A large amount of my time goes to playing UT2004 or America's Army. Without stable 3d drivers I would most likley not be using linux. Thats why I went with nvidia, my ati 9800 pro was next to impossible to get working last time I tried. I could get 2d fine, but 3d just would not work. My FX 5900 on the other hand was simple.
Thats exactly how I learned, I downloaded every distro I could think of. Built a new computer, and locked my windows box up in the storage locker. 1 week later i got my windows box back, and it still sits in the corner of my room.
It took me a while, and it was very frustrating, but now I wouldn't go without it.
Actually that is what happens. Sometimes our admins decide to block slashdot, so I have to use a proxy. When I do, I can't post annon. It tells me i'm a problem user.
I just recently bought a box of suse 9.1 and a copy of codeweaver's CrossOver Office. Not sure if that counts, but both do give back to the public.
Although I bought the suse box because I wanted to try it out and my cable was down. Funny part is, I actually think I'm going to keep it installed. I find it more responsive then my previous distro.
I had a similar task at my last job. I was working for a small medical billing software company. They were using an old DOS based app one of their programs wrote over 10 years ago to store their client data. The only problem was it was not really designed for multiple users and with the rate that the company was growing it was getting hard for support (who was logging calls on notepad and entering them in by hand at the end of the shift) to share.
After much searching, I ended up using the 2 cheapest tools I had to work with (and the only one's my company had on hand as my budget was small). I used our web server with php and mysql. I used phpmyadmin for a stop gap mesure to printing out reports, and started writing an entire Client managment system in PHP. I had to build the database by hand, and found out the original system was an old btree database. I few custom scripts and I had the data converted over and a database designed to grow with the company (for example, more then 1 contact person and phone number). The system grew from there and eventually I moved all of their billing and created reports with crystal reports.
I've sense moved on to bigger challenges outside of that company. But from my contacts there they have grow a lot in size and still use it today. I hope my design will last at least as long as their last solution, and hopefully will be a lot more flexable.
The point of my babbling is that their is really no better solution then a custom one if you have the time. If I was still employed there with what I know today, that application could of grew to be much much more for that company. Plus, based on my salary at the time, they saved way more money then buying a good pre-built solution.
P.S. I'm sorry who ever took my job if you had to read my comments.
I recently went to a concert. Durring the pat down they noticed I had a mini-leatherman on my keychain. They told me if I wanted to enter, I would have to check my keychain with them at the door. The blade mesures less then 2 inches and is dull. It has sissors though. I asked the guy who he thought I could hurt with it and he said "We have strict rules not to allow those or those large metal clip keychains because people throw them". I had to laugh, that thing cost me at least 20.00. No way I was going to throw it at a concert.
I ended up taking it back to my car. They were happy with that.
No, i was saying to make me as a troll you asshat. And belive me, I tried to get a job at mcdonalds durring the time I worked for that company.
Oh yea, I guess I could of reported them, only they weren't breaking the law.
I'm sorry I have the desire to not live off the system and work to support my family. I guess because you had such a bad situation it gives you the right to downplay mine.
Again, and I say this with as much hatred as possible. Fuck you
maybe thats it, lets stop backing up media. Lets start suing hardware comanys for runing them. I'm going to start by suing lite-on for my NWN disk blowing up in the drive. I want a new drive and a new copy of nwn.
Rest easy on your high horse. I hope if you ever have mouths to feed you stick to your guns and let them starve and die. How do you know I did my job well?
I was warned serveral times for not asking for the full amount past due, and trying to work out deals with people to get current on their bills.
Do you care that without that job, I wouldn't of been able to pay my car bill? Or feed my family? No Of course you dont. Your a self rightious hate monger.
The evil car colllections job I worked at sold cars for bad credit customers. What they would do is buy very crappy cars and give them a new paint job, and a "Warrenty". Then sell them to people who can't get an fiancing for anything. Usually for way more then the car was worth. (6-12k on most of their cars). Then because they knew the person needed a car, they would do a deffered down payment (aka loan you the downpayment). Then they would set up your payments weekly so you could afford to pay for the car, but they wouldn't mention how you were going to afford the second loan for the downpayment, only that you had to pay it back in 3-5 installments.
