Are you from an institution considering Blackboad or WebCT? Don't. It is the worst software that students and faculty can use. Don't believe me? Read all the other comments on/. and do a Google search.
I am a university student and several professors have been dilligently trying to upload files using WebCT for the better part of a week and its technical glitch after glitch and the stuff is not being posted up. This is a campus-wide issue. Shame to have wasted our tuition $$$'s on something I and a whole bunch of students rarely use.
I'm hopeful this with this merger, they decide to use an OSS management system. I could see a problem if the system was just a group of programmers getting together to make one. Since some systems have backing from Berkley and MIT, I would think that the university I attend would have used it.
I would be more in favor of separate systems. One to run quizzes, one for file transfers (hell there's something called FTP for that), another more secure one for grades (no grades are not on the WebCT thankfully). I can access most course-ountlines from other institutions from the WWW and using google searches and they're not on password protected servers. I don't see why institutions feel they should hide everything from others. A classroom discussion board would have been nice too.
1. The AAA and AA batteries will certainly enlarge the form factor. The slim form factor is quite nice. I'm willing to compromise on the size.
2. Battery life. I'm not expecting 50 or 2000 hours from the built-in batteries. That is unrealistic. However, my point about the built-in batteries (which I left out...oops!) is this: they tend to last one to two years (depending on usage patterns and if it was properly recharged).
The replacement batteries are costly almost 1/3 the cost of a new unit. I use rechargable Energizer batteries. The batteries also last about the same time but have 1000s of recharges. Replacement batteries are less than $10. The recharger is expensive but I can use it and the batteries on other devies. As well, pulling apart most of the iPods is a delicate operating. While I haven't pulled one apart, from shots I've seen on the Net and so fort, if you make a mistake you risk cracking the case or making it impossible to put back together again.
If Apple wants me to buy an Ipod, two things will convince me: longer battery life and use of AAA batteries.
10, 12 or 20 hours between charges is not acceptable for an MP3 player (w.o harddrive). Getting rid of the colour screen might help on the Nano. I've had 2 flash based MP3 players, all last 30 to 40 hours on one AAA or AA battery. The mini-Disc player (for which the software blows, thanks Sony!) laster upwards of 50 hours on a AA battery.
I have a MacAlly firewire HDD enclosure it works great. If you Mini has firewire, stick with Wirewire. This one also has USB. I've yet to try the USB. Check the chipset the board uses inside the Oxford 911 firewire is the best firewire (according to reviews, I've yet to test it). Again, IMO the MacAlly is superb. I also have one of their 5 1/4" firewire enclosures for a DVD burner. Works great.
One brand I would avoid though: Bytecc. I have one of their USB enclosures. It rarely, if ever, mounts in OSX. It wasn't such a problem in XP though. I don't know if the fault is with the chipset (its a VIA, surprised?!) or with Apple supporting the chipset. Overall, though the transfer rate (with the same drive) is much slower than the MacAlly.
If you want a cool looking one, there is a firewire enclosure that looks like a mini-G5 aluminum tower. I'd have bought one but the fees to import into Canada would have been a bit high.
As an aside, when are SATA enclosures going to be more readily avaialble. The only ones out now have a premium price attached to it.
There. Now digest all the information. I always type more than I need to!:)
Since this particular CCD is vulnerable to high-heat and humidity (which sounds to me like most of the southern US, Mexico, the Carribean and South America), should the camera companies not make certain cameras particular to each country or Zip Codes?
True, my statement ignores travel and maybe this is just a defective part and not emblematic of all the cameras using this particular CCD. If certain camera retailers are doing this, what of on-line stores?
Is there any evidence of Cell-Shaded games forthcoming on the next gen consoles? If so I'm wondering if there will be any improvement in the looks of the games. I can't wait for a next-gen Spidey game.
Spidey 2 is a really cool game. Once you get web swing up to level 8 its a blast to dive from the tallest building and web swing at the last second. The speed sensation is really well done.
