I had similar problems with SCO's QIC02 tape drivers back in 1988. Worked fine on the 286 boxen, but on the 386/25 "server" you could not produce a readable tape. Spent many days with their tech support before they got us a patch that would work, then found that it would only work if nothing else was running on the box.
Who says they were the "good" old days? I just seem to recall spending a lot of time debugging tweaky problems that had nothing to do with getting the actual work done!
I don't think it is unreasonable to guarantee there will be no glitches. If you you are using a deposit-transfer to a device like a TiVO, it would not be difficult to include some form of checksums to verify the data stream, and have the bad blocks re-acquired on the next broadcast cycle. I have no fantasy that one could guarantee a perfect one-time transmission.
The point on archiving is not unreasonable. If I am doing my own archiving, the content provider has no expense overhead for manufacture, distribution, packaging, floor space, middleman profits. Also, an archived copy does not include any of the "extras" that some people buy DVDs for.
At the same time, perhaps a two-tier pricing structure. Say $1 for direct view with a timeout/autodelete from the buffer device, and an extra $1 if you decide to archive it.
As to hoarding stuff "I don't need", that is the very definition of a collection. Is there any point to people having rooms full of paperbacks, dolls, toy trains, model planes, or other such "memorabilia"?
By service charge I refer to being forced to subscribe to material I have no interest in watching. I have no issue with a reasonable per-month charge to cover the cost of the maintenance of the transmission hardware. Say $20/mo for the infrastructure and channel listing services, which would also have to support items that don't have a chance at direct profits (e.g. news channels.)
I have a feeling they're trying to create a market for the over-priced DVD episodes of TV series. Who in their right mind would pay $20+ for two episodes on DVD when they can get tolerable quality with an SVHS recorder ($4 for premium blank tapes), or use a capture card and crunch it down with their own DVD-R burner ($5/disk)?
This isn't about preventing "piracy", it's about finding a new way to steal a few more dollars from the consumer.
Personally I would have less issue with a pay-per-view approach provided that:
Price per 1 hour episode is no more than $1
No commercials, previews, ad-banners, or other such nonsense is included
The data stream is 100%. No bullshit blurring, bitrate reduction, or other nonsense like DirectTV uses. If I gotta pay, I want unreduced 1080p (not 1080i), with full 5.1 sound.
A guarantee that there will be no dropouts, glitches, etc.
I can make a non-duplicatable archive copy using a durable media like DVD.
No monthly service charges. If you want me to pay per episode, I'll only pay for what I want to watch, not for all the hundreds of hours of useless tripe.
No time slotting. If I subscribe to a series, I expect it to be deposited for viewing or archive on a weekly basis, to be viewed when I have time and the inclination.
All in all, I don't have an issue with protecting the content from wanton copying and redistribution. I'm rather shocked at the number of people I know who already see first-run theatre movies captured by DV cameras and transcoded to crippled-bitrate MPEG4; I can understand the content provider's concern over the issue as bandwidth increases.
As to the advertising revenue, do these morons really think I buy anything because I saw it on TV? I select purchases based on rational evaluations and independent 'net reviews, not based on some glitzy TV advertising or the biased sound-bite reviews provided by print media or ZDNet and it's affiliates.
That may be true, but the animated version was a lot funnier than the live version. There are just too many abuses you can put animated characters through that require expensive special effects for live footage.
While I've watched all the live episodes I've been able to, I've rarely found myself laughing out loud, which happened regularly with the animation.
If I had to blame the death of "The Tick" on something, it would be weak writing.
A number of people I work with have DV video cameras and are buying DVD-R/DVD+RW burners. I don't know of anything that consumes raw cycles like video processing. Even with clean source, it can take 4-5 hours to process a mere 25-30 minutes of video to MPEG2 if you want good video quality (and that's on an Athlon 1.4GHz!)
In the past 3 months, 4 of the 30 people in my work area have picked up DV cameras and looked at DVD burning their home vids. Every one of them has been greatly disappointed to find that they can't do it with their "old" 800MHz PIII boxen without leaving the job running over night.
So I guess the point is that you don't need much more power than currently available for raw compiles and such, but you can expect the upcoming flood of DVD burners and DV cameras to push a significant number of people to upgrade.
(c) The right of reproduction under this section applies to three copies or phonorecords of a published work duplicated solely for the purpose of replacement of a copy or phonorecord that is damaged, deteriorating, lost, or stolen, or if the existing format in which the work is stored has become obsolete, if-
(1) the library or archives has, after a reasonable effort, determined that an unused replacement cannot be obtained at a fair price; and
(2) any such copy or phonorecord that is reproduced in digital format is not made available to the public in that format outside the premises of the library or archives in lawful possession of such copy.
In other words, converting from an older format (CD) to a newer one (MP3) for your own personal use is legal, provided that the copies are not distributed.
No where in the documents on fair use could I find any reference to an individual's "right" to distribute copies, particularly to the general public (e.g. Napster.) Even public libraries are under significant restrictions for copying, and are not allowed to have more than 3 archive copies in circulation at a time.
If interpreted loosely, you might read those restrictions as meaning that you can "lend" two copies of an MP3 to personal friends while keeping one for your own use, provided that you own the (overpriced) CD the MP3s were ripped from.
