I've been trying to convince my mother to get a mac for several years now. She's not very computer-literate, but she'll memorize software manuals, so she knows "just enough to be dangerous". Her favorite application: her firewall program. (I am SERIOUS!) Even for all her vigilance, which approaches zealot at times, she still manages to get nailed on occasion, contracting both code red and bugbear.
I've decided that some people are just plain happier living on the edge with their systems.
If nothing else, a mac is a better solution from a maintenance and setup point of view. It takes about 2 minutes to set up a fresh-out-of-the-box mac to be "internet hardened", and zero time to keep it that way. (security updates can easily be set to be automatic) No ssh'ing in once a month, no manual patching, no MS Security Holes, no checkups... like Steve says, "it just works."
It's not that I expected the mac laptop to be the same, but I wasn't expecting this much of a gap. Powerbooks are known for their state-of-the-art technology, and I expect the graphics to be very nearly top-end, and the processor to be within maybe 75% of top-end. (due to issues coping with heat) Performance in UT 2k4 though is at maybe 20% of that of a PC, which is clearly a much more serious problem than the hardware itself could account for.
I'd tend to agree with the other previous poster, in that it's an issue of poor optimization in the conversion of the Direct-X to Open-GL engine that is accounting for the poor fps.
But on the flip-side, I do have to give them credit for making a very stable game that so far is 100% network compatible between platforms. In our tests, my tibook never crashed, whereas several of the PC users at the lan game got hard freezes. That, and we never had any glitches between the server (my ti) and the clients (mostly PCs), which is more than I can say for the original UT.
I've seen a few posters comment about rendering speed increasing if sound is disabled, but that's not really an option for a serious player... if you can't hear where the shooting is coming from (or hear the footsteps of the person tailgaiting you) you're not gonna last very long. So turning off the sound isn't a serious option.
Also, just in general I'd say the frame rates on the mac are a lot slower than on the PC. Are they even bothering to use hardware accelleration? It feels like I'm back playing the original Unreal Tournament on my Wallstreet with its sucky graphics speed, and yet this is a fairly new tibook. My fps drops to around 4 or so during heavy action.
OK, I like toys. So I've bought quite a few bells and whistles for the laptops I've owned. Some are useful, some are "ooo, that's neat. what's it good for?" I'll assume since you're getting a laptop, you intend to use it as such, as a portable. A lot of the gadgets and accessories I have are geared toward that theme.
- Extra battery. Manditory. Maybe not often, but you WILL use it, and you WILL be thankful for it.
- Laptop bag. I've seen all sorts, and it really depends on your taste in how much weight you want to carry around, but get something that will protect your laptop. The better bags now have an inner "liner" that the laptop slides into, that cushions it from every direction. Keeps it safe when you drop the bag. (it happens)
- CD wallet. You'll have a dozen or so CDs that will come in very handy from time to time. I've taken one of those large wallets that holds four discs on a side, and stripped the pages out and re-attached them with the posts. Then I hang it across the folder separator in my laptop bag. Keeps the discs safe and easy access. Handy if you carry a lot of them with you like I do. (~40 DVDs, ~20 data CDs, and don't forget to pack a few blanks if your laptop can burn) I recommend adding some mylar or duralar plastic sheets between the pages, as most of the wallet pages allow discs on adjacent pages to rub on eachother's labels, and that WILL eventually grind away and ruin the discs. (duralar sheets available at any major art stores)
- Network cable. Just a 10ft cat-5 will do nicely. Handy for networking your laptop to whatever you run across. Even more convenient if your ethernet jack is auto-sense for crossover, otherwise carry one of each.
- Earphones. Something like the iPod earphones - small and portable. Just tuck them in a mini ziplock type bag for when you want your music and others around you want their quiet time.
And now, "the kitchen sink"... i.e. all the other stuff I also carry with my laptop. Yes there's a lot, but then I'm not wandering around campus all day with it on my shoulder so it's OK with me...
- A/V adapters. Like headphone to dual RCA, S-video to RCA, etc, for jacking into TVs to watch a movie.
- Trackball. What FPS can be played properly without one?
- RJ-45 (ethernet ends) and crimper. Yes, I'm a geek, but it comes in handy from time to time.
- Phone line checker. Stops me from frying my internal modem on an unexpected digital phone line.
- A few empty CD sleeves. For those times when someone wants to borrow a DVD or CD from me, or I borrow one from someone else. Keeps them from getting scratched.
- Compactflash to PCMCIA adapter. For when I have the camera with me.
- Mini USB floppy drive. Might get ditched soon, but has its rare uses.
- GPS. I wrote some satellite photo gps tracking software so...
- Firewire cable. If you bought a proper computer, *cough*Macintosh*cough* you have a firewire port, and so will your friends. Target disk mode is superior to ethernet for large transfers. That, and if you have an iPod, it's a given.
- USB to serial adapter. For the legacy ports your newer portable lacks. (why does my NEW gps use a SERIAL port??)
- 10ft phone cable. Because sometimes all you have is the jack on the wall.
- Small paddalock. I prefer the ones with the dials so no key is required. Keeps people from borrowing your toys when you step away for a moment.
There, that'll weigh you down to about 13 lbs if you have a good stock of CDs/DVDs. But it's the geek's swiss army knife.:-)
Most satellites still have to deal with temperature variation as they pass in and out of shadow. Fuel is an issue too, they usually have to burn fuel to keep the orbit, due to the craft continuously colliding with dust particles and solar wind, slowing it down. A lagrange point (discussed about 3 weeks ago here on/.) would be a better alternative because if they picked an L4 or L5 (iirc) no orbit-maintaining fuel would be required. Also keep in mind... the more satellites you relay through, the greater the odds that one or more sats are being blocked by the body they orbit or are otherwise in a "bad spot".
