Probably not. The lifespan of a typical truck is many times that of a normal passenger car. Also, the cost of modifying a proven truck design to integrate a game console would be quite high.
Most truckers have a sleeper cab with a decent TV installed. More are moving towards larger plasma and LCD displays and attaching ps2 and xbox systems to them.
Finally, most truckers sit in that front seat 8 hours a day. The last thing they'll want to do is sit in that same seat and pretend to drive. I am thinking most would rather crawl back into the sleeper and lay down for some gaming or get on their laptop.
While I'm sure there are backroom dealings going on w/Sony and various hardware vendors, I don't see any reports (yet) of them giving coupons and using anti-competitive tactics (which Microsoft has already been found guilty of doing in numerous arenas across the globe) to gain more marketshare for a single standard.
Sony is in bed with the RIAA, they have also forced vendors to sell their consoles at fixed prices for years. Just because you don't like Microsoft, you shouldn't pretend Sony is a good company out to feed the poor and build churches.
I'm fairly certain that Microsoft is following the letter of the law here. It really doesn't matter what they do, since congress will, once again, come up with a new law just for Microsoft, then fine/batter them after the fact. That's why Microsoft will eventually, slowly move its operations into countries that won't be looking for reasons to screw them over and just be happy about the revenue it brings in.
All of this Microsoft hatred aside, their HD-DVD solution is a nice product. I've looked over the 720p and 1080p demos, and they look incredible compared to normal DVD. Meanwhile, Sony hasn't even shown the public what blue-ray looks like on a demo basis. Funny to see how people want to flock out and support something that doesn't exist yet, but I digress, the sheep can't help themselves.
Microsoft *should* be supporting ALL hardware on their OS by default if they want to remain the most useful OS. They shouldn't be playing games (pun, sorry) to try and gain more support for their console's marketshare.
Then you would be screaming in the forums about how they want to be anti-competitive on Apple hardware, too. Anyway, wouldn't Apple have something to say about them targetting their hardware platform? That'd scream for some kind of lawsuits and black eyes in the media.
Why is it every time a Windows flaw comes out, it gets posted on this site, one which claims to be geared toward Linux users? I see daily flaws reported on Sourceforge and Security Focus for Linux and Linux software, but very rarely an advisory posted on this site. Why is that?
Has/. just become a site not above circle-jerking over how bad Windows is while offering no real content beyond plugs for the occasional OSS developer?
Anyway, if people are worried about store-bought brand Cantennas (cantenna.com), here is a snipplet of their FAQ:
Is it legal to use your Cantenna?
Yes, our Cantennas and Pigtails have been tested and comply with part 15 of the FCC rules. Make sure other wireless devices that you use also comply. Compliance with FCC regulations is your responsibility. Check with your Internet Service Providers to find out if they permit sharing of their Internet connections.
I use the commercial version after getting tired of the "HAY GUYS IM A HACKER WHO USES DUCT TAPE" look the home-brew version was giving my living room. Anyway, you aren't getting much gain if you don't get the measurments just right, so it was worth the $30.
Just hope your home brew doesn't have something wrong with it's shape. One of my friends got raided a few years ago because the FCC thought he was interfering with the local airport's radio systems. It turns out, the source was a frayed cableTV wire in his living room.
I don't feel like digging on google right now, but do a search for 'tivo advanced codes' or something. I have a $60 Tivo and all I needed to do was a few key sequences on the remote to enable the feature forever.
Common sense answers won't work with these people.
For example, I worked for an ISP's support group when they decided to implement port 25 blocking.
It was rather amusing being on the phone with very condescending Win2k "admins" who would moan and groan about this, then be completely confused when I suggest they throw up a ssh tunnel between them and their server at the office and use it instead of their dynamic IP to try and send mail from.
Then there were the "I FUCKING NEED THIS FOR BUSINESS, I AM LOSING MONEY" idiots. Yes, this tactic will work wonders for getting hung up on. Anyway, those people would go nuts at the mere mention of considering a business class account. Wait? You claim to have lost $5k in trades today because your wal-mart brand home network didn't play well with the Internet and you can't afford goddamn $160/mo to get a decent connection.
Let's not forget the cheapest lusers of them all, the "HEY MAN I RUN LINUX SO I AM GOING TO PLAY GAMES THE WHOLE CALL". Things like "Ok, what firmware are you running on your router?" would get the "HA! I don't run Windows! LOL" type of responses. Damn idiots, all of them. Just ignore them and Darwin will take care of the rest, eventually.
