you might want to take a look at pluto home, plays nice with * and media servers also UPB is way too costly, it's cheaper to properly install x10 (dedicated, filtered circuits for x10 power elements and filters built-in in every outlet) at the cost of UPB you'll get a chilling effect "then will just install it where we need it, not just everywhere", makes the system a lot more inflexible and pricey in the long run
how can no one else have suggested FreeJ ? http://freej.dyne.org/ it's perfect for the job ! it's a scriptable realtime video mixer
you add media (text, an image, a video, a video stream, a video capture card or a dvb card) each is a layer you can position, resize, change tranaparence or any of the layers
it's the perfect video frontend for a video station !
so first you serve us the "don't like it take your business elsewhere" crap
ok, that's fine
but uh oh , that only works in a free market, under the 20 more years every 20 year copyright system only disney can sell you disney copyrighted material.
where the frack are you supposed to take your business to when you have a governement protected never expiring monopoly ?
yeah , but the new SOAD album is also a big fat 36 minutes , and some of the song have turned way too mainstream (well , ok mainstreamer , SOAD has been mainstream for a long while)
it's easier to fix the hardware than to fix the user
also the user, being a dumb user, will just pay up for the new hardware anyway for the same reason he just couldn't help but click yes to that gator activex dialog to get to his porn faster (not because he can't think, but because he's too lazy too think)
Funny thing is that 10K EUD will get you 115x 200GB seagate drives or 23 terabytes , making harddrives by far more economical than any tape drive on the market (in $ per gb (and with intellligent storage more space always = more reliable thanks to FEC))
that's not the point , you pay the levy so you have the right to share music , just because you used your right only once this year the levy thing is bad
you still pay for health care even if you didn't get sick this year ? and I'm sure you are alright with that and it is an "invisible fee" buried in the income tax (or so "they" would like you to believe (income tax only pays the interest on the debt , nothing else))
but yes , you shouldn't have to pay the levy for this sort of usage , but it is impossible to make sure that those who shouldn't have to pay the levy , don't it could create a loophole , or create some kind of management nightmare
oh and btw , you probably didn't pay the levy anyway;) , there is an actual distinction between data cd and audio cd , determined by the packaging , today , you're going to pay 1$ a cd if it has a levy , and 20 cent if it doesn't have a levy (rule of thumb is 10pack with jewels you pay the levy , 25 50 and 100 cd spindles you don't)
overall we would still be getting an OK deal if we really had to pay the levy , and we're getting a fair deal not paying it (it doesn't cost anything to the "artist" that I make a copy of his cd , and he doesn't even know it , and it's unlikely I would've paid it anyway , it's my policy to not pay more than 2$ for plastic discs , it's free or I'll live without it (listening to music isn't exactly a need , jeez!))
after about a year , most hardware is equally obsolete
last year I bought a FX5900 256mb with all the whistle bells and kitchen sinks , I paid the damn thing 680$ thinking half-life 2 was just around the corner (about 5 days before they pushed the release date a lot , I think it was mid-september 2003) today this card this card , or the low end FX5900 that was half the price is going to get you very closely the same result than my card , heck , even a FX5700 that was only 150$ at the time is hard to tell from my card performance wise in today's games
If I had been able to predict the the futur I would have known it was a much better deal to pay 150$ every 3 months than to get this card , but the thing is it would have been the same if I waited a full year before spending my 150$ and get a 6600 today
same thing with CPUs and just about anything else
2 years ago you could pay about 200$ for a athlonxp 1800 or 145$ for a athlonxp 1500 , looking back on this it's safe to say that the difference between those 2 cpus is insignifiant , same thing with today's 2200 sempron or barton 3000+
with computers below the 300$ CANADIAN dollars they have become disposable , you can argue all you want , but in a year in a half your 1500$ pentium 4 with ati 9800pro is going to be just as obsolete as my 350$ AMD 2200 box with a GF4MX , but the guy who bought the 350$ still has 1150$ to get a new computer , in fact he could just buy 4 of them and give 2 of them to his kids and one to his wife , and still get roughly the same the enjoyment out of it