OT: Since the Venom mode has some sort of GTA style play, does this mean a Spider-Man San Andreas will be forthcoming? and is a Hot Coffee Mod 'secretly' in the works ?;)
The HBO complaint is that people are downloading and sharing bits and bytes of their Rome. This sharing is a violation of copyright law. But HBO is facilitating the distribution of the show by participating in the distribution of the show on BitTorrent. Even if some of the data is corrupt, they are still participating in the act.
From the thread info: "In fact, the original story sparked a flurry of e-mails around Microsoft as people in different groups tried to figure out where on earth this story came from. After the head-scratching stopped, a spokesmen told me, they concluded that the story was not true."
If it takes this much effort for one of the largest companies to come up with an answer to a seemingly simple question (let alone an IT company which sells software to orgnise information), it should cause us to re-think how we all organise business information. They should have had an answer in a few minutes (not) what seems to be several hours of communication between middle and upper management. Microsoft is not alone. I've worked for several large companies (one of which is a major market leader). Each time a "policy" or "product" question came up it would take hours or days to find out. Microsoft is not immune to this.
I can see the enemy making Counter-Strike references about what the Army is taking to the battlefield:
1. The sniper they spotted isn't a camper. He was just "comfortable" there. 2. Using a robot would be like a cheat code right? 3. Killing a sniper before they get to shoot first isn't fair either. 4. Enemy sniper: Not fair, I shot you first! Wall hack / see through cheat! Cheater! Cheater!
I think the problem is more the fault of the movie theaters. Their expensive prices, long lines and not really adding much to the experience other than "the big screen" doesn't make it worth while. Sometimes the sound is turned up too loud as well - wonder if it would contribute to hearing loss particularly with children.
All told, the newer trend that might explain this is the home theater. People don't want to put up with other people's children, crowds of people, cell phones/chatter in the movies so they setup the theater. If you price it out (once the TV and stereo are paid for - even if you only buy a 27" TV.. which you need to watch other TV shows) the cost of going to a movie in Canada: $12/person. Cost of buying DVD: $20-25. If you go as a couple, the cost of the DVD is much cheaper and you can watch it again.
IMO, given the home theater, theaters will continue to lose out.
I have a $50 Gift card which you can bet I will be using tonight or tomorrow. No way I'm going to buy less songs because of this.
And if the labels want to rasie the prices then I'm going to keep buying less new albums... wait I already am buying less because the new ones usually suck. I mostly buy late 80s' early to mid 90's rock, jazz and blues because I haven't found many new rock bands I like. Most POP music blows too. I'm buying 'new-age' country female vocalists' CDs because they have great voices and the lyrics are pretty good too.
So true. I'm a liberal arts major at university. My writing has improved significantly in university. I only wished the same could have been said in High School. Too much Shakespeare turned me off reading and writing all together and turned the focus away from learning proper grammar.
Everyone should learn the language properly. Since most Slashdotters are presumably scientists and programmers, have you not seen a decline in people's ability to process numbers? Its all because of the calculator.
I'm generalizing here -but- the same group of people who tell me not to use a calculator (mathematicians, scientists) are advocating using grammar checkers because it makes everything easier? Too much irony!
Since the article indicates this was mentionned during a meeting of some sort and there is no mention of this "strategy" on the Novell site, it would seem that this "news" is "non-news" and the information was released by a PR firm to press bureaus to get their client some coverage.
Anyways, corporate desktops have a lot of custom apps. Simply switching to Linux doesn't make sense. If the apps are tested and work with Windows, why change? I could see if they buy new machines, and are forced to get Vista, but I don't see why Windows 2000 or XP should not be a problem. In the next year or two, there shouldn't be any radical technology changes that can't have a 2k or XP driver made for it.
This sounds awfully like other things I wrote/called in protest about: CD Levys, Satellite Radio (I favored "importing" only the American product) and the telemarketing list.
If you have time to play by the rules of the "Public Hearings" which means taking time off work to sit through 8 hour meetings (this, alone, favors the format to paid industry lobbyists) then it might work well. Since this doesn't answer to 99% of the population, our protests are out.
