Try looking for keyboards like this one: Go to CyberGuys and search for "water keyboard" ("foldable keyboard" doesn't work for some reason). These are completely flexible keyboards, 100% sealed and water-proof, and can be completely rolled up (except for the area directly under the right-hand keypad where the board is). I've actually messed around with these some, and the keys feel usable (sort of like some of the recent "quiet" keyboards).
I've thought of this as well, but my stickler is trying to find a mouse that is waterproof. It would probably be optical, but with a sealed lens cover, and a completely rubber topside with buttons underneath the rubber.
Re:I was making $33,000 a year when I was 19
on
Generation Wrecked
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I went through the same bit. After high school, I went to a Uni for a couple years before the money crunch got me. Grants, loans, and a student job barely paid for tuition and on-campus living. No meal plans there, and I was left a bunch of months with around $25 for a month of groceries and spending money. My only other choice was to get an off-campus job, and without a car, that wasn't an option around there.
I moved back home with my parents, who weren't in great financial shape either. I ended up as a computer operator ($7/hour), and within a week I was a junior programmer @ $22k. Four years later I'm now making over $40k, which in my city, is well above average. The company is over 120 years old and I'm one of about 10 IT staff here--i.e., I have one of the most stable possible jobs in today's economy. I own a home now (parents/bro/sis live with me, not vice-versa). I'll be out of all debt (minus mortgage) by the end of spring. All I'm in debt now anyway are student loans (2 months to pay them off), and I'm about to put down a few thousand to do some major work with my home.
I personally have never wanted anything at ALL to do with my generation (I'm a '78'er). I've seen even friends end up as a wasted drain on society. They have no ambition, and their education sucks. The few who do try to make something of themselves are getting screwed lately. I got OUT of college at just the right time. A friend of mine stayed 2 more years and finished his CS degree. He went back home, and even two years later could still only find work as a help desk operator! This is in a major US city with a supposedly large tech job market. He's making a tiny bit over minimum wage.
You are, of course, having your computer shit hand checked, not run through the x-ray, right?
This isn't always an option, at least not without causing yourself a *lot* of grief. The last time I requested a laptop be hand-searched they flat-out refused, and said that I *MUST* put it on the x-ray conveyor. And this was months BEFORE 9/11.
Well, appearently the new version is worse than the old one. This one starts a sync and hangs...that's it, dead. At least the old one only hung on the first sync, and could be kicked free.
Agreed, I've been using this for months now. This is *definitely* nothing new.
The older version I'm using has some bugs still, so hopefully they worked those out (your first sync each time you start the software usually hangs on the calendar).
I'd be more interested in them fixing stuff like Hancomm spreadsheet taking forever to load (a 1MB spreadsheet takes about 10 minutes to load on my 5500!).
I doubt this is too likely to happen much. Security departments have a lot more to deal with than just securing locations from access. Our own computer department does, in fact, handle some of this (for our own areas, at least)--security keypads and our own alarm system.
I work for a large auto parts distributor, and our security department doesn't even deal much with access security. They deal with investigations for sticky-fingered employees for the most part. They also deal with the more complicated theft rings, which usually involve state authorities due to dirty city cops being involved.
This is WAY outside sysadmin territory, and I don't see them merging anytime soon.
This reminds me a bit of a story told by an old science teacher I had. They told us about their final exam in a college chemistry class. The procedure they had to carry out was simple: mix HCl (hydrochloric acid, a very powerful acid) and NaOH (sodium hydroxide, a very powerful base) to produce NaCl (sodium chloride, ordinary table salt) and H2O (erm...duh...).
The test didn't end there though. The professor required the students to *drink* some of the solution in order to prove they were confident in their own ability to carry out the procedure properly.
Now, would you drink something that could potentially kill you if you weren't truly confident you know what you were doing?
Two exist already...grand juries and impeachment hearings. Obviously, they don't work very well yet. Too much politician involvement in the translation matrix.
I'm one of many that is getting tired of the cancer boogey-man being put out about stuff like this.
