Sure it's time to upgrade going to be a bit though
on
Time To Dump XP?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I work at a Fortune 250 company that many slashdotters would recognize if I put out the name. Our IT department has been planning the rollout of Windows 7 for quite a while now and it's going to take time simply because of the amount of testing that has to be done. They have to make sure all of the applications that we use on a regular basis (some of which are built internally) work fine with the new operating system and work as expected. Then they have to make sure all of our hardware is compatible. When you have tens of thousands of workstations that's a lot of hardware to check. Yes there is desktop standardization to a degree but even then you have those users that have to have a custom piece of hardware for their job that isn't in other configurations. Frankly right now is about the time most companies need to start a migration plan if they haven't already. It won't be too much longer before Microsoft stops supporting XP entirely and no longer issues any security patches. And having an operating system like Windows XP operating unpatched is definitely not a good thing.
Well Tivo did win the first trial (or the first battle in the war) but this is far from over. Let's look at a few points:
1) EchoStar posted profits of 1.5 billion for the year 2005. Tivo by contrast hasn't posted any profits and has lost close to half a billion since their inception. So guess who has the bigger pockets?
2) The next court that EchoStar will likely appeal to typically overturns 40% of the lower court rulings
3) Tivo's patent is currently being investigated by the US Patent Office. If they revoke that patent you can pretty much kiss Tivo good bye.
It should be interesting to see how this battle continues.
This is NOT a conversion from analogue TV to HDTV. It is a conversion from analogue TV to digital TV and there is a BIG difference. Does sending a digital signal allow the broadcasting station to send a HDTV broadcast? Yes. Do they HAVE to transmit a HDTV broadcast? NO. The fact is a lot of consumers, how many I do not know, already have the capability to receive a digital transmission. This is done through a variety of methods such as subscribing to a cable or satellite service. Folks with either of those services will likely not notice a change.
Now the folks with an old analogue only TV set that are receiving their signal from rabbit ears are going to notice a change once the analogue signals are shut off. Some may subscribe to satellite or cable I suppose but there will likely be a fair amount that do not wish to and will complain LOUDLY. It will only get louder if the ATSC tuner boxes necessary to get their sets working with the new signal are too expensive. The other option of course will be to buy a set with an ATSC tuner built in but a lot of folks won't like doing that either.
Right now I would say it's quite probable that the switchover will be delayed.
Maybe it's my area or maybe I'm just looking at the positions the wrong way but I've seen some positions requiring a lot more experience in the field than I would think necessary. For example I've seen positions for Tier 3 tech support (not administrative mind you) looking for experience of 5+ years. Now I can definitely understand that for an administrative position but it seems a bit high for a support position.
It seems that companies are less willing to have employees gain experience on the job. They want somebody that already knows their stuff so they don't have to teach them anything. The problem is the folks with that kind of experience level usually want a higher salary than is being offered so the position goes unfilled for a long period of time.
Personally I have an associate's degree and I was a Support Tech for a community college for a year. I've done freebie work in maintaining servers on the net but that doesn't seem to be taken seriously as experience and I can understand why. I just keep learning stuff on my own (Linux, networking related stuff, etc.) and adding to my knowledge base and keep looking for a position that fits my qualifications. For right now I just keep on applying for positions and hope that something turns up.
Ok, so they make high quality audio CDs and DVDs but the equipment (most of it at least) that plays these CD & DVDs does not have a digital output. And they expect me to use analog inputs on my receiver to listen to it? I DON'T THINK SO. There is a noticeable difference in between the sound you'll get with digital input versus an analog input, no matter how high a quality set of cables you get for the analog. Not only that but I use digital in whenever possible since it is the least susceptible to any signal noise crossing the line, especially the optical inputs.
While I haven't played Diablo II in a while admittedly I did play it from it's beta test stage to commercial release. It didn't take many patches to fix any actual playability issues. The last patches I was around for where more along the lines of race balancing and those kinds of things. Gameplay fixes that you can't always anticipate.
It's because of the upper management that keeps trying to get a product out the door as soon as possible. Doesn't matter if the game is bug ridden, plenty examples of this, or has other issues that need to be fixed first. The folks at the top and the investors want to get their money as soon as possible. Problem is that it's pretty tough to produce a decent game (believe it or not) within one year most of the time.
An example of a gaming company doing the right thing is Blizzard Entertainment. The folks that own them right now (Havas Interactive I believe) understand that Blizzard knows what it's doing. So when Blizzard says the game is not ready to ship yet they adjust their schedule accordingly. Blizzard will not ship a game until it is done, even if they could make more money by releasing it earlier. Sure their games have a few minor bugs, but I can't remember any major ones in them. And can you name one title that was a flop for them? Because I sure as heck can not.
More game publishers should follow Blizzard's example. To quote an article from PC Gamer on Blizzard's 10th anniversary Blizzard's strategy is this, "The game comes first". Why more game publishers have not adopted this approach after the large amount of success that Blizzard has seen may never be known.
Well, we'll just have to see what my Linux firewall/router box has to say about that:P
Yet another good reason to use IP Tables....
on
RIAA to DoS Pirates?
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· Score: 1
Have fun you folks at the RIAA, I'm sure you'll enjoy trying to DoS my Linux firewall/router. I wonder what would happen if we all sent e-mails to their ISPs complaining about what was coming from them. Hmmmm......
Linux on a gameboy??? You're kidding me, right? I can see the use of putting Linux on a lot of other consoles (Dreamcast, etc) since you can attach a keyboard to them. But putting it on a Gameboy would be dumb since the only form of input you'd have would be the controller.
Looks very promising, I have a light for my GBA that works pretty well although it could work better. What I'd really like to see is a solution that you could easily install. Something along the lines of removing the lens and installing the lighting package and putting the lens back on.
And the point of this is......?
on
PlayStation Portable
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· Score: 2, Informative
The idea is all fine and dandy, but it's not very practical and I kindof wonder how long the system will last after being taken apart like that. For that matter you can make the system into a portable without taking it apart. Sony and some other third party vendors make a LCD screen that can be hooked up to the back of the PSOne (the two can be hooked up as well) and it also has speakers on it. Plus Sony is releasing, or has released, a rechargeable NiMH (could be Lithium Ion, not sure) battery that hooks up to the back of the PSOne as well. So if you wanted a cleaner looking PSOne portable that didn't void your warranty it would be the way to go.
Slashdot Mirror
I work at a Fortune 250 company that many slashdotters would recognize if I put out the name. Our IT department has been planning the rollout of Windows 7 for quite a while now and it's going to take time simply because of the amount of testing that has to be done. They have to make sure all of the applications that we use on a regular basis (some of which are built internally) work fine with the new operating system and work as expected. Then they have to make sure all of our hardware is compatible. When you have tens of thousands of workstations that's a lot of hardware to check. Yes there is desktop standardization to a degree but even then you have those users that have to have a custom piece of hardware for their job that isn't in other configurations. Frankly right now is about the time most companies need to start a migration plan if they haven't already. It won't be too much longer before Microsoft stops supporting XP entirely and no longer issues any security patches. And having an operating system like Windows XP operating unpatched is definitely not a good thing.
But it's not something that I would put past the MPAA. Its not like they aren't already regulating our home theaters in some shape or form anyways.
Well Tivo did win the first trial (or the first battle in the war) but this is far from over. Let's look at a few points: 1) EchoStar posted profits of 1.5 billion for the year 2005. Tivo by contrast hasn't posted any profits and has lost close to half a billion since their inception. So guess who has the bigger pockets? 2) The next court that EchoStar will likely appeal to typically overturns 40% of the lower court rulings 3) Tivo's patent is currently being investigated by the US Patent Office. If they revoke that patent you can pretty much kiss Tivo good bye. It should be interesting to see how this battle continues.
This is NOT a conversion from analogue TV to HDTV. It is a conversion from analogue TV to digital TV and there is a BIG difference. Does sending a digital signal allow the broadcasting station to send a HDTV broadcast? Yes. Do they HAVE to transmit a HDTV broadcast? NO. The fact is a lot of consumers, how many I do not know, already have the capability to receive a digital transmission. This is done through a variety of methods such as subscribing to a cable or satellite service. Folks with either of those services will likely not notice a change.
