this is the keyboard they call a tank -er- model M. I have two of them, very noisy, very resiliant, and very heavy.
i'm not sure these board would be vulnerable to what the grandparent suggests, as the model M's keys operate independant of each other (seperate coil springs), granted someone could figure out the frequency of the keys, but that sounds like a lot of work.
A simple solution to this problem: use a white noise generator, placed under or near the keyboard in question. Hopefully, that'll kick out enough acoustic garbage to scramble the mics.
I recently built a box and installed a home network down in Venice, FL that has been struck directly by lightning the previous summer. the lightning hit the electrical mains (the meter + main breaker on the exterior of the house), which happens to have the POTS POP 6 inches away.
they had to replace nearly every electrical device in their house.
At my own home, i recently discovered that I've been running 15A worth of computer equipment (boxes, monitors, net gear, etc) on an UNGROUNDED line. (house wiring circa 1947, revised in 1970 and 1991) Did i mention i live in florida? I pestered my dad to install a new (and PROPERLY GROUNDED) 20A line. All i have right now is an extension cord running to an unused 15A grounded outlet:-/
there is one system at the other end of the house that's wired to my switch, i'll have to get a surge box for that sucker. Unfortunatly, my parents are too cheap to spend a few extra $ on a surge system on the house. Personally, I plan on burning a few hundred and setting up my own sub-panel with surge suppression/isolation from the rest of the house's shitty wiring.
Most of the other dwelling around these parts are 2+ stories high, not to mention the power transformer boxes on the utility poles at the front and rear of the house, and a few TV antennas and tall trees. this house may not exactly have a bulls eye on it, but too many of the surroundings do... aiee.
I ran a small S-corportation for two years (well, my dad did, i just did everything). if you incorporate, LLC or DBA then you show up on somebody's radar (IRS, state). the advantage of a DBA ($50 for 5 years here in FLA) is that you can write off a lot as business expenses. For instance, my dad and i both do a lot of driving (me a on-the-road computer consultant, him a notary), two cars, 75% of all expenses (mileage, maintenance, gas) are written off as business expenses. Ditto for the net connection, web hosting, and a few boxes.
Donations, afaik, if they're small no one will make an issue of it.
I deincorporated when i turned 18 (no need for the 'cover') taxes and fees on cops are outrageous. Stick to a DBA or your own name (taxes come out the same as the DBA = you).
You're planning to take donations for an Open-source project. use your legal name and everything, if it's less than a few k (i think $2000) the IRS won't give a dang, but check with your friendly neighborhood accountant.
install thunderbird or something, installing files to a usb keydrive, just lug in, load up and go. if these lusers of yours try opening t'bird sans keydrive, they get pretty error messages.:-)
sharing a box is inherently insecure, make them buy a cheap-o dell box or something (just make damn sure you don't do the support).
in my arsonal of boxes, ranging from a paid of PII BX boards to an Nforce2. I've had many, many issues relating to acpi. getting a doze box to SLEEP is easy, bringing it back up has historically caused crash issues (on nforce1, a via kt333 and nforce2 running 2kpro), linux acpi has been limited to power off. though on the PII's i have the acpi stuff disabled in the kernel (read; not there), since I NEVER, turn them off unless i'm swapping UPS's or moving them. I could put the appropriate module in, but i'm just lazy).
As for my windows machines, uptime = 24/7 where possible, one had an uptime of three weeks before i shut it down when i went away for a weekend (SOP here in florida, given the aged nature of the surge box), the other typically has an uptime of a week (updates and the occasional kernel frag), being that the box goes from home to LAN party every two weeks.
more than ACPI, but the more stuff in a box, the harder it is to shut everything off. I've taken to dividing up what each box actually does, with my game box being stripped down (no parallel, serial or extraneous usb here) just mouse, ps2 keyboard and joystick. with a CD burner and DVD-ROM (2 drives). and a single HD. if i actually wanted to put it to sleep, it'd do it. the other desktop nix box by it's side has a DVD burner, CF reader, UPS interface, and the like, not so easy to power to sleep.
now my iBook, uptime WOULD be 100% since january if not for the latch going and keeping the lid open in transit (rattling kept the screen on, battery died) and the other time the battery came loose... it ran for 50 days before dying. same uptime as my best linux server that only goes down when i do something with the power.
Two years ago (ish) I bough a brand spankin' new athlon XP 1800, 512MB of RAM and a GeForce3 Ti200 video card. It ran every game like a dream, said system still runs the latest and greatest, and the GF3 only shows it's age with the games that really push things around (Far Cry, KoTOR, UT2k4, and the like, easily changed using lower detail levels). I basically swapped hardware with a friend of mine a year ago when I was building a fileserver and needed a cord to run that, it was more economical to buy new, fast hardware than cheaper, slightly slower stuff. So i swapped his T'bird 1.3 with a Gforce2 (basically next to useless for anything but a HL or Q3 powered game) and got myself an XP2500, gig of RAM and GeForce4.
Said GeForce4 has been in service... 1.5 years now and is starting to show it's age with far cry and the like. The system upgrade was a bonus in my view, as the same performance can be achieved in both systems if the same card is used.
I will argue, however in today's world of software bloat, a gig of RAM is required for any serious gaming (performance is vastly improved, you can run a 2.0 Ghz/GeforceFX game box with 512M and something slower with 1GB will smoke it).
This machine has a gig, runs all games like a champ (mostly load time performance increases).
These days a GFX card is more important than the underlying system, as long as the system has 512MB or more, and 1.5G CPU and a decent video card, you can run almost everything, granted not in 'Holy Shit!' mode (to borrow a term from UT2k3 where if you pump all details to max the announcer goes 'Holy Shit') but they still run.
Everything out today will run on something going back to a GeForce2 or 3. These new cards are nothing more than the 2nd generation GeForce 3's, the uber powered GFX cards that run the latest and greatest. Considering a console is ~$300 + memory cards, controllers and games (~$40, ~$60, ~$70) versus a PC, which can be used for anything for ~$800.
To put it simply, a $1000-$1200 investment in a new box every two years ain't half bad ($50/mo), and ehen it's all over you have a half way decent box to reuse as a box for a non-gamer, file server, HTPC, etc, more or less for free. I've made up a file server, and a desktop linux test box out of old gaming boxes, past their prime for gaming, but they'll run forever as workhorses, so i wouldn't call them obsolite (hell, the linux desktopper can play anything HL or Q3 powered with it's radeon 7000).