I work at a mac/pc repair shop, and we have seen a number of those new HP Pavilion lapbricks come in lately... about twice as thick as a powerbook, huge grills for the dual -blowers- to keep the processor from melting down. They weigh a ton too. Then you look at the screen and it's smaller than the 17" powerbook. I really don't see the market niche for them. (tho I will admit, the 17" powerbook is a "tv dinner tray" and sacrifices ease of physical portability as a result)
As for screen res, 1900x1200, good lord, your icons are going to be like 1cm x 1cm if you're lucky. The filenames will be what, 2mm tall? How is anyone going to read that, or find any advantage in it? I keep my display at 1280x854 and that's about as high res as I would go without going blind trying to read things.
And rounding out my rant, I'd be curious to know the battery life of these behemoths. I will give them kudos for having a swappable bay that can take a 2nd battery, (I miss that from my Wallstreet powerbook) but that is going to make the weight problem only get worse. I know all too well how the PC processors burn through batteries... the last PC laptop I clocked at just over 35 minutes with the "energy saver" extras turned off and playing a game. You get the processor and the video chip up to speed and you can practically hear the meter spinning in the unit, spending battery charge to try to set your table on fire.
A laptop is of little value as a portable if it doesn't have good battery life. That would leave physical portability as the only good point, but at 9 lbs (sans 2nd battery) even that is lost. I don't see any point in these monsters. If you're going to make a portable, make it light, durable, compact, and run long on a charge. After you've worked all that out, do what you can to make it fast, powerful, etc. If you can't at least do that, you've missed the point... get out of the laptop design team and go back to the desktop squad.
Kansas City had problems a few years ago with a string of laptop robberies. The theives were working in pairs around the metal detectors. Basically, one would distract you right after you put your laptop bag on the conveyor, while the other was standing at the other end of the conveyor waiting for it, and would take it and run. The guards at the detectors were under orders to stay at the gate, so they would not give chase to the thief - so if you wanted your laptop back you'd have to chase them yourself.
One way or another you're going to end up with LCD. CRT just draws too much power. Laptops are generally engineered to draw a miserly amount of power also, and come with options to power-cycle the processor etc to further stretch a battery. My tibook draws 18 watts when idling with no power saving features on, HD spun up, and battery not charging. It can kick it up to 37 watts if I'm in the middle of a graphical game and am charging the battery. You'd be hard-pressed to find a monitor that doesn't draw at least that much power by itself.
It will still be a bit expensive to get enough solar to make 37 watts, but not impossible. Don't try to use an inverter to make your power for your computer - go straight off the battery at the proper voltage, bypassing the computer's power pack. Too much power will be lost by the inverter if you try to use one.
Finally, don't blindly believe that computers or monitors that are in "power save" or "sleep" mode are really drawing less power. My blue & white g3 draws almost as much power when it's asleep as when it's awake. I use a "kill-a-watt" power meter to measure watts drawn on my equipment - just plug the unit into the wall and plug the gizmo into it, and it gives real-time measurements.
My previous laptop I kept in a Targus with air suspension, and my current laptop is in a Brenthaven. I think I prefer the Targus... it's cheaper, lighter, and has the air suspension which has to be the best protection I've seen so far. The Brenthaven happened to be the only one at the time that would fit a 15" tibook so I had to switch at the time. For its credit, the Brenthaven's exterior is tougher, making it more immune to scratches and cuts that mar the Targus's thin leather covering. The Brenthaven also has a more comfortable (better padded) shoulder strap.
When will laptop makers design in some sort of way to transport CDs? I take my DVDs with me, and there never seems to be a good place to stick a CD wallet in laptop bags. I've been making do with binding together pages from a large CD wallet and hanging them in the Brenthaven's folding file area.
Static yes. But you can't transmit data or even have a carrier wave with a static field. Modulation is required to transmit data. There's going to have to be an electrical field around this thing, there's simply no way around the laws of physics.
Radio waves are referred to as "electro-magnetic radiation". There is no such thing as a magnetic component without an electrical component, or vice-versa. The two fields compliment eachother.
Another interesting thing mentioned in the article was that this magnetic field made a "bubble" that "stopped" at four feet. Magnetic field strength decays at the same rate as the electrical component. If you want a smaller "bubble" for wireless, just cut the power down. I don't see a difference here, unless they are just planning on running really low power as a general rule, and I suppose this would also explain the longer battery life they describe.
I'm really not seeing the difference here. The only thing the article mentions that really separates this from radio is the frequency, which they only vaguely described as "used by industrial and medical" applications. I'm going to guess this means either very high frequency or very low frequency. Very high frequency is far from efficient, and is already staked out well in the bandplan. If they're targetting very low frequency, (VLF) then there's no way they'll have the bandwidth necessary for video as the article suggests.
The article also said "interferance is not an issue". 640k of memory will be plenty, too. I normally don't slam on people, but this article just reeks of lack of forethought and research. It's only natural that any new technology niche has breathing room, until it becomes popular. I'm sure cell phone makers 10 yrs ago didn't expect to ever use even 30% of their allotted spectrum.
I shopped around a month ago for wifi antennas too, and found there's a lot of rip-offs and a few hiddeen gems. Cantenna doesn't come with the pigtail, which doubles the price. Add a "mounting bracket" (it's a camera tripod) and the price is now triple.
For about the same money, check out the real thing by Pacific Wireless: http://www.rangeextender.com/224pagransy.html
24db gain, versus the cantenna's 12. Adding 12 more db of gain amounts to 16 times more signal than the Cantenna, and it even comes with a weatherproofing kit and is meant to mount to a pole outside where it belongs. I don't think a Cantenna would last one season outside where I live, and it certainly won't mount on my roof using that camera tripod.
