Congratulations to GnuCash on winning the "Desktop Software" category.
Nice to see some recognition for one of the most unglamorous and underappreciated of all the major free software projects. Originally a Quicken user, I started feeling disempowered by its mandatory activation/registration (in the Australian edition) and reports from other users that the next version displayed advertising (of Quicken's services). It made me angry enough to search for alternatives, and I was sufficently motivated to create a partition for GNU/Linux specifically so that I could use GnuCash once a week. Not something I'd expect Joe User to do, but experienced Windows tinkerers like myself can certainly handle it, and the experience will also make my eventual switch to Linux easier. I've seen where Windows and proprietary software is pushing the industry (toward DRM, software patents, more products needing activation, etc.) and I don't like it one bit. But I digress...
I would like to comment that GnuCash is frequently criticised as being too difficult for personal finances because of the "double-entry" system it uses. People who don't know better see the words "double entry" and the first thing they think (incorrectly) is "WTF, I have to enter each transaction TWICE?!". Please stop scaring people away with this FUD because, in a practical sense, GnuCash's double-entry foundation is of little consequence to former users of Quicken or similar programs. All it means is that everything that Quicken calls a "category" is an "account" instead. The power of the centuries old accounting practice is there if you need it, but in day to day use there's hardly a difference. Some people believe that GnuCash is more difficult to use than Quicken, but this has more to do with others things (perhaps its interface and the fact that it's also intended to cater to business users).
The most interesting insight I've garnered from your post is of how easy it is to get modded +5 Insightful by plagiarising large portion of a linked article, changinging a few of the words around, and presenting them as your own ideas.
The difference between Windows and Linux bundling
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Linux Users Are Spoiled
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· Score: 4, Informative
The difference is not only in the amount of software bundled and the choices offered within each category of software, but that Microsoft software is also designed to stifle choice in subtle, seemingly trivial ways and lead the user back to using their software. A few weeks ago I ran into an example of this when trying to switch my parents to Firefox--with their consent--because of all the popups that appeared and the spyware toolbars that kept getting installed when using Internet Explorer.
I set up Firefox, made it the default browser, changed IE's settings so that it wouldn't check that it was the default browser and wrestle back control if accidentally opened, and went as far as disabling access to IE in "Set Program Access and Defaults". The following weekend, I was back on on my parents PC to discuss what they thought of Firefox, but they complained that they were still getting popups. And when I opened IE, I noticed there was yet another toolbar installed.
I checked the browser history and realised they hadn't used Firefox at all--they'd been using IE the whole time. How could that be? I had them show me how they were opening their browser. They opened MSN Messenger, and clicked on the "you have e-mail" link to check their Hotmail messages. Guess what opened? IE. It turns out that this method is how they've been opening their web browser since day one.
And here's the problem--it is hardcoded to open Internet Explorer. It refuses to recognise your default browser setting, and you can't select an alternative in either Windows Messenger or MSN Messenger. This means that, when I'm not watching, they're always going to gravitate back to IE because of that silly little e-mail link.
So the task of switching them to Firefox becomes one of also switching them to some alternative instant messenging program, and perhaps a different e-mail service as well. The latter two are much more difficult. They consented to my changing the browser because of all the popups and spyware, but didn't want me to change the instant messenging program they enjoyed using and become attached to.
It may seem trivial to us enthusiasts, but it's surprisingly difficult to change ingrained behaviours in people who use but don't understand and aren't really interested in technology. Those who say "just tell them to stop clicking the e-mail link" have no idea. But those who have, say, preached the virtues of letterboxed widescreen movies, only to find that the oldies inevitably press the zoom button on the DVD remote to make the image fill the screen, will understand.
Oddly, the GUADEC streaming site suggests Windows users install the universally loathed RealPlayer and a patch for it, when the free, open-source VideoLAN Client specialises in streaming and includes native support for Ogg Theora. While the live streams don't seem to be working in my case (not sure if this is the fault of the client or server), the Theora streams on the archive page work fine.
Re:As flattering a photo of RMS as there'll ever b
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Stallman vs Ken Brown
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I first saw this image on the cover of Sam Williams's book Free as in Freedom. For the person who asked, I don't know the origin, but it's copyright Sam Ogden/Photo Researchers Inc. and can not be used without permission (unlike the text of the book, which uses the GNU Free Documentation Licence). The image is actually a rather ordinary-looking on the front of the book.
In some pics he looks like the quintessential fat, hairy, ugly old slob; in others like a messiah or a jolly Santa Claus. My favourites (that fall in the latter category) are the one on the back cover of the Revolution OS DVD (which also makes up the cover art on the second disc) and this one taken in Croatia in 2000. He really stands out in a line-up:-)
Imagine what he'll look like when his hair goes grey.
