Make the movie execs understand that they have to pay attention to consumer desires and demands.
Don't use it. Simply send them a mail asking, "What can you provide me that Netflix doesn't?". Then list the advantages Netflix has and tell them why they have to try harder:
Cheaper. I usually have a 1-week turnaround per Netflix movie. 3 movies out at a time = 12 movies/month. 20/12 = less than $2 per movie. More convenient - I have multiple DVD players in my house. (One standalone, 2 PCs with DVD-ROM drives). I can watch the DVD in any of those devices, not on a single PC. Also, it doesn't tie up my 'net connection while I download the movie. Less restrictive - If I want to keep the movie for a week, I can. It'll raise my average price per movie, but it still blows away $5 for every 24 hours. Last but not least: Higher quality. DVD quality rather than crap streaming quality. I also don't have to worry about always having a few gigs of free HD space.
I'd say they have an excellent selection of non-mainstream films. Last year I shared the account with my apartmentmate Kate. She definately had non-mainstream taste in movies. I don't think there was a single movie she wanted that she couldn't find on NF.
Cheaper than this new service and higher-quality too. Also more flexible and available to those who don't have broadband.
Available in plenty - Even Code Red is now available in bottles in diet form. (CR was available canned for a bit, but not for long - Now I can only find 2L bottles. But I can still get my Diet CR fix.)
Yup, I'm diabetic. Regular soda tastes weird to me at this point - One sip and my first thought is, "something is wrong".
Infrared literally means something like, "below/before red". Theoretically infragreen exists... We call it yellow. Ultragreen exists to in the literal sense - But no one calls it that, they just say "blue".
Most imaging devices (Like the CCDs and photomultipliers used in machinery, including NV goggles) are most sensitive to IR. Also, IR is invisible to people without IR goggles, so if active illumination is used, it's IR.
Green is where the eye is most sensitive, but green light kills night vision. Also, red does not travel as far (This may be more of a psychological/eye sensitivity thing than physics) - Back in high school when I was on stage crew, white flashlights were *verboten* because the audience could see the spillover when they were used backstage. Red-filtered flashlights, OTOH, couldn't be seen by the audience.
As IR is where the peak of most CCD/CMOS imaging device's sensitivity is.
But for many reasons (volume, for one), high-brightness red LEDs are more plentiful and cheaper than IR. Red is nearly as good sensitivity-wise, but much cheaper.
All IR LEDs (except for maybe some outlandish ones, but none that I know of) are near-IR. Si isn't transparent to near-IR, it's transparent to far-IR (i.e. the type of IR given off by not-obscenely-hot objects). In fact, as others pointed out, most CCDs and CMOS sensors have their sensitivity peak in the near-IR area! (Note: This is the main principle that enables Sony NightShot mode. In most camcorders and digital cameras, there is an optical element that filters out near-IR light because it will utterly kill proper color rendition - In NightShot mode, this filter is moved out of the way, allowing more light in, which happens to be at the sensor's peak. Color rendition goes down the tubes, but recording something is better than recording nothing.)
1) Belt clip. Putting your phone in your pocket means you can't view caller ID without digging in your pocket to take it out. Anyway, I had no problem fitting the (much larger) 6035 in my pocket before my case/belt clip comboe came in. That said, it's much more convenient when belt-clipped, since I can just look down at my waist to see Caller ID info when the phone rings.
2) Ever heard of expansion memory? SD cards come in sizes up to 256M (Maybe even 512 by now...), and the 7135 has an SD slot in case you missed it the first time around. Definately better than the non-expandable 128M in this device.
Until recently, IBM Deskstars were the best drives you could get.
Then the 75GXP came out... And Deskstars became Deathstars.
Conversely, Maxtor and WD used to SUCK. From what I've heard, both companies have really shaped up. (I hope so, my home machine's new drive is a Maxtor...)
Which renders the article incorrect, since both Dish (ReplayTV) and DirecTV's (TiVo) offerings are rebrands of the companies the article says will fail because of these satellite PVRs...
Other than the reference design, TiVo IS more of a software than a hardware company. All of the TiVo PVRs are made by either Phillips or Sony.
TiVo wouldn't care if someone started giving away TiVo boxes, as long as they were still selling their service, which is their revenue stream.
Most obvious thing wrong with this article: It states that the inclusion of PVR features will be the downfall of TiVo/ReplayTV.
Um, how? DishPVR = rebranded ReplayTV DirectTV's PVR system used to be known as DirecTiVo - It's no longer called that, but it's still a TiVo system that TiVo is making money off of.
