Not exactly a new discovery. I think I watched this on public television (Nova or Nature I believe?) several years ago. IIRC, the wasp stings the roach to basically drug it, then cuts its antennae down quite a bit, (drinking the fluid that's inside the antenna) and then leads it back to the burrow by the cut antennas. Once in the burrow, it then stings it again, permanently paralyzing it. Each roach gets a few eggs laid on it, and the wasp will do this with several roaches.
Now correct me if I've missed something here... marketoids spend cash to snail mail me junk because they know there's a warm body at my mailbox. Spammers have less incentive per recipient, but it costs them so much less that it's worth it. (they only need to reach like 1 in 1000 to turn a buck) Now we are going to charge the spammers like a penny to send an email to someone, that they KNOW will get delivered and not junked, and that they KNOW has a warm body at the screen?
Aren't the spammers holding a champaign party after hearing this great news? This is not going to STOP spamming, it's going to make it WORSE by increasing the spammers' proffit margins.
If you're going to do this, do it for ANY proposed email to be sent, not just for any that is successfully delivered. That way they will still have to send a billion spams to get any hits, and they will be paying for all of those messags too. THAT will discourage them.
Symantec used to be a very good quality program, but in the last couple years they really seem to have tanked. Symantec Antivirus and Norton Internet Security are probably second only to viruses as the reason PCs are brought into our shop for service. NIS just flips out sometimes if a virus attacks, and just plain shuts down everything. Who in their right mind would make an automatic rule that could block incoming email and web browser??? answer! Symantec! Thank you for saving me from my new mail and home page...
Maybe they should make their current version of software work before they think about integrating it all together? I think at this point installing several symantec products all at once would turn your computer into a train wreck.
This is not a case of a new discovery being made that squeezes an extra 10% battery life out of the unit, above and beyond the spec. This is a case of the equipment not operating as designed and also not operating as the consumer expects. (and perhaps not even living up to the specs being released to the public?) When a product does not perform as the company says it should or as the company designed it to, we call that defective.
Just because 100% of the product sold do not perform as designed or expected, we don't go back and say oh that's not really defective, they're ALL that way. Just because they're all bad doesn't mean they're not defective. Defective does not mean out of the ordinary, it means not working as designed, and yes, they can all be defective.
A multifunction product like a laptop computer is a bit more difficult to set the bar at though. Minor problems that do not interfere with the use of the computer, such as cosmetic issues or minor annoyances, would probably not justify calling something defective. But when you fail to meet product specifications due to a documented mistake made during production OR fabrication/design, (or when the product is judged to be hazardous) then you have a much stronger right to call the product defective.
speaking of backward compatibility... I have a program here called "Neko". It's not an application - it's something called a desk accessory. This is from back in the days of Mac OS 6'ish, where you could not have two programs running at the same time. (Finder quit when you launched an app, and then it relaunched when you quit the app!) Desk accessories like Calculator were the exception and could run while another app was running.
I am still amazed that this program, written in 1994, almost twelve years ago, still runs fine on my new mac.
Backward compatibility and security need not be mutually exclusive.
Where I work, we require people with certifications, to maintain the certification of the business. Without me having these certs, our company could not do business. So for me at least, training and certification is very important to the company, and they gladly pay for my certification tests and allow me to take time aside to study. (at $150/pop it's in their best interest that I pass on the first try!) I was also promised a raise for every certification I passed. I have yet to see any of those. So that goes to show you, the company will only pay for that which they consider important to them.
The company does have other options. They can try to find someone that's already certified and trained and hire them at the same price they're already paying you. That would be arguably a better deal for the company. If they cannot find a better deal like that, then they have to decide if the money invested in you will have a positive return. Depending on how good of a case you can make to your managers, this may or may not happen. They may think that you're capable enough to keep them limping along just fine without additional training, and that's their call. Eventually though, they will either train you, or hire someone that has either trained themselves or has gotten someone else to train them. This means you are either better trained, better performing, and less stressed, or you're unemployed. It's in your best interest to make a good case to management for the benefits to the company for training you.