I think the Cantenna is meant for people that want to just experiment, war-drive, look for waps near their house, etc. If you really want to establish a long-distance or "shooting through trees" link, the Pacific Wireless looks to be the real deal.
The notes say the keyboard uses encryption. I'm a little curious how the key is shared between the keyboard and the computer? At first I thought it might use a standard USB cable to connect to the computer and maybe charge rechargeable batteries, (seems like a good idea!) but it does say "no cables". Maybe you have to type a key in that's presented on the setup control panel? Although I suppose it could be exchanging keys with PGP or other public key technology.
It'd also be a nice touch if they'd have put USB ports on the keyboard, that could "tunnel" through the bluetooth back to the computer. Sure it's slow, but if you happen to have some other peripherals like a touchpad or multibutton mouse etc., that'd be a nice way to deal with some of the cord issues while maintaining compatibility with existing non-bluetooth peripherals.
Kudos to Apple though on a bluetooth optical mouse + bluetooth enabled laptop. I don't use an external mouse on my powerbook, but I can see this as "one less cable to plug in" when getting the 'book out of the bag. As it is, when I arrive home I plug in my speakers, ethernet (yes, I have 802 but cable is faster), firewire (for my pod), and power.
Is "terrorism" the new buzzword that every report has to include in it as a method of persuasion? It's mentioned in three of the ten reasons for the space program. This "terrorism" fad is really getting old...
With all the case modding going on, I wonder how much though has been put into the interferance being generated by all the clear cases that are around today? There's a reason computer cases normally come as a solid sheet of metal. It's called a "faraday cage", (sp?) and is used to keep the nasty interferance generated by today's high speed systems inside the case.
Most stock case systems come complete with rows of metal "fingers" along the edges where sheets meet, and where the ports mesh against the back of the case, etc., to keep emi/rfi from leaking out. I'm assuming all of this bother is to keep the case within FCC regulations for generating interferance.
I wonder just how much interferance a typical "clear case" system generates to the surrounding area? Has anyone here at/. ran across any studies or sampling done on computer-generated interferance?
Well, they offer a toll free (1800) tech support line, and you can just call that whenever and they'll make any changes to your domain name for you. This saves time and grief for those less-experienced users. Also, if you register several yrs you get a good discount. Add to that the fact that you can actually negotiate with them about the registration price, and you end up getting the better service etc at no additional charge.
then have fun with it. I'm looking for a nice picture of Santa right now. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are next on my list.
Assuming they go low-budget for the drones to do the data-entry, I want to find that list when it eventually gets posted, and see Santa Claus on there.
We got a call last week by a customer that was having problems with mail.app (OS X email app) getting "poor performance". Come to find out she, and most everyone at her company, had upwards of 2000 emails in EACH mail folder, and they had many mail folders.
Somewhat at a loss for good ideas, I suggested she try Enterage. That's apparently what they used to use, until they broke its limit of a 2mb index, at which point Enterage crashes.
Sheeeeeeesh. Some people just don't know what it means to keep a clean email inbox. But in her case, their business revolves around receiving customer email, and they're already keeping their mailboxes trimmed down.
Is there any email app for OS X that can handle "industrial" needs?
If you want to give them an answer they will accept, you have to listen to your answer from their point of view.
I've lost count of the number of people that suggested to list off all the other things you have to do. Do your customers REALLY care what you're doing for someone else? Of course not. Don't do that. For most of them, it won't help, and may make them think you're doing work for everyone except them. They may leave you alone, but you'll leave them with a sour taste in their mouth.
Next look at who the people are that are making the requests. If you are working for a large company, then you should only be recieving requests from department heads. If Cindy over in accounting is calling you because her mouse cord is tangled, this is #1 wasting your time and #2 is hiding her incompetance from her manager. If the managers realized all the frivilous requests being made of the I.T. department, most of them would put a stop to it on their end, and this really helps. Managers care not just because their people are wasting your time, but also because their people are probably being less productive until the request is completed because they have an excuse.
For requests that will take time to complete, you need to work up a request form. Give a master copy to all the department heads and tell them that if they need something from I.T. then they have to fill out the form. It won't be well-received initially, but they will get used to it after a week or two. Place lines for requestor, department, and description of request. DO NOT place a line for "urgency", because they'll all get marked "emergency". Instead, put a selection of why the request is there. Example: "Client Jepardy", "Client request", "Internal Request". That of course translates to urgency: high, medium, low. They know it, but there's no way to hide Jeff's inability to figure out his Start menu from losing a paying customer. This will help you prioritize your time, AND lets you show your managers that you are taking care of the things that matter most first. Don't do client requests until client jepardy stack is empty, etc. If your managers complain, you have an airtight case for hiring additional staff.
When (not if) people complain about their requests not getting completed, simply tell them that you have 7 "client jepardy" requests you are working on currently, and that you will take care of their request when those are handled. (and possibly when the "client requests" are handled too) Here you are not telling them that a specific someone else is getting service first, but instead that you are saving clients. No one will be able to hold that against you. Be sure you keep it "faceless" - don't tell them who the requests are for. If they still complain, (and they will) then be prepared to immediately forward them to your manager. One of his jobs is to run interferance for you when people from other departments are making unreasonable requests. Most of the time he will tell them to go take a hike. Sometimes he might call you and "escallate" an issue, but keep careful written account of these escallations for later in case he wants to know why a client request took so long or why a client jepardy issue just barely got done by deadline.
