Although it happened pretty rarely to me (maybe once every couple of weeks), that usually solved it for me when it happened, too (15" Aluminum G4). Hopefully 10.3.8 fixes it for good, though.
Sure, Firefox will be attacked. But the implications of a successful attack are much less likely to disrupt the whole system - Firefox is a self-contained application with pretty good controls for avoiding non-trusted XPIs from being installed. IE is really just the front-end for a whole series of system-level tools that are, for better or for worse, completely linked in to the OS itself.
So the consequences of an IE exploit are typically far worse than the consequences of a Firefox exploit. This is just how it works with modular applications instead of system-level everything.
Of course, if you run ActiveX within Firefox, all bets are off...
If you have a good, reliable broadband connection from an ISP like Speakeasy, then you can probably set up a small server and handle your own e-mail and hosting. So long as you don't need rocket science, you'll get really good results. You just need to have an ISP that gives you a static IP (ideally) and has an AUP that allows you to run servers.
If you do that, then good options for the hosting OS itself would be either the SME Server (from http://www.contribs.org/), or the new version of Clark Connect that just came out this week (http://www.clarkconnect.com/ - I use the commercial version for my home server). If you're not serving up tons of dynamic content a fairly small PC and relatively low-bandwidth DSL line will give you really good results. I also use ZoneEdit for my DNS and backup MX service - that way with backup MX even if I'm down for a while I won't miss any mail and I'll just get it despooled when I come back up.
Another option potentially would be to use a Mac Mini with the 10-user version of MacOS X Server - that'd give you a nice turnkey server for about $1k. But it won't give you spam controls, which both the Linux distros I mentioned above will do. And day-to-day admin of both SME and ClarkConnect are real easy - in fact, ClarkConnect will take care of automatically providing all your updates when you buy the commercial (and cheap) version. They'll also do e-mail antivirus and give you what ZoneEdit offers as an ASP service - though it's not cheap.
Seriously? There's a couple of reasons. First off, Dell (or PC vendor X) does upgrades/updates differently from Apple. When Intel ships a newer, faster chip, Dell just slipstreams it into their existing models/lineups. Also, Dell offers so many different models that a change to one isn't really a news event. Besides, every other PC vendor offers something equivalent - Dell's only innovation is in the supply chain (and making it hyper-efficient). They don't actually make anything, they just package it into a cheap beige box.
Slashdot does cover all the new Intel and AMD announcements, which means that to run a feature when Dell puts it into a system would just really be covering the same story twice (not that Slashdot doesn't routinely cover things twice).
The difference is that Apple actually engineers their own products and OS. Also, they upgrade less often, and then when they do they upgrade a whole family of products simultaneously. That helps make it newsworthy. Yes, the speed improvement is a whopping 167 MHz per config (or only 1x on the multiplier), but when they revved the PowerBooks today they also added features (like dual-DVI support and the funky new scrollpad), changed video cards, and upgraded other stuff like Bluetooth.
Plus, Apple is Apple. Dell is just another PC vendor. If Dell is doing an upgrade, chances are all the other PC vendors are putting the same feature in their equivalent model at the exact same time. Like I said above, the news is when Intel or AMD introduce the upgrade that everybody then puts into their product lines, not when Dell does theirs.
The problem is, the Mac was designed to be consistent. One-button mice, one-button trackpads. And nothing is supposed to require more than one button as a result.
If only PowerBooks were equipped with two buttons, it'd have an impact on that consistency.
My own opinion? I use a Logitech RF wireless keyboard and mouse on my iMac at home, and at the office I use an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and a Microsoft RF wireless mouse with my PowerBook. And I keep a Kensington Bluetooth mouse in my carry bag so that if I'm settling in for a long job on a site, I have my good old two-button mouse. But when I'm on the road, or if I'm just hanging out in my living room trying to do a little work, I just use the single built-in button and I don't mind it too much.
My wife, on the other hand, also has an iMac, and she is very happy with the single button mouse that came with it. When she uses her Compaq laptop that her company gave her, she hates the two-button mouse.
When they say that, they are saying that if you buy an Apple memory upgrade that's the only way they will sell it to you. However, if you feel like installing your own memory in the system, you will not void your warranty by installing the third-party memory provided you don't break the mini when doing so.
That's an important distinction. Once you've installed the memory, that memory is not covered by the Apple warranty, and if you break the mini while installing it you can void the mini's warranty. But let's say you install your own 1GB DIMM and all goes swimmingly well. Then, a couple of months later, the hard drive dies.
That hard drive repair is covered by Apple's warranty. They have to - there's a handy law that says so. But if the DIMM you installed is causing the Mac to crash, well, you better hope your RAM provider gave you a warranty for the DIMM - because Apple won't replace it (duh).
Believe it or not, o moderators, that wasn't a troll. Whoever modded my parent down is just an anti-Mac radical fanatic. A mini is a very good candidate for use in a kitchen - provided you don't store it on the counter where it would be exposed to the elements. But no PC is really good for the job, either. You need to go under-cabinet for the safest use.
