So, this is probably how Intel demo'ed their 3.5GHz P4 last year. Shows how pointless the whole thing is, to be honest.
A 3.5GHz P4 probably would perform like a 2.5GHz Athlon, given the difference in IPC. However, factor in SMT (HyperThreading) into the equation and it gets a lot more interesting. Hammer will have some competition when it comes out, even with a PR rating of 3400+ - the P4 will probably get to 3GHz by the end of this year.
In the end, the consumer is the one to win. But remember, speed in a processor is only good if the rest of the system can keep up with it. Witness i845 (the SDRAM version) as a way of making a fast P4 perform even worse than before.
I am more interested in the upcoming GeForce 4 and R300 chips myself as a way to increase gaming performance - processor power is secondary, as long as it is sufficient. For rendering performance however, I am interested in fast processors, and it looks likely that SMT P4's will rock with Lightwave 7b on a quad CPU board (8 virtual processors!). Not that I could afford one of these anyway, so the point is moot.
Basically, a tiny PCB with mounted chips itself given pins. Neat. Just the kind of thing that this printed circuit board will be able to replace I imagine. Or you could make your robot controller in hardware.
Depends on how well RAM and ROM can be implemented using this printing technology, and how much per cm^2 to be precise...
This is great for all those applications that don't care about GHz level speeds (or even speeds in the MHz really) or small size transistors. Like TFTs, OLEDs, etc, or low power computing.
And great for people who want to play with circuits, but don't have a way to fab their own chips. Which is pretty much all of us. We can now go along and make our own Z80 and 6502 derivatives running at a slower speed then the original, but very light and plasticy. Sounds like great fun.
Probably good for verification of electronic circuits - being slow, you can monitor things very easily. Being large you can see the circuit and attach probes easily. Being cheap you can do this in a small business should this technology make it into cheap units (cheap being in the 10's of thousands of pounds printing onto 3" wide rolls of plastic). Maybe in a few years anyway.
I wonder if they will ever get the printing down to the micron level, or below, given time? Would be hard I imagine, but imagine a 50MHz stamp... what the purpose would be I don't know, but where theres a technology, theres a product...
As the Slashdot story, the press release and more said, the Office suite is "Hancom Office", Hancom's Linux office software that supports Korean excellently (apparently, I have not used it).
The Korean government has decided to support a local company, and in the process cut its cost, cut import costs for the country, and set a precedent - maybe other Korean companies will do the same now, and thus cut imports even more whilst boosting the local economy.
Yes, a political choice, but it wouldn't have been made if the software was not up to the task. The only certainty is that Microsoft have most likely lost 120,000 * ~$300 (XP + Office) = $48,000,000 in revenue because of this choice.
Your Revo is nothing more than an electronic notebook, and in this article we're talking about real computers.
Hmmm. Revo - a palmtop with a 36MHz CISC processor, 480x160 display and a wealth of applications.
Whereas this article is about a 16MHz RISC processor based machine, 160x160 display and zero applications.
Your definition of "real computer" has confused me. Whilst the LinuxDA device looks like a Palm without the apps, I would hardly call it a real computer.
Development for EPOC is easy. I should say "Symbian" of course, the OS for the next generation of 2.5G and 3G devices, as decided by pretty much all of the industry already.
The Psion 5/Revo were modern palmtops 3 years too early. They rock.
The real point is where are these 1cm^2 DVDs that people are talking about here? When this device gets made at 0.13u, it could hold 256MB on a single small chip.
Embed this device inside an earring with 20 hours of digital record capability powered by body heat.
The uses are myriad. As someone said, instant access large capacity cartridges on the cheap. 4 of these chips on a small card providing 1GB of storage with >100MB/s read bandwidths?
No, it isn't a solution to your RAM needs, or rewritable needs. But it is a solution to many other areas. If a 64MB chip costs $3 to buy with interface to hardware (e.g., USB plug) then that is a lot of high quality photos that won't get accidentally erased after your holiday.
The device saving the image/data would digitally sign it using a built-in key. This key would be unique for each device, and unextractable to all extents and purposes. Thus the integrity and undoctored nature of images stored on this media would be assured.
Of course, you could use a DVD-R drive the same way and get 9.4GB of storage.
Yes, but I wasn't advocating using a word processor to write a letter. I was advocating using a letter creation program to write letters.
