If you don't have enough knowledge to know how to approach this now (it's obvious you don't) then you are bound to not get it right for several iterations. Writing reliable software is going to take a lot of experience so you really get your head around how thorough you need to be.
Can your task afford to have a very long period of non-productivity while you play around with ideas and learn the rather hard lessons of writing high-reliability software?
- Formal methods. Proving your design. Or at least formal coding/testing of the interfaces.
- Aerospace software. Like the fly-by-wire systems. They have less resources than the shuttle and make occasional mistakes.
Also, I would reexamine your requirements. Is it medical? Do people's lives depend on it? If not, it seems like someone is overstating the need for reliability.
Finally, I have had some small experience with people attempting to "add" reliability to a system - like automatic restarting of modules. The usual result is to make the system MORE complex, and LESS reliable, or prone to fail in more severe ways, because simple ideas don't have the effect you'd think.
There are a huge number of developers out there who are perfectly happy to live and breath only Microsoft products. I find it incomprehensible myself, but there are a lot who have never considered using any development tool, office suite or operating system but Microsoft. In fact they are firmly convinced it is the best and why would they even bother looking at anything else.
If that came to pass - say we could have a truth-detector implanted in our head - it would be incompatible with the way human emotion and interaction works, and would either be outlawed or change the way we interact.
I see ICQ doing the same thing. They stagnate adding more and more bloat to their client (or just do nothing) while MSN is taking over; partly because everyone knows it, and partly because it works better in some situations.
Conceding that God didn't have a direct hand in making "us", is to concede the last aspect of a God who actually DOES something. Religon has been in retreat on what Gods "do" for thousands of years, this is basically the step after which God does nothing and has no material impact on the universe.
Therefore, conceding evolution involves the believer accepting that the object of their belief has no material impact, which for humans is quite close to meaninglessness.
Sometimes, I boot windows to read one web page (e.g. theatre times or tv schedule), and then turn it off. Then it really pisses me off how long it takes to boot.
Also, I *don't* leave all the programs running just because "I might use them".
I know what you are saying. But the slow startup is still a real factor, and it's a first impression, which means it sticks in everyone's memory.
A bit OT, but it seems to me that this is somewhat like what happened in the Soviet Union. In order to boost engineering and keep up with the West, many, many people were pushed into engineering where they might not have naturally gone. Speaking to quite a few Russians lately and a lot that I didn't expect were engineers. I didn't expect it because they no longer do engineering - there were just too many of them, especially when the USSR fell and there was no longer huge useless/inefficient state-sponsored programs.
What if the device has powered down it's transmitter to save power? Power is a big concern in wireless devices and they have to be aggressive about turning things off to get decent battery life.
What if there is some interference at the time of transmission and it has to retry?
What if there is connection establishment to go through maybe involving timeouts (e.g. collision checks)?
Using 20 times as much RAM for no significant benefit doesn't make any sense.
I guess if it's easier to develop such an app in Java (obviously cross platform it is) then I'd say using 2x the RAM is an OK tradeoff. Not an order of magnitude.
As far as I can see, if you must have 7200rpm then you will need an external power brick as well. The power requirements seem to be too high for a USB port.
5400rpm is still reasonably speedy, but of course imaging machines is one of those bandwidth-intensive tasks where the more the better.
But, so long as you accept that you will have to carry a power supply as well, there are a thousand options. It's really very lazy to ask Slashdot just for that!
But, the thing that UT2004 added was gameplay! So that seems to be exactly what you want. And in UT2007 it sounds like they will do that again with the Conquest mode.
In my mind, UT2004 was exactly the right kind of sequel, adding several new and interesting game play options, including Onslaught, vehicles and new weapon types. UT2003 tried, but unfortunately produced gameplay that was not popular (bombing run, sports style).
Alongside that they are upgrading graphics. They probably do spend too much time on graphics still, but I don't think it's so terrible.
Removing the modem sounds risky for a laptop. On my recent travels to Russia, Greece and Italy, 2 out of 3 hotels had wifi, but both were quite unreliable, such that (for example) ICQ wouldn't work much. And the pricing was frequently outrageous (100 euros for 7 days).
Dialup (using iPass) consistently works everywhere. That's worth quite a lot when you're on the road.
And an add-on gadget that you have to drag around everywhere just in case you need it, really sucks. Before you are carrying round a dozen bits and pieces to plug in.
I'm a movie fan with a projector that would make high-def worthwhile, and I buy a fair number of movies. Even so, I would only buy the very best, and most *visually impressive* movies on high-def. For me that might be LOTR, Blade Runner and perhaps a few others. DVD would suffice for most of the rest. That doesn't sound like much of a market...
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't have enough knowledge to know how to approach this now (it's obvious you don't) then you are bound to not get it right for several iterations. Writing reliable software is going to take a lot of experience so you really get your head around how thorough you need to be.
t ml
Can your task afford to have a very long period of non-productivity while you play around with ideas and learn the rather hard lessons of writing high-reliability software?
Ideas that spring to mind:
- NASA and their shuttle software. They have enormous resources and get it right by being very careful and formal. Go read about it. Starting point:
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.h
- Formal methods. Proving your design. Or at least formal coding/testing of the interfaces.
- Aerospace software. Like the fly-by-wire systems. They have less resources than the shuttle and make occasional mistakes.
Also, I would reexamine your requirements. Is it medical? Do people's lives depend on it? If not, it seems like someone is overstating the need for reliability.
