One of the main reasons to go out in the first place is to be away from the phone. You lose points for carrying a mobile contrary to what it was 40 years ago with 'car phones'.
Some ring tones are anoying, most not. What is anoying is knowing what comes next. You will notice the conversation more and the poor design (too small) of most handsets causes people to speak up. It is also anoying being in an office and dealing with someone on a landline who is connected by GSM. (GSM is not a bad protocol, its the artsy handset that stinks.)
Still more anoying is to be on the town with friends and someone gets a call. It can ruin the whole group effort. Life sure must be hell when anyone can reach you at their whims in your spare time out. Email is just fine and many of us mail online so its faster than IM when you want it that way.
Bottom line is I don't want to be bothered by these things when I'm enjoying quality time. People could atleast have the courtasy to say they are with people and call back, turn the thing 'off' where the ANI can take the info or just leave them at home or the job.
It is quite well known M$ has been bed with Apple for a long time. While it is absolutely no surprise *BSD wins, and for Mac World, Mac comes in second, one has to wonder what this is about?
Who doesn't know an unpublished exploit of Windows? Perhaps because it is so easy, script kiddies have turned their noses up to Windows? More likely Micro$oft just paid someone off and this is just another example of FUD? I've used all flavours of BSD for years and certainly won't switch. I've used (and still do) use Linux and certainly it can be more trusted than anything from M$.
Others have described the mayhem Microsoft does to the Internet, the worms and all that stuff. Perhaps Linux should review security a bit, but Linux is actually just the kernel and that has been top line for years. Just watch the added and unknown software you add. Same for Windows, but the fundemental basis of that kernel is flawed and without any true 'division of priviliges' its a piece of cake to exploit.
Why I played with the phone
on
Three Blind Phreaks
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"Phreaking" was hacking with a cause. Nothing like Cyber (trolls) Hippies or some dipshit "community spirit". When I was a very young kid, my bluebox (R1) was was my ticket to ride. With all the people I met, I am what I am today. You'd never know in America (where I grew up) what a crock Vietnam was from the start, the "Cold War" was a farce, Nixon was a super crook and on and on. __People__ told me what the press dared not report!
Due to an obscure Federal law, it was a crime to get priviladged service from the only 'provider' there was then: Ma Bell. It never bothered me to break a stupid law and never at any time was using a circuit that would have been otherwise idle wrong. In the early days, it may have cost a few bucks to make an international call but times were to change, but the rates didn't reflect that.
Europe, 1989, and wow, its legal! Armed with the knowledge that a transAtlantic call cost about $0.05/min and the consumer was charged about $3.00/min brought a new cause. Here in Europe, we took it to the press and won our case. While we were paying a few cents a minute to call, Americans were still paying a few dollars. Yes, they made it somewhat illegal in 1993 but the battle was won and then and only then was it associated with a bunch of Amiga lamers and criminals that made one-trick boxes.
As a 'phreak' I applied what i knew about Unix and its rather crude scheduling at the time. Finding a new 'trick' was a treat. First one in a hacker, copycats, criminals. Like writing code, it can take allot of persistence. Often more as the only feedback was sound and ofcourse, social engineering. I took great pride in asking the switchman if he noticed me in his system and the answer always: "No". Those musical Amigas enevitably played at the wrong level was always a giveaway: You could hear the timbre of an Amiga in the crosstalk!
Except for possibly mobile phones, there is no reason to do this stuff today. Unix and Internet are more interesting anyways. Phreaking was my way in to the Unix crowd and all the hackers that make 'mousing arround' possible for so many today. And guess what: You sheep out there spam, flood, use html attachments and cause general mayhem for a system that is as fragile as the phone was in the past. Criminal I'm not. And you with your software out of a cerial box? Did it ever occur to you why commercial software is packaged like that?
Believe it, it takes alot of skill to twidle a call. It takes nothing to ruin the Internet and so many of you are doing it now. I'm very proud it did it and still benefit today by not doing it. It is nice to know if there is ever a war or situation that requires it, I can do it and with computers, so much more.
"Three Blind Mice", nice to hear the story again. Blind people can type and often run a Votrax (the real speech synthesiser) at 200 WPM or more. I'm sighted and can read alot faster than that, but most can't.
There is a catch: Prior art. Unlike most software patents, it describes a process that can be a valid patent. It is simple enough to call "obvious" which is a disqualifier. Since it is registered, the best thing anyone can do is show the idea has been published anywhere and invalidate it. Most software patents will meet this fate, therefore it is probably good practice for a patent lawyer to refuse to consider software, biotech, obvious ideas and those that are in common use or known to have been published.