This "getting into bed with the enemy" is not an all or nothing affair. Would you be more upset if Google had made an immediate decision with little or no deliberation, and simply modified their search results without notice to the user? Wouldn't this be 'more evil"? If there can be a "more evil", then there can be a "less evil", and you see this is not an all or nothing issue, it's a range of degrees.
Google had two choices - provide censored searches or provide NO searches. From a political point of view, no press or regulated press is about the same, (regulated may even have the advantage) but from google's point of view for their business, regulated vs nothing at all is a huge difference. This really was the best decision for them to make. Without knowing the details of the agreement I can't say if google had to fight for the "these search results have been edited" notice, but if they did, I'd call that a major victory for us from google. Knowing that information ("the other side of the story") is being withheld from you at least makes you a little more cautious and skeptical about what you read, and helps you to stay more properly focused.
Do you mean to focus on the issue of the data being lost and causing problems for the company because they no longer have the data, or to focus on the possibility that the data has fallen into the wrong hands, or the uncertainly of such an event having occurred?
If the only place your important file exists is on a flash drive, you are being very careless. I can see how a person could lose a flash drive though - easy enough to set it on a desk somewhere or forget to pull it before leaving to work on another machine.
As for data falling into the wrong hands, there are biometric usb drives available with thumb scanners built into their cases, for people that are paranoid about losing or having stolen their thumb drive with sensitive information on it.
Also it's not very common to have a floppy go through the wash due to its size, but I have heard of several people laundering their flash drives. They're hard to dry out, and can fry if you try to use them while still damp.
Rename those two on a mac. External USB and firewire storage devices, such as hard drives, digital cameras, USB flash drives, etc will no longer attach. CD ROM drive still works though, but that's easily locked out via the system preferences.
But then you just get into a technology war. Someone can bring in an external hard drive.
So then you enable an open firmware password and lock the boot device.
And then they can shuffle memory and reset the OF password.
So then you padalock the cases.
And so it never really ends. Summarizing grandparent, physical access = 0WN3D
My point here would be, if you are having to take several levels of action to stop your employees from doing something you don't want them from doing, why did you hire them?
My manager at the last place I worked at used to work at a bank, and he was rather against my taking my laptop to work. But this was not a well funded IT department, and about once a month we'd need to do something that we didn't have the capability to do. (like clone a 20mb proprietary formatted SCSI-2 HD from the phone switch) Then I'd bring back in the laptop and I'd be good for hassel-free laptop use for about another month before he'd start grumbling again. And then something else would come up and reset the clock again.
Not that we had anything that critical or sensitive where I worked, but I always found it silly to bar someone from bringing in their laptop. Common sense tells you not to put anything sensitive on the computer, since the only reason for that is probably to work at home, and I don't get paid to work at home so why should I. And getting back to parent's point, if it's an issue of trust, why would you have someone working in a position of trust that you do not trust? If someone has access to very sensitive information, either you are going to have to body cavity search them every day or they are going to find a way to sneak out your data if they have a mind to do it. Data security in the workplace is a bit like a padalock - it keeps honest people honest and stops casual theft, and is absolutely worthless against a dedicated thief, and has to be taken to a great extreme to approach 100% effectiveness.
Strangely, at the time I had a 512mb flash drive, (huge for the time) and he never said a word about it. Guessing he didn't realize what it was or how it could be used, or he would have badgered me about that also.
Although I do see their point. They're paying you for your time, and if the pointy haired boss makes silly rules that reduce your efficiency and result in you accomplishing less work per day, they are paying you for that unproductive time so I suppose they are the ones being negatively impacted by their actions rather than you, so let them go for it. As long as they don't combine that with harping about your poor productivity, or pay you based on productivity.
