I would be mighty impressed if you got a NEW battery for a 5 year old laptop for only $50. Batteries for older hardware get more expensive over time, not less.
That price seems about right for the Thinkpad ones I'm currently looking at on eBay... the UK's a little more expensive on average, closer to $60 inc. shipping. You may have problems sourcing for less popular brands of laptop.
Except for that huge antenna sticking out.
Running an internal antenna isn't difficult, even doing it properly rather than just bundling the wires into any free space.
the majority of older laptops would have to go the PCMCIA route, which is both expensive
It's not. You can get a PCMCIA 'g' card for under ten quid, the same as a USB adapter. And most five-year-old laptops (i.e. 2003 vintage) have USB ports.
for something that is likely to be unreliable
No signs of it yet. Whilst we're talking anecdotes and guesses, though, I do have a friend who's had to return two new Mac laptops due to overheating in the last few years.
I've just overridden compatibility on the extensions I'm using (using the Nightly Tester Tools extension) with no problems so far.
Most extensions tend to work fine if you do this, but as always YMMV. It's rightly not a default option because it could screw up a profile for a less confident/techy user who wouldn't know how to fix things.
Are exactly the sellers that should leave ebay or simply be banned outright.
Nah, it's gonna fuck over small sellers who clear out non-commodity items more than people who sell thousands of things a month. The first time they encounter someone who pays, then tries to blackmail them outside of eBay's message system into refunding (without returning the goods) on threat of negative feedback... a lot are likely to stop selling. Out goes the stuff that can't be found elsewhere, leaving just the items that're increasingly available cheaper from places such as Amazon Marketplace (due to eBay's rising fees.)
There's PriceMinister.com, which is a fairly big brand in mainland Europe and seems to be about to launch a UK variant. I've had some joy finding rare CDs on the original site, so I'll be checking the new site out when it launches.
Nobody wants to feel that an expensive piece of software they paid for (probably a tool they rely on for business) could stop working if someone remotely flicks a switch.
Absolutely. I don't think bad sellers are difficult to spot; I've encountered a couple in seven years, and one of those was where I took a stupid risk because the seller had a listing that was virtually illiterate. Sellers and buyers with poor communication skills are the ones to avoid, and that's usually obvious from the way they write.
It's the seller who sends (often expensive) goods and is at risk of a buyer claiming non-delivery, claiming a refund for items not being described correctly when they were and the buyer didn't read or just wants the goods for free, etc.
"The buyer sends money to a stranger" is only a valid point if you assume the goods are without value -- both sides are taking a risk.
I for one welcome a campaign setting where you can walk 20 miles without meeting a 20th level NPC.
Play a different setting? It certainly won't appeal to all, and if WotC wanted to virtually mothball FR and focus on another campaign world I wouldn't be hugely bothered. Recasting a setting in major ways to make it fit seems like the worst of both situations -- alienating existing players/readers and still having to pitch it to new customers.
Although... overpowered NPCs showing up all the time is only likely to be a problem if you have a DM who can't resist bringing them in or who can't say no to their players.
On a related point: Forgotten Realms, one of the main (A)D&D campaign settings.
Am I being cynical in assuming that the decision to advance the timeline to a point where most known NPCs are dead is primarily a move to make gamers abandon a lot of time and money invested in source material? Do the core designers feel that there are substantial sales to be gained by making such OTT breaks with existing customer bases?
Because I suspect I'll only be buying from this point on to complete novel series, if authors are allowed to finish them...
Ah. Spoke too soon, or rather only noticed the "I'm a simple windows end-user" bit -- cutting off the guessers, setting up the standard handles for anyone who might be trying to contact you for business purposes, etc. is certainly simplest.
The trouble with SPF is that it relies on the recipient to check it and drop the message if found to be fraudulent. It's unlikely to actually reduce the quantity of bounces you receive by much.
Can't hurt to publish a record, though, and this might be useful:
http://cs.thefoleyhouse.co.uk/blogs/karl/archive/2 004/07/29/154.aspx
Sorry about not being bothered to read your full message first time through.
Have you got an admin panel on those domains? Basically you just set up the ones you want and remove the catch-all, but the procedure for doing so will vary from host to host. Shoot them an email and ask.
As long as the machine isn't counting the ballots... because otherwise it's easy to arrive at a scenario where the printed slip says one candidate but the vote itself is entered for another candidate.
Some people are susceptible to things others aren't -- lots don't notice 60Hz CRT screen refresh as anything more than the occasional flicker, others get migraines from anything less than 120Hz (or a stable display such as a TFT.)
Some people have the misfortune to be allergic to sunlight or even water.
It doesn't follow that because most people are fine in an environment that it doesn't make others ill.
It's up to screen readers to honour display:none, as with any other browser -- and JAWS, Window Eyes and Home Page Reader (to pick some popular examples) do.
You probably built your karma up back before the CAPTCHA was introduced, haven't logged out, etc. For instance, I'm just about to log in and there's a CAPTCHA.
I don't think "number of windows open" is as relevant as how you organise what's loaded... things like media players sit quite happily aside as icons along with temperature readouts, email notification, etc.
When writing I've usually got a browser, filer window, thumbnail browser, text editor and FTP client "open" (but only one maximised at a time -- never been able to get to grips with lots of windows on top of each other, personally, despite growing up with RISC OS) with email, music and a dictionary app to one side and in occasional use. Throw in a couple of launch icons and a few hotkeys and everything's not far away. Browser tabs? Anywhere between one and twenty plus.
Also important is whether applications save their state when closed -- browsers and editors in particular -- and what window handling you're using (taskbar, some items sidelined to a separate menu, etc.)
At about 70Mb here after a few hours, with eight tabs still open.
You using any extensions? That seems to be the first thing to check. I've currently got Adblock Plus, AiOS, DownThemAll, Launchy, Nightly Tester Tools, Nuke Anything Enhanced, Pearl Crescent Saver Basic, QuickJava, Tab Clicking Options and User Agent Switcher installed. Some tab extensions seem to be amongst the biggest culprits.
Yeah, it has no problem with iframe, although I seem to recall it bitches about those too if they're below a certain height and width, as people were using them to surreptitiously inject attacks.
From what I gather it's because IE treats all object tags as potential ActiveX components, which in turn is probably due to the browser's handling of MIME types.
Because search engines profit by serving up relevant results, and relevancy is more in content than markup. Given two otherwise equal documents it might be preferable to privilege the better-formed one, but that's a best-case test scenario.
Without iframes (currently supported by IE, Firefox and Opera, at least) 4.01 Strict isn't workable for most sites that rely on third-party content for advertising -- eg, ads from Amazon. And that's a large chunk of the web.
Slashdot Mirror
the results scale smoothly upwards
Do they?
I would be mighty impressed if you got a NEW battery for a 5 year old laptop for only $50. Batteries for older hardware get more expensive over time, not less.
That price seems about right for the Thinkpad ones I'm currently looking at on eBay... the UK's a little more expensive on average, closer to $60 inc. shipping. You may have problems sourcing for less popular brands of laptop.
Except for that huge antenna sticking out.
Running an internal antenna isn't difficult, even doing it properly rather than just bundling the wires into any free space.
the majority of older laptops would have to go the PCMCIA route, which is both expensive
It's not. You can get a PCMