I work for a company that services ATMs. I've only worked on two (IBM and Diebold), and under supervision of my boss.
To get the machine back online requires a phone call to "central office". You have to punch in a DES key; the key is only good for a limited amount of time. I didn't actually do this, my boss did, so there may be extra steps in there somewhere..
I don't think a normal temporary communications interruption or power failure requires manually re-creating new DES keys to authenticate with. On this particular experience I had to replace a hard drive. The IBM machine is kinda old and runs OS/2, btw.
Even if you could crack the encryption and re-authenticate without being noticed, I don't think the modulations the modems use on the wire are "standard".
I once opened a Megadrive up, the 68k is possibly the biggest DIL type chip I've ever seen though.
That would be the older generation 68000 or 68010. FYI, the Amiga 1200's 68020 Quad Flat Pack CPU (surface mount) was one of the smaller chips on the PCB, certainly smaller than any of the custom VLSI chips.
The PowerPC accelerator boards for these machines are quite amusing... they've got both a (smallish) PPC604e @~233MHz, sitting next to a HUGE, FAT 68060 @~50MHz (for 68k compatibility);-)
Even aircraft? As an Australian, I see remnants of imperial measurements in many aircraft parts and specs. Here at the Avalon airshow (2001), there was an amusing part where one of the event commentators (Australian) was trying to ask a Swede (?) what the climbout rate of one of their jets was, he could only answer in meters per minute instead of ft per minute...
Well, after 3 years of running Linux only (no dual boot) I was given a copy of XP Home SP1a and installed it in a VMWare image. Despite much protest, I'm supposed to be working on a project using some windows software (Protel, for which I have a hatred that burns with the power of thousand suns).
First thing I tried was SFU - and it doesn't like XP Home:-(
So it was back to cygwin after all!
Is there any technical reason why XP Home shouldn't be able to run SFU, or does the install just check ($OS ne "XP Home")?
On the bright side, I can finally play Flight Unlimited II again:-)
I can easily see that there would be less inertia involved in switching a beam of electrons than there would be with changing the saturation levels across multiple junctions of doped solid silicon.
Sorry, but that whole rodomontade just got funnier and funnier as it went on, and that last sentence cracked me up.
Having studied microwave transistor structures in both Si and GaAs, I can tell you that at audio frequencies, "intertia" of electrons, perhaps you want to mean dispersion or diffusion current velocities, is quite irrelevant until you start going into the 100s of MHz.
Yes, a legitamte concern with BJTs is time taken to discharge the newly formed "capacitor" at the reverse-biased P-N junction. No, this does not make BJTs useless, it just means you have to be smart about your circuit design - make sure there's enough current to drive the base as fast as you want it.
And, I'm sorry to sound snide, but what exactly about a high impedance circuit "favours" voltage over current? I'm no valve expert at all, but I was under the impression that valves were voltage devices! An ideal thevenin equivilent voltage source should have a low impedance!
Honestly, I can't believe so many people think audio is some kind of black voodoo magic. Try designing the frontend/filtering/amp stage for a GPS reciever, or carefully calculating intricate patterns on a PCB to create matching transformers for GHz signals using nothing but the shape of the copper!
Microsoft is already appealing a $0.5 million fine for pircay of other people's code in France.
To cut a long story short, IIRC, MS bought a company X. Company X had a license to USE some code from Company Z. MS effectively began to assume they owned it, so Company Z had to court to stop MS pirating their software.
completely unusable for anything except running BIND. Couldn't even get GCC to run.
That's rather unfortunate. Care to elaborate? Did a HDD crash corrupt files in/var/lib/dpkg or something?
Usually BIND is the last thing for me to get working happily. Can I ask what was wrong with GCC? I develop a lot of C code using the m68hc1x cross-compiler and the worst fault I've had (with the cross-compiler) was a default linker script overriding stuff set in my own. Certainly I've never had "the" gcc package stop working!
This is not acceptable for computers that are used for work.
Well, obviously one personal anecdote cannot possibly extrapolate to everyone else's experience.
As for "used for work", I setup Debian Unstable on 4 workstations and two laptops in my lab to meet the requirements for of our projects which required Linux.
There were no problems. None. It all "just worked", including one desktop that was a makeshift server for apache/postgres/mysql for 3 remote windows lusers who looked after themselves via usermin/webmin.
One of the laptops was an ex-Fedora installation. Among other things, owner couldn't work out how to install a gcc cross-compiler (Hitachi SH target) properly. This, of course, was a snap under Debian after showing him the synaptic package manager.