Yes but we are talking manufacturers here. These are people with six brain cells, five of which are trying to make money and one of which are trying to make more money. You cannot rely on them having good intentions let alone god behavior where your privacy/safety are concerned. If it doesn't make them more money, and it costs them money to add, you will never see it.
If it doesn't say "encrypted" on the box, you can sure bet it's not. And when it does say encrypted, half the time it's some sophisticated variation on ROT-13.
If it does say encrypted on the box, you can bet that the 30 cent chip they added will stack about 3 jacksons onto the price tag. If you want your privacy respected, you have to pay.
and for those stupid enough to use a wireless keyboard, sniff passwords right out of the air. Goes right around any security that may exist on the computer - heck you don't even need to be in the same ROOM.
I was thinking of the speed gauge in like a fighter jet. Of the few I have seen, they were graduated by fractions of mach. For this I assume they have picked some fixed pressure and temperature etc to calibrate this gauge by. I don't expect that the gauge's calibration is adjusted as the pilot flies to higher altitudes.
But maybe that's just the air force wanting consistency.
Even for the digital displays that are probably in modern jets, I would expect a "mach 1.0" reading to mean you are going say, 750mph, regardless of what altitude you are presently at. I can imagine all sorts of confusion and delays being generated if the ground team wants you to be going a certain speed, and they have to adjust their orders according to the alitude of the pilot. "... and accelerate to a speed of mach one point... um... (how high is he?)"
Although yes I see your point - in theory anyway, the unit of mach is based on a variable quantity.
Things that continue to surprise me about Joe Computer User:
- calling the monitor the computer - calling the computer the hard drive - but I didn't drop it (said about the powerbook with dents on all 8 corners) - but I didn't spill anything on it (said about the ibook that reeeeked of beer) - yes you have to plug in the laptop occasionally or it will keep shutting off like that - it says I need to restart my computer. what should I do? ("toss computer out of window?") - backups? no. what do you mean it's all gone? - but I could buy a new machine cheaper than fix this one ("yes, I was getting to that") - my printer isn't working. here's my computer. (OR here's my printer) - my mouse isn't working. here's my mouse. (OR here's my computer) - my monitor isn't working. here's my monitor. - I don't know where those are. Do you REALLY need the disks to reinstall? - my internet isn't working (which "internet"? almost always www or email client is broken) - yes it has wireless internet, and no you cannot just take it home and use it. buy a wap and get a cable modem. - everytime I try to use my phone I get kicked off the internet (two variations, dialup and 900mhz cordless+wifi) - everytime I leave the computer alone for awhile I come back and the computer is off. (I usually have to hit the power button twice to start it back up again) - just because it fits doesn't mean it belongs there. now remove the phone cord from the ethernet port and plug it into the jack with the picture of the telephone above it. - yes you can use the windows mouse on your mac - yes that was good of you to unplug power during the storm, but you really should work on the phone cord first. - that'll happen whenever the rest of your house loses power. can I interest you in a UPS? - smoke is not a good sign (nor is melting plastic) - call me back when you get home and are in front of your computer - have your friend call me to discuss their computer problem - eject the floppy and restart again.
If I hadn't heard it at least three times it didn't make the list. Honorable mentions for less than three hits follow:
- that is not a cup holder (yes, that really does happen) - don't put CDs in your (5.25") floppy drive. yes I know they fit, just don't. And if you do, don't try to close the door. - when shopping online, don't insert your credit card into the CD ROM drive - I'm selling this computer, can you erase the memory? - but my master's thesis was on there... (ouch!) - just press the space bar (you KNOW what this was the answer to)
Get one of these: http://www.topmicrousa.com/combo-205.html It's a level 5 hardware based raid. Plugs into any computer via usb 2.0hs or firewire 400/800, appearing as a single monster drive. (1tb if you stuff it with five 250's) The bays are hot swap and online rebuild, so you never have to go down to recover.
