I agree completely, xp & 2000 are the best versions of windows out there, head and tails above 98 for sure. I remember when I was running 98 if I had AutoCAD and illustrator running at the same time the system would crash within 20 min, happened every time, since switching to xp I've yet to punch a hole in a wall, but it still crashes at least once a week, usally at a bad and unpredictable time.
I used to write those step by step instructions when I was consulting, I'll put one together for them.
I forgot to mention that my dad runs spy sweeper on his system, he bought it from a pop up add from a piece of adware, I just couldn't believe that. The software as far as I can tell doesn't do a thing.
Their afraid to install software on their computers, and are intimidated by running any software that didn't come bundled with their systems.
I told them to buy a Mac but they didn't know how to, and bought without asking me what to do. They're frustrated by their computers every day. Windows is definitely not a good operating system for novice users. Mac os all the way for that first computer.
You have to understand that I pay for a broadband connection for them and they still use msn, over the broadband though, but they still use msn, and expect me to fix it for them. They're about the latest adopters in the world, they both have antivirus on their pc's.
I dual boot suse 9.0 and xp professional, but find xp to be massiveley frustrating, somewhat unstable, and a frequent pain in the ass, but I'm stuck with it to get work done.
Way more than one in twenty. I would conceder my parents to be typical home users. I visit them every couple months, and when I do I give their computers a check up, part of this is running ad aware, and every time I do I find something. Last time I checked my mom's pc I found over 200 items, from almost a dozen pieces of spyware. She had so much crap that she had actually stopped using her computer because of all the pop ups. I'm usually pretty cautious, but will occasionally find spyware on my system, even though I have an antivirus that supposedly block's it.
If I were to guess at a number I would say that at any given moment that more than half of home computers running windows have some kind of spyware/adware running. This comes from helping out many friends with spyware related problems.
UW found so few instances because I'm sure that they limit users? ability to install software on their lab computers. As for dorm computers, many types of spyware can't be detected by a port scan, the only way to pick them up would be through a carnivore type system, even then not all of them would be found.
The only way to stop spyware is to start prosecuting the companies who make it; it should be pretty easy under one of the laws for protecting children on the internet. After all if opening popup windows advertising porn with every page load isn?t illegal under these laws what is?
I made a good sideline repairing guitar amps in high school, $50-100 plus parts, sometimes more depending on the issue. The only trick is to only work on old wire wrap tube amps, no IC's, easy to work on. Most of the parts are widely available, the only tools you really need, are a basic electrical tools (get good ones) and a tube tester (buy this used). I actually ran my little business out of the electronics lab at my school, made a decent little bit of cash. One tip, check the diodes in the power supply first. Usually fixing one of these is just a matter of finding the burnt out part and replacing it.
Place an add in you're local music weekly, there's big demand for this. But just make sure that you make it clear that you're not liable for more than the cost of the repair, and don't promise that you can fix everything.
Also don't go cash up front, take a crack at it first, the best case scenario is that someone won't pay for the repair, you have the amp as collateral, worst case you can pawn it for more than you would have gotten anyway. You'll meet some interesting people, have some fun, and get a chance to chill out a bit before college.
Old amps are pretty easy to work on and there's a lot of poor musicians who can't afford to buy a new one, or have it professionally repaired, they're pretty willing to take a small risk to save a buck.
So my conclusion, forget about high tech, there's lot's of competition, find a niche and work it for all it's worth.
I never worked at lowes, but did work at home depot, and our set up was ibm power pc servers, running aix, most terminals were just dumb terminals. There were some pc's spread around running a striped down version of windows 95. All registers ran win pos, returns and special services used a different version of win pos, with a graphical interface and touch screen. The hardware vendors in my store were IBM HP & NCR. It was a ten year old store though.
We did have these cool tablet pc's mounted on carts with a thermal printer, for doing orders, and printing signage. They were 486-66's and were connected by some kind of built in wireless networking.
An interesting note is that from midnight to 4 am the stores systems go partially down (all the way down in non 24 hour stores) to do post batch, where all the days sales are updated in the invintory, all kinds of stuff is added up, and various reports are created.