The only other really viable candidate for the job besides a Mac mini is one of the super-slim Mini-ITX boxes (I've actually got one of those that I use as a server at home). But to run nicely in an environment like a kitchen, you need either fanless or minimal fans, and you can't put much horsepower into one of those and run fanless (mine's a VIA C3 processor at 533 MHz). And even the super-slim Mini-ITX chassis is way bigger than the Mac mini.
Audreys were good for this application, but I think they're too limited for what they are. I have a friend who liked to hack them to be useful - finally he just packed it in and reworked his cabinetry to stash a Dell inside, with a wireless keyboard and mouse and a flat panel on the counter.
You can go with a touchscreen and a waterproof USB keyboard, stash the mouse to the side for when you need it, and strap a mini under the cupboard. It'll fit nicely and pretty darn unobtrusively assuming the cabinets are deep enough to mount lights underneath.
You can mount the touchscreen alongside, on a swing mount that can let them stow it underneath the cupboard when not using the computer. I saw something similar done last week with a TV on This Old House.
They self-sign it for some reason without a valid root CA. No big deal, though. You can just accept it and then everything works fine, regardless of browser. I even used Safari to sign up, if only for the irony.
Yes - it's a subscription agreement. The software doesn't time-bomb or anything, but legally you're SOL if you don't renew.
That said, for the value I get from it I'd still have renewed even if they hadn't given me a $100 discount on the renewal. The money I've made (legitimately) from being able to set things up and learn them, not to mention simulate customer issues on spare hardware I have, makes it a great investment for me. It you do IT work on a for-hire or consulting basis and you deal with Windows it's a must-have.
The closest thing Apple has, for instance, is their ACN program (http://consultants.apple.com/), which isn't cheap at over $500 to join but still worthwhile for me. And you pay for all the software, albeit at greatly discounted rates (I paid $50 for my copy of MacOS X Server, unlimited-user). Microsoft gives you a ludicrous amount of stuff for the money - enough to run a full lab and model nearly anything you might want to run.
The only comparable program so far has been Novell's Linux partner program, which I also joined. It was free, and they've sent me all kinds of useful software and training materials, along with all the stuff I need to work my way through their certification program.
Let me give full props to the "get the Action Pack" idea. I'm a legit user of it (I run a small consulting/training company), but even if you freelance there's no real reason you can't use it.
Here's the requirements for subscribing to the Action Pack, and what you get for your money:
Requirement - register as Microsoft Partner. Basic membership is free, and qualifies you for both the Action Pack and for discounts on add-on services (like MSDN).
In the box you get:
XP (all versions including Media Edition) - 10 licenses 2003 Server, 2003 Server Web Edition, 2003 Server SBE - 1 each Office Pro - 10 licenses Virtual PC (Windows) - 10 licenses Exchange Server - 1 license Plus you get Visio, Project, System Builder Edition discs and licenses, service packs on CD plus slipstreamed install discs, selling materials, and all sorts of other server/client software.
The cost of the Action Pack is $299 per year - but I just got offered a renewal for $199 (which I immediately took). It was a no-brainer. They send you quarterly updates and occasional goodies as well.
The link to the Partner Program is https://partner.microsoft.com/partner - from there you can register and order it if you wanted to. For all the (usually justified) bashing Microsoft gets here, they do make it very easy and inexpensive for IT people to get into their product line. And that's part of the reason they still dominate the universe.
That's the definition that pretty much everyone uses. Within iPod generations, there have been multiple models and versions, but the case/control design has been the way the generations have been explained throughout.
The only things that don't fit neatly into those groupings are the Mini and (arguably) the iPod Photo - but the Photo is really just a 4G iPod beefed up for a color screen, and the Mini is kind of a "3.5G" iPod - it has the click wheel that wound up in the 4G.
Sadly, not. The spec for Doom 3 so far requires 64MB or more VRAM and a G5 processor - so it won't work on the Mini, eMac, older generation iMac G4, or any portables. Only on the iMac G5 or PowerMac G5 systems. The Radeon 9200 itself would probably just barely keep up if the Mini met the other specs - each new engine from id is mainly an excuse to sell new hardware as far as I can tell. nVidia and ATI should just directly fund Carmack any time he gets an idea for a new engine.
Of course, it wouldn't surprise me to see a G5-based eMac soon, but that's another Slashdot article when/if it happens...
The neat thing about the Mini is really (to me) that we can buy a system that's about the width and depth of a CD jewel case, and it's pretty much functionally equivalent to a top-of-the-line uniprocessor PowerMac from about 18 months ago. At about 20% of the price. That's a pretty nice application of Moore's Curve.
Before making a judgment on Summers' presidency, you need a lot more data. How many total tenured jobs have been available? How many candidates for the jobs were women? Were there years in which a higher proportion of jobs were offered to women? What fields were the tenured positions available in, and what percentage of those people are female?
