In the last week or so, I've stumbled on two totally independent sites that were basically exports of either large chunks or the entirety of the Wikipedia with some banners and Adsense ads for revenue.
It rather irks me... of course, they're well within their rights, since the Wikipedia is some type of free license.
I would speculate that the Wikipedia would get more in ad revenue from AdSense than they would be able to fetch in grants - unless we're talking about really big grants.
Most (all?) of the VNC derivatives inherited the VNC Client "Listen" mode and VNC Server side "Add Client" command. I've used these a couple times when the other person has (or I suspect has!) a NAT to get through.
Assuming that you can configure the forwarding on your personal network correctly (I think listen mode is port 5400, but look it up), you can set your workstation to "Listen" for new VNC connections from your client's computer. Your client initiates the connection from their VNC Server program - right click, yada, enter remote support IP address, yada, yada. This nicely solves most of the common networking/port forwarding issues. It's also a heck of a lot easier than stepping someone through logging into a router and setting up port forwarding. It's a good design choice that VNC uses a single port, or else this wouldn't work very well!
Personally, I could get by with a standard Knoppix CD if I really felt I needed the extra security for web browsing. So could the majority of slashdotters. But Knoppix would be a little tricky for the non-Linux user. So, I thought that a totally automated LiveCD for secure web browsing would be great for the average computer user - the very users who most frequently have spyware on their systems.
As I thought about the idea, I came up with a few major complications:
Many people are still on dialup or have weird login processes to get internet access - not the simple DHCP that I have at home and work. Most modems are of the "winmodem" variety, PPOE is often a mystery even in Windows, and let's not forget AOL's proprietaryness.
Then I thought about printers. Invariably, you'll want a hard copy of some sort of banking transaction. That should prove to be lots of fun to get working. Unfortunately, most folks don't have Postscript printers at home, and text mode won't cut it. So printer drivers and settings will be an issue.
Assuming you could step the average user through the two biggest troublespots above (and assuming there are NO other problems, yeah right) using a LiveCD without saving the configuration somewhere would become tiresome very quickly. So, some local storage would be required, i.e. hard drive, USB drive, or perhaps a floppy. So, saving configuration information somewhere should prove to be even more fun for Linux newbies.
Some other things to consider: access to email (if you're not using webmail), the time to cycle between Linux and Windows (LiveCD's are "fast" when you're in a jam, but I wouldn't want to boot one everyday just to spend 10 minutes on my Bank's website!), web browser compatibility (depends on the bank), Personal Finance Software (what's the point in all this if Quicken or MS Money is going to connect through a suspect Windows installation anyways?).
In the end, I just didn't see any easy way for the average computer user to have access to something like this - at least not until internet connection technologies get a lot more standardized or someone is willing to do a LOT of work on the Linux distribution side. I became disenchanted with the idea and forgot about it... until this Ask Slashdot. Well, that's my CAD 0.02 - it's a good question/idea, and I hope that someone else has a more positive answer.
Compressing to make sounds "louder" is the same thing that many (most?!) advertisers do with TV ads. They have exactly the same bandwidth and signal to work with as your regular programming, yet they certainly are able to "sound" louder to catch your attention. Same process, different application.
I'm not an expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Here's an example:
Chances are that when I visit slashdot.org I will want to read a few articles from the front page. My browser could get a head start on it, and prefetch the pages for the Articles when I first visit/.
Granted, this will waste bandwidth. However, it would also improve web "responsiveness" a lot for dialup users. Perhaps it would be prudent to disable this feature by default, and let modem users enable it. This would certainly be better than the browsing accelerators from a few years back that didn't consider the different "types" of links and just downloaded everything in sight.
Do not send prototypes to Pakistan for testing. =)
...the project was delayed when his only prototype of the turbine was lost several years ago after being sent to Pakistan for testing. "I'm still not sure how you lose a package that large," he said during a presentation to a group...
