I would urge caution when going to a computer store and booting up Knoppix, maybe go grab a salesguy and say "I'd like to do this, cool?" That's tantamount to I urge you to ask an unusual question of someone not able to understand it nor authorized to answer yes. Why invite the No response?
Booting ANY PC with Knoppix to test (for Linux compatibility) is just smart shopping, and often an opportunity to demo Linux at the same time. You're not installing anything, you are seeing whether it's the typical Compaq crippled shit or something actually worth purchasing (e.g. Toshiba). (Compaq dropped down to last place in PC Magazine's survey of support for the last 2 years--tied with eMachines! HP was almost as bad. Replacing failed hardware is trivial; getting stuck with shitty support, wrong & non-existent documentation, profoundly flawed software, hours on hold, is a nightmare. I happen to know.)
The first part of the review article at distrowatch.com is a title/summary: It is safe to say that the Debian-based Knoppix live CD has raised the bar of Linux distribution standards to a new level, especially with its automatic hardware detection and on-the-fly decompression. Knoppix is commonly used as an emergency rescue disk, as a Linux demo CD, as a tool to test a new computer before purchase or as a utility to read password-protected Microsoft Word documents on a Windows partition. It can even be used as a full-blown Linux distribution for every-day tasks. Robert Storey explains the reason why Knoppix has been given a permanent home on his computer's hard drive and why he never leaves home without it. I like to take a few copies whenever I leave home. Whether the store employees or other customers reaction is negative or inquizitive, I just give them a cd & say this is the most important PC development in years. "Oh yeah; progress is cool." --Beavis
Mozilla omission is a PC Annoyances DEFECT
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PC Annoyances
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· Score: 1
The book never mentions Mozilla as a MUCH better and SAFER browser than any version of Internet Exploder. And the list of links for downloads also omits any mention of Mozilla. Now THAT is annoying. ANY book about annoyances in Windoze that doesn't even mention Mozilla is annoying. Better book: SuSE Linux documentation that comes with SuSE Linux, with CDs, more software than can be listed, & ready to install on a Windoze PC (making it a dual boot PC), so you can use a stable & secure PC & avoid the annoyance of having to use Windoze. The SuSE distribution of Linux has the best printed documentation there is in Linux land.
"PC Annoyances" has one great feature: it shows how much better to just use Linux (or Mac OS X). Otherwise, it's mainly a plug for PC World (all the links go there also). I'm sick of that magazine. CPU magazine (Computer Power User) has a page by CmdrTaco (Slashdot creator) and another called Open Sauce in every issue.
"It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies." "If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged." --MIT Professor Noam Chomsky
Gaylord sells 45,000 items to libraries. If anyone knows how to organize, it's libraries. http://www.gaylord.com/
The best containers you can buy anywhere in the world are Lock & Lock made by Hana Cobi (Korea). See http://us.locknlock.com/main.asp for more info (great website with pictures of all sizes, dimensions, & text & videos showing why they are superior). http://www.containerstore.com, Rubbermaid, & Sterlite containers are a joke compared to Lock & Lock. One Lock & Lock container, the HPL827 is perfect for storing CDs in jewel cases. It holds 40 slim ones or 20 standard size, and is easily strong enough to toss it in a back pack and very rugged. All the Lock & Locks are totally air & liquid tight with a silicone gasket, with 70 sizes ranging from 0.1L to 12L. I bought mine at Safeway (grocery store); they're also sold on the QVC shopping channel (cable TV), which mostly sells gimmicks. Why ask why? Milk crates used by grocery stores (the ones with the steel band at the top) also kick ass. They are indestructable & you can see what's in them without "opening" them as with cardboard boxes. Lay them on their side & stack them to the ceiling. Plywood between each row lets you use 1/3 to 1/2 as many crates. They aren't sold to the public in reasonable quantities, but I've seen them on pallets behind grocery stores, even at night . ..
For labelling (either things or the containers that contain them), the best pens are Staedtler Lumocolor permanent pens (Germany)--their ink is stronger (richer), and adheres better than any other permanent pen. They have about 10 colors and 5 different sizes. The bookstores of larger universities is the only place I see them in the US.
The silver and gold markers made in Japan by Pilot are the best for labelling black and other dark colored items or items exposed to the UV light outdoors which eventually destroys regular ink. They cost about $2.75 each and have a ball inside--you have to shake it up before you use it. They are widely available.
Pilot and Zebra brand ink pens are consistently the best. They cost a little more, but for something you use so often, that's irrelevant. Zebra's Zazzle flourescent highlighters are the bomb--elegant shape, slim, totally clear plastic barrell showing exactly how much ink is in it.
Scotch (3M) now markets clear duct tape (Finally!). It's very adhesive, available in small diameter rolls. It's 3.6 cm wide, 3.66 m long (1.42 inch x 4 yards for those still using the obscurantist English system, rather than the metric system). Deceive, inveigle & obfuscate; beware of republicans posing as humans.
I'm a tool junkie, and spray painting them is cool, helps me find them in dim light, helps identify them as mine, protects the ones that could rust, also cheap entertainment. Gold laquer is the most reliable (dries completely in just minutes); blue metal flake is beautiful. You can't polish a turd--try spray paint. Dremel's patents expired, so you can now get knockoff versions (China) for 1/3 to 1/4 the price of Dremel (80 piece set for $20!). "Dremels" & spray paint at auto parts stores. BTW Gerber multi tools & knives are better steel than any Leatherman or Swiss Army knife.
