Make two partitions, one for system, other for My Documents. Install everything, set it up, update it, make a backup, freeze the system and tell them. I do not like antivirus, but you do as you please, just remember to install them to unfrozen partition.
"You can do everything you want, but the computer will reset everything as it was after restart."
This is a classical example of how you just have to take the time to read the paper and think about it because the cited text and other sources that are not behind pay-wall are just not clear enough.
I have had put my head in number of MR scanners, with field strengths of 0.3T, 0.5T, 1T, 1.5T, 2T, 3T, and 7T, with no nistagmus, but that simply does not mean anything in context of this paper.
You should have in mind that the maximum magnetic field gradients, and their speed are regulated by law. Interesting question that this paper is offering: are functional-MRI results sometimes tainted by effects of magnetic field gradient while the person is placed inside the device?
As one involved in medical profession, I am witnessing a slow but steady advance of robotic and similar "automatic"/"AI" technologies helping us more and more each year.
I for one, welcome the advent of robotic helpers in OR, ER, radiology or other part of medical profession. I do believe it will take a decade or more before we can use automatic detection on our x-rays, CT/MRI scans or blood-work. But, to be honest, "robotic" or better said "automatic" diagnosing is already here.
Take a look at you ECG strip/record. It already contains an opinion of the machine. There are several systems that can make a diagnosis from mammograms with better results than many overworked, underpaid, outsourced (or local) medical professionals (doctors).
These are just two examples, but use your search engines and find for yourself that there is a considerable number of independent (and other) groups that make great efforts to make a software that can give a diagnosis from images, samples or other information about your health.
It is just a matter of time when your portable sensor device, attached to skin or in your hand, will measure some molecules in your breath, sweat or blood, and offer an advice. It will be cheaper, it could not be fooled as easily, and it will be available anywhere, anytime.
Maybe I am dreaming, but take a good, long look at your mobile phone, and then replay to this post.
Back in the 1990-s my friend was working at one institution where they had 3T mass spectrometer. The machine developed a error and it would work for two-three weeks, and then it would die. Each servicing was taking tens of thousands of dollars, so my friend started tearing the machine apart one day. . After his boss went nuts, and basically, everybody left the building trying to get him of campus, he discovered that one lens for laser was of incorrect type, went to optics shop, bought new one for $1, replaced the lens, and repaired the machine. Original lens was too large and it would simply flip out of the socket after even a gentle nudge. . Company that made this device it is long gone now, but this machine still works without even single quenching.
Two weeks ago, one Sony printer started to drop packets (5-10% - nothing fancy), and generally, refused to print films (35x43cm). It is connected to a Cisco switch, same as about 20 other devices that work fine, thank you for asking. Interestingly, printer's web page works fine, printer reports all test are o.k. but switch keeps bringing errors and no films. No changes in settings or connections were made to printer or switch, but it simply stopped working. . The switch costs about $3,000 and printer about $10,000. Bummer. . After IT guys combed through this problem, printer was disconnected, and sony service contacted. No luck with them either.
Then, one MD needed an hardcopy baldly, and tried to connect printer back to ethernet socket, but could not find UTP cables of sufficient length. So he took $10 SOHO switch, two UTP cables and connected printer back to network....you guessed it.. it works fine now.
We also had similar expirience with home routers, but then tried monowall, pfsense, ip cop, and mikrotik. All of them work nice, have more or less user frendly web interface (or something similar), and also differ in price (monowall, pfsense, and ip cop are free). In all cases we were serving a mixed wireless-wired network of 50+ users, using NAT, DNS, firewall, port forwarding and some other features, depending on "router/firewall/whatewer" software mentioned.
At hardware side, we tried several hardware configurations, from 125MHz ARM-based routers, to 333MHz celeron or over 2GHz AMD processor-based PC's, and maybe most interesting was an Alix board with 500MHz AMD Geode x86 processor. Runs at low power, it's small, and gives all advantages (and other things:) ) of a PC. Trying several homer routers (Linksys, Buffalo, Planet, TP-link, etc) proved what other posts already pointed out - they are good-enough for aDSL lines, and speeds up to 10Mbps. Nevertheless, several Thompson and Siemens routers performed badly (instability is their middle name), but they are out of your league anyway and some of them are not available any more. Worst firewall in our experience came from Microsoft (ISA), and while being stable, it introduced huge packet delay and a number of "features" that made us bitter many times.
