Yeah, but Intel runs cooler and consumes less power. The first is important if you are running a critical server in a remote location, and both matter when you need to put the chip into a laptop.
The Athlon is like a hotrod; great when it runs, but unreliable for the long haul.
Actually, Tom's Hardware has a review of the 2.2 GHz Northwood and they compare it to the Athlon XP2000+.
Looks like they just posted it.
Here's the link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q1/020107/inde x. html
Re:How about a voltage converter
on
Emigrating DVD's?
·
· Score: 2, Troll
Well, Radio Shack stocks signal converters too:
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5F na me=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F002%5F002%5F012%5F0 00&product%5Fid=930%2D0616
But it costs $60, which is starting to beg the question of the cost versus the benefit.
Still, it's a technical possibility in a tight jam.
How about a voltage converter
on
Emigrating DVD's?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Couldn't you use your old DVD player with a voltage converter? Admittedly, it's a bit of a kludge, since you'll need a new player to play US bought DVDs, but it should tide you over in the meantime. Radio Shack sells plenty of them for less than $40.
This may be a bit off-topic, but if domain names are supposed to go back into the public domain after the original registrants?
Network Solutions lists an owner of a few domain names I've been eyeing as expiring over three months ago, but they are still not available to be registered? Anyone have any ideas on how long a registrar can hoard a lapsed/expired domain name? Is there any process that I can pursue with ICANN to get some satisfaction on the matter?
My experience is that libraries in NY have a pretty poor selection of computer books. Most are "* for Idiots/Dummies/Imbeciles" or "Learn * in 21 Days". It would be nice to see some better quality titles being stocked. As for books with a CD included, the CD's are usually missing.
While software is an excellent idea, it should be accompanied by good books on computing as well. There was a good poll on Slashdot on seminal computing books a while back. It is disturbing how unavailable these are at public libraries. One would think that the "information economy" would be well served by having such books available. Bookstores are rarely any better.
I know I am preaching to the choir, but I really wonder when the booksellers/librarians will stock some good books on computing
Re:Relativity, Anyone?
on
The Forever War
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson, is another book where the time effects of relativistic travel play a central role in the book. It's a great book that deals with the social dynamics of a group in an isolated enviroment (I guess you can't get anymore isolated than a spaceship moving at close to light speed) and the unexpected consequences of close-to-light-speed travel.
What's most remarkable about the book is Anderson's poetic but accurate depictions of the physics of the ship traveling at close to light speed and how that affects its relationship to the rest of the universe. Like Forever War, Tau Zero was written years ago, but it still a worthwhile read.
Anderson does not dumb down the physics either. The title is taken from a term in the equation describing the time effects of space travel.
I don't want to give away the plot development, but Tau Zero is a great book if you are interested in the ideas of groups in crisis and relativity.
I've been thinking about OS/2 lately because I'm looking for a good boot manager. Dual booting with OS/2 was a snap back in the DOS days, but now I am still researching. Like an idiot, I didn't snap up a copy of OS/2 Warp3 for $9 at the local thrift shop when I had the chance.
On your last note: Someone must have written a book on OS/2 from such a perspective... but I can't find anything. The only accounts I have reasd are tangential ones in a Bill Gates biography.
It's not as far reaching as you are looking for, but still a very good book. The title refers to the old-style hacker, one who likes to find out how things work, rather than the more malevolent cracker.
Hackers outlines the desktop software development movement, starting from the halls of MIT to the early days of the PC. It's less a definitive history and more of an interesting story, but it definitely gives good perspective of how big computing movements develop from small beginnings.
It was written over ten years ago, so it is not "up-to-date" but it is a great snapshot of the personalities involved at the start of the PC era.
THia aituation reminds me of that with OS/2 back in the mid-90's. OS/2 was technically superior to Windows (especially in the win 3.1 era, before win '95), but because it allowed Windows and MS-DOS software to run transparently, there was little incentive to port applications as native code.
