What made me laugh out loud was the fact that the US Patent Office itself has an online ordering cart that seems (at least, from quickly reading the abstract) to fit the criteria of the patent they just granted to Amazon, and it's displayed on the very same page as the patent! (Indeed, you can use it to buy a paper copy of the patent.) So they may well owe Amazon some royalties. Oh, the irony!:)
Single-user mode is just Command-S. (Not that I'm being deliberately picky, I get half of the startup keys mixed up myself, I've just used it a fairly recently is all.)
s. I'd love to have this with "A Day in the Life" from the Beatles, too (hear all those grand pianos at the end one by one)! Someday...
Afraid that one won't happen unless someone invents some fancy tech to pull each instrument out of the audio stream! Back in the 60's when the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper's the highest number of tracks the best multitrack recorder could handle was four (a "4-track", probably using 2-inch tape), so they didn't have much to play with at all, at least that's what my music tech teacher told me. This actually makes Sgt. Pepper's all the more amazing: given the technical constraints of a 4-track you've only got 2 spare tracks to play with at any one time, and have to "bounce" these to the other 2 (say 3 & 4) to get a stereo recording (3=L, 4=R) and free up these tracks again, thereby losing the ability to adjust levels, pan, and aux/insert effects on everything you're bouncing down. So the logistics of recording must've been horrendously complicated, and that's not even mentioning their groundbreaking invention/use of tape-loops and the like! Which brings us to "A Day in the Life": they actually jury-rigged two 4-tracks together for it, syncing them manually I think with a primitive click/sync track, absolutely amazing stuff at the time. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club is truly a masterpiece, both sonically and technically.
If applications are broken by SP2, stop using them. Great solution, Microsoft! Fortunately for Nmap users, Microsoft implemented the new restrictions in their typical half-assed fashion. Instead of sending raw IP packets, we move one layer down and send our raw IP packets in
raw ethernet frames. It took Microsoft years to develop SP2, but attackers can completely defeat the raw socket and (with a little more work) connect() restrictions in minutes! One downside is that Windows Nmap now only works with Ethernet networks, while raw sockets were a cleaner, more portable solution. If this is a problem for you, talk to Microsoft! If enough people complain, they might actually listen to their customers and roll back the new restrictions. I am in communication with several Microsoft employees who are trying to
convince the powers-that-be to fix raw sockets, but customer support for the change is critical. Mail me too, as we may be able to add support for other interface types if their is significant demand. Or write a patch and send it to me:).
I have not worried much about the connect() throttling at this point. The default SYN scan is usually preferable anyway. If you really want
to use -sT on SP2, or if the restriction breaks your P2P or other apps, a patch to tcpip.sys is available at [4].
Also worth mentioning the immensely useful IPCop Support Web (note that this used to be.net, but that's dead for some reason). IPCop rocks, though the default traffic shaping capabilities are pretty rudimentary (the web interface is a bit limited, you can always edit the files in/var/ipcop/shaping), but there's a thriving mod/add-on community: do a search for 'shaping' in the aforementioned forums for help. You might want the take a look at the layer-7 filter dicussed here. I'd consider going for a few other mods, too, such as the Advanced Proxy, URLFilter and maybe the IPCop Addon Server with the BlockoutTraffic module.
Or you could save yourself a fair bit of time and effort: just get a cheap (quiet, low-power, unobtrusive, etc.) router like the WRT54G and install an alternative firmware on it. (Not that I don't love IPCop.)
No surprise really, as he's re-distributing their "product", but the fact of the matter is that if they're selling/distributing GPLed works to the public then they *must* give back by providing the source (of the modifications), which they don't seem to want to do, hence the whole subscription "beta" thing that they use as a workaround to not distribute it publically. Given that someone can take the source and just fork it/give it straight away for free, it's obviously not in Sveasoft's interests to give it out, and they appear to be heavy-handed in their enforcements: DMCA takedowns? When you're building upon others' hard work? Hmmmm, hardly seems in keeping with the whole open-source ethic to me.
I don't claim to be an expert on the GPL, but from my interpretation of it, and the above linked FAQ, it seems to me that what they're doing is somewhat dubious at best, and non-GPL-compliant at worst. I guess it's a tricky one when you're trying to make money from open-source; in Sveasoft's case I think they've taken the wrong approach, but hey, that's their call. If you like their product and it fits your needs, and you don't think they're doing anything wrong with regards to the GPL (or just don't care), then go for it - my brother's got a sub with them and he's happy enough. As with the parent, though, I'm afraid I wouldn't touch it myself.
