Wow, its so nice to hear from someone in the same situation. I also work at a small shop, and spyware removal is essentially our largest source of income now. Its great for job security, but the whole issue is rather sick.
For one, where are the so-called home security software leaders in this? (ie: Symantec, Network Associates, Trend Micro) I see some of them are just now scraping together a half-ass approach, such as Symantec's new "Spyware.*" virus classification (should these really be considered viruses? I've always told customers no.) which contains maybe a few dozen items, compared to the hundreds covered by Lavasoft or PepiMK. If the big boys can't get it together, why haven't they just bought out one of these startups? Additionally, it probably wouldn't hurt for the media to give this some coverage. Its hard to blame the spyware companies, 'cause someone is always going to take advantage of the situation. The ones we count on to not let this situation happen is Microsoft, and the ones we count on to cover up for them is Symantec and the like. Both parties have let us down.
Generally you'll notice any "critical" update is included as part of the next service pack, where any "recommended" update isn't included till the next OS. Although there are exceptions like the IE/OE update.
In other words, I would be extremely surprised if this "Windows Rights Management" isn't included in the next version of Windows, and every one thereafter.
I've been a Trillian user for quite a while, but I wanted to able to use Jabber, so I found GAIM, and as a bonus, found it was open source.
The windows port imho is a little lacking. Most protocols still won't transfer files and most annoyingly it won't import my ICQ contacts. Apparently they consider the way Trillian imports contacts as "broken".. all I can say is, it works. It's not exactly user friendly, and installation seems to have a lot of "ifs and buts". I realize it hasn't gone 1.0, but neither has Trillian. I'll probably take another peak at GAIM within the next year, as it looks promising, but for now I have to stick with Trillian.
Maybe I'm the one who's mistaken here, but with the little knowledge I have on the subject, the writer of this article, and the slashdot community, both look grossly uninformed about GPS in agriculture. I know in my small hometown in Canada, they have been using GPS to guide farm equipment (namely for spreading fertilizers) for at least 5 years now. The equipment is provided by one the largest industrial GPS companies around, Trimble, who has an entire division for agricultural applications, which they dub "AgGPS".
I can't believe no one has mentioned this game!! The title says it all. It was just unlike anything ever done before--very dark, very immersive. If you don't believe me, check out the reviews on Moby Games.
The guys at Silent PC Review would scoff at the "hardcoreness" of hardcoreware.net when it comes to silencing PCs. After being on their mailing list for a year, I can tell you that they're waaay ahead of these guys in every aspect of PC silencing, many of which I've implemented myself.
I'm sure a lot of people would find this disturbing, but I guess it's "the way" of our generation.
I play in a chat-based RPG known as A Call To Duty. It's been around for about 6 years and currently stands at 240-something players. We've seen real life marriages and births as the result of players meeting in the game. Inevitably, we've also had players who have passed away. Recently, the passing of one of our game managers was marked by dedicating a ship in his name. His family understood what the game meant to him, and they were happy with what we had done.
Maxtor has had "38% thinner" drives for about a year now (model D540X). After seeing over a hundred of them come through our shop, I can personally attest that they're the lowest-quality drives available today. Of all the drives we've used, they have the highest failure rate and are the loudest when idle (bearing noise). They have no top plate, and instead are sealed by nothing more than a big sticker. They are however, the most inexpensive drive available (and therefore widely used).
Re:NOT a TV Tuner, a TV *Encoder*
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nForce2 Preview
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· Score: 1
THANK YOU! I thought it sounded strange, so I searched the entire review for it, and found nothing.
A TV Tuner (even the chip-based silicon kind) takes up a huge amount of space (the size of a 462 socket, or larger). When I've looked inside TIVO's and such, they've always had analog tuners, not sure why... even the All-in-Wonders still use them (except one).
Jason
No, the moral thing to do is to send the artist one or two dollars directly, rather than buying the CD.
I think that's a great idea. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to do it. But consider this:
I would love to see a service (likely web-based) that (optionally) indexes your music, then gives you the choice of donating $1 per album directly to the artist. It would keep track of what you've paid for, and what the grand total is for donations to each artist/group. I bet the smaller bands would end up receiving just as much money as the pop groups. I'm sure the totals would quickly add up to enough to allow a living for any band that has enough fan support.
I also agree with some of the comments here that we don't need promoters anymore. The online fans would easily take care of that, for free.
I guess the people who modded this up thought that a fan with the word "Stealth" in it, must be quiet.
2. The MCX462 doesn't mount on a P4. An Alpha 8045 costs less, and performs better. Instead of a Vantec Stealth fan, a low rpm sleeve-bearing fan (Panaflo, Papst, etc) running at a reduced voltage of 5V or 7V (by simply rearranging its power wires) will be considerbly more quiet, and typically provide more than adequate airflow. Panaflo's can commonly be picked up for $3-5.
