If you will recall, when windows 95 came out, it's requirements drove people to upgrade their hardware, which in turn sent the prices down a lot (especially RAM). Although this sucked when you HAD to upgrade to get it to run decently, in the long run, it benefited all of us. I don't know if you remember RAM prices before that, but it was huge. I remember paying $400 for 16 megs.
Nowadays though, I don't think it can knock prices down as much of course (if at all). I will fight this upgrade as long as I can, just like I did XP, until games finally won me over (they seem to run better under XP).
Then again, maybe it'll knock down the ridiculously high price required to purchase video cards capable of running 3D games at a decent resolution/framerate. The last nvidia card (I got burned on) I bought for around $200 (CND) was such a piece of shit and couldn't run anything (Geforce 5600 XT). Part of that was my fault though, as I assumed XT was a higher version then just plain 5600. Although I am still mad at nvidia for their fucked up naming conventions. The card I had before this was a ti4200 8x, which was a hell of a card for the time, at basically the same price. Incidently, the ti4200 outperforms the 5600xt by quite a margin.
I do have a radeon 9800 Pro as well, which cost me a small fortune ($400 CND), which is now showing it's age, and I have no idea which way I'd go to get better performance without costing an arm and a leg. I think both Nvidia and ATI are releasing too many products these days, with too many different naming conventions intentionally so they can confuse the buyers.
anyways, hopefully vista will make better video cards come out cheaper.
Not in beautiful British Columbia... mine basically costs $40 a month (I bought the modem or it'd be $5 more), but they have a lesser package for maybe $20 a month. that's the cheapest.
This is through TELUS. They recently (I think) added an enhanced dsl package, but I can't find the difference between that and regular... anyone know?
Telus used to be great, 5 ips, run as many servers as you like, no port blocking. Now they're getting to be one of the worst. I can't switch to cable because Shaw isn't in this one municipality out here. Delta Cable is (DCCNET) and they're the biggest bandwidth nazis around. You go one meg over the limit (which even years ago was 10 gigs a month) and you paid. A lot. Telus at least doesn't seem to care how much I go over.
I'm sorry, but I think this is a horrible idea. Off the bat I'm against paying for any kind of traffic... I mean, why should I pay to connect to a server for a couple seconds, but cam browse the web all day for free?
All these schemes to rob the net users of more money (micropayments, preferred traffic, etc) is just bullshit, and should not be incouraged....and with all the information companies keep online that gets stolen, why would I want yet another possibly irresponsible person with my CC or paypal information? As it is right now, I won't use anything that requires online payments, as I just don't trust them anymore.
Spam is a big problem, and has almost ruined email, but this is not the solution.
If greedy domain name registrars would not let these idiots register 400 domains at a time, and instead had a better system of verifying who they are sold to, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. This also has me worried... in 5-10 years, what domains are going to be left that are recognizable, and not already used? Hell I don't want to register 12dewgt43.com because all these idiots have taken most of the words in the english dictionary.
I used to own the domain "aesirstudios.com", but had to let it go due to financial troubles, and now someone else is sitting on it who has NOTHING to do with the name. This is ridiculous. Someone just saw that it was once and active domain, so they grabbed it to try to blackmail me in the future to buy it back.
I have frequently used 3 monitor setups with a dual output agp and single pci vidcards.
Not all video cards will do this, but I used a 3dfx banshee and it worked fine. Some s3's might have problems but I *think* I used one of those before i got the banshee (the s3 ones had 4 megs vs. the banshee with 16, so make sure you have enough ram to drive whatever resolution you want). If it's a newer pci card (yes they still make them) then it should be no problem.
You might have to toggle the BIOS setting that's something like "First Place to check for Video Card AGP/PCI?" Some cards (older) need that to be set to pci.
Besides that, windows 98se and above should just be able to boot and get to the add drivers screen.
It is becoming more and more viable to download legal stuff via bittorrent.
I kept getting bad md5's when I tried downloading solaris 10 (DVD in 5 pieces) off of Sun's site. A quick trip to pirate bay and I finally got a working copy! I also do generally use them to get new iso's of linux/bsd software, since it's generally faster and a bit kinder to the servers.
Bittorrent is a way smaller companies or even individuals can use to save their bandwidth too, and I bet we'll see it more in the future. Imagine if you will, film school students putting their work online... wouldn't be possible in a lot of circumstances due to bandwidth price.
Then again, I'm Canadian, so I can also legally download music! (not stealing, i've already paid)
Apple fanatics will find an excuse for ANYTHING apple does.
Sorry for the flamebait, but it's true... every time I see something written about Apple doing something wrong... and they do... they spin it around to look like it's someone elses fault, or it's just plain good.
With users like that, Apple really doesn't need a PR department.
Man I loved using that joystick! Kicking ass at Lotus Turbo Espirit!
I still say my Amiga 500/Action Replay was the most fun I ever had with a computer. My latest Athlon 64 kicks ass, but it just doesn't have the "WOW... HOLY SHIT" factor as my amiga.