Of course the PTO doesn't mention anything about copy protection, but as a "copy protected" CD isn't readable by my MP3 player, I believe it is legal for me to transform media to a format that is usable with my equipment. (i.e. Ripping a "copy protected" CD for use in an MP3 player.)
It doesn't cut by 9dB, but it does help quite a bit. The key is to stick it on areas subject to vibration. I have the large side panels on the case damped, the hard drive cages, the power supply brackets, the fan brackets, etc. Anything that vibrates.
An article online had suggested using a blower fan on the case, which I also followed up with. Works great. I have 3 machines kitted with the Dayton 2C647 AC blowers and standard bathroom fan speed controls. The three machines are quieter in total than one used to be.
The info on the blowers is at Overclockers Forum. You can also search for info on the "Hoot Chute".
I've been extremely impressed with Ogg's audio for music. Unfortunately the Win32 codec combined with DiVX video does not get along with MS Media Player 7.1 at all. Perhaps not surprisingly, it plays back just fine if you use players that aren't based on Microsoft's widgets (such as The Playa.)
At 192Kbps, I find Ogg is the best sounding codec. It's got good solid bass, tight transients, and even a bit of depth and soundstage.
MP3 at 192Kbps (SoundForge Siren, not sure whose codec they use) tends to get a little "watery" on cymbals and brass, and muffles the bass a bit (particularly kicks, tympani, and Japanese drum work.)
Microsoft's codecs (version 8?) sound pretty bad at 192Kbps. For all their bragging about how "advanced" their codecs are, they completely lose the bass texture and presence at that rate. Even at 256Kbps, their coded just doesn't compare to Ogg.
(Don't bother asking what I've got on DiVX. I don't support piracy and will not provide copies.)
My current contract is in the financial sector as well. Even when the Federal Reserve is closed, someone still has to be on call for the batch jobs that are still running.
Fortunately we have 2-3 (or more) people assigned to support each system, so we can rotate the hot pagers around. I have to carry it this Christmas/New Years, but had Thanksgiving off. (Like I said someone has to carry the pager!)
When working contracts in manufacturing, major holidays were the busiest times, as it was the only time the manufacturing lines were down long enough to do non-emergency system upgrades and enhancements.
About the only contracts I've ever had that didn't require holiday work were pure programming jobs for the Telco and Property Management sectors.
When I first subscribed to DirecTV a few months ago, I got the RCA UltimateTV unit. It was great -- for 3 weeks. As it's essentially a computer, I had it on a small UPS to allow for the sags and brownouts that occur in my area. Despite the protection, it crashed in the third week, losing all my settings, shows, and schedules.
Fortunately http://www.americansatellite.com/ has a return/trade-in policy that runs for a month or so. I was able to trade it in for a DirecTiVO unit. I went with the Sony SAT-T60. It cost me an extra $100 due to unit price differences (other TiVO units were the same price as the UTV, Sony is just pricier), but ASE covered the shipping charges for the replacement and the return. (Yes, this is a shameless plug because I've been very happy with their service and support.)
Aside from the M$ based unit losing everything when it crashed, both units had about the same picture quality.
I typically got about 16-20 hours recording time with both TiVO and UTV, despite the claims of "up to 30 hours."
The TiVO units let you start recordings 5 minutes early; the UTV only lets you extend recording time. A lot of channels up there don't start at exactly the time they say in the listings, so you can lose the opening moments with the UTV.
TiVO lets you record by time/channel as well as through the guide. If you know the guide is wrong (often the case for local channels), you can "force" the TiVO to record the channel/time you want. The UTV doesn't support that feature.
There were other little nicities I noticed with the TiVO, but I don't remember them offhand (it's been a few months.)
Personally I'd never recommend a UTV unit to anyone. Aside from the crash, there are just too many little functionality tweaks to the TiVO that leave the UTV a so-so imitation instead of a true competitor.
I've already been burned by so-called anti-copy software/hardware in my Clarion car CD player. Many of the CDs I own were purchased before the introduction of audio vs. data CDs, and they won't play in the Clarion.
The pathetic thing is that I can rip those tracks to HDD, then burn them to CD instead of making a full copy of the CD, and it will play! So much for copy "protection."
As an audio purist ever in search of better sound quality, the very idea of purposely degrading my signal source with digital fingerprints and copy protection is just pushing me to buy fewer and fewer CDs. I am not willing to pay for damaged goods, and I can't see how messing with my audio source can be viewed as anything but damaging.
As to piracy, I own a grand total of one pirated CD -- a copy of Willie Dixon's "Gingerale Afternoon" that I haven't been able to find anywhere in over 5 years. (At least not for a sane price -- there are a couple online shops that are willing to sell me a copy for $27+shipping.)
There are another 5-10 CDs that I'd pirate for the same reason, but I can't even find someone who owns an original, much less a place to buy those albums.
On the downside, my reduced purchases have absolutely no impact on the big labels as most of my purchases are from much smaller studios like Blind Pig Records. Odds are these smaller companies don't have the volume to invest in so-called copy-protection technologies, but if they farm out the AD conversion and manufacture to bigger companies I'll end up having to skip their products as well.
For those using the so-called CD player in their computer, if you actually cared about the music you'd spring for a CD portable regardless of the copy protection issue. The players built into a computer have so much signal interference and low-quality chip amps that they just aren't worth listening to!
