You don't really need to go this far to achieve silence. At least, not for sufficiently small values of silence.
Check out the new Apple G5's cooling system. It uses a ton of ultra-quiet fans instead, moving high-volume low-speed air over the components. It puts out 35dbA, which is less than even a fairly quiet laptop fan these days.
Now, admittedly the cooling technology isn't as creative, but considering that for $670 more than the estimated cost of the case alone here, you get a nice IBM 970 processor, hard-drive, OSX, and a lot of other goodies, that's really not a bad trade-off.
And yes, I took the high end of the estimated case cost ($1100) and the cheapest G5 ($1770). But still.
Even the manufacturers make this point. From apple's site:
If a user with an AirPort-enabled computer or a Wi-Fi certified 802.11b product joins an AirPort Extreme wireless network, that user will get up to 11 Mbps and the AirPort Extreme users on the same wireless network will get less than 54 Mbps. To achieve maximum speed of 54 Mbps the wireless network may only have AirPort Extreme-enabled computers on it.
Its not like this was quite the surprise its being made out to be...
First, move to a GSM phone. The idea is built in, and the network is rapidly becoming the global standard (even in the US).
Now, you just change your SIM chip to your provider of choice. Phone number portability is even coming to the US.
There's one caveat. If (and only if) you choose not to purchase your celphone, but want your provider to give you a free (or heavily subsidised) one with your account, it will only work on that subscriber's network.
Fair enough.
If you think that's bad (and some people do), think about this. To use another major network, you'll need an account with them. They'll give you a free phone with that account thats probably as good as the one your first subscriber gave you. If you prefer a nicer phone, then buy one from someone other than your provider. You'll pay more, but your phone will then work on any (GSM) network.
Hmm. I'd have to agree that Delicatessen doesn't really match well with "Delicate and healthy." Although, you may want to rethink using "Sex Appeal:: I'm frosted" as one of your examples... Mmm...frosting...
Everything is relative, including the impact of prices. If you are earning six figures or even high five figure sums $1000 may not seem to be much, but for most of the world $1000 represents one hell of an investment.
And if you're not doing professional design work, or working for an established non-profit that can get software discounts, you probably don't need a $1,000 piece of software to do your newsletters. As you say, everything is relative.
In other words: When you throw these items in the trash, you achieve nothing. If you mail them, however, not only are you forcing the companies to pay postage (plus their costs in processing dead-end replies), but you're actually giving their money to the post office -- theoretically, helping to keep down the cost of our stamps.;-)
I guess I should thank you then... you're trying to keep down the cost of out stamps, and you're willing to see the cost of your magazine rise disproportionally! Gee, thanks. Remember, nothing is free, even if it says "free" on it. Somebody has to pay.
Since you couldn't just, you know, SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING MONITOR!!!! The little Apple camera hoobajoob is cool, but Jobs made it sound like it was physically impossible to put a camera on top of a monitor until the glorious miracle of iSight.
Well, if you have a flatscreen (like most of Apple's monitors for the last few years), or a laptop... er... then yes, it is prety difficult to just, as you say, "SIT YOUR CAMERA ON TOP OF YOUR FRIGGING[sic] MONITOR". So this was not a meaningless feature for most Apple users, who were in fact the targetted audience for this product.
Well, one big area that almost always has ultraBroadBand(tm) connectivitiy is the common office. Yessir, that 100mbit+ connection to the people on the 3rd floor might as well be used for something other than watching pr0n all day.[0] The use of IM for interoffice communication is pretty high, and its often easier to use than the telephone (since in many offices you're already there, you don't have to look up an extension, etc, etc.
The new features of Messenger 6 include custom window backgrounds and interactive games like checkers; iChat AV is dedicated solely to communication.
This point, like the one the editor made, is what defines it to me. Do you want to play? Get MSN. Do you want to communicate? Get iChat. There are times and places for both of these activities.
It's a little disconcerting, too, that video-chat partners seem to avoid eye contact. No matter how close you put the camera to the screen, it's impossible to look at both simultaneously. Everybody comes across as weirdly inattentive.