3. You shouldn't need a case fan. Replace your PSU fan with a voltage-modded sleeve bearing fan.
4. I assume you mean when a disc is actually spinning in it? The Pioneer slot load drives are quieter than a lot of other tray load drives.
6. Rounded cables providing better airflow is a bunch of BS. What they will do is cause drive instability. They're designed flat for a reason.
Motherboard chipset fans should be avoided, and often can be safely removed. Video card chipset fans should also be avoided (GeForce4 MX440s are available fanless), but for performance cards, are sometimes inevitable.
Typically, the loudest thing left in your computer will be your hard drive. Seagate Barracuda IVs seem to be the best choice here. Whichever drive you choose, suspend it in a 5 1/4" bay by tightly weaving something elastic across the bay and around the drive. Sticking a hunk of foam in front of the drive helps a little too.
Alpha 8045 ($50 CAD), Panaflo FBA08A12L (2*$5 CAD), voltage mod ($0), elastic and foam ($1?).
I owe most of this knowledge to the shared experiences on the Silent-PC group.
Good post, but I'd like to challenge it. You say you "have" to run SCSI for DV editing?
StorageReview's "High-End Drive Mark 2002" uses "Content Creation Winstone 2001" to gather performance information from programs like Premiere, Photoshop, and Soundforge. Details here.
If you view the ranking for the High-End benchmark, which uses the same testbed, you'll see that the Western Digital WD1200JB (an ATA drive) out-performs 10 current families of SCSI drives (ranging for 7200 to 10000 rpm), leaving only 3 drives above it (one 10000, and two 15000).
So, are you using one of those three drives? If not, it appears your pricey "must need" SCSI solution is currently bested by a lowly ATA drive.
I work as a small-town computer tech, and we've dubbed the stuff "badware". We've been dealing with viruses for several years, but we've only addressed badware in the last several months.
Its now a routine to do an external ad-aware scan along with our virus scans. I'd say damage from the two are almost equal in commonality and magnitude. We've found registry hacks (cexx.org) to repair new.net's extremely common winsock curruption (resulting in complete loss of internet). As for anything else, if an uninstall or ad-aware scan doesn't fix it, it gets fdisk'd.
I think it will only be a matter of time before Symantec packages an ad-ware clone in their Norton Internet Security package. Until then, the badware is paying my bills.:)
I haven't had the chance to read every post here, but my job consists largely of building, upgrading, or fixing home computer systems, and I think the answer is pretty simple. Normal ATX is cheapest. It also is the easiest for us to work on (compared to Flex ATX, MicroATX, rackmount, etc). I heard W-ATX or something was easier, but when will we ever see that? ATX also cools decently, and is easiest to get parts for. Customers don't seem to care about the size. And if they do, its easy to give them the upgradability excuse.
They still want their Pentiums and Giga-somethings. This ATX scenerio isn't going to change in our business unless customers start demanding something else.
have we really been around that long?
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True Names
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· Score: 1
I think thats the first time I've seen the phrase "retired computer scientist" before. What kind of work did he start with? How old was he then? Did he do other work before that?
Just thought I'd add that (although not specified), the four lights across the top appear to be the Xenon version of the Hella 4000's. Best consumer vehiclar lighting I've ever seen.
It does say that they're using two pencil-beam lenses, and two medium (aka Euro or Driving) beam lenses.
I only saw one post of this here, but I really must amplify (pardon the pun) the fact that Yamaha's CAVIT systems are great! This is the difference between consumer computer audio, and audiophile sound. Check out Stereophile's review.
There's also the option of SBCs (single board computers). Integrated everything in a package much smaller than the Shuttle mobo. You can go from a 486DX to Socket 370, but the Geode (200-300MHz) integrated processors are neat; low power, no noisy fans needed. Most models have PCI/ISA headers, and some even have the actual slot. This could be used for whatever soundcard you desire. A good source is Advantech
Has anyone ever heard of a computer museum? With systems actually up and running?
A few years ago, I intercepted a computer the size of a large deep-freeze, with a built-in keyboard and monitor, and the hard drive had platters slightly larger than a record. I was told it cost the business well over $10k when new. Unfortunately, I had no place to keep it, and it disappeared. Does anyone have information on a computer like this?
S-Video can be fussy. Its heavily dependant on the output device's signal strength and the grade of cabling. We couldn't get a camcorder to transmit 30m on some decent shielded cable, yet a VCR would. Anyhow, S-Video is old technology which is currently be replaced by component video (in various forms).