Re:Here's an open source alternative ...
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DivX;) Goes Legit
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· Score: 1
Of course that isn't "open source" in the sense of GPL, but that they've published it. Aside from registering before you can download, if you care to read the EULA in the installer, they expect $39.95 to be paid.
The license displayed by the installer is much more restrictive than the MPL-based one you read while registering. It is possible that this is an oversight for an old installer, and I'll check for a refresh in a few days.
In the event that they really do expect $39.95 for encode capabilities, I'll be sticking with products that are sanely priced. I admit there are more expensive codecs out there, but I don't use them either.
Personally I'm finding that DiVX 4.01 works just fine for encoding 45-50 minute TV episodes, and CDs take a lot less space than SVHS tapes.
The issue isn't apps, as the majority of Gnu code will compile under QNX, as will most Posix code. The issue is that the GUI code would have to be rewritten, and things would have to be tightened down a lot to fit.
Still, if there is a *nix OS out there that could make it happen, QNX would be it. Their message-based process distribution opens up some real interesting possibilities with a secure wireless environment.
For example, consider having repeaters throughout a work complex to allow techs to do more than just bounce emails back and forth from a Palm or other such unit. Your handheld could theoretically be *part* of the system, with direct integration to the applications environment.
Sure you could do that with XML or something as well, but QNX just pimp-slaps XML for network efficiency!
Your assumption that anime are "cartoons" is way off base. Most of the few dozen anime movies I have on DVD are not cartoons suitable for children. At best, most of them would be classed NC-17, and certainly wouldn't be aired on a Saturday morning for the kiddies!
The comment on pedophile-pleasing imagery is largely a misunderstanding on your part. The Japanese market focuses more mature material on the teen audience than the North American market does, hence characters that the audience can identify with.
Personally I think it's pretty sad that Japanese movies targetted at their teen audience tend to be more thoughtful and plot/character rich than NA movies targetted at "adults". It makes Hollywood's opinion of the average American/Canadian pretty clear...
I think you've nailed the biggest problem with North American movies lately.
American productions tend to be un-funny "comedies" targetted at teen audiences, action flicks that can be enjoyed while intoxicated, and slasher/horror flicks that seem tame compared to the news.
Canadian productions tend to be heavy dramas and histo-dramas that may educate, but rarely entertain.
So-called "underground" productions seem to be stuck with studying street life, prostitution, and the war on drugs. Sometimes they have good characterization, but often a weak plot.
As to "critic proof" movies, I never pay attention to what the critics say anyhow. I find I usually disagree with critics, not because they've done a bad review, but because we just don't have similar tastes. I kind of pity the critics -- do you enjoy a drama if you're in the mood for a comedy, action, or something else? Could you give a fair review of such a movie if you're forced to watch it in order to write a review for Friday?
Lately at least 2/3 of my DVD purchases have been anime, whether traditional hand-drawn or CGI-enhanced. Even though the translations and voice tracks are often poorly done, the plot lines and characters are often interesting enough that I find them far better movies than what is produced locally.
Unfortunately I don't think there is much we can do as long as North American companies focus on blockbuster hits instead of just making a reasonable profit. There are plenty of no-name talented actors and actresses that could carry a character through a well-written movie, but the investors insist on blowing millions on big-names and then whine when they don't make a few million profit back.
Are there any American distros other than RedHat available? With the stability and reliability problems I've had with their 7.x series, I found myself forced over to Mandrake.
Not only have all the commercial products worked fine under Mandrake 7.2 and 8.0 (DB/2 7.2, Websphere AAS, JBuilder 4, Sybase 11.9.2), they perform better.
RedHat is still stuck in the "lowest common denominator" mentality, while Mandrake only supports 586 and up. Lets face it, the only thing you'd be using a 386 or 486 series CPU for nowadays is a packet/proxy firewall or print server, and that's going to be a seriously stripped build, not a full system. The performance difference between a 386 and 586 built OS is quite significant, and I'm really surprised RedHat hasn't made builds for the older CPUs a special order item instead of hampering performance on the majority of systems.
But I digress (as usual)...
"Buying American" is an interesting theory, but it just isn't reality. Linux is an international project, with huge pieces of functionality from non-American sources. Philosophically, there is no such thing as an "American" Linux, anymore than there is an "American" car. About the only complex product you can buy that might still be 100% American is a Harley, and I think even they use some parts that are sourced overseas.
Personally I never upgrade -- I reformat the drive and do a clean install. Even RPM upgrades (much less the whole OS) can break changes I've made to my system configs, particularly as most of the software I use isn't part of the core distro.
Another important issue is to either use one of the canned package sets, or start with the bare minimum and pick the specific packages you'll be using. Some of them seem to conflict with each other, particularly those from the extra CDs. Unfortunately you can only find out which ones conflict by running into problems.
As to stability and reliability, I have to tip my hat to Mandrake. Ever since RedHat started their 7.x series, Mandrake has not only been more current but more reliable. Common stock hardware (e.g. CUSL2, EEPro10/100, CD, 60GB IBM HDD, and SBLive OEM) would not run RedHat 7.x reliably, regardless of which release I tried. Mandrake 8.0 was solid except for an issue with kdelibs that caused the occasional crash (fixed within 2 weeks of initial release.)
