How about replacing the the LED emitters with actual laser diodes and replacing the IR recievers with ones that will detect the laser beam.
There is one problem with this, the beam will probably now be too narrow. The only thing I can think of is to replace the sensors with ones that have a much larger surface area or install a lens that will refract the beam into the sensor. Im not really familiar with the hardware so I dont know how big the sensors are to begin with.
Sony Ericsson has had a mini led light available for some of thier phones. Not sure about recently, but they were only about $10 around the time that the t68 came out.
you can load the entire knoppix cd to ram and run it from there. it leaves around 300 megs for usage and runs a lot faster. unfortunately thats a pretty big if since a gig of ram isnt common yet.
This isnt an article to show how to make your own PVR or even how much of a bad idea it is. Its a freakin article about how inept the author is at building a computer.
Okay, he admitted to making some wrong purchases, but does it have to be so bad? His choice of the Asus Pundit case was wrong. Too cramped, no room for a second RAM stick, blah blah blah. There is no need to go on and on about how it took forever to install everything into the case.
Then the hard drive didn't work. Is this something that I have to look forward to when I build my own PVR? No, because this is not related to a PVR, its his dumb ass forgetting to check the setup and then telling the whole world his stupid little mistake. No biggie, he could have just as easily left it out. So he finally boots up Fedora for the first time. Guess what, it doesnt work. So he gives up. Does that mean its hard? No, it means it messed up somewhere and he has no patience. With all his 1337 knowledge of OSS, could he not have tried to boot from a DyneBolic LiveCD distro? How about Knoppix, MandrakeMove, Damn Small Linux, Gentoo. In the infamous words of Timmy, "I mean come on"
So he goes to windows. Not a horrible choice. I dont actually use any linux distro myself. Im still using windows as my main box and a part time PVR when needed. But even a nix newbie like me knows there are other options than trying Fedora once and giving up. Ive never even installed linux on a box yet.
Since he ended up using windows, he could have blown his money better on an ATi All in Wonder card. Throw in a ATi TV Wonder in there for good measure and youve got a great tivo using included software. Youve got a remote, PVR functions, MPEG4 and many other encoding options from low quality to dvd quality, free programming guide (Gemstar GuidePLUS), on screen programming info, live tv server (via newly implemented Easy Share), scheduled recording, PiP and more. Obviously not the perfect choice for those who want OSS but a good functional and easy solution. I know, its what I use and its usually painless.
I think this article was pointless. Whats the point if youre not going to give up so easily? IMO This article isnt worth slashdotting. Its a diary of someone who needs to spend more time learning computers.
the only reason that this matters is because of the non physical nature of the product. its not as easy to buy a cd from another country and have it shipped to yours and still save some money. but its no harder to purchase a music file from another country and download it.
does this mean that we will soon see a dvd type drm that will restrict what region you can play a file in?
Yes, that is the reason that AOL makes so much money. You have a mass of people who don't know or want to know how to configure thier dial up connection or email.
They just want to get online and send email, IM, chat, play games, download music and browse the web. A few even want to setup a simple personal web page without knowing html. They don't care or know about http, https, ftp, news, html, java, security, or anything.
Plus many of these people signed up to "American On Line" when they got thier computer or because they wanted to get online and now they don't want to change thier email. AOL even decompresses ZIP files when you download it from your email box.
AOL is simple. Just install and sign on. For the most part, its not too slow for simple web browsing and AIM usage. Unfortunate, but true. In my business I have to deal with this all the time, but you can't change the ways of millions of people.
The whole reason that the MultiTap wont work is because the configuration of the memory card and controller ports on the PSX are different than on the PS2. The MultiTap has a connector for the memory card in a fixed position right above the connector for the controller.
XP doesn't allow simultaneous console and RDP sessions
Yeah, this is a real pain in the ass. I do know that 2000 server does support this and multiple remote connections as well. I guess if 2k server does then 2k3 server probably will to.
What is video like on RDC?
I use RDC all the time instead of actually walking to other computers for various tasks. My experiences with video is that it can be very choppy and the sound is always out of sync and obviously compressed. Has anyone had different results?
I get pretty much the same result for video no matter what the connection is, ethernet LAN, gigabit ethernet LAN, T1 to T1, and cable to DSL. Audio quality was the same over the different connections but sync was better on some connections than others, but there was always a noticable lag.