"It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies." "If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged." --MIT Professor Noam Chomsky "Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today." -The New York Times
Each day 74 species go extinct, 32,000 people die of starvation/malnutrition, 60,000 die from bad water. Have a nice day. Dare to Slash Military Spending. Party Naked in the church of your Choice. Best CD of 2003: The Power to Believe by King Crimson. Buy it directly from King Crimson's record label at http://www.disciplineglobalmobile.com/order/
I just got a GeIL (geilusa.com) 256MB USB2.0 (compatible with 1.1) flash drive, after filling 2 64MB Lexars (both USB1.1). It's durable aluminum construction (these things work until physically damaged) & can send & receive email (storing it in the flash drive) from any PC in the world (Windoze only); also password & secret zip. Nice leather case also. It's skinnier than many USB flash drives (most oval shaped are too fat to fit into some places without extension cable), and it's about as fast as booting from a 32X CD-rom drive (if boot speed is an issue).
The good price point now with USB flash drives is 128-512MB. Just get a 256 or 512 and worry about the more complex issues later. Floppies have a tiny storage capacity, fragile, & very slow transfer rates (my USB1.1 Lexars are 27X faster reading, 80 times faster writing). For booting, CD-R is ideal; Knoppix is the best example. Just keep those few bootable CD operating systems on CD-R. At 30 cents/CD, it's cheaper than a stamp. The USB1.1 flash drives have a transfer rate of almost 1MB/sec. The USB2.0 drives transfer at 4-5MB/sec (not the max 60 MB/sec of the USB2.0 spec) and only $10 more. They have no moving parts, no battery, quiet, nothing to wear out (or fall out), & better than Post-Its or floppies. As for CompactFlash, SD and MMC: deal with that later; and you can always get a 6-in-1 card reader/writer.
You'll love the USB flash drive as a cheap, tiny, high capacity storage device for keeping data with you at all times, and exchanging & printing wherever convenient. As for "I could have a number of cards ready to go, such as a linux card, a Win98 card, maybe even a Win2k card", just get a separate USB flash drive for each, or save lots of $ and use CDs. Even if you never boot from the USB drive, you'll love it. If you're not sure, get a cheap USB1.1 stick, like the 128MB Intelligent Stick (I-Stick) made by PQI ($30 via PriceGrabber). It's also the tiniest one there is--you can put it in your wallet (& cheaper than a portable floppy drive). Defragging does help the flash drives: not for speed, but they can fill up before they're technically full. After defrag you can add more files.
Properly? According to..? There are (at least) 101 things Mozilla does that IE does not, listed here: http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html And that's with Mozilla 1.2, back in January! I started using Mozilla 1.0 when SP1 for IE6 rendered IE unable to render all the graphics of many web pages. Refreshing would sometimes show more of them, sometimes less. I tried Mozilla out of necessity, my first use of open source software. Then I uninstalled SP1 & was thrown back to IE 5.5 (isn't that special?)--had to re-upgrade to IE6 & apply all those patches EXCEPT SP1). Now I love Mozilla, altho it does lack a couple minor niceties which IE has (saving a web page as a single file). And my local (small) credit union has no problem with Mozilla. Now I carry mozilla-win32-1.3-installer.exe (12MB) on my USB flash drive & install Mozilla on anyone's PC when they aren't looking, make it the default browser, homepage: Slashdot. (The homepage for IE becomes the 101 things list.) There is no need to wait for Netscrape 1.4--it won't have the integrated pop-up blocker, since they're in bed with that industry. I'm not an IT manager (or even pro); I'm a Windoze consumer struggling to migrate to Linux (& Mac if $ allows) because M$ has not even TRIED to fix some of the pathetic defects in their OS, & XP is the most pervasive spyware product ever foisted on the modern world. And they've caused me so much inexcusable personal grief, I am permanently biased (not prejudiced) or at least suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (seriously). I am prejudiced against liars--they suck shit. Now I always have a KNOPPIX CD ready to give anyone looking to purchase Windows at a computer store. I also voted for John Hinkley in '84 (at least he *tried* to knock off Reagan).
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged." --MIT Prof Noam Chomsky
You're exaggerating; it's not the height of telling lies (not even close). The corporate news outlets are the most biased because they are owned by huge corporations with gigantic financial & political conflicts of interest; however they work hard to APPEAR unbiased, which makes them sanitized rotten sources. Indymedia stories are definitely by anti-war people, but they give you much more information, and not from both sides, from all sides, and they don't try to appear as something they are not. Also excellent is www.alternet.org. I am against the war, not because I am biased, because I am informed. I support assasinating Saddam, because he's a mass murdering despot, and it could be done quickly, cheaply, and with infinitely less damage to Iraq, its citizens, and attitudes about the US around the world. With GPS satellites, missiles can hit targets with amazing precision & surprise. A single bomb when his location is known, a few hundred dead, including Saddam, mission accomplished. When Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds, the US rewarded him generously. And the US helped Saddam stop the Kurdish uprising after the 1st Gulf war (by daddy Bush). And if Saddam wanted to hurt the US, he would have used those weapons on the US by now--he's not a threat (but could become because of the US invasion). The corporate "news" sources are the worst. They have the resources for a much more polished presentation, but they are in bed (big orgy) with the huge public relations industry (biggest on the planet, even per capita). Sources whose bias is clear are usually the most useful. 4,000 people die of starvation or bad water every hour, but not in large buildings, therefore not newsworthy. And don't forget the next big tax cut for the very rich, advancing thru congress right now. War is always useful as a smokescreen. 4,000/hour--when you find a news source that will even mention that, pay attention. Ignore the rest.
