The BBC also reports that another group have put a 5.4m rocket 700ft into the air. From what it seems these people have a better chance of putting things into space, since they already hold the UK record for the highest amateur rocket. (Anybody know what the highest a rocket has gone in the USA?)
I would say they have a better chance of getting things into space. Their record rocket went 35,00ft into the air, plus they have developed their own engine. Their fuel is supposed to be efficient - its got nitrous oxide in it! (ok i don't know what this really would mean but after watching "The Fast and the Furious" it just seems cool). Plus their ambitions seems to be getting sattelites and not people into space - more readily acheiveable IMHO.
I assume you mean firewalls like ZoneAlarm will pick this up? I assume the software will be clever so would either manipulate the firewalls settings before attempting to transmit data, or do the pickyback on port 80 trick on windows to bypass everything. Just have to hope that the antivirus companies put out a scanner for this thing.
Being a bit pedantic here, but do they mean a trojan or a virus? I would be very worried if it were a virus as viruses propogate - in criminals it could spread from one criminal to another, so no problem there. But if it passed to an innocent user, who then passed it onto friends, I'm sure there would be a civil liberties outcry.
I'm sure trojans must have been used for keylogging before. But won't using this mean getting a wiretap order? I also don't know how this system will cross jurisdictions: can the FBI infect a user in another country to get secrets? Sounds like spying to me, and it would ensure countermeasures from other governments and a change in computing systems to defeat the virus.
I'm hoping that some antivirus company makes a scanning system to detect this 'virus' and eliminate it. Otherwise its a change to a more secure OS, or using GNUpg (they did only mention it working on PGP, didn't they?) could do the trick.
It think it is slightly premature to hail this as the cure for cancer. The problem is without a subscrition we can't even get to the Science magazine website. I'd love to peruse the article but i think it needs registration, and the free version seems to only give abstracts. We don't have proper figures on their tests so there's no way we can individually verify what the article is saying.
The treatment may work on mice but its no guarantee it will work on humans - major clinical trials (which take a long time) would need to be done before the public could get to a treatment. The CNN article is a bit sketchy on details, but it did point out this fact. Thalidomide is an example of treatment which worked in lab experiments but went on to cause chaos with mothers who used it (their babies were born deformed).
Another issue is how it targets cells - it's no good if it targets healthy cells as well. However chemotherapy and radiotherapy also have this side effect so if it kills less cells and is succesful in killing the cancer cells it should be used. But as i said more information (i.e. free access to the original article) would be nice so we could make a more informed opinion on this article.
This is one of Sony's more "lifestyle concept" products (ie very expensive, although i thought it might be of interest.
The cyberframe (link to Salon as i couldn't find it on the sony site) is a digital picture frame which can display pictures from a memory stick. The purpose was that you could take a picture with your memory stick camera and stick the pictures into the frame immediately.
The downside is that is costs $900. A bit out of reach for practically everybody, but it apparently can do MPEGs and slide shows.
I just hope you can get a cheap laptop system (from the other comments) which you can hook up to a wall that actually looks as aesthetically pleasing as this, as there's no point in having a beautiful picture if there are wires streaking everywhere.
How would this work? Say if both are encrypted and stuck together and emailed, and the authorities decrypt the innocuous one, wouldn't they be suspicious of all the garbage characters at the end of the innocuous message? Wouldn't this mean that the other one is not 'hidden' at all?
These kind of things will be shrouded in the mystery of time forever, i mean come on it was back in 1960 when no-one would think of the importance of the internet.
An example is of Newton and Leibniz who both claim to have discovered differential mathematics. I seem to remember there were vicious arguments between the supporters of both about it, with Newton bribing some college to declare him the inventor. I think now both are credited with its invention (would be happy if there would be anyone to confirm this).
The point is that the only ones who will care are their supporters. I think history will both remember them as instrumental in "packet switching".
Got to agree. It just seems like a big marketing scam where the companies have to buy extra domain names to 'protect' their trademark (or whatever) whenever new domains are issued.
However while.biz might be too close to.com for companies, the BBC reports that the.info is quite popular for (guess what!) actually giving out information!