I suspect that lowes runs a similar setup, atleast for the real desktop systems, in order to order custom products like windows (glass not the other) they need to be able to run software the vendor supplies, all these I've seen run on windows (ms not glass).
I was born in 81; I've actually had a job. Spelling has always been my weak area; I've never been able to spell well. Usually when I write a paper, I spell check, and proof read, however I believe that on/. that content should be most important. Lot's of people here can't spell well, and I don't think that it's right for us to be made unwelcome, and chased away from posting just by a few jerks intent on ruining the community for everyone else.
I don't usally respond to trolls but the artical you link to has nothing to do with rfid, and it's not the gvmt tracking it was the guy's bank, I don't know about you but if my bank didin't keep track of my transactoions I'd be concerned.
The patriot act is a different matter, but has nothing to do with rfid chips in money, as far as I know there are not any. When you handle money you leave dead skin cells on it, in your paranoid world, this is much more damming than simply knowing how much cash you carry past a recever.
Here's my system for goverment tracking of money, all serial numbers are logged to each bank (as they are), but from there the bank logs wich costomers the bills are givevn to (my bank has these weird cash machines, you don't get money from the cashier, but from the machine). The next step would be to log the deposits coming from various buisness, This way the gvmt, can trace not only how much money just went by a location (like you'd get with rfid) but who it was, and where they spent it.
This method would be undectectable, by anyone other than the upper management of the banks, and the gvmt employees who monitor the data. it would be easy to track patterns and connections, not just count money, wich seems pretty pointless.
Not to mention the fact that rfid can be blocked, read by any concernd party, is easy to detect, costs money to embed in the bills. Why not track the bills by embeding chemicals in them, this would be more usefull, you could tell how much money a person recentley handled, how much they have, track cash using dogs.
Rfid in money is pretty pointless, and I'd be supprised to see it implimented in the next fifty years, I'd be less suprised to see the end of cash all together.
So in conclusion, be worried about the goverment spying on our personal financial data, library records, making illegal searches, locking people up in prison with no trial, reading your e-mail, tracking your internet use, knowing that you like to dress up like a woman, but don't be concerned with them wanting to know how much money you have on you.
the issue that this guy has run into has to do with metalic particals suspended in the ink. the particals are used to give the bills a magnetic signature. to my knowledge this is used in many bills around the world. This has nothing to do with rfid, or the goverment tracking you, this isin't even a valid arguement if it were, the bill has a serial number that can be read by machine.
The store tracking sensors that this guy is talking about aren't even rfid, and only have a fleeting resemblence, all they can tell is the presence of a tag moving through them. The system is called electonic artical survalance and most are made by sensormatic to my knowledge the only thing that these machines keep track of is the number of times they're triggerd daily.
the only way to get the effect that this guy got would be to do just what he did, microwave a big tightley packed stack of brand new bills. once they're not stuck together they won't burn nearley as well, as for the exploading thing, they look more like they caught on fire from getting too hot, not like they blew up.
I'm not terrorably concerned with the goverment tracking the movement of money, they do allready. The real concern that we need to have with rfid is that we can be essentially fingerprinted based on the unique blend of objects that we carry around with us every day.
anyone correcting my spelling should find something better to do.
IBM uses the four pin on their thinkpad laptops. I've seen it on many devices with limited power. anyway here's some links to buy the cable, you should be able to find these just about anywhere though. 4Pin/4Pin 4Pin/6Pin
Absolutley, all modern high end lighting systems are computer based, and the issue is with the the input. Yes they do require up/down movement. My complaint isin't really about the user interface, though, it's about the range of input devices available with these systems.
Even using keyboard shortcuts limits you to changing one thing at a time, I have ten fingers, I can change ten sliders at once, plus these changes are nearley instant, changing with the keyboard, I have to either choose a level by typing in a number, or use pgup/dn to change ten percent at a time, still not fast enugh.
As for the note about the midi controlers, most light boards allready offer wheel control, letting you change hundreds of values the same time, these are usally the level/rate wheels, one to shift all the selected channels up/down, the other to speed up or slow down fades.