Having tried to "roll my own" from the Mandrake cooker using LFS as a guideline, I know how much work these people do to get it working. They do a terrific job.
I used to buy full editions of RedHat when it got me priority FTP access. Since they switched to that useless bandwidth consuming updater and shipped the bug-ridden 7.x series I've thrown away the last $70+ that I'll be feeding them.
I now use Mandrake, bought the full 7.2 release, and am about to pay for the 8.0 release (already installed, but I want to support their excellant work.)
I've spent about the same on WinXX operating systems, but you have to consider that I have 3 completely legal Linux boxen, and only one multi-boot WinXX box so I don't get anywhere near the utility/functionality. If you add in things like MSVC, MS Office, etc, I'd estimate I've spent over 10 times as much on WinCrap as on Linux.
If it weren't for paying customers that need WinXX support, I'd only have my old Win98 install from M$, and that's just my Wintendo game partition.
Specifically they mention "reproducing in a material object the information identified by the catalog code".
No matter how I try to warp my thinking, I don't see how this applies to a software download. It seems to have been intended to address things like CD or DVD purchase kiosks that would download and burn the content (thereby avoiding the need to have a stock of physical titles.)
Even if it were to apply, there is prior art -- how many people were using a BBS back then? I know I was! What's the conceptual difference between a "catalog" code and directory listings for locating the desired files, particularly when file links allow multiple "catalog entries" to refer to the same file? Wasn't your login id your "authorization code"?
I'm not so sure about that. For a high end workstation, you would usually be correct, but this chipset is being touted for servers.
It would not be at all uncommon for a database server to have a couple of the latest SCSI 320 cards running a farm of 15KRPM drives or external RAID chassis. It doesn't take that many of them to saturate a PCI66 I/O channel. Aside from that, you don't want saturated channels on a database server -- you want your I/Os scattered evenly in order to maximize parallelism.
I'm guessing that 760MP boxen will be relatively competitive with some of the 2/4 way systems from Dell, IBM, et. al., but that is relatively low end competition. To really compete as a server, the systems will have to be configured with:
2+ GB ECC memory, up to 8GB
Hot-swap RAID arrays
Dual fibre or ethernet controllers
Redundant power supplies
Hardware failure monitoring
That said, I'm certainly looking into a box for home use. I don't need 5-9 reliability, so I'm just going to be waiting for sane prices...
When I was last living in Toronto a year or two ago, the only place I was buying CDs was from used shops, flea markets, and a specialty shop in Oshawa that would actually locate rare/hard-to-find music (something the major chains don't seem to care to do.)
With new CDs running $17CDN at the chains "on sale", plus 15% PST/GST, a typical CD was running just under $20CDN. You could get 3 used CDs for the same price, and the used shops were far more likely to have the old rock, blues, etc. that I was looking for.
Here in the US (Delaware), prices are even worse. I've bought around 20 CDs in the past year, compared to the 10/month that I used to buy when prices were semi-sane. None of those were purchased at the big-label stores -- $20USD for a CD is obscene!
Personally I don't use Napster, because the sound quality of MP3s is terrible. CDs are bad enough with their loss of depth and imaging, but MP3s are usually as flat and lifeless as FM.
DVD-Audio and SACD might address the sound quality issues if the prices come down a bit, but right now the selection and price are keeping me away from that option as well.
Re:Possibly for somethings, not all though.
on
Qt for Mac
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· Score: 2
Rather than moderating this discussion, I thought it would be a good idea to clarify that what you get is one year of free upgrades and email support, not a time-limited license.
Nothing on Trolltech's pricing page indicates that you are limited to using the copy for one year. Rather, each copy is limited to one developer.
To some the prices might seem "high", but having worked with cross-platform products from other companies ($10,000.00, plus runtime license fees), I can tell you that Trolltech's prices are very reasonable.
I think Trolltech is being extremely reasonable in allowing free use for freely distributed software, while requiring pay-for products to pony up for platform licenses.
If roughly $3000.00 USD for both *nix and WinXX is "too much" for your product's UI, I really have to question the business plan behind the product. Assuming a comparable price differential to add Mac, that would bring it up to about $4500.00 for an enterprise edition for one developer across all three platforms. Even if you're only charging $50.00 for your product, that's only 90 copies to pay for the setup costs. If you can't count on selling a few thousand copies, why do you think anyone would pay for your product?
It depends where you're flying and what airlines are available. When I had to fly from Toronto to Austin on short notice, it was usually less than a $50CDN price difference between coach and first class with Air Canada. Aside from more room in the seat and marginally better food, first class let you use much shorter queues for checking in and getting through US immigration at Pearson International (Toronto has US port of entry offices.)
Sometimes there just wasn't any choice -- coach gets sold out quicker than first class. Most first class flyers are last-minute purchasers, while coach tends to be full of people who were able to plan ahead.
Great. Another "bright idea" from the open source community.
I've spent the past week or so working on getting IBM's WebSphere Advanced server up and running on my custom-compiled Mandrake/LFS system with kernel 2.4.2. Sybase 11.9.2, DB/2 7.1, and several JDKs are all in place, along with Borland's JBuilder Pro.
