Rich Internet Applications are hardly the next "new" thing. The idea of doing asynchronous applications HTML/DHTML has been around since at least 1997. It's only the recent broad-based browser support that has led to the growth of AJAX, etc. However, trying to program an RIA that targets multiple browsers is like trying to write portable C code all over again. Thought CSS was screwed up between Firefox and IE? Try looking at the JavaScript implementation differences between the two platforms. Throw in a bit of Safari and Opera and you have all the makings of some super-gross client code.
I don't think EZ-DVD's are any more expensive to produce. But keep in mind that if such a format took off, there would be a massive amount of waste generated. I believe that in anticipation of this, part of the "cost" of each DVD is the built-in cost of recycling. But I agree, until this format costs $2 per disc, I'm not going to be very interested...
I just built a MythTV box recently. Here's a rough breakdown of the components I used:
CPU: Athlon XP 2400
MB: Some random Gigabyte motherboard, about $60
Case: I splurged here and got an HTPC-looking Cooler Master ATC-610
Video: GeForce2 MX 440
Capture: Hauppage WinTV PVR 250
120MB IDE HD
802.11 wireless card
DVD-ROM/CDRW drive
In total, I spent around $700. This is clearly not cheap compared to a TiVo, but I can do a lot of things that a typical TiVo can't and I don't have any service fees to pay. If I really wanted to save money, here's what I would have done:
get a cheaper processor, possibly a MiniITX-based CPU/MB combo, the PVR-250 card does on-board MPEG2 encoding so you don't really need much CPU power
get a cheap case, mine cost about $100 'cuz I wanted it for looks. You can get a beige one for next to nothing
get a cheap optical drive or don't use one. (I wanted to do DVD playback and be able to burn VCDs)
don't use wireless networking (run ethernet and use on-board networking)
Anyone considering a M10000 should read this first. Basically, VIA released two separate boards under the M10000 name. The second of which is the only one to feature the Nehemiah core. The first series (the one from directron.com) still uses the older Ezra-T core. Right now, there's not many vendors who can reliably provide Nehemiah processors. The only places I've seen are
idot.com and monarchcomputer.com.
Uhh, I don't know if you read their offer correctly. When I cancelled my subscription (we determined that we were averaging about 5 movies a month which is just about as good as the local store) I was offered their "budget" deal which was something like $13/month, 2 movies out at a time, max of 4 movies per month. That still didn't do it for me, so I cancelled anyway. But I don't think the simple threat of cancellation is going to invoke a lower $$ offer, else everyone would do it.
In the early 90s, the government chose to fund the space station over the SSC (the SuperConducting SuperCollider). It's sad when one realizes how rare it was for one single project to have attracted top researchers from all over the world and then gets killed due to funding. I wonder if a project of such scale will ever be attempted again.
Since there has been no announcement as to the content of any 3.0 release of the Linux kernel, 3.0 is just an arbitrary label. In fact, at one point I know that this 2.6 release was slated to be 3.0 but Linus changed his mind. As for me, I'd love to see the day that the kernel gets a proper multi-threading implementation.
From an earlier article on Wifi Triangulation being used for this purpose, I recall my first impression being, "Yeah right, these things can't last". Seriously, the shopping carts at my local supermarket are already pretty beaten up and they were designed to be fairly robust. Add in some fragile electronics, an 802.11 antenna, and some batteries, I doubt this stuff will endure weather and rough treatment for very long. How can this be feasible for stores unless they plan to spend a fortune maintaining these things?
In my mind, the biggest issue with commercial use of open source software is that the consumers of such software have no way of compelling the makers to do one thing or another. As an employee of a commercial software company, I witness daily the effects of our customers using money as a method of getting us to implement features/fix bugs. However, I as an open source software consumer, I often have to live with missing features/bugs in the software I use. Oh sure I could go and fix/implement myself, but the whole point of not building something from the ground up was that I got something that basically worked without having to expend time and effort to make it work. For companies, this time and effort translates directly into money.
People who get water cooling just for the silence are kidding themselves. While you might get a modest reduction in noise, most water cooled systems still have a number of noise generating parts depending on how your system is setup. A typical water cooling system consists of:
a pump to circulate water
a radiator to cool the water
a water resevoir
heat exchangers that carry heat away from the cpu, video card, etc.
In this setup, there's usually at least one fan (80 or 120mm) on the radidiator. Also, don't forget that simply having water cooling doesn't completely rid you of case fans either. So even if you have only one case fan, you still have a pump, a radiator fan, a power supply fan, and a case fan all buzzing away. That's still plenty loud (though not as loud as seven case fans, cpu, video card, etc, etc). The point is water cooling tends to be effective in terms of cooling performance and only acceptable in terms of noise levels, but total silence isn't possible until you remove more moving parts.