Do you know how the scientists test for the carcinogenic effects of products like this? They take lab rats and either force-feed or directly inject them in a matter of hours or days with a large multiple of the amount of the substance a normal human would consume in a lifetime. Hell, you can even overdose on water.
I've thought a bit about cancer lately and I've had two ideas so far. First, look at the process of human aging. Basically, the body slows down it's reproduction and replinishment of cells in the body--it slows down maintaining itself. I tend to think of cancer as likely a side-effect of this slowing-down process (misplacing the resources used in the replinishment?). The second idea is what if it's a (momentarily detrimental) part of our evolutionary process? Perhaps we're in line evolutionarily for enhanced abilities to heal and slower aging--which would require greater regenerative abilities of the cells of the body.
Okay, I've gotta say something here when it comes to bottled water versus tap water.
I live in San Antonio, Texas. We have the Edwards Aquifer, Carizo Springs, hell even Medina river water. We have one of the highest rated public tap water qualities in the world. Ever had Utopia bottled water? That's our tap water.
To me, and most people around here, bottled water tastes like CRAP...absolutely horrible and artificial. It's really a shame that so many people think this crap is better than their tap water. About the only bottled water I ever buy (which only happens when I'm on the road heading out of town) is Ozarka, which comes from more good Texan springs.
Is the water in other cities REALLY that bad? I lived in Corpus Christi for two years, so I know what bad water is like (ever had tap water that smells like a fish died in it?). But I couldn't imagine so much of the country has to deal with that.
A) Dual CF and SD slots, since they are used for both peripherals and storage. I like having both slots on my Zaurus, but I'd rather have two CF slots than one CF and one SD slot.
B) "Adjustable" CF slot. Spring-load the connector end of the slot with a catching gear to hold it in place until 'ejected'. My CF NIC has a 1/2" CF-sized portion that sticks up until it reaches the large block for the RJ-45 connector. It would be nice to push that portion deeper into the unit, making it easier to find a good case for it and leave an often-used CF peripheral inserted.
C) Two slots for stylii. You always lose one, so why not sacrifice an extra 1/4" hole to hold a second one.
D) Integrated *standard* ports. USB, DB-9 RS232 serial, an RJ-45 connector for lan, RJ-11 for modem (or integrate lan/modem, although that would be disadvantageous to me, personally). Think about it--we're not far off from being able to integrate these things cheaply. The circuitry needed is *very* small, and the connectors themselves wouldn't make a huje difference in PDA size (maybe 1/3 inch wider if all were put on one side, or 1/3 inch taller if all on bottom--quite possible).
E) Rubber-key keyboard. I love the Zaurus keyboard, but I'd rather have soft-rubber keys than the hard plastic (easier to grip with finger, nail, or stylus).
F) Higher-powered IR. I want my $500 TV remote =P
G) More integration: 802.11a, 802.11b, bluetooth. Why not? So long as power to the circuits is only enabled when in use, it won't make a huge difference in battery life. IANAEngineer, but certainly these have enough in common to share a good chunk of electronics.
H) DC power input with tolerence for a good range of voltages/amperages. You can always use another AC/DC adapter in a pinch, and save money on the high-priced name-brand adapters.
If you scale something in only one or two dimensions, then yes, the results will be horrible. Of course a person 6 times taller (but all other dimensions normal) will be in bad shape. However, if you scale it in all dimensions, they will do just fine--until they try to walk down main street and take a 6kV power line in the crotch.
Ditto on spider silk. Increase the length 100 times and yes, it's useless. Increase the length AND the girth 100 times, and you have something that could give fullerines a run for their money.
I got the chance last year to visit Calgary and Banff. Besides the amazing scenery, I was impressed by the local telecommunications initiatives. At the time I was there, the big talk was the provincial government sponsoring rolling out DSL to the entire province. I'm from Texas, so I have some idea as to the benefits of this, as that province is about as spartan as Texas. A lot of small towns with great expanses of empty land in between---a real problem for people wanting broadband.