My mistake. But checking the forums and firmware pages, it appears that the iMP's Ogg support is even more limited than my iFP -- 96-256Kbps only (presumably with problems playing non-44.1KHz files, if the other players are any indication).
There are devices however such as from iRiver which can play Ogg Vorbis
I was one of those nincompoops who rushed out and bought one the moment I read the words "iRiver" and "Ogg" in the same sentence, but when I updated its firmware the latest version with Ogg Vorbis support, I found that many of my files wouldn't play.
It turns out that most of the iRiver players with Ogg support added have a half-baked implementation and support only a limited range of bit-rates and frequencies. The iFP-300 series, to which my player belongs, only supports 96Kbps - 360Kbps (if it's a VBR file and the bitrate drops above or below that, distortion occurs), and also has trouble with files encoded in less commonly used frequences (i.e. lower than 44.1KHz).
In case anyone like me thought iRiver was committed to improving their Ogg support, their latest iFP series players are even more limited, supporting only 96Kbps - 225Kbps at 44.1KHz. Their new iDP series doesn't support Ogg at all. And owners of the iMP have been waiting months for Ogg support which still has not materialised.
Only the H series supports a decent range of Ogg Vorbis bitrates, but even it only officially supports one frequency (44.1KHz).
I don't see any reason why the MIT wouldn't have the right, or wouldn't want to see who enters what building when. It's their premises, and if something gets stolen or damaged, RFID would help tracking down the culprit(s).
This thing is a security issue in this case. It's not the same privacy issue as tracking the general public in malls and K-Marts for no good reason.
I don't see any reason why K-Mart wouldn't have the right, or wouldn't want to see who enters their store. It's their premises, and if something gets stolen or damaged, RFID would help tracking down the culprit(s).
Re:Digital Rights Management Management...
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Real Problems
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Do a Google search for "Net Transport". Only runs on Windows, AFAIK, but it allows you to download almost all MMS (WM) and RTSP (Real) streams. Not exactly easy to use (unless you use MSIE, in which case it integrates seamlessly - But personally, I'd rather suffer through it's awkward interface than use MSIE), but it works.
Net Transport is great. Looks like it was written by the same person who made the excellent, no-nonsense, but widely ignored and abandoned DLExpert. It's a pity it's only free in the cost sense.
If you want to go a step further and convert Real audio files to WAV (which can then be converted to Ogg or MP3), do a search for "Streambox Ripper". I believe the version you need is 2.009 (before Real support was removed for legal reasons). It's somewhat difficult to find, so you'd need to do a bit of digging. Perhaps someone is aware of a more recent program for converting Real audio files.
Re:The whole streaming audio/video field's gone cr
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Real Problems
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And then, in the virtually ignored fourth corner, we have the stuff that isn't totally assraped by big (or not so big, in Real's case) corporations. MP3. Ogg. Freaking gzipped.AU for all I care. AND NO ONE USES ANY OF THIS STUFF.
Some sectons of the "alternative" media have caught on and are using "alternative" formats. Democracy Now! is one of the best examples--they provide RealMedia, MP3, and OGG versions of their show--and the A-infos Radio Project offers its content in MP3.
But it's still hard to avoid RealMedia. Of the sites I frequent, BBC's excellent On This Day site uses it, MIT's Technology and Culture Forum and UCBerkely's webcast site use it, and the ABC (public broadcaster) here in Australia uses it almost exclusively for their online audio/video content. Thank god for Real Alternative.
Reading AlexisKai's review, the book sounds remarkably similar to "Influence: Science and Practice" by Robert Cialdini who, like Levine, is a social psychologist (at Arizona State University), took a job (as a car salesman) to research the various methods of persuasion, uses examples where he himself has been fooled (he calls himself a patsy), and categorises the various "weapons of influence" under concepts such as "reciprocation", "commitment and consistency", and "social proof". It's a very persuasive read;-)
The genre seems to be getting a bit bloated, though, with the review itself mentioning yet another two recent books covering the same ground--Robert Steiner's "Don't Get Taken" and Gerald Zaltman's "How Customers Think". There must be some great thinker who came before these guys to pioneer the field. I thought of Charles Mackay's classic "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds", but it deals mainly with people as a herd (only one aspect of persuasion/influence, falling mainly under the umbrella of Cialdini's "social proof").
Is there a seminal work in the field of persuation/influence covering all the bases, or is this really just a recent thing?
What's scary about your message is that you describe precisely the type of public that Noam Chomsky describes. If he's right about one thing, it's that the rulers have had great success in reducing the public to apathy. This allows them, to a large degree, to do what they want without the public getting in the way.
How can the rulers get away with screwing up the economy, the health system, the environment, and other things the people care about, without causing a revolt? By scaring the public to death with monsters like terrorism, domestic crime, drugs, welfare queens, and so on. This forces them to prioritise the fight against those and accept sacrifices in those other areas.
