One room to rule them all,
One room to find them,
One room to bring them all,
and in the Darkness bind them.
Bonus points: Name the servers after the members of the Fellowship.
(You just crashed Frodo! ARGHHH!)
Due to dietary constraints (my family has Celiac disease, so we can't eat wheat, barley, rye, oats, or any derivatives thereof), my family has to make most of our own food. Since I'm the resident geek, I dug through my spartan computer stockpile and came up with a Compaq Concerto laptop. It's 486/33MHz, and it's unique in the fact that it was intended to be a tablet-type computer. The guts are behind the 256 greyscale 640x480 screen, and the keyboard is loosely hinged and can even be removed (when you remove it, you get another PS/2 port). The screen/guts section is held up by a sort of a stand that folds out. The screen is a inductive (I think that's the right term, it's not resistive) touch screen that needs a pen I don't have, but it's got a spare PS/2 port for a handy mouse. With a floppy drive, 4 (or 8, maybe) megs of memory, 300 megabyte-ish hard drive, and 2 PCMCIA slots, it's a rather slick piece of retro computing.
For software, I've got Windows 95a (it was hard enough to install that over floppies, and I don't have a linux compatible PCMCIA network card), and AbiWord for recipes. No fancy databases here, just a folder for the recipe files, and a naming convention for the files themselves. (Food category, food name. Ex: Pizza, thin crust. or Cake, Mayonaisse chocolate).
That little computer is the most complemented and congratulated computer in my house, and we have no lack of them. After making a recipe, just click the little switch to flip it to a quick standby, fold the keyboard up, and it's nearly footprint-free, due to it's easel type stand.
I say, think about what you want it to go, and don't over-estimate it. Do you really need it to be a big whiz-bang system? Or, would a simple little older computer like this one work better? (It could go online, over a network card. Phoenix, a web browser project related to Mozilla, would probably work. (Don't quote me on that, haven't tried, though I use Phoenix for my day-to-day browsing) br?
In summary, don't overestimate your needs, and don't be afraid to look for older, but viable, solutions. Plus, if you find a Compaq Concerto, either use it, or give it to me.:-)
or rather, their misplaced faith! Seems mighty foolish to me for big corporations to threaten legal action against people merely because of what a (potentially buggy, and clearly imprecise) computer program tells them, without even reviewing the results. Sadly, it shows just how secure the RIAA etc are feeling with their (ill-gotten?) billions and trained attack lawyers.
(don't hold it against me, but I wonder if the search tools have buffer overflows. hmm.)
Anyone know what programs they use, besides Ranger? I'd be interested in what those companies have to say. Please reply with any info.
This is a great idea, but must follow a few guidelines, otherwise the TV industry will strike down the entire concept. Everything MUST be original, because if any of it at all is copyrighted by someone else, the TV industry will label it as the "TV Napster", and that'll be another entirely legal and intriguing concept, down the drain. That would be my greatest concern.
For hardware: I don't know if you want to use Linux or xxxxBSD, but I know that the ATi All-In-Wonder cards work great for digitizing video under Windows. Could be a cheaper solution than buying a digital video camera. Perhaps even a Hauppage WinTV card with a VCR to turn your SVideo into Coax. Anyone with more experience on these cards care to comment on their *nix compatability?
I'd say something that could be useful is embedding the stream in a web page, where in the bottom you could have a scrollable schedule, somewhat like the TV Guide channel on cable does. Don't forget a drop down box for time zone. And, as this will be new, consumers will likely want something altogether better than TV aka few/less intrusive ads. Don't sell out.
I just got back from a visit to Walt Disney World in Florida, and in Epcot, there was a staff member roaming around between Innoventions (basically like the first thing you see once you're past the golf ball aka spaceship earth) on a Segway. It even said Segway down between the wheels. Another member of my party took a picture of me standing next to this guy on the segway, with his hands completely off the handles. It was very cool. Later, I saw someone selling souvinirs from one. I guess Disney has the buying power to get them long before the general public
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One room to rule them all, One room to find them, One room to bring them all, and in the Darkness bind them. Bonus points: Name the servers after the members of the Fellowship. (You just crashed Frodo! ARGHHH!)
