The summary of the story is not correct. I am a VZW Blackberry Tour user and after seeing the story noticed a new Bing icon had appeared on my phone over night. The browser still has Google as the default section, clicking on the Bing icon asks you to agree to some terms and conditions. As I didn't agree everything is still as before and I can use Google as my favorite search engine.
If you are concerned that a call might end up in your cell phone log, why not call one of the calling card services (I've been pretty happy with Onesuite.com) from your cell? This way the only thing showing up in your cell-log would be the dial-in number for that service. This is also a useful tool if you have to call somebody back from your cell who doesn't accept blocked number calls and you don't want to disclose your cell #. Examples might be you have to call a customer/one of your sales folks back from your personal cell phone...
An alternative solution is the excellent SpamGourmet (http://www.spamgourmet.com) which specializes in moving email to/dev/null. You sign up for a free account and then each time you have to hand out an email address you give something like this:..@spamgourmet.com
SpamGourmet will forward incoming emails on this address to your real address, decreasing the count by 1. Once it reaches 0 all future emails to this address will be dropped.
One of the most effective means of dealing with Spam & when being required to hand out an email address is Spamgourmet (http://www.spamgourmet.com). You create an account and can then use unique email addresses of the form..@spamgourmet.com . The cool thing about this is that for each email received on this account the counter is decreased and once it reaches zero all further emails will be discarded. This is great to hand out if you're ordering something from an online store and only want to receive 1-3 emails for order confirmation/shipment but not get any future spams.
The service is free and offers a couple of other neat features. I've been using it for about a year and it's been very reliable.
You can also just sign up for the regular Vision service on your Sprint PCS phone for $10-$15. Then get a USB-datacable (I bought the one for my Sanyo 4900 directly from Sanyo as Sprint doesn't sell them anymore (http://www.sanyo.com/wireless/)). The next thing is to setup a PPP-connection and you'll have everything you need to connect your Linux (or Windoze) box to the Internet.
Be warned though Sprint may frown upon too heavy use of Vision with an attached computer to the PCS phone. They intended the service to only be used with the builtin browser in the phone. If you use it too much they may contact you.
On the other hand I've been using this service occassionally when travelling to log into my VPN or access websites/ssh and it has worked very well. I typically see speeds between 28-110 Kbps and it definitely is useable.
I highly recommend using Ephpod (http://www.ephpod.com/) with an iPod under Windows. When my SO gave me my iPod as a present last year and I installed MusicMatch on my work laptop MM was dogslow and often didn't finish syncing with the iPod. The free alternative Ephpod is simple to use and has always worked perfectly for me.
I've used rdiff-backup/ssh/rsync very successfully in the past and recommend them where I can.
You mention a related project where the far-end repository is encrypted. I poked around the rdiff-backup page but didn't find it. Could you please point me in the right direction (URL?), as this sounds very interesting.
Check out http://rdiff-backup.stanford.edu/ for the wonderful rdiff-backup.
With the combination of rsync, ssh & rdiff-backup I have setup a very reliable incremental network backup infrastructure, allowing me to go back to any previous version of a file.
You're right, now I remember they were located between Arheilgen & Wixhausen. Yes Wix... would certainly have bad connotations for native German speakers;-)
I've been a subscriber to Emusic and mostly liked it (except for the fact that their braindead download manager was horrific under Linux, but there's always Perl to get around that...).
With this change I'll cancel my subscription and move to http://www.allofmp3.com . They are based out of Russia and at least over there seem to be legal. They basically have two account types:
* Unlimited where you pay $0.01/Mbyte * Monthly where you pay $14.95/month and can download up to 1000 songs
The cool thing is that for most albums you can select the bitrate/codec that you'd like them encoded in. They normally use LAME and yes, they even support Ogg. AOM currently has over 200000 songs in their inventory, which features most top acts. Depending on where in the world you live this may/may not be a viable option for you
Price at BN: $43.96, price at http://www.bookpool.com : $33.50 and possible free shipping if you order more than $40.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Bookpool and receive no kickbacks. I've been a happy customer with BP and just don't like to pay too much for books.
regards,
Heiko
Cargill/Dow--From Frankencorn to Frankenfleece
on
Corn-Based Plastic
·
· Score: 1
While doing some more research on this I found a very interesting article talking about the background of Cargill Dow. According to it they are trying to push genetically engineered products.