SuSE Linux 8.0 has Audigy drivers included. It also supports professional cards by Terratec. $40 + shipping for an OS + applications (3 CDs worth) + 2 PRINTED on PAPER manuals (over 300 pages total). Of course SuSE 8.1 is out now, & 8.2 is out in April.
OS X: the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 card for $100. They have a pretty good comparison chart at www.m-audio.com including the Audigy1 & 2, Hercules, & 3 Terratec cards. It has 107 dB S/N ratio--cleaner than anything made by Creative, & works on both Windows and Mac. Since Creative refuses to accomodate Mac & Linux, I decided to just boycot them for now--their loss. You're right, Creative is lame and overrated. As others stated, the monstrous software bundle is a huge burden and intrusively takes over file associations. A lot of suits should be cained. For the price of the Audigy 2 a CD of Linux drivers should be included, but that would cost them 33 cents, almost as much as a postage stamp. They do seem to be in bed with Micro$haft.
No, they are catalog # 33-1122 (model # 115071 now, sorry I didn't check to see that they changed the model #). I don't know how to post the link here, but you'll find them on page 2 of the "Headphones & Essentials" at www.RadioShack.com.
I'm an audiophile on a tight budget. Some things to know about sound cards: Unless you have speakers that cost at least $200/pair (and a receiver/amplifier), you probably won't hear any difference between the $33 SB Live and the Audigy series. The SB Live has a S/N ratio of 94dB, the Audigy 100dB, Audigy2 106dB, M-Audio's Revolution 7.1 107dB. The Revolution is cheaper than the Audigy2, better sound, and works on both PC and Macintosh. M-Audio's Revolution is better AND cheaper. And to elaborate on the above, the weak link in most people's stereos (and computers) is the speakers--by a kilometer. Your speakers SHOULD cost more than your receiver.
It's MUCH cheaper to get hi fidelity with headphones.
A great buy is Radio Shack's PRO-35 (made by KOSS actually) which cost $40 but go on sale for $20 every 3 months. They have a 3.5mm (1/8 inch) stereo plug, a long cord with volume control, Neodymium magnets (much stronger=much louder & better fidelity), titanium-layered diaphragms, and a frequency response of 15-25,000 Hz (20-20,000 -3 dB). All headphones claim 20-20K response, but without the dB drop rating, the claim is meaningless. The PRO-35s sound amazing, & plenty loud even with a $30 Walkman powered by 2 AA cells. I have purchased and returned many other headphones by Sony, Panasonic, etc. with the same printed specifications, but they don't even come close, which is odd, because Sony & Panasonic normally have the superior product. I always use "Fallen Angel" (track 2) from King Crimson's "Red" album as a test because of it's very low bass at the beginning of the song (and I know from experience how it should sound).
The past sure is tense. --Captain Beefheart
Good Riddance, malign scholars, Utne's bettr, free
on
Salon Asks for Help
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· Score: 1
Salon isn't that liberal or progressive. They claimed/tried to be progressive, even eclectic, which the Utne Reader has always done so much better, both print & online www.utne.com FREE. Salon painted MIT Prof Noam Chomsky as a lunatic or the anti-Christ because he describes US foreign & domestic policy as it is, and in plain language, so you don't need degrees in history, politics, or economics to understand. He's universally reviled by right wing conservatives because he tells the truth and backs it up with evidence (footnotes in his books are quite numerous). Even mentioning his name is taboo for commercial broadcast media (really!), for reasons you can infer. Salon's persistent attacks on Chomsky show they are run by nuts. The attacks are full of so much shit it becomes humorous when you start counting, except for the fact that a lot of people actually believe it, because it's on Salon. Therefore it is tragic.
The Utne Reader is the Anti-Reader's Digest--including extreme positions in every direction (not "both" sides which assumes only 2 sides exist), it is eclectic, & the selections aren't sanitized crap for retired people who miss the good old days. I use Chomsky & Utne as examples because I'm an authority on them.
Salon simply wasted a ton of money, had plenty of "liberal" stories, but are right wing (a la Rush Limbaugh*) on a few of the more esoteric (important) topics. They do that particularly on topics of which most readers have little prior knowledge (or depth of understanding), therefore don't notice the profound bias (and reversal from "being liberal"). The Chomsky attacks are just one example. Chomsky's not interested in fame, fortune, or power, just truth & justice.
I cite them because they were so viciously construed that they simply could NOT be an accident, or a difference of opinion. The managers of Salon are greedy turds, the liquid kind. You can't polish a turd. You have to wait, then use spray paint.