Now the folks with an old analogue only TV set that are receiving their signal from rabbit ears are going to notice a change once the analogue signals are shut off. Some may subscribe to satellite or cable I suppose but there will likely be a fair amount that do not wish to and will complain LOUDLY. It will only get louder if the ATSC tuner boxes necessary to get their sets working with the new signal are too expensive. The other option of course will be to buy a set with an ATSC tuner built in but a lot of folks won't like doing that either.
Right now I would say it's quite probable that the switchover will be delayed.
Maybe it's my area or maybe I'm just looking at the positions the wrong way but I've seen some positions requiring a lot more experience in the field than I would think necessary. For example I've seen positions for Tier 3 tech support (not administrative mind you) looking for experience of 5+ years. Now I can definitely understand that for an administrative position but it seems a bit high for a support position.
It seems that companies are less willing to have employees gain experience on the job. They want somebody that already knows their stuff so they don't have to teach them anything. The problem is the folks with that kind of experience level usually want a higher salary than is being offered so the position goes unfilled for a long period of time.
Personally I have an associate's degree and I was a Support Tech for a community college for a year. I've done freebie work in maintaining servers on the net but that doesn't seem to be taken seriously as experience and I can understand why. I just keep learning stuff on my own (Linux, networking related stuff, etc.) and adding to my knowledge base and keep looking for a position that fits my qualifications. For right now I just keep on applying for positions and hope that something turns up.
Ok, so they make high quality audio CDs and DVDs but the equipment (most of it at least) that plays these CD & DVDs does not have a digital output. And they expect me to use analog inputs on my receiver to listen to it? I DON'T THINK SO. There is a noticeable difference in between the sound you'll get with digital input versus an analog input, no matter how high a quality set of cables you get for the analog. Not only that but I use digital in whenever possible since it is the least susceptible to any signal noise crossing the line, especially the optical inputs.
While I haven't played Diablo II in a while admittedly I did play it from it's beta test stage to commercial release. It didn't take many patches to fix any actual playability issues. The last patches I was around for where more along the lines of race balancing and those kinds of things. Gameplay fixes that you can't always anticipate.
It's because of the upper management that keeps trying to get a product out the door as soon as possible. Doesn't matter if the game is bug ridden, plenty examples of this, or has other issues that need to be fixed first. The folks at the top and the investors want to get their money as soon as possible. Problem is that it's pretty tough to produce a decent game (believe it or not) within one year most of the time. An example of a gaming company doing the right thing is Blizzard Entertainment. The folks that own them right now (Havas Interactive I believe) understand that Blizzard knows what it's doing. So when Blizzard says the game is not ready to ship yet they adjust their schedule accordingly. Blizzard will not ship a game until it is done, even if they could make more money by releasing it earlier. Sure their games have a few minor bugs, but I can't remember any major ones in them. And can you name one title that was a flop for them? Because I sure as heck can not. More game publishers should follow Blizzard's example. To quote an article from PC Gamer on Blizzard's 10th anniversary Blizzard's strategy is this, "The game comes first". Why more game publishers have not adopted this approach after the large amount of success that Blizzard has seen may never be known.
Well, we'll just have to see what my Linux firewall/router box has to say about that :P
Have fun you folks at the RIAA, I'm sure you'll enjoy trying to DoS my Linux firewall/router. I wonder what would happen if we all sent e-mails to their ISPs complaining about what was coming from them. Hmmmm......
Linux on a gameboy??? You're kidding me, right? I can see the use of putting Linux on a lot of other consoles (Dreamcast, etc) since you can attach a keyboard to them. But putting it on a Gameboy would be dumb since the only form of input you'd have would be the controller.
Looks very promising, I have a light for my GBA that works pretty well although it could work better. What I'd really like to see is a solution that you could easily install. Something along the lines of removing the lens and installing the lighting package and putting the lens back on.
The idea is all fine and dandy, but it's not very practical and I kindof wonder how long the system will last after being taken apart like that. For that matter you can make the system into a portable without taking it apart. Sony and some other third party vendors make a LCD screen that can be hooked up to the back of the PSOne (the two can be hooked up as well) and it also has speakers on it. Plus Sony is releasing, or has released, a rechargeable NiMH (could be Lithium Ion, not sure) battery that hooks up to the back of the PSOne as well. So if you wanted a cleaner looking PSOne portable that didn't void your warranty it would be the way to go.