At least the site still resolves. Mike can host it overseas if he wants, even with me. There is no aparent copyright violation in using this domain. How can anybody copyright a common name? He just added "soft" because is taken and it probably sounded 'cute' at the time.
Microsoft has been dying for some time and this was even reported here. It's a desperate company that is going to fight anything to its own demise. If there is any doubts M$ is dying, read about the speech Gates delivered to the World Ecconomic Forum: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3426367.stm
When a manager is going over the CV's for prospective employees, he'll only read the first page anyways.
* Have someone else write it. It is very hard to not be hard on one's self when writing a piece about you.
* Just __mention__ jobs you had years ago.
* Be very careful about what formal education you put on that one page. Certainly avoid any mention of any student organisations unless you are __certain__ it will help.
* The less you put on your CV, the more likely you'll get the interview. You can answer any questions not explained on your CV in that interview.
* Use snail mail. Don't use email or fax them. This will almost certainly eliminate you as a candidate for the job! You can put it on your own homepage, but don't refer to that in a letter to a prospective employer.
* All references should be contacted in advance as a surprise call can produce unpredictable results. Remember its WHO you know, WHO You Know and WHO YOU KNOW that gets you the job. Mention a few key people you know in the CV, give out details in the interview.
Eventually the good jobs will come to you, contrary to what your parents may say. If the job looks interesting, certainly accept the interview. The salary advertised is not necessarily going to be what you get. They may try to snag you with low pay. Once that happens, it is hard to escape.
The above suggestions have worked well for me. A one page CV with lots of loose ends that you can clarify in the interview is key to getting the job. Once you are actually in the door, it is all about how you answer the questions in the interview that will get you the job. In my experience, a job offer or second interview will almost certainly result.
If you accept a job in the USA, never EVER agree to any drug tests. That is illegal here for a good reason. If a company tests, make that fact public and HURT them!
One final point: Dress for the role you are interviewing for. Know in advance what the companies 'dress code' is. Don't underdress and don't overdress for the part.
Are there any restrictions of any sort on using computers in Iraq in general and Linux in particular?
What is currently the most popular OS and hardware platform in Iraq, both by numbers and total computing power?
Issues:
* Crypto importing * Access to Internet to maintain a Unix system * The ".iq" top level domain * Who runs the providers? * Keeping Microsoft out (their own EULA forbids its use in Iraq)
Firebird will compile and work. It has some serious bugs and I eagerly await the next 'drop'. The latest Mozilla is a winner. Be sure to use mozilla-gtk or you will have frustrating problems like not being able to resize your browser window. This new Mozilla works well in 64bit mode. It is faster than anything you've seen and that is the browser I'm using now. Still a browser is for browsing, a mailer for mailing a newsreader for news, an IRC client or better, Unix talk or ytalk for chat, etc. The Firebird concept accepts this rather obvious situation.
Well..... I think you are very wrong. Apple runs the G5 in 32bit mode and one amd64 easily runs circles arround two G5's. (of the garden variety, as those Apple uses)
If you need a real 64bit OS for amd64 try FreeBSD-5.2 if you are waiting for Microsoft, it will never happen. There are a number of really good 64bit OS's out there for other platforms like SPARC and Alpha. I've been using 64bit machines for years and they have total advantage over 32bit systems. If you use allot of commercial software then running a 64bit processor in 32bit mode is a waste. Please note that many commercial outfits want there applications ported and are quite willing to hand over their source with a "NDA". In the mean time there isn't that much missing in 64bit applications for Unix and Linux will certainly get it together for this processor. This is likely to be the 'PC' for the next several years, Microsoft or not.
If you believe in benchmarks, a single amd64 running at 2200MHz gives a performance rating of atleast 5400 and the best the i386 can ever do is 3400 as there some really nasty technical limits on how fast a i386 can run. I like the amd64 so much I'm going to get more. A dual or quad Opteron is most likely my next computer purchase. No more mousing arround with i386!
Sure, why not? Modern radar is not that likely to be affected by low-power communication devices however, due to special techniques such as spreading which is coming to datacom, like it or not.
L-band (1.7 - 4.2 GHz) offers longer range.
X-band (8.0 - 12.4 GHz) has much finer resolution which certainly gets better for Ku, K and Ka band systems. The higher frequency systems are more prone to weather however.
C-band (4.2 - 8.0GHz) is a good compromise between range and target resolution.
The overall opinion from computer modeling is one more degree warmer and we (Europe) freeze out. This aparently is the 'little ice age' of the past repeating itself. It would be very interesting to know if Florida was under-water then?
