I generally try to keep an open mind, especially in regard to computer hardware (AMD/Intel), (ABit/ASUS) etc. I myself have a number of Nvidia cards and ATI cards in a number of computers which vary in age.
Right now my main machine is running a 9800XT. It runs pretty good in Windows, of course there are always driver issues. For one great example, it wasn't until a couple releases ago that I was able to actually get the screen adjustment feature in Catalyst Control panel. Although, I'm not sure if this option was available in the Catalyst (Lite) version.
The last couple of weeks have been a battle getting the card to use OpenGL hardware acceleration under Linux (Fedora Core 3, X86_64). Down right a giant pain in the ass. If anyone has any suggestions I would be glad to hear them!
I have also seen many brand new ATI Radeon cards of numerous generations DOA, right out of the box. I've also seen them die pretty early in their life as well. A number of friends picked up the 64Meg original Radeon when it came out (circa 2000?) Every last one of them had problems, drivers were also terrible.
I've had a number of NVidia cards over the years as well. I can quite honestly say that I only ever had a problem with one of their "cards" once. I bought a new PC and the card didn't seem to work in the new computer, although replacing it into the old machine worked just fine.
I'm not sure how other peoples experiences compare, but as I find myself playing less games (other than the odd couple now and again) and my Linux usage increasing greatly (I'm contemplating complete migration). I find myself fed up with poor ATI drivers and am once again considering a Nvidia solution.
Oops, well at least id is now doing it, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to UT2004 when it came out (and to what clients were available). I'm just happy to see that Doom 3 will also include it.
This is really great to hear, a major software publisher is actually going to have a Linux Client available, possibly in around the same time the Windows client is released, bravo ID.
Don't get me wrong, Macromedia Flash is a great addition to delivering multimedia on the internet. We can use it for good, but quite often it can be used in an instrusive manner such as advertising.
Perhaps someone out there will come up with a neat powertoy to better allow us control on what flash content is loading.Perhaps by blocking flash content on selected sites or something.
It will be great to see such a tool, unless of course there is one already, which I'm simply not aware of.
As for my university, Dalhousie,which makes use of turnitin.com, there are 3 main possibilities with some other less common considerations. First a zero on the paper, which is damn near guaranteed. The second is failure in the course. Thirdly, and the most severe is explusion from the university.
Even if a student was to "get through" the university states that at any given time they may REVOKE the students DEGREE if they are found to have plagarized!
The process is really quite disgusting and strenuous on both profs and students. First, suspected cases have to be turned into the Senate Discipline Committee, which then sets up a hearing and at some point summons you to this hearing.
I can tell you from experience, that many of my professors dread the process and truly hate turnitin.com. They would much rather catch the plagarism themselves and deal with it in their own way. However, the profs career is even at risk if they don't follow university policy and submit to this discipline commitee.
The worst thing about it is the guilty until innocent approach that seems to have been taken. When you have be accused to have plagarized, you must PROVE and EXPLAIN how you didn't. Thank-you democracy.
Lastly, although I haven't plagarized, my friend came really close to undergoing this process. He passed in a history essay, and it was also submitted it to turnitin.com, the result was a bunch of flagged sections. Upon closer observation and discussion with the professor, it turned out that the material was all properly cited. Instead the stupid turnitin.com program/process said the sentence structure was close to other sentences in hundreds of other essays. For example, imagine going to a magazine, and flipping through 45 pages looking for the sentence "The cat is hungry" by piecing together the words for that sentence by grabbing these words over all of the 45 pages in the magazine. Remember that simpsons episode where Homers mom came back (this season I believe) and he got the message from reading the news paper.
Maybe this is why the profs don't like it. All I know is that it has created a really negative atmosphere in the university, that coupled with my $7000 tution sometimes makes me wonder why I pay for this pain.
You guys can check out our discipline thingy here
PLAGARISM
The best part is the self-plagarism policy!
Slashdot Mirror
Right now my main machine is running a 9800XT. It runs pretty good in Windows, of course there are always driver issues. For one great example, it wasn't until a couple releases ago that I was able to actually get the screen adjustment feature in Catalyst Control panel. Although, I'm not sure if this option was available in the Catalyst (Lite) version.
The last couple of weeks have been a battle getting the card to use OpenGL hardware acceleration under Linux (Fedora Core 3, X86_64). Down right a giant pain in the ass. If anyone has any suggestions I would be glad to hear them!
I have also seen many brand new ATI Radeon cards of numerous generations DOA, right out of the box. I've also seen them die pretty early in their life as well. A number of friends picked up the 64Meg original Radeon when it came out (circa 2000?) Every last one of them had problems, drivers were also terrible.
I've had a number of NVidia cards over the years as well. I can quite honestly say that I only ever had a problem with one of their "cards" once. I bought a new PC and the card didn't seem to work in the new computer, although replacing it into the old machine worked just fine.
I'm not sure how other peoples experiences compare, but as I find myself playing less games (other than the odd couple now and again) and my Linux usage increasing greatly (I'm contemplating complete migration). I find myself fed up with poor ATI drivers and am once again considering a Nvidia solution.
Anyway, thats just my experiences and $.02
Oops, well at least id is now doing it, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to UT2004 when it came out (and to what clients were available). I'm just happy to see that Doom 3 will also include it.
This is really great to hear, a major software publisher is actually going to have a Linux Client available, possibly in around the same time the Windows client is released, bravo ID.
Perhaps someone out there will come up with a neat powertoy to better allow us control on what flash content is loading.Perhaps by blocking flash content on selected sites or something.
It will be great to see such a tool, unless of course there is one already, which I'm simply not aware of.
As for my university, Dalhousie,which makes use of turnitin.com, there are 3 main possibilities with some other less common considerations. First a zero on the paper, which is damn near guaranteed. The second is failure in the course. Thirdly, and the most severe is explusion from the university.
Even if a student was to "get through" the university states that at any given time they may REVOKE the students DEGREE if they are found to have plagarized!
The process is really quite disgusting and strenuous on both profs and students. First, suspected cases have to be turned into the Senate Discipline Committee, which then sets up a hearing and at some point summons you to this hearing.
I can tell you from experience, that many of my professors dread the process and truly hate turnitin.com. They would much rather catch the plagarism themselves and deal with it in their own way. However, the profs career is even at risk if they don't follow university policy and submit to this discipline commitee.
The worst thing about it is the guilty until innocent approach that seems to have been taken. When you have be accused to have plagarized, you must PROVE and EXPLAIN how you didn't. Thank-you democracy.
Lastly, although I haven't plagarized, my friend came really close to undergoing this process. He passed in a history essay, and it was also submitted it to turnitin.com, the result was a bunch of flagged sections. Upon closer observation and discussion with the professor, it turned out that the material was all properly cited. Instead the stupid turnitin.com program/process said the sentence structure was close to other sentences in hundreds of other essays. For example, imagine going to a magazine, and flipping through 45 pages looking for the sentence "The cat is hungry" by piecing together the words for that sentence by grabbing these words over all of the 45 pages in the magazine. Remember that simpsons episode where Homers mom came back (this season I believe) and he got the message from reading the news paper.
Maybe this is why the profs don't like it. All I know is that it has created a really negative atmosphere in the university, that coupled with my $7000 tution sometimes makes me wonder why I pay for this pain.
You guys can check out our discipline thingy here
PLAGARISM The best part is the self-plagarism policy!
LOL!