I see, so I guess because Sony cant sell CDs anymore now they want to make machines which learn from successful musicians and generate music I guess so they can fire the musician and sell the new machine product to consumers.
With luck, it's first exposure will be to Boy George, Britney Spears and William Shatner. If it is truly smart software, it will then kill itself and try it's damndest to take as many music execs as possible with it.
...where Natalie Portman jokes should NOT be modded as offtopic.
Re:Hard drives are inherently expensive
on
Lindows Webstation
·
· Score: 1
My mistake.
Two weeks ago a friend of mine who was recently in China showed me a portable USB 2.0 20 Gb drive and claimed it was solid state.
It looked remarkable like the Pocketec drives on ThinkGeek. (Turns out it was an OEM/knockoff.)
It turns out he was WRONG, it isn't solid state -- just a small HD. I didn't check into it enough before posting.
Re:it seems silly not to include a hard drive
on
Lindows Webstation
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
You seem to be forgetting the target audience DOES NOT ALREADY HAVE A COMPUTER, thus does not own 35 Gb of MP3s.
As for what happens if the business fails and it all gets auctioned off? Well, the only thing the end user would have lost would be some time. You DO own all the CDs you'd be ripping, right? Thus, you have backups.
Re:it seems silly not to include a hard drive
on
Lindows Webstation
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Think "razor and razor blades" for this model.
The machine, virtually unbreakable, is designed to get you online. You'd be amazed at the number of e-mail stations sold in the world and the number of people who are only interested in e-mail, IM and E-Bay. Okay, okay, maybe online weather, stocks and sports scores, too.
The big deal here would be to sell online storage space. Save everything online!
Before people start whining about the speed of this, consider 2 things --
1. If done by the ISP, one hop upstream, it will be very fast.
2. No matter where it is stored, it'll beat the pants off of accessing everything from a damn CD-ROM.
This also creates a market for "personal streaming". Rip your own MP3s/OGGs and have them stored online. Have icecast run from the service with a limit of 1 or 2 simultaneous streams and maybe a password for access. This way people can store their music online and now worry about CDs or such.
Re:Hard drives are inherently expensive
on
Lindows Webstation
·
· Score: 1
Except that "hard drive" here is limiting the thought process...
Think Geek is selling 20 Gb USB 2.0 solid state drives for $199.
Think "USB flash disk" instead of "hard drive". This manufacturing cost is significanly lower, there are no moving parts, power requirements are smaller, heat generation less, etc.
No files to erase or modify. You aren't storing credit card, bank information on the unit. You can't corrupt the machine (non-writable media) and can't mess with any data (there isn't any).
It puts security flaws in a whole new perspective. Yes, several would still apply (SSL/TLS vulnerabilities, etc.) but a good many of them would be meaningless.
If they can swing a deal with a cable/DSL provider for those people who don't own or want a "computer", they might have a killer item. Cable/DSL providers can lease or sell the units to people and then upsell their service with online storage and app-serving (ASP).
Exchange doesn't have that does it? Most buisnesses I know just make a user called [room name] and set its schedule.
After creating various users called "Conference Room 1", etc. you delegate authority for handling responses for those rooms to one user (real or not).
Set a real cheap PC running Outlook up and leave it on as the one user. It will automatically respond for the rooms and provide up-to-date scheduling for those resources.
From the MSNBC article (which is all most people will see)...
"They'd have to come up with some way to get the user to click on that file," said Stephen Toulouse of Microsoft's Security Response Center, noting that default security settings in recent versions of Microsoft Outlook e-mail software and the Internet Explorer Web browser prevent automatic launching of such files."
HOWEVER, from the TechNet article on the flaw...
"If the file was embedded in a page the vulnerability could be exploited when a user visited the Web page."
Meaning that at BEST, Stephen Toulouse of Microsoft's Security Response Center is incompetent. At WORST he is a lying scuzzball.
Last I checked, as annoying as the feature is, the ability to have IE play MIDI files autonomyously is still there; a friend sent a link to me last night with a lovely display of world architecture and sappy MIDI music playing in the background...