Due to dietary constraints (my family has Celiac disease, so we can't eat wheat, barley, rye, oats, or any derivatives thereof), my family has to make most of our own food. Since I'm the resident geek, I dug through my spartan computer stockpile and came up with a Compaq Concerto laptop. It's 486/33MHz, and it's unique in the fact that it was intended to be a tablet-type computer. The guts are behind the 256 greyscale 640x480 screen, and the keyboard is loosely hinged and can even be removed (when you remove it, you get another PS/2 port). The screen/guts section is held up by a sort of a stand that folds out. The screen is a inductive (I think that's the right term, it's not resistive) touch screen that needs a pen I don't have, but it's got a spare PS/2 port for a handy mouse. With a floppy drive, 4 (or 8, maybe) megs of memory, 300 megabyte-ish hard drive, and 2 PCMCIA slots, it's a rather slick piece of retro computing.
:-)
For software, I've got Windows 95a (it was hard enough to install that over floppies, and I don't have a linux compatible PCMCIA network card), and AbiWord for recipes. No fancy databases here, just a folder for the recipe files, and a naming convention for the files themselves. (Food category, food name. Ex: Pizza, thin crust. or Cake, Mayonaisse chocolate).
That little computer is the most complemented and congratulated computer in my house, and we have no lack of them. After making a recipe, just click the little switch to flip it to a quick standby, fold the keyboard up, and it's nearly footprint-free, due to it's easel type stand.
I say, think about what you want it to go, and don't over-estimate it. Do you really need it to be a big whiz-bang system? Or, would a simple little older computer like this one work better? (It could go online, over a network card. Phoenix, a web browser project related to Mozilla, would probably work. (Don't quote me on that, haven't tried, though I use Phoenix for my day-to-day browsing)
br? In summary, don't overestimate your needs, and don't be afraid to look for older, but viable, solutions. Plus, if you find a Compaq Concerto, either use it, or give it to me.
or rather, their misplaced faith! Seems mighty foolish to me for big corporations to threaten legal action against people merely because of what a (potentially buggy, and clearly imprecise) computer program tells them, without even reviewing the results. Sadly, it shows just how secure the RIAA etc are feeling with their (ill-gotten?) billions and trained attack lawyers.
(don't hold it against me, but I wonder if the search tools have buffer overflows. hmm.)
Anyone know what programs they use, besides Ranger? I'd be interested in what those companies have to say. Please reply with any info.
This is a great idea, but must follow a few guidelines, otherwise the TV industry will strike down the entire concept. Everything MUST be original, because if any of it at all is copyrighted by someone else, the TV industry will label it as the "TV Napster", and that'll be another entirely legal and intriguing concept, down the drain. That would be my greatest concern.
For hardware: I don't know if you want to use Linux or xxxxBSD, but I know that the ATi All-In-Wonder cards work great for digitizing video under Windows. Could be a cheaper solution than buying a digital video camera. Perhaps even a Hauppage WinTV card with a VCR to turn your SVideo into Coax. Anyone with more experience on these cards care to comment on their *nix compatability?
I'd say something that could be useful is embedding the stream in a web page, where in the bottom you could have a scrollable schedule, somewhat like the TV Guide channel on cable does. Don't forget a drop down box for time zone. And, as this will be new, consumers will likely want something altogether better than TV aka few/less intrusive ads. Don't sell out.
Great idea, and I encourage you to pursue it!
I just got back from a visit to Walt Disney World in Florida, and in Epcot, there was a staff member roaming around between Innoventions (basically like the first thing you see once you're past the golf ball aka spaceship earth) on a Segway. It even said Segway down between the wheels. Another member of my party took a picture of me standing next to this guy on the segway, with his hands completely off the handles. It was very cool. Later, I saw someone selling souvinirs from one. I guess Disney has the buying power to get them long before the general public