We also tried several Cisco routers and firewall, and to say the truth, were not impressed by what you get for the price, as beforementioned solutions provided same or better level of service for much less money. I don't say that they suck, but just that they are some kind of reference, so we tried them.
For last 2 years we settled with 1.6GHz AMD Turion based PC with 4 network cards, and one wireless card, 512MB RAM, system is on 256MB CF card, running one of mentioned software packages, while logging is done on separate machine. Going with CF (notice that nothing gets written to it) instead of HDD, provided us with increased stability, as hdds do fail more often. Good UPS is also a plus.
So many replays, but I can't see the right one. Here is my configuration:
Motherboard: Alix1C (ITX board 500MHz AMD Geode processor, 256MB RAM, Alix1D is currently in production). board has two serial ports, parallel port, several USB ports, LAN, PCI, mPCI, 4 audio ports, keyboard/mice port, 44pin ATa port, and CF card slot, and other...
Power supply: 12V, 1.25A, idle consumption 5W plus 2-3W for HDD (Hitachi 30Gb 2.5" ATA HDD), pluged directly into board. See http://www.pcengines.ch/ for more info. I tested board from -10 to +50 degrees Celsius, works like a charm for two years non-stop now.
One PCI SATA controler, with two 1TB HDD, and 12V 2A + 5V 2A power supply, fanless. HDD's take about 30-35W together (haven't measured it). I placed all that in one old ITX case, and right now I have replaced original power suppply with two fanless "brickl" PSUs. Case is ventilated with one 120mm fan, running on 5V.
As patients, we often forget that most diagnoses are really just a SWAG. A doctor usually can't be 100% confident that his diagnosis is correct, but does his best based on his expertise and the training he has. If I were a doctor, my daily concern would be malpractice suits. I don't even want to know how many incorrect engineering decisions I make in a year. If I had to be concerned about being sued for every one of those incorrect decisions, I would be lording over the data as well because I know there is always multiple ways to interpret the same data set.
It stands that You make considerably smaller amount of false engineering decisions. When did You have default value range 1-100 out of possible 0-300 units? It is common thing in medicine. If You put voltmeter at test point number 321, you measure exact that voltage, while in medicine, blood sample can literally be different because the room walls were of different color or because nurse said something or it was not taken in the morning but after the lunch.
It seems to me that considerable number of problems comes from the fact that engineers are used to work with models, while medicine is done in the real conditions. I agree that science part of medicine makes difference, but the ground is still shaky.
Just remember, if something is done in one hospital/county/state one way, there is no way that all of it will be the same in next hospital/county/state.
Re:I have a different theory
on
IT and Health Care
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· Score: 5, Informative
I don't have a theory I have experience.
I work for hospital that went digital (for patient recodrs) in 2006. All (billing) administration was internally digital (using different, obsolete system working on DOS and floppy disks) from 1997 and to outside world also, depending to health insurance company involved. After 6 months of education, switch was made in one day. It was horrible, but after two weeks things were looking just as before. After several months, 75% of administration was more efficient than before, and now, 3 years later, we still print outgoing documentation, but doctors rarely look at papers. Nevertheless, printing expenses went 30% down this year.
Last year all waiting lists were computerized, and made available (with no patient data) at the web pages. That saved us so many work hours at all departments, but two people switched to that department. This year we are looking into making all internal administrative procedures digital. Hospital restaurant was really happy after we made their menu available online at intranet.
Several months before introducing the system, all work places received computers with unified user interface, and demo program installed. It was made really clear that someone should consider finding another job if they refused to work with system. People near the retirement (2-3 years) were exempt from this rule.
The problem very often lies in wanting too much (all). Process should be step-by-step. Billing first, patient records second, intra-hospital administration third or any other way. Every step should be planned, because people will suffer at it, and don't rush it. It takes months, sometimes years for one (new) work flow to settle in.
Radiology department is still not filmless, probably because it costs as much as putting all patient records in computer. Volume of data that our radiology department produces in one day is equal to 1-2 years of data from whole hospital. On the other hand, introducing PACS and RIS is so much more widespread, but the volume of data makes project harder in the long run. After testing almost a dozen of PACS/RIS demonstrations, one free PACS amazed us with results, holding test data (0.5T of images) and working better than some very expensive solutions.