also the argument that you have to give 2 years warranty doesn't matter , because the 300$ box has 2 years warranty anyway , and on top of that biostar hardware is not less reliable than MSI or ASUS or AOPEN... sure you could get a 200$ computer with ECS/PCCHIPS/AMPTRON/FIC/ASROCK/SYNTAX and that sort of crap , then reliability becomes an issue , but anyway , with the entire box the price of any one major component of your box , I hardly see how that could be more of a problem to support the presumably less reliable box (based solely on the fact that it's cheaper)
also with the razor sharp margin you can make on computers here , you'd have a hard time moving the deluxe overpriced stuff when the ecominical stuff does the just just as well
and trying to compensate low volume by making it back on consumable wouldn't work here , you can get 100dvd spindles for 25$ here (that's a big 3$ profit) same thing with cartridge refills , only super-high volume places actually profit on cd/dvd media and ink , they actually use computers to lure customers into buying ink, cds, dvds, extended warranties and cables
the time of the computer that you keep for 5 years is over , last year's top computer is just as obsolete as last year's cheapest bargain , they are both still useful and they can still be used to access the internet , watch movies , do word processing , just like any descent pentium 200 , but manufacturer managed to lure customers into thinking they will be able to do more with a "better" computer when in fact the difference is minimal , they all suck equally
you utterly underestimate the low-end graphics cards, the FX5200 is roughly the equivalent a of GF3Ti , it can run anything recent just fine and cost only about 60$ , you're the one being dishonest telling your customers the "need" a 9800pro to play any recent game , at all
the 9800pro , the cheapest model I can find is this one MSI RADEON RX9800PRO-TD128 128M (TV/DVI) 260 260$ , you put 60$ more and you get a full computer
you overestimate the need of your customers and underestimate the hardware , have you actually tried running a FX5200 with recent game , if you set realistic settings , (btw , if you thing your customers can tell between 800x600 and 1280x1024 in a game , you're only kidding yourself , I've seen people use 1500$ computers and not even bother to adjust the game settings) , you propose a low-end card then work your way up if you can gauge they actually could use the extra video power , not doing so is selling your customers something they don't need , how's that for being thruthful to your customers eh?
now this new card probably beats the pants off a FX5200 or even a TI4800 , you didn't say the ti4800 was pure junk only fit to display powerpoint on tv last year now did you ?
sure the bulk of computers are being bought at big chains even if they offer the lowest spec computer at the price of you're descent computer , but customers don't know that , they don't have your perspective , they only bought one computer in 2 year how could they tell the small shop is a better deal than the big chain blasting them 24/7 on tv ? surely bigchainINC is a better deal , they didn't get this big fucking people up now did they ? and everyone know small shops are always trying to screw you over selling you stuff you don't need , like those damn mecanics !;)
oh well , that's it for my pointless rant , it's going nowhere fast, I'm so happy I dumped that sh*t job a year ago !
you work in computer repair ? for what , 2 weeks ?!? or in your basement ?
you think brand names mean anything ? customers can tell a computer from a monitor , as far as they're concerned AMD AthlonXP Sempron 2200+ , AMD AthlonXP Barton 3000+ and AMD Athlon64 3200+ with 1mb cache are all the same thing , and they don't even know they have one in their computers people who says "I want to play games" they get a mid-range card (nvidia 6600) the rest the get a GF4MX or a FX5200 which is between 30$ and 80$ but that is wasted money 90% of the time , via's on-board video is more than enough for the vast majority of computers many people get printers and never print , 19" monitors that spend their entire live at 800x600 , 120GB hard drives that never see more than 1GB of data
when you design a PC , you make it so it will fulfill the needs of the majority , anything more is a waste of money , a loss of profits for you , and a loss of sales because your computers seem more expensive for what is "the same thing" in the customer's eye
you say the GF4MX and FX5200 is crap , to you maybe , but for most it's better they ever had , need for speed underground 2 , doom 3 and half-life 2 run just fine with that card , and 95% of the customers couldn't tell the difference between half-life 2 running under a GF4MX and 700$ 6800
you must like those guys who aren't satisfied with on-board anything and just have to install an extra network card, sound card , serial-ata raid card and f*cking usb card , because "on-board is so lame!"
just because you've been fixing your buddies' computers doesn't mean their configuration represent even a tiny fraction of what's out there , and what will do the job for most customers
why the hell people need extra software for this ? it's been part of windows since version 3 and probably before ! and linux has had the find command for even longer !
