It's the little differences (Royale With Cheese).
on
Feature: Getting DSL
·
· Score: 1
"Ok, so tell me again about the net access?"
"Net access is fast there, but it's not 100% fast, I mean you can't go into your home and start serving. I mean they want you to use it for web surfing or other designated services."
"Those are ASDL modems"
"Yeah, it breaks down like this. It's legal to subscribe to it, it's legal to use it, and if you're an business rate customer it's legal to serve off of it. It's illegal to NAT, but that doesn't matter, get a load of this, if you put a port sniffer on it it's indistinguishable."
"Oh man, I'm goin, that's all there is to it, I'm goin..."
Re:Casio E-100: Palm + Rio killer
on
PDA+MP3 Player
·
· Score: 1
1. Why? While more resolution would be nice on the Palm Pilot, it serves it purpose well. Why a PDA, an overglorified notepad, would need 65k colors to display a planner and a notepad? It's too small to be functional as a full notebook, yet it's too large to be a functional PDA. The Palm succeeded where the Newton and others failed because it did several things well. It didn't have feature bloat.
2. 32 MB ram- believe I covered this: ten 3 minute songs. 6 5 minute songs. Not that impressive. (At MP3 128k. See an earlier post regarding alternate bitrates). CF cards are expensive and are an expensive addition to an expensive larger-than handheld.
3. $500 + 300(+) cellphone + service ($25/mo + cell access) + cellular modem ($150), so you can recieve email IN COLOR! If you have email that is that important go get, then get a $200 alphanumeric pager, and have a computer auto-forward your email to the pager. As for the Palm VII, yes, the service is expensive. And the coverage IS limited. (Of course, where I'm from you're lucky if you've got plain cellular and paging support) But if you're gonna be doing any browsing the web, we can agree whether it's at 320x240 or 128x128, it's functionally impossible. How many web sites don't look good at 640x480? If you want to be 'cool' and be always connected to the internet, a Libretto w/cellphone + modem would give you much more functionality, plus the ability to run any program that runs on X86 (Linux included! [afaik]).
Re:Casio E-100: Palm + Rio killer
on
PDA+MP3 Player
·
· Score: 1
1. Lifetime on the rechargable batteries? Cost to replace? 2. I saw no mention of the 105 on Casio's site. Is it some sort of Phantom Menace? It's A PDA, people! 16 MB of 'applications' is bloatware. There is no reason that applications running at 320x240 should require 16 MB of storage. Even with 32 MB of RAM, you still only get 30 minutes max. 15 songs if you're listening to 2 minute wonders at 128K. A more realistic estimate (5 minutes a song) would give you a laughable 6 songs! If you reduce the encoding rate to 64K it'll give you 60 minutes, but this requires decoding and recoding existing mp3s, effectively creating two collections of mp3s. You then run into managing two seperate libraries, increasing again by 1/2 the storage on your computer, and are handicapped by the time that it takes to decode and encode mp3s. If you purchase another 48 meg for $100(?) that brings your total cost for 78 minutes to $500 (assuming 128k/s). One CD equivalent. You could buy a SCSI 4x CDR (350), a $50 CD player, and a 100 CD-R's (100), all proven technology, as opposed to any MP3 player currently on the market (I woudln't buy any of them right now: "It's hell being an early adopter."-Dilbert). If you want a PDA, you could get a Palm 3 (200), IDE 4xCD-R (200), CD player (50) and 50 blank CD's (50). 3. As opposed to Microsoft's or Casio's currently shipping wireless service? I believe (afaik) that.30k's still cheaper than hooking a cell phone up to your Casio and using a cellular modem.
I'm not gonna buy a Rio. I don't plan on buying an mp3 player until they have the majority of the kinks worked out and it's a valid alternative to an mp3 or CD storage.
-Peace. And do the math.
Re:Casio E-100: Palm + Rio killer
on
PDA+MP3 Player
·
· Score: 5
1. Nice color display screen. That 131 Mhz processor doesn't run on air, especially when doing something that requires a lot of CPU power, say mp3 decodnig. Unless your last name is Duracell or Energizer, the battery cost'll kill you alone.
2. 32 meg? No, I'm gonna have to call you on this one. 16 meg RAM, 16 Meg ROM. Good to know that they can shoehorn Windows into 16 meg. 15 minutes, of mp3 audio, if you didn't have anything else on it. If I want to listen to 5-10 songs over and over again, I can listen to the radio station.