There were other reasons for OS/2's decline, but a lack of a native app code base was one major one. The efforts spent developing a Windows compatible layer on top of Linux would be better spent porting important apps (Photoshop, Games, Dreamweaver, etc.) to Linux as native apps. Of course before that happens, Linux GUIs need to be fine-tuned and driver support made less buggy.
Building tools to allow software developers to port their apps into Linux-native code would be best in the long run.
Virtual Windows on top of Linux and dual-booting (especially since LILO and GRUB are so persnicketty) are not long-term recipes for success.
Linux developers should either cede the desktop to Microsoft or develop native tools and apps and port Windows products to native code.
Just like OS/2, Linux had a technical advantage (in some ways) over Windows up until now, but with the introduction of Win XP, that advantage is lessening.
Time is of the essence. Lindows is a counterproductive retreat.
Because of MS's very closed internal development, it is impossible for a third party to develop additional functionality.
win98 was basically an upgrade of win95 in terms of the features and support you mentioned, with little real changes on the kernel level (I believe, I am not an expert on this matter).
What is troubling is when an upgrade required to keep up with hardware changes also takes away functionality (WinME killing DOS access) or adds onerous new restrictions (required activation, incompatibility with some older software and much higher hardware requirements).
There was a slashdot story a few days ago about a new release of the venerable OS/2. Though definitely long in the tooth and lacking a lot of funtionality for newer hardware, OS/2 remains in use because a lot of businesses built and still maintain some very stable and essential software on the platform. Good work can still be done on old software. Let's face it, Unix hasn't changed that much over the past 40 years. A command prompt looks the same and there has been a tremendous refinement of tools, but the underlying philosophy and kernel is the same.
With regard to your Pentium 90, this computer would still be useful, and still should be for many everyday uses, like word-processing and web-surfing, but can be slowly strangled of its usefulness because not only is MS cutting off support, but they are also capable of cutting off support elsewhere. In fairness to MS, they do indicate that they are giving some permission to third parties to provide support after they themselves give up on a product.
Planned obsolescence is a legitimate business strategy for a company. There are two important caveats, however. That planned obsolescence can backfire when customers get wise. Also, a company cannot be deceptive. When a perpetual license ends up becoming effectively a 5 year license because of intentional neglect with the purpose of forcing consumers to buy an unneeded and unwanted new product, that is deceptive and wrong.
Admittedly, there is some overreaction on my part on culpability on this matter. Users are just as culpable for allowing themselves to be caught up in the hype of the flashier new products that do not deliver much in added productivity or pleasure.
It all comes down to my getting a bad taste from doing business with Microsoft. On the desktop, however, there still is not so much worthwhile competition, but that is a longer story.
Your argument makes sense up to a point, but it is that point that makes Microsoft such a dangerous monopoly. Microsoft takes its older software off the market to limit the usefulness of said software. What is wrong about this is that it effectively renders useless an otherwise still useful product. The equivalent would be if Ford owned the patent for making gasoline, and then decided to change the mixture in gasoline every five years so that you had to buy a new car every five years. Sure the old car still "works", you just can't find any gas to run it on!
Independent developers design software for MS products because of the platforms' ubiquity. One 'feature' that Microsoft customers are implicitly paying for is the availability of software. By taking away that platform's continued availability to new users, MS dries up the development market for older platforms, forcing users to upgrade even if they have no compelling need for the upgrade through the upgrade's intrinsic changes. Users upgrade to keep up with the newer software and for the continued hardware support, not for the OS itself.
It is a particularly vicious circle. It would not be so dangerous if Microsoft did not have such a chokehold on the software market. I am hopeful that this chokehold will encourage the development of viable alternatives, like Linux. On the other hand, MS's monopoly advantage might be too great for simply the best technology to win out.
The issue raided of "abandonware" in earlier posts is a reasonable one. Copyrights and patents are given so that creators may benefit from their creation, for the benefit of society. When intellectual property rights are enforced to discourage the dessemination of knowledge, as in the case of "abandonware", the intellectual property laws have had an opposite than originally intended effect.