I'll second that - been using it on Mac OS X for a good few months now and I'm very happy with it. Sean and the dev team are very helpful - you can mail them via support, or bring something up in the mailing list, and you'll get a direct response: bit of a difference to Quicken's attitude! (They've completely withdrawn from the UK.) It's targeted at personal finance management and not really suitable for business accounts, though, for that I'd suggest GNUCash (via Fink if you're on OS X - compile from source, don't use the binary as it's old and somewhat buggy. Yes, the dependencies are huge unfortunately!)
MSMoney and Quicken are popular for a reason, though: they're actually fairly good, so don't be surprised if some of the features you're accustomed to don't behave the same or even aren't there at all. (For instance, MoneyDance doesn't do the equivalent of Quicken's Classes yet, though it will do very soon as it's near the top of the feature requests list.) Still, I think it's worth the short-term pain of switching to know that your software won't suddenly magically "expire", and that you're not locked into a platform because your accounts software only works on Windows. (Speaking of which, I'd *love* to see someone overcome GNUCash's evil dependencies and port it to Windows, it'd massively increase it's uptake & increase people's exposure to alternatives to the Big 2.)
Or just install the fantastic PDFCreator, which creates a Windows printer that generates PDFs. It's awesome, and free. Based on Ghostscript, too, I believe.
The reason people are still saying this is because of MySQL AB's attitude in the first place, i.e. "You don't need foreign keys, stored procedures, views, or any of that crap. All that's a waste of time; look at how fast our database is!" Then, all of a sudden, they get foreign keys in v3 -- not v1, not v2, but v3 FFS! -- and *only with InnoDB*, which wasn't even written by them (by Heikki Tuuri, I seem to recall) and was not included in the "standard" package so was never deployed by most ISPs and was therefore unavailable to most of their users. They then proclaimed that foreign keys are great, but that you still don't need rubbish like stored procedures or views.
Anyone with a clue about ACID databases would feel somewhat resentful that MySQL had called them an idiot for wanting proper referential integrity for their data, then turned around and pretended that they'd been saying the same thing all along. THAT is why people still bad-mouth MySQL, and I can't say that I entirely blame them. Things may have changed greatly since V3, though you say it's taken until v4.1.5 for foreign keys to become standard which is a bit shocking for a database that claims to share the same enterprise space as MS-SQL, Oracle & DB2, but the mud stuck a long time ago for most...
(Disclaimer: I use MySQL and think it's great for basic website backends and the like.)
Based on the highly-stable code of Borland Interbase, Firebird "...is a relational database offering many ANSI SQL-99 features that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix platforms. Firebird offers excellent concurrency, high performance, and powerful language support for stored procedures and triggers. It has been used in production systems, under a variety of names since 1981." It rocks. (end plug!)
Well if you're in the UK then you're in luck: the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is remarkably effective, or at least has been for me.
Recommended by a friend who works at a local telecoms firm, I was rather sceptical but surprisingly it's cut out ALL of those annoying Sunday morning pre-recorded messages, and we've not had a single marketing call since (touch wood!). I signed up work's fax number, too, and we've seen a massive reduction in junk faxes - esp. those premium-rate joke/vote/prank ones. It doesn't work for SMS texts, but that's 'cause they're illegal in Europe, anyway. Might be worth a try?
Heh, well said - it's quite surprising how many crap comments there are on this story, you'd think more pro photographers/designers (or their IT techs) would chip in with some decent advise on colour workflow and calibrating to a specific target. Though, as is usual on Ask Slashdot, the submitter didn't provide many details, so it's harder to give him specific information to help him find a solution.
With regards to colorimeters -- these'll all allow you to calibrate to a "baseline" rather than the best that each device can display -- I've got a Spyder (mk.1) and it's not too bad, though the new ones look much better (increased sensitivity) - though no-one's mentioned so far that the software that comes with these (PhotoCal or OptiCal) requires a seperate licence for each machine they're installed on, so at 30-40 monitors it's not going to be as cheap as it first appears. The GretagMacBeth stuff seems like another good choice (e.g. the Eye-One), as do the Monaco/X-Rite calibration tools, but they're more expensive. Ideally you go for a solution that's not just limited to calibrating screens, but can do printers as well, but again it'll cost more (it's usually worth it though - you might as well do the entire loop while you're at it). Or, if he's really serious about it, standardise on the same model of monitor, such as the Sony Artisan (with built-in calibration that actually adjusts the CRT guns, rather than just generate a profile).