It seems that that such seemingly small change of a single degree (Celsius) might actually do this. Once a firm believer man was doing all of this I'm not all that sure anymore. All told nature always wins and from that point of view we are not much of an influence.
This doesn't mean I think Americans should drive SUVs. If the price of petrol was fair (about $4 - $5 / gallon) we could atleast eliminate the human factor to a great extent.
Pick your favourite and launch it. Then launch the other inside the former. (Gnome -- launch "Gnome panel" KDE, just see if you can start a 'session' within Gnome.) While there will be some non-compatibilities, you can arrange things to where you have what you want on each. Both desktops are excellent and the best of each is certainly the best one can do.
Strip out any really bad incompatibilities and save the setup. You have four places to put panels alone and can ofcourse place them on top of one another. When using a platform under development this saves much of the trouble of trying to depend on one desktop alone. Ofcourse add xterm, aumix and any other applications and utilities not supplied by the desktops.
Sorry it wasn't clear. I was simply refering to a backbone connection often called a "network connection". If you are a university or provider in a major city, you can have 100M, 1G or 10G connectivity or more. At 100M, you should be able to download a CD in less than 90 seconds but it is conservative to say "two minutes". At 1G with good equipment about 10s. (non-PC and U320 SCSI RAID) The record is a bit faster and it was between our backbone (AMS) and Alaska. AFAIK, no system will handle 10G or more, except routers.
At a mere 10Mb/s 15 to 20 minutes is quite possible. At what point the RIAA gets upset is hard to tell, but this is probably the point. Also at this point, the video rental business is probably shot. They should be thinking about that right now! DRM will provably not work and closed source systems are not usually not allowed to run directly on symetrical high-speed connections.
They tried to use the DCMA and found out the law is as bankrupt as anyone suspected. They also learned that US law stops at the US boarder and that people mad enough can sue in US court for violation of US laws that apply to them as a US business.
It should also be realised that unless you have some sort of Internet connection it can take days as opposed to a couple minutes to download a mpeg4 encoded CD of about 730MB. Even "less than" ADSL connections and cable connections can take several hours to days as opposed to minutes. For the time, the size of their product is on their side.
AFAIK this is used nowhere in Europe and therefore the very long wait and very crude hack. My first encounter with this was when I visited my parents in California a few years ago. It was an obvious hack object to me.
You have a GPS system and a (crude) mobile phone. Both of these can be used seperately. If you are overly honest, register the phone to yourself! (I doubt "OnStar" is going to notice a few local calls however.)
To go into how I'd "skin the cat" would be offtopic, but you want to acheive these objectives:
1) Safety 2) GPS service 3) Privacy 4) A free mobile phone
Very quickly, the system should be 'intact' at most times. Incoming calls (that are not for the user) should be blocked in the name of privacy in normal situations. It should then be trivial to get both your GPS coordinates and have use of the phone.
Only by 'doing something' can abuses be avoided. It certainly could be used by police to monitor your position and average speed! It is however important to allow emergency help know your exact position. Only by taking control of what you own can you accomplish this.
The hack presented is about as low class as it can get. If this system were in Europe, you would have seen it done right before the the first units were deployed for production use!
Its not going to work based on what little information is currently available on this very limited technique. Seriously, its not going to be a net disaster either. Most MTAs use the free "Sendmail" which, unfortunately has a long history of exploits. "Postfix" and "Qmail" are popular alternatives and any one these standard MTAs are far more popular than all M$ solutions combined. It may work with M$ clients that use the rare M$ MTAs. Some solution.....
It is very unlikely the Unix world will have to comply to this in any way. If there were ever an RFC requiring this, all RFCs would be regarded as garbage and that would be the net disaster!
Such a scheme would appear to only slow down the least sophisticated net abusers. Every provider (and every private MTA) should do their part to assure their MTAs are correctly configured to atleast RFC standards. While both standards and the resulting MTA will evolve, don't expect anything to change radically no matter what M$ tries. The M$ plan is very likely non-compliant which could lead to a warning and ultimately removal from the Internet.
In some ways it is nice that even computer illitterates can use our Internet, but unfortunately this brings in the excess baggage like spam, Microsoft and laws that govern Internet use. Since there is really no going back, a worldwide ban on spam, very stiff fines ($1000 per complaint has often been suggested) and prison for repeat offenders seem to be the only way, now, to stop this abuse.
Nobody has mentioned what is often done here. Collect old equipment, mix and match parts until you have say thirty or more working PCs and send them to Africa or any other place that can use them. There are NGOs that will see to it they end up where they are needed.