We had a similar shipment a while back, though not quite as bad. It was also a full rack cabinet, filled with HP servers. Note, this was through a third party, not HP direct. More on HP later.
It was supposed to be shipped from California to Texas by a specialized carrier. This guys have trucks with some serious shock absorbtion, and the insurance to deal with quarter-million dollar equipment. It was full-service, too. Our computer room was up the loading dock, through a couple departments and low doorways, and up a ramp (raised flooring) through another low doorway. They were supposed to use the mechanized tilting/lifting pallet jacks, get the crate all the way into our computer room, get the rack off the pallet, and roll it into place.
The day before it was scheduled to arrive (at least one good thing), we have a large delivery van (normal crappy suspension) show up at our docks with something addressed to us. We get out there, look at the bill of lading, and sure enough, it's our rack of equipment.
It was just one guy--the driver.
And he doesn't do full service. He only had permission on the bill of lading to drop the package on the docks, and that was it. No mention of full service, and this company didnt' do it anyway.
It turned out it was shipped by air freight instead of truck, then dropped off (via normal van) to a local shipping company, with instructions for them to drop it off to us.
What a load of shit.
We finally ended up with a couple HP reps (only called out to certify our cluster; not move hardware) coming out to help us out. We lucked out that the rack was *just barely* able to fit under our doorways. So, these two HP reps grabbed a bunch of plywood and crap, stripped the crate, got the rack off the crate by quickly rolling it down the plywood (a hair-raising experience), and rolled it to the computer room.
Fortunately, we had a portable ramp built to go up the steps. It took 8 of us to get the rack up the ramp though, but we finally got it into place.
I still have no idea what became of the billing issues with the shipment; no idea if were charged for the full-service shipping, or what.
Matt made the message clear in more than just an interview. The last new episode that aired, in the opening scene where Bart is writing on the chalkboard, Bart was writing something along the lines of "A will never lie about being canceled again..."
Gotta love finding out like that!
Now, that said,
I WANT MY GOD DAMNED FUTURAMA BACK YOU BASTARDS!!!
This isn't exactly in line with what you are doing, but it's similar enough that you may get some good ideas from it. JWZ, of Netscape fame, has been hard at work at a night club called DNA Lounge. It includes kiosks for internet access based on Linux terminal servers, as well as a few other ideas. If you go to the backstage area of the site, you'll find instructions on how to do many of the things he's done.
I have a 6200 (RAID0 use) and a 6410 (RAID5 use). I would absolutely recommend the 3Ware cards to everyone! I've never had any problems with them, and the latest kernel is always up to date with their latest driver release. The only competition out there for the 7000 series is Adaptec's 2400A, and that's only when doing RAID5.
While I agreed that chrisd really screwed the pooch on this one, who is even watching any more? I stopped watching XFiles years ago. Two or three seasons and it was time to put a fork in it. There were about a thousand different threads of conspiracy, "fact", rumor, and nonsense and it was snowballing too fast for any sane person to keep up. Every show contradicted the last. In the end, there was simply never any single solid plot. The entire damned show's plot changed every week.
I have two keyboards from Fellowes (at home and work) that I got for $35 a piece. The *exact* model I have doesn't seem to be on their web site any more, but go here, through input devices, keyboards, second page (URL is too long for lame lameness filter), and look at the Smart Design Keyboard. It's a simple split/tilted keyboard which has made a major difference for me.
I think I've headed off Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before it got serious by moving to this keyboard, so I'd definitely recommend it!
First, are you sure your UPS is a *TRUE* UPS? Even a lot of the 'high end' UPSes out there are still REALLY switched UPSes. This could very well be your problem.
The other one is something I've heard of (I'm not an electrical expert, but I'll try to explain). Larger (older installations, particularly) sites were wired for three-phase electricity. Over time, they split the phases for normal 110 volt usage. There is a chance where if the PC is connected to power on one phase, but the external unit is connected to power from a different phase, that the differential between the two can cause problems, due to the ground connection between the two through the cable shielding. I know, it sounds like something from the BOFH daily calendar, but it does make sense. Try making sure both pieces of equipment are on the same true UPS, or at least switched UPSes on the same circuit.
