Not a chance. Wireless technology would mean the death of battery life. Also, few people would be accepting of a separate technology to sync contancs and notes, especially at the cost of battery life. The addition is hardly needed, either. Most people don't sync from multiple computers so removing the "inconvenience" of having to place the iPod in the Dock - virtually no work - just isn't worth the additional price (or reduced profit) and confusion for the user.
It's not a big stretch from the iPod Mini to the design shown in the picture. I'm pleased with the new design... kind of back to it's roots.
My biggest problem with the previous design is the unapparent secondary button function. When the buttons are arranged around the wheel, the special combinations (Menu & Play/Pause to reset) make a fair sight more sense. Holding Menu for the backlight is especially obscure. I discovered this intuitively on my Original iPod - all of the buttons on the Original had an important Continuous Press function before the first several updates that gave us a new time search for the songs. My friend didn't know about the Menu Backlight - he used the automatic backlight - until I told him with his 30g. He's not stupid by any means, there just wasn't any reason that the second button over would also be a special Backlight control.
What kind of security plans do you have? Is this to be firewalled from the Internet but an open LAN behind the firewall? Will each building/unit have a firewall?
How large an area are you looking at servicing? One street (both sides)? Two? A city block?
Are you setting up your own servers/services: Web hosting, e-mail, etc? Will everyone receive a live IP, or will it be private?
Next, some thoughts.
I would suggest firewalls. Sure, it's a pain - and an expense - to install at every unit, but it ensures security. If one of your users puts in an unsecured WAP, you aren't vulnerable. I would at least suggest it to each user. If they want to join the "network neighborhood", so be it. A $50 Cable/DSL Router should work splendidly, and transition to other services if a user desires.
Wireless is great for a dozen reasons; the biggest is convenience. If you do install wireless, I would recommend that the access points are 802.11g and support wireless bridging. The extra expense means no extra cables and the ability to expand the network quickly. You might also look into using directional antennas if you just want to bridge a distance. The directional antennas give you much better range and make it slightly more difficult for others to access your network. Encryption should go without saying. You might also consider setting up separate 802.11b base stations if there are many laptop users. 11b users will slow down an 11g access point.
For in-home wiring, it might be preferable to design a common "wiring cabinet" that you can tuck in a corner of the basement or mount on a wall. You can fabricate them identically and drop them into each house with a cheap eight-port switch, a surge protector with a swiveling plug (you have no idea how nice these are until you have one) and a little extra space for firewall/router, more switches, etc. to make installation a breeze.
You might think about a secondary Internet connection and a dual-wan router to improve speed and reliability of the connection. The expense isn't huge and additional bandwidth never killed anyone.:) The XiNCOM router handles specific routing and filtering, so as not to interfere with any servers you might be running.
It was speculated that FLAC is too much work for an iPod (3G, not Mini) to handle, and reduces portable player battery life substantially. This was covered last month. Apple isn't likely to put anything the iPod can'y play in their Import menu, as it could really piss someone off. I'm pretty sure FLAC is supported under QuickTime, though, so you can listen to it, but only on the desktop. I recently found out I had an old MP2 in my Library when it failed to transfer to my iPod.
Apple offers only a single download of the file. "Check for Purchased Music" allows you to download the file in the event that you were disconnected during download.
Sorry, Hit submit too soon. Between the author and the submitter, there's some miscommunication.
THe "Half the size" bit is about Apple Lossless, not about AAC, and is in the fanciful segment wherein the author envisions his own version of iTMS offerings. He has no understanding of the expensive nightmare that housing and providing CD-sized tracks over the Internet presents. I believe he twists Derick Mains words in the last paragraph of the first page; paraphrasing his "reasoning". He doesn't seem to realize that offered lossless compression would need to be more expensive.
The author of the article makes no mention of the different codecs used for the iTMS and Rhapsody, leaving the comparison to a linear scale of bit-rate between the two services and CD-quality, but neglects his own findings later. If the bit-rate were the only difference to him, the article would have been much shorter.
He refers to comments from Sterophile twice to bash Apple - but never Rhapsody - and refers to 128kbps as "the low end of the bit rate range", clearly unaware that smaller MP3 players compress music down to 96 or 64kbps. He refers to an "apples to Apple" comparison of 192 to 128kbps, saying, "the companies use the same software standard for compression" when, in fact, they don't.