All of these pc based systems that I know of offer side panels with the standard lighting controls, but once you've added one you're back up into the price range of a dedicated light board.
The only reason that we're moving to Emphasis to as our primary lighting controller in our mainstage theatre is beceause it allows us to integrate more of our workflow onto one platform, that's important when you have 3-4 people handling 300+ events per year.
The other thing that you have to realise is that having a mouse on a lighting controller will outright scare some people who will be using your facilitys, and will elicit mockery from others.
Is this the trend of the future, yes. But theatre is full of stubborn people, and once they've found something that works, evrything else scares them. The trap that is easy for us to fall into is to get wraped up in the technical side of things, and to put too much attention into the process, it is after all art, and evrything in the production process needs to be focused on the final result.
Knowing that many/. readers are devotees of the command line, I think that they would agree that adding pretty graphical eliments to the user interface dosen't really add to useability. There is a reason that computer lighting controllers have remained essentially the same for the last twenty years, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
I hate pc based lighting control systems, I work in an enviroment where we have a lot of touring shows, and one night events in our several theatres, and I can ensure that I hate our horizon systems with a passion.
Some people like them, but I suspect that it's just a novelty, I like to have hands on control of my work. The problem with the pc solutions is that they limit you to making one change at a time, slowing down the creation of cues. Don't want to make cues, and just go with two scene preset or run with submasters, you're out of luck. Try to do a smooth manual fade, how smooth can you move a mouse.
There are only two times when I would look to a pc based solution; I use horizon and my laptop as a super remote focus unit, or when trying to create a show that can be run by just one person.
They just aren't worth the trouble, mousing around is just frustrating. The only time I would recomend this to someone is if they were concerned only with price, and had no intrest in user frendlyness.
Check out the Whole Hog PC it's the only system I know of that you didin't mention in your list.
As for the linux thing, it would help these systems as far as stability goes. But I dobut if these systems will really catch on in highend use due to resistance from people like me.
These systems are basically just a traditional lighting controler minus all the special input hardware. This is the system that we're replacing our light pallet 90 with, but notice that even though it is pc based it uses a full light board for input.
So in conclusion, not very useful, only good in a budget pinch, or when one of their special capabilitys (like remote operation, or sound macros) is needed. They do make a great remote focus unit though, much better than the little push button dealies, but that's not saying much.
Master Electrition WWU C.F.P.A. & Teatre Department.
This plane (if possable) would have a very high glide ratio, so even if it crashes, unless it's a catastrophic failure, it could be a very soft crash landing.
To me this sounds like some intresting scifi, from a wild imagination, but not very well thought out. I'm shure that there will be something like this eventually, but most likeley not too soon.
The vehicle is really just a durigable with wings, I think that lighter than air flight has a potential to be come a really big thing in the next century, and that that is the angle to push, not the fuel-less flight aspect. Imagine taking an air cruise.
Re:Why a cube?
on
Borg Cube Case
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually a cube is potentially a great shape, all that room for hard disks right next to your mobo, short cable runs, and plenty of room for cooling fans, just like the next cube.
I'm thinking of building my own cube case for my home storage server out of copper plates, the whole thing would be a ginat heat sink.
As far as I am aware gimp lacks transform tools, like skew and distort. I make heavy use of them in my work, photoshop's transform tools are great.
Gimp is great for web work, or for light duity image editing, but for high res photo illustration photoshop is really the only choice that I've found to be worthwile.
with my experiences with ntfs disks even if you do get the drive up and going again, if the installed system can't boot you may not be able to get at any of the files anyway.
The Baboochi is an attempt to indoctronate children in the cult of scientology. Do a little research about Laura C. Byrnes the creator, just a second on google and you can see how screwed up this really is.
http://home.scientologist.org/laurab/
I for one do not like the idea of children playing with a toy created by a long time cult member, especially when it includes a pamphlet to introduce them to the relegion.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree completely, xp & 2000 are the best versions of windows out there, head and tails above 98 for sure. I remember when I was running 98 if I had AutoCAD and illustrator running at the same time the system would crash within 20 min, happened every time, since switching to xp I've yet to punch a hole in a wall, but it still crashes at least once a week, usally at a bad and unpredictable time.