Like another poster said, lighting's also an issue, too; hooding the monitors to minimise reflections is usually a good idea, and standardising on specific lighting such as Just Normlicht fluorescent tubes or Solux halogen bulbs (fed with a specific regulated voltage) helps immensely.
Don't forget RootkitHunter, which has a much more active development cycle going on at the moment. Not that chkrootkit's any less useful; use both; don't trust either too much, though!
In cases like this the SysInternals tool Process Explorer is massively handy -- it's taskman but much, much better, and has the ability to both display the process list heirarchally and list the actual commandline call, so it's easy to spot something dodgy. Combine that with TCPView, which shows all listening &/or open TCP ports, and you'll be able to find all but the proper rootkits.
Speaking of taskman clones, SpyBot actually has one built-in in the Tools section, though you have to be in "Advanced Mode": click on the header of the Tools list in the left-hand pane, then tick the checkbox next to the "Process List" icon in the right-hand pane (and tick some of the others, too, e.g. BHO's & ActiveX) and these items will now appear in the l-h pane - check them out, they're basic but very useful:) (It's a shame Spybot's UI's a bit wierd, I know plenty of people who didn't know these features were there!)
If you're more of a commandline person, the PSTools suite a little better - pslist will give you the process list, then pskill processname will despatch it (if it's really cheeky it'll respawn itself), and there are a few other useful ones there, too. XP actually has very similar commandline tools to the above, but that's no help if you're on 2000!
(Though as you mention regmon you've probably got the other SysInternal tools, too, but this post might come in handy for someone else?)
Yes, it can be little confusing at first, but if *does* make sense (in that SMTP servers are indeed independent from POP/IMAP). I'd agree that Thunderbird doesn't compete with Outlook, but then, it's not really designed to (at least, not until they integrate the Sunbird calendaring). It does, however, make an excellent drop-in replacement for Outlook Express which is much less prone to spyware & spam, so -- alongside Firefox -- suits the average parent/in-law very well:)
To set up SMTP servers:-
Tools - Account Settings... then scroll to the bottom of the left-hand pane to Outgoing Server (SMTP). Most people just have one here (their ISP's). To add more, click the Advanced button in the right-hand panel (you can set one as a default, too).
To make a particular POP/IMAP account use a particular server:-
Tools - Account Settings... then expand the account you wish to change in left-hand pane choose Server Settings. In the right-hand panel, click the Advanced button - you should get a tabbed dialog. Choose the SMTP pane, and pick the SMTP server you want to use from the drop-down.
I'll second/third that suggestion, but with an extra caveat:-
If you've got the "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screensaver" option enabled, then when the lid opens and the sleep light goes out -- even though the backlight doesn't come on -- it seems like the laptop has woken up and the password dialog appeared, so try typing in your password and pressing enter (you'll have to get it right though;) as you've no visual feedback). I've found this to work many times, esp. when closing the lid doesn't put the laptop back to sleep, with the backlight then turning itself on afterwards, or it immediately going back to sleep upon a successful password input. Very strange!
Seems to be a similar issue to the way the function/f keys operate for a very limited time when you wake this laptop up, usually until the password dialog kicks in -- something to do with things not waking up in quite the right order, perhaps?
You'd think that f-f in a mouse would throw off the cursor but that wasn't really the case; it had five or six modes from gentle to pretty strong, and was supported by a few games (as well as pretty pointless desktop & MS Office integration).
I got it when Black & White came out 'cause I was intrigued by B&W's game control interface (a single "hand" cursor that changed depending on the environment, and even used gestures to cast spells). Esp. liked the way they customised a few missions for this mouse -- one in particular was great: you found an old hippy/head-type guy standing by a cauldron scratching his head. He was looking for some mushrooms but wasn't sure which one would give him the best trip, so you had to go picking for him & when the cursor hovered over each one the force-feedback would buzz depending on how strong the 'shroom was:)
Shame they never took off, really, I'd have thought -- esp. given the prevalence of the mouse as a PC game controller -- that there may have been a half-decent market for them, but, hey, I guess not? Suppose it's one of those things that most people are pretty indifferent to, and without the support of major developers it wasn't going to go too far. Ah well!