As those of you who saw Jobs' keynote Monday will already have guessed, this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released. Looking at the pictures on the NYT site (yeah, registration, ooh, scary), there's a massive difference in the way that the people using the two apps look -- one that you wouldn't necessarily click to from just reading the text.
And because Apple has the luxury of manufacturing "the whole widget," as Steve Jobs often says - the hardware and software, the computer and camera - there's no configuration. The instant you plug in the camera, it's ready to work, without any wizards or setup.
This is true, as it stands, but misleading. As they point out elsewhere in the text, iChat works as well on any FireWire camera, such as pretty much all modern camcorders, etc. This has more to do with using an established graphics communication protocol over a generic bus like USB than who manufactures the hardware.
Okay, I have to say it. Does the idea / quality of this case deserve a slashdot article at all? Maybe its a novel idea, but I would certainly submit that the quality (from the provided pictures), both of the craftsmanship and of the final design, is not fantastic.
Still. Let's say that it gets an article if for no other reason than that Wired gave it one (weird, if common, logic).
Now the real question. Why on earth does this get Front Page status? Near as I can tell, its not news, and it certainly doesn't matter. Considering the things that are buried way down these days, this is pretty weird.
Ah, well. I guess that's what/. has come to. Still, I keep checking back, finding the occasional good story, hoping that things are looking up again. Nobody's fault but my own for having too-high expectations...
Even in production environments, Ive tried to avoid cisco routers since the pentium1 system that people throw away beats the ciscos performance. It would be nice to see modular, possibly non-IDE (pcmcia flash drive) legacy-free x86 computers that are designed to run as routers using FreeBSD or Linux, hopefully in 1U form factor and with a CPU that can run under a heatsink alone (Transmeta?).
It all goes down to uptime. How willing are you to put up with a few less minutes of uptime per year? If its not a big deal (and for most shops, it isn't), then go for a PC based or consumer grade router. If it is a big deal, then you pays yer money and goes for a high reliability system. Which will always cost way more. Those 9s get much more expensive the further right of the decimal point that you go.
Do you normally leave the barcoded tags on your clothing? Unless you follow the international conspiracy sites, most (all, probably) RFIDs will be easily removed in the same way by cutting off the labels. Its not like they're gorgeous. And yes, you can make washable circuitry, but why? The business of clothing manufacture operates on razor thin margins as it is...
Longhorn users may be waiting until 2005 for their next release, but I doubt theyâ(TM)ll have spent $460 or $690 by that point on keeping their OS up to date.
No, but since you're getting many of the features of Longhorn now, think of it as paying the same price... but without the two years delay. After all, when Longhorn is released, don't you think people who were willing to pay then would claim to be willing to pay the same (or more) to get it "two years ago"? Think about it...
I have to admit, having a heads up display in my car sounds pretty spiffy. No longer will I have to look down to see my speed, nor check my idiot lights. All I would need to do is refocus my eyes to check the speed, or perhaps I could train my self to see the blur as i'm actually looking at the road.
Er, yeah.
One suggestion, before getting into some elaborate new purchases? Go testdrive a 'vette. They've had HUDs for years -- I love mine, and have a very hard time remembering to check the dashboard when I'm in other cars. I believe that some of the Ponitacs have this as well.
Its pretty basic -- speed, revs, and fuel -- and its projected up from a bright display embedded into the dashboard in front of the driver. Nobody else is in position to see it, and it manages to do really well execpt when you've got a really bright sunbeam shining directly onto the transmitter (not just the windshield)... even then, its readable.
Only problem? Damned expensive windshields needed that contain an embedded membrane to reflect it properly. Other than that, nice tech.
They already have systems designed for things like warehouses -- check out Symbol for some examples. They tend to be very rugged, and quite expensive. Taking a computer into a dirty environment where its used by people who have no real interest in babying it and may drop it onto concrete is harder than it looks. Add in things like moisture extremes, teperature extremes, forklift mounting (lots of shocks), etc, and a regular tablet isn't going to cut it.
I do believe that they will have a lot of use in the softer fields (like home inspection) though.
AAC formatted files, converted from MP3, are actually larger than MP3 files. Unless Apple is saying freshly ripped CD files to AAC wind up smaller than ripped to MP3, I have not seen where AAC files are actually smaller, at 128.
Excuse me?