I dislike fanboys... but I guess I'm a hypocrite in that respect.
On a side note... using UAE to relive some of my great Amiga days... I noticed... was the UI always so bloody ugly?! (KS/WB 1.4) Must have the worst colour scheme ever.
I use metacritic to read reviews of every game I buy or acquire. It is basically a bunch of quotes and a rating number from various reviews. The SAME game can get scores from 50, all the way up to 100... you can tell who got paid off for what, and who just had an axe to grind.
I find that reading a couple of their quotes, in each ranking (low=red, medium=yellow, high=green> will give me a quick rundown of the game.
There are users comments at the end to which can be helpful as well... unfortunately a lot of them tend to be fanboy-type.
SE's have to go even further I think... as I find pages that are "somewhat relevant" are becoming quite obnoxious these days...
Try searching for specs or anything on older laptops (besides auctions/where to buy batteries/memory). You end up seeing page after page of ads. Even looking for reviews... sometimes you just find ads for memory with a link to add your own review... it's driving me crazy!
Same thing with stereo components, car audio...etc.
>> And that is one of the reasons that I would feel safe investing in Nintendo and the "revolution".
oh for fucks sakes people... it's not even out yet... who know what it will turn out like...
Nintendo is fully capable of fucking things up.
christ, and I thought the xbox360 hype was overdone... they haven't even told you shit about the rev except for a crazy controller. goddamn delusional fanboys.
Slashdot Mirror
If you will recall, when windows 95 came out, it's requirements drove people to upgrade their hardware, which in turn sent the prices down a lot (especially RAM). Although this sucked when you HAD to upgrade to get it to run decently, in the long run, it benefited all of us. I don't know if you remember RAM prices before that, but it was huge. I remember paying $400 for 16 megs.
Nowadays though, I don't think it can knock prices down as much of course (if at all). I will fight this upgrade as long as I can, just like I did XP, until games finally won me over (they seem to run better under XP).
Then again, maybe it'll knock down the ridiculously high price required to purchase video cards capable of running 3D games at a decent resolution/framerate. The last nvidia card (I got burned on) I bought for around $200 (CND) was such a piece of shit and couldn't run anything (Geforce 5600 XT). Part of that was my fault though, as I assumed XT was a higher version then just plain 5600. Although I am still mad at nvidia for their fucked up naming conventions. The card I had before this was a ti4200 8x, which was a hell of a card for the time, at basically the same price. Incidently, the ti4200 outperforms the 5600xt by quite a margin.
I do have a radeon 9800 Pro as well, which cost me a small fortune ($400 CND), which is now showing it's age, and I have no idea which way I'd go to get better performance without costing an arm and a leg. I think both Nvidia and ATI are releasing too many products these days, with too many different naming conventions intentionally so they can confuse the buyers.
anyways, hopefully vista will make better video cards come out cheaper.
ok man..
we got it... it was humorous the first 10 times but it's getting old fast.
Not in beautiful British Columbia... mine basically costs $40 a month (I bought the modem or it'd be $5 more), but they have a lesser package for maybe $20 a month. that's the cheapest.
This is through TELUS. They recently (I think) added an enhanced dsl package, but I can't find the difference between that and regular... anyone know?
Telus used to be great, 5 ips, run as many servers as you like, no port blocking. Now they're getting to be one of the worst. I can't switch to cable because Shaw isn't in this one municipality out here. Delta Cable is (DCCNET) and they're the biggest bandwidth nazis around. You go one meg over the limit (which even years ago was 10 gigs a month) and you paid. A lot. Telus at least doesn't seem to care how much I go over.
I'm sorry, but I think this is a horrible idea. Off the bat I'm against paying for any kind of traffic... I mean, why should I pay to connect to a server for a couple seconds, but cam browse the web all day for free?
...and with all the information companies keep online that gets stolen, why would I want yet another possibly irresponsible person with my CC or paypal information? As it is right now, I won't use anything that requires online payments, as I just don't trust them anymore.
All these schemes to rob the net users of more money (micropayments, preferred traffic, etc) is just bullshit, and should not be incouraged.
Spam is a big problem, and has almost ruined email, but this is not the solution.
If greedy domain name registrars would not let these idiots register 400 domains at a time, and instead had a better system of verifying who they are sold to, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. This also has me worried... in 5-10 years, what domains are going to be left that are recognizable, and not already used? Hell I don't want to register 12dewgt43.com because all these idiots have taken most of the words in the english dictionary.
I used to own the domain "aesirstudios.com", but had to let it go due to financial troubles, and now someone else is sitting on it who has NOTHING to do with the name. This is ridiculous. Someone just saw that it was once and active domain, so they grabbed it to try to blackmail me in the future to buy it back.
END RANT.
I have frequently used 3 monitor setups with a dual output agp and single pci vidcards.