I couldn't have asked for a more flawless "deployment" of Linux on desktop AND dev server, especially considering I had my own project and the minimal amount of admin work involved!
Needless to say, Unstable is unsuitable for production servers, but I found it marvelous for desktop. Only one of us was using KDE, the rest Gnome.
As for unstable "breaking", just watch what happens when you do apt-get upgrade. If there's any conflicts, just wait a few days for the issue to be fixed - how hard can that be?
Sure, a shitload of packages filled with last years versions.
Most packages are less than 2 weeks behind official upstream releases. Gnome 2.6 took exactly 16 days to enter unstable after it was officially released by the Gnome guys. I was able to upgrade with the usual apt-get update && apt-get dselect-upgrade with absolutely no problems, as usual.
Sure, if two weeks isn't fast enough for you, you can add an experimental source in/etc/apt/sources.list, which I've done recently to install GCC-3.4 so I could test it's FPU code performance.
But then again if you're such a version number junkie you probably don't care about getting real work done and so Debian may not be the best distro for you.
If you venture outside of the debian cult compound you will find many Gentoo and FreeBSD users who "made the switch" away from Debian in the last couple years. Shit some are even going to Fedora! Debian is definitely hemorraging userbase but slackware has shown theres always enough fanatics around to keep a project going long after it's relevance has expired.
Sure... That's why Knoppix/Debian are a close 3rd/4th behind Mandrake/Fedora on distrowatch? I suppose Gentoo and SuSE are distros with a "hemorraging" user base who's relevance has also expired?
Debian has never been a distro for everyone and I think the same people who stuck with Debian years ago are the same sorts of people who will stick with Debian in the future. With the growth of the 'net and increased awareness of Linux, all distros are under much higher scrutiny from a much broader crowd of people looking to try out Linux.
Regardless, Debian undoubtedly remains the best Linux distro on non-x86 hardware, and certainly holds its own amongst the more x86-centric distros. It has excellent QA and the best quality packages with hassle-free upgrades that I've seen on any distro. I haven't tried to use Gentoo seriously; I didn't like the way it liked to smash config files in/etc.
Exactly WHAT part of Debian is out of date? It's not the packages, that's for sure.
I use Debian unstable. Do you actually know what the "unstable" part means? It means that the contents of the "unstable" packages are probably still changing! Does that make it any less usable? When you're admining 20 servers, you probably don't want your PostgreSQL database server to suddenly become incompatible with your data due to a format change. (aside: debian upgrade scripts can try to automagically dump/re-import your old database for you)
But compared to a desktop OS like Fedora? NO! Debian unstable is absolutely FINE for desktop usage, despite the "unstable" label.
So why is it called "unstable"?
It may be because upstream is still changing fundamental parts of the app, such as when the new exim4 (at the time) decided to split the config files up. You can't put that in "stable" can you?
Or it may be because the Debian package maintainers haven't figured out the best way to package something according to Debian policy, like when the vim package suddenly decided to break into multiple packages separating out arch-independant/doc related stuff to avoid duplicating data on the mirrors.
I'm sure there are better examples, but the point is, when comparing Debian vs DesktopLinuxOS like Fedora, compare Debian Unstable.
If you do, you will find that package updates are plenty and timely. I think the kernel images are barely even a week behind the kernel.org releases. Gnome 2.6 took a while, about TWO WHOLE FRIGGING WEEKS. How much faster do you want?
If, for example, you want the latest GCC 3.4 which I'm guessing isn't considered "ready" to replace GCC-3.3 as the default compiler, then just add an experimental source in your/etc/apt/sources.list! It's as easy as that. apt-get update, followed by apt-get -t experimental gcc-3.4. DONE.
Geez, why after all this time do people still not GET Debian.... it's enough to make somebody ANGRY
It is also true that French gratitude for having been liberated by allied forces including American forces was very muted at the time and has continued to be ever since.
Has it really? I always thought of France as one of the better countries for remembering past war efforts. Just this year France awarded a bunch of "Legion of Honour" awards to Australian WWII soldiers; they seem to be giving out awards every few years, perhaps I'm imagining things?
They seem to hold strong tradition around Arc de Triomphe, remembering armistice days etc... I'm not exactly a war expert though.
Thus blacklisting Macedonia is a much more efficient solution
Of course, let's exclude the minorities because it's easier! Blocking entire country's netblocks (China, Korea, etc) from email is one thing. Online store policies preventing shipment to Macedonia is one thing.