Line audio signals are never as fussy, but you'll still run into the same problems as above (to a lesser degree). Atleast you'll be able to use more standard cabling like RG6 or RG8. And traditional analog audio is being replaced by digital audio through optical and digital coaxial cabling, which will have even shorter runs.
Anyone see a single girl in the tournament? I suppose it'll only be a matter of time before they feel discriminated against and demand equal representation... which usually means giving them their own division away from the men.
Well, you can read her interview or this small article. Off the WCG site I only managed to find one article. At the end of the Australian CS Team article is this amusing little line:
The team leave for Korea on Thursday with Miss World Cyber Games Australia, Anna George, and Dimitri's mother as chaperone.
In my little area of Canada, we have no DSL available, and a small cable provider, who caps their speeds to 45kb/s down, 15kb/s up (not just me, but everyone). They charge $50/m and their reliability isn't the best either. But they do have a local monopoly on broadband.
I have a fairly big local calling area, so there's actually a lot of competition in the dialup market. After a year of cable, I went back with a group that costs $20/m for unlimited use, with no busy signals, and 52-53kbps connections.
Slashdot Mirror
For one, where are the so-called home security software leaders in this? (ie: Symantec, Network Associates, Trend Micro) I see some of them are just now scraping together a half-ass approach, such as Symantec's new "Spyware.*" virus classification (should these really be considered viruses? I've always told customers no.) which contains maybe a few dozen items, compared to the hundreds covered by Lavasoft or PepiMK. If the big boys can't get it together, why haven't they just bought out one of these startups? Additionally, it probably wouldn't hurt for the media to give this some coverage. Its hard to blame the spyware companies, 'cause someone is always going to take advantage of the situation. The ones we count on to not let this situation happen is Microsoft, and the ones we count on to cover up for them is Symantec and the like. Both parties have let us down.
In other words, I would be extremely surprised if this "Windows Rights Management" isn't included in the next version of Windows, and every one thereafter.
The windows port imho is a little lacking. Most protocols still won't transfer files and most annoyingly it won't import my ICQ contacts. Apparently they consider the way Trillian imports contacts as "broken".. all I can say is, it works. It's not exactly user friendly, and installation seems to have a lot of "ifs and buts". I realize it hasn't gone 1.0, but neither has Trillian. I'll probably take another peak at GAIM within the next year, as it looks promising, but for now I have to stick with Trillian.
Maybe I'm the one who's mistaken here, but with the little knowledge I have on the subject, the writer of this article, and the slashdot community, both look grossly uninformed about GPS in agriculture. I know in my small hometown in Canada, they have been using GPS to guide farm equipment (namely for spreading fertilizers) for at least 5 years now. The equipment is provided by one the largest industrial GPS companies around, Trimble, who has an entire division for agricultural applications, which they dub "AgGPS".
I can't believe no one has mentioned this game!! The title says it all. It was just unlike anything ever done before--very dark, very immersive. If you don't believe me, check out the reviews on Moby Games.
The guys at Silent PC Review would scoff at the "hardcoreness" of hardcoreware.net when it comes to silencing PCs. After being on their mailing list for a year, I can tell you that they're waaay ahead of these guys in every aspect of PC silencing, many of which I've implemented myself.
I play in a chat-based RPG known as A Call To Duty. It's been around for about 6 years and currently stands at 240-something players. We've seen real life marriages and births as the result of players meeting in the game. Inevitably, we've also had players who have passed away. Recently, the passing of one of our game managers was marked by dedicating a ship in his name. His family understood what the game meant to him, and they were happy with what we had done.
Maxtor has had "38% thinner" drives for about a year now (model D540X). After seeing over a hundred of them come through our shop, I can personally attest that they're the lowest-quality drives available today. Of all the drives we've used, they have the highest failure rate and are the loudest when idle (bearing noise). They have no top plate, and instead are sealed by nothing more than a big sticker. They are however, the most inexpensive drive available (and therefore widely used).
A TV Tuner (even the chip-based silicon kind) takes up a huge amount of space (the size of a 462 socket, or larger). When I've looked inside TIVO's and such, they've always had analog tuners, not sure why... even the All-in-Wonders still use them (except one). Jason
I think that's a great idea. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to do it. But consider this:
I would love to see a service (likely web-based) that (optionally) indexes your music, then gives you the choice of donating $1 per album directly to the artist. It would keep track of what you've paid for, and what the grand total is for donations to each artist/group. I bet the smaller bands would end up receiving just as much money as the pop groups. I'm sure the totals would quickly add up to enough to allow a living for any band that has enough fan support.
I also agree with some of the comments here that we don't need promoters anymore. The online fans would easily take care of that, for free.