Their example was the WTC relief site. They also said that both.biz and.info are actually quite popular, although quite a lot are bogus registrations. I don't think.biz is going to make a mojor impact on the web due to the ubiquity of.com (for business and personal use) but you shouldn't be surprised to see billboards with.biz on them in the near future.
I think its just herd mentality - people will follow if others go first. We just need a brave few companies to show that linux (on the desktop) works.
I'm surprised that more servers would not change to linux (or maybe that's because MS is making winXP incompatible with it), but changing desktops will take a long time. For those who are hesistant in using a computer need a familar interface. The productivity tools need to be there as well as training, as well as the technical backup and employee support. There is the issue of installing and configuring the system so they are stable for use. That's a lot of manpower needed.
Working with the unfamiliar will have people up in arms as they might have to relearn some concepts (this might not be difficult for you or I). More (big) companies offering linux on the desktop should increase the number of support companies for linux, and maybe force a greater change in the home to linux.
I thought that MusicCity did change the system so that to log in you had to authenticate with the central servers - i think it was a response to some project on sourceforge. Wouldn't that allow them to be sued?
(OT Question: If there are no central servers how does each client have a unique username/ID?)
I'm rooting for the EFF here, because the music companies have had it too good, charging us over the odds for music. Some competition is good, although i do feel bad that some small bands might not get paid for their efforts in a free-for-all system such as musiccity. Hopeful someone will devise a good economic model for paying for music (apart from the tipjar model which seems flawed).
Privatizing space shuttles goes one step too far - $400m for a launch, where's the profit? What's going to happen will be something like in the UK. Someone else posted on the state of railways here, but I'm thinking of how the government is also trying to privatize the hospitals here as well - things start going down the drain very quickly when money runs out for operations.
Either the cost of the launch will creep us as the governemnt has to pay the profit margin, or there will be cutbacks on the shuttle itself. And cutbacks can only be bad - i remember seeing that if the shuttle had 99% reliability, there still would be a possible one million faults with it. Cutbacks on the thing could make a flying bomb.
And with the recent tradegy (in the US) security has to be a major aspect - how much damage could a shuttle do? Crashing it seems remote, but the technology could be stolen for nefarious purposes, and someone could probably modify it to make a super crop duster that could have unimaginable consequences.
OK, I'm sure the thing will be under heavy military guard, and security with the company will be tight, but giving control of such a valuable technological and economic asset seems a bit short-sighted just to save money (refer to the railways in the UK to see the real cost of privatization).
It just depends on how far privatization will go - unfortunately the article was a bit sketchy on the details. Anybody got more info?
First of all I have to say I coudln't find where the poll tax bit was mention, except in the previous/. article. But im assuming that the domain registration fees are the tax.
I can't actually figure out how ICANN will get the poll tax. This is because it isn't (in my eyes) democratic - not everyone gets a say, so why should they have to pay tax. For the domain holders paying tax on top of the fee (if that's what was implied) is a bit steep, and will only ensure the rich get a say in "democracy". And the 'ordinary' net users will not have a say at all. It's not really fair at all as they aren't represented, and the board of ICANN seems very dictatorial. I can't see how they will be able to get everyone to pay taxes. But do 'ordinary' users need a say, or even care about how the web is run?
I can now here everyone say "dump ICANN, lets set up our own rootservers". The problem is that many people say this, but there does not seem the will to do such a thing. You would either join another root (e.g. new.net) or you make your own. The problem with new.net is that it still isn't democratic (being a company) so when it is large and sprawling everyone will complain about them instead of ICANN.
Setting up your own root server is too much hard work. Who will fund it? (the people - but what if they don't want to? the web is free, right?) I take it the software is free but the resources for it, incl. the hardware, electricity and bandwidth have to be paid for, by the users. I would imagine most people wouldn't pay at all for something they don't understand or care about. I mean the servers only hold the records of domain owners, and if you're not one, why make the effort to care.