I wonder why they went that far for testing anyway?
I thought PCB's were a big pollution issue in most of the developed world? Anyway, it's a class of chemicals. Here's the wiki link: Polychlorinated biphenyl. They build up in the food chain - I think. Anyway, the Wiki article knows more than I do.
Hydro is so abundant here that we only have to import 10% of our power needs! =)
That's right, we're power importers in BC. We're just lucky that BC Hydro can literally turn on and off the generators with next to no cost. This lets them, and eventually us, benefit from high priced exports when there's peak power demand elsewhere, balanced against larger amounts of relatively cheap imported power at off-peak times.
I guess my point would be, don't be too proud of power being mostly "clean" hydro - it may not stay that way forever.
In the Windows NT family you can use "start" and some command line switches to set the priority. I'm sure you can find utilities to do this to running processes too.
An alternative that I used when I first used FreeDOS (actually, possibly the only time that I've used FreeDOS) was to use a FreeDOS bootable ISO and keep the flash update file on a FAT32 partition from which FreeDOS had no problems reading. This makes it easy to use the same boot CD for whatever Flash updates are required in the future.
But keeping a console up to date is not nearly as troublesome as it on a PC. I can count the total number of XBox Revisions on one hand - I'm guessing, but it's a pretty safe guess. This compares to PC's where updates are a nightmare because there are an almost infinite number of software and hardware and configuration combinations. Windows (and Linux) are just awful in comparison to consoles. Mac's are somewhat better, since most stuff is made by, or approved by Apple.
So, back to my point... updating a console wouldn't be that bad. Of course, if the initial product is buggy to the point of frustration, then it's a whole different issue.
I've got one of these too. I got it for around the same cost, after counting for the exchange rate.
It has served me well. Almost every NEW DivX file that I throw at it plays with no problems. It doesn't like a lot of the old DivX3 files though.
Be warned, it is flash upgradable, BUT they've only released one (flakey, by many reports) update and they don't intend to release any future upgrades. I wonder if it's hackable...
I also wish the MP3 playing functions were smarter. Really, who wants to listen to CD full of 100 MP3's from start to finish OR listen to a single MP3 from the middle of the alpha sort and then stop.
I'm a little behind in my GNOME versions... so I had to dig up this short article with pictures of this spatial mumbo-jumbo.
Here I was imagining the weird virtual reality type file navigation in Jurassic Park, but no, it's just another file browser - albeit one that is somewhat more like Explorer in recent versions of Windows.
I really don't see the fuss, it's not like anyone's forcing GNOME 2.6 on anyone. No button to turn off the feature? If it is that big of a deal, then someone will create said button... it ain't rocket science.
Slashdotted by the time I got to it; however, this has got to be one of the fastest BitTorrent recoveries that I've ever seen. I ended up with about 1 MBit down on average from BT. Very, very, impressive.
BT is simply amazing at ad-hoc file distribution tasks like this one. Only a year ago we'd have all been begging for mirrors (which invariably wouldn't keep up either).
If someone thinks that the recipient hasn't received the message, they can send a followup. No biggie. This service, if programmed properly, doesn't have false positives - so, for a lot of people, it could be useful. Unfortunately, going forward, it will be less and less useful as email services and spam filters and antivirus programs start filtering out linked images.
No, this isn't new... a friend of mine was using a similar service at least two years ago. I can't recall the exact site though.
...and NEVER let your dad (or any Luser) with a root/administrator account...btw, he's still using 98...
is a bit of an oxymoron. Windows 98 has 0 security features.
Your point, however, is excellent for those on NT/2K/XP. I can only imagine how much crap has not been downloaded b/c my Dad doesn't get admin rights on the PC's around here. It's too bad so many programs are poorly designed with respect to limited accounts - if I have to fuss with file/registry permissions for another program...
