My TiBook has been going around in my bag for over a year. It has a dint in the lid and the paint has just about peeled off the hinges and is coming away all around the base. These are just cosmetic things though, I've had no operational problems with it. I like it looking used.
Working with people who have company supplied Dell laptops I wouldn't recommend buying one. The main reason being battery life, both in the length of time you could use it without mains power, and the length of time before the battery stopped taking a full charge.
We've considered working with wireless access technology in lectures for our students. The problem - battery life. Friends tell me that when you've got a wireless card talking away you might get an hour or so of battery life
Depends on the laptop. I can get over 3 hours using wireless on my laptop.
Well, why not put power sockets in the desks? So much for wire-less. Might as well put network sockets in as well and give the kiddies 10Mb each instead of sharing an AP or two.
It is much cheaper to position a couple of access points than to wire a lecture hall with Cat 5 cabling. It's also less hassle to give out connection details for the APs than keep the lecture halls supplied with the correct cables to connect everyone.
If students are required to download information at the end of the lecture it's their responsibility to have charge in their batteries. Either that or write down the URL and download later.
I think people who feel they can "fix it" by changing keyboards or rearranging their workstation are only prolonging their suffering
In the mid-nineties I started a new freelance contract and was given a Mac with an Apple Design Keyboard connected to it. This was a membrane style keyboard with high key resistance, similar to many in use today. After working there for a couple of weeks I noticed problems with pain and stiffness in my fingers and wrists. I replaced the keyboard with an Apple Adjustable Keyboard, which had individual switches for the keys and could be adjusted for angle. After a week of using this keyboard all of my pain had gone away.
I still suffer these days when given a keyboard with a similar action and try to use either my laptop, strangely I don't suffer using this, or my own keyboard.
I didn't consult any medical advice over this period, so couldn't say absolutely that this was RSI but the pain was caused by my typing and did go when I changed keyboards.
As long as the students aren't actually interrupting the lecture what's the problem?
I would have welcomed such distractions in some the lectures I went to back in the dawn of time (early 80's). We had to be satisfied with the lo-tech alternatives: paper notes and staring out of the window.
I did some work for a consultancy company back in 2000. The company policy was to give their consultants phones that worked in the country they were in. This resulted in around 50 new Nokia phones (6110?) appearing all with the same ring tones as my 6150. After a week of having to check my phone everytime someone in the office's phone rang I downloaded a custom tone.
The phone would also allow me to assign custom rings to groups of callers. This allowed me to assign a different ring for personal and business calls, allowing me to screen calls more easily.
When I got my Nokia 6150 phone in 2000 I got the Nokia Data Suite which included a ring tone composer. You could load a MIDI file or enter the notes then compile the tune and download it to the phone via cable or infrared.
My current phone (T68i), like most Ericsson phones of the past 3 years, has a ringtone composer on the phone itself. This is a pain to use but the ringtone format on this phone is just text so it's possible to put the tunes together using a text editor.
The new polyphonic phones add a layer of complexity to this, and binary formats to protect against piracy:), but this is old technology outside the US.
C'MON! We sit around and post all day about how evil the DMCA is and when someone has the balls to do something about it we call them stupid?
Companies don't do open source because of their love of freedom or anything. They do it because it saves them money. Many eyes... you know it. And we have a right to ask for something in return.
IIRC NeXT spent a lot of effort on gcc. Apple have bought NeXT, the gcc compiler is shipped as part of the Apple development tools, I suspect that Apple is still doing work on gcc.
Of course Apple want something out of making Darwin Open Source. They are in the business of making money. They have given things back(Rendezvous and Darwin Streaming Server so far)why should that mean that they shouldn't protect their IP and licensing for other products? OWC were shipping something whose purpose was to allow iDVD to be copied illegally, Apple's lawyers used the most suited statute to sue under.
Why not just use NeXT code rather than BSD? They had a full Unix behind them. Why mess with open source at all?
Darwin is based on NeXT code, NeXT was BSD based. The objective C environment, even the classnames in the Cocoa frameworks, betrays this.
If you are going to choose an open-source Un*x, why not choose the most popular one (Linux)? Then you build in gobs of application support.
Two answers for this:
Practical: Because they had all of the developers and code they got from NeXT.
Truthful: If Apple had used a Linux kernel and layered Aqua on top of it people on/. would be complaining about why they hadn't used Gnome/KDE/*insert your prefered interface here*
Historical: A lot of companies have used BSD for their initial Unix base (Sun/HP/SGI).
Forever a niche player.
But with probably more installed Unix desktop seats than any Linux distro:)
Apple fought a battle to have Quicktime 6 adopted as MPEG4. This covers more than just the codecs used for compression, but the file formats as well.
The first article says that DoCoMo are going to be using Quicktime rather than just MPEG4 and that Apple have worked with them to produce the necessary software. Yes, MPEG4 is an open standard but in this case at least it's Apple's implementation that's being used.