I only receive one or two telemarketing/survey calls a month. The only company I cannot get rid of is the lawn care one.... any ideas? Generally, I use the silliest, lamest excuse not to buy their product that I can think of - or - outright lie.
For example: Subscribe to a Canadian Newspaper - No I'm with the tree huggers association. I'm illiterate. I'm American and don't care for Canadian news.
Alarm companies? I tell them I live in a nuclear silo that was abandoned by the Canadian military and since transformed into a loft. That company, before, used to call 2 or 3 times a month. After that story, they have never called since -- its been over 2 years now.
Calling-list registry? No thanks. My own form of democracy works quite well. That is until they legislate against lying on the phone.
Practices of DDos'ing servers is upsetting. It disrupts the generally shared used of the Net among the community of users. Equally upsetting (in this case), is the fact you can practically put a competing small business out of business by participating in this type of conduct.
As a somewhat techie, I know that packets can be dropped from their "origin" but someone surely incurs a cost (either in implementing this feature) or having to deal with the packets anyways e.g. bandwidth costs... (while other servers would not). Is there anything that is being implemented to eliminate DDOS attacks altogether?
I can see that the warranty issue is a concern - heck I just bought an iMac G5 2 months ago w/ the Apple Care warranty.
But I have to wonder - the article mentions the 'low end' systems will continue to use PPC chips (by 2008 likely still the G4??) then I have to wonder... are the Intel chips Apple will be buying likely to be more expensive than deals they have with IBM on the G5? Afterall, if Intel were more affordable, the low end systems would have Intel in them only.
One of the problems with normal pen-and-paper you can't do keyword searches on your notes. I have messing writing sometimes and cannot read what I wrote. And notes get easily disorganized and even when well organized it can be hard to find the right information come study time. As well, I always end up making a study sheet and it would be nice to just copy and paste what I need while speed reading though it.
Some of you guys (and gals!) in computer science (prob most of the audience here) might find it practical to type away on a laptop. Or you don't have to worry much about "keywords", thus the pen and paper.
I'm in 4th year in a Liberal Arts program - and I know of several business, communications and other majors as well that are dying for a better digital notetaking alternative. Since I have a nice desktop system (iMac G5) a laptop is not practical and affordable used ones are either missing things (ethernet), are in need of replacement parts (old HDD), or I don't feel like lugging it around on the bus back from university. And there's no warranty. Overall, though, I don't mind useing a note-pad like program to type in notes.
I'd like to know if there is a small monochrome display that you can simply write-on that will save all your notes. I've thought of scanning in all my notes but its too tedious. (Please don't suggest an etch-a-sketch, I've already thought of it;)... not practical anyways only one page at a time and then I'd have to shake everything off!!!).
Someone's mentionned the Ace Cad (http://www.acecad.com.tw/eng/application.htm) notepad. To me, the usefullness of this thing is self-defeating. 1) You need special ink and finding it is hard; 2) You still end up wasting paper; 3) it only works on Windows; 4) You can't easily clean up the file digitally afterwards; 5) its $150 CAN. I do like the fact it uses Flash memory as storage. But it loses some of its appeal.
IMO, Microsoft missed the boat on the Tablet PCs. If they had lowered the system requirements (I'm sure they could have.. I think they purposefully inflated the system requirements so the OEMs could sell more expensive systems), I would have bought one for university.
A PDA isn't a half-bad idea with a keyboard attached I supposed.Any other suggestions?
Hollywood is not just a place to fabricate reality they want us to believe that all movies are reality. So, the militarization of space will only lead to the devastation of mankind (as predicted by Hollywood):
1) Computers with AI will take over our lives and try to kill us. They will use Game Theory and will eventually see that the computers are better off without humans. Afterall, what computer programmer wouldn't programmer wouldn't program some Game Theory logic into their AI system? (See HAL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000
2) We'll go back to fighting with some sort of swords that light up and resort to using "The Force" to guide and protect us. And god-forbid someones' childhood will be forever traumatized as they will find out some evil-dude *is* their father.
