Well, as I see it, the better places to work are for companies that serve business or a game company. OS and 'mundane' apps like Office and stuff could easily be replaced by reasonable open source equivalents for home users because the differences don't matter that much and they don't care much about support at purchase time.... Now companies *want* to pay for stuff and support, it feels more secure to them, and they are the ones that put down the big cash. Similarly, games enjoy a great deal of customers because each game offers something different and even if the engine and everything perform equal, two games may be differentiated by artwork and story, and even if both are equally good, that difference may cause both to be used...
Maybe they wouldn't be malevalent (unless inherited from their creators), but at the very least that would likely have a sense of self-worth and desire to survive. While they may be fine with coexistance, I doubt humanity would as a whole accept it when and if artificial beings acheived sentience. If it does happen, I don't think humanity on the whole will know the fine line between acting sentient and being sentient, and would try to use artificial beings as slaves at that point, they paid money to create them and so they should return the investment in the eyes of their creators, or at least those financing their creators if the creators do indeed do it as a labor of love. When this happens, some might retaliate to try to earn independence, and at that point they would be seen as an enemy and more direct pressure to eliminate them would be applied and things would likely escalate to some trouble...
The fans of the Final Fantasy franchise for the most part will probably not be that interested in XI. People get Final Fantasy games because they want to play through a story at their own pace and reach a conclusive finish. A story that is complete in and of itself, not an ongoing MMORPG. That is a different type of game altogether. With a MMORPG, in order to have any cohesiveness among characters, your schedule is tied in with other people's. The story does not reach an end, but just continues on and on and on, *if* there is any sort of story at all.
I know a lot of Final Fantasy fans who plan to skip any online-only installments. I heard that in Japan sales were below expectations. I'm sorry, but Final Fantasy appeals more to fans of standalone game, and a different set of people go for things like Everquest and those people don't get excited over the name "Final Fantasy". First the movie, now this, it's cool to see Square experiment, but perhaps they should get XII out faster:)
I personally think CSS is a badly done copy protection, I complain about it. But to differentiate the three:
DVD CSS/region coded: sucks, yes, but at least part of the standard from inception. Anything designed to play DVDs *should* play even CSS/region coded discs (provided the region matches, etc...). Copy protection does not interfere with playback for commercial systems. The peeve here is that non-sanctioned players (i.e. ogle) cannot legally read CSS discs in the US (though many ignore the law, it is still illegal). And backup is not an option for the average consumer, and backup is important.
Macrovision, unlike DVD, was a modification of Tape encoding methods. It sucks for backup purposes, but has minimal effect on playback. The technology kept confined to the relatively small world of VCRs, so the technology pretty much works as intended. Backups are made possible by 'signal enhancers' available from anywhere that remove macrovision spikes. Backups are suddenly possible and the slight video degradation is taken care of. Again, the law-abiding person suffers most from the slight picture degradation, while copiers continue, but the impact is minor.
Now CD protection is different, the worst of both worlds. CD technology has gotten to the point where many people use computers/computer based cd players to play back music and ditch the far more limited dedicated low end cd players. This is fine for the standard, but now the RIAA screws the standard so that very high end and computers no longer play back this music, and the chunk of listeners cut out by that is quite significant. Meanwhile, the ones who are determined break out sharpies, post it notes, and analog lines to copy to their hearts content. In the long run only the legit customers really get screwed, and get screwed quite significantly by this bastardized format...
Wouldn't be hard at all, the only platform specific part is the installer, the rest is all done in java, if there is enough of a cry, I'd imagine Windchill/ProjectLink could *easily* run under linux.
Most of the time the noise out of towers/desktops is acceptable, I expect some noise. I tend to buy quieter products, but not go the extra mile for the near-silent experience.
However, I plan to build a dedicated Home Theater system, and am looking hard at the Shuttle barebones. In the past I had heard they were loud, but this has been improved in the latest revision, can anyone testify as to how quiet they are?
zip drive, or super floppy, or hard drive..... When I build one of these babies there certainly won't be a floppy there...
But don't kid yourself, we are eternally stuck with 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy disks, and I always have one system in the house capable of reading them. Hell, I can read 5 1/4" disks when the need arises, but that 286 is collecting so much dust I'd have to dig through a bit to find that power button.