I used to feel the same way, until I found a Sony Clie for $10 after a rebate. That was too good of a deal to pass up. Now I can carry my address book, datebook, notepad, to do list, calculator and much much more in one small device.
more stuff: dictionary a whole lot of games conversion calculators office applications (word processor, spreadsheet, email. i have to admit, i rarely used these as they are very impractical without a keyboard and mouse) maps Vindigo.com (food and entertainment guide and door to door directions) Avantgo.com (news reader) image viewer alarm clock world clock stopwatch graphic, scientific and financial calculator web browser and email when connected to my cell phone
There are a few more things that I can't think of off the top of my head, but I have all those things with me pretty much where ever I go.
All the data is also backed up on my computer every time I sync which is a great benefit even though its probably used more for recovering from crashes than from losing your PDA, but its there in case you ever do lose it.
I just happened to download 3.2 a couple of hours ago just out of curiosity, the mirror i got it from didnt have 3.3 yet. Until now i have been mostly a windows user with a little bit of mac osx under my belt, never really used any *nix before. I have to say, this is an awesome way to try out linux without having to actually install and configure it.
The reason I havent tried linux before is mostly because I didnt really have time for it, and when i did, i didnt want to spend it in front of a computer. I mean i bought that ps2 for more than collecting dust. So after just playing around with knoppix a little bit i love it and will be using it more and when i get more time ill move on to something more permanent.
so to answer you question, you should try it on your "reliable good old XP Home Edition" box to see that there is more than just windows out there. Plus when that windows install craps out on you, you can boot up a knoppix disc and be online in minutes.
I've found that you don't even need the google referrer any more. When the link opens just delete the first part from the URL, "http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=", type enter and the link works. Just easier than typing &partner=GOOGLE at the end of the link
Chances are that youre not going to get very far on hydrogen gas even if its reletively highly compressed. You would need a huge tank to get anywhere. Fine, if you only have to drive 3 miles to get to school or work or what ever its great, but some people have to drive more than that just to get to a gas station.
Liquid hydrogen needs to be kept at a certain temperature to stay liquid. Unfortunately this is not a good thing for automobiles. Either you need to keep your fuel tank refridgerated somewhere in the neighborhood of -250 Celsius or you will need to keep refilling your tank every few days because of expanding hydrogen leaking out. Using very efficient insulation can help reduce the amount of leakage but there is no way to completely stop it since refridgeration is not a likely solution for small cars.
Hydrogen still needs to be extracted from something else, you can't just go out and harvest h2 from an h2 farm. You can get it from water, the atmosphere, fossil fuels and probably hundreds of other sources, but it still has to be produced and this requires installation of a whole new infrastructure.
Now filling your tank might not be so bad once an infrastructure is in place. Seeing as how the entire system, from production to your tank, needs to be highly pressurized (for example, tires on a car probably wont be pressurized more than 40 bar, a hydrogen tank might be somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 bar.). Your tank will probably be filled in a few seconds and you may not even have to step out of your car. There will probably be a technician or a robot for that task. Corporations probably don't want stupid people operating equipment that is under very high pressure and transferring a somewhat volitile substance.
As much as I would love to see hydrogen become the main fuel source for automobiles I don't see it happening any time soon in North America. First it would need a requirement from the US Congress which would require manufacturers to start production of h2 powered cars by some date. Most auto manufacturers will bitch and moan about how that isn't possible and start cranking them out probably 3 years after the mandate. Of course the will be pushed back to accomodate them. On a good note, for once the cars may actually not be ugly as previous alternative fuel cell cars were if we can take note from what BMW is doing. They don't seem to have any problems stuffing hybrid gas/hydrogen engines into thier already ugly cars (note: this is not flamebait for BMW design. I love BMW's, I own a BMW and I hate Chris Bangles mutilation of perfectly beautiful cars.). After the car manufacturers get thier word, in comes oil cartels complaining that the world will end if they stop using cars with oil, blah blah blah...
And after all that is said and done a distrobution infrastructure needs to be put in place. Definately not an easy task.
Didn't mean to rant so long, just came out that way. If youre still reading this, all I have to say is wow and I hope you werent bored
It seems like most slashdotters don't see that a majority of the public does not see things the way we do. In the course of a month I may meet one or two people as knowledgeable about computers, technology or the internet as I do. What makes it even worse is that I go to a so called technology school.
If people did know about this stuff, we would not have as big issues with things like spyware/adware or viruii. They would know that you don't need WindowsXP to run OfficeXP. They would know that Windows is not a computer, but an operating system and you don't need a 3GHz P4 to play solitare. If they did know, most people wouldn't even install kazaa in the first place because they would know that kazaa lite gives you all the same stuff without the crap that kazaa infects your computer with.
The thing is that people just simply don't know. Either they don't care or they have more important things to do than just screw around with computers all day. And most tech heads learn by doing, not by getting taught.