It takes time to write a fully fledged Word Processor, such as Word, and the AbiWord, etc, guys and gals have found this. However, they have a good core etc, so release software that is dedicated to a certain application, with value add for that application.
Whilst I agree with you, I feel that the aim of open-source software should be to create software that requires no support.
Word processors are great examples of generic page based document editors. They do tables, graphics, TOCs, indexing, and a lot more. This is hard to program, and hard to learn.
And most importantly of all, most people don't need that functionality.
So, perhaps AbiSource could release a version of AbiWord called AbiLetter. This would allow people to write letters in a professional manner. Couple it with templates for various letter styles, a method for generating your own headed letter paper within the application, and loads of example letters for various tasks (job application, complaints, etc) and you have a product with value, even if it is specialised.
The work would be in the wizards in the end. The editing part of the program would be the body of the text only - a few paragraphs most likely.
Yes, it isn't as flexible as a word processor. But then again, it isn't a word processor - it is a free bit of software for writing professional letters, saving and loading them, and printing them.
When the user is proficient with that software, they may feel that they are ready for the whole shebang, so they can enable features as and when they need them, instead of having lots of confusing small icons all over the place. So the user is taught how to use the application by using it, without the hard stuff getting in the way until they need it.
I am aware that this is even more effort to program - software that adapts to the user's proficiency - but it can do no end of good for the reputation of free software in my opinion. Coupled with some good documentation in PDF, PS, HTML format (etc) which would require a large effort as well, and someone with decent layout software (FrameMaker, for example) to write it.
All I want it AbiWord to support better fonts and font smoothing. I like the interface, and it looks quite solid. Editing text is not a pleasant experience however with illegible fonts... maybe this has changed in the latest version...
Re:What about motherboards?
on
Athlon MP Reviewed
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· Score: 2, Informative
ASUS, MSI, EPoX, etc are all releasing 760MPX based motherboards within the month. These will all have 2 64-bit/66MHz PCI slots and 3/4 standard PCI slots. Some will have network on-board. Some will have 6-channel CMedia audio. Some will have ATA-RAID. Some might even have SCSI. All will support 4GB registered DDR memory, or 2GB unregistered DDR.
There are plenty of places that have listed these - TomsHardware, XBitLabs, AMDZone, HardOCP, etc etc.
1) This is not the old AMD760 chipset, it is the AMD760MPX which was released very recently. 760 = 761NB/766SB. 760MP = 762/766. 760MPX = 762/768.
2) Stability
3) Where is VIA's dual Athlon chipset
4) For some applications, dual processors are damned useful
5) 64bit PCI (at 66MHz on 760MPX motherboards)
6) Don't judge based on Sandra memory scores alone. These are only a tiny representation of a system's overall power. Sandra is the only place where I have seen KT266A outperform AMD760 by a significant amount.
6) Without links to backup your arguments, how can we see that what you write is correct?
Yes, I would use KT266A if I was buying a single processor Athlon system this week, for myself. I might think about the SiS740/SiS745 chipset as well though, because of the value provided.
Buddying up to the builders and installers before completion is always a good idea. Some beer, doughnuts, beer, etc will always ensure that your house is built better than the neighbours. If you give them the beer at the *end* of the day, that is.
Can you ship me some krispy kreme doughnuts - we don' have them in the UK. We are lucky to get vanilla custard flavour from tesco.
Just rip the skirting board off and replace it with plasti-skirt - plastic skirting board with built-in conduit (not large, obviously, but fine for most things except fiber) available house-wide. I don't have any link available right now after a bottle of wine and a customer who doesn't understand that reverse DNS PTR records should point at the hostname of the machine allocated the IP address, and not the netblock owner domain name... ARGHGAHGRG!
What are lofts for but for running extra wires and cables (apart from building a new room when you accidentally have one child too many - darn that rhythm method - there is a term for people who use the rhythm method - "parents").
Eek, that wine has got to my head. I just don't drink enough. Make sure my spelling and grammar are correct otherwise GrammarNazi will catch me...
Stone walls (like a castle), 10 ft thick)
Conduits that can take a person (think Star Trek conduits) with the wiring to each room
Hidden entrances in each room to the conduits
Video camera in all the guest rooms (oh, shouldn't write that here!)