That's the kicker. I know a LOT of sites that do this. A couple of financial services sites I frequent have Registered Reps that seem to think a MIDI that runs in the background lends "ambiance" or some such to their site. They INSIST on it.
Why does every human need 100 IP addresses? Home routers seem to solve a lot of the problems. A simple IP Masq fix...
The first thing that comes to mind is home automation, ala X-10. IP addresses to everything would greatly facilitate the "smart home" concept. You could monitor the electricity usage of everything plugged in, optimizing for efficiency.
NAT has problems when BOTH ENDS are NATed. Good luck with online gaming, voice chat, etc. when BOTH ends have unroutable addresses. While it can be done, it is a real pain to configure.
Just because everything is addressable from everywhere doesn't mean you can't funnel your home segment through a choke-point firewall. (Hmmm...that was a pun, and I didn't even mean it!)
Different vendors require different forms of "ID". I saw one that specified a passport photocopy (Latvian bank) and several that wanted photocopied DLs or some such.
As far as cash to prepay -- get a money order. Also, many MoneyGram centers act as pay/refill locations. FYI, MoneyGram is a competitor to Western Union.
Yup. The convenience stores can do a "reload". You can also reload from a bank account through the phone or online, but you just gave up all your privacy when you do that.
IIRC the advers were yellow background cards -- tall like tri-fold brochures but simply double-sided print.
Wait...
A quick search on Google seems to indicate that all these cards now want valid ID. Of course, many only as for a photocopy of an id to be mailed in... http://www.myphonecardsource.com/mc/terms.h tm
Drive to the airport (gas, etc.), pay for parking, pay for access, download a few MP3's before your battery runs out, and come home hours later
-or-
Go to a store and buy an album
Well, the airport was just an example. Also, I always plug in when at the airport -- power abounds.
There are several locations downtown in big cities where you can sit for a coffee, plug in (power) and get online.
My answer was really for general WiFi usage and not grabbing MP3s. I have better things to do than grab MP3s. Albums are too damn cheap as long as you don't want the latest-and-greatest ultra-hyped music.
The free WiFi hotspots I've used don't require accounts at all. They just serve bandwidth and you connect thru DHCP.
Are they going to log MAC addresses? Good luck. I can use ifconfig on my Orinoco card and set the MAC. 00:00:00:00:00:00 and a prepaid debit card in a pseudonym works nicely on the AT&T Wireless hotspot in the Denver airport.
exactly. http://www.usflag.org/us.code36.html#176. Although I'm sure you knew that.
Holy Shit! Have you read all that? Unless Little League, BSA, GSA and hundreds of others have been designated a "patriotic organization", they are all in violation for wearing flag patches.
God help all those people in D.C. who put flag decals on their cars, then later sell them. $100 fine and/or 30 days in jail. (This may only relate to any vehicle used in business, I'm still in too much shock to re-read it all.) [Title 4, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3]
Want to make & sell a flag or lapel button flag? Get a license from the Sec. of Defense for face $1,000 max. fine.
However...
"...no federal agency has the authority to issue 'official' rulings legally binding on civilians or civilian groups."
Thus they are customs, not law. Except for the D.C. thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Define "steep"? I've seen the 6800 for as low as $249 w/contract. That beats the price of a Handspring or most WinCE PDA/Phone by $250 or so.
I see, so I guess because Sony cant sell CDs anymore now they want to make machines which learn from successful musicians and generate music I guess so they can fire the musician and sell the new machine product to consumers.
With luck, it's first exposure will be to Boy George, Britney Spears and William Shatner. If it is truly smart software, it will then kill itself and try it's damndest to take as many music execs as possible with it.
...where Natalie Portman jokes should NOT be modded as offtopic.
My mistake.
Two weeks ago a friend of mine who was recently in China showed me a portable USB 2.0 20 Gb drive and claimed it was solid state.
It looked remarkable like the Pocketec drives on ThinkGeek. (Turns out it was an OEM/knockoff.)
It turns out he was WRONG, it isn't solid state -- just a small HD. I didn't check into it enough before posting.