While you might look out the window and see that life ain't all that bad in the land of the free, that ignores the fact that your country is so much richer than any other. On issues of health, education, environment, and so on, your quality of life should be far above any other nation on the planet. Yet the US lags behind other Western countries in many of the indicators. Why do you think that is?
I'm an occasional reader of Tom's Hardware, and they always stressed the importance of fast memory timings in affecting overall system performance.
Until recently. Check this recent test, the conclusions of which are contrary to what they have previously said, and contrary to what many speed-freaks have come to believe due to constant repetition.
For those who can't be bothered reading, the bottom line is this: memory timings matter little in affecting overall performance of current platforms.
Most websites with ads these days use third-party ad networks such as ValueClick. And as someone who runs such a site I've always been worried about the possibility of this one: if some kiddie dislikes me or my website for whatever reason, it's child's play to starve it of ad revenue. Just point your proxies my site's ads and make them click. The ad network will see the click-through ratio skyrocket, and instantly conclude I'm attemtping to defraud them. My account gets suspended. The site is starved of ad revenue, and possibly blacklisted so I can't just move to another network.
For years I've worried about this more than I do about DDoS attacks, wondering how long it would be before the kiddies take to this kind of attack. So far they haven't.
From the first Google link for the search Philips "Trusted Computing":
"We believe trusted computing is a key element ensure the secure exchange of digital data
between the internet and consumer electronics devices," said Ruud Peters, CEO of Philips
Intellectual Property & Standards. "Future Philips devices will be enabled to carry new digital
services and we therefore actively support the Trusted Computing Group's goal to develop open
trusted computing specifications with a broad industry support".
Philips is a member of the Trusted Computing Group.
You don't need the ATI card anyway. There's a UK-based outfit called Nebula Electronics who've been making HD-capable digital TV cards since late 2002, so you're all set for when HDTV broadcasts finally begin. The software is of reasonable quality and the support miles ahead of ATI. Here in Australia, where there's at least some HDTV broadcasts, we've been reaping the benefits of these (and competing DVB cards) for for quite some time now.
The ATI card wouldn't even work in the UK anyway, since it's based on the American ATSC standard. I'm not actually sure what all the hubbub over this card is about--Hauppauge already beat them to it. I guess ATI's size means they get the publicity by default.
In the UK you use the DVB standard, which is what much of the rest of the world has also settled on. This is the standard on which the Nebula and other cards are based.
Some excellent points on the on the HLT/STPGNT issue--thanks for bringing it up. Based on what I've read, AMD's implementation has been buggy for a long time and they advised motherboard manufacturers to disable the required features for the sake of stability. More recently, however, they got their act together and many Athlon XP boards now properly support HLT/STPGNT. If you visit AMD's recommended motherboard list for the Athlon XP you'll notice many have listed in their notes "Advanced Power Savings with Halt/Disconnect Clock Ramping supported." There's more about the issue here.
However, I think to say that they now "just finally caught-up" isn't quite right when all issues are considered. AMD were behind on HALT, but their dynamic throttling of the CPU speed and voltage is a first on the desktop. Combine this with the lower maximum power dissipation of the Athlons compared to P4s of similar performance, and I'd say AMD has lept ahead.
You're right about the 2GHz Northwood--my error. And it's already >50W at that speed, so you'd have to slow it down to like 1GHz, where it would be trounced by the underclocked/volted Athlon XP, so I guess there's not much point in talking about underclocked P4s (I just thought I'd throw in the non-AMD example).
Now that my memory has been jogged, I recall there were some low-watt versions of Northwood mentioned when it was introduced. It was intended for small form factor systems, but unfortunately I've never seen one for sale nor read of any motherboards that support them (they're not that efficient anyway).
I haven't heard about the PowerLeap Pentium M adaptor--but it would be great if it they are making one. The Pentium M is one CPU that provides a decent balance between performance and power consumption, and isn't too expensive. At the moment, the only way to get a Pentium M in a desktop system is to use a very expensive motherboard from embedded device manufacturers. I know at least one person who frequents the SilentPCReview forums has done this.
I think Intel's new form factor is more than a little imbalanced in that it's centred around the CPU. Just when we should be trying to strike a balance between performance and power consumption, Intel's design uses a "thermal module" that looks like it's custom made for a new generation of superhot CPUs like the >100W Prescott.
This is not a good indication of where they're trying to take us. While there will always be performance freaks out there who will demand higher benchmark results even if it means central-heating-in-a-775-pin-socket, there has to be a more sensible middle ground for the rest of us, even if that means slowing down the pace a bit.
AMD seems to have taken a slightly more sensible approach, with its Athlon 64 CPU peaking at less than 90W and implementation of a speed throttling technology they've branded "Cool 'n' Quiet". But it's still a pretty hot CPU at full speed.