He muses, "we should have the option to collect with true CD quality". Well, sir, you do. It's called a CD. If you don't wish to make use of the online music stores, don't. No one is forcing you to type in your credit card number.
Not likely. Possibly a secondary fuel source, but you can't just drop your iPod in the dock to recharge it with a methanol fuel cell. I could see Belkin - they made damn near everything else for the iPod - producing a clip-on charger, though, possibly built into a carrying case.
It if did make it, I imagine the cells will be much like calligraphy pen cartridges (plastic cylinder) and would slide into place conveniently. The devices will probably require a rechargeable battery as well. If your fuel cell cell phone (FuelCellphone?) is getting low on methanol, you might lose power while it's sideways in a pocket.
Look, I've used Windows since 3.1. I've fixed Windows since 3.1. I've been a professional technician on-and-off (was an instructor and a programmer in there as well) for ten years, and longer as a hobby. I mucked in the registry when some MCSE's are bemoaning the need to reinstall the OS. I reordered system.ini in Win 3.11 to make sure an HP JetDirect driver had enough lowmem. I was an instructor for technical support. I worked with every version of Windows between 3.1 and XP Pro - excepting Me, which I only touched twice but provided support over the phone. I'm not incapable of solving problems.
File deletion: Fix it. Please. I wish it worked, and I can't think why it shouldn't.
"Windows can perform...": I've looked for a solution - not exhaustively, though. I can install XP Tweak UI to disable AutoPlay on that drive letter, but I shouldn't have to. I was hoping for something more along the lines of "the box stops showing up" instead of "selectively disable part of the OS". What the hell is the problem, here?
Search Character: He's disabled. I still hate the search sidebar. Once the character is gone, the sidebar interface is very similar to Windows 2000's (a bit better, because it has dropdown arrows instead of options just appearing when you click checkboxes like 2000) but it's still cramped in there. I'm not saying I have a better idea. Actually, the Mac OS Find is quite sleek when it isn't part of Sherlock.
UI Slow: I placed some blame on myself. I'll grant that I'm hard on the computer. And who knows, maybe I just have one uniquely damaged motherboard. I won't discount that.
UI Part 2: I know it can all be turned off. I mentioned it, and I much prefer it that way.
Product Activation: Sorry for the poor hypothetical situation, but I think the point was clear. How about if a fledgling writer takes his new Laptop to Lake No-phones-here to work on a book for months in solitude?
XP has some serious issues. My previously mentioned "Confirm File Delete" is the most annoying I come across. I'll detail more in a moment.
File Deletion From Windows 95 on, I was able to press the delete key and immediately press the Enter key to "push" the OK button on the Confirm File Delete dialog. It worked fine with 95, 95 rev A,B, and C, 98, 98SE, NT 4.0, and 2000 Pro. I never used Me, so I can't speak about it. It worked fine with a 486/66 running IE 5.5 on Win98SE on 32MB RAM, it works fine with it works fine with an Athlon XP 2700+ Win 2K Pro SP4 running IE 6 SP1 on 1GB DDR333. It doesn't work under XP. The dialog opens so slowly that I have to for it to open or my keypress will be interpreted as "Open this item", so it launches the application or document before the delete dialog opens.
I have XP Pro on an Athlon XP 1700+ with 768MB of DDR266. I have tried it with other programs running and without, with both interfaces (I stick with the "Classic" interface, BTW). The only thing i haven't actively tested is the result in goddamn Safe Mode. The user interface is slower now than it has ever been. I don't give a shit about startup time - my box runs for weeks at a time. I don't give a shit about program launch - or relaunch - time, I don't spend most of my time opening and closing programs, I spend my time goddamn working.
Convenient Options I work with a digital camera, a USB keychain, and various CD-RW & audio CDs. I transport pictures, my music files, the occasionaly training video, and various graphics with these different types of media. Every goddamn time I insert one of these items, the very friendly "Windows can perform the same action..." message. Now, I've checked the "Always perform the selected action" checkbox for each device, each time I insert it. I alwasys choose the same action, and it always asks me anyway. I don't care if there is a "fix", I shouldn't have to dick around with it after I've told it to always do something. What, I might change my mind? That's fine. Give me a mechanism to obtain that dialog again, just don't show it to me every time.