How do you ensure democracy? I'm not a expert on these things ( or anything else:) ) but I would say make a cooperative system of ISP, with many cooperatives each with a rootserver. Either that or a system where governments are in control, but that could come under abuse if the government isn't democratic). The cooperative assigns each ISP votes, and the ISP pays for access to the server. The ISP can then absorbs the fee and the customer doesn't get a vote (but the ISP does), or their may be a slight increase (£1/$1) which gets each customer a vote in a subject where the ISP is their representative (the ISP would have to be obliged to vote what their constituents voted for).
Different cooperatives could be responsible for different TLD's. Users could only access these TLDs (this is the downside - could invalidate a lot of existing stuff) or TLD's from other cooperatives where there is some sort of reciprocal agreement between them. This would solve the problem of identical TLDs between cooperatives. The root servers would be paid for and it would be a democratic way to ensure users get a say (if they join the right ISP). Some existing content might be inaccesible, but a special TLD (e.g..ext for external) could be created to access existing stuff.
This would give users control. The problem is setting up such a system, and persuading people to move to it.
I know that this is a bit of a rant, but its an idea of how change could occur to make things more democratic. I don't even know how much it actually costs to run a root server, but it must be quite a large amount. There could be flaws in the above system that i can't see but I thought a suggestion would be good since everyone seems to moan about ICANN all the time.
IMHO I don't really agree with this under "your rights online". It might be good (if you were an electronic engineer) to have a quick peek at how the ARM people made their chip so well. Hell, I would be tempted to download the schematics just cuase its there [ for future use you see:-) ]. But I don't think it is a right for anybody to have this information for free.
I know a lot of people would say that information should be free, but this stuff took a lot of hard work to create. The ARM family of chips are (supposed) to be very efficient. The company should really reap the benefits of what they put into it. Pulling the specs for the chip of the web seems to me to be the decent thing to do.
Does anybody know of a way to get these to a none quicktime format? I resisted from using quicktime recently as its a bit bloated, I hate the skins and that annoying "upgrade to quicktime pro" message that always seems to start.
It's a shame as I liked the quicktime technology but the actual software seems to have been filled with useless features. If anybody has a codec for this to work under windows media player (yep a win2k box) please post it.
Re:Gamecube control is a cheap piece o' crap
on
Gamecube Guts
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· Score: 0
It doesn't seem too bad - the dreamcast controller was a bit fiddly to use (for me anyway). Nintendo just need to do something like the SNES controller which was excellent, or the PS controller.
I know this is a bit OT, but I want to know if there are proper spell AND grammar checkers for star office. I actually find the underlining system (for bad grammar and wrong spelling) in MS Office to be very efficient and couldn't live without it.
Is star office good for embedded objects as well (e.g. equations which could be done with MS's equation editor)?
This really sounds like a bad idea - I'm from the UK so I assume these are 12-14 year old kids getting the laptops.
They don't need them, not one bit. At all. It would be better to get the money to spend on better basic education. I don't know what really they will need the laptops for. It will probably get loaded with porn, games and other crap. The laptops will break with alarming frequency. And it will cost a bomb.
I admit there will be essays to do but these can be done by hand. I don't think word processors / spreadsheets are really needed till the last two years of school when you have to do projects and the like. Waste of money...
Yeah the current (portable) minidisc recorders only do 1X. Some special high end home models do faster (2x/4x?) recording from their own CD player to their own MD.
The new Sony NetMD models (i think) use their MagicGate software to copy stuff from PC to MD at high speed. The only thing is that it is SDMI complaint and needs ATRAC music from the internet. I'm not sure but it could also do MP3 to ATRAC conversion on the PC because the current software for their MP3-like players does so...
I try and use the best stuff available. For this I would use wma or mp3 (most likely mp3). I know people are averse to wma, but I don't mind as long as its on Windows Media Player 6.4 .
The rest of the media player are loaded with useless rubbish (ie skins) that just bloat the software unnecessarily. Real Player is the same with all its loaded rubbish. Ditto quicktime (although i really do like the format).
This is why I like MP3 - no unnecessary bloatware just to listen to something!
I'm still waiting for proper handwriting recognition for the palm. The keyboard on the treo looks a little small, and after using the Psion series 5, I wouldn't settle for anything less.