Slashdot Mirror
Probably using [UWB](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband) and the full band between 3.1 and 10 ghz at very low power.
you might want to take a look at pluto home, plays nice with * and media servers
also UPB is way too costly, it's cheaper to properly install x10 (dedicated, filtered circuits for x10 power elements and filters built-in in every outlet)
at the cost of UPB you'll get a chilling effect "then will just install it where we need it, not just everywhere", makes the system a lot more inflexible and pricey in the long run
how can no one else have suggested FreeJ ? http://freej.dyne.org/
it's perfect for the job ! it's a scriptable realtime video mixer
you add media (text, an image, a video, a video stream, a video capture card or a dvb card) each is a layer
you can position, resize, change tranaparence or any of the layers
it's the perfect video frontend for a video station !
so first you serve us the
"don't like it take your business elsewhere" crap
ok, that's fine
but uh oh , that only works in a free market, under the 20 more years every 20 year copyright system only disney can sell you disney copyrighted material.
where the frack are you supposed to take your business to when you have a governement protected never expiring monopoly ?
put that in you free market pipe and smoke it !
yes, that was the joke Ted
now they don't just skip reading the article before posting , but they don't even read the posts !!!
yeah , but the new SOAD album is also a big fat 36 minutes , and some of the song have turned way too mainstream (well , ok mainstreamer , SOAD has been mainstream for a long while)
So you swallowed DeBeers propaganda whole !?
oh well , can't have a wedding without a fist-sized diamond pickaxed off a mine by the beautiful innocence of a 7yrs old kid now can we ?
yeah , we got him too .. . NO CARRIER
127.0.0.1
that bastard is going down !!!!1!{#^G.
``I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.''
smart users is something we don't have
it's easier to fix the hardware than to fix the user
also the user, being a dumb user, will just pay up for the new hardware anyway for the same reason he just couldn't help but click yes to that gator activex dialog to get to his porn faster (not because he can't think, but because he's too lazy too think)
Funny thing is that 10K EUD will get you 115x 200GB seagate drives or 23 terabytes , making harddrives by far more economical than any tape drive on the market (in $ per gb (and with intellligent storage more space always = more reliable thanks to FEC))
that's not the point , you pay the levy so you have the right to share music , just because you used your right only once this year the levy thing is bad
;) , there is an actual distinction between data cd and audio cd , determined by the packaging , today , you're going to pay 1$ a cd if it has a levy , and 20 cent if it doesn't have a levy (rule of thumb is 10pack with jewels you pay the levy , 25 50 and 100 cd spindles you don't)
you still pay for health care even if you didn't get sick this year ? and I'm sure you are alright with that and it is an "invisible fee" buried in the income tax (or so "they" would like you to believe (income tax only pays the interest on the debt , nothing else))
but yes , you shouldn't have to pay the levy for this sort of usage , but it is impossible to make sure that those who shouldn't have to pay the levy , don't
it could create a loophole , or create some kind of management nightmare
oh and btw , you probably didn't pay the levy anyway
overall we would still be getting an OK deal if we really had to pay the levy , and we're getting a fair deal not paying it (it doesn't cost anything to the "artist" that I make a copy of his cd , and he doesn't even know it , and it's unlikely I would've paid it anyway , it's my policy to not pay more than 2$ for plastic discs , it's free or I'll live without it (listening to music isn't exactly a need , jeez!))
after about a year , most hardware is equally obsolete
... sure you could get a 200$ computer with ECS/PCCHIPS/AMPTRON/FIC/ASROCK/SYNTAX and that sort of crap , then reliability becomes an issue , but anyway , with the entire box the price of any one major component of your box , I hardly see how that could be more of a problem to support the presumably less reliable box (based solely on the fact that it's cheaper)
last year I bought a FX5900 256mb with all the whistle bells and kitchen sinks , I paid the damn thing 680$ thinking half-life 2 was just around the corner (about 5 days before they pushed the release date a lot , I think it was mid-september 2003)
today this card this card , or the low end FX5900 that was half the price is going to get you very closely the same result than my card , heck , even a FX5700 that was only 150$ at the time is hard to tell from my card performance wise in today's games
If I had been able to predict the the futur I would have known it was a much better deal to pay 150$ every 3 months than to get this card , but the thing is it would have been the same if I waited a full year before spending my 150$ and get a 6600 today
same thing with CPUs and just about anything else
2 years ago you could pay about 200$ for a athlonxp 1800 or 145$ for a athlonxp 1500 , looking back on this it's safe to say that the difference between those 2 cpus is insignifiant , same thing with today's 2200 sempron or barton 3000+