Since it's a hardware solution that's external, even if your server buys it you can swap in another PC and be off and running again. This also makes the storage portable for when you need to take your data somewhere else. Heck of a lot easier grabbing that by the handle with a laptop under your arm than lugging a behemoth PC tower around.
That design is actually available in several places under several different names, but that enclosure I linked is the most common, and one of the cheapest. It also comes with a good warranty, and good customer support. Nice idiot lights on all bays, as well as LCD display with (lockable) menu. You can admin it via telnet with serial cable or through the front panel.
I suppose you could opt for NAS, but then you have the server tied to the drives and have less flexibility.
Isn't there a clause in the license though that says you agree to run Mac OS X only on Macintosh(TM) computers? That being the case, installing on a non mac would mean you did not have a valid license, and would be required to destroy it.
The big problem is the BIOS - apples (even the new intel laptops) use proprietary BIOS code, and you can't acquire the chip without a license. Not sure if Apple sells upgrade chips, but if they don't, then there's just no legal way to build a clone that will actually run OS X.
Apple also makes it cost-prohibitive to build your own mac. 90% of the parts in a mac, when purchased as service parts, require a core return. Failure to return the broken part inflicts a very expensive charge. Some parts are like $35 with return, or $150 without return. It's Apple's way of making sure it's not possible for someone to build a mac by buying it a piece at a time. (or to make sure Apple is the only reasonable source for service parts... probably some of that too) I don't even want to guess what they'd have for the non-return charge on that bios chip or the part it's attached to. (logic board?) Oh, and Apple always solders down their ROM.
I have not seen a EULA on any software or software-bearing hardware lately that does NOT include the restriction saying you agree to not reverse engineer their product. Often times, "interoperability" is considered a justifiable reason to break that restriction though.
currently, the form factor for "usb thumb drives" allows for about four units of space, two on each side of the pcb inside the drive. flash drives usually have one, but sometimes two, controller chips on them, taking up two of those areas of space. That leaves two more spaces available. The largest thumb drives that I know of are 4GB, made with a pair of 2GB chips. So at least for thumb drives, the chip count is very important. (I suppose they could squeeze one more chip in if only one controller chip was needed, but digital storage tends to be done in powers of 2 and that doesn't include "3")
if your system can boot USB, you're already set. Get a SanDisk Cruzer Mini 4. I use mine daily, though not for booting from. They're still kinda pricey, but worth it I think. Got mine off eBay for $235.
Gotta watch out on eBay though, I've talked with a couple people that have been or know people that have been scammed lately. They hack the format on 512mb flash drives to appear like they are 4gb and sell them. You don't know you've been duped until you try to reformat or run out of space earlier than expected. Don't buy a large flash drive from anyone without good feedback.
Dells are very popular at my workplace right now. The PC repair tech just checked in his TWELTH dell in the last three days. I thought he was going to throw the last one he was checking in across the room when I said "duuuude, you're gettin' a DELL!"
They break early, often, and require significant time to fix. All around, an excellent machine. (for us) They also have this neat little trick of using a custom PS that has the standard items in the back in NONstandard locations, preventing you from installing anything short of a Dell PS in the case. (without the use of tin snips) Not surprising that three of those dozen had bad power supplies.
Some things you have to pay more if you have certain performance requirements. If you need a fast jet, you buy a fast jet. You cannot just buy two slower jets and "stack" them. Computers, for high end purposes anyway, can usually be paralelled. At a grand a processor, I can see that CPU getting whupped by a cluster of 4 CPUs running at 1/2 the speed, at less than 1/4 the cost each, yielding better performance at about 1/2 the cost. If you can parallel it for cheaper, I see very little point in buying the heavy guns.
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Not exactly a new discovery. I think I watched this on public television (Nova or Nature I believe?) several years ago. IIRC, the wasp stings the roach to basically drug it, then cuts its antennae down quite a bit, (drinking the fluid that's inside the antenna) and then leads it back to the burrow by the cut antennas. Once in the burrow, it then stings it again, permanently paralyzing it. Each roach gets a few eggs laid on it, and the wasp will do this with several roaches.
