If you provide wireless over a large area, you don't mind perhaps putting up small signs to advertise that it's available in this area, but you don't want to have to put all the instructions, terms of use, etc up there. That's a lot of text.
We aren't talking about businesses who's employees all already know this stuff. We're talking about universities, hotspots in hotels and airports, etc. Public hotspots, where users have to read a terms of use agreement and instructions before continuing, and who may not be the least bit familiar with the necessary steps.
A lot of these sorts of people do this now. I can't remember where I got the idea for this myself, but I doubt I read it off of their patent application.
Actually, the far better way (far more secure, that is) is to give everyone IPs in the same range and have a default rule on the outgoing firewall (REDIRECT would be the iptables target) to redirect the destination on outgoing TCP/80 packets to the local authentication http server and allow no outgoing connections. Only after authentication is a special passthrough allowed for that IP/MAC combo.
Even this method is open to session hijacking, depending largely on the behavior of the victim who's session is hijacked, but it's better than what you suggest (which only requires ignoring the DHCP server to bypass).
Incidentally, I've been wrapping up a slightly more complex system of this for my employer. I can't remember where I got the idea to redirect outgoing port 80, but it seems pretty obvious to me. I know a couple of companies, such as Reefedge and Bluesocket that do pretty much the same thing.
Let's see...free marshmallow sandwitches from Computer Associates (wtf?), a free T-Shirt from PogoLinux (don't think I'll wear that one anywhere except maybe to the gym), a Google pen, a HP water bottle, a Microsoft mini-radio (again, wtf?), a couple of BSD stickers, a few free CD's from Sun (Java Desktop System live-eval), and, if my luck holds out, maybe I'll win that Porsche from RedHat!:P
I'm just bummed I didn't win one of the CA Tux scarves. Woulda kept me warm on the way home.
I don't know, but that's what Woody Allen says in Annie Hall. ``To quote Groucho Marx, I'd never want to be a part of any club that would have me as a member. That's how I am with women.'' Of course, he also ways, ``don't know masturbation. At least it's sex with someone I love.''
I don't see how bluetooth is any better. The range is certainly far too limited.
Regardless, any brew-it-yourself solution would probably be far too large, anyway. I doubt you could run VoIP on anything short of a small laptop anyway, and you certainly can't go buying those for every student.
Probably best, as you said, to stick with the older tried-and-true methods. Get newer walkie-talkies with multiple channels and keep 'em charged.
To give the benefit of the doubt, the author may have meant that many organizations purchased 64-bit Sparcs without really being able to justify the need. That's not the same as saying some uses dont require it, but rather just that many of the real-world applications of these machines weren't any of those that did.
But I'm just guessing here. The author doesn't really say enough for me to be sure which it is, and you may well be right. OSNews, much like Slashdot itself, doesn't always have the best editorial oversight.
My point was that nothing makes Macs better at digital art, other than perhaps one or two software suites not available or as well supported for PC, and a few bits of hardware (video decks, audio mixers, etc).
And it seems just a tad narrow-minded of you to assume all Slashdot readers have no artistic talent. I study digital design. Computer science and--who woulda thought?--fine arts. Personally, I feel a bit more at home with charcoal and paper than a mouse and screen, but I'm not wholly ignorant of 2d and 3d digital art, either. I feel equally at home talking about artistic expression as C coding or Linux. But maybe that's just me.
Right, but you could address it with a windows setup. Yes, I've mainly done photoshop, illustrator, quark, etc on Macs. Maya, AfterEffects, 3DS Max I've done on PCs. The difference is negligable.
I'm by no means a digital media expert, admittedly. But there truly is not, as far as I know, anything a Mac can do significantly faster or better than a PC can not do. The only real difference is that PowerMacs are essentially workstations, not desktops (and priced as such), and clearly leave most PC desktops in the dust at this stuff (having onboard SCSI, for just one examle, which is always an extra option on PCs). But a PC workstation designed for media is the equal of it's Mac counterpart.
OK, I take it back. Apparently a lot of Macs have been used in research. My experiences have been with largely Sparcs, being replaced currently by Lintel. Certainly many early desktops were Macs, which I knew, but I didn't realize they were used so widely for other applications (like I said, I've never stumbled across it personally). Nonetheless, I don't think it hurts the original point; Macs' lack of penetration (in business, if not academia) is due to Apple's and their competitors' marketing, not any predisposition by the actual machines towards a certain use.