I've learned the basics of setting up OpenLDAP, downloaded the Kerberos source from MIT and was going to spend the weekend getting a fully functional environment completed.
However, it finally dawned on my thick skull that I'm going about this the wrong way. It's only taken me half the time to get things installed and configured under Linux as it has for NT (which still isn't fully functional.) How is a programmer supposed to make a living with a system that is cleanly structured, modular, and modifiable like Linux is?
As a result, I've decide that enough is enough. I'm going to reformat my hard drives for Win2K and drop this whole Linux thing. It's just too damned easy and I'll never be able to convince a client I'm worth my consulting rates if they ever realize that fact.
Even worse, how can I possibly maintain a steady revenue stream doing patches and fixes for updates when this damned Linux stuff refuses to crash and corrupt itself? The damned open source zealots are going to put all the programmers out of business!
I for one am going to try to convince my current client that we need to drop all the *nix servers and switch everything over to Microsoft. At least that way I know I'll be making some pocket money providing pager support.
The first certification test of any large product is the ability to reproduce the system from raw source in a clean build environment. Recent weeks have made it painfully clear that such testing is not happening with some very popular open source products (Gnome, XFree86, and others), and I question whether it happens with products like MySQL or Postgres.
The second step towards release certification is running an ever-growing suite of regression tests. Some verify functionality, some verify scalability, recovery capabilities, etc. Not only do these tests have to be run, the results have to be analyzed, any discrepencies noted, and determination made whether the result changes are a problem with the new database or with the test suite itself.
Finally the beta partners get their hands on the RDBMS software, and start beating on it with applications whose requirements might stress aspects of the RDBMS that aren't covered by the in-house regression suites. Again, those issues have to be categorized and addressed, either before release or as a known issue that will be patched.
If it sounds like a lot of work, you're underestimating the scope of the efforts involved. It is a mind-boggling effort whose costs often far exceed that of the actual software development.
That is the most important thing you are paying for when you buy a commercial RDBMS.
Beyond that, you need to consider what the vendor (open source or otherwise) designed the RDBMS for. Some focus on data collection or OLTP performance (Sybase, for example), some on simple online queries (most do well at this), some on complex MIS reporting (DB/2 and Oracle), and a very few on data aggregation and warehousing (often not even an RDBMS.) If the vendor can't tell you what their design goals are, but tries to convince you it can do anything, you had best be prepared to either spend a lot of money tuning your application for the RDBMS, or on hardware in a potentially futile effort to address performance issues.
Bottom line is to use what suits your needs. To paraphrase an old saying/questionaire:
Slashdot Mirror
Who says they were the "good" old days? I just seem to recall spending a lot of time debugging tweaky problems that had nothing to do with getting the actual work done!
The point on archiving is not unreasonable. If I am doing my own archiving, the content provider has no expense overhead for manufacture, distribution, packaging, floor space, middleman profits. Also, an archived copy does not include any of the "extras" that some people buy DVDs for.
At the same time, perhaps a two-tier pricing structure. Say $1 for direct view with a timeout/autodelete from the buffer device, and an extra $1 if you decide to archive it.
As to hoarding stuff "I don't need", that is the very definition of a collection. Is there any point to people having rooms full of paperbacks, dolls, toy trains, model planes, or other such "memorabilia"?
By service charge I refer to being forced to subscribe to material I have no interest in watching. I have no issue with a reasonable per-month charge to cover the cost of the maintenance of the transmission hardware. Say $20/mo for the infrastructure and channel listing services, which would also have to support items that don't have a chance at direct profits (e.g. news channels.)
This isn't about preventing "piracy", it's about finding a new way to steal a few more dollars from the consumer.
Personally I would have less issue with a pay-per-view approach provided that:
All in all, I don't have an issue with protecting the content from wanton copying and redistribution. I'm rather shocked at the number of people I know who already see first-run theatre movies captured by DV cameras and transcoded to crippled-bitrate MPEG4; I can understand the content provider's concern over the issue as bandwidth increases.
As to the advertising revenue, do these morons really think I buy anything because I saw it on TV? I select purchases based on rational evaluations and independent 'net reviews, not based on some glitzy TV advertising or the biased sound-bite reviews provided by print media or ZDNet and it's affiliates.
While I've watched all the live episodes I've been able to, I've rarely found myself laughing out loud, which happened regularly with the animation.
If I had to blame the death of "The Tick" on something, it would be weak writing.
In the past 3 months, 4 of the 30 people in my work area have picked up DV cameras and looked at DVD burning their home vids. Every one of them has been greatly disappointed to find that they can't do it with their "old" 800MHz PIII boxen without leaving the job running over night.
So I guess the point is that you don't need much more power than currently available for raw compiles and such, but you can expect the upcoming flood of DVD burners and DV cameras to push a significant number of people to upgrade.
More relevant to personal copies are the sections on libraries and archives from US Copyright Office Circular 92:
In other words, converting from an older format (CD) to a newer one (MP3) for your own personal use is legal, provided that the copies are not distributed.
No where in the documents on fair use could I find any reference to an individual's "right" to distribute copies, particularly to the general public (e.g. Napster.) Even public libraries are under significant restrictions for copying, and are not allowed to have more than 3 archive copies in circulation at a time.