Heh, hit the nail on the head with that one;) It seems a lot of people here don't realise this - you only need to charge a credit card against it once and the link is made.
For those of you stuck on Windows, XLiveCD might be a rather easy and useful way of getting an X server running. Here's the description from their website:
XLiveCD allows users of Microsoft Windows to connect to remote Unix computers, run graphical applications and have the graphics displayed on their desktops. The software runs from the CD without being installed. XLiveCD was prepared by University Technology Services to facilitate use of research Unix systems at Indiana University by Windows users on campus.
The Mac Mini is to PC's what the iPod was to MP3 players. Nothing revolutionary just asthetically (sic) pleasing.
I know I'm feeding a troll somewhat here, but still, that comment -- just like Taco's "No wireless... less space... lame" comment -- shows how clueless some people are, even intelligent geeks.
The iPod holds >90% of the global MP3 market, probably 95% of HDD-based players, which is HUGE. The iPod Shuffle will probably do the same in the flash-based market, completing the clean-up for Apple. "Nothing revolutionary", WTF? the market-share really does beg to differ!
If the Mac Mini is to PCs what the iPod is to MP3 players -- and chances are pretty good that it will be, capitalizing on the failure of MS to curb the spyware/virus problems with browser+mail that >90% of people (many solely) use their computer for, by providing a reasonably-priced alternative (well, using the cheap "base-price" + extras sales tactic) -- then Apple will do VERY well indeed.
I myself have investigated the small-form-factor PC. I bought the first Shuttle bare-bones case when it came out. It was much more expensive than the Mac Mini (though better specified), it was VERY noisy, poorly designed (PSU inside at the front of the case with a tiny fan venting at the side, but most of the heat staying inside) so ran very hot -- so hot that, when suspended, it practically fried the (full-size) HDD. It sucked. So I bought a Gigabyte TA-1 (around the same price as a base Mac Mini), which is much, much better, pre-built with a VIA Eden, requiring a simple memory and laptop HDD install. But performance isn't great at all and the laptop component upgrades (e.g. DVD-R or HDD) cost a small fortune. Price was around the same as a Mac Mini costs.
Sure, designs have improved and you can now get a decent mini-ITX machine for the same price as a Mac Mini, and it will be much better specified, but you're missing the point with all of this. The average person is never going to buy a bare-bones and fit even the CPU or memory, nevermind the drives. Then they have to install the OS and all the drivers? Please! Time, funnily enough, isn't cheap, and researching, specifying, then building a machine like that will realistically take you hours, and is well beyond most people's capabilities or interest. The average person simply wants *a computer that works*. Take it out of the box. Plug it into the components you have already (monitor, keyboard, mouse, network/phone). Turn it on. It WORKS. Sure you can get this from Dell too, but the real potential for success is that it runs Mac OS X, which is practically immune to viruses and spyware (this is the current situation, regardless of whether OS X is actually more secure than XP; there have been a few critical alerts for OS X and some core apps, but very few remote root holes, and a lot less problems than Windows).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with a lot of what you say, but you really are missing the point. A lot of the people on Slashdot (read: computer geeks) would be tempted by a Neuros or iRiver over an iPod -- they're both better spec'ed, after all -- and by a mini-ITX over a Mac Mini. But the point is, the Mac Mini isn't really targeted at us: it's targeted at people who don't really know about computers and don't really care; people who've got a PC already and are thoroughly sick of it slowing down & crashing due to spyware & viruses, and sick of having to get the family "computer expert" to fix it. There are many, many more of these people than there are geeks. These people want something that simply works, is reasonably priced, looks good and is easy to use. The Mac Mini fulfils all of these criteria. It's not really a hardware revolution, it's an alternative-OS-to-Windows & marketing revolution riding on the back of the iPod revolution. And it'll sell by the millions.
Slashdot Mirror
What made me laugh out loud was the fact that the US Patent Office itself has an online ordering cart that seems (at least, from quickly reading the abstract) to fit the criteria of the patent they just granted to Amazon, and it's displayed on the very same page as the patent! (Indeed, you can use it to buy a paper copy of the patent.) So they may well owe Amazon some royalties. Oh, the irony! :)
So you've got one of those biometric Thinkpads, then?