Slashdotters need to open thier eyes and see that a majority of the public simply does not know what happens in thier computers, why it happens or how it happens even if they can see it on thier screen. Most of the time things don't even show up on the screen to begin with.
Umm, no matter what you do the heat goes into the room with you. Unless you have an exhaust that takes the heat right out of the room, there is usually hot air coming out of the power supply. With this case its radiating from the sides, but its still heat coming out of the case right into the room with you.
The only thing that i know of that reads PSone memory cards on a PC is called the DexDrive made my InterAct. Unfortunately it doesnt accept PS2 memory cards because they will not fit in there without cutting off a little tab on the inside of the DexDrive. I have never tried this mainly because I only have one DexDrive and one PS2 memory card and don't feel like blowing them up.
On a side note, I think that the DexDrive was much better than the current SharkPort/XPort solution because you didn't need to actually hook up your console to a computer, only a memory card reader/writer. Much better than needing to actually move the PS2 next to a computer and if you don't have a tv or tuner card you wont be able to see whats on the screen.
I seem to have the exact opposite problem. On practically every single nvidia card that I've used, whether its at home, school and many for clients of mine crashed when I try to run 3d apps. Most recently a lot of flash stuff from shockwave.com. Usually I will get BSODs and have to change the drivers. There doesnt seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, sometimes I need to update the drivers and sometimes I need to go back to old drivers.
On the other hand, I've used ATi exclusively for myself for about 5 years because I love thier All in Wonder series. There are problems with that as well and when it gets bad, it gets real bad. About 25% of the time when something goes wrong I have to reinstall the whole system (windows nt based systems). If its not that bad then I at least spend around 2 hours on fixing it. But lately I havent had any problems.
After all that, being the go to guy for all things technical to my friends and family, I used to suggest nvidia card for them until recently. Now its ATi all the way except for systems using 3 monitors or more. For that I suggest the NVidia Quadro NVS line.
Napster may have died, but the program still works. I haven't used it in quite a while now, but there are OpenNap servers which will give the program full utility. The last program I used was called Napigator which allowed the use of other servers.
Like I said, I haven't used it in a while so I don't know how good the servers are anymore. Anyone interested should look at Napigator for some more info.
Slashdot Mirror
How about replacing the the LED emitters with actual laser diodes and replacing the IR recievers with ones that will detect the laser beam. There is one problem with this, the beam will probably now be too narrow. The only thing I can think of is to replace the sensors with ones that have a much larger surface area or install a lens that will refract the beam into the sensor. Im not really familiar with the hardware so I dont know how big the sensors are to begin with.
Its been a long time since latin class, but doesnt the latin alphabet not inlcude the letter U?
All the DivX codecs ive used have only put the watermark when ENCODING video, not playing video
Sony Ericsson has had a mini led light available for some of thier phones. Not sure about recently, but they were only about $10 around the time that the t68 came out.
You can boot DamnSmallLinux from a USB Key. It's something like 50 megs so you can probably boot from a 64 meg key.
you can load the entire knoppix cd to ram and run it from there. it leaves around 300 megs for usage and runs a lot faster. unfortunately thats a pretty big if since a gig of ram isnt common yet.
This isnt an article to show how to make your own PVR or even how much of a bad idea it is. Its a freakin article about how inept the author is at building a computer.
Okay, he admitted to making some wrong purchases, but does it have to be so bad? His choice of the Asus Pundit case was wrong. Too cramped, no room for a second RAM stick, blah blah blah. There is no need to go on and on about how it took forever to install everything into the case.
Then the hard drive didn't work. Is this something that I have to look forward to when I build my own PVR? No, because this is not related to a PVR, its his dumb ass forgetting to check the setup and then telling the whole world his stupid little mistake. No biggie, he could have just as easily left it out. So he finally boots up Fedora for the first time. Guess what, it doesnt work. So he gives up. Does that mean its hard? No, it means it messed up somewhere and he has no patience. With all his 1337 knowledge of OSS, could he not have tried to boot from a DyneBolic LiveCD distro? How about Knoppix, MandrakeMove, Damn Small Linux, Gentoo. In the infamous words of Timmy, "I mean come on"
So he goes to windows. Not a horrible choice. I dont actually use any linux distro myself. Im still using windows as my main box and a part time PVR when needed. But even a nix newbie like me knows there are other options than trying Fedora once and giving up. Ive never even installed linux on a box yet.
Since he ended up using windows, he could have blown his money better on an ATi All in Wonder card. Throw in a ATi TV Wonder in there for good measure and youve got a great tivo using included software. Youve got a remote, PVR functions, MPEG4 and many other encoding options from low quality to dvd quality, free programming guide (Gemstar GuidePLUS), on screen programming info, live tv server (via newly implemented Easy Share), scheduled recording, PiP and more. Obviously not the perfect choice for those who want OSS but a good functional and easy solution. I know, its what I use and its usually painless.