Omission is the predominant error (tactic) of the generally conservative media in America. They constantly call themselves & each other liberal, but if they really were liberal, why would they do that? They're too conservative to ever even mention proportional representation (USA is strictly geographic representation.) It's called Public Relations, an industry which is far bigger (even per capita) in the USA, than any other country. One book, co-authored by Prof Chomsky, studied the "liberal bias theory" and concluded that most media, especially broadcast, are very conservative (the First Amendment does not apply unless you OWN a broadcast license). Inclusion of the occasional naked breast or being less conservative that the prez on a couple of issues, or allowing Howard Stern & Love Line on the radio does NOT make it liberal. All the porn in the world does not make a medium liberal. The only consistently "liberal & progressive" programs are Alternative Radio www.AlternativeRadio.org & www.NewDimensions.org, found on most public radio stations. PBS (TV) has a few programs that are often or usually progressive &/or liberal, but not consistently (I may be wrong--haven't done a comprehensive evaluation for 2 years now). Any progressive/liberal news outlet would at least occasionally remind us that 32,000 people starve to death each day, 60,000 die from bad water, plus 74 species go extinct. And while >20% of US adults are functional illiterates, millions are homeless, etc, we need a whole fucking war to stop Hussein (erh, I mean distract Americans from their obesity) while a single missile would get rid of him, most of his chiefs, and maybe a thousand civilians. We spent a fortune (most of it borrowed from our children by Reagan) on GPS satellites so we can hit any particular window or door, anywhere on the planet, and now we can't use them? Have a nice day (sucker).
I get Canadian TV news, which makes US TV news look like Mickey mouse with a suit & tie. They actually deal with real news every day (what a concept!). They have less weather, sports, what the president "said", etc. thereby more time for actual news. The FCC banned all cable TV companies from adding Canadian channels a few years ago unless they pay 5 percent of their GROSS income as a "fee". So much for diversity. Freedom of speech is not right to hear or watch. 200 channels of shit is not progress. A free alternative to Salon is www.alternet.org
* Rush (the fat rat bastard) Limbaugh's main demographic is undereducated, underemployed 20-40 year old white males, who appreciate placing the blame on women, affirmative actions, "the" government, etc., as long as it's not them.
Beware of republicans posing as humans. Party Naked in the church of your Choice. If god wanted you to be naked she'd make you born that way. Self-indulgence is not a virtue. Pollution is not a theory. Recycling is not a fad. It's not cool to be fat, stupid, & arrogant.
And the reason the cockpit doors weren't closed & locked, as the FAA repeatedly recommended: "that would be an unnecessary financial burden on the industry" (in other words, FAA recommendations can't conflict with short term profits, & market forces will solve almost everything).
"Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today." --NY Times book review/
Nvidia officially supports Linux now; I even read it in a popular magazine a month ago (I think it was CPU). For that reason alone I only by cards based on Nvidia chips. Game speed isn't everything-- compatibility with non-M$ OS is important.
wrinkleshirt above is absolutely right. Moral media is there if you bother to look for it, rather than channel surf the garbage on tv. ZMag [zmag.org] is the best alternative news source there is. Spend and hour there and you will realize that all of the popular commercial media: tv, radio, magazines, & newspapers, are very conservative and rife with trivia, bias, and omission, omission being the key factor.
The "liberal media" is a fabrication of the conservative media talking about itself so it can become even more conservative. As Noam Chomsky states, the publications which tell the truth are the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London, written by and for the very rich. They don't even try to disquise what they are doing. Alternative Radio http://www.AlternativeRadio.org is a good source on politics, the only broadcast widely available in the USA. 60,000 people die every day from contaminated water. 32,000 people starve to death every day and it's never reported anywhere. 2.8 Billion people live on less than $2 per day. 2800 people die one day in NYC and it's time for WWIII and the republicans and democrats are proud to be fascists. The cause of the problem is the weenies and cowards at the FAA who never bothered to close the cockpit doors. We should bomb FAA headquarters. We have 60 channels on basic cable so that we never have time to actually read a book or article by Noam Chomsky ("arguably the most important intellectual alive" --New York Times Book Review).
Proportional Representation is the norm in western Europe and most Americans have never even heard of it. Geographic Representation (what we have) systematically excludes most policy alternatives from ever being discussed. Sure, you're free to write "your representative in congress", and you can write to the king of France, also (nevermind the nonexistence of which). The point is that real policy options for 90% of the population are taboo. Violence is common on TV, nudity is taboo. If God wanted you to be naked, you would be fricking born that way (dumbass). The public relations industry in America is proportionally much greater (an order of magnitude) than in any other country.
One more thing, contrary to the constant themes foisted on us by tv, self-indulgence is not a virtue, it's not cool to be stupid, recycling is not a fad, and pollution is not a theory. Economic growth has little to do with progess, unless you are very rich. And BurgerWorld is lying: you DON'T deserve a break today, you deserve a spanking, for being lazy and greedy and not going to ZNet or reading Z Magazine or the Utne Reader, the eclectic opposite of the Readers Digest. And if you voted to re-elect anyone in the last 20 years in the USA, you are part of the problem. As JonKatz stated in the primary post "the media are market driven, not idea-substance-or-content driven" which means that huge corporations control every second of what is broadcast to most Americans, which is the only source of information most Americans bother to use. Don't think, drink; why ask why?; because I'm worth it; you the monster--yes you, the average dumbass jingoistic American--you are a monster.
Chomsky is an anarchist and you know absolutely NOTHING about his work. He is intensely ANTI-fascist. He describes in Manufacturing Consent exactly how and why the media manage public opinion. Here's a quote from professor Chomsky: "It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies." And he does it better than anyone. Go to the Chomsky archive at http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm and get educated. The original post (Tragedy, Media, and Marketing) is right on target. And the #1 scholar on the planet on this subject is MIT professor Noam Chomsky. He is permanently blacklisted from any commercial broadcast in the USA because he tells the truth.