Finally, I have had some small experience with people attempting to "add" reliability to a system - like automatic restarting of modules. The usual result is to make the system MORE complex, and LESS reliable, or prone to fail in more severe ways, because simple ideas don't have the effect you'd think.
There are a huge number of developers out there who are perfectly happy to live and breath only Microsoft products. I find it incomprehensible myself, but there are a lot who have never considered using any development tool, office suite or operating system but Microsoft. In fact they are firmly convinced it is the best and why would they even bother looking at anything else.
I find it changes your perspective a lot when you decide not to pirate anything. Suddenly, Microsoft Office doesn't seem quite so good...
It ain't rocket science.
No, it's called standby.
If that came to pass - say we could have a truth-detector implanted in our head - it would be incompatible with the way human emotion and interaction works, and would either be outlawed or change the way we interact.
I see ICQ doing the same thing. They stagnate adding more and more bloat to their client (or just do nothing) while MSN is taking over; partly because everyone knows it, and partly because it works better in some situations.
Conceding that God didn't have a direct hand in making "us", is to concede the last aspect of a God who actually DOES something. Religon has been in retreat on what Gods "do" for thousands of years, this is basically the step after which God does nothing and has no material impact on the universe.
Therefore, conceding evolution involves the believer accepting that the object of their belief has no material impact, which for humans is quite close to meaninglessness.
But Flash is just a wrapper for the codecs. It doesn't include the codecs itself. Or so I understand.
Excellent. And seemingly obvious. I mean they already have this header style, why not just use what's there?
Sometimes, I boot windows to read one web page (e.g. theatre times or tv schedule), and then turn it off. Then it really pisses me off how long it takes to boot.
Also, I *don't* leave all the programs running just because "I might use them".
I know what you are saying. But the slow startup is still a real factor, and it's a first impression, which means it sticks in everyone's memory.
OK, firewire may be different - I was only looking for USB drives (actually FW+USB - but I guess they were limited to the lowest common denominator)
A bit OT, but it seems to me that this is somewhat like what happened in the Soviet Union. In order to boost engineering and keep up with the West, many, many people were pushed into engineering where they might not have naturally gone. Speaking to quite a few Russians lately and a lot that I didn't expect were engineers. I didn't expect it because they no longer do engineering - there were just too many of them, especially when the USSR fell and there was no longer huge useless/inefficient state-sponsored programs.
Any ex-Soviets here to tell us more about this?
What if the device has powered down it's transmitter to save power? Power is a big concern in wireless devices and they have to be aggressive about turning things off to get decent battery life.
...
What if there is some interference at the time of transmission and it has to retry?
What if there is connection establishment to go through maybe involving timeouts (e.g. collision checks)?
Just some thoughts
Were you going to sell this calendar? If so, it's reasonable they didn't allow it.
...
If not, then they overreacted - or maybe they *thought* you wanted to sell it
Your statement makes no sense. We can't use it without starting it, which is [apparently] slow. You can't just wish this slowness away.
Using 20 times as much RAM for no significant benefit doesn't make any sense.
I guess if it's easier to develop such an app in Java (obviously cross platform it is) then I'd say using 2x the RAM is an OK tradeoff. Not an order of magnitude.
As far as I can see, if you must have 7200rpm then you will need an external power brick as well. The power requirements seem to be too high for a USB port.
5400rpm is still reasonably speedy, but of course imaging machines is one of those bandwidth-intensive tasks where the more the better.
But, so long as you accept that you will have to carry a power supply as well, there are a thousand options. It's really very lazy to ask Slashdot just for that!
Yeah, but using phrases like "neo-conservative fetishists" lets down your otherwise interesting posts. Little bit less rhetoric ...
Yeah, they just have to drag it out long enough, gradually dissappear from view, so that the shareholders don't riot over the wasted money.
But, the thing that UT2004 added was gameplay! So that seems to be exactly what you want. And in UT2007 it sounds like they will do that again with the Conquest mode.
In my mind, UT2004 was exactly the right kind of sequel, adding several new and interesting game play options, including Onslaught, vehicles and new weapon types. UT2003 tried, but unfortunately produced gameplay that was not popular (bombing run, sports style).
Alongside that they are upgrading graphics. They probably do spend too much time on graphics still, but I don't think it's so terrible.
In a normal working market with all these problems Symantec/Norton should have dissappeared.
But all those moronic "journalists" go on recommending it, and everyone keeps buying it. Even my quite rational, tech savvy boss.
What is going on here?
Why do you say that?
Removing the modem sounds risky for a laptop. On my recent travels to Russia, Greece and Italy, 2 out of 3 hotels had wifi, but both were quite unreliable, such that (for example) ICQ wouldn't work much. And the pricing was frequently outrageous (100 euros for 7 days).
Dialup (using iPass) consistently works everywhere. That's worth quite a lot when you're on the road.
And an add-on gadget that you have to drag around everywhere just in case you need it, really sucks. Before you are carrying round a dozen bits and pieces to plug in.
I bought the H340 for the same reason. I just knew having to load some more crappy software would annoy the hell out of me.
However, I don't think much of the H340's user interface. It involves a lot of things that you wouldn't guess until you read the manual.
I'm a movie fan with a projector that would make high-def worthwhile, and I buy a fair number of movies. Even so, I would only buy the very best, and most *visually impressive* movies on high-def. For me that might be LOTR, Blade Runner and perhaps a few others. DVD would suffice for most of the rest. That doesn't sound like much of a market...