What Palm need is a cheap faster processor (XScale?) which can run proper cursive (joined up) handwriting recognition. I know the PocketPCs have this but >$300 for one is a bit steep for a student. Here's hoping Palm can cram this into something for roughly $150.
I'm sure there are many reasons why pgp is not taking off. People don't generally know about encryption on computers, and even if they do that awareness is due to all the hype about it on TV.
Those who do know (and especially in the open source camp) use GNUpg. Even then there is the PGP international page. From here you can download the free versions of the last international release (with source) and even the new 7.0.3 free versionwhich NAI sells.
I think that the clued up people go for this. I think it lacks a couple of features but it still has the core encryption for emails/files on hard disk base. If you know i think you would go for the free version as well. Anyway I though they were bundling PGP with virusscan and the like to make their money anyway.
Most banner ads are OK for me. I accept that this will help the owners pay for whatever service they are offering. If the advert is good enough I might even click on it.
What bugs me is the flash ads. They can cause my computer (a PIII 450 w/ 192MB RAM) to take a few seconds to display the page after downloading it, and the screen redraws slowly so that scrolling up and down takes some time.
I don't mind it in some websites, but when it becomes excessive (when combined with flash buttons etc.) it is a real pain. I don't want to pay for a 1.5Ghz proc. so that i can surf the web.
I see that CNET and salon use this kind of ad. I don'tmind them as long as they don't distract my attention and don't force long redraws. Other sites I'm not so tolerant with, especially those with pop-ups as well.
I've never used KOffice, but MS Office is really the best solution out at the moment. Once you experience it you won't go back to anything else.
I actually need a stable solution for doing my studies at uni and some features (e.g. the grammar checker) are indispensible to me. I won't move to other suites till they integrate some of this into the system. But I don't think this will happen quickly in the free office distros.
Seems nothing like Mario Kart at all...
The only similarity I can think of is that it uses characters from a cartoon/game in vehicles. I think the 'Sunday driving' is probably more like Midtown Madness (which BTW is very good).
There doesn't seem to be much success in copying the Mario Kart kind of game anyway... the original SNES version was just too good.
Slashdot Mirror
The BBC also reports that another group have put a 5.4m rocket 700ft into the air. From what it seems these people have a better chance of putting things into space, since they already hold the UK record for the highest amateur rocket. (Anybody know what the highest a rocket has gone in the USA?)
I would say they have a better chance of getting things into space. Their record rocket went 35,00ft into the air, plus they have developed their own engine. Their fuel is supposed to be efficient - its got nitrous oxide in it! (ok i don't know what this really would mean but after watching "The Fast and the Furious" it just seems cool). Plus their ambitions seems to be getting sattelites and not people into space - more readily acheiveable IMHO.
I assume you mean firewalls like ZoneAlarm will pick this up? I assume the software will be clever so would either manipulate the firewalls settings before attempting to transmit data, or do the pickyback on port 80 trick on windows to bypass everything. Just have to hope that the antivirus companies put out a scanner for this thing.
Being a bit pedantic here, but do they mean a trojan or a virus? I would be very worried if it were a virus as viruses propogate - in criminals it could spread from one criminal to another, so no problem there. But if it passed to an innocent user, who then passed it onto friends, I'm sure there would be a civil liberties outcry.
I'm sure trojans must have been used for keylogging before. But won't using this mean getting a wiretap order? I also don't know how this system will cross jurisdictions: can the FBI infect a user in another country to get secrets? Sounds like spying to me, and it would ensure countermeasures from other governments and a change in computing systems to defeat the virus.
I'm hoping that some antivirus company makes a scanning system to detect this 'virus' and eliminate it. Otherwise its a change to a more secure OS, or using GNUpg (they did only mention it working on PGP, didn't they?) could do the trick.
It think it is slightly premature to hail this as the cure for cancer. The problem is without a subscrition we can't even get to the Science magazine website. I'd love to peruse the article but i think it needs registration, and the free version seems to only give abstracts. We don't have proper figures on their tests so there's no way we can individually verify what the article is saying.
