The system has 160Mb, which is the max for it. For my next system, I will look for one that takes more RAM.
The Win98 never crashes (except for the rare shutdown hang.) It does crash if I fiddle with the swapfile size or turn it off. Like you say, instability. I do run Norton WinDoctor regularly to clean up the registry.
I don't think I want to go back to 95 in order to gain more space, but it is an interesting idea.
I will look into a minimal XP installation with no swapfile.
Best thing is to stop keeping so many unused apps and unused files on the system! I have IE set to keep only 0 days worth of history. And use Norton Clean Sweep once in a while. Mijenix SizeManager is very helpful on this. Amazing the redundant, old, and usused junk that collects in a Win system.
By the way, I back up the key files online to a small TypeII PCCard Sandisk and, of course, offline.
Sandisks are not fast. Especially if the drive in fragmented. Works fine for my surfing, e-mail, word processing.
It is a Sandisk FlashDrive that drops in the system in place of the 3.5" IDE hard drive. Physically it is a Type III ATA PCMCIA card which comes from Sandisk with a heavy metal adapter.
There are other brands as well. Sold for industrial controllers and aerospace/military applications.
If you already have a PCCard ATA unit --- I did not see the adapter anywhere on the Sandisk site but I expect that it is orderable as a repair part somehow. You'd probably have to call the Sandisk support folks. Have not looked explicitly for it, but I have never noticed an adaptor like that listed anywhere. It is a very simple connector and frame assembly with few electrical components.
Check the industrial section of their Website for details. The FlashDrive is an industrial product, not a consumer product, so it is expensive and hard to get. I got mine from Bell Microproducts. Google the various part numbers (they come in different temperature grades) to see who else has it or will order it for you. I remember that either PCConnection, CDW, or Insight listed them as special order at a high price.
Yesterday I was listening to a mockingbird while using this system indoors...
Please explain why. Any other reason aside from the obvious performance issue?
Anyhow, I am stuck with it on Win98. When I tried setting virtual memory to 0 or to a small value either Win98 or an app would sooner or later get upset.
I have a 1GB Sandisk FlashDrive in this notebook. It a type3 PCCard in a metal frame that has a 3.5" IDE form factor, so it fits instead of the hard drive. It is wonderful.
I do have to be careful about space and it is a little slow. Very important to defrag regularly, speed drops greatly with fragmentation. I'm using Win98 to save space. Unfortunately, it will not run with Win's Virtual Memory set low or to zero. It can be tricky to format the drive.
"During the first two years of the curriculum, about 70 percent of the students' time would be taken up by distance learning, and the remainder by working in a community setting like a clinic or hospital. After that, the proportions would shift to about 30 percent computer-based learning and 70 percent working in a practice setting. "
As I said, I was talking about ordinary fires, not airplane attacks.
Only one of the three stairwells was wide enough to allow firefighters to go up during an evacuation. How do you fight an ordinary fire in such a building?
Most tape decks require you to press play and record at the same time to ensure that you don't accidentally record when you don't mean to. My Sony's have a red line printed on the front panel that links the two buttons as a reminder.
Making it easy to accidentally record when you mean to play is very bad usability design.
Q: "Is there anything that could have been done in design terms to stop 11 September from happening?" A: "I don't think so. As far as I can tell, no mistakes were made."
How about 110-story buildings with three stairwells each?
Only one of the three stairwells was wide enough to allow firefighters to go up during an evacuation. How do you fight an ordinary fire in such a building?
According to USA Today, "Nearly everyone who could get out did get out." But the buildings were only half-full. "That took pressure off the stairwells."
At any rate, there are lessons for anyone who works in a tall building from this article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001 /12/19/usa tcov-wtcsurvival.htm
"The World Trade Center had an excellent stair system, much better than required by building codes --- both when it was built 30 years ago and now. Each tower had three stairwells. New York City building codes require two."
"Stairways A and C, on opposite sides of the building's core, were 44 inches wide. In the center, Stairway B was 56 inches wide."
"The bigger the stairway, the faster an evacuation can proceed. In 44-inch stairways, a person must turn sideways to let another pass -- for example, a rescuer heading up. In a 56-inch stairway, two people can pass comfortably."
"The World Trade Center stairwells allowed thousands to get out despite panic and smoke."...