The point I'm making here is that a couple of years does not necessarily make a trend. A couple of years in which women turn out not to get the available positions does not mean women are being systematically discriminated against by the Summers administration. And the fewer the jobs that are available, the more difference a couple of members of one gender will make in those statistics.
Most importantly, Harvard (as with any institution) has an obligation to try and hire the best candidates for each position - not just to balance the numbers of each sex. If it so happens that the best candidates are female, they should be hired. Same for men.
Microsoft is making moves like this to prevent the open source community from encroaching on them. They've got the lead, so they're the ones trying to keep the hounds at bay.
I'm not so sure they can pull it off, though - Windows won't be getting knocked off the perch any decade soon, but the competition is starting to show up on the radar screen again. As Microsoft's reactions show.
I've used it now on a few systems, and it does a reasonably effective job, especially given that it's still in development. At this point, I have yet to see any anti-spyware tool that covers all the bases and finds every single case of infestation.
What I have found works pretty well is this:
- Use Spybot initially to clean as much as possible. For best results, run it in safe mode.
- Then let the MS program take a run at whatever's left afterwards.
- Finally, run HijackThis to go through all the startup options and make sure nothing's left behind.
Once it's all cleaned up, the MS program does a pretty good job of blocking new infestations along with Spybot's resident IE blocker. I always set Spybot to auto-update and auto-immunize anything new on launch - since most people I've dealt with have trouble remembering to do all that manually. And most of them also switch at the very least to Firefox.
Or I just get them to switch to Macs... problem solved!
I actually don't think iWork is such a threat (at least right now). It doesn't include a spreadsheet, database, or drawing app - just a word processor and presentation program - the presentation program being an improvement to one that's been out a couple of years.
Granted, they're pretty sweet apps, but if you want a spreadsheet you still need Excel, and if you need a database you still need something else. It will probably make a small dent in Office sales - the people who were buying Office "Student-Teacher Edition" for $125 or so will now have a nice built-in alternative. Assuming they just needed Word.
Actually, it may have been asked in a tasteless manner, but it's a very relevant question overall. What affect will a mega-disaster of this nature have on a nation's economy? Sure, this event is horrifying and heartbreaking, but for the survivors life goes on somehow. It has to.
Even after 9/11, while the nation as a whole mourned, people were preparing for the reopening of the stock market, restoring phone and electric service to the downtown, and implementing their disaster contingency plans. A lot of people were wondering about and asking questions about the impact on the rest of the world.
When 9/11 happened, I was stranded in Atlanta at the old Interop. My experience was nothing compared to that of people who actually lost loved ones (my friend who I was traveling with had a cousin who had been scheduled to go on one of the doomed flights for work, but was sent to a different city that morning in a decision made the night before). It was horrible, but I still had to decide whether to leave town or not (we did - we went out to a friend's house in the suburbs), make the appropriate arrangements, and figure out how we would get home.
My point is when bad things happen, you notice, and you mourn, but for the survivors life must continue. And as part of that there are a lot of folks who, in between reading news accounts and maybe helping provide relief, are also worrying about whether they'll be able to get the goods for the upcoming fashion season.
It may not be classy, but it's human and it's an inevitable part of life. At least I haven't heard any jokes about it yet, thank goodness. And I hope I don't hear any for a long time.
I don't mean this in the "News for Nerds" sense - it's just that this is part of the normal business cycle. If you all recall, AMD took a lead during the "MHz wars" a few years ago when they hit 1 GHz first with the Athlon. Intel ramped up and recaptured that lead, but with an architecture that wasn't as efficient (the P4), but even though AMD retained the performance lead the little bit of momentum they brought into the mainstream desktop war was dissipated.
Plus, Intel had bet the farm on Rambus back then, and when that panned out they had to play catch-up. They eventually caught up. Then AMD hit a nive niche with the Athlon 64, but it's still a blip relatively speaking. Gaming is a niche market, and so are servers (though a bigger niche). Sure, AMD is the leader in gaming, but Intel has the volume, overall market share, and roadmap to compete where most of the dollars are. Plus Intel sells everything including the motherboard to vendors - AMD doesn't.
So Intel revamping a fab isn't really that big a deal. Heck, at the volumes they deal in, $2 billion is almost play money for them. We'll see how both companies manage the next transition - for market share to change appreciably towards either company will require either a major leap forward (not likely) or a major misstep (much more likely). Meanwhile, both companies will keep on pouring money into the fab for each now generation of chips, and continue until someone blinks.
If you don't like wifi in the park, don't use it. Simple answer.
That said, I think if the folks who manage the parks want to put antennas in the campground areas, fine. Or where there's public amenities. That makes perfect sense - it's a potential revenue stream, it's cheap to provide, and a lot of "campers" (which here in the U.S. often mean RV owners who want all the comforts of home wherever they travel) may take advantage of it. Even after reading the article, I really doubt they are referring to putting antennas everywhere in the parks - just in the areas that are developed. I don't think folks who go off into the wilderness with their sleeping bags and a pup tent are the target for wifi in the park.