The TOS explicitly states that you are NOT allowed to do what is stated in the article. If they find you, they will either shut you down or start billing you $$$. (Note: Rumor has it that Sprint is trying to force this issue by having phone manufacturers remove PC connection capability outright from any Sprint-branded phone coming out in the future. This may or may not be true.)
If you want PC data that doesn't violate the TOS, it's $100/month.
Using LDAP is the way to go, but when you already have a Windows-based authentication infrastructure in place, you don't necessarily have that option. Hence pam_smb_auth
It's been a banner year for crazy VHF/UHF propagation. (Look through some back issues of QST, the ARRL's magazine, for some info in their VHF and Beyond column)
This past year, down at 144 MHz (2 meters), my amateur radio club's repeater was getting regularly triggered by some Canadians who had a repeater on the same frequency a few hundred miles north. (Yeah yeah, I know we should be using a PL tone, but it's disabled for various reasons.)
Apparently, some of the hardcore VHFers in our area had our repeater tuned in constantly, even though the W2CXM (Cornell Amateur Radio Club) repeater was usually idle (Most people used the county repeaters). When they started hearing faint signals coming from Canada triggering the repeater, they knew it was time to point their 6-meter antennas east. Contact with Europe on 6 meters (50 MHz) is usually unheard of, but this past year (both due to weather and oddball ionospheric occurrences) it's been common.
I know on RedHat systems, you can choose the pam_smb_auth PAM module to authenticate against a Windows domain controller. Pop in your domain and the server name, pam_smb_auth handles most of the rest. You still need a local entry in/etc/passwd with the user's uid/gid/homedir (It IS possible to get around this with the "nolocal" option, but needless to say it only works for a limited subset of services), but that entry doesn't need a password set, just * (Which would disallow logins normally, in this case if pam_smb_auth clears the authentication, you can log in)
I have this set up on a Linux box at work - At the moment I need to use adduser to create local accounts, but I don't need to give the users passwords - They use their current domain userid/pass.
Not sure, it might be a 60 Hz update rate, but each update is only have the screen.
A 60Hz non-interlaced monitor is at LEAST twice as good as NTSC refresh-wise.
Interlacing is ugly, which is why software such as DScaler (http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/ I believe) exists.
Unrelated note: DScaler rocks. It does with your TV tuner card things that home theater enthusiasts used to buy thousands of dollars worth of hardware to do.
Given that the base station is only running 30 mW, it's almost impossible for them to be out of FCC spec.
(Come on, they wouldn't bother releasing a product that didn't meet FCC regulations...)
30 mW = approx. 15 dBm The maximum power you may run into an isotropic antenna under FCC regs is 1 watt. 1 watt = 30 dBm.
This means that they have a MINIMUM of 15 dB of antenna gain headroom. That's a lot.
But it doesn't stop there - The FCC allows (somewhat) higher EIRPs. I don't remember the exact guideline, but it's something on the order of reducting peak transmit power by 1 dB for every 3 dB of antenna gain. (Not sure of the exact numbers, but you do get an increased EIRP ceiling as you narrow the beamwidth.)
So if you put on a 3 dBi antenna, your peak transmit power isn't 27 dBm (For 30 dBm EIRP), but it's 29 dBm (For 32 dBm EIRP).
Do a Google search for N9ZIA, you should reach the site of a guy that has done a LOT of WLAN hacking (not all of it legal, while he is very knowledgeable of regulations, he often chooses to ignore them...) He has some good info on the exact FCC regs in the band.
Unfortunately, they can only scale down to a preset speed (In fact, they can only go to that speed or max, nothing in between). IMO that speed is still too high - 1.2 GHz on my P4-M 1.7.
The Transmeta advantage is that it can adjust its clock speed far LOWER and in finer increments.
Maybe in the past, mobile CPUs were soldered-on BGAs, but in most recent laptops (Dell Inspiron 8x00, probably most other recent Dells), even the "Mobile" CPU is replacable. In the I8x00 series, you can even upgrade the video card (this made Slashdot a while ago).
But overall, the number of happy users is far more than the number of disgruntled ones.
I have an Inspiron 8200. My dad has an 8000. We have had stellar results with our laptops.
I'm a regular on the Dell support forums (helping ppl out) - For every guy that comes in ranting about Dell's crappy support, 3-5 people reply to him with, "For one, this is the wrong place. Use the customer support forum if you have customer service complaints. FYI, when I had,Dell happily shipped me a " - Yes, some people who had problematic DVD drivers were given not only a replacement, but an UPGRADE..
Nokia hasn't successfully had a CDMA phone pass Verizon performance testing since the 5185.
Their lack of CDMA experience is showing itself now - They STILL haven't been able to release a decent UMTS handset due to their lack of experience with CDMA.
AT&T really is shooting themselves in the foot by moving to GSM - It has no upgrade path. GSM/GPRS is a dead end from which the only way out is an entirely new network (Note the European providers running out of money right and left because they have to buy additional spectrum and build an entire new network to upgrade to 3G, whereas CDMA2000 has a planned upgrade path that has full backwards compatibility with cdmaOne equipment and spectrum.)
He's talking about Nokia's new models, not the three triband models you list. Neither of the new models are triband. He never said that NO Nokia phones were triband.
Because they haven't discovered the Mouse Bungee yet.
I used to have a cordless mouse. I swore by it, even after it went to 1/3 its original range for some reason (New batteries didn't fix the problem)
Eventually, it broke. I splurged on an MS Intellimouse Explorer (Back when it was the only optical mouse that didn't need a special mousepad a la Sun opticals). Loved the optical, loved the smoother response in games (Cordless mice have a low update rate, which is why I'll never go back), esp. when using the mouse in USB mode.
Couldn't stand the cord... But I lived with it until I bought a Mouse Bungee. Haven't had cord tangle problems ever since.:)
I don't remember the URL, but the MBs run $12-20 and worth every penny. (For those that don't know what it is - It's a weighted stand with an elevated cord holder on a spring that keeps your mouse cord neatly organized.)
Slashdot Mirror
Make the movie execs understand that they have to pay attention to consumer desires and demands.
Don't use it. Simply send them a mail asking, "What can you provide me that Netflix doesn't?". Then list the advantages Netflix has and tell them why they have to try harder:
Cheaper. I usually have a 1-week turnaround per Netflix movie. 3 movies out at a time = 12 movies/month. 20/12 = less than $2 per movie.
More convenient - I have multiple DVD players in my house. (One standalone, 2 PCs with DVD-ROM drives). I can watch the DVD in any of those devices, not on a single PC. Also, it doesn't tie up my 'net connection while I download the movie.
Less restrictive - If I want to keep the movie for a week, I can. It'll raise my average price per movie, but it still blows away $5 for every 24 hours.
Last but not least: Higher quality. DVD quality rather than crap streaming quality. I also don't have to worry about always having a few gigs of free HD space.
I have a Netflix subscription and LOVE it.
I'd say they have an excellent selection of non-mainstream films. Last year I shared the account with my apartmentmate Kate. She definately had non-mainstream taste in movies. I don't think there was a single movie she wanted that she couldn't find on NF.
Cheaper than this new service and higher-quality too. Also more flexible and available to those who don't have broadband.
Um, 2-liter bottles? :)
Available in plenty - Even Code Red is now available in bottles in diet form. (CR was available canned for a bit, but not for long - Now I can only find 2L bottles. But I can still get my Diet CR fix.)
Yup, I'm diabetic. Regular soda tastes weird to me at this point - One sip and my first thought is, "something is wrong".
Um, there is no such thing.
Infrared literally means something like, "below/before red". Theoretically infragreen exists... We call it yellow. Ultragreen exists to in the literal sense - But no one calls it that, they just say "blue".
Most imaging devices (Like the CCDs and photomultipliers used in machinery, including NV goggles) are most sensitive to IR. Also, IR is invisible to people without IR goggles, so if active illumination is used, it's IR.
Green is where the eye is most sensitive, but green light kills night vision. Also, red does not travel as far (This may be more of a psychological/eye sensitivity thing than physics) - Back in high school when I was on stage crew, white flashlights were *verboten* because the audience could see the spillover when they were used backstage. Red-filtered flashlights, OTOH, couldn't be seen by the audience.
As IR is where the peak of most CCD/CMOS imaging device's sensitivity is.
But for many reasons (volume, for one), high-brightness red LEDs are more plentiful and cheaper than IR. Red is nearly as good sensitivity-wise, but much cheaper.
Um, IR is the best thing you can use.