Slashdot Mirror
That's tantamount to I urge you to ask an unusual question of someone not able to understand it nor authorized to answer yes. Why invite the No response?
Booting ANY PC with Knoppix to test (for Linux compatibility) is just smart shopping, and often an opportunity to demo Linux at the same time. You're not installing anything, you are seeing whether it's the typical Compaq crippled shit or something actually worth purchasing (e.g. Toshiba). (Compaq dropped down to last place in PC Magazine's survey of support for the last 2 years--tied with eMachines! HP was almost as bad. Replacing failed hardware is trivial; getting stuck with shitty support, wrong & non-existent documentation, profoundly flawed software, hours on hold, is a nightmare. I happen to know.)
The first part of the review article at distrowatch.com is a title/summary: It is safe to say that the Debian-based Knoppix live CD has raised the bar of Linux distribution standards to a new level, especially with its automatic hardware detection and on-the-fly decompression. Knoppix is commonly used as an emergency rescue disk, as a Linux demo CD, as a tool to test a new computer before purchase or as a utility to read password-protected Microsoft Word documents on a Windows partition. It can even be used as a full-blown Linux distribution for every-day tasks. Robert Storey explains the reason why Knoppix has been given a permanent home on his computer's hard drive and why he never leaves home without it.
I like to take a few copies whenever I leave home. Whether the store employees or other customers reaction is negative or inquizitive, I just give them a cd & say this is the most important PC development in years. "Oh yeah; progress is cool." --Beavis
The book never mentions Mozilla as a MUCH better and SAFER browser than any version of Internet Exploder. And the list of links for downloads also omits any mention of Mozilla. Now THAT is annoying. ANY book about annoyances in Windoze that doesn't even mention Mozilla is annoying.
Better book: SuSE Linux documentation that comes with SuSE Linux, with CDs, more software than can be listed, & ready to install on a Windoze PC (making it a dual boot PC), so you can use a stable & secure PC & avoid the annoyance of having to use Windoze. The SuSE distribution of Linux has the best printed documentation there is in Linux land.
"PC Annoyances" has one great feature: it shows how much better to just use Linux (or Mac OS X). Otherwise, it's mainly a plug for PC World (all the links go there also). I'm sick of that magazine. CPU magazine (Computer Power User) has a page by CmdrTaco (Slashdot creator) and another called Open Sauce in every issue.
"It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies."
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged." --MIT Professor Noam Chomsky
Gaylord sells 45,000 items to libraries. If anyone knows how to organize, it's libraries. http://www.gaylord.com/
.
The best containers you can buy anywhere in the world are Lock & Lock made by Hana Cobi (Korea). See http://us.locknlock.com/main.asp for more info (great website with pictures of all sizes, dimensions, & text & videos showing why they are superior). http://www.containerstore.com, Rubbermaid, & Sterlite containers are a joke compared to Lock & Lock. One Lock & Lock container, the HPL827 is perfect for storing CDs in jewel cases. It holds 40 slim ones or 20 standard size, and is easily strong enough to toss it in a back pack and very rugged. All the Lock & Locks are totally air & liquid tight with a silicone gasket, with 70 sizes ranging from 0.1L to 12L.
I bought mine at Safeway (grocery store); they're also sold on the QVC shopping channel (cable TV), which mostly sells gimmicks. Why ask why?
Milk crates used by grocery stores (the ones with the steel band at the top) also kick ass. They are indestructable & you can see what's in them without "opening" them as with cardboard boxes. Lay them on their side & stack them to the ceiling. Plywood between each row lets you use 1/3 to 1/2 as many crates. They aren't sold to the public in reasonable quantities, but I've seen them on pallets behind grocery stores, even at night . .
For labelling (either things or the containers that contain them), the best pens are Staedtler Lumocolor permanent pens (Germany)--their ink is stronger (richer), and adheres better than any other permanent pen. They have about 10 colors and 5 different sizes. The bookstores of larger universities is the only place I see them in the US.
The silver and gold markers made in Japan by Pilot are the best for labelling black and other dark colored items or items exposed to the UV light outdoors which eventually destroys regular ink. They cost about $2.75 each and have a ball inside--you have to shake it up before you use it. They are widely available.
Pilot and Zebra brand ink pens are consistently the best. They cost a little more, but for something you use so often, that's irrelevant. Zebra's Zazzle flourescent highlighters are the bomb--elegant shape, slim, totally clear plastic barrell showing exactly how much ink is in it.
Scotch (3M) now markets clear duct tape (Finally!). It's very adhesive, available in small diameter rolls. It's 3.6 cm wide, 3.66 m long (1.42 inch x 4 yards for those still using the obscurantist English system, rather than the metric system). Deceive, inveigle & obfuscate; beware of republicans posing as humans.
I'm a tool junkie, and spray painting them is cool, helps me find them in dim light, helps identify them as mine, protects the ones that could rust, also cheap entertainment. Gold laquer is the most reliable (dries completely in just minutes); blue metal flake is beautiful. You can't polish a turd--try spray paint.
Dremel's patents expired, so you can now get knockoff versions (China) for 1/3 to 1/4 the price of Dremel (80 piece set for $20!). "Dremels" & spray paint at auto parts stores. BTW Gerber multi tools & knives are better steel than any Leatherman or Swiss Army knife.