The treatment may work on mice but its no guarantee it will work on humans - major clinical trials (which take a long time) would need to be done before the public could get to a treatment. The CNN article is a bit sketchy on details, but it did point out this fact. Thalidomide is an example of treatment which worked in lab experiments but went on to cause chaos with mothers who used it (their babies were born deformed).
Another issue is how it targets cells - it's no good if it targets healthy cells as well. However chemotherapy and radiotherapy also have this side effect so if it kills less cells and is succesful in killing the cancer cells it should be used. But as i said more information (i.e. free access to the original article) would be nice so we could make a more informed opinion on this article.
This is one of Sony's more "lifestyle concept" products (ie very expensive, although i thought it might be of interest.
The cyberframe (link to Salon as i couldn't find it on the sony site) is a digital picture frame which can display pictures from a memory stick. The purpose was that you could take a picture with your memory stick camera and stick the pictures into the frame immediately.
The downside is that is costs $900. A bit out of reach for practically everybody, but it apparently can do MPEGs and slide shows.
I just hope you can get a cheap laptop system (from the other comments) which you can hook up to a wall that actually looks as aesthetically pleasing as this, as there's no point in having a beautiful picture if there are wires streaking everywhere.
How would this work? Say if both are encrypted and stuck together and emailed, and the authorities decrypt the innocuous one, wouldn't they be suspicious of all the garbage characters at the end of the innocuous message? Wouldn't this mean that the other one is not 'hidden' at all?
These kind of things will be shrouded in the mystery of time forever, i mean come on it was back in 1960 when no-one would think of the importance of the internet.
An example is of Newton and Leibniz who both claim to have discovered differential mathematics. I seem to remember there were vicious arguments between the supporters of both about it, with Newton bribing some college to declare him the inventor. I think now both are credited with its invention (would be happy if there would be anyone to confirm this).
The point is that the only ones who will care are their supporters. I think history will both remember them as instrumental in "packet switching".
Got to agree. It just seems like a big marketing scam where the companies have to buy extra domain names to 'protect' their trademark (or whatever) whenever new domains are issued.
.biz might be too close to .com for companies, the BBC reports that the .info is quite popular for (guess what!) actually giving out information!
.biz and .info are actually quite popular, although quite a lot are bogus registrations. I don't think .biz is going to make a mojor impact on the web due to the ubiquity of .com (for business and personal use) but you shouldn't be surprised to see billboards with .biz on them in the near future.
However while
Their example was the WTC relief site. They also said that both
I think its just herd mentality - people will follow if others go first. We just need a brave few companies to show that linux (on the desktop) works.
I'm surprised that more servers would not change to linux (or maybe that's because MS is making winXP incompatible with it), but changing desktops will take a long time. For those who are hesistant in using a computer need a familar interface. The productivity tools need to be there as well as training, as well as the technical backup and employee support. There is the issue of installing and configuring the system so they are stable for use. That's a lot of manpower needed.
Working with the unfamiliar will have people up in arms as they might have to relearn some concepts (this might not be difficult for you or I). More (big) companies offering linux on the desktop should increase the number of support companies for linux, and maybe force a greater change in the home to linux.
I thought that MusicCity did change the system so that to log in you had to authenticate with the central servers - i think it was a response to some project on sourceforge. Wouldn't that allow them to be sued?
(OT Question: If there are no central servers how does each client have a unique username/ID?)
I'm rooting for the EFF here, because the music companies have had it too good, charging us over the odds for music. Some competition is good, although i do feel bad that some small bands might not get paid for their efforts in a free-for-all system such as musiccity. Hopeful someone will devise a good economic model for paying for music (apart from the tipjar model which seems flawed).
Privatizing space shuttles goes one step too far - $400m for a launch, where's the profit? What's going to happen will be something like in the UK. Someone else posted on the state of railways here, but I'm thinking of how the government is also trying to privatize the hospitals here as well - things start going down the drain very quickly when money runs out for operations.
Either the cost of the launch will creep us as the governemnt has to pay the profit margin, or there will be cutbacks on the shuttle itself. And cutbacks can only be bad - i remember seeing that if the shuttle had 99% reliability, there still would be a possible one million faults with it. Cutbacks on the thing could make a flying bomb.
