No, not Tux. Tux is an Emperor penguin, which often are confused with King penguins. King penguins are smaller and have slightly different orange patches near there ears, and King penguins live further north than the Emperor.
Sitting, just sitting.
I hope not - he plays sound when you squeeze his stomach, I hope he doesn't also have a high powered transmitter stuck inside him!
Captive? No, he could leave anytime he wants by flying through the air vent - oh wait, penguins don't fly? Muu uh ah haaa
FYI 1: That bag under the TV (purple/pink label) is organic dog biscuits. They used to be given to a seeing eye / personal assistance dog that was very friendly. Eventually (naturally) a bet was made where the loser had to eat one.
FYI 2: The handsome guy in the Hawaiian shirt (who really needed a haircut) sitting next to Todd is me.
Re:Blue device of death
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At least Clippy isn't turning you on!
That is an entirely different type of dream...
So lets see the list of changes that you feel are so horrible. You say there are multiple changes and that they are not improving security. You list one example with a pretty weak explanation on why exactly it was an 'idiotic' change - try some more.
I assume that since you posted this as an anonymous coward you were just trying to be funny or a troll since 'release candidate' is a pretty standard term in the software industry - which is more than just Microsoft.
You may also want to look up what the word 'candidate' means. Here, I will help you: candidate. There do not have to be multiple candidates nor does a candidate have to receive votes.
In this case there actually is a type of voting that goes on. When a software company has a 'release candidate' there is generally a period of time between it and the actual released product. During this time the company receives feedback from people running the release candidate. The feedback/bug reports/etc are analyzed to determine if the product is actually ready to ship. When a product is getting ready to ship certain representatives actually have to sign off on it - essentially the same thing as a 'vote'.
But, I'm sure you already knew that and you were just trying to get a +5 Lame Attempt At MS Bashing on your message.
Even if people don't make backups it isn't that big of a deal to install XPSP2.
You can run a compatability checker before performing the actual install that will give you some warnings if there are known incompatibilities with applications you have installed on your machine
Skipping that, as long as you don't select the option that says "Do not archive the original operating system files away. Selecting this option means you can not uninstall XPSP2" you will be able to remove it via the Add/Remove Programs control panel. And 'yes' the option to get yourself in to that situation is not the default and 'yes' if you pick that option the message is pretty clear about what you are doing.
Then you can continue to use your own tools to manage your updates. No problem.
The wizard does not block all traffic "until the latest updates are applied", nor does it force that AU is turned on. It will block incoming traffic while the initial dialog is up. It basically says "Hey, your installation CD could be really old, there may be updates available on the internet" and "Hey, there is a feature called Automatic Update that will help keep your system up to date. You can turn it off, you can turn it on and let it notify you when a patch is available, or you can turn it on and let it install the patches automatically & reboot your machine if necessary at predetermined time."
It is there to help you, and believe it or not there are people out there who do need this kind of assistance. Once you've made your configuration choices you can dismiss the wizard and have your system the way you want it to. Whether that means it is fully updated every morning at 2am or that you run your system totally unprotected - it is up to you & your corporate policy.
>why does running of the application, which actually accomlishes something, must be compromise to enable the OS to run better?
There are applications out there that arbitrarily require that they are run with administrative credentials. You don't honestly think that all the apps on your Linux box should be run as root do you?
There are applications that make/respond to remote calls without any kind of authentication/security on the calls. You don't really think that you should have applications on your machine executing arbitrary code, possible running as root per the previous example, do you?
There are applications inserting themselves in various stacks / callback functions rather than using APIs correctly to register themselves for notifications/etc. You don't really want potentially buggy and slow 3rd party code executing every time you click your mouse button do you?
There are programming guidelines, APIs, documentation, and concepts that should be followed for an application to be well written. These concepts do evolve over time as more is learned and as the environment our machines live in changes. The applications most likely to be impacted by changes are those that are poorly written (maybe they play in memory that they don't own and no check was every enforced before), or applications that are very tightly tied to the underlying system (for example a quality realtime anti-virus application). The 2nd set of application vendors usually get on board and update their code. The 1st set of application writers aren't always so lucky and sometimes find that their applications are broken. Good. Maybe they'll learn something about good coding practices while they are preparing an update, and at least an update is provided that fixes some potential security vulnerabilities.