It's your conscience what OS you use, and while they often think they want Windows, this is probably more harmful than good. It is important for people to learn how the machines work so Linux or BSD are far better choices. (Compile on your fast machine and install on the slower machines.) The i386 is more or less obsolete and also many old workstations.
In considering the operating system remember that getting even a single Internet connection in a third world village can be problematic. In the mean time a LAN will do. Some, if not all, should therefore have server capabilities. All but the poorest areas can manage to get electricity and eventually an outside connection, often by radio.
Despite all the nice pictures you see on your TV, starvation is not the problem the people behind this propaganda would want you to believe. It is unrealistic to believe any more than a tiny fraction of charity money ever makes it out of your own country. On the other hand the old PCs do and therefore that is a better charity choice.
The good old fashioned S3 -- perfect for servers
on
The Return of S3
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Don't us computer professionals deserve a usable video card for Eur 10,-- or so? Gamer/lamer crap and 5.1 Dolby sound has no place in the bulk of the computing world.
Might I suggest this Anonymous Coward check out the numerous computer trade fairs here? Paying fifty cents for a CD blank (including BTW) would be obscene. EUR 0,27 to 0,40 each (incl. tax) is the usual price range one can expect to pay here for a modest quantity.
There are some consumer products that record audio to CD or 'audio CD' to 'audio CD'. These (unless the device or a 'data CD' is modified) take the 'music CDs' which are taxed. The quality of these blanks is quite poor and the price is very high, reflecting the tax. It is true that Canada has a very similar law.
DVD's have been coming down in price and a Euro for a blank DVD+R is not impossible. The DVD+RW discs are scarce, but EUR 2,50 is reasonable. I hope I'm not paying the entertainment industry to make my backups! Everything in Germany (particularly East) is less expensive even after you adjust for the lower VAT there.
Sure, everything is hard at first, particularly Word. The environment settings (of TeX) indeed show its old age. There are quite a number of fonts available but some may be 'commercial' and cost. It is quite a bit of work to design them. TeX is more versatile than Word and since a computer places the text it is inheirently more accurate than WYSIWYG systems. Word is designed for secretaries to write letters while TeX allows mathematical expression in a totally consistent way.
There are alternatives, such as CAD packages and even avdanced extentions to markup languages (TeX is certainly one) for math, chemistry and other specialised fields. Mozilla has some nice stuff too. Also, I see a generation gap. A very famous publisher of travel guides ran into problems when the older people preferred TeX and the younger employees found it too 'abstract'. In research, a new view could really help the process. In the end, if one is spared the distraction of WYSIWYG, a more professional final product can result.
FORTRAN is perhaps not the oldest supported software of all but it pre-dates Unix, McIDAS and ARTS and is still widely used and supported today. Some common utilities, widely used today, were adapted and used in the first Unix. Research for all this dates back to the early 60's.
Is there anything from the 50's or earlier that is still supported today? Surely someone at IBM must know...
It's clear to me the amd64 is by far the best VALUE, bar none. Clearly it is unfair to benchmark a 64bit chip with 32bit applications, but still it comes out on top. Unix is normally 64bit and in true 64bit mode it really runs circles arround the the dual G5 despite all the marketing machine (and lies) of Apple. No chip has more attention from developers today than the amd64.
The amd64 is only for Unix users that can bootstrap a compiler and know how to use it. This is changing rapidly and there is atleast one distribution that will work -- FreeBSD-5.2. (Should be a distro by Christmas.) Still if all you want to do is run binaries, get an ecconomy processor! I don't see Microsoft coming out with a 64bit system anytime soon. So for those lusers it may not be all that 'futureproof'.
Love my amd64 -- and Unix. You get out what you put in, to be polite about it. Three months ago, when it was purchased it seemed like a computer hobbiest's curriousity item, but things move fast and it is the best buy.
Static, EEPROM (flash) and all other memory chips allready have a built-in filesystem. RAM means random access and voltages on the pins select the exact points on the chip. FAT is used because just about every OS supports it and cheap card readers can be made.
Using no filesystem will get the best usage of the memory chips. Please note that a 1440k floppy won't give you that but perhaps 10% less. As usual M$ shoots itself in the foot and camera makers can advertise 10% more pictures to a card. Tar would work nicely as a 'filesystem' and as far as I know that is free and even Windows understands it. Tar is very efficient but not exactly 'random access' something not usually needed in a camera.
No filesystem or minimal formatting works well on all removable media. That includes DVDs and CDs which will hold considerably more if you don't use cd9660 or UDF. If you have Unix (and SCSI) try it if media is intended to be streamed. Any further discussion of this is offtopic.
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One of the main reasons to go out in the first place is to be away from the phone. You lose points for carrying a mobile contrary to what it was 40 years ago with 'car phones'.