XP Search I hate that fucking XP Search dog. The designer who implemented that should burn in the lowest pit of Hell for all eternity. OK, maybe that's a little harsh. I have a serious dislike of interactive characters that obfuscate the process, especially (slightly off-topic, now) when, like the Office Assistant, they obtain and restrict focus, so you can't ignore them. The entire new search interface is simply cumbersome. When you give someone that many options, a damn sidebar doesn't cut it. If I want to use more any of the additional criteria, the interface is practically unusable.
UI I mentioned the UI was slower than I've ever experienced it? Sometimes - and I'll attribute much of this to my "25 things open all the time" style - The interface lags. I completely lose interactivity; I can't even move the pointer for seconds at a time while the computer is busy doing whatever the fuck it needs to do right then. What's worse, is anything that happens in the timeframe doesn't always catch up. Mouse movements and keystrokes simply vanish.
Like I said, I'm sure some of it's the way I use the computer. But I run my Windows 2000 Pro box just as hard, and it never lags like that. Even if I can't do anything for seconds as a time, I never lose the ability to move the pointer, even if it does become jumpy and slow.
The "extra touches" like the fading or "windowshade" animations on menus, ClearType (I'm still undecided it it's too blurry) and the like slow the user interface down even more. Those little "amenities" are nothing but a waiting period
Actually, yes. The first listed security change is turning on the firewall by default. Before the network stack loads, even, to prevent a gap between network availability and firewall protection.
Other things that I find good include port management that both handle the opening and closing of ports, but also allows some applications to run as a regular user instead of administrator.
There first complaint with SP2 was the NX command - which isn't available on most current processors. The second sounds like a benefit, not a complaint:
there are literally scores of RPC-based services running, all of which provide a window for attack. That changes dramatically with SP2.
Then they go on to complain about not offering to pirated copies, but forget to mention it's only the ten most pirated product keys. It's still a large number, I imagine, but not the whole picture.
Let's face it, you can't remain compatible with old software forever. It causes, well, Windows XP. XP is trying so hard to be everything to everyone, that it can't even pop up a delete confirmation fast enough to not make me wait for it (On an Athlon XP 2700+ with 1GB of DDR333, fresh from boot).
Compatibility is an important issue, but at some point shouldn't the ten-year-old programs run in a virtual environment separate from the OS?
Why don't they make a pin grid insert? That way you can just replace the pin set if you bend some, and both the motherboard and th processor are immune from that type of damage.
The only problem you might experience with this is if you break off pins in the socket or the processor, but it seems like a (mostly) unlikely situation.
It's not the 200GB Photoshop file, it's the 200GB of iMovie (or FCP) files. We recorded a multi-day training here at work that I'm (slowly) editing on an eMac. The 40GB hard drive is barely enough to hold a single 2 hour session.
Of course, I'd probably go with an external drive or the Xserve RAID and a Fibre Channel Card (yeah, like i've got the money).
For personal use, a two-drive RAID 1 is probably the easiest way to go, and involves the fewest drives, but loses the most space (half). Raid 5 is the standard, but the hardware is more expensive and it involves at least one additional drive.
For simplicity and low expense, even though you lose a full drive worth of capacity, go with RAID 1.
I didn't mean to say there will never be a practical application, just not one for a while yet. What a while proves to be is questionable. For now, I'd wager ( a very small amount) on four years before you see >10Mbps in half as many households as have broadband right now.
I do imagine an HD TiVO doing just what you suggest... just not yet. The bandwidth may be there for one user. It may be there for ten users. But either your local ISP has to maintain a cache to keep it's bandwidth bills down, or someone gets to pay for it all. Bandwidth isn't dirt cheap yet.
This was my immediate thought. Sure, it's a great concept, but there's no practical application for home use. You might see this in very large business or site-to-site communication - both in place of OC-3 lines.
Don't expect 200Mbps for general home use any time soon. The costs to provide that much bandwidth, even ridiculously oversold, are too high.
If, when the auctioned off the spectrum, some frequencies were kept by the government and maintained as public - much the way the government purchases lands for parks and preserves - would this satisfy that issue?