Now my DVD player is going to be slow to respond to UI, just like my mobile phone is now. Next they'll be putting Windows Mobile on these things too, and it will take 45+ seconds to 'boot' the damn thing, like with the Orange C500 phones....
So you are going to troll java while admitting you didn't do your research before making a cell phone purchase? Cool!
Wow, there are "senior" level developers out there who really think all these things?
Most of the other replies have covered discrediting most things this guy said, but there is also the issue of upgrades. A typical laptop can take a range of processors and some come with miniPCI. If you buy a lower-end CPU for one, make sure the board in it can support higher speed chips and you are set.
There are also 7200 rpm drives for laptops.
Price? Yes, but if you are really a senior developer, you probably have some math skills. If you are able to set up shop anywhere when you get an idea or whatever, that is money made.
I have not seen any laptop in any store for several years that could only support 1024x768, except for the tiny systems, but almost all of those have had 16:9 displays for a while.
Re:A few things I hate about cubicle life.
on
Cubicle Privacy
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
1. When my cubicle neignbor (who gets lots of phonecalls) leaves his moblie phone on his desks and leaves for hours on end (especially when he sets the thing to vibrate and ring).
2. When the people who just failed to reach my cubicle neighbor on his mobile call his desktop phone (which has a really annoying ring tone) and fail to conclude that he is not in after the phone has been ringing for more than 10 seconds.
3. When those same people react to 2) by calling me to ask me if my cubicle neignbor is in or not.
4. When those same people ask me to take messages for him (usually about something he is selling or buying on ebay) after being told in no uncertain terms than "No, he is not in his cubicle".
5. When the guy in the next cubicle returns from his mysterious expedition, picks up his mobile to check his missed calls and starts to (really noisily) consume his food.
6. The people who come to visit my cubicle neighbor and throw half full coffee cups or leftovers into my trash can as they leave.
So you felt like advertising your terrible communication skills to the entire world instead of actually talking to the guy.
This is what I hate more than anything about IT: The unusually high number of catty, angry, little men who never say what's bothering them. That is, until they come into the office having a breakdown someday because they weren't man enough to deal with their problems when they were minor annoyances.
My advice: grow some balls and quit crying about such tiny little things in life.
And it makes so much sense to download 5 GB worth of game data (I can think of a few XBox games which, yes, are a full DVD) for days, and then find I can finish the game in 10 hours. Because that's about how long it took to finish, say, Fable. Or find out that I don't even like the game at all.
Please stop exaggerating. Most XB games are under 2GB. Games such as, Soul Caliber 2, are only about 800MB with the video cut-scenes.
The larger games, nine times out of ten, are only large because of the enormous MPEG2 DVD video files. If you take one of those 5GB games and change the cut-scenes over to DiVX, then you will find a drastic change in the amount of space needed. If you have a DVD9 worth of space, you don't care about keeping the size down to something download-friendly. You would likely want to discourage downloading by using up some extra space in junk files.
Even if they used a scheme as inefficient space-wise as Microsoft, you still won't need your terabytes of space. Even a little 120GB drive will hold about 10 XB titles, MAME+all roms, and a couple of movies.
How about when they do it to establish an overwhelming monopoly in those emerging markets, in order to have a firmer stranglehold and better capitalize on their future success?
Obviously, they did it for the warm, fuzzy feeling in their hearts.
No, they did it to make money and stay viable in an ever changing world. So, again, what part of them offering a stripped down product as a discount is a problem? Oh, the monopoly possibility.:rolleyes:
Okay, if there isn't a monopoly, who's going to supply them with desktop software? Do you really think Linux will be the standard OS of the third world? Why? If non-geeks in the rich areas of the world aren't running it, then what makes you think these emerging markets will want to use it any more than your girlfriend, grandfather, or nephew?
Nothing any company does is for "warm, fuzzy feelings". To even bring it up shows no objective thinking at work, only repitition of previous adolescent mutterings.
It must be a scary place looking through your economic worldview. No wonder you make such silly statements; you don't know any better.
I'm almost forty, school was a long time ago.
So, before I bite on your troll-bait, please show me examples of companies who have been publically traded for 10+ years and exist only to fill gaps with no revenue goals. Good luck.
"This Pentium4/Athlon decision makes perfect sense - if someone can afford the higher-end processor, they can afford the higher priced OS." What about donated P4/Athlon systems? You may not be able to buy them, but somebody gave you one. Now you have 2 choices, run linux(or *BSD, whatever) or steal windows.