Some ring tones are anoying, most not. What is anoying is knowing what comes next. You will notice the conversation more and the poor design (too small) of most handsets causes people to speak up. It is also anoying being in an office and dealing with someone on a landline who is connected by GSM. (GSM is not a bad protocol, its the artsy handset that stinks.)
Still more anoying is to be on the town with friends and someone gets a call. It can ruin the whole group effort. Life sure must be hell when anyone can reach you at their whims in your spare time out. Email is just fine and many of us mail online so its faster than IM when you want it that way.
Bottom line is I don't want to be bothered by these things when I'm enjoying quality time. People could atleast have the courtasy to say they are with people and call back, turn the thing 'off' where the ANI can take the info or just leave them at home or the job.
It is quite well known M$ has been bed with Apple for a long time. While it is absolutely no surprise *BSD wins, and for Mac World, Mac comes in second, one has to wonder what this is about?
Who doesn't know an unpublished exploit of Windows? Perhaps because it is so easy, script kiddies have turned their noses up to Windows? More likely Micro$oft just paid someone off and this is just another example of FUD? I've used all flavours of BSD for years and certainly won't switch. I've used (and still do) use Linux and certainly it can be more trusted than anything from M$.
Others have described the mayhem Microsoft does to the Internet, the worms and all that stuff. Perhaps Linux should review security a bit, but Linux is actually just the kernel and that has been top line for years. Just watch the added and unknown software you add. Same for Windows, but the fundemental basis of that kernel is flawed and without any true 'division of priviliges' its a piece of cake to exploit.
"Phreaking" was hacking with a cause. Nothing like Cyber (trolls) Hippies or some dipshit "community spirit". When I was a very young kid, my bluebox (R1) was was my ticket to ride. With all the people I met, I am what I am today. You'd never know in America (where I grew up) what a crock Vietnam was from the start, the "Cold War" was a farce, Nixon was a super crook and on and on. __People__ told me what the press dared not report!
Due to an obscure Federal law, it was a crime to get priviladged service from the only 'provider' there was then: Ma Bell. It never bothered me to break a stupid law and never at any time was using a circuit that would have been otherwise idle wrong. In the early days, it may have cost a few bucks to make an international call but times were to change, but the rates didn't reflect that.
Europe, 1989, and wow, its legal! Armed with the knowledge that a transAtlantic call cost about $0.05/min and the consumer was charged about $3.00/min brought a new cause. Here in Europe, we took it to the press and won our case. While we were paying a few cents a minute to call, Americans were still paying a few dollars. Yes, they made it somewhat illegal in 1993 but the battle was won and then and only then was it associated with a bunch of Amiga lamers and criminals that made one-trick boxes.
As a 'phreak' I applied what i knew about Unix and its rather crude scheduling at the time. Finding a new 'trick' was a treat. First one in a hacker, copycats, criminals. Like writing code, it can take allot of persistence. Often more as the only feedback was sound and ofcourse, social engineering. I took great pride in asking the switchman if he noticed me in his system and the answer always: "No". Those musical Amigas enevitably played at the wrong level was always a giveaway: You could hear the timbre of an Amiga in the crosstalk!
Except for possibly mobile phones, there is no reason to do this stuff today. Unix and Internet are more interesting anyways. Phreaking was my way in to the Unix crowd and all the hackers that make 'mousing arround' possible for so many today. And guess what: You sheep out there spam, flood, use html attachments and cause general mayhem for a system that is as fragile as the phone was in the past. Criminal I'm not. And you with your software out of a cerial box? Did it ever occur to you why commercial software is packaged like that?
Believe it, it takes alot of skill to twidle a call. It takes nothing to ruin the Internet and so many of you are doing it now. I'm very proud it did it and still benefit today by not doing it. It is nice to know if there is ever a war or situation that requires it, I can do it and with computers, so much more.
"Three Blind Mice", nice to hear the story again. Blind people can type and often run a Votrax (the real speech synthesiser) at 200 WPM or more. I'm sighted and can read alot faster than that, but most can't.
This just clogs up the Internet. These virus warnings are even more pesty. All "Virus Warnings" --> /dev/null Can you spell U N I X?
Right, I was receiving 5000 worms per hour at the peak. These 'nice' warnings make things only worse.
There is a catch: Prior art. Unlike most software patents, it describes a process that can be a valid patent. It is simple enough to call "obvious" which is a disqualifier. Since it is registered, the best thing anyone can do is show the idea has been published anywhere and invalidate it. Most software patents will meet this fate, therefore it is probably good practice for a patent lawyer to refuse to consider software, biotech, obvious ideas and those that are in common use or known to have been published.
