The only problem I have had with ATI's drivers is with a slighly older Toshiba laptop where the official Toshiba drivers are based off of some Catalyst release back in 2002, and ATI's own drivers don't recognize the adaptor if I try to install them. So I'm stuck with the old 2002 drivers - but even so, they aren't unstable and take down Windows, there just seems to be some bugs with some of the features not working right.
My ATI 9600Pro card in the desktop, running a newish version of ATI's drivers, works just fine (apart from the stupid cooling fan dying, but that's another issue).
You obviously have enough time to post to slashdot, so I don't see what the problem is. Any modern computer can browse the internet and rip at the same time. Set up your ripping program to auto-rip whatever you put in the drive, and whenever you're killing time on slashdot just feed it a disk every couple of minutes. You'll be through that collection in no time. It'll even go quicker if you set up the computer just to rip to WAV initially (you just have to wait for the computer to read the data, not compress it too). Then before you go to bed, turn the computer loose on converting all of those WAV files to MP3 (OGG, AAC, whatever) while you sleep.
That reminds me of when I decided to rip all of my CDs. I had just built a new computer, and decided that was the time to rip all my CDs being that my new computer had the needed storage and could complete the task in a reasonable amount of time. So I went about ripping my hundreds of CDs on my brand new DVD drive. Several days later of insert, rip, and repeat whenever I was using the computer - and I was done. So I decided to watch a DVD, at which point I discovered that the DVD drive couldn't read DVDs! It still read CD's, but after trying several DVDs with no luck, I RMA'd the drive and got a new one. So that's my story of how I ripped all my music without ending up with a worn out drive. Though, I really have no idea if ripping all those CDs ended up killing the drive, or it was just defective to begin with.
Usually the 1 platter designs tend to be really reliable. There is less mass to spin around, so the motor has it easier. There are less heads to fail, and less heat generated from the fewer moving parts.
With that said, no one except for Seagate really knows how reliable this particular drive will be. However, I have had good luck with Seagate. I don't have any Seagate drives over 40GB, but all the ones I do have, even down to the old sub-1GB ones, have been very reliable. They also tend to be quite and don't generate of a lot of heat either. Some of them (especially OEM drives I've salvaged out of some Dells) are pretty slow though.
I doubt we'll be seeing 1TB soon. Right now, the top drive you can buy is 500GB. A year ago, the top drive was 400GB. At that rate, 1TB is still a few years away. Advances in drive storage space just don't seem to be happening at the rate it was a 4-5 years ago.
On the other hand, if Seagate was to cram 4 of these platters into a single drive (not an uncommon configuration), it would be a 640GB drive. 640GB ought to be big enough for anyone!:)
You can get a nice, high end PIII box used for about $100-$150 now. Computers like used HP and Dell workstations that are going to be pretty reliable, and have all the speed a casual web surfer will need.
On the otherhand, you would be doing really well if you could get a Socket A chip, cooler, and a nForce2 board with some kind of inegrated video for $50. Then add in a cheap case and power supply, optical drive, cheap memory, and you're going to go over $100. And for that money you'll have a piece of crap system that will likely have all kinds of problems due to the extremely low end motherboard, power supply, and memory you be using. No thanks.
I agree with you on the PC100/PC133 memory though. Best bet is to buy a P3 system that someone has already taken to 512MB (or atleast 256MB). I've seen P3 systems with 512MB sell for less than what the two 256MB SDRAM sticks inside of it would cost new.
You do realize that even a 192kbps VBR MP3 is of considerably better quality than what what you find on iTunes, or most other music stores for that matter?
And why not? Yeah, we all know that NAT isn't designed to be a security mechanism, but that doesn't stop the fact that it acts like one. And is pretty effective one at that.
That is not to say that Linux cannot be put on here, and that some hacking could be done with it to take advantage of the architectural strenths of this machine. When it is done, it will be VERY hacky and of limited utility to GP computing apps.
Why do you say this? The Pentium Classic does not do out of order instructions, and it runs many modern Linux distrobutions just fine (though slowly). I'm sure that many Linux applications will run just fine on the XBox 360, once a hack has been figured out to get the XBox 360 to boot Linux. How fast they actually run will have to be seen.
Well, the Pentium II was a result of all the knowledge and research that went into the 8086, 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium MMX, etc.. To go from nothing to a Pentium II class processor so quickly is quite impressive, actually.