3) When we travel to places "Where no One Has Gone Before", all we will find are alien races that want to kill us even when we form a "Federation".
4) Or we will find a bunch of bugs that want to kill all humans (See Starship Troopers or Aliens) .
I was hoping this would be the case. But sadly, I can't find much.
Cowboy Bebop, for instance, only has one "CDs'" length (13 songs) of music on iTunes where I know there any many more songs. I've searched for Robotech and Macross - nada. I'd love to get the Kenshin (OVA) soundtrack off iTunes but its not there - and its well over $40.
Overall, though, I'm more interested in getting some J-POP stuff. Interestingly, a friend of mine who recently stayed in Japan for a year tells me that you can rent CDs (full length and singles) from local stores for a reasonable price!
I'm a non-IT, non-programmer type, so I'm really an outsider looking in.
In many press-releases and conferences and what-not, the U.S. Gov't always refers to the Internet as critical infrastructure. I agree it is: a lot of e-commerce, day trading, exchaning of new, etc takes place on it everyday.
Instead of spending time "investigating" people who might or might not be committing a crime on the Internet, would it not be a better use of resources to instead help make the Internet more secure? Fine, a lot of the internet works on equipment and IP of the private industry (a good part based in the U.S. too). Should the gov't not attempt to make law, something where companies must in X number of day issue patches for critical software (say 60 or 90 days, less is better)? What about establishing some sort of industry standard ISO-type stuff for computer security? Fines might not be a good idea if a patch is late, but something should be done. The threat of lawsuits is deterrrent enough for the industry but gov't should be more positively involved in this matter.
I'm all for the FBI doing their job: investigating and preventing crimes. The government should also try and involve itself and the industry for preventative and "patching" standards with-in the industry.
I was a user who switched not more than a month ago. I had a fairly high-end PC (Athlon 64, 1 GIG RAM, Radeon 9700, etc). My computer was more equipped, I discovered, for playing games. The main reason I switched to the Mac wasn't the hardware (the 1.8 Ghz iMac G5 w/ 1 GIG RAM I have is nice, true, and the LCD is nice for documents tho the CPU is 20% slower). Its been for the software and not for OS X itself.
Spotlight, some apps included with the OS and some others I've bought as shareware really make my academic work so much easier. OS X is nice otherwise for the Unix stuff (shell scripts especially). I don't use Automator or Applescript since for what I need to do, the shell scripts are easier.
The difference I see is this: all Mac OS X apps are user-centric whereas Windows apps are too task-oriented. They don't overwhelm with Menu options or buttons. There's greater empahis on tabbed-interfaces.
Allow me to illustrate the difference as I now refuse to use Word for my Academic work for the following reason. I've found a program called "Copywrite" which lets you easily flip between different documents and add notes to the project or each document easily. This program alone shows the difference, to me, between Windows and Mac apps. Pages is another great app. I was trying earlier to stop using Word and move to an app that doesn't lock my work in as much as Word does. I've changed my workflow to use a plain-text editor (Copywrite) to write the text, biblio, etc and then use Pages to format the text. Brilliant. I save all the headaches of Word-atuo-formatting-clippy crap. These two programs are really the killer-apps for me.
I have to agree. HP seems to keep digging itself into a hole. At first it was only 6 feet deep. With Carly , it was deeper, this new CEO isn't helping. They're at the center of the earth.
IMO the core of any tech company is: research, support and sales. If you cut jobs in those areas, are the managers going to be making sales calls? Doubt it. Are they going to do support and research? They wouldn't know how.
If this continues, I can see something else happening to HP: its competitors get their old employees. The sales staff will likely end up at Lexmark, IBM, Canon, and company. Ditto for the sales and support. Keeping employees (particualry the good, loyal ones happy) stops stuff like this from happening.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you from an institution considering Blackboad or WebCT? Don't. It is the worst software that students and faculty can use. Don't believe me? Read all the other comments on /. and do a Google search.
