Experienced and identified this problem last year when two Abit Slot-A mobos of ours failed at around 6 months of age. Replaced them with Socket-A systems (we were on a time crunch and didn't know if the CPUs were still good or damaged). Later, we tested the damaged systems and found that one CPU appeared to be non-functional, but the other was still ok. Both mobos had substantial black leakage on and around nearly all electrolytic caps. Both mobos were discarded. We bought a cheap slot-A mobo earlier this year and put the working CPU (an 800Mhz Athlon) back into service where it is working fine today.
A customer of ours also had an Abit Slot-A mobo of the same vintage fail about a month after ours. Again, cap leakage was evident. He got the board replaced under warranty from his vendor, and the new one is still operational.
And of course Amigas had it in the form of AutoConfig before Mac ever used NuBus. NuBus came in one the MacII line, I believe. Amigas had AutoConfig since the Amiga 1000, though the support for onboard ROM-based drivers didn't come in until Amiga OS 1.3.
When my business partner and I faced this issue ten years ago, the conclusion we came to was that we would need to publish ourselves. This was after I worked both in retail software and for a software publisher, and discovered how hosed you can get by having an unscrupulous publisher.
If you want any advice about self-publishing, or what to watch out for in publishers, I'd be happy to chat with you. E-mail me.
At a previous job, I worked at a computer store. The hardware repair tech would frequently come ask me to advise him on monitors he had in for repair, because I could tell him roughly what the beam was doing (or not doing) purely by sound. Even when the entire display was black (beam off), you can still tell if the sweep is running and what sync rate it is running.
Fortunately modern hi-res monitors have too high of a sync rate for me to hear anymore.
I believe the operations implemented in the Cg compiler are architecturally similar to the hardware found in an NVidia GPU.
What this means is that while you may be able to implement Cg on an ATI or 3DLabs card, it will not run as efficiently as on an NVidia card, even if they are cards of equivalent performance.
Additionally, Cg may not (efficiently) support operations and capabilites that are not implemented by NVidia GPUs.
This is the method by which NVidia plans to freeze out other graphics hardware manufacturers, while appearing to support them.
OpenGL2.0 is designed to be adaptable to all architectures.
IMHO, OpenGL 2.0 is more portable, less NVidia-specific and backed by more manufacturers. Cg is a ripoff of OpenGL 2.0's design, in a cheap attempt to turn it into a NVidia/Microsoft controlled standard.
Remember, NVidia may be good now, but they got where they were by being competitive and overturning old-guard 3D guys (like 3DFX who were themselves trying to lock the industry in to APIs they controlled).
Now, Ilike my NVidia hardware as much as the next guy, but I fear lock-in. Seems like most of us have already experienced the downsides of lock-in.
Yes, NVidia is talking up the buzzwords "portable" and "vendor-neutral" but if that's what they were after, the wouldn't have created Cg at all, they would have gone with the already-available open standard, OpenGL2.0. This is embrace, extend and extinguish.
The difference is the free ECW SDK can do decompession of any size and compression of images up to 500Mb. If you want to compress larger than 500Mb you have to buy the software.
Last I checked, MrSID's free kit could only decompress, any compression required buying the software.
I can't say enough good things about DomainMonger. Incredible service, good price (cheapest is not always the best deal), and excellent control/management software. No complaints.
My first brush with Zelazny was a short story of his I read in a 7th grade english class. I think it was Devil Car. Since then he has become one of my favorite authors of all time, and I've read anything of his I can lay my hands on.
Lord of Light is one of his best novels, in my opinion. Many would say the Amber books were the pinnacle, and in the beginning they were, but I thought they became to formulaic later, epecially the Merlin series.
I heartily recommend his short stories. Zelazny can develop a marvelous character and setting in just a couple of paragraphs, making his short stories quick, delicious and to the point.
I had the opportunity a number of years ago, to meet Zelazny while I was in Albuquerque, and I always regret not doing so at the time. Now that the supply of Zelazny has been cut off, I must spend my time hunting for that last elusive work that I haven't yet read, and obtaining it.
A short list of my recommendations:
Frost and Fire
My Lady of the Diodes
And I only am escaped to tell thee
Unicorn Variations
Now, if some Amberite can just tell who exactly Corwin's "Carmen" was, I'd be thrilled...
I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention my company's product World Construction Set.
Sounds like something you might have a use for. We're not Open Source (and we would be starving and the product wouldn't exist, if it were;) but we try to avoid all the traps and tricks of proprietary software vendors that irritate us all. Sorry, no Linux version yet, just Mac and Windows.