To top it off, we did a collection call 3 days before the first payment was due. Thats right the first payment. Not only that, but I was required to call each person on my list every single day. Even if I knew they had no money to give me or had already setup payment arrangments, I would call to verify those.
I was so happy to get a good long term IT job that I told my boss the company could go screw itself. Worst job ever, but you gotta do what it takes to eat, even if you feel like shit every day for it.
Actually, in Indiana, it is illegal to tell anyone but the actual person the debt is for what you are calling about. Not only that, but if they send us a certified letter telling us not to contact them, then we can not call them anymore. Phone and regular mail does not work because we dont write it down or receive the letter. I used to work auto collections for about 2 years inbetween IT contacts. I know that if I was to tell someone's boss they had a debt, and they could prove I told him. I would be fired and most likley sued. The most I could tell a 3rd party was that it was an emergancy and I needed to talk to said person asap.
I actually had a dispute with a buisness who says I owe them one more payment. I have all the checks and receipts proving I payed but they kept calling me. Finally, they called me at work. I sent them a letter telling them they were not to call me at work and all contact must be made via mail or my home phone. Next time they called my work, I called my lawyer (I have legal insurance though work). I explained the whole situtation (how they never "received" my faxes of proof of payment etc, and how their collections dept was rude and didn't follow my written instructions.) Took my lawyer about 5 minutes and I received a letter of appology about a week later.
Anyways, i'm rambling now. The point is, if you want to do anything with a collections department, use a certified letter. That way you can prove they are violating the law. The place in question thought I was a deadbeat, even though I could prove I paid, and I bet they were guessing if I couldn't afford to pay them I couldn't afford legal aid. Bet that was a shock for the guy who got that phone call.
Seriously, I mean advancments in shrinking are good, but wouldn't it make more sense to increase the cpu size (maybe double it). As is, it only takes up a 1 inch space on my motherboard, lets take up 3 or 4 inches. Would it be too hard to cool something that large? I would think by increasing the size we could make more powerful processesors with the same level of technology.
Check your state laws. A lot of states require any land line connected to the phone network to have 911 access. I use vonage, and my land line has been turned off for months, but I can still pick it up and call 911. If I try to dial any other number, I get a voice message saying my phone is disconnected. I live in Northwest indiana.
And also remember, just because you have a gui to access the program doesn' mean you can't still have the command line access to the program.
A lot of people seem to think that the more usable the UI the more control must be restricted. I belive there is no reason why anyone should ever need to access a config text file to change a setting. But I also think there is no reason why they shouldn't be able too.
I didnt mean to imply it was not worth my time to listen to, only that if i was forced to pay, then i wouldnt be listening.
So you are costing them a sale. You are by all rights forced to pay for their copywrited property. And by listening to it, you are costing them that money. If you were not going to buy it anyways is not the point. The point is you have something that they charge money for, and you did not pay for it or get it legally. The only legal way to get the item would be via sale. Thus you costed them a sale.
I actually have a similar exp on the issue. I've been using linux as a web server, and a firewall, but never as a desktop. I recently was given a p4 3ghz processor from a friend who's computer "died". After troublehsooting the box he gave me I found out it was a bad motherboard. I ordered a new board and case (I hated his case). I then put together a box with these specs:
p4c 3ghz processor 800mhz fsb
intel D865PERL motherboard (onboard lan, sound)
Gainward Nvidia FX5900XT
512meg kingston value ram.
160gig SATA hard drive.
400 Watt power supply.
Microsoft USB keyboard/mouse.
I then decided to attempt to install linux and get 3d support working and try to play UT2004. These were my goals friday night. It is now monday morning. I still have 1 non working machine. I took these steps:
Downloaded debian netinstall cd
Attempted install Let debian installer do all the work
First bootup, get kernel panic.
Spend an hour on google trying to find solution
Give up and delete all partions from hard drive
Download FTP install of SuSe 9.1
Let SuSe install use defualt partition and package settings
Install goes fine, except it doesnt ask me to create a user or enter a root password.
Boot up, login as root with no password
SuSe can not detect my monitor and I have to set it by hand.
