I think you could do a lot with a really basic PDA. Something with a good viewable area, a touchscreen, some sort of wireless networking and not much more.
The biggest problem with the ones currently available is that they try and fit a whole PC into a handheld (why the fuck does a PDA need sound capability?). Something that does a few simple things and does them well would be so much better, especially if it meant that it was more durable (good for kids) and had a longer battery life (good for everyone). I'd probably buy one. Run Linux on it and we can all write nice simple applications for it.. it'd be so cool. -- Andy
I'm not sure if this applies to all dual head cards in Linux, but with my Nvidia GeForce 2 MX (using Nvidia's drivers; I don't think the free drivers can make the card do the dual headed thang) the dual display happens at the driver level. The main implication of this is that most applications (and X) have no idea they are running on a dual display, they just think I have one huge monitor. For me this means that they throw up dialogs and windows that land accross both displays which is a bit annoying, but in the project the poster mentions I could see problems if X can't recognise each monitor as an entirely separate display device.
-- Andy
Re:Linux needs a "centralized clearinghouse"
on
Linus Does Not Scale
·
· Score: 1
I think the folks at IBM and Oracle ought to seriously have a LONG talk with Linux Torvalds himself and convince him to create a true clearinghouse where every improvement is approved by a committee.
Yeeeas. Because we all know committees speed things up.
I don't recall ever having read that Linus has forbidden anyone else to take over maintenence of the kernel. From what I've read of his thoughts I'd say he'd be more than willing for someone to fork the kernel and see if their development model worked.
The problem would be that everyone would still follow Linus' kernel and the new one would not have a chance to take off. If this is the price we pay for Linux then I don't see that we can complain.. Linux is worth far more than I paid for it! (and I did pay for it:*) )
Now, if only they would release those Linux drivers...
Damn right.. I had a Prophet 4500, but after waiting for 4 months for a driver for X I swapped it for my grandfather's GeForce 2 MX Dual Head.
The GF2MX is nowhere near as smooth as the 4500, but still capable of playing RTCW at an acceptable speed (shame it can't fix the Nazi's AI..;) ) and I can run an accellerated X display on it. Best of all I now have dual monitors!! To anyone who hasn't tried it, getting a dual head display is the same feeling as moving from a 15" to a 17" monitor. You'll wonder how you ever lived without.
Places like North America that already have a huge transportation infrastructure would find it expensive to implement one of these, good to see that some European countries are testing them out now.
Yeash... Beecoz over hear in backwardz Europe Me and Igor are still travelling on Donkeys!!
Actually, the state of the railway system in England today isn't far above a donkey network. A donkey network would probably have less shit on it. -- Andy
My old college, which my sister now attends has just started using an online registration system. Every classroom in the college has atleast one networked PC, and the tutors use an inhouse system to register the students in lessons. They also distribute messages through this system and can access a student's past records so that they can tell if the student is skipping one particular lesson deliberately.
The relevance of this is (finally;) ) that if the teachers had this kind of resource specifying where the students should be at any time, could that not be interfaced with the authentication system to deny students access to SMTP/web/whatever during times they should not be using those services? The teacher would be able to change the policies for their teaching groups on the fly, too, if the lesson requires web access etc...
Obviously, with peer to peer networking these restraints could be avoided, but if you put reasonable restraints in place to stop most people, the ones who have the enthusiasm to learn to beat the system maybe deserve some extra freedom?
Actually, I don't think those laws have been passed yet. Atleast, they were being debated in the commons yesterday, which would be slightly redundant if they already were law.
Also, I have heard mentioned that the House of Lords is very unlikely to let the bill pass in its current state. As the Lords are not elected and subsequently don't have to jump on bandwagons to rally public support they are often the voice of reason that stops knee jerk bills becoming law.
--
Andy
Hey,
It occurs to me that the best way to get copy-prevented CDs such as these eradicated is to complain to the owners of CD technology, namely Philips.
If lots of people write to Philips and complain about these low quality (ie. They don't work) CDs then Philips will be encouraged to take the appropriate actions to protect the identity of their product.