Well, according to this interesting thread he's been fired. Whether it's true is another matter, but the AC in question seems fairly convincing.
Single-user mode is just Command-S. (Not that I'm being deliberately picky, I get half of the startup keys mixed up myself, I've just used it a fairly recently is all.)
Oh man, where are the mod points when you need 'em? :)
Afraid that one won't happen unless someone invents some fancy tech to pull each instrument out of the audio stream! Back in the 60's when the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper's the highest number of tracks the best multitrack recorder could handle was four (a "4-track", probably using 2-inch tape), so they didn't have much to play with at all, at least that's what my music tech teacher told me. This actually makes Sgt. Pepper's all the more amazing: given the technical constraints of a 4-track you've only got 2 spare tracks to play with at any one time, and have to "bounce" these to the other 2 (say 3 & 4) to get a stereo recording (3=L, 4=R) and free up these tracks again, thereby losing the ability to adjust levels, pan, and aux/insert effects on everything you're bouncing down. So the logistics of recording must've been horrendously complicated, and that's not even mentioning their groundbreaking invention/use of tape-loops and the like! Which brings us to "A Day in the Life": they actually jury-rigged two 4-tracks together for it, syncing them manually I think with a primitive click/sync track, absolutely amazing stuff at the time. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club is truly a masterpiece, both sonically and technically.
A quick Google search reveals more details here:
http://www.avrev.com/music/revs/beatles/
Robocopy's a good alternative to rsync if you're after basic capabilities and only running Windows (and don't need compatibility with an rsync server). It's in the Resource Kit - 99% sure that the 2003 RK version is backwards-compatible so go for that one (as you can download the 2003 RK rather than having to order a CD for the 2000 one). More here:a milyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displa ylang=en t icleID=39119
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F
http://www.ss64.com/nt/robocopy.html
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Print.cfm?Ar
([4] links to lvllord's patch - see parent post)
Also worth mentioning the immensely useful IPCop Support Web (note that this used to be .net, but that's dead for some reason). IPCop rocks, though the default traffic shaping capabilities are pretty rudimentary (the web interface is a bit limited, you can always edit the files in /var/ipcop/shaping), but there's a thriving mod/add-on community: do a search for 'shaping' in the aforementioned forums for help. You might want the take a look at the layer-7 filter dicussed here. I'd consider going for a few other mods, too, such as the Advanced Proxy, URLFilter and maybe the IPCop Addon Server with the BlockoutTraffic module.
Or you could save yourself a fair bit of time and effort: just get a cheap (quiet, low-power, unobtrusive, etc.) router like the WRT54G and install an alternative firmware on it. (Not that I don't love IPCop.)I've also heard a fair few comments that say the same. TheIndividual seems to get a lot of stick in particular :-
y s&op=results&pollID=16
http://slashdot.org/~TheIndividual/journal
No surprise really, as he's re-distributing their "product", but the fact of the matter is that if they're selling/distributing GPLed works to the public then they *must* give back by providing the source (of the modifications), which they don't seem to want to do, hence the whole subscription "beta" thing that they use as a workaround to not distribute it publically. Given that someone can take the source and just fork it/give it straight away for free, it's obviously not in Sveasoft's interests to give it out, and they appear to be heavy-handed in their enforcements: DMCA takedowns? When you're building upon others' hard work? Hmmmm, hardly seems in keeping with the whole open-source ethic to me.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
I don't claim to be an expert on the GPL, but from my interpretation of it, and the above linked FAQ, it seems to me that what they're doing is somewhat dubious at best, and non-GPL-compliant at worst. I guess it's a tricky one when you're trying to make money from open-source; in Sveasoft's case I think they've taken the wrong approach, but hey, that's their call. If you like their product and it fits your needs, and you don't think they're doing anything wrong with regards to the GPL (or just don't care), then go for it - my brother's got a sub with them and he's happy enough. As with the parent, though, I'm afraid I wouldn't touch it myself.