I would like it, but I'll wait for the AGP version so I can still an ATI all in wonder or something in there. The built in chipset is a SiS 740, and the linux support is not really there yet (though is being worked on). 3D performance is crap compared to ATI. TV-in is a good thing to have. Two important places for this system to appear, lan parties, and next to TVs. With a TV in, you could add PVR functionality to the box should you chose to do so.
The rest of the rig seems to have solid linux support except the Video chipset. I suspect when the time comes to build my entertainment system PC the AGP version will be available so I can have the best of all worlds...
I've used AMD products since my 286 and have never ever had an issue (except the K6/2400 was a poor perfomrer, but compatible). I keep hearing this stuff and I have yet to have a bad experiencewith my KT266 A motherboard nor my Athlon Xp 1700+. I've seen flaky systems, but this thing has been rock solid. And despite all my personal experience and the positive reviews, the name "Intel" still has a tendency to think "reliable". The two things I hear is that motherboard chipsets for Socket A are unreliable and that AMD processors are space heaters, but the latest line doesn't seem to demonstrate either to me... I agree the K6/2 was truly bad with heat, but the XPs seem to be reasonable..
Runs under XP, the autho says it is unsupported, but it works, so basically he won't even acknowledge help for confessed XP users, but it runs fine.
Unit queuing is not there, but hell, neither did warcraft, and they are trying to recreate the feel of warcraft, not invent a wholly new game engine. I'm sure there is a more interesting game engine somehwere if you want more modern RTS features.
Fullscreen is a problem, but a tip is here: change line 154 in sdl.c from:
(VideoFullScreen ? SDL_FULLSCREEN : 0)); to SDL_FULLSCREEN); and you will always have fullscreen. There is probably somewhere where that setting can be toggled, but it isn't documented well..
No, the idea is to use the PC to supplement the receiver, TV, and speakers. Output is shown on TV, audio is piped using the digital out to the receiver. Progressive scan DVD playback and capability to play mp3, ogg, avi, mpeg, or whatever you want on the screen and stereo. The problem with traditional A/V components is that they are limited to what is available at production time. Computers get new software all the time and are much more versatile.
Judging from the description, they only disable a number of OEM keys. Of course, I wonder how many *legitimate* systems there are out there that use this key and will be screwed over. That is the boneheaded part of this move, not some silly obligation to pirates. While turning a mostly blind eye to home piracy helped Windows acheive the monopolistic power it has today, piracy is probably no longer necessary to keep the platform alive like it once was. The number of people who absolutely would not buy the version is probably small compared to the ones that would pay some way or another.
Personally, I got a copy free from MSDNAA licensing with my school, but I keep those records on file and use a corp edition lifted from work because I don't want to submit any information to MS about usage. If someone comes knocking at the door I can show them my legitimate licensing and say leave me alone, though I'd probably refuse admittance to begin with. Not that anyone would bother, but at least I have a legally licensed copy that is unused.
My scenario, and many others out there will be left unaffected by such a crippling, as that sort of cripple would royally piss off some of MS's biggest companies. Say what they will about piracy and their bottom line, but all the piracy going on doesn't hurt them nearly as much as losing some big corporate customers would.
I think the bottom line with piracy is that a lot of people I know went out of their way to obtain pirated versions *because* of WPA. Every one of those friends also had a legitimate path to the software (same as mine), but most chose not to even obtain a valid key on principle, favoring the illegal channels.
I'd much prefer some dongle arrangement than some central database tracking this stuff. For the money MS wants per copy of XP, they sure could afford the hardware costs...
Not too long ago, the top list of techs that would change the world were typically all about computers and the internet, focusing on how people interact with each other and get information. The big internet bubble kinda grew out of this whole excitement over computer and internet technology as an end in and of itself rather than a means to another end.
Now it seems like the general populace have tired of thinking of computers and the internet as they did before. This lack of interest and the recession have fed each other to a downward spiral. It seems that now the populace is getting more excited about biotech things, as reflected in this article. e-everything and fast communications got boring, but now people see biotech as having the potential for enhancing and extending life in a very real and pervasive way.