First, it's not just your opinion. You probably got it from the fact that Macs are marketed at graphic designers, artists, and the like, while PCs are business machines in accounting offices, cubicles, and so forth. IBM was and still is renowned for engineering and research, not cultural relevance or consumer appeal.
Comparitavely, Macs are (or at least were) rarely used in scientific research (like I said, this is changing--I know of a few labs now that use G5s and the like as a replacement for more expensive Unix workstations, but by and large Lintel is far cheaper). Apple has instead tried to appeal to consumers, not businesses or engineers. iPods are for hip twenty-somethings, not procurement departments in major corporations.
But this is solely because of marketing and focus. Macs are no better for digital art than PCs, in my experience (except for perhaps a few bits of software not available on PC, such as Final Cut Pro). Macs are rarely significantly faster for the price at graphics. And conversely, few scientific applications wouldn't run as well on OSX--which presumably can compile most ANSI C and, if I'm not mistaken, has POSIX compliant libraries and so forth--as they would on Windows or Linux.
There's no reason to say Macs are better for artists and PCs are better for engineers. Both appreciate speed and reliability, both appreciate security and stability, both appreciate elegance and ease of use. It's marketing that's shaped your perception. Nothing more.
I don't know how a 600MHz with a 1MB cache would perform like a 1.2GHz. It's like saying that a Civic with good braking performs as well as a Porsche.
First, the Centrinos really do run at whatever speed they're rated at (but they have SpeedStep, which allows them to run at a slower speed as well to save power). Centrino just means a Pentium M with a Intel-branded WiFi transciever. So a 1.4GHz Centrino is just a 1.4GHz Pentium M.
Second, the cache doesn't really boost performance in the same way as a faster processor. The cache is good for speeding up memory access on applications that are easily cached (i.e., the pattern of memory access benefits from spatial or temporal locality; elements near accessed elements are likely to be accessed as well, or elements frequently access are likely to be accessed more). Look at it this way; the DRAM used in caches is accessible in maybe 1/10th the time of the SDRAM used in system memory. But at the same time, it's far more expensive.
The gains from having way more cache than needed (which really depends on the application; desktop processing or gaming, which doesn't involve extended periods of data processing, woudln't benefit a whole lot, though perhaps rendering or video processing would) aren't worth the great cost of DRAM.
And the speed of the processor doesn't have a lot to do with how much cache is useful, I don't think (perhaps one could argue that a faster processor goes through the cached data faster than more can be cached to replace it, but I don't think the difference in needed cache between a 600MHz and a 2GHz would be all that great, either).
More cache is better, up to the point that it can't be used any greater, but it's not at all the same as a faster processor.
I have to tell you, I was using an eMachines recently and didn't have this trouble at all. Debian doesn't install any of that shit.
What prevents you from just reinstalling the OS as soon as you get it? Perhaps more of a hassle than most people want, but certainly not that big a deal, either. I do it with all of my machines.
Not trying to be one of those self-righteous Linux users, but seriously, it's not THAT big a deal.
Voter turnout among those qualified to receive welfare is far too low to satisfy this argument.
Voter turnout among those in the segment receiving small to moderate tax breaks is fairly significant. Thus the current strategy of advocating tax breaks over social services (favored by Bush et al., for example).
According to this, the current design uses a PC104 100MHz 486 board with all sorts of hacked-up components (4 lithium batteries at like $600 alone). But plenty of PDA's are available at 400MHz or better with decent power consumption, etc.
Seems to me that that'd be a better place to start. Rewire the LCD output to go to his glasses-screen, find CF modules for things like the video cam, GPS, WiFi, and what-have-you, and you're good. The only big issue I see is the storage space, which, with an IBM microdrive, is probably limited to 5GB or so.
That doesn't make much sense. By that logic, people who spend a lot of time reading books would have the same issues.
I would guess his issue is actually that he's become used to focusing his eyes on a screen in front of him when moving around. Ordinarily, feeling motion when not seeing it causes nausia (such as when sitting in a bus or train where there is no visible motion but your inner-ear can feel the motion. This is because (I remember hearing on the Discovery Channel or somesuch) that situation--feeling but not seeing motion--is a symptom of some poisons and your body has evolved to heave up the toxins.