Agreed, this is a bit silly to post as a "wow, this is just sooooo amazing!" idea. We got in a batch of those crappy little micro dells, the ones that don't even have a CD-ROM drive, and they all came with the same model of Western Digital Caviar (YAAACK!) drives. One by one almost 50% of them failed, onboard controller card just stopped working. Everytime I swapped a card out to salvage the data, I had people ooohing and ahhhing my efforts like it was magic or something. This is not rocket science, anyone reading this article should be capable of doing it themselves.
Tell me he replaced the platter head amp board inside the drive, ok, then I'll be a little impressed. Actually I'm still a bit surprised people can open up the drives and get away with it... more than once I've given people the advice to open the drive and gently spin the platters (by the edge please!) in cases where the motor was going out and wouldn't spin it up and they needed the data NOW. Sure it voids the warranty and probably will tear up the drive, but when the data is more important than the drive, it's a worthy one-shot. One fellow I told that to got his data off, and used a can of compressed air to blow out the drive thoroughly while replacing the lid, and to my knowledge, the drive is still working. (tho I sure wouldn't trust it)
I work at a computer store, and we offer free tech support to our customers. We've got a half dozen techs in the back doing computer repairs and system buiilds, and the front desk transfers the support calls to us randomly. We don't have a hard-set time limit, but we try to keep support calls to five minutes for random people that call, although we are ok with spending more time with someone that bought the computer from us. Today I got a call from someone having some random problem with their system, and I knew immediately it was going to be an interesting call when I asked what model of computer she had and she answered "ViewSoniq".
The next several minutes of the call were spent explaining what the basic parts of her system were. (she was also calling the computer "the hard drive") This was not a stupid person, just someone that hadn't learned what things were, what each of them were for, and what their names were. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to know the difference between a computer, a hard drive, and a monitor to effectively compose a spreadsheet - but it does make receiving effective tech support tricky...
Probably the biggest barrier to effective tech support for us is when the customer's telephone and computer are not in the same room. Waiting sometimes several minutes between asking them a question and getting an answer (or having to have them make several trips back and forth to get the answer) can be frustrating to the tech.
On the other end of the problem, cable modem companies are the worst for tech support. One lesson we all eventually learn, never ever ever tell them you're using a "cable router" to break out connections for multiple computers - this throws the drone into "whatever it is, you caused the problem, we don't support it, and we're not going to help you fix it" mode.
Favorite phonecall to cable modem company tech support: "Hello, my service is down." "ok, have you tried resetting your modem?" "Yep. didn't help, it's not synching up. By the way, there's a blackout in this part of town." "Um... but sir.... your computer..." "Is on a UPS. It's doing fine." "Oh. But the cable modem-" "Is also on the UPS. Both are running just fine." "Oh....(long pause)" "Is your system fully protected by UPS's?" "Of course our servers are all protected, but the distribution system on the poles probably isn't." "So will I be receiving a credit for this service failure?" There was some more discussion after that, but what we finally agreed on is I was probably one of the only customers in the blackout area that was actually experiencing a tangible "service failure" because I was one of the only ones still able to use their service which was down. That month's service was free.:)
The spectrum actually has a limit, but it's only because it gets into light frequencies. (light is a frequency of wave, very high) The problem is that serious technical challenges appear as frequency goes up. Like it or not, hams are the ones storming the boundaries. We are allowed full coverage above certain limits, a limit that keeps getting pushed up as civilian technology requires it. That's why you can now have your gigahertz toys. Hams pioneer the technologies and frequency issues and then the general public is able to use the technology.
Reallocating spectrum use every 10 years is a completely insane idea. That would mean throwing away perfectly good equipment every ten years because it can no longer be used on that band. Ham radios are some of the best lasting pieces of equipment around because their owners are usually capable of repairing and maintaining them. (it's quite common to see a ham using a radio that's 15 yrs old, and tube-type radios are still in use and bought and sold at swap meets) Electronics manufacturers also design RF parts around certain bands, and can't simply scrap and re-engineer 15 yrs worth of R&D just because it makes things convenient for band planning.
The boys at the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) are in charge of planning ahead with the new high frequencies and determining where to best allocate bandwidth, knowing that their decisions have to be able to last a long time. Although lately there's been a lot of discussion about them "selling off" portions of ham bands to private ("business band") use. This would generate revenue for the somewhat economically-strapped FCC, but auctioning off a limited resource only fixes problems in the present, and leaves a lasting mark.
Isn't the iTrip just like any of the dozens of other low power FM transmitters on the market today? I recall using one years ago with my JVC DiscMan, and I know they were around even back to the handheld cassette player days, for playing those on your car stereo. I've personally got an iRock for my pod for road trips.
The USA has a limit (what is it, 10mW?) that anything running under that transmit strength doesn't have to be licensed because it's too weak to cause interferance. My iRock has a range of about 15 feet from my truck, on an empty station. I sometimes have to switch its channel though because even sitting on my dash, 2 feet from my antenna, it can still be overpowered by local radio stations along my route. I don't see how the UK's equivelant of the FCC seriously considers this any kind of hazard.
I understand different countries will have different regulations etc., but is this a case of the UK completely banning any such devices, or is it just a case of Apple neglecting to get a license for the iTrip in the UK, and the UK deciding to make an example of 'zero tolerance' of their airwave laws?
It seems his answers to questions #3 and #7 are in conflict with eachother.
Question #3 asks if passing into public domain is nullified due to laws preventing the bypass of copyright-protection mechanisms. The reply seems to be that this is not the case because it stops applying after the work passes into the public domain.
Question #7 asks if the law supports the prevention of fair use by making a work uncopyable, and the reply indicates there is no law to prevent an author from making a work uncopyable.
By combining these two points, we have the question: "Can an author legally eliminate fair-use of his work by placing copy-protection technology on it?" It would seem that the answer is YES.