All IR LEDs (except for maybe some outlandish ones, but none that I know of) are near-IR. Si isn't transparent to near-IR, it's transparent to far-IR (i.e. the type of IR given off by not-obscenely-hot objects). In fact, as others pointed out, most CCDs and CMOS sensors have their sensitivity peak in the near-IR area! (Note: This is the main principle that enables Sony NightShot mode. In most camcorders and digital cameras, there is an optical element that filters out near-IR light because it will utterly kill proper color rendition - In NightShot mode, this filter is moved out of the way, allowing more light in, which happens to be at the sensor's peak. Color rendition goes down the tubes, but recording something is better than recording nothing.)
Two things:
1) Belt clip. Putting your phone in your pocket means you can't view caller ID without digging in your pocket to take it out. Anyway, I had no problem fitting the (much larger) 6035 in my pocket before my case/belt clip comboe came in. That said, it's much more convenient when belt-clipped, since I can just look down at my waist to see Caller ID info when the phone rings.
2) Ever heard of expansion memory? SD cards come in sizes up to 256M (Maybe even 512 by now...), and the 7135 has an SD slot in case you missed it the first time around. Definately better than the non-expandable 128M in this device.
Until recently, IBM Deskstars were the best drives you could get.
Then the 75GXP came out... And Deskstars became Deathstars.
Conversely, Maxtor and WD used to SUCK. From what I've heard, both companies have really shaped up. (I hope so, my home machine's new drive is a Maxtor...)
MP3 player + PalmOS PDA + phone.
Coming soon - Rumor has it that "soon" could be Nov. 15. A few people have gotten their hands on beta units and it's schweet.
http://www.kyocera.com/
If you're worried about the phone/PDA integration - I have the 7135's predecessor, the 6035. It rocks. The integration is wonderfully done.
Dish Network doesn't have its own home brew PVR.
Dish Network has rebranded ReplayTV.
Which renders the article incorrect, since both Dish (ReplayTV) and DirecTV's (TiVo) offerings are rebrands of the companies the article says will fail because of these satellite PVRs...
Other than the reference design, TiVo IS more of a software than a hardware company. All of the TiVo PVRs are made by either Phillips or Sony.
TiVo wouldn't care if someone started giving away TiVo boxes, as long as they were still selling their service, which is their revenue stream.
Most obvious thing wrong with this article: It states that the inclusion of PVR features will be the downfall of TiVo/ReplayTV.
Um, how? DishPVR = rebranded ReplayTV
DirectTV's PVR system used to be known as DirecTiVo - It's no longer called that, but it's still a TiVo system that TiVo is making money off of.
The TOS explicitly states that you are NOT allowed to do what is stated in the article. If they find you, they will either shut you down or start billing you $$$. (Note: Rumor has it that Sprint is trying to force this issue by having phone manufacturers remove PC connection capability outright from any Sprint-branded phone coming out in the future. This may or may not be true.)
If you want PC data that doesn't violate the TOS, it's $100/month.
If they can pull it off in Europe (the hardest place to do it, thanks to EU governments being less friendly), they can pull it off anywhere.
Better than deciding your scheme works in the US and hitting a brick wall in Europe.
Using LDAP is the way to go, but when you already have a Windows-based authentication infrastructure in place, you don't necessarily have that option. Hence pam_smb_auth
It's been a banner year for crazy VHF/UHF propagation. (Look through some back issues of QST, the ARRL's magazine, for some info in their VHF and Beyond column)
This past year, down at 144 MHz (2 meters), my amateur radio club's repeater was getting regularly triggered by some Canadians who had a repeater on the same frequency a few hundred miles north. (Yeah yeah, I know we should be using a PL tone, but it's disabled for various reasons.)
Apparently, some of the hardcore VHFers in our area had our repeater tuned in constantly, even though the W2CXM (Cornell Amateur Radio Club) repeater was usually idle (Most people used the county repeaters). When they started hearing faint signals coming from Canada triggering the repeater, they knew it was time to point their 6-meter antennas east. Contact with Europe on 6 meters (50 MHz) is usually unheard of, but this past year (both due to weather and oddball ionospheric occurrences) it's been common.
What exactly is the difference between these?
/etc/passwd with the user's uid/gid/homedir (It IS possible to get around this with the "nolocal" option, but needless to say it only works for a limited subset of services), but that entry doesn't need a password set, just * (Which would disallow logins normally, in this case if pam_smb_auth clears the authentication, you can log in)
Or is AD just the authentication portion of SMB?
I know on RedHat systems, you can choose the pam_smb_auth PAM module to authenticate against a Windows domain controller. Pop in your domain and the server name, pam_smb_auth handles most of the rest. You still need a local entry in
I have this set up on a Linux box at work - At the moment I need to use adduser to create local accounts, but I don't need to give the users passwords - They use their current domain userid/pass.