A lot of previous comments wonder how well a 747 will handle mountainous terrain. Well that got me wondering, does it have to be a stock plane? Perhaps there are some relatively simple modifications that will help a 747 maneuver a better in tight airspaces. Maybe an extra engine or bigger flaps, or -- as another poster has already mentioned -- not fill the entire plane to capacity.
Also, a cost note. Aren't there a 1000-odd planes parked in the Nevada desert? I have no idea how many are 747's, but there must be a few. So using a 747 may be a lot more cost effective than designing a new plane or buying existing water bomber.
Yeah, I've been thinking it's about time for in-home DC circuits as well. It's stupid the number of wall warts that are around the house - for most devices, the wall warts WASTE more energy than the device even uses.
A smaller connector would be a nice side benefit too.
I'll vouch for Bart's PE as a great tool. It does take a while to assemble and build your boot CD - for licensing issues, you can't just "download an ISO". But, if you're looking for a way to easily get your friends and family off your back... this is a good way to go.
There are extra benefits to using a boot CD versus a regular software install of anti-spyware. Since you're not booting from the hard drive, there's no chance for spyware launch "watcher" processes to prevent anti-spyware programs from installing or launching. While you're at it, you might as well pop a virus scanner on the CD, for similar reasons.
As an aside, even though Bart's PE should have perfect NTFS abilities, when it comes to recovering data from damaged filesystems, Knoppix often works better - probably because it mounts read-only or something.
I happened to be playing with coLinux for the first time this afternoon (beating the/.'ing for once...). There are two distributions "images" available from coLinux, and it sounds like the changes to get any distribution working within coLinux are quite minimal (I think it's mostly setting up the virtualized hardware drivers...).
It works easier than I expected. And it really does use regular binares. For instance, I've just installed X and KDE from the regular Debian package repositories.
I tend to think of this as a specialized, i.e. Linux Only, alternative to a VMWARE for Windows license. Free, and moderately easy to install - I'm sure that in time, it'll be a lot easier to setup.
Slashdot Mirror
In the last week or so, I've stumbled on two totally independent sites that were basically exports of either large chunks or the entirety of the Wikipedia with some banners and Adsense ads for revenue.
It rather irks me... of course, they're well within their rights, since the Wikipedia is some type of free license.
I would speculate that the Wikipedia would get more in ad revenue from AdSense than they would be able to fetch in grants - unless we're talking about really big grants.
Most (all?) of the VNC derivatives inherited the VNC Client "Listen" mode and VNC Server side "Add Client" command. I've used these a couple times when the other person has (or I suspect has!) a NAT to get through.
Assuming that you can configure the forwarding on your personal network correctly (I think listen mode is port 5400, but look it up), you can set your workstation to "Listen" for new VNC connections from your client's computer. Your client initiates the connection from their VNC Server program - right click, yada, enter remote support IP address, yada, yada. This nicely solves most of the common networking/port forwarding issues. It's also a heck of a lot easier than stepping someone through logging into a router and setting up port forwarding. It's a good design choice that VNC uses a single port, or else this wouldn't work very well!
in compass manufactures! =)
Personally, I could get by with a standard Knoppix CD if I really felt I needed the extra security for web browsing. So could the majority of slashdotters. But Knoppix would be a little tricky for the non-Linux user. So, I thought that a totally automated LiveCD for secure web browsing would be great for the average computer user - the very users who most frequently have spyware on their systems.
As I thought about the idea, I came up with a few major complications:
Many people are still on dialup or have weird login processes to get internet access - not the simple DHCP that I have at home and work. Most modems are of the "winmodem" variety, PPOE is often a mystery even in Windows, and let's not forget AOL's proprietaryness.
Then I thought about printers. Invariably, you'll want a hard copy of some sort of banking transaction. That should prove to be lots of fun to get working. Unfortunately, most folks don't have Postscript printers at home, and text mode won't cut it. So printer drivers and settings will be an issue.