But to purposely block ALL 'net traffic from countries "not worthy" is just retarded - it provides no benefit to ANYONE, except for the blocker to say a big "FUCK YOU!!!" to those who want to browse the internet just like everyone else but happen to live in a country who's time is "not worth it"!
Geez, as if blocking a whole country from even viewing your site actually helps anyone!
I dunno - perhaps the owners of that mental health site were worried their precious web pages would become dirtied by TCP/IP packets from Macedonians?
I don't see why it's Slashdot's job to be free advertising for this guy's personal opinion
Whilst written from a personal perspective, the article raises valid issues. Some anti-spam RBLs just blacklist entire countries like Korea and China. See this here for more about that.
The difference is now it isn't just affecting email, but other parts of the web as well. It doesn't make living in one of these countries any easier, does it. If this article is to be believed, it seems that many admins have been quick to blacklist eg. macedonia perhaps because they are small and "not worth the risk" rather than actually being a source of trouble.
So, we're now excluding minorities on the so-called World-Wide-Web. Sure, it's an opiniated observation, but an observation that I'm glad to have encountered. I'm glad this article ran, I got something out of it. I'm sorry you didn't. At any rate, this article is a hell of a lot more "insightful" than the Linux Users Are Spoiled drivel I had to endure recently.
Residents of those contries have the option of using foreign ISPs
Right, as if using the internet wasn't expensive enough already, you're going to be dialing international to a hypothetical ISP that has no qualms about selling accounts to foreign countries? The other issue is payment - Mastercard?
I'd be surprised if at least some blacklists didn't include the IPs of those anon. proxies too.
Sure, they can work around it, but seriously... that'd just suck.
Sorry to nit-pick, but - CAD? Electronic circuit design? I'm about to upgrade my EAGLE package in exchange for some $$$ (still much cheaper than most competition and especially Protel, that which I have a hatred for which burns with the power of a thousand suns).
Is there some free stuff worth using I dont' know about? Please tell me it's true!:-)
Stick to gnome applications under a gnome desktop, everything should be fine. The most disturbing thing for me is Balsa, written with GTK+ 2, has an address book manager written in GTK+ 1.2, which sticks out like a sore thumb.
Linux apps have some way to go, but the situation is a thousand times better than the mess we had a few years ago. It's getting there.
Australia uses CDMA too, since it's cheaper and more efficient to roll out than GSM, especially when trying to cover 1000s of K's of sparsely populated areas.
Unlike GSM, however, CDMA in Australia is (AFIAK) a Telstra-only service (Australia Telecom).
CDMA performs surprisingly well, almost matching the range of the old analogue AMPS towers we had circa 1999, and at a fraction of the cost (per base station).
Too bad the first (Qualcomm) phones they sold for it were crap - buggy firmware, expensive car kits.
If you're travelling in remote areas, CDMA is all you're going to get (if anything).
As with any company, Viewsonic's cheap-arse economy crap is just that, whilst (I assume) their professional stuff can be good. Other companies like Panasonic have different brands for different market segments; in Panasonic's case, the Technics and Quasar brands are used for more "professional" stuff so as to avoid confusion.
During my time as a PC repair technician, I can attest to the fact that certain (cheap) models of 15"/17" Viewsonic monitors are crap. For cheap CRTs, I recommend Hitachi - the 19" CM721Fs are great for the price.
Viewsonic does have good stuff. But for a 9.2MP 22.2" LCD, I'd rather the IBM T221 as I've already mentioned in a few posts already;-)
Slashdot Mirror
I work for a company that services ATMs. I've only worked on two (IBM and Diebold), and under supervision of my boss.
To get the machine back online requires a phone call to "central office". You have to punch in a DES key; the key is only good for a limited amount of time. I didn't actually do this, my boss did, so there may be extra steps in there somewhere..
I don't think a normal temporary communications interruption or power failure requires manually re-creating new DES keys to authenticate with. On this particular experience I had to replace a hard drive. The IBM machine is kinda old and runs OS/2, btw.
Even if you could crack the encryption and re-authenticate without being noticed, I don't think the modulations the modems use on the wire are "standard".
Reminds me of a cartoon in the Sunday Mail a few months ago:
Person 1: "Apparently withdrawing from Iraq will increase Australia's risk of becoming a terrorist target..."
Person 2: "Who from? Al Qaeda?"