I am just wondering... What would happen to classcal music if they started to use Auto-tune. the whole point of music and excellence would simply disappear on the first occasion of live performance. What has already happened in case of "popular music". Decades ago.
Just imagine a opera singer going out of sync with others... but wait... that is what live performance is all about, to make avery performance a bit different but not wrong.
It has been proved that holding an beat perfectly makes a music boring, while artists that have tempo correct on average do sound good.
One more thing about cats, mice and rodents. As they are all mammals, they can be infected with Toxoplasma gondii. Definitive host is a cat, but that protozoa can also infect humans.
Toxoplasma invades the brain of the mammal or bird and changes their behaviour so that e.g mice are no longer afraid of the cat. Problem can be bad, since Toxoplasma is carried over by cat urine, and people can become infected too. It is noted that Toxoplasma changes behavior of the people, but more important is that it invades brain of the baby if the infection is acquired during pregnancy.
I second this. I have several routers and wifi routers with Geode, running pfsense, monowall and plain linux. They run from -15 deg. Celsius to 50 deg. Celsius, day and night for years without restart (I hooked several Li-ion batteries with small circuit for backup power). Even my home server (with SATA card plus several disks on separate PSU) runs on Geode.
Switching to ARM in this class is not practical, just try getting support in kernal for sata controler or wifi cards or for some less widespread device... Are there any boards with integrated USB, printer port, two serial ports, IDE/CF connector, VGA and LCD port,128/256MB RAM, single rail power supply (12-18V) and that idles at 3-5W and costs about $100-110?
And do not mention atom. Current boards consume too much power and need ATX PSU, and that is huge problem. Same goes for many VIA and other small factor boards having celeron or soething similar on board. Come to think of it, maybe board manufacturer will switch to VIA, but last 5 years, we are in love with Geode AMD.
Geode will be missed since platform like alix draws power from 12V 1.2A source and not a shabby ATX connector and power supply that draws more power than whole board!...or costs more than the board.
The problem with Your relativity fridge is putting the stuff in and removing it out. As the time moves slower in it, You might wait a decade before some robotic arm reaches for something. I would not put my hand in it to reach for something!
Since everybody is writing about capacitors, bear in mind that You can get electrolyte-free motherboard today. That kind of motherboard has capacitors that are less likely to leak. It might be just a little bit more expensive, but not much. CMOS battery can be removed and placed in protective storage, any - almost all computers can boot without it.
On the other hand, for several bucks, You can get factory-pressed CD's with live OS. You can always go with CF card and card reader, that sure isn't expensive, and it' will probably replace any HDD that needs to boot in several decades. Costs much much less than SSD. USB flash sticks can be tricky, but that's why this is a project not a routine job, experiment.
In my experience, most likely problem with computers sitting around is that You have to take care about connections (RAM, PCI cards, semetimes even processor), they simply need a "nudge" after several years. As today motherboards have everything integrated, that problem is probably reduced just to DIMMs.
Also don't remember that contact paste between processor and cooler will dry-up in years, so if you can glue it or something, that might help.
Keep in mind that CRT/LCD/display is not the only peripheral You have, what about printers? I still have LaserJetII+ and I have seen original Apple LaserWriter working just a year ago! Original toners in their package can last for, maybe a decade, I really don't know. Ink-jet printer can be left as an example, together with some termal printer. Why not?
After all, why just PC's? How about something hand-held? Portable video games? Consoles? Mobile phones with OS?
At the end, documentation is the king, but try to document best what is specific for Your selection/packaging, as that will be a problem.
When making documentation, observe diferences between computing from 70's or 80' and now, and try to see what is likely to be a problem. How will the mouse look to a user in 30+ years?
This sounds like only Your imagination is the limit.
For "virus problem", I only have one solution - DeepFreeze. It prevents user from ruining a partition with system. Second partition is used for data, of course...
I do not see this as easy when You deal with a bunch of RAID drives or similar setup, but booting something small (COUGH deamn small linux COUGH some disk test/recovery distribution) from CD and running it straight in memory may also help a lot in diagnosing a problem.
Just last week we had a 22 out of 22 Windows in one network shutting down network processes for no apparent reason, without any errors in log, without any HDD problems. After thorough search it seems somebody infected them with some kind of rootkit, but three AV programs could not weed it out. Only reinstalation helped.