That is actually incorrect, you seem to be confused.
The builds available previously on MSDN were builds made after Beta but that doesn't mean they were release candidates. Updates are provided to MSDN when they meet a certain quality bar, not tied to whether they are major milestone builds.
I have no idea what you meant "ties up with the last-but-one build".
Microsoft didn't just release "Windows XP 64-bit build 1247" that build is quite old.
Server 2003 SP1 and the new x64 editions (including a Win XP Pro) are built out of the same source base, are released simultaneously, and therefore have the same build numbers.
It follows then that this Release Candidate is for Windows Server 2003 SP1, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
When you launch an.MSI file it uses the Windows installer goo, assuming you have it. When you make an MSI for an unknown target audience, you ship a small "bootstrap" executable with it. This.exe checks to see if the users computer has the correct version of the installer goo - if it does then the MSI is launched, if it does not then it downloads the correct version. I can't remember what versions of the OS it would need to get updated bits for... XP already has it.
This does nothing to make installations any safer though. Check out the documentation on Windows installer packages (for example this msdn page). You can have the MSI install DLLs and launch EXEs as part of the "installation". There is nothing preventing those files from being malicious.
If you don't know where an application comes from, you need to be careful when you install it. The latest "PhotoshopCSFullNoKey.exe" is probably going to be dangerous
You're at "+4, Funny", but I'll answer you anyway in case you were being serious & really do have a 64-bit box to play on.
You can get pre-release versions of both the 64-bit Win XP and Server 2003 from Microsoft.com. These builds are much more current than the last preview that was posted, which was last year.
A public web server is not comparable to a private home; it is comparable to a public store. Port scanning is not the equivalent of going through someone's personal fridge; it is comparable to looking at a stores merchandise.
Yesterday I walked in to a store I had never been in before. I had no intention of purchasing any of the things they sold (based on the store's name, and the display in the main window I could tell it was for clothing). I went in and looked around (think: port scanned), and discovered that this clothing store also sold Jones Soda. I happened to be thristy, so I bought it.
I'm pretty sure that the store manager was not pissed, and did not call the cops becuase I was looking around...
Well, I can assure you I am not full of BS. I am on my crappy "ergonomic" (curved, split keyboard) at work and I ranged between 95 and 110 over multiple tests.
I know that this keyboard screws me up and slows me down too. It makes me stop and think about where a key is occasionally - for example, I use my left hand to hit the 'y' in a lot of cases, which I can't do on this ergo board becuase it is on the "right hand side" of the great divide.
My fiance took a typing test when she was getting a temp job; she was also about 95 wpm even though she doesn't do lot of typing (i.e. the occasional email, but not any kind of data entry or anything like that)
Times change, and people learn new skills. Baseball players used to not be able to hit the ball as far as they do now, typists used to not be able to type as fast as people can now.
I didn't misread, I just didn't add the part that says "jerry rig" is not very proper. You'll find references that claim it is a substitute for 'jury rig', but you'll find just as many references saying that it is used as a substitute by people that don't know what they're saying. It is like "patently obvious", "I could care less", and "irregardless" - just because people say it, doesn't make it correct.:)
Yea, I'll agree with that. If TiVo had a published API (and a cool 'emulator' so you wouldn't have to screw with your TiVo to test all the time!) there probably would be more apps. I know there are multiple efforts to write good general purpose apps to help other developers just get stuff displayed as on-screen overlays. If TiVo had provided a good API for getting text on screen & using their UI (i.e. the borders and translucency that they use) cool apps (like instant messaging and notifications) would have popped up quicker & more mature in their first versions.
My Sony TiVo has a couple hundred hours of recording capacity thanks to a 2nd hard drive that I added to it. I first put my new harddrive in a desktop computer and booted from one of the Linux boot CDs (I forgot which one, I think Dylan's) to configure it, then slapped it in to my TiVo and it was instantly available.
Adding a hard drive isn't good enough to count as 'hacking' even when it is seamlessly accepted by the interface? Okay, then add an Ethernet card to a 1st generation TiVo. After TiVo released there v3 software you don't even need to install drivers anymore for the most popular of the ethernet addons. What? Yes, you heard me: TiVo added built-in support for hacking your TiVo to have ethernet - even though they didn't announce support for ethernet officially until the Series 2 TiVos came with an external USB port. (There is a version with a built in wireless card too, called the airnet)
I even have a Cache Card in my TiVo. Talk about hack... Not only does it add an ethernet port, but it lets me add 512 megs of ram to cache the TiVo databases (which were large and slow on a tivo upgraded with so much recording capacity).
My TiVo is happily chugging along as expected. It didn't even mind when I added a web server to it, so that I could schedule recordings and modify my to-do list when I'm at work, even though I don't have a Series 2 unit that has that feature built-in.
You might want to check out the TiVo Community Forum (in particular the Upgrade Center and Underground sections) to see what the TiVo community is all about. There are utilities to display caller id info on screen, random pictures, the weather, stock tickers, instant messenger messages, and more. Oh, and before you say TiVo doesn't 'embrace' this community, search the postings - it shouldn't be too hard to find some posts from employees there.
Now if by "doesn't embrace" you mean "lets people trade files with reckless abandon on the internet" then yes, you are right. Everyone on that site 'plays fair'. Threads about decrypting/extracting the video files, hacking subscription information so you don't have to pay to get schedule listing updates, etc aren't allowed. Why bite the hand that feeds you? If we were to do things that got TiVo in trouble they wouldn't keep making sweet hardware for us to love!
Actually those are two separate things.
You're right about the 'jury rig' stuff, not disagreeing with that BTW.
Some dictionaries will say that 'jerry rig' means the same as 'jury rig' (that is what dictionary.com would tell you, for example). But you can find explanations of the differences. Basically think: Jury rig = temporary, quick-fix solution, possibly a novel implementation & Jerry rig = not necessarily temporary, junk solution.
I, and many others, used to have our cellular phone bills paid completely. Then, oh maybe a year ago, the rule was changed so only a set amount of our bill was paid. Recently it has been changed so that we have to pay our entire bill on our own.
Did I complain at first? Sure, going from paying $0 to paying $80 every month was lame, but I stopped complaining pretty quick when I thought about it rationally. The proportion of minutes that people spent doing work verse the minutes people spent using the phone for personal use definitely showed most people were just using their phone on their own (or minutes were going unused). We also get the corporate rate on our plans, which is cool and adds up fast. I'm sure there are some people that use it solely for work, and I'm sure that the company will work with them appropriately, but for the general employee that isn't the case.
Back when my cell phone was bought & paid for by the company I had no problem with my number being listed in the directory - it wasn't really "my private phone", it was "the company's phone that I could use". I also expected other people to have their cell number in the directory, and when I needed to reach them after hours & it wasn't there I bitched at them. Now that it is "my phone" and "my phone plan", you know what? It is my personal number and does not need to be listed. The people that need to be able to reach me know how to reach me. Random people that 'think' they need to call me after work... can send me email or leave voice mail on my office line. I don't expect everyone else to have their numbers in the directory anymore either. That does kinda suck though, when we really need to get ahold of someone but can't...
Is it a cut to my benefits? Sure. Does it suck that I have to pay for something I didn't used to? Sure. Does it make sense that if I use my phone for personal use -way- more than business use, that I should be responsible? Sure.
Do I understand how this affects the corporate bottom line? Yep, I'm glad we're doing this too. The less expenses we pay the more money we have for other things (or the more money the company keeps, which plays in to stock prices, budgets, blah blah blah)
Windows XP uses the 5.1 codebase. Pro and Home are just different versions. Pro is a superset of the features that are in home, but it is still 5.1 also.
To be more specific both of the XP's are version 5.1.0
XP Service Pack 1 is 5.1.1
XP SP2 would be 5.1.2
The Server 2003 code base branch off quite awhile ago, so it shipped as 5.2
Server 2003 SP1 will be 5.2.1
Just like XP Home & Pro shared the same version number, so do the Standard, Enterprise, Web, and Datacenter editions of Server.
(FYI, NT 3.1 and 4 are obvious, Windows 2000 was 5.0. And for the people who are going to reply and say they have 5.2.3790 instead of 5.2.0, or 5.1.2600, etc that is just a collapsed version number there are really a bunch more parts to it that I'm leaving out )
SilentChris says: People don't purchase cars they can't open the hood.