I am sure there will be channels for upgrading, they are, of course, a business. Why the mindless hate when Microsoft does something to reduce prices for emerging markets?
I think you miss the point when it comes to porn. The porn industry has profit margins that exceed all other forms of entertainment.
Think about it. You pay a guy and a girl $500 for a 18 minute video, which may take all of 2 hours to shoot and an evening to mix/produce, then you have a lot of revenue for a long time if marketed correctly.
If these margins weren't so wide and the people doing the shooting weren't privately funded ventures, you would see a major difference. To simplify this: There aren't thousands of screaming shareholders, nor are there hundreds of lobbyists working on making ends meet for these businesses. MPAA associated businesses are different.
All these things are covered in high school economics class, it's strange to see people think some industries are cooler for the sake of humanity and completely missing the reason why every single business on earth exists: to generate revenue.
Almost every time I fly these days, at the airport, I see a computer running an information display that has crashed. Either a bluescreen of death (soon to be redscreen AND bluescreen of death in Longhorn), or a fundamental error message. This never looks good to customers and is bad advertising in large traffic areas. One of these days, one of these systems is going to get hacked and something truly embarrassing is going to be displayed on all of those big displays.
Considering there are thousands of displays at most major airports, I fail to see how this is an Insightful way to make a determination of an OS stability.
Also, suggesting that "one of these systems is going to get hacked" because you saw a BSoD on one of a thousand monitors is a strawmanish way of saying you simply don't care for the OS or Microsoft's marketing and licensing.
Oh wait, this is/. so we must praise Google and FireFox without grasping the basic understanding that the only thing which separates these entities is how far along they are in the business game. That being, taking your money.
Yeah. MIDI controllers with many knobs is wonderful in music software. I used to have one of the MiniKORG controllers like the author has in the background of his project images.
What I'd like to do is figure out how to get one of these puppies set up to control various aspects things in Xwindows. Alternate mouse buttons, alt, ctrl keys, launch apps or scripts.. mmmmm.
You should try the Microsoft VNC client if you are running Windows. It works well enough to view or listen to audio and video with little loss with the firewire bridge between my two Windows boxes.
I also have a dual monitor configuration and it tends to like running maximized on the second screen by default.
There really isn't anything I don't like about it, since it works so well, except the fact it is a Microsoft product. But hey, it's free!
One of my old friends came home to finding his home in a mess after local authorities gained entry to investigate a signal causing interference with a local airport about 3 miles from him.
The issue ended up being a problem with his cable box, which they had figured out before he even arrived.
Amen to that. I read this article with my jaw dropped.
This part makes me wonder why he complains about tape transfer speeds:
There is only one thing that tripped me up that I would like to mention about the camera. While transferring movies from it I found that it was much slower than USB 2.0 should be. As it turns out, although it is spec'd for USB 2.0, it is for "full" speed, not "high" speed. So you should see transfer rates just about 500K/s. It would be much better if it were faster than that as that can mean 2000 seconds for a full 1G SD. Its still way more convenient than tape. I blame the USB committee for allowing devices to be touted as USB 2.0 when, in fact, they are the same speed as USB 1.1.
Okay, so copying a DV tape @ 720p over firewire is slower than this? Not. This sort of defeats his key point in the beginning of the "review".
For $800 you can get an excellent DV camera with near-professional quality and will last for many years. I would suggest avoiding gadgets who's only reason for being on the market is the fact it uses SD ram instead of DV tape. Maybe in 2-5 years there will be real DV cameras with 100GB of storage on them, but now isn't the time.
Personally, I suspect the author only had experience with VHS tape and had never used DV tape as a medium. Otherwise, he wouldn't be saying USB 1.1 speeds are better than "dealing with a tape".
I just mentioned the Internet Optimizer pop-up as an example. It is not a singular threat, I am speaking of people who install little programs their friends email them, read a banner on a website, and just general non-techie browsing activities.
You'll never get rid of IE completely. It will come back and haunt you eventually, even with the deleted icon.:)
I'm a big fan of intrusion prevention. Block the bad stuff before it ever hits the client system. That way, userland can use what it wants resulting in the IT guy being less hated.
Slashdot Mirror
This will likely get rolled out for truckers too.
Probably not. The lifespan of a typical truck is many times that of a normal passenger car. Also, the cost of modifying a proven truck design to integrate a game console would be quite high.
Most truckers have a sleeper cab with a decent TV installed. More are moving towards larger plasma and LCD displays and attaching ps2 and xbox systems to them.