What if the FCC was reduced to ensuring public safety by regulating device emission standards, owning the public spectrums, and doing some small part in coordinating the beneficial use of technology? Wouldn't that be better than spending taxes mandating that in 2005 we won't be able to record anything on TiVo because Warner Brothers is worried about their copyright?
The private frequency ownership doesn't work out quite as perfectly as the author suggests. Sure, opening a single UHF frequency up could mean billions in additional revenue. What if we opened up nine frequncies, in different parts of the spectrum, in different regions? Then the benefit is largely negated by the same difficulties we deal with in cellular today. The reason we buy tri-band phones is because there isn't a clear standard, and that, in some ways, drives an increase the cost of the products & services.
"A small country devastated by the economy of communist rule is recovering rapidly, and has a smaller government than the US. Therefore we should eliminate the FCC."
What?!
I agree with most of the article, but that's quite the non sequitur.
in reality a truely random four-letter password is probably more secure than most people's password. Have you forgotten they'll likely Give it up for chocolate, anyway? If they don't really know it, they can't write it down and can't divulge it.
The specific implementation may need work, but the concept has very real possibility.
Best comment when I told someone their password expires every 90 days and they can't use the last two:
"That's OK, I have four grandchildren."
Re:Blimps do not necesarily crash due to leaks
on
Blimps... In... Space...
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I suppose that once you get to LEO, it's not so much of an issue, as whatever the blimp is carrying may be able to propel itself into higher orbit.
My understanding of blimps is that they use equivalent pressure - hence the airsacs that allow pressure changes as they rise - and rely on the buoyancy of lower weight at the same pressure.
I'm just thinking of a blimp on the edge of space suddenly getting hit with a small projectile traveling 1000+ miles per hour. That could do some serious damage. Aside from making a hole, the force of impact might well deform the ballon, rapidly forcing gas from it. This is unlike most damage that occurs with conventional blimps. And, the additional height exacerbates the issues with blimps, giving them more time to slowly leak as they descend and more time to accelerate.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a chance. Wireless technology would mean the death of battery life. Also, few people would be accepting of a separate technology to sync contancs and notes, especially at the cost of battery life. The addition is hardly needed, either. Most people don't sync from multiple computers so removing the "inconvenience" of having to place the iPod in the Dock - virtually no work - just isn't worth the additional price (or reduced profit) and confusion for the user.
Highlights:
Speculations:
It's not a big stretch from the iPod Mini to the design shown in the picture. I'm pleased with the new design... kind of back to it's roots.
My biggest problem with the previous design is the unapparent secondary button function. When the buttons are arranged around the wheel, the special combinations (Menu & Play/Pause to reset) make a fair sight more sense. Holding Menu for the backlight is especially obscure. I discovered this intuitively on my Original iPod - all of the buttons on the Original had an important Continuous Press function before the first several updates that gave us a new time search for the songs. My friend didn't know about the Menu Backlight - he used the automatic backlight - until I told him with his 30g. He's not stupid by any means, there just wasn't any reason that the second button over would also be a special Backlight control.
I have a couple of thoughts & questions.
:) The XiNCOM router handles specific routing and filtering, so as not to interfere with any servers you might be running.
First, the questions:
What kind of security plans do you have? Is this to be firewalled from the Internet but an open LAN behind the firewall? Will each building/unit have a firewall?
How large an area are you looking at servicing? One street (both sides)? Two? A city block?
Are you setting up your own servers/services: Web hosting, e-mail, etc? Will everyone receive a live IP, or will it be private?
Next, some thoughts.
I would suggest firewalls. Sure, it's a pain - and an expense - to install at every unit, but it ensures security. If one of your users puts in an unsecured WAP, you aren't vulnerable. I would at least suggest it to each user. If they want to join the "network neighborhood", so be it. A $50 Cable/DSL Router should work splendidly, and transition to other services if a user desires.
Wireless is great for a dozen reasons; the biggest is convenience. If you do install wireless, I would recommend that the access points are 802.11g and support wireless bridging. The extra expense means no extra cables and the ability to expand the network quickly. You might also look into using directional antennas if you just want to bridge a distance. The directional antennas give you much better range and make it slightly more difficult for others to access your network. Encryption should go without saying. You might also consider setting up separate 802.11b base stations if there are many laptop users. 11b users will slow down an 11g access point.