Not all video cards will do this, but I used a 3dfx banshee and it worked fine. Some s3's might have problems but I *think* I used one of those before i got the banshee (the s3 ones had 4 megs vs. the banshee with 16, so make sure you have enough ram to drive whatever resolution you want). If it's a newer pci card (yes they still make them) then it should be no problem.
You might have to toggle the BIOS setting that's something like "First Place to check for Video Card AGP/PCI?" Some cards (older) need that to be set to pci.
Besides that, windows 98se and above should just be able to boot and get to the add drivers screen.
teehee!
you said 'testees'!
You call that exercise?!
I find I get far more exercise just trying to find the !@#$! remote(s).
It is becoming more and more viable to download legal stuff via bittorrent.
I kept getting bad md5's when I tried downloading solaris 10 (DVD in 5 pieces) off of Sun's site. A quick trip to pirate bay and I finally got a working copy! I also do generally use them to get new iso's of linux/bsd software, since it's generally faster and a bit kinder to the servers.
Bittorrent is a way smaller companies or even individuals can use to save their bandwidth too, and I bet we'll see it more in the future. Imagine if you will, film school students putting their work online... wouldn't be possible in a lot of circumstances due to bandwidth price.
Then again, I'm Canadian, so I can also legally download music! (not stealing, i've already paid)
>> If you have a specific example of a specific person applying a different standard to Apple than to Microsoft, let's hear it. Otherwise, STFU.
.this is like asking someone for specific examples of times when the sky is blue.
Oh my god..
Read almost any apple article. Until then... you STFU.
That settles it.
Apple fanatics will find an excuse for ANYTHING apple does.
Sorry for the flamebait, but it's true... every time I see something written about Apple doing something wrong... and they do... they spin it around to look like it's someone elses fault, or it's just plain good.
With users like that, Apple really doesn't need a PR department.
>> Won't someone please think of the children?
I believe that's what got us into this mess in the first place!
I don't know if the music is the same, but from the second I saw the word "Tetris" in the summary, I have been humming it.
Damn it's a catchy tune..
kind of like if someone starts humming that crazy circus music
do do doodle do do doo doo doo...
or something like that.
Type this into your address box and hit enter..
http:///
Man I loved using that joystick! Kicking ass at Lotus Turbo Espirit!
I still say my Amiga 500/Action Replay was the most fun I ever had with a computer.
My latest Athlon 64 kicks ass, but it just doesn't have the "WOW... HOLY SHIT" factor as my amiga.
I dislike fanboys... but I guess I'm a hypocrite in that respect.
On a side note... using UAE to relive some of my great Amiga days... I noticed... was the UI always so bloody ugly?! (KS/WB 1.4) Must have the worst colour scheme ever.
Anyone else wonder why some sites seem to use the thumbnail/fullsized image method and when you click on the fullsize it ends up being 320x40?
Kind of hard to make out that screen and I'm just at 1280x800.
Drives me nuts.
I use metacritic to read reviews of every game I buy or acquire. It is basically a bunch of quotes and a rating number from various reviews. The SAME game can get scores from 50, all the way up to 100... you can tell who got paid off for what, and who just had an axe to grind.
I find that reading a couple of their quotes, in each ranking (low=red, medium=yellow, high=green> will give me a quick rundown of the game.
There are users comments at the end to which can be helpful as well... unfortunately a lot of them tend to be fanboy-type.
http://www.metacritic.com/games/
SQUIRREL, PLEASE!
Wow..
/me goose steps.
das Fuhrer of grammar nazi's.
yeah good idea!
why let some low life internet punk get anything for your hard work... clicking on the link he supplied.
That's time you'll never get back! Might as well just not let anyone get credit for it... that'll learn him!
I agree... IMHO the walkman had a bigger impact... (or walkman like tapeplayer...dunno if sony was 1st)
first real time you could have portable music. (without carrying around a heavy player)
Either way, a music listening device, while fun, isn't really a toy.
That is usually done by torrent sites, who password protect them so you have to visit their site to find the password...
What it means is more advertising dollars for them.
scum.
>> ... because of a $0.25 price difference ... ... once they realize that saving that nickel isn't worth ...
:)
>>
uhm that's a quarter.
Hope you're not the accountant
Does that mean he can go seize the machines they used to spot the file sharing and track him down?
SE's have to go even further I think... as I find pages that are "somewhat relevant" are becoming quite obnoxious these days...
Try searching for specs or anything on older laptops (besides auctions/where to buy batteries/memory). You end up seeing page after page of ads. Even looking for reviews... sometimes you just find ads for memory with a link to add your own review... it's driving me crazy!
Same thing with stereo components, car audio...etc.
>> And that is one of the reasons that I would feel safe investing in Nintendo and the "revolution".
oh for fucks sakes people... it's not even out yet... who know what it will turn out like...
Nintendo is fully capable of fucking things up.
christ, and I thought the xbox360 hype was overdone... they haven't even told you shit about the rev except for a crazy controller. goddamn delusional fanboys.