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I've been trying to convince my mother to get a mac for several years now. She's not very computer-literate, but she'll memorize software manuals, so she knows "just enough to be dangerous". Her favorite application: her firewall program. (I am SERIOUS!) Even for all her vigilance, which approaches zealot at times, she still manages to get nailed on occasion, contracting both code red and bugbear.
I've decided that some people are just plain happier living on the edge with their systems.
If nothing else, a mac is a better solution from a maintenance and setup point of view. It takes about 2 minutes to set up a fresh-out-of-the-box mac to be "internet hardened", and zero time to keep it that way. (security updates can easily be set to be automatic) No ssh'ing in once a month, no manual patching, no MS Security Holes, no checkups... like Steve says, "it just works."
It's not that I expected the mac laptop to be the same, but I wasn't expecting this much of a gap. Powerbooks are known for their state-of-the-art technology, and I expect the graphics to be very nearly top-end, and the processor to be within maybe 75% of top-end. (due to issues coping with heat) Performance in UT 2k4 though is at maybe 20% of that of a PC, which is clearly a much more serious problem than the hardware itself could account for.
I'd tend to agree with the other previous poster, in that it's an issue of poor optimization in the conversion of the Direct-X to Open-GL engine that is accounting for the poor fps.
But on the flip-side, I do have to give them credit for making a very stable game that so far is 100% network compatible between platforms. In our tests, my tibook never crashed, whereas several of the PC users at the lan game got hard freezes. That, and we never had any glitches between the server (my ti) and the clients (mostly PCs), which is more than I can say for the original UT.
I've seen a few posters comment about rendering speed increasing if sound is disabled, but that's not really an option for a serious player... if you can't hear where the shooting is coming from (or hear the footsteps of the person tailgaiting you) you're not gonna last very long. So turning off the sound isn't a serious option.
Also, just in general I'd say the frame rates on the mac are a lot slower than on the PC. Are they even bothering to use hardware accelleration? It feels like I'm back playing the original Unreal Tournament on my Wallstreet with its sucky graphics speed, and yet this is a fairly new tibook. My fps drops to around 4 or so during heavy action.
OK, I like toys. So I've bought quite a few bells and whistles for the laptops I've owned. Some are useful, some are "ooo, that's neat. what's it good for?" I'll assume since you're getting a laptop, you intend to use it as such, as a portable. A lot of the gadgets and accessories I have are geared toward that theme.
:-)
- Extra battery. Manditory. Maybe not often, but you WILL use it, and you WILL be thankful for it.
- Laptop bag. I've seen all sorts, and it really depends on your taste in how much weight you want to carry around, but get something that will protect your laptop. The better bags now have an inner "liner" that the laptop slides into, that cushions it from every direction. Keeps it safe when you drop the bag. (it happens)
- CD wallet. You'll have a dozen or so CDs that will come in very handy from time to time. I've taken one of those large wallets that holds four discs on a side, and stripped the pages out and re-attached them with the posts. Then I hang it across the folder separator in my laptop bag. Keeps the discs safe and easy access. Handy if you carry a lot of them with you like I do. (~40 DVDs, ~20 data CDs, and don't forget to pack a few blanks if your laptop can burn) I recommend adding some mylar or duralar plastic sheets between the pages, as most of the wallet pages allow discs on adjacent pages to rub on eachother's labels, and that WILL eventually grind away and ruin the discs. (duralar sheets available at any major art stores)
- Network cable. Just a 10ft cat-5 will do nicely. Handy for networking your laptop to whatever you run across. Even more convenient if your ethernet jack is auto-sense for crossover, otherwise carry one of each.
- Earphones. Something like the iPod earphones - small and portable. Just tuck them in a mini ziplock type bag for when you want your music and others around you want their quiet time.
And now, "the kitchen sink"... i.e. all the other stuff I also carry with my laptop. Yes there's a lot, but then I'm not wandering around campus all day with it on my shoulder so it's OK with me...
- A/V adapters. Like headphone to dual RCA, S-video to RCA, etc, for jacking into TVs to watch a movie.
- Trackball. What FPS can be played properly without one?
- RJ-45 (ethernet ends) and crimper. Yes, I'm a geek, but it comes in handy from time to time.
- Phone line checker. Stops me from frying my internal modem on an unexpected digital phone line.
- A few empty CD sleeves. For those times when someone wants to borrow a DVD or CD from me, or I borrow one from someone else. Keeps them from getting scratched.
- Compactflash to PCMCIA adapter. For when I have the camera with me.
- Mini USB floppy drive. Might get ditched soon, but has its rare uses.
- GPS. I wrote some satellite photo gps tracking software so...
- Firewire cable. If you bought a proper computer, *cough*Macintosh*cough* you have a firewire port, and so will your friends. Target disk mode is superior to ethernet for large transfers. That, and if you have an iPod, it's a given.
- USB to serial adapter. For the legacy ports your newer portable lacks. (why does my NEW gps use a SERIAL port??)
- 10ft phone cable. Because sometimes all you have is the jack on the wall.
- Small paddalock. I prefer the ones with the dials so no key is required. Keeps people from borrowing your toys when you step away for a moment.
There, that'll weigh you down to about 13 lbs if you have a good stock of CDs/DVDs. But it's the geek's swiss army knife.
Most satellites still have to deal with temperature variation as they pass in and out of shadow. Fuel is an issue too, they usually have to burn fuel to keep the orbit, due to the craft continuously colliding with dust particles and solar wind, slowing it down. A lagrange point (discussed about 3 weeks ago here on /.) would be a better alternative because if they picked an L4 or L5 (iirc) no orbit-maintaining fuel would be required. Also keep in mind... the more satellites you relay through, the greater the odds that one or more sats are being blocked by the body they orbit or are otherwise in a "bad spot".
I work at a mac/pc repair shop, and we have seen a number of those new HP Pavilion lapbricks come in lately... about twice as thick as a powerbook, huge grills for the dual -blowers- to keep the processor from melting down. They weigh a ton too. Then you look at the screen and it's smaller than the 17" powerbook. I really don't see the market niche for them. (tho I will admit, the 17" powerbook is a "tv dinner tray" and sacrifices ease of physical portability as a result)
As for screen res, 1900x1200, good lord, your icons are going to be like 1cm x 1cm if you're lucky. The filenames will be what, 2mm tall? How is anyone going to read that, or find any advantage in it? I keep my display at 1280x854 and that's about as high res as I would go without going blind trying to read things.
And rounding out my rant, I'd be curious to know the battery life of these behemoths. I will give them kudos for having a swappable bay that can take a 2nd battery, (I miss that from my Wallstreet powerbook) but that is going to make the weight problem only get worse. I know all too well how the PC processors burn through batteries... the last PC laptop I clocked at just over 35 minutes with the "energy saver" extras turned off and playing a game. You get the processor and the video chip up to speed and you can practically hear the meter spinning in the unit, spending battery charge to try to set your table on fire.
A laptop is of little value as a portable if it doesn't have good battery life. That would leave physical portability as the only good point, but at 9 lbs (sans 2nd battery) even that is lost. I don't see any point in these monsters. If you're going to make a portable, make it light, durable, compact, and run long on a charge. After you've worked all that out, do what you can to make it fast, powerful, etc. If you can't at least do that, you've missed the point... get out of the laptop design team and go back to the desktop squad.
Kansas City had problems a few years ago with a string of laptop robberies. The theives were working in pairs around the metal detectors. Basically, one would distract you right after you put your laptop bag on the conveyor, while the other was standing at the other end of the conveyor waiting for it, and would take it and run. The guards at the detectors were under orders to stay at the gate, so they would not give chase to the thief - so if you wanted your laptop back you'd have to chase them yourself.
One way or another you're going to end up with LCD. CRT just draws too much power. Laptops are generally engineered to draw a miserly amount of power also, and come with options to power-cycle the processor etc to further stretch a battery. My tibook draws 18 watts when idling with no power saving features on, HD spun up, and battery not charging. It can kick it up to 37 watts if I'm in the middle of a graphical game and am charging the battery. You'd be hard-pressed to find a monitor that doesn't draw at least that much power by itself.
It will still be a bit expensive to get enough solar to make 37 watts, but not impossible. Don't try to use an inverter to make your power for your computer - go straight off the battery at the proper voltage, bypassing the computer's power pack. Too much power will be lost by the inverter if you try to use one.
Finally, don't blindly believe that computers or monitors that are in "power save" or "sleep" mode are really drawing less power. My blue & white g3 draws almost as much power when it's asleep as when it's awake. I use a "kill-a-watt" power meter to measure watts drawn on my equipment - just plug the unit into the wall and plug the gizmo into it, and it gives real-time measurements.
My previous laptop I kept in a Targus with air suspension, and my current laptop is in a Brenthaven. I think I prefer the Targus... it's cheaper, lighter, and has the air suspension which has to be the best protection I've seen so far. The Brenthaven happened to be the only one at the time that would fit a 15" tibook so I had to switch at the time. For its credit, the Brenthaven's exterior is tougher, making it more immune to scratches and cuts that mar the Targus's thin leather covering. The Brenthaven also has a more comfortable (better padded) shoulder strap.
When will laptop makers design in some sort of way to transport CDs? I take my DVDs with me, and there never seems to be a good place to stick a CD wallet in laptop bags. I've been making do with binding together pages from a large CD wallet and hanging them in the Brenthaven's folding file area.
At 3.5TB for 18 min, that works out to what... over 3GB/sec. What media do they intend to store this on, for playback in real-time?
Just because a technology exists doesn't mean it's practical.
Static yes. But you can't transmit data or even have a carrier wave with a static field. Modulation is required to transmit data. There's going to have to be an electrical field around this thing, there's simply no way around the laws of physics.
Radio waves are referred to as "electro-magnetic radiation". There is no such thing as a magnetic component without an electrical component, or vice-versa. The two fields compliment eachother.
Another interesting thing mentioned in the article was that this magnetic field made a "bubble" that "stopped" at four feet. Magnetic field strength decays at the same rate as the electrical component. If you want a smaller "bubble" for wireless, just cut the power down. I don't see a difference here, unless they are just planning on running really low power as a general rule, and I suppose this would also explain the longer battery life they describe.
I'm really not seeing the difference here. The only thing the article mentions that really separates this from radio is the frequency, which they only vaguely described as "used by industrial and medical" applications. I'm going to guess this means either very high frequency or very low frequency. Very high frequency is far from efficient, and is already staked out well in the bandplan. If they're targetting very low frequency, (VLF) then there's no way they'll have the bandwidth necessary for video as the article suggests.
The article also said "interferance is not an issue". 640k of memory will be plenty, too. I normally don't slam on people, but this article just reeks of lack of forethought and research. It's only natural that any new technology niche has breathing room, until it becomes popular. I'm sure cell phone makers 10 yrs ago didn't expect to ever use even 30% of their allotted spectrum.
I shopped around a month ago for wifi antennas too, and found there's a lot of rip-offs and a few hiddeen gems. Cantenna doesn't come with the pigtail, which doubles the price. Add a "mounting bracket" (it's a camera tripod) and the price is now triple.
For about the same money, check out the real thing by Pacific Wireless: http://www.rangeextender.com/224pagransy.html
24db gain, versus the cantenna's 12. Adding 12 more db of gain amounts to 16 times more signal than the Cantenna, and it even comes with a weatherproofing kit and is meant to mount to a pole outside where it belongs. I don't think a Cantenna would last one season outside where I live, and it certainly won't mount on my roof using that camera tripod.
I think the Cantenna is meant for people that want to just experiment, war-drive, look for waps near their house, etc. If you really want to establish a long-distance or "shooting through trees" link, the Pacific Wireless looks to be the real deal.
The notes say the keyboard uses encryption. I'm a little curious how the key is shared between the keyboard and the computer? At first I thought it might use a standard USB cable to connect to the computer and maybe charge rechargeable batteries, (seems like a good idea!) but it does say "no cables". Maybe you have to type a key in that's presented on the setup control panel? Although I suppose it could be exchanging keys with PGP or other public key technology.
It'd also be a nice touch if they'd have put USB ports on the keyboard, that could "tunnel" through the bluetooth back to the computer. Sure it's slow, but if you happen to have some other peripherals like a touchpad or multibutton mouse etc., that'd be a nice way to deal with some of the cord issues while maintaining compatibility with existing non-bluetooth peripherals.
Kudos to Apple though on a bluetooth optical mouse + bluetooth enabled laptop. I don't use an external mouse on my powerbook, but I can see this as "one less cable to plug in" when getting the 'book out of the bag. As it is, when I arrive home I plug in my speakers, ethernet (yes, I have 802 but cable is faster), firewire (for my pod), and power.
Is "terrorism" the new buzzword that every report has to include in it as a method of persuasion? It's mentioned in three of the ten reasons for the space program. This "terrorism" fad is really getting old...
With all the case modding going on, I wonder how much though has been put into the interferance being generated by all the clear cases that are around today? There's a reason computer cases normally come as a solid sheet of metal. It's called a "faraday cage", (sp?) and is used to keep the nasty interferance generated by today's high speed systems inside the case.
/. ran across any studies or sampling done on computer-generated interferance?
Most stock case systems come complete with rows of metal "fingers" along the edges where sheets meet, and where the ports mesh against the back of the case, etc., to keep emi/rfi from leaking out. I'm assuming all of this bother is to keep the case within FCC regulations for generating interferance.
I wonder just how much interferance a typical "clear case" system generates to the surrounding area? Has anyone here at
Well, they offer a toll free (1800) tech support line, and you can just call that whenever and they'll make any changes to your domain name for you. This saves time and grief for those less-experienced users. Also, if you register several yrs you get a good discount. Add to that the fact that you can actually negotiate with them about the registration price, and you end up getting the better service etc at no additional charge.
then have fun with it. I'm looking for a nice picture of Santa right now. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are next on my list.
Assuming they go low-budget for the drones to do the data-entry, I want to find that list when it eventually gets posted, and see Santa Claus on there.
We got a call last week by a customer that was having problems with mail.app (OS X email app) getting "poor performance". Come to find out she, and most everyone at her company, had upwards of 2000 emails in EACH mail folder, and they had many mail folders.
Somewhat at a loss for good ideas, I suggested she try Enterage. That's apparently what they used to use, until they broke its limit of a 2mb index, at which point Enterage crashes.
Sheeeeeeesh. Some people just don't know what it means to keep a clean email inbox. But in her case, their business revolves around receiving customer email, and they're already keeping their mailboxes trimmed down.
Is there any email app for OS X that can handle "industrial" needs?
If you want to give them an answer they will accept, you have to listen to your answer from their point of view.
I've lost count of the number of people that suggested to list off all the other things you have to do. Do your customers REALLY care what you're doing for someone else? Of course not. Don't do that. For most of them, it won't help, and may make them think you're doing work for everyone except them. They may leave you alone, but you'll leave them with a sour taste in their mouth.
Next look at who the people are that are making the requests. If you are working for a large company, then you should only be recieving requests from department heads. If Cindy over in accounting is calling you because her mouse cord is tangled, this is #1 wasting your time and #2 is hiding her incompetance from her manager. If the managers realized all the frivilous requests being made of the I.T. department, most of them would put a stop to it on their end, and this really helps. Managers care not just because their people are wasting your time, but also because their people are probably being less productive until the request is completed because they have an excuse.
For requests that will take time to complete, you need to work up a request form. Give a master copy to all the department heads and tell them that if they need something from I.T. then they have to fill out the form. It won't be well-received initially, but they will get used to it after a week or two. Place lines for requestor, department, and description of request. DO NOT place a line for "urgency", because they'll all get marked "emergency". Instead, put a selection of why the request is there. Example: "Client Jepardy", "Client request", "Internal Request". That of course translates to urgency: high, medium, low. They know it, but there's no way to hide Jeff's inability to figure out his Start menu from losing a paying customer. This will help you prioritize your time, AND lets you show your managers that you are taking care of the things that matter most first. Don't do client requests until client jepardy stack is empty, etc. If your managers complain, you have an airtight case for hiring additional staff.
When (not if) people complain about their requests not getting completed, simply tell them that you have 7 "client jepardy" requests you are working on currently, and that you will take care of their request when those are handled. (and possibly when the "client requests" are handled too) Here you are not telling them that a specific someone else is getting service first, but instead that you are saving clients. No one will be able to hold that against you. Be sure you keep it "faceless" - don't tell them who the requests are for. If they still complain, (and they will) then be prepared to immediately forward them to your manager. One of his jobs is to run interferance for you when people from other departments are making unreasonable requests. Most of the time he will tell them to go take a hike. Sometimes he might call you and "escallate" an issue, but keep careful written account of these escallations for later in case he wants to know why a client request took so long or why a client jepardy issue just barely got done by deadline.