For in-home wiring, it might be preferable to design a common "wiring cabinet" that you can tuck in a corner of the basement or mount on a wall. You can fabricate them identically and drop them into each house with a cheap eight-port switch, a surge protector with a swiveling plug (you have no idea how nice these are until you have one) and a little extra space for firewall/router, more switches, etc. to make installation a breeze.
You might think about a secondary Internet connection and a dual-wan router to improve speed and reliability of the connection. The expense isn't huge and additional bandwidth never killed anyone.
It was speculated that FLAC is too much work for an iPod (3G, not Mini) to handle, and reduces portable player battery life substantially. This was covered last month. Apple isn't likely to put anything the iPod can'y play in their Import menu, as it could really piss someone off. I'm pretty sure FLAC is supported under QuickTime, though, so you can listen to it, but only on the desktop. I recently found out I had an old MP2 in my Library when it failed to transfer to my iPod.
Apple offers only a single download of the file. "Check for Purchased Music" allows you to download the file in the event that you were disconnected during download.
Not according to the Summary tab of the "Get Info" command in iTunes. Here's a sample: (I checked several, to be sure)
Kind: Protected AAC audio file
Size: 3.6 MBBit Rate: 128 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.100 kHz
Profile: Low ComplexityChannels: Stereo
FairPlay Version: 2
Sorry, Hit submit too soon. Between the author and the submitter, there's some miscommunication.
THe "Half the size" bit is about Apple Lossless, not about AAC, and is in the fanciful segment wherein the author envisions his own version of iTMS offerings. He has no understanding of the expensive nightmare that housing and providing CD-sized tracks over the Internet presents. I believe he twists Derick Mains words in the last paragraph of the first page; paraphrasing his "reasoning". He doesn't seem to realize that offered lossless compression would need to be more expensive.
The author of the article makes no mention of the different codecs used for the iTMS and Rhapsody, leaving the comparison to a linear scale of bit-rate between the two services and CD-quality, but neglects his own findings later. If the bit-rate were the only difference to him, the article would have been much shorter.
He refers to comments from Sterophile twice to bash Apple - but never Rhapsody - and refers to 128kbps as "the low end of the bit rate range", clearly unaware that smaller MP3 players compress music down to 96 or 64kbps. He refers to an "apples to Apple" comparison of 192 to 128kbps, saying, "the companies use the same software standard for compression" when, in fact, they don't.
He muses, "we should have the option to collect with true CD quality". Well, sir, you do. It's called a CD. If you don't wish to make use of the online music stores, don't. No one is forcing you to type in your credit card number.
The "Half the size" bit is about Apple Lossless
Bus how long until the guys who sell the Do It Yourself Printer Refills are selling Fuel Cell Refills...
"May void your warranty. May set fire to your electronics."
Not likely. Possibly a secondary fuel source, but you can't just drop your iPod in the dock to recharge it with a methanol fuel cell. I could see Belkin - they made damn near everything else for the iPod - producing a clip-on charger, though, possibly built into a carrying case.
It if did make it, I imagine the cells will be much like calligraphy pen cartridges (plastic cylinder) and would slide into place conveniently. The devices will probably require a rechargeable battery as well. If your fuel cell cell phone (FuelCellphone?) is getting low on methanol, you might lose power while it's sideways in a pocket.
Motorola designed this sort of thing in 2000, and it's smaller.
Look, I've used Windows since 3.1. I've fixed Windows since 3.1. I've been a professional technician on-and-off (was an instructor and a programmer in there as well) for ten years, and longer as a hobby. I mucked in the registry when some MCSE's are bemoaning the need to reinstall the OS. I reordered system.ini in Win 3.11 to make sure an HP JetDirect driver had enough lowmem. I was an instructor for technical support. I worked with every version of Windows between 3.1 and XP Pro - excepting Me, which I only touched twice but provided support over the phone. I'm not incapable of solving problems.
File deletion: Fix it. Please. I wish it worked, and I can't think why it shouldn't.
"Windows can perform...": I've looked for a solution - not exhaustively, though.
I can install XP Tweak UI to disable AutoPlay on that drive letter, but I shouldn't have to. I was hoping for something more along the lines of "the box stops showing up" instead of "selectively disable part of the OS". What the hell is the problem, here?
