daylight for a few months. For the months that we need it most, we'll be getting the least sunshine per day. For the months that we need it least, we'll be seeing the most sunshine per day. That's the sort of inverse-proprotial supply/demand ratio that doesn't allow this sort of solution to catch on with everyone.
Don't get me wrong - I think solar-powered anything is great (flashlight, anyone?). But this seems to fit better as a solution to a more limited-use situation or one in which it can be supplemented with another, more reliable source of heat.
I hit this through the mirrordot link from above...
This is exactly how a good thermal heat-pump operates. However, a few "upgrades" would make this perfectly viable for a home of 1500+ sq. feet.
1: Make it a closed-loop system, or even a dual-loop system. 2: Use a good radiator and heat-block. Think of a water-cooling rig on a PC, but in reverse and a much larger scale. 3: Use the earth, itself, as both the source and destination of heat.
Most people that have done this for their homes use the earth as a natural heat sink. If it's new construction, they typically dig shallow, but wide. In a retro-fit, they'll drill deep and narrow. Either way, the earth holds a pretty steady temperature below 6-8 feet or so. All that's needed is a way to put heat into it when you want to cool off and a way to get heat out of it when you want to warm up.
This way, all that you spend money on is the electricity to pump the heat-carrying fluid/gas/whatever into and out of the tubes in the ground. If that isn't enough, a small furnace and/or A/C unit can supplement, if need be. Either way, the energy consumed from the utility companies is a fraction of "normal".
I have plans to build a new home in the next 3-5 years, and I'm looking at all sorts of alternatives to just about everything that consumes energy in a home.
1: Geothermal heat pump(s) for climate-control. 2: On-Demand, CNG water heater (i.e.: no tank to keep warm) 3: Solar-powered radiant heat (suplements forced-air from #1) 4: On-Demand lighting (sensors that detect room occupancy)
I'm missing a number of other things I could do, but the goal is to have a home with all sorts of modern conveniences while trying to reduce the energy usage associated with most of them. It's tempting to add a water-cooling loop to the climate-control system for the comptuers. They're already producing heat, so why not just send it directly to it's destination and avoid that pesky conversion to heated air?
Getting back on-topic, this guy hasn't done anything new. In fact, it's rather wasteful to just use a coil of copper tubing tied to the back of a fan. The fact that he's using ice water (as mentioned in other posts) does nothing to save energy costs. After all, he's got to power a freezer to make the ice to begin with, which offsets most of the savings. Never mind that the heat from the water (plus the heat from the machine, itself) went into the living space that he's trying to cool.
And that he's a student, and *probably* not paying for much, if any, of his utility costs. But I digress...
Ok, I haven't seen a reply to your post, so I think I'll chime in for DNS n00bs.
Setting up a proper DNS server isn't too hard (as indicated by the number of posters that have done just that). However, it does take a bit of knowledge about how DNS really works. To that end I suggest you read some books about Networking, and DNS in particular.
I've found the O'Reilly books to be fairly easy to read while providing a great starting point for those that have a broad, basic understanding of how networks (and computers) operate. Specifically, I'd recommend DNS and BIND. This assumes that you have some LAN experience, this is a great place to start. It does tend to focus a bit on BIND (Berkley Internet Name Domain), but most DNS servers are based on it's general feature-set and configuration, anyway.
By itself, this book won't allow you to set up your own DNS server. However, it will help you get that core understanding of HOW DNS actually works and what you can get it to do for you. You'll have a choice of software on a number of differnet platforms, but the general operation will pretty much be the same across them all.
And there are plenty of other books and publications on DNS, so don't limit yourself if O'Reilly doesn't do it for you.
This probably wasn't the answer you were looking for, but it really is what you needed.
So... its not handled as much because people don't recognise it.... because its not used much. Isn't that rather pardoxial? Wouldnt all denomiations have this problem if that were the reason?
Yes, I suppose it would. But (as noted in other replies), the $2 bill tends to be less useful in daily situations for a number of reasons. The $1 bill tends to function fine for purchases up to about $5 to $10 or so. The $2 bill is just half the material for the same currency value you'd get from $1 bills, but you've reduced your granularity for those purchases that don't total an even dollar amount - i.e. $13.00. You'll still need at least one $1 bill to complete a transaction with this total (assuming no coins are used).
The point wasn't that the local police were too dumb to recognize the $2 bill as currency. When the ink on the bills appeared to smear, it created some concern over the legitimacy of the bills in terms of being counterfeits of legitimate currency.
Pardon me for interjecting, but I did RTFA a day or two ago when this appeared elsewhere...
The basic sequence of events were as follows:
1: Disgruntled customer arrives at store intending to pay invoice with $2 bills.
2: Employee isn't familiar with the $2 bill and refuses to accept as payment.
3: Fast-forward - Police arrive to sort the matter out. Ink on the bills smears a bit. Suspicions of counterfit money result.
4: Customer is handcuffed and brought to police station for further questioning/investigation.
5: U.S. Secret Service agents (yes, the're the final authority on U.S. currency) arrive and release customer after bills are inspected and found to be completely legit.
In this particular case, the local police probably knew about $2 as legitimate U.S. currency, but were suspicious when the ink on the bills smeared a bit. After the Secret Service inspected the bills, they informed the local police (paraphrasing), "They do that, sometimes."
Under the circumstances, the whole situation could have been avoided by a little education on the part of the Best Buy cashier. I still think this needs to be done, and rather painfully. However, the local police seemed to follow proper protocol. Ink on U.S. currency doesn't usually smear or smudge because it's usually handled often enough for the excess to wear off quickly. The $2 is not generally handled as much and this seems to be a perfect example of why it isn't.
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Indeed, most of these problems come from the vendors with support staff that are indifferent to such specific problems.
However, it's easy to integrate drivers into a Windows XP CD, be it OEM, retail, VLM, etc, if you've got the INFs (and supporting files). That way, you're able to use the OEM CD with the OEM key and still get it to recognize the newer hardware. I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in comments further down the page, but nLite is the tool I use for this sort of thing.
Of course, that's only one benefit of customizing a WinXP install CD. One of the other major things I find useful is the ability to integrate all current patches into the installer. That makes for a faster overall install, prevents many reboots, and there's no worry about being hit by unpatched vulnerabilities. The CDs I build are also nearly hands-off installers that only ask to select and/or format a hard disk prior to running. I do have an optional post-installer utility that allows selective software installs after Windows is all done, as well.
nLite is a much more powerful tool than what I've made it out to be in the examples above. If you're interested, give it a try. There's also many active forums at MSFN dedicated to making custom Windows installer images.
Anti-disclaimer: No, I'm not affiliated with nLite or MSFN in any way. I'm just a very happy user.
All excellent points. I'd mod your comment up if I were able to.
I have a few additions:
1: Windows itself marks a date/time stamp deep in it's bowels upon initial installation (it's accessible via a WMI query - go search for it). And though the computer in question may have been re-imaged 'recently', that built-in date/time stamp is only relevant if a Windows Install CD were used - even if was heavily modified by an OEM. However, some OEMs will include image-based recovery disks that have a operating system 'snapshot' as it was configured in the factory and would be laid down bit-for-bit on the hard disk. As a result, that built-in date/time stamp would be the same date as it was imaged at the factory, even if it was used to re-image a PC many years later. There are even 3rd-party products that end-users can purchase on their own for the same purpose.
Q's - First, how can it be determined that any re-installation or re-imaging took place at all? If so, how can the 'expert' know which method was used? How did s/he validate when any alleged re-installation was performed? What tools were used? How that data be guaranteed as accurate?
This data can only be an advantage for the plaintiff(s) as a recent date should mean it was imaged with a Windows installer CD and not a laid-down image. This is assuming, of course, that the computer's clock hasn't been tampered with in any way.