At least the site still resolves. Mike can host it overseas if he wants, even with me. There is no aparent copyright violation in using this domain. How can anybody copyright a common name? He just added "soft" because is taken and it probably sounded 'cute' at the time.
Microsoft has been dying for some time and this was even reported here. It's a desperate company that is going to fight anything to its own demise. If there is any doubts M$ is dying, read about the speech Gates delivered to the World Ecconomic Forum: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3426367.stm
When a manager is going over the CV's for prospective employees, he'll only read the first page anyways.
* Have someone else write it. It is very hard to not be hard on one's self when writing a piece about you.
* Just __mention__ jobs you had years ago.
* Be very careful about what formal education you put on that one page. Certainly avoid any mention of any student organisations unless you are __certain__ it will help.
* The less you put on your CV, the more likely you'll get the interview. You can answer any questions not explained on your CV in that interview.
* Use snail mail. Don't use email or fax them. This will almost certainly eliminate you as a candidate for the job! You can put it on your own
homepage, but don't refer to that in a letter to a prospective employer.
* All references should be contacted in advance as a surprise call can produce unpredictable results. Remember its WHO you know, WHO You Know and WHO YOU KNOW that gets you the job. Mention a few key people you know in the CV, give out details in the interview.
Eventually the good jobs will come to you, contrary to what your parents may say. If the job looks interesting, certainly accept the interview. The salary advertised is not necessarily going to be what you get. They may try to snag you with low pay. Once that happens, it is hard to escape.
The above suggestions have worked well for me. A one page CV with lots of loose ends that you can clarify in the interview is key to getting the job. Once you are actually in the door, it is all about how you answer the questions in the interview that will get you the job. In my experience, a job offer or second interview will almost certainly result.
If you accept a job in the USA, never EVER agree to any drug tests. That is illegal here for a good reason. If a company tests, make that fact public and HURT them!
One final point: Dress for the role you are interviewing for. Know in advance what the companies 'dress code' is. Don't underdress and don't overdress for the part.
Are there any restrictions of any sort on using computers in Iraq in general and Linux in particular?
What is currently the most popular OS and hardware platform in Iraq, both by numbers and total computing power?
Issues:
* Crypto importing
* Access to Internet to maintain a Unix system
* The ".iq" top level domain
* Who runs the providers?
* Keeping Microsoft out (their own EULA forbids its use in Iraq)
Firebird will compile and work. It has some serious bugs and I eagerly await the next 'drop'. The latest Mozilla is a winner. Be sure to use mozilla-gtk or you will have frustrating problems like not being able to resize your browser window. This new Mozilla works well in 64bit mode. It is faster than anything you've seen and that is the browser I'm using now. Still a browser is for browsing, a mailer for mailing a newsreader for news, an IRC client or better, Unix talk or ytalk for chat, etc. The Firebird concept accepts this rather obvious situation.
Well..... I think you are very wrong. Apple runs the G5 in 32bit mode and one amd64 easily runs circles arround two G5's. (of the garden variety, as those Apple uses)
If you need a real 64bit OS for amd64 try FreeBSD-5.2 if you are waiting for Microsoft, it will never happen. There are a number of really good 64bit OS's out there for other platforms like SPARC and Alpha. I've been using 64bit machines for years and they have total advantage over 32bit systems. If you use allot of commercial software then running a 64bit processor in 32bit mode is a waste. Please note that many commercial outfits want there applications ported and are quite willing to hand over their source with a "NDA". In the mean time there isn't that much missing in 64bit applications for Unix and Linux will certainly get it together for this processor. This is likely to be the 'PC' for the next several years, Microsoft or not.
If you believe in benchmarks, a single amd64 running at 2200MHz gives a performance rating of atleast 5400 and the best the i386 can ever do is 3400 as there some really nasty technical limits on how fast a i386 can run. I like the amd64 so much I'm going to get more. A dual or quad Opteron is most likely my next computer purchase. No more mousing arround with i386!
Sure, why not? Modern radar is not that likely to be affected by low-power communication devices however, due to special techniques such as spreading which is coming to datacom, like it or not.
L-band (1.7 - 4.2 GHz) offers longer range.
X-band (8.0 - 12.4 GHz) has much finer resolution which certainly gets better for Ku, K and Ka band systems. The higher frequency systems are more prone to weather however.
C-band (4.2 - 8.0GHz) is a good compromise between range and target resolution.
The overall opinion from computer modeling is one more degree warmer and we (Europe) freeze out. This aparently is the 'little ice age' of the past repeating itself. It would be very interesting to know if Florida was under-water then?