Moat
Laser guns on turrets
Army
Medieval kitchen with feasts ever week
Cat5e to each room - 4 drops per room to allow for rearrangements
DECT telephone - only one drop per line required
Closet with servers - each room will have "advanced" X terminals
Anything else?
Yeah, that sounds right. 10ft thick walls are more important than the electrical and networking wiring throughout my dream house. A harem would go down well (with me, if not the wife) as well.
Very good point there - 14" TFTs in bulk from a supplier that Apple owns a significant amount of would probably cost around $100 each. Considering that you can buy them for under $300 anyway with a case, controls, cable etc as well, it might be less than $100.
Basically, the CRT they are currently using will probably be around $40 in bulk, and need more casing, stronger boxes (heavier) and more space when being delivered (higher cost of delivery). So if the other component costs are reduced by ~$60 (i.e., natural computer part price drops for HD, CPU, RAM, etc), you can have a TFT iMac for the same cost as a CRT iMac.
I hope it is true and is released in early 2002. And that the CRT can do 1024x768 with 24-bit colour and has a good contrast ratio and good speed refresh (remove blurring). Might make a very nice box to have in the kitchen or lounge. Quiet, stylish, small.
This chipset is set at the performance integrated market. i.e., not the low end i815 market that is only suitable for low end office machines, but as a good home machine or a good office machine. It is good enough for games, it will play those DVD movies nicely, and it is fast.
Single point of failure - the motherboard. No graphics card, network card or audio card to also have to test for failure - it is all built in. Single driver set. Single CD to ship with computer with drivers on, not 5. Support is a lot easier. Aggregate costs for OEMs will be much lower with nForce than for a similarly powerful OEM box (i.e., not the low-end boxes, but the boxes that currently ship with GeForce 2 MXs, Live! Players, etc).
It just needs a little bit of time to get some momentum. It will happen, eventually.
Chortle. Get the facts right next time. Embedded components do not use up CPU cycles at all. They might be slower in their design, but they are not using up the CPU cycles. And in the case of nForce, the integrated audio is faster and better than the non-integrated options on the market...
Lots of people only require the functionality provided by an embedded component - audio or network, for example. They don't need to pay another $20 - $80 for a card with this functionality.
Integration allows for takign advantage of the other components as well. Take the nForces network controller - that has StreamThru onto the Hypertransport bus just to reduce latency that little bit more for network apps (games, heh). A normal network card can't assume that functionality at all.
Erm, when using 3 DIMMs, the nForce IGP 128 is still in 128-bit mode for accessing memory. You should balance the DIMMs though for optimum performance - channel 'A' should have the same amount of memory as channel 'B', which might mean a 256MB DIMM in the first slot, and two 128MB DIMMs in the other 2 slots (nForce has 3 DIMM slots, although it is possible to build a motherboard with 4 DIMM slots).
Haven't got the time to read each motherboard in detail. In the end, KT266A looks to be a good choice if you already have a soundcard and graphics card, the nForce is a great first chipset and is great if you don't currently have a soundcard or graphics card - in fact the audio will be the best you can buy for under $100 at least.
And what was that about VIA taking the SiS735 memory controller? Eh? They are different companies, and SiS would certainly not give VIA their memory controller, that just doesn't make sense from a business or engineering point of view. The KT266A memory controller is taken from the P4X266 chipset.
Yes, but your bank doesn't store its customers details in a giant text file "customers.txt" that it stores in/var/httpd/secure/ does it? It doesn't store your account details in a file called "customer2947734.txt" either...
It will be a long time before search engines can log into a (secure) web based system (brute force username/password attack:) ) and then browse it as if the details being provided are actually in that public webspace.
In reality, the details are most likely in a tightly locked down Oracle database that is not accessible from the Internet (ideally, I would bet that it was though, if only for remote maintainence in emergencies or whatever).
It is a simple rule of the web - any directory or subdirectory thereof that is configured to be accessible via the internet (either html root directories, ftp root directories, gnutella shared directories, etc) should be assumed to be publically accessible. Do not store anything that should be private in these areas.
Secondly, it appears that companies are storing credit card numbers (a) in the clear and (b) in these public areas. These companies should not be allowed to trade on the internet! That is so inept when learning how to use pgp/gpg takes no time at all, and simply storing the PGP encrypted files outside the publically accessible filesystem is just changing the line of code that writes to "payments/ordernumber.asc" to "~/payments/ordernumber.asc" (or whatever). Of course, the PGP secret key is not stored on a publically accessible computer at all.
