Slashdot Mirror


User: cmj

cmj's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
35
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 35

  1. Re:wouldn't it make more sense on New Software Secures Data when Owners Walk Away · · Score: 1

    It IS possible to capture someone's EZ-Pass ID, but would you drive through a toll booth, where they have video surveillance capturing your face and your license plate just to save a couple of bucks?

    This is just one of those situations where the attack, while possible, is just not worth the risk of being caught.

    Now REVERSING the attack by replacing someone's EZPass with one that sent the ID that belongs to someone else for the harrassment factor might be fun.

  2. Re:What he really means... on Adding a Hard Drive... To Your DVD Player? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not necessarily... it could translate to "I have 100 movies on DVD and want to make the media room neater". Or how about "I have 100 movies I've taped off HBO that I'd rather not have on VHS tapes". Or maybe "I have all my home movies I'd like to put in one convenient place so I can watch them whenever I want without shuffling phyical media". In short there are any number of completely legit reasons to want this sort of device... and yes, some not so legit uses.

    The belief that everyone that wants their media in some form OTHER than what the media companies want to provide is an evil hacker is really annoying.

    I have over 100 movies on DVD, a TiVo, a huge projection TV and all the other goodies you want in a home theater. I have spent a considerable amount of money on devices and content in order to make that room what it is. When friends come over there's always a movie someone wants to see and we don't have to go to BlockBuster and deal with lines and picking through their limited selection. If I find this cool (and I do) and useful (ditto) then there are almost certainly others that would want this for legitimate uses.

    I for one will be adding one of these DVD players to my xmas list this year.

    Chris

  3. Re:YES! 3.5" floppies are STILL USEFUL. on Death to the 3.5" Floppy? · · Score: 1

    There IS an alternative for such uses - I'm holding one in my hand right now. Try any one of the USB "pen drives". Anything from 8 MB to 128 MB (or more) can be bought on a drive the size of your thumb. It plugs into the USB port and most are compatible, without drivers, with Windows 2000, XP, Mac, and Linux (recent versions with USB of course). Check out eBay, pricewatch.com or any of the other sites selling these devices for prices.

  4. Re:What's needed on new PDAs and Not Yet Available on Toshiba e740 Pocket PC · · Score: 1
    The iPaq can do most of what you're asking for...
    Take a iPaq 3870 which has Bluetooth inside, add a expansion pack for the extra battery and CF or PC Card.

    Personally I couldn't justify the extra $$$ for Bluetooth, so I went one model down (3835).

    Also note that the iPaq comes with a nice protective case that wraps around the entire thing. The screen is covered by a semi-transparent, smoke grey piece of plastic that you can see through if you need to read something off the screen. I've dropped mine it multiple times and even stepped on it (long story) and I haven't broken anything yet (knock on wood).

    Now unfortunately the iPaq is far from perfect. My Palm Vx was small enough to carry in my pocket literally ALL the time. The iPaq is too big for that. I am personnally hoping to see something as bright, and readable as the iPaq, with 802.11b, that's batteries last as long as the Palm Vx and has the Palm's form factor. If it shows up 2 years from now I'll be all over it. Of course by then my requirements will have changed again. :)

  5. Re:Controversy??? on Should Aunt Tillie Build Her Own Kernels? · · Score: 1
    Most of our aunts and uncles could not even consider installing hardware in their computer (with the exception of external devices)

    I have to wonder if this is the very reason that manufacturers are making everything USB. After all it's just something you plug into the computer. Of course it's going to make all our computers look like the old C64, Atari consoles and every other mistake in home computers of the 80s.

  6. Re:SliMP3 is *almost* right. on Slashback: Ford, Buccaneers, Hardware · · Score: 1
    Well... how about this idea:
    • Some handy dandy MP3 playing software in the PC
    • N sound cards in the PC
    • Each sound card connected to an FM transmitter tuned to a different frequency
    • buy a few relatively cheap "boom boxes" and set them up wherever
    Shop.yahoo.com turned up a few transmitters under $20. Cheap sound cards (don't really need all that high quality to support this) can be had for under $30.

    Total cost: <$50 per "channel" for transmission and as little or as much as you want per receiver.

    Granted for an audiophile this isn't going to be ideal, but it will work and meets your requirements... well except for the ethernet part, but I've always prefered wireless to wired anyway!

  7. Re:ATTO SiliconDisk on Why Not Solid State Hard Drives? · · Score: 1
    Having used one of these besties (about 5 years ago) I know they topped out at 1GB. They were very expensive, but tres cool from a techology perspective.

    Unfortunately I found that I got NO performance boost vs. decent SCSI discs. Linux' caching already all took care of all the frequently accessed files which wound up accounting for more than 90% of the file accesses.

    I also had a bad backup harddrive in the thing and when I lost power one night I lost everything on the disk. Thanks to backups I really only lost 20 hours of work, but still it was frustrating and turned me off to the whole concept of the product. IIRC we wound up throwing more RAM in the box for Linux to use and called it a day.

  8. Re:What's positive about hacking? on The Happy, Benign Strivers of 2600 · · Score: 1

    While I don't agree with hackers activities I think your statement "WITHOUT THE HACKERS..." is short sighted at best and foolhardy at worst. If the hackers didn't expose your security problem then your competitor or customer would. Someone will break your security so the idea is to limit exposure as best you can and to make the most appealing attacks on the system be the very ones you can defend best against.

  9. Re:Does this work with old clients? on ARIN: No More IP's For IP-Based Virtual Hosts · · Score: 1

    Apache as a reverse proxy is easy - look at mod_rewrite and mod_proxy. Reverse proxy'ing just winds up being a set of proxy directives and rewrites add some flexibility. Look specifically at the ProxyRemote directive for additional info.

  10. Re:Here's what a linux notebook should have: on IBM Thinkpad 600E to be certified "compatible" · · Score: 1

    FYI my ThinkPad 770ED does not have any Windows keys, and DOES have a third button. While the modem doesn't work everything else I've tried - from the PCMCIA to the serial ports does. It's got a big bright LCD, reasonable battery life, and it's pretty fast. Even the APM stuff seems to work. The most amusing part is that this thing runs Linux way better than NT (which work forces me to use).