Other alternatives for the WRT54G:
http://www.linksysinfo.org/modules.php?name=Surve
http://www.dd-wrt.com/
http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php
I'll second that - been using it on Mac OS X for a good few months now and I'm very happy with it. Sean and the dev team are very helpful - you can mail them via support, or bring something up in the mailing list, and you'll get a direct response: bit of a difference to Quicken's attitude! (They've completely withdrawn from the UK.) It's targeted at personal finance management and not really suitable for business accounts, though, for that I'd suggest GNUCash (via Fink if you're on OS X - compile from source, don't use the binary as it's old and somewhat buggy. Yes, the dependencies are huge unfortunately!)
l /ur0305l.html
o oking-for-mac-os-x-personal-finance-software/
- get-your-groove-on/
There are some good finance apps for Linux as far as I'm aware, check out this (dated) review:
http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=8217/ur0305
MSMoney and Quicken are popular for a reason, though: they're actually fairly good, so don't be surprised if some of the features you're accustomed to don't behave the same or even aren't there at all. (For instance, MoneyDance doesn't do the equivalent of Quicken's Classes yet, though it will do very soon as it's near the top of the feature requests list.) Still, I think it's worth the short-term pain of switching to know that your software won't suddenly magically "expire", and that you're not locked into a platform because your accounts software only works on Windows. (Speaking of which, I'd *love* to see someone overcome GNUCash's evil dependencies and port it to Windows, it'd massively increase it's uptake & increase people's exposure to alternatives to the Big 2.)
GNUCashToQIF may come in handy for some (such as those testing out MoneyDance):
http://gnucashtoqif.sourceforge.net/
And there's a pretty comprehensive thread on Mac finance apps here:
http://www.timandkathy.co.uk/journal/2005/02/05/l
As well as a decent comparative review of Mac apps here (with a good overview of MoneyDance, so as to not be too off-topic!):
http://www.theappleblog.com/2005/03/19/moneydance
Or just install the fantastic PDFCreator, which creates a Windows printer that generates PDFs. It's awesome, and free. Based on Ghostscript, too, I believe.
The reason people are still saying this is because of MySQL AB's attitude in the first place, i.e. "You don't need foreign keys, stored procedures, views, or any of that crap. All that's a waste of time; look at how fast our database is!" Then, all of a sudden, they get foreign keys in v3 -- not v1, not v2, but v3 FFS! -- and *only with InnoDB*, which wasn't even written by them (by Heikki Tuuri, I seem to recall) and was not included in the "standard" package so was never deployed by most ISPs and was therefore unavailable to most of their users. They then proclaimed that foreign keys are great, but that you still don't need rubbish like stored procedures or views.
Anyone with a clue about ACID databases would feel somewhat resentful that MySQL had called them an idiot for wanting proper referential integrity for their data, then turned around and pretended that they'd been saying the same thing all along. THAT is why people still bad-mouth MySQL, and I can't say that I entirely blame them. Things may have changed greatly since V3, though you say it's taken until v4.1.5 for foreign keys to become standard which is a bit shocking for a database that claims to share the same enterprise space as MS-SQL, Oracle & DB2, but the mud stuck a long time ago for most...
(Disclaimer: I use MySQL and think it's great for basic website backends and the like.)
I'm also quite surprised that no-one's mentioned Firebird:
http://firebird.sourceforge.net/
Based on the highly-stable code of Borland Interbase, Firebird "...is a relational database offering many ANSI SQL-99 features that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix platforms. Firebird offers excellent concurrency, high performance, and powerful language support for stored procedures and triggers. It has been used in production systems, under a variety of names since 1981." It rocks. (end plug!)
Oops, didn't see the earlier post above in the same thread. Please make sure that one's modded up instead, thx!
Well if you're in the UK then you're in luck: the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is remarkably effective, or at least has been for me.
Recommended by a friend who works at a local telecoms firm, I was rather sceptical but surprisingly it's cut out ALL of those annoying Sunday morning pre-recorded messages, and we've not had a single marketing call since (touch wood!). I signed up work's fax number, too, and we've seen a massive reduction in junk faxes - esp. those premium-rate joke/vote/prank ones. It doesn't work for SMS texts, but that's 'cause they're illegal in Europe, anyway. Might be worth a try?
Heh, well said - it's quite surprising how many crap comments there are on this story, you'd think more pro photographers/designers (or their IT techs) would chip in with some decent advise on colour workflow and calibrating to a specific target. Though, as is usual on Ask Slashdot, the submitter didn't provide many details, so it's harder to give him specific information to help him find a solution.