Tell that to Volvo. They recently had a team of 100 women design "a car for affluent, independent women." It happens to be a "car they can't open the hood" of.
Volvo says: There is no hood! "Honestly, the only time I open the bonnet (hood) on my car is when I want to fill up washer fluid," explained Tatiana Butovitsch, the project team's communications manager, "So we shifted the filling station for washer fluid to the side of the car, next to where you fill up fuel, and we closed the bonnet for good."
Overload the shift key then. Hit the shift key twice in rapid succession and have it 'lock' until you hit it again.
People are getting used to the concept of a key doing more than one thing (4=4, shift+4=$,fn+4=F4 or internal/external monitor control on laptops, etc). Since pretty much all of the computers that would be working with these new keyboards would also be running some type of operating system there isn't that big of a need for a hardware-based solution to caps-lock.
Sorry, but you are not correct. You should go do some research on what a scientific 'theory' is, as well as some research on how the scientific process works. Everything is a theory. Gravity is a theory. The "earth is flat" was a theory, taken as 'fact' by many', that was eventually proven false. it was replaced with the theory that the earth was a sphere. Well, that theory was disproven also, and a new theory on the shape of the earth was made. (More complicated shape, a spheroid, that is like a sphere that is being squished a bit so the middle bulges out). You'll find over and over that legitimate scientists call everything they do 'theories'. That is how it works.
It is true! "Apply to porn industry" must be the elusive Step 2, see it work:
Steal underpants
Take pictures of hotties wearing the underpants and sell them back to the underpants owner
Profit!
A bad book is still better than an average sit-com
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I am not one of those people that claim they do not watch TV, do not have cable, blah blah blah. I have a TV, I have cable, and I use my TiVo to record shows I like to watch, so that I do not end up sitting in front of the tube watching crap "because nothing else is on."
But, I do realize that a lot of "bad" books are still better than a lot of "average" sit-coms. Even with a bad book you have to use your imagination. You use your mind to develop pictures of the characters in your story, you use your mind to give life to the dialog, and you use your mind to read the words which is always helpful to keep your vocabulary sharp.
A blind man walked in to my house and gave my piano the best tuning it had ever had. (no, there is no joke/punchline coming)
His daughter drove up, helped him out of the car, and walked him to my piano. He asked that I remove any papers / loose items from it, and then he sat down on the bench. He ran his hands along the piano getting a feel for the dimensions and layout of the various parts (the music stand, the key cover, decorative touches, etc) and then asked who made the piano. Then he opened the lid and popped out the panels that were in the way, the only assistance he received during this "dismantling" phase was when he would hand a piece to his daughter who then went and found a free spot on the floor to put them. The blind man, now sitting in front of an exposed piano, asked for his tool box to be set on the seat next to him. He did not ask for a specific tool, he did not ask for his tools to be laid out in any way, just wanted his box next to him.
He played some scales & chords to see where he would be starting from, and asked me if I had any tuning style requests. I told him I liked to play blues, but did play a lot of classical. He nodded his head, grabbed his tuning wrench and a couple of tuning forks and went at it.
It was really cool to watch, you could tell that this guy loved what he was doing and was an expert at it. He would pick up a fork, feeling them to determine which one he had, then he would whack it on the hard heel of his shoe. The sound would resonate and he would start wrenching away, deftly moving all over the keys. He would tune a series of keys, then he would jump a few octaves away tweaking & retweaking. He didn't just tune every single note to match up with a seperate perfect fork, he made subtle changes to give the sound life. He would stop and comment on why he was making changes every now and then, and run through some more scales and chords. Eventually he stopped and put the panels back on the piano. His daughter walked him in to our living room, and he announced she would make us some tea. (??) She boiled some water, dunked some bags, and we sat there while he made small talk and told some random stories (including the one about knowing a guy who almost lost several fingers when he overtightened one of the very very thin piano wires until it violently snapped). a little bit of this he wanted back at the piano. Along with the scales & chords, this time he played a quick song. He opened it all up again, spent a minute or two making some final adjustments, and was done. The time we were talking he was apparently waiting for all the changes he made to "settle in" in case any of the bolts were a little loose or for the strings to do any expansion they wanted to.
