The law applies to handheld electronic devices. So unless your coffee mug is electronic or your climate control is handheld you are probably fine with coffee and a nice temp in your car
Marketing opportunities to save Michigan:
Wind-up (battery-free) vibrators Microphones with VOX (voice-activated switch) to replace PTT (push to talk) CB microphones
Opportunities for bored developers:
Drive-by Rick-rolling exploits for the iPhone, iPod touch, and Zune
Pystar is trying to get around Apple suing them for the "clone" of Snow Leopard. This is supposed to be a "generic" MacOS clone..which seems to me would make it pretty much UNIX BSD.
Not sure how that got modded up... it's entirely wrong. While the hardware Pystar has sold might be called a clone (it's just PC hardware with known-compatible chips), they are NOT providing a clone as an alternative to OS X. The OS X that is installed is the actual retail version. They're loading some things to allow it to install (emulating the Mac EFI, IIRC), and providing some drivers/patches to get some hardware to work.
Ubuntu seems to have hit the big time, riding off the Win7 release.
Maybe we can help Ubuntu a bit this week, burning and giving away Ubuntu 9.10 CDs through places like craigslist.
I haven't figured out the ad text yet, but I think a title along the lines of "free upgrade for Windows users" would get people to read the ad.
I figured the text could mention the ability to try it before installing, the ability to dual boot, the included memory tester (something that would avoid one of the problems with Win7 installs), the speed boost seen on some machines due to it being leaning and not having the overhead of antivirus software, the great free apps included, the easy of finding adding/removing apps, freedom from registration keys and ads, freedom to copy.... great additional effects/features with a modern GPU... should include something about minimum RAM requirements. Maybe mention that Mac switchers could keep the old PC around to run Windows games, and be safely used for net access through Ubuntu.
Something simple looking, like a list format might be easily understood?
A bunch of us working on this could have an impact.
Ubuntu : The New Efficiency (an MS slogan that fits Ubuntu much better)
I'd be surprised if it actually uses that much. The figures shown on consumer products for power consumption seem to be peak or maximum, not nominal figures. Using a meter such as the Kill-a-watt will likely show significantly less consumption. (read Watts, not VA)
A few years ago I built a desktop using a E6300 Core 2 Duo overclocked to 2.25 Ghz. With added Ethernet and Firewire cards, and typical optical and hard drives, consumption measures only 82 Watts. (tested while doing video compression) Components were selected with energy use in mind. It helped to use basic ICH7/GMA950 graphics.
Clearly the Minis still use much more energy than some alternatives suggested here, but for a true picture of power savings measured consumption is needed. It would be interesting to results at different clock rates.
At aa 13 cents a kwh above baseline rate, I figure it costs roughly $1. per month for every 10 Watts of continuous (24 hr) load.
This reminds me of the "free computers" of 1990 or so, with some of the screen space taken up by extra ads. I think that was just when running the browser though.
The same users that went for those "discounted" PCs with an AOL contract obligation might opt for other cheaper hardware with an ad hook-in subsidizing the purchase.
That one in ten cases is incorrectly sentenced by this system says to me that some of the attorneys are filling these forms out; When the clerks take care of it, they usually get it right.
It can be the hired help too. Attorneys are often too good to do any of the actual work themselves.
I encountered a friend I hadn't seen in a long time who sadly had become a meth addict. But he was well spoken and good looking and managed to get a job in a law office. But he complained about the work, how he'd forget what people said before he got phone messages written down, etc. I saw him one day just before he headed to work and I asked him how long it'd been since he'd slept. FIVE DAYS! He was a walking zombie.
I once met another person that worked at home doing contract work filling out legal forms, mostly real-estate related. He was doing it while chatting online and watching porn.
Condition causing strange things to be typed while watching or having sex:
It's the screen radiation, but The Others don't think that way...
The radiation from c.r.t.s was a mixed blessing, with the radiation suppressing some of the nastier fungus-based symbionts, but generation of mutations in some of the other types was also a frequent trilateral result. Other screen types still support the basic mechanism of symbiont generation, photonic stem-cell modulation. Developers are not the only core grouping however. The screen content affects the phase of the transpirational transconductance influencing the outcome. For instance those whose symbiont has a sports-imprinted photonic matrix have a strong predisposition to eat pizza, drink beer, burp, and fart all converging on nearly the same point in time.
Developers tend to consume more caffeine, and are prone to developing lickdicksia, a condition causing unpredictable typing malformations while viewing or engaged in sex.
You are implying that PCs that multibillionares get are different from the PCs that we get?
Having no reason not to, more of them buy into $1000+ machines. 91% of users in that part of the market are buying Apple. Those that need to do something outside of OS X can certainly multi-boot or use virtual machines to run other OSes including Ubuntu and Windows (more than one version if need be), so most needs are satisfied very well.
The bottom of the market barrell usually gets Windows by default. Of course lower end hardware and older machines runs faster with Ubuntu. Besides the speed advantage, Ubuntu saves vendors licensing costs, so in theory they can be profitable while providing slightly better or lower priced hardware than they could deliver with Windows. Ubuntu certainly is worthy of higher end hardware too, having some very nice features available to those with a good GPU.
Of course the needs of many could be met by staying with their old hareware and switching to Ubuntu, getting a speed boost over Windows from being better coded, leaner, DRM-free, and not having the overhead of anti-viral software (and not running with active infections!).
Instead of Windows 7 launch parties, I think this is a great time for some of us to burn and offer free Ubuntu disks on Craigslist etc.
Ubuntu: The New Efficiency (An MS slogan that fits Ubuntu far better)
* Change Ubuntu Linux's resolution to 640x480. Now change it back without using secret, hidden key commands. It can't be done. That's a non-user-friendly design.
If you're running Ubuntu in Virtual Box the Display control panel does downsize but not upsize the Window as you say, because it adjusts its upper limit to whatever the window size is. But no hidden trickery is needed to resize. A feature of the VBOXadditions driver allows you to just grab the lower right window corner and drag to resize it to whatever you want on the fly, including values between the traditional resolutions. Ubuntu 9.04 and the 9.10 beta have worked well for me in Virtual Box 3.0.8 on Snow Leopard. Check to see that you're up to date with Virtual Box (it seems to be getting updates about once a month) and have the VBOXadditions installed for inside-the-guest enhancements with some of the more popular OSes. You get simple smooth transitions of the cursor when moving between host and guest, the video driver with dynamic resizing, and support for shared folders. I have not tried the acceleration pass-through in the Virtual Box Ubuntu video driver.
If you didn't leave out the drivers, there should be no need to resort to adding resolutions through editing of/etc/X11/xorg.conf. But those that might want to do that with other hardware can find simple instructions in the Ubuntu forums.
As I suspect is the case with many here, I've often been called upon when friends have had problems with Windows, mostly XP. It's usually malware related. I've found that many of them just use their machines for browsing, email, IM, light word processing, and sometimes games. For those not using games, instead of a format/restore, I've been installing Ubuntu. For those into heavy gaming, I've set them up to dual boot and taught them not to use the browser or mail at all in Windows.
So far all have been happy with Ubuntu. People really seem to appreciate the Ubuntu security that keeps guests/children from installing software, and "Guest Session" which also keeps them away from personal files and settings. Using Windows only for gaming seems to be enough to avoid the frequent malware problems. For those getting new machines, Win 7 is a welcome security improvement over XP. But Vista/Win7 are generally not compelling enough to justify the expense of a new machine or even the software. Most hardware running XP can handle Ubuntu well, since it is far less demanding than Vista or Win 7. Some machines need some RAM, but that's usually cheap. At least among those I see, most wanting new hardware have been going with Macs instead. Old PCs sometimes live on for Windows games or Ubuntu surfing (just to have another box available)
What's the best software to change a tire on your car and find the leak?
Software can check quite a few things, but for the most part during a short time interval, digital hardware is either working or it isn't. So software performance tests may not be very good at revealing something marginal.
Beyond a few software tests and ruling some things out by substitution, it generally takes someone with some hardware troubleshooting skills, and some test equipment.
Of course test equipment starts with your senses. Software isn't very good at spotting things like a failing fan, or dust buildup in heatsinks, cooling vents, or the power supply. Software won't find that little solder blob or loose screw shorting something. It probably won't tell you about something poorly seated or dirty in a socket. It won't tell you about the marginal power supply or high-resistance connector that makes the voltage dip when a drive spins up... It won't tell you if the CPU doesn't have thermal compound properly applied (although software monitoring of temperature sensors does help).
Of course it goes without saying that you've made sure that bios settings are such that nothing is stressed. Don't be afraid to let a memory test run overnight or longer.
A multitmeter, oscilloscope, and dummy-load resistors are a good starting point. Adjustable power supplies to allow board testing at the upper and lower ends of the specified operating voltages can also be very revealing. A hair dryer and freeze spray may help localize thermal intermittents. A temperature probe and IR videcam can be handy. For example being able to see a pin of a connector heating could reveal a problem even when voltages are within normal limits.
If qualified to do so, use an oscilloscope and voltmeter to see that any switching regulators on the motherboard are functioning properly. Failing capacitors sometimes have obvious physical signs, but don't count on finding bad parts by appearance only. Seeing excessive ripple/noise with a scope can make filtering problems immediately obvious. Many modern boards take a 12 Volt input and convert it to what the CPU requires. In some cases the related components are heavily stressed.
Beyond simple things like regulator problems, it is unlikely that most outside of a specialized service facility could actually fix much on a motherboard. Even if when possible, it is not likely to be cost-effective.
Use every clue presented. What's going on when the malfunction occurs? (what's running, is the environment hotter or cooler, is equipment subjected to vibration or static discharge, note time of day when other equipment kicks in etc.)
Even though he did stop just short of being taken in, it is apparent that some of his information was already compromised. How else would they know which of all the banks out there was one he was using?
If the use of short-term rewards for behavior affects the level of violence in people later in life, perhaps it may be worthwhile to re-examine the use of treats as an aid in training dogs?
They really should be trying to find something else: more reliable pollination.
Yes! Perhaps they can even make a variety good at pollinating cherimoya. Apparently South America has some bugs absent in the U.S., so most have to resort to hand-pollination with a small brush or something to get good yields from a cherimoya tree. The fruit is delightful.
The screens in the black and white tubes didn't limit resolution, but the spots size (focus) of the beam could. In practice that's mainly a problem with very small screens and high brightness levels, as seen with c.r.t.s in projection sets. Those sure could look awful...
In practice the resolution from left to right is limited by the video bandwidth. On a high end analog computer monitor that may exceed 100 MHz. That essentially limits the minimum width of vertical lines. But unlike the case with analog computer monitors where stored digital pixel information has a corresponding fixed position on a line, a true analog signal can have intensity changes occur anywhere along the line. To approximate that digitally would take a minimum of two pixels being averaged. (It's the same theory that dictates using at least 40 KHz sampling to sample 20 KHz audio). Trying to use too few of digital pixels (sub-sampling) is what causes aliasing (the jaggies). Analog tv does have that problem, but only in the vertical direction due to the fixed line count/position.
In an analog television, the bandwidth is limited not by the video amplifier section, but by the "i.f." intermediate frequency strip of filters/amplification. By mixing the incoming signals with an adjustable internal oscillator, the tv tuner shifts the desired channel down to the intermediate frequency, there the i.f. filters pass the desired signal while attenuating that of the adjacent channels. That design approach avoids the need to retune a whole group of filters just to change channels. (When first done with A.M. radios, the breakthrough was called SuperHetrodyne) To get higher horizontal detail requires wider filters, and tv channels spaced more widely (greater spectrum bandwidth). The use of too much spectrum was the main limiting factor in preventing opting for higher quality analog. Also, a wider channel means more noise bandwidth (more is captured), so higher resolution would require increased transmitter power to get the desired signal to noise ratio (not notice snow).
The U.S. system used A.M. transmission, but with only part of the lower sideband transmitted in order to save bandwidth. Normal A.M. sidebands are mirror images of each other. With that redundant carrying of information, one sideband could actually be eliminated (you've heard of S.S.B. or single-sideband), but that was too big of a feat to be viable when tv standards were set. The compromise of vestigal sideband gave U.S. black and white tv slightly less than 4.5 MHz of bandwidth out of a 6 Mhz channel. The sound signal (F.M.) was placed 4.5 MHz up from the visual carrier frequency, so the usable video spectrum could extend quite that far. As with single-sideband, putting the same sideband transmission power as A.M. into a narrow channel reduces noise, so coverage is improved.
N.T.S.C. color stuffs additional information into the spectrum used by black and white. Because of the horizontal (line) scan rate being a samping rate of sorts, the video bands exist in clusters spaced that rate (15.750 Khz for B&W, changed to 15.734 Khz for color) occupying spectrum like the teeth of a comb. The added color information centers on a frequency 3.579545 MHz above the video carrier, a choice which causes the sidebands created by the color information to have a comb=like spectrum with the peaks falling right between those of the black and white. If you every had someone trying to sell you a tv that used comb filtering, maybe now you can almost understand why that was a good thing. It allowed recovering as much as possible of the detail present in both the black and white and color parts of the signal while minimizing interferrence effects between them. On old black and white tvs with pretty good signal bandwidth one could actually see a pattern in the parts of the picture where there was bright color content. It looked sort of like regularly spaced lighter/darker dots from left to right on each line. But the choice of frequencies/spacing was such that al
I also bought a (cheap) UPS, because a lot of people say it's power surges that tend to cause routers to lock up.
Many cheaper UPSes do little or nothing to help with surges or brief drop-outs in power. You might try another a.c. adapter on your router. Sometimes the electrolytic capacitors start to dry out, causing the output to fall sooner than it otherwise would during a brief disruption. Most surges/spikes of over-voltage are smoothed by the capacitors and regulator circuitry.
My earlier 54G had one of the bigger a.c. adapters which contains a fair amount of iron the the 60 Hz transformer, and uses analog regulation. To avoid the core losses associated with the transformer and save a Watt or so, I swapped it out with an adapter of the switching supply variety. The ratings are essentially the same, but it is easily identified by being small and very light weight. I haven't had any resets or lockups during many months of uptime.
This means that exploit JavaScript code has been tuned to target vulnerabilities in Safari as well
No, it means that the infected websites redirected visitors including Mac users. They were victims of redirection only at that point. It's the sites that people got redirected to that did the actual user-machine infecting. The article only says that six vulnerabilities were targeted but it doesn't say which. Mebroot (Master Boot Record Rootkit) is Windows based and isn't new.
"Using a variety of methods, the criminals behind Mebroot infect legitimate Web servers with Javascript code. The code redirects visitors to a different Internet domain, which changes every day, and where a malicious server attempts to compromise their computer with a program that provides the botnet's owners with remote control over that machine."
I'm not an expert, but the Mebroot description at F-Secure appears to show Windows systems as the target. Of course other mutations could potentially be created to target vulnerabilities on OS X or other platforms, but once in it couldn't just install the same Windows rootkit. (below from F-Secure, not article) http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001393.html
The actual site hosting the exploit code utilizes the following exploits:
Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) Function vulnerability (MS06-014)
AOL SuperBuddy ActiveX Control Code Execution vulnerability (CVE-2006-5820)
Online Media Technologies NCTsoft NCTAudioFile2 ActiveX Buffer Overflow (CVE-2007-0018)
GOM Player "GomWeb3" ActiveX Control Buffer Overflow (CVE-2007-5779)
Microsoft Internet Explorer WebViewFolderIcon setSlice (CVE-2006-3730)
Yahoo! JukeBox datagrid.dll AddButton() Buffer Overflow
DirectAnimation.PathControl KeyFrame vulnerability (CVE-2006-4777)
Microsoft DirectSpeechSynthesis Module Remote Buffer Overflow
from article: "The researchers also discovered that nearly 70 percent of those redirected by Mebroot--as classified by Internet address--were vulnerable to one of almost 40 vulnerabilities regularly used by the most popular infection toolkits designed to compromise computer systems. About half that number were vulnerable to the six specific vulnerabilities used by the Mebroot toolkit."
For things that have been fixed, I think Mac users are generally a bit better about having OS and browser updates. Of course, like everyone else, they can still reduce significantly reduce risk by disabling browser functionality except when needed (as with NoScript and Firefox).
I'm concerned updates in other applications may be missed not only by users, but even developers. VLC promptly was updated for some vulnerabilities in underlying ffmpeg code, but users aren't always good about keeping VLC up to date (the older version for OS X 10.4 got an update as well as the current release.
There are a many video conversion, dvd assembly and other programs built on Windows and OS X using ffmpeg behind the scenes. In some cases the developers make little or no mention of it (LGPL/GPL compliance is a problem too). These programs don't seem to be getting the newer ffmpeg builds that address the problems.
Can you direct me towards a laptop capable of driving two 30" LCDs without a docking station ?
It is highly unlikely that someone with a budget allowing dual 30" displays (and that's just for one desk - you mentioned three), would be limited to $1200 for the laptop.
This guy is running Windows 98, Ubuntu and XP Pro. How's the drivers situation for running the two 30" displays (plus the laptops' own screen) on those OSes? Can Windows 98 and XP run much more than a debugger on the second screen?
This guy could no-doubt do fine on a laptop supporting just one decent external display. He could also easily find a laptop with better than double his current battery life without resorting to the added size/weight/clutter found in units with removable optical drives. Then he'd get the longer runtime in a sleaker package and never be stuck without his optical drive.
Avoiding wires? Use wireless networking, print serving and added storage. See the Apple Time Capsule. (Windows is supported) Use one USB cable to a powered hub for most other devices, even a USB floppy drive. Having an internal webcam averts cabling.
Either a PC or Apple laptop could fill his need. A MB or MBP would provide the most options, also including support for simple automatic backups as well as OS X, Unix, and iPhone/iPod touch development. XCode can share the compiling work with other machines.
If I were in his position I'd scrounge another LCD from Ebay to keep going for now, then save up a bit more and with a higher-end MacBook Pro. It'd be a bit more money initially, but would also bring back a higher salvage/resale value next time around. If it's for actual paying development work, the better tools certainly are justified. Do a clever iPhone app in spare time, maybe it'll pay for all of the hardware.
He'll likely have problems trying to run any new machine under Windows 98, so he'll probably end up with it in a VM such as Virtual Box (OSS). It'll support running Ubuntu and other versions of Windows as needed, and can be hosted on Ubuntu, OS X, or Windows. Considering that it isn't always possible to predict where/how one might need to get net access on a laptop, it would be wise to only use either Ubuntu or OS X as the host OS, and keep all versions of Windows safely litterboxed in the VM.
Isn't Grub2 one of the features of Ubuntu Karmic Koala?
YES! From the beta page:
"GRUB 2 is the default boot loader for new installations with Ubuntu 9.10 Beta, replacing the previous GRUB "Legacy" boot loader. Existing systems will not be upgraded to GRUB 2 at this time, as automatically reinstalling the boot loader is an inherently risky operation.
If you wish to upgrade your system to GRUB 2, then see the GRUB 2 testing page for instructions. See also the upstream draft manual.
Some features are still missing relative to GRUB Legacy. Notable among these are lock/password support, an equivalent of grub-reboot, and Xen handling. "
The Ubuntu 9.10 beta is available now, the release is due the end of the month.
Slashdot Mirror
With enough frosting and no chewing, the ..... go down much more easily
The secret launch party snacks?
I hope they're not handing out left-overs for Halloween.
The law applies to handheld electronic devices. So unless your coffee mug is electronic or your climate control is handheld you are probably fine with coffee and a nice temp in your car
Marketing opportunities to save Michigan:
Wind-up (battery-free) vibrators
Microphones with VOX (voice-activated switch) to replace PTT (push to talk) CB microphones
Opportunities for bored developers:
Drive-by Rick-rolling exploits for the iPhone, iPod touch, and Zune
Pystar is trying to get around Apple suing them for the "clone" of Snow Leopard. This is supposed to be a "generic" MacOS clone..which seems to me would make it pretty much UNIX BSD.
Not sure how that got modded up... it's entirely wrong. While the hardware Pystar has sold might be called a clone (it's just PC hardware with known-compatible chips), they are NOT providing a clone as an alternative to OS X. The OS X that is installed is the actual retail version. They're loading some things to allow it to install (emulating the Mac EFI, IIRC), and providing some drivers/patches to get some hardware to work.
Ubuntu seems to have hit the big time, riding off the Win7 release.
Maybe we can help Ubuntu a bit this week, burning and giving away Ubuntu 9.10 CDs through places like craigslist.
I haven't figured out the ad text yet, but I think a title along the lines of "free upgrade for Windows users" would get people to read the ad.
I figured the text could mention the ability to try it before installing, the ability to dual boot, the included memory tester (something that would avoid one of the problems with Win7 installs), the speed boost seen on some machines due to it being leaning and not having the overhead of antivirus software, the great free apps included, the easy of finding adding/removing apps, freedom from registration keys and ads, freedom to copy.... great additional effects/features with a modern GPU... should include something about minimum RAM requirements. Maybe mention that Mac switchers could keep the old PC around to run Windows games, and be safely used for net access through Ubuntu.
Something simple looking, like a list format might be easily understood?
A bunch of us working on this could have an impact.
Ubuntu : The New Efficiency (an MS slogan that fits Ubuntu much better)
Also, the mac mini draws 110 watts
I'd be surprised if it actually uses that much. The figures shown on consumer products for power consumption seem to be peak or maximum, not nominal figures. Using a meter such as the Kill-a-watt will likely show significantly less consumption. (read Watts, not VA)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Electronic+Gadgets-_-P3+International-_-82715001
A few years ago I built a desktop using a E6300 Core 2 Duo overclocked to 2.25 Ghz. With added Ethernet and Firewire cards, and typical optical and hard drives, consumption measures only 82 Watts. (tested while doing video compression) Components were selected with energy use in mind. It helped to use basic ICH7/GMA950 graphics.
Clearly the Minis still use much more energy than some alternatives suggested here, but for a true picture of power savings measured consumption is needed. It would be interesting to results at different clock rates.
At aa 13 cents a kwh above baseline rate, I figure it costs roughly $1. per month for every 10 Watts of continuous (24 hr) load.
Microsoft Vodka? Isn't that being a little harsh?
This did get a major under the hood improvement with WinFS, didn't it?
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winfs_preview.asp
OS X, where a robust set of frameworks and APIs can insure that even malware will have the level of quality and uniformity that Mac users expect.
Start your photocopiers Redmond!
Confine advertising to OSX, sounds good to me.
It would be funny if the ads kicked in when OS X detected installation on non-Apple hardware.
This reminds me of the "free computers" of 1990 or so, with some of the screen space taken up by extra ads. I think that was just when running the browser though.
The same users that went for those "discounted" PCs with an AOL contract obligation might opt for other cheaper hardware with an ad hook-in subsidizing the purchase.
27" iMacs turning into billboards... hmmmm...
That one in ten cases is incorrectly sentenced by this system says to me that some of the attorneys are filling these forms out; When the clerks take care of it, they usually get it right.
It can be the hired help too. Attorneys are often too good to do any of the actual work themselves.
I encountered a friend I hadn't seen in a long time who sadly had become a meth addict. But he was well spoken and good looking and managed to get a job in a law office. But he complained about the work, how he'd forget what people said before he got phone messages written down, etc. I saw him one day just before he headed to work and I asked him how long it'd been since he'd slept. FIVE DAYS! He was a walking zombie.
I once met another person that worked at home doing contract work filling out legal forms, mostly real-estate related. He was doing it while chatting online and watching porn.
Condition causing strange things to be typed while watching or having sex:
Lickdicksia
It's the screen radiation, but The Others don't think that way...
The radiation from c.r.t.s was a mixed blessing, with the radiation suppressing some of the nastier fungus-based symbionts, but generation of mutations in some of the other types was also a frequent trilateral result. Other screen types still support the basic mechanism of symbiont generation, photonic stem-cell modulation. Developers are not the only core grouping however. The screen content affects the phase of the transpirational transconductance influencing the outcome. For instance those whose symbiont has a sports-imprinted photonic matrix have a strong predisposition to eat pizza, drink beer, burp, and fart all converging on nearly the same point in time.
Developers tend to consume more caffeine, and are prone to developing lickdicksia, a condition causing unpredictable typing malformations while viewing or engaged in sex.
You are implying that PCs that multibillionares get are different from the PCs that we get?
Having no reason not to, more of them buy into $1000+ machines. 91% of users in that part of the market are buying Apple. Those that need to do something outside of OS X can certainly multi-boot or use virtual machines to run other OSes including Ubuntu and Windows (more than one version if need be), so most needs are satisfied very well.
The bottom of the market barrell usually gets Windows by default. Of course lower end hardware and older machines runs faster with Ubuntu. Besides the speed advantage, Ubuntu saves vendors licensing costs, so in theory they can be profitable while providing slightly better or lower priced hardware than they could deliver with Windows. Ubuntu certainly is worthy of higher end hardware too, having some very nice features available to those with a good GPU.
Of course the needs of many could be met by staying with their old hareware and switching to Ubuntu, getting a speed boost over Windows from being better coded, leaner, DRM-free, and not having the overhead of anti-viral software (and not running with active infections!).
Instead of Windows 7 launch parties, I think this is a great time for some of us to burn and offer free Ubuntu disks on Craigslist etc.
Ubuntu: The New Efficiency (An MS slogan that fits Ubuntu far better)
* Change Ubuntu Linux's resolution to 640x480.
Now change it back without using secret,
hidden key commands. It can't be done.
That's a non-user-friendly design.
If you're running Ubuntu in Virtual Box the Display control panel does downsize but not upsize the Window as you say, because it adjusts its upper limit to whatever the window size is. But no hidden trickery is needed to resize. A feature of the VBOXadditions driver allows you to just grab the lower right window corner and drag to resize it to whatever you want on the fly, including values between the traditional resolutions.
Ubuntu 9.04 and the 9.10 beta have worked well for me in Virtual Box 3.0.8 on Snow Leopard. Check to see that you're up to date with Virtual Box (it seems to be getting updates about once a month) and have the VBOXadditions installed for inside-the-guest enhancements with some of the more popular OSes. You get simple smooth transitions of the cursor when moving between host and guest, the video driver with dynamic resizing, and support for shared folders. I have not tried the acceleration pass-through in the Virtual Box Ubuntu video driver.
If you didn't leave out the drivers, there should be no need to resort to adding resolutions through editing of /etc/X11/xorg.conf. But those that might want to do that with other hardware can find simple instructions in the Ubuntu forums.
As I suspect is the case with many here, I've often been called upon when friends have had problems with Windows, mostly XP. It's usually malware related. I've found that many of them just use their machines for browsing, email, IM, light word processing, and sometimes games. For those not using games, instead of a format/restore, I've been installing Ubuntu. For those into heavy gaming, I've set them up to dual boot and taught them not to use the browser or mail at all in Windows.
So far all have been happy with Ubuntu. People really seem to appreciate the Ubuntu security that keeps guests/children from installing software, and "Guest Session" which also keeps them away from personal files and settings.
Using Windows only for gaming seems to be enough to avoid the frequent malware problems.
For those getting new machines, Win 7 is a welcome security improvement over XP. But Vista/Win7 are generally not compelling enough to justify the expense of a new machine or even the software. Most hardware running XP can handle Ubuntu well, since it is far less demanding than Vista or Win 7. Some machines need some RAM, but that's usually cheap.
At least among those I see, most wanting new hardware have been going with Macs instead. Old PCs sometimes live on for Windows games or Ubuntu surfing (just to have another box available)
Ubuntu: The New Efficiency!
What's the best software to change a tire on your car and find the leak?
Software can check quite a few things, but for the most part during a short time interval, digital hardware is either working or it isn't. So software performance tests may not be very good at revealing something marginal.
Beyond a few software tests and ruling some things out by substitution, it generally takes someone with some hardware troubleshooting skills, and some test equipment.
Of course test equipment starts with your senses. Software isn't very good at spotting things like a failing fan, or dust buildup in heatsinks, cooling vents, or the power supply. Software won't find that little solder blob or loose screw shorting something. It probably won't tell you about something poorly seated or dirty in a socket. It won't tell you about the marginal power supply or high-resistance connector that makes the voltage dip when a drive spins up... It won't tell you if the CPU doesn't have thermal compound properly applied (although software monitoring of temperature sensors does help).
Of course it goes without saying that you've made sure that bios settings are such that nothing is stressed. Don't be afraid to let a memory test run overnight or longer.
A multitmeter, oscilloscope, and dummy-load resistors are a good starting point. Adjustable power supplies to allow board testing at the upper and lower ends of the specified operating voltages can also be very revealing. A hair dryer and freeze spray may help localize thermal intermittents. A temperature probe and IR videcam can be handy. For example being able to see a pin of a connector heating could reveal a problem even when voltages are within normal limits.
If qualified to do so, use an oscilloscope and voltmeter to see that any switching regulators on the motherboard are functioning properly. Failing capacitors sometimes have obvious physical signs, but don't count on finding bad parts by appearance only. Seeing excessive ripple/noise with a scope can make filtering problems immediately obvious. Many modern boards take a 12 Volt input and convert it to what the CPU requires. In some cases the related components are heavily stressed.
Beyond simple things like regulator problems, it is unlikely that most outside of a specialized service facility could actually fix much on a motherboard. Even if when possible, it is not likely to be cost-effective.
Use every clue presented. What's going on when the malfunction occurs? (what's running, is the environment hotter or cooler, is equipment subjected to vibration or static discharge, note time of day when other equipment kicks in etc.)
NASA please test!
It's believed there may be water in the soil in Redmond
Even though he did stop just short of being taken in, it is apparent that some of his information was already compromised. How else would they know which of all the banks out there was one he was using?
If the use of short-term rewards for behavior affects the level of violence in people later in life, perhaps it may be worthwhile to re-examine the use of treats as an aid in training dogs?
They really should be trying to find something else: more reliable pollination.
Yes! Perhaps they can even make a variety good at pollinating cherimoya. Apparently South America has some bugs absent in the U.S., so most have to resort to hand-pollination with a small brush or something to get good yields from a cherimoya tree. The fruit is delightful.
What can you do with Flash that you can't do with html5?
Tie yourself to a vendor
The screens in the black and white tubes didn't limit resolution, but the spots size (focus) of the beam could. In practice that's mainly a problem with very small screens and high brightness levels, as seen with c.r.t.s in projection sets. Those sure could look awful...
In practice the resolution from left to right is limited by the video bandwidth. On a high end analog computer monitor that may exceed 100 MHz. That essentially limits the minimum width of vertical lines.
But unlike the case with analog computer monitors where stored digital pixel information has a corresponding fixed position on a line, a true analog signal can have intensity changes occur anywhere along the line. To approximate that digitally would take a minimum of two pixels being averaged. (It's the same theory that dictates using at least 40 KHz sampling to sample 20 KHz audio). Trying to use too few of digital pixels (sub-sampling) is what causes aliasing (the jaggies). Analog tv does have that problem, but only in the vertical direction due to the fixed line count/position.
In an analog television, the bandwidth is limited not by the video amplifier section, but by the "i.f." intermediate frequency strip of filters/amplification. By mixing the incoming signals with an adjustable internal oscillator, the tv tuner shifts the desired channel down to the intermediate frequency, there the i.f. filters pass the desired signal while attenuating that of the adjacent channels. That design approach avoids the need to retune a whole group of filters just to change channels. (When first done with A.M. radios, the breakthrough was called SuperHetrodyne) To get higher horizontal detail requires wider filters, and tv channels spaced more widely (greater spectrum bandwidth). The use of too much spectrum was the main limiting factor in preventing opting for higher quality analog. Also, a wider channel means more noise bandwidth (more is captured), so higher resolution would require increased transmitter power to get the desired signal to noise ratio (not notice snow).
The U.S. system used A.M. transmission, but with only part of the lower sideband transmitted in order to save bandwidth. Normal A.M. sidebands are mirror images of each other. With that redundant carrying of information, one sideband could actually be eliminated (you've heard of S.S.B. or single-sideband), but that was too big of a feat to be viable when tv standards were set. The compromise of vestigal sideband gave U.S. black and white tv slightly less than 4.5 MHz of bandwidth out of a 6 Mhz channel. The sound signal (F.M.) was placed 4.5 MHz up from the visual carrier frequency, so the usable video spectrum could extend quite that far. As with single-sideband, putting the same sideband transmission power as A.M. into a narrow channel reduces noise, so coverage is improved.
N.T.S.C. color stuffs additional information into the spectrum used by black and white. Because of the horizontal (line) scan rate being a samping rate of sorts, the video bands exist in clusters spaced that rate (15.750 Khz for B&W, changed to 15.734 Khz for color) occupying spectrum like the teeth of a comb. The added color information centers on a frequency 3.579545 MHz above the video carrier, a choice which causes the sidebands created by the color information to have a comb=like spectrum with the peaks falling right between those of the black and white. If you every had someone trying to sell you a tv that used comb filtering, maybe now you can almost understand why that was a good thing. It allowed recovering as much as possible of the detail present in both the black and white and color parts of the signal while minimizing interferrence effects between them. On old black and white tvs with pretty good signal bandwidth one could actually see a pattern in the parts of the picture where there was bright color content. It looked sort of like regularly spaced lighter/darker dots from left to right on each line. But the choice of frequencies/spacing was such that al
I also bought a (cheap) UPS, because a lot of people say it's power surges that tend to cause routers to lock up.
Many cheaper UPSes do little or nothing to help with surges or brief drop-outs in power.
You might try another a.c. adapter on your router. Sometimes the electrolytic capacitors start to dry out, causing the output to fall sooner than it otherwise would during a brief disruption. Most surges/spikes of over-voltage are smoothed by the capacitors and regulator circuitry.
My earlier 54G had one of the bigger a.c. adapters which contains a fair amount of iron the the 60 Hz transformer, and uses analog regulation. To avoid the core losses associated with the transformer and save a Watt or so, I swapped it out with an adapter of the switching supply variety. The ratings are essentially the same, but it is easily identified by being small and very light weight.
I haven't had any resets or lockups during many months of uptime.
This means that exploit JavaScript code has been tuned to target vulnerabilities in Safari as well
No, it means that the infected websites redirected visitors including Mac users. They were victims of redirection only at that point. It's the sites that people got redirected to that did the actual user-machine infecting. The article only says that six vulnerabilities were targeted but it doesn't say which. Mebroot (Master Boot Record Rootkit) is Windows based and isn't new.
"Using a variety of methods, the criminals behind Mebroot infect legitimate Web servers with Javascript code. The code redirects visitors to a different Internet domain, which changes every day, and where a malicious server attempts to compromise their computer with a program that provides the botnet's owners with remote control over that machine."
I'm not an expert, but the Mebroot description at F-Secure appears to show Windows systems as the target. Of course other mutations could potentially be created to target vulnerabilities on OS X or other platforms, but once in it couldn't just install the same Windows rootkit.
(below from F-Secure, not article)
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001393.html
The actual site hosting the exploit code utilizes the following exploits:
Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) Function vulnerability (MS06-014)
AOL SuperBuddy ActiveX Control Code Execution vulnerability (CVE-2006-5820)
Online Media Technologies NCTsoft NCTAudioFile2 ActiveX Buffer Overflow (CVE-2007-0018)
GOM Player "GomWeb3" ActiveX Control Buffer Overflow (CVE-2007-5779)
Microsoft Internet Explorer WebViewFolderIcon setSlice (CVE-2006-3730)
Yahoo! JukeBox datagrid.dll AddButton() Buffer Overflow
DirectAnimation.PathControl KeyFrame vulnerability (CVE-2006-4777)
Microsoft DirectSpeechSynthesis Module Remote Buffer Overflow
from article:
"The researchers also discovered that nearly 70 percent of those redirected by Mebroot--as classified by Internet address--were vulnerable to one of almost 40 vulnerabilities regularly used by the most popular infection toolkits designed to compromise computer systems. About half that number were vulnerable to the six specific vulnerabilities used by the Mebroot toolkit."
For things that have been fixed, I think Mac users are generally a bit better about having OS and browser updates. Of course, like everyone else, they can still reduce significantly reduce risk by disabling browser functionality except when needed (as with NoScript and Firefox).
I'm concerned updates in other applications may be missed not only by users, but even developers.
VLC promptly was updated for some vulnerabilities in underlying ffmpeg code, but users aren't always good about keeping VLC up to date (the older version for OS X 10.4 got an update as well as the current release.
There are a many video conversion, dvd assembly and other programs built on Windows and OS X using ffmpeg behind the scenes. In some cases the developers make little or no mention of it (LGPL/GPL compliance is a problem too). These programs don't seem to be getting the newer ffmpeg builds that address the problems.
http://secunia.com/advisories/36805
On the other hand, I don't have much love nor any need for OS X.
You do realize that iChat can replace what's behind you with a still or video and put you in an orgy...
Can you direct me towards a laptop capable of driving two 30" LCDs without a docking station ?
It is highly unlikely that someone with a budget allowing dual 30" displays (and that's just for one desk - you mentioned three), would be limited to $1200 for the laptop.
This guy is running Windows 98, Ubuntu and XP Pro. How's the drivers situation for running the two 30" displays (plus the laptops' own screen) on those OSes? Can Windows 98 and XP run much more than a debugger on the second screen?
This guy could no-doubt do fine on a laptop supporting just one decent external display.
He could also easily find a laptop with better than double his current battery life without resorting to the added size/weight/clutter found in units with removable optical drives. Then he'd get the longer runtime in a sleaker package and never be stuck without his optical drive.
Avoiding wires? Use wireless networking, print serving and added storage. See the Apple Time Capsule. (Windows is supported) Use one USB cable to a powered hub for most other devices, even a USB floppy drive. Having an internal webcam averts cabling.
Either a PC or Apple laptop could fill his need. A MB or MBP would provide the most options, also including support for simple automatic backups as well as OS X, Unix, and iPhone/iPod touch development.
XCode can share the compiling work with other machines.
If I were in his position I'd scrounge another LCD from Ebay to keep going for now, then save up a bit more and with a higher-end MacBook Pro. It'd be a bit more money initially, but would also bring back a higher salvage/resale value next time around. If it's for actual paying development work, the better tools certainly are justified. Do a clever iPhone app in spare time, maybe it'll pay for all of the hardware.
He'll likely have problems trying to run any new machine under Windows 98, so he'll probably end up with it in a VM such as Virtual Box (OSS). It'll support running Ubuntu and other versions of Windows as needed, and can be hosted on Ubuntu, OS X, or Windows. Considering that it isn't always possible to predict where/how one might need to get net access on a laptop, it would be wise to only use either Ubuntu or OS X as the host OS, and keep all versions of Windows safely litterboxed in the VM.
Isn't Grub2 one of the features of Ubuntu Karmic Koala?
YES!
From the beta page:
"GRUB 2 is the default boot loader for new installations with Ubuntu 9.10 Beta, replacing the previous GRUB "Legacy" boot loader. Existing systems will not be upgraded to GRUB 2 at this time, as automatically reinstalling the boot loader is an inherently risky operation.
If you wish to upgrade your system to GRUB 2, then see the GRUB 2 testing page for instructions. See also the upstream draft manual.
Some features are still missing relative to GRUB Legacy. Notable among these are lock/password support, an equivalent of grub-reboot, and Xen handling. "
The Ubuntu 9.10 beta is available now, the release is due the end of the month.