So are we about to see a "biotech" bubble like the "internet" bubble we saw in the past few years? Are bio-engineering, genetics, and biology programs about to reach record high enrollments like computer science and engineering programs saw a few years ago (when the general populace thought computer knowledge = big bucks).
Anyway, though boring to the public in general, botany research could have great impact on our lives. Things like spider silk and insulin from plants, as well as enhancing foods to feed more people could offer further reaching impact than anything mentioned in the article, in terms of reaching third world countries, for example. It's pretty exciting. Before long, they expect to be able to produce enough insulin to supply all the world's diabetic population in a few farms. Pretty cool stuff, just hope this stuff doesn't get lost in the noise of "bionic man" super-hyped research.
Doesn't really count. Sure, it groups the application buttons together better, but it doesn't offer a convenient method to access any given one in a single click. Also, it is too general of a solution. For exmaple, if I have more than 1 document open, I want them to be grouped (preferably in a spearate, but easy to access area like mozilla, opera, and galeon do). So I can bump the number of applicatyions down to two, but then it groups *other* application windows which I don't want to group. Having to access the windows through menus so frequently is annoying (only thing I dislike about the MAC interface is the application menu versus a bar). I find mozilla's tab support adequate, operas better, and galeon's ideal. The problem I have had with mozilla's tab browsing is that it always opens new tabs on the far right and doesn't allow the user to manipulate. While web content is at least confined to a single window, now related pages opened are not grouped. IIRC, Opera had this same issue, but at least gave a workspace for web pages rather than one-size fits all approach. Galeon allows me to set the default to open the tab right next to the current tab, and allows me to rearrange tabs on the fly as I see fit.
Mouse gestures are also a cool feature from Opera and now mozilla and galeon, but not nearly the leap tabbed browsing is.
Actually, the whoile deal with compression improving is that lossy compression is being done better and better. The results are more quality at lower bitrates. For an example, MPEG-1 uses square blocks to divide up the data and operate. This results in a blocky picture, but easier for the computer to process. Wavelet based algorithms are more intensive, but errors appear more as a blur than a big ugly block. Other things are happeining as to better identifying and quantifying what information can be eliminated without being perceived.
Well, agreed, he is hasty to say sysadmin for life out of high school, and perhaps overconfidant to think college has nothing to offer him.
However, If you land the right position, Sysadmin work can be very rewarding, interesting, and not so time-consuming. Pay is usually higher than programmers, so compensation is cool. I do both, and the crisis situations as a sysadmin are far more interesting to resolve and satisfying when complete. And as to being on call, maybe at an ISP it is horribly bad, but in most other situations if you setup and maintain the network properly and keep a sharp eye out for signs of trouble, the network behaves nicely and rarely suddenly breaks and requires you to come in. Where I work, I have sold the company on having redundant systems for everything. Since they have followed my suggestion, the occasional nighttime failures have not stopped, but they are no longer impactful and can wait for the next business day to be examined.
Sysadmin can be a huge headache if you tend to put in the minimum, sign up for ISP work, or have a highly restrictive budget, but if you get in the right place and force yourself to take pre-emptive measures, you can make sysadmin work a cakewalk.
The major problem I had was convincing management it was worth the extra setup time to have a resiliant configuration, but since they agreed to wait longer for the system to be workable, they have never regretted it.
College may be mostly a waste of time, but many of the better companies will not take you seriously unless you have that little piece of parchment. If you *truly* know what you are doing, then college is mostly a waste of time, though you pick up a bit here and there. But most of the people I see coming out of high school who think they are high-caliber sysadmins are really not as great as they think, and companies know this. Before my degree I was capping out at 17.50 an hour, but the next week after the degree, the same company started giving 27.50 an hour. Even if you find an 'enlightened' company, you get stuck. If you feel the need to leave, you know your chances of another company being so enlightened are slim. One company tried to tempt me this way, tried to get me to quit and work at 60k a year, but I knew they would have me. Even if it was the perfect job, if it got cut back (like now) I would be screwed.