Back when I did this for a living we had an ancient machine running win95 (bleh) with IE and NS, running in 640x480 @ 256 colors. We tested every web page on this machine under both browsers. Our rules were simple.
First, the user should NEVER have to scroll horizontally. Never. Period. Second, we used GIFs as often as possible, optimized to a web palette (and therefore look acceptable under 256 colors). Note that obviously for photographs we didn't use gifs--just logos, maps, and other miscellaneous decoration.
These days, I'd probably include Konqueror, Mozilla, NS 4.x, IE, and Opera at a minimum. 640x480 is a bit restrictive these days, so I might be inclined to optimize for 800x600. On the other hand, I know plenty of people (usually older individuals with poor vision) who run in 640x480--even on a 21" monitor.
No God damned Java! No ActiveX! No Javascript! No CSS! Nobody supports ANY of these properly. I'm sick of NS, Moz, and Konqueror hanging on every other web page I view. If I can't view it the first time without changing options, I will NOT go out of my way to view it unless it is absolutely vital information.
If you MUST run with the flock and use Javascript, don't design a site that is unusuable without it. I'll never come back.
Don't write a site entirely in Flash. Yeah, it's pretty. But the functionality sucks. I can't copy text or save pages this way. Forget it.
Don't pop up another window for ANYTHING unless the link says it will do so. Offer it as an option rather than the only choice.
Don't pop your site into a preset size window and disable the tool bars and such. That's just downright cheap and highly annoying. I won't do business with you either.
Don't use named fonts. Just change the sizes, but don't rely on them either--some of us love 1600x1200 on a 21" monitor, but have no choice but the override font sizes so we can see damned sites like Office Depot, GoGoCity.com, or others. No more of this 6pt text nonsense.
Don't link an entire damned sentence.
Okay, I'm just rambling now. Obviously there are a LOT of pet peeves over stuff like this. Deal with it, and you'll find a lot more people hitting your site.
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Try looking for keyboards like this one: Go to CyberGuys and search for "water keyboard" ("foldable keyboard" doesn't work for some reason). These are completely flexible keyboards, 100% sealed and water-proof, and can be completely rolled up (except for the area directly under the right-hand keypad where the board is). I've actually messed around with these some, and the keys feel usable (sort of like some of the recent "quiet" keyboards).
I've thought of this as well, but my stickler is trying to find a mouse that is waterproof. It would probably be optical, but with a sealed lens cover, and a completely rubber topside with buttons underneath the rubber.
I went through the same bit. After high school, I went to a Uni for a couple years before the money crunch got me. Grants, loans, and a student job barely paid for tuition and on-campus living. No meal plans there, and I was left a bunch of months with around $25 for a month of groceries and spending money. My only other choice was to get an off-campus job, and without a car, that wasn't an option around there.
I moved back home with my parents, who weren't in great financial shape either. I ended up as a computer operator ($7/hour), and within a week I was a junior programmer @ $22k. Four years later I'm now making over $40k, which in my city, is well above average. The company is over 120 years old and I'm one of about 10 IT staff here--i.e., I have one of the most stable possible jobs in today's economy. I own a home now (parents/bro/sis live with me, not vice-versa). I'll be out of all debt (minus mortgage) by the end of spring. All I'm in debt now anyway are student loans (2 months to pay them off), and I'm about to put down a few thousand to do some major work with my home.
I personally have never wanted anything at ALL to do with my generation (I'm a '78'er). I've seen even friends end up as a wasted drain on society. They have no ambition, and their education sucks. The few who do try to make something of themselves are getting screwed lately. I got OUT of college at just the right time. A friend of mine stayed 2 more years and finished his CS degree. He went back home, and even two years later could still only find work as a help desk operator! This is in a major US city with a supposedly large tech job market. He's making a tiny bit over minimum wage.
Bfah.