2: Dates/times mean nothing unless they can be matched to and compared against the clock on the computer on which the date/time stamps were written or modified. For example, I can set my computer's clock back to 1997 (or earlier) if I really wanted to and have all sorts of files that show they were written back then, even if moved to another computer. The only way to know for sure is to compare the dates/times on the files with the date/time on my PC.
Q's - It appears the determination that the computer in question wasn't used for the alleged infringing file-sharing due to a possible formatting of the hard disk and re-installation of the operating system. This is indicated by the lack of both file-sharing applications and user-created files. It was noted that at least one user-created file was on the hard disk. Obviously, that file would have a date/time stamp on it. Since that date/time stamp is only relevant in relation to the date/time on the system on which it was last modified on, how can the date/time on that file (or any other file recovered from the computer in question) be of any value without comparing the date/time on the computer in question?
3: Even comparing the date/time stamp on a file with the date/time on the originating computer means very little as nearly any computer owner can change the date/time on their computer at will. It can be reasonably controlled with some rights restrictions on the PC by some sort of administrator. However, because the date/time can usually be modified in the BIOS settings and Windows has given the primary user full administrative rights since the day it was conceived, this scenario is more than plausible (although it is rather unlikely - what motive is there, really?).
Q's - How can the 'expert' be certain that the date/time settings on the computer are, in fact, accurate? What tools were used to guarantee that data? Isn't it possible that the date/time on the computer could have been modified, intentionally or otherwise, to show a different date/time before, during, or after the alleged re-installation of the OS?
So, picking apart the date/time of the alleged re-imaging, files on the disk, etc. is certainly a good idea. It is both one of the more relevant points and is easy to poke enormous holes in if the 'expert' wasn't diligent in corroborating all the evidence.
That greatly depends on the type of formatting chosen.
1: A 'quick' format does exactly what you describe. The formatting tool tells the hard disk to mark the TOC as having all sectors blank but does not actually go to the actual sectors to write data. It's slightly more complicated than that (like telling it how many sectors go into a cluster, for instance), but this is what it boils down to in terms of the disk surface.
2: A 'full' format will cover every sector of the disk (in addition to the TOC) to verify that the sector is in proper working order. It does so by writing some data and verifying the contents afterwards. This is the default method Windows XP uses when you ask it to reformat your hard disk. Afterwards, you'll know that every sector in the TOC is in good working order and can read and write data successfully. It is the recommended method of formatting if you think you have a disk starting to fail.
As noted in another comment, basic forensic software can easily handle a 'quick' formatted drive by reading raw sectors. However, a drive that's been 'full' formatted won't have any meaningful data recovered from those same basic sector-reading tools. In fact, the drive itself might not even be capable of reading data from overwritten sectors via a software tool. It is much more likely that the platters would need to be removed and inspected using expensive and specialized hardware to look beyond the current 'non-data'. Even then, successfully reading the previous data is *very* difficult and sometimes requires manual and time-consuming reconstruction.
I haven't seen all the comments below just yet, but here's reinforcement of the posts before mine: The availability (some might say ubiquity) of digital cameras is a near-perfect analog to the proverbial thousand-monkeys-in-a-room. Sure, we might see some amazing pictures of world, national, or local events, but it's not the quantity that makes the difference. It's the quality.
As an amateur photographer myself, I know how difficult it is to communicate effectively in a purely visual medium. There's a number of factors that must be considered - color, light, framing, depth-of-field, etc. All of this is before we start to get into the actual camera settings required to effectively capture the image. It's definitely an art, and it's not going to go away any time soon. And don't give me any crap about how technology can take the guesswork out of it. Yes, you can make perfectly good snapshots (NOT photographs) with a point-and-shoot camera in automatic mode. Almost always, those settings are meant to give consistent results, not artistic results. (Although, one could make the argument that using the automatic mode itself can be a tool in the artist's kit. I digress..)