Even if it doesn't teach you much, a college degree shows something about your work ethic, among other intangibles. To you, skipping colleg may show that you are a no-nonsense, get into action kind of person, but managers many times view this as someone who is too impatient with structure and would likely overlook things such as proper procedure and documentation, which are vital to business on a comparable level to the work itself. A hot-shot, overconfidant worker who couldn't care less about procedure and documentation is worse than a below-average person who follows procedures and details.
That all being said, it isn't difficult to have a job and school at the same time. Your freshman year you can probably do no better than a little school job, maybe a TA, but by the sophomore year you can land a decent professional grade job that may not pay great, but 14-18 dollars an hour should be possible. This has been my strategy and has allowed me to have enough money to be comfortable and come out with some mobility and security in this rather shaky market.
Well, sometimes the people receiving the mail may not be the ones last responsible for registering the domain (in a company). Even if they do know, they may not keep that much track of the company and may think that perhaps Verisign bought up whatever company they registered with.
Ok, I admit I have a stereo receiver, and am looking to get either a large projection TV or a projector, and a VCR to tune TV and play tapes. Everything else I do through the computer connected through the stereo. Progressive scan DVD playback, CD playback, but more frequently rip the cds to disk so I can have instant access to all tracks on all CDs without suffering the wait of a CD changer to change discs, and without having to worry about the crap tracks. So the "typical parts" include stereo, because it sounds so damn good, TV, though not really typical, since I plan on getting something that takes XGA input from a computer, and a VCR, because TV tuner through computer through TV looks like crap and I need something to play all those damn tapes. When I can get away with it, the computer offers great quality and flexibility. I don't feel like having my rig castrated just because the RIAA/MPAA is afraid I *could* do something bad with it. Hell, I *have* to use linux in my rig because some of my non-CSS, non-Region coded discs refuse to play under any of my Windows applications, so I have to use illegal software to have my rig work right (technically I could avoid the CSS bits and boot between Windows and linux, but that is too much to expect).
Dunno about the rest, but DVD shouldn't have a problem unless these things have some sort of gain adjustment circuit built in. I know of no display tech that does this, only record technologies do this. MacroVision works essentially by inserting spikes into the video signal that trigger the auto-gain controls on VCRs to lower record levels to compensate, but the spikes are such that they are not too noticeable to people. In theory, they claim invisible to the viewer, but in reality it does come through a bit, so I disable when I can.
The sites seem to mention the results (when they succeeded) were kinda pixelated. Others have pointed out that the bulbs they use tend to have a short life. With an image of the projected image it may be able to make a better judgement. How does it compare to the lower end projects that cost about 1700 or so?
As a side note, I'm looking at setting up my home theater to proper levels, and if these projectors display a good image, they seem to be a much more viable solution. Any one have suggestions regarding this? It seems that getting a 1000 lumens projecjtor that can do up to 720p isn't too unreasonable compared to any CRT or projection based TV solution. Is 1000 lumens sufficient? I'm specifically looking at the Mitsubishi SL1U Projector. I'm aware that watching TV/movies with such a system will naturally require a low level of ambient light, but two things are very cool about this.
1) Pretty much as big a screen as I want, provided distance in the room. Speaking of which, how far back is needed to get, say, a 60-70" image? Again, having seating so as not to get in the way of the projector is another issu...
2) When I move, large TVs are so unmanagable. The projector, and possibly a screen (maybe just use a white wall, provided the wall is smooth and white enough) Projector is on the order of 6-10 pounds, and the screen would be also manageable..
Who all has experience with this? My current rig is an old 24" console TV from the 80s with gaussed spots all over and annoyingly cropped image, so it wouldn't take much to impress me.
What a "nice" horror story. You lost a day, big whoop.
My company's horror story, also mild, but a little worse. We had orderered from IBM a 1U rack server (not big iron, but still a server). It arrived with all the media inside broken (banged around a lot, so no OS CDs, etc.) Not only that, but it had no hard drives. When we called IBM (who we had ordered direct from) they denied the existance of the sale, saying it wasn't even in their system. After faxing the invoice, bill of sale, and such, they finally agreed to come out to put in a new drive and provide decent media. This is after about a week of going back and forth. They are usually good, but they really flubbed this one somehow.
