My 2 machines are on a UPS and are up 24x7 as well. Unless the hub is required for the keyboard and/or mouse, I'd kill it at night. Reorganise the USB and Firewire stuff so that essential crap is directly connected to the computer, and all the other stuff is in the hub. I had to do this because one of my mice didn't like to be daisy-chained through 2 hubs.
Another point worthy of mention is that most Win32 development tools cost $$ with the exception of a few stripped down utilities available on Microsoft's site.
Correction: the alarm in question is an Excalibur Gold. The LED display will show different numbers depending on if/where there was an intrusion attempt, and it included an antenna for greater range. It also featured a rolling code to lock out scanners. If you follow the wires coming out of the unit you should find the other part of the unit, which contains the relays for lights, siren, door locks, etc.
Apparently, in my friend's case, the battery was disconnected and the car was towed, so the alarm did squat.
It's already been done in the NYC area. Some official looking guys would show up and either replace and existing working ATM or add an ATM to a store, but instead of contacting the banking institutions and dispensing cash, they would just record account and PIN data to be (ab)used later.
I've had this same issue numerous times, most recently with Painkiller and Thief 3. My "favorite" is the buggy installers that don't take the cd check into account. Install the disks in order, then for some braindead reason the installer asks for disk 1 again before completing the install. Alrighty, I do it, it finishes, then when I play, instead of "Insert Game Disk" or something, it either gives me some cryptic error message, or it accuses me of using a backup. Putting in the last disk solves the problem, but it's quite annoying.
IDE sucks the life out of PC, even newer 3ghz+ pc's still pause when you put in a floppy or eject a cdrom in windows.
That's a drive and/or Windows issue. When you insert a CD, the CDROM has to spin it up to read it, and then Explorer.exe (not Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, A.K.A. the Windows "shell") immediately wants to know what's in it, so you have a slight lag, depending on background services, the drive, the media condition, etc. You can see what's going on by opening up Explorer while there's no CD in the drive, then watching the drive's reaction, and Explorer's reaction when the drive finally reads the CD.
Some performance can be gained by keeping CDROM drives on seperate IDE devices to prevent the CD drive from hogging the bus during moderate to heavy harddisk activity. As for floppy drives... you still use a floppy drive?!
I've found that those $15 corded phones are only good as paperweights. They have horrible voice quality even for telephone standards, and they're also the first thing you need to unplug if you suspect a line problem, especially after a lightning strike in your area.
My old Western Electric is over 30 years old, and as long as POTS is still around, it'll probably last another 30.
Most people believe POTS goes down due to power failures from experience, mostly because of cordless phones, fax machines, and combo phone/answering machines that require a seperate power source to operate. I have an old Western Electric rotary plugged in for those occasions.
Alpine systems also have a no frill ($15) adapter that will allow any player to be connected to the head unit, provided you aren't using the CD changer. They have another adapter that will let you do both for $50, however neither solution includes a charger, head unit external player controls, or display the current song.
Before anyone else complains about the price, remember, this is an Alpine, not some cheezy no-name brand or over-hyped piece of crap. I've had 2 Alpines over the last 6 years, I've never had any problems with them, and I've only heard them skip once or twice each while on NYC streets. I'd also like to add that those potholes were bad enough to require 2 new tires and a rim straightened.
Full featured, reliable, cheap: pick two. You get what you pay for.
Blue screens, protection faults, and random reboots are normal for Windows ME. That's why they call it "Mistake Edition". My fix for any problem in ME is to upgrade.
I find that SpyBot is more effective than Adaware and Kaspersky AV is far superior to Norton, although if you keep the default settings, your machine will be unusable between 8 and 8:45 PM due to it's thorough scan.
It seems to me that RTCW and ET voices are based on people's voices in the old 50's and 60's war movies. The german voices are just english with german accents, but the Americans speak with those western and midwestern accents common in movies right after WW2.
Sony has a history of blowing it's competition away, or at least putting them in check, but this format will hurt them bad. Why couldn't they include mp3 and AAC support to encourage people to switch? I suppose they'll include a convenient utility that will search for all your mp3s and convert them for you, and prevent you from using anyone else's player.
I'd rather let Starbucks have the trademark on a word for twenty than the Kaiser. Imagine asking for a Dickety(TM) Caramel Mochiato while wearing an onion on your belt.
And what makes you think they aren't? Look around the house sometime - you'll notice that a lot of things are slowly being changed peice by peice, and in the very small manner in which you state.
I've noticed this since the mid 80s or so when more and more cars started coming with metric hardware. It started with the small things like electronics, interior components, and body hardware, and now that the big 3 has redesigned most of their powertrains, everything is metric. I think the only exception would be parts of the GM 5.7L V-8 and the Diamler-Chrysler/Jeep 4.0L I-6 if they're still making it. I believe this was a result of cost reductions for foriegn tooling and/or manufacturing. It costs a lot less to manufacture tools and parts in metric only than have duplicate factories for metric and SAE.
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My 2 machines are on a UPS and are up 24x7 as well. Unless the hub is required for the keyboard and/or mouse, I'd kill it at night. Reorganise the USB and Firewire stuff so that essential crap is directly connected to the computer, and all the other stuff is in the hub. I had to do this because one of my mice didn't like to be daisy-chained through 2 hubs.
I have a kill switch for all non-essential gear, like the printer, scanner and monitors. No power, no annoying lights.
Another point worthy of mention is that most Win32 development tools cost $$ with the exception of a few stripped down utilities available on Microsoft's site.
