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User: FrankieBoy

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  1. Petition to change intro to "Enterprise". on Star Trek: Enterprise Reactions? · · Score: 1

    You can sign the petition to change the intro to "Enterprise" at this address.

  2. Having your cake... on FiveFingerDiscount.com? · · Score: 1

    It's interesting to hear the whining about how the world treated these out-of-work people wrong but everyone forgets when these employees were jumping ship from their solid 5% a year jobs towards the big salaries offered by the dot-bombs. Did any of those people ask to see the business plan? Or how about examining the financials? I doubt it. If you roll the dice don't be suprised when it comes up snake-eyes.

  3. "New kind of war" more like "New way of life" on A New Kind of War · · Score: 1

    I believe that we're seeing the start of some changes in our freedom and the "new kind of war" is the catalyst that some people will use to modify many of the rights we enjoy right here at home. I just heard that some legislation is being passed that will allow wire taps to be attached to people rather than phone lines, in other words the tap is good for any phone that the person mentioned in the legal docs is on. Right now the taps are only good for specific lines and separate taps are required for additional phones. I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing but it underscores the fact that this tragedy will signal the start of a new way of thinking by the lawmakers.

  4. Make sure the heatsink can handle a fan outage. on The Joys Of Losing Your Cooling Device · · Score: 1

    Tom speaks about both a heat-sink falling off and fan failure. For the latter I'd recommend taking steps to see that your heat-sink is up to snuff. Yes, yes, yes...I'm well aware that passive cooling won't work for the overclockers but if your fan kicks out and you're not around it's nice to know that you might be able to survive a CPU meltdown if the heatsink itself is robust. I'm not saying that this is the way you want to run your rig but it might be enough to save it in an emergency.

    I've used many types of cooling systems from water-cooling to peltier to a failed experiment in immersing a motherboard in mineral oil (kinda like a Cray) and I've found that a nice old-fashioned big-ass heatsink will get you by. Peltiers are dangerous because if they lose power they actually start acting like and insulator and speed up the destruction. Water cooling works great for cooling but I'm still nervous leaving the machine on when I'm not around, I get the same feeling when I leave my place with the dishwasher on. Most heat sinks that come with off-the-rack systems are useless, I buy heatsinks as birthday presents for people I know that have bought Dells. If the heat sink falls off there's not much you can do unless you've got a successful mineral-oil-immersed motherboard ;)

    Here's some good info sites:

    www.ocaddiction.com

    www.coolerguys.com

    www.overclockershideout.com

    www.frozencpu.com

    www.extremecooling.org

    Motherboard Monitor a nice utility.

  5. Keeping the RISC alive. on PPC G5 On The Way -- And Fast · · Score: 1

    It's nice to see a RISC chip with a future but it begs the question that people always have with the Macs which is the software, OS and apps. I use OSX on a G3 iMac and it's pretty poor however on the G4 it's considerably better. When I looked for a solution to the iMac problem I came across Yellow Dog Linux which runs like a top on the G3. Imagine what it'll do on the G5.

  6. WEP and Mac address restricting. on 802.11b Network Scanning In London And Amsterdam · · Score: 1

    I've seen lots of ways to crack WEP to sniff out someone elses packets but what about just preventing people from sucking up your bandwidth? I've got an Apple Airport with the Mac address restriction ability. Have there been any issues with someone cracking the base station itself?

  7. Try Abiword and Gnumeric instead. on ZDNet Reviews KOffice · · Score: 2, Informative

    I know it's not a full suite but I've found Abiword and Gnumeric much better at translations from Micros**t documents and spreadsheets. I'm trying to replace MacOS and MS Office on 300 iMacs with Yellow Dog Linux and some kind of Office-type products and I've tried everything that I could find, KOffice and StarOffice are not cutting it.