What we really need is better middle ground. For a desktop PC at the moment you can choose between very fast and very power hungry Pentium 4s and Athlons, or very cool but very slow VIA C3s or Edens. But there's not much in-between.
Tests have shown that if you underclock/undervolt an Athlon XP, you can retain very good performance while drastically cutting power consumption (to P3 levels and below). Effectively, it's the opposite of overclocking. This setup is ideal for people who desire all the architectural benefits of the latest platforms, but don't quite require the CPU power. But despite this, it's still a very uncommon and unsupported approach.
Instead of recruiting everyone in their race to the top and designing new form factors to cope with the power-hungry CPUs that result, why don't AMD and Intel offer us cheaper CPUs with more sensible power consumption for the mainstream, and give people a genuinely balanced choice? Why can't I buy a nice, cool-running Barton clocked at 1166MHz, or a 2GHz Northwood?
On the other hand, things might get a bit choppy when Joe User tries to run Flight Simulator. So perhaps AMD does have the right approach after all with its Athlon 64: 2GHz when you need it, but a nice cool 800MHz when running web browsers and office programs.
How about picking submissions that aren't so misleading?
The article reports that the MPAA sends hundreds of thousands of e-mails and letters to movie sharers, threatening to track them down and serve them with lawsuits. And that, by their own standards, has been 85% effective in scaring off the sharers.
They might not be launching high-publicity lawsuits yet, but the RIAA's actions have put the fear of God into many sharers, and the MPAA is taking advantage of this. Let the RIAA suffer the negative publicity while riding on the back of the credibility it lends to their own threats.
As for the "Because you won't sell them what they want." quote, it comes straight from some sharing-network monitoring company which, based on the information at their own website, hardly represents the views of the movie industry.
"We did have interest from the Spanish police for underwater terrorism detection searching ships' hulls," said Leeds' colleague Frank Barker. He declined to give further details.
Why is it that every news story days has to mention a potential terrorist threat? How long is this going to go on? I'm sick to death of hearing about it. I don't remember seeing repeated references to industrial accidents in news stories two years after the Bhopal atrocity.
Does anyone know of a plugin for Mozilla that will let me filter out any paragraphs containing the "T-word"?
Easy; When you generate your mangled GIF image, also create a wav/mp3 containing the same information (eg using TTS software, or by concatenating pre-recorded audio files).
And what happens when the bots start using voice recognition? It works well enough that the major telco here in Australia uses voice recognition to route calls and obtain basic information--there's no doubt it would understand a homogenous machine-generated voice. So are they going to make mangled sound files as well?
Personally, I find most of these so-called CAPTCHA tests are poorly implemented. Many times, I enter the wrong answer because the text is so distorted I'm not able to read it properly.
The Guardian has an update about the BBC's digital archive plans. [snip] The bad news: because of technical, financial, and legal problems nothing will happen until 2006 at the earliest.
The good news: a delay could allow time for Ogg Theora to mature, so that a patent and royalty-free video format will be available as an option.
While I must echo the poster's sentiments on getting a program to help organise your finances, I thought I should provide a warning about Quicken. Last year, I purchased the Australian edition of Quicken 2002, and it featured the following:
1) Product activation. 2) Mandatory registration. If you didn't agree with their privacy policy, you couldn't register. And if you couldn't register, you couldn't activate. And if you couldn't activate, the program stopped working after it's run X times. 3) Whenever you reinstalled it, mandatory reactivation by phone was required. And if you didn't give them your correct personal information in your initial registration, you were SOL unless you wrote down your fake identity. 4) If you entered your real phone number when registering by phone, the automated voice would TELL YOU your address. These guys know how to cross-match databases--it's scary thinking what they'd do with your info. 5) If you get so pissed off at the above that you want to sell your copy to some other poor sod, well, sorry, but the mandatory activation/registration scheme forever ties the copy to you. Your nice shiny box and CD and manual are worthless.
Normally I tell this as a "story" because it helps people understand what a bloody soul destroying ordeal the above amounted to in practice. But to save time, I just listed the main points.
Note that I'm not sure how this applies to American versions. As I recall, the Quicken 2002 editions in America didn't have this crap, and after the TurboTax controversy I doubt that the 2003 one would (I seem to recall reading they put advertising in it though). Just do some careful checking (e.g. read the Quicken newsgroups on Usenet) before buying.
Having been spoilt by Windows password managers like the proprietary Password Tracker Deluxe, I must say that the first four GNU/Linux equivalents are pretty spartan by comparison. I've tried all four and like Figaro's best. The others don't have built-in password generator--a huge time saver for my quartely change of all my 50+ passwords.
One program that looks promising is SDM (Secure Data Manager), but I haven't tried it because I'm too much of a Linux newbie to install Java.
For Windows _and_ Linux, TkPasMan and SDM, being Tcl/Tk and Java-based respectively, should run in both.