"On Feb. 26, 1993, terrorists exploded a bomb in a parking garage under the north tower. Six people died. The evacuation took nearly four hours in dark, smoky, poorly marked stairwells. Some people were stuck in elevators for 10 hours. The Port Authority made crucial improvements after that attack. The changes saved countless lives on Sept. 11."
"The Port Authority put reflective paint on stairs, railings and stairwell doors. It added bright arrows to guide people along corridors to stairway connections. It installed loudspeakers so building managers could talk to people in their offices as well as in hallways. It gave every disabled person an evacuation chair that would let two husky men carry them down stairs. One evacuation chair was used to carry a man down from the 67th floor."
"In the 1993 attack, the explosion knocked out the main power source, its backup and the fire-control command post. The Port Authority added a second source of power for safety equipment, such as fire alarms, emergency lighting and intercoms. It built two duplicate fire command posts, one in each tower. The Port Authority also put batteries in stairwell lights so a power failure wouldn't blacken the escape route. Overall, the improvements cost more than $90 million. Sprinklers, added before 1993, helped suppress fires."
"Most important, building management took evacuations seriously. Evacuation drills were held every six months, sometimes to the irritation or amusement of occupants. Each floor had "fire wardens," sometimes high-ranking executives of a tenant, and they were responsible for organizing an evacuation on their floors."
That article is a good checklist for anyone who works in a multi-story building.
802.11a devices all have a radiation warning in the documentation:
"It is the responibility of the installer and users of the Harmony 802.11a PCI Card Model 8150 to guarantee that the antennas are operated at least 20 centimeters from any person. This is necessary to insure that te product is operated in accordance with the RF Guidelines for Human Exposure which have been adopted by the Federal Communications Commission."
http://www.proxim.com/support/all/harmony/manuals/ pdf/8x50man01.pdf
802.11b devices run at a lower power and do not have that warning.
"Jules Olsman, '78, a partner in the Farmington Hills, Michigan, firm of Olsman, Ganos & Mueller, has distinguished himself in nursing home litigation and long-term care issues. Trying cases that involve vulnerable adults, Olsman is proud that he and his colleagues have been able to raise the bar on how lawyers, judges and juries look at older plaintiffs....people "aren't worth less money, aren't worth less to the family and aren't worth less to society because they're older. Lives shouldn't be diminished by age or physical maladies."
Hope he recovers the money from the bank that was doing the money transfers...
"Olsman's lawyer, Mayer Morganroth of Southfield, said the forms the bank used to make the transfers clearly indicated that the manager should have called the law firm to verify the transfers. Olsman said his insurance won't cover the loss, but that he plans to make good on the losses: "Not one client of our law firm will be out one penny." He also said he plans to sue the bank. "
BTW, this is the Berkley in Michigan, not the Berkeley (with an extra 'e') in California. Despite beliefs there, UCBerkeley is not the center of the universe. Smile.
If you can't afford the cost of getting the patent, how will you afford the much greater cost of suing an infringer? A patent is just a license to sue. If you read the history of major individual patents (like the Sears adjustable wrench case), you find that the inventor has to sell almost all of his interest in the patent to someone else who bankrolls the lawsuits.
As pointed out earlier, writing the claims is a very tricky technical art -- the claims are the key to the strength of the patent. You need an expert for that.
Be sure to evaluate trade secret protection and other alternatives.
I hold one patent via corporate employment. As someone said, it looks great on the resume.
My grandfather had three electrical and electronics patents and only made money by building one of the products himself for the local market -- the patents were a terrible drain of time, money, and grief for him and his family.
In my opinion, patents are for corporations to swap with each other. They are a source of heartbreak for individuals who don't have the resources to defend them.
A wise support guy I used to work with said: "You don't buy a computer, you rent it." Determine how long you expect the keep the item and divide that into the price. Then decide -- is this worth $x per month to me?
"I find it annoying that most record store chains have higher prices than discount stores. I know it is a chicken and egg problem based on supply and demand, but I'm talking about nationwide chains, in every mall in America."
Mall rentals are incredibly high. They charge ground rent and a percentage of the gross. Malls are designed for shopping as entertainment -- not shopping as purchase.
Go to a teaching school if you want to learn from the classes -- not a research school.
I went to San Jose State University, which is a teaching school -- it was an excellent experience.
