I would argue that Slackware is for people who have a better understanding of how the system fits together than many (but certainly not all!) of the rpm/deb package users. I use Slackware in an Enterprise setting on 70+ servers that cover everything from email to web-hosting to firewalls to custom built "sales presentation" devices. For us, slackware gives us complete control over the systems, without having to guess at what other services or programs may muddle with different parts of the configuration. It's easy for us to disable and remove any services that are not necessary on a particular computer, and we have our own custom installation, testing, and deployment scripts that allow us to keep machines with similar purposes up to date and in sync. While we could accomplish the same things with virtually any distro, Slackware is (for us) the easiest to do these things with, and "Just Works".
Check out the Asterisk software, and specifically the "chan_mobile" extension. It allows you to use a cellphone (with bluetooth) as an "incoming" channel for a phone system, or to use the cellphone as an extension on the phone system. I believe that chan_mobile is included by default in the newest (1.6.x) version of the asterisk software.
Asterisk has a fairly steep learning curve, so it will likely be a time consuming adventure to get it all working, but assuming the bluetooth on your phone supports it, it should allow you to do what you want. You will need to have a Linux computer that has bluetooth, runs the asterisk software, and you will also need an "FXS" port (can be a $15 internal card, or a $30 IP based one) that connects your home phones to the computer.
If diving into setting up your own asterisk server from scratch is too daunting, it may be easiest to try a prebuilt setup (such as Trixbox CE) and then following one of the guides for adding chan_mobile support to it. I can't personally say how involved this would be, since I've never used any of the pre-setup Asterisk systems.
Good luck!
There are currently 78 FTTH communities in the US
on
Last-Mile Fiber Optic
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is becoming more and more frequent in new master-planned developments. The "FTTH Council" currenty lists 78 communities and municipalities that are already providing FTTH service. You can grab the list from the FTTH Council here.There are many other communities that are not on this list yet because service hasn't actually been turned on.
Having Cat5 home run from several rooms to a central panel has slowly become the standard for new homes in many areas. I began forcing this on our builders about 4 years ago. As someone else pointed out, builders are very conservative... but if you can show them that it will only take $500 more than they currently pay and that they HAVE to do it because all of the other builders are doing it, then they'll fall in line with only a little grumbling. Of course this is really only possible withing certain price ranges. Most of the homes in our developments are $250k and up.
The "Community Intranets" are also fairly common in larger communities. They range from small sites that the developer hires a high-school kid to put together, to specific sites built from "intranet packages" that are tailored for large developments. Examples of vendors include Neighborware and Resident Interactive.
Not true. Age 14 through age 19 is 6 years. It is not impossible to accrue *approximately* 5 years of experience during this time. I worked:
Full Time over the summer between 10th/11th grade: 3 Months
Part Time from September through May of 10th grade. Part time = 2pm-6pm 4 days a week. This is 1/2 Full time * 4/5 = ~3 months. There were also numerous contracted programming jobs that are not being counted.
Full Time over the summer between 11th/12th grade: 3 Months
Full time during my senior year of high-school. I only had 2 classes, from 6:55 to 8:30 every morning. I worked 10am-6pm during this time. So another 9 months.
So, June '92 (beginning of summer working) - May '94 (graduated from high-school) is 2 years (24 months). During that time I worked a total of 15 months (3+3+9) FULL TIME and enough part time to equal ~ 3months of full time work.
Anyway, this is 1.5 years of *real* work experience over a 2 year period DURING high-school.
While I do not know anything about the article submitter, I can attest to the fact that it is possible to have (approximately) 5 years of *on the job* experience at the age of 19.
I took my first *REAL* computer job at the age of 14. It was supposed to be an "internship" for the summer at a small/medium sized consulting house (~150 employees). I started by doing new system builds, but within 3 weeks they offered me a real full-blown job, doing things like onsite installations and troubleshooting (someone else had to drive), repair and maintenance of everything from monitors and printers to powersupplies and laptops, and even eeprom programming for handheld barcode scanners.
I did this for ~2.5 years during high-school, full-time during the summers, and part-time during the school year. Additionally, I did *contracted* programming jobs for small to medium-sized businesses on the side during the school year. After graduating high-school at 17, myself and 2 friends (aged 25 and 45) started our own business doing integration and consulting. While I realize that the "ran my own business" line is often a cop-out lie on a resume (and yes, we *did* start in a garage), we were out of the garage in 6 months, completely self-funded, and by the time I was 19 (2.5yrs of business ownership) we had 2 locations, 27 employees, and about 5 million in annual revenue.
The point is, 5 years of experience at 19 is definately the exception, but certainly not impossible. I am 25 now, and have no problem saying that I have 10 years of PROFESSIONAL experience. I also agree with other posters that counting your own "tinkering with computers" time as experience is *not* the same as real-world experience. If it were, I'd claim 19 years experience, and get even funnier looks than I already do...
Come to think of it why doesn't Microsoft with all its money not dabble more in the communication industry, particularily satellites and other space ventures, if they really want to be innovative I think this is where its at...
Bill Gates and his "rich buddies" *are* dabbling in the communication industry -- specifically satellites.
I know this has been covered by Slashdot several times in the past, but I guess it can't hurt to bring it up again: Teledesic is the company that Gates, McCaw, Motorola and several others started to build a global satellite system, similar to what Iridium tried to do. The Teledesic FAQ has a little information about Gates's investment. The FAQ doesn't mention how much money he invested, but I seem to remember reading that it was something like 12 billion of his personal dollars...
New homes will have ADSL as standard within 5-10 years
*Real* high-speed internet to the home is coming a lot faster than this! I work with a residential development company, and can tell you from what's going on in the market/industry that this type of bandwidth to the home is coming on FAST... in fact, it will be common in new communities (and the homes in those communities) sooner than 5-10 years. It's probably closer to 3 years before it's standard in new developments. There are already several communities in the US offering 100mbit residential access.
Certainly EVERY new home in the US won't have this much bandwidth -- but I can tell you that MANY new "communities" (both master-planned and apartment complexes) that are just now starting construction will be providing similar services. I personally have about ~10000 new homes (over the next five years) for which I intend to provide 10mbit internet access STANDARD -- with the ability for the resident to upgrade to 100mbit (or maybe even more.) Many of the communities will be running on gigabit backbones.
As someone (?) stated in another comment here, not everyone in the community can use that kind of bandwidth simultaneousely, but there will be a tremendous amount of bandwidth available. I've seen some communities that are bringing in an OC-12(655mbit) per 250 homes for upstream. The routers at the Head-End should have no trouble balancing traffic to allow all homes equal access.
I am not alone in setting up these types of systems in communities either. Every "residental land-developer" with a clue is currently in the process of putting deals like this together. While many developers are going the route of working with a traditional phone/cable company to offer xDSL or CableModems, a great deal of others are working with smaller startups (and sometimes the incumbents) to offer REAL ethernet at 10mbit as the BASE internet access, with upgradeability to 100mbit for an extra $20-30/month. (Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 100,000 unbuilt homes across the US that are already lined up (or in negotiations) to offer this speed of service.)
I saw another comment that you shouldn't "give" away this type of bandwidth for $20/mo when you can sell it for $200/mo to businesses. But, the point of these networks is to drive people to the new communities. The developer really makes their money off the land sales. If the developer can make a little recurring revenue from phone/cable/internet *and* make people want to live in the community because they offer incredible services at a cheap price, then it's a good deal for everyone. I know very few people who wouldn't be ecstatic about paying $65/mo for phone/cable/10mbit internet. Since the financials work (without charging "business prices"), there's no point in trying to gouge people.
Of course these systems provide a tremendous number of new services too... *Real* video on demand, videoconferencing, etc.
Oh well -- just rambling here. ... but if anyone is interested in moving into one of these communities I can help you out.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I would argue that Slackware is for people who have a better understanding of how the system fits together than many (but certainly not all!) of the rpm/deb package users. I use Slackware in an Enterprise setting on 70+ servers that cover everything from email to web-hosting to firewalls to custom built "sales presentation" devices. For us, slackware gives us complete control over the systems, without having to guess at what other services or programs may muddle with different parts of the configuration. It's easy for us to disable and remove any services that are not necessary on a particular computer, and we have our own custom installation, testing, and deployment scripts that allow us to keep machines with similar purposes up to date and in sync. While we could accomplish the same things with virtually any distro, Slackware is (for us) the easiest to do these things with, and "Just Works".
Check out the Asterisk software, and specifically the "chan_mobile" extension. It allows you to use a cellphone (with bluetooth) as an "incoming" channel for a phone system, or to use the cellphone as an extension on the phone system. I believe that chan_mobile is included by default in the newest (1.6.x) version of the asterisk software.
Asterisk has a fairly steep learning curve, so it will likely be a time consuming adventure to get it all working, but assuming the bluetooth on your phone supports it, it should allow you to do what you want. You will need to have a Linux computer that has bluetooth, runs the asterisk software, and you will also need an "FXS" port (can be a $15 internal card, or a $30 IP based one) that connects your home phones to the computer.
The voip-info.org site and the asterisk-users mailing list are both invaluable if you are just starting out with asterisk.
If diving into setting up your own asterisk server from scratch is too daunting, it may be easiest to try a prebuilt setup (such as Trixbox CE) and then following one of the guides for adding chan_mobile support to it. I can't personally say how involved this would be, since I've never used any of the pre-setup Asterisk systems.
Good luck!
This is becoming more and more frequent in new master-planned developments. The "FTTH Council" currenty lists 78 communities and municipalities that are already providing FTTH service. You can grab the list from the FTTH Council here.There are many other communities that are not on this list yet because service hasn't actually been turned on.
Having Cat5 home run from several rooms to a central panel has slowly become the standard for new homes in many areas. I began forcing this on our builders about 4 years ago. As someone else pointed out, builders are very conservative... but if you can show them that it will only take $500 more than they currently pay and that they HAVE to do it because all of the other builders are doing it, then they'll fall in line with only a little grumbling. Of course this is really only possible withing certain price ranges. Most of the homes in our developments are $250k and up.
The "Community Intranets" are also fairly common in larger communities. They range from small sites that the developer hires a high-school kid to put together, to specific sites built from "intranet packages" that are tailored for large developments. Examples of vendors include Neighborware and Resident Interactive.
~
I hate mornings.
I believe this was a slashdot story a long time ago, but there was a "Snooker Playing Machine" built by the University of Bristol (UK) back in '98.
t ics/Snooker/snooker.html
The only information I could find about it now is at: http://www.bmc.riken.go.jp/sensor/Ho/chicago/Robo
The site includes some pictures and a couple very limited technical details.
Not true. Age 14 through age 19 is 6 years. It is not impossible to accrue *approximately* 5 years of experience during this time. I worked:
Full Time over the summer between 10th/11th grade: 3 Months
Part Time from September through May of 10th grade. Part time = 2pm-6pm 4 days a week. This is 1/2 Full time * 4/5 = ~3 months. There were also numerous contracted programming jobs that are not being counted.
Full Time over the summer between 11th/12th grade: 3 Months
Full time during my senior year of high-school. I only had 2 classes, from 6:55 to 8:30 every morning. I worked 10am-6pm during this time. So another 9 months.
So, June '92 (beginning of summer working) - May '94 (graduated from high-school) is 2 years (24 months). During that time I worked a total of 15 months (3+3+9) FULL TIME and enough part time to equal ~ 3months of full time work.
Anyway, this is 1.5 years of *real* work experience over a 2 year period DURING high-school.
While I do not know anything about the article submitter, I can attest to the fact that it is possible to have (approximately) 5 years of *on the job* experience at the age of 19.
.sig in the ashtray...
I took my first *REAL* computer job at the age of 14. It was supposed to be an "internship" for the summer at a small/medium sized consulting house (~150 employees). I started by doing new system builds, but within 3 weeks they offered me a real full-blown job, doing things like onsite installations and troubleshooting (someone else had to drive), repair and maintenance of everything from monitors and printers to powersupplies and laptops, and even eeprom programming for handheld barcode scanners.
I did this for ~2.5 years during high-school, full-time during the summers, and part-time during the school year. Additionally, I did *contracted* programming jobs for small to medium-sized businesses on the side during the school year. After graduating high-school at 17, myself and 2 friends (aged 25 and 45) started our own business doing integration and consulting. While I realize that the "ran my own business" line is often a cop-out lie on a resume (and yes, we *did* start in a garage), we were out of the garage in 6 months, completely self-funded, and by the time I was 19 (2.5yrs of business ownership) we had 2 locations, 27 employees, and about 5 million in annual revenue.
The point is, 5 years of experience at 19 is definately the exception, but certainly not impossible. I am 25 now, and have no problem saying that I have 10 years of PROFESSIONAL experience. I also agree with other posters that counting your own "tinkering with computers" time as experience is *not* the same as real-world experience. If it were, I'd claim 19 years experience, and get even funnier looks than I already do...
I lost my
Come to think of it why doesn't Microsoft with all its money not dabble more in the communication industry, particularily satellites and other space ventures, if they really want to be innovative I think this is where its at...
Bill Gates and his "rich buddies" *are* dabbling in the communication industry -- specifically satellites.
I know this has been covered by Slashdot several times in the past, but I guess it can't hurt to bring it up again:
Teledesic is the company that Gates, McCaw, Motorola and several others started to build a global satellite system, similar to what Iridium tried to do. The Teledesic FAQ has a little information about Gates's investment. The FAQ doesn't mention how much money he invested, but I seem to remember reading that it was something like 12 billion of his personal dollars...
New homes will have ADSL as standard within 5-10 years
... in fact, it will be common in new communities (and the homes in those communities) sooner than 5-10 years. It's probably closer to 3 years before it's standard in new developments. There are already several communities in the US offering 100mbit residential access.
:)
.sig
*Real* high-speed internet to the home is coming a lot faster than this! I work with a residential development company, and can tell you from what's going on in the market/industry that this type of bandwidth to the home is coming on FAST
Certainly EVERY new home in the US won't have this much bandwidth -- but I can tell you that MANY new "communities" (both master-planned and apartment complexes) that are just now starting construction will be providing similar services. I personally have about ~10000 new homes (over the next five years) for which I intend to provide 10mbit internet access STANDARD -- with the ability for the resident to upgrade to 100mbit (or maybe even more.) Many of the communities will be running on gigabit backbones.
As someone (?) stated in another comment here, not everyone in the community can use that kind of bandwidth simultaneousely, but there will be a tremendous amount of bandwidth available. I've seen some communities that are bringing in an OC-12(655mbit) per 250 homes for upstream. The routers at the Head-End should have no trouble balancing traffic to allow all homes equal access.
I am not alone in setting up these types of systems in communities either. Every "residental land-developer" with a clue is currently in the process of putting deals like this together. While many developers are going the route of working with a traditional phone/cable company to offer xDSL or CableModems, a great deal of others are working with smaller startups (and sometimes the incumbents) to offer REAL ethernet at 10mbit as the BASE internet access, with upgradeability to 100mbit for an extra $20-30/month. (Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 100,000 unbuilt homes across the US that are already lined up (or in negotiations) to offer this speed of service.)
I saw another comment that you shouldn't "give" away this type of bandwidth for $20/mo when you can sell it for $200/mo to businesses. But, the point of these networks is to drive people to the new communities. The developer really makes their money off the land sales. If the developer can make a little recurring revenue from phone/cable/internet *and* make people want to live in the community because they offer incredible services at a cheap price, then it's a good deal for everyone. I know very few people who wouldn't be ecstatic about paying $65/mo for phone/cable/10mbit internet. Since the financials work (without charging "business prices"), there's no point in trying to gouge people.
Of course these systems provide a tremendous number of new services too... *Real* video on demand, videoconferencing, etc.
Oh well -- just rambling here.
... but if anyone is interested in moving into one of these communities I can help you out.
E
ewr@nospam.erols.com
I don't have a