Corn based plastics sound good, but this article certainly is a good counter hype.
instead of going with this why not use a Rio Receiver instead? http://www.sonicblue.com/audio/rio/rio_r eceiver.as p
It's a nice little box developed by the same guys who invented the Empeg, the coolest Linux based car radio in the world. The RR can be bought for $129 at Tigerdirect and there are lots of units on eBay which can typically be had for around $90.
It has an ethernet port, HPNA (if you don't want to run any wires through your house), built in amplifier, RCA out, headphone out, remote control. They only include a very barebones software for Windows which is basically a DHCP/NFS server that bootstraps the unit and allows it to download an embedded Linux version. But there are several servers for running on your own Linux machine.
I just bought one off of eBay and like it a lot. The sound quality is very good and there is an active developer community at the Rio Receiver discussion board:
http://rioreceiver.comms.net/php/ubbthreads.php? Ca t=&PHPSESSID=
Here's one reseller Tigerdirect: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati ons/SearchTool s/item-details.asp?sku=M975-1036
Hmm, looks a bit expensive. At http://www.newsfeeds.com you can get 9.25 Gigabyte/Day for $19.95 or $13.3 if you pay yearly in advance. This should be more than enough even for the most hardcore leechers.
I can highly recommend the NEX II from Frontierlabs. It is a tiny compact flash based player that can act also as a USB storage device. Just format the CF as a regular DOS/VFAT filesystem and copy unencrypted MP3 files on it and off you go. Highly recommended, right now CompUSA (bah) is carrying it with a 32 MB CF for $99, I've also seen it quite a few times on Ebay.
Frontier's website is at http://www.frontierlabs.com
The one slight gotcha for me is that when I copy files from Linux 2.4.17 via USB onto the CF in the player it hangs at the end. Not a big problem though, as a I have a notebook and can just stick the CF in the PCMCIA slot.
On a related note, I've been given a Thompson RCA Lyra MP3 player for my birthday earlier this year. The packaging claimed it to be an MP3 player with removable compact flash memory.
Unfortunately this device is only supported under Windows and requires the use of the terribly slow Real Jukebox software. This software downsamples everything to a maximum bitrate of 128 Kbps but even worse encrypts the MP3s before copying them on the CF. This whole process slows down the moving of MP3 files onto the player and makes it impossible to use anything else besides Windows. A major nuisance.
When I requested to get a software update without the encryption enforced RCA Thompson would not offer any support.
RCA Thompson (and other companies doing similar stupidities) should be forced to market this only as "ENCRYPTED ENCUMBERED MP3 player".
Hopefully somebody can come out with a nice player supporting Ogg Vorbis and non such nonsense. It would certainly be something I'd pay money for.
In case you ever have the legitimate need for logging keystrokes you can purchase a plug and play device at www.keyghost.com . This device connects between the keyboard and computer and looks like a small keyboard adapter. They also sell versions where the device is integrated inside a keyboard. It can later be unplugged, activated via a password and then replay the keystrokes.
I don't condone the use of such a tool, but people should be aware that this stuff is readily available.
Slight correction MAE = Metropolitan Area Exchange, WorldCom runs the two big ones MAE-East and West plus a couple of smaller ones. Historically the old MAEs were based on FDDI-switches, which has long ago become bottleneck. The newer platform is based on ATM (Asynchronous Transfer mode) which allows for higher speeds and better control over bandwidth used for peering between ISPs.
Lucky me, working downtown (MAE-W) within walking distance of the conference center and the Usual. My commute is usually around 15 minutes to the southern edge of San Jose:-P
Although I have to admit that Santa Cruz/Capitola is quite a bit nicer.
Slashdot Mirror
Supports EncFS on Windows and works well with different Cloud FS providers.
The summary of the story is not correct. I am a VZW Blackberry Tour user and after seeing the story noticed a new Bing icon had appeared on my phone over night. The browser still has Google as the default section, clicking on the Bing icon asks you to agree to some terms and conditions. As I didn't agree everything is still as before and I can use Google as my favorite search engine.