When MS pulls the plug on an OS, they are effectively pulling the plug on all the people who developed software for and worked on that OS. Because these people added value to MS's product, they have a legitimate proprietary interest.
If Microsoft was explicitly renting out their software, their actions would be somewhat more defensible. As they are claiming that they are selling a perpetual license, however, but acting as if they are only renting it, there is a legitimate case to be made for MS's misreappropriation of previously sold goods.
Should it be durable? Will you want to take it to the beach, operate it in a rainstorm?
How small does it need to be, do you have to fit it in a pocket?
How about lighting? Do you want to be able to use it without additional lighting? Can you use it in a dark room? Will the input be illuminated?
Will it be useable in very bright conditions (some LCDs wash out in sunlight?
Power consumption? How long should you be able to operate it without a recharge? Will it use batteries?
And will you want it to be upgradeable? Will you want input other than keyboard? I would suggest at least some sort of link, like a serial port, or something, if you have to input lots of data. You don't want to have to manually input a large data array.
And how about output? (this can usually be combined with your input) Do you want to download results or work unto another computer?
It sounds like you want a mobile programming platform, sort of like a handheld dumb terminal.
Anyway, it sounds like a cool project and I wish you the besty of luck. Just make sure you explore all the design questions before you break out the soldering iron, becase by then you're probably already committed to the design.
And of course, you'll learn from your mistakes, so set a schedule and deadline. You can always make another one after the first, but you need to complete the first on first.
I gotta confess, I sometimes check out the electronics parts in the back of Radio Shack stores. I just browse around and get ideas. It's sorta like browsing around a bookstore.
Is radio shack the only retailer that sells electronic parts piecemeal? What are the good, reliable vendors on the 'net?
For any project, the most important aspect is to have some clear objective.
A cool digital thingamajiggy just doesn't cut it. I'd say your first step is to get ideas for a purpose for your thingamajiggy first. Ask your fellow students and professors what they would like but can't find already made.
Once you have a purpose specced out, you can make a design to match that purpose. Even just making one modification to a design type can be cool. Like a calculator with a cool-looking or durable form factor (great excuse to play around with a plastic mold-maker), or unique input or output options.
Ultimately you should think about your end user and what will serve him or her best for some list of tasks. Design for the nontechnical humans.
I know I'm giving just added questions rather than options, but you will find when you get out of the classroom that in the best designs form follows function. Figure out the function and then design around that.
Great links.
(I would have replied faster, but I was too busy reading the Kaczinski link from Crime Library)
Do you keep a file on FBI miscues on hand? You better be careful, Mr Ashcroft may out you on his "enemies" list.
The Olympics and Ted K. links don't worry me so much, as they describe leaks of superficial, sensational material.
It's the second link, from the Las Vegas Sun, that really gives me pause. This describes an FBI agent secretly passing along data from their databases to a private investigator.
Now this private dick was probably investigating some real scumbags, but it isn't too hard to imagine that someone wouldn't get the Magic Lantern info for "good" purposes and then it ended up in the wrong hands.
Yeah, the source I gave is not exactly a of sterling authority or depth, but there have been examples of animals previously thought extinct to be rediscovered and even large animals to be discovered for the first time in the last 20 years.
I also wonder how carefully the evidence has been studied of its possible existance. DNA tests are tricky and expensive.
The poor beast probably is extinct, but Tasmania is a big island.
YOU stupid troll. At least I have the decency to sign my posts. Pray tell what is it that you find offensive about the link. I'd ask you in an e-mail, but it is difficult to do so with an ANONYMOUS COWARD.
You are the offensive one, making insulting remarks about a website that is obviously beyond you in matters of taste, humor and intelligence.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but Intel runs cooler and consumes less power. The first is important if you are running a critical server in a remote location, and both matter when you need to put the chip into a laptop.
The Athlon is like a hotrod; great when it runs, but unreliable for the long haul.