But I shouldn't be giving a basic course on how to secure website payments, etc, to you lot - you know it or could work it out (or a similar method) pretty quickly. It is those dumb administrators that don't have a clue about security that are to blame (or their PHB).
It was a hack really, the resolution changing thing. It only worked properly if you changed resolutions with another one that was of the same family (PAL, NTSC, Double-PAL, etc), otherwise you got really strange effects.
However, the ability to open a screen at a lower resolution (or higher resolution with less colours, etc) was great. It is less pertinent now when you have a large desktop by default with 32-bit colour, and TFT displays which have a default operational resolution which you should use unless you like jagged interfaces.
The Amiga got a lot of the desktop metaphor completely correct, amazingly. It just worked correctly, even if the default interface now looks like a dog. Operationally it was great.
The point is that Microsoft do not even give you the choice of moving the active window back through the desktop window layers should you want to do that.
Yes, I agree that the default behaviour upon clicking on a Window should be to bring it to the top (surely in a perfect desktop metaphor, you should have to move all the other windows off of it completely to access it:)), but that does not preclude having extra functionality should you require it, accessed by perhaps "alt-clicking" the minimise gadget, or whatever.
Anyway, my main point is that the Windows desktop is like working on a desk that can barely hold a notepad and a pen, whereas a decent desktop metaphor will give you a desk large enough to hold all of the material that you are working with.
One good reason for the emergence of overlapping windows: low screen resolutions. You didn't have a choice when you were running at 512x384 or 640x480.
It is the brain-dead operation of the GUI in Windows (active window has to be on top) that necessitates such nasty hacks as this. A desktop that allows the active window to be behind another window removes this necessity altogether (for when you are e.g., copying text from one window into another).
Other good systems include multiple desktops, as provided by all good X Windows Managers and various windows hackons. Amiga Screens were another great system. Screens and multiple desktops are like having a large desk (plenty of space to spread your pens, paper, notebook, encyclopaedia, etc), whereas Windows by default is like trying to do all your work on a desk the size of a mousepad.
There are times of course when overlapping windows are not required. Multiple webbrowser windows when a tabbed interface within a single browser is adequate, for example. Need to display 2 web pages at once - explicitly open two windows, or split the current web page view in two horizontally or vertically, a function provided by Konqueror.
Re:Qt if you need Win32
on
GTK-- vs. QT
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· Score: 5, Informative
Knowing companies like I do, they will go with the most expensive solution - because expense usually means support. In this case QT is clearly the way to go, as everyone is pointing out (okay, wxWindows is another good choice, but I have no experience with this system).
QT has an easier to program API, is quick to program in, has great documentation, has support, has a huge wealth of existing code examples, and is supported on Windows. GTK is not supported on Windows, and is a one-man port job. Fine for free software like the gimp, but not for a commercial application. Don't save a couple of grand on the GUI toolkit and get yourself a lot more costs in support that you have to provide because of problems.
GTK2 might solve a lot of the problems in the current GTK of course, but I am not qualified to comment about that. And do you really want to program using a just finalised API?
It might be the speed of the hard drive, and dealing with swap. If your swap drive is fast enough, then it will feel faster. However, i am using the original 4GB drive that came with the laptop (HP Omnibook 4100) so I expect that it isn't the best drive for performance...
However, I cannot deal with the 10 seconds it takes to change applications on the laptop. It might be a Mandrake 8.1 thing though, or maybe a kernel upgrade might help (better VM), or maybe I shouldn't run KDE (although I like Konqueror, Kate, and KMail, so I may as well run it all as all the libraries will be in memory anyway!).
It isn't the speed of the processor that is the problem though - it is snappy when you are using a single app that is in memory. I suspect that if the guy's PC was upgraded to 128MB of memory from 40MB, then it would be reasonably usable with a bare theme...
My PII 266 with 64MB RAM (laptop) cannot hack KDE. It could if I had more memory in it though - 128MB is the minimum for KDE in my experience. I just need to find a cheap source of proprietary laptop memory...