Nvidia 3d drivers are not installed, I attempt to install them with yast as recomended by nvida
First bootup crashes to white screen after nvidia log
Boot back up to text mode, spend an hour on other machine reading google trying to find solution
Start wondering if its the computer, whip out my windows XP cd and do a install
Windows XP boots up, I install all drivers and load up UT2004
Play UT 2004 for at least 2 hours
Begin to wonder if hardware just wont work with linux, download SuSe live CD
SuSe live CD will not boot, load to a black screen with nothing on it.
Download Knoppix
Knoppix works
Download all the debian ISO's thinking maybe it is user error on netinstall
Still no dice, kernel panic
Begin download of fedora core 2 dvd iso via bittorrent
Go to bed
Now, I will get this to work, and I will learn something in the process I'm sure. My goal is to have a linux desktop and see if it will work for me. But for the average joe, installing and updating is not as easy as it could be. I'm going to try fedora tonight, as see if its better. But comming from someone with no exp installing linux, I might as well never touched a computer before now. With windows, I throw in a CD...click next a few times while I watch TV. And throw in my SP2 CD and install that before plugging in my net cable.
That guy spent $13900.00 on music in the last what...year? Wow. Either that or he drinks a lot of pepsi. I think that addictions beats my coffee habit.
No promise was made when the RIAA put out a song. Nothing was reduced in value by my usage.
When the music was released, it was on CD's that you had to PAY for. Just because you are getting it from another person who is breaking the law does not mean its ok for you. Every time I build a windows PC for a friend, I make them buy a licence of xp. I have a corp license here for my work. I have a MSDN licence as well. I could use those. But you know what, that is stealing. I am depriving a company of money they should get for my use of their product. I dont care if its music, a car, a dildo. The fact is, If it is good enough to use, then its good enough to pay for. If that person wasn't illegally sharing the song, you would be forced to buy the CD to listen to that music. If it costs too much money as you say, they why dont you go without any music? I dont like the cost of milk at target, so I shop at meijer. I dont like the way walmart drives down the wages of people in my city, so I dont shop there. I dont agree with RIAA tactics, so I buy indie labels. This is the same as throwing a brick though a persons window because you dont like the same kind of car he drives. The fact is, if you had not downloaded that song for free, the only way for you to listen to it would be to buy it. Thus you are loosing them money. And saying you are sampling the song to see if it is worth it doesn't fly either. You can listen to the radio. You can even listen to samples of the songs on Itunes for FREE. The fact is that a buisness is making the music. They are paying for the artists to live to make the music. They also want money for their product. Music is no different then a car or milk. If you want their product, then pay for it. If you dont want it, dont use it.
if you wern't going to pay for it, then it must not be good enough to share.
I can't belive all these people pirate music because it sucks. If it sucks, why would you want it wasting space on your hard drives? I wasn't going to buy a car anyways, so I can go steal yours?
My friend and I actually moved our PnP D&D game to NWN. I work in the module to design the story line for the day. We get together once every 2 weeks, which is enough time for me to make up 8-9 hours content. I also know my guys well enough to know what they will most likley try to do. If they suprise me I can always spawn in needed items. There is only 7 of us, and we all get together via teamspeak or just bring all our pc's over and setup in the house. It has added a lot more to our d&d exp. We no longer have to plan times when we can all drive out and play, we can schedual a hour here or there on a sunday, without the lugging of books, dice, buying the beer, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Floppys, yea those are fine, but you better not bring in a USB key!.
And to think, these are the schools teaching the next generation about computers and security.
NO! Never ever ever ever kill a leader of a fanatic people. You make make it worse.
A large amount of my time goes to playing UT2004 or America's Army. Without stable 3d drivers I would most likley not be using linux. Thats why I went with nvidia, my ati 9800 pro was next to impossible to get working last time I tried. I could get 2d fine, but 3d just would not work. My FX 5900 on the other hand was simple.
Thats exactly how I learned, I downloaded every distro I could think of. Built a new computer, and locked my windows box up in the storage locker. 1 week later i got my windows box back, and it still sits in the corner of my room. It took me a while, and it was very frustrating, but now I wouldn't go without it.
Even if it was just for his work on "in search of". Talking about sasquash always makes the women hot.
Actually that is what happens. Sometimes our admins decide to block slashdot, so I have to use a proxy. When I do, I can't post annon. It tells me i'm a problem user.
Although I bought the suse box because I wanted to try it out and my cable was down. Funny part is, I actually think I'm going to keep it installed. I find it more responsive then my previous distro.