I have an external box, an AverMedia TV Genie, that converts composite or SVHS to VGA, and also works as a video switcher, switching between your VGA input and your video input. We use them at trade shows to use the same monitor to display either our live software demo or our taped VHS demo reel.
Caveat: I haven't had a chance to try a Radeon card for any platform, so I can only comment on NVidia GeForce series cards.
In my experience OpenGL performance on the GeForce, GeForce2, GeForce2 MX and GeForce2 Quadro chips have all been quite acceptible. Here's a page of WCS OpenGL benchmarks on various Windows machines:
These are not all done on the same machine, so numbers are generally relative.
That being said, the GeForce2 MX holds its own very well in OpenGL, and will probably outperform any other Mac 3D card out there (no data on Radeon yet).
If you're not concerned with 3D, the point is moot. You don't need a GeForce or a Radeon.
I too e-mailed them to point out the Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds, and he might be a bit miffed about them using it as shorthand for VA Linux Systems. Slander comes to mind.
Haven't seen anyone else mention it yet, so I will.
A friend recommended I get the RX-8000VBK reciever/decoder/AVswitcher/amp with Dolby and DTS support. I bought one at Christmas to replace an aging and failing all-in-one stereo I had. 4 digital inputs (1 RCA, 3 optical) SVHS, nice DSP controls, several surround options, good power, nice UI. Highly recommended. Can be found as cheap as $280. I'm still looking for a good speaker system for it, but my living room is not real conducive to audiophile design anyway, so I may stick with my cheap stuff for now.
If you could get a few dozen of these out in a nice open field, and track them all the same (need a decent multi-axis rotator device) wouldn't this parallel array perform like a single large dish? (Same principle the VLA uses to make a bunch of big dishes work like one really massive dish). You could perform radio astronomy or SETI projects yourself at home. Probably need to upgrade the feedhorn/LNBA to something capable of tuning frequencies other than sat TV.
Umm, no where do I see in the press release anything that would lead one to conclude this would be available for Linux. I also strongly suspect that the Open Source interpretation was erroneous. Based upon the press release and my information from Discreet, I think the Open Source announcement was incorrect. I'll try to verify this through my sources and reply later.
We've been using CVS on our Linux server for over a year now to coordinate several on-site and offsite developers on our projects. I can't imagine life without it. It just works. On multiple platforms too!
My problem: I'd like to give our people the ability to use MacCVS/WinCVS/JCVS as a GUI for CVS usage. We can all plod along with the command-line tools, but let's face it, it gets repetitive, and some of our people aren't big on command-lines-via-telnet.
Is there a good Remote-CVS-for-complete-idiots guide somewhere? Our firewall is set up sort of tightly, so RSH/SSH is troublesome to get going. The docs for WinCVS and JCVS assume you already have the pserver setup and working, and I can't get even that going. I'm gonna go get this book tonight, maybe it will help. I've already read everything I can find on the web about remote CVS setups.
From http://www.cigem.ca/mlynek.html: Although DeBeers has been traditionally headquartered in [Republic of South Africa]... they've moved to London... to give the company a more international location, a more central location. Because [DeBeers] are a monopoly, they are not permitted to operate in the US due to the anti-trust legislation, so for most of the century they have been represented in the US by Ayer's, a marketing firm.
I have had Echostar/DishNetwork service for many years and have been quite happy with it. This weekend I bought a new receiver/dish setup (with two LNBs) so I could get the Denver broadcast stations. I bought the JVC/Echost ar Dishplayer 7200. Aside from being a WebTV unit as well (whoopee) it's darn cool, and has great program guide, unattended scheduled recording, pause, rewind, fastforward and record live television and lots of other cool gizmos.
Specs:
56k software phone modem
17 GB hard drive(Model 7200, about 12 hrs)
16Mb RAM
67 Mhz QED 5230 processor (aka MIPS R5000) with 4Mb ROM
According to this page you can easily upgrade the HD in the Dishplayer yourself, and Echostar at least tacitly permits this (though they disclaim it completely, and you take your warrantee into your own hands).
BTW: User interface and video quality is excellent, given that it is all digital MPEG from the head end to your hard drive. The system price is about $400 with the dual-head dish and the 17Gb HD (about 12 hours of recording time).