Tell whiners they are welcome to use the latest version of MS office but the cost will be deducted from their paycheck once each month until the rest of their days.
Margins and layouts are very often different even between versions of MSWord. My experiences with Word97/2000/2003 are that You can't tell how many pages will 50+ pages document be in another MSWord.
It appears to me that several things are much better in OOWriter, like determining a place of anchor for object (image, table...) in Writer thatn in Word. Same goes for sytles and sections.
I usually just make one text frame and just paste everything in it. Sometimes it helps.
I am using OO since early betas. As a general rule, it performs well or at least satisfactory. My experience is on that based on Writer, Presentation and Calc. I used OODraw several times and it served me well. I used Access last time in 1999, and I had some grief with early OOBase, but Base has improved since then and as far as I know it can not import Access databases (yet?).
OO3.0 can be used to read MSOffice xml documents, sometimes it worked even better than MSWord.
As far as Presentation goes, it usually ignores (versions 2.x) animation details in ppt files. How much is that a problem for You, I don't know, but to me animations are usually irrelevant. What is much more important to me is that OO will open all.ppt files, You will see it's contents in so I am using it especially when MSOffice can not open ppt file. It happens more than You think. Only down side of using exported ppt files from OO is that some bullets might dissapear, some text font may be different and sometimes background gradient looks different. Same goes for importing ppt in OO but that can also happen if You mix versions in MS Powerpoint. OO is stable with very large files (won't re-numerate large documents likemad as MSWord does), and to my opinion has got bit better import tools for Calc than Excell, for example.
I am working in institution with about 350 workplaces and ALL of them have OO installed. There are only 4 or 5 with MS Office instalations. Their primary use is for opening MSAccess databases and documents that, opened in OO, have some errors where it can be important for user. Such document is exported in some other format and then used in OO and exported back in MSO. It is usually not a problem.
It is company policy not to use documents that have VBscripts, and we usually ask sender to give us "clean" document. It is a document, and it should not have program in it.
There were some problems with embedded tables in presentations, but only if someone would try to edit OO table in Powerpoint and vice versa. As of OO3.0, I haven had such a problem, but that may be me.
We did not have any problems adapting to differences in UI in OO. Generic OO seems to work just as well as other versions, but added templates and other "candy" can be good reason to contact Sun or someone else. I would recommend removing MSOffice from some computers and let volunteers to use OO for several days or weeks and then make a judgment.
Last year I had two new laptops... Neither runs Windows. One is linux and other one is for the first time in my life, Mac OSX.
My kids love linux for surfing the net, email, flash games and YouTube. It runs OpenOffice, so we are covered on that front too. OSX just works, and works excellent.
I tried to run Vista on my 5-year old home PC, but XP runs better. Windows7 will be the same as Vista.
But what about 2-billion people in China and India? They can not afford buying new OS and PC just because W7 needs much faster hardware just to be running.
In the year of recession, my company and any other will not look after new PCs just because XP is old or W7 is new. They will try to squeeze as much as possible from old boxes, upgrade hardware only, and just as someone said, XP can run on PentiumII/III just fine.
I have written one book (over 750 pages), entirely in OpenOffice.
I found it very well equipped for all the tasks I needed, plus export to PDF worked like charm. As a metter of fact it was also edited in OO, and pdf was sent straight to printing.
It can make index, table of contents, and some other things You will find usable. For example I linked over 200 images in text and not once did OO lose track of size, position or other thing in entire book.
On the other hand, I could not hold the document in MS Word to have same number of pages on several computers, it just re-numerated pages each time differently, moved images and did other nasty things, especially after thing got bigger (over 80 pages).
Besides LaTeX, I really can't think of something better than OpenOffice.
Slashdot Mirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Freeze_(software)
Make two partitions, one for system, other for My Documents. Install everything, set it up, update it, make a backup, freeze the system and tell them. I do not like antivirus, but you do as you please, just remember to install them to unfrozen partition.
"You can do everything you want, but the computer will reset everything as it was after restart."
Hope it helps...
This is a classical example of how you just have to take the time to read the paper and think about it because the cited text and other sources that are not behind pay-wall are just not clear enough.