And with the recent tradegy (in the US) security has to be a major aspect - how much damage could a shuttle do? Crashing it seems remote, but the technology could be stolen for nefarious purposes, and someone could probably modify it to make a super crop duster that could have unimaginable consequences.
OK, I'm sure the thing will be under heavy military guard, and security with the company will be tight, but giving control of such a valuable technological and economic asset seems a bit short-sighted just to save money (refer to the railways in the UK to see the real cost of privatization).
It just depends on how far privatization will go - unfortunately the article was a bit sketchy on the details. Anybody got more info?
First of all I have to say I coudln't find where the poll tax bit was mention, except in the previous /. article. But im assuming that the domain registration fees are the tax.
:) ) but I would say make a cooperative system of ISP, with many cooperatives each with a rootserver. Either that or a system where governments are in control, but that could come under abuse if the government isn't democratic). The cooperative assigns each ISP votes, and the ISP pays for access to the server. The ISP can then absorbs the fee and the customer doesn't get a vote (but the ISP does), or their may be a slight increase (£1/$1) which gets each customer a vote in a subject where the ISP is their representative (the ISP would have to be obliged to vote what their constituents voted for).
.ext for external) could be created to access existing stuff.
I can't actually figure out how ICANN will get the poll tax. This is because it isn't (in my eyes) democratic - not everyone gets a say, so why should they have to pay tax. For the domain holders paying tax on top of the fee (if that's what was implied) is a bit steep, and will only ensure the rich get a say in "democracy". And the 'ordinary' net users will not have a say at all. It's not really fair at all as they aren't represented, and the board of ICANN seems very dictatorial. I can't see how they will be able to get everyone to pay taxes. But do 'ordinary' users need a say, or even care about how the web is run?
I can now here everyone say "dump ICANN, lets set up our own rootservers". The problem is that many people say this, but there does not seem the will to do such a thing. You would either join another root (e.g. new.net) or you make your own. The problem with new.net is that it still isn't democratic (being a company) so when it is large and sprawling everyone will complain about them instead of ICANN.
Setting up your own root server is too much hard work. Who will fund it? (the people - but what if they don't want to? the web is free, right?) I take it the software is free but the resources for it, incl. the hardware, electricity and bandwidth have to be paid for, by the users. I would imagine most people wouldn't pay at all for something they don't understand or care about. I mean the servers only hold the records of domain owners, and if you're not one, why make the effort to care.
How do you ensure democracy? I'm not a expert on these things ( or anything else
Different cooperatives could be responsible for different TLD's. Users could only access these TLDs (this is the downside - could invalidate a lot of existing stuff) or TLD's from other cooperatives where there is some sort of reciprocal agreement between them. This would solve the problem of identical TLDs between cooperatives. The root servers would be paid for and it would be a democratic way to ensure users get a say (if they join the right ISP). Some existing content might be inaccesible, but a special TLD (e.g.
This would give users control. The problem is setting up such a system, and persuading people to move to it.
I know that this is a bit of a rant, but its an idea of how change could occur to make things more democratic. I don't even know how much it actually costs to run a root server, but it must be quite a large amount. There could be flaws in the above system that i can't see but I thought a suggestion would be good since everyone seems to moan about ICANN all the time.
IMHO I don't really agree with this under "your rights online". It might be good (if you were an electronic engineer) to have a quick peek at how the ARM people made their chip so well. Hell, I would be tempted to download the schematics just cuase its there [ for future use you see :-) ]. But I don't think it is a right for anybody to have this information for free.
I know a lot of people would say that information should be free, but this stuff took a lot of hard work to create. The ARM family of chips are (supposed) to be very efficient. The company should really reap the benefits of what they put into it. Pulling the specs for the chip of the web seems to me to be the decent thing to do.
Does anybody know of a way to get these to a none quicktime format? I resisted from using quicktime recently as its a bit bloated, I hate the skins and that annoying "upgrade to quicktime pro" message that always seems to start.
It's a shame as I liked the quicktime technology but the actual software seems to have been filled with useless features. If anybody has a codec for this to work under windows media player (yep a win2k box) please post it.