3. $499.00. Get a Palm V with REAL internet access for that much.
More fun features from casio.com:
"Movie Playback!" Because, hey, at 320x240, you can store a LOT of video in 16 meg!
"Digital Stereo Playback!" *Requires a multimedia kit, because if we can sucker someone into buying this, we can sucker some more money out of them so they can have digital sound!
"Throw away those 500-page instruction books. If you are familiar with Windows 95 you will be at home with Windows CE."- There are so many problems with this statement that I don't know where to begin. Any Palmtype that requires a 500 page instruction book has more serious issues than a 500 page instruction book. Windows 95 was designed (and I use that term kindly) for PCs. Have you tried to use Win95 at 640x480? Now try it at 320x240: One of two things will result: Either the UI will be too small to be legible, or the UI will be so large as to overpower the rest of the desktop, effectively reducing the usable area to less than that of Palm's 128x128.
"AC with optional AC adapter"- Because you won't get much life out of those batteries if you try to play video or music!
"Flashing alarm indicator" Because our interface is so cluttered and convoluted that even we know that you might not notice a error!"
"Three "assignable" application launch buttons". Be glad you got three. And they're "assignable", too!
And the best feature that I've found so far:
"Exit button for one handed escape"
Re:How about PDA+Mobile Phone+MP3 Player?
on
PDA+MP3 Player
·
· Score: 1
The last time I check, Toshiba hadn't released the specs to it's IR hardware to the Linux IR project. Has this changed?
Although I do agree, the Libretto is a neat toy. The mouse-replacement is nice, although going to another notebook will get you strange looks when you start grasping the side of the notebook's screen.
Should be. I'm running an AT motherboard. In Windows 95 (I'm at work, but I'm demonstrating that it can be done) on a standard AT clone PC, when you go to Control Panel, then go to Power. "Allow Windows to Manage This System's Power". "Add Suspend to Start Menu". Etc. Under Display, Go to the Screen Saver command, "Energy saving features of Display", etc. All doable under Linux using the APM drivers in the kernel and apmd. Look in the documentation in your motherboard's or bios's documentation under Power Management. This road's been traveled. Just do a search for Power Management.
Two key things: 1. Your BIOS. Assuming post 1994 (probably before, just a guess) , you should have power management options in there. 2. APM and APMD. Might require a kernel recompile to enable APM in Linux, but that's extensively documented. See first post about link to Battery-Power-HOWTO (similar techniques, section 3.x)
Some things to think about: * India and Pakistan are fighting over Kashmir, a disputed territory. Both have nuclear cabability. And to make it more interesting, Kashmir adjoins China. * U.S. is currently engaged in military action in Serbia. Serbia has strong ties to Russia. Russia's president is not exactly the most sober person at all times. Russia's economy is less than that of most third world countries. Russia has the world's largest arsenal of Nuclear Weapons. * Russia and China share a border. * The Cox report describes a Chinese program to systematically aquire US Nuclear technology, by buying or spying. * Israel is believed to have a nuclear capability. The upcoming declaration of independance of the Palestinian state will not be a calming influence. * Missing Uranium and Plutonium from government labs from Russia and the U.S.
--And that's just current nuclear issues. Want to talk biomedical, bioengeneering, genetics, trade, research, the economy?
Look for APM (advanced Power Management) support in the BIOS and Linux. Should be doable. I've never looked into it, but it's the basic principle. Most modern bioses support sleep mode, which is functionally idle-type mode. Of course, you'll want an EnergyStar-certified monitor. Most modern monitors are. This sort of information was really big around six years ago, with major manufactuers shipping low-power systems, such as the IBM EV1(?) which had an LCD monitor (a rarity at the time, and expensive). If you look through PC Magazine there should be some information about Green PC's around 92 or 93. Additionally, I believe there's some info on power managament at: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini/Ba ttery-Powered
Also HDPARM, which can be used to reduce the spin rate on the Hard Drive to reduce the power used.
But the question is why? Aside from the good for the environment angle, there isn't a pressing need for it. A computer only draws about as much power as an light bulb (last spec I heard about PC power consumption). If you REALLY want to save power, shut off the system. Sleep mode draws ~2-4 watts afaik.