I have had put my head in number of MR scanners, with field strengths of 0.3T, 0.5T, 1T, 1.5T, 2T, 3T, and 7T, with no nistagmus, but that simply does not mean anything in context of this paper.
You should have in mind that the maximum magnetic field gradients, and their speed are regulated by law.
Interesting question that this paper is offering: are functional-MRI results sometimes tainted by effects of magnetic field gradient while the person is placed inside the device?
As one involved in medical profession, I am witnessing a slow but steady advance of robotic and similar "automatic"/"AI" technologies helping us more and more each year.
I for one, welcome the advent of robotic helpers in OR, ER, radiology or other part of medical profession.
I do believe it will take a decade or more before we can use automatic detection on our x-rays, CT/MRI scans or blood-work. But, to be honest, "robotic" or better said "automatic" diagnosing is already here.
Take a look at you ECG strip/record. It already contains an opinion of the machine.
There are several systems that can make a diagnosis from mammograms with better results than many overworked, underpaid, outsourced (or local) medical professionals (doctors).
These are just two examples, but use your search engines and find for yourself that there is a considerable number of independent (and other) groups that make great efforts to make a software that can give a diagnosis from images, samples or other information about your health.
It is just a matter of time when your portable sensor device, attached to skin or in your hand, will measure some molecules in your breath, sweat or blood, and offer an advice. It will be cheaper, it could not be fooled as easily, and it will be available anywhere, anytime.
Maybe I am dreaming, but take a good, long look at your mobile phone, and then replay to this post.
Back in the 1990-s my friend was working at one institution where they had 3T mass spectrometer. The machine developed a error and it would work for two-three weeks, and then it would die. Each servicing was taking tens of thousands of dollars, so my friend started tearing the machine apart one day.
.
After his boss went nuts, and basically, everybody left the building trying to get him of campus, he discovered that one lens for laser was of incorrect type, went to optics shop, bought new one for $1, replaced the lens, and repaired the machine. Original lens was too large and it would simply flip out of the socket after even a gentle nudge.
.
Company that made this device it is long gone now, but this machine still works without even single quenching.
Two weeks ago, one Sony printer started to drop packets (5-10% - nothing fancy), and generally, refused to print films (35x43cm). It is connected to a Cisco switch, same as about 20 other devices that work fine, thank you for asking. Interestingly, printer's web page works fine, printer reports all test are o.k. but switch keeps bringing errors and no films.
No changes in settings or connections were made to printer or switch, but it simply stopped working.
.
The switch costs about $3,000 and printer about $10,000. Bummer.
.
After IT guys combed through this problem, printer was disconnected, and sony service contacted. No luck with them either.
Then, one MD needed an hardcopy baldly, and tried to connect printer back to ethernet socket, but could not find UTP cables of sufficient length. So he took $10 SOHO switch, two UTP cables and connected printer back to network. ...you guessed it.. it works fine now.
We also had similar expirience with home routers, but then tried monowall, pfsense, ip cop, and mikrotik. All of them work nice, have more or less user frendly web interface (or something similar), and also differ in price (monowall, pfsense, and ip cop are free). In all cases we were serving a mixed wireless-wired network of 50+ users, using NAT, DNS, firewall, port forwarding and some other features, depending on "router/firewall/whatewer" software mentioned.
At hardware side, we tried several hardware configurations, from 125MHz ARM-based routers, to 333MHz celeron or over 2GHz AMD processor-based PC's, and maybe most interesting was an Alix board with 500MHz AMD Geode x86 processor. Runs at low power, it's small, and gives all advantages (and other things :) ) of a PC. Trying several homer routers (Linksys, Buffalo, Planet, TP-link, etc) proved what other posts already pointed out - they are good-enough for aDSL lines, and speeds up to 10Mbps. Nevertheless, several Thompson and Siemens routers performed badly (instability is their middle name), but they are out of your league anyway and some of them are not available any more. Worst firewall in our experience came from Microsoft (ISA), and while being stable, it introduced huge packet delay and a number of "features" that made us bitter many times.
We also tried several Cisco routers and firewall, and to say the truth, were not impressed by what you get for the price, as beforementioned solutions provided same or better level of service for much less money. I don't say that they suck, but just that they are some kind of reference, so we tried them.