Rather, what I see happening in the future is camera-phones, compact digital cameras, and fixed web-enabled security-style cameras (among others) will bring us the most current images of breaking news while actual journalists will arrive later (if deemed newsworthy) and provide a higher quality product for the public to consume. It's not very much different than the situation today.
After all, most of the people I know aren't actively looking for events to submit to news agencies. Most of the photos and videos they take are newsworthy only to themselves and perhaps their family and friends. Only if something major happens will it wind up on someone's sensor or film. I seriously doubt people are going to change all that much in the near future.
That's my take on it, anyway.
I've tried both m0n0wall and Smoothwall, but neither of them seemed as easy to use. IPCop is (to me) logically laid out and incredibly easy to configure with nothing more than the descriptions on each of the config pages in the GUI.
As for hardware config, I'm running a 1GHz P3 that I swiped out of a friend's PC that he was upgrading (long ago - a socket 370). It's got 256MB of RAM, and a 4GB disk, as well. This setup is *way* more than enough to run IPCop. One of it's advantages is a small system footprint, so it can run on things like the soekris boards. The newest model - the 4801 - is a 266MHz AMD Geode CPU w/ 128MB of RAM. That system is also fairly peppy for IPCop.
Another friend of mine is running on a P90 and 32MB of RAM. With the proxy features turned on, he'd hit the swap space pretty hard. He has since turned the proxy features off and is running a cable-modem connection into his whole house with it (about 8-10 devices).
I'm sure Smoothwall and m0n0wall are similar in their system requirements.
For me, IPCop is just much easier to figure out and use. I was considering getting the book, but I'm not so sure now that I've read the review. I've pretty much figured everything out.
To answer the original post of "Why isn't AM2 as successful as it could have been?", I offer the following:
1: Timing - Intel was already releasing chipsets that offered most of the major features that AM2 brought. Namely, that's DDR2 support. Put simply, AMD waited just a little too long to get the AM2 platfor out the door. I remember seeing (very eager) questions about when AMD would be releasing a platform that supports DDR2, but AMD stated - and I'm paraphrasing, here - "You don't need DDR2, yet. See? Look at the performance numbers." While this is true, they missed the perfect opportunity to hit a market at peak interest. As AMD delayed the rollout, interest waned. By the time they brought it to market, it appeared that most of the buzz they generated was gone.
2: Poor release - After telling everyone that they didn't yet need the features that AM2 would have brought them, they failed to re-generate the buzz and interest in the product upon release. Most people I know (myself included) really are perfectly happy with the performance of Socket 939 and DDR. I have no interest in buying an AM2 system mainly because the performance gains I'd get by upgrading nearly my entire system isn't worth it. I suspect that many others feel the same. This attitude is a direct result of AMD's earlier position on the lack of performance benefits of DDR2 and the other new technologies.
In other words, AMD missed the boat with AM2 and they have nobody but themselves to blame. I suspect their teams could feel the consumer anticipation, but just didn't have a product ready to get out the door. And, instead of releasing a half-finished platform, they decided to downplay the seemingly minor advantages until their product was made ready. Adjusting consumer expectations in that manner killed the interest in their newest offerings mainly because it they didn't bring anything new that Intel wasn't offering.
Just my $.02
It appears that many people here are forgetful. This is the same Circuit City that brought us DIVX (See this).
They're not interested at all in listening to "the little guys", else DIVX wouldn't have seen the light of day. The motive here appears to be profit.
The point about how the 3D video card market has stabilized and how the sound card market has done so in a similar manner is a little off.
With 3D video cards, there's 2 major players - ATI and nVidia. Both support Direct3D and OpenGL. The only real differences are what extras are thrown in the mix for each new revision of their respective chips.
With sound cards (for gaming purposes, anyway), it's pretty much all Creative Labs. There's really only multiple variations of EAX for accelerated sound in games. With Creative being the only major player in the market, they can do pretty much anything they want with the direction of EAX. Some other manufacturers have licensed the older EAX versions to be included on their own cards (don't ask me now, I'm too lazy to go look it up).
