The things you listed might be considered advances when compaired to the standard PC, but none were original with the Peanut, all had already been used on other systems.
'Just drink more' isn't really the answer I'm after
Well, doh, just drink none. I had a friend this happen to. He went cold turkey, problem solved itself in a week or so. Now he drinks caffeine free beverages only and is fine.
Gee, I guess that's not the answer you wanted, but get real. If it hurts you, stop doing it!
Any approach that limits spammers to less than 400 e-mails an hour will also effectively kill many mailing lists and other valid uses of e-mail for small users.
It's also ironic that this supposed spam fighting is coming from Microsoft, a company that spams me in several ways, including to an address that someone gave them falsely when they wanted a passport account and Microsoft ignores all e-mail from me requesting that the address be removed from their e-mail lists.
nothing to see here..... move on
on
Source Code Escrow
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
Nothing new here. And not a very viable concept. The company who insists the code be put in escro will get an assurance that something has been put in escro, but if the relationship has so little trust between parties that a third party needs to be brought in, then the developer may very well not put a full copy of everything in escro. If the company wanting the assurance doesn't find out until the developer no longer exists, they have little recourse. And if they find out before that, then the developer's worst fears are realized and justified.
Unless an escro company is in the loop enough to do actual releases, then there will not be a viable system that confirms what is in escro is what the client needs.
Yes, your point was the first thought that struck me as I read the article. Then I came across this gem: Most laptops require about 15 volts direct current with less than one amp of current and about 12 watts of power.
Most laptops use about 12 watts?????? If these guys are working towards making their pizo suppkies reach a target of 12 watts of power, then it's going to be a long time before we'll ever be able to use them with real laptops, which can draw 75 watts or more. The article seems high on hype and low on anything meaningful.
My recomendation would be to go with the laptop, but to be sure that you get a laptop up to today's standards. Way too many laptops still only have USB 1.1, for example. Be sure that any laptop you get has USB 2.0. Firewire is also another nice thing to look for. While these things can be added by PC cards (A.K.A. PCMCIA), many notebooks only have a single card slot, that's something to pay attention to also. And if you have anything that needs old ports (parallel port printer or serial port device) make sure that those ports are there too. Buying a notebook wisely will likely give you your greatest options at reasonable power consumption without "losing the modularity"
of a PC, unless you plan on doing things that need an add-in card (like making the PC into a PVR). Also, you sound like the computer will generally be powered up for lomg periods of time. If that's the case and power is the prime concern than I expect a notebook will be the best bet, but you might want to keep that desktop handy for special cases where you need to add that card and feed it power for an hour or two.
I'll make two suggestions on what you need to do before installing all those windows security patches:
I'm not alone in making the first. If you're using a highspeed connection, get a connection sharing router/firewall. These things are amazingly cheap now (as low as a 1/10 of what I paid for mine) and will protect you from a lot of problems.
My second suggestion is to download a copy of Knoppix and run it from CD before you ever update the Windows software. See if Knoppix cleanly connects to other computers as well as to the Internet. This likely sounds like a strange suggestion, so let me explain why I'm making it: I got a notebook this year and it ran Knoppix fine, connecting to my local network and (through the router) to the Internet. After a few weeks I installed the Windows "security updates". Now Knoppix will no longer boot from the same CD's and connect to the network! I've found some work arounds, but it's clear to me that the security updates are the likely cause for some really evil changes made (I suspect to the built-in NIC's configuration ROM) that stop some Linux configurations from working.
If you get that new PC and you ever want to run something else other than Windows, it might be nice to know if Knoppix (Linux) ran fine and connected to the network without problems before installing the "security updates"
Plus check out this Samsung DLP TV! Stealth bomber cool!"
Wasn't one of the cool promises of a flat plasma TV that we could hang them on the wall with little wasted space? Not have to ballance them on top of a space wasting cousing of R2-D2? Who in the world wants this TV with it's queer makeover and awkward space wasting base?
Many of the cordless phone batteries do seem to be a standard size. It's the connector that they always play with. A generic battery, wire-cutters, and a Weller soldering station fixed that little problem.