  8. WatchGuard Soho vs Sonicwall Soho. on Choosing a Router/Firewall for the Home LAN · · Score: 2, Informative

    I purchased the WatchGuard Soho over a year ago and it's been so-so. It tends to lock-up from time to time and when I contacted tech support they told me that it would be fixed in a future rev of the firmware. Unfortunately my one-year of firmware upgrades has now expired and I still have the problem. I could re-up with them but having a gun put to my head doesn't make me very happy. I'm now looking at the Sonicwall Soho which has the same features as the WatchGuard but includes a lifetime firmware subscription. PPPoE is critical for most DSL and NAT allows you to use one DHCP assigned address for many machines on your home network, something that most ISP's frown upon. Setup for the WatchGuard was easy through the browser and the Sonicwall offers the same. If you're real clever you could dust off one of those old P75's in the basement and install a stripped down Linux distro to perform the PPPoE, NAT and Firewall functions.

  9. The should call it "The Matrix Rebooted" on Matrix Sequel Delayed to 2003 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    That way people who run Windows will understand it better.

  10. I should have taken the blue pill. on Matrix Sequel Delayed to 2003 · · Score: 1

    In the meantime you can have some fun with the easter-eggs on the DVD while you wait for the new movie. Go to DVD Easter Eggs :)

  11. Typical reply without the facts. on Federal Judges Take a Stance Against Workplace Monitoring · · Score: 1

    Hey smart-guy, check your time zone. 10:21AM EDT equals 7:21AM PST. Not everyone lives next to the Atlantic.

  12. Must be great to be indispensable. on Federal Judges Take a Stance Against Workplace Monitoring · · Score: 1

    Henry Ford once wrote "If you find yourself with and indispensibe employee, fire him as quickly as possible." As an IS&T Manager I run into developers like you every day. Your shit doesn't stink and your code is the best and everyone else is stupid, right? Wrong. I would rather work with a professional who can do his job properly without the attitude. You'll be suprised how fast your company replaces you and won't even miss a beat. It amazes me when I hear someone spouting off like the company "owes" you something. They pay your salary and you do the job according to their rules for that salary, that's it. Don't do work from home. It's OK. But your replacement probably will, and he/she will be rewarded for it.

  13. Good use of the technology. on Florida Surveillance Cameras Claim a Victim · · Score: 1

    I saw a Colombo episode where the bad guy had his girlfriend deliberately get a speeding ticket at one of those automatic cameras while she held a picture of him over her face to give him an iron-clad alibi. I think someone should start doing cameos as Elvis in front of some these cameras.

  14. Makes me nervous. on Fight Virus With Virus? · · Score: 1

    It kinda boils down to: Do you want ANY unknown software running around on your system, even if it's intentions are good. I think that if I had the choice of allowing "good" viruses on my system, I would decline. Maybe a worm that finds/exploits a weakness in your system could just leave a calling-card text file somewhere to alert you to the issue. It reminds me of the old cartoon where they bring in a cat to chase away the mouse, then they have to bring a dog to chase away the cat, etc., etc., etc.

  15. I'm a tech guy manager. on Federal Judges Take a Stance Against Workplace Monitoring · · Score: 1

    Yeah...that's right. I came up from the ranks.

  16. It's not your computer. on Federal Judges Take a Stance Against Workplace Monitoring · · Score: 1

    It belongs to the company and these silly people who expect to be able to do as they please on the companies time and equipment need to grow up. Your company provides your computer to you as a tool, just like your stapler. If you abuse that tool it should be taken away from you. What gives you the right to use the companies' property to do personal things on the companies' time with the companies' resources? Stop your whining and get back to work. P. S. I'm not trolling, I'm a manager.

  17. OK, lets go back to the $129 task chair. on Aeron Chairs As Stupidity Barometers · · Score: 1

    You'll be begging for your Aeron back in 20 minutes. It's a good chair but if some people need to attach blame to inanimate objects for their losses in the stock market then sure, blame the chairs. I've worked for years in the industry and the chairs in offices are usually uncomfortable. It may surprise you to know that some of those uncomfortable chairs costs your company upwards of $500. I paid $650 for our Aerons and everyone in the office was begging for one. And to the comments about being unable to adjust it properly...RTFM.