Search Character: He's disabled. I still hate the search sidebar. Once the character is gone, the sidebar interface is very similar to Windows 2000's (a bit better, because it has dropdown arrows instead of options just appearing when you click checkboxes like 2000) but it's still cramped in there. I'm not saying I have a better idea. Actually, the Mac OS Find is quite sleek when it isn't part of Sherlock.
UI Slow: I placed some blame on myself. I'll grant that I'm hard on the computer. And who knows, maybe I just have one uniquely damaged motherboard. I won't discount that.
UI Part 2: I know it can all be turned off. I mentioned it, and I much prefer it that way.
Product Activation: Sorry for the poor hypothetical situation, but I think the point was clear. How about if a fledgling writer takes his new Laptop to Lake No-phones-here to work on a book for months in solitude?
XP Pro runs faster than Windows 2000 Pro
XP has some serious issues. My previously mentioned "Confirm File Delete" is the most annoying I come across. I'll detail more in a moment.
File Deletion
From Windows 95 on, I was able to press the delete key and immediately press the Enter key to "push" the OK button on the Confirm File Delete dialog. It worked fine with 95, 95 rev A,B, and C, 98, 98SE, NT 4.0, and 2000 Pro. I never used Me, so I can't speak about it. It worked fine with a 486/66 running IE 5.5 on Win98SE on 32MB RAM, it works fine with it works fine with an Athlon XP 2700+ Win 2K Pro SP4 running IE 6 SP1 on 1GB DDR333. It doesn't work under XP. The dialog opens so slowly that I have to for it to open or my keypress will be interpreted as "Open this item", so it launches the application or document before the delete dialog opens.
I have XP Pro on an Athlon XP 1700+ with 768MB of DDR266. I have tried it with other programs running and without, with both interfaces (I stick with the "Classic" interface, BTW). The only thing i haven't actively tested is the result in goddamn Safe Mode. The user interface is slower now than it has ever been. I don't give a shit about startup time - my box runs for weeks at a time. I don't give a shit about program launch - or relaunch - time, I don't spend most of my time opening and closing programs, I spend my time goddamn working.
Convenient Options
I work with a digital camera, a USB keychain, and various CD-RW & audio CDs. I transport pictures, my music files, the occasionaly training video, and various graphics with these different types of media. Every goddamn time I insert one of these items, the very friendly "Windows can perform the same action..." message. Now, I've checked the "Always perform the selected action" checkbox for each device, each time I insert it. I alwasys choose the same action, and it always asks me anyway. I don't care if there is a "fix", I shouldn't have to dick around with it after I've told it to always do something. What, I might change my mind? That's fine. Give me a mechanism to obtain that dialog again, just don't show it to me every time.
XP Search
I hate that fucking XP Search dog. The designer who implemented that should burn in the lowest pit of Hell for all eternity. OK, maybe that's a little harsh. I have a serious dislike of interactive characters that obfuscate the process, especially (slightly off-topic, now) when, like the Office Assistant, they obtain and restrict focus, so you can't ignore them. The entire new search interface is simply cumbersome. When you give someone that many options, a damn sidebar doesn't cut it. If I want to use more any of the additional criteria, the interface is practically unusable.
UI
I mentioned the UI was slower than I've ever experienced it? Sometimes - and I'll attribute much of this to my "25 things open all the time" style - The interface lags. I completely lose interactivity; I can't even move the pointer for seconds at a time while the computer is busy doing whatever the fuck it needs to do right then. What's worse, is anything that happens in the timeframe doesn't always catch up. Mouse movements and keystrokes simply vanish.
Like I said, I'm sure some of it's the way I use the computer. But I run my Windows 2000 Pro box just as hard, and it never lags like that. Even if I can't do anything for seconds as a time, I never lose the ability to move the pointer, even if it does become jumpy and slow.
The "extra touches" like the fading or "windowshade" animations on menus, ClearType (I'm still undecided it it's too blurry) and the like slow the user interface down even more. Those little "amenities" are nothing but a waiting period
Other things that I find good include port management that both handle the opening and closing of ports, but also allows some applications to run as a regular user instead of administrator.
There first complaint with SP2 was the NX command - which isn't available on most current processors. The second sounds like a benefit, not a complaint:
Then they go on to complain about not offering to pirated copies, but forget to mention it's only the ten most pirated product keys. It's still a large number, I imagine, but not the whole picture.Giant leap backwards?
