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User: toddestan

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  1. Re:Pre-loaded apps on Microsoft Accommodating Eee With Lightweight XP · · Score: 1

    Apple is getting just as bad as MS.

    You say it like it's a new thing. I haven't allowed any Apple software on any of my computers for a long time because of how intrusive it is.

  2. Re:Counterfeit boxes, not processors on Counterfeit DFI Motherboards Surface In Indonesia · · Score: 1

    I'd steer clear of the non-clocked locked ones in any case, like the Extreme editions. I remember back in the Pentium II days the thing to do was to sell a real Pentium II as a relabeled faster Pentium II chip and profit the difference. That was one of the main reasons Intel started clock-locking their processors in the first place.

  3. Re:Just how counterfeit are they? on Counterfeit DFI Motherboards Surface In Indonesia · · Score: 1

    The thing is, I don't want to deal with sub-par parts. If you're computer is flakey and you have to spend time troubleshooting it, or you have to wait a week for the replacement to arrive meanwhile you don't have your computer, that $120 savings dries up quickly. To me, it's simply not worth it to buy the $30 knock-off board in hopes that it will work fine. More often than not it won't.

    On the other hand, I've found that the "big name" manufacturers like Asus and Gigabyte seem to have some pretty spotty Q/A too, but that's another rant.

  4. Re:EULA on Psystar Offers $399 "OpenMac" Computer · · Score: 1

    The ignorance. It is thick. You can walk into an Apple store and buy a single copy of Leopard, and it is exactly the same. A complete OS with no upgrade required.

    I agree, you are pretty thick. There is a difference between the license and what is technically possible with the disks. The license for OSX allows you to only put in on a computer that originally had Mac OS on it, hence it is an upgrade. There would be little point in Apple checking for previous versions of the OS, as the fact it's a Mac is good enough so they don't burden people with it.

    Besides, all the Windows "upgrade" disks also do full installs - even onto a clean disk. They just add a verification step because the fact you have a PC doesn't mean you have already have Windows.

  5. Re:"includes a retail copy of Leopard..." on Psystar Offers $399 "OpenMac" Computer · · Score: 1

    nice... this meant my macs had longer service lifetime because I was not going and trying to find comaptiblilty extensions and drivers. the old macs had them.

    On the other hand, Macs need to be this well equipped from the factory, as there really isn't a way to upgrade it otherwise. Got an old Mac and you want to add Firewire, or USB2, or whatever? Throw it in the trash and buy a new one. With a PC, I just add a $20 card and enjoy the expanded functionality. To me, PCs have a longer service life, though in practice the high replacement costs of a Mac means that people try to squeeze all they can out of an old machine before buying a replacement.

  6. Re:Designing with carbon fibre is a pain in the ar on Boeing 787 Dreamliner Delayed Again · · Score: 1

    For now, I haven't figured out how to store and retrieve my pictures from aluminum, so for now I'm sticking with CF.

  7. Re:Grounds to contest? on Cities Tampering With Traffic Lights To Generate Revenue · · Score: 1

    Yes, it is illegal in most (all?) states to obscure your license plates, and the more visible ones like the plastic covers will bring you extra attention from the police. It's even illegal to have your license plate too dirty in most states, if it's dirty enough that it makes it hard to read. The idea behind things like the UV LEDs is that it if done right would be only visible to the cameras.

  8. Re:Did anyone expect him to surrender? on Nvidia CEO "Not Afraid" of CPU-GPU Hybrids · · Score: 1

    Sure, discrete will always be faster, just like a Porsche is faster than a Toyota, but who makes more money (by a mile)?

    On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that Porsche makes more money than GM.

  9. Re:Grounds to contest? on Cities Tampering With Traffic Lights To Generate Revenue · · Score: 1

    The idea is to overexpose the license plate area so that it just looks like a blob of white to the camera. You could put a spotlight on your license plate or something, but that would bring unwanted attention to yourself. So instead take advantage of the fact that the camera is likely also sensitive to IR and/or UV light, and place a bunch of UV or IR LEDs around the license plate. Invisible to the cops, but the cameras wouldn't be able to read the license plate.

    I kind of doubt it would work though, as you would need a lot of light to overpower the flash in the camera, or the sun during the day.

  10. Re:Grounds to contest? on Cities Tampering With Traffic Lights To Generate Revenue · · Score: 1

    Or an insurance industry lawsuit complaining about the increase in rear-end collisions due to unexpectedly short yellow lights resulting in drivers slamming on the brakes.

    I doubt that. Rear end collisions are pretty cut-and-dry when it comes to assigning blame, and insurance companies are pretty good at jacking people's rates up to cover their loss and then some more in the case of an accident. I don't think the insurance companies are hurting from this.

  11. Re:Cut of the source on Cybercrime Is a Franchise Model That Scales · · Score: 1

    It has already happened, and not only with distros, but with Apache and the Linux Kernel as well. What happens? Simple. It's quickly discovered, and then patched within a day :)

    So what? It's the same problem you have with Microsoft stuff. The patches come out quick enough, it's just that people don't patch their systems or keep them up to date and that's how they get infected.

  12. Re:Really? on Gartner Analysts Warn That Windows Is Collapsing · · Score: 1

    I think your memory is a little fuzzy. The Pentium 4 2.8Ghz came out mid-2002. Even if you upgraded, you had to replace the motherboard too because the P4's that came out in 2000 used the short-lived Socket 423 that only went to 2.0Ghz. The Radeon 9800 Pro came out in 2003. Though my 2001-era P4 with 1.5Ghz, 1GB of Ram, and Geforce2 (I got it used - someone spent a lot of money on it new!) does okay in Vista.

  13. Re:Coincidence? on HP Admits Selling Infected Flash-Floppy Drives · · Score: 1

    So, do you also plug the USB drive first into some computer you don't care about just in case it dead shorts the power leads or something like that too?

  14. Re:In case anyone wonders on HP Admits Selling Infected Flash-Floppy Drives · · Score: 1

    I got it to work, pretty much had no choice as it was a laptop so I couldn't add a floppy if I wanted to. Ended up with about 6 coasters plus the one disk that finally worked. Turns out you need to add the driver twice - once so the installer picks it up, then again so the installer knows to copy it to the harddisk. Otherwise, the first part of the install will run fine, then it will totally fail to load after the first reboot.

  15. Re:Gas Up on Oil Deposit Could Increase US Reserves 10x · · Score: 1

    Most of the Avalanches I've seen around are jacked up with big chrome brush guards that are absolutely prisine, and big ass tires that will never see any mud. You're right about the way they are driven though.

  16. Re:I am not a petrol engineer but I know Chinese on Oil Deposit Could Increase US Reserves 10x · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You RAV4 (according to Wikipedia) can do 80-120 miles on a charge. That's nothing. That's not enough to commute for many people if there's nowhere to charge at work. And as for longer trips? 80 miles is just over an hour worth of driving. I like going places, not staying at home.

    And even worse, it takes your RAV4 5 hours to charge. So what you're proposing is that I drive for 1 hour only to stop at a gas station for 5 hours.

    And yes, I'm sure newer cars are better at this, but not good enough. That's why purely electric cars don't work.


    How far do you drive to work? Most people don't have a 40 mile one way commute. Those that do should move, as that's wasteful by any means of getting there, and who wants to spend 2 hours a day in the car? For a short while I had a 20 mile one way commute, and I thought that was crazy enough.

    Besides, that's missing the point. An electric vehicle like the RAV4 electric is a poor only car, but it's a great secondary car for a family. Most families have 2 vehicles nowadays, and they tend to have a larger "family" vehicle for the trips and family excursions, and a smaller "commuter" that one of the parents uses to get to work. An electric, even one with a modest range like the electric RAV4, would make a perfect commuter (except for those few that have the insane 80+ mile commutes) and there's a huge market for that. We can start there, and use what we learn to build the 400 mile electric minivan later.

  17. Re:Yellow on Blue on What Font Color Is Best For Eyes? · · Score: 1

    How do you define equal proportions? Same amount of energy at each color? Same amount of photons at each color? "White light" from the sun is neither of those two things.

  18. Re:Well, that sucks on Dell Abandons Its Customization Roots · · Score: 1

    Barebone notebooks exist, but most of them are pretty close to complete notebooks, missing just the parts that are pretty easy to change out anyway like the memory and harddrive. But it might be worth checking out if you need more customizability than what Dell, etc. offers. Newegg doesn't carry them (I think), but here's one I found with a quick search (at Amazon, of all places):
    http://www.amazon.com/MSI-1637-B001US-15-4-Barebones-Notebook/dp/B000RZFKGW

  19. Re:Well, that sucks on Dell Abandons Its Customization Roots · · Score: 1

    ... anybody else have suggestions?

    Build your own? Failing that, try a local whitebox store. Most of them will put together whatever you want from standard, off-the-shelf parts.

  20. Re:In other news... on Vista is Slower, But XP Is Still Dying · · Score: 1

    Well, if the software works with pretty much anything in Windows XP, but only works with two $300 sound cards in Vista, I'm going to venture a guess that it's not a hardware problem at all and has everything do with Vista's DRM and the new secure audio path.

  21. Re:Backing down or CYA Manuver? on Creative Backs Down on Vista Driver Debacle · · Score: 1

    Why should the share holders be protected from bad business decisions? Nowadays, it seems that people have totally forgotten the risk part of investing money.

  22. Re:Dune isn't even sci-fi on New Dune Movie Confirmed · · Score: 1

    Not everything has to be the "Star Trek" style of sci-fi where they like to throw around lots of jargon and try to explain everything. A lot of authors make the mistake of trying to overexplain everything in their books when it isn't really relevant to the story and doesn't really add anything to the plot - sometimes to the point where the story reads more like a technical manual than a novel. Once you're willing to accept that you don't need an explaination of how the starships work, how force fields work, how you can make a hull impervious to everything but gravity and light, etc. to enjoy the story, you'll find that a lot of science fiction and fantasy aren't really all that different. I find the most important thing is that the author sticks to any rules that he/she lays out about the technology/magic/whatever they decide to invent for the story.

  23. Re:What about XP PRO? on Microsoft Extends XP For Low-Cost Laptops · · Score: 1

    The ability to run more than one CPU is also lacking in XP Home. Note that dual-core, etc. processors are fine, it's the people who run the dual-socket boards that are affected. Though I would guess that if you were clever you could get it to work, since it's clearly a software limitation.

  24. Re:Police State on Administration Claimed Immunity To 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    Well, just fill it up and drive off. What are they going to do to you? You're in a tank.

  25. Re:in the perfect world... on Should IT Shops Let Users Manage Their Own PCs? · · Score: 1

    How do they keep people from running out and spending way too much money on hardware they don't need, like a new laptop every 9 months and stuff like that? Though I guess that does beat the system where the people who whine the most get the new toys, and those that don't say anything are still using NT4 on a PII-400.