Slashdot Mirror
Experienced and identified this problem last year when two Abit Slot-A mobos of ours failed at around 6 months of age. Replaced them with Socket-A systems (we were on a time crunch and didn't know if the CPUs were still good or damaged). Later, we tested the damaged systems and found that one CPU appeared to be non-functional, but the other was still ok. Both mobos had substantial black leakage on and around nearly all electrolytic caps. Both mobos were discarded. We bought a cheap slot-A mobo earlier this year and put the working CPU (an 800Mhz Athlon) back into service where it is working fine today.
A customer of ours also had an Abit Slot-A mobo of the same vintage fail about a month after ours. Again, cap leakage was evident. He got the board replaced under warranty from his vendor, and the new one is still operational.
And of course Amigas had it in the form of AutoConfig before Mac ever used NuBus. NuBus came in one the MacII line, I believe. Amigas had AutoConfig since the Amiga 1000, though the support for onboard ROM-based drivers didn't come in until Amiga OS 1.3.
When my business partner and I faced this issue ten years ago, the conclusion we came to was that we would need to publish ourselves. This was after I worked both in retail software and for a software publisher, and discovered how hosed you can get by having an unscrupulous publisher.
If you want any advice about self-publishing, or what to watch out for in publishers, I'd be happy to chat with you. E-mail me.
I submitted a review weeks ago about Mountain Dew's 'Energy Drink' called AMP.
http://www.ampenergy.com
I'm one of those dog-men too.
At a previous job, I worked at a computer store. The hardware repair tech would frequently come ask me to advise him on monitors he had in for repair, because I could tell him roughly what the beam was doing (or not doing) purely by sound. Even when the entire display was black (beam off), you can still tell if the sweep is running and what sync rate it is running.
Fortunately modern hi-res monitors have too high of a sync rate for me to hear anymore.
I believe the operations implemented in the Cg compiler are architecturally similar to the hardware found in an NVidia GPU.
What this means is that while you may be able to implement Cg on an ATI or 3DLabs card, it will not run as efficiently as on an NVidia card, even if they are cards of equivalent performance.
Additionally, Cg may not (efficiently) support operations and capabilites that are not implemented by NVidia GPUs.
This is the method by which NVidia plans to freeze out other graphics hardware manufacturers, while appearing to support them.
OpenGL2.0 is designed to be adaptable to all architectures.
IMHO, OpenGL 2.0 is more portable, less NVidia-specific and backed by more manufacturers. Cg is a ripoff of OpenGL 2.0's design, in a cheap attempt to turn it into a NVidia/Microsoft controlled standard.
Remember, NVidia may be good now, but they got where they were by being competitive and overturning old-guard 3D guys (like 3DFX who were themselves trying to lock the industry in to APIs they controlled).
Competition=good.
Single-vendor-controlled APIs=bad.
OpenGL2.0=good.
Now, Ilike my NVidia hardware as much as the next guy, but I fear lock-in. Seems like most of us have already experienced the downsides of lock-in.
Yes, NVidia is talking up the buzzwords "portable" and "vendor-neutral" but if that's what they were after, the wouldn't have created Cg at all, they would have gone with the already-available open standard, OpenGL2.0. This is embrace, extend and extinguish.
It's also a wavelet system.
The difference is the free ECW SDK can do decompession of any size and compression of images up to 500Mb. If you want to compress larger than 500Mb you have to buy the software.
Last I checked, MrSID's free kit could only decompress, any compression required buying the software.
ECW is a little easier to try out.
ERMapper
I can't say enough good things about DomainMonger. Incredible service, good price (cheapest is not always the best deal), and excellent control/management software. No complaints.
I think the building with the green outline is in Texas, maybe Dallas or Houston.
Lord of Light is one of his best novels, in my opinion. Many would say the Amber books were the pinnacle, and in the beginning they were, but I thought they became to formulaic later, epecially the Merlin series.
Here is a fantastic bibliography of Zelazny work:
http://www.sfsite.com/isfdb-bin/exact_author.cgi?
I heartily recommend his short stories. Zelazny can develop a marvelous character and setting in just a couple of paragraphs, making his short stories quick, delicious and to the point.
I had the opportunity a number of years ago, to meet Zelazny while I was in Albuquerque, and I always regret not doing so at the time. Now that the supply of Zelazny has been cut off, I must spend my time hunting for that last elusive work that I haven't yet read, and obtaining it.
A short list of my recommendations:
Now, if some Amberite can just tell who exactly Corwin's "Carmen" was, I'd be thrilled...
I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention my company's product World Construction Set. ;) but we try to avoid all the traps and tricks of proprietary software vendors that irritate us all. Sorry, no Linux version yet, just Mac and Windows.
