Burning CDs are just like in the 80s when we made mix tapes. It takes music we generally already have and makes it personal. You have mix tapes (now CDs for your different moods). The industry wants to say and prohibit burning CDs that's just dumb, if I have a song it's because I really like it and I would've bought it because I really want that CD quality.
This brings me back to the buying CD Quality music by the track... But their greedy, etc etc...Heck I just throw away the cases and liner notes anyway so it's waste of money for me to have that junk anyway.
I am all for it if it helps. Personally I would rather pay some recycle tax and have recycling centers all over than see something like what's going on in New York happen. If you haven't heard they are thinking of recycling almost all recycling because it costs too much, this is a huge negative and if I have to pay 25-30 bucks upfront on my PC to help defer the cost of recycling the stinking thing that's good for me.
Here's the NYTimes Article on the push to stop recycling in NYC due to budgetary reasons.
"A company doesn't buy security for its warehouse -- strong locks, window bars, or an alarm system -- because it makes it feel safe. It buys that security because its insurance rates go down. The same thing will hold true for computer security. Once enough policies are being written, insurance companies will start charging different premiums for different levels of security. Even without legislated liability, the CEO will start noticing how his insurance rates change. And once the CEO starts buying security products based on his insurance premiums, the insurance industry will wield enormous power in the marketplace. They will determine which security products are ubiquitous, and which are ignored. And since the insurance companies pay for the actual liability, they have a great incentive to be rational about risk analysis and the effectiveness of security products.
And software companies will take notice, and will increase security in order to make the insurance for their products affordable. "
Could you imagine if the corporation you owner was charged more for liability insurance because you used the current version of IIS? It's so sad it's funny. If this wouldn't make Microsoft or Company X clean up their act I can't imagine what would other than the ethics of it:)
Personally I work in healthcare so if my crap's not together I am going to jail. Too bad there's not HIPAA for everyone.
I have been researching these for a while because for some twisted reason I don't just want a standalone TiVo...
This looks like a good product but I think I will wait a bit on it. The product in almost the same category (almost because it's also a video card) is the ATI Radeon 7500 All-In-Wonder card. It's 200 bucks and has pretty much the same features, my favorite is the wireless (non-IR) remote. It's 200 bucks but I needed a vid card upgrade so it worked out well.
Another card that have been around for a long time is the ATI TV tuner (I have had two version of this) and it's always worked really well, just lately they have introduced the scheduled recording to compete with the TiVo, et al...
I always thought it was marketing a little bit...
on
Black Is The New Beige
·
· Score: 1
I manage the purchasing and support for a large department in a university and it drove me nuts when Dell switched from beige to black computers and peripherals. There is such a Me-Too thing going on here, boy did the requests roll in when their neighbors got a new black computer. So as sterile as they are I wish they would've stayed beige at least for business. And not with flat screen - oh my "they have a flat screen I need one too"
Often if I am to the point where I am downloading demos I want to try it now. It may seem pathetic but that waiting gives me ample time to see something else. If it's a product that's a clone of a bunch of other products, i.e. there are a lot of products that do the same thing and this thing doesn't have some sort of Gee-Whizzer I am going to keep shopping.
It somewhat reminds me of the statistics that people talk about with buying stuff online. If someone gets an invalid page or has to wait more than a couple of seconds you probably lost the sale I think the same applies for demos in which you have to jump through many hoops.
The best demos and often the products I buy are those that are hassle free (no registration crap), have 90 or 120 day trial periods, and often have the documentation online in PDF format or something close. To me this means the company cares about the customer and if I am going to drop some coin that's important to me. I want service after the sale and it seems more than not the people who are helpful like that before the sale are helpful after the sale.
Somewhat similar to these people who really haven't used computers before getting on the Internet is a program that has been started by the University of Iowa, The Widernet Project, and Nigerian Institutions. The Project website is http://widernet.org.
It's really an interesting project, they are training people right there in nigeria help them develop networks and computer systems so they can maintain and then spread the knowledge. If you have some time and want to see the world you could always volunteer.
Hell the technolust I have is reason enough to get one of these babies...Couple this together with one of those cool siemens phone systems and voila...quite the technological telephone solution.
Then the bastard practicality speaks to me and says I use one of those Sams' Club cards for all of my LD phone calls and 3.4 cents a minute and that's a hell of a deal for the most part. A 1000 minute card that costs 34 bucks lasts a couple months easy.