Slashdot Mirror
A 3.5GHz P4 probably would perform like a 2.5GHz Athlon, given the difference in IPC. However, factor in SMT (HyperThreading) into the equation and it gets a lot more interesting. Hammer will have some competition when it comes out, even with a PR rating of 3400+ - the P4 will probably get to 3GHz by the end of this year.
In the end, the consumer is the one to win. But remember, speed in a processor is only good if the rest of the system can keep up with it. Witness i845 (the SDRAM version) as a way of making a fast P4 perform even worse than before.
I am more interested in the upcoming GeForce 4 and R300 chips myself as a way to increase gaming performance - processor power is secondary, as long as it is sufficient. For rendering performance however, I am interested in fast processors, and it looks likely that SMT P4's will rock with Lightwave 7b on a quad CPU board (8 virtual processors!). Not that I could afford one of these anyway, so the point is moot.
Basically, a tiny PCB with mounted chips itself given pins. Neat. Just the kind of thing that this printed circuit board will be able to replace I imagine. Or you could make your robot controller in hardware.
Depends on how well RAM and ROM can be implemented using this printing technology, and how much per cm^2 to be precise...
And great for people who want to play with circuits, but don't have a way to fab their own chips. Which is pretty much all of us. We can now go along and make our own Z80 and 6502 derivatives running at a slower speed then the original, but very light and plasticy. Sounds like great fun.
Probably good for verification of electronic circuits - being slow, you can monitor things very easily. Being large you can see the circuit and attach probes easily. Being cheap you can do this in a small business should this technology make it into cheap units (cheap being in the 10's of thousands of pounds printing onto 3" wide rolls of plastic). Maybe in a few years anyway.
I wonder if they will ever get the printing down to the micron level, or below, given time? Would be hard I imagine, but imagine a 50MHz stamp... what the purpose would be I don't know, but where theres a technology, theres a product...
The Korean government has decided to support a local company, and in the process cut its cost, cut import costs for the country, and set a precedent - maybe other Korean companies will do the same now, and thus cut imports even more whilst boosting the local economy.
Yes, a political choice, but it wouldn't have been made if the software was not up to the task. The only certainty is that Microsoft have most likely lost 120,000 * ~$300 (XP + Office) = $48,000,000 in revenue because of this choice.
Hmmm. Revo - a palmtop with a 36MHz CISC processor, 480x160 display and a wealth of applications.
Whereas this article is about a 16MHz RISC processor based machine, 160x160 display and zero applications.
Your definition of "real computer" has confused me. Whilst the LinuxDA device looks like a Palm without the apps, I would hardly call it a real computer.
Development for EPOC is easy. I should say "Symbian" of course, the OS for the next generation of 2.5G and 3G devices, as decided by pretty much all of the industry already.
The Psion 5/Revo were modern palmtops 3 years too early. They rock.
Embed this device inside an earring with 20 hours of digital record capability powered by body heat.
The uses are myriad. As someone said, instant access large capacity cartridges on the cheap. 4 of these chips on a small card providing 1GB of storage with >100MB/s read bandwidths?
No, it isn't a solution to your RAM needs, or rewritable needs. But it is a solution to many other areas. If a 64MB chip costs $3 to buy with interface to hardware (e.g., USB plug) then that is a lot of high quality photos that won't get accidentally erased after your holiday.
Of course, you could use a DVD-R drive the same way and get 9.4GB of storage.
It takes time to write a fully fledged Word Processor, such as Word, and the AbiWord, etc, guys and gals have found this. However, they have a good core etc, so release software that is dedicated to a certain application, with value add for that application.
Word processors are great examples of generic page based document editors. They do tables, graphics, TOCs, indexing, and a lot more. This is hard to program, and hard to learn.
And most importantly of all, most people don't need that functionality.
So, perhaps AbiSource could release a version of AbiWord called AbiLetter. This would allow people to write letters in a professional manner. Couple it with templates for various letter styles, a method for generating your own headed letter paper within the application, and loads of example letters for various tasks (job application, complaints, etc) and you have a product with value, even if it is specialised.
The work would be in the wizards in the end. The editing part of the program would be the body of the text only - a few paragraphs most likely.
Yes, it isn't as flexible as a word processor. But then again, it isn't a word processor - it is a free bit of software for writing professional letters, saving and loading them, and printing them.