Assuming you could step the average user through the two biggest troublespots above (and assuming there are NO other problems, yeah right) using a LiveCD without saving the configuration somewhere would become tiresome very quickly. So, some local storage would be required, i.e. hard drive, USB drive, or perhaps a floppy. So, saving configuration information somewhere should prove to be even more fun for Linux newbies.
Some other things to consider: access to email (if you're not using webmail), the time to cycle between Linux and Windows (LiveCD's are "fast" when you're in a jam, but I wouldn't want to boot one everyday just to spend 10 minutes on my Bank's website!), web browser compatibility (depends on the bank), Personal Finance Software (what's the point in all this if Quicken or MS Money is going to connect through a suspect Windows installation anyways?).
In the end, I just didn't see any easy way for the average computer user to have access to something like this - at least not until internet connection technologies get a lot more standardized or someone is willing to do a LOT of work on the Linux distribution side. I became disenchanted with the idea and forgot about it... until this Ask Slashdot. Well, that's my CAD 0.02 - it's a good question/idea, and I hope that someone else has a more positive answer.
Compressing to make sounds "louder" is the same thing that many (most?!) advertisers do with TV ads. They have exactly the same bandwidth and signal to work with as your regular programming, yet they certainly are able to "sound" louder to catch your attention. Same process, different application.
I'm not an expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Here's an example: /.
Chances are that when I visit slashdot.org I will want to read a few articles from the front page. My browser could get a head start on it, and prefetch the pages for the Articles when I first visit
Granted, this will waste bandwidth. However, it would also improve web "responsiveness" a lot for dialup users. Perhaps it would be prudent to disable this feature by default, and let modem users enable it. This would certainly be better than the browsing accelerators from a few years back that didn't consider the different "types" of links and just downloaded everything in sight.
I wonder why they went that far for testing anyway?
I thought PCB's were a big pollution issue in most of the developed world? Anyway, it's a class of chemicals. Here's the wiki link: Polychlorinated biphenyl. They build up in the food chain - I think. Anyway, the Wiki article knows more than I do.
Hydro is so abundant here that we only have to import 10% of our power needs! =)
That's right, we're power importers in BC. We're just lucky that BC Hydro can literally turn on and off the generators with next to no cost. This lets them, and eventually us, benefit from high priced exports when there's peak power demand elsewhere, balanced against larger amounts of relatively cheap imported power at off-peak times.
I guess my point would be, don't be too proud of power being mostly "clean" hydro - it may not stay that way forever.
In the Windows NT family you can use "start" and some command line switches to set the priority.
I'm sure you can find utilities to do this to running processes too.
Probably. I've used it once to flash a MB. It was a bootable CD too. YMMV.
An alternative that I used when I first used FreeDOS (actually, possibly the only time that I've used FreeDOS) was to use a FreeDOS bootable ISO and keep the flash update file on a FAT32 partition from which FreeDOS had no problems reading. This makes it easy to use the same boot CD for whatever Flash updates are required in the future.
But keeping a console up to date is not nearly as troublesome as it on a PC. I can count the total number of XBox Revisions on one hand - I'm guessing, but it's a pretty safe guess. This compares to PC's where updates are a nightmare because there are an almost infinite number of software and hardware and configuration combinations. Windows (and Linux) are just awful in comparison to consoles. Mac's are somewhat better, since most stuff is made by, or approved by Apple.
So, back to my point... updating a console wouldn't be that bad. Of course, if the initial product is buggy to the point of frustration, then it's a whole different issue.
I thought they were going to clean it up and prep it for launch! Now that would have been worth reading about... =)
I've got one of these too. I got it for around the same cost, after counting for the exchange rate.
It has served me well. Almost every NEW DivX file that I throw at it plays with no problems. It doesn't like a lot of the old DivX3 files though.
Be warned, it is flash upgradable, BUT they've only released one (flakey, by many reports) update and they don't intend to release any future upgrades. I wonder if it's hackable...