Now correct me if I've missed something here... marketoids spend cash to snail mail me junk because they know there's a warm body at my mailbox. Spammers have less incentive per recipient, but it costs them so much less that it's worth it. (they only need to reach like 1 in 1000 to turn a buck) Now we are going to charge the spammers like a penny to send an email to someone, that they KNOW will get delivered and not junked, and that they KNOW has a warm body at the screen?
Aren't the spammers holding a champaign party after hearing this great news? This is not going to STOP spamming, it's going to make it WORSE by increasing the spammers' proffit margins.
If you're going to do this, do it for ANY proposed email to be sent, not just for any that is successfully delivered. That way they will still have to send a billion spams to get any hits, and they will be paying for all of those messags too. THAT will discourage them.
Symantec used to be a very good quality program, but in the last couple years they really seem to have tanked. Symantec Antivirus and Norton Internet Security are probably second only to viruses as the reason PCs are brought into our shop for service. NIS just flips out sometimes if a virus attacks, and just plain shuts down everything. Who in their right mind would make an automatic rule that could block incoming email and web browser??? answer! Symantec! Thank you for saving me from my new mail and home page...
Maybe they should make their current version of software work before they think about integrating it all together? I think at this point installing several symantec products all at once would turn your computer into a train wreck.
This is not a case of a new discovery being made that squeezes an extra 10% battery life out of the unit, above and beyond the spec. This is a case of the equipment not operating as designed and also not operating as the consumer expects. (and perhaps not even living up to the specs being released to the public?) When a product does not perform as the company says it should or as the company designed it to, we call that defective.
Just because 100% of the product sold do not perform as designed or expected, we don't go back and say oh that's not really defective, they're ALL that way. Just because they're all bad doesn't mean they're not defective. Defective does not mean out of the ordinary, it means not working as designed, and yes, they can all be defective.
A multifunction product like a laptop computer is a bit more difficult to set the bar at though. Minor problems that do not interfere with the use of the computer, such as cosmetic issues or minor annoyances, would probably not justify calling something defective. But when you fail to meet product specifications due to a documented mistake made during production OR fabrication/design, (or when the product is judged to be hazardous) then you have a much stronger right to call the product defective.
speaking of backward compatibility... I have a program here called "Neko". It's not an application - it's something called a desk accessory. This is from back in the days of Mac OS 6'ish, where you could not have two programs running at the same time. (Finder quit when you launched an app, and then it relaunched when you quit the app!) Desk accessories like Calculator were the exception and could run while another app was running.
I am still amazed that this program, written in 1994, almost twelve years ago, still runs fine on my new mac.
Backward compatibility and security need not be mutually exclusive.
Where I work, we require people with certifications, to maintain the certification of the business. Without me having these certs, our company could not do business. So for me at least, training and certification is very important to the company, and they gladly pay for my certification tests and allow me to take time aside to study. (at $150/pop it's in their best interest that I pass on the first try!) I was also promised a raise for every certification I passed. I have yet to see any of those. So that goes to show you, the company will only pay for that which they consider important to them.
The company does have other options. They can try to find someone that's already certified and trained and hire them at the same price they're already paying you. That would be arguably a better deal for the company. If they cannot find a better deal like that, then they have to decide if the money invested in you will have a positive return. Depending on how good of a case you can make to your managers, this may or may not happen. They may think that you're capable enough to keep them limping along just fine without additional training, and that's their call. Eventually though, they will either train you, or hire someone that has either trained themselves or has gotten someone else to train them. This means you are either better trained, better performing, and less stressed, or you're unemployed. It's in your best interest to make a good case to management for the benefits to the company for training you.