It doesn't seem too bad - the dreamcast controller was a bit fiddly to use (for me anyway). Nintendo just need to do something like the SNES controller which was excellent, or the PS controller.
I know this is a bit OT, but I want to know if there are proper spell AND grammar checkers for star office. I actually find the underlining system (for bad grammar and wrong spelling) in MS Office to be very efficient and couldn't live without it.
Is star office good for embedded objects as well (e.g. equations which could be done with MS's equation editor)?
This really sounds like a bad idea - I'm from the UK so I assume these are 12-14 year old kids getting the laptops.
They don't need them, not one bit. At all. It would be better to get the money to spend on better basic education. I don't know what really they will need the laptops for. It will probably get loaded with porn, games and other crap. The laptops will break with alarming frequency. And it will cost a bomb.
I admit there will be essays to do but these can be done by hand. I don't think word processors / spreadsheets are really needed till the last two years of school when you have to do projects and the like. Waste of money...
I actually think BBC Radio 1 (in the UK which plays the music for the younger generations) uses minidisc for all their stuff.
Yeah the current (portable) minidisc recorders only do 1X. Some special high end home models do faster (2x/4x?) recording from their own CD player to their own MD.
The new Sony NetMD models (i think) use their MagicGate software to copy stuff from PC to MD at high speed. The only thing is that it is SDMI complaint and needs ATRAC music from the internet. I'm not sure but it could also do MP3 to ATRAC conversion on the PC because the current software for their MP3-like players does so...
Can anybody else back me up?
I try and use the best stuff available. For this I would use wma or mp3 (most likely mp3). I know people are averse to wma, but I don't mind as long as its on Windows Media Player 6.4 .
The rest of the media player are loaded with useless rubbish (ie skins) that just bloat the software unnecessarily. Real Player is the same with all its loaded rubbish. Ditto quicktime (although i really do like the format).
This is why I like MP3 - no unnecessary bloatware just to listen to something!
I'm still waiting for proper handwriting recognition for the palm. The keyboard on the treo looks a little small, and after using the Psion series 5, I wouldn't settle for anything less.
What Palm need is a cheap faster processor (XScale?) which can run proper cursive (joined up) handwriting recognition. I know the PocketPCs have this but >$300 for one is a bit steep for a student. Here's hoping Palm can cram this into something for roughly $150.
I'm sure there are many reasons why pgp is not taking off. People don't generally know about encryption on computers, and even if they do that awareness is due to all the hype about it on TV.
Those who do know (and especially in the open source camp) use GNUpg. Even then there is the PGP international page. From here you can download the free versions of the last international release (with source) and even the new 7.0.3 free versionwhich NAI sells.
I think that the clued up people go for this. I think it lacks a couple of features but it still has the core encryption for emails/files on hard disk base. If you know i think you would go for the free version as well. Anyway I though they were bundling PGP with virusscan and the like to make their money anyway.
Most banner ads are OK for me. I accept that this will help the owners pay for whatever service they are offering. If the advert is good enough I might even click on it.
What bugs me is the flash ads. They can cause my computer (a PIII 450 w/ 192MB RAM) to take a few seconds to display the page after downloading it, and the screen redraws slowly so that scrolling up and down takes some time.
I don't mind it in some websites, but when it becomes excessive (when combined with flash buttons etc.) it is a real pain. I don't want to pay for a 1.5Ghz proc. so that i can surf the web.
I see that CNET and salon use this kind of ad. I don'tmind them as long as they don't distract my attention and don't force long redraws. Other sites I'm not so tolerant with, especially those with pop-ups as well.
I actually need a stable solution for doing my studies at uni and some features (e.g. the grammar checker) are indispensible to me. I won't move to other suites till they integrate some of this into the system. But I don't think this will happen quickly in the free office distros.
Seems nothing like Mario Kart at all... The only similarity I can think of is that it uses characters from a cartoon/game in vehicles. I think the 'Sunday driving' is probably more like Midtown Madness (which BTW is very good). There doesn't seem to be much success in copying the Mario Kart kind of game anyway... the original SNES version was just too good.