Unfortunately, this is only half the truth. I have a cordless V-tech phone that has a dead battery pack in it. Yes, I could buy pack that fits, and I have plenty of experience soldering replacement connectors. But I've yet to find a replacement battery that costs less than I paid for the entire phone including battery ($9.99 plus tax), and many places want $15 or more for the damn replacement battery. In fact, I replaced the phone with another cordless phone that I got with a battery for less than I could get the batter for. Clearly there's something wrong with an industry that deal with customers this way, but it's common pratice.
That's something that deserves some consideration, but I do see some problems with it. If you've been harmed to the extent of, for example, $10,000 but you could not receive any punitive damages, then the company could well settle with you for less, since there is always the chance their lawyers are sleazier than your and you might get nothing. This would make it very easy for companies to continually settle and never go to court, so never get end up paying the punitive damages and in fact continuing to profit from the prople they cheat. Sure, I'm outraged by many of the court rulings I see; but I don't think preventing victims from pursuing punitive damages is the answer. I also have some doubts that making judgements against people who are sued civilly a source of income for the courts would be consistent with a fair court system in settling disputes between two parties.
There are accounts for people that move a large amount of data. They are called "business accounts" and cost more.
The legal term for this is Bullshit!
If they advertise an unlimited home account, that's what it is, an unlimited home account. If you have unlimited local calling on your home phone, you might only use it for a hour or so a month but still pay the monthly fee. If you suddenly change your calling pattern and start talking to friends 12 hours a day, seven days a week, you don't expect them to tell you that you now have to get a business line; you have unlimited local calling! The same is true for an Internet connection. Unlimited was advertised, unlimited is what you paid for, anything less than unlimited is fraud.
And I'd really like to hear if any of the victims of this fraud are downloading lots from the ISP's own news servers. Does the legal term "attractive nuisance" come to mind?
There are real damages that you suffer.
But it hardly makes sense to say that a company should be able to cheat people and when and if those people take them to court and win that the worst the company could suffer is to have to make things fair. That gives them a horiable incentive to cheat people. Instead there are punitive damages too. If the wrong was deliberate, the compamy should be subject to punative damages too, as a way to make it clear to them that there can be a downside to cheating people, and that the punishment can be more than just having to give back the actual damages.
You're dead on. Any of the Quakes would fly on these systems. I even find it hard to believe the question was asked honestly, with the description of those relatively hot systems in the very same sentence! After all, he's talking about boxes that were top of the line two years ago with then brand new Nvidia cards, and claiming they can't be expected to run Quake games that came out two or more years ago!
The power's out. What crap would be emenating from the power lines?
OK, you're an A.C. and you're stupid; I'll type this very slowly so maybe you can follow it....
As I said above, the HF bands are used in an emergency to reach areas that do have power. They may be used to relay information about the safety of people in the affected area, they may be used to request life saving medical supplies, or to summon other emergence service providers to the affected area and let them know what to expect and what they need to bring when they come. If the areas they are trying to contact that do have power can't receive a ham radio signal because of their own broadband over powerline signal polution, then it is a serious problem. And quite simply, there are already laws against it. Hams, other people, and other industries have to follow the regulations against such interfearing radio signals, I so no reason why the power industry should not have to also.
When a disaster hits and power and communication are out, hams are not just trying to talk to other hams in the local area (which they generally do on higher VHF and UHF bands anyway), they are trying to reach points that still have power. So if their signal is is jammed by crap radiating from the power lines, then vital communication can be lost.
Besides, how arogant can you be to think that hams should have their equipment sitting around useless because of lots of broadband over powerlines spectrum polution, not even be able to pratice using it or train new hams, and then expect that there will be no problem when there is a power and communication emergency just because the local broadband interference is now temporarly eliminated?
I'm a ham and have been very concerned about the reports of spectrum polution from Broadband over Powerlines. But if FEMA doesn't like it, maybe it's not so bad after all.