The time that he spent on my piano was well worth it, it was deliberately not a frequency-perfect tuning. It was, however, a perfect sounding piano. He had done some minor detuning on some keys, it had character, it sounded awesome.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it is a King penguin.
No, not Tux. Tux is an Emperor penguin, which often are confused with King penguins. King penguins are smaller and have slightly different orange patches near there ears, and King penguins live further north than the Emperor.
Sitting, just sitting.
I hope not - he plays sound when you squeeze his stomach, I hope he doesn't also have a high powered transmitter stuck inside him!
Captive? No, he could leave anytime he wants by flying through the air vent - oh wait, penguins don't fly? Muu uh ah haaa
FYI 1: That bag under the TV (purple/pink label) is organic dog biscuits. They used to be given to a seeing eye / personal assistance dog that was very friendly. Eventually (naturally) a bet was made where the loser had to eat one.
FYI 2: The handsome guy in the Hawaiian shirt (who really needed a haircut) sitting next to Todd is me.
At least Clippy isn't turning you on!
That is an entirely different type of dream...
So lets see the list of changes that you feel are so horrible. You say there are multiple changes and that they are not improving security.
You list one example with a pretty weak explanation on why exactly it was an 'idiotic' change - try some more.
I assume that since you posted this as an anonymous coward you were just trying to be funny or a troll since 'release candidate' is a pretty standard term in the software industry - which is more than just Microsoft.
You may also want to look up what the word 'candidate' means. Here, I will help you: candidate. There do not have to be multiple candidates nor does a candidate have to receive votes.
In this case there actually is a type of voting that goes on. When a software company has a 'release candidate' there is generally a period of time between it and the actual released product. During this time the company receives feedback from people running the release candidate. The feedback/bug reports/etc are analyzed to determine if the product is actually ready to ship. When a product is getting ready to ship certain representatives actually have to sign off on it - essentially the same thing as a 'vote'.
But, I'm sure you already knew that and you were just trying to get a +5 Lame Attempt At MS Bashing on your message.
Even if people don't make backups it isn't that big of a deal to install XPSP2.
You can run a compatability checker before performing the actual install that will give you some warnings if there are known incompatibilities with applications you have installed on your machine
Skipping that, as long as you don't select the option that says "Do not archive the original operating system files away. Selecting this option means you can not uninstall XPSP2" you will be able to remove it via the Add/Remove Programs control panel. And 'yes' the option to get yourself in to that situation is not the default and 'yes' if you pick that option the message is pretty clear about what you are doing.
Then you can continue to use your own tools to manage your updates. No problem.
The wizard does not block all traffic "until the latest updates are applied", nor does it force that AU is turned on. It will block incoming traffic while the initial dialog is up. It basically says "Hey, your installation CD could be really old, there may be updates available on the internet" and "Hey, there is a feature called Automatic Update that will help keep your system up to date. You can turn it off, you can turn it on and let it notify you when a patch is available, or you can turn it on and let it install the patches automatically & reboot your machine if necessary at predetermined time."
It is there to help you, and believe it or not there are people out there who do need this kind of assistance. Once you've made your configuration choices you can dismiss the wizard and have your system the way you want it to. Whether that means it is fully updated every morning at 2am or that you run your system totally unprotected - it is up to you & your corporate policy.
There are applications that make/respond to remote calls without any kind of authentication/security on the calls. You don't really think that you should have applications on your machine executing arbitrary code, possible running as root per the previous example, do you?
There are applications inserting themselves in various stacks / callback functions rather than using APIs correctly to register themselves for notifications/etc. You don't really want potentially buggy and slow 3rd party code executing every time you click your mouse button do you?
There are programming guidelines, APIs, documentation, and concepts that should be followed for an application to be well written. These concepts do evolve over time as more is learned and as the environment our machines live in changes. The applications most likely to be impacted by changes are those that are poorly written (maybe they play in memory that they don't own and no check was every enforced before), or applications that are very tightly tied to the underlying system (for example a quality realtime anti-virus application). The 2nd set of application vendors usually get on board and update their code. The 1st set of application writers aren't always so lucky and sometimes find that their applications are broken. Good. Maybe they'll learn something about good coding practices while they are preparing an update, and at least an update is provided that fixes some potential security vulnerabilities.