When the user is proficient with that software, they may feel that they are ready for the whole shebang, so they can enable features as and when they need them, instead of having lots of confusing small icons all over the place. So the user is taught how to use the application by using it, without the hard stuff getting in the way until they need it.
I am aware that this is even more effort to program - software that adapts to the user's proficiency - but it can do no end of good for the reputation of free software in my opinion. Coupled with some good documentation in PDF, PS, HTML format (etc) which would require a large effort as well, and someone with decent layout software (FrameMaker, for example) to write it.
All I want it AbiWord to support better fonts and font smoothing. I like the interface, and it looks quite solid. Editing text is not a pleasant experience however with illegible fonts... maybe this has changed in the latest version...
There are plenty of places that have listed these - TomsHardware, XBitLabs, AMDZone, HardOCP, etc etc.
2) Stability
3) Where is VIA's dual Athlon chipset
4) For some applications, dual processors are damned useful
5) 64bit PCI (at 66MHz on 760MPX motherboards)
6) Don't judge based on Sandra memory scores alone. These are only a tiny representation of a system's overall power. Sandra is the only place where I have seen KT266A outperform AMD760 by a significant amount.
6) Without links to backup your arguments, how can we see that what you write is correct?
Yes, I would use KT266A if I was buying a single processor Athlon system this week, for myself. I might think about the SiS740/SiS745 chipset as well though, because of the value provided.
Can you ship me some krispy kreme doughnuts - we don' have them in the UK. We are lucky to get vanilla custard flavour from tesco.
Just rip the skirting board off and replace it with plasti-skirt - plastic skirting board with built-in conduit (not large, obviously, but fine for most things except fiber) available house-wide. I don't have any link available right now after a bottle of wine and a customer who doesn't understand that reverse DNS PTR records should point at the hostname of the machine allocated the IP address, and not the netblock owner domain name... ARGHGAHGRG!
What are lofts for but for running extra wires and cables (apart from building a new room when you accidentally have one child too many - darn that rhythm method - there is a term for people who use the rhythm method - "parents").
Eek, that wine has got to my head. I just don't drink enough. Make sure my spelling and grammar are correct otherwise GrammarNazi will catch me...
Yes, for my dream house:
Stone walls (like a castle), 10 ft thick)
Conduits that can take a person (think Star Trek conduits) with the wiring to each room
Hidden entrances in each room to the conduits
Video camera in all the guest rooms (oh, shouldn't write that here!)
Moat
Laser guns on turrets
Army
Medieval kitchen with feasts ever week
Cat5e to each room - 4 drops per room to allow for rearrangements
DECT telephone - only one drop per line required
Closet with servers - each room will have "advanced" X terminals
Anything else?
Yeah, that sounds right. 10ft thick walls are more important than the electrical and networking wiring throughout my dream house. A harem would go down well (with me, if not the wife) as well.
Basically, the CRT they are currently using will probably be around $40 in bulk, and need more casing, stronger boxes (heavier) and more space when being delivered (higher cost of delivery). So if the other component costs are reduced by ~$60 (i.e., natural computer part price drops for HD, CPU, RAM, etc), you can have a TFT iMac for the same cost as a CRT iMac.
I hope it is true and is released in early 2002. And that the CRT can do 1024x768 with 24-bit colour and has a good contrast ratio and good speed refresh (remove blurring). Might make a very nice box to have in the kitchen or lounge. Quiet, stylish, small.
Single point of failure - the motherboard. No graphics card, network card or audio card to also have to test for failure - it is all built in. Single driver set. Single CD to ship with computer with drivers on, not 5. Support is a lot easier. Aggregate costs for OEMs will be much lower with nForce than for a similarly powerful OEM box (i.e., not the low-end boxes, but the boxes that currently ship with GeForce 2 MXs, Live! Players, etc).
It just needs a little bit of time to get some momentum. It will happen, eventually.
Lots of people only require the functionality provided by an embedded component - audio or network, for example. They don't need to pay another $20 - $80 for a card with this functionality.
Integration allows for takign advantage of the other components as well. Take the nForces network controller - that has StreamThru onto the Hypertransport bus just to reduce latency that little bit more for network apps (games, heh). A normal network card can't assume that functionality at all.