But this is a sweet technology - so how long before I give in to my techolust is still unknown:)
I think this is an awesome idea. I would drop 50 cents or whatever a track of music. I think there are two problems with this and the weak minded music industry..
First is that they have no way to control us - ie there is no good copy protection (well at least not yet). And hell I would require my right to personal reproduction if I bought the damn track.
Secondly musicians would have to work a little harder, I can't think of all that many CDs that I think every song is great. Most of the time when I buy a CD there are a couple of good songs and the rest is fluffy poo. It's disappointing that I have finally just accepted it but for the norm that's the way it is.
Of course I think the RIAA is screwing most musicians though so who knows...
I for one might even pay a buck a song for music...it's cheap when you think about it...hell they have to pay bandwidth and stuff also and if it was something that I wanted the entire CD I could just buy the entire CD. I wish the Music Industry would just catch on and see how much they are missing out on by everyone having to rely on Morpheus or some other thing like that.
Has anyone noticed how much that last screen shot looks a whole lot like the ipod design. Can't knock it, the ipod has a great design. Just interesting.
Re:I always find myself needed a wireless monitor
on
Wireless Monitors?
·
· Score: 0
If you are running MS boxes and more appropriately Win2k boxes install Remote Desktop for administration on all of these machines. This is what I use and it makes life a HELL of a lot easier...that said an acceptable non-MS solution is to use VNC...Either one works great in headless environments or when your servers are in another building than you office.
It's not a wireless monitor but...
on
Wireless Monitors?
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Well as the last 500 million people pointed out it's not a wireless monitor, just a thing client with wi-fi...but...
at least someone is working on wireless computer video signal transmission. I have been following this product from linksys (http://www.linksys.com/products/presentation.asp) for a while waiting and waiting for them to release it. The "Available in Channels" month changes with each successive month unfortunately. I hope it's not vapourware because this thing has some great potential. Using it in conjunction with LCD projectors in rooms that you can't or don't want to wire with vid cable on the ceiling or hey everyone needs a flat panel on the wall in the bathroom - just drop the wireless keyboard in the magazine rack when not in use:)
I have a 1 to 3 standalone burner for doing almost this exact same thing. We have to give documentation disks to professors like once a week for a month or two out of the year. With only 3 burners switching disks is a pain in the butt, I surely can't imagine 10 or more.
You should really look into some robotic solutions. Think about it, you get your big fancy system burn your ten cds and don't have time or forget for 10 mins to load the next ten for ten minutes you've just whacked 10 minutes of burn time. Heck I am pretty sure you can get an expandable robotic unit for a couple grand maybe a bit more. There is definately something to be said about dropping a spindle of 50 disks on the loader and letting it fly all by itself. My $0.02
Slashdot Mirror
This brings me back to the buying CD Quality music by the track... But their greedy, etc etc...Heck I just throw away the cases and liner notes anyway so it's waste of money for me to have that junk anyway.
I am all for it if it helps. Personally I would rather pay some recycle tax and have recycling centers all over than see something like what's going on in New York happen. If you haven't heard they are thinking of recycling almost all recycling because it costs too much, this is a huge negative and if I have to pay 25-30 bucks upfront on my PC to help defer the cost of recycling the stinking thing that's good for me. Here's the NYTimes Article on the push to stop recycling in NYC due to budgetary reasons.
"A company doesn't buy security for its warehouse -- strong locks, window bars, or an alarm system -- because it makes it feel safe. It buys that security because its insurance rates go down. The same thing will hold true for computer security. Once enough policies are being written, insurance companies will start charging different premiums for different levels of security. Even without legislated liability, the CEO will start noticing how his insurance rates change. And once the CEO starts buying security products based on his insurance premiums, the insurance industry will wield enormous power in the marketplace. They will determine which security products are ubiquitous, and which are ignored. And since the insurance companies pay for the actual liability, they have a great incentive to be rational about risk analysis and the effectiveness of security products. And software companies will take notice, and will increase security in order to make the insurance for their products affordable. "
Could you imagine if the corporation you owner was charged more for liability insurance because you used the current version of IIS? It's so sad it's funny. If this wouldn't make Microsoft or Company X clean up their act I can't imagine what would other than the ethics of it :)
Personally I work in healthcare so if my crap's not together I am going to jail. Too bad there's not HIPAA for everyone.
Flight Sim in Excel 97 and probably later
1. On a blank worksheet press F5.
2. In the "Go To" windows enter "r97c12:r97c24"
3. Press enter.
4. Press the TAB key.
5. Hold down Control + Shift.
6. Click the chart wizard tool-bar icon.
7. Have fun and enjoy.
My bad...on pricewatch 147.00 is the lowest...and even better deal!