This camera cannot be a true SLR. If it were a true SLR, you would not be able to have a live preview on the LCD. This because when composing a shot through the viewfinder, the internal mirror is in a depressed condition that prevents light from reaching the film/sensor, which is covered by a shutter anyway.
As a simple exercise of deductive logic, if you can see a live preview on the LCD, it means that light is being allowed to reach the CCD/CMOS sensor. This in turn means that there is no shutter or mirror. This means that though it may be behaving somewhat like an SLR, it is not an SLR. That means it's essentially a Compact with some kind of extra equipment in a cool-looking form-factor.
It can be done. I remember a film SLR camera (by Olympus, I think) that used a fixed partially silvered mirror in place of the mirror that normally flips up in most SLRs. The reason they did that was to reduce vibrations from the mirror flipping up when a picture was taken. There is no reason a digital SLR couldn't use a simular approach to send light to both the viewfinder and the sensor at the same time. Of course, you do have the disadvantage of both a less bright viewfinder and less light reaching the sensor (or film).
Actually, one of the best thing about Winamp is global hotkeys. Ctrl+PgDn is next track, Ctrl+UP is volume up, Ctrl+Down is volume down, etc. You don't need to even take your hands from the keyboard or use any screen space at all to to control your music player. They even work in some games. For those of you trying them right now, they aren't enabled by default - you have to go into options and turn them on.
I don't know about Canada, but in the US it is not illegal to tamper with your odometer. If it's your car, you can do with it as you like. What you can't do is tamper with the odometer and then sell the car without disclosing that the odometer is not accurate.
At no time, ever, is the location of a commercial aircraft unknown. Sure, private small planes flying VFR no one really cares about. But all commercial planes (the vast majority of all traffic) are being tracked to the meter...
Likewise, why should they care about people's personal vehicles? Sure, tracking commercial trucks, buses, semis, etc. is one thing, but why should they be tracking my car?
If I pay for an XBox, and use my credit card, then don't pay my credit card bill, did I just steal an XBox? No, the store I bought it from got their money, I stiffed the credit card company. Car loans work the same way. The dealership has the money for the car as soon as I drive it off the lot. If I don't make the payments then I'm screwing the bank and defaulting on my loan. But I didn't steal the car, it's mine (well, until they reposses it).
Here's a real simple example: Say I borrow $300 from you, and buy an Xbox. I never pay you back. Did I just steal an Xbox or stiff you out of $300?
Re:There are several competing systems like this
on
High-Tech RepoMan
·
· Score: 1
Grand Theft Auto is a civil matter?
That's what tampering with the box enables. Auto theft, plain and simple.
How exactly is tampering the box installed in my car grand theft auto?
On the other hand, the Mini is so small that I could easily cram it behind the A/V ensemble (the place where you aren't supposed to put your XBox's power supply), and you would never see it. Of course, that will only work if you don't plan on having to access the optical drive.
Why people like you advocate the wholesale boycott of TV instead of embracing the ways to cherry-pick the good stuff while ignoring the rubbish is beyond me. "We have the technology", and not all of us are vegetative couch potato folks sitting in front of the tube watching rubbish while waiting for the good stuff.
I don't watch TV, but I really didn't boycott it either. I just found that as time went by, I watched less and less TV as I found better things to do with my time. After a while, my TV viewing was down to 0 hours a week. It was a transition simular to what I did with radio a couple of years back. I didn't suddenly decide to stop listening to FM radio, it's just that one day I realized that I hadn't turned on a radio in months because I listened to my CDs and MP3s all the time.
Now, I could try TV again, as you suggest. But that would cost me $50+/month for cable or satellite if I want more than 3-4 OTA channels. Then I would have to spend $100-$500+ either purchasing a PVR or somehow building one to filter out all the crap. Unless I wanted to watch everything on my old 13" TV, I might want to buy a new TV too. And after all of that, there is still a chance that I wouldn't end up watching it anyway - or atleast not enough to justify $50+/month. To me, it's just not worth the money or the hassle to "try out" TV again.
Slashdot Mirror
The only problem I have had with ATI's drivers is with a slighly older Toshiba laptop where the official Toshiba drivers are based off of some Catalyst release back in 2002, and ATI's own drivers don't recognize the adaptor if I try to install them. So I'm stuck with the old 2002 drivers - but even so, they aren't unstable and take down Windows, there just seems to be some bugs with some of the features not working right.
