I ended up getting a refurb HP for my wife for $250. I came with an Athlon II X4 620, 3 GB ram, and a 500 GB HD, and Windows 7 Home Premium. I think it would be pretty hard to build it yourself for that price.
BTW, she didn't like Windows 7, so it is running 64bit Kubuntu 10.4. I still left 7 on the machine though.
I did something like that a long time ago (1995) when I was riding a bicycle across the US. I got to the Bighorn mountains and had to make a decision on which way to cross them. One showed a curvy route with a pass marked with a high altitude. The other wasn't as curvy and didn't have the altitude marked. I thought since they didn't show an altitude on the other road, it was probably not as high/steep. It turned out it was higher and steeper, just less traveled, so the map maker probably didn't think it was worth the extra data point.
I agree the point about anticipating curves. That was great while driving in the mountains in Colorado this summer.
"Side note: I was looking at cheap geocaching GPSes and was stunned to see what Garmin charges for GPS updates."
Yes. Because latitude and longitude coordinates are constantly changing. I did a little looking around at statistics on how much mapping data and roads change year to year, before I bought a GPS. It turns out it was around 1/10 of 1 percent. I know I have never had a problem navigating with my old GPS. The main things updates do is change/add POIs. If you navigate using POIs, it might help.
They did cite title downloaded and time performed. It was a Showtime show (my cable doesn't carry Showtime). About 90% of what we downloaded was BBC stuff we can't get (no BBC America either).
Our household has been contacted a couple of times by our ISP for downloading shows through bittorrent. They said they were contacted by rightsholders. If we are "reported" again, we will lose our connection. As they are the only game in town (outside of satellite) we have stopped.
The majority are probably shipped that way. The new PC I bought for my wife came with Win7 Home Premium. It's dual boot though, as she has been on a KDE desktop for years and prefers that to Windows. She tried out Win 7 for a couple of days before I got Kubuntu set up for her, and she didn't care for it.
This just happened to us on a trip to Colorado. We stayed at a Super 8 and a Motel 6 while there, and at a Super 8 in Omaha. About a week after we got back we got 4 charges on our card that appeared to originate in Mexico. 2 of them were blocked by fraud detection of the card issuer, and 2 made it through. As it was a debit card, we were liable for $50 of the $600 in charges that made it through. Card was canceled and a new one issued. We are also going to use a credit card instead, so the card company in on the hook, not us.
We were concerned about this happening, so we paid everything by cash on the trip. The bad thing was we had to use the card number to reserve the rooms.
I live in a small town that runs it's own cable tv, phone, and internet. All as part of a co-op. Basically, everyone in town owns a piece of the company, and shares in it's profits. Anyhow, we are still analog cable here, which works out good for me as my media center pc acts as my dvr. http://www.springvilletelephone.com/
I was just a victim of debit card fraud. We paid off all our debt a few years ago, and decided to go debit card only. We had heard about people getting their card number stolen and charged against, so we used cash on vacation, except for card swipes at the pump for gasoline. Unfortunately, we had to use the card number to reserve hotel rooms, even though we paid by cash. About a week and a half after getting back from vacation in Colorado, we got about $1200 in charges from Mexico of which the blocked $600 worth. Needless to say, the card was canceled, and we are waiting on a new one. We are supposedly going to be refunded, but we are going to get a credit card since it has better protection against fraud like this.
Home phone? Really? How many people own those things any more? More importantly, what are the trend lines? Why would you buy one, when cell phones are ubiquitous and work equally well inside houses?
You mean a cell phone with a battery that craps out in a day? You mean a cell phone that costs more than $12/month? You mean a cell phone that doesn't work worth a crap in my house? I have to pay for it anyway for my DSL, so why wouldn't I use it?
I still haven't found a compelling reason to own a cell phone. I have one that is work supplied, and my experience with it is probably the main reason I don't have one.
Not running any HD content now as I don't have Blu-Ray and the cable doesn't have HD (they only have stereo sound on a few channels!). My cable is through the local phone co-op (think mom-n-pop cable co) and I don't think they have any plans to upgrade equipment anytime soon. Though they might by 2013.
I don't doubt that I was wrong, but I do remember reading that fact when Tron came out in 1982. They probably had it mixed up since they used it's OS, MCP, as a character.
I'm old too. My first computer work was in the Air Force, as a computer operator on a Burroughs mainframe running MCP. (trivia bit, MCP was the bad guy, and the GFX were rendered on a Burroughs mainframe)
They support X-Box 360 now? From what I understand you need Playon, which doesn't allow rewinding or fast forwarding, and it transcodes which mangles the quality.
Since I have never been on facebook, I don't know how tagging works. Can a picture be tagged with a non facebook person's name? Or can you tag someone with a different name. Like Bob Smith (not on facebook) tagged as Fred Flintstone (on facebook)?
No, it's the only way you can get mail when they don't deliver to your house. Actually, they almost would if I put a mailbox on someone else's property half a block away.
Should have done the suspicious burning desktop system trick
Denholm: [Seeing a fire burning behind a broken monitor frame] Nice screensaver. Denholm: [later] I love the way the smoke seems to be coming off the top of it...
Slashdot Mirror
He must have the world's most awesome popped collar!
Watch Avatar. Now try to focus on something that's out-of-focus in the background.
That's exactly right and what bugged the hell out of me when I watched that movie. Especially the first scene in the spaceship in the big open bay.
To my understanding, this is 3d like old Nintendo games are 3d because of parallax scrolling.
No doot a boot it, that was a funny jook.
I ended up getting a refurb HP for my wife for $250. I came with an Athlon II X4 620, 3 GB ram, and a 500 GB HD, and Windows 7 Home Premium. I think it would be pretty hard to build it yourself for that price.
BTW, she didn't like Windows 7, so it is running 64bit Kubuntu 10.4. I still left 7 on the machine though.
I did something like that a long time ago (1995) when I was riding a bicycle across the US. I got to the Bighorn mountains and had to make a decision on which way to cross them. One showed a curvy route with a pass marked with a high altitude. The other wasn't as curvy and didn't have the altitude marked. I thought since they didn't show an altitude on the other road, it was probably not as high/steep. It turned out it was higher and steeper, just less traveled, so the map maker probably didn't think it was worth the extra data point.
I agree the point about anticipating curves. That was great while driving in the mountains in Colorado this summer.
"Side note: I was looking at cheap geocaching GPSes and was stunned to see what Garmin charges for GPS updates."
Yes. Because latitude and longitude coordinates are constantly changing.
I did a little looking around at statistics on how much mapping data and roads change year to year, before I bought a GPS. It turns out it was around 1/10 of 1 percent. I know I have never had a problem navigating with my old GPS. The main things updates do is change/add POIs. If you navigate using POIs, it might help.
They did cite title downloaded and time performed. It was a Showtime show (my cable doesn't carry Showtime). About 90% of what we downloaded was BBC stuff we can't get (no BBC America either).
BTW, I did use the safe peer plugin.
Our household has been contacted a couple of times by our ISP for downloading shows through bittorrent. They said they were contacted by rightsholders. If we are "reported" again, we will lose our connection. As they are the only game in town (outside of satellite) we have stopped.
And monkeys aren't donkeys. Quit messing with my head!
The majority are probably shipped that way. The new PC I bought for my wife came with Win7 Home Premium. It's dual boot though, as she has been on a KDE desktop for years and prefers that to Windows. She tried out Win 7 for a couple of days before I got Kubuntu set up for her, and she didn't care for it.
This just happened to us on a trip to Colorado. We stayed at a Super 8 and a Motel 6 while there, and at a Super 8 in Omaha. About a week after we got back we got 4 charges on our card that appeared to originate in Mexico. 2 of them were blocked by fraud detection of the card issuer, and 2 made it through. As it was a debit card, we were liable for $50 of the $600 in charges that made it through. Card was canceled and a new one issued. We are also going to use a credit card instead, so the card company in on the hook, not us.
We were concerned about this happening, so we paid everything by cash on the trip. The bad thing was we had to use the card number to reserve the rooms.
I live in a small town that runs it's own cable tv, phone, and internet. All as part of a co-op. Basically, everyone in town owns a piece of the company, and shares in it's profits. Anyhow, we are still analog cable here, which works out good for me as my media center pc acts as my dvr. http://www.springvilletelephone.com/
I was just a victim of debit card fraud. We paid off all our debt a few years ago, and decided to go debit card only. We had heard about people getting their card number stolen and charged against, so we used cash on vacation, except for card swipes at the pump for gasoline. Unfortunately, we had to use the card number to reserve hotel rooms, even though we paid by cash. About a week and a half after getting back from vacation in Colorado, we got about $1200 in charges from Mexico of which the blocked $600 worth. Needless to say, the card was canceled, and we are waiting on a new one. We are supposedly going to be refunded, but we are going to get a credit card since it has better protection against fraud like this.
Home phone? Really? How many people own those things any more? More importantly, what are the trend lines? Why would you buy one, when cell phones are ubiquitous and work equally well inside houses?
You mean a cell phone with a battery that craps out in a day? You mean a cell phone that costs more than $12/month? You mean a cell phone that doesn't work worth a crap in my house? I have to pay for it anyway for my DSL, so why wouldn't I use it?
I still haven't found a compelling reason to own a cell phone. I have one that is work supplied, and my experience with it is probably the main reason I don't have one.
Not running any HD content now as I don't have Blu-Ray and the cable doesn't have HD (they only have stereo sound on a few channels!). My cable is through the local phone co-op (think mom-n-pop cable co) and I don't think they have any plans to upgrade equipment anytime soon. Though they might by 2013.
That's what I was going to say. I love watching TV/DVDs on my free craig's list acquired 60" non HD analogue TV. No encryption problems there!
I don't doubt that I was wrong, but I do remember reading that fact when Tron came out in 1982. They probably had it mixed up since they used it's OS, MCP, as a character.
I'm old too. My first computer work was in the Air Force, as a computer operator on a Burroughs mainframe running MCP. (trivia bit, MCP was the bad guy, and the GFX were rendered on a Burroughs mainframe)
I see.. Not till 2011.
They support X-Box 360 now? From what I understand you need Playon, which doesn't allow rewinding or fast forwarding, and it transcodes which mangles the quality.
Netflix has way more streaming content for that same $10 a month, and no ads, and X-Box, etc. integration. Hulu will be a fail.
Since I have never been on facebook, I don't know how tagging works. Can a picture be tagged with a non facebook person's name? Or can you tag someone with a different name. Like Bob Smith (not on facebook) tagged as Fred Flintstone (on facebook)?
No, it's the only way you can get mail when they don't deliver to your house. Actually, they almost would if I put a mailbox on someone else's property half a block away.
Should have done the suspicious burning desktop system trick
Denholm: [Seeing a fire burning behind a broken monitor frame] Nice screensaver.
Denholm: [later] I love the way the smoke seems to be coming off the top of it...
"Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
so that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah."