The other advantage beside new customers are existing customers who have switched plans because of CityFido. I was previously on a plan that was around $25/month + license fee. I "usually" came in under my minutes per-month, but it was a no-brainer to switch to CityFido for $40 and not ever have to worry about monitoring minutes, not to mention not paying the extra license fee directly.
Basically turns your cell phone into the equivilent of a city-wide cordless phone, which is just amazingly convenient.
Needless to say, kids love it - unlimited chat time with their friends. All of my friends (mid-20s/early 30s) have switched to it - the only people who havn't I would classify as "uninformed", "live in rural areas where they get no service", or are "locked into long contracts with other providers "(fools).
As far as wireless pricing goes, Fido does need to compete a better. For instance, they're selling a P800 (SP locked) for $1,000 Cdn which is just plain stupid. I picked up my (unlocked) P800 a month before Fido introduced theirs for $900 taxes in. This was over 6 months ago, and the price hasn't budged, despite the costs dropping like a rock.
I suppose uninformed consumers (the vast majority) have no idea what the real prices for the phones are. Until you get digging on the net and look for pricing you don't see how much you're losing-out, although even then, people are scared-off by compatibility concerns and such which providers help foster (to keep customers "buying local").
At one point, Rogers AT&T was even refusing to sell local SIM cards to GSM phone users unless they purchased the handset as well (to lock them into a longterm contract, as well as making $$$ on a handset).
I just installed a new CPU in this new machine - As I was carefully inserting the CPU into the socket, I felt a bit of resistance and had a closer look - 6 pins in two adjacent interior rows were bent marginally.
Given the location of the bent pins, it's very likely it came that way (it was a retail-boxed CPU) - in any event, it's not always carelessness...
A few tense moments with a fine exacto-knife blade and some exceeedingly gentle pressure straightened them out and allowed 'em to fit right in so I can type to you now!
You are hosed when the feds or RIAA comes after you (or your ISP).
Hmm... Since you are sharing your internet connection, in rather the same way that your own ISP does (sharing their backbone connection), would that not also turn YOU into an ISP and provide you with all of the protections involved in being a service provider (not responsible for what goes through your network, only what's hosted ON it) rather than an end user?
Perhaps if you registered yourself as a home-based business?
It's not too hard to find - you just need to keep your eye open for the small text without any graphics.
It's easier to find than it used to be.
It's kind of stupid really, because the player itself includes BOTH versions and you can activate the "pay" features by using the player software itself to register an account and upgrade.
The only difference is that the website leads you through creating an account and paying for the player to get a registration before downloading the same.EXE
Let's try an install of this new version (10b). I'll document my install for the benefit of slashdot users:
-Doubleclick the.exe and hit "accept" on the agreement without reading it:) -Set connection speed - Fair Enough -5 clicks under "desktop settings" to deselect every additional option for more icons, extra search features, and including a nice "OPT-OUT" with free offers from Real.com. I just want the player and the codec, nothing else. -Had to close webbrowser windows to continue. -Install takes about a minute on a fast PC. -Deselect every filetype that it wants to steal to play. I want it to play realmedia files, nothing else! -Click "finish". -Player connects to internet connection to "continue setup" -Disable addon "Real Internet Toolbar" for IE. -Asks to create an account with username and password to continue the install. -Hit cancel to finish install without creating an account/signing in - sets player for "basic" version. -Finished (when player starts)
So, the install is IDENTICAL to previous versions, so far as I can tell, and that's what turns most people off.
Just install the damn thing without ANY additional options or ANY additional media type playback selected. I do not WANT any "free media toolbars for IE installed". Do NOT prompt me to connect and create an account for a full version - if I had wanted the "pay" version, THAT's what I would've downloaded!
Lol, I knew it - there's no way Apple could release something at a low price point.
It's funny, when the roumers came out, I had no problem with any part of it being possible - except for the price. Anyone who seriously thought that Apple would produce a mini-iPod for $99 was seriously deluded and hadn't been around Apple products for long.
One of the Apple marketing strategies is that you "pay more for the quality". Much the same approach Sony takes. New products are never released at low prices because it would seriously undermine the "I paid the most, but it's the best" marketing aspect.
I don't know that being a "racecar driver", or a team player in some sport, or a snowboarder or a rockclimber, or any of the above rate above a "gamer" in terms of credibility, social merit, or importance.