NTSC refreshes at 30 Hz... INTERLACED.
Not sure, it might be a 60 Hz update rate, but each update is only have the screen.
A 60Hz non-interlaced monitor is at LEAST twice as good as NTSC refresh-wise.
Interlacing is ugly, which is why software such as DScaler (http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/ I believe) exists.
Unrelated note: DScaler rocks. It does with your TV tuner card things that home theater enthusiasts used to buy thousands of dollars worth of hardware to do.
Given that the base station is only running 30 mW, it's almost impossible for them to be out of FCC spec.
(Come on, they wouldn't bother releasing a product that didn't meet FCC regulations...)
30 mW = approx. 15 dBm
The maximum power you may run into an isotropic antenna under FCC regs is 1 watt. 1 watt = 30 dBm.
This means that they have a MINIMUM of 15 dB of antenna gain headroom. That's a lot.
But it doesn't stop there - The FCC allows (somewhat) higher EIRPs. I don't remember the exact guideline, but it's something on the order of reducting peak transmit power by 1 dB for every 3 dB of antenna gain. (Not sure of the exact numbers, but you do get an increased EIRP ceiling as you narrow the beamwidth.)
So if you put on a 3 dBi antenna, your peak transmit power isn't 27 dBm (For 30 dBm EIRP), but it's 29 dBm (For 32 dBm EIRP).
Do a Google search for N9ZIA, you should reach the site of a guy that has done a LOT of WLAN hacking (not all of it legal, while he is very knowledgeable of regulations, he often chooses to ignore them...) He has some good info on the exact FCC regs in the band.
Usually the fans on Dell laptops are less aggressive when unplugged (Fans consume power...) This is the case with my Inspiron 8200.
That said, Dell usually sets the temperature threshold pretty high - If you run an Inspiron, do a search for FanGUI.
Intel CPUs can scale up to 100% speed.
Unfortunately, they can only scale down to a preset speed (In fact, they can only go to that speed or max, nothing in between). IMO that speed is still too high - 1.2 GHz on my P4-M 1.7.
The Transmeta advantage is that it can adjust its clock speed far LOWER and in finer increments.
Maybe in the past, mobile CPUs were soldered-on BGAs, but in most recent laptops (Dell Inspiron 8x00, probably most other recent Dells), even the "Mobile" CPU is replacable. In the I8x00 series, you can even upgrade the video card (this made Slashdot a while ago).
But overall, the number of happy users is far more than the number of disgruntled ones.
,Dell happily shipped me a " - Yes, some people who had problematic DVD drivers were given not only a replacement, but an UPGRADE..
I have an Inspiron 8200. My dad has an 8000. We have had stellar results with our laptops.
I'm a regular on the Dell support forums (helping ppl out) - For every guy that comes in ranting about Dell's crappy support, 3-5 people reply to him with, "For one, this is the wrong place. Use the customer support forum if you have customer service complaints. FYI, when I had
Nokia hasn't successfully had a CDMA phone pass Verizon performance testing since the 5185.
Their lack of CDMA experience is showing itself now - They STILL haven't been able to release a decent UMTS handset due to their lack of experience with CDMA.
AT&T really is shooting themselves in the foot by moving to GSM - It has no upgrade path. GSM/GPRS is a dead end from which the only way out is an entirely new network (Note the European providers running out of money right and left because they have to buy additional spectrum and build an entire new network to upgrade to 3G, whereas CDMA2000 has a planned upgrade path that has full backwards compatibility with cdmaOne equipment and spectrum.)
He's talking about Nokia's new models, not the three triband models you list. Neither of the new models are triband. He never said that NO Nokia phones were triband.
Because they haven't discovered the Mouse Bungee yet.
:)
I used to have a cordless mouse. I swore by it, even after it went to 1/3 its original range for some reason (New batteries didn't fix the problem)
Eventually, it broke. I splurged on an MS Intellimouse Explorer (Back when it was the only optical mouse that didn't need a special mousepad a la Sun opticals). Loved the optical, loved the smoother response in games (Cordless mice have a low update rate, which is why I'll never go back), esp. when using the mouse in USB mode.
Couldn't stand the cord... But I lived with it until I bought a Mouse Bungee. Haven't had cord tangle problems ever since.
I don't remember the URL, but the MBs run $12-20 and worth every penny. (For those that don't know what it is - It's a weighted stand with an elevated cord holder on a spring that keeps your mouse cord neatly organized.)