Let Philips know that this is damaging the public's opinion of CDs - that's something they should care about.
--
Andy
Hey,
at work I use a little beastie called an Igel. It's a little thin client about the size of a sheet of A4 and maybe 2.5 inches thick, and it's cool. It does sound, has ps/2/serial/parallel and USB sockets and built in 100base network. The graphics card can drive a monitor at 1280x1024.
It runs a cut down Linux that basically just runs an X server to enable you to use applications off a server, and because it has no disk drives and a teeny CPU (it does about 200 bogoMIPS, if I remember) it is completely silent.
Once home networks get fast enough (I don't think they're there yet) to stream DVD video/games over them I would definitely consider having several of these (they're quite cheap too) at home. I thought I was gonna hate it when I first got introduced to it, but I really enjoy having a completely silent machine to work with, compared to the hovercraft under my desk at home.
Cheers.
I've had minidisc players for over a year and I see people carrying them everywhere. Over here they seem to be going from strength to strength.
There's still not much selection available prerecorded, but I don't think most people want to use them to replace CDs, just for replacing tapes and replacing CDs for on-the-move purposes.
According to the FAQ the software (for a 'compatible' PC) encrypts any music you want to listen to to AAC format (not heard of that one before) before the phone can download it. It does that to MP3s as well as any other media that you want to store on the phone.
What does having a MP3 player built in do to your phone's battery life?
What do people think about the trend of lumping more and more functionality into single devices? Most people seem to think it's a bad idea with software, is hardware any different?
--
Andy
Slashdot Mirror
I think you could do a lot with a really basic PDA. Something with a good viewable area, a touchscreen, some sort of wireless networking and not much more.
The biggest problem with the ones currently available is that they try and fit a whole PC into a handheld (why the fuck does a PDA need sound capability?). Something that does a few simple things and does them well would be so much better, especially if it meant that it was more durable (good for kids) and had a longer battery life (good for everyone). I'd probably buy one.
Run Linux on it and we can all write nice simple applications for it.. it'd be so cool.
--
Andy
I'm not sure if this applies to all dual head cards in Linux, but with my Nvidia GeForce 2 MX (using Nvidia's drivers; I don't think the free drivers can make the card do the dual headed thang) the dual display happens at the driver level.
The main implication of this is that most applications (and X) have no idea they are running on a dual display, they just think I have one huge monitor. For me this means that they throw up dialogs and windows that land accross both displays which is a bit annoying, but in the project the poster mentions I could see problems if X can't recognise each monitor as an entirely separate display device.
--
Andy
I think the folks at IBM and Oracle ought to seriously have a LONG talk with Linux Torvalds himself and convince him to create a true clearinghouse where every improvement is approved by a committee.
:*) )
Yeeeas. Because we all know committees speed things up.
I don't recall ever having read that Linus has forbidden anyone else to take over maintenence of the kernel. From what I've read of his thoughts I'd say he'd be more than willing for someone to fork the kernel and see if their development model worked.
The problem would be that everyone would still follow Linus' kernel and the new one would not have a chance to take off. If this is the price we pay for Linux then I don't see that we can complain.. Linux is worth far more than I paid for it! (and I did pay for it
--
Andy
it runs wolfenstein 3d just fine (ok barely but it's playable)
Dude, my 486 used to play Wolf 3D!
Oh, you meant Return to Castle Wolfenstein....
Now, if only they would release those Linux drivers...
;) ) and I can run an accellerated X display on it. Best of all I now have dual monitors!! To anyone who hasn't tried it, getting a dual head display is the same feeling as moving from a 15" to a 17" monitor. You'll wonder how you ever lived without.
Damn right.. I had a Prophet 4500, but after waiting for 4 months for a driver for X I swapped it for my grandfather's GeForce 2 MX Dual Head.
The GF2MX is nowhere near as smooth as the 4500, but still capable of playing RTCW at an acceptable speed (shame it can't fix the Nazi's AI..
Andy
--
Note to ACs: I never read comments rated less than 1.
Note to LordNimon: Noone gives a fuck if you read their comment...