I think this article was pointless. Whats the point if youre not going to give up so easily? IMO This article isnt worth slashdotting. Its a diary of someone who needs to spend more time learning computers.
the only reason that this matters is because of the non physical nature of the product. its not as easy to buy a cd from another country and have it shipped to yours and still save some money. but its no harder to purchase a music file from another country and download it.
does this mean that we will soon see a dvd type drm that will restrict what region you can play a file in?
Yes, that is the reason that AOL makes so much money. You have a mass of people who don't know or want to know how to configure thier dial up connection or email.
They just want to get online and send email, IM, chat, play games, download music and browse the web. A few even want to setup a simple personal web page without knowing html. They don't care or know about http, https, ftp, news, html, java, security, or anything.
Plus many of these people signed up to "American On Line" when they got thier computer or because they wanted to get online and now they don't want to change thier email. AOL even decompresses ZIP files when you download it from your email box.
AOL is simple. Just install and sign on. For the most part, its not too slow for simple web browsing and AIM usage. Unfortunate, but true. In my business I have to deal with this all the time, but you can't change the ways of millions of people.
The whole reason that the MultiTap wont work is because the configuration of the memory card and controller ports on the PSX are different than on the PS2. The MultiTap has a connector for the memory card in a fixed position right above the connector for the controller.
XP doesn't allow simultaneous console and RDP sessions
Yeah, this is a real pain in the ass. I do know that 2000 server does support this and multiple remote connections as well. I guess if 2k server does then 2k3 server probably will to.
What is video like on RDC?
I use RDC all the time instead of actually walking to other computers for various tasks. My experiences with video is that it can be very choppy and the sound is always out of sync and obviously compressed. Has anyone had different results?
I get pretty much the same result for video no matter what the connection is, ethernet LAN, gigabit ethernet LAN, T1 to T1, and cable to DSL. Audio quality was the same over the different connections but sync was better on some connections than others, but there was always a noticable lag.
Quality, when talking about monitors, often refers to "image quality".
I used to feel the same way, until I found a Sony Clie for $10 after a rebate. That was too good of a deal to pass up. Now I can carry my address book, datebook, notepad, to do list, calculator and much much more in one small device.
more stuff:
dictionary
a whole lot of games
conversion calculators
office applications (word processor, spreadsheet, email. i have to admit, i rarely used these as they are very impractical without a keyboard and mouse)
maps
Vindigo.com (food and entertainment guide and door to door directions)
Avantgo.com (news reader)
image viewer
alarm clock
world clock
stopwatch
graphic, scientific and financial calculator
web browser and email when connected to my cell phone
There are a few more things that I can't think of off the top of my head, but I have all those things with me pretty much where ever I go.
All the data is also backed up on my computer every time I sync which is a great benefit even though its probably used more for recovering from crashes than from losing your PDA, but its there in case you ever do lose it.
Well now we know who initiated the attack
I just happened to download 3.2 a couple of hours ago just out of curiosity, the mirror i got it from didnt have 3.3 yet. Until now i have been mostly a windows user with a little bit of mac osx under my belt, never really used any *nix before. I have to say, this is an awesome way to try out linux without having to actually install and configure it.
The reason I havent tried linux before is mostly because I didnt really have time for it, and when i did, i didnt want to spend it in front of a computer. I mean i bought that ps2 for more than collecting dust. So after just playing around with knoppix a little bit i love it and will be using it more and when i get more time ill move on to something more permanent.
so to answer you question, you should try it on your "reliable good old XP Home Edition" box to see that there is more than just windows out there. Plus when that windows install craps out on you, you can boot up a knoppix disc and be online in minutes.
when other countries won't have similar laws? Viruses don't follow political boundaries.
I've found that you don't even need the google referrer any more. When the link opens just delete the first part from the URL, "http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=", type enter and the link works. Just easier than typing &partner=GOOGLE at the end of the link
Chances are that youre not going to get very far on hydrogen gas even if its reletively highly compressed. You would need a huge tank to get anywhere. Fine, if you only have to drive 3 miles to get to school or work or what ever its great, but some people have to drive more than that just to get to a gas station.
Liquid hydrogen needs to be kept at a certain temperature to stay liquid. Unfortunately this is not a good thing for automobiles. Either you need to keep your fuel tank refridgerated somewhere in the neighborhood of -250 Celsius or you will need to keep refilling your tank every few days because of expanding hydrogen leaking out. Using very efficient insulation can help reduce the amount of leakage but there is no way to completely stop it since refridgeration is not a likely solution for small cars.