I'm sure it is, but if you use a SCUD from Fort Stockton to the ranch, it will probably hit Pheonix instead =)
This isn't always an option, at least not without causing yourself a *lot* of grief. The last time I requested a laptop be hand-searched they flat-out refused, and said that I *MUST* put it on the x-ray conveyor. And this was months BEFORE 9/11.
Okay...if you are using the old version, remove ~/.palmtopcenter before running the new one...
Well, appearently the new version is worse than the old one. This one starts a sync and hangs...that's it, dead. At least the old one only hung on the first sync, and could be kicked free.
Try again, Trolltech...
Agreed, I've been using this for months now. This is *definitely* nothing new.
The older version I'm using has some bugs still, so hopefully they worked those out (your first sync each time you start the software usually hangs on the calendar).
I'd be more interested in them fixing stuff like Hancomm spreadsheet taking forever to load (a 1MB spreadsheet takes about 10 minutes to load on my 5500!).
I doubt this is too likely to happen much. Security departments have a lot more to deal with than just securing locations from access. Our own computer department does, in fact, handle some of this (for our own areas, at least)--security keypads and our own alarm system.
I work for a large auto parts distributor, and our security department doesn't even deal much with access security. They deal with investigations for sticky-fingered employees for the most part. They also deal with the more complicated theft rings, which usually involve state authorities due to dirty city cops being involved.
This is WAY outside sysadmin territory, and I don't see them merging anytime soon.
This reminds me a bit of a story told by an old science teacher I had. They told us about their final exam in a college chemistry class. The procedure they had to carry out was simple: mix HCl (hydrochloric acid, a very powerful acid) and NaOH (sodium hydroxide, a very powerful base) to produce NaCl (sodium chloride, ordinary table salt) and H2O (erm...duh...).
The test didn't end there though. The professor required the students to *drink* some of the solution in order to prove they were confident in their own ability to carry out the procedure properly.
Now, would you drink something that could potentially kill you if you weren't truly confident you know what you were doing?
Two exist already...grand juries and impeachment hearings. Obviously, they don't work very well yet. Too much politician involvement in the translation matrix.
They'll have to get real jobs? Some job that requires an education, perhaps?
Do you know how the scientists test for the carcinogenic effects of products like this? They take lab rats and either force-feed or directly inject them in a matter of hours or days with a large multiple of the amount of the substance a normal human would consume in a lifetime. Hell, you can even overdose on water.
I've thought a bit about cancer lately and I've had two ideas so far. First, look at the process of human aging. Basically, the body slows down it's reproduction and replinishment of cells in the body--it slows down maintaining itself. I tend to think of cancer as likely a side-effect of this slowing-down process (misplacing the resources used in the replinishment?). The second idea is what if it's a (momentarily detrimental) part of our evolutionary process? Perhaps we're in line evolutionarily for enhanced abilities to heal and slower aging--which would require greater regenerative abilities of the cells of the body.
Okay, I've gotta say something here when it comes to bottled water versus tap water.
I live in San Antonio, Texas. We have the Edwards Aquifer, Carizo Springs, hell even Medina river water. We have one of the highest rated public tap water qualities in the world. Ever had Utopia bottled water? That's our tap water.
To me, and most people around here, bottled water tastes like CRAP...absolutely horrible and artificial. It's really a shame that so many people think this crap is better than their tap water. About the only bottled water I ever buy (which only happens when I'm on the road heading out of town) is Ozarka, which comes from more good Texan springs.
Is the water in other cities REALLY that bad? I lived in Corpus Christi for two years, so I know what bad water is like (ever had tap water that smells like a fish died in it?). But I couldn't imagine so much of the country has to deal with that.
A) Dual CF and SD slots, since they are used for both peripherals and storage. I like having both slots on my Zaurus, but I'd rather have two CF slots than one CF and one SD slot.
B) "Adjustable" CF slot. Spring-load the connector end of the slot with a catching gear to hold it in place until 'ejected'. My CF NIC has a 1/2" CF-sized portion that sticks up until it reaches the large block for the RJ-45 connector. It would be nice to push that portion deeper into the unit, making it easier to find a good case for it and leave an often-used CF peripheral inserted.