This "getting into bed with the enemy" is not an all or nothing affair. Would you be more upset if Google had made an immediate decision with little or no deliberation, and simply modified their search results without notice to the user? Wouldn't this be 'more evil"? If there can be a "more evil", then there can be a "less evil", and you see this is not an all or nothing issue, it's a range of degrees.
Google had two choices - provide censored searches or provide NO searches. From a political point of view, no press or regulated press is about the same, (regulated may even have the advantage) but from google's point of view for their business, regulated vs nothing at all is a huge difference. This really was the best decision for them to make. Without knowing the details of the agreement I can't say if google had to fight for the "these search results have been edited" notice, but if they did, I'd call that a major victory for us from google. Knowing that information ("the other side of the story") is being withheld from you at least makes you a little more cautious and skeptical about what you read, and helps you to stay more properly focused.
Do you mean to focus on the issue of the data being lost and causing problems for the company because they no longer have the data, or to focus on the possibility that the data has fallen into the wrong hands, or the uncertainly of such an event having occurred?
If the only place your important file exists is on a flash drive, you are being very careless. I can see how a person could lose a flash drive though - easy enough to set it on a desk somewhere or forget to pull it before leaving to work on another machine.
As for data falling into the wrong hands, there are biometric usb drives available with thumb scanners built into their cases, for people that are paranoid about losing or having stolen their thumb drive with sensitive information on it.
Also it's not very common to have a floppy go through the wash due to its size, but I have heard of several people laundering their flash drives. They're hard to dry out, and can fry if you try to use them while still damp.
/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBMassStorageClass.k ext /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kex t/Contents/PlugIns/initioFWBridge.kext
Rename those two on a mac. External USB and firewire storage devices, such as hard drives, digital cameras, USB flash drives, etc will no longer attach. CD ROM drive still works though, but that's easily locked out via the system preferences.
But then you just get into a technology war. Someone can bring in an external hard drive.
So then you enable an open firmware password and lock the boot device.
And then they can shuffle memory and reset the OF password.
So then you padalock the cases.
And so it never really ends. Summarizing grandparent, physical access = 0WN3D
My point here would be, if you are having to take several levels of action to stop your employees from doing something you don't want them from doing, why did you hire them?
My manager at the last place I worked at used to work at a bank, and he was rather against my taking my laptop to work. But this was not a well funded IT department, and about once a month we'd need to do something that we didn't have the capability to do. (like clone a 20mb proprietary formatted SCSI-2 HD from the phone switch) Then I'd bring back in the laptop and I'd be good for hassel-free laptop use for about another month before he'd start grumbling again. And then something else would come up and reset the clock again.
Not that we had anything that critical or sensitive where I worked, but I always found it silly to bar someone from bringing in their laptop. Common sense tells you not to put anything sensitive on the computer, since the only reason for that is probably to work at home, and I don't get paid to work at home so why should I. And getting back to parent's point, if it's an issue of trust, why would you have someone working in a position of trust that you do not trust? If someone has access to very sensitive information, either you are going to have to body cavity search them every day or they are going to find a way to sneak out your data if they have a mind to do it. Data security in the workplace is a bit like a padalock - it keeps honest people honest and stops casual theft, and is absolutely worthless against a dedicated thief, and has to be taken to a great extreme to approach 100% effectiveness.
Strangely, at the time I had a 512mb flash drive, (huge for the time) and he never said a word about it. Guessing he didn't realize what it was or how it could be used, or he would have badgered me about that also.
Although I do see their point. They're paying you for your time, and if the pointy haired boss makes silly rules that reduce your efficiency and result in you accomplishing less work per day, they are paying you for that unproductive time so I suppose they are the ones being negatively impacted by their actions rather than you, so let them go for it. As long as they don't combine that with harping about your poor productivity, or pay you based on productivity.
Yes but we are talking manufacturers here. These are people with six brain cells, five of which are trying to make money and one of which are trying to make more money. You cannot rely on them having good intentions let alone god behavior where your privacy/safety are concerned. If it doesn't make them more money, and it costs them money to add, you will never see it.