Actually, Tom's Hardware has a review of the 2.2 GHz Northwood and they compare it to the Athlon XP2000+.
e x. html
Looks like they just posted it.
Here's the link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q1/020107/ind
Well, Radio Shack stocks signal converters too:
F na me=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F002%5F002%5F012%5F0 00&product%5Fid=930%2D0616
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5
But it costs $60, which is starting to beg the question of the cost versus the benefit.
Still, it's a technical possibility in a tight jam.
Couldn't you use your old DVD player with a voltage converter? Admittedly, it's a bit of a kludge, since you'll need a new player to play US bought DVDs, but it should tide you over in the meantime. Radio Shack sells plenty of them for less than $40.
This may be a bit off-topic, but if domain names are supposed to go back into the public domain after the original registrants?
Network Solutions lists an owner of a few domain names I've been eyeing as expiring over three months ago, but they are still not available to be registered? Anyone have any ideas on how long a registrar can hoard a lapsed/expired domain name? Is there any process that I can pursue with ICANN to get some satisfaction on the matter?
The fact that the EFF needs monetary donations is evidence against the free (as in beer) software paradigm
My experience is that libraries in NY have a pretty poor selection of computer books. Most are "* for Idiots/Dummies/Imbeciles" or "Learn * in 21 Days". It would be nice to see some better quality titles being stocked. As for books with a CD included, the CD's are usually missing.
While software is an excellent idea, it should be accompanied by good books on computing as well. There was a good poll on Slashdot on seminal computing books a while back. It is disturbing how unavailable these are at public libraries. One would think that the "information economy" would be well served by having such books available. Bookstores are rarely any better.
I know I am preaching to the choir, but I really wonder when the booksellers/librarians will stock some good books on computing
Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson, is another book where the time effects of relativistic travel play a central role in the book. It's a great book that deals with the social dynamics of a group in an isolated enviroment (I guess you can't get anymore isolated than a spaceship moving at close to light speed) and the unexpected consequences of close-to-light-speed travel.
What's most remarkable about the book is Anderson's poetic but accurate depictions of the physics of the ship traveling at close to light speed and how that affects its relationship to the rest of the universe. Like Forever War, Tau Zero was written years ago, but it still a worthwhile read.
Anderson does not dumb down the physics either. The title is taken from a term in the equation describing the time effects of space travel.
I don't want to give away the plot development, but Tau Zero is a great book if you are interested in the ideas of groups in crisis and relativity.
My luck, it rained all day Friday! I missed it.
I've been thinking about OS/2 lately because I'm looking for a good boot manager. Dual booting with OS/2 was a snap back in the DOS days, but now I am still researching. Like an idiot, I didn't snap up a copy of OS/2 Warp3 for $9 at the local thrift shop when I had the chance.
On your last note: Someone must have written a book on OS/2 from such a perspective... but I can't find anything. The only accounts I have reasd are tangential ones in a Bill Gates biography.
Hackers by Stephen Levy
It's not as far reaching as you are looking for, but still a very good book. The title refers to the old-style hacker, one who likes to find out how things work, rather than the more malevolent cracker.
Hackers outlines the desktop software development movement, starting from the halls of MIT to the early days of the PC. It's less a definitive history and more of an interesting story, but it definitely gives good perspective of how big computing movements develop from small beginnings.
It was written over ten years ago, so it is not "up-to-date" but it is a great snapshot of the personalities involved at the start of the PC era.
THia aituation reminds me of that with OS/2 back in the mid-90's. OS/2 was technically superior to Windows (especially in the win 3.1 era, before win '95), but because it allowed Windows and MS-DOS software to run transparently, there was little incentive to port applications as native code.
There were other reasons for OS/2's decline, but a lack of a native app code base was one major one. The efforts spent developing a Windows compatible layer on top of Linux would be better spent porting important apps (Photoshop, Games, Dreamweaver, etc.) to Linux as native apps. Of course before that happens, Linux GUIs need to be fine-tuned and driver support made less buggy.
Building tools to allow software developers to port their apps into Linux-native code would be best in the long run.