C) Two slots for stylii. You always lose one, so why not sacrifice an extra 1/4" hole to hold a second one.
D) Integrated *standard* ports. USB, DB-9 RS232 serial, an RJ-45 connector for lan, RJ-11 for modem (or integrate lan/modem, although that would be disadvantageous to me, personally). Think about it--we're not far off from being able to integrate these things cheaply. The circuitry needed is *very* small, and the connectors themselves wouldn't make a huje difference in PDA size (maybe 1/3 inch wider if all were put on one side, or 1/3 inch taller if all on bottom--quite possible).
E) Rubber-key keyboard. I love the Zaurus keyboard, but I'd rather have soft-rubber keys than the hard plastic (easier to grip with finger, nail, or stylus).
F) Higher-powered IR. I want my $500 TV remote =P
G) More integration: 802.11a, 802.11b, bluetooth. Why not? So long as power to the circuits is only enabled when in use, it won't make a huge difference in battery life. IANAEngineer, but certainly these have enough in common to share a good chunk of electronics.
H) DC power input with tolerence for a good range of voltages/amperages. You can always use another AC/DC adapter in a pinch, and save money on the high-priced name-brand adapters.
I'm sure I could come up with more, but...
If you scale something in only one or two dimensions, then yes, the results will be horrible. Of course a person 6 times taller (but all other dimensions normal) will be in bad shape. However, if you scale it in all dimensions, they will do just fine--until they try to walk down main street and take a 6kV power line in the crotch.
Ditto on spider silk. Increase the length 100 times and yes, it's useless. Increase the length AND the girth 100 times, and you have something that could give fullerines a run for their money.
I got the chance last year to visit Calgary and Banff. Besides the amazing scenery, I was impressed by the local telecommunications initiatives. At the time I was there, the big talk was the provincial government sponsoring rolling out DSL to the entire province. I'm from Texas, so I have some idea as to the benefits of this, as that province is about as spartan as Texas. A lot of small towns with great expanses of empty land in between---a real problem for people wanting broadband.
Nice move, guys!
We had a similar shipment a while back, though not quite as bad. It was also a full rack cabinet, filled with HP servers. Note, this was through a third party, not HP direct. More on HP later.
It was supposed to be shipped from California to Texas by a specialized carrier. This guys have trucks with some serious shock absorbtion, and the insurance to deal with quarter-million dollar equipment. It was full-service, too. Our computer room was up the loading dock, through a couple departments and low doorways, and up a ramp (raised flooring) through another low doorway. They were supposed to use the mechanized tilting/lifting pallet jacks, get the crate all the way into our computer room, get the rack off the pallet, and roll it into place.
The day before it was scheduled to arrive (at least one good thing), we have a large delivery van (normal crappy suspension) show up at our docks with something addressed to us. We get out there, look at the bill of lading, and sure enough, it's our rack of equipment.
It was just one guy--the driver.
And he doesn't do full service. He only had permission on the bill of lading to drop the package on the docks, and that was it. No mention of full service, and this company didnt' do it anyway.
It turned out it was shipped by air freight instead of truck, then dropped off (via normal van) to a local shipping company, with instructions for them to drop it off to us.
What a load of shit.
We finally ended up with a couple HP reps (only called out to certify our cluster; not move hardware) coming out to help us out. We lucked out that the rack was *just barely* able to fit under our doorways. So, these two HP reps grabbed a bunch of plywood and crap, stripped the crate, got the rack off the crate by quickly rolling it down the plywood (a hair-raising experience), and rolled it to the computer room.
Fortunately, we had a portable ramp built to go up the steps. It took 8 of us to get the rack up the ramp though, but we finally got it into place.
I still have no idea what became of the billing issues with the shipment; no idea if were charged for the full-service shipping, or what.
Matt made the message clear in more than just an interview. The last new episode that aired, in the opening scene where Bart is writing on the chalkboard, Bart was writing something along the lines of "A will never lie about being canceled again..."
