I moved out of my parent's house about 6 months ago. They got fed up with Comcast's crappiness and got a Dish Networks rig. Man I miss my dish. The Dish setup had MORE channels and was cheaper than Comcast right off the bat. The DVR rocked you can do whatever you want, no restrictions (short of plugging in a network cable and copying the show(s) to a computer) you can skip the commercials (although you have to do that manually), or pause live TV. all that lovely stuff your average TiVo like device should do.
Now I am living in an apartment complex where I can't get my own dish and am stuck with Comcast crappy cable setup. Boy was my mother right. Comcast seems to be jacking the price a little bit more every month or so. There are less channels (and several of the ones that are missing are ones I watched often, like TechTV). I am paying more for "Regular Extended Cable" (with no extras like HBO) than my mother pays for the Dish setup WITH 8 HBOs and 5 Showtimes. I can opt to get the digital cable setup but that costs even more and the "benefits" (if you want to call it that) aren't all that great (and there are STILL no HBOs included, you have to pay even MORE for those). No DVR (yet anyway, they are supposedly working on that) I used a friend's digital cable setup and the menu system is slow and clunky and not very effective.
Weather does not effect the dish either, we live in New England where there are healthy doses of all types of weather. Rain, snow, sleet, wind, three dogs in the house sneezing regularly, anything esle you can imagine, we have never lost our Dish connection, the picture has never suffered in quality at all. The signal is digital through and through whereas cable is analog so it's a better picture with better sound anyway. What else do I need to say? the dish is better in so many ways.
I actually saw a video clip on Tech TV with him and Bill Gates (and someone else but the name eludes me for the moment). They were in some sort of conference and he goes (not a word-for-word quote)"Yes well I'm the one who created CTRL-ALT-DEL, but Bill here is the one who made it famous"... rousing laughter from the crowd, Bill has the embarassed grin on his face. He allows the laughter to die a little and says "...For Windows NT log-ons!" it was a CLASSIC moment.
The afterburner blows any and all external lighting solutions out of the water, with no question. Have a look at some of the pictures of the afterburner in action on Triton's site (www.tritonlabs.com) those pictures are the real deal, they are not altered to make it look like it works better than it does, it really looks that good.
As far as installtion, is it easy? Well, yes. But you need to have some basic soldering skills, a dremel tool, the "tri-wing" screwdriver to get the GBA case open (availble from Triton labs now, I believe) and, of course the willingness to spend about 30min to an hour installing the unit.
Is damage possible? Yes, indeed it is, a look at the afterburner forums at Triton's site will show you that several people have damaged their GBAs in the process. Some seriously, some not. Usually all it takes is de-installation of the afterburner to get the GBA working again, but it could result in a GBA-shaped paperweight. I had luck installing mine, it's really not THAT difficult. But, for those that are wary about installing it themselves, there are plenty of people or small businesses (they usually advertise themselves on the triton forums) that will either: sell you a pre-modded GBA or, provde the service of installing an afterburner into your GBA. So if you are not electronically inclined, there is still hope.
It's really a great buy, I was one of the first in line to pre-order my afterburner when it became available. And I never regretted it.
Just to clarify. The Aterburner is NOT a backlight, it's actually a frontlight. I put one in my GBA. It is a plastic sheet that sits on top of the LCD and shines light from a couple white LEDs down onto the screen.
It really sort of bugged me that only a few months after Triton labs put all the work into developing the afterburner and packaging it, comming up with easy to follow directions for installation, etc. Nintendo decided that NOW it was possible to do what they had been swearing off for years. Which is include some sort of lighting device in their handheld systems. They claimed they wanted longer battery life over including a backlight (or frontlight). With my afterburner installed I get about 10-11 hours on two AA batteries. That's plenty long for me, especially since I can now actually see whats going on. Nintendo is taking all the credit for Triton's hard work. For that reason I swore off buying a GBA-SP. Also I don't like how the GBA-SP is shaped. That pager-esque flip top form factor just doesn't do it for me.
Maybe it's just me. Don't get me wrong, I've been a big Nintendo fan since the NES, I still have my NES and collect games for it, along with my SNES, and N64, all the way down the line. But the GBA-SP is one thing I will be avoiding.
"Last year, recordable discs outsold CDs for the first time. With so many people copying music, is the record industry toast?"
It's idiotic statements like this that get everyone on the "copy protection" bandwagon. Without actually saying it they are giving the idea that every blank recordable CD sold are used to copy a copyrighted musical CD. When that is just not true. People who don't know any better, however, will think that last year, more illegal copies of CDs were made than legit CDs sold.
One Thousand ad-less pages for $5 is like nothing. That's about half a cent per ad-free page. Not a big deal.