This looks like a good product but I think I will wait a bit on it. The product in almost the same category (almost because it's also a video card) is the ATI Radeon 7500 All-In-Wonder card. It's 200 bucks and has pretty much the same features, my favorite is the wireless (non-IR) remote. It's 200 bucks but I needed a vid card upgrade so it worked out well.
Here's the review for the 7500: http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q1/020122/
Another card that have been around for a long time is the ATI TV tuner (I have had two version of this) and it's always worked really well, just lately they have introduced the scheduled recording to compete with the TiVo, et al...
Some days you just have to say "NO" a lot... :)
This ties in wonderfully with the brilliant idea from the Feds to use Microsoft Passport. One really bad idea deserves a companion.
It somewhat reminds me of the statistics that people talk about with buying stuff online. If someone gets an invalid page or has to wait more than a couple of seconds you probably lost the sale I think the same applies for demos in which you have to jump through many hoops.
The best demos and often the products I buy are those that are hassle free (no registration crap), have 90 or 120 day trial periods, and often have the documentation online in PDF format or something close. To me this means the company cares about the customer and if I am going to drop some coin that's important to me. I want service after the sale and it seems more than not the people who are helpful like that before the sale are helpful after the sale.
(plink, plink)
It's really an interesting project, they are training people right there in nigeria help them develop networks and computer systems so they can maintain and then spread the knowledge. If you have some time and want to see the world you could always volunteer.
I know all that sounds really impressive but I will have to wait and see what the Quake III benchmarks come out at or how fast it encode DiVX :)
Then the bastard practicality speaks to me and says I use one of those Sams' Club cards for all of my LD phone calls and 3.4 cents a minute and that's a hell of a deal for the most part. A 1000 minute card that costs 34 bucks lasts a couple months easy.
But this is a sweet technology - so how long before I give in to my techolust is still unknown :)
trust your technolust
I think this is an awesome idea. I would drop 50 cents or whatever a track of music. I think there are two problems with this and the weak minded music industry.. First is that they have no way to control us - ie there is no good copy protection (well at least not yet). And hell I would require my right to personal reproduction if I bought the damn track. Secondly musicians would have to work a little harder, I can't think of all that many CDs that I think every song is great. Most of the time when I buy a CD there are a couple of good songs and the rest is fluffy poo. It's disappointing that I have finally just accepted it but for the norm that's the way it is. Of course I think the RIAA is screwing most musicians though so who knows... I for one might even pay a buck a song for music...it's cheap when you think about it...hell they have to pay bandwidth and stuff also and if it was something that I wanted the entire CD I could just buy the entire CD. I wish the Music Industry would just catch on and see how much they are missing out on by everyone having to rely on Morpheus or some other thing like that.
Has anyone noticed how much that last screen shot looks a whole lot like the ipod design. Can't knock it, the ipod has a great design. Just interesting.
If you are running MS boxes and more appropriately Win2k boxes install Remote Desktop for administration on all of these machines. This is what I use and it makes life a HELL of a lot easier...that said an acceptable non-MS solution is to use VNC...Either one works great in headless environments or when your servers are in another building than you office.
Well as the last 500 million people pointed out it's not a wireless monitor, just a thing client with wi-fi...but...
) for a while waiting and waiting for them to release it. The "Available in Channels" month changes with each successive month unfortunately. I hope it's not vapourware because this thing has some great potential. Using it in conjunction with LCD projectors in rooms that you can't or don't want to wire with vid cable on the ceiling or hey everyone needs a flat panel on the wall in the bathroom - just drop the wireless keyboard in the magazine rack when not in use :)
at least someone is working on wireless computer video signal transmission. I have been following this product from linksys (http://www.linksys.com/products/presentation.asp
My 0.02
I have a 1 to 3 standalone burner for doing almost this exact same thing. We have to give documentation disks to professors like once a week for a month or two out of the year. With only 3 burners switching disks is a pain in the butt, I surely can't imagine 10 or more.
You should really look into some robotic solutions. Think about it, you get your big fancy system burn your ten cds and don't have time or forget for 10 mins to load the next ten for ten minutes you've just whacked 10 minutes of burn time. Heck I am pretty sure you can get an expandable robotic unit for a couple grand maybe a bit more. There is definately something to be said about dropping a spindle of 50 disks on the loader and letting it fly all by itself. My $0.02
I made it (well maybe). To be on topic, quiet PCs are nice