It all depends on your point of view.
For example, I could absolutely not care less about football - and I'd have a lot more fun watching someone who was a world champion player annihilate people in Quake as opposed to watching two teams of lunks toss a ball around.
One is using your muscles and getting mashed around on the field. The other is using your brain and playing on a virtual field. Does one have more social merit than the other? If people are entertained and enjoy it, probably not.
I've got 2 Apex players, mainly for their "hackability" rather than the quality of their mechanisms, etc. The older one (the original hackable Apex) is working fine, but the newer 3-DVD changer refuses to work unless the top cover is off. Wierd, but true.
As long as the big companies (sony, panasonic, toshiba, etc) insist on making it difficult to remove region coding and macrovision controls, I'll always have at least one cheap player that can play whatever "I" want it to play.
After years of ZIP-drive angst (disks failing, becoming corrupted, loosing student work), we're finally getting rid of the damn things and migrating everyone to solid-state USB keychain drives. Far faster and reliable. Long past-due.
So far, the USB drives have worked flawlessly. No moving parts, magnets and dust don't harm them, etc.
In this case, it was only 10c, so there wasn't much chance of condensation forming (especially in a sealed environment, as you mentioned).
I suppose it's possible for the compressor to fail, although I didn't ask, I'm sure they put some sort of temperature warning/shutdown device in there.
Still, fridges are build pretty solid, the compressors are all totally sealed units and can run for years without any maintenance.
Some television engineers I know mentioned that they actually used this technique for mounting electronics in remote locations that needed to stay both temperature-controlled, and absolutely dust-free.
So they took refrigerators and removed all of the shelving from the interior, drilled holes through the side (around the coolant tubes) to bring in power cables, data cables and such (the holes were then filled with expanding foam to make them airtight), and plugged it in.
They said that every time they visited the site, everywhere else was dusty and dirty (and hot). Inside the fridge, it was cool (10c) and dust-free.
Cheap way of making sure that things in remote locations stay working:)
After watching those videos, I can't help but wonder why they were blocking out part of the screen on the CPU-ID program. What could've been so super-top-secret there?
Easy enough - just put a limiter-exception in the chip:
It will allow you full acceleration and power anytime you want it for a maximum of 20 seconds (should be plenty for emergency situations), then it will throttle you back and reduce speed to the regular limit in the chip and wouldn't allow full acceleration again for 2 minutes after.
I think the method I'd prefer to stop stolen cars is just having the government mandate that ignition immobilizers MUST be installed in all new cars sold.
Bypassing a good immobilizer is well past the capabilities of most car thieves out there. Immobilizers that are built into the engine's computer are even more secure.
Even better would be to have a biometric system which the user could set parameters on to ensure the proper person is in control of the car via a fingerprint (ie: from 7am to 7pm, driver must place finger on the reader once to start car, between 7pm and 7am, driver must put finger on the reader every hour of driving time to reauthorize or the car will shut down). The reader could give you 5 minutes of time to authorize, then just slowly start reducing engine power until the car is stopped. I suppose "finger theft" is a possibility as well if cars used this system...
Of course the biometric idea is a bit "futuristic" for most drivers. Even a simple immobilizer that's factory-installed wouldn't stop criminals from bypassing/removing the system on their own vehicles, but it would reduce or prevent car theft entirely (except for idiots who leave the car running with the keys in it).
That's a good point actually, and it's how cars are being tracked in downtown London to charge the "downtown tax". They have cameras set around the area that OCR car license plates.
Of course it's easy to do anywhere - set up a OCR camera somewhere where cops can do easy stops with little risk of someone being able to run - have a laptop in a van with a database of license plates that are wanted for one reason or another and just scan every car that comes by until they get hits.
I'm not at all keen on having cars report my movements using the GPS, or having those records able to be pulled by anyone...
However, I think the idea of auto black-boxes is great - maybe it would help put more idiots that cause accidents away... If only there was a way for it to record the alcohol level of the driver as well.
Not to mention the money they'd make if you were buying coffee there as well.
Considering the markup over raw supplies on a cup of coffee (read: water through beans) is hundreds or thousands of percent, just buying a couple cups should give you free access all day.
I suspect that the new HD-DVD players will be able to downconvert the signal to standard def internally to be compatible with existing systems.
Big studios are really keen on replacing DVDs with something with much better encryption/copy protection - the shift to HD is incidental.