Hydrogen still needs to be extracted from something else, you can't just go out and harvest h2 from an h2 farm. You can get it from water, the atmosphere, fossil fuels and probably hundreds of other sources, but it still has to be produced and this requires installation of a whole new infrastructure.
Now filling your tank might not be so bad once an infrastructure is in place. Seeing as how the entire system, from production to your tank, needs to be highly pressurized (for example, tires on a car probably wont be pressurized more than 40 bar, a hydrogen tank might be somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 bar.). Your tank will probably be filled in a few seconds and you may not even have to step out of your car. There will probably be a technician or a robot for that task. Corporations probably don't want stupid people operating equipment that is under very high pressure and transferring a somewhat volitile substance.
As much as I would love to see hydrogen become the main fuel source for automobiles I don't see it happening any time soon in North America. First it would need a requirement from the US Congress which would require manufacturers to start production of h2 powered cars by some date. Most auto manufacturers will bitch and moan about how that isn't possible and start cranking them out probably 3 years after the mandate. Of course the will be pushed back to accomodate them. On a good note, for once the cars may actually not be ugly as previous alternative fuel cell cars were if we can take note from what BMW is doing. They don't seem to have any problems stuffing hybrid gas/hydrogen engines into thier already ugly cars (note: this is not flamebait for BMW design. I love BMW's, I own a BMW and I hate Chris Bangles mutilation of perfectly beautiful cars.). After the car manufacturers get thier word, in comes oil cartels complaining that the world will end if they stop using cars with oil, blah blah blah...
And after all that is said and done a distrobution infrastructure needs to be put in place. Definately not an easy task.
Didn't mean to rant so long, just came out that way. If youre still reading this, all I have to say is wow and I hope you werent bored
Felony oregano trafficing?
It seems like most slashdotters don't see that a majority of the public does not see things the way we do. In the course of a month I may meet one or two people as knowledgeable about computers, technology or the internet as I do. What makes it even worse is that I go to a so called technology school.
If people did know about this stuff, we would not have as big issues with things like spyware/adware or viruii. They would know that you don't need WindowsXP to run OfficeXP. They would know that Windows is not a computer, but an operating system and you don't need a 3GHz P4 to play solitare. If they did know, most people wouldn't even install kazaa in the first place because they would know that kazaa lite gives you all the same stuff without the crap that kazaa infects your computer with.
The thing is that people just simply don't know. Either they don't care or they have more important things to do than just screw around with computers all day. And most tech heads learn by doing, not by getting taught.
Slashdotters need to open thier eyes and see that a majority of the public simply does not know what happens in thier computers, why it happens or how it happens even if they can see it on thier screen. Most of the time things don't even show up on the screen to begin with.
Umm, no matter what you do the heat goes into the room with you. Unless you have an exhaust that takes the heat right out of the room, there is usually hot air coming out of the power supply. With this case its radiating from the sides, but its still heat coming out of the case right into the room with you.
The only thing that i know of that reads PSone memory cards on a PC is called the DexDrive made my InterAct. Unfortunately it doesnt accept PS2 memory cards because they will not fit in there without cutting off a little tab on the inside of the DexDrive. I have never tried this mainly because I only have one DexDrive and one PS2 memory card and don't feel like blowing them up.
On a side note, I think that the DexDrive was much better than the current SharkPort/XPort solution because you didn't need to actually hook up your console to a computer, only a memory card reader/writer. Much better than needing to actually move the PS2 next to a computer and if you don't have a tv or tuner card you wont be able to see whats on the screen.
I seem to have the exact opposite problem. On practically every single nvidia card that I've used, whether its at home, school and many for clients of mine crashed when I try to run 3d apps. Most recently a lot of flash stuff from shockwave.com. Usually I will get BSODs and have to change the drivers. There doesnt seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, sometimes I need to update the drivers and sometimes I need to go back to old drivers.
On the other hand, I've used ATi exclusively for myself for about 5 years because I love thier All in Wonder series. There are problems with that as well and when it gets bad, it gets real bad. About 25% of the time when something goes wrong I have to reinstall the whole system (windows nt based systems). If its not that bad then I at least spend around 2 hours on fixing it. But lately I havent had any problems.
After all that, being the go to guy for all things technical to my friends and family, I used to suggest nvidia card for them until recently. Now its ATi all the way except for systems using 3 monitors or more. For that I suggest the NVidia Quadro NVS line.
Like I said, I haven't used it in a while so I don't know how good the servers are anymore. Anyone interested should look at Napigator for some more info.