128 isn't just a random number -- its a measurement of size. As in "128 kilobits per second." With minor fluctuations for overhead, a 128kbit AAC should be roughly the same size as a 128kbit MP3.
If that's not the case, then somebody's software is lying about the bitrate.
Quality, on the other hand, is another story. I find that for two same-sized files, one encoded with MP3 and the other with AAC, I prefer listening to the AAC one. That, of course, is harder to measure objectively.
And don't tell me that the name-choosers were unaware of the SQL project. It took them, what, four months to pick this name? Or was it five? Five and a half? And in all that time, these inveterate computer geeks never even typed the word into Google? [google.com] (As of this writing, the FirebirdSQL project still tops the list of results for that search.)
Well, of course it does. There's just been a big rush of sites talking about this problem posting links to them. Google is nothing if not adaptable.
Or do you really believe that more people are associating the name Firebird with this database (for the record, I didn't know about their name change to Firebird, and I'm a professional DBA) than they are with the Pontiac muscle car? I would be willing to bet that they were much further down the list before this came out.
Anyway, did the Firebird team consult with, let's see, Firebird Web Design? Or Financial Firebird? Or any number of other software projects using the name Firebird?
My opinion? Its their fault for using a generic name. Microsoft's product isn't called Windows, its "Microsoft Windows". Why isn't the database Firebird called "Firebird SQL" (for example)? And the browser "Mozilla Firebird" (hmm.. bulky..). Nobody has exclusive rights to the name Firebird, no matter who came first.
Fair enough... considering that they've almost certainly contributed several orders of magnitude more to the project than you have, I think that not being on an equal footing is entirely reasonable.
Re:some Airports have an antenna connection
on
Open Node In A Bag
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· Score: 1
There are two airport extremes, one with a modem and an antenna port (for for 249) and one without the two (for 199). Which never made sense to me, I would think the user who wanted the antenna, would be the one who connected the airport to the LAN, and wouldn't ever use the modem.
You can use the modem to establish a dial-in connection to your network from the road. That's the reason that its on the higher-end models rather than the lower-end ones. Using it to dial out to connect to the internet would be unlikely.
I don't remember which platform this was on, but I have fond memories of becoming a loan shark. You'd borrow small amounts of money until you got a runious interest rate, and then made a payment of somewhat more than you owed. The "banking" computer player would then become a debtor and would continue to make interest payments to you (officially, you were making negative payments to him). Since there was no logic for him to ever pay the loan off, it was a grand way of getting a healthy balance.
Starting with Windows XP's Luna interface is not the most pretty one. But it is the most logically designed one. Its widgets are well defined, while special care have been taken to the way things work in a way most people expect
This is the key, to me. Its not about eye-candy -- at least, not purely. When you get right down to it, if it doesn't work the way people expect, usability suffers... and usability is the sum total of the name of the game.
Contrast comments on KDE such as "extremely loose on details" and you'll see this type of comment throughout the review.
Finally, another mention, "It doesn't matter whose bug it is. The point is that it is there." Bravo! This is exactly the kind of attitude that those of us in the industry need to remember. When it comes to coding, yes, its important whose bug it is. If you're a VAR like redhat, your job is to make sure that the end user doesn't have to be a developer as well.
And for those anti-MS folk who also critique their use of usability experts, always remember, "The best usability I get is from Windows XP. This is the only reason I keep WinXP still as my main operating system."
Ah, but Google doesn't show you pages that have been evaluated (by one of their systems) as important. Just popular. And it turns out that, most of the time, pages that other people are worth linking too are ones that are more interesting.
If you could actually come up with a search engine that gave rankings based on the actual page's importance, that would be a large step forward. May I sumbit that if you did, you'd be likely to at least consider patenting the technique, too!
The company I work for has been putting out apps which run with/on MSSQL databases for several years now. While, I don't think we have databases which are quite as large as 5GB on a regular basis (we do have a couple), we do have databases which are forced to process hundereds of transactions per minute during peak usage.
And this is one of the big differences between things that are good fits for SQL Server and things that aren't.
We use databases extensively in our applications. A decent size OLTP delivery for us is in the 5-20GB range, processing thousands of transactions per minute. SQL Server is a fine workgroup-level product; Oracle / DB2 / Informix (still my personal favorite) make Enterprise-level products.