Finally, most truckers sit in that front seat 8 hours a day. The last thing they'll want to do is sit in that same seat and pretend to drive. I am thinking most would rather crawl back into the sleeper and lay down for some gaming or get on their laptop.
While I'm sure there are backroom dealings going on w/Sony and various hardware vendors, I don't see any reports (yet) of them giving coupons and using anti-competitive tactics (which Microsoft has already been found guilty of doing in numerous arenas across the globe) to gain more marketshare for a single standard.
Sony is in bed with the RIAA, they have also forced vendors to sell their consoles at fixed prices for years. Just because you don't like Microsoft, you shouldn't pretend Sony is a good company out to feed the poor and build churches.
I'm fairly certain that Microsoft is following the letter of the law here. It really doesn't matter what they do, since congress will, once again, come up with a new law just for Microsoft, then fine/batter them after the fact. That's why Microsoft will eventually, slowly move its operations into countries that won't be looking for reasons to screw them over and just be happy about the revenue it brings in.
All of this Microsoft hatred aside, their HD-DVD solution is a nice product. I've looked over the 720p and 1080p demos, and they look incredible compared to normal DVD. Meanwhile, Sony hasn't even shown the public what blue-ray looks like on a demo basis. Funny to see how people want to flock out and support something that doesn't exist yet, but I digress, the sheep can't help themselves.
Microsoft *should* be supporting ALL hardware on their OS by default if they want to remain the most useful OS. They shouldn't be playing games (pun, sorry) to try and gain more support for their console's marketshare.
Then you would be screaming in the forums about how they want to be anti-competitive on Apple hardware, too. Anyway, wouldn't Apple have something to say about them targetting their hardware platform? That'd scream for some kind of lawsuits and black eyes in the media.
Why is it every time a Windows flaw comes out, it gets posted on this site, one which claims to be geared toward Linux users? I see daily flaws reported on Sourceforge and Security Focus for Linux and Linux software, but very rarely an advisory posted on this site. Why is that?
/. just become a site not above circle-jerking over how bad Windows is while offering no real content beyond plugs for the occasional OSS developer?
Has
This is rather shameless shareware promotion for a Linux/Open Source advocasy site. Way to go!
Tomorrow: Slashdot recommends everyone click this banner to perform FREE SYSTEM SCAN now!
What is the deal with somethingawful.com?
Wow, there is a lot of nonsense in this thread.
Anyway, if people are worried about store-bought brand Cantennas (cantenna.com), here is a snipplet of their FAQ:
Is it legal to use your Cantenna?
Yes, our Cantennas and Pigtails have been tested and comply with part 15 of the FCC rules. Make sure other wireless devices that you use also comply. Compliance with FCC regulations is your responsibility. Check with your Internet Service Providers to find out if they permit sharing of their Internet connections.
I use the commercial version after getting tired of the "HAY GUYS IM A HACKER WHO USES DUCT TAPE" look the home-brew version was giving my living room. Anyway, you aren't getting much gain if you don't get the measurments just right, so it was worth the $30.
Just hope your home brew doesn't have something wrong with it's shape. One of my friends got raided a few years ago because the FCC thought he was interfering with the local airport's radio systems. It turns out, the source was a frayed cableTV wire in his living room.
If by strange, you mean "cheap and scummy", then I agree. :)
I don't feel like digging on google right now, but do a search for 'tivo advanced codes' or something. I have a $60 Tivo and all I needed to do was a few key sequences on the remote to enable the feature forever.
Common sense answers won't work with these people.
For example, I worked for an ISP's support group when they decided to implement port 25 blocking.
It was rather amusing being on the phone with very condescending Win2k "admins" who would moan and groan about this, then be completely confused when I suggest they throw up a ssh tunnel between them and their server at the office and use it instead of their dynamic IP to try and send mail from.
Then there were the "I FUCKING NEED THIS FOR BUSINESS, I AM LOSING MONEY" idiots. Yes, this tactic will work wonders for getting hung up on. Anyway, those people would go nuts at the mere mention of considering a business class account. Wait? You claim to have lost $5k in trades today because your wal-mart brand home network didn't play well with the Internet and you can't afford goddamn $160/mo to get a decent connection.
Let's not forget the cheapest lusers of them all, the "HEY MAN I RUN LINUX SO I AM GOING TO PLAY GAMES THE WHOLE CALL". Things like "Ok, what firmware are you running on your router?" would get the "HA! I don't run Windows! LOL" type of responses. Damn idiots, all of them. Just ignore them and Darwin will take care of the rest, eventually.