Correction: the alarm in question is an Excalibur Gold. The LED display will show different numbers depending on if/where there was an intrusion attempt, and it included an antenna for greater range. It also featured a rolling code to lock out scanners. If you follow the wires coming out of the unit you should find the other part of the unit, which contains the relays for lights, siren, door locks, etc.
Apparently, in my friend's case, the battery was disconnected and the car was towed, so the alarm did squat.
Not 100% but it looks a whole *LOT* like a reciever for a secuity system.
Yes it is, high end Viper or Prestige, forgot which. My friend had the exact same alarm, until someone stole his car.:D
And that "funny angle" in the LED display is there because it's supposed to be mounted on the A-pillar.
It's already been done in the NYC area. Some official looking guys would show up and either replace and existing working ATM or add an ATM to a store, but instead of contacting the banking institutions and dispensing cash, they would just record account and PIN data to be (ab)used later.
I've had this same issue numerous times, most recently with Painkiller and Thief 3. My "favorite" is the buggy installers that don't take the cd check into account. Install the disks in order, then for some braindead reason the installer asks for disk 1 again before completing the install. Alrighty, I do it, it finishes, then when I play, instead of "Insert Game Disk" or something, it either gives me some cryptic error message, or it accuses me of using a backup. Putting in the last disk solves the problem, but it's quite annoying.
IDE sucks the life out of PC, even newer 3ghz+ pc's still pause when you put in a floppy or eject a cdrom in windows.
That's a drive and/or Windows issue. When you insert a CD, the CDROM has to spin it up to read it, and then Explorer.exe (not Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, A.K.A. the Windows "shell") immediately wants to know what's in it, so you have a slight lag, depending on background services, the drive, the media condition, etc. You can see what's going on by opening up Explorer while there's no CD in the drive, then watching the drive's reaction, and Explorer's reaction when the drive finally reads the CD.
Some performance can be gained by keeping CDROM drives on seperate IDE devices to prevent the CD drive from hogging the bus during moderate to heavy harddisk activity. As for floppy drives... you still use a floppy drive?!
I've found that those $15 corded phones are only good as paperweights. They have horrible voice quality even for telephone standards, and they're also the first thing you need to unplug if you suspect a line problem, especially after a lightning strike in your area.
My old Western Electric is over 30 years old, and as long as POTS is still around, it'll probably last another 30.
Most people believe POTS goes down due to power failures from experience, mostly because of cordless phones, fax machines, and combo phone/answering machines that require a seperate power source to operate. I have an old Western Electric rotary plugged in for those occasions.
Alpine systems also have a no frill ($15) adapter that will allow any player to be connected to the head unit, provided you aren't using the CD changer. They have another adapter that will let you do both for $50, however neither solution includes a charger, head unit external player controls, or display the current song.
Before anyone else complains about the price, remember, this is an Alpine , not some cheezy no-name brand or over-hyped piece of crap. I've had 2 Alpines over the last 6 years, I've never had any problems with them, and I've only heard them skip once or twice each while on NYC streets. I'd also like to add that those potholes were bad enough to require 2 new tires and a rim straightened.
Full featured, reliable, cheap: pick two. You get what you pay for.
Blue screens, protection faults, and random reboots are normal for Windows ME. That's why they call it "Mistake Edition". My fix for any problem in ME is to upgrade.
I find that SpyBot is more effective than Adaware and Kaspersky AV is far superior to Norton, although if you keep the default settings, your machine will be unusable between 8 and 8:45 PM due to it's thorough scan.
It seems to me that RTCW and ET voices are based on people's voices in the old 50's and 60's war movies. The german voices are just english with german accents, but the Americans speak with those western and midwestern accents common in movies right after WW2.
When 900 years you reach, speak anyway you want you will.
8. The Search for Vulcans
9. The Search for Little Picard
10 is the search for the younger Picard, 9 is The Search for the Fountain of Youth (Insurrection).
I dunno about those new fangled 8-track gizmos, but I found a company that makes awesome tube amplifiers.
Sure, that's what he wants us to think, as he wastes Enterprise resources to troll Slashdot.
This may sound really strange, but has anyone noticed how Wil Wheaton's website shows up in the shock site page?
How much would Frauhoffer charge? 50 cents? A couple bucks the most? That's a very bad excuse for a $200 to $500 player.
Sony has a history of blowing it's competition away, or at least putting them in check, but this format will hurt them bad. Why couldn't they include mp3 and AAC support to encourage people to switch? I suppose they'll include a convenient utility that will search for all your mp3s and convert them for you, and prevent you from using anyone else's player.
I'd rather let Starbucks have the trademark on a word for twenty than the Kaiser. Imagine asking for a Dickety(TM) Caramel Mochiato while wearing an onion on your belt.
I've seen this joke in BSD Fortune, but it involved Stalin and Khrushchev, and instead of reorganize, it was a traitor purge.
6061 T6 is aircraft grade aluminum, but as long as it's rated for the part it's manufactured for, I don't think it matters what kind of grade it is.
And what makes you think they aren't? Look around the house sometime - you'll notice that a lot of things are slowly being changed peice by peice, and in the very small manner in which you state.
I've noticed this since the mid 80s or so when more and more cars started coming with metric hardware. It started with the small things like electronics, interior components, and body hardware, and now that the big 3 has redesigned most of their powertrains, everything is metric. I think the only exception would be parts of the GM 5.7L V-8 and the Diamler-Chrysler/Jeep 4.0L I-6 if they're still making it. I believe this was a result of cost reductions for foriegn tooling and/or manufacturing. It costs a lot less to manufacture tools and parts in metric only than have duplicate factories for metric and SAE.