While some libraries have figured out that more things are published than just books, and I hear that there are indeed libraries someplace where I'm not that lend out CD's and even VHS tapes and DVDs, my local library can't even manage it's books which include a CD well. Often I'll check out a book and find an empty CD jacket pasted in the back, no CD. The library does try to keep the CD's with the books, but more than half of the CD's have been stolen at some point and are simply listed as "lost" by the library.
Quite frankly, with open source material and high speed connections at many libraries, I doubt that trying to convince them to find a way to catalog and loan out open source software is the way to go. Some better steps would be to get rid of, or at least repair, the annoying software they install on their systems so that you could at least download files to a pen drive or hard drive attached to the USB port. Another nice addition would be a CD writer or two in the library (these things are so cheap now they are often "free after rebate" items, certainly a public library could afford a couple). They might even make a modest profit if they also offered blank media at a small cost. This could encourage people to get the open source sofware right for them, not old copies of dated stuff on the shelfs or worse stuck away in a drawer somewhere or "lost".
Of course, I'm not sure that very many people who would use the public library as a source of open source software would not have the high speed access already, but if the original claim is that open source software should be available through the library I think there are better ways to go than to convince them to put a few CD's in their collection.
This may call itself Netscape, but it's still run by AOL, a company that is pretty well known for adding things to bills without authorization, charging even after people have canceled their subscriptions, and other nasty little business pratices. If the offer were from elsewhere I have some family members I would sign up for it today. With AOL, no thanks, it's not worth the risk.
Perhaps, but in some cases pictures are just not enough. With the Tiger box, for example, I looked at it and the mother board and never realized there was a parallel port option. I only found that by reading the literature. The port connects to a row of header pins on the board and goes to a unlabeled knock out on the back panel. You never even notice these unless you read the literature.
In a computer that only going to ever accept one PCI add-in card, it's pretty important to determine as best you can what features might be available.
I posted a few other things I think it needs in a different post. Adding to that list, it would be nice to know if any of these boards include a built in modem. Some might say who uses a modem any more, but lots of people do, and these boxes may not be used by the big power users. I would consider one as a new system for my parents, but I need to give them a few basic legacy things like a modem and a parallel port, and for that the matrix doesn't help.
To be really useful, this matrix needs a lot of additional information. I was looking a a small form factor case at tiger a couple of weeks ago, and there were a number of suprises you wouldn't realize just by looking at a chart. For example, while the tiger box has a PCI slot and an AGP slot, the positions were reversed. That maters, if you had intended to use a Nvidia card with the fan that takes up the PCI space (wouldn't work in this space). However, the tiger box did have an option (availability unknown) for a printer port connector, which is not mentioned here. And while everyone seems to be doing 6 channel audio (I find that hard to believe for these small boxes) I would like to know if any have game connectors, which have a serial connector, if the keyboard and mouse must be USB, and if any have a DVI connector for a LCD or if all just use an old VGA connector.
The Matrix shows a number for USB ports, but it needs to break down which devices have USB 1.1 and which have USB 2. This is extremely important, since you're not likely to have the space to add a USB 2 card.
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The things you listed might be considered advances when compaired to the standard PC, but none were original with the Peanut, all had already been used on other systems.
Well, doh, just drink none. I had a friend this happen to. He went cold turkey, problem solved itself in a week or so. Now he drinks caffeine free beverages only and is fine.
Gee, I guess that's not the answer you wanted, but get real. If it hurts you, stop doing it!
Nothing like presenting your own bias viewpoint on a subject right in the subject line.
It's also ironic that this supposed spam fighting is coming from Microsoft, a company that spams me in several ways, including to an address that someone gave them falsely when they wanted a passport account and Microsoft ignores all e-mail from me requesting that the address be removed from their e-mail lists.
Unless an escro company is in the loop enough to do actual releases, then there will not be a viable system that confirms what is in escro is what the client needs.
Most laptops use about 12 watts?????? If these guys are working towards making their pizo suppkies reach a target of 12 watts of power, then it's going to be a long time before we'll ever be able to use them with real laptops, which can draw 75 watts or more. The article seems high on hype and low on anything meaningful.