That doesn't mean that either are inherently better or worse than each other, just that they're optimized to do different things.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't really need to go this far to achieve silence. At least, not for sufficiently small values of silence.
Check out the new Apple G5's cooling system. It uses a ton of ultra-quiet fans instead, moving high-volume low-speed air over the components. It puts out 35dbA, which is less than even a fairly quiet laptop fan these days.
Now, admittedly the cooling technology isn't as creative, but considering that for $670 more than the estimated cost of the case alone here, you get a nice IBM 970 processor, hard-drive, OSX, and a lot of other goodies, that's really not a bad trade-off.
And yes, I took the high end of the estimated case cost ($1100) and the cheapest G5 ($1770). But still.
Even the manufacturers make this point. From apple's site:
If a user with an AirPort-enabled computer or a Wi-Fi certified 802.11b product joins an AirPort Extreme wireless network, that user will get up to 11 Mbps and the AirPort Extreme users on the same wireless network will get less than 54 Mbps. To achieve maximum speed of 54 Mbps the wireless network may only have AirPort Extreme-enabled computers on it.
Its not like this was quite the surprise its being made out to be...
I wonder what the IBM gang car is?
siskbc: Black Jaguar
I do believe that you have IBM confused with someone else. Although, thanks to the 970, there may be less difference than one might think.
First, move to a GSM phone. The idea is built in, and the network is rapidly becoming the global standard (even in the US).
Now, you just change your SIM chip to your provider of choice. Phone number portability is even coming to the US.
There's one caveat. If (and only if) you choose not to purchase your celphone, but want your provider to give you a free (or heavily subsidised) one with your account, it will only work on that subscriber's network.
Fair enough.
If you think that's bad (and some people do), think about this. To use another major network, you'll need an account with them. They'll give you a free phone with that account thats probably as good as the one your first subscriber gave you. If you prefer a nicer phone, then buy one from someone other than your provider. You'll pay more, but your phone will then work on any (GSM) network.
Makes sense to me...
Hmm. I'd have to agree that Delicatessen doesn't really match well with "Delicate and healthy." Although, you may want to rethink using "Sex Appeal :: I'm frosted" as one of your examples... Mmm...frosting...
-Richard
-Richard
That, and its a damned nice little camera, too.
Well, one big area that almost always has ultraBroadBand(tm) connectivitiy is the common office. Yessir, that 100mbit+ connection to the people on the 3rd floor might as well be used for something other than watching pr0n all day.[0] The use of IM for interoffice communication is pretty high, and its often easier to use than the telephone (since in many offices you're already there, you don't have to look up an extension, etc, etc.
-Richard
[0] Office pr0n? Ick...
This point, like the one the editor made, is what defines it to me. Do you want to play? Get MSN. Do you want to communicate? Get iChat. There are times and places for both of these activities.As those of you who saw Jobs' keynote Monday will already have guessed, this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released. Looking at the pictures on the NYT site (yeah, registration, ooh, scary), there's a massive difference in the way that the people using the two apps look -- one that you wouldn't necessarily click to from just reading the text.This is true, as it stands, but misleading. As they point out elsewhere in the text, iChat works as well on any FireWire camera, such as pretty much all modern camcorders, etc. This has more to do with using an established graphics communication protocol over a generic bus like USB than who manufactures the hardware.
Okay, I have to say it. Does the idea / quality of this case deserve a slashdot article at all? Maybe its a novel idea, but I would certainly submit that the quality (from the provided pictures), both of the craftsmanship and of the final design, is not fantastic.
/. has come to. Still, I keep checking back, finding the occasional good story, hoping that things are looking up again. Nobody's fault but my own for having too-high expectations...
Still. Let's say that it gets an article if for no other reason than that Wired gave it one (weird, if common, logic).
Now the real question. Why on earth does this get Front Page status? Near as I can tell, its not news, and it certainly doesn't matter. Considering the things that are buried way down these days, this is pretty weird.