That is actually incorrect, you seem to be confused.
The builds available previously on MSDN were builds made after Beta but that doesn't mean they were release candidates. Updates are provided to MSDN when they meet a certain quality bar, not tied to whether they are major milestone builds.
I have no idea what you meant "ties up with the last-but-one build".
Microsoft didn't just release "Windows XP 64-bit build 1247" that build is quite old.
Server 2003 SP1 and the new x64 editions (including a Win XP Pro) are built out of the same source base, are released simultaneously, and therefore have the same build numbers.
It follows then that this Release Candidate is for Windows Server 2003 SP1, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
When you launch an .MSI file it uses the Windows installer goo, assuming you have it. When you make an MSI for an unknown target audience, you ship a small "bootstrap" executable with it. This .exe checks to see if the users computer has the correct version of the installer goo - if it does then the MSI is launched, if it does not then it downloads the correct version. I can't remember what versions of the OS it would need to get updated bits for... XP already has it.
This does nothing to make installations any safer though. Check out the documentation on Windows installer packages (for example this msdn page). You can have the MSI install DLLs and launch EXEs as part of the "installation". There is nothing preventing those files from being malicious.
If you don't know where an application comes from, you need to be careful when you install it. The latest "PhotoshopCSFullNoKey.exe" is probably going to be dangerous
You're at "+4, Funny", but I'll answer you anyway in case you were being serious & really do have a 64-bit box to play on.
You can get pre-release versions of both the 64-bit Win XP and Server 2003 from Microsoft.com. These builds are much more current than the last preview that was posted, which was last year.
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition is available for ordering a CD, but the ISO download option won't be available for another day or so.
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is available for both CD ordering, and ISO downloading now.
A public web server is not comparable to a private home; it is comparable to a public store.
Port scanning is not the equivalent of going through someone's personal fridge; it is comparable to looking at a stores merchandise.
Yesterday I walked in to a store I had never been in before. I had no intention of purchasing any of the things they sold (based on the store's name, and the display in the main window I could tell it was for clothing). I went in and looked around (think: port scanned), and discovered that this clothing store also sold Jones Soda. I happened to be thristy, so I bought it.
I'm pretty sure that the store manager was not pissed, and did not call the cops becuase I was looking around...
Well, I can assure you I am not full of BS. I am on my crappy "ergonomic" (curved, split keyboard) at work and I ranged between 95 and 110 over multiple tests.
I know that this keyboard screws me up and slows me down too. It makes me stop and think about where a key is occasionally - for example, I use my left hand to hit the 'y' in a lot of cases, which I can't do on this ergo board becuase it is on the "right hand side" of the great divide.
My fiance took a typing test when she was getting a temp job; she was also about 95 wpm even though she doesn't do lot of typing (i.e. the occasional email, but not any kind of data entry or anything like that)
Times change, and people learn new skills. Baseball players used to not be able to hit the ball as far as they do now, typists used to not be able to type as fast as people can now.
I didn't misread, I just didn't add the part that says "jerry rig" is not very proper. You'll find references that claim it is a substitute for 'jury rig', but you'll find just as many references saying that it is used as a substitute by people that don't know what they're saying. It is like "patently obvious", "I could care less", and "irregardless" - just because people say it, doesn't make it correct. :)
Yea, I'll agree with that. If TiVo had a published API (and a cool 'emulator' so you wouldn't have to screw with your TiVo to test all the time!) there probably would be more apps. I know there are multiple efforts to write good general purpose apps to help other developers just get stuff displayed as on-screen overlays. If TiVo had provided a good API for getting text on screen & using their UI (i.e. the borders and translucency that they use) cool apps (like instant messaging and notifications) would have popped up quicker & more mature in their first versions.
What are you talking about?
My Sony TiVo has a couple hundred hours of recording capacity thanks to a 2nd hard drive that I added to it. I first put my new harddrive in a desktop computer and booted from one of the Linux boot CDs (I forgot which one, I think Dylan's) to configure it, then slapped it in to my TiVo and it was instantly available.