I used to write those step by step instructions when I was consulting, I'll put one together for them.
I forgot to mention that my dad runs spy sweeper on his system, he bought it from a pop up add from a piece of adware, I just couldn't believe that. The software as far as I can tell doesn't do a thing.
Their afraid to install software on their computers, and are intimidated by running any software that didn't come bundled with their systems.
I told them to buy a Mac but they didn't know how to, and bought without asking me what to do. They're frustrated by their computers every day. Windows is definitely not a good operating system for novice users. Mac os all the way for that first computer.
You have to understand that I pay for a broadband connection for them and they still use msn, over the broadband though, but they still use msn, and expect me to fix it for them. They're about the latest adopters in the world, they both have antivirus on their pc's.
I dual boot suse 9.0 and xp professional, but find xp to be massiveley frustrating, somewhat unstable, and a frequent pain in the ass, but I'm stuck with it to get work done.
Way more than one in twenty. I would conceder my parents to be typical home users. I visit them every couple months, and when I do I give their computers a check up, part of this is running ad aware, and every time I do I find something. Last time I checked my mom's pc I found over 200 items, from almost a dozen pieces of spyware. She had so much crap that she had actually stopped using her computer because of all the pop ups. I'm usually pretty cautious, but will occasionally find spyware on my system, even though I have an antivirus that supposedly block's it.
If I were to guess at a number I would say that at any given moment that more than half of home computers running windows have some kind of spyware/adware running. This comes from helping out many friends with spyware related problems.
UW found so few instances because I'm sure that they limit users? ability to install software on their lab computers. As for dorm computers, many types of spyware can't be detected by a port scan, the only way to pick them up would be through a carnivore type system, even then not all of them would be found.
The only way to stop spyware is to start prosecuting the companies who make it; it should be pretty easy under one of the laws for protecting children on the internet. After all if opening popup windows advertising porn with every page load isn?t illegal under these laws what is?
Good cash, harvest in the fall, you're young you'll get a lite sentence.
I made a good sideline repairing guitar amps in high school, $50-100 plus parts, sometimes more depending on the issue. The only trick is to only work on old wire wrap tube amps, no IC's, easy to work on. Most of the parts are widely available, the only tools you really need, are a basic electrical tools (get good ones) and a tube tester (buy this used). I actually ran my little business out of the electronics lab at my school, made a decent little bit of cash. One tip, check the diodes in the power supply first. Usually fixing one of these is just a matter of finding the burnt out part and replacing it.
Place an add in you're local music weekly, there's big demand for this. But just make sure that you make it clear that you're not liable for more than the cost of the repair, and don't promise that you can fix everything.
Also don't go cash up front, take a crack at it first, the best case scenario is that someone won't pay for the repair, you have the amp as collateral, worst case you can pawn it for more than you would have gotten anyway. You'll meet some interesting people, have some fun, and get a chance to chill out a bit before college.
Old amps are pretty easy to work on and there's a lot of poor musicians who can't afford to buy a new one, or have it professionally repaired, they're pretty willing to take a small risk to save a buck.
So my conclusion, forget about high tech, there's lot's of competition, find a niche and work it for all it's worth.
I never worked at lowes, but did work at home depot, and our set up was ibm power pc servers, running aix, most terminals were just dumb terminals. There were some pc's spread around running a striped down version of windows 95. All registers ran win pos, returns and special services used a different version of win pos, with a graphical interface and touch screen. The hardware vendors in my store were IBM HP & NCR. It was a ten year old store though.
We did have these cool tablet pc's mounted on carts with a thermal printer, for doing orders, and printing signage. They were 486-66's and were connected by some kind of built in wireless networking.
An interesting note is that from midnight to 4 am the stores systems go partially down (all the way down in non 24 hour stores) to do post batch, where all the days sales are updated in the invintory, all kinds of stuff is added up, and various reports are created.
I suspect that lowes runs a similar setup, atleast for the real desktop systems, in order to order custom products like windows (glass not the other) they need to be able to run software the vendor supplies, all these I've seen run on windows (ms not glass).