I'd say that Star Trek mania is just as large as Star Wars normally. The media situation is overhyped right now. Writing about a situation as it is NOW as if it was as it always has been or ever will be makes too many assumptions about the uniformity of experience, ignoring the inherent change in any system. Look at the situation five years ago and then tell me how many non-hardcore Star Wars fans there were. "Star Trek"-type fanatacism is at a low right now due to the last movie being not exactly stellar, the cancellation of DS9 and Voyager's exile to a very minor network (Name another show on UPN. Go ahead, try.) Honestly, there are equal numbers of Storm Troopers and Klingons at Sci-Fi conventions.
And as for the assumption that people who prefer Star Wars are smarter than those who prefer Star Trek, remember that CmdrTaco has been described as a ****Wesley Crusher*** lookalike (search the archives!) rather than a Luke Skywalker lookalike.
A possible justification for "Redundant"
on
Slashdot Notes
·
· Score: 1
If you consider the nature of/., it becomes difficult to determine if a post is necessarily accurate. A Poster might SOUND correct, but be incorrect.
However, if another user collaborates an earlier post, then it could be rated Verified, or Cross-Referenced, or, hey, even Redundant...
OTOH, I may be reading too much into this, and it might really be a typo.:)
I have a couple what-ifs: 1. O.K., a moderator cannot moderate himself. Is there any restriction on moderators +/- other moderators? Are they anonymous? Can you see who moderates the moderators? What about moderator wars? 2. Is there any form of voting by moderators on whether to remove or add a user? For example, say CmdrTaco/Rob is out of town, or otherwise unable to remove a moderator (due to abuse of power). Could a referendum be held by the moderators to remove said moderator? 3. Regarding stories submitted, a system where moderators could (+) flag stories, and if a story reached a high enough + rating, it would move to the front page? 4. On the other hand, say a story had been posted before. Could moderators with a + enough rating post an update refering to an older story? 5. We've got rated comments. How about rated articles? Say a user comes to Slashdot once a week. Unless he or she wants to search through the back issues there isn't an easy way to seperate the wheat from the chaff... if there was an option, say Weekdot (rhymes with Geekdot), could display stories sorted upon ratings. The problem with this is that different people have different interests. However, with a wider selection of moderators, it should average out, so that the more interesting or relevant stories 'float' to the top.
And CmdrTaco: Doing a good job so far. Don't fear giving moderators power... just make sure that there are consequences, and an evaluation system built in.
Slashdot Mirror
"Ok, so tell me again about the net access?"
"Net access is fast there, but it's not 100% fast, I mean you can't go into your home and start serving. I mean they want you to use it for web surfing or other designated services."
"Those are ASDL modems"
"Yeah, it breaks down like this. It's legal to subscribe to it, it's legal to use it, and if you're an business rate customer it's legal to serve off of it. It's illegal to NAT, but that doesn't matter, get a load of this, if you put a port sniffer on it it's indistinguishable."
"Oh man, I'm goin, that's all there is to it, I'm goin..."
Has Anyone Checked This?
1. Why? While more resolution would be nice on the Palm Pilot, it serves it purpose well. Why a PDA, an overglorified notepad, would need 65k colors to display a planner and a notepad? It's too small to be functional as a full notebook, yet it's too large to be a functional PDA. The Palm succeeded where the Newton and others failed because it did several things well. It didn't have feature bloat.
2. 32 MB ram- believe I covered this: ten 3 minute songs. 6 5 minute songs. Not that impressive. (At MP3 128k. See an earlier post regarding alternate bitrates). CF cards are expensive and are an expensive addition to an expensive larger-than handheld.
3. $500 + 300(+) cellphone + service ($25/mo + cell access) + cellular modem ($150), so you can recieve email IN COLOR! If you have email that is that important go get, then get a $200 alphanumeric pager, and have a computer auto-forward your email to the pager.
As for the Palm VII, yes, the service is expensive. And the coverage IS limited. (Of course, where I'm from you're lucky if you've got plain cellular and paging support)
But if you're gonna be doing any browsing the web, we can agree whether it's at 320x240 or 128x128, it's functionally impossible. How many web sites don't look good at 640x480?
If you want to be 'cool' and be always connected to the internet, a Libretto w/cellphone + modem would give you much more functionality, plus the ability to run any program that runs on X86 (Linux included! [afaik]).
1. Lifetime on the rechargable batteries? Cost to replace? .30k's still cheaper than hooking a cell phone up to your Casio and using a cellular modem.