Now my DVD player is going to be slow to respond to UI, just like my mobile phone is now. Next they'll be putting Windows Mobile on these things too, and it will take 45+ seconds to 'boot' the damn thing, like with the Orange C500 phones....
So you are going to troll java while admitting you didn't do your research before making a cell phone purchase? Cool!
Computer and networking support should be left to the strong mom and pop shops.
You need to read a book.
Wow, there are "senior" level developers out there who really think all these things?
Most of the other replies have covered discrediting most things this guy said, but there is also the issue of upgrades. A typical laptop can take a range of processors and some come with miniPCI. If you buy a lower-end CPU for one, make sure the board in it can support higher speed chips and you are set.
There are also 7200 rpm drives for laptops.
Price? Yes, but if you are really a senior developer, you probably have some math skills. If you are able to set up shop anywhere when you get an idea or whatever, that is money made.
I have not seen any laptop in any store for several years that could only support 1024x768, except for the tiny systems, but almost all of those have had 16:9 displays for a while.
1. When my cubicle neignbor (who gets lots of phonecalls) leaves his moblie phone on his desks and leaves for hours on end (especially when he sets the thing to vibrate and ring).
2. When the people who just failed to reach my cubicle neighbor on his mobile call his desktop phone (which has a really annoying ring tone) and fail to conclude that he is not in after the phone has been ringing for more than 10 seconds.
3. When those same people react to 2) by calling me to ask me if my cubicle neignbor is in or not.
4. When those same people ask me to take messages for him (usually about something he is selling or buying on ebay) after being told in no uncertain terms than "No, he is not in his cubicle".
5. When the guy in the next cubicle returns from his mysterious expedition, picks up his mobile to check his missed calls and starts to (really noisily) consume his food.
6. The people who come to visit my cubicle neighbor and throw half full coffee cups or leftovers into my trash can as they leave.
So you felt like advertising your terrible communication skills to the entire world instead of actually talking to the guy.
This is what I hate more than anything about IT: The unusually high number of catty, angry, little men who never say what's bothering them. That is, until they come into the office having a breakdown someday because they weren't man enough to deal with their problems when they were minor annoyances.
My advice: grow some balls and quit crying about such tiny little things in life.
And it makes so much sense to download 5 GB worth of game data (I can think of a few XBox games which, yes, are a full DVD) for days, and then find I can finish the game in 10 hours. Because that's about how long it took to finish, say, Fable. Or find out that I don't even like the game at all.
Please stop exaggerating. Most XB games are under 2GB. Games such as, Soul Caliber 2, are only about 800MB with the video cut-scenes.
The larger games, nine times out of ten, are only large because of the enormous MPEG2 DVD video files. If you take one of those 5GB games and change the cut-scenes over to DiVX, then you will find a drastic change in the amount of space needed. If you have a DVD9 worth of space, you don't care about keeping the size down to something download-friendly. You would likely want to discourage downloading by using up some extra space in junk files.
Even if they used a scheme as inefficient space-wise as Microsoft, you still won't need your terabytes of space. Even a little 120GB drive will hold about 10 XB titles, MAME+all roms, and a couple of movies.
How about when they do it to establish an overwhelming monopoly in those emerging markets, in order to have a firmer stranglehold and better capitalize on their future success?
:rolleyes:
Obviously, they did it for the warm, fuzzy feeling in their hearts.
No, they did it to make money and stay viable in an ever changing world. So, again, what part of them offering a stripped down product as a discount is a problem? Oh, the monopoly possibility.
Okay, if there isn't a monopoly, who's going to supply them with desktop software? Do you really think Linux will be the standard OS of the third world? Why? If non-geeks in the rich areas of the world aren't running it, then what makes you think these emerging markets will want to use it any more than your girlfriend, grandfather, or nephew?
Nothing any company does is for "warm, fuzzy feelings". To even bring it up shows no objective thinking at work, only repitition of previous adolescent mutterings.
It must be a scary place looking through your economic worldview. No wonder you make such silly statements; you don't know any better.
I'm almost forty, school was a long time ago.
So, before I bite on your troll-bait, please show me examples of companies who have been publically traded for 10+ years and exist only to fill gaps with no revenue goals. Good luck.
"This Pentium4/Athlon decision makes perfect sense - if someone can afford the higher-end processor, they can afford the higher priced OS." What about donated P4/Athlon systems? You may not be able to buy them, but somebody gave you one. Now you have 2 choices, run linux(or *BSD, whatever) or steal windows.