I've sense moved on to bigger challenges outside of that company. But from my contacts there they have grow a lot in size and still use it today. I hope my design will last at least as long as their last solution, and hopefully will be a lot more flexable.
The point of my babbling is that their is really no better solution then a custom one if you have the time. If I was still employed there with what I know today, that application could of grew to be much much more for that company. Plus, based on my salary at the time, they saved way more money then buying a good pre-built solution.
P.S. I'm sorry who ever took my job if you had to read my comments.
I ended up taking it back to my car. They were happy with that.
Oh yea, I guess I could of reported them, only they weren't breaking the law.
I'm sorry I have the desire to not live off the system and work to support my family. I guess because you had such a bad situation it gives you the right to downplay mine.
Again, and I say this with as much hatred as possible. Fuck you
maybe thats it, lets stop backing up media. Lets start suing hardware comanys for runing them. I'm going to start by suing lite-on for my NWN disk blowing up in the drive. I want a new drive and a new copy of nwn.
I was warned serveral times for not asking for the full amount past due, and trying to work out deals with people to get current on their bills.
Do you care that without that job, I wouldn't of been able to pay my car bill? Or feed my family? No Of course you dont. Your a self rightious hate monger.
Well, fuck you sir.
Please mark as troll
The evil car colllections job I worked at sold cars for bad credit customers. What they would do is buy very crappy cars and give them a new paint job, and a "Warrenty". Then sell them to people who can't get an fiancing for anything. Usually for way more then the car was worth. (6-12k on most of their cars). Then because they knew the person needed a car, they would do a deffered down payment (aka loan you the downpayment). Then they would set up your payments weekly so you could afford to pay for the car, but they wouldn't mention how you were going to afford the second loan for the downpayment, only that you had to pay it back in 3-5 installments.
To top it off, we did a collection call 3 days before the first payment was due. Thats right the first payment. Not only that, but I was required to call each person on my list every single day. Even if I knew they had no money to give me or had already setup payment arrangments, I would call to verify those.
I was so happy to get a good long term IT job that I told my boss the company could go screw itself. Worst job ever, but you gotta do what it takes to eat, even if you feel like shit every day for it.
I actually had a dispute with a buisness who says I owe them one more payment. I have all the checks and receipts proving I payed but they kept calling me. Finally, they called me at work. I sent them a letter telling them they were not to call me at work and all contact must be made via mail or my home phone. Next time they called my work, I called my lawyer (I have legal insurance though work). I explained the whole situtation (how they never "received" my faxes of proof of payment etc, and how their collections dept was rude and didn't follow my written instructions.) Took my lawyer about 5 minutes and I received a letter of appology about a week later.
Anyways, i'm rambling now. The point is, if you want to do anything with a collections department, use a certified letter. That way you can prove they are violating the law. The place in question thought I was a deadbeat, even though I could prove I paid, and I bet they were guessing if I couldn't afford to pay them I couldn't afford legal aid. Bet that was a shock for the guy who got that phone call.
Seriously, I mean advancments in shrinking are good, but wouldn't it make more sense to increase the cpu size (maybe double it). As is, it only takes up a 1 inch space on my motherboard, lets take up 3 or 4 inches. Would it be too hard to cool something that large? I would think by increasing the size we could make more powerful processesors with the same level of technology.
Check your state laws. A lot of states require any land line connected to the phone network to have 911 access. I use vonage, and my land line has been turned off for months, but I can still pick it up and call 911. If I try to dial any other number, I get a voice message saying my phone is disconnected. I live in Northwest indiana.
Its not that big, i just reached the end of the internet. Only took me 6 hours on my cable modem.
And also remember, just because you have a gui to access the program doesn' mean you can't still have the command line access to the program.
A lot of people seem to think that the more usable the UI the more control must be restricted. I belive there is no reason why anyone should ever need to access a config text file to change a setting. But I also think there is no reason why they shouldn't be able too.
So you are costing them a sale. You are by all rights forced to pay for their copywrited property. And by listening to it, you are costing them that money. If you were not going to buy it anyways is not the point. The point is you have something that they charge money for, and you did not pay for it or get it legally. The only legal way to get the item would be via sale. Thus you costed them a sale.
p4c 3ghz processor 800mhz fsb intel D865PERL motherboard (onboard lan, sound) Gainward Nvidia FX5900XT 512meg kingston value ram. 160gig SATA hard drive. 400 Watt power supply. Microsoft USB keyboard/mouse.