2. The MCX462 doesn't mount on a P4. An Alpha 8045 costs less, and performs better. Instead of a Vantec Stealth fan, a low rpm sleeve-bearing fan (Panaflo, Papst, etc) running at a reduced voltage of 5V or 7V (by simply rearranging its power wires) will be considerbly more quiet, and typically provide more than adequate airflow. Panaflo's can commonly be picked up for $3-5.
3. You shouldn't need a case fan. Replace your PSU fan with a voltage-modded sleeve bearing fan.
4. I assume you mean when a disc is actually spinning in it? The Pioneer slot load drives are quieter than a lot of other tray load drives.
6. Rounded cables providing better airflow is a bunch of BS. What they will do is cause drive instability. They're designed flat for a reason.
Motherboard chipset fans should be avoided, and often can be safely removed. Video card chipset fans should also be avoided (GeForce4 MX440s are available fanless), but for performance cards, are sometimes inevitable.
Typically, the loudest thing left in your computer will be your hard drive. Seagate Barracuda IVs seem to be the best choice here. Whichever drive you choose, suspend it in a 5 1/4" bay by tightly weaving something elastic across the bay and around the drive. Sticking a hunk of foam in front of the drive helps a little too.
Alpha 8045 ($50 CAD), Panaflo FBA08A12L (2*$5 CAD), voltage mod ($0), elastic and foam ($1?).
I owe most of this knowledge to the shared experiences on the Silent-PC group.
StorageReview's "High-End Drive Mark 2002" uses "Content Creation Winstone 2001" to gather performance information from programs like Premiere, Photoshop, and Soundforge. Details here.
If you view the ranking for the High-End benchmark, which uses the same testbed, you'll see that the Western Digital WD1200JB (an ATA drive) out-performs 10 current families of SCSI drives (ranging for 7200 to 10000 rpm), leaving only 3 drives above it (one 10000, and two 15000).
So, are you using one of those three drives? If not, it appears your pricey "must need" SCSI solution is currently bested by a lowly ATA drive.
Its now a routine to do an external ad-aware scan along with our virus scans. I'd say damage from the two are almost equal in commonality and magnitude. We've found registry hacks (cexx.org) to repair new.net's extremely common winsock curruption (resulting in complete loss of internet). As for anything else, if an uninstall or ad-aware scan doesn't fix it, it gets fdisk'd.
I think it will only be a matter of time before Symantec packages an ad-ware clone in their Norton Internet Security package. Until then, the badware is paying my bills. :)
I wonder if they've developed a method for cleaning it up as well. That might prove entertaining.
11 terabytes in a credit card sized package for $50 by 2003? Yet somehow a 0.037 terabyte DVD is going to be useful in 2004. Funny.
They still want their Pentiums and Giga-somethings. This ATX scenerio isn't going to change in our business unless customers start demanding something else.
I think thats the first time I've seen the phrase "retired computer scientist" before. What kind of work did he start with? How old was he then? Did he do other work before that?
It does say that they're using two pencil-beam lenses, and two medium (aka Euro or Driving) beam lenses.
I only saw one post of this here, but I really must amplify (pardon the pun) the fact that Yamaha's CAVIT systems are great! This is the difference between consumer computer audio, and audiophile sound. Check out Stereophile's review.
There's also the option of SBCs (single board computers). Integrated everything in a package much smaller than the Shuttle mobo. You can go from a 486DX to Socket 370, but the Geode (200-300MHz) integrated processors are neat; low power, no noisy fans needed. Most models have PCI/ISA headers, and some even have the actual slot. This could be used for whatever soundcard you desire. A good source is Advantech
A few years ago, I intercepted a computer the size of a large deep-freeze, with a built-in keyboard and monitor, and the hard drive had platters slightly larger than a record. I was told it cost the business well over $10k when new. Unfortunately, I had no place to keep it, and it disappeared. Does anyone have information on a computer like this?
Line audio signals are never as fussy, but you'll still run into the same problems as above (to a lesser degree). Atleast you'll be able to use more standard cabling like RG6 or RG8. And traditional analog audio is being replaced by digital audio through optical and digital coaxial cabling, which will have even shorter runs.
Anyone see a single girl in the tournament? I suppose it'll only be a matter of time before they feel discriminated against and demand equal representation... which usually means giving them their own division away from the men.
The team leave for Korea on Thursday with Miss World Cyber Games Australia, Anna George, and Dimitri's mother as chaperone.
I almost feel sorry for her. :|
In my little area of Canada, we have no DSL available, and a small cable provider, who caps their speeds to 45kb/s down, 15kb/s up (not just me, but everyone). They charge $50/m and their reliability isn't the best either. But they do have a local monopoly on broadband.
I have a fairly big local calling area, so there's actually a lot of competition in the dialup market. After a year of cable, I went back with a group that costs $20/m for unlimited use, with no busy signals, and 52-53kbps connections.