So they release new players that can handle HD as well as SD and can output to either type of monitor - let the price drop for a few years until it's in the $300-500 range, then completely stop producing regular DVDs to force people to upgrade to a new format which has far stronger encryption and more control for the studios.
They aren't in this to do any favors for their customers...
Well, I suppose the hack is handy for those who don't want to purchase a GPS unit, but personally, I'd just buy an RS-232-only GPS receiver (can be around the size of a quarter) and hook it up rather than hacking my system apart and voiding the warantee.
Damn... If I owned SCO stock, I'd be dumping it as fast as legally possible.
It's only a matter of time now until the whole illusion of SCO collapses and anyone left with shares is kissing their investment goodbye...
I'm rather looking forward to it:)
Anyone wanna pitch in to buy a few industrial paper-shredders for the SCO gang by way of an xmas gift? I'm sure they'll be needing them before long.
Not to mention that a truckload of paper shredders showing up at the front door of SCO would make a great photo for any press that "happened" to be in the area at the time;)
The biggest problem is the fissionable material. At least as far as fission bombs go, everything else can easily be accomplished today by individuals or small companies with some decent computing technology and computer-controlled milling/production machinery.
Fusion bombs are trickier because of the fission trigger, but it could certainly be accomplished. I'd venture to say that while not exactly "common knowledge", any number of good physicists in most countries in the world could design something that would be at the very least moderately effective as a fusion weapon.
Slashdot Mirror
The other advantage beside new customers are existing customers who have switched plans because of CityFido. I was previously on a plan that was around $25/month + license fee. I "usually" came in under my minutes per-month, but it was a no-brainer to switch to CityFido for $40 and not ever have to worry about monitoring minutes, not to mention not paying the extra license fee directly.
Basically turns your cell phone into the equivilent of a city-wide cordless phone, which is just amazingly convenient.
Needless to say, kids love it - unlimited chat time with their friends. All of my friends (mid-20s/early 30s) have switched to it - the only people who havn't I would classify as "uninformed", "live in rural areas where they get no service", or are "locked into long contracts with other providers "(fools).
As far as wireless pricing goes, Fido does need to compete a better. For instance, they're selling a P800 (SP locked) for $1,000 Cdn which is just plain stupid. I picked up my (unlocked) P800 a month before Fido introduced theirs for $900 taxes in. This was over 6 months ago, and the price hasn't budged, despite the costs dropping like a rock.
I suppose uninformed consumers (the vast majority) have no idea what the real prices for the phones are. Until you get digging on the net and look for pricing you don't see how much you're losing-out, although even then, people are scared-off by compatibility concerns and such which providers help foster (to keep customers "buying local").
At one point, Rogers AT&T was even refusing to sell local SIM cards to GSM phone users unless they purchased the handset as well (to lock them into a longterm contract, as well as making $$$ on a handset).
N.
I just installed a new CPU in this new machine - As I was carefully inserting the CPU into the socket, I felt a bit of resistance and had a closer look - 6 pins in two adjacent interior rows were bent marginally.
Given the location of the bent pins, it's very likely it came that way (it was a retail-boxed CPU) - in any event, it's not always carelessness...
A few tense moments with a fine exacto-knife blade and some exceeedingly gentle pressure straightened them out and allowed 'em to fit right in so I can type to you now!
N.
You are hosed when the feds or RIAA comes after you (or your ISP).
Hmm... Since you are sharing your internet connection, in rather the same way that your own ISP does (sharing their backbone connection), would that not also turn YOU into an ISP and provide you with all of the protections involved in being a service provider (not responsible for what goes through your network, only what's hosted ON it) rather than an end user?
Perhaps if you registered yourself as a home-based business?
N.
I was thinking along the same lines...
Mighty handy of Adobe to include a feature that includes the detection routine so that people can figure out how to get around it...
On another note, (no pun intended... Well, maybe), CS barfs on Canadian $20s as well.
Ah well, PS 8 is a complete piece of shit anyway, first product activation, now built-in image censorship. Absolutely no reason to upgrade from PS 7.
N.
It's not too hard to find - you just need to keep your eye open for the small text without any graphics.
.EXE
It's easier to find than it used to be.
It's kind of stupid really, because the player itself includes BOTH versions and you can activate the "pay" features by using the player software itself to register an account and upgrade.