Agreed, this is a bit silly to post as a "wow, this is just sooooo amazing!" idea. We got in a batch of those crappy little micro dells, the ones that don't even have a CD-ROM drive, and they all came with the same model of Western Digital Caviar (YAAACK!) drives. One by one almost 50% of them failed, onboard controller card just stopped working. Everytime I swapped a card out to salvage the data, I had people ooohing and ahhhing my efforts like it was magic or something. This is not rocket science, anyone reading this article should be capable of doing it themselves.
Tell me he replaced the platter head amp board inside the drive, ok, then I'll be a little impressed. Actually I'm still a bit surprised people can open up the drives and get away with it... more than once I've given people the advice to open the drive and gently spin the platters (by the edge please!) in cases where the motor was going out and wouldn't spin it up and they needed the data NOW. Sure it voids the warranty and probably will tear up the drive, but when the data is more important than the drive, it's a worthy one-shot. One fellow I told that to got his data off, and used a can of compressed air to blow out the drive thoroughly while replacing the lid, and to my knowledge, the drive is still working. (tho I sure wouldn't trust it)
I work at a computer store, and we offer free tech support to our customers. We've got a half dozen techs in the back doing computer repairs and system buiilds, and the front desk transfers the support calls to us randomly. We don't have a hard-set time limit, but we try to keep support calls to five minutes for random people that call, although we are ok with spending more time with someone that bought the computer from us. Today I got a call from someone having some random problem with their system, and I knew immediately it was going to be an interesting call when I asked what model of computer she had and she answered "ViewSoniq".
The next several minutes of the call were spent explaining what the basic parts of her system were. (she was also calling the computer "the hard drive") This was not a stupid person, just someone that hadn't learned what things were, what each of them were for, and what their names were. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to know the difference between a computer, a hard drive, and a monitor to effectively compose a spreadsheet - but it does make receiving effective tech support tricky...
Probably the biggest barrier to effective tech support for us is when the customer's telephone and computer are not in the same room. Waiting sometimes several minutes between asking them a question and getting an answer (or having to have them make several trips back and forth to get the answer) can be frustrating to the tech.
On the other end of the problem, cable modem companies are the worst for tech support. One lesson we all eventually learn, never ever ever tell them you're using a "cable router" to break out connections for multiple computers - this throws the drone into "whatever it is, you caused the problem, we don't support it, and we're not going to help you fix it" mode.
Favorite phonecall to cable modem company tech support: "Hello, my service is down." "ok, have you tried resetting your modem?" "Yep. didn't help, it's not synching up. By the way, there's a blackout in this part of town." "Um... but sir.... your computer..." "Is on a UPS. It's doing fine." "Oh. But the cable modem-" "Is also on the UPS. Both are running just fine." "Oh....(long pause)" "Is your system fully protected by UPS's?" "Of course our servers are all protected, but the distribution system on the poles probably isn't." "So will I be receiving a credit for this service failure?" There was some more discussion after that, but what we finally agreed on is I was probably one of the only customers in the blackout area that was actually experiencing a tangible "service failure" because I was one of the only ones still able to use their service which was down. That month's service was free.
The spectrum actually has a limit, but it's only because it gets into light frequencies. (light is a frequency of wave, very high) The problem is that serious technical challenges appear as frequency goes up. Like it or not, hams are the ones storming the boundaries. We are allowed full coverage above certain limits, a limit that keeps getting pushed up as civilian technology requires it. That's why you can now have your gigahertz toys. Hams pioneer the technologies and frequency issues and then the general public is able to use the technology.
Reallocating spectrum use every 10 years is a completely insane idea. That would mean throwing away perfectly good equipment every ten years because it can no longer be used on that band. Ham radios are some of the best lasting pieces of equipment around because their owners are usually capable of repairing and maintaining them. (it's quite common to see a ham using a radio that's 15 yrs old, and tube-type radios are still in use and bought and sold at swap meets) Electronics manufacturers also design RF parts around certain bands, and can't simply scrap and re-engineer 15 yrs worth of R&D just because it makes things convenient for band planning.
The boys at the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) are in charge of planning ahead with the new high frequencies and determining where to best allocate bandwidth, knowing that their decisions have to be able to last a long time. Although lately there's been a lot of discussion about them "selling off" portions of ham bands to private ("business band") use. This would generate revenue for the somewhat economically-strapped FCC, but auctioning off a limited resource only fixes problems in the present, and leaves a lasting mark.
- Nathan / N0ZYC
Isn't the iTrip just like any of the dozens of other low power FM transmitters on the market today? I recall using one years ago with my JVC DiscMan, and I know they were around even back to the handheld cassette player days, for playing those on your car stereo. I've personally got an iRock for my pod for road trips.
The USA has a limit (what is it, 10mW?) that anything running under that transmit strength doesn't have to be licensed because it's too weak to cause interferance. My iRock has a range of about 15 feet from my truck, on an empty station. I sometimes have to switch its channel though because even sitting on my dash, 2 feet from my antenna, it can still be overpowered by local radio stations along my route. I don't see how the UK's equivelant of the FCC seriously considers this any kind of hazard.
I understand different countries will have different regulations etc., but is this a case of the UK completely banning any such devices, or is it just a case of Apple neglecting to get a license for the iTrip in the UK, and the UK deciding to make an example of 'zero tolerance' of their airwave laws?
It seems his answers to questions #3 and #7 are in conflict with eachother.
Question #3 asks if passing into public domain is nullified due to laws preventing the bypass of copyright-protection mechanisms. The reply seems to be that this is not the case because it stops applying after the work passes into the public domain.
Question #7 asks if the law supports the prevention of fair use by making a work uncopyable, and the reply indicates there is no law to prevent an author from making a work uncopyable.
By combining these two points, we have the question: "Can an author legally eliminate fair-use of his work by placing copy-protection technology on it?" It would seem that the answer is YES.