Within 2-3 years, the new cards will be standard and the HL2 engine and its breatheren will take the place of the Q3 and HL1 engine as the dominant force behind gaming's latest. With these new engines, come a quantum leap that won't be seen again for another three years, so i'll just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.
I have a cell phone, a motorola V60i, no polyphonics, no color, no internet (beyond basic SMS text messaging). the rings i have: "Ring...Ring" a basic digital style ring, used for everyone "Uh Oh" (plays something out of an old mystery serial, very simple) used to ID calls from the parents (naturally) "Bombs away" (kinda self explanatory) used to ID LAN party buddies.
When I go to the movies or theater, I LEAVE THE PHONE IN THE CAR. if someone needs me, they can leave a message on voice mail, there is such a thing as being incommunicado, which sadly has been lost these days. If i want to call someone, i will on my own accord. In addition, if i do carry the phone and still dont want to be activly bugged, i rig for silent running.
When I'm in the cave (3 boxes, a cable modem and landline) i'm available, when i'm out, i'm out.
If you need a cluster, grab a few mATX boards with all the trimmings, add as much RAM as you can cram on em and you're set. get some wood/aluminum/steel and a dremel and make your own case, or just grab some cheap matx boxes (matx'ers are a pain in the ass to work on.)
I bought a 48" 12U rack (4 poster, used), 2U case (new) and 4U case (with fully loaded PII 350) for ~$250 on E-bay. My intention now is to use the rack for audio gear (i have a rackmountable preamp and the rest of the gear is 19" standard (needs rails or shelves) 2U (Amp and VTR) or 3 (Stereo reciever unit).
I have three systems now that are classifiable as 'Server' I plan on a few conversions once i get more money.
from the description, you're talking a doze box to be accessed by osx and nix boxen on your lan, but one 'user' behind it all, you.
for a time, I had a doze box headless (due to shortage of monitors). used realVNC.
the box was a PII 350/384MB running win2kpro. it never went past 16bit @ 800x600 for performance reasons, but it worked. the clients were mostly doze (game box client, the doze box in question was "the dump" a sandbox to use P2P filesharing with). I got a linux client working just fine.
Anything mounted on the headless machine SHOULD be on a samba share under linux (CD iso mounting, cd drive, netshares, etc), just use tweakui to move DESKTOP and Mydocs folders to the mapped share (use your linux homedir, doze will see it as N:\desktop and N:\mydocs and your nix box as/home/usernamehere/windows/desktop and../mydocs respectivly (it's all in smb.conf, default shares the users linux homedir to each user.
The trouble is, windows was NEVER designed to be operated remotely, no matter how much you trick it (VNC, RDP, etc) it still assumes a user is at the console, or WILL be if anything bad happens. linux has no qualms running X headless (no local output), while doze will waste pci bandwidth running a ui you don't use.
honestly, if you have windows only apps (what are they) that you can run headless (that kills games and leaves accounting/office/networking ops), try wineX, win4lin or crossover office. I can think of few things windows is good for besides: gaming, running doze only HW (some tv tuners and such) and a few apps that don't run under linux that don't have a linux equivolent 9quicken/quickbooks comes to mind but crossover office can run both with a little help.
I run three desktop boxes and three headless boxes:
Windows game box (primary client)
Linux desktop work box (gentoo/KDE)
Windows mediabox (ATI AIW Tuner, winamp video)
Linux router/web server
Linux file server (Raid 5)
Linux print server (an aging P-133/16MB that actually runs gentoo:p)
all nix boxes are accessed by SSH or local console, there are two other remote doze boxen that i VNC to (unless they're having printer trouble), but they have local heads.
remember, doze does not to headless well, was never built for it to begin with.
recently, on my home network, i came across a severe lag problem. one of the computers ran bitTorrent (windows 2000). the app in charge was killed. traffic continued. I logged into my router, fired up iptraf and found 688x traffic from that machine (tracked it down by MAC), found ou 'doze wasn't so smart about killing child processes and the transfers were still running even though the program was supposidly DEAD.
if i have to do that again...
as far as clueless 'sysadmins' go. i work for one who doesn't know how to id a switch from a hub from a router AND somehow thinks you can ghost an 8GB disk image to 10 boxes at a time over a 10MB full duplex link and it'll be quick:( you canna' do that, man!
I'm 19, been playing computer games since I was 5. When I started out, I watched a LOT of TV, playing the occasional arcade sidescroller on the 386, then graduating to Carmen Sandiago and a handful of Learning Company Edutainment games. Then a little game called Simcity cought my attention at school, within two weeks I had it at home (after an upgrade of 4MB RAM and Windows 3.1 (from 3.0). I played that game for years, solving every single problem a city threw at me.
Then the shareware, Bio-Menace, Galactix, Raptor, Blake Stone, etc. The parents didn't want me playing these as much, viewing it as a lesser game (apparely they wanted me watching TV over learning how to shoot stuff, Star Trek and PBS are better somehow???) (sidenote: I went from Sesame Street/Reading Rainbow straight to The Next Generation at age 5)
Then came the Packard Hell Pentium, and with it, came a little game called DOOM!!! My parents HATED that game with a passion, viewing it as mindless, bloody, gory, etc. I ask you, what's so gory about doom I? I played it anyway.
I survived on various shareware shooters, Flight Sims, SIM* games and the like until C&C Red Alert, again, my parents were skiddish about that (wargame), I was 10 at the time. I played it anyway, convincing them it was as mentally stimulating as chess (it was damn close).
Then in 1998 came Star Trek: Armada (another RTS) and with it, Elite Force (the first FPS that I actually bought). By then, they didn't care much about the violence.
When I have kids, I'm showing them the world of games, first learners, then SIM* games, (problem solving) and finally RTS and shooters (strategy and teamwork).
Anyone who says Games are mindless oviously hasn't watched enough Survioir, Real World, Fear Factor, etc. to realize that TV these days is a mental black hole. I'll take a frag session in BF: Vietnam over reality TV anytime, anywhere.
I watch the following shows (new): NCIS, JAG, Monk (sucker for detective/miliraty law), ENT, Stargate, Smallville.
Stuff I watch in reruns: all of the above plus: Sliders, Any and all Trek, BSG, etc.
mostly sci-fi there, but then again, I AM a geek now arn't I?
Aside from school (necessary evil, blah) and work (consultant, $40+/hr) and the occasional (2x monthly) LAN party, or supply run, I never leave the house except to: Go to movies w/ LAN pals Bowl (league type) um... that's it really:p
If the weather's bearable (read: 3 months out of the year), i may shoot off a model rocket or two. Most of the time the sun is just too damn bright and it's too hot. I have insulating foam over my windows, it may make it real dark in the winter but when summer comes along it's bright enough, I can do without that glare thank you very much. Did i mention that I live in southwest florida?
I had the opportunity to test drive one of the original AlphaSmart K-12 editions back in middle school, they were the poor-man's (or schools) laptop for students. We'd have writing assignments on them and everything. The originals had a 4 line LCD screen, very small. They had a ps/2 & ADB port on the side, plug it into one of the classroom's 2 macs, push a button and *poof*
I loved the suckers, i'll definatly look into this new line.
I've worked with windows for a few years, even did some work under a MSCE wannabe back in the day. I've seen windows boxes 'hardened' out the wazoo, with much pain, bloodshed, tears, and the like. Windows has major flaws that can be exploited long before patches are out. If you have critical (read: confidential and/or mission critical) data, never, ever trust a single hard drive and windows. I learned this the HARD way.
Find some slow hardware (a PII will do the trick if you don't need a ton of crypto), slap a pair of ATA100 controllers in it, hook up some new HD's, make a raid array.
Use samba under some small, controllable distro (i use gentoo), use shorewall or similar firewall together with kernel filtering to block all requests but 22 (ssh), 10000 (webmin) and samba (the number(s) escape me ATM). Under samba, setup two shares visible to windows. pick a login name and pass different than the one your doze box uses (duh). The first share should be your everyday stuff (RW) The second share is the critical info that you don't write to much (RO).
On the nix box, setup a directory (chmod 0 if you can, and allow the cron user access (don't know if this is 'secure' enough) do not share it. setup a cron job to mirror your open directories to another place on the HD. even if your data somehow gets hosed via samba (however unlikly that may be), it's still there buried within the server.
Granted linux has only three possible options (User,Group,World) but in a situation like this you needn't be overly complex.
Use Webmin http://www/webmin.org to admin the box when needed, it has a nice java based file manager to allow file manipulation via GUI (if you don't want to learn BASH to move your data).
Keep the system updated (emerge -u world under gentoo) and you shouldn't have many problems.
Also get a firewall at home and the office that allows VPN, set one up between your home and office nets, allowing only the two nix boxes to exchange data (file updates via NFS/VPN, dumping everything straight to your samba share and therefore your doze box). this allows you to keep a backup of your server data at home and vice versa. The first timw, use a removable HD, CD or DVD to transfer most of the data if it's large, then the linux machines can do the rest real easy, no muss, no fuss. IMO it's worth learning about linux to do this stuff.
You can even stick a CD/DVD burner in said server and setup a simple shell script to burn a backup of your data every day and automatically spit the disc out (tar with permission save -> iso -> cd or dvd).
It should be noted that once the box is setup (you only need the kernel, syslogger, cron, samba mdtools (raid), shorewall, cdrtools, and webmin) it will run with no problems. If someone or some thing gains control of your windows machine, pull the net plug on your windows box, your server will remain unaffected (bonus points if you disable ICMP echos on the box)
shorewall firewall can handle DNAT requests, as for packet shaping, there are several solutions out there.
a friend of mine runs a router like this:
Red Hat 8
Shorewall
traffic shaping
routing a T1 and wireless T1 equiv. to a single lan. it requires a bit of thought, but you can setup the router to forward everything below port 1024 requests out connection A and everything above out connection B (that keeps the web/ftp/pop/ssh/telnet stuff on one line, games on the other, though you might want to route some of the less popular/bandwidth intensive stuff (RTS's for example) out A as well.
btw: this pal of mine runs the local LAN/computer group around these parts, i'll alert him to this thread, who knows, you may get some help.
I'm handicapped, at least legally, heh.
I have hemiparisis of the right side (about 40% motor control of my right hand, arm, leg, foot, etc). Been that way since birth.
In addition to some minor dain bramage that's left me with a very horiffic case of discalcula (trusty TI-30 or TI-83 never leaves my side).
One nice side effect of living with a disability from the get-go:
ADAPTABILITY
I've had to adapt both physically and mentally to just about everything you can think of, as a result I think fast on my feet and can see solutions to problems others don't. I have an IQ in the 160 range IIRC.
My parents put me through a lot, from physical therepy when i was a toddler to piano lessons (you try playing the piano with just your left hand), T-ball, basketball, karate and the like.
I've been teased out the wazoo, was the grade school punching bag. teased due to my weight (i got chubby around the 3rd-4th grade) and my dumb right arm ('retard' 'fag' 'fatty' need i continue?)
I found computers at a young age and have become quite the geek, though I am just now starting to write my own BASH scripts having discovered linux a few years back.
For recreation, i attend local LAN parties and bowl (i can do ~150-180 now), turn my pals into creamed-corn.
interesting life, no.
I rarely watch TV outside of a few shows, these include:
SG1, Enterprise, Smallville, JAG, NCIS, Monk.
most are in conflicting timeslots, but the real important ones (ENT, Sg1) i download and watch commercial free:)
most others are time shifted, with actual time spent watching = TRT+5 (total show time + 5 minutes over the course of the tape for zapping pesky commercials due to lack of a decent tivo like device (slow HD on my tv box)
I've done some tutoring in my day, mostly clean-up work for people who've taken the 'intro to windows and the net' type courses where the instructors go through the 'finer points' of click, double click, dragging, etc. most users are flubbed up by such things. and most never grasp the concept of cut and paste bcause of the way they are tought... 1. select text (click+ hold, drag over text, release) 2. navigate to EDIT menu, don't click anywhere else lest you fubar your selection (most lose the selection box at this stage), click COPY. 3. click on window to paste in, click mouse at location, go to edit and PASTE (again losing place)
my way: 1. select text (this is still the easiest way) 2. press CTRL+C 3. move curser where you want it (switch windows if necessary) 4. Press Ctrl+V 5. done
all the menues are confusing to joe uses cuz they are confronted with first 'file edit view... etc' and then 'undo, cut, copy, paste, paste as, select all, etc' rather than just 'to do this, press this'
Also in WP, instructors say 'go up and click the B for bold print' usually the curser gets misplaced in the process, rather tahn ctrl+B, keeping the curser where is is without ever touching the mouse.
I work in linux a lot, usually over ssh from a doze box, i do find organizing large numbers of files in a directory 9but not all of em) of various names, types, sizes, etc is easier with drag n drop, but shorter tasks are easier in the CLI like moving similar files, deleting, renaming, etc.
renaming: GUI: 2. open dir, navigate X times as necessary 1. click file 2. right click file, select rename 3. goto keyboard, type new name, press enter
renaming: CLI: 1. $ cd/dir/dir/ etc, press enter 2. $ mv 3. ls -s n* (where n is first letter of new file name) to confirm
just plain quicker, and some things, like mounting a drive are easier in a cli as they can be invoked from anywhere, rather than just the window of MY CONMPUTER.
My parents comissioned me to build them a new machine for christmas, said box still sits unused. I intended to put linux on it as all it would really be used for is: Web browsing, e-mail, word processing. Easily fixed by mozilla 1.6 and OpenOffice (both of which they already use).
The only hitch came after I got the parts and was ready to add the OS, my dad wanted it to run Quicken, intending to use his current 2k PC only to run his business and not home stuff. Attitudes have changed over the past 3 months, I'm thinking of getting a copy of xanthos or a nice custom gentoo on there, i no longer wish to babysit their boxen, my mother goes to every goddamn web site out there, getting who knows what for viruses and worms, opening every damn attachment she gets from friends...
I put together a gentoo file server a year ago, i've never had any problems with it:) Though a desktop system is a different animal, not having to deal with adware, worms, swiss cheesed browsers/OS etc is worth the pain of 'HOW DO I GET TO INTERNET, WHERE'S THE BIG E?!!!" from my mother.
i got a new cell for X-mas, intending to transfer my (verizon) landline number to the (AT&T) cell, after 2 months and NOTHING but empty support promises and a temp number on the phone, i said 'screw this' and now just have the two plus call forwarding, cheapre in the long run actually.
This portability thing is a joke.
I started out back when I was 14, doing spot tutoring jobs for $10 an hour here and there for old people, it wasn't glamorous, nor profitable, my parents carted me around, but it laid the foundation.
After middle school, i snagged a job as a lab assistant at a local college annex, 3 hours every saturday @ $9.25 an hour, i was originally promised $7:)
After two years, I had snagged a few key clients whomI tutored at their homes, and started fixing their boxes in the process. This became far more profitable than tutoring/training.
When I was laid off from that job (they closed the lab). I was 16, and convinced my dad to help me start my own business, he'd been running his own for 3 years so he knew what was involved.)
I started a corporation at 16, using it to get around the lack of majority (I did all the work, held all the shares with my dad as the CEO), the process was expensive, and i did get a few boxes for myself out of it.
In any case, after I turned 18 last may, i closed down the now unnecessary coroporation and am operating on my own.
during the two years as a corp, i established many clients, about a dozen or so in the first year who referred me to others, including one major corporation who uses me as an on-site tech guy for their offices in Sarasota and St. Petersburg (the tech guys are based in NY and PC Anywhere only does so much).
Nowadays, I get about 5 hours of onsite and/or bench work a month @ $40 an hour. My website's been spotty for months now, most of my referrals are by word of mouth, it helps that my dad gives a little sales pitch to nearly every client of his (he does remote mortgage/refi closings and goes all over)
Best advice I can give someone in your position is to get the word out, business cards, friends, parents, etc. Even if you don't have a car you can still get rides if you're nice enough.
Polo shirts, slacks and a good pair of shoes are a must, start out small, get in the door by tutoring them (MS word, IE, outlook, the like), $20 or so an hour, work your way up from there, once you're in the door start fixing boxen. There isn't a single box in a client's home that doesnt need something fixed.
Good luck.
I'm a high school senior, I'm not that much into reading books, usually only what's required for coursework. However I do read a lot, online reading that is. Technical journals,/., other message boards, etc. My reading proficiency level has been tested numerous times over the past 9-10 years or so and I have tested far above grade level in both reading and writing proficiency.
I learned most everything Iknow about good writing by reading others, online. I didn't immerse myself in books, but in online story archives, tech journals, and the like.
I can believe that an online site, such as the kid run HP newspaper is a great tool for learning to write, as the kids are doing it voluntarily, learning without consciously realizing that they are expanding their mind. School tends to shove things down your throat and expects you to regurgitate on cue in the form of exams. This stuff, on the other hand is absorbed, processed and output not by force, but by choice.
It has been my experience that IM and chat sessions are steam of consciousness, quick and simple, akin to spoken speech. As such, grammatical conventions take a back seat to the point of the message and phonetical spellings and acronyms are abound. I myself use them, in the interest of time mostly, one need not capitalize and punctuate a one line IM. If a message is longer, my natural writing tendencies kick in and I end up punctuating and capitalizing sorta like normal.
All I can really say is, there needs to be more stuff for kids like this out there.
i recently switched to mozilla 1.6, beats the crap outta IE. i also have a FB install in, been having a few issues with flash and java, so i use zilla.
MS should go to hell for knowing aout vulnerabilities for weeks without a fix.
it should be noted tha disney produced Pirates of the Caribbean, which in my humble opinion is a kick-ass film, not at all disneyfied.
I've read the first three of the pentilogy, can't wait to see this movie. I'll drag my friend (more likly, he'll be draggin me), who can quote every exerpt from The Guide in those books verbatim.
I have two systems side-by-side. Two windows desktops, the one on my left (i'm a lefty) is my mediaPC/messenger box, video (stuff i watch while working, vids and TV) and im/irc windows (also passive) are here. The main box houses games, the bigger monitor, DVD playback, superior audio, etc and it used for work, games and the like. I find the system works, there's something to be said for two screens with independent systems behind them. Although cutting and pasting between the two doesn't happen, thats was saving to the file server are for:)
Quicklaunch is my friend, Mozilla (browser, mail, partial chat), winamp and a My Computer link are there. Games are accessed (albeit less frequently than everything else) via CD auttorun or the start menu. Documents and files on the server... WinKey+F:) (for you unknowers out there, that means FIND)
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this is the keyboard they call a tank -er- model M.
I have two of them, very noisy, very resiliant, and very heavy.
i'm not sure these board would be vulnerable to what the grandparent suggests, as the model M's keys operate independant of each other (seperate coil springs), granted someone could figure out the frequency of the keys, but that sounds like a lot of work.
A simple solution to this problem:
use a white noise generator, placed under or near the keyboard in question. Hopefully, that'll kick out enough acoustic garbage to scramble the mics.
I recently built a box and installed a home network down in Venice, FL that has been struck directly by lightning the previous summer.
:-/
the lightning hit the electrical mains (the meter + main breaker on the exterior of the house), which happens to have the POTS POP 6 inches away.
they had to replace nearly every electrical device in their house.
At my own home, i recently discovered that I've been running 15A worth of computer equipment (boxes, monitors, net gear, etc) on an UNGROUNDED line. (house wiring circa 1947, revised in 1970 and 1991) Did i mention i live in florida?
I pestered my dad to install a new (and PROPERLY GROUNDED) 20A line. All i have right now is an extension cord running to an unused 15A grounded outlet
there is one system at the other end of the house that's wired to my switch, i'll have to get a surge box for that sucker. Unfortunatly, my parents are too cheap to spend a few extra $ on a surge system on the house. Personally, I plan on burning a few hundred and setting up my own sub-panel with surge suppression/isolation from the rest of the house's shitty wiring.
Most of the other dwelling around these parts are 2+ stories high, not to mention the power transformer boxes on the utility poles at the front and rear of the house, and a few TV antennas and tall trees. this house may not exactly have a bulls eye on it, but too many of the surroundings do... aiee.
I ran a small S-corportation for two years (well, my dad did, i just did everything). if you incorporate, LLC or DBA then you show up on somebody's radar (IRS, state). the advantage of a DBA ($50 for 5 years here in FLA) is that you can write off a lot as business expenses.
For instance, my dad and i both do a lot of driving (me a on-the-road computer consultant, him a notary), two cars, 75% of all expenses (mileage, maintenance, gas) are written off as business expenses. Ditto for the net connection, web hosting, and a few boxes.
Donations, afaik, if they're small no one will make an issue of it.
I deincorporated when i turned 18 (no need for the 'cover') taxes and fees on cops are outrageous. Stick to a DBA or your own name (taxes come out the same as the DBA = you).
You're planning to take donations for an Open-source project. use your legal name and everything, if it's less than a few k (i think $2000) the IRS won't give a dang, but check with your friendly neighborhood accountant.
Use Paypal, easiest way to do it.
install thunderbird or something, installing files to a usb keydrive, just lug in, load up and go. if these lusers of yours try opening t'bird sans keydrive, they get pretty error messages. :-)
sharing a box is inherently insecure, make them buy a cheap-o dell box or something (just make damn sure you don't do the support).
in my arsonal of boxes, ranging from a paid of PII BX boards to an Nforce2. I've had many, many issues relating to acpi.
getting a doze box to SLEEP is easy, bringing it back up has historically caused crash issues (on nforce1, a via kt333 and nforce2 running 2kpro), linux acpi has been limited to power off. though on the PII's i have the acpi stuff disabled in the kernel (read; not there), since I NEVER, turn them off unless i'm swapping UPS's or moving them. I could put the appropriate module in, but i'm just lazy).
As for my windows machines, uptime = 24/7 where possible, one had an uptime of three weeks before i shut it down when i went away for a weekend (SOP here in florida, given the aged nature of the surge box), the other typically has an uptime of a week (updates and the occasional kernel frag), being that the box goes from home to LAN party every two weeks.
more than ACPI, but the more stuff in a box, the harder it is to shut everything off. I've taken to dividing up what each box actually does, with my game box being stripped down (no parallel, serial or extraneous usb here) just mouse, ps2 keyboard and joystick. with a CD burner and DVD-ROM (2 drives). and a single HD. if i actually wanted to put it to sleep, it'd do it.
the other desktop nix box by it's side has a DVD burner, CF reader, UPS interface, and the like, not so easy to power to sleep.
now my iBook, uptime WOULD be 100% since january if not for the latch going and keeping the lid open in transit (rattling kept the screen on, battery died) and the other time the battery came loose... it ran for 50 days before dying.
same uptime as my best linux server that only goes down when i do something with the power.
Two years ago (ish) I bough a brand spankin' new athlon XP 1800, 512MB of RAM and a GeForce3 Ti200 video card. It ran every game like a dream, said system still runs the latest and greatest, and the GF3 only shows it's age with the games that really push things around (Far Cry, KoTOR, UT2k4, and the like, easily changed using lower detail levels).
I basically swapped hardware with a friend of mine a year ago when I was building a fileserver and needed a cord to run that, it was more economical to buy new, fast hardware than cheaper, slightly slower stuff. So i swapped his T'bird 1.3 with a Gforce2 (basically next to useless for anything but a HL or Q3 powered game) and got myself an XP2500, gig of RAM and GeForce4.
Said GeForce4 has been in service... 1.5 years now and is starting to show it's age with far cry and the like. The system upgrade was a bonus in my view, as the same performance can be achieved in both systems if the same card is used.
I will argue, however in today's world of software bloat, a gig of RAM is required for any serious gaming (performance is vastly improved, you can run a 2.0 Ghz/GeforceFX game box with 512M and something slower with 1GB will smoke it).
This machine has a gig, runs all games like a champ (mostly load time performance increases).
These days a GFX card is more important than the underlying system, as long as the system has 512MB or more, and 1.5G CPU and a decent video card, you can run almost everything, granted not in 'Holy Shit!' mode (to borrow a term from UT2k3 where if you pump all details to max the announcer goes 'Holy Shit') but they still run.
Everything out today will run on something going back to a GeForce2 or 3. These new cards are nothing more than the 2nd generation GeForce 3's, the uber powered GFX cards that run the latest and greatest. Considering a console is ~$300 + memory cards, controllers and games (~$40, ~$60, ~$70) versus a PC, which can be used for anything for ~$800.
To put it simply, a $1000-$1200 investment in a new box every two years ain't half bad ($50/mo), and ehen it's all over you have a half way decent box to reuse as a box for a non-gamer, file server, HTPC, etc, more or less for free. I've made up a file server, and a desktop linux test box out of old gaming boxes, past their prime for gaming, but they'll run forever as workhorses, so i wouldn't call them obsolite (hell, the linux desktopper can play anything HL or Q3 powered with it's radeon 7000).
Within 2-3 years, the new cards will be standard and the HL2 engine and its breatheren will take the place of the Q3 and HL1 engine as the dominant force behind gaming's latest. With these new engines, come a quantum leap that won't be seen again for another three years, so i'll just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.
I have a cell phone, a motorola V60i, no polyphonics, no color, no internet (beyond basic SMS text messaging). the rings i have:
"Ring...Ring" a basic digital style ring, used for everyone
"Uh Oh" (plays something out of an old mystery serial, very simple) used to ID calls from the parents (naturally)
"Bombs away" (kinda self explanatory) used to ID LAN party buddies.
When I go to the movies or theater, I LEAVE THE PHONE IN THE CAR.
if someone needs me, they can leave a message on voice mail, there is such a thing as being incommunicado, which sadly has been lost these days. If i want to call someone, i will on my own accord. In addition, if i do carry the phone and still dont want to be activly bugged, i rig for silent running.
When I'm in the cave (3 boxes, a cable modem and landline) i'm available, when i'm out, i'm out.
If you need a cluster, grab a few mATX boards with all the trimmings, add as much RAM as you can cram on em and you're set.
get some wood/aluminum/steel and a dremel and make your own case, or just grab some cheap matx boxes (matx'ers are a pain in the ass to work on.)
I bought a 48" 12U rack (4 poster, used), 2U case (new) and 4U case (with fully loaded PII 350) for ~$250 on E-bay.
My intention now is to use the rack for audio gear (i have a rackmountable preamp and the rest of the gear is 19" standard (needs rails or shelves) 2U (Amp and VTR) or 3 (Stereo reciever unit).
I have three systems now that are classifiable as 'Server'
I plan on a few conversions once i get more money.
from the description, you're talking a doze box to be accessed by osx and nix boxen on your lan, but one 'user' behind it all, you. for a time, I had a doze box headless (due to shortage of monitors). used realVNC. the box was a PII 350/384MB running win2kpro. it never went past 16bit @ 800x600 for performance reasons, but it worked. the clients were mostly doze (game box client, the doze box in question was "the dump" a sandbox to use P2P filesharing with). I got a linux client working just fine. Anything mounted on the headless machine SHOULD be on a samba share under linux (CD iso mounting, cd drive, netshares, etc), just use tweakui to move DESKTOP and Mydocs folders to the mapped share (use your linux homedir, doze will see it as N:\desktop and N:\mydocs and your nix box as /home/usernamehere/windows/desktop and ../mydocs respectivly (it's all in smb.conf, default shares the users linux homedir to each user.
The trouble is, windows was NEVER designed to be operated remotely, no matter how much you trick it (VNC, RDP, etc) it still assumes a user is at the console, or WILL be if anything bad happens. linux has no qualms running X headless (no local output), while doze will waste pci bandwidth running a ui you don't use.
honestly, if you have windows only apps (what are they) that you can run headless (that kills games and leaves accounting/office/networking ops), try wineX, win4lin or crossover office. I can think of few things windows is good for besides: gaming, running doze only HW (some tv tuners and such) and a few apps that don't run under linux that don't have a linux equivolent 9quicken/quickbooks comes to mind but crossover office can run both with a little help.
I run three desktop boxes and three headless boxes:
Windows game box (primary client)
Linux desktop work box (gentoo/KDE)
Windows mediabox (ATI AIW Tuner, winamp video)
Linux router/web server
Linux file server (Raid 5)
Linux print server (an aging P-133/16MB that actually runs gentoo :p)
all nix boxes are accessed by SSH or local console, there are two other remote doze boxen that i VNC to (unless they're having printer trouble), but they have local heads.
remember, doze does not to headless well, was never built for it to begin with.
recently, on my home network, i came across a severe lag problem. one of the computers ran bitTorrent (windows 2000). the app in charge was killed. traffic continued.
:(
I logged into my router, fired up iptraf and found 688x traffic from that machine (tracked it down by MAC), found ou 'doze wasn't so smart about killing child processes and the transfers were still running even though the program was supposidly DEAD.
if i have to do that again...
as far as clueless 'sysadmins' go. i work for one who doesn't know how to id a switch from a hub from a router AND somehow thinks you can ghost an 8GB disk image to 10 boxes at a time over a 10MB full duplex link and it'll be quick
you canna' do that, man!
I'm 19, been playing computer games since I was 5.
When I started out, I watched a LOT of TV, playing the occasional arcade sidescroller on the 386, then graduating to Carmen Sandiago and a handful of Learning Company Edutainment games.
Then a little game called Simcity cought my attention at school, within two weeks I had it at home (after an upgrade of 4MB RAM and Windows 3.1 (from 3.0). I played that game for years, solving every single problem a city threw at me.
Then the shareware, Bio-Menace, Galactix, Raptor, Blake Stone, etc. The parents didn't want me playing these as much, viewing it as a lesser game (apparely they wanted me watching TV over learning how to shoot stuff, Star Trek and PBS are better somehow???) (sidenote: I went from Sesame Street/Reading Rainbow straight to The Next Generation at age 5)
Then came the Packard Hell Pentium, and with it,
came a little game called DOOM!!!
My parents HATED that game with a passion, viewing it as mindless, bloody, gory, etc. I ask you, what's so gory about doom I? I played it anyway.
I survived on various shareware shooters, Flight Sims, SIM* games and the like until C&C Red Alert, again, my parents were skiddish about that (wargame), I was 10 at the time.
I played it anyway, convincing them it was as mentally stimulating as chess (it was damn close).
Then in 1998 came Star Trek: Armada (another RTS) and with it, Elite Force (the first FPS that I actually bought). By then, they didn't care much about the violence.
When I have kids, I'm showing them the world of games, first learners, then SIM* games, (problem solving) and finally RTS and shooters (strategy and teamwork).
Anyone who says Games are mindless oviously hasn't watched enough Survioir, Real World, Fear Factor, etc. to realize that TV these days is a mental black hole. I'll take a frag session in BF: Vietnam over reality TV anytime, anywhere.
I watch the following shows (new):
NCIS, JAG, Monk (sucker for detective/miliraty law), ENT, Stargate, Smallville.
Stuff I watch in reruns:
all of the above plus:
Sliders, Any and all Trek, BSG, etc.
mostly sci-fi there, but then again, I AM a geek now arn't I?
Aside from school (necessary evil, blah) and work (consultant, $40+/hr) and the occasional (2x monthly) LAN party, or supply run, I never leave the house except to: :p
Go to movies w/ LAN pals
Bowl (league type)
um... that's it really
If the weather's bearable (read: 3 months out of the year), i may shoot off a model rocket or two. Most of the time the sun is just too damn bright and it's too hot. I have insulating foam over my windows, it may make it real dark in the winter but when summer comes along it's bright enough, I can do without that glare thank you very much. Did i mention that I live in southwest florida?
I had the opportunity to test drive one of the original AlphaSmart K-12 editions back in middle school, they were the poor-man's (or schools) laptop for students. We'd have writing assignments on them and everything. The originals had a 4 line LCD screen, very small. They had a ps/2 & ADB port on the side, plug it into one of the classroom's 2 macs, push a button and *poof* I loved the suckers, i'll definatly look into this new line.
I've worked with windows for a few years, even did some work under a MSCE wannabe back in the day. I've seen windows boxes 'hardened' out the wazoo, with much pain, bloodshed, tears, and the like. Windows has major flaws that can be exploited long before patches are out.
If you have critical (read: confidential and/or mission critical) data, never, ever trust a single hard drive and windows. I learned this the HARD way.
Find some slow hardware (a PII will do the trick if you don't need a ton of crypto), slap a pair of ATA100 controllers in it, hook up some new HD's, make a raid array.
Use samba under some small, controllable distro (i use gentoo), use shorewall or similar firewall together with kernel filtering to block all requests but 22 (ssh), 10000 (webmin) and samba (the number(s) escape me ATM).
Under samba, setup two shares visible to windows. pick a login name and pass different than the one your doze box uses (duh).
The first share should be your everyday stuff (RW)
The second share is the critical info that you don't write to much (RO).
On the nix box, setup a directory (chmod 0 if you can, and allow the cron user access (don't know if this is 'secure' enough) do not share it. setup a cron job to mirror your open directories to another place on the HD. even if your data somehow gets hosed via samba (however unlikly that may be), it's still there buried within the server.
Granted linux has only three possible options (User,Group,World) but in a situation like this you needn't be overly complex.
Use Webmin http://www/webmin.org to admin the box when needed, it has a nice java based file manager to allow file manipulation via GUI (if you don't want to learn BASH to move your data).
Keep the system updated (emerge -u world under gentoo) and you shouldn't have many problems.
Also get a firewall at home and the office that allows VPN, set one up between your home and office nets, allowing only the two nix boxes to exchange data (file updates via NFS/VPN, dumping everything straight to your samba share and therefore your doze box). this allows you to keep a backup of your server data at home and vice versa. The first timw, use a removable HD, CD or DVD to transfer most of the data if it's large, then the linux machines can do the rest real easy, no muss, no fuss. IMO it's worth learning about linux to do this stuff.
You can even stick a CD/DVD burner in said server and setup a simple shell script to burn a backup of your data every day and automatically spit the disc out (tar with permission save -> iso -> cd or dvd).
It should be noted that once the box is setup (you only need the kernel, syslogger, cron, samba mdtools (raid), shorewall, cdrtools, and webmin) it will run with no problems. If someone or some thing gains control of your windows machine, pull the net plug on your windows box, your server will remain unaffected (bonus points if you disable ICMP echos on the box)
shorewall firewall can handle DNAT requests, as for packet shaping, there are several solutions out there. a friend of mine runs a router like this: Red Hat 8 Shorewall traffic shaping routing a T1 and wireless T1 equiv. to a single lan. it requires a bit of thought, but you can setup the router to forward everything below port 1024 requests out connection A and everything above out connection B (that keeps the web/ftp/pop/ssh/telnet stuff on one line, games on the other, though you might want to route some of the less popular/bandwidth intensive stuff (RTS's for example) out A as well. btw: this pal of mine runs the local LAN/computer group around these parts, i'll alert him to this thread, who knows, you may get some help.
I'm handicapped, at least legally, heh. I have hemiparisis of the right side (about 40% motor control of my right hand, arm, leg, foot, etc). Been that way since birth. In addition to some minor dain bramage that's left me with a very horiffic case of discalcula (trusty TI-30 or TI-83 never leaves my side). One nice side effect of living with a disability from the get-go: ADAPTABILITY I've had to adapt both physically and mentally to just about everything you can think of, as a result I think fast on my feet and can see solutions to problems others don't. I have an IQ in the 160 range IIRC. My parents put me through a lot, from physical therepy when i was a toddler to piano lessons (you try playing the piano with just your left hand), T-ball, basketball, karate and the like. I've been teased out the wazoo, was the grade school punching bag. teased due to my weight (i got chubby around the 3rd-4th grade) and my dumb right arm ('retard' 'fag' 'fatty' need i continue?) I found computers at a young age and have become quite the geek, though I am just now starting to write my own BASH scripts having discovered linux a few years back. For recreation, i attend local LAN parties and bowl (i can do ~150-180 now), turn my pals into creamed-corn. interesting life, no.
I rarely watch TV outside of a few shows, these include: SG1, Enterprise, Smallville, JAG, NCIS, Monk. most are in conflicting timeslots, but the real important ones (ENT, Sg1) i download and watch commercial free :)
most others are time shifted, with actual time spent watching = TRT+5 (total show time + 5 minutes over the course of the tape for zapping pesky commercials due to lack of a decent tivo like device (slow HD on my tv box)
I've done some tutoring in my day, mostly clean-up work for people who've taken the 'intro to windows and the net' type courses where the instructors go through the 'finer points' of click, double click, dragging, etc. most users are flubbed up by such things. and most never grasp the concept of cut and paste bcause of the way they are tought...
/dir/dir/ etc, press enter
1. select text (click+ hold, drag over text, release)
2. navigate to EDIT menu, don't click anywhere else lest you fubar your selection (most lose the selection box at this stage), click COPY.
3. click on window to paste in, click mouse at location, go to edit and PASTE (again losing place)
my way:
1. select text (this is still the easiest way)
2. press CTRL+C
3. move curser where you want it (switch windows if necessary)
4. Press Ctrl+V
5. done
all the menues are confusing to joe uses cuz they are confronted with first 'file edit view... etc' and then 'undo, cut, copy, paste, paste as, select all, etc' rather than just 'to do this, press this'
Also in WP, instructors say 'go up and click the B for bold print' usually the curser gets misplaced in the process, rather tahn ctrl+B, keeping the curser where is is without ever touching the mouse.
I work in linux a lot, usually over ssh from a doze box, i do find organizing large numbers of files in a directory 9but not all of em) of various names, types, sizes, etc is easier with drag n drop, but shorter tasks are easier in the CLI like moving similar files, deleting, renaming, etc.
renaming: GUI:
2. open dir, navigate X times as necessary
1. click file
2. right click file, select rename
3. goto keyboard, type new name, press enter
renaming: CLI:
1. $ cd
2. $ mv
3. ls -s n* (where n is first letter of new file name) to confirm
just plain quicker, and some things, like mounting a drive are easier in a cli as they can be invoked from anywhere, rather than just the window of MY CONMPUTER.
My parents comissioned me to build them a new machine for christmas, said box still sits unused.
:)
I intended to put linux on it as all it would really be used for is: Web browsing, e-mail, word processing. Easily fixed by mozilla 1.6 and OpenOffice (both of which they already use).
The only hitch came after I got the parts and was ready to add the OS, my dad wanted it to run Quicken, intending to use his current 2k PC only to run his business and not home stuff.
Attitudes have changed over the past 3 months, I'm thinking of getting a copy of xanthos or a nice custom gentoo on there, i no longer wish to babysit their boxen, my mother goes to every goddamn web site out there, getting who knows what for viruses and worms, opening every damn attachment she gets from friends...
I put together a gentoo file server a year ago, i've never had any problems with it
Though a desktop system is a different animal, not having to deal with adware, worms, swiss cheesed browsers/OS etc is worth the pain of 'HOW DO I GET TO INTERNET, WHERE'S THE BIG E?!!!" from my mother.
i got a new cell for X-mas, intending to transfer my (verizon) landline number to the (AT&T) cell, after 2 months and NOTHING but empty support promises and a temp number on the phone, i said 'screw this' and now just have the two plus call forwarding, cheapre in the long run actually. This portability thing is a joke.
I started out back when I was 14, doing spot tutoring jobs for $10 an hour here and there for old people, it wasn't glamorous, nor profitable, my parents carted me around, but it laid the foundation. After middle school, i snagged a job as a lab assistant at a local college annex, 3 hours every saturday @ $9.25 an hour, i was originally promised $7 :)
After two years, I had snagged a few key clients whomI tutored at their homes, and started fixing their boxes in the process. This became far more profitable than tutoring/training.
When I was laid off from that job (they closed the lab). I was 16, and convinced my dad to help me start my own business, he'd been running his own for 3 years so he knew what was involved.)
I started a corporation at 16, using it to get around the lack of majority (I did all the work, held all the shares with my dad as the CEO), the process was expensive, and i did get a few boxes for myself out of it.
In any case, after I turned 18 last may, i closed down the now unnecessary coroporation and am operating on my own.
during the two years as a corp, i established many clients, about a dozen or so in the first year who referred me to others, including one major corporation who uses me as an on-site tech guy for their offices in Sarasota and St. Petersburg (the tech guys are based in NY and PC Anywhere only does so much).
Nowadays, I get about 5 hours of onsite and/or bench work a month @ $40 an hour. My website's been spotty for months now, most of my referrals are by word of mouth, it helps that my dad gives a little sales pitch to nearly every client of his (he does remote mortgage/refi closings and goes all over)
Best advice I can give someone in your position is to get the word out, business cards, friends, parents, etc. Even if you don't have a car you can still get rides if you're nice enough.
Polo shirts, slacks and a good pair of shoes are a must, start out small, get in the door by tutoring them (MS word, IE, outlook, the like), $20 or so an hour, work your way up from there, once you're in the door start fixing boxen. There isn't a single box in a client's home that doesnt need something fixed.
Good luck.
I'm a high school senior, I'm not that much into reading books, usually only what's required for coursework. However I do read a lot, online reading that is. Technical journals, /., other message boards, etc. My reading proficiency level has been tested numerous times over the past 9-10 years or so and I have tested far above grade level in both reading and writing proficiency.
I learned most everything Iknow about good writing by reading others, online. I didn't immerse myself in books, but in online story archives, tech journals, and the like.
I can believe that an online site, such as the kid run HP newspaper is a great tool for learning to write, as the kids are doing it voluntarily, learning without consciously realizing that they are expanding their mind. School tends to shove things down your throat and expects you to regurgitate on cue in the form of exams. This stuff, on the other hand is absorbed, processed and output not by force, but by choice.
It has been my experience that IM and chat sessions are steam of consciousness, quick and simple, akin to spoken speech. As such, grammatical conventions take a back seat to the point of the message and phonetical spellings and acronyms are abound. I myself use them, in the interest of time mostly, one need not capitalize and punctuate a one line IM. If a message is longer, my natural writing tendencies kick in and I end up punctuating and capitalizing sorta like normal.
All I can really say is, there needs to be more stuff for kids like this out there.
i recently switched to mozilla 1.6, beats the crap outta IE. i also have a FB install in, been having a few issues with flash and java, so i use zilla. MS should go to hell for knowing aout vulnerabilities for weeks without a fix.
it should be noted tha disney produced Pirates of the Caribbean, which in my humble opinion is a kick-ass film, not at all disneyfied.
I've read the first three of the pentilogy, can't wait to see this movie. I'll drag my friend (more likly, he'll be draggin me), who can quote every exerpt from The Guide in those books verbatim.
I have two systems side-by-side. Two windows desktops, the one on my left (i'm a lefty) is my mediaPC/messenger box, video (stuff i watch while working, vids and TV) and im/irc windows (also passive) are here. The main box houses games, the bigger monitor, DVD playback, superior audio, etc and it used for work, games and the like. I find the system works, there's something to be said for two screens with independent systems behind them. Although cutting and pasting between the two doesn't happen, thats was saving to the file server are for :)
Quicklaunch is my friend, Mozilla (browser, mail, partial chat), winamp and a My Computer link are there. Games are accessed (albeit less frequently than everything else) via CD auttorun or the start menu. Documents and files on the server... WinKey+F :) (for you unknowers out there, that means FIND)