Person 1: "No, the U.S."
I once opened a Megadrive up, the 68k is possibly the biggest DIL type chip I've ever seen though.
;-)
That would be the older generation 68000 or 68010. FYI, the Amiga 1200's 68020 Quad Flat Pack CPU (surface mount) was one of the smaller chips on the PCB, certainly smaller than any of the custom VLSI chips.
The PowerPC accelerator boards for these machines are quite amusing... they've got both a (smallish) PPC604e @~233MHz, sitting next to a HUGE, FAT 68060 @~50MHz (for 68k compatibility)
U.S. military uses metric exclusively
Even aircraft? As an Australian, I see remnants of imperial measurements in many aircraft parts and specs. Here at the Avalon airshow (2001), there was an amusing part where one of the event commentators (Australian) was trying to ask a Swede (?) what the climbout rate of one of their jets was, he could only answer in meters per minute instead of ft per minute...
Well, after 3 years of running Linux only (no dual boot) I was given a copy of XP Home SP1a and installed it in a VMWare image. Despite much protest, I'm supposed to be working on a project using some windows software (Protel, for which I have a hatred that burns with the power of thousand suns).
:-(
:-)
First thing I tried was SFU - and it doesn't like XP Home
So it was back to cygwin after all!
Is there any technical reason why XP Home shouldn't be able to run SFU, or does the install just check ($OS ne "XP Home")?
On the bright side, I can finally play Flight Unlimited II again
I can easily see that there would be less inertia involved in switching a beam of electrons than there would be with changing the saturation levels across multiple junctions of doped solid silicon.
Sorry, but that whole rodomontade just got funnier and funnier as it went on, and that last sentence cracked me up.
Having studied microwave transistor structures in both Si and GaAs, I can tell you that at audio frequencies, "intertia" of electrons, perhaps you want to mean dispersion or diffusion current velocities, is quite irrelevant until you start going into the 100s of MHz.
Yes, a legitamte concern with BJTs is time taken to discharge the newly formed "capacitor" at the reverse-biased P-N junction. No, this does not make BJTs useless, it just means you have to be smart about your circuit design - make sure there's enough current to drive the base as fast as you want it.
And, I'm sorry to sound snide, but what exactly about a high impedance circuit "favours" voltage over current? I'm no valve expert at all, but I was under the impression that valves were voltage devices! An ideal thevenin equivilent voltage source should have a low impedance!
Honestly, I can't believe so many people think audio is some kind of black voodoo magic. Try designing the frontend/filtering/amp stage for a GPS reciever, or carefully calculating intricate patterns on a PCB to create matching transformers for GHz signals using nothing but the shape of the copper!
Microsoft is already appealing a $0.5 million fine for pircay of other people's code in France.
To cut a long story short, IIRC, MS bought a company X. Company X had a license to USE some code from Company Z. MS effectively began to assume they owned it, so Company Z had to court to stop MS pirating their software.
completely unusable for anything except running BIND. Couldn't even get GCC to run.
/var/lib/dpkg or something?
That's rather unfortunate. Care to elaborate? Did a HDD crash corrupt files in
Usually BIND is the last thing for me to get working happily. Can I ask what was wrong with GCC? I develop a lot of C code using the m68hc1x cross-compiler and the worst fault I've had (with the cross-compiler) was a default linker script overriding stuff set in my own. Certainly I've never had "the" gcc package stop working!
This is not acceptable for computers that are used for work.
Well, obviously one personal anecdote cannot possibly extrapolate to everyone else's experience.
As for "used for work", I setup Debian Unstable on 4 workstations and two laptops in my lab to meet the requirements for of our projects which required Linux.
There were no problems. None. It all "just worked", including one desktop that was a makeshift server for apache/postgres/mysql for 3 remote windows lusers who looked after themselves via usermin/webmin.
One of the laptops was an ex-Fedora installation. Among other things, owner couldn't work out how to install a gcc cross-compiler (Hitachi SH target) properly. This, of course, was a snap under Debian after showing him the synaptic package manager.
I couldn't have asked for a more flawless "deployment" of Linux on desktop AND dev server, especially considering I had my own project and the minimal amount of admin work involved!
Needless to say, Unstable is unsuitable for production servers, but I found it marvelous for desktop. Only one of us was using KDE, the rest Gnome.
As for unstable "breaking", just watch what happens when you do apt-get upgrade. If there's any conflicts, just wait a few days for the issue to be fixed - how hard can that be?