My ATI 9600Pro card in the desktop, running a newish version of ATI's drivers, works just fine (apart from the stupid cooling fan dying, but that's another issue).
You obviously have enough time to post to slashdot, so I don't see what the problem is. Any modern computer can browse the internet and rip at the same time. Set up your ripping program to auto-rip whatever you put in the drive, and whenever you're killing time on slashdot just feed it a disk every couple of minutes. You'll be through that collection in no time. It'll even go quicker if you set up the computer just to rip to WAV initially (you just have to wait for the computer to read the data, not compress it too). Then before you go to bed, turn the computer loose on converting all of those WAV files to MP3 (OGG, AAC, whatever) while you sleep.
That reminds me of when I decided to rip all of my CDs. I had just built a new computer, and decided that was the time to rip all my CDs being that my new computer had the needed storage and could complete the task in a reasonable amount of time. So I went about ripping my hundreds of CDs on my brand new DVD drive. Several days later of insert, rip, and repeat whenever I was using the computer - and I was done. So I decided to watch a DVD, at which point I discovered that the DVD drive couldn't read DVDs! It still read CD's, but after trying several DVDs with no luck, I RMA'd the drive and got a new one. So that's my story of how I ripped all my music without ending up with a worn out drive. Though, I really have no idea if ripping all those CDs ended up killing the drive, or it was just defective to begin with.
Usually the 1 platter designs tend to be really reliable. There is less mass to spin around, so the motor has it easier. There are less heads to fail, and less heat generated from the fewer moving parts.
With that said, no one except for Seagate really knows how reliable this particular drive will be. However, I have had good luck with Seagate. I don't have any Seagate drives over 40GB, but all the ones I do have, even down to the old sub-1GB ones, have been very reliable. They also tend to be quite and don't generate of a lot of heat either. Some of them (especially OEM drives I've salvaged out of some Dells) are pretty slow though.
I doubt we'll be seeing 1TB soon. Right now, the top drive you can buy is 500GB. A year ago, the top drive was 400GB. At that rate, 1TB is still a few years away. Advances in drive storage space just don't seem to be happening at the rate it was a 4-5 years ago.
:)
On the other hand, if Seagate was to cram 4 of these platters into a single drive (not an uncommon configuration), it would be a 640GB drive. 640GB ought to be big enough for anyone!
You can get a nice, high end PIII box used for about $100-$150 now. Computers like used HP and Dell workstations that are going to be pretty reliable, and have all the speed a casual web surfer will need.
On the otherhand, you would be doing really well if you could get a Socket A chip, cooler, and a nForce2 board with some kind of inegrated video for $50. Then add in a cheap case and power supply, optical drive, cheap memory, and you're going to go over $100. And for that money you'll have a piece of crap system that will likely have all kinds of problems due to the extremely low end motherboard, power supply, and memory you be using. No thanks.
I agree with you on the PC100/PC133 memory though. Best bet is to buy a P3 system that someone has already taken to 512MB (or atleast 256MB). I've seen P3 systems with 512MB sell for less than what the two 256MB SDRAM sticks inside of it would cost new.
So, again, where is the lock-in/out?
Umm... the fact that Apple won't let anyone else use their Fairplay DRM?
You do realize that even a 192kbps VBR MP3 is of considerably better quality than what what you find on iTunes, or most other music stores for that matter?
And why not? Yeah, we all know that NAT isn't designed to be a security mechanism, but that doesn't stop the fact that it acts like one. And is pretty effective one at that.
That is not to say that Linux cannot be put on here, and that some hacking could be done with it to take advantage of the architectural strenths of this machine. When it is done, it will be VERY hacky and of limited utility to GP computing apps.
Why do you say this? The Pentium Classic does not do out of order instructions, and it runs many modern Linux distrobutions just fine (though slowly). I'm sure that many Linux applications will run just fine on the XBox 360, once a hack has been figured out to get the XBox 360 to boot Linux. How fast they actually run will have to be seen.
I don't believe there will ever be measures that will prevent a cheap plastic single-use film cam from taking a snapshot of the screen...
Well, there is the problem of the cheap plastic lens found in those cameras. I guess there is another reason for me to keep my old Pentax SLR around.
Try turning off hardware accelleration first. This is not a example of drm.
The point still stands. With Treacherous Computing, disabling the Print Screen key would be trivial.
You forgot notepad.exe (running under WINE, of course).
Well, the Pentium II was a result of all the knowledge and research that went into the 8086, 286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium MMX, etc.. To go from nothing to a Pentium II class processor so quickly is quite impressive, actually.
This camera cannot be a true SLR. If it were a true SLR, you would not be able to have a live preview on the LCD. This because when composing a shot through the viewfinder, the internal mirror is in a depressed condition that prevents light from reaching the film/sensor, which is covered by a shutter anyway.
As a simple exercise of deductive logic, if you can see a live preview on the LCD, it means that light is being allowed to reach the CCD/CMOS sensor. This in turn means that there is no shutter or mirror. This means that though it may be behaving somewhat like an SLR, it is not an SLR. That means it's essentially a Compact with some kind of extra equipment in a cool-looking form-factor.
It can be done. I remember a film SLR camera (by Olympus, I think) that used a fixed partially silvered mirror in place of the mirror that normally flips up in most SLRs. The reason they did that was to reduce vibrations from the mirror flipping up when a picture was taken. There is no reason a digital SLR couldn't use a simular approach to send light to both the viewfinder and the sensor at the same time. Of course, you do have the disadvantage of both a less bright viewfinder and less light reaching the sensor (or film).
It's on older Powerbook. It's not like a desktop where you can just pop in a 250GB drive for $100 and be done with it.
Actually, one of the best thing about Winamp is global hotkeys. Ctrl+PgDn is next track, Ctrl+UP is volume up, Ctrl+Down is volume down, etc. You don't need to even take your hands from the keyboard or use any screen space at all to to control your music player. They even work in some games. For those of you trying them right now, they aren't enabled by default - you have to go into options and turn them on.
That's not too terribly surprising, as all that iTunes does is call up Quicktime whenever you tell it to play a video file.
However, there is still no way to play the files without some kind of Apple hardware/software.
I don't know about Canada, but in the US it is not illegal to tamper with your odometer. If it's your car, you can do with it as you like. What you can't do is tamper with the odometer and then sell the car without disclosing that the odometer is not accurate.
At no time, ever, is the location of a commercial aircraft unknown. Sure, private small planes flying VFR no one really cares about. But all commercial planes (the vast majority of all traffic) are being tracked to the meter...
Likewise, why should they care about people's personal vehicles? Sure, tracking commercial trucks, buses, semis, etc. is one thing, but why should they be tracking my car?
You don't understand how a car loan works.
If I pay for an XBox, and use my credit card, then don't pay my credit card bill, did I just steal an XBox? No, the store I bought it from got their money, I stiffed the credit card company. Car loans work the same way. The dealership has the money for the car as soon as I drive it off the lot. If I don't make the payments then I'm screwing the bank and defaulting on my loan. But I didn't steal the car, it's mine (well, until they reposses it).
Here's a real simple example: Say I borrow $300 from you, and buy an Xbox. I never pay you back. Did I just steal an Xbox or stiff you out of $300?
Grand Theft Auto is a civil matter?
That's what tampering with the box enables. Auto theft, plain and simple.
How exactly is tampering the box installed in my car grand theft auto?
On the other hand, the Mini is so small that I could easily cram it behind the A/V ensemble (the place where you aren't supposed to put your XBox's power supply), and you would never see it. Of course, that will only work if you don't plan on having to access the optical drive.
Why people like you advocate the wholesale boycott of TV instead of embracing the ways to cherry-pick the good stuff while ignoring the rubbish is beyond me. "We have the technology", and not all of us are vegetative couch potato folks sitting in front of the tube watching rubbish while waiting for the good stuff.
I don't watch TV, but I really didn't boycott it either. I just found that as time went by, I watched less and less TV as I found better things to do with my time. After a while, my TV viewing was down to 0 hours a week. It was a transition simular to what I did with radio a couple of years back. I didn't suddenly decide to stop listening to FM radio, it's just that one day I realized that I hadn't turned on a radio in months because I listened to my CDs and MP3s all the time.
Now, I could try TV again, as you suggest. But that would cost me $50+/month for cable or satellite if I want more than 3-4 OTA channels. Then I would have to spend $100-$500+ either purchasing a PVR or somehow building one to filter out all the crap. Unless I wanted to watch everything on my old 13" TV, I might want to buy a new TV too. And after all of that, there is still a chance that I wouldn't end up watching it anyway - or atleast not enough to justify $50+/month. To me, it's just not worth the money or the hassle to "try out" TV again.
I work for a PSP...
I don't know about you, but I would rather work for a paycheck.