While I don't agree with the general software practice of charging users for bug fixes, this doesn't sound like what's happening here. I see this as alternative versions of the OS that's hardened more than the typical user might want. Most secure systems are inherently inconvenient and most users want convenient systems rather than super-secure systems. How many of us actually have system policies that expire passwords once every seven days? Require 8-characters or more in all user passwords? etc etc?
http://faculty.washington.edu/vismatt/eyeknowwhy/
Do a search on the web for "eye know why" for more information about laser vision correction procedures and related complications. The bottom line is that the decision to go through this procedure is a very personal choice based on your own needs. Make sure you weigh both sides before choosing either. For me, simply being rid of glasses and contacts is not suffient to justify the risks associated. (For the record, I am effectively sightless without glasses). Until there is an effective way to recover from serious complication, I am personally unwilling to leave to chance something so vital.
Wild speculation indeed. I believe what's hapening here is that by using ATRAC3 (Sony's proprietary audio encoding format, used by MiniDiscs) Sony is trying to limit the number of digital copies of a particular piece of music. In real world terms, this means that you can not copy a bunch songs to your handheld, walk over to your buddy and simply upload them to his/her machine. While there may be a more sinister element (ie tying hardware sales, etc), Sony's notion of "secure" music has been used by MiniDisc owners all over the world without much apparent complaint.
Having used WindowsXP in it's various incarnations (beta1, beta2, final) I'd say that there are a few compelling reasons to upgrade to XP. For one, even the WindowsXP Home Edition comes with the RemoteDesktop feature. Remote Desktop is essentially Windows Terminal Services, except that in Windows 2000, the server was only available with W2k server. Having RemoteDesktop by itself is already pretty cool, but one of the really compelling features is that you can use it to request help from a buddy or expert. The request mechanism can either be via the integrated MSN Messenger or you can email a token to a friend who's running XP. Now, if it were just like terminal services, it wouldn't be so great but while you're helping someone, both of you see what's going on (similar to VNC), and not only that, you also get a chat window so that you communicate with the person you're helping without using some other medium (like phone, instant messenger, etc). Having used this feature a few times, I've found that it works flawlessly and it's a really handy way to help people when their computer is messed up. Of course this assumes that they've got their computer up and running with XP and that their networking is functional. However, having this feature would have saved me a ton of driving over to my parents to rid their computer of all the spyware they accidentally install. Because this is built on Windows Terminal Services, it's fast, way faster than VNC, pcAnywhere, Remotely Possible, Remote Admin, or anything else I've seen so far. Other things include integrated support for wireless cards. Better yet, it can detect different wireless networks and automatically switch to using them. We have wireless at work and I have a wireless hub at home, going from work to home is basically as easy as opening the laptop and letting XP attach to the new network. Finally there's random thing like less need to reboot, faster reboots, etc. I really don't care about the new UI since that actually slows things down anyway. But I rather feel like it's worth it for me just so I can work from home and be relatively productive instead of waiting for the screen to refresh.
Slashdot Mirror
Rich Internet Applications are hardly the next "new" thing. The idea of doing asynchronous applications HTML/DHTML has been around since at least 1997. It's only the recent broad-based browser support that has led to the growth of AJAX, etc. However, trying to program an RIA that targets multiple browsers is like trying to write portable C code all over again. Thought CSS was screwed up between Firefox and IE? Try looking at the JavaScript implementation differences between the two platforms. Throw in a bit of Safari and Opera and you have all the makings of some super-gross client code.
I don't think EZ-DVD's are any more expensive to produce. But keep in mind that if such a format took off, there would be a massive amount of waste generated. I believe that in anticipation of this, part of the "cost" of each DVD is the built-in cost of recycling. But I agree, until this format costs $2 per disc, I'm not going to be very interested...
- CPU: Athlon XP 2400
- MB: Some random Gigabyte motherboard, about $60
- Case: I splurged here and got an HTPC-looking Cooler Master ATC-610
- Video: GeForce2 MX 440
- Capture: Hauppage WinTV PVR 250
- 120MB IDE HD
- 802.11 wireless card
- DVD-ROM/CDRW drive
In total, I spent around $700. This is clearly not cheap compared to a TiVo, but I can do a lot of things that a typical TiVo can't and I don't have any service fees to pay. If I really wanted to save money, here's what I would have done:- privateathome.com
- X4rent.com
- xxx-dvdrental.com
- rentflixxx.com
- sugardvd.com
disclaimer: I've not tried any of these services so please don't ask me if they're any goodAnyone considering a M10000 should read this first. Basically, VIA released two separate boards under the M10000 name. The second of which is the only one to feature the Nehemiah core. The first series (the one from directron.com) still uses the older Ezra-T core. Right now, there's not many vendors who can reliably provide Nehemiah processors. The only places I've seen are idot.com and monarchcomputer.com.
Uhh, I don't know if you read their offer correctly. When I cancelled my subscription (we determined that we were averaging about 5 movies a month which is just about as good as the local store) I was offered their "budget" deal which was something like $13/month, 2 movies out at a time, max of 4 movies per month. That still didn't do it for me, so I cancelled anyway. But I don't think the simple threat of cancellation is going to invoke a lower $$ offer, else everyone would do it.