For last 2 years we settled with 1.6GHz AMD Turion based PC with 4 network cards, and one wireless card, 512MB RAM, system is on 256MB CF card, running one of mentioned software packages, while logging is done on separate machine. Going with CF (notice that nothing gets written to it) instead of HDD, provided us with increased stability, as hdds do fail more often. Good UPS is also a plus.
So many replays, but I can't see the right one. Here is my configuration:
Motherboard: Alix1C (ITX board 500MHz AMD Geode processor, 256MB RAM, Alix1D is currently in production). board has two serial ports, parallel port, several USB ports, LAN, PCI, mPCI, 4 audio ports, keyboard/mice port, 44pin ATa port, and CF card slot, and other...
Power supply: 12V, 1.25A, idle consumption 5W plus 2-3W for HDD (Hitachi 30Gb 2.5" ATA HDD), pluged directly into board. See http://www.pcengines.ch/ for more info. I tested board from -10 to +50 degrees Celsius, works like a charm for two years non-stop now.
One PCI SATA controler, with two 1TB HDD, and 12V 2A + 5V 2A power supply, fanless. HDD's take about 30-35W together (haven't measured it).
I placed all that in one old ITX case, and right now I have replaced original power suppply with two fanless "brickl" PSUs. Case is ventilated with one 120mm fan, running on 5V.
Ubuntu LTS is installed, running services: Teamspeak, ftp, www, mysql (for WIKI and other things), DC hub (for local network), DC client, Open2300 meteo station software (see http://www.pljusak.hr/ and http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Open2300/WebHome ), samba, and some others.
I was just reassembling it yesterday... ( http://www.vallisaurea.net/staro/webcam/S5004006.JPG and http://www.vallisaurea.net/staro/webcam/S5004008.JPG )
Well, you got the point.
Unfortunately, humans do come with no service manual or test points or other service/manual documentation.
As patients, we often forget that most diagnoses are really just a SWAG. A doctor usually can't be 100% confident that his diagnosis is correct, but does his best based on his expertise and the training he has. If I were a doctor, my daily concern would be malpractice suits. I don't even want to know how many incorrect engineering decisions I make in a year. If I had to be concerned about being sued for every one of those incorrect decisions, I would be lording over the data as well because I know there is always multiple ways to interpret the same data set.
It stands that You make considerably smaller amount of false engineering decisions. When did You have default value range 1-100 out of possible 0-300 units? It is common thing in medicine.
If You put voltmeter at test point number 321, you measure exact that voltage, while in medicine, blood sample can literally be different because the room walls were of different color or because nurse said something or it was not taken in the morning but after the lunch.
It seems to me that considerable number of problems comes from the fact that engineers are used to work with models, while medicine is done in the real conditions. I agree that science part of medicine makes difference, but the ground is still shaky.
Just remember, if something is done in one hospital/county/state one way, there is no way that all of it will be the same in next hospital/county/state.
I don't have a theory I have experience.
I work for hospital that went digital (for patient recodrs) in 2006. All (billing) administration was internally digital (using different, obsolete system working on DOS and floppy disks) from 1997 and to outside world also, depending to health insurance company involved.
After 6 months of education, switch was made in one day. It was horrible, but after two weeks things were looking just as before. After several months, 75% of administration was more efficient than before, and now, 3 years later, we still print outgoing documentation, but doctors rarely look at papers. Nevertheless, printing expenses went 30% down this year.
Last year all waiting lists were computerized, and made available (with no patient data) at the web pages. That saved us so many work hours at all departments, but two people switched to that department. This year we are looking into making all internal administrative procedures digital. Hospital restaurant was really happy after we made their menu available online at intranet.
Several months before introducing the system, all work places received computers with unified user interface, and demo program installed. It was made really clear that someone should consider finding another job if they refused to work with system. People near the retirement (2-3 years) were exempt from this rule.
The problem very often lies in wanting too much (all). Process should be step-by-step. Billing first, patient records second, intra-hospital administration third or any other way. Every step should be planned, because people will suffer at it, and don't rush it. It takes months, sometimes years for one (new) work flow to settle in.
Radiology department is still not filmless, probably because it costs as much as putting all patient records in computer. Volume of data that our radiology department produces in one day is equal to 1-2 years of data from whole hospital. On the other hand, introducing PACS and RIS is so much more widespread, but the volume of data makes project harder in the long run. After testing almost a dozen of PACS/RIS demonstrations, one free PACS amazed us with results, holding test data (0.5T of images) and working better than some very expensive solutions.