The major *realistic* difference is that slightly bad video is so much more noticable to the average person than slightly bad sound. Furthermore, it's easy to compare two screenshots on the web than it is to compare two audio clips. Therefore, the ability to do an A/B comparison to detect differences is much easier with visual content than audio content. Not that it's impossible, but the internet as it is today is still primarily a visual medium.
Chaff does little to prevent ballistic projectiles from actually reaching their target. The purpose of chaff is, instead, to confuse radar receivers by overwhelming them with an abundance of reflected radar energy. It's like shining a bright light at a camera so it can't see anything through the glare.
This system, it appears, is a point-defense system. It's not unlike the Navy's CIWS (pronounced Sea-Wiz) defense guns. That system fires thousands of rounds per minute at an incoming ballistic target and essentially wears the casing down until it self-destructs at a safe distance from the ship. Employing such a system on a ground-based vehicle seems to be the next logical step.
However, it's definitely not a forcefield.
Yes, there will still be a market, but not for the reasons I've seen anyone mention.
Microsoft is a single entity. Large as it is, and as many people as it employs, it's still a single entity that acts as such. Everyone under the Microsoft umbrella will be addressing the malware (and I include such things as viruses, spyware, installware, etc. under that term) from a single point of view. That's inherently dangerous, no matter how much money, people, effort, or any other resource they want to throw at the problem. It's not a matter of how much they can throw at it because there will always be something they didn't predict would be a problem or just got by because of limited focus on the approach.
Good security measures come from multiple points of view, much like threats can attack from multiple vectors. Microsoft, as a single entity, is not going to be able to 'fix' the malware problem all on it's own. It would be foolish to think they can, even assuming the best of intentions.
Ultimately, the best security is going to be prevention, and Microsoft is at least making an effort to give some basic tools to end-users.
The one thing that has me worried is that the tools Microsoft is providing with the OS will be integrated into the OS itself. That approach is short-sighted in that it very well might be the tool *itself* that has a vulnerability. If it's so integrated with the OS, it could present problems with other future threats that take advantage of that integration.
Your analogy is flawed. Before I get flamed into oblivion, let me explain.
/., but the market will usually figure itself out over time. I think pricing for both DVDs and games is just fine where it is, so long as my perceived value per dollar is sufficiently high.
Food is a 'need' item. Baseball gloves are (typically) a 'want' item. Both movies and games are 'want' items in absolute terms. Most ordinary consumers *could* do without either and still survive on a daily basis. Same goes for baseball gloves. The same cannot be said about food. I'm ignoring the fact that the primary audience here certainly would suggest that games and/or movies are more than 'want' items, though.
However, your point still stands that comparing games and movies for the same dollar(s) isn't always fair. What balances pricing in the market is a complex equasion that I won't even try to fully lay out. There are some obvious items that might help explain the general price difference:
1: Movies have a larger base of consumers than games. Perhaps not as much as pricing might suggest, but it could be fair to say that there are certainly households that have DVD players (and purchase movies on DVD) and do not purchase games (PC or console). I would think that the inverse - PC/Console owners that buy games and do not buy movies - is *very* unlikely. The demand for a product from a smaller set of consumers would naturally lead to higher prices than if the set of consumers were larger, all else being equal. The target audience for movies is intentionally very broad. The target audience for games is, by comparison, rather narrow. Keep in mind, this is strictly my perception, and it might be a long way from reality. No need to give me counter-examples, as I'm perfectly aware they're out there.
2: Cost per shipped unit is higher. Ignore the costs of production (including bug testing, buying computers to write code on, hiring developers, buying master film, hiring actors, editing, etc.) for just a moment, and consider only the physical material in the package. In most games, there are disc(s) and manual(s), and usually contained in a cardboard box of some type. The typical DVD has a molded plastic case and a sheet or small fold-out of content with the disc. From a materials point of view, the DVD should be less expensive. Again, simply my perception. And again, no need for counter-examples - I'm aware they're out there.