My recomendation would be to go with the laptop, but to be sure that you get a laptop up to today's standards. Way too many laptops still only have USB 1.1, for example. Be sure that any laptop you get has USB 2.0. Firewire is also another nice thing to look for. While these things can be added by PC cards (A.K.A. PCMCIA), many notebooks only have a single card slot, that's something to pay attention to also. And if you have anything that needs old ports (parallel port printer or serial port device) make sure that those ports are there too. Buying a notebook wisely will likely give you your greatest options at reasonable power consumption without "losing the modularity" of a PC, unless you plan on doing things that need an add-in card (like making the PC into a PVR). Also, you sound like the computer will generally be powered up for lomg periods of time. If that's the case and power is the prime concern than I expect a notebook will be the best bet, but you might want to keep that desktop handy for special cases where you need to add that card and feed it power for an hour or two.
I'm not alone in making the first. If you're using a highspeed connection, get a connection sharing router/firewall. These things are amazingly cheap now (as low as a 1/10 of what I paid for mine) and will protect you from a lot of problems.
My second suggestion is to download a copy of Knoppix and run it from CD before you ever update the Windows software. See if Knoppix cleanly connects to other computers as well as to the Internet. This likely sounds like a strange suggestion, so let me explain why I'm making it: I got a notebook this year and it ran Knoppix fine, connecting to my local network and (through the router) to the Internet. After a few weeks I installed the Windows "security updates". Now Knoppix will no longer boot from the same CD's and connect to the network! I've found some work arounds, but it's clear to me that the security updates are the likely cause for some really evil changes made (I suspect to the built-in NIC's configuration ROM) that stop some Linux configurations from working.
If you get that new PC and you ever want to run something else other than Windows, it might be nice to know if Knoppix (Linux) ran fine and connected to the network without problems before installing the "security updates"
Wasn't one of the cool promises of a flat plasma TV that we could hang them on the wall with little wasted space? Not have to ballance them on top of a space wasting cousing of R2-D2? Who in the world wants this TV with it's queer makeover and awkward space wasting base?
Spammers are always honest, arn't they?
Unfortunately, this is only half the truth. I have a cordless V-tech phone that has a dead battery pack in it. Yes, I could buy pack that fits, and I have plenty of experience soldering replacement connectors. But I've yet to find a replacement battery that costs less than I paid for the entire phone including battery ($9.99 plus tax), and many places want $15 or more for the damn replacement battery. In fact, I replaced the phone with another cordless phone that I got with a battery for less than I could get the batter for. Clearly there's something wrong with an industry that deal with customers this way, but it's common pratice.
As long as the term dead or alive is included, I want in!
That's something that deserves some consideration, but I do see some problems with it. If you've been harmed to the extent of, for example, $10,000 but you could not receive any punitive damages, then the company could well settle with you for less, since there is always the chance their lawyers are sleazier than your and you might get nothing. This would make it very easy for companies to continually settle and never go to court, so never get end up paying the punitive damages and in fact continuing to profit from the prople they cheat. Sure, I'm outraged by many of the court rulings I see; but I don't think preventing victims from pursuing punitive damages is the answer. I also have some doubts that making judgements against people who are sued civilly a source of income for the courts would be consistent with a fair court system in settling disputes between two parties.
The legal term for this is Bullshit!
If they advertise an unlimited home account, that's what it is, an unlimited home account. If you have unlimited local calling on your home phone, you might only use it for a hour or so a month but still pay the monthly fee. If you suddenly change your calling pattern and start talking to friends 12 hours a day, seven days a week, you don't expect them to tell you that you now have to get a business line; you have unlimited local calling! The same is true for an Internet connection. Unlimited was advertised, unlimited is what you paid for, anything less than unlimited is fraud.
And I'd really like to hear if any of the victims of this fraud are downloading lots from the ISP's own news servers. Does the legal term "attractive nuisance" come to mind?