With regards to colorimeters -- these'll all allow you to calibrate to a "baseline" rather than the best that each device can display -- I've got a Spyder (mk.1) and it's not too bad, though the new ones look much better (increased sensitivity) - though no-one's mentioned so far that the software that comes with these (PhotoCal or OptiCal) requires a seperate licence for each machine they're installed on, so at 30-40 monitors it's not going to be as cheap as it first appears. The GretagMacBeth stuff seems like another good choice (e.g. the Eye-One), as do the Monaco/X-Rite calibration tools, but they're more expensive. Ideally you go for a solution that's not just limited to calibrating screens, but can do printers as well, but again it'll cost more (it's usually worth it though - you might as well do the entire loop while you're at it). Or, if he's really serious about it, standardise on the same model of monitor, such as the Sony Artisan (with built-in calibration that actually adjusts the CRT guns, rather than just generate a profile).
Like another poster said, lighting's also an issue, too; hooding the monitors to minimise reflections is usually a good idea, and standardising on specific lighting such as Just Normlicht fluorescent tubes or Solux halogen bulbs (fed with a specific regulated voltage) helps immensely.
Don't forget RootkitHunter, which has a much more active development cycle going on at the moment. Not that chkrootkit's any less useful; use both; don't trust either too much, though!
In cases like this the SysInternals tool Process Explorer is massively handy -- it's taskman but much, much better, and has the ability to both display the process list heirarchally and list the actual commandline call, so it's easy to spot something dodgy. Combine that with TCPView, which shows all listening &/or open TCP ports, and you'll be able to find all but the proper rootkits.
Speaking of taskman clones, SpyBot actually has one built-in in the Tools section, though you have to be in "Advanced Mode": click on the header of the Tools list in the left-hand pane, then tick the checkbox next to the "Process List" icon in the right-hand pane (and tick some of the others, too, e.g. BHO's & ActiveX) and these items will now appear in the l-h pane - check them out, they're basic but very useful :) (It's a shame Spybot's UI's a bit wierd, I know plenty of people who didn't know these features were there!)
If you're more of a commandline person, the PSTools suite a little better - pslist will give you the process list, then pskill processname will despatch it (if it's really cheeky it'll respawn itself), and there are a few other useful ones there, too. XP actually has very similar commandline tools to the above, but that's no help if you're on 2000!
(Though as you mention regmon you've probably got the other SysInternal tools, too, but this post might come in handy for someone else?)Yes, it can be little confusing at first, but if *does* make sense (in that SMTP servers are indeed independent from POP/IMAP). I'd agree that Thunderbird doesn't compete with Outlook, but then, it's not really designed to (at least, not until they integrate the Sunbird calendaring). It does, however, make an excellent drop-in replacement for Outlook Express which is much less prone to spyware & spam, so -- alongside Firefox -- suits the average parent/in-law very well :)
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To set up SMTP servers
Tools - Account Settings... then scroll to the bottom of the left-hand pane to Outgoing Server (SMTP). Most people just have one here (their ISP's). To add more, click the Advanced button in the right-hand panel (you can set one as a default, too).
To make a particular POP/IMAP account use a particular server
Tools - Account Settings... then expand the account you wish to change in left-hand pane choose Server Settings. In the right-hand panel, click the Advanced button - you should get a tabbed dialog. Choose the SMTP pane, and pick the SMTP server you want to use from the drop-down.
Hope that helps!
I'll second/third that suggestion, but with an extra caveat :-
;) as you've no visual feedback). I've found this to work many times, esp. when closing the lid doesn't put the laptop back to sleep, with the backlight then turning itself on afterwards, or it immediately going back to sleep upon a successful password input. Very strange!
If you've got the "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screensaver" option enabled, then when the lid opens and the sleep light goes out -- even though the backlight doesn't come on -- it seems like the laptop has woken up and the password dialog appeared, so try typing in your password and pressing enter (you'll have to get it right though
Seems to be a similar issue to the way the function/f keys operate for a very limited time when you wake this laptop up, usually until the password dialog kicks in -- something to do with things not waking up in quite the right order, perhaps?
[Powerbook G4 Aluminium 2nd rev.]