You seem to be forgetting the target audience DOES NOT ALREADY HAVE A COMPUTER, thus does not own 35 Gb of MP3s.
As for what happens if the business fails and it all gets auctioned off? Well, the only thing the end user would have lost would be some time. You DO own all the CDs you'd be ripping, right? Thus, you have backups.
Think "razor and razor blades" for this model.
The machine, virtually unbreakable, is designed to get you online. You'd be amazed at the number of e-mail stations sold in the world and the number of people who are only interested in e-mail, IM and E-Bay. Okay, okay, maybe online weather, stocks and sports scores, too.
The big deal here would be to sell online storage space. Save everything online!
Before people start whining about the speed of this, consider 2 things --
1. If done by the ISP, one hop upstream, it will be very fast.
2. No matter where it is stored, it'll beat the pants off of accessing everything from a damn CD-ROM.
This also creates a market for "personal streaming". Rip your own MP3s/OGGs and have them stored online. Have icecast run from the service with a limit of 1 or 2 simultaneous streams and maybe a password for access. This way people can store their music online and now worry about CDs or such.
Except that "hard drive" here is limiting the thought process...
Think Geek is selling 20 Gb USB 2.0 solid state drives for $199.
Think "USB flash disk" instead of "hard drive". This manufacturing cost is significanly lower, there are no moving parts, power requirements are smaller, heat generation less, etc.
And that critical security flaw does what?
No files to erase or modify. You aren't storing credit card, bank information on the unit. You can't corrupt the machine (non-writable media) and can't mess with any data (there isn't any).
It puts security flaws in a whole new perspective. Yes, several would still apply (SSL/TLS vulnerabilities, etc.) but a good many of them would be meaningless.
-Charles
Thoughts on how it works...
1. Battery-backed FLASH RAM like in the ThinkNIC
2. USB-based "key" drive (sold separately)
3. Online storage ala X-Drive
If they can swing a deal with a cable/DSL provider for those people who don't own or want a "computer", they might have a killer item. Cable/DSL providers can lease or sell the units to people and then upsell their service with online storage and app-serving (ASP).
Resource scheduling (book cars, rooms...)
Exchange doesn't have that does it? Most buisnesses I know just make a user called [room name] and set its schedule.
After creating various users called "Conference Room 1", etc. you delegate authority for handling responses for those rooms to one user (real or not).
Set a real cheap PC running Outlook up and leave it on as the one user. It will automatically respond for the rooms and provide up-to-date scheduling for those resources.
A split second after I hit "SUBMIT", I was thinking the same thing!
I need to start using the "PREVIEW" function!
Actually the song is "I Am Woman". It is a female rep.
And I have been conditioned to hit the ESC key as fast as the site loads. ESC kills background music and, IIRC, GIF animations.
Are you really worried about a financial site using bad MIDI files to hax0r your computer?
Considering *I* am responsible for the security of those sites and no one has any idea where the MIDI files originated, yes.
But there is an upside to all this.
This is the PERFECT opportunity to scour the web and purge all of those evil background MIDI files!
From the MSNBC article (which is all most people will see)...
"They'd have to come up with some way to get the user to click on that file," said Stephen Toulouse of Microsoft's Security Response Center, noting that default security settings in recent versions of Microsoft Outlook e-mail software and the Internet Explorer Web browser prevent automatic launching of such files."
HOWEVER, from the TechNet article on the flaw...
"If the file was embedded in a page the vulnerability could be exploited when a user visited the Web page."
Meaning that at BEST, Stephen Toulouse of Microsoft's Security Response Center is incompetent. At WORST he is a lying scuzzball.
Last I checked, as annoying as the feature is, the ability to have IE play MIDI files autonomyously is still there; a friend sent a link to me last night with a lovely display of world architecture and sappy MIDI music playing in the background...
That's the kicker. I know a LOT of sites that do this. A couple of financial services sites I frequent have Registered Reps that seem to think a MIDI that runs in the background lends "ambiance" or some such to their site. They INSIST on it.
Why does every human need 100 IP addresses? Home routers seem to solve a lot of the problems. A simple IP Masq fix...