The only difference is that the website leads you through creating an account and paying for the player to get a registration before downloading the same
My favorite free player (for the regular version) is Zoom Player (http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/)
Amazing feature set, every conceivable option for handling all media types, and totally free (unless you want the DVD-capable version).
Great stuff!
Let's try an install of this new version (10b). I'll document my install for the benefit of slashdot users:
.exe and hit "accept" on the agreement without reading it :)
-Doubleclick the
-Set connection speed - Fair Enough
-5 clicks under "desktop settings" to deselect every additional option for more icons, extra search features, and including a nice "OPT-OUT" with free offers from Real.com. I just want the player and the codec, nothing else.
-Had to close webbrowser windows to continue.
-Install takes about a minute on a fast PC.
-Deselect every filetype that it wants to steal to play. I want it to play realmedia files, nothing else!
-Click "finish".
-Player connects to internet connection to "continue setup"
-Disable addon "Real Internet Toolbar" for IE.
-Asks to create an account with username and password to continue the install.
-Hit cancel to finish install without creating an account/signing in - sets player for "basic" version.
-Finished (when player starts)
So, the install is IDENTICAL to previous versions, so far as I can tell, and that's what turns most people off.
Just install the damn thing without ANY additional options or ANY additional media type playback selected. I do not WANT any "free media toolbars for IE installed". Do NOT prompt me to connect and create an account for a full version - if I had wanted the "pay" version, THAT's what I would've downloaded!
Lol, I knew it - there's no way Apple could release something at a low price point.
It's funny, when the roumers came out, I had no problem with any part of it being possible - except for the price. Anyone who seriously thought that Apple would produce a mini-iPod for $99 was seriously deluded and hadn't been around Apple products for long.
One of the Apple marketing strategies is that you "pay more for the quality". Much the same approach Sony takes. New products are never released at low prices because it would seriously undermine the "I paid the most, but it's the best" marketing aspect.
N.
I don't know that being a "racecar driver", or a team player in some sport, or a snowboarder or a rockclimber, or any of the above rate above a "gamer" in terms of credibility, social merit, or importance.
It all depends on your point of view.
For example, I could absolutely not care less about football - and I'd have a lot more fun watching someone who was a world champion player annihilate people in Quake as opposed to watching two teams of lunks toss a ball around.
One is using your muscles and getting mashed around on the field. The other is using your brain and playing on a virtual field. Does one have more social merit than the other? If people are entertained and enjoy it, probably not.
N.
I've got 2 Apex players, mainly for their "hackability" rather than the quality of their mechanisms, etc. The older one (the original hackable Apex) is working fine, but the newer 3-DVD changer refuses to work unless the top cover is off. Wierd, but true.
As long as the big companies (sony, panasonic, toshiba, etc) insist on making it difficult to remove region coding and macrovision controls, I'll always have at least one cheap player that can play whatever "I" want it to play.
N.
Hmm... Odd...
Paid iTunes music downloads don't appear to work unless you live in the U.S.
From where _I_ live, that's not much of a product of the year...
N.
You don't work in a school :P
After years of ZIP-drive angst (disks failing, becoming corrupted, loosing student work), we're finally getting rid of the damn things and migrating everyone to solid-state USB keychain drives. Far faster and reliable. Long past-due.
So far, the USB drives have worked flawlessly. No moving parts, magnets and dust don't harm them, etc.
N.
In this case, it was only 10c, so there wasn't much chance of condensation forming (especially in a sealed environment, as you mentioned).
I suppose it's possible for the compressor to fail, although I didn't ask, I'm sure they put some sort of temperature warning/shutdown device in there.
Still, fridges are build pretty solid, the compressors are all totally sealed units and can run for years without any maintenance.
Does it really matter anymore? Almost all of the new burners being released are dual-format +/-R compatible.
It's possible to buy a dual format burner for under $100, so the "format war" is largely irrelevant now.
N.
Some television engineers I know mentioned that they actually used this technique for mounting electronics in remote locations that needed to stay both temperature-controlled, and absolutely dust-free.
:)
So they took refrigerators and removed all of the shelving from the interior, drilled holes through the side (around the coolant tubes) to bring in power cables, data cables and such (the holes were then filled with expanding foam to make them airtight), and plugged it in.
They said that every time they visited the site, everywhere else was dusty and dirty (and hot). Inside the fridge, it was cool (10c) and dust-free.