I also wish the MP3 playing functions were smarter. Really, who wants to listen to CD full of 100 MP3's from start to finish OR listen to a single MP3 from the middle of the alpha sort and then stop.
it's actually been working that way for about a month for my account... 4000+ spam sitting there now (Unfortunately, probably a few real emails too.)
I'm a little behind in my GNOME versions... so I had to dig up this short article with pictures of this spatial mumbo-jumbo. Here I was imagining the weird virtual reality type file navigation in Jurassic Park, but no, it's just another file browser - albeit one that is somewhat more like Explorer in recent versions of Windows.
I really don't see the fuss, it's not like anyone's forcing GNOME 2.6 on anyone. No button to turn off the feature? If it is that big of a deal, then someone will create said button... it ain't rocket science.
Is it technically possible to put a small FPGA on the same chip as a regular processor? That would help multimedia "and other things"...
Slashdotted by the time I got to it; however, this has got to be one of the fastest BitTorrent recoveries that I've ever seen. I ended up with about 1 MBit down on average from BT. Very, very, impressive.
BT is simply amazing at ad-hoc file distribution tasks like this one. Only a year ago we'd have all been begging for mirrors (which invariably wouldn't keep up either).
Ah well... go ahead and mod this as off-topic.
If someone thinks that the recipient hasn't received the message, they can send a followup. No biggie. This service, if programmed properly, doesn't have false positives - so, for a lot of people, it could be useful. Unfortunately, going forward, it will be less and less useful as email services and spam filters and antivirus programs start filtering out linked images.
No, this isn't new... a friend of mine was using a similar service at least two years ago. I can't recall the exact site though.
Your point, however, is excellent for those on NT/2K/XP. I can only imagine how much crap has not been downloaded b/c my Dad doesn't get admin rights on the PC's around here. It's too bad so many programs are poorly designed with respect to limited accounts - if I have to fuss with file/registry permissions for another program...
A lot of previous comments wonder how well a 747 will handle mountainous terrain. Well that got me wondering, does it have to be a stock plane? Perhaps there are some relatively simple modifications that will help a 747 maneuver a better in tight airspaces. Maybe an extra engine or bigger flaps, or -- as another poster has already mentioned -- not fill the entire plane to capacity.
Also, a cost note. Aren't there a 1000-odd planes parked in the Nevada desert? I have no idea how many are 747's, but there must be a few. So using a 747 may be a lot more cost effective than designing a new plane or buying existing water bomber.
Yeah, I've been thinking it's about time for in-home DC circuits as well. It's stupid the number of wall warts that are around the house - for most devices, the wall warts WASTE more energy than the device even uses.
A smaller connector would be a nice side benefit too.
Too bad my mod points expired...
I'll vouch for Bart's PE as a great tool. It does take a while to assemble and build your boot CD - for licensing issues, you can't just "download an ISO". But, if you're looking for a way to easily get your friends and family off your back... this is a good way to go.
There are extra benefits to using a boot CD versus a regular software install of anti-spyware. Since you're not booting from the hard drive, there's no chance for spyware launch "watcher" processes to prevent anti-spyware programs from installing or launching. While you're at it, you might as well pop a virus scanner on the CD, for similar reasons.
As an aside, even though Bart's PE should have perfect NTFS abilities, when it comes to recovering data from damaged filesystems, Knoppix often works better - probably because it mounts read-only or something.
And I might add that it seems to work too!
/.'ing for once...). There are two distributions "images" available from coLinux, and it sounds like the changes to get any distribution working within coLinux are quite minimal (I think it's mostly setting up the virtualized hardware drivers...).
I happened to be playing with coLinux for the first time this afternoon (beating the
It works easier than I expected. And it really does use regular binares. For instance, I've just installed X and KDE from the regular Debian package repositories.
I tend to think of this as a specialized, i.e. Linux Only, alternative to a VMWARE for Windows license. Free, and moderately easy to install - I'm sure that in time, it'll be a lot easier to setup.