Haven't got the time to read each motherboard in detail. In the end, KT266A looks to be a good choice if you already have a soundcard and graphics card, the nForce is a great first chipset and is great if you don't currently have a soundcard or graphics card - in fact the audio will be the best you can buy for under $100 at least.
And what was that about VIA taking the SiS735 memory controller? Eh? They are different companies, and SiS would certainly not give VIA their memory controller, that just doesn't make sense from a business or engineering point of view. The KT266A memory controller is taken from the P4X266 chipset.
It will be a long time before search engines can log into a (secure) web based system (brute force username/password attack :) ) and then browse it as if the details being provided are actually in that public webspace.
In reality, the details are most likely in a tightly locked down Oracle database that is not accessible from the Internet (ideally, I would bet that it was though, if only for remote maintainence in emergencies or whatever).
Secondly, it appears that companies are storing credit card numbers (a) in the clear and (b) in these public areas. These companies should not be allowed to trade on the internet! That is so inept when learning how to use pgp/gpg takes no time at all, and simply storing the PGP encrypted files outside the publically accessible filesystem is just changing the line of code that writes to "payments/ordernumber.asc" to "~/payments/ordernumber.asc" (or whatever). Of course, the PGP secret key is not stored on a publically accessible computer at all.
But I shouldn't be giving a basic course on how to secure website payments, etc, to you lot - you know it or could work it out (or a similar method) pretty quickly. It is those dumb administrators that don't have a clue about security that are to blame (or their PHB).
However, the ability to open a screen at a lower resolution (or higher resolution with less colours, etc) was great. It is less pertinent now when you have a large desktop by default with 32-bit colour, and TFT displays which have a default operational resolution which you should use unless you like jagged interfaces.
The Amiga got a lot of the desktop metaphor completely correct, amazingly. It just worked correctly, even if the default interface now looks like a dog. Operationally it was great.
Yes, I agree that the default behaviour upon clicking on a Window should be to bring it to the top (surely in a perfect desktop metaphor, you should have to move all the other windows off of it completely to access it :)), but that does not preclude having extra functionality should you require it, accessed by perhaps "alt-clicking" the minimise gadget, or whatever.
Anyway, my main point is that the Windows desktop is like working on a desk that can barely hold a notepad and a pen, whereas a decent desktop metaphor will give you a desk large enough to hold all of the material that you are working with.
It is the brain-dead operation of the GUI in Windows (active window has to be on top) that necessitates such nasty hacks as this. A desktop that allows the active window to be behind another window removes this necessity altogether (for when you are e.g., copying text from one window into another).
Other good systems include multiple desktops, as provided by all good X Windows Managers and various windows hackons. Amiga Screens were another great system. Screens and multiple desktops are like having a large desk (plenty of space to spread your pens, paper, notebook, encyclopaedia, etc), whereas Windows by default is like trying to do all your work on a desk the size of a mousepad.
There are times of course when overlapping windows are not required. Multiple webbrowser windows when a tabbed interface within a single browser is adequate, for example. Need to display 2 web pages at once - explicitly open two windows, or split the current web page view in two horizontally or vertically, a function provided by Konqueror.
QT has an easier to program API, is quick to program in, has great documentation, has support, has a huge wealth of existing code examples, and is supported on Windows. GTK is not supported on Windows, and is a one-man port job. Fine for free software like the gimp, but not for a commercial application. Don't save a couple of grand on the GUI toolkit and get yourself a lot more costs in support that you have to provide because of problems.
GTK2 might solve a lot of the problems in the current GTK of course, but I am not qualified to comment about that. And do you really want to program using a just finalised API?
QT just does things right. 'nuff said.
However, I cannot deal with the 10 seconds it takes to change applications on the laptop. It might be a Mandrake 8.1 thing though, or maybe a kernel upgrade might help (better VM), or maybe I shouldn't run KDE (although I like Konqueror, Kate, and KMail, so I may as well run it all as all the libraries will be in memory anyway!).
It isn't the speed of the processor that is the problem though - it is snappy when you are using a single app that is in memory. I suspect that if the guy's PC was upgraded to 128MB of memory from 40MB, then it would be reasonably usable with a bare theme...
My PII 266 with 64MB RAM (laptop) cannot hack KDE. It could if I had more memory in it though - 128MB is the minimum for KDE in my experience. I just need to find a cheap source of proprietary laptop memory...
Honestly, WindowMaker is great - keep using it.