Places like North America that already have a huge transportation infrastructure would find it expensive to implement one of these, good to see that some European countries are testing them out now.
Yeash... Beecoz over hear in backwardz Europe Me and Igor are still travelling on Donkeys!!
Actually, the state of the railway system in England today isn't far above a donkey network. A donkey network would probably have less shit on it.
--
Andy
E. (A non-Windows user...)
If I used Windows I'd want to be Anon too.
Then I can get even more framerates when I play my favoraite Linus game, DOOM.
Hey, that's not fair. Linus always refuses to play DOOM with me.
No, they should rename it to "I Can't Believe It's Not Windows!"
What? And get sued by the butter people?
--
Andy
I have 12 more shortcuts on my taskbar (so, I use Windows. Sue me. ;o) ).
I don't think we need to. I believe suing their customers is the next stage of Micro$oft's revenue model.
--
Andy
Bloody hell!
The editors noticed a duplicate submission!!!
They must have improved the coffee at Slashdot HQ.
--
Andy
My old college, which my sister now attends has just started using an online registration system. Every classroom in the college has atleast one networked PC, and the tutors use an inhouse system to register the students in lessons. They also distribute messages through this system and can access a student's past records so that they can tell if the student is skipping one particular lesson deliberately.
;) ) that if the teachers had this kind of resource specifying where the students should be at any time, could that not be interfaced with the authentication system to deny students access to SMTP/web/whatever during times they should not be using those services? The teacher would be able to change the policies for their teaching groups on the fly, too, if the lesson requires web access etc...
The relevance of this is (finally
Obviously, with peer to peer networking these restraints could be avoided, but if you put reasonable restraints in place to stop most people, the ones who have the enthusiasm to learn to beat the system maybe deserve some extra freedom?
--
Andy
Actually, I don't think those laws have been passed yet. Atleast, they were being debated in the commons yesterday, which would be slightly redundant if they already were law.
Also, I have heard mentioned that the House of Lords is very unlikely to let the bill pass in its current state. As the Lords are not elected and subsequently don't have to jump on bandwagons to rally public support they are often the voice of reason that stops knee jerk bills becoming law.
--
Andy
Hey,
It occurs to me that the best way to get copy-prevented CDs such as these eradicated is to complain to the owners of CD technology, namely Philips.
If lots of people write to Philips and complain about these low quality (ie. They don't work) CDs then Philips will be encouraged to take the appropriate actions to protect the identity of their product.
Let Philips know that this is damaging the public's opinion of CDs - that's something they should care about.
--
Andy
Hey,
at work I use a little beastie called an Igel. It's a little thin client about the size of a sheet of A4 and maybe 2.5 inches thick, and it's cool. It does sound, has ps/2/serial/parallel and USB sockets and built in 100base network. The graphics card can drive a monitor at 1280x1024.
It runs a cut down Linux that basically just runs an X server to enable you to use applications off a server, and because it has no disk drives and a teeny CPU (it does about 200 bogoMIPS, if I remember) it is completely silent.
Once home networks get fast enough (I don't think they're there yet) to stream DVD video/games over them I would definitely consider having several of these (they're quite cheap too) at home. I thought I was gonna hate it when I first got introduced to it, but I really enjoy having a completely silent machine to work with, compared to the hovercraft under my desk at home.
Cheers.
Red Dwarf fans will recognise that this story's title should have been 'Black Hole Spewing Time. Engines Dead. Advice please'
I've had minidisc players for over a year and I see people carrying them everywhere. Over here they seem to be going from strength to strength.
There's still not much selection available prerecorded, but I don't think most people want to use them to replace CDs, just for replacing tapes and replacing CDs for on-the-move purposes.
According to the FAQ the software (for a 'compatible' PC) encrypts any music you want to listen to to AAC format (not heard of that one before) before the phone can download it. It does that to MP3s as well as any other media that you want to store on the phone.
What does having a MP3 player built in do to your phone's battery life?
What do people think about the trend of lumping more and more functionality into single devices? Most people seem to think it's a bad idea with software, is hardware any different?
-- Andy