Cheap way of making sure that things in remote locations stay working
After watching those videos, I can't help but wonder why they were blocking out part of the screen on the CPU-ID program. What could've been so super-top-secret there?
N.
Apple? Affordable? cawf cawf. I think the news article may have some details right, but I doubt the price is one of them.
Likewise those "artists conceptions" that are floating around. I doubt it will have a big screen and fancy touch controls like the current versions.
Easy enough - just put a limiter-exception in the chip:
It will allow you full acceleration and power anytime you want it for a maximum of 20 seconds (should be plenty for emergency situations), then it will throttle you back and reduce speed to the regular limit in the chip and wouldn't allow full acceleration again for 2 minutes after.
N.
I think the method I'd prefer to stop stolen cars is just having the government mandate that ignition immobilizers MUST be installed in all new cars sold.
Bypassing a good immobilizer is well past the capabilities of most car thieves out there. Immobilizers that are built into the engine's computer are even more secure.
Even better would be to have a biometric system which the user could set parameters on to ensure the proper person is in control of the car via a fingerprint (ie: from 7am to 7pm, driver must place finger on the reader once to start car, between 7pm and 7am, driver must put finger on the reader every hour of driving time to reauthorize or the car will shut down). The reader could give you 5 minutes of time to authorize, then just slowly start reducing engine power until the car is stopped. I suppose "finger theft" is a possibility as well if cars used this system...
Of course the biometric idea is a bit "futuristic" for most drivers. Even a simple immobilizer that's factory-installed wouldn't stop criminals from bypassing/removing the system on their own vehicles, but it would reduce or prevent car theft entirely (except for idiots who leave the car running with the keys in it).
N.
That's a good point actually, and it's how cars are being tracked in downtown London to charge the "downtown tax". They have cameras set around the area that OCR car license plates.
Of course it's easy to do anywhere - set up a OCR camera somewhere where cops can do easy stops with little risk of someone being able to run - have a laptop in a van with a database of license plates that are wanted for one reason or another and just scan every car that comes by until they get hits.
I'm not at all keen on having cars report my movements using the GPS, or having those records able to be pulled by anyone...
However, I think the idea of auto black-boxes is great - maybe it would help put more idiots that cause accidents away... If only there was a way for it to record the alcohol level of the driver as well.
N.
Not to mention the money they'd make if you were buying coffee there as well.
Considering the markup over raw supplies on a cup of coffee (read: water through beans) is hundreds or thousands of percent, just buying a couple cups should give you free access all day.
N.
I suspect that the new HD-DVD players will be able to downconvert the signal to standard def internally to be compatible with existing systems.
Big studios are really keen on replacing DVDs with something with much better encryption/copy protection - the shift to HD is incidental.
So they release new players that can handle HD as well as SD and can output to either type of monitor - let the price drop for a few years until it's in the $300-500 range, then completely stop producing regular DVDs to force people to upgrade to a new format which has far stronger encryption and more control for the studios.
They aren't in this to do any favors for their customers...
N.
Well, I suppose the hack is handy for those who don't want to purchase a GPS unit, but personally, I'd just buy an RS-232-only GPS receiver (can be around the size of a quarter) and hook it up rather than hacking my system apart and voiding the warantee.
N.
Damn... If I owned SCO stock, I'd be dumping it as fast as legally possible.
:)
;)
It's only a matter of time now until the whole illusion of SCO collapses and anyone left with shares is kissing their investment goodbye...
I'm rather looking forward to it
Anyone wanna pitch in to buy a few industrial paper-shredders for the SCO gang by way of an xmas gift? I'm sure they'll be needing them before long.
Not to mention that a truckload of paper shredders showing up at the front door of SCO would make a great photo for any press that "happened" to be in the area at the time
The biggest problem is the fissionable material. At least as far as fission bombs go, everything else can easily be accomplished today by individuals or small companies with some decent computing technology and computer-controlled milling/production machinery.
Fusion bombs are trickier because of the fission trigger, but it could certainly be accomplished. I'd venture to say that while not exactly "common knowledge", any number of good physicists in most countries in the world could design something that would be at the very least moderately effective as a fusion weapon.
The college I work for is contemplating a trial rollout of OpenOffice as an alternative (and hopefully eventual replacement) to MS Office.
I'm rather looking forward to it.
Now if only they'd get rid of damn Lotus Notes for internal email...