Slashdot Mirror
Congratulations to GnuCash on winning the "Desktop Software" category.
Nice to see some recognition for one of the most unglamorous and underappreciated of all the major free software projects. Originally a Quicken user, I started feeling disempowered by its mandatory activation/registration (in the Australian edition) and reports from other users that the next version displayed advertising (of Quicken's services). It made me angry enough to search for alternatives, and I was sufficently motivated to create a partition for GNU/Linux specifically so that I could use GnuCash once a week. Not something I'd expect Joe User to do, but experienced Windows tinkerers like myself can certainly handle it, and the experience will also make my eventual switch to Linux easier. I've seen where Windows and proprietary software is pushing the industry (toward DRM, software patents, more products needing activation, etc.) and I don't like it one bit. But I digress...
I would like to comment that GnuCash is frequently criticised as being too difficult for personal finances because of the "double-entry" system it uses. People who don't know better see the words "double entry" and the first thing they think (incorrectly) is "WTF, I have to enter each transaction TWICE?!". Please stop scaring people away with this FUD because, in a practical sense, GnuCash's double-entry foundation is of little consequence to former users of Quicken or similar programs. All it means is that everything that Quicken calls a "category" is an "account" instead. The power of the centuries old accounting practice is there if you need it, but in day to day use there's hardly a difference. Some people believe that GnuCash is more difficult to use than Quicken, but this has more to do with others things (perhaps its interface and the fact that it's also intended to cater to business users).
The most interesting insight I've garnered from your post is of how easy it is to get modded +5 Insightful by plagiarising large portion of a linked article, changinging a few of the words around, and presenting them as your own ideas.
The difference is not only in the amount of software bundled and the choices offered within each category of software, but that Microsoft software is also designed to stifle choice in subtle, seemingly trivial ways and lead the user back to using their software. A few weeks ago I ran into an example of this when trying to switch my parents to Firefox--with their consent--because of all the popups that appeared and the spyware toolbars that kept getting installed when using Internet Explorer.
I set up Firefox, made it the default browser, changed IE's settings so that it wouldn't check that it was the default browser and wrestle back control if accidentally opened, and went as far as disabling access to IE in "Set Program Access and Defaults". The following weekend, I was back on on my parents PC to discuss what they thought of Firefox, but they complained that they were still getting popups. And when I opened IE, I noticed there was yet another toolbar installed.
I checked the browser history and realised they hadn't used Firefox at all--they'd been using IE the whole time. How could that be? I had them show me how they were opening their browser. They opened MSN Messenger, and clicked on the "you have e-mail" link to check their Hotmail messages. Guess what opened? IE. It turns out that this method is how they've been opening their web browser since day one.
And here's the problem--it is hardcoded to open Internet Explorer. It refuses to recognise your default browser setting, and you can't select an alternative in either Windows Messenger or MSN Messenger. This means that, when I'm not watching, they're always going to gravitate back to IE because of that silly little e-mail link.
So the task of switching them to Firefox becomes one of also switching them to some alternative instant messenging program, and perhaps a different e-mail service as well. The latter two are much more difficult. They consented to my changing the browser because of all the popups and spyware, but didn't want me to change the instant messenging program they enjoyed using and become attached to.
It may seem trivial to us enthusiasts, but it's surprisingly difficult to change ingrained behaviours in people who use but don't understand and aren't really interested in technology. Those who say "just tell them to stop clicking the e-mail link" have no idea. But those who have, say, preached the virtues of letterboxed widescreen movies, only to find that the oldies inevitably press the zoom button on the DVD remote to make the image fill the screen, will understand.
Oddly, the GUADEC streaming site suggests Windows users install the universally loathed RealPlayer and a patch for it, when the free, open-source VideoLAN Client specialises in streaming and includes native support for Ogg Theora. While the live streams don't seem to be working in my case (not sure if this is the fault of the client or server), the Theora streams on the archive page work fine.
I first saw this image on the cover of Sam Williams's book Free as in Freedom. For the person who asked, I don't know the origin, but it's copyright Sam Ogden/Photo Researchers Inc. and can not be used without permission (unlike the text of the book, which uses the GNU Free Documentation Licence). The image is actually a rather ordinary-looking on the front of the book.
:-)
In some pics he looks like the quintessential fat, hairy, ugly old slob; in others like a messiah or a jolly Santa Claus. My favourites (that fall in the latter category) are the one on the back cover of the Revolution OS DVD (which also makes up the cover art on the second disc) and this one taken in Croatia in 2000. He really stands out in a line-up
Imagine what he'll look like when his hair goes grey.
My mistake. But checking the forums and firmware pages, it appears that the iMP's Ogg support is even more limited than my iFP -- 96-256Kbps only (presumably with problems playing non-44.1KHz files, if the other players are any indication).