And I don't see why it's an issue. Most campgrounds that would have this sort of service are designed for the vehicular set. The "back-to-the-woods" folks already stay far away from them. I could see how wifi in the deep woods would detract from the park experience, but that's not what this appears to be.
Then again, my idea of camping is staying in a hotel that doesn't offer room service. As much as I like the outdoors, I see it as a rather poor choice for sleeping. And RV's aren't much better in my eyes. So maybe my perspective is a tad skewed;-)
Yes, you can, but that's not so much the problem at Microsoft. The problem Microsoft has is that they designed an OS for ease of use and programming convenience, only to belatedly realize that the consequences of a lax security approach were severe. Now they have to try and shore up the security of an OS that wasn't designed for it, while retaining as much as they can of the prior attributes.
When you can design from a blank sheet of paper, it's a lot easier to have it all. Look at Apple's relative success. They weren't trying to design an OS that would be 100% compatible with virtually all the prior software. Instead, they were able to say "Here's a subset of our old API that we've decided to make work in this new world (Carbon). Apps that use Carbon should work. Older apps will probably work in what we've designed as a VM (Classic). Get with the program".
Of course, Apple had a fraction of the installed base and developers to piss off by doing that. If Microsoft decides to start over and just retain some form of Win32 compatibility layer, the chaos will make Apple's transition pale in comparison. In the long run, it would be worth it, but remember the size of the Windows installed base. That's a lot of inertia to overcome.
In general, the OSS community doesn't have these sort of problems in starting from a market share of near 0%. But with success will lie many of the same issues. So long as security is a priority from the beginning, it probably wouldn't be as bad an issue as it is for Microsoft today.
Most of the people I have moved to Firefox love it. Some prefer IE. With SP2 (and with all the other patches, and with automatic updates on, and blah blah), IE is less of a risk than it used to be - but it's still not as good as Firefox.
On the other hand, there are legitimate uses for ActiveX (corporate apps, Windows Update and Office Update, legit uses by legit websites) that just can't be dealt with using Firefox. So if you avoid IE entirely, they are closed to you (I know, there's an ActiveX plugin - but that defeats the purpose of avoiding ActiveX whenever possible).
Basically, though, the arguments for Firefox are better speed (usually), much better security by default, and a nicer browsing experience for most users. If a user doesn't like that, oh well. But don't offer to clean up after them if they won't take the right precautions when using their PC.
Of course, I can say this - my whole family relies on Safari (we're all Mac users in our home lives). And a lot of the money I make in my support business is from folks who just won't listen to my advice, use IE, don't keep up-to-date, and then wonder why things work badly.
Apple will happily let you play any and all AAC and MP3 files that you obtain through any source at all - provided they don't include DRM.
If you want to play files with DRM, you get Apple. If other vendors want to play their files on iPods, just provide them without DRM, and they'll work fine. Problem solved.
What? Real wanted to have their cake and eat it, too? Apple broke it. Wah.
The day Apple makes it so that you can only play AAC files bought from the iTMS or that were ripped from iTunes is the day I get upset.
Until then, I'll keep rocking out to all the stuff I put on my iPod!
I considered one of those options, but I'm using Cingular for my voice (as well as my wife and her parents - we're on a FamilyTalk plan). I figured I could save some money most months if I went to a minutes-based plan, but I'm doing this as a work thing and I like the predictability, since I never know whether I'll have access by any other means. Until I have a staff someday back at my office to keep track of things for me, it's just me. So I could be on it for 25 hours, or no hours. It all depends on the firewall policies wherever I may be that day...
But whatever billing plan the poster chooses, it's still the same service, and pretty darned good. Have you been able to try the EV-DO yet? From those who've used it so far, I hear it's the absolute shiznitz. Rumor has it Boston gets switched over in about another month.
I run MacOS X, not Linux (I've got an aluminum PowerBook 15"), but I'm at least familiar with the Cingular and Verizon data services. I tried to use T-Mobile's service a year or so ago with my old T68i phone, but never got it working. But that was also in the 10.2 days - 10.3 is slicker.
Cingular's service over a cell phone is called MEdia net, and unlimited GPRS usage is an extra $20 per month. Speeds are poor (about a perceived 70k at peak), but you can use it virtually anywhere you get a GSM signal. I used it with my old T610 phone via Bluetooth, and it was a useful "last resort" way out to the Internet.
Verizon gives you all you can eat of their data network (currently 1xRTT in most areas - about 80-140k on average) for $80 per month. They're in the process of upgrading that to 300k baseline (what they call EV-DO) with bursts over a meg. They sell a PC card to do the work for you that supports both networks. Check their website to see what speed is offered where - currently I'm at the slower speed here in Boston. However, even the slower speed is faster in real-life performance than Cingular's was.
I'm pretty sure both can be used with Linux, though I can't tell you how. MacOS X has the necessary drivers for both the Audiovox 5220 card that Verizon provides, and for the PPP scripts needed to use your cellphone on Cingular's network.