I am a university student and several professors have been dilligently trying to upload files using WebCT for the better part of a week and its technical glitch after glitch and the stuff is not being posted up. This is a campus-wide issue. Shame to have wasted our tuition $$$'s on something I and a whole bunch of students rarely use.
I'm hopeful this with this merger, they decide to use an OSS management system. I could see a problem if the system was just a group of programmers getting together to make one. Since some systems have backing from Berkley and MIT, I would think that the university I attend would have used it.
I would be more in favor of separate systems. One to run quizzes, one for file transfers (hell there's something called FTP for that), another more secure one for grades (no grades are not on the WebCT thankfully). I can access most course-ountlines from other institutions from the WWW and using google searches and they're not on password protected servers. I don't see why institutions feel they should hide everything from others. A classroom discussion board would have been nice too.
Allow me to clarify my point:
1. The AAA and AA batteries will certainly enlarge the form factor. The slim form factor is quite nice. I'm willing to compromise on the size.
2. Battery life. I'm not expecting 50 or 2000 hours from the built-in batteries. That is unrealistic. However, my point about the built-in batteries (which I left out...oops!) is this: they tend to last one to two years (depending on usage patterns and if it was properly recharged).
The replacement batteries are costly almost 1/3 the cost of a new unit. I use rechargable Energizer batteries. The batteries also last about the same time but have 1000s of recharges. Replacement batteries are less than $10. The recharger is expensive but I can use it and the batteries on other devies. As well, pulling apart most of the iPods is a delicate operating. While I haven't pulled one apart, from shots I've seen on the Net and so fort, if you make a mistake you risk cracking the case or making it impossible to put back together again.
If Apple wants me to buy an Ipod, two things will convince me: longer battery life and use of AAA batteries.
10, 12 or 20 hours between charges is not acceptable for an MP3 player (w.o harddrive). Getting rid of the colour screen might help on the Nano. I've had 2 flash based MP3 players, all last 30 to 40 hours on one AAA or AA battery. The mini-Disc player (for which the software blows, thanks Sony!) laster upwards of 50 hours on a AA battery.
As an iMac G5 user:
:)
I have a MacAlly firewire HDD enclosure it works great. If you Mini has firewire, stick with Wirewire. This one also has USB. I've yet to try the USB. Check the chipset the board uses inside the Oxford 911 firewire is the best firewire (according to reviews, I've yet to test it). Again, IMO the MacAlly is superb. I also have one of their 5 1/4" firewire enclosures for a DVD burner. Works great.
One brand I would avoid though: Bytecc. I have one of their USB enclosures. It rarely, if ever, mounts in OSX. It wasn't such a problem in XP though. I don't know if the fault is with the chipset (its a VIA, surprised?!) or with Apple supporting the chipset. Overall, though the transfer rate (with the same drive) is much slower than the MacAlly.
If you want a cool looking one, there is a firewire enclosure that looks like a mini-G5 aluminum tower. I'd have bought one but the fees to import into Canada would have been a bit high.
As an aside, when are SATA enclosures going to be more readily avaialble. The only ones out now have a premium price attached to it.
There. Now digest all the information. I always type more than I need to!
Since this particular CCD is vulnerable to high-heat and humidity (which sounds to me like most of the southern US, Mexico, the Carribean and South America), should the camera companies not make certain cameras particular to each country or Zip Codes?
True, my statement ignores travel and maybe this is just a defective part and not emblematic of all the cameras using this particular CCD. If certain camera retailers are doing this, what of on-line stores?
Not to mention I think a bit young to be CEO of a major energy company!
Is there any evidence of Cell-Shaded games forthcoming on the next gen consoles? If so I'm wondering if there will be any improvement in the looks of the games. I can't wait for a next-gen Spidey game.
;)
Spidey 2 is a really cool game. Once you get web swing up to level 8 its a blast to dive from the tallest building and web swing at the last second. The speed sensation is really well done.