Virtual Windows on top of Linux and dual-booting (especially since LILO and GRUB are so persnicketty) are not long-term recipes for success.
Linux developers should either cede the desktop to Microsoft or develop native tools and apps and port Windows products to native code.
Just like OS/2, Linux had a technical advantage (in some ways) over Windows up until now, but with the introduction of Win XP, that advantage is lessening.
Time is of the essence. Lindows is a counterproductive retreat.
Whoops.
make sure to delete the space in the last part of the url (in "skyevents"). Slash is formatting it in automatically.
Here's a detailed listing of times for the eclipse
v en ts_table.html
throughout North America
http://www.skypub.com/sights/skyevents/0112skye
Because of MS's very closed internal development, it is impossible for a third party to develop additional functionality.
win98 was basically an upgrade of win95 in terms of the features and support you mentioned, with little real changes on the kernel level (I believe, I am not an expert on this matter).
What is troubling is when an upgrade required to keep up with hardware changes also takes away functionality (WinME killing DOS access) or adds onerous new restrictions (required activation, incompatibility with some older software and much higher hardware requirements).
There was a slashdot story a few days ago about a new release of the venerable OS/2. Though definitely long in the tooth and lacking a lot of funtionality for newer hardware, OS/2 remains in use because a lot of businesses built and still maintain some very stable and essential software on the platform. Good work can still be done on old software. Let's face it, Unix hasn't changed that much over the past 40 years. A command prompt looks the same and there has been a tremendous refinement of tools, but the underlying philosophy and kernel is the same.
With regard to your Pentium 90, this computer would still be useful, and still should be for many everyday uses, like word-processing and web-surfing, but can be slowly strangled of its usefulness because not only is MS cutting off support, but they are also capable of cutting off support elsewhere. In fairness to MS, they do indicate that they are giving some permission to third parties to provide support after they themselves give up on a product.
Planned obsolescence is a legitimate business strategy for a company. There are two important caveats, however. That planned obsolescence can backfire when customers get wise. Also, a company cannot be deceptive. When a perpetual license ends up becoming effectively a 5 year license because of intentional neglect with the purpose of forcing consumers to buy an unneeded and unwanted new product, that is deceptive and wrong.
Admittedly, there is some overreaction on my part on culpability on this matter. Users are just as culpable for allowing themselves to be caught up in the hype of the flashier new products that do not deliver much in added productivity or pleasure.
It all comes down to my getting a bad taste from doing business with Microsoft. On the desktop, however, there still is not so much worthwhile competition, but that is a longer story.
Your argument makes sense up to a point, but it is that point that makes Microsoft such a dangerous monopoly. Microsoft takes its older software off the market to limit the usefulness of said software. What is wrong about this is that it effectively renders useless an otherwise still useful product. The equivalent would be if Ford owned the patent for making gasoline, and then decided to change the mixture in gasoline every five years so that you had to buy a new car every five years. Sure the old car still "works", you just can't find any gas to run it on!
Independent developers design software for MS products because of the platforms' ubiquity. One 'feature' that Microsoft customers are implicitly paying for is the availability of software. By taking away that platform's continued availability to new users, MS dries up the development market for older platforms, forcing users to upgrade even if they have no compelling need for the upgrade through the upgrade's intrinsic changes. Users upgrade to keep up with the newer software and for the continued hardware support, not for the OS itself.
It is a particularly vicious circle. It would not be so dangerous if Microsoft did not have such a chokehold on the software market. I am hopeful that this chokehold will encourage the development of viable alternatives, like Linux. On the other hand, MS's monopoly advantage might be too great for simply the best technology to win out.
The issue raided of "abandonware" in earlier posts is a reasonable one. Copyrights and patents are given so that creators may benefit from their creation, for the benefit of society. When intellectual property rights are enforced to discourage the dessemination of knowledge, as in the case of "abandonware", the intellectual property laws have had an opposite than originally intended effect.