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Although it happened pretty rarely to me (maybe once every couple of weeks), that usually solved it for me when it happened, too (15" Aluminum G4). Hopefully 10.3.8 fixes it for good, though.
Sure, Firefox will be attacked. But the implications of a successful attack are much less likely to disrupt the whole system - Firefox is a self-contained application with pretty good controls for avoiding non-trusted XPIs from being installed. IE is really just the front-end for a whole series of system-level tools that are, for better or for worse, completely linked in to the OS itself.
So the consequences of an IE exploit are typically far worse than the consequences of a Firefox exploit. This is just how it works with modular applications instead of system-level everything.
Of course, if you run ActiveX within Firefox, all bets are off...
If you have a good, reliable broadband connection from an ISP like Speakeasy, then you can probably set up a small server and handle your own e-mail and hosting. So long as you don't need rocket science, you'll get really good results. You just need to have an ISP that gives you a static IP (ideally) and has an AUP that allows you to run servers.
If you do that, then good options for the hosting OS itself would be either the SME Server (from http://www.contribs.org/), or the new version of Clark Connect that just came out this week (http://www.clarkconnect.com/ - I use the commercial version for my home server). If you're not serving up tons of dynamic content a fairly small PC and relatively low-bandwidth DSL line will give you really good results. I also use ZoneEdit for my DNS and backup MX service - that way with backup MX even if I'm down for a while I won't miss any mail and I'll just get it despooled when I come back up.
Another option potentially would be to use a Mac Mini with the 10-user version of MacOS X Server - that'd give you a nice turnkey server for about $1k. But it won't give you spam controls, which both the Linux distros I mentioned above will do. And day-to-day admin of both SME and ClarkConnect are real easy - in fact, ClarkConnect will take care of automatically providing all your updates when you buy the commercial (and cheap) version. They'll also do e-mail antivirus and give you what ZoneEdit offers as an ASP service - though it's not cheap.
Seriously? There's a couple of reasons. First off, Dell (or PC vendor X) does upgrades/updates differently from Apple. When Intel ships a newer, faster chip, Dell just slipstreams it into their existing models/lineups. Also, Dell offers so many different models that a change to one isn't really a news event. Besides, every other PC vendor offers something equivalent - Dell's only innovation is in the supply chain (and making it hyper-efficient). They don't actually make anything, they just package it into a cheap beige box.
Slashdot does cover all the new Intel and AMD announcements, which means that to run a feature when Dell puts it into a system would just really be covering the same story twice (not that Slashdot doesn't routinely cover things twice).
The difference is that Apple actually engineers their own products and OS. Also, they upgrade less often, and then when they do they upgrade a whole family of products simultaneously. That helps make it newsworthy. Yes, the speed improvement is a whopping 167 MHz per config (or only 1x on the multiplier), but when they revved the PowerBooks today they also added features (like dual-DVI support and the funky new scrollpad), changed video cards, and upgraded other stuff like Bluetooth.
Plus, Apple is Apple. Dell is just another PC vendor. If Dell is doing an upgrade, chances are all the other PC vendors are putting the same feature in their equivalent model at the exact same time. Like I said above, the news is when Intel or AMD introduce the upgrade that everybody then puts into their product lines, not when Dell does theirs.
The problem is, the Mac was designed to be consistent. One-button mice, one-button trackpads. And nothing is supposed to require more than one button as a result.
If only PowerBooks were equipped with two buttons, it'd have an impact on that consistency.
My own opinion? I use a Logitech RF wireless keyboard and mouse on my iMac at home, and at the office I use an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and a Microsoft RF wireless mouse with my PowerBook. And I keep a Kensington Bluetooth mouse in my carry bag so that if I'm settling in for a long job on a site, I have my good old two-button mouse. But when I'm on the road, or if I'm just hanging out in my living room trying to do a little work, I just use the single built-in button and I don't mind it too much.
My wife, on the other hand, also has an iMac, and she is very happy with the single button mouse that came with it. When she uses her Compaq laptop that her company gave her, she hates the two-button mouse.
When they say that, they are saying that if you buy an Apple memory upgrade that's the only way they will sell it to you. However, if you feel like installing your own memory in the system, you will not void your warranty by installing the third-party memory provided you don't break the mini when doing so .
That's an important distinction. Once you've installed the memory, that memory is not covered by the Apple warranty, and if you break the mini while installing it you can void the mini's warranty. But let's say you install your own 1GB DIMM and all goes swimmingly well. Then, a couple of months later, the hard drive dies.
That hard drive repair is covered by Apple's warranty. They have to - there's a handy law that says so. But if the DIMM you installed is causing the Mac to crash, well, you better hope your RAM provider gave you a warranty for the DIMM - because Apple won't replace it (duh).
Believe it or not, o moderators, that wasn't a troll. Whoever modded my parent down is just an anti-Mac radical fanatic. A mini is a very good candidate for use in a kitchen - provided you don't store it on the counter where it would be exposed to the elements. But no PC is really good for the job, either. You need to go under-cabinet for the safest use.