  18. Life's tough when yor're stupid. on Microsoft Appeals Anti-Trust to Supreme Court · · Score: 1

    Oh yeah, it's useless. Let's just lie down and let old Bill continue to be one of the richest people on the planet. What are you stupid? Or are you just one of the countless Microsoft cows who drink the Cool aid and give up? Guess what genius? The Open Source Movement has done a little more than "posturing". They've given MS some pause for thought (Halloween Documents) and have convinced some major players (Apple and IBM) to see their side of the story. I'm really hurt that you don't care about my struggle. Just sit back and watch your Zena on TV while my friends and me put Bill out of business.

  19. Good luck. on Microsoft Appeals Anti-Trust to Supreme Court · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The more they tighten their grip, the more users will slip through their fingers.

  20. This is the last straw. on MS getting rid of SAMBA? · · Score: 1

    OK it's time to make a major structional change in my IT department. We've been using Win2K and NT4 long enough. I'm going to start converting my Win2K servers to BSD and my clients to Linux. I've just downloaded the free version for Solaris 8 on Intel. Has anyone deployed this?

  21. Re:Panasonic, Dell, Apple or IBM. on Which Laptop To Buy? · · Score: 1

    Sorry dude. That's one of the things on my wish list. I haven't tried loading any notebooks up yet but it looks like Sun's notebook support is dismal.

  22. Panasonic, Dell, Apple or IBM. on Which Laptop To Buy? · · Score: 2, Informative

    We use the following where I work:

    Panasonic CF-71 ToughBook - Heavy duty, impossible to break, believe me I know. My users made a weekly event of at least one person breaking their screen on their Toshiba Tecras. Since we started using the Toughbooks for the well-traveled user we haven't had a single break. Also, the tool-less hard drive swap-out is always nice for those remote users.

    Dell Inspiron 8000 - True desktop replacement. DVD player and seperate CDRW, swappable hard drive, huge screen with 1280x1024 or even 1400x1280, very nice for the developers.

    Apple G4 Titanium - What can I say? The coolest notebook this side of the planet. The screen is stupendous and I don't mean just for DVD's. The G4 make OSX useable (no flames please, it's a dog on the G3's). Our execs love them as well as our graphics people.

    IBM ThinkPad T20 - If this thing had a touchpad instead of the freakin eraserhead it would be my favorite. The ThinkPad has always been the Cadillac of notebooks (Gateway being the Ford Fiesta). Tough and with a lot of lovely built-in accessories, it's always a great choice.

    Some features that I like:

    1) Built-in antenna for 802.11b like the G4.
    2) Tool-less removable hard drive.
    3) Built-in Ethernet, modem, USB, FireWire.
    4) Big battery with real-world runtime expectations.
    5) NO MORE AD/DC CONVERSION BRICKS! With some kind of universal power cord like desktops.
    6) Combo DVD/CDRW drive, maybe even a combo with DVDR or DVDRW.
    7) Multiple swap-out drive bays like the Inspiron.
    8) More than 2 PCMCIA slots.
    9) Linux, BSD and Solaris/Intel friendly.

  23. Lexx is for schwackers. on Best Sci Fi Currently On Television? · · Score: 1

    Lame dialog, stupid obvious jokes, sucky scripts, poor acting, lousy special effects, lips that are about to explode from too much Collagen...come on people! This is the worst exploitive crap on TV today. It's on the same lines as Zena or Hercules. Typical eye-candy for those of you with one hand on the remote and the other... I'll take Dr. Who/B5/FarScape over this nonsense any day.

  24. I think it's Microsoft. on Be Buyout Looms Closer · · Score: 1

    I overheard Bill at the local SuperCuts and he mumbled something like "This XP thing really sucks, I think I'll go back to my roots and just by my next OS". I think it was him...maybe it was Steve...

  25. Nice idea. on Ricochet Modems == Wireless LAN? · · Score: 1

    I had a look at their booth at Comdex last year, nice but I don't think it'll work outside their propritary network. Not 802.11ish...