Adding a hard drive isn't good enough to count as 'hacking' even when it is seamlessly accepted by the interface? Okay, then add an Ethernet card to a 1st generation TiVo. After TiVo released there v3 software you don't even need to install drivers anymore for the most popular of the ethernet addons. What? Yes, you heard me: TiVo added built-in support for hacking your TiVo to have ethernet - even though they didn't announce support for ethernet officially until the Series 2 TiVos came with an external USB port. (There is a version with a built in wireless card too, called the airnet)
I even have a Cache Card in my TiVo. Talk about hack... Not only does it add an ethernet port, but it lets me add 512 megs of ram to cache the TiVo databases (which were large and slow on a tivo upgraded with so much recording capacity).
My TiVo is happily chugging along as expected. It didn't even mind when I added a web server to it, so that I could schedule recordings and modify my to-do list when I'm at work, even though I don't have a Series 2 unit that has that feature built-in.
You might want to check out the TiVo Community Forum (in particular the Upgrade Center and Underground sections) to see what the TiVo community is all about. There are utilities to display caller id info on screen, random pictures, the weather, stock tickers, instant messenger messages, and more. Oh, and before you say TiVo doesn't 'embrace' this community, search the postings - it shouldn't be too hard to find some posts from employees there.
Now if by "doesn't embrace" you mean "lets people trade files with reckless abandon on the internet" then yes, you are right. Everyone on that site 'plays fair'. Threads about decrypting/extracting the video files, hacking subscription information so you don't have to pay to get schedule listing updates, etc aren't allowed. Why bite the hand that feeds you? If we were to do things that got TiVo in trouble they wouldn't keep making sweet hardware for us to love!
Actually those are two separate things.
You're right about the 'jury rig' stuff, not disagreeing with that BTW.
Some dictionaries will say that 'jerry rig' means the same as 'jury rig' (that is what dictionary.com would tell you, for example). But you can find explanations of the differences. Basically think: Jury rig = temporary, quick-fix solution, possibly a novel implementation & Jerry rig = not necessarily temporary, junk solution.
See the Wordorigins.org J-word page, as well as this WordCourt page or this Phrase Finder post
I, and many others, used to have our cellular phone bills paid completely. Then, oh maybe a year ago, the rule was changed so only a set amount of our bill was paid. Recently it has been changed so that we have to pay our entire bill on our own.
Did I complain at first? Sure, going from paying $0 to paying $80 every month was lame, but I stopped complaining pretty quick when I thought about it rationally. The proportion of minutes that people spent doing work verse the minutes people spent using the phone for personal use definitely showed most people were just using their phone on their own (or minutes were going unused). We also get the corporate rate on our plans, which is cool and adds up fast. I'm sure there are some people that use it solely for work, and I'm sure that the company will work with them appropriately, but for the general employee that isn't the case.
Back when my cell phone was bought & paid for by the company I had no problem with my number being listed in the directory - it wasn't really "my private phone", it was "the company's phone that I could use". I also expected other people to have their cell number in the directory, and when I needed to reach them after hours & it wasn't there I bitched at them.
Now that it is "my phone" and "my phone plan", you know what? It is my personal number and does not need to be listed. The people that need to be able to reach me know how to reach me. Random people that 'think' they need to call me after work... can send me email or leave voice mail on my office line. I don't expect everyone else to have their numbers in the directory anymore either.
That does kinda suck though, when we really need to get ahold of someone but can't...
Is it a cut to my benefits? Sure.
Does it suck that I have to pay for something I didn't used to? Sure.
Does it make sense that if I use my phone for personal use -way- more than business use, that I should be responsible? Sure.
Do I understand how this affects the corporate bottom line? Yep, I'm glad we're doing this too. The less expenses we pay the more money we have for other things (or the more money the company keeps, which plays in to stock prices, budgets, blah blah blah)
The good ol Bait & Switch is alive and well...
Car lots
Video game consoles & Spam
Job-related markets
and Vacation Packages
Finding the other half trillion examples is left as an exercise to the reader.
Wrong.
Windows XP uses the 5.1 codebase. Pro and Home are just different versions. Pro is a superset of the features that are in home, but it is still 5.1 also.
To be more specific both of the XP's are version 5.1.0
XP Service Pack 1 is 5.1.1
XP SP2 would be 5.1.2
The Server 2003 code base branch off quite awhile ago, so it shipped as 5.2
Server 2003 SP1 will be 5.2.1
Just like XP Home & Pro shared the same version number, so do the Standard, Enterprise, Web, and Datacenter editions of Server.