After my MSEE, I took some Stanford classes and was very disappointed. A few fine teachers; the rest were world-renowned theoreticians who couldn't teach or starving grad students interrupted from their military research projects.
The Intel Web site is misleading at the higher levels- with many references to broadband as though that has anything to do with the P4 http://www.intel.com/home/index.htm
"Get the Perfect Combination "Experience the digital world like never before with a Pentium 4 processor-based PC and broadband technology."
There there are comparisons which turn out to be to 500 MHz P-III systems: http://www.intel.com/home/tech/broadband /benchmark s.htm
"These advancements enable a Pentium 4 processor-based PC to: * Provide 2 to 3 times higher performance for media-intensive broadband content * Convert songs into MP3 format 6 times quicker than the fastest PCs of three years ago * Perform almost 5 times better when editing MPEG-4 videos * Produce almost 7 times higher frame rates when running today's online games"
Finally pretty honest at the spec sheet farther down: http://www.intel.com/home/desktop/pentium4/ tech_in fo.htm
"The Pentium 4 processor delivers maximum performance for: * Cutting-edge Internet technologies such as streaming video and MP3 audio * Quickly creating, editing and sharing professional-quality photos and video * The ultimate gaming platform for immersive 3D experiences * Internet technologies such as Java*, streaming audio and video, 3D, and Web animation * Multi-tasking environments * Background tasks such as real-time virus checking, encryption, compression, and e-mail synchronization * Reduced compiling and rendering times for multimedia applications * Longevity and headroom for future technologies and innovations * Operation of Windows® XP operating system
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks!
The system has 160Mb, which is the max for it. For my next system, I will look for one that takes more RAM.
The Win98 never crashes (except for the rare shutdown hang.) It does crash if I fiddle with the swapfile size or turn it off. Like you say, instability. I do run Norton WinDoctor regularly to clean up the registry.
I don't think I want to go back to 95 in order to gain more space, but it is an interesting idea.
I will look into a minimal XP installation with no swapfile.
Best thing is to stop keeping so many unused apps and unused files on the system! I have IE set to keep only 0 days worth of history. And use Norton Clean Sweep once in a while. Mijenix SizeManager is very helpful on this. Amazing the redundant, old, and usused junk that collects in a Win system.
By the way, I back up the key files online to a small TypeII PCCard Sandisk and, of course, offline.
Thanks again for the insight.
Sandisks are not fast. Especially if the drive in fragmented. Works fine for my surfing, e-mail, word processing.
It is a Sandisk FlashDrive that drops in the system in place of the 3.5" IDE hard drive. Physically it is a Type III ATA PCMCIA card which comes from Sandisk with a heavy metal adapter.
There are other brands as well. Sold for industrial controllers and aerospace/military applications.
If you already have a PCCard ATA unit --- I did not see the adapter anywhere on the Sandisk site but I expect that it is orderable as a repair part somehow. You'd probably have to call the Sandisk support folks. Have not looked explicitly for it, but I have never noticed an adaptor like that listed anywhere. It is a very simple connector and frame assembly with few electrical components.
Check the industrial section of their Website for details. The FlashDrive is an industrial product, not a consumer product, so it is expensive and hard to get. I got mine from Bell Microproducts. Google the various part numbers (they come in different temperature grades) to see who else has it or will order it for you. I remember that either PCConnection, CDW, or Insight listed them as special order at a high price.
Yesterday I was listening to a mockingbird while using this system indoors...
_Never_ put swap on a flash drive of any kind.
Please explain why. Any other reason aside from the obvious performance issue?
Anyhow, I am stuck with it on Win98. When I tried setting virtual memory to 0 or to a small value either Win98 or an app would sooner or later get upset.
Thanks
I have a 1GB Sandisk FlashDrive in this notebook. It a type3 PCCard in a metal frame that has a 3.5" IDE form factor, so it fits instead of the hard drive. It is wonderful.
I do have to be careful about space and it is a little slow. Very important to defrag regularly, speed drops greatly with fragmentation. I'm using Win98 to save space. Unfortunately, it will not run with Win's Virtual Memory set low or to zero. It can be tricky to format the drive.
Love the silence.
http://www.sandisk.com/oem/flashdrive.asp
I found with my laptops that the position of my hand with respect to the antenna affects link quality.