I then decided to attempt to install linux and get 3d support working and try to play UT2004. These were my goals friday night. It is now monday morning. I still have 1 non working machine. I took these steps:
- Downloaded debian netinstall cd
- Attempted install Let debian installer do all the work
- First bootup, get kernel panic.
- Spend an hour on google trying to find solution
- Give up and delete all partions from hard drive
- Download FTP install of SuSe 9.1
- Let SuSe install use defualt partition and package settings
- Install goes fine, except it doesnt ask me to create a user or enter a root password.
- Boot up, login as root with no password
- SuSe can not detect my monitor and I have to set it by hand.
- Nvidia 3d drivers are not installed, I attempt to install them with yast as recomended by nvida
- First bootup crashes to white screen after nvidia log
- Boot back up to text mode, spend an hour on other machine reading google trying to find solution
- Start wondering if its the computer, whip out my windows XP cd and do a install
- Windows XP boots up, I install all drivers and load up UT2004
- Play UT 2004 for at least 2 hours
- Begin to wonder if hardware just wont work with linux, download SuSe live CD
- SuSe live CD will not boot, load to a black screen with nothing on it.
- Download Knoppix
- Knoppix works
- Download all the debian ISO's thinking maybe it is user error on netinstall
- Still no dice, kernel panic
- Begin download of fedora core 2 dvd iso via bittorrent
- Go to bed
Now, I will get this to work, and I will learn something in the process I'm sure. My goal is to have a linux desktop and see if it will work for me. But for the average joe, installing and updating is not as easy as it could be. I'm going to try fedora tonight, as see if its better. But comming from someone with no exp installing linux, I might as well never touched a computer before now. With windows, I throw in a CD...click next a few times while I watch TV. And throw in my SP2 CD and install that before plugging in my net cable.That guy spent $13900.00 on music in the last what...year? Wow. Either that or he drinks a lot of pepsi. I think that addictions beats my coffee habit.
When the music was released, it was on CD's that you had to PAY for. Just because you are getting it from another person who is breaking the law does not mean its ok for you. Every time I build a windows PC for a friend, I make them buy a licence of xp. I have a corp license here for my work. I have a MSDN licence as well. I could use those. But you know what, that is stealing. I am depriving a company of money they should get for my use of their product. I dont care if its music, a car, a dildo. The fact is, If it is good enough to use, then its good enough to pay for. If that person wasn't illegally sharing the song, you would be forced to buy the CD to listen to that music. If it costs too much money as you say, they why dont you go without any music? I dont like the cost of milk at target, so I shop at meijer. I dont like the way walmart drives down the wages of people in my city, so I dont shop there. I dont agree with RIAA tactics, so I buy indie labels. This is the same as throwing a brick though a persons window because you dont like the same kind of car he drives. The fact is, if you had not downloaded that song for free, the only way for you to listen to it would be to buy it. Thus you are loosing them money. And saying you are sampling the song to see if it is worth it doesn't fly either. You can listen to the radio. You can even listen to samples of the songs on Itunes for FREE. The fact is that a buisness is making the music. They are paying for the artists to live to make the music. They also want money for their product. Music is no different then a car or milk. If you want their product, then pay for it. If you dont want it, dont use it.
if you wern't going to pay for it, then it must not be good enough to share. I can't belive all these people pirate music because it sucks. If it sucks, why would you want it wasting space on your hard drives? I wasn't going to buy a car anyways, so I can go steal yours?
A quick 100 rolls here at my desk (I work so hard). I'm comming up with 13.
My friend and I actually moved our PnP D&D game to NWN. I work in the module to design the story line for the day. We get together once every 2 weeks, which is enough time for me to make up 8-9 hours content. I also know my guys well enough to know what they will most likley try to do. If they suprise me I can always spawn in needed items. There is only 7 of us, and we all get together via teamspeak or just bring all our pc's over and setup in the house. It has added a lot more to our d&d exp. We no longer have to plan times when we can all drive out and play, we can schedual a hour here or there on a sunday, without the lugging of books, dice, buying the beer, etc.