3: Perceived value for games is higher than that of movies. Spending $50 on a game that will give you unique content for 10+ hours seems (to me) to be a better value than a $20 DVD with about 3 hours of unique content. My 'bang for buck' is better with games than for movies.
There are going to be many more factors than can be explored by the crowd at
Even better - Read /. while ripping!
/. and a few other sites to get up to speed on what the world has going on.
Seriously, I just hit my normal list of geek news sites whenever I have a batch process running that needs occasional attention. Most of the time, it's a CD/DVD backup, a hard disk copy, or some audio processing. During whatever process I run, I fire up the browser and hit
The basic point is that the CD ripping isn't a task that requires a constant monitor, nor is it one that needs to be Ronco simple ('Set-it-and-forget-it!'). If either of the two extremes aren't feasible, accept that fact and start multitasking.
Of course, that's assuming that the need to rip 300+ CDs isn't absolutely immediate, as in, 'I need it done today'. If that's the case, I have nothing for you.
This is exactly why the telcos are (to me) being seen as greedy f'n bastards. They're already getting payment from me (and their other customers) to utilize their bandwidth. Now they apparently want to double-dip and charge the party at the far end to send packets of data to the telco's paying customer. Essentially, in POTS terms, they want both the caller and the callee to pay for the same conversation.
Google pays for the bandwidth they use from their provider. I, as a broadband connected citizen, pay for the bandwidth I use to connect to Google. Essentially, the telcos are already getting paid twice - once to accept the packet and again to deliver it to it's destination.
There is *NO* reason why additional charges should be allowed. It's lunacy to think that this could be allowed to happen. Cost of access can do nothing but go up, which will further widen the gap between those that can afford to be online and those that cannot.
If the telcos aren't happy with how much they're paid to have data travel across their network, then they should re-address their pricing structure with their customers directly.
Knowing what a price increase would mean to the number of customers they'd retain, the safer alternative is clear - charge the companies that their users want data from.
Free lunch?! Ha! They've kept their lunch safe and now they're asking for the $50/plate buffet. Greedy f'n bastards...
I purchased the parts to build a new system based around the X2 4600+ and it came with the same cooler, too. This was in June '05.
The system I put the CPU into was a Shuttle SN25P. It uses it's own cooling solution which, ironically, uses the mounts for a Socket 478 P4. It works beautifully in a push-pull configuration, but it feels really odd specifying an Intel socket when looking for potential water-cooling parts.
The problem I find with the stock AMD heatsink with the heat-pipes is that most motherboards are going to be mounted vertically. This isn't the best way for the heat-pipes to their job and, in other designs, might do more harm than good.
Yeah.... I'm used to using Regex in vbscript code I write on a regular basis, and the brackets tend to help with that.
Besides, I just copy-paste the regex I want to use from my handy plain-text cheat/helper file. I had the brackets in there when I started putting it together, and I haven't really "fixed" it in any meaningful way - ever. It just works.
The solution I came up with where I work is very similar, but I've been able to use some Regex to do the rest of the "Find/Replace" work.
]
Keep in mind, I use this to *remove* Word 2003 extra tag garbage and leave basic, mostly non-formatted text in the HTML:
"Span" tags:
[<][s][p][a][n][\s]*[\w]*[\W][\w]*[>]
-AND-
[<][/][s][p][a][n][>]
"Location" tags (State/City/Place/Etc.)
[<][s][t][1][\s]*[\W]*[\w]*[\s]*[\w]*[\W]*[\S]*[>
Of course, this isn't an all-inclusive list. But it's definitely a large chunk of what Dreamweaver's cleanup utility misses. Afterwards, manual formatting is much easier as there's much less to get in the way.
Oh, and if anyone wants to see Microsoft's regular expression reference, it can be found here.