2. I saw no mention of the 105 on Casio's site. Is it some sort of Phantom Menace? It's A PDA, people! 16 MB of 'applications' is bloatware. There is no reason that applications running at 320x240 should require 16 MB of storage. Even with 32 MB of RAM, you still only get 30 minutes max. 15 songs if you're listening to 2 minute wonders at 128K. A more realistic estimate (5 minutes a song) would give you a laughable 6 songs! If you reduce the encoding rate to 64K it'll give you 60 minutes, but this requires decoding and recoding existing mp3s, effectively creating two collections of mp3s. You then run into managing two seperate libraries, increasing again by 1/2 the storage on your computer, and are handicapped by the time that it takes to decode and encode mp3s. If you purchase another 48 meg for $100(?) that brings your total cost for 78 minutes to $500 (assuming 128k/s). One CD equivalent. You could buy a SCSI 4x CDR (350), a $50 CD player, and a 100 CD-R's (100), all proven technology, as opposed to any MP3 player currently on the market (I woudln't buy any of them right now: "It's hell being an early adopter."-Dilbert). If you want a PDA, you could get a Palm 3 (200), IDE 4xCD-R (200), CD player (50) and 50 blank CD's (50).
3. As opposed to Microsoft's or Casio's currently shipping wireless service? I believe (afaik) that
I'm not gonna buy a Rio. I don't plan on buying an mp3 player until they have the majority of the kinks worked out and it's a valid alternative to an mp3 or CD storage.
-Peace. And do the math.
1. Nice color display screen. That 131 Mhz processor doesn't run on air, especially when doing something that requires a lot of CPU power, say mp3 decodnig. Unless your last name is Duracell or Energizer, the battery cost'll kill you alone.
2. 32 meg? No, I'm gonna have to call you on this one. 16 meg RAM, 16 Meg ROM. Good to know that they can shoehorn Windows into 16 meg. 15 minutes, of mp3 audio, if you didn't have anything else on it. If I want to listen to 5-10 songs over and over again, I can listen to the radio station.
3. $499.00. Get a Palm V with REAL internet access for that much.
More fun features from casio.com:
"Movie Playback!" Because, hey, at 320x240, you can store a LOT of video in 16 meg!
"Digital Stereo Playback!" *Requires a multimedia kit, because if we can sucker someone into buying this, we can sucker some more money out of them so they can have digital sound!
"Throw away those 500-page instruction books. If you are familiar with Windows 95 you will be at home with Windows CE."- There are so many problems with this statement that I don't know where to begin. Any Palmtype that requires a 500 page instruction book has more serious issues than a 500 page instruction book. Windows 95 was designed (and I use that term kindly) for PCs. Have you tried to use Win95 at 640x480? Now try it at 320x240: One of two things will result: Either the UI will be too small to be legible, or the UI will be so large as to overpower the rest of the desktop, effectively reducing the usable area to less than that of Palm's 128x128.
"AC with optional AC adapter"- Because you won't get much life out of those batteries if you try to play video or music!
"Flashing alarm indicator" Because our interface is so cluttered and convoluted that even we know that you might not notice a error!"
"Three "assignable" application launch buttons". Be glad you got three. And they're "assignable", too!
And the best feature that I've found so far:
"Exit button for one handed escape"
The last time I check, Toshiba hadn't released the specs to it's IR hardware to the Linux IR project. Has this changed?
Although I do agree, the Libretto is a neat toy. The mouse-replacement is nice, although going to another notebook will get you strange looks when you start grasping the side of the notebook's screen.
Should be. I'm running an AT motherboard. In Windows 95 (I'm at work, but I'm demonstrating that it can be done) on a standard AT clone PC, when you go to Control Panel, then go to Power. "Allow Windows to Manage This System's Power". "Add Suspend to Start Menu". Etc. Under Display, Go to the Screen Saver command, "Energy saving features of Display", etc. All doable under Linux using the APM drivers in the kernel and apmd. Look in the documentation in your motherboard's or bios's documentation under Power Management. This road's been traveled. Just do a search for Power Management.
Two key things:
1. Your BIOS. Assuming post 1994 (probably before, just a guess) , you should have power management options in there.
2. APM and APMD. Might require a kernel recompile to enable APM in Linux, but that's extensively documented. See first post about link to Battery-Power-HOWTO (similar techniques, section 3.x)
Some things to think about:
* India and Pakistan are fighting over Kashmir, a disputed territory. Both have nuclear cabability. And to make it more interesting, Kashmir adjoins China.
* U.S. is currently engaged in military action in Serbia. Serbia has strong ties to Russia. Russia's president is not exactly the most sober person at all times. Russia's economy is less than that of most third world countries. Russia has the world's largest arsenal of Nuclear Weapons.