Sgi is the only party that I can think of that Sco has any real beef with, if they're smart that's who they'll go after.
Then again when you assume you make an ass out of u and me, and assuming that Sco is smart is risky.
allright, you're forgiven, I'm just tired of ac trolls.
I was born in 81; I've actually had a job. Spelling has always been my weak area; I've never been able to spell well. Usually when I write a paper, I spell check, and proof read, however I believe that on /. that content should be most important. Lot's of people here can't spell well, and I don't think that it's right for us to be made unwelcome, and chased away from posting just by a few jerks intent on ruining the community for everyone else.
I bet you?re the type that corrects people?s grammar during conversations, must be great to talk to. Get a life ass hole.
I don't usally respond to trolls but the artical you link to has nothing to do with rfid, and it's not the gvmt tracking it was the guy's bank, I don't know about you but if my bank didin't keep track of my transactoions I'd be concerned.
The patriot act is a different matter, but has nothing to do with rfid chips in money, as far as I know there are not any. When you handle money you leave dead skin cells on it, in your paranoid world, this is much more damming than simply knowing how much cash you carry past a recever.
Here's my system for goverment tracking of money, all serial numbers are logged to each bank (as they are), but from there the bank logs wich costomers the bills are givevn to (my bank has these weird cash machines, you don't get money from the cashier, but from the machine). The next step would be to log the deposits coming from various buisness, This way the gvmt, can trace not only how much money just went by a location (like you'd get with rfid) but who it was, and where they spent it.
This method would be undectectable, by anyone other than the upper management of the banks, and the gvmt employees who monitor the data. it would be easy to track patterns and connections, not just count money, wich seems pretty pointless.
Not to mention the fact that rfid can be blocked, read by any concernd party, is easy to detect, costs money to embed in the bills. Why not track the bills by embeding chemicals in them, this would be more usefull, you could tell how much money a person recentley handled, how much they have, track cash using dogs.
Rfid in money is pretty pointless, and I'd be supprised to see it implimented in the next fifty years, I'd be less suprised to see the end of cash all together.
So in conclusion, be worried about the goverment spying on our personal financial data, library records, making illegal searches, locking people up in prison with no trial, reading your e-mail, tracking your internet use, knowing that you like to dress up like a woman, but don't be concerned with them wanting to know how much money you have on you.
the issue that this guy has run into has to do with metalic particals suspended in the ink. the particals are used to give the bills a magnetic signature. to my knowledge this is used in many bills around the world. This has nothing to do with rfid, or the goverment tracking you, this isin't even a valid arguement if it were, the bill has a serial number that can be read by machine.
The store tracking sensors that this guy is talking about aren't even rfid, and only have a fleeting resemblence, all they can tell is the presence of a tag moving through them. The system is called electonic artical survalance and most are made by sensormatic to my knowledge the only thing that these machines keep track of is the number of times they're triggerd daily.
the only way to get the effect that this guy got would be to do just what he did, microwave a big tightley packed stack of brand new bills. once they're not stuck together they won't burn nearley as well, as for the exploading thing, they look more like they caught on fire from getting too hot, not like they blew up.
I'm not terrorably concerned with the goverment tracking the movement of money, they do allready. The real concern that we need to have with rfid is that we can be essentially fingerprinted based on the unique blend of objects that we carry around with us every day.
anyone correcting my spelling should find something better to do.
IBM uses the four pin on their thinkpad laptops. I've seen it on many devices with limited power.
anyway here's some links to buy the cable, you should be able to find these just about anywhere though.
4Pin/4Pin
4Pin/6Pin
Absolutley, all modern high end lighting systems are computer based, and the issue is with the the input. Yes they do require up/down movement. My complaint isin't really about the user interface, though, it's about the range of input devices available with these systems.
/. readers are devotees of the command line, I think that they would agree that adding pretty graphical eliments to the user interface dosen't really add to useability. There is a reason that computer lighting controllers have remained essentially the same for the last twenty years, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Even using keyboard shortcuts limits you to changing one thing at a time, I have ten fingers, I can change ten sliders at once, plus these changes are nearley instant, changing with the keyboard, I have to either choose a level by typing in a number, or use pgup/dn to change ten percent at a time, still not fast enugh.