"It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies."
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged." --MIT Professor Noam Chomsky
"Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today." -The New York Times
Each day 74 species go extinct, 32,000 people die of starvation/malnutrition, 60,000 die from bad water. Have a nice day.
Dare to Slash Military Spending. Party Naked in the church of your Choice.
Best CD of 2003: The Power to Believe by King Crimson. Buy it directly from King Crimson's record label at http://www.disciplineglobalmobile.com/order/
I just got a GeIL (geilusa.com) 256MB USB2.0 (compatible with 1.1) flash drive, after filling 2 64MB Lexars (both USB1.1). It's durable aluminum construction (these things work until physically damaged) & can send & receive email (storing it in the flash drive) from any PC in the world (Windoze only); also password & secret zip. Nice leather case also. It's skinnier than many USB flash drives (most oval shaped are too fat to fit into some places without extension cable), and it's about as fast as booting from a 32X CD-rom drive (if boot speed is an issue).
The good price point now with USB flash drives is 128-512MB. Just get a 256 or 512 and worry about the more complex issues later. Floppies have a tiny storage capacity, fragile, & very slow transfer rates (my USB1.1 Lexars are 27X faster reading, 80 times faster writing). For booting, CD-R is ideal; Knoppix is the best example. Just keep those few bootable CD operating systems on CD-R. At 30 cents/CD, it's cheaper than a stamp.
The USB1.1 flash drives have a transfer rate of almost 1MB/sec. The USB2.0 drives transfer at 4-5MB/sec (not the max 60 MB/sec of the USB2.0 spec) and only $10 more. They have no moving parts, no battery, quiet, nothing to wear out (or fall out), & better than Post-Its or floppies. As for CompactFlash, SD and MMC: deal with that later; and you can always get a 6-in-1 card reader/writer.
You'll love the USB flash drive as a cheap, tiny, high capacity storage device for keeping data with you at all times, and exchanging & printing wherever convenient. As for "I could have a number of cards ready to go, such as a linux card, a Win98 card, maybe even a Win2k card", just get a separate USB flash drive for each, or save lots of $ and use CDs. Even if you never boot from the USB drive, you'll love it. If you're not sure, get a cheap USB1.1 stick, like the 128MB Intelligent Stick (I-Stick) made by PQI ($30 via PriceGrabber). It's also the tiniest one there is--you can put it in your wallet (& cheaper than a portable floppy drive).
Defragging does help the flash drives: not for speed, but they can fill up before they're technically full. After defrag you can add more files.
Properly? According to..? There are (at least) 101 things Mozilla does that IE does not, listed here: http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html
And that's with Mozilla 1.2, back in January!
I started using Mozilla 1.0 when SP1 for IE6 rendered IE unable to render all the graphics of many web pages. Refreshing would sometimes show more of them, sometimes less. I tried Mozilla out of necessity, my first use of open source software. Then I uninstalled SP1 & was thrown back to IE 5.5 (isn't that special?)--had to re-upgrade to IE6 & apply all those patches EXCEPT SP1). Now I love Mozilla, altho it does lack a couple minor niceties which IE has (saving a web page as a single file). And my local (small) credit union has no problem with Mozilla.
Now I carry mozilla-win32-1.3-installer.exe (12MB) on my USB flash drive & install Mozilla on anyone's PC when they aren't looking, make it the default browser, homepage: Slashdot. (The homepage for IE becomes the 101 things list.)
There is no need to wait for Netscrape 1.4--it won't have the integrated pop-up blocker, since they're in bed with that industry.
I'm not an IT manager (or even pro); I'm a Windoze consumer struggling to migrate to Linux (& Mac if $ allows) because M$ has not even TRIED to fix some of the pathetic defects in their OS, & XP is the most pervasive spyware product ever foisted on the modern world. And they've caused me so much inexcusable personal grief, I am permanently biased (not prejudiced) or at least suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (seriously). I am prejudiced against liars--they suck shit.
Now I always have a KNOPPIX CD ready to give anyone looking to purchase Windows at a computer store. I also voted for John Hinkley in '84 (at least he *tried* to knock off Reagan).
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged." --MIT Prof Noam Chomsky
You're exaggerating; it's not the height of telling lies (not even close). The corporate news outlets are the most biased because they are owned by huge corporations with gigantic financial & political conflicts of interest; however they work hard to APPEAR unbiased, which makes them sanitized rotten sources. Indymedia stories are definitely by anti-war people, but they give you much more information, and not from both sides, from all sides, and they don't try to appear as something they are not. Also excellent is www.alternet.org.
I am against the war, not because I am biased, because I am informed. I support assasinating Saddam, because he's a mass murdering despot, and it could be done quickly, cheaply, and with infinitely less damage to Iraq, its citizens, and attitudes about the US around the world. With GPS satellites, missiles can hit targets with amazing precision & surprise. A single bomb when his location is known, a few hundred dead, including Saddam, mission accomplished. When Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds, the US rewarded him generously. And the US helped Saddam stop the Kurdish uprising after the 1st Gulf war (by daddy Bush). And if Saddam wanted to hurt the US, he would have used those weapons on the US by now--he's not a threat (but could become because of the US invasion).
The corporate "news" sources are the worst. They have the resources for a much more polished presentation, but they are in bed (big orgy) with the huge public relations industry (biggest on the planet, even per capita). Sources whose bias is clear are usually the most useful.