* Russia and China share a border.
* The Cox report describes a Chinese program to systematically aquire US Nuclear technology, by buying or spying.
* Israel is believed to have a nuclear capability. The upcoming declaration of independance of the Palestinian state will not be a calming influence.
* Missing Uranium and Plutonium from government labs from Russia and the U.S.
--And that's just current nuclear issues. Want to talk biomedical, bioengeneering, genetics, trade, research, the economy?
-AK
Look for APM (advanced Power Management) support in the BIOS and Linux. Should be doable. I've never looked into it, but it's the basic principle. Most modern bioses support sleep mode, which is functionally idle-type mode. Of course, you'll want an EnergyStar-certified monitor. Most modern monitors are. This sort of information was really big around six years ago, with major manufactuers shipping low-power systems, such as the IBM EV1(?) which had an LCD monitor (a rarity at the time, and expensive). If you look through PC Magazine there should be some information about Green PC's around 92 or 93. Additionally, I believe there's some info on power managament at: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini/Ba ttery-Powered
Particularly Sections 3.1-3.4 (which describes APM)
Also HDPARM, which can be used to reduce the spin rate on the Hard Drive to reduce the power used.
But the question is why? Aside from the good for the environment angle, there isn't a pressing need for it. A computer only draws about as much power as an light bulb (last spec I heard about PC power consumption). If you REALLY want to save power, shut off the system. Sleep mode draws ~2-4 watts afaik.
Hope this helps,
I'd say that Star Trek mania is just as large as Star Wars normally. The media situation is overhyped right now. Writing about a situation as it is NOW as if it was as it always has been or ever will be makes too many assumptions about the uniformity of experience, ignoring the inherent change in any system. Look at the situation five years ago and then tell me how many non-hardcore Star Wars fans there were. "Star Trek"-type fanatacism is at a low right now due to the last movie being not exactly stellar, the cancellation of DS9 and Voyager's exile to a very minor network (Name another show on UPN. Go ahead, try.) Honestly, there are equal numbers of Storm Troopers and Klingons at Sci-Fi conventions.
And as for the assumption that people who prefer Star Wars are smarter than those who prefer Star Trek, remember that CmdrTaco has been described as a ****Wesley Crusher*** lookalike (search the archives!) rather than a Luke Skywalker lookalike.
If you consider the nature of /., it becomes difficult to determine if a post is necessarily accurate. A Poster might SOUND correct, but be incorrect.
:)
However, if another user collaborates an earlier post, then it could be rated Verified, or Cross-Referenced, or, hey, even Redundant...
OTOH, I may be reading too much into this, and it might really be a typo.
Repetitive Stress Injury Anyone?
Looks like your standard compressor driven automotive paint sprayer.
Promptly after inventing Open Source, Al Gore announces that you can 'help' him...
one catch, though... it's pronounced:
"Oopen Suorce"
(Now, if you invented the internet, wouldn't you be able to say how the compononents are pronounced? Can you say rooter?)
I have a couple what-ifs:
1. O.K., a moderator cannot moderate himself. Is there any restriction on moderators +/- other moderators? Are they anonymous? Can you see who moderates the moderators? What about moderator wars?
2. Is there any form of voting by moderators on whether to remove or add a user? For example, say CmdrTaco/Rob is out of town, or otherwise unable to remove a moderator (due to abuse of power). Could a referendum be held by the moderators to remove said moderator?
3. Regarding stories submitted, a system where moderators could (+) flag stories, and if a story reached a high enough + rating, it would move to the front page?
4. On the other hand, say a story had been posted before. Could moderators with a + enough rating post an update refering to an older story?
5. We've got rated comments. How about rated articles? Say a user comes to Slashdot once a week. Unless he or she wants to search through the back issues there isn't an easy way to seperate the wheat from the chaff... if there was an option, say Weekdot (rhymes with Geekdot), could display stories sorted upon ratings. The problem with this is that different people have different interests. However, with a wider selection of moderators, it should average out, so that the more interesting or relevant stories 'float' to the top.
And CmdrTaco: Doing a good job so far. Don't fear giving moderators power... just make sure that there are consequences, and an evaluation system built in.
Slashdot: A working meritocracy?
See--- http://www.iscomplete.com/ for IrLink or IrSync, both should work... I'm thinking about doing this myself, I also have a tyan m/b.