I am sure there will be channels for upgrading, they are, of course, a business. Why the mindless hate when Microsoft does something to reduce prices for emerging markets?
I think you miss the point when it comes to porn. The porn industry has profit margins that exceed all other forms of entertainment.
Think about it. You pay a guy and a girl $500 for a 18 minute video, which may take all of 2 hours to shoot and an evening to mix/produce, then you have a lot of revenue for a long time if marketed correctly.
If these margins weren't so wide and the people doing the shooting weren't privately funded ventures, you would see a major difference. To simplify this: There aren't thousands of screaming shareholders, nor are there hundreds of lobbyists working on making ends meet for these businesses. MPAA associated businesses are different.
All these things are covered in high school economics class, it's strange to see people think some industries are cooler for the sake of humanity and completely missing the reason why every single business on earth exists: to generate revenue.
Almost every time I fly these days, at the airport, I see a computer running an information display that has crashed. Either a bluescreen of death (soon to be redscreen AND bluescreen of death in Longhorn), or a fundamental error message. This never looks good to customers and is bad advertising in large traffic areas. One of these days, one of these systems is going to get hacked and something truly embarrassing is going to be displayed on all of those big displays.
/. so we must praise Google and FireFox without grasping the basic understanding that the only thing which separates these entities is how far along they are in the business game. That being, taking your money.
Considering there are thousands of displays at most major airports, I fail to see how this is an Insightful way to make a determination of an OS stability.
Also, suggesting that "one of these systems is going to get hacked" because you saw a BSoD on one of a thousand monitors is a strawmanish way of saying you simply don't care for the OS or Microsoft's marketing and licensing.
Oh wait, this is
Yeah. MIDI controllers with many knobs is wonderful in music software. I used to have one of the MiniKORG controllers like the author has in the background of his project images.
What I'd like to do is figure out how to get one of these puppies set up to control various aspects things in Xwindows. Alternate mouse buttons, alt, ctrl keys, launch apps or scripts.. mmmmm.
Wow! Knobs are useful? I never would have thought..(/sarcasm)
I only have 16 knobs attached to my PC via USB/Midi.
I mixed up Terminal Services with VNC. I've never heard it refered to as RDC, though.
You should try the Microsoft VNC client if you are running Windows. It works well enough to view or listen to audio and video with little loss with the firewire bridge between my two Windows boxes.
I also have a dual monitor configuration and it tends to like running maximized on the second screen by default.
There really isn't anything I don't like about it, since it works so well, except the fact it is a Microsoft product. But hey, it's free!
This sort of thing is quite common.
One of my old friends came home to finding his home in a mess after local authorities gained entry to investigate a signal causing interference with a local airport about 3 miles from him.
The issue ended up being a problem with his cable box, which they had figured out before he even arrived.
Amen to that. I read this article with my jaw dropped.
This part makes me wonder why he complains about tape transfer speeds:
There is only one thing that tripped me up that I would like to mention about the camera. While transferring movies from it I found that it was much slower than USB 2.0 should be. As it turns out, although it is spec'd for USB 2.0, it is for "full" speed, not "high" speed. So you should see transfer rates just about 500K/s. It would be much better if it were faster than that as that can mean 2000 seconds for a full 1G SD. Its still way more convenient than tape. I blame the USB committee for allowing devices to be touted as USB 2.0 when, in fact, they are the same speed as USB 1.1.
Okay, so copying a DV tape @ 720p over firewire is slower than this? Not. This sort of defeats his key point in the beginning of the "review".
For $800 you can get an excellent DV camera with near-professional quality and will last for many years. I would suggest avoiding gadgets who's only reason for being on the market is the fact it uses SD ram instead of DV tape. Maybe in 2-5 years there will be real DV cameras with 100GB of storage on them, but now isn't the time.
Personally, I suspect the author only had experience with VHS tape and had never used DV tape as a medium. Otherwise, he wouldn't be saying USB 1.1 speeds are better than "dealing with a tape".
I just mentioned the Internet Optimizer pop-up as an example. It is not a singular threat, I am speaking of people who install little programs their friends email them, read a banner on a website, and just general non-techie browsing activities.
:)
You'll never get rid of IE completely. It will come back and haunt you eventually, even with the deleted icon.
I'm a big fan of intrusion prevention. Block the bad stuff before it ever hits the client system. That way, userland can use what it wants resulting in the IT guy being less hated.