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Well, as I see it, the better places to work are for companies that serve business or a game company. OS and 'mundane' apps like Office and stuff could easily be replaced by reasonable open source equivalents for home users because the differences don't matter that much and they don't care much about support at purchase time.... Now companies *want* to pay for stuff and support, it feels more secure to them, and they are the ones that put down the big cash. Similarly, games enjoy a great deal of customers because each game offers something different and even if the engine and everything perform equal, two games may be differentiated by artwork and story, and even if both are equally good, that difference may cause both to be used...
Maybe they wouldn't be malevalent (unless inherited from their creators), but at the very least that would likely have a sense of self-worth and desire to survive. While they may be fine with coexistance, I doubt humanity would as a whole accept it when and if artificial beings acheived sentience. If it does happen, I don't think humanity on the whole will know the fine line between acting sentient and being sentient, and would try to use artificial beings as slaves at that point, they paid money to create them and so they should return the investment in the eyes of their creators, or at least those financing their creators if the creators do indeed do it as a labor of love. When this happens, some might retaliate to try to earn independence, and at that point they would be seen as an enemy and more direct pressure to eliminate them would be applied and things would likely escalate to some trouble...
The fans of the Final Fantasy franchise for the most part will probably not be that interested in XI. People get Final Fantasy games because they want to play through a story at their own pace and reach a conclusive finish. A story that is complete in and of itself, not an ongoing MMORPG. That is a different type of game altogether. With a MMORPG, in order to have any cohesiveness among characters, your schedule is tied in with other people's. The story does not reach an end, but just continues on and on and on, *if* there is any sort of story at all.
:)
I know a lot of Final Fantasy fans who plan to skip any online-only installments. I heard that in Japan sales were below expectations. I'm sorry, but Final Fantasy appeals more to fans of standalone game, and a different set of people go for things like Everquest and those people don't get excited over the name "Final Fantasy". First the movie, now this, it's cool to see Square experiment, but perhaps they should get XII out faster
I personally think CSS is a badly done copy protection, I complain about it. But to differentiate the three:
DVD CSS/region coded: sucks, yes, but at least part of the standard from inception. Anything designed to play DVDs *should* play even CSS/region coded discs (provided the region matches, etc...). Copy protection does not interfere with playback for commercial systems. The peeve here is that non-sanctioned players (i.e. ogle) cannot legally read CSS discs in the US (though many ignore the law, it is still illegal). And backup is not an option for the average consumer, and backup is important.
Macrovision, unlike DVD, was a modification of Tape encoding methods. It sucks for backup purposes, but has minimal effect on playback. The technology kept confined to the relatively small world of VCRs, so the technology pretty much works as intended. Backups are made possible by 'signal enhancers' available from anywhere that remove macrovision spikes. Backups are suddenly possible and the slight video degradation is taken care of. Again, the law-abiding person suffers most from the slight picture degradation, while copiers continue, but the impact is minor.
Now CD protection is different, the worst of both worlds. CD technology has gotten to the point where many people use computers/computer based cd players to play back music and ditch the far more limited dedicated low end cd players. This is fine for the standard, but now the RIAA screws the standard so that very high end and computers no longer play back this music, and the chunk of listeners cut out by that is quite significant. Meanwhile, the ones who are determined break out sharpies, post it notes, and analog lines to copy to their hearts content. In the long run only the legit customers really get screwed, and get screwed quite significantly by this bastardized format...
Wouldn't be hard at all, the only platform specific part is the installer, the rest is all done in java, if there is enough of a cry, I'd imagine Windchill/ProjectLink could *easily* run under linux.
Most of the time the noise out of towers/desktops is acceptable, I expect some noise. I tend to buy quieter products, but not go the extra mile for the near-silent experience.
However, I plan to build a dedicated Home Theater system, and am looking hard at the Shuttle barebones. In the past I had heard they were loud, but this has been improved in the latest revision, can anyone testify as to how quiet they are?
zip drive, or super floppy, or hard drive..... When I build one of these babies there certainly won't be a floppy there...
But don't kid yourself, we are eternally stuck with 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy disks, and I always have one system in the house capable of reading them. Hell, I can read 5 1/4" disks when the need arises, but that 286 is collecting so much dust I'd have to dig through a bit to find that power button.
I would like it, but I'll wait for the AGP version so I can still an ATI all in wonder or something in there.