OT:
Since the Venom mode has some sort of GTA style play, does this mean a Spider-Man San Andreas will be forthcoming? and is a Hot Coffee Mod 'secretly' in the works ?
The HBO complaint is that people are downloading and sharing bits and bytes of their Rome. This sharing is a violation of copyright law. But HBO is facilitating the distribution of the show by participating in the distribution of the show on BitTorrent. Even if some of the data is corrupt, they are still participating in the act.
From the thread info:
"In fact, the original story sparked a flurry of e-mails around Microsoft as people in different groups tried to figure out where on earth this story came from. After the head-scratching stopped, a spokesmen told me, they concluded that the story was not true."
If it takes this much effort for one of the largest companies to come up with an answer to a seemingly simple question (let alone an IT company which sells software to orgnise information), it should cause us to re-think how we all organise business information. They should have had an answer in a few minutes (not) what seems to be several hours of communication between middle and upper management. Microsoft is not alone. I've worked for several large companies (one of which is a major market leader). Each time a "policy" or "product" question came up it would take hours or days to find out. Microsoft is not immune to this.
I can see the enemy making Counter-Strike references about what the Army is taking to the battlefield:
1. The sniper they spotted isn't a camper. He was just "comfortable" there.
2. Using a robot would be like a cheat code right?
3. Killing a sniper before they get to shoot first isn't fair either.
4. Enemy sniper: Not fair, I shot you first! Wall hack / see through cheat! Cheater! Cheater!
I think the problem is more the fault of the movie theaters. Their expensive prices, long lines and not really adding much to the experience other than "the big screen" doesn't make it worth while. Sometimes the sound is turned up too loud as well - wonder if it would contribute to hearing loss particularly with children.
.. which you need to watch other TV shows) the cost of going to a movie in Canada: $12 /person. Cost of buying DVD: $20-25. If you go as a couple, the cost of the DVD is much cheaper and you can watch it again.
All told, the newer trend that might explain this is the home theater. People don't want to put up with other people's children, crowds of people, cell phones/chatter in the movies so they setup the theater. If you price it out (once the TV and stereo are paid for - even if you only buy a 27" TV
IMO, given the home theater, theaters will continue to lose out.
I have a $50 Gift card which you can bet I will be using tonight or tomorrow. No way I'm going to buy less songs because of this.
... wait I already am buying less because the new ones usually suck. I mostly buy late 80s' early to mid 90's rock, jazz and blues because I haven't found many new rock bands I like. Most POP music blows too. I'm buying 'new-age' country female vocalists' CDs because they have great voices and the lyrics are pretty good too.
And if the labels want to rasie the prices then I'm going to keep buying less new albums
So true. I'm a liberal arts major at university. My writing has improved significantly in university. I only wished the same could have been said in High School. Too much Shakespeare turned me off reading and writing all together and turned the focus away from learning proper grammar.
Everyone should learn the language properly. Since most Slashdotters are presumably scientists and programmers, have you not seen a decline in people's ability to process numbers? Its all because of the calculator.
I'm generalizing here -but- the same group of people who tell me not to use a calculator (mathematicians, scientists) are advocating using grammar checkers because it makes everything easier? Too much irony!
Since the article indicates this was mentionned during a meeting of some sort and there is no mention of this "strategy" on the Novell site, it would seem that this "news" is "non-news" and the information was released by a PR firm to press bureaus to get their client some coverage.
Anyways, corporate desktops have a lot of custom apps. Simply switching to Linux doesn't make sense. If the apps are tested and work with Windows, why change? I could see if they buy new machines, and are forced to get Vista, but I don't see why Windows 2000 or XP should not be a problem. In the next year or two, there shouldn't be any radical technology changes that can't have a 2k or XP driver made for it.
This sounds awfully like other things I wrote/called in protest about: CD Levys, Satellite Radio (I favored "importing" only the American product) and the telemarketing list.
If you have time to play by the rules of the "Public Hearings" which means taking time off work to sit through 8 hour meetings (this, alone, favors the format to paid industry lobbyists) then it might work well. Since this doesn't answer to 99% of the population, our protests are out.