The important point is that here we have a company that's looked beyond the MS option to deliver a solution. This adoption of Quicktime should help maintain the pressure on MS to bring Windows Media to the standards party. There are some good features in WM regarding DRM (which is necessary so please no flame war on this point).
A unified media format would be of benefit to consumers and third parties alike.
a CEO that's stealing is just unethical
I thought a CEO that wasn't stealing was unethical. You operate to a different code of ethics when you a CEO become.
The army outside Minas Tirith is routed completely. It has lost it's commander and is not long capable of being considered a force.
Sauron doesn't have an army in the field, furthermore the one from Cirith Ungol was the one that rode out to Minas Tirith, so no large force there with which to retake Osgiliath.
So the Captains of the West head up to the gates of Mordor in order to distract Sauron and make him concentrate his force there. Don't forget that the basis of battles for the larger part of human history has been about destroying the enemies capability to fight rather than conquering territory. Once you've destroyed the opposition's army you can pretty much do what you like.
Visit http://www.apple.com/ipod/ read the page and you should be able to work out why no one has done this.
In case the page get's slash-dotted or you can't be bothered here are the reasons in a nutshell.
USB != Firewire
iPod uses Firewire
GBA uses USB
PS: iPods fail the bounce test:(
Re:Why is important infrastructure online?
on
Cyber-Attacks?
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· Score: 1
This is the/. ideal world.
In the real world people have to maintain systems, systems are distributed through the country/world, often in remote environments.
It's not cost effective to employ a skilled individual to be on-site at each and every location so some remote access is necessary. The important thing is to balance the risks and take adequate security measures.
Yes, the only way to secure a system is to stop it being connected to anything. However gathering remote monitoring information, or controlling a railway switch, isn't going to work very well that way:)
Y2K is called a fiasco because work was done and there were no disasters. People talked about it, spent money checking systems, upgrading systems, fixing problems before the event. No great disaster so all of this was in vain. A hoax. A fiasco.
If the work hadn't been done and there had been disasters wouldn't that have been a greater fiasco?
Situations like this are a no-win. If you do the work and fix problems, you've talked up the problem to get work. If you do nothing and their are problems you are negligent.
It doesn't matter what people will accept. People will uses whatever Microsoft gives them, as long as it looks pretty and doesn't crash too much.
With the history of bug ridden software and viruses, people will put up with a lot for the chance of being saved from them. So what if it means that they can only run Microsoft software? If it does the job, why should they be bothered?
What may start to impact Microsoft is if people can't just copy the software from the machines they have at work to be able to run them at home. If people start having to fork out real cash to be able to run a copy of Office at home, that may upset them. After all, that's one of the reasons people don't look at alternatives.
Digital TV is digital all the way down to the set top box. It's only from the STB that the conversion is made to S-Video, coax etc (TV's don't generally have DVI connectors:))
Of course some people still use film or analog tape to make their programs so there is a conversion somewhere along the line. The broadcast is digital though right down to your home.
Slashdot Mirror
One word - Japan
Apple sold the old PowerBook 2400 almost exclusively in Japan where there is a definite market for small footprint laptops.
I guess I'll have to wait till it drops to the $200 mark then ATI will introduce a Mac version with the bargain price of $399.
Working with people who have company supplied Dell laptops I wouldn't recommend buying one. The main reason being battery life, both in the length of time you could use it without mains power, and the length of time before the battery stopped taking a full charge.
Depends on the laptop. I can get over 3 hours using wireless on my laptop.
Well, why not put power sockets in the desks? So much for wire-less. Might as well put network sockets in as well and give the kiddies 10Mb each instead of sharing an AP or two.
It is much cheaper to position a couple of access points than to wire a lecture hall with Cat 5 cabling. It's also less hassle to give out connection details for the APs than keep the lecture halls supplied with the correct cables to connect everyone.
If students are required to download information at the end of the lecture it's their responsibility to have charge in their batteries. Either that or write down the URL and download later.
The iPhoto 1.2 release will remove the busy wait and replace it with one in the iCal helper app slowing the whole machine down.
.. to check out a malfunctioning iPod. It failed the disk test. Quick call to Apple and they replaced it.
Why should the professor use IM to talk to students in his lecture hall? Surely it's more effecient for him to talk to them in the old fashioned way?
In the mid-nineties I started a new freelance contract and was given a Mac with an Apple Design Keyboard connected to it. This was a membrane style keyboard with high key resistance, similar to many in use today. After working there for a couple of weeks I noticed problems with pain and stiffness in my fingers and wrists. I replaced the keyboard with an Apple Adjustable Keyboard, which had individual switches for the keys and could be adjusted for angle. After a week of using this keyboard all of my pain had gone away.
I still suffer these days when given a keyboard with a similar action and try to use either my laptop, strangely I don't suffer using this, or my own keyboard.