If it doesn't say "encrypted" on the box, you can sure bet it's not. And when it does say encrypted, half the time it's some sophisticated variation on ROT-13.
If it does say encrypted on the box, you can bet that the 30 cent chip they added will stack about 3 jacksons onto the price tag. If you want your privacy respected, you have to pay.
and for those stupid enough to use a wireless keyboard, sniff passwords right out of the air. Goes right around any security that may exist on the computer - heck you don't even need to be in the same ROOM.
I was thinking of the speed gauge in like a fighter jet. Of the few I have seen, they were graduated by fractions of mach. For this I assume they have picked some fixed pressure and temperature etc to calibrate this gauge by. I don't expect that the gauge's calibration is adjusted as the pilot flies to higher altitudes.
But maybe that's just the air force wanting consistency.
Even for the digital displays that are probably in modern jets, I would expect a "mach 1.0" reading to mean you are going say, 750mph, regardless of what altitude you are presently at. I can imagine all sorts of confusion and delays being generated if the ground team wants you to be going a certain speed, and they have to adjust their orders according to the alitude of the pilot. "... and accelerate to a speed of mach one point... um... (how high is he?)"
Although yes I see your point - in theory anyway, the unit of mach is based on a variable quantity.
Isn't mach based on some fixed temperature, humidity, air density, air pressure, etc?
Things that continue to surprise me about Joe Computer User:
- calling the monitor the computer
- calling the computer the hard drive
- but I didn't drop it (said about the powerbook with dents on all 8 corners)
- but I didn't spill anything on it (said about the ibook that reeeeked of beer)
- yes you have to plug in the laptop occasionally or it will keep shutting off like that
- it says I need to restart my computer. what should I do? ("toss computer out of window?")
- backups? no. what do you mean it's all gone?
- but I could buy a new machine cheaper than fix this one ("yes, I was getting to that")
- my printer isn't working. here's my computer. (OR here's my printer)
- my mouse isn't working. here's my mouse. (OR here's my computer)
- my monitor isn't working. here's my monitor.
- I don't know where those are. Do you REALLY need the disks to reinstall?
- my internet isn't working (which "internet"? almost always www or email client is broken)
- yes it has wireless internet, and no you cannot just take it home and use it. buy a wap and get a cable modem.
- everytime I try to use my phone I get kicked off the internet (two variations, dialup and 900mhz cordless+wifi)
- everytime I leave the computer alone for awhile I come back and the computer is off. (I usually have to hit the power button twice to start it back up again)
- just because it fits doesn't mean it belongs there. now remove the phone cord from the ethernet port and plug it into the jack with the picture of the telephone above it.
- yes you can use the windows mouse on your mac
- yes that was good of you to unplug power during the storm, but you really should work on the phone cord first.
- that'll happen whenever the rest of your house loses power. can I interest you in a UPS?
- smoke is not a good sign (nor is melting plastic)
- call me back when you get home and are in front of your computer
- have your friend call me to discuss their computer problem
- eject the floppy and restart again.
If I hadn't heard it at least three times it didn't make the list. Honorable mentions for less than three hits follow:
- that is not a cup holder (yes, that really does happen)
- don't put CDs in your (5.25") floppy drive. yes I know they fit, just don't. And if you do, don't try to close the door.
- when shopping online, don't insert your credit card into the CD ROM drive
- I'm selling this computer, can you erase the memory?
- but my master's thesis was on there... (ouch!)
- just press the space bar (you KNOW what this was the answer to)
Get one of these: http://www.topmicrousa.com/combo-205.html It's a level 5 hardware based raid. Plugs into any computer via usb 2.0hs or firewire 400/800, appearing as a single monster drive. (1tb if you stuff it with five 250's) The bays are hot swap and online rebuild, so you never have to go down to recover.