The only other really viable candidate for the job besides a Mac mini is one of the super-slim Mini-ITX boxes (I've actually got one of those that I use as a server at home). But to run nicely in an environment like a kitchen, you need either fanless or minimal fans, and you can't put much horsepower into one of those and run fanless (mine's a VIA C3 processor at 533 MHz). And even the super-slim Mini-ITX chassis is way bigger than the Mac mini.
Audreys were good for this application, but I think they're too limited for what they are. I have a friend who liked to hack them to be useful - finally he just packed it in and reworked his cabinetry to stash a Dell inside, with a wireless keyboard and mouse and a flat panel on the counter.
You can go with a touchscreen and a waterproof USB keyboard, stash the mouse to the side for when you need it, and strap a mini under the cupboard. It'll fit nicely and pretty darn unobtrusively assuming the cabinets are deep enough to mount lights underneath.
You can mount the touchscreen alongside, on a swing mount that can let them stow it underneath the cupboard when not using the computer. I saw something similar done last week with a TV on This Old House.
They self-sign it for some reason without a valid root CA. No big deal, though. You can just accept it and then everything works fine, regardless of browser. I even used Safari to sign up, if only for the irony.
Yes - it's a subscription agreement. The software doesn't time-bomb or anything, but legally you're SOL if you don't renew.
That said, for the value I get from it I'd still have renewed even if they hadn't given me a $100 discount on the renewal. The money I've made (legitimately) from being able to set things up and learn them, not to mention simulate customer issues on spare hardware I have, makes it a great investment for me. It you do IT work on a for-hire or consulting basis and you deal with Windows it's a must-have.
The closest thing Apple has, for instance, is their ACN program (http://consultants.apple.com/), which isn't cheap at over $500 to join but still worthwhile for me. And you pay for all the software, albeit at greatly discounted rates (I paid $50 for my copy of MacOS X Server, unlimited-user). Microsoft gives you a ludicrous amount of stuff for the money - enough to run a full lab and model nearly anything you might want to run.
The only comparable program so far has been Novell's Linux partner program, which I also joined. It was free, and they've sent me all kinds of useful software and training materials, along with all the stuff I need to work my way through their certification program.
Let me give full props to the "get the Action Pack" idea. I'm a legit user of it (I run a small consulting/training company), but even if you freelance there's no real reason you can't use it.
Here's the requirements for subscribing to the Action Pack, and what you get for your money:
Requirement - register as Microsoft Partner. Basic membership is free, and qualifies you for both the Action Pack and for discounts on add-on services (like MSDN).
In the box you get:
XP (all versions including Media Edition) - 10 licenses
2003 Server, 2003 Server Web Edition, 2003 Server SBE - 1 each
Office Pro - 10 licenses
Virtual PC (Windows) - 10 licenses
Exchange Server - 1 license
Plus you get Visio, Project, System Builder Edition discs and licenses, service packs on CD plus slipstreamed install discs, selling materials, and all sorts of other server/client software.
The cost of the Action Pack is $299 per year - but I just got offered a renewal for $199 (which I immediately took). It was a no-brainer. They send you quarterly updates and occasional goodies as well.
The link to the Partner Program is https://partner.microsoft.com/partner - from there you can register and order it if you wanted to. For all the (usually justified) bashing Microsoft gets here, they do make it very easy and inexpensive for IT people to get into their product line. And that's part of the reason they still dominate the universe.
That's the definition that pretty much everyone uses. Within iPod generations, there have been multiple models and versions, but the case/control design has been the way the generations have been explained throughout.
The only things that don't fit neatly into those groupings are the Mini and (arguably) the iPod Photo - but the Photo is really just a 4G iPod beefed up for a color screen, and the Mini is kind of a "3.5G" iPod - it has the click wheel that wound up in the 4G.
Sadly, not. The spec for Doom 3 so far requires 64MB or more VRAM and a G5 processor - so it won't work on the Mini, eMac, older generation iMac G4, or any portables. Only on the iMac G5 or PowerMac G5 systems. The Radeon 9200 itself would probably just barely keep up if the Mini met the other specs - each new engine from id is mainly an excuse to sell new hardware as far as I can tell. nVidia and ATI should just directly fund Carmack any time he gets an idea for a new engine.
Of course, it wouldn't surprise me to see a G5-based eMac soon, but that's another Slashdot article when/if it happens...
The neat thing about the Mini is really (to me) that we can buy a system that's about the width and depth of a CD jewel case, and it's pretty much functionally equivalent to a top-of-the-line uniprocessor PowerMac from about 18 months ago. At about 20% of the price. That's a pretty nice application of Moore's Curve.
Before making a judgment on Summers' presidency, you need a lot more data. How many total tenured jobs have been available? How many candidates for the jobs were women? Were there years in which a higher proportion of jobs were offered to women? What fields were the tenured positions available in, and what percentage of those people are female?
The point I'm making here is that a couple of years does not necessarily make a trend. A couple of years in which women turn out not to get the available positions does not mean women are being systematically discriminated against by the Summers administration. And the fewer the jobs that are available, the more difference a couple of members of one gender will make in those statistics.
Most importantly, Harvard (as with any institution) has an obligation to try and hire the best candidates for each position - not just to balance the numbers of each sex. If it so happens that the best candidates are female, they should be hired. Same for men.
Microsoft is making moves like this to prevent the open source community from encroaching on them. They've got the lead, so they're the ones trying to keep the hounds at bay.
I'm not so sure they can pull it off, though - Windows won't be getting knocked off the perch any decade soon, but the competition is starting to show up on the radar screen again. As Microsoft's reactions show.
I've used it now on a few systems, and it does a reasonably effective job, especially given that it's still in development. At this point, I have yet to see any anti-spyware tool that covers all the bases and finds every single case of infestation.
What I have found works pretty well is this:
- Use Spybot initially to clean as much as possible. For best results, run it in safe mode.
- Then let the MS program take a run at whatever's left afterwards.
- Finally, run HijackThis to go through all the startup options and make sure nothing's left behind.
Once it's all cleaned up, the MS program does a pretty good job of blocking new infestations along with Spybot's resident IE blocker. I always set Spybot to auto-update and auto-immunize anything new on launch - since most people I've dealt with have trouble remembering to do all that manually. And most of them also switch at the very least to Firefox.
Or I just get them to switch to Macs... problem solved!
I actually don't think iWork is such a threat (at least right now). It doesn't include a spreadsheet, database, or drawing app - just a word processor and presentation program - the presentation program being an improvement to one that's been out a couple of years.
Granted, they're pretty sweet apps, but if you want a spreadsheet you still need Excel, and if you need a database you still need something else. It will probably make a small dent in Office sales - the people who were buying Office "Student-Teacher Edition" for $125 or so will now have a nice built-in alternative. Assuming they just needed Word.
Actually, it may have been asked in a tasteless manner, but it's a very relevant question overall. What affect will a mega-disaster of this nature have on a nation's economy? Sure, this event is horrifying and heartbreaking, but for the survivors life goes on somehow. It has to.
Even after 9/11, while the nation as a whole mourned, people were preparing for the reopening of the stock market, restoring phone and electric service to the downtown, and implementing their disaster contingency plans. A lot of people were wondering about and asking questions about the impact on the rest of the world.
When 9/11 happened, I was stranded in Atlanta at the old Interop. My experience was nothing compared to that of people who actually lost loved ones (my friend who I was traveling with had a cousin who had been scheduled to go on one of the doomed flights for work, but was sent to a different city that morning in a decision made the night before). It was horrible, but I still had to decide whether to leave town or not (we did - we went out to a friend's house in the suburbs), make the appropriate arrangements, and figure out how we would get home.
My point is when bad things happen, you notice, and you mourn, but for the survivors life must continue. And as part of that there are a lot of folks who, in between reading news accounts and maybe helping provide relief, are also worrying about whether they'll be able to get the goods for the upcoming fashion season.
It may not be classy, but it's human and it's an inevitable part of life. At least I haven't heard any jokes about it yet, thank goodness. And I hope I don't hear any for a long time.
I don't mean this in the "News for Nerds" sense - it's just that this is part of the normal business cycle. If you all recall, AMD took a lead during the "MHz wars" a few years ago when they hit 1 GHz first with the Athlon. Intel ramped up and recaptured that lead, but with an architecture that wasn't as efficient (the P4), but even though AMD retained the performance lead the little bit of momentum they brought into the mainstream desktop war was dissipated.
Plus, Intel had bet the farm on Rambus back then, and when that panned out they had to play catch-up. They eventually caught up. Then AMD hit a nive niche with the Athlon 64, but it's still a blip relatively speaking. Gaming is a niche market, and so are servers (though a bigger niche). Sure, AMD is the leader in gaming, but Intel has the volume, overall market share, and roadmap to compete where most of the dollars are. Plus Intel sells everything including the motherboard to vendors - AMD doesn't.
So Intel revamping a fab isn't really that big a deal. Heck, at the volumes they deal in, $2 billion is almost play money for them. We'll see how both companies manage the next transition - for market share to change appreciably towards either company will require either a major leap forward (not likely) or a major misstep (much more likely). Meanwhile, both companies will keep on pouring money into the fab for each now generation of chips, and continue until someone blinks.
If you don't like wifi in the park, don't use it. Simple answer.
;-)
That said, I think if the folks who manage the parks want to put antennas in the campground areas, fine. Or where there's public amenities. That makes perfect sense - it's a potential revenue stream, it's cheap to provide, and a lot of "campers" (which here in the U.S. often mean RV owners who want all the comforts of home wherever they travel) may take advantage of it. Even after reading the article, I really doubt they are referring to putting antennas everywhere in the parks - just in the areas that are developed. I don't think folks who go off into the wilderness with their sleeping bags and a pup tent are the target for wifi in the park.
And I don't see why it's an issue. Most campgrounds that would have this sort of service are designed for the vehicular set. The "back-to-the-woods" folks already stay far away from them. I could see how wifi in the deep woods would detract from the park experience, but that's not what this appears to be.
Then again, my idea of camping is staying in a hotel that doesn't offer room service. As much as I like the outdoors, I see it as a rather poor choice for sleeping. And RV's aren't much better in my eyes. So maybe my perspective is a tad skewed
Yes, you can, but that's not so much the problem at Microsoft. The problem Microsoft has is that they designed an OS for ease of use and programming convenience, only to belatedly realize that the consequences of a lax security approach were severe. Now they have to try and shore up the security of an OS that wasn't designed for it, while retaining as much as they can of the prior attributes.
When you can design from a blank sheet of paper, it's a lot easier to have it all. Look at Apple's relative success. They weren't trying to design an OS that would be 100% compatible with virtually all the prior software. Instead, they were able to say "Here's a subset of our old API that we've decided to make work in this new world (Carbon). Apps that use Carbon should work. Older apps will probably work in what we've designed as a VM (Classic). Get with the program".
Of course, Apple had a fraction of the installed base and developers to piss off by doing that. If Microsoft decides to start over and just retain some form of Win32 compatibility layer, the chaos will make Apple's transition pale in comparison. In the long run, it would be worth it, but remember the size of the Windows installed base. That's a lot of inertia to overcome.
In general, the OSS community doesn't have these sort of problems in starting from a market share of near 0%. But with success will lie many of the same issues. So long as security is a priority from the beginning, it probably wouldn't be as bad an issue as it is for Microsoft today.
Most of the people I have moved to Firefox love it. Some prefer IE. With SP2 (and with all the other patches, and with automatic updates on, and blah blah), IE is less of a risk than it used to be - but it's still not as good as Firefox.
On the other hand, there are legitimate uses for ActiveX (corporate apps, Windows Update and Office Update, legit uses by legit websites) that just can't be dealt with using Firefox. So if you avoid IE entirely, they are closed to you (I know, there's an ActiveX plugin - but that defeats the purpose of avoiding ActiveX whenever possible).
Basically, though, the arguments for Firefox are better speed (usually), much better security by default, and a nicer browsing experience for most users. If a user doesn't like that, oh well. But don't offer to clean up after them if they won't take the right precautions when using their PC.
Of course, I can say this - my whole family relies on Safari (we're all Mac users in our home lives). And a lot of the money I make in my support business is from folks who just won't listen to my advice, use IE, don't keep up-to-date, and then wonder why things work badly.
Apple will happily let you play any and all AAC and MP3 files that you obtain through any source at all - provided they don't include DRM.
If you want to play files with DRM, you get Apple. If other vendors want to play their files on iPods, just provide them without DRM, and they'll work fine. Problem solved.
What? Real wanted to have their cake and eat it, too? Apple broke it. Wah.
The day Apple makes it so that you can only play AAC files bought from the iTMS or that were ripped from iTunes is the day I get upset.
Until then, I'll keep rocking out to all the stuff I put on my iPod!
I considered one of those options, but I'm using Cingular for my voice (as well as my wife and her parents - we're on a FamilyTalk plan). I figured I could save some money most months if I went to a minutes-based plan, but I'm doing this as a work thing and I like the predictability, since I never know whether I'll have access by any other means. Until I have a staff someday back at my office to keep track of things for me, it's just me. So I could be on it for 25 hours, or no hours. It all depends on the firewall policies wherever I may be that day...
But whatever billing plan the poster chooses, it's still the same service, and pretty darned good. Have you been able to try the EV-DO yet? From those who've used it so far, I hear it's the absolute shiznitz. Rumor has it Boston gets switched over in about another month.
I run MacOS X, not Linux (I've got an aluminum PowerBook 15"), but I'm at least familiar with the Cingular and Verizon data services. I tried to use T-Mobile's service a year or so ago with my old T68i phone, but never got it working. But that was also in the 10.2 days - 10.3 is slicker.
Cingular's service over a cell phone is called MEdia net, and unlimited GPRS usage is an extra $20 per month. Speeds are poor (about a perceived 70k at peak), but you can use it virtually anywhere you get a GSM signal. I used it with my old T610 phone via Bluetooth, and it was a useful "last resort" way out to the Internet.
Verizon gives you all you can eat of their data network (currently 1xRTT in most areas - about 80-140k on average) for $80 per month. They're in the process of upgrading that to 300k baseline (what they call EV-DO) with bursts over a meg. They sell a PC card to do the work for you that supports both networks. Check their website to see what speed is offered where - currently I'm at the slower speed here in Boston. However, even the slower speed is faster in real-life performance than Cingular's was.
I'm pretty sure both can be used with Linux, though I can't tell you how. MacOS X has the necessary drivers for both the Audiovox 5220 card that Verizon provides, and for the PPP scripts needed to use your cellphone on Cingular's network.