Ah, well. I guess that's what
Do you normally leave the barcoded tags on your clothing? Unless you follow the international conspiracy sites, most (all, probably) RFIDs will be easily removed in the same way by cutting off the labels. Its not like they're gorgeous. And yes, you can make washable circuitry, but why? The business of clothing manufacture operates on razor thin margins as it is...
-Richard
One suggestion, before getting into some elaborate new purchases? Go testdrive a 'vette. They've had HUDs for years -- I love mine, and have a very hard time remembering to check the dashboard when I'm in other cars. I believe that some of the Ponitacs have this as well.
Its pretty basic -- speed, revs, and fuel -- and its projected up from a bright display embedded into the dashboard in front of the driver. Nobody else is in position to see it, and it manages to do really well execpt when you've got a really bright sunbeam shining directly onto the transmitter (not just the windshield)... even then, its readable.
Only problem? Damned expensive windshields needed that contain an embedded membrane to reflect it properly. Other than that, nice tech.
They already have systems designed for things like warehouses -- check out Symbol for some examples. They tend to be very rugged, and quite expensive. Taking a computer into a dirty environment where its used by people who have no real interest in babying it and may drop it onto concrete is harder than it looks. Add in things like moisture extremes, teperature extremes, forklift mounting (lots of shocks), etc, and a regular tablet isn't going to cut it.
I do believe that they will have a lot of use in the softer fields (like home inspection) though.
128 isn't just a random number -- its a measurement of size. As in "128 kilobits per second." With minor fluctuations for overhead, a 128kbit AAC should be roughly the same size as a 128kbit MP3.
If that's not the case, then somebody's software is lying about the bitrate.
Quality, on the other hand, is another story. I find that for two same-sized files, one encoded with MP3 and the other with AAC, I prefer listening to the AAC one. That, of course, is harder to measure objectively.
Or do you really believe that more people are associating the name Firebird with this database (for the record, I didn't know about their name change to Firebird, and I'm a professional DBA) than they are with the Pontiac muscle car? I would be willing to bet that they were much further down the list before this came out.
Anyway, did the Firebird team consult with, let's see, Firebird Web Design? Or Financial Firebird? Or any number of other software projects using the name Firebird?
My opinion? Its their fault for using a generic name. Microsoft's product isn't called Windows, its "Microsoft Windows". Why isn't the database Firebird called "Firebird SQL" (for example)? And the browser "Mozilla Firebird" (hmm.. bulky..). Nobody has exclusive rights to the name Firebird, no matter who came first.
For all this and more, check out Surreal Numbers by our good friend Donald Knuth.
Fair enough... considering that they've almost certainly contributed several orders of magnitude more to the project than you have, I think that not being on an equal footing is entirely reasonable.
I don't remember which platform this was on, but I have fond memories of becoming a loan shark. You'd borrow small amounts of money until you got a runious interest rate, and then made a payment of somewhat more than you owed. The "banking" computer player would then become a debtor and would continue to make interest payments to you (officially, you were making negative payments to him). Since there was no logic for him to ever pay the loan off, it was a grand way of getting a healthy balance.
Ah, memories...
Contrast comments on KDE such as "extremely loose on details" and you'll see this type of comment throughout the review.
Finally, another mention, "It doesn't matter whose bug it is. The point is that it is there." Bravo! This is exactly the kind of attitude that those of us in the industry need to remember. When it comes to coding, yes, its important whose bug it is. If you're a VAR like redhat, your job is to make sure that the end user doesn't have to be a developer as well.
And for those anti-MS folk who also critique their use of usability experts, always remember, "The best usability I get is from Windows XP. This is the only reason I keep WinXP still as my main operating system."
Ah, but Google doesn't show you pages that have been evaluated (by one of their systems) as important. Just popular. And it turns out that, most of the time, pages that other people are worth linking too are ones that are more interesting.
If you could actually come up with a search engine that gave rankings based on the actual page's importance, that would be a large step forward. May I sumbit that if you did, you'd be likely to at least consider patenting the technique, too!
We use databases extensively in our applications. A decent size OLTP delivery for us is in the 5-20GB range, processing thousands of transactions per minute. SQL Server is a fine workgroup-level product; Oracle / DB2 / Informix (still my personal favorite) make Enterprise-level products.
That doesn't mean that either are inherently better or worse than each other, just that they're optimized to do different things.