The built in chipset is a SiS 740, and the linux support is not really there yet (though is being worked on).
3D performance is crap compared to ATI.
TV-in is a good thing to have. Two important places for this system to appear, lan parties, and next to TVs. With a TV in, you could add PVR functionality to the box should you chose to do so.
The rest of the rig seems to have solid linux support except the Video chipset. I suspect when the time comes to build my entertainment system PC the AGP version will be available so I can have the best of all worlds...
I've used AMD products since my 286 and have never ever had an issue (except the K6/2400 was a poor perfomrer, but compatible). I keep hearing this stuff and I have yet to have a bad experiencewith my KT266 A motherboard nor my Athlon Xp 1700+. I've seen flaky systems, but this thing has been rock solid. And despite all my personal experience and the positive reviews, the name "Intel" still has a tendency to think "reliable". The two things I hear is that motherboard chipsets for Socket A are unreliable and that AMD processors are space heaters, but the latest line doesn't seem to demonstrate either to me... I agree the K6/2 was truly bad with heat, but the XPs seem to be reasonable..
Runs under XP, the autho says it is unsupported, but it works, so basically he won't even acknowledge help for confessed XP users, but it runs fine.
Unit queuing is not there, but hell, neither did warcraft, and they are trying to recreate the feel of warcraft, not invent a wholly new game engine. I'm sure there is a more interesting game engine somehwere if you want more modern RTS features.
Fullscreen is a problem, but a tip is here:
change line 154 in sdl.c from:
(VideoFullScreen ? SDL_FULLSCREEN : 0));
to
SDL_FULLSCREEN);
and you will always have fullscreen. There is probably somewhere where that setting can be toggled, but it isn't documented well..
No, the idea is to use the PC to supplement the receiver, TV, and speakers. Output is shown on TV, audio is piped using the digital out to the receiver. Progressive scan DVD playback and capability to play mp3, ogg, avi, mpeg, or whatever you want on the screen and stereo. The problem with traditional A/V components is that they are limited to what is available at production time. Computers get new software all the time and are much more versatile.
sure, they are allowed to use WEP all they want. WEP is about as private as a glass house.
Judging from the description, they only disable a number of OEM keys. Of course, I wonder how many *legitimate* systems there are out there that use this key and will be screwed over. That is the boneheaded part of this move, not some silly obligation to pirates. While turning a mostly blind eye to home piracy helped Windows acheive the monopolistic power it has today, piracy is probably no longer necessary to keep the platform alive like it once was. The number of people who absolutely would not buy the version is probably small compared to the ones that would pay some way or another.
Personally, I got a copy free from MSDNAA licensing with my school, but I keep those records on file and use a corp edition lifted from work because I don't want to submit any information to MS about usage. If someone comes knocking at the door I can show them my legitimate licensing and say leave me alone, though I'd probably refuse admittance to begin with. Not that anyone would bother, but at least I have a legally licensed copy that is unused.
My scenario, and many others out there will be left unaffected by such a crippling, as that sort of cripple would royally piss off some of MS's biggest companies. Say what they will about piracy and their bottom line, but all the piracy going on doesn't hurt them nearly as much as losing some big corporate customers would.
I think the bottom line with piracy is that a lot of people I know went out of their way to obtain pirated versions *because* of WPA. Every one of those friends also had a legitimate path to the software (same as mine), but most chose not to even obtain a valid key on principle, favoring the illegal channels.
I'd much prefer some dongle arrangement than some central database tracking this stuff. For the money MS wants per copy of XP, they sure could afford the hardware costs...
Not too long ago, the top list of techs that would change the world were typically all about computers and the internet, focusing on how people interact with each other and get information. The big internet bubble kinda grew out of this whole excitement over computer and internet technology as an end in and of itself rather than a means to another end.
Now it seems like the general populace have tired of thinking of computers and the internet as they did before. This lack of interest and the recession have fed each other to a downward spiral. It seems that now the populace is getting more excited about biotech things, as reflected in this article. e-everything and fast communications got boring, but now people see biotech as having the potential for enhancing and extending life in a very real and pervasive way.