There are real damages that you suffer. But it hardly makes sense to say that a company should be able to cheat people and when and if those people take them to court and win that the worst the company could suffer is to have to make things fair. That gives them a horiable incentive to cheat people. Instead there are punitive damages too. If the wrong was deliberate, the compamy should be subject to punative damages too, as a way to make it clear to them that there can be a downside to cheating people, and that the punishment can be more than just having to give back the actual damages.
You're dead on. Any of the Quakes would fly on these systems. I even find it hard to believe the question was asked honestly, with the description of those relatively hot systems in the very same sentence! After all, he's talking about boxes that were top of the line two years ago with then brand new Nvidia cards, and claiming they can't be expected to run Quake games that came out two or more years ago!
OK, you're an A.C. and you're stupid; I'll type this very slowly so maybe you can follow it....
As I said above, the HF bands are used in an emergency to reach areas that do have power. They may be used to relay information about the safety of people in the affected area, they may be used to request life saving medical supplies, or to summon other emergence service providers to the affected area and let them know what to expect and what they need to bring when they come. If the areas they are trying to contact that do have power can't receive a ham radio signal because of their own broadband over powerline signal polution, then it is a serious problem. And quite simply, there are already laws against it. Hams, other people, and other industries have to follow the regulations against such interfearing radio signals, I so no reason why the power industry should not have to also.
Besides, how arogant can you be to think that hams should have their equipment sitting around useless because of lots of broadband over powerlines spectrum polution, not even be able to pratice using it or train new hams, and then expect that there will be no problem when there is a power and communication emergency just because the local broadband interference is now temporarly eliminated?
I'm a ham and have been very concerned about the reports of spectrum polution from Broadband over Powerlines. But if FEMA doesn't like it, maybe it's not so bad after all.
Quite frankly, with open source material and high speed connections at many libraries, I doubt that trying to convince them to find a way to catalog and loan out open source software is the way to go. Some better steps would be to get rid of, or at least repair, the annoying software they install on their systems so that you could at least download files to a pen drive or hard drive attached to the USB port. Another nice addition would be a CD writer or two in the library (these things are so cheap now they are often "free after rebate" items, certainly a public library could afford a couple). They might even make a modest profit if they also offered blank media at a small cost. This could encourage people to get the open source sofware right for them, not old copies of dated stuff on the shelfs or worse stuck away in a drawer somewhere or "lost".
Of course, I'm not sure that very many people who would use the public library as a source of open source software would not have the high speed access already, but if the original claim is that open source software should be available through the library I think there are better ways to go than to convince them to put a few CD's in their collection.
This may call itself Netscape, but it's still run by AOL, a company that is pretty well known for adding things to bills without authorization, charging even after people have canceled their subscriptions, and other nasty little business pratices. If the offer were from elsewhere I have some family members I would sign up for it today. With AOL, no thanks, it's not worth the risk.
In a computer that only going to ever accept one PCI add-in card, it's pretty important to determine as best you can what features might be available.
I posted a few other things I think it needs in a different post. Adding to that list, it would be nice to know if any of these boards include a built in modem. Some might say who uses a modem any more, but lots of people do, and these boxes may not be used by the big power users. I would consider one as a new system for my parents, but I need to give them a few basic legacy things like a modem and a parallel port, and for that the matrix doesn't help.
To be really useful, this matrix needs a lot of additional information. I was looking a a small form factor case at tiger a couple of weeks ago, and there were a number of suprises you wouldn't realize just by looking at a chart. For example, while the tiger box has a PCI slot and an AGP slot, the positions were reversed. That maters, if you had intended to use a Nvidia card with the fan that takes up the PCI space (wouldn't work in this space). However, the tiger box did have an option (availability unknown) for a printer port connector, which is not mentioned here. And while everyone seems to be doing 6 channel audio (I find that hard to believe for these small boxes) I would like to know if any have game connectors, which have a serial connector, if the keyboard and mouse must be USB, and if any have a DVI connector for a LCD or if all just use an old VGA connector.
The Matrix shows a number for USB ports, but it needs to break down which devices have USB 1.1 and which have USB 2. This is extremely important, since you're not likely to have the space to add a USB 2 card.