In the early 90s, the government chose to fund the space station over the SSC (the SuperConducting SuperCollider). It's sad when one realizes how rare it was for one single project to have attracted top researchers from all over the world and then gets killed due to funding. I wonder if a project of such scale will ever be attempted again.
Since there has been no announcement as to the content of any 3.0 release of the Linux kernel, 3.0 is just an arbitrary label. In fact, at one point I know that this 2.6 release was slated to be 3.0 but Linus changed his mind. As for me, I'd love to see the day that the kernel gets a proper multi-threading implementation.
From an earlier article on Wifi Triangulation being used for this purpose, I recall my first impression being, "Yeah right, these things can't last". Seriously, the shopping carts at my local supermarket are already pretty beaten up and they were designed to be fairly robust. Add in some fragile electronics, an 802.11 antenna, and some batteries, I doubt this stuff will endure weather and rough treatment for very long. How can this be feasible for stores unless they plan to spend a fortune maintaining these things?
In my mind, the biggest issue with commercial use of open source software is that the consumers of such software have no way of compelling the makers to do one thing or another. As an employee of a commercial software company, I witness daily the effects of our customers using money as a method of getting us to implement features/fix bugs. However, I as an open source software consumer, I often have to live with missing features/bugs in the software I use. Oh sure I could go and fix/implement myself, but the whole point of not building something from the ground up was that I got something that basically worked without having to expend time and effort to make it work. For companies, this time and effort translates directly into money.
- a pump to circulate water
- a radiator to cool the water
- a water resevoir
- heat exchangers that carry heat away from the cpu, video card, etc.
In this setup, there's usually at least one fan (80 or 120mm) on the radidiator. Also, don't forget that simply having water cooling doesn't completely rid you of case fans either. So even if you have only one case fan, you still have a pump, a radiator fan, a power supply fan, and a case fan all buzzing away. That's still plenty loud (though not as loud as seven case fans, cpu, video card, etc, etc). The point is water cooling tends to be effective in terms of cooling performance and only acceptable in terms of noise levels, but total silence isn't possible until you remove more moving parts.While I don't agree with the general software practice of charging users for bug fixes, this doesn't sound like what's happening here. I see this as alternative versions of the OS that's hardened more than the typical user might want. Most secure systems are inherently inconvenient and most users want convenient systems rather than super-secure systems. How many of us actually have system policies that expire passwords once every seven days? Require 8-characters or more in all user passwords? etc etc?
http://faculty.washington.edu/vismatt/eyeknowwhy/
Do a search on the web for "eye know why" for more information about laser vision correction procedures and related complications. The bottom line is that the decision to go through this procedure is a very personal choice based on your own needs. Make sure you weigh both sides before choosing either. For me, simply being rid of glasses and contacts is not suffient to justify the risks associated. (For the record, I am effectively sightless without glasses). Until there is an effective way to recover from serious complication, I am personally unwilling to leave to chance something so vital.
Wild speculation indeed. I believe what's hapening here is that by using ATRAC3 (Sony's proprietary audio encoding format, used by MiniDiscs) Sony is trying to limit the number of digital copies of a particular piece of music. In real world terms, this means that you can not copy a bunch songs to your handheld, walk over to your buddy and simply upload them to his/her machine. While there may be a more sinister element (ie tying hardware sales, etc), Sony's notion of "secure" music has been used by MiniDisc owners all over the world without much apparent complaint.
Having used WindowsXP in it's various incarnations (beta1, beta2, final) I'd say that there are a few compelling reasons to upgrade to XP. For one, even the WindowsXP Home Edition comes with the RemoteDesktop feature. Remote Desktop is essentially Windows Terminal Services, except that in Windows 2000, the server was only available with W2k server. Having RemoteDesktop by itself is already pretty cool, but one of the really compelling features is that you can use it to request help from a buddy or expert. The request mechanism can either be via the integrated MSN Messenger or you can email a token to a friend who's running XP. Now, if it were just like terminal services, it wouldn't be so great but while you're helping someone, both of you see what's going on (similar to VNC), and not only that, you also get a chat window so that you communicate with the person you're helping without using some other medium (like phone, instant messenger, etc). Having used this feature a few times, I've found that it works flawlessly and it's a really handy way to help people when their computer is messed up. Of course this assumes that they've got their computer up and running with XP and that their networking is functional. However, having this feature would have saved me a ton of driving over to my parents to rid their computer of all the spyware they accidentally install. Because this is built on Windows Terminal Services, it's fast, way faster than VNC, pcAnywhere, Remotely Possible, Remote Admin, or anything else I've seen so far. Other things include integrated support for wireless cards. Better yet, it can detect different wireless networks and automatically switch to using them. We have wireless at work and I have a wireless hub at home, going from work to home is basically as easy as opening the laptop and letting XP attach to the new network. Finally there's random thing like less need to reboot, faster reboots, etc. I really don't care about the new UI since that actually slows things down anyway. But I rather feel like it's worth it for me just so I can work from home and be relatively productive instead of waiting for the screen to refresh.