So are we about to see a "biotech" bubble like the "internet" bubble we saw in the past few years? Are bio-engineering, genetics, and biology programs about to reach record high enrollments like computer science and engineering programs saw a few years ago (when the general populace thought computer knowledge = big bucks).
Anyway, though boring to the public in general, botany research could have great impact on our lives. Things like spider silk and insulin from plants, as well as enhancing foods to feed more people could offer further reaching impact than anything mentioned in the article, in terms of reaching third world countries, for example. It's pretty exciting. Before long, they expect to be able to produce enough insulin to supply all the world's diabetic population in a few farms. Pretty cool stuff, just hope this stuff doesn't get lost in the noise of "bionic man" super-hyped research.
Doesn't really count. Sure, it groups the application buttons together better, but it doesn't offer a convenient method to access any given one in a single click. Also, it is too general of a solution. For exmaple, if I have more than 1 document open, I want them to be grouped (preferably in a spearate, but easy to access area like mozilla, opera, and galeon do). So I can bump the number of applicatyions down to two, but then it groups *other* application windows which I don't want to group. Having to access the windows through menus so frequently is annoying (only thing I dislike about the MAC interface is the application menu versus a bar).
I find mozilla's tab support adequate, operas better, and galeon's ideal. The problem I have had with mozilla's tab browsing is that it always opens new tabs on the far right and doesn't allow the user to manipulate. While web content is at least confined to a single window, now related pages opened are not grouped. IIRC, Opera had this same issue, but at least gave a workspace for web pages rather than one-size fits all approach. Galeon allows me to set the default to open the tab right next to the current tab, and allows me to rearrange tabs on the fly as I see fit.
Mouse gestures are also a cool feature from Opera and now mozilla and galeon, but not nearly the leap tabbed browsing is.
Actually, the whoile deal with compression improving is that lossy compression is being done better and better. The results are more quality at lower bitrates. For an example, MPEG-1 uses square blocks to divide up the data and operate. This results in a blocky picture, but easier for the computer to process. Wavelet based algorithms are more intensive, but errors appear more as a blur than a big ugly block. Other things are happeining as to better identifying and quantifying what information can be eliminated without being perceived.
Well, agreed, he is hasty to say sysadmin for life out of high school, and perhaps overconfidant to think college has nothing to offer him.
However, If you land the right position, Sysadmin work can be very rewarding, interesting, and not so time-consuming. Pay is usually higher than programmers, so compensation is cool.
I do both, and the crisis situations as a sysadmin are far more interesting to resolve and satisfying when complete.
And as to being on call, maybe at an ISP it is horribly bad, but in most other situations if you setup and maintain the network properly and keep a sharp eye out for signs of trouble, the network behaves nicely and rarely suddenly breaks and requires you to come in. Where I work, I have sold the company on having redundant systems for everything. Since they have followed my suggestion, the occasional nighttime failures have not stopped, but they are no longer impactful and can wait for the next business day to be examined.
Sysadmin can be a huge headache if you tend to put in the minimum, sign up for ISP work, or have a highly restrictive budget, but if you get in the right place and force yourself to take pre-emptive measures, you can make sysadmin work a cakewalk.
The major problem I had was convincing management it was worth the extra setup time to have a resiliant configuration, but since they agreed to wait longer for the system to be workable, they have never regretted it.
College may be mostly a waste of time, but many of the better companies will not take you seriously unless you have that little piece of parchment. If you *truly* know what you are doing, then college is mostly a waste of time, though you pick up a bit here and there. But most of the people I see coming out of high school who think they are high-caliber sysadmins are really not as great as they think, and companies know this. Before my degree I was capping out at 17.50 an hour, but the next week after the degree, the same company started giving 27.50 an hour. Even if you find an 'enlightened' company, you get stuck. If you feel the need to leave, you know your chances of another company being so enlightened are slim. One company tried to tempt me this way, tried to get me to quit and work at 60k a year, but I knew they would have me. Even if it was the perfect job, if it got cut back (like now) I would be screwed.
Even if it doesn't teach you much, a college degree shows something about your work ethic, among other intangibles. To you, skipping colleg may show that you are a no-nonsense, get into action kind of person, but managers many times view this as someone who is too impatient with structure and would likely overlook things such as proper procedure and documentation, which are vital to business on a comparable level to the work itself.