I have seen a lot of complaints about "hitting refresh and loosing another page view" Big deal! Unless you sit there all day hitting refresh over and over waiting for the next article to show up so you can get the oh-so-important "first post", One Thousand pages should last you months. I check/. 3-4 times a day, and I sent them my $5 without a second thought. You know, I almost forgot what it was like to view a web page without ads. It's incredible!
Slashdot Mirror
Now I am living in an apartment complex where I can't get my own dish and am stuck with Comcast crappy cable setup. Boy was my mother right. Comcast seems to be jacking the price a little bit more every month or so. There are less channels (and several of the ones that are missing are ones I watched often, like TechTV). I am paying more for "Regular Extended Cable" (with no extras like HBO) than my mother pays for the Dish setup WITH 8 HBOs and 5 Showtimes. I can opt to get the digital cable setup but that costs even more and the "benefits" (if you want to call it that) aren't all that great (and there are STILL no HBOs included, you have to pay even MORE for those). No DVR (yet anyway, they are supposedly working on that) I used a friend's digital cable setup and the menu system is slow and clunky and not very effective.
Weather does not effect the dish either, we live in New England where there are healthy doses of all types of weather. Rain, snow, sleet, wind, three dogs in the house sneezing regularly, anything esle you can imagine, we have never lost our Dish connection, the picture has never suffered in quality at all. The signal is digital through and through whereas cable is analog so it's a better picture with better sound anyway. What else do I need to say? the dish is better in so many ways.
To conclude, Comcast sucks, get a Dish.
I actually saw a video clip on Tech TV with him and Bill Gates (and someone else but the name eludes me for the moment). They were in some sort of conference and he goes (not a word-for-word quote)"Yes well I'm the one who created CTRL-ALT-DEL, but Bill here is the one who made it famous" ... rousing laughter from the crowd, Bill has the embarassed grin on his face. He allows the laughter to die a little and says "...For Windows NT log-ons!" it was a CLASSIC moment.
gee, I thought WindowsUpdate took up 45%
That is what they said here
So now we have 105% bandwith? Then what bandwith am I using for E-mail? Web Browsing? other downloads?
As far as installtion, is it easy? Well, yes. But you need to have some basic soldering skills, a dremel tool, the "tri-wing" screwdriver to get the GBA case open (availble from Triton labs now, I believe) and, of course the willingness to spend about 30min to an hour installing the unit.
Is damage possible? Yes, indeed it is, a look at the afterburner forums at Triton's site will show you that several people have damaged their GBAs in the process. Some seriously, some not. Usually all it takes is de-installation of the afterburner to get the GBA working again, but it could result in a GBA-shaped paperweight. I had luck installing mine, it's really not THAT difficult. But, for those that are wary about installing it themselves, there are plenty of people or small businesses (they usually advertise themselves on the triton forums) that will either: sell you a pre-modded GBA or, provde the service of installing an afterburner into your GBA. So if you are not electronically inclined, there is still hope.
It's really a great buy, I was one of the first in line to pre-order my afterburner when it became available. And I never regretted it.
"Gameboy Advance 'Afterburner' backlight creators"
Just to clarify. The Aterburner is NOT a backlight, it's actually a frontlight. I put one in my GBA. It is a plastic sheet that sits on top of the LCD and shines light from a couple white LEDs down onto the screen.
It really sort of bugged me that only a few months after Triton labs put all the work into developing the afterburner and packaging it, comming up with easy to follow directions for installation, etc. Nintendo decided that NOW it was possible to do what they had been swearing off for years. Which is include some sort of lighting device in their handheld systems. They claimed they wanted longer battery life over including a backlight (or frontlight). With my afterburner installed I get about 10-11 hours on two AA batteries. That's plenty long for me, especially since I can now actually see whats going on. Nintendo is taking all the credit for Triton's hard work. For that reason I swore off buying a GBA-SP. Also I don't like how the GBA-SP is shaped. That pager-esque flip top form factor just doesn't do it for me.
Maybe it's just me. Don't get me wrong, I've been a big Nintendo fan since the NES, I still have my NES and collect games for it, along with my SNES, and N64, all the way down the line. But the GBA-SP is one thing I will be avoiding.
It's idiotic statements like this that get everyone on the "copy protection" bandwagon. Without actually saying it they are giving the idea that every blank recordable CD sold are used to copy a copyrighted musical CD. When that is just not true. People who don't know any better, however, will think that last year, more illegal copies of CDs were made than legit CDs sold.
One Thousand ad-less pages for $5 is like nothing. That's about half a cent per ad-free page. Not a big deal.
I have seen a lot of complaints about "hitting refresh and loosing another page view" Big deal! Unless you sit there all day hitting refresh over and over waiting for the next article to show up so you can get the oh-so-important "first post", One Thousand pages should last you months. I check /. 3-4 times a day, and I sent them my $5 without a second thought. You know, I almost forgot what it was like to view a web page without ads. It's incredible!