When MS pulls the plug on an OS, they are effectively pulling the plug on all the people who developed software for and worked on that OS. Because these people added value to MS's product, they have a legitimate proprietary interest.
If Microsoft was explicitly renting out their software, their actions would be somewhat more defensible. As they are claiming that they are selling a perpetual license, however, but acting as if they are only renting it, there is a legitimate case to be made for MS's misreappropriation of previously sold goods.
up yer nose with a rubber hose!
So what are the important factors for you?
Should it be durable? Will you want to take it to the beach, operate it in a rainstorm?
How small does it need to be, do you have to fit it in a pocket?
How about lighting? Do you want to be able to use it without additional lighting? Can you use it in a dark room? Will the input be illuminated?
Will it be useable in very bright conditions (some LCDs wash out in sunlight?
Power consumption? How long should you be able to operate it without a recharge? Will it use batteries?
And will you want it to be upgradeable? Will you want input other than keyboard? I would suggest at least some sort of link, like a serial port, or something, if you have to input lots of data. You don't want to have to manually input a large data array.
And how about output? (this can usually be combined with your input) Do you want to download results or work unto another computer?
It sounds like you want a mobile programming platform, sort of like a handheld dumb terminal.
Anyway, it sounds like a cool project and I wish you the besty of luck. Just make sure you explore all the design questions before you break out the soldering iron, becase by then you're probably already committed to the design.
And of course, you'll learn from your mistakes, so set a schedule and deadline. You can always make another one after the first, but you need to complete the first on first.
I gotta confess, I sometimes check out the electronics parts in the back of Radio Shack stores. I just browse around and get ideas. It's sorta like browsing around a bookstore.
Is radio shack the only retailer that sells electronic parts piecemeal? What are the good, reliable vendors on the 'net?
For any project, the most important aspect is to have some clear objective.
A cool digital thingamajiggy just doesn't cut it. I'd say your first step is to get ideas for a purpose for your thingamajiggy first. Ask your fellow students and professors what they would like but can't find already made.
Once you have a purpose specced out, you can make a design to match that purpose. Even just making one modification to a design type can be cool. Like a calculator with a cool-looking or durable form factor (great excuse to play around with a plastic mold-maker), or unique input or output options.
Ultimately you should think about your end user and what will serve him or her best for some list of tasks. Design for the nontechnical humans.
I know I'm giving just added questions rather than options, but you will find when you get out of the classroom that in the best designs form follows function. Figure out the function and then design around that.
Could you be a little more specific on how a technically unadept person like myself might implement such a solution on a win98 platform?
Great links.
(I would have replied faster, but I was too busy reading the Kaczinski link from Crime Library)
Do you keep a file on FBI miscues on hand? You better be careful, Mr Ashcroft may out you on his "enemies" list.
The Olympics and Ted K. links don't worry me so much, as they describe leaks of superficial, sensational material.
It's the second link, from the Las Vegas Sun, that really gives me pause. This describes an FBI agent secretly passing along data from their databases to a private investigator.
Now this private dick was probably investigating some real scumbags, but it isn't too hard to imagine that someone wouldn't get the Magic Lantern info for "good" purposes and then it ended up in the wrong hands.
Most design and graphic work is done on Macs, which is a legacy of when Macs really were superior to PCs, especially in user friendliness.
Now most software has been proted to the PC and is functionally almost identical.
Yeah, the source I gave is not exactly a of sterling authority or depth, but there have been examples of animals previously thought extinct to be rediscovered and even large animals to be discovered for the first time in the last 20 years.
I also wonder how carefully the evidence has been studied of its possible existance. DNA tests are tricky and expensive.
The poor beast probably is extinct, but Tasmania is a big island.
YOU stupid troll. At least I have the decency to sign my posts. Pray tell what is it that you find offensive about the link. I'd ask you in an e-mail, but it is difficult to do so with an ANONYMOUS COWARD.
You are the offensive one, making insulting remarks about a website that is obviously beyond you in matters of taste, humor and intelligence.
Moron.