There are devices however such as from iRiver which can play Ogg Vorbis
I was one of those nincompoops who rushed out and bought one the moment I read the words "iRiver" and "Ogg" in the same sentence, but when I updated its firmware the latest version with Ogg Vorbis support, I found that many of my files wouldn't play.
It turns out that most of the iRiver players with Ogg support added have a half-baked implementation and support only a limited range of bit-rates and frequencies. The iFP-300 series, to which my player belongs, only supports 96Kbps - 360Kbps (if it's a VBR file and the bitrate drops above or below that, distortion occurs), and also has trouble with files encoded in less commonly used frequences (i.e. lower than 44.1KHz).
In case anyone like me thought iRiver was committed to improving their Ogg support, their latest iFP series players are even more limited, supporting only 96Kbps - 225Kbps at 44.1KHz. Their new iDP series doesn't support Ogg at all. And owners of the iMP have been waiting months for Ogg support which still has not materialised.
Only the H series supports a decent range of Ogg Vorbis bitrates, but even it only officially supports one frequency (44.1KHz).
I don't see any reason why the MIT wouldn't have the right, or wouldn't want to see who enters what building when. It's their premises, and if something gets stolen or damaged, RFID would help tracking down the culprit(s).
This thing is a security issue in this case. It's not the same privacy issue as tracking the general public in malls and K-Marts for no good reason.
I don't see any reason why K-Mart wouldn't have the right, or wouldn't want to see who enters their store. It's their premises, and if something gets stolen or damaged, RFID would help tracking down the culprit(s).
Do a Google search for "Net Transport". Only runs on Windows, AFAIK, but it allows you to download almost all MMS (WM) and RTSP (Real) streams. Not exactly easy to use (unless you use MSIE, in which case it integrates seamlessly - But personally, I'd rather suffer through it's awkward interface than use MSIE), but it works.
Net Transport is great. Looks like it was written by the same person who made the excellent, no-nonsense, but widely ignored and abandoned DLExpert. It's a pity it's only free in the cost sense.
If you want to go a step further and convert Real audio files to WAV (which can then be converted to Ogg or MP3), do a search for "Streambox Ripper". I believe the version you need is 2.009 (before Real support was removed for legal reasons). It's somewhat difficult to find, so you'd need to do a bit of digging. Perhaps someone is aware of a more recent program for converting Real audio files.
And then, in the virtually ignored fourth corner, we have the stuff that isn't totally assraped by big (or not so big, in Real's case) corporations. MP3. Ogg. Freaking gzipped .AU for all I care. AND NO ONE USES ANY OF THIS STUFF.
Some sectons of the "alternative" media have caught on and are using "alternative" formats. Democracy Now! is one of the best examples--they provide RealMedia, MP3, and OGG versions of their show--and the A-infos Radio Project offers its content in MP3.
But it's still hard to avoid RealMedia. Of the sites I frequent, BBC's excellent On This Day site uses it, MIT's Technology and Culture Forum and UCBerkely's webcast site use it, and the ABC (public broadcaster) here in Australia uses it almost exclusively for their online audio/video content. Thank god for Real Alternative.
Reading AlexisKai's review, the book sounds remarkably similar to "Influence: Science and Practice" by Robert Cialdini who, like Levine, is a social psychologist (at Arizona State University), took a job (as a car salesman) to research the various methods of persuasion, uses examples where he himself has been fooled (he calls himself a patsy), and categorises the various "weapons of influence" under concepts such as "reciprocation", "commitment and consistency", and "social proof". It's a very persuasive read ;-)
The genre seems to be getting a bit bloated, though, with the review itself mentioning yet another two recent books covering the same ground--Robert Steiner's "Don't Get Taken" and Gerald Zaltman's "How Customers Think". There must be some great thinker who came before these guys to pioneer the field. I thought of Charles Mackay's classic "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds", but it deals mainly with people as a herd (only one aspect of persuasion/influence, falling mainly under the umbrella of Cialdini's "social proof").
Is there a seminal work in the field of persuation/influence covering all the bases, or is this really just a recent thing?
What's scary about your message is that you describe precisely the type of public that Noam Chomsky describes. If he's right about one thing, it's that the rulers have had great success in reducing the public to apathy. This allows them, to a large degree, to do what they want without the public getting in the way.
How can the rulers get away with screwing up the economy, the health system, the environment, and other things the people care about, without causing a revolt? By scaring the public to death with monsters like terrorism, domestic crime, drugs, welfare queens, and so on. This forces them to prioritise the fight against those and accept sacrifices in those other areas.
While you might look out the window and see that life ain't all that bad in the land of the free, that ignores the fact that your country is so much richer than any other. On issues of health, education, environment, and so on, your quality of life should be far above any other nation on the planet. Yet the US lags behind other Western countries in many of the indicators. Why do you think that is?