If you are concerned that a call might end up in your cell phone log, why not call one of the calling card services (I've been pretty happy with Onesuite.com) from your cell? This way the only thing showing up in your cell-log would be the dial-in number for that service. This is also a useful tool if you have to call somebody back from your cell who doesn't accept blocked number calls and you don't want to disclose your cell #. Examples might be you have to call a customer/one of your sales folks back from your personal cell phone...
Heiko
Especially when you consider the vaccum features on the Zaurus SL-6000L :-D. Check the features on the following eBay auction out, hilarious:
e gory=38331&item=5737274915&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cat
Heiko
Is the SSH client still only proxy SSH, meaning unencrypted between you and the T-Mobile server, ssh from there to the host?
Heiko
Ok, let me retry:
(uniqueword).(count).(username)@spamgourmet.com
An alternative solution is the excellent SpamGourmet (http://www.spamgourmet.com) which specializes in moving email to /dev/null. You sign up for a free account and then each time you have to hand out an email address you give something like this: ..@spamgourmet.com
SpamGourmet will forward incoming emails on this address to your real address, decreasing the count by 1. Once it reaches 0 all future emails to this address will be dropped.
Highly recommended (and did I say it's free?).
Heiko
Looks like the email address format got mangled. Let's try again:
keyword.counter.account@spamgourmet.com
Heiko
One of the most effective means of dealing with Spam & when being required to hand out an email address is Spamgourmet (http://www.spamgourmet.com). You create an account and can then use unique email addresses of the form ..@spamgourmet.com . The cool thing about this is that for each email received on this account the counter is decreased and once it reaches zero all further emails will be discarded. This is great to hand out if you're ordering something from an online store and only want to receive 1-3 emails for order confirmation/shipment but not get any future spams.
The service is free and offers a couple of other neat features. I've been using it for about a year and it's been very reliable.
Highly recommended.
Heiko
You can also just sign up for the regular Vision service on your Sprint PCS phone for $10-$15. Then get a USB-datacable (I bought the one for my Sanyo 4900 directly from Sanyo as Sprint doesn't sell them anymore (http://www.sanyo.com/wireless/)). The next thing is to setup a PPP-connection and you'll have everything you need to connect your Linux (or Windoze) box to the Internet.
Be warned though Sprint may frown upon too heavy use of Vision with an attached computer to the PCS phone. They intended the service to only be used with the builtin browser in the phone. If you use it too much they may contact you.
On the other hand I've been using this service occassionally when travelling to log into my VPN or access websites/ssh and it has worked very well. I typically see speeds between 28-110 Kbps and it definitely is useable.
regards,
Heiko
I highly recommend using Ephpod (http://www.ephpod.com/) with an iPod under Windows. When my SO gave me my iPod as a present last year and I installed MusicMatch on my work laptop MM was dogslow and often didn't finish syncing with the iPod. The free alternative Ephpod is simple to use and has always worked perfectly for me.
regards,
Heiko
Hi,
I've used rdiff-backup/ssh/rsync very successfully in the past and recommend them where I can.
You mention a related project where the far-end repository is encrypted. I poked around the rdiff-backup page but didn't find it. Could you please point me in the right direction (URL?), as this sounds very interesting.
regards,
Heiko
Check out http://rdiff-backup.stanford.edu/ for the wonderful rdiff-backup.
With the combination of rsync, ssh & rdiff-backup I have setup a very reliable incremental network backup infrastructure, allowing me to go back to any previous version of a file.
regards,
Heiko
You're right, now I remember they were located between Arheilgen & Wixhausen. Yes Wix... would certainly have bad connotations for native German speakers ;-)
Heiko
If I'm not mistaken the GSI is in a suburb of Darmstadt called Arheilgen.
cheers,
Heiko
Hi,
I've been a subscriber to Emusic and mostly liked it (except for the fact that their braindead download manager was horrific under Linux, but there's always Perl to get around that...).