4,000 people die of starvation or bad water every hour, but not in large buildings, therefore not newsworthy.
And don't forget the next big tax cut for the very rich, advancing thru congress right now. War is always useful as a smokescreen. 4,000/hour--when you find a news source that will even mention that, pay attention. Ignore the rest.
SuSE Linux 8.0 has Audigy drivers included. It also supports professional cards by Terratec. $40 + shipping for an OS + applications (3 CDs worth) + 2 PRINTED on PAPER manuals (over 300 pages total). Of course SuSE 8.1 is out now, & 8.2 is out in April.
OS X: the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 card for $100. They have a pretty good comparison chart at www.m-audio.com including the Audigy1 & 2, Hercules, & 3 Terratec cards. It has 107 dB S/N ratio--cleaner than anything made by Creative, & works on both Windows and Mac. Since Creative refuses to accomodate Mac & Linux, I decided to just boycot them for now--their loss.
You're right, Creative is lame and overrated. As others stated, the monstrous software bundle is a huge burden and intrusively takes over file associations. A lot of suits should be cained. For the price of the Audigy 2 a CD of Linux drivers should be included, but that would cost them 33 cents, almost as much as a postage stamp. They do seem to be in bed with Micro$haft.
No, they are catalog # 33-1122 (model # 115071 now, sorry I didn't check to see that they changed the model #). I don't know how to post the link here, but you'll find them on page 2 of the "Headphones & Essentials" at www.RadioShack.com.
I'm an audiophile on a tight budget. Some things to know about sound cards: Unless you have speakers that cost at least $200/pair (and a receiver/amplifier), you probably won't hear any difference between the $33 SB Live and the Audigy series. The SB Live has a S/N ratio of 94dB, the Audigy 100dB, Audigy2 106dB, M-Audio's Revolution 7.1 107dB. The Revolution is cheaper than the Audigy2, better sound, and works on both PC and Macintosh. M-Audio's Revolution is better AND cheaper. And to elaborate on the above, the weak link in most people's stereos (and computers) is the speakers--by a kilometer. Your speakers SHOULD cost more than your receiver.
It's MUCH cheaper to get hi fidelity with headphones. A great buy is Radio Shack's PRO-35 (made by KOSS actually) which cost $40 but go on sale for $20 every 3 months. They have a 3.5mm (1/8 inch) stereo plug, a long cord with volume control, Neodymium magnets (much stronger=much louder & better fidelity), titanium-layered diaphragms, and a frequency response of 15-25,000 Hz (20-20,000 -3 dB). All headphones claim 20-20K response, but without the dB drop rating, the claim is meaningless. The PRO-35s sound amazing, & plenty loud even with a $30 Walkman powered by 2 AA cells. I have purchased and returned many other headphones by Sony, Panasonic, etc. with the same printed specifications, but they don't even come close, which is odd, because Sony & Panasonic normally have the superior product. I always use "Fallen Angel" (track 2) from King Crimson's "Red" album as a test because of it's very low bass at the beginning of the song (and I know from experience how it should sound).
The past sure is tense. --Captain Beefheart
Salon isn't that liberal or progressive. They claimed/tried to be progressive, even eclectic, which the Utne Reader has always done so much better, both print & online www.utne.com FREE. Salon painted MIT Prof Noam Chomsky as a lunatic or the anti-Christ because he describes US foreign & domestic policy as it is, and in plain language, so you don't need degrees in history, politics, or economics to understand. He's universally reviled by right wing conservatives because he tells the truth and backs it up with evidence (footnotes in his books are quite numerous). Even mentioning his name is taboo for commercial broadcast media (really!), for reasons you can infer. Salon's persistent attacks on Chomsky show they are run by nuts. The attacks are full of so much shit it becomes humorous when you start counting, except for the fact that a lot of people actually believe it, because it's on Salon. Therefore it is tragic.
The Utne Reader is the Anti-Reader's Digest--including extreme positions in every direction (not "both" sides which assumes only 2 sides exist), it is eclectic, & the selections aren't sanitized crap for retired people who miss the good old days. I use Chomsky & Utne as examples because I'm an authority on them.
Salon simply wasted a ton of money, had plenty of "liberal" stories, but are right wing (a la Rush Limbaugh*) on a few of the more esoteric (important) topics. They do that particularly on topics of which most readers have little prior knowledge (or depth of understanding), therefore don't notice the profound bias (and reversal from "being liberal"). The Chomsky attacks are just one example. Chomsky's not interested in fame, fortune, or power, just truth & justice.
I cite them because they were so viciously construed that they simply could NOT be an accident, or a difference of opinion. The managers of Salon are greedy turds, the liquid kind. You can't polish a turd. You have to wait, then use spray paint.