On one laptop, the PCCard slot is toward the rear of the machine, so there is normally no effect unless I move my hand way over.
On the other laptop, the PCCard slot is toward the front and I have to watch that I don't have my hand resting over the antenna when I am not typing.
To check this, pull of the Link Info screen of your Wireless LAN Configuration Utility and watch the bar graphs as you move your hand.
...that's why it has so many of them.
BTW, anybody know who originally said this many many years ago?
You didn't believe me?o brato.html
http://www.devconconstruction.com/
exodus-s
The real reason for the move is that they wanted their disk drives to be in a building that looked like a disk drive.
Can't you guys read? The article says:
"During the first two years of the curriculum, about 70 percent of the students' time would be taken up by distance learning, and the remainder by working in a community setting like a clinic or hospital. After that, the proportions would shift to about 30 percent computer-based learning and 70 percent working in a practice setting. "
As I said, I was talking about ordinary fires, not airplane attacks.
Only one of the three stairwells was wide enough to allow firefighters to go up during an evacuation. How do you fight an ordinary fire in such a building?
Most tape decks require you to press play and record at the same time to ensure that you don't accidentally record when you don't mean to. My Sony's have a red line printed on the front panel that links the two buttons as a reminder.
Making it easy to accidentally record when you mean to play is very bad usability design.
Q: "Is there anything that could have been done in design terms to stop 11 September from happening?"
1 /12/19/usa tcov-wtcsurvival.htm
...
A: "I don't think so. As far as I can tell, no mistakes were made."
How about 110-story buildings with three stairwells each?
Only one of the three stairwells was wide enough to allow firefighters to go up during an evacuation. How do you fight an ordinary fire in such a building?
According to USA Today, "Nearly everyone who could get out did get out." But the buildings were only half-full. "That took pressure off the stairwells."
At any rate, there are lessons for anyone who works in a tall building from this article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/200
"The World Trade Center had an excellent stair system, much better than required by building codes --- both when it was built 30 years ago and now. Each tower had three stairwells. New York City building codes require two."
"Stairways A and C, on opposite sides of the building's core, were 44 inches wide. In the center, Stairway B was 56 inches wide."
"The bigger the stairway, the faster an evacuation can proceed. In 44-inch stairways, a person must turn sideways to let another pass -- for example, a rescuer heading up. In a 56-inch stairway, two people can pass comfortably."
"The World Trade Center stairwells allowed thousands to get out despite panic and smoke."
"On Feb. 26, 1993, terrorists exploded a bomb in a parking garage under the north tower. Six people died. The evacuation took nearly four hours in dark, smoky, poorly marked stairwells. Some people were stuck in elevators for 10 hours. The Port Authority made crucial improvements after that attack. The changes saved countless lives on Sept. 11."
"The Port Authority put reflective paint on stairs, railings and stairwell doors. It added bright arrows to guide people along corridors to stairway connections. It installed loudspeakers so building managers could talk to people in their offices as well as in hallways. It gave every disabled person an evacuation chair that would let two husky men carry them down stairs. One evacuation chair was used to carry a man down from the 67th floor."
"In the 1993 attack, the explosion knocked out the main power source, its backup and the fire-control command post. The Port Authority added a second source of power for safety equipment, such as fire alarms, emergency lighting and intercoms. It built two duplicate fire command posts, one in each tower. The Port Authority also put batteries in stairwell lights so a power failure wouldn't blacken the escape route. Overall, the improvements cost more than $90 million. Sprinklers, added before 1993, helped suppress fires."
"Most important, building management took evacuations seriously. Evacuation drills were held every six months, sometimes to the irritation or amusement of occupants. Each floor had "fire wardens," sometimes high-ranking executives of a tenant, and they were responsible for organizing an evacuation on their floors."
That article is a good checklist for anyone who works in a multi-story building.
802.11a devices all have a radiation warning in the documentation:
/ pdf/8x50man01.pdf
"It is the responibility of the installer and users of the Harmony 802.11a PCI Card Model 8150 to guarantee that the antennas are operated at least 20 centimeters from any person. This is necessary to insure that te product is operated in accordance with the RF Guidelines for Human Exposure which have been adopted by the Federal Communications Commission."
http://www.proxim.com/support/all/harmony/manuals
802.11b devices run at a lower power and do not have that warning.
How do you keep a PC Card 20cm from your body?