As for the note about the midi controlers, most light boards allready offer wheel control, letting you change hundreds of values the same time, these are usally the level/rate wheels, one to shift all the selected channels up/down, the other to speed up or slow down fades.
All of these pc based systems that I know of offer side panels with the standard lighting controls, but once you've added one you're back up into the price range of a dedicated light board.
The only reason that we're moving to Emphasis to as our primary lighting controller in our mainstage theatre is beceause it allows us to integrate more of our workflow onto one platform, that's important when you have 3-4 people handling 300+ events per year.
The other thing that you have to realise is that having a mouse on a lighting controller will outright scare some people who will be using your facilitys, and will elicit mockery from others.
Is this the trend of the future, yes. But theatre is full of stubborn people, and once they've found something that works, evrything else scares them. The trap that is easy for us to fall into is to get wraped up in the technical side of things, and to put too much attention into the process, it is after all art, and evrything in the production process needs to be focused on the final result.
Knowing that many
A moutain, A huge chunk of rebar, and lot's of Epoxy Tie
This looks like exactley what you're looking for.
I hate pc based lighting control systems, I work in an enviroment where we have a lot of touring shows, and one night events in our several theatres, and I can ensure that I hate our horizon systems with a passion.
Some people like them, but I suspect that it's just a novelty, I like to have hands on control of my work. The problem with the pc solutions is that they limit you to making one change at a time, slowing down the creation of cues. Don't want to make cues, and just go with two scene preset or run with submasters, you're out of luck. Try to do a smooth manual fade, how smooth can you move a mouse.
There are only two times when I would look to a pc based solution; I use horizon and my laptop as a super remote focus unit, or when trying to create a show that can be run by just one person.
They just aren't worth the trouble, mousing around is just frustrating. The only time I would recomend this to someone is if they were concerned only with price, and had no intrest in user frendlyness.
Check out the Whole Hog PC it's the only system I know of that you didin't mention in your list.
As for the linux thing, it would help these systems as far as stability goes. But I dobut if these systems will really catch on in highend use due to resistance from people like me.
These systems are basically just a traditional lighting controler minus all the special input hardware. This is the system that we're replacing our light pallet 90 with, but notice that even though it is pc based it uses a full light board for input.
So in conclusion, not very useful, only good in a budget pinch, or when one of their special capabilitys (like remote operation, or sound macros) is needed. They do make a great remote focus unit though, much better than the little push button dealies, but that's not saying much.
Master Electrition WWU C.F.P.A. & Teatre Department.
3 more engines.
This plane (if possable) would have a very high glide ratio, so even if it crashes, unless it's a catastrophic failure, it could be a very soft crash landing.
To me this sounds like some intresting scifi, from a wild imagination, but not very well thought out. I'm shure that there will be something like this eventually, but most likeley not too soon.
The vehicle is really just a durigable with wings, I think that lighter than air flight has a potential to be come a really big thing in the next century, and that that is the angle to push, not the fuel-less flight aspect. Imagine taking an air cruise.
Actually a cube is potentially a great shape, all that room for hard disks right next to your mobo, short cable runs, and plenty of room for cooling fans, just like the next cube.
I'm thinking of building my own cube case for my home storage server out of copper plates, the whole thing would be a ginat heat sink.
As far as I am aware gimp lacks transform tools, like skew and distort. I make heavy use of them in my work, photoshop's transform tools are great.
Gimp is great for web work, or for light duity image editing, but for high res photo illustration photoshop is really the only choice that I've found to be worthwile.
windows also has the floating tool palets. works just great in multi monitor.
with my experiences with ntfs disks even if you do get the drive up and going again, if the installed system can't boot you may not be able to get at any of the files anyway.
canada and usa are the same dvd region.
The Baboochi is an attempt to indoctronate children in the cult of scientology. Do a little research about Laura C. Byrnes the creator, just a second on google and you can see how screwed up this really is.
http://home.scientologist.org/laurab/
I for one do not like the idea of children playing with a toy created by a long time cult member, especially when it includes a pamphlet to introduce them to the relegion.