(FYI, NT 3.1 and 4 are obvious, Windows 2000 was 5.0. And for the people who are going to reply and say they have 5.2.3790 instead of 5.2.0, or 5.1.2600, etc that is just a collapsed version number there are really a bunch more parts to it that I'm leaving out )
Feel free to read either of these links if you don't believe me: USA Today article, and Drivers.com article
Overload the shift key then. Hit the shift key twice in rapid succession and have it 'lock' until you hit it again.
People are getting used to the concept of a key doing more than one thing (4=4, shift+4=$,fn+4=F4 or internal/external monitor control on laptops, etc). Since pretty much all of the computers that would be working with these new keyboards would also be running some type of operating system there isn't that big of a need for a hardware-based solution to caps-lock.
Sorry, but you are not correct. You should go do some research on what a scientific 'theory' is, as well as some research on how the scientific process works. Everything is a theory. Gravity is a theory. The "earth is flat" was a theory, taken as 'fact' by many', that was eventually proven false. it was replaced with the theory that the earth was a sphere. Well, that theory was disproven also, and a new theory on the shape of the earth was made. (More complicated shape, a spheroid, that is like a sphere that is being squished a bit so the middle bulges out). You'll find over and over that legitimate scientists call everything they do 'theories'. That is how it works.
I am not one of those people that claim they do not watch TV, do not have cable, blah blah blah. I have a TV, I have cable, and I use my TiVo to record shows I like to watch, so that I do not end up sitting in front of the tube watching crap "because nothing else is on."
But, I do realize that a lot of "bad" books are still better than a lot of "average" sit-coms. Even with a bad book you have to use your imagination. You use your mind to develop pictures of the characters in your story, you use your mind to give life to the dialog, and you use your mind to read the words which is always helpful to keep your vocabulary sharp.
A blind man walked in to my house and gave my piano the best tuning it had ever had. (no, there is no joke/punchline coming)
His daughter drove up, helped him out of the car, and walked him to my piano. He asked that I remove any papers / loose items from it, and then he sat down on the bench. He ran his hands along the piano getting a feel for the dimensions and layout of the various parts (the music stand, the key cover, decorative touches, etc) and then asked who made the piano. Then he opened the lid and popped out the panels that were in the way, the only assistance he received during this "dismantling" phase was when he would hand a piece to his daughter who then went and found a free spot on the floor to put them. The blind man, now sitting in front of an exposed piano, asked for his tool box to be set on the seat next to him. He did not ask for a specific tool, he did not ask for his tools to be laid out in any way, just wanted his box next to him.
He played some scales & chords to see where he would be starting from, and asked me if I had any tuning style requests. I told him I liked to play blues, but did play a lot of classical. He nodded his head, grabbed his tuning wrench and a couple of tuning forks and went at it.
It was really cool to watch, you could tell that this guy loved what he was doing and was an expert at it. He would pick up a fork, feeling them to determine which one he had, then he would whack it on the hard heel of his shoe. The sound would resonate and he would start wrenching away, deftly moving all over the keys. He would tune a series of keys, then he would jump a few octaves away tweaking & retweaking. He didn't just tune every single note to match up with a seperate perfect fork, he made subtle changes to give the sound life. He would stop and comment on why he was making changes every now and then, and run through some more scales and chords.
Eventually he stopped and put the panels back on the piano. His daughter walked him in to our living room, and he announced she would make us some tea. (??) She boiled some water, dunked some bags, and we sat there while he made small talk and told some random stories (including the one about knowing a guy who almost lost several fingers when he overtightened one of the very very thin piano wires until it violently snapped). a little bit of this he wanted back at the piano. Along with the scales & chords, this time he played a quick song. He opened it all up again, spent a minute or two making some final adjustments, and was done. The time we were talking he was apparently waiting for all the changes he made to "settle in" in case any of the bolts were a little loose or for the strings to do any expansion they wanted to.
The time that he spent on my piano was well worth it, it was deliberately not a frequency-perfect tuning. It was, however, a perfect sounding piano. He had done some minor detuning on some keys, it had character, it sounded awesome.