Gotta love finding out like that!
Now, that said,
I WANT MY GOD DAMNED FUTURAMA BACK YOU BASTARDS!!!
You've gotta be kidding me...ThinkGeek hasn't bought it yet?!?
This isn't exactly in line with what you are doing, but it's similar enough that you may get some good ideas from it. JWZ, of Netscape fame, has been hard at work at a night club called DNA Lounge. It includes kiosks for internet access based on Linux terminal servers, as well as a few other ideas. If you go to the backstage area of the site, you'll find instructions on how to do many of the things he's done.
I have a 6200 (RAID0 use) and a 6410 (RAID5 use). I would absolutely recommend the 3Ware cards to everyone! I've never had any problems with them, and the latest kernel is always up to date with their latest driver release. The only competition out there for the 7000 series is Adaptec's 2400A, and that's only when doing RAID5.
While I agreed that chrisd really screwed the pooch on this one, who is even watching any more? I stopped watching XFiles years ago. Two or three seasons and it was time to put a fork in it. There were about a thousand different threads of conspiracy, "fact", rumor, and nonsense and it was snowballing too fast for any sane person to keep up. Every show contradicted the last. In the end, there was simply never any single solid plot. The entire damned show's plot changed every week.
Who cares?
I think I've headed off Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before it got serious by moving to this keyboard, so I'd definitely recommend it!
First, are you sure your UPS is a *TRUE* UPS? Even a lot of the 'high end' UPSes out there are still REALLY switched UPSes. This could very well be your problem.
The other one is something I've heard of (I'm not an electrical expert, but I'll try to explain). Larger (older installations, particularly) sites were wired for three-phase electricity. Over time, they split the phases for normal 110 volt usage. There is a chance where if the PC is connected to power on one phase, but the external unit is connected to power from a different phase, that the differential between the two can cause problems, due to the ground connection between the two through the cable shielding. I know, it sounds like something from the BOFH daily calendar, but it does make sense. Try making sure both pieces of equipment are on the same true UPS, or at least switched UPSes on the same circuit.
Back when I did this for a living we had an ancient machine running win95 (bleh) with IE and NS, running in 640x480 @ 256 colors. We tested every web page on this machine under both browsers. Our rules were simple.
First, the user should NEVER have to scroll horizontally. Never. Period. Second, we used GIFs as often as possible, optimized to a web palette (and therefore look acceptable under 256 colors). Note that obviously for photographs we didn't use gifs--just logos, maps, and other miscellaneous decoration.
These days, I'd probably include Konqueror, Mozilla, NS 4.x, IE, and Opera at a minimum. 640x480 is a bit restrictive these days, so I might be inclined to optimize for 800x600. On the other hand, I know plenty of people (usually older individuals with poor vision) who run in 640x480--even on a 21" monitor.
No God damned Java! No ActiveX! No Javascript! No CSS! Nobody supports ANY of these properly. I'm sick of NS, Moz, and Konqueror hanging on every other web page I view. If I can't view it the first time without changing options, I will NOT go out of my way to view it unless it is absolutely vital information.
If you MUST run with the flock and use Javascript, don't design a site that is unusuable without it. I'll never come back.
Don't write a site entirely in Flash. Yeah, it's pretty. But the functionality sucks. I can't copy text or save pages this way. Forget it.
Don't pop up another window for ANYTHING unless the link says it will do so. Offer it as an option rather than the only choice.
Don't pop your site into a preset size window and disable the tool bars and such. That's just downright cheap and highly annoying. I won't do business with you either.
Don't use named fonts. Just change the sizes, but don't rely on them either--some of us love 1600x1200 on a 21" monitor, but have no choice but the override font sizes so we can see damned sites like Office Depot, GoGoCity.com, or others. No more of this 6pt text nonsense.
Don't link an entire damned sentence.
Okay, I'm just rambling now. Obviously there are a LOT of pet peeves over stuff like this. Deal with it, and you'll find a lot more people hitting your site.