I only receive one or two telemarketing/survey calls a month. The only company I cannot get rid of is the lawn care one.... any ideas? Generally, I use the silliest, lamest excuse not to buy their product that I can think of - or - outright lie.
For example:
Subscribe to a Canadian Newspaper - No I'm with the tree huggers association. I'm illiterate. I'm American and don't care for Canadian news.
Alarm companies? I tell them I live in a nuclear silo that was abandoned by the Canadian military and since transformed into a loft. That company, before, used to call 2 or 3 times a month. After that story, they have never called since -- its been over 2 years now.
Calling-list registry? No thanks. My own form of democracy works quite well. That is until they legislate against lying on the phone.
Practices of DDos'ing servers is upsetting. It disrupts the generally shared used of the Net among the community of users. Equally upsetting (in this case), is the fact you can practically put a competing small business out of business by participating in this type of conduct.
... (while other servers would not). Is there anything that is being implemented to eliminate DDOS attacks altogether?
As a somewhat techie, I know that packets can be dropped from their "origin" but someone surely incurs a cost (either in implementing this feature) or having to deal with the packets anyways e.g. bandwidth costs
I can see that the warranty issue is a concern - heck I just bought an iMac G5 2 months ago w/ the Apple Care warranty.
... are the Intel chips Apple will be buying likely to be more expensive than deals they have with IBM on the G5? Afterall, if Intel were more affordable, the low end systems would have Intel in them only.
But I have to wonder - the article mentions the 'low end' systems will continue to use PPC chips (by 2008 likely still the G4??) then I have to wonder
I don't think that was all folks!
One of the problems with normal pen-and-paper you can't do keyword searches on your notes. I have messing writing sometimes and cannot read what I wrote. And notes get easily disorganized and even when well organized it can be hard to find the right information come study time. As well, I always end up making a study sheet and it would be nice to just copy and paste what I need while speed reading though it.
;) ... not practical anyways only one page at a time and then I'd have to shake everything off!!!).
.. I think they purposefully inflated the system requirements so the OEMs could sell more expensive systems), I would have bought one for university.
Some of you guys (and gals!) in computer science (prob most of the audience here) might find it practical to type away on a laptop. Or you don't have to worry much about "keywords", thus the pen and paper.
I'm in 4th year in a Liberal Arts program - and I know of several business, communications and other majors as well that are dying for a better digital notetaking alternative. Since I have a nice desktop system (iMac G5) a laptop is not practical and affordable used ones are either missing things (ethernet), are in need of replacement parts (old HDD), or I don't feel like lugging it around on the bus back from university. And there's no warranty. Overall, though, I don't mind useing a note-pad like program to type in notes.
I'd like to know if there is a small monochrome display that you can simply write-on that will save all your notes. I've thought of scanning in all my notes but its too tedious. (Please don't suggest an etch-a-sketch, I've already thought of it
Someone's mentionned the Ace Cad (http://www.acecad.com.tw/eng/application.htm) notepad. To me, the usefullness of this thing is self-defeating. 1) You need special ink and finding it is hard; 2) You still end up wasting paper; 3) it only works on Windows; 4) You can't easily clean up the file digitally afterwards; 5) its $150 CAN. I do like the fact it uses Flash memory as storage. But it loses some of its appeal.
IMO, Microsoft missed the boat on the Tablet PCs. If they had lowered the system requirements (I'm sure they could have
A PDA isn't a half-bad idea with a keyboard attached I supposed.Any other suggestions?
Women will also use this as proof that certain strong emotions in men last only a few seconds.
I disagree.
Hollywood is not just a place to fabricate reality they want us to believe that all movies are reality. So, the militarization of space will only lead to the devastation of mankind (as predicted by Hollywood):
1) Computers with AI will take over our lives and try to kill us. They will use Game Theory and will eventually see that the computers are better off without humans. Afterall, what computer programmer wouldn't programmer wouldn't program some Game Theory logic into their AI system? (See HAL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_9000
2) We'll go back to fighting with some sort of swords that light up and resort to using "The Force" to guide and protect us. And god-forbid someones' childhood will be forever traumatized as they will find out some evil-dude *is* their father.
3) When we travel to places "Where no One Has Gone Before", all we will find are alien races that want to kill us even when we form a "Federation".
4) Or we will find a bunch of bugs that want to kill all humans (See Starship Troopers or Aliens) .
I was hoping this would be the case. But sadly, I can't find much.
Cowboy Bebop, for instance, only has one "CDs'" length (13 songs) of music on iTunes where I know there any many more songs. I've searched for Robotech and Macross - nada. I'd love to get the Kenshin (OVA) soundtrack off iTunes but its not there - and its well over $40.
Overall, though, I'm more interested in getting some J-POP stuff. Interestingly, a friend of mine who recently stayed in Japan for a year tells me that you can rent CDs (full length and singles) from local stores for a reasonable price!
I'm a non-IT, non-programmer type, so I'm really an outsider looking in.
In many press-releases and conferences and what-not, the U.S. Gov't always refers to the Internet as critical infrastructure. I agree it is: a lot of e-commerce, day trading, exchaning of new, etc takes place on it everyday.
Instead of spending time "investigating" people who might or might not be committing a crime on the Internet, would it not be a better use of resources to instead help make the Internet more secure? Fine, a lot of the internet works on equipment and IP of the private industry (a good part based in the U.S. too). Should the gov't not attempt to make law, something where companies must in X number of day issue patches for critical software (say 60 or 90 days, less is better)? What about establishing some sort of industry standard ISO-type stuff for computer security? Fines might not be a good idea if a patch is late, but something should be done. The threat of lawsuits is deterrrent enough for the industry but gov't should be more positively involved in this matter.
I'm all for the FBI doing their job: investigating and preventing crimes. The government should also try and involve itself and the industry for preventative and "patching" standards with-in the industry.
I was a user who switched not more than a month ago. I had a fairly high-end PC (Athlon 64, 1 GIG RAM, Radeon 9700, etc). My computer was more equipped, I discovered, for playing games. The main reason I switched to the Mac wasn't the hardware (the 1.8 Ghz iMac G5 w/ 1 GIG RAM I have is nice, true, and the LCD is nice for documents tho the CPU is 20% slower). Its been for the software and not for OS X itself.
Spotlight, some apps included with the OS and some others I've bought as shareware really make my academic work so much easier. OS X is nice otherwise for the Unix stuff (shell scripts especially). I don't use Automator or Applescript since for what I need to do, the shell scripts are easier.
The difference I see is this: all Mac OS X apps are user-centric whereas Windows apps are too task-oriented. They don't overwhelm with Menu options or buttons. There's greater empahis on tabbed-interfaces.
Allow me to illustrate the difference as I now refuse to use Word for my Academic work for the following reason. I've found a program called "Copywrite" which lets you easily flip between different documents and add notes to the project or each document easily. This program alone shows the difference, to me, between Windows and Mac apps. Pages is another great app. I was trying earlier to stop using Word and move to an app that doesn't lock my work in as much as Word does. I've changed my workflow to use a plain-text editor (Copywrite) to write the text, biblio, etc and then use Pages to format the text. Brilliant. I save all the headaches of Word-atuo-formatting-clippy crap. These two programs are really the killer-apps for me.
I have to agree. HP seems to keep digging itself into a hole. At first it was only 6 feet deep. With Carly , it was deeper, this new CEO isn't helping. They're at the center of the earth.
IMO the core of any tech company is: research, support and sales. If you cut jobs in those areas, are the managers going to be making sales calls? Doubt it. Are they going to do support and research? They wouldn't know how.
If this continues, I can see something else happening to HP: its competitors get their old employees. The sales staff will likely end up at Lexmark, IBM, Canon, and company. Ditto for the sales and support. Keeping employees (particualry the good, loyal ones happy) stops stuff like this from happening.