Since it's a hardware solution that's external, even if your server buys it you can swap in another PC and be off and running again. This also makes the storage portable for when you need to take your data somewhere else. Heck of a lot easier grabbing that by the handle with a laptop under your arm than lugging a behemoth PC tower around.
That design is actually available in several places under several different names, but that enclosure I linked is the most common, and one of the cheapest. It also comes with a good warranty, and good customer support. Nice idiot lights on all bays, as well as LCD display with (lockable) menu. You can admin it via telnet with serial cable or through the front panel.
I suppose you could opt for NAS, but then you have the server tied to the drives and have less flexibility.
Isn't there a clause in the license though that says you agree to run Mac OS X only on Macintosh(TM) computers? That being the case, installing on a non mac would mean you did not have a valid license, and would be required to destroy it.
The big problem is the BIOS - apples (even the new intel laptops) use proprietary BIOS code, and you can't acquire the chip without a license. Not sure if Apple sells upgrade chips, but if they don't, then there's just no legal way to build a clone that will actually run OS X.
Apple also makes it cost-prohibitive to build your own mac. 90% of the parts in a mac, when purchased as service parts, require a core return. Failure to return the broken part inflicts a very expensive charge. Some parts are like $35 with return, or $150 without return. It's Apple's way of making sure it's not possible for someone to build a mac by buying it a piece at a time. (or to make sure Apple is the only reasonable source for service parts... probably some of that too) I don't even want to guess what they'd have for the non-return charge on that bios chip or the part it's attached to. (logic board?) Oh, and Apple always solders down their ROM.
So unless Dell backwards engineers Apple's tech
I have not seen a EULA on any software or software-bearing hardware lately that does NOT include the restriction saying you agree to not reverse engineer their product. Often times, "interoperability" is considered a justifiable reason to break that restriction though.
you can already get 4GB SD, compactflash, and usb thumb drives.
how does it "warn" you? I know of no way to monitor how many flash cells have been 'spared', like you can do with hard drives.
currently, the form factor for "usb thumb drives" allows for about four units of space, two on each side of the pcb inside the drive. flash drives usually have one, but sometimes two, controller chips on them, taking up two of those areas of space. That leaves two more spaces available. The largest thumb drives that I know of are 4GB, made with a pair of 2GB chips. So at least for thumb drives, the chip count is very important. (I suppose they could squeeze one more chip in if only one controller chip was needed, but digital storage tends to be done in powers of 2 and that doesn't include "3")
if your system can boot USB, you're already set. Get a SanDisk Cruzer Mini 4. I use mine daily, though not for booting from. They're still kinda pricey, but worth it I think. Got mine off eBay for $235.
Gotta watch out on eBay though, I've talked with a couple people that have been or know people that have been scammed lately. They hack the format on 512mb flash drives to appear like they are 4gb and sell them. You don't know you've been duped until you try to reformat or run out of space earlier than expected. Don't buy a large flash drive from anyone without good feedback.
Dells are very popular at my workplace right now. The PC repair tech just checked in his TWELTH dell in the last three days. I thought he was going to throw the last one he was checking in across the room when I said "duuuude, you're gettin' a DELL!"
They break early, often, and require significant time to fix. All around, an excellent machine. (for us) They also have this neat little trick of using a custom PS that has the standard items in the back in NONstandard locations, preventing you from installing anything short of a Dell PS in the case. (without the use of tin snips) Not surprising that three of those dozen had bad power supplies.
Some things you have to pay more if you have certain performance requirements. If you need a fast jet, you buy a fast jet. You cannot just buy two slower jets and "stack" them. Computers, for high end purposes anyway, can usually be paralelled. At a grand a processor, I can see that CPU getting whupped by a cluster of 4 CPUs running at 1/2 the speed, at less than 1/4 the cost each, yielding better performance at about 1/2 the cost. If you can parallel it for cheaper, I see very little point in buying the heavy guns.