I'm an occasional reader of Tom's Hardware, and they always stressed the importance of fast memory timings in affecting overall system performance.
Until recently. Check this recent test, the conclusions of which are contrary to what they have previously said, and contrary to what many speed-freaks have come to believe due to constant repetition.
For those who can't be bothered reading, the bottom line is this: memory timings matter little in affecting overall performance of current platforms.
Most websites with ads these days use third-party ad networks such as ValueClick. And as someone who runs such a site I've always been worried about the possibility of this one: if some kiddie dislikes me or my website for whatever reason, it's child's play to starve it of ad revenue. Just point your proxies my site's ads and make them click. The ad network will see the click-through ratio skyrocket, and instantly conclude I'm attemtping to defraud them. My account gets suspended. The site is starved of ad revenue, and possibly blacklisted so I can't just move to another network.
For years I've worried about this more than I do about DDoS attacks, wondering how long it would be before the kiddies take to this kind of attack. So far they haven't.
From the first Google link for the search Philips "Trusted Computing":
"We believe trusted computing is a key element ensure the secure exchange of digital data between the internet and consumer electronics devices," said Ruud Peters, CEO of Philips Intellectual Property & Standards. "Future Philips devices will be enabled to carry new digital services and we therefore actively support the Trusted Computing Group's goal to develop open trusted computing specifications with a broad industry support".
Philips is a member of the Trusted Computing Group.
You don't need the ATI card anyway. There's a UK-based outfit called Nebula Electronics who've been making HD-capable digital TV cards since late 2002, so you're all set for when HDTV broadcasts finally begin. The software is of reasonable quality and the support miles ahead of ATI. Here in Australia, where there's at least some HDTV broadcasts, we've been reaping the benefits of these (and competing DVB cards) for for quite some time now.
The ATI card wouldn't even work in the UK anyway, since it's based on the American ATSC standard. I'm not actually sure what all the hubbub over this card is about--Hauppauge already beat them to it. I guess ATI's size means they get the publicity by default.
In the UK you use the DVB standard, which is what much of the rest of the world has also settled on. This is the standard on which the Nebula and other cards are based.
Some excellent points on the on the HLT/STPGNT issue--thanks for bringing it up. Based on what I've read, AMD's implementation has been buggy for a long time and they advised motherboard manufacturers to disable the required features for the sake of stability. More recently, however, they got their act together and many Athlon XP boards now properly support HLT/STPGNT. If you visit AMD's recommended motherboard list for the Athlon XP you'll notice many have listed in their notes "Advanced Power Savings with Halt/Disconnect Clock Ramping supported." There's more about the issue here.
However, I think to say that they now "just finally caught-up" isn't quite right when all issues are considered. AMD were behind on HALT, but their dynamic throttling of the CPU speed and voltage is a first on the desktop. Combine this with the lower maximum power dissipation of the Athlons compared to P4s of similar performance, and I'd say AMD has lept ahead.
You're right about the 2GHz Northwood--my error. And it's already >50W at that speed, so you'd have to slow it down to like 1GHz, where it would be trounced by the underclocked/volted Athlon XP, so I guess there's not much point in talking about underclocked P4s (I just thought I'd throw in the non-AMD example).
Now that my memory has been jogged, I recall there were some low-watt versions of Northwood mentioned when it was introduced. It was intended for small form factor systems, but unfortunately I've never seen one for sale nor read of any motherboards that support them (they're not that efficient anyway).
I haven't heard about the PowerLeap Pentium M adaptor--but it would be great if it they are making one. The Pentium M is one CPU that provides a decent balance between performance and power consumption, and isn't too expensive. At the moment, the only way to get a Pentium M in a desktop system is to use a very expensive motherboard from embedded device manufacturers. I know at least one person who frequents the SilentPCReview forums has done this.
I think Intel's new form factor is more than a little imbalanced in that it's centred around the CPU. Just when we should be trying to strike a balance between performance and power consumption, Intel's design uses a "thermal module" that looks like it's custom made for a new generation of superhot CPUs like the >100W Prescott.
This is not a good indication of where they're trying to take us. While there will always be performance freaks out there who will demand higher benchmark results even if it means central-heating-in-a-775-pin-socket, there has to be a more sensible middle ground for the rest of us, even if that means slowing down the pace a bit.
AMD seems to have taken a slightly more sensible approach, with its Athlon 64 CPU peaking at less than 90W and implementation of a speed throttling technology they've branded "Cool 'n' Quiet". But it's still a pretty hot CPU at full speed.
What we really need is better middle ground. For a desktop PC at the moment you can choose between very fast and very power hungry Pentium 4s and Athlons, or very cool but very slow VIA C3s or Edens. But there's not much in-between.