Ummm... That isn't entirely true. The FCC has multiple classes of licensing for electronics. The majority of consumer electronics, including devices that operate in the 2.4GHz band, have this restriction. However, I'm sure the security systems for the airport have different restrictions on emitting and receiving interference-causing signals.
In fact, a quick dig at the FCC's site (here) regarding Radio Devices alone shows lots of different requirements for any various spectrum, device, etc.
Specific to my point, FM radio broadcasters are allowed protection from interference as outlined here.
Knowing just the basics about FCC licensing, however, I do know that this is all a load of crap from the airport authorities. Devices operating in the 2.4GHz band are licensed for use under the condition that they don't cause any interference with other electronics. As long as those devices are not modified to operate outside the rules under which they were licensed, they wouldn't and there's no reason the FCC should, or would, get involved. And, as others have noted, if the 2.4GHz signals from Continental's WiFi equipment are interfering with the airport's security systems, what is preventing the same interference from the airport's own WiFi equipment?
The point is that the airport is being greedy and wants control over all WiFi access so they can charge for it. It's purely profit motivated, and all rather childish.
...and the only way it will pass is if it's a rider, itself, on some other bill. That's irony, Alanis.
BTW - I am from MN, and I like this idea.
"Anybody got any string?"
That will last until another law is passed that makes the mere possession of string a federal offense.
Then the laws about the duscussion about string come about...
It won't end until enough of these stupid laws have passed and people realize what's really going on that it will be too late to do anything about it. We'll need to break away and colonize some other planet and implement some "future-proof" laws (impossible, but worth another try).
This sounds like a great idea for radiant floor/wall heat, but I'd be a bit concerned about consistent temperature at a given flow-rate for typical potable hot water usage. A thermostat could help keep it below a maximum, but keeping a minimum could be difficult unless a certain amount of "overkill" were built into the system. We're then talking about increasing costs for diminishing returns... Money no object? Sure. But even high-priced homes have to be built on some sort of budget (sky high as they may seem).
And I'm looking to build in the snow-belt, where, during the winter months, we only see 8 or so hours of daylight for a few months. For the months that we need it most, we'll be getting the least sunshine per day. For the months that we need it least, we'll be seeing the most sunshine per day. That's the sort of inverse-proprotial supply/demand ratio that doesn't allow this sort of solution to catch on with everyone.
Don't get me wrong - I think solar-powered anything is great (flashlight, anyone?). But this seems to fit better as a solution to a more limited-use situation or one in which it can be supplemented with another, more reliable source of heat.
I hit this through the mirrordot link from above...
This is exactly how a good thermal heat-pump operates. However, a few "upgrades" would make this perfectly viable for a home of 1500+ sq. feet.
1: Make it a closed-loop system, or even a dual-loop system.
2: Use a good radiator and heat-block. Think of a water-cooling rig on a PC, but in reverse and a much larger scale.
3: Use the earth, itself, as both the source and destination of heat.
Most people that have done this for their homes use the earth as a natural heat sink. If it's new construction, they typically dig shallow, but wide. In a retro-fit, they'll drill deep and narrow. Either way, the earth holds a pretty steady temperature below 6-8 feet or so. All that's needed is a way to put heat into it when you want to cool off and a way to get heat out of it when you want to warm up.
This way, all that you spend money on is the electricity to pump the heat-carrying fluid/gas/whatever into and out of the tubes in the ground. If that isn't enough, a small furnace and/or A/C unit can supplement, if need be. Either way, the energy consumed from the utility companies is a fraction of "normal".
I have plans to build a new home in the next 3-5 years, and I'm looking at all sorts of alternatives to just about everything that consumes energy in a home.
1: Geothermal heat pump(s) for climate-control.
2: On-Demand, CNG water heater (i.e.: no tank to keep warm)
3: Solar-powered radiant heat (suplements forced-air from #1)
4: On-Demand lighting (sensors that detect room occupancy)
I'm missing a number of other things I could do, but the goal is to have a home with all sorts of modern conveniences while trying to reduce the energy usage associated with most of them. It's tempting to add a water-cooling loop to the climate-control system for the comptuers. They're already producing heat, so why not just send it directly to it's destination and avoid that pesky conversion to heated air?
Getting back on-topic, this guy hasn't done anything new. In fact, it's rather wasteful to just use a coil of copper tubing tied to the back of a fan. The fact that he's using ice water (as mentioned in other posts) does nothing to save energy costs. After all, he's got to power a freezer to make the ice to begin with, which offsets most of the savings. Never mind that the heat from the water (plus the heat from the machine, itself) went into the living space that he's trying to cool.
And that he's a student, and *probably* not paying for much, if any, of his utility costs. But I digress...
Ok, I haven't seen a reply to your post, so I think I'll chime in for DNS n00bs.
Setting up a proper DNS server isn't too hard (as indicated by the number of posters that have done just that). However, it does take a bit of knowledge about how DNS really works. To that end I suggest you read some books about Networking, and DNS in particular.
I've found the O'Reilly books to be fairly easy to read while providing a great starting point for those that have a broad, basic understanding of how networks (and computers) operate. Specifically, I'd recommend DNS and BIND. This assumes that you have some LAN experience, this is a great place to start. It does tend to focus a bit on BIND (Berkley Internet Name Domain), but most DNS servers are based on it's general feature-set and configuration, anyway.
By itself, this book won't allow you to set up your own DNS server. However, it will help you get that core understanding of HOW DNS actually works and what you can get it to do for you. You'll have a choice of software on a number of differnet platforms, but the general operation will pretty much be the same across them all.
And there are plenty of other books and publications on DNS, so don't limit yourself if O'Reilly doesn't do it for you.
This probably wasn't the answer you were looking for, but it really is what you needed.
So... its not handled as much because people don't recognise it.... because its not used much. Isn't that rather pardoxial? Wouldnt all denomiations have this problem if that were the reason?
Yes, I suppose it would. But (as noted in other replies), the $2 bill tends to be less useful in daily situations for a number of reasons. The $1 bill tends to function fine for purchases up to about $5 to $10 or so. The $2 bill is just half the material for the same currency value you'd get from $1 bills, but you've reduced your granularity for those purchases that don't total an even dollar amount - i.e. $13.00. You'll still need at least one $1 bill to complete a transaction with this total (assuming no coins are used).
The point wasn't that the local police were too dumb to recognize the $2 bill as currency. When the ink on the bills appeared to smear, it created some concern over the legitimacy of the bills in terms of being counterfeits of legitimate currency.
At least, that's the way I interpreted the story.
Pardon me for interjecting, but I did RTFA a day or two ago when this appeared elsewhere...
The basic sequence of events were as follows:
1: Disgruntled customer arrives at store intending to pay invoice with $2 bills.
2: Employee isn't familiar with the $2 bill and refuses to accept as payment.
3: Fast-forward - Police arrive to sort the matter out. Ink on the bills smears a bit. Suspicions of counterfit money result.
4: Customer is handcuffed and brought to police station for further questioning/investigation.
5: U.S. Secret Service agents (yes, the're the final authority on U.S. currency) arrive and release customer after bills are inspected and found to be completely legit.
In this particular case, the local police probably knew about $2 as legitimate U.S. currency, but were suspicious when the ink on the bills smeared a bit. After the Secret Service inspected the bills, they informed the local police (paraphrasing), "They do that, sometimes."
Under the circumstances, the whole situation could have been avoided by a little education on the part of the Best Buy cashier. I still think this needs to be done, and rather painfully. However, the local police seemed to follow proper protocol. Ink on U.S. currency doesn't usually smear or smudge because it's usually handled often enough for the excess to wear off quickly. The $2 is not generally handled as much and this seems to be a perfect example of why it isn't.