Sure, a shitload of packages filled with last years versions.
/etc/apt/sources.list, which I've done recently to install GCC-3.4 so I could test it's FPU code performance.
/etc.
Most packages are less than 2 weeks behind official upstream releases. Gnome 2.6 took exactly 16 days to enter unstable after it was officially released by the Gnome guys. I was able to upgrade with the usual apt-get update && apt-get dselect-upgrade with absolutely no problems, as usual.
Sure, if two weeks isn't fast enough for you, you can add an experimental source in
But then again if you're such a version number junkie you probably don't care about getting real work done and so Debian may not be the best distro for you.
If you venture outside of the debian cult compound you will find many Gentoo and FreeBSD users who "made the switch" away from Debian in the last couple years. Shit some are even going to Fedora! Debian is definitely hemorraging userbase but slackware has shown theres always enough fanatics around to keep a project going long after it's relevance has expired.
Sure... That's why Knoppix/Debian are a close 3rd/4th behind Mandrake/Fedora on distrowatch? I suppose Gentoo and SuSE are distros with a "hemorraging" user base who's relevance has also expired?
Debian has never been a distro for everyone and I think the same people who stuck with Debian years ago are the same sorts of people who will stick with Debian in the future. With the growth of the 'net and increased awareness of Linux, all distros are under much higher scrutiny from a much broader crowd of people looking to try out Linux.
Regardless, Debian undoubtedly remains the best Linux distro on non-x86 hardware, and certainly holds its own amongst the more x86-centric distros. It has excellent QA and the best quality packages with hassle-free upgrades that I've seen on any distro. I haven't tried to use Gentoo seriously; I didn't like the way it liked to smash config files in
I've got another rant post that might help to explain the difference between unstable/testing/stable to you.
Cheers
Alright, this really shits me.
/etc/apt/sources.list! It's as easy as that. apt-get update, followed by apt-get -t experimental gcc-3.4. DONE.
Exactly WHAT part of Debian is out of date? It's not the packages, that's for sure.
I use Debian unstable. Do you actually know what the "unstable" part means? It means that the contents of the "unstable" packages are probably still changing! Does that make it any less usable? When you're admining 20 servers, you probably don't want your PostgreSQL database server to suddenly become incompatible with your data due to a format change. (aside: debian upgrade scripts can try to automagically dump/re-import your old database for you)
But compared to a desktop OS like Fedora? NO! Debian unstable is absolutely FINE for desktop usage, despite the "unstable" label.
So why is it called "unstable"?
It may be because upstream is still changing fundamental parts of the app, such as when the new exim4 (at the time) decided to split the config files up. You can't put that in "stable" can you?
Or it may be because the Debian package maintainers haven't figured out the best way to package something according to Debian policy, like when the vim package suddenly decided to break into multiple packages separating out arch-independant/doc related stuff to avoid duplicating data on the mirrors.
I'm sure there are better examples, but the point is, when comparing Debian vs DesktopLinuxOS like Fedora, compare Debian Unstable.
If you do, you will find that package updates are plenty and timely. I think the kernel images are barely even a week behind the kernel.org releases. Gnome 2.6 took a while, about TWO WHOLE FRIGGING WEEKS. How much faster do you want?
If, for example, you want the latest GCC 3.4 which I'm guessing isn't considered "ready" to replace GCC-3.3 as the default compiler, then just add an experimental source in your
Geez, why after all this time do people still not GET Debian.... it's enough to make somebody ANGRY
It is also true that French gratitude for having been liberated by allied forces including American forces was very muted at the time and has continued to be ever since.
Has it really? I always thought of France as one of the better countries for remembering past war efforts. Just this year France awarded a bunch of "Legion of Honour" awards to Australian WWII soldiers; they seem to be giving out awards every few years, perhaps I'm imagining things?
They seem to hold strong tradition around Arc de Triomphe, remembering armistice days etc... I'm not exactly a war expert though.
This isn't about race, you stupid bastard.
Of course this isn't about race, you stupid bastard. Where did I say it was about race?
Macedonia is a small country. They are being excluded from parts of the 'net. Hence, exculding minorities. Perfectly valid statement, yes?
This is about cost/effect ratios. Nothing more.
I have to truly wonder if these sites actually put any thought into blocking Macedonia, whether they based it on any statistics or fact.