Tests have shown that if you underclock/undervolt an Athlon XP, you can retain very good performance while drastically cutting power consumption (to P3 levels and below). Effectively, it's the opposite of overclocking. This setup is ideal for people who desire all the architectural benefits of the latest platforms, but don't quite require the CPU power. But despite this, it's still a very uncommon and unsupported approach.
Instead of recruiting everyone in their race to the top and designing new form factors to cope with the power-hungry CPUs that result, why don't AMD and Intel offer us cheaper CPUs with more sensible power consumption for the mainstream, and give people a genuinely balanced choice? Why can't I buy a nice, cool-running Barton clocked at 1166MHz, or a 2GHz Northwood?
On the other hand, things might get a bit choppy when Joe User tries to run Flight Simulator. So perhaps AMD does have the right approach after all with its Athlon 64: 2GHz when you need it, but a nice cool 800MHz when running web browsers and office programs.
How about picking submissions that aren't so misleading?
The article reports that the MPAA sends hundreds of thousands of e-mails and letters to movie sharers, threatening to track them down and serve them with lawsuits. And that, by their own standards, has been 85% effective in scaring off the sharers.
They might not be launching high-publicity lawsuits yet, but the RIAA's actions have put the fear of God into many sharers, and the MPAA is taking advantage of this. Let the RIAA suffer the negative publicity while riding on the back of the credibility it lends to their own threats.
As for the "Because you won't sell them what they want." quote, it comes straight from some sharing-network monitoring company which, based on the information at their own website, hardly represents the views of the movie industry.
So where is the "wow" in this story?
"We did have interest from the Spanish police for underwater terrorism detection searching ships' hulls," said Leeds' colleague Frank Barker. He declined to give further details.
Why is it that every news story days has to mention a potential terrorist threat? How long is this going to go on? I'm sick to death of hearing about it. I don't remember seeing repeated references to industrial accidents in news stories two years after the Bhopal atrocity.
Does anyone know of a plugin for Mozilla that will let me filter out any paragraphs containing the "T-word"?
Easy; When you generate your mangled GIF image, also create a wav/mp3 containing the same information (eg using TTS software, or by concatenating pre-recorded audio files).
And what happens when the bots start using voice recognition? It works well enough that the major telco here in Australia uses voice recognition to route calls and obtain basic information--there's no doubt it would understand a homogenous machine-generated voice. So are they going to make mangled sound files as well?
Personally, I find most of these so-called CAPTCHA tests are poorly implemented. Many times, I enter the wrong answer because the text is so distorted I'm not able to read it properly.
The Guardian has an update about the BBC's digital archive plans. [snip] The bad news: because of technical, financial, and legal problems nothing will happen until 2006 at the earliest.
The good news: a delay could allow time for Ogg Theora to mature, so that a patent and royalty-free video format will be available as an option.
While I must echo the poster's sentiments on getting a program to help organise your finances, I thought I should provide a warning about Quicken. Last year, I purchased the Australian edition of Quicken 2002, and it featured the following:
1) Product activation.
2) Mandatory registration. If you didn't agree with their privacy policy, you couldn't register. And if you couldn't register, you couldn't activate. And if you couldn't activate, the program stopped working after it's run X times.
3) Whenever you reinstalled it, mandatory reactivation by phone was required. And if you didn't give them your correct personal information in your initial registration, you were SOL unless you wrote down your fake identity.
4) If you entered your real phone number when registering by phone, the automated voice would TELL YOU your address. These guys know how to cross-match databases--it's scary thinking what they'd do with your info.
5) If you get so pissed off at the above that you want to sell your copy to some other poor sod, well, sorry, but the mandatory activation/registration scheme forever ties the copy to you. Your nice shiny box and CD and manual are worthless.
Normally I tell this as a "story" because it helps people understand what a bloody soul destroying ordeal the above amounted to in practice. But to save time, I just listed the main points.
Note that I'm not sure how this applies to American versions. As I recall, the Quicken 2002 editions in America didn't have this crap, and after the TurboTax controversy I doubt that the 2003 one would (I seem to recall reading they put advertising in it though). Just do some careful checking (e.g. read the Quicken newsgroups on Usenet) before buying.
FYI, I'm now using GnuCash.
Punch any of the following into Google or AllTheWeb:
Gpasman
Kpasman
TkPasMan
Figaro's Password Manager
Having been spoilt by Windows password managers like the proprietary Password Tracker Deluxe, I must say that the first four GNU/Linux equivalents are pretty spartan by comparison. I've tried all four and like Figaro's best. The others don't have built-in password generator--a huge time saver for my quartely change of all my 50+ passwords.
One program that looks promising is SDM (Secure Data Manager), but I haven't tried it because I'm too much of a Linux newbie to install Java.
For Windows _and_ Linux, TkPasMan and SDM, being Tcl/Tk and Java-based respectively, should run in both.