Sounds like something you might have a use for. We're not Open Source (and we would be starving and the product wouldn't exist, if it were
There are amazing techniques we can use to increase resolution, with multiple samples combined:
o up /group/super-res/
o up /group/super-res/2d/
l ut ion
Summary:
http://ic-www.arc.nasa.gov/ic/projects/bayes-gr
Examples:
http://ic-www.arc.nasa.gov/ic/projects/bayes-gr
More projects:
http://www.google.com/search?q=bayes+super+reso
Echostar's Starband system is complete two-way. No landline required. They claim 500kbps down, 150kbps up. Like DirecPC it's shared so it could swamp.
I have an external box, an AverMedia TV Genie, that converts composite or SVHS to VGA, and also works as a video switcher, switching between your VGA input and your video input. We use them at trade shows to use the same monitor to display either our live software demo or our taped VHS demo reel.
Caveat: I haven't had a chance to try a Radeon card for any platform, so I can only comment on NVidia GeForce series cards.
In my experience OpenGL performance on the GeForce, GeForce2, GeForce2 MX and GeForce2 Quadro chips have all been quite acceptible. Here's a page of WCS OpenGL benchmarks on various Windows machines:
http://www.3dnature.com/glbench.html
These are not all done on the same machine, so numbers are generally relative.
That being said, the GeForce2 MX holds its own very well in OpenGL, and will probably outperform any other Mac 3D card out there (no data on Radeon yet).
If you're not concerned with 3D, the point is moot. You don't need a GeForce or a Radeon.
I too e-mailed them to point out the Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds, and he might be a bit miffed about them using it as shorthand for VA Linux Systems. Slander comes to mind.
Haven't seen anyone else mention it yet, so I will.
A friend recommended I get the RX-8000VBK reciever/decoder/AVswitcher/amp with Dolby and DTS support. I bought one at Christmas to replace an aging and failing all-in-one stereo I had. 4 digital inputs (1 RCA, 3 optical) SVHS, nice DSP controls, several surround options, good power, nice UI. Highly recommended. Can be found as cheap as $280. I'm still looking for a good speaker system for it, but my living room is not real conducive to audiophile design anyway, so I may stick with my cheap stuff for now.
If you could get a few dozen of these out in a nice open field, and track them all the same (need a decent multi-axis rotator device) wouldn't this parallel array perform like a single large dish? (Same principle the VLA uses to make a bunch of big dishes work like one really massive dish). You could perform radio astronomy or SETI projects yourself at home. Probably need to upgrade the feedhorn/LNBA to something capable of tuning frequencies other than sat TV.
Umm, no where do I see in the press release anything that would lead one to conclude this would be available for Linux. I also strongly suspect that the Open Source interpretation was erroneous. Based upon the press release and my information from Discreet, I think the Open Source announcement was incorrect. I'll try to verify this through my sources and reply later.
Wouldn't it be easier to 'buy' a review of a piece of software that you _couldn't_ download for free?
We've been using CVS on our Linux server for over a year now to coordinate several on-site and offsite developers on our projects. I can't imagine life without it. It just works. On multiple platforms too!
My problem: I'd like to give our people the ability to use MacCVS/WinCVS/JCVS as a GUI for CVS usage. We can all plod along with the command-line tools, but let's face it, it gets repetitive, and some of our people aren't big on command-lines-via-telnet.
Is there a good Remote-CVS-for-complete-idiots guide somewhere? Our firewall is set up sort of tightly, so RSH/SSH is troublesome to get going. The docs for WinCVS and JCVS assume you already have the pserver setup and working, and I can't get even that going. I'm gonna go get this book tonight, maybe it will help. I've already read everything I can find on the web about remote CVS setups.
From http://www.cigem.ca/mlynek.html:
Although DeBeers has been traditionally headquartered in [Republic of South Africa]... they've moved to London... to give the company a more international location, a more central location. Because [DeBeers] are a monopoly, they are not permitted to operate in the US due to the anti-trust legislation, so for most of the century they have been represented in the US by Ayer's, a marketing firm.
My birthday too. Thanks Sony!
Specs:
According to this page you can easily upgrade the HD in the Dishplayer yourself, and Echostar at least tacitly permits this (though they disclaim it completely, and you take your warrantee into your own hands).
BTW: User interface and video quality is excellent, given that it is all digital MPEG from the head end to your hard drive. The system price is about $400 with the dual-head dish and the 17Gb HD (about 12 hours of recording time).