I am just wondering... What would happen to classcal music if they started to use Auto-tune. the whole point of music and excellence would simply disappear on the first occasion of live performance.
What has already happened in case of "popular music". Decades ago.
Just imagine a opera singer going out of sync with others... but wait... that is what live performance is all about, to make avery performance a bit different but not wrong.
It has been proved that holding an beat perfectly makes a music boring, while artists that have tempo correct on average do sound good.
A PC user has to buy new hardware to switch to Windows7, also.
Instead of bitching about Linux and piracy, they should take care of their product(s).
One more thing about cats, mice and rodents. As they are all mammals, they can be infected with Toxoplasma gondii. Definitive host is a cat, but that protozoa can also infect humans.
Toxoplasma invades the brain of the mammal or bird and changes their behaviour so that e.g mice are no longer afraid of the cat. Problem can be bad, since Toxoplasma is carried over by cat urine, and people can become infected too. It is noted that Toxoplasma changes behavior of the people, but more important is that it invades brain of the baby if the infection is acquired during pregnancy.
For start, read (as usual).
I second this. I have several routers and wifi routers with Geode, running pfsense, monowall and plain linux.
They run from -15 deg. Celsius to 50 deg. Celsius, day and night for years without restart (I hooked several Li-ion batteries with small circuit for backup power). Even my home server (with SATA card plus several disks on separate PSU) runs on Geode.
Switching to ARM in this class is not practical, just try getting support in kernal for sata controler or wifi cards or for some less widespread device... Are there any boards with integrated USB, printer port, two serial ports, IDE/CF connector, VGA and LCD port,128/256MB RAM, single rail power supply (12-18V) and that idles at 3-5W and costs about $100-110?
And do not mention atom. Current boards consume too much power and need ATX PSU, and that is huge problem. Same goes for many VIA and other small factor boards having celeron or soething similar on board. Come to think of it, maybe board manufacturer will switch to VIA, but last 5 years, we are in love with Geode AMD.
Geode will be missed since platform like alix draws power from 12V 1.2A source and not a shabby ATX connector and power supply that draws more power than whole board!...or costs more than the board.
The problem with Your relativity fridge is putting the stuff in and removing it out.
As the time moves slower in it, You might wait a decade before some robotic arm reaches for something. I would not put my hand in it to reach for something!
Since everybody is writing about capacitors, bear in mind that You can get electrolyte-free motherboard today.
That kind of motherboard has capacitors that are less likely to leak. It might be just a little bit more expensive, but not much. CMOS battery can be removed and placed in protective storage, any - almost all computers can boot without it.
On the other hand, for several bucks, You can get factory-pressed CD's with live OS.
You can always go with CF card and card reader, that sure isn't expensive, and it' will probably replace any HDD that needs to boot in several decades. Costs much much less than SSD. USB flash sticks can be tricky, but that's why this is a project not a routine job, experiment.
In my experience, most likely problem with computers sitting around is that You have to take care about connections (RAM, PCI cards, semetimes even processor), they simply need a "nudge" after several years. As today motherboards have everything integrated, that problem is probably reduced just to DIMMs.
Also don't remember that contact paste between processor and cooler will dry-up in years, so if you can glue it or something, that might help.
Keep in mind that CRT/LCD/display is not the only peripheral You have, what about printers? I still have LaserJetII+ and I have seen original Apple LaserWriter working just a year ago! Original toners in their package can last for, maybe a decade, I really don't know. Ink-jet printer can be left as an example, together with some termal printer. Why not?
After all, why just PC's? How about something hand-held? Portable video games? Consoles? Mobile phones with OS?
At the end, documentation is the king, but try to document best what is specific for Your selection/packaging, as that will be a problem.
When making documentation, observe diferences between computing from 70's or 80' and now, and try to see what is likely to be a problem. How will the mouse look to a user in 30+ years?
This sounds like only Your imagination is the limit.
For "virus problem", I only have one solution - DeepFreeze. It prevents user from ruining a partition with system. Second partition is used for data, of course...