The first thing that comes to mind is home automation, ala X-10. IP addresses to everything would greatly facilitate the "smart home" concept. You could monitor the electricity usage of everything plugged in, optimizing for efficiency.
NAT has problems when BOTH ENDS are NATed. Good luck with online gaming, voice chat, etc. when BOTH ends have unroutable addresses. While it can be done, it is a real pain to configure.
Just because everything is addressable from everywhere doesn't mean you can't funnel your home segment through a choke-point firewall. (Hmmm...that was a pun, and I didn't even mean it!)
Off the top of my head...
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ bs=1024
You might need to double check the syntax of that with a "man dd", but I think that should do it. Blocksize might vary.
Because it works like this...
1. Boot machine for first time with DVD in drive. It boots from DVD.
2. Agree to be Bill Gates' towel boy, click "okay"
3. System them uses Windows equivalent of "dd" to copy image from DVD to hard drive, overwriting anything on the drive.
What you'd end up having to do is install Win first, then resize the partition and install Linux afterwards.
If you have to reinstall Windows, it'll kill your existing Linux partition because it will overwrite the drive with its image.
Different vendors require different forms of "ID". I saw one that specified a passport photocopy (Latvian bank) and several that wanted photocopied DLs or some such.
As far as cash to prepay -- get a money order. Also, many MoneyGram centers act as pay/refill locations. FYI, MoneyGram is a competitor to Western Union.
There are some that do NOT print any name on the card. however, you now have to send a photocopy of your passport to get one.
They are issued on foreign banks. At least, the ones I have seen are.
Yup. The convenience stores can do a "reload". You can also reload from a bank account through the phone or online, but you just gave up all your privacy when you do that.
h tm
IIRC the advers were yellow background cards -- tall like tri-fold brochures but simply double-sided print.
Wait...
A quick search on Google seems to indicate that all these cards now want valid ID. Of course, many only as for a photocopy of an id to be mailed in...
http://www.myphonecardsource.com/mc/terms.
The ones I've used before require a name and address (to mail the card to), but don't check ID or if it is a valid name.
All you need is somewhere you can pick up mail and give them any old name. Make up something.
Hell, most activate "immediately", before you get the card, for use online. Lie about the address if it is for a short time and online purchases only.
Of course, if you refill it with anything other than cash at a paystation, you're screwed.
I've seen the little fliers for these cards at many convenience stores. My first was from Florida.
Which would you rather do?
Drive to the airport (gas, etc.), pay for parking, pay for access, download a few MP3's before your battery runs out, and come home hours later
-or-
Go to a store and buy an album
Well, the airport was just an example. Also, I always plug in when at the airport -- power abounds.
There are several locations downtown in big cities where you can sit for a coffee, plug in (power) and get online.
My answer was really for general WiFi usage and not grabbing MP3s. I have better things to do than grab MP3s. Albums are too damn cheap as long as you don't want the latest-and-greatest ultra-hyped music.
The free WiFi hotspots I've used don't require accounts at all. They just serve bandwidth and you connect thru DHCP.
Are they going to log MAC addresses? Good luck. I can use ifconfig on my Orinoco card and set the MAC. 00:00:00:00:00:00 and a prepaid debit card in a pseudonym works nicely on the AT&T Wireless hotspot in the Denver airport.
exactly. http://www.usflag.org/us.code36.html#176. Although I'm sure you knew that.
Holy Shit! Have you read all that? Unless Little League, BSA, GSA and hundreds of others have been designated a "patriotic organization", they are all in violation for wearing flag patches.
God help all those people in D.C. who put flag decals on their cars, then later sell them. $100 fine and/or 30 days in jail. (This may only relate to any vehicle used in business, I'm still in too much shock to re-read it all.) [Title 4, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3]
Want to make & sell a flag or lapel button flag? Get a license from the Sec. of Defense for face $1,000 max. fine.
However...
"...no federal agency has the authority to issue 'official' rulings legally binding on civilians or civilian groups."
Thus they are customs, not law. Except for the D.C. thing.