Anyway, in his case, he has become used to seeing something always in front of his eyes which is not moving, even when walking about. Perhaps the rapid motion of the world around him, when he isn't wearing his glasses, makes him nauseous? Then again, you'd think you'd see this with people who wear glasses, too, when they remove them (I just got a prescription for farsightedness--guess I'm getting old--so I'll be able to tell you shortly).
I knew a story of a kid--an exchange student who's English skills werent all that good, as it happens--who had a similar thing happen. One of his friends sent him a ``net send'' message that said ``Hey, Bitch.'' So he naturally figured he'd reply in kind.
Turns out he hit an * (or whatever the wildcard was) and sent it to the whole domain. The way I heard it, teachers saw this and flipped out. The lunchlady turned on her computer (don't know why a lunchlady had a computer, though) and called tech support thinking she had a virus.
I think the poor guy was suspended for at least one day, too. Sucks to be him.
Does IBM offer a Linux desktop? I can't recall any offhand. And they probably do use Linux on their servers (or at least some of them), so in that sense, they do ``eat their own dog food'' (isn't that what MS decided Hotmail had to do with respect to Solaris/BSD versus Windows?).
Considering that IBM is one of the strongest supporters of enterprise Linux (offering it on many servers and mainframes), it's not surprising that they've recognized Linux as an option. And unlike, say, Sun, IBM doesn't have any real desktop offerings of their own with which Linux on the desktop would be competing (I strongly doubt they were considering using OS/2:P), so it makes sense that they would have gone this direction.
Probably the big reason they wouldn't be interesting in flaunting it so much is that their workstation offerings are far more limited than Sun's, who has made a big effort to show that they are ``with it'' when it comes to Linux on the desktop (even if they continue to adamantly support Solaris as a server OS).
Even so, I would think that things like video compression would benefit from the larger instruction set, no? You have a case where the data is all predictable and benefits a lot from spatial locality, so the caching should be very effective and the large data chunks should help a lot. Unless I'm misunderstanding something.
Heh, thanks. I am entirely aware that that is possible. I just assumed that Mac had released a 64-bit version of OSX for the G5. I don't know a lot about Macs.
And seriously, what ever happend to common courtesy?
In a limited environment, it makes sense, but not campus-wide. For example, I know of a neuroscience lab which has a Linux computer lab where MRI data (which takes up terabytes) is stored on networked RAID arrays, and the actual processing is done by the Linux workstations.
But to do it campus-wide makes many admins very very nervous; the cost of maintainance and upkeep may in fact rise, and even if the secretaries aren't using their P4's with hyperthreading most of the time, the admins don't want the hassle of keeping them running for the secretaries and running the distributed software at the same time (I've seen proposals to do this, and seen the results). I personally think it makes a great idea, but usually--since those proposing it tend not to be the first and second-tier support providers--it gets shot down.
What? If I'm not mistaken, G5's have a 64 bit architecture (which makes sense, since Apple advertises it as the worlds fastest 64 bit desktop). And if I'm also not mistaken, OSX runs on G5 machines. So if OSX runs on 64 bit processors, presumably it is, in fact, compiled to run on 64 bit processors. So wouldn't that make OSX a 64 bit OS?
Or am I missing something (if you meant compiled for IA-64 or Opteron, no, it won't happen anytime soon, for the same reason that OSX for IA32 won't happen anytime soon)?
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If you provide wireless over a large area, you don't mind perhaps putting up small signs to advertise that it's available in this area, but you don't want to have to put all the instructions, terms of use, etc up there. That's a lot of text.
We aren't talking about businesses who's employees all already know this stuff. We're talking about universities, hotspots in hotels and airports, etc. Public hotspots, where users have to read a terms of use agreement and instructions before continuing, and who may not be the least bit familiar with the necessary steps.
A lot of these sorts of people do this now. I can't remember where I got the idea for this myself, but I doubt I read it off of their patent application.
Even this method is open to session hijacking, depending largely on the behavior of the victim who's session is hijacked, but it's better than what you suggest (which only requires ignoring the DHCP server to bypass).
Incidentally, I've been wrapping up a slightly more complex system of this for my employer. I can't remember where I got the idea to redirect outgoing port 80, but it seems pretty obvious to me. I know a couple of companies, such as Reefedge and Bluesocket that do pretty much the same thing.
Prior art, anyone?
Let's see...free marshmallow sandwitches from Computer Associates (wtf?), a free T-Shirt from PogoLinux (don't think I'll wear that one anywhere except maybe to the gym), a Google pen, a HP water bottle, a Microsoft mini-radio (again, wtf?), a couple of BSD stickers, a few free CD's from Sun (Java Desktop System live-eval), and, if my luck holds out, maybe I'll win that Porsche from RedHat! :P
I'm just bummed I didn't win one of the CA Tux scarves. Woulda kept me warm on the way home.
I don't know, but that's what Woody Allen says in Annie Hall. ``To quote Groucho Marx, I'd never want to be a part of any club that would have me as a member. That's how I am with women.'' Of course, he also ways, ``don't know masturbation. At least it's sex with someone I love.''
Regardless, any brew-it-yourself solution would probably be far too large, anyway. I doubt you could run VoIP on anything short of a small laptop anyway, and you certainly can't go buying those for every student.
Probably best, as you said, to stick with the older tried-and-true methods. Get newer walkie-talkies with multiple channels and keep 'em charged.
Or you could get Nextels for all the crewmembers.
But I'm just guessing here. The author doesn't really say enough for me to be sure which it is, and you may well be right. OSNews, much like Slashdot itself, doesn't always have the best editorial oversight.
And it seems just a tad narrow-minded of you to assume all Slashdot readers have no artistic talent. I study digital design. Computer science and--who woulda thought?--fine arts. Personally, I feel a bit more at home with charcoal and paper than a mouse and screen, but I'm not wholly ignorant of 2d and 3d digital art, either. I feel equally at home talking about artistic expression as C coding or Linux. But maybe that's just me.
I'm by no means a digital media expert, admittedly. But there truly is not, as far as I know, anything a Mac can do significantly faster or better than a PC can not do. The only real difference is that PowerMacs are essentially workstations, not desktops (and priced as such), and clearly leave most PC desktops in the dust at this stuff (having onboard SCSI, for just one examle, which is always an extra option on PCs). But a PC workstation designed for media is the equal of it's Mac counterpart.
OK, I take it back. Apparently a lot of Macs have been used in research. My experiences have been with largely Sparcs, being replaced currently by Lintel. Certainly many early desktops were Macs, which I knew, but I didn't realize they were used so widely for other applications (like I said, I've never stumbled across it personally). Nonetheless, I don't think it hurts the original point; Macs' lack of penetration (in business, if not academia) is due to Apple's and their competitors' marketing, not any predisposition by the actual machines towards a certain use.
Comparitavely, Macs are (or at least were) rarely used in scientific research (like I said, this is changing--I know of a few labs now that use G5s and the like as a replacement for more expensive Unix workstations, but by and large Lintel is far cheaper). Apple has instead tried to appeal to consumers, not businesses or engineers. iPods are for hip twenty-somethings, not procurement departments in major corporations.
But this is solely because of marketing and focus. Macs are no better for digital art than PCs, in my experience (except for perhaps a few bits of software not available on PC, such as Final Cut Pro). Macs are rarely significantly faster for the price at graphics. And conversely, few scientific applications wouldn't run as well on OSX--which presumably can compile most ANSI C and, if I'm not mistaken, has POSIX compliant libraries and so forth--as they would on Windows or Linux.
There's no reason to say Macs are better for artists and PCs are better for engineers. Both appreciate speed and reliability, both appreciate security and stability, both appreciate elegance and ease of use. It's marketing that's shaped your perception. Nothing more.
First, the Centrinos really do run at whatever speed they're rated at (but they have SpeedStep, which allows them to run at a slower speed as well to save power). Centrino just means a Pentium M with a Intel-branded WiFi transciever. So a 1.4GHz Centrino is just a 1.4GHz Pentium M.
Second, the cache doesn't really boost performance in the same way as a faster processor. The cache is good for speeding up memory access on applications that are easily cached (i.e., the pattern of memory access benefits from spatial or temporal locality; elements near accessed elements are likely to be accessed as well, or elements frequently access are likely to be accessed more). Look at it this way; the DRAM used in caches is accessible in maybe 1/10th the time of the SDRAM used in system memory. But at the same time, it's far more expensive.
The gains from having way more cache than needed (which really depends on the application; desktop processing or gaming, which doesn't involve extended periods of data processing, woudln't benefit a whole lot, though perhaps rendering or video processing would) aren't worth the great cost of DRAM.
And the speed of the processor doesn't have a lot to do with how much cache is useful, I don't think (perhaps one could argue that a faster processor goes through the cached data faster than more can be cached to replace it, but I don't think the difference in needed cache between a 600MHz and a 2GHz would be all that great, either).
More cache is better, up to the point that it can't be used any greater, but it's not at all the same as a faster processor.
What prevents you from just reinstalling the OS as soon as you get it? Perhaps more of a hassle than most people want, but certainly not that big a deal, either. I do it with all of my machines.
Not trying to be one of those self-righteous Linux users, but seriously, it's not THAT big a deal.
Voter turnout among those in the segment receiving small to moderate tax breaks is fairly significant. Thus the current strategy of advocating tax breaks over social services (favored by Bush et al., for example).
Seems to me that that'd be a better place to start. Rewire the LCD output to go to his glasses-screen, find CF modules for things like the video cam, GPS, WiFi, and what-have-you, and you're good. The only big issue I see is the storage space, which, with an IBM microdrive, is probably limited to 5GB or so.
I would guess his issue is actually that he's become used to focusing his eyes on a screen in front of him when moving around. Ordinarily, feeling motion when not seeing it causes nausia (such as when sitting in a bus or train where there is no visible motion but your inner-ear can feel the motion. This is because (I remember hearing on the Discovery Channel or somesuch) that situation--feeling but not seeing motion--is a symptom of some poisons and your body has evolved to heave up the toxins.
Anyway, in his case, he has become used to seeing something always in front of his eyes which is not moving, even when walking about. Perhaps the rapid motion of the world around him, when he isn't wearing his glasses, makes him nauseous? Then again, you'd think you'd see this with people who wear glasses, too, when they remove them (I just got a prescription for farsightedness--guess I'm getting old--so I'll be able to tell you shortly).
Either that or he's just a kook.
Turns out he hit an * (or whatever the wildcard was) and sent it to the whole domain. The way I heard it, teachers saw this and flipped out. The lunchlady turned on her computer (don't know why a lunchlady had a computer, though) and called tech support thinking she had a virus.
I think the poor guy was suspended for at least one day, too. Sucks to be him.
I doubt it. It was done by some French scientists. So I doubt your congressman should care.
Or as they say on fark, ``still no cure for cancer.''
Does IBM offer a Linux desktop? I can't recall any offhand. And they probably do use Linux on their servers (or at least some of them), so in that sense, they do ``eat their own dog food'' (isn't that what MS decided Hotmail had to do with respect to Solaris/BSD versus Windows?).
Probably the big reason they wouldn't be interesting in flaunting it so much is that their workstation offerings are far more limited than Sun's, who has made a big effort to show that they are ``with it'' when it comes to Linux on the desktop (even if they continue to adamantly support Solaris as a server OS).
But I don't know. Just seems to be like that.
I love arrogance. I'm curious if I make more than you do, though.
Even so, I would think that things like video compression would benefit from the larger instruction set, no? You have a case where the data is all predictable and benefits a lot from spatial locality, so the caching should be very effective and the large data chunks should help a lot. Unless I'm misunderstanding something.
And seriously, what ever happend to common courtesy?
But to do it campus-wide makes many admins very very nervous; the cost of maintainance and upkeep may in fact rise, and even if the secretaries aren't using their P4's with hyperthreading most of the time, the admins don't want the hassle of keeping them running for the secretaries and running the distributed software at the same time (I've seen proposals to do this, and seen the results). I personally think it makes a great idea, but usually--since those proposing it tend not to be the first and second-tier support providers--it gets shot down.
Or am I missing something (if you meant compiled for IA-64 or Opteron, no, it won't happen anytime soon, for the same reason that OSX for IA32 won't happen anytime soon)?