.. or do they borrow all your wi-fi bandwidth?
Simpler than http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html you can run an old 802.11b system throttled down to 1 Mbit/sec on a crowded channel with a duplicate SSID.
> I feel old
First phone I remember was fully equipped with voice recognition. No buttons or dial, very minimalist styling, you just picked up the phone and spoke the number you required.
We've gone a long way in 50 years.....
Plenty of name generators on the web, such as http://www.seventhsanctum.com/.
I quite like the dwarf names such as Bloodbreaker, Demonbreaker, Doomsmelter, Foesmiter, Greatmail, Honorpick, Irondig, Ironsmasher, Lightpacer, Stonebullion.
One serious advantage of generated names is that they are pronouncable, making help desk support easier. Unlike some alphanumeric codes - I still remember the confusions when IBM had two RS/6000 family members, the 380 and the 3AT.
I wouldn't bother correcting him. If you want to run Linux, you have a clear warning not to buy Lenovo. From my family's personal experience, I'm not sure I'd buy Lenovo either if I wanted to run Windows, with the amount of non-functioning vendor-specific software supplied.
Here is the virscan.org scan of the DPFmate.exe file on a similar photo keyring. This scans almost clean, with the only warning being "Suspicious - DNAscan" from QuickHeal.
All sounds to me that the Walmart photo frame may be truly infected. Interesting to see if a re-scan gives the same results, after AV signature updates.
To identify my photo frame, it has USB vendor code 1908:1320, and gives dmesg output as
[ 1615.074173] scsi 2:0:0:0: CD-ROM buildwin Photo Frame 1.01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 [ 1615.131784] sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 40x/40x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray [ 1615.132336] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1 [ 1615.132793] sr 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 5 [ 1618.229611] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3 [ 1618.243632] ISOFS: changing to secondary root
and has files on it
-r-xr-xr-x 1 a root 49 2007-12-13 17:07 Autorun.inf -r-xr-xr-x 1 a root 135904 2008-07-25 11:46 DPFMate.exe -r-xr-xr-x 1 a root 1344 2008-05-19 18:53 flashlib.dat -r-xr-xr-x 1 a root 22044 2008-07-23 16:15 LanguageUnicode.ini -r-xr-xr-x 1 a root 96281 2008-06-11 16:29 MacDPFmate.zip -r-xr-xr-x 1 a root 758 2008-07-07 12:21 StartInfoUnicode.ini
Hey, I always stick odd USB devices into Linux first to check them out.
For background info, this photo frame does nothing when first connected. You can set it to "transfer" mode, at which point it emulates a USB CD-ROM of 304 Kbyte size. That CD image tries to autorun the DPFmate software to compress and transfer images to the device. The photos are *not* visible on the device through normal access, must have transferred them to a hidden area. I'd be interested if anyone has more info on the USB protocols used.
Doubt you will be able to change your control guy's mind with reason, so you have to play politics. Find an example where expensive software was bought instead of OSS and tell his/her boss how much the policy (note not "the person" - bosses can work it out) is costing the company.
Of course, if the guy IS the boss or is related to the boss, just find another employer if it's that important to you.
It's not often mentioned that the Eee pixel size is rather smaller than regular flat screens.
On my 19 inch monitor, an Eee-sized 800x480 window actually corresponds to an 11" diagonal screen. And you use the Eee at much closer distances. At normal operating distance, the 7" Eee screen is almost exactly the same size as that 11" window.
Certainly, I use it differently. On my Eee I put Firefox into full-screen mode, and hide my bookmarks panel. And less than 1 in 40 web sites have problems in display.
I can't help but wonder where you get power supplies on Everest, in the deserts and jungles. The The Eee is great for most of what you want, but its battery lasts 3 hours or so and takes a long time to charge up. Whereas I've had batteries in a Palm M100 last 180 days - and they use easy-to-obtain AAA cells.
Same applies to digital cameras, though use of AA cells is pretty common. It's at least as infuriating to know you can't take that picture as your battery is flat, as losing the backup.
I'd be inclined to treat the photo backup as a separate issue to writing the blog. Look for cameras with enough internal memory and functions to transfer to memory cards, or a separate backup dongle. And see if you can find an older-style replaceable battery PDA for blogging when out the range of an internet connection.
Actually you *can* force "Documents and Settings" to a different partition during installation. You have to use the unattended install option. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/236621 - but by the time you get all the correct options to work you may wish you had not started! There is a "Setup Manager" tool which will help create the unattended install scripts. And you may find you have to clean out some of the extra Administrator and user accounts created during each of the attempts you make before you do it correctly.
I suppose I should have expected this from a Sunday Slashdot post. *All* the issues in the comments are niggles about personal desktops. Nothing on the issues on how to run a large-scale enterprise deployment.
Sure, Linux has all the hooks available for enterprise-wide administration, directory-based authentication, centralised logging, patch management, backup, etc. And a wonderful choice for most of these - but no simple plug-and-go option as easy to initially deploy as Active Directory. No, AD isn't perfect - but once it's deployed, it's there for good.
Yoggie already make the Yoggie Gatekeeper, a full hardware firewall with two ethernet ports, just as you suggest. This also has a USB port for power. Using ethernet means this is completely OS-neutral, and can be used with Linux or OS X.
The Yoggie Gatekeeper can also be used like the Yoggie Pico in USB-only connection mode, with a Windows driver. You might want to do this to connect with built-in laptop wireless hardware, or with USB ADSL "modems".
I'm sure I'm not the only person to have had compatibility problems with MS Office for Macintosh. I've had a clip-art logo image that worked perfectly in MS Office for Windows, OpenOffice.org for Windows and Mac, NeoOffice - but just messed up on MS Office for Macintosh. Bars across it, colours wrong.
Ditto for a new font, which MS Office for Macintosh messed up the metrics. This was a font that had been explicitly installed on both platforms, not a native one. On the Mac it simply didn't fit the space available, OK on Windows of OpenOffice.org.
It's fascinating how slashdot still prefers opinions to facts.
I downloaded the odfconverter-1.0.0-2.oxt file and tried to install into OpenOffice.org 2.1.0 for Windows (as downloaded from openoffice.org web site, not the Novell version).
I had to use Tools -> Extension manager (not Package manager), and when installing, had several pop-ups stating "This media-type is not supported: application/octet-stream". OKing these showed the odfconverter installed into "My extensions". And "Microsoft Word 2007 Document (.docx)" was added to the list of files in File -> Open.
But trying to open a.docx file (the Windows Vista Product Guide failed, with nothing happening or displayed.
Anyone want to try the other options of Linux, OO.o 2.0.4, Novel OO.o 2.0.4 and report back?
I was surprised by the trailing remarks from the Windows supporters:
"I really think that this one's going to give Apple Macs a run for their money." i.e. Mac have been clearly in the lead and Vista is just catching up.
"I see windows Vista as a big improvement over Windows XP and would strongly suggest other PC users who have not explored beyond the Windows camp to upgrade." i.e. if you've already tried Mac or Linux there's no reason to look at Vista.
Doesn't seem completely balanced reporting to me to have that level of ambivalence from the Windows supporters.
I've had no problems using an Apple Powerbook wireless connection with Ubuntu. Think it's been working since Breezy days. *However* there are lots of "helpful" sets of instructions out there that have not been updated since the pre-supported days when it was necessary to use ndiswrapper, etc.
Now, I may have needed to explicitly set the wireless speed which defaulted to 1 Mb. So maybe that's one problem. But I'm not sure it was actually necessary either.
I have had problems with getting the laptop to sleep when the lid closed. I've read that this is due to the use of an nVidia graphics card, where the interface details to restore the graphics card after wake-up are proprietary and have not been reverse-engineered. So the graphics card cannot be restarted after sleep, so Ubuntu disables the function. A pain, would like a better warning notice, but understandable.
I don't find Ubuntu is quite up to the level of OSX yet on that hardware, due to these little niggles. But it's not far away, and getting closer. And many applications works better or at all under Ubuntu rather than OSX, so I keep dual-boot capability.
And to keep the trolls happy, Ubuntu works far better than Windows XP does on this laptop - since it has a PPC processor.
But when the laptop moves to another country, it needs to use a different set of frequencies. So the user ought to demand access to the software programming so they can set the country they currently are in.
And this is not just nice-to-have. While 802.11b/g at least has 11 channels in common through most of the world, 802.11a uses completely different channel frequencies in US and Europe (and elsewhere, I think). So if you can't set the country, your device won't work.
Looks like I need to clarify - I'm pro-Vista and pro-Linux, but that's not the point. The question is what would you recommend, given that you really don't want to be cast as the software support channel?
I cannot recommend Linux as I don't want to install it for them and find what hardware doesn't work, get the internet connection working, and not lose any data. Even with current live-CDs. I cannot recommend Vista for exactly the same reasons. I cannot recommend Windows XP as it's obsolescent.
Stated like that, I guess I've implied the answer. Recommend a Macintosh.
What's your answer to "what do you think of Vista?". Seriously, not meant as a troll. There are exactly the same questions on software compatibility, drivers, printing, etc. At least for the next few months until teething incompatibilities are fixed.
I like it that I can honestly tell people I have no personal experience of running Vista, but the screenshots look pretty. So they will have to look elsewhere for support.
Get people to use their own credit cards in a swipe reader (or smartcard reader for those not in USA!). All the system needs is a unique number, it doesn't need to process that number. (Details - store an irreversible crypto hash of the card data.)