Let's face it, you can't remain compatible with old software forever. It causes, well, Windows XP. XP is trying so hard to be everything to everyone, that it can't even pop up a delete confirmation fast enough to not make me wait for it (On an Athlon XP 2700+ with 1GB of DDR333, fresh from boot).
Compatibility is an important issue, but at some point shouldn't the ten-year-old programs run in a virtual environment separate from the OS?
Why don't they make a pin grid insert? That way you can just replace the pin set if you bend some, and both the motherboard and th processor are immune from that type of damage.
The only problem you might experience with this is if you break off pins in the socket or the processor, but it seems like a (mostly) unlikely situation.
It's not the 200GB Photoshop file, it's the 200GB of iMovie (or FCP) files. We recorded a multi-day training here at work that I'm (slowly) editing on an eMac. The 40GB hard drive is barely enough to hold a single 2 hour session.
Of course, I'd probably go with an external drive or the Xserve RAID and a Fibre Channel Card (yeah, like i've got the money).
For personal use, a two-drive RAID 1 is probably the easiest way to go, and involves the fewest drives, but loses the most space (half). Raid 5 is the standard, but the hardware is more expensive and it involves at least one additional drive.
For simplicity and low expense, even though you lose a full drive worth of capacity, go with RAID 1.
You might want to read The Tech Report's recent article mentioned on Slashdot if you haven't already.
I didn't mean to say there will never be a practical application, just not one for a while yet. What a while proves to be is questionable. For now, I'd wager ( a very small amount) on four years before you see >10Mbps in half as many households as have broadband right now.
I do imagine an HD TiVO doing just what you suggest... just not yet. The bandwidth may be there for one user. It may be there for ten users. But either your local ISP has to maintain a cache to keep it's bandwidth bills down, or someone gets to pay for it all. Bandwidth isn't dirt cheap yet.
will the telecos even have the bandwidth
This was my immediate thought. Sure, it's a great concept, but there's no practical application for home use. You might see this in very large business or site-to-site communication - both in place of OC-3 lines.
Don't expect 200Mbps for general home use any time soon. The costs to provide that much bandwidth, even ridiculously oversold, are too high.
If, when the auctioned off the spectrum, some frequencies were kept by the government and maintained as public - much the way the government purchases lands for parks and preserves - would this satisfy that issue?
What if the FCC was reduced to ensuring public safety by regulating device emission standards, owning the public spectrums, and doing some small part in coordinating the beneficial use of technology? Wouldn't that be better than spending taxes mandating that in 2005 we won't be able to record anything on TiVo because Warner Brothers is worried about their copyright?
The private frequency ownership doesn't work out quite as perfectly as the author suggests. Sure, opening a single UHF frequency up could mean billions in additional revenue. What if we opened up nine frequncies, in different parts of the spectrum, in different regions? Then the benefit is largely negated by the same difficulties we deal with in cellular today. The reason we buy tri-band phones is because there isn't a clear standard, and that, in some ways, drives an increase the cost of the products & services.
"A small country devastated by the economy of communist rule is recovering rapidly, and has a smaller government than the US. Therefore we should eliminate the FCC."
What?!
I agree with most of the article, but that's quite the non sequitur.
in reality a truely random four-letter password is probably more secure than most people's password. Have you forgotten they'll likely Give it up for chocolate, anyway? If they don't really know it, they can't write it down and can't divulge it.
The specific implementation may need work, but the concept has very real possibility.
Best comment when I told someone their password expires every 90 days and they can't use the last two:
"That's OK, I have four grandchildren."
I suppose that once you get to LEO, it's not so much of an issue, as whatever the blimp is carrying may be able to propel itself into higher orbit.
My understanding of blimps is that they use equivalent pressure - hence the airsacs that allow pressure changes as they rise - and rely on the buoyancy of lower weight at the same pressure.
I'm just thinking of a blimp on the edge of space suddenly getting hit with a small projectile traveling 1000+ miles per hour. That could do some serious damage. Aside from making a hole, the force of impact might well deform the ballon, rapidly forcing gas from it. This is unlike most damage that occurs with conventional blimps. And, the additional height exacerbates the issues with blimps, giving them more time to slowly leak as they descend and more time to accelerate.