A hot-shot, overconfidant worker who couldn't care less about procedure and documentation is worse than a below-average person who follows procedures and details.
That all being said, it isn't difficult to have a job and school at the same time. Your freshman year you can probably do no better than a little school job, maybe a TA, but by the sophomore year you can land a decent professional grade job that may not pay great, but 14-18 dollars an hour should be possible. This has been my strategy and has allowed me to have enough money to be comfortable and come out with some mobility and security in this rather shaky market.
So what you are syaing is, that 64kb ought to be enough for anyone?
Some companies would, yes. 30 bucks is less money than the company would spend trying to figure out what's what.
Well, sometimes the people receiving the mail may not be the ones last responsible for registering the domain (in a company).
Even if they do know, they may not keep that much track of the company and may think that perhaps Verisign bought up whatever company they registered with.
Ok, I admit I have a stereo receiver, and am looking to get either a large projection TV or a projector, and a VCR to tune TV and play tapes. Everything else I do through the computer connected through the stereo. Progressive scan DVD playback, CD playback, but more frequently rip the cds to disk so I can have instant access to all tracks on all CDs without suffering the wait of a CD changer to change discs, and without having to worry about the crap tracks. So the "typical parts" include stereo, because it sounds so damn good, TV, though not really typical, since I plan on getting something that takes XGA input from a computer, and a VCR, because TV tuner through computer through TV looks like crap and I need something to play all those damn tapes. When I can get away with it, the computer offers great quality and flexibility. I don't feel like having my rig castrated just because the RIAA/MPAA is afraid I *could* do something bad with it. Hell, I *have* to use linux in my rig because some of my non-CSS, non-Region coded discs refuse to play under any of my Windows applications, so I have to use illegal software to
have my rig work right (technically I could avoid the CSS bits and boot between Windows and linux, but that is too much to expect).
Dunno about the rest, but DVD shouldn't have a problem unless these things have some sort of gain adjustment circuit built in. I know of no display tech that does this, only record technologies do this. MacroVision works essentially by inserting spikes into the video signal that trigger the auto-gain controls on VCRs to lower record levels to compensate, but the spikes are such that they are not too noticeable to people. In theory, they claim invisible to the viewer, but in reality it does come through a bit, so I disable when I can.
The sites seem to mention the results (when they succeeded) were kinda pixelated. Others have pointed out that the bulbs they use tend to have a short life. With an image of the projected image it may be able to make a better judgement. How does it compare to the lower end projects that cost about 1700 or so?
As a side note, I'm looking at setting up my home theater to proper levels, and if these projectors display a good image, they seem to be a much more viable solution. Any one have suggestions regarding this? It seems that getting a 1000 lumens projecjtor that can do up to 720p isn't too unreasonable compared to any CRT or projection based TV solution. Is 1000 lumens sufficient? I'm specifically looking at the Mitsubishi SL1U Projector. I'm aware that watching TV/movies with such a system will naturally require a low level of ambient light, but two things are very cool about this.
1) Pretty much as big a screen as I want, provided distance in the room. Speaking of which, how far back is needed to get, say, a 60-70" image? Again, having seating so as not to get in the way of the projector is another issu...
2) When I move, large TVs are so unmanagable. The projector, and possibly a screen (maybe just use a white wall, provided the wall is smooth and white enough) Projector is on the order of 6-10 pounds, and the screen would be also manageable..
Who all has experience with this? My current rig is an old 24" console TV from the 80s with gaussed spots all over and annoyingly cropped image, so it wouldn't take much to impress me.
What a "nice" horror story. You lost a day, big whoop.
My company's horror story, also mild, but a little worse. We had orderered from IBM a 1U rack server (not big iron, but still a server). It arrived with all the media inside broken (banged around a lot, so no OS CDs, etc.) Not only that, but it had no hard drives. When we called IBM (who we had ordered direct from) they denied the existance of the sale, saying it wasn't even in their system. After faxing the invoice, bill of sale, and such, they finally agreed to come out to put in a new drive and provide decent media. This is after about a week of going back and forth. They are usually good, but they really flubbed this one somehow.