With this change I'll cancel my subscription and move to http://www.allofmp3.com . They are based out of Russia and at least over there seem to be legal. They basically have two account types:
* Unlimited where you pay $0.01/Mbyte
* Monthly where you pay $14.95/month and can download up to 1000 songs
The cool thing is that for most albums you can select the bitrate/codec that you'd like them encoded in. They normally use LAME and yes, they even support Ogg. AOM currently has over 200000 songs in their inventory, which features most top acts. Depending on where in the world you live this may/may not be a viable option for you
regards,
Heiko
Price at BN: $43.96, price at http://www.bookpool.com : $33.50 and possible free shipping if you order more than $40.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Bookpool and receive no kickbacks. I've been a happy customer with BP and just don't like to pay too much for books.
regards,
Heiko
Corn based plastics sound good, but this article certainly is a good counter hype.
regards,
Heiko
Hi,
r eceiver.as p
? Ca t=&PHPSESSID=
i ons/SearchTool s/item-details.asp?sku=M975-1036
instead of going with this why not use a Rio Receiver instead?
http://www.sonicblue.com/audio/rio/rio_
It's a nice little box developed by the same guys who invented the Empeg, the coolest Linux based car radio in the world. The RR can be bought for $129 at Tigerdirect and there are lots of units on eBay which can typically be had for around $90.
It has an ethernet port, HPNA (if you don't want to run any wires through your house), built in amplifier, RCA out, headphone out, remote control. They only include a very barebones software for Windows which is basically a DHCP/NFS server that bootstraps the unit and allows it to download an embedded Linux version. But there are several servers for running on your own Linux machine.
I just bought one off of eBay and like it a lot. The sound quality is very good and there is an active developer community at the Rio Receiver discussion board:
http://rioreceiver.comms.net/php/ubbthreads.php
Here's one reseller Tigerdirect:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat
regards,
Heiko - not affiliated with Tiger/Sonicblue
Hmm, looks a bit expensive. At http://www.newsfeeds.com you can get 9.25 Gigabyte/Day for $19.95 or $13.3 if you pay yearly in advance. This should be more than enough even for the most hardcore leechers.
I can highly recommend the NEX II from Frontierlabs. It is a tiny compact flash based player that can act also as a USB storage device. Just format the CF as a regular DOS/VFAT filesystem and copy unencrypted MP3 files on it and off you go. Highly recommended, right now CompUSA (bah) is carrying it with a 32 MB CF for $99, I've also seen it quite a few times on Ebay.
Frontier's website is at http://www.frontierlabs.com
The one slight gotcha for me is that when I copy files from Linux 2.4.17 via USB onto the CF in the player it hangs at the end. Not a big problem though, as a I have a notebook and can just stick the CF in the PCMCIA slot.
regards,
Heiko
On a related note, I've been given a Thompson RCA Lyra MP3 player for my birthday earlier this year. The packaging claimed it to be an MP3 player with removable compact flash memory.
Unfortunately this device is only supported under Windows and requires the use of the terribly slow Real Jukebox software. This software downsamples everything to a maximum bitrate of 128 Kbps but even worse encrypts the MP3s before copying them on the CF. This whole process slows down the moving of MP3 files onto the player and makes it impossible to use anything else besides Windows. A major nuisance.
When I requested to get a software update without the encryption enforced RCA Thompson would not offer any support.
RCA Thompson (and other companies doing similar stupidities) should be forced to market this only as "ENCRYPTED ENCUMBERED MP3 player".
Hopefully somebody can come out with a nice player supporting Ogg Vorbis and non such nonsense. It would certainly be something I'd pay money for.
regards,
Heiko
In case you ever have the legitimate need for logging keystrokes you can purchase a plug and play device at www.keyghost.com . This device connects between the keyboard and computer and looks like a small keyboard adapter. They also sell versions where the device is integrated inside a keyboard. It can later be unplugged, activated via a password and then replay the keystrokes.
I don't condone the use of such a tool, but people should be aware that this stuff is readily available.
regards,
Heiko
Slight correction MAE = Metropolitan Area Exchange, WorldCom runs the two big ones MAE-East and West plus a couple of smaller ones. Historically the old MAEs were based on FDDI-switches, which has long ago become bottleneck. The newer platform is based on ATM (Asynchronous Transfer mode) which allows for higher speeds and better control over bandwidth used for peering between ISPs.
For more info see http://www.mae.net
Heiko
Lucky me, working downtown (MAE-W) within walking distance of the conference center and the Usual. My commute is usually around 15 minutes to the southern edge of San Jose :-P
Although I have to admit that Santa Cruz/Capitola is quite a bit nicer.
Heiko