Thus blacklisting Macedonia is a much more efficient solution
Of course, let's exclude the minorities because it's easier! Blocking entire country's netblocks (China, Korea, etc) from email is one thing. Online store policies preventing shipment to Macedonia is one thing.
But to purposely block ALL 'net traffic from countries "not worthy" is just retarded - it provides no benefit to ANYONE, except for the blocker to say a big "FUCK YOU!!!" to those who want to browse the internet just like everyone else but happen to live in a country who's time is "not worth it"!
Geez, as if blocking a whole country from even viewing your site actually helps anyone!
I dunno - perhaps the owners of that mental health site were worried their precious web pages would become dirtied by TCP/IP packets from Macedonians?
I don't see why it's Slashdot's job to be free advertising for this guy's personal opinion
Whilst written from a personal perspective, the article raises valid issues. Some anti-spam RBLs just blacklist entire countries like Korea and China. See this here for more about that.
The difference is now it isn't just affecting email, but other parts of the web as well. It doesn't make living in one of these countries any easier, does it. If this article is to be believed, it seems that many admins have been quick to blacklist eg. macedonia perhaps because they are small and "not worth the risk" rather than actually being a source of trouble.
So, we're now excluding minorities on the so-called World-Wide-Web. Sure, it's an opiniated observation, but an observation that I'm glad to have encountered. I'm glad this article ran, I got something out of it. I'm sorry you didn't. At any rate, this article is a hell of a lot more "insightful" than the Linux Users Are Spoiled drivel I had to endure recently.
Residents of those contries have the option of using foreign ISPs
Right, as if using the internet wasn't expensive enough already, you're going to be dialing international to a hypothetical ISP that has no qualms about selling accounts to foreign countries? The other issue is payment - Mastercard?
I'd be surprised if at least some blacklists didn't include the IPs of those anon. proxies too.
Sure, they can work around it, but seriously... that'd just suck.
graphic design, electronic circuit design, music composition, genealogy, CAD, Mathematical modelling
:-)
Sorry to nit-pick, but - CAD? Electronic circuit design? I'm about to upgrade my EAGLE package in exchange for some $$$ (still much cheaper than most competition and especially Protel, that which I have a hatred for which burns with the power of a thousand suns).
Is there some free stuff worth using I dont' know about? Please tell me it's true!
linux has usability standards? problem is there are probably 5 of them and 90% of linux apps don't follow any of them
Why don't you check out the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines. KDE has their own, but both share a common base-set of standards outlined here.
Stick to gnome applications under a gnome desktop, everything should be fine. The most disturbing thing for me is Balsa, written with GTK+ 2, has an address book manager written in GTK+ 1.2, which sticks out like a sore thumb.
Linux apps have some way to go, but the situation is a thousand times better than the mess we had a few years ago. It's getting there.
If this poster is correct, BeOS had this feature in 1999.
I had a bitter experience with Motorola's 9S12DP 1K79X defects (SCI interrupts, PLL registers, BDM bugs, CAN freakiness, etc).
Does anyone know what the roadmap is for their 16bit MCU lines? Perhaps I should be using Renesas or go 8bit AVR...
Australia uses CDMA too, since it's cheaper and more efficient to roll out than GSM, especially when trying to cover 1000s of K's of sparsely populated areas.
Unlike GSM, however, CDMA in Australia is (AFIAK) a Telstra-only service (Australia Telecom).
CDMA performs surprisingly well, almost matching the range of the old analogue AMPS towers we had circa 1999, and at a fraction of the cost (per base station).
Too bad the first (Qualcomm) phones they sold for it were crap - buggy firmware, expensive car kits.
If you're travelling in remote areas, CDMA is all you're going to get (if anything).
... the sid.org link is great!
As with any company, Viewsonic's cheap-arse economy crap is just that, whilst (I assume) their professional stuff can be good. Other companies like Panasonic have different brands for different market segments; in Panasonic's case, the Technics and Quasar brands are used for more "professional" stuff so as to avoid confusion.
;-)
During my time as a PC repair technician, I can attest to the fact that certain (cheap) models of 15"/17" Viewsonic monitors are crap. For cheap CRTs, I recommend Hitachi - the 19" CM721Fs are great for the price.
Viewsonic does have good stuff. But for a 9.2MP 22.2" LCD, I'd rather the IBM T221 as I've already mentioned in a few posts already
Take a look at the IBM T221 and look at the listed example applications.
These things are meant for scientists and doctors, not consumers like you and I.
So get IBM's T221 instead - 3 years warranty, IBM support.