Omission is the predominant error (tactic) of the generally conservative media in America. They constantly call themselves & each other liberal, but if they really were liberal, why would they do that? They're too conservative to ever even mention proportional representation (USA is strictly geographic representation.) It's called Public Relations, an industry which is far bigger (even per capita) in the USA, than any other country. One book, co-authored by Prof Chomsky, studied the "liberal bias theory" and concluded that most media, especially broadcast, are very conservative (the First Amendment does not apply unless you OWN a broadcast license). Inclusion of the occasional naked breast or being less conservative that the prez on a couple of issues, or allowing Howard Stern & Love Line on the radio does NOT make it liberal. All the porn in the world does not make a medium liberal. The only consistently "liberal & progressive" programs are Alternative Radio www.AlternativeRadio.org & www.NewDimensions.org, found on most public radio stations. PBS (TV) has a few programs that are often or usually progressive &/or liberal, but not consistently (I may be wrong--haven't done a comprehensive evaluation for 2 years now). Any progressive/liberal news outlet would at least occasionally remind us that 32,000 people starve to death each day, 60,000 die from bad water, plus 74 species go extinct. And while >20% of US adults are functional illiterates, millions are homeless, etc, we need a whole fucking war to stop Hussein (erh, I mean distract Americans from their obesity) while a single missile would get rid of him, most of his chiefs, and maybe a thousand civilians. We spent a fortune (most of it borrowed from our children by Reagan) on GPS satellites so we can hit any particular window or door, anywhere on the planet, and now we can't use them? Have a nice day (sucker).
I get Canadian TV news, which makes US TV news look like Mickey mouse with a suit & tie. They actually deal with real news every day (what a concept!). They have less weather, sports, what the president "said", etc. thereby more time for actual news. The FCC banned all cable TV companies from adding Canadian channels a few years ago unless they pay 5 percent of their GROSS income as a "fee". So much for diversity. Freedom of speech is not right to hear or watch. 200 channels of shit is not progress. A free alternative to Salon is www.alternet.org
* Rush (the fat rat bastard) Limbaugh's main demographic is undereducated, underemployed 20-40 year old white males, who appreciate placing the blame on women, affirmative actions, "the" government, etc., as long as it's not them.
Beware of republicans posing as humans. Party Naked in the church of your Choice. If god wanted you to be naked she'd make you born that way. Self-indulgence is not a virtue. Pollution is not a theory. Recycling is not a fad. It's not cool to be fat, stupid, & arrogant.
And the reason the cockpit doors weren't closed & locked, as the FAA repeatedly recommended: "that would be an unnecessary financial burden on the industry" (in other words, FAA recommendations can't conflict with short term profits, & market forces will solve almost everything).
"Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today." --NY Times book review/
Nvidia officially supports Linux now; I even read it in a popular magazine a month ago (I think it was CPU). For that reason alone I only by cards based on Nvidia chips. Game speed isn't everything-- compatibility with non-M$ OS is important.
wrinkleshirt above is absolutely right. Moral media is there if you bother to look for it, rather than channel surf the garbage on tv. ZMag [zmag.org] is the best alternative news source there is. Spend and hour there and you will realize that all of the popular commercial media: tv, radio, magazines, & newspapers, are very conservative and rife with trivia, bias, and omission, omission being the key factor.
The "liberal media" is a fabrication of the conservative media talking about itself so it can become even more conservative. As Noam Chomsky states, the publications which tell the truth are the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London, written by and for the very rich. They don't even try to disquise what they are doing. Alternative Radio http://www.AlternativeRadio.org is a good source on politics, the only broadcast widely available in the USA. 60,000 people die every day from contaminated water. 32,000 people starve to death every day and it's never reported anywhere. 2.8 Billion people live on less than $2 per day.
2800 people die one day in NYC and it's time for WWIII and the republicans and democrats are proud to be fascists. The cause of the problem is the weenies and cowards at the FAA who never bothered to close the cockpit doors. We should bomb FAA headquarters. We have 60 channels on basic cable so that we never have time to actually read a book or article by Noam Chomsky ("arguably the most important intellectual alive" --New York Times Book Review).
Proportional Representation is the norm in western Europe and most Americans have never even heard of it. Geographic Representation (what we have) systematically excludes most policy alternatives from ever being discussed. Sure, you're free to write "your representative in congress", and you can write to the king of France, also (nevermind the nonexistence of which).
The point is that real policy options for 90% of the population are taboo. Violence is common on TV, nudity is taboo. If God wanted you to be naked, you would be fricking born that way (dumbass). The public relations industry in America is proportionally much greater (an order of magnitude) than in any other country.
One more thing, contrary to the constant themes foisted on us by tv, self-indulgence is not a virtue, it's not cool to be stupid, recycling is not a fad, and pollution is not a theory. Economic growth has little to do with progess, unless you are very rich. And BurgerWorld is lying: you DON'T deserve a break today, you deserve a spanking, for being lazy and greedy and not going to ZNet or reading Z Magazine or the Utne Reader, the eclectic opposite of the Readers Digest. And if you voted to re-elect anyone in the last 20 years in the USA, you are part of the problem. As JonKatz stated in the primary post "the media are market driven, not idea-substance-or-content driven" which means that huge corporations control every second of what is broadcast to most Americans, which is the only source of information most Americans bother to use. Don't think, drink; why ask why?; because I'm worth it; you the monster--yes you, the average dumbass jingoistic American--you are a monster.
Chomsky is an anarchist and you know absolutely NOTHING about his work. He is intensely ANTI-fascist. He describes in Manufacturing Consent exactly how and why the media manage public opinion. Here's a quote from professor Chomsky: "It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies." And he does it better than anyone. Go to the Chomsky archive at http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm and get educated. The original post (Tragedy, Media, and Marketing) is right on target. And the #1 scholar on the planet on this subject is MIT professor Noam Chomsky. He is permanently blacklisted from any commercial broadcast in the USA because he tells the truth.