I do not see this as easy when You deal with a bunch of RAID drives or similar setup, but booting something small (COUGH deamn small linux COUGH some disk test/recovery distribution) from CD and running it straight in memory may also help a lot in diagnosing a problem.
Just last week we had a 22 out of 22 Windows in one network shutting down network processes for no apparent reason, without any errors in log, without any HDD problems. After thorough search it seems somebody infected them with some kind of rootkit, but three AV programs could not weed it out. Only reinstalation helped.
Tell whiners they are welcome to use the latest version of MS office but the cost will be deducted from their paycheck once each month until the rest of their days.
Margins and layouts are very often different even between versions of MSWord. My experiences with Word97/2000/2003 are that You can't tell how many pages will 50+ pages document be in another MSWord.
It appears to me that several things are much better in OOWriter, like determining a place of anchor for object (image, table...) in Writer thatn in Word. Same goes for sytles and sections.
I usually just make one text frame and just paste everything in it. Sometimes it helps.
I am using OO since early betas.
As a general rule, it performs well or at least satisfactory. My experience is on that based on Writer, Presentation and Calc. I used OODraw several times and it served me well. I used Access last time in 1999, and I had some grief with early OOBase, but Base has improved since then and as far as I know it can not import Access databases (yet?).
OO3.0 can be used to read MSOffice xml documents, sometimes it worked even better than MSWord.
As far as Presentation goes, it usually ignores (versions 2.x) animation details in ppt files. How much is that a problem for You, I don't know, but to me animations are usually irrelevant. What is much more important to me is that OO will open all .ppt files, You will see it's contents in so I am using it especially when MSOffice can not open ppt file. It happens more than You think.
Only down side of using exported ppt files from OO is that some bullets might dissapear, some text font may be different and sometimes background gradient looks different. Same goes for importing ppt in OO but that can also happen if You mix versions in MS Powerpoint.
OO is stable with very large files (won't re-numerate large documents likemad as MSWord does), and to my opinion has got bit better import tools for Calc than Excell, for example.
I am working in institution with about 350 workplaces and ALL of them have OO installed. There are only 4 or 5 with MS Office instalations. Their primary use is for opening MSAccess databases and documents that, opened in OO, have some errors where it can be important for user. Such document is exported in some other format and then used in OO and exported back in MSO. It is usually not a problem.
It is company policy not to use documents that have VBscripts, and we usually ask sender to give us "clean" document. It is a document, and it should not have program in it.
There were some problems with embedded tables in presentations, but only if someone would try to edit OO table in Powerpoint and vice versa. As of OO3.0, I haven had such a problem, but that may be me.
We did not have any problems adapting to differences in UI in OO. Generic OO seems to work just as well as other versions, but added templates and other "candy" can be good reason to contact Sun or someone else.
I would recommend removing MSOffice from some computers and let volunteers to use OO for several days or weeks and then make a judgment.
Last year I had two new laptops... Neither runs Windows. One is linux and other one is for the first time in my life, Mac OSX.
My kids love linux for surfing the net, email, flash games and YouTube. It runs OpenOffice, so we are covered on that front too. OSX just works, and works excellent.
I tried to run Vista on my 5-year old home PC, but XP runs better. Windows7 will be the same as Vista.
But what about 2-billion people in China and India? They can not afford buying new OS and PC just because W7 needs much faster hardware just to be running.
In the year of recession, my company and any other will not look after new PCs just because XP is old or W7 is new. They will try to squeeze as much as possible from old boxes, upgrade hardware only, and just as someone said, XP can run on PentiumII/III just fine.
"As far as using Word goes, it works well enough for this stuff. Expect to use a separate file for each chapter. "
Admit it, Word can not hold text more than one chapter in one file. MS Word is simply not-good-enough for anything that is longer than 10 pages.
I have written one book (over 750 pages), entirely in OpenOffice.
I found it very well equipped for all the tasks I needed, plus export to PDF worked like charm. As a metter of fact it was also edited in OO, and pdf was sent straight to printing.
It can make index, table of contents, and some other things You will find usable. For example I linked over 200 images in text and not once did OO lose track of size, position or other thing in entire book.
On the other hand, I could not hold the document in MS Word to have same number of pages on several computers, it just re-numerated pages each time differently, moved images and did other nasty things, especially after thing got bigger (over 80 pages).
Besides LaTeX, I really can't think of something better than OpenOffice.