with computers below the 300$ CANADIAN dollars they have become disposable , you can argue all you want , but in a year in a half your 1500$ pentium 4 with ati 9800pro is going to be just as obsolete as my 350$ AMD 2200 box with a GF4MX , but the guy who bought the 350$ still has 1150$ to get a new computer , in fact he could just buy 4 of them and give 2 of them to his kids and one to his wife , and still get roughly the same the enjoyment out of it
also the argument that you have to give 2 years warranty doesn't matter , because the 300$ box has 2 years warranty anyway , and on top of that biostar hardware is not less reliable than MSI or ASUS or AOPEN
also with the razor sharp margin you can make on computers here , you'd have a hard time moving the deluxe overpriced stuff when the ecominical stuff does the just just as well
and trying to compensate low volume by making it back on consumable wouldn't work here , you can get 100dvd spindles for 25$ here (that's a big 3$ profit) same thing with cartridge refills , only super-high volume places actually profit on cd/dvd media and ink , they actually use computers to lure customers into buying ink, cds, dvds, extended warranties and cables
the time of the computer that you keep for 5 years is over , last year's top computer is just as obsolete as last year's cheapest bargain , they are both still useful and they can still be used to access the internet , watch movies , do word processing , just like any descent pentium 200 , but manufacturer managed to lure customers into thinking they will be able to do more with a "better" computer when in fact the difference is minimal , they all suck equally
you utterly underestimate the low-end graphics cards, the FX5200 is roughly the equivalent a of GF3Ti , it can run anything recent just fine and cost only about 60$ , you're the one being dishonest telling your customers the "need" a 9800pro to play any recent game , at all
;)
the 9800pro , the cheapest model I can find is this one
MSI RADEON RX9800PRO-TD128 128M (TV/DVI) 260
260$ , you put 60$ more and you get a full computer
(
BIOSTAR M7VIG W/SEMPRON 2200+ V/L/AUD $113
256MB DDR PC400 $45
CHENBRO PC80569 M.ATX W/270W (BK/SL) $70
Seagate 80GB 7200 $73
PAN 1.44 FD $11
LG 52X INT. IDE $16
) = $328 (all CND btw)
you overestimate the need of your customers and underestimate the hardware , have you actually tried running a FX5200 with recent game , if you set realistic settings , (btw , if you thing your customers can tell between 800x600 and 1280x1024 in a game , you're only kidding yourself , I've seen people use 1500$ computers and not even bother to adjust the game settings) , you propose a low-end card then work your way up if you can gauge they actually could use the extra video power , not doing so is selling your customers something they don't need , how's that for being thruthful to your customers eh?
now this new card probably beats the pants off a FX5200 or even a TI4800 , you didn't say the ti4800 was pure junk only fit to display powerpoint on tv last year now did you ?
sure the bulk of computers are being bought at big chains even if they offer the lowest spec computer at the price of you're descent computer , but customers don't know that , they don't have your perspective , they only bought one computer in 2 year how could they tell the small shop is a better deal than the big chain blasting them 24/7 on tv ? surely bigchainINC is a better deal , they didn't get this big fucking people up now did they ?
and everyone know small shops are always trying to screw you over selling you stuff you don't need , like those damn mecanics !
oh well , that's it for my pointless rant , it's going nowhere fast, I'm so happy I dumped that sh*t job a year ago !
slashdot@domn.net
you work in computer repair ?
for what , 2 weeks ?!? or in your basement ?
you think brand names mean anything ? customers can tell a computer from a monitor , as far as they're concerned AMD AthlonXP Sempron 2200+ , AMD AthlonXP Barton 3000+ and AMD Athlon64 3200+ with 1mb cache are all the same thing , and they don't even know they have one in their computers
people who says "I want to play games" they get a mid-range card (nvidia 6600)
the rest the get a GF4MX or a FX5200 which is between 30$ and 80$ but that is wasted money 90% of the time , via's on-board video is more than enough for the vast majority of computers
many people get printers and never print , 19" monitors that spend their entire live at 800x600 , 120GB hard drives that never see more than 1GB of data
when you design a PC , you make it so it will fulfill the needs of the majority , anything more is a waste of money , a loss of profits for you , and a loss of sales because your computers seem more expensive for what is "the same thing" in the customer's eye
you say the GF4MX and FX5200 is crap , to you maybe , but for most it's better they ever had , need for speed underground 2 , doom 3 and half-life 2 run just fine with that card , and 95% of the customers couldn't tell the difference between half-life 2 running under a GF4MX and 700$ 6800
you must like those guys who aren't satisfied with on-board anything and just have to install an extra network card, sound card , serial-ata raid card and f*cking usb card , because "on-board is so lame!"
just because you've been fixing your buddies' computers doesn't mean their configuration represent even a tiny fraction of what's out there , and what will do the job for most customers
slashdot@domn.net
why the hell people need extra software for this ?
it's been part of windows since version 3 and probably before ! and linux has had the find command for even longer !