Did anyone else get one of these? I actually thought it wasn't bad - it's an optical mouse that used Immersion's force-feedback tech:o ller/ifeel/ l t.asp
:)
http://www.sharkygames.com/hardware/reviews/contr
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ifeelmm/defau
You'd think that f-f in a mouse would throw off the cursor but that wasn't really the case; it had five or six modes from gentle to pretty strong, and was supported by a few games (as well as pretty pointless desktop & MS Office integration).
I got it when Black & White came out 'cause I was intrigued by B&W's game control interface (a single "hand" cursor that changed depending on the environment, and even used gestures to cast spells). Esp. liked the way they customised a few missions for this mouse -- one in particular was great: you found an old hippy/head-type guy standing by a cauldron scratching his head. He was looking for some mushrooms but wasn't sure which one would give him the best trip, so you had to go picking for him & when the cursor hovered over each one the force-feedback would buzz depending on how strong the 'shroom was
Shame they never took off, really, I'd have thought -- esp. given the prevalence of the mouse as a PC game controller -- that there may have been a half-decent market for them, but, hey, I guess not? Suppose it's one of those things that most people are pretty indifferent to, and without the support of major developers it wasn't going to go too far. Ah well!
Heh, hit the nail on the head with that one ;) It seems a lot of people here don't realise this - you only need to charge a credit card against it once and the link is made.
I know I'm feeding a troll somewhat here, but still, that comment -- just like Taco's "No wireless... less space... lame" comment -- shows how clueless some people are, even intelligent geeks.
The iPod holds >90% of the global MP3 market, probably 95% of HDD-based players, which is HUGE. The iPod Shuffle will probably do the same in the flash-based market, completing the clean-up for Apple. "Nothing revolutionary", WTF? the market-share really does beg to differ!
If the Mac Mini is to PCs what the iPod is to MP3 players -- and chances are pretty good that it will be, capitalizing on the failure of MS to curb the spyware/virus problems with browser+mail that >90% of people (many solely) use their computer for, by providing a reasonably-priced alternative (well, using the cheap "base-price" + extras sales tactic) -- then Apple will do VERY well indeed.
I myself have investigated the small-form-factor PC. I bought the first Shuttle bare-bones case when it came out. It was much more expensive than the Mac Mini (though better specified), it was VERY noisy, poorly designed (PSU inside at the front of the case with a tiny fan venting at the side, but most of the heat staying inside) so ran very hot -- so hot that, when suspended, it practically fried the (full-size) HDD. It sucked. So I bought a Gigabyte TA-1 (around the same price as a base Mac Mini), which is much, much better, pre-built with a VIA Eden, requiring a simple memory and laptop HDD install. But performance isn't great at all and the laptop component upgrades (e.g. DVD-R or HDD) cost a small fortune. Price was around the same as a Mac Mini costs.
Sure, designs have improved and you can now get a decent mini-ITX machine for the same price as a Mac Mini, and it will be much better specified, but you're missing the point with all of this. The average person is never going to buy a bare-bones and fit even the CPU or memory, nevermind the drives. Then they have to install the OS and all the drivers? Please! Time, funnily enough, isn't cheap, and researching, specifying, then building a machine like that will realistically take you hours, and is well beyond most people's capabilities or interest. The average person simply wants *a computer that works*. Take it out of the box. Plug it into the components you have already (monitor, keyboard, mouse, network/phone). Turn it on. It WORKS. Sure you can get this from Dell too, but the real potential for success is that it runs Mac OS X, which is practically immune to viruses and spyware (this is the current situation, regardless of whether OS X is actually more secure than XP; there have been a few critical alerts for OS X and some core apps, but very few remote root holes, and a lot less problems than Windows).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with a lot of what you say, but you really are missing the point. A lot of the people on Slashdot (read: computer geeks) would be tempted by a Neuros or iRiver over an iPod -- they're both better spec'ed, after all -- and by a mini-ITX over a Mac Mini. But the point is, the Mac Mini isn't really targeted at us: it's targeted at people who don't really know about computers and don't really care; people who've got a PC already and are thoroughly sick of it slowing down & crashing due to spyware & viruses, and sick of having to get the family "computer expert" to fix it. There are many, many more of these people than there are geeks. These people want something that simply works, is reasonably priced, looks good and is easy to use. The Mac Mini fulfils all of these criteria. It's not really a hardware revolution, it's an alternative-OS-to-Windows & marketing revolution riding on the back of the iPod revolution. And it'll sell by the millions.