It seems that that such seemingly small change of a single degree (Celsius) might actually do this. Once a firm believer man was doing all of this I'm not all that sure anymore. All told nature always wins and from that point of view we are not much of an influence.
This doesn't mean I think Americans should drive SUVs. If the price of petrol was fair (about $4 - $5 / gallon) we could atleast eliminate the human factor to a great extent.
Pick your favourite and launch it. Then launch the other inside the former. (Gnome -- launch "Gnome panel" KDE, just see if you can start a 'session' within Gnome.) While there will be some non-compatibilities, you can arrange things to where you have what you want on each. Both desktops are excellent and the best of each is certainly the best one can do.
Strip out any really bad incompatibilities and save the setup. You have four places to put panels alone and can ofcourse place them on top of one another. When using a platform under development this saves much of the trouble of trying to depend on one desktop alone. Ofcourse add xterm, aumix and any other applications and utilities not supplied by the desktops.
Sorry it wasn't clear. I was simply refering to a backbone connection often called a "network connection". If you are a university or provider in a major city, you can have 100M, 1G or 10G connectivity or more. At 100M, you should be able to download a CD in less than 90 seconds but it is conservative to say "two minutes". At 1G with good equipment about 10s. (non-PC and U320 SCSI RAID) The record is a bit faster and it was between our backbone (AMS) and Alaska. AFAIK, no system will handle 10G or more, except routers.
At a mere 10Mb/s 15 to 20 minutes is quite possible. At what point the RIAA gets upset is hard to tell, but this is probably the point. Also at this point, the video rental business is probably shot. They should be thinking about that right now! DRM will provably not work and closed source systems are not usually not allowed to run directly on symetrical high-speed connections.
They tried to use the DCMA and found out the law is as bankrupt as anyone suspected. They also learned that US law stops at the US boarder and that people mad enough can sue in US court for violation of US laws that apply to them as a US business.
It should also be realised that unless you have some sort of Internet connection it can take days as opposed to a couple minutes to download a mpeg4 encoded CD of about 730MB. Even "less than" ADSL connections and cable connections can take several hours to days as opposed to minutes. For the time, the size of their product is on their side.
AFAIK this is used nowhere in Europe and therefore the very long wait and very crude hack. My first encounter with this was when I visited my parents in California a few years ago. It was an obvious hack object to me.
You have a GPS system and a (crude) mobile phone. Both of these can be used seperately. If you are overly honest, register the phone to yourself! (I doubt "OnStar" is going to notice a few local calls however.)
To go into how I'd "skin the cat" would be offtopic, but you want to acheive these objectives:
1) Safety
2) GPS service
3) Privacy
4) A free mobile phone
Very quickly, the system should be 'intact' at most times. Incoming calls (that are not for the user) should be blocked in the name of privacy in normal situations. It should then be trivial to get both your GPS coordinates and have use of the phone.
Only by 'doing something' can abuses be avoided. It certainly could be used by police to monitor your position and average speed! It is however important to allow emergency help know your exact position. Only by taking control of what you own can you accomplish this.
The hack presented is about as low class as it can get. If this system were in Europe, you would have seen it done right before the the first units were deployed for production use!
Its not going to work based on what little information is currently available on this very limited technique. Seriously, its not going to be a net disaster either. Most MTAs use the free "Sendmail" which, unfortunately has a long history of exploits. "Postfix" and "Qmail" are popular alternatives and any one these standard MTAs are far more popular than all M$ solutions combined. It may work with M$ clients that use the rare M$ MTAs. Some solution.....
It is very unlikely the Unix world will have to comply to this in any way. If there were ever an RFC requiring this, all RFCs would be regarded as garbage and that would be the net disaster!
Such a scheme would appear to only slow down the least sophisticated net abusers. Every provider (and every private MTA) should do their part to assure their MTAs are correctly configured to atleast RFC standards. While both standards and the resulting MTA will evolve, don't expect anything to change radically no matter what M$ tries. The M$ plan is very likely non-compliant which could lead to a warning and ultimately removal from the Internet.
In some ways it is nice that even computer illitterates can use our Internet, but unfortunately this brings in the excess baggage like spam, Microsoft and laws that govern Internet use. Since there is really no going back, a worldwide ban on spam, very stiff fines ($1000 per complaint has often been suggested) and prison for repeat offenders seem to be the only way, now, to stop this abuse.
Nobody has mentioned what is often done here. Collect old equipment, mix and match parts until you have say thirty or more working PCs and send them to Africa or any other place that can use them. There are NGOs that will see to it they end up where they are needed.