If interpreted loosely, you might read those restrictions as meaning that you can "lend" two copies of an MP3 to personal friends while keeping one for your own use, provided that you own the (overpriced) CD the MP3s were ripped from.
Of course the PTO doesn't mention anything about copy protection, but as a "copy protected" CD isn't readable by my MP3 player, I believe it is legal for me to transform media to a format that is usable with my equipment. (i.e. Ripping a "copy protected" CD for use in an MP3 player.)
As per usual, IANAL.
An article online had suggested using a blower fan on the case, which I also followed up with. Works great. I have 3 machines kitted with the Dayton 2C647 AC blowers and standard bathroom fan speed controls. The three machines are quieter in total than one used to be.
The info on the blowers is at Overclockers Forum. You can also search for info on the "Hoot Chute".
At 192Kbps, I find Ogg is the best sounding codec. It's got good solid bass, tight transients, and even a bit of depth and soundstage.
MP3 at 192Kbps (SoundForge Siren, not sure whose codec they use) tends to get a little "watery" on cymbals and brass, and muffles the bass a bit (particularly kicks, tympani, and Japanese drum work.)
Microsoft's codecs (version 8?) sound pretty bad at 192Kbps. For all their bragging about how "advanced" their codecs are, they completely lose the bass texture and presence at that rate. Even at 256Kbps, their coded just doesn't compare to Ogg.
(Don't bother asking what I've got on DiVX. I don't support piracy and will not provide copies.)
Fortunately we have 2-3 (or more) people assigned to support each system, so we can rotate the hot pagers around. I have to carry it this Christmas/New Years, but had Thanksgiving off. (Like I said someone has to carry the pager!)
When working contracts in manufacturing, major holidays were the busiest times, as it was the only time the manufacturing lines were down long enough to do non-emergency system upgrades and enhancements.
About the only contracts I've ever had that didn't require holiday work were pure programming jobs for the Telco and Property Management sectors.
Fortunately http://www.americansatellite.com/ has a return/trade-in policy that runs for a month or so. I was able to trade it in for a DirecTiVO unit. I went with the Sony SAT-T60. It cost me an extra $100 due to unit price differences (other TiVO units were the same price as the UTV, Sony is just pricier), but ASE covered the shipping charges for the replacement and the return. (Yes, this is a shameless plug because I've been very happy with their service and support.)
Aside from the M$ based unit losing everything when it crashed, both units had about the same picture quality.
I typically got about 16-20 hours recording time with both TiVO and UTV, despite the claims of "up to 30 hours."
The TiVO units let you start recordings 5 minutes early; the UTV only lets you extend recording time. A lot of channels up there don't start at exactly the time they say in the listings, so you can lose the opening moments with the UTV.
TiVO lets you record by time/channel as well as through the guide. If you know the guide is wrong (often the case for local channels), you can "force" the TiVO to record the channel/time you want. The UTV doesn't support that feature.
There were other little nicities I noticed with the TiVO, but I don't remember them offhand (it's been a few months.)
Personally I'd never recommend a UTV unit to anyone. Aside from the crash, there are just too many little functionality tweaks to the TiVO that leave the UTV a so-so imitation instead of a true competitor.
The pathetic thing is that I can rip those tracks to HDD, then burn them to CD instead of making a full copy of the CD, and it will play! So much for copy "protection."
As an audio purist ever in search of better sound quality, the very idea of purposely degrading my signal source with digital fingerprints and copy protection is just pushing me to buy fewer and fewer CDs. I am not willing to pay for damaged goods, and I can't see how messing with my audio source can be viewed as anything but damaging.
As to piracy, I own a grand total of one pirated CD -- a copy of Willie Dixon's "Gingerale Afternoon" that I haven't been able to find anywhere in over 5 years. (At least not for a sane price -- there are a couple online shops that are willing to sell me a copy for $27+shipping.)
There are another 5-10 CDs that I'd pirate for the same reason, but I can't even find someone who owns an original, much less a place to buy those albums.
On the downside, my reduced purchases have absolutely no impact on the big labels as most of my purchases are from much smaller studios like Blind Pig Records. Odds are these smaller companies don't have the volume to invest in so-called copy-protection technologies, but if they farm out the AD conversion and manufacture to bigger companies I'll end up having to skip their products as well.
For those using the so-called CD player in their computer, if you actually cared about the music you'd spring for a CD portable regardless of the copy protection issue. The players built into a computer have so much signal interference and low-quality chip amps that they just aren't worth listening to!
The license displayed by the installer is much more restrictive than the MPL-based one you read while registering. It is possible that this is an oversight for an old installer, and I'll check for a refresh in a few days.
In the event that they really do expect $39.95 for encode capabilities, I'll be sticking with products that are sanely priced. I admit there are more expensive codecs out there, but I don't use them either.
Personally I'm finding that DiVX 4.01 works just fine for encoding 45-50 minute TV episodes, and CDs take a lot less space than SVHS tapes.
The issue isn't apps, as the majority of Gnu code will compile under QNX, as will most Posix code. The issue is that the GUI code would have to be rewritten, and things would have to be tightened down a lot to fit.
Still, if there is a *nix OS out there that could make it happen, QNX would be it. Their message-based process distribution opens up some real interesting possibilities with a secure wireless environment.
For example, consider having repeaters throughout a work complex to allow techs to do more than just bounce emails back and forth from a Palm or other such unit. Your handheld could theoretically be *part* of the system, with direct integration to the applications environment.
Sure you could do that with XML or something as well, but QNX just pimp-slaps XML for network efficiency!
Your assumption that anime are "cartoons" is way off base. Most of the few dozen anime movies I have on DVD are not cartoons suitable for children. At best, most of them would be classed NC-17, and certainly wouldn't be aired on a Saturday morning for the kiddies!
The comment on pedophile-pleasing imagery is largely a misunderstanding on your part. The Japanese market focuses more mature material on the teen audience than the North American market does, hence characters that the audience can identify with.
Personally I think it's pretty sad that Japanese movies targetted at their teen audience tend to be more thoughtful and plot/character rich than NA movies targetted at "adults". It makes Hollywood's opinion of the average American/Canadian pretty clear...
American productions tend to be un-funny "comedies" targetted at teen audiences, action flicks that can be enjoyed while intoxicated, and slasher/horror flicks that seem tame compared to the news.
Canadian productions tend to be heavy dramas and histo-dramas that may educate, but rarely entertain.
So-called "underground" productions seem to be stuck with studying street life, prostitution, and the war on drugs. Sometimes they have good characterization, but often a weak plot.
As to "critic proof" movies, I never pay attention to what the critics say anyhow. I find I usually disagree with critics, not because they've done a bad review, but because we just don't have similar tastes. I kind of pity the critics -- do you enjoy a drama if you're in the mood for a comedy, action, or something else? Could you give a fair review of such a movie if you're forced to watch it in order to write a review for Friday?
Lately at least 2/3 of my DVD purchases have been anime, whether traditional hand-drawn or CGI-enhanced. Even though the translations and voice tracks are often poorly done, the plot lines and characters are often interesting enough that I find them far better movies than what is produced locally.
Unfortunately I don't think there is much we can do as long as North American companies focus on blockbuster hits instead of just making a reasonable profit. There are plenty of no-name talented actors and actresses that could carry a character through a well-written movie, but the investors insist on blowing millions on big-names and then whine when they don't make a few million profit back.
Are there any American distros other than RedHat available? With the stability and reliability problems I've had with their 7.x series, I found myself forced over to Mandrake. Not only have all the commercial products worked fine under Mandrake 7.2 and 8.0 (DB/2 7.2, Websphere AAS, JBuilder 4, Sybase 11.9.2), they perform better.
RedHat is still stuck in the "lowest common denominator" mentality, while Mandrake only supports 586 and up. Lets face it, the only thing you'd be using a 386 or 486 series CPU for nowadays is a packet/proxy firewall or print server, and that's going to be a seriously stripped build, not a full system. The performance difference between a 386 and 586 built OS is quite significant, and I'm really surprised RedHat hasn't made builds for the older CPUs a special order item instead of hampering performance on the majority of systems.
But I digress (as usual)...
"Buying American" is an interesting theory, but it just isn't reality. Linux is an international project, with huge pieces of functionality from non-American sources. Philosophically, there is no such thing as an "American" Linux, anymore than there is an "American" car. About the only complex product you can buy that might still be 100% American is a Harley, and I think even they use some parts that are sourced overseas.
Another important issue is to either use one of the canned package sets, or start with the bare minimum and pick the specific packages you'll be using. Some of them seem to conflict with each other, particularly those from the extra CDs. Unfortunately you can only find out which ones conflict by running into problems.
As to stability and reliability, I have to tip my hat to Mandrake. Ever since RedHat started their 7.x series, Mandrake has not only been more current but more reliable. Common stock hardware (e.g. CUSL2, EEPro10/100, CD, 60GB IBM HDD, and SBLive OEM) would not run RedHat 7.x reliably, regardless of which release I tried. Mandrake 8.0 was solid except for an issue with kdelibs that caused the occasional crash (fixed within 2 weeks of initial release.)
Having tried to "roll my own" from the Mandrake cooker using LFS as a guideline, I know how much work these people do to get it working. They do a terrific job.
I now use Mandrake, bought the full 7.2 release, and am about to pay for the 8.0 release (already installed, but I want to support their excellant work.)
I've spent about the same on WinXX operating systems, but you have to consider that I have 3 completely legal Linux boxen, and only one multi-boot WinXX box so I don't get anywhere near the utility/functionality. If you add in things like MSVC, MS Office, etc, I'd estimate I've spent over 10 times as much on WinCrap as on Linux.
If it weren't for paying customers that need WinXX support, I'd only have my old Win98 install from M$, and that's just my Wintendo game partition.
No matter how I try to warp my thinking, I don't see how this applies to a software download. It seems to have been intended to address things like CD or DVD purchase kiosks that would download and burn the content (thereby avoiding the need to have a stock of physical titles.)
Even if it were to apply, there is prior art -- how many people were using a BBS back then? I know I was! What's the conceptual difference between a "catalog" code and directory listings for locating the desired files, particularly when file links allow multiple "catalog entries" to refer to the same file? Wasn't your login id your "authorization code"?
I'm not so sure about that. For a high end workstation, you would usually be correct, but this chipset is being touted for servers.
It would not be at all uncommon for a database server to have a couple of the latest SCSI 320 cards running a farm of 15KRPM drives or external RAID chassis. It doesn't take that many of them to saturate a PCI66 I/O channel. Aside from that, you don't want saturated channels on a database server -- you want your I/Os scattered evenly in order to maximize parallelism.
I'm guessing that 760MP boxen will be relatively competitive with some of the 2/4 way systems from Dell, IBM, et. al., but that is relatively low end competition. To really compete as a server, the systems will have to be configured with:
That said, I'm certainly looking into a box for home use. I don't need 5-9 reliability, so I'm just going to be waiting for sane prices...
I have to agree.
When I was last living in Toronto a year or two ago, the only place I was buying CDs was from used shops, flea markets, and a specialty shop in Oshawa that would actually locate rare/hard-to-find music (something the major chains don't seem to care to do.)
With new CDs running $17CDN at the chains "on sale", plus 15% PST/GST, a typical CD was running just under $20CDN. You could get 3 used CDs for the same price, and the used shops were far more likely to have the old rock, blues, etc. that I was looking for.
Here in the US (Delaware), prices are even worse. I've bought around 20 CDs in the past year, compared to the 10/month that I used to buy when prices were semi-sane. None of those were purchased at the big-label stores -- $20USD for a CD is obscene!
Personally I don't use Napster, because the sound quality of MP3s is terrible. CDs are bad enough with their loss of depth and imaging, but MP3s are usually as flat and lifeless as FM.
DVD-Audio and SACD might address the sound quality issues if the prices come down a bit, but right now the selection and price are keeping me away from that option as well.
Rather than moderating this discussion, I thought it would be a good idea to clarify that what you get is one year of free upgrades and email support, not a time-limited license.
Nothing on Trolltech's pricing page indicates that you are limited to using the copy for one year. Rather, each copy is limited to one developer.
To some the prices might seem "high", but having worked with cross-platform products from other companies ($10,000.00, plus runtime license fees), I can tell you that Trolltech's prices are very reasonable.
I think Trolltech is being extremely reasonable in allowing free use for freely distributed software, while requiring pay-for products to pony up for platform licenses.
If roughly $3000.00 USD for both *nix and WinXX is "too much" for your product's UI, I really have to question the business plan behind the product. Assuming a comparable price differential to add Mac, that would bring it up to about $4500.00 for an enterprise edition for one developer across all three platforms. Even if you're only charging $50.00 for your product, that's only 90 copies to pay for the setup costs. If you can't count on selling a few thousand copies, why do you think anyone would pay for your product?
Sometimes there just wasn't any choice -- coach gets sold out quicker than first class. Most first class flyers are last-minute purchasers, while coach tends to be full of people who were able to plan ahead.
I've spent the past week or so working on getting IBM's WebSphere Advanced server up and running on my custom-compiled Mandrake/LFS system with kernel 2.4.2. Sybase 11.9.2, DB/2 7.1, and several JDKs are all in place, along with Borland's JBuilder Pro.
I've learned the basics of setting up OpenLDAP, downloaded the Kerberos source from MIT and was going to spend the weekend getting a fully functional environment completed.
However, it finally dawned on my thick skull that I'm going about this the wrong way. It's only taken me half the time to get things installed and configured under Linux as it has for NT (which still isn't fully functional.) How is a programmer supposed to make a living with a system that is cleanly structured, modular, and modifiable like Linux is?
As a result, I've decide that enough is enough. I'm going to reformat my hard drives for Win2K and drop this whole Linux thing. It's just too damned easy and I'll never be able to convince a client I'm worth my consulting rates if they ever realize that fact.
Even worse, how can I possibly maintain a steady revenue stream doing patches and fixes for updates when this damned Linux stuff refuses to crash and corrupt itself? The damned open source zealots are going to put all the programmers out of business!
I for one am going to try to convince my current client that we need to drop all the *nix servers and switch everything over to Microsoft. At least that way I know I'll be making some pocket money providing pager support.
The second step towards release certification is running an ever-growing suite of regression tests. Some verify functionality, some verify scalability, recovery capabilities, etc. Not only do these tests have to be run, the results have to be analyzed, any discrepencies noted, and determination made whether the result changes are a problem with the new database or with the test suite itself.
Finally the beta partners get their hands on the RDBMS software, and start beating on it with applications whose requirements might stress aspects of the RDBMS that aren't covered by the in-house regression suites. Again, those issues have to be categorized and addressed, either before release or as a known issue that will be patched.
If it sounds like a lot of work, you're underestimating the scope of the efforts involved. It is a mind-boggling effort whose costs often far exceed that of the actual software development.
That is the most important thing you are paying for when you buy a commercial RDBMS.
Beyond that, you need to consider what the vendor (open source or otherwise) designed the RDBMS for. Some focus on data collection or OLTP performance (Sybase, for example), some on simple online queries (most do well at this), some on complex MIS reporting (DB/2 and Oracle), and a very few on data aggregation and warehousing (often not even an RDBMS.) If the vendor can't tell you what their design goals are, but tries to convince you it can do anything, you had best be prepared to either spend a lot of money tuning your application for the RDBMS, or on hardware in a potentially futile effort to address performance issues.
Bottom line is to use what suits your needs. To paraphrase an old saying/questionaire:
You can have it:
Pick any two.