I didn't consult any medical advice over this period, so couldn't say absolutely that this was RSI but the pain was caused by my typing and did go when I changed keyboards.
I thought it was a hint for donations.
As long as the students aren't actually interrupting the lecture what's the problem?
I would have welcomed such distractions in some the lectures I went to back in the dawn of time (early 80's). We had to be satisfied with the lo-tech alternatives: paper notes and staring out of the window.
The phone would also allow me to assign custom rings to groups of callers. This allowed me to assign a different ring for personal and business calls, allowing me to screen calls more easily.
My current phone (T68i), like most Ericsson phones of the past 3 years, has a ringtone composer on the phone itself. This is a pain to use but the ringtone format on this phone is just text so it's possible to put the tunes together using a text editor.
The new polyphonic phones add a layer of complexity to this, and binary formats to protect against piracy :), but this is old technology outside the US.
It also happened last Friday and was widely reported then (but all of the links to it have fallen off the Apple sites). /.
state
IIRC NeXT spent a lot of effort on gcc. Apple have bought NeXT, the gcc compiler is shipped as part of the Apple development tools, I suspect that Apple is still doing work on gcc.
Of course Apple want something out of making Darwin Open Source. They are in the business of making money. They have given things back(Rendezvous and Darwin Streaming Server so far)why should that mean that they shouldn't protect their IP and licensing for other products? OWC were shipping something whose purpose was to allow iDVD to be copied illegally, Apple's lawyers used the most suited statute to sue under.
Darwin is based on NeXT code, NeXT was BSD based. The objective C environment, even the classnames in the Cocoa frameworks, betrays this.
If you are going to choose an open-source Un*x, why not choose the most popular one (Linux)? Then you build in gobs of application support.
Two answers for this:
Forever a niche player.
But with probably more installed Unix desktop seats than any Linux distro :)
Apple fought a battle to have Quicktime 6 adopted as MPEG4. This covers more than just the codecs used for compression, but the file formats as well.
The first article says that DoCoMo are going to be using Quicktime rather than just MPEG4 and that Apple have worked with them to produce the necessary software. Yes, MPEG4 is an open standard but in this case at least it's Apple's implementation that's being used.
The important point is that here we have a company that's looked beyond the MS option to deliver a solution. This adoption of Quicktime should help maintain the pressure on MS to bring Windows Media to the standards party. There are some good features in WM regarding DRM (which is necessary so please no flame war on this point).
A unified media format would be of benefit to consumers and third parties alike.
a CEO that's stealing is just unethical I thought a CEO that wasn't stealing was unethical. You operate to a different code of ethics when you a CEO become.
I can just see drug companies etc queuing up to have part of their research into new drugs being run in retail outlets.
What next. Making use of the spare capacity on EPOS tills?
The army outside Minas Tirith is routed completely. It has lost it's commander and is not long capable of being considered a force. Sauron doesn't have an army in the field, furthermore the one from Cirith Ungol was the one that rode out to Minas Tirith, so no large force there with which to retake Osgiliath. So the Captains of the West head up to the gates of Mordor in order to distract Sauron and make him concentrate his force there. Don't forget that the basis of battles for the larger part of human history has been about destroying the enemies capability to fight rather than conquering territory. Once you've destroyed the opposition's army you can pretty much do what you like.
.. but you can replace my Mac with Windows when you can prize it from my cold dead hands.
In case the page get's slash-dotted or you can't be bothered here are the reasons in a nutshell.
- USB != Firewire
- iPod uses Firewire
- GBA uses USB
PS: iPods fail the bounce testIn the real world people have to maintain systems, systems are distributed through the country/world, often in remote environments. It's not cost effective to employ a skilled individual to be on-site at each and every location so some remote access is necessary. The important thing is to balance the risks and take adequate security measures.
Yes, the only way to secure a system is to stop it being connected to anything. However gathering remote monitoring information, or controlling a railway switch, isn't going to work very well that way :)
If the work hadn't been done and there had been disasters wouldn't that have been a greater fiasco?
Situations like this are a no-win. If you do the work and fix problems, you've talked up the problem to get work. If you do nothing and their are problems you are negligent.
Choose now.
*cough* *splutter*
It doesn't matter what people will accept. People will uses whatever Microsoft gives them, as long as it looks pretty and doesn't crash too much.
With the history of bug ridden software and viruses, people will put up with a lot for the chance of being saved from them. So what if it means that they can only run Microsoft software? If it does the job, why should they be bothered?
What may start to impact Microsoft is if people can't just copy the software from the machines they have at work to be able to run them at home. If people start having to fork out real cash to be able to run a copy of Office at home, that may upset them. After all, that's one of the reasons people don't look at alternatives.
Of course some people still use film or analog tape to make their programs so there is a conversion somewhere along the line. The broadcast is digital though right down to your home.