The victim's employer sounds like a good man...
...people "aren't worth less money, aren't worth less to the family and aren't worth less to society because they're older. Lives shouldn't be diminished by age or physical maladies."
"Jules Olsman, '78, a partner in the Farmington Hills, Michigan, firm of Olsman, Ganos & Mueller, has distinguished himself in nursing home litigation and long-term care issues. Trying cases that involve vulnerable adults, Olsman is proud that he and his colleagues have been able to raise the bar on how lawyers, judges and juries look at older plaintiffs.
Hope he recovers the money from the bank that was doing the money transfers...
"Olsman's lawyer, Mayer Morganroth of Southfield, said the forms the bank used to make the transfers clearly indicated that the manager should have called the law firm to verify the transfers. Olsman said his insurance won't cover the loss, but that he plans to make good on the losses: "Not one client of our law firm will be out one penny." He also said he plans to sue the bank. "
BTW, this is the Berkley in Michigan, not the Berkeley (with an extra 'e') in California. Despite beliefs there, UCBerkeley is not the center of the universe. Smile.
Agrees with my experience. Should be a 5.
And to add further credibility, the HP article is sponsored by "Beautiful, Single, and Online"
If you can't afford the cost of getting the patent, how will you afford the much greater cost of suing an infringer? A patent is just a license to sue. If you read the history of major individual patents (like the Sears adjustable wrench case), you find that the inventor has to sell almost all of his interest in the patent to someone else who bankrolls the lawsuits.
As pointed out earlier, writing the claims is a very tricky technical art -- the claims are the key to the strength of the patent. You need an expert for that.
Be sure to evaluate trade secret protection and other alternatives.
I hold one patent via corporate employment. As someone said, it looks great on the resume.
My grandfather had three electrical and electronics patents and only made money by building one of the products himself for the local market -- the patents were a terrible drain of time, money, and grief for him and his family.
In my opinion, patents are for corporations to swap with each other. They are a source of heartbreak for individuals who don't have the resources to defend them.
A wise support guy I used to work with said: "You don't buy a computer, you rent it." Determine how long you expect the keep the item and divide that into the price. Then decide -- is this worth $x per month to me?
"I find it annoying that most record store chains have higher prices than discount stores. I know it is a chicken and egg problem based on supply and demand, but I'm talking about nationwide chains, in every mall in America."
Mall rentals are incredibly high. They charge ground rent and a percentage of the gross. Malls are designed for shopping as entertainment -- not shopping as purchase.
Go to a teaching school if you want to learn from the classes -- not a research school.
I went to San Jose State University, which is a teaching school -- it was an excellent experience.
After my MSEE, I took some Stanford classes and was very disappointed. A few fine teachers; the rest were world-renowned theoreticians who couldn't teach or starving grad students interrupted from their military research projects.
I'm registered and have never gotten any spam from NYTimes. A real class outfit.
The Intel Web site is misleading at the higher levels- with many references to broadband as though that has anything to do with the P4
d /benchmark s.htm
/ tech_in fo.htm
http://www.intel.com/home/index.htm
"Get the Perfect Combination
"Experience the digital world like never before with a Pentium 4 processor-based PC and broadband technology."
There there are comparisons which turn out to be to 500 MHz P-III systems:
http://www.intel.com/home/tech/broadban
"These advancements enable a Pentium 4 processor-based PC to:
* Provide 2 to 3 times higher performance for media-intensive broadband content
* Convert songs into MP3 format 6 times quicker than the fastest PCs of three years ago
* Perform almost 5 times better when editing MPEG-4 videos
* Produce almost 7 times higher frame rates when running today's online games"
Finally pretty honest at the spec sheet farther down:
http://www.intel.com/home/desktop/pentium4
"The Pentium 4 processor delivers maximum performance for:
* Cutting-edge Internet technologies such as streaming video and MP3 audio
* Quickly creating, editing and sharing professional-quality photos and video
* The ultimate gaming platform for immersive 3D experiences
* Internet technologies such as Java*, streaming audio and video, 3D, and Web animation
* Multi-tasking environments
* Background tasks such as real-time virus checking, encryption, compression, and e-mail synchronization
* Reduced compiling and rendering times for multimedia applications
* Longevity and headroom for future technologies and innovations
* Operation of Windows® XP operating system
Cute.