It's your conscience what OS you use, and while they often think they want Windows, this is probably more harmful than good. It is important for people to learn how the machines work so Linux or BSD are far better choices. (Compile on your fast machine and install on the slower machines.) The i386 is more or less obsolete and also many old workstations.
In considering the operating system remember that getting even a single Internet connection in a third world village can be problematic. In the mean time a LAN will do. Some, if not all, should therefore have server capabilities. All but the poorest areas can manage to get electricity and eventually an outside connection, often by radio.
Despite all the nice pictures you see on your TV, starvation is not the problem the people behind this propaganda would want you to believe. It is unrealistic to believe any more than a tiny fraction of charity money ever makes it out of your own country. On the other hand the old PCs do and therefore that is a better charity choice.
Don't us computer professionals deserve a usable video card for Eur 10,-- or so? Gamer/lamer crap and 5.1 Dolby sound has no place in the bulk of the computing world.
I think different (Penciled in)
Right: Think differently -- Don't think at all!
Might I suggest this Anonymous Coward check out the numerous computer trade fairs here? Paying fifty cents for a CD blank (including BTW) would be obscene. EUR 0,27 to 0,40 each (incl. tax) is the usual price range one can expect to pay here for a modest quantity.
There are some consumer products that record audio to CD or 'audio CD' to 'audio CD'. These (unless the device or a 'data CD' is modified) take the 'music CDs' which are taxed. The quality of these blanks is quite poor and the price is very high, reflecting the tax. It is true that Canada has a very similar law.
DVD's have been coming down in price and a Euro for a blank DVD+R is not impossible. The DVD+RW discs are scarce, but EUR 2,50 is reasonable. I hope I'm not paying the entertainment industry to make my backups! Everything in Germany (particularly East) is less expensive even after you adjust for the lower VAT there.
Sure, everything is hard at first, particularly Word. The environment settings (of TeX) indeed show its old age. There are quite a number of fonts available but some may be 'commercial' and cost. It is quite a bit of work to design them. TeX is more versatile than Word and since a computer places the text it is inheirently more accurate than WYSIWYG systems. Word is designed for secretaries to write letters while TeX allows mathematical expression in a totally consistent way.
There are alternatives, such as CAD packages and even avdanced extentions to markup languages (TeX is certainly one) for math, chemistry and other specialised fields. Mozilla has some nice stuff too. Also, I see a generation gap. A very famous publisher of travel guides ran into problems when the older people preferred TeX and the younger employees found it too 'abstract'. In research, a new view could really help the process. In the end, if one is spared the distraction of WYSIWYG, a more professional final product can result.
FORTRAN is perhaps not the oldest supported software of all but it pre-dates Unix, McIDAS and ARTS and is still widely used and supported today. Some common utilities, widely used today, were adapted and used in the first Unix. Research for all this dates back to the early 60's.
Is there anything from the 50's or earlier that is still supported today? Surely someone at IBM must know...
It's clear to me the amd64 is by far the best VALUE, bar none. Clearly it is unfair to benchmark a 64bit chip with 32bit applications, but still it comes out on top. Unix is normally 64bit and in true 64bit mode it really runs circles arround the the dual G5 despite all the marketing machine (and lies) of Apple. No chip has more attention from developers today than the amd64.
The amd64 is only for Unix users that can bootstrap a compiler and know how to use it. This is changing rapidly and there is atleast one distribution that will work -- FreeBSD-5.2. (Should be a distro by Christmas.) Still if all you want to do is run binaries, get an ecconomy processor! I don't see Microsoft coming out with a 64bit system anytime soon. So for those lusers it may not be all that 'futureproof'.
Love my amd64 -- and Unix. You get out what you put in, to be polite about it. Three months ago, when it was purchased it seemed like a computer hobbiest's curriousity item, but things move fast and it is the best buy.
Static, EEPROM (flash) and all other memory chips allready have a built-in filesystem. RAM means random access and voltages on the pins select the exact points on the chip. FAT is used because just about every OS supports it and cheap card readers can be made.
Using no filesystem will get the best usage of the memory chips. Please note that a 1440k floppy won't give you that but perhaps 10% less. As usual M$ shoots itself in the foot and camera makers can advertise 10% more pictures to a card. Tar would work nicely as a 'filesystem' and as far as I know that is free and even Windows understands it. Tar is very efficient but not exactly 'random access' something not usually needed in a camera.
No filesystem or minimal formatting works well on all removable media. That includes DVDs and CDs which will hold considerably more if you don't use cd9660 or UDF. If you have Unix (and SCSI) try it if media is intended to be streamed. Any further discussion of this is offtopic.