Don't know many people who would respond to "Hey Joe, I need your credit card?"
Slashdot Mirror
But that Dell page does not tell the whole truth.
It advertises "Windows® . Life without WallsTM . Dell recommends Windows 7." but then goes on to have a screenshot of Windows XP.
And if you go to the Euro Dell site and try to look for Ubuntu systems
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/emea/segments/gen/client/en/ubuntu_landing?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs
you find all the ones offered are only Windows 7.
So it advertises two operating systems (XP and Ubuntu) which it does not supply.
.. or do they borrow all your wi-fi bandwidth? Simpler than http://www.ex-parrot.com/pete/upside-down-ternet.html you can run an old 802.11b system throttled down to 1 Mbit/sec on a crowded channel with a duplicate SSID.
> I feel old
First phone I remember was fully equipped with voice recognition. No buttons or dial, very minimalist styling, you just picked up the phone and spoke the number you required.
We've gone a long way in 50 years.....
Plenty of name generators on the web, such as http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. I quite like the dwarf names such as Bloodbreaker, Demonbreaker, Doomsmelter, Foesmiter, Greatmail, Honorpick, Irondig, Ironsmasher, Lightpacer, Stonebullion. One serious advantage of generated names is that they are pronouncable, making help desk support easier. Unlike some alphanumeric codes - I still remember the confusions when IBM had two RS/6000 family members, the 380 and the 3AT.
DiceOMatic. Complete with USB camera interface.
I wouldn't bother correcting him. If you want to run Linux, you have a clear warning not to buy Lenovo. From my family's personal experience, I'm not sure I'd buy Lenovo either if I wanted to run Windows, with the amount of non-functioning vendor-specific software supplied.
Kettering Grammar School were doing this in the 1960s. See the links in Wikipedia for more information.
All sounds to me that the Walmart photo frame may be truly infected. Interesting to see if a re-scan gives the same results, after AV signature updates.
To identify my photo frame, it has USB vendor code 1908:1320, and gives dmesg output as
and has files on it
Hey, I always stick odd USB devices into Linux first to check them out.
For background info, this photo frame does nothing when first connected. You can set it to "transfer" mode, at which point it emulates a USB CD-ROM of 304 Kbyte size. That CD image tries to autorun the DPFmate software to compress and transfer images to the device. The photos are *not* visible on the device through normal access, must have transferred them to a hidden area. I'd be interested if anyone has more info on the USB protocols used.
Doubt you will be able to change your control guy's mind with reason, so you have to play politics. Find an example where expensive software was bought instead of OSS and tell his/her boss how much the policy (note not "the person" - bosses can work it out) is costing the company. Of course, if the guy IS the boss or is related to the boss, just find another employer if it's that important to you.
It's not often mentioned that the Eee pixel size is rather smaller than regular flat screens.
On my 19 inch monitor, an Eee-sized 800x480 window actually corresponds to an 11" diagonal screen. And you use the Eee at much closer distances. At normal operating distance, the 7" Eee screen is almost exactly the same size as that 11" window.
Certainly, I use it differently. On my Eee I put Firefox into full-screen mode, and hide my bookmarks panel. And less than 1 in 40 web sites have problems in display.
I can't help but wonder where you get power supplies on Everest, in the deserts and jungles. The The Eee is great for most of what you want, but its battery lasts 3 hours or so and takes a long time to charge up. Whereas I've had batteries in a Palm M100 last 180 days - and they use easy-to-obtain AAA cells.
Same applies to digital cameras, though use of AA cells is pretty common. It's at least as infuriating to know you can't take that picture as your battery is flat, as losing the backup.
I'd be inclined to treat the photo backup as a separate issue to writing the blog. Look for cameras with enough internal memory and functions to transfer to memory cards, or a separate backup dongle. And see if you can find an older-style replaceable battery PDA for blogging when out the range of an internet connection.
Actually you *can* force "Documents and Settings" to a different partition during installation. You have to use the unattended install option. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/236621 - but by the time you get all the correct options to work you may wish you had not started! There is a "Setup Manager" tool which will help create the unattended install scripts. And you may find you have to clean out some of the extra Administrator and user accounts created during each of the attempts you make before you do it correctly.
I suppose I should have expected this from a Sunday Slashdot post. *All* the issues in the comments are niggles about personal desktops. Nothing on the issues on how to run a large-scale enterprise deployment.
Sure, Linux has all the hooks available for enterprise-wide administration, directory-based authentication, centralised logging, patch management, backup, etc. And a wonderful choice for most of these - but no simple plug-and-go option as easy to initially deploy as Active Directory. No, AD isn't perfect - but once it's deployed, it's there for good.
No, that mechanical computer was digital. This is the Science Museum Meccano differential analyser.
Toxic dust? Surely that's the magic smoke!
Yoggie already make the Yoggie Gatekeeper, a full hardware firewall with two ethernet ports, just as you suggest. This also has a USB port for power. Using ethernet means this is completely OS-neutral, and can be used with Linux or OS X.
The Yoggie Gatekeeper can also be used like the Yoggie Pico in USB-only connection mode, with a Windows driver. You might want to do this to connect with built-in laptop wireless hardware, or with USB ADSL "modems".
I'm sure I'm not the only person to have had compatibility problems with MS Office for Macintosh. I've had a clip-art logo image that worked perfectly in MS Office for Windows, OpenOffice.org for Windows and Mac, NeoOffice - but just messed up on MS Office for Macintosh. Bars across it, colours wrong.
Ditto for a new font, which MS Office for Macintosh messed up the metrics. This was a font that had been explicitly installed on both platforms, not a native one. On the Mac it simply didn't fit the space available, OK on Windows of OpenOffice.org.
It's fascinating how slashdot still prefers opinions to facts.
.docx file (the Windows Vista Product Guide failed, with nothing happening or displayed.
I downloaded the odfconverter-1.0.0-2.oxt file and tried to install into OpenOffice.org 2.1.0 for Windows (as downloaded from openoffice.org web site, not the Novell version).
I had to use Tools -> Extension manager (not Package manager), and when installing, had several pop-ups stating "This media-type is not supported: application/octet-stream". OKing these showed the odfconverter installed into "My extensions". And "Microsoft Word 2007 Document (.docx)" was added to the list of files in File -> Open.
But trying to open a
Anyone want to try the other options of Linux, OO.o 2.0.4, Novel OO.o 2.0.4 and report back?
I was surprised by the trailing remarks from the Windows supporters:
"I really think that this one's going to give Apple Macs a run for their money." i.e. Mac have been clearly in the lead and Vista is just catching up.
"I see windows Vista as a big improvement over Windows XP and would strongly suggest other PC users who have not explored beyond the Windows camp to upgrade." i.e. if you've already tried Mac or Linux there's no reason to look at Vista.
Doesn't seem completely balanced reporting to me to have that level of ambivalence from the Windows supporters.
Dolls-house size! See Fab@Home or see the New Scientist report.
I've had no problems using an Apple Powerbook wireless connection with Ubuntu. Think it's been working since Breezy days. *However* there are lots of "helpful" sets of instructions out there that have not been updated since the pre-supported days when it was necessary to use ndiswrapper, etc.
Now, I may have needed to explicitly set the wireless speed which defaulted to 1 Mb. So maybe that's one problem. But I'm not sure it was actually necessary either.
I have had problems with getting the laptop to sleep when the lid closed. I've read that this is due to the use of an nVidia graphics card, where the interface details to restore the graphics card after wake-up are proprietary and have not been reverse-engineered. So the graphics card cannot be restarted after sleep, so Ubuntu disables the function. A pain, would like a better warning notice, but understandable.
I don't find Ubuntu is quite up to the level of OSX yet on that hardware, due to these little niggles. But it's not far away, and getting closer. And many applications works better or at all under Ubuntu rather than OSX, so I keep dual-boot capability.
And to keep the trolls happy, Ubuntu works far better than Windows XP does on this laptop - since it has a PPC processor.
But when the laptop moves to another country, it needs to use a different set of frequencies. So the user ought to demand access to the software programming so they can set the country they currently are in.
And this is not just nice-to-have. While 802.11b/g at least has 11 channels in common through most of the world, 802.11a uses completely different channel frequencies in US and Europe (and elsewhere, I think). So if you can't set the country, your device won't work.
Looks like I need to clarify - I'm pro-Vista and pro-Linux, but that's not the point. The question is what would you recommend, given that you really don't want to be cast as the software support channel?
I cannot recommend Linux as I don't want to install it for them and find what hardware doesn't work, get the internet connection working, and not lose any data. Even with current live-CDs.
I cannot recommend Vista for exactly the same reasons.
I cannot recommend Windows XP as it's obsolescent.
Stated like that, I guess I've implied the answer. Recommend a Macintosh.
What's your answer to "what do you think of Vista?". Seriously, not meant as a troll. There are exactly the same questions on software compatibility, drivers, printing, etc. At least for the next few months until teething incompatibilities are fixed.
I like it that I can honestly tell people I have no personal experience of running Vista, but the screenshots look pretty. So they will have to look elsewhere for support.
Get people to use their own credit cards in a swipe reader (or smartcard reader for those not in USA!). All the system needs is a unique number, it doesn't need to process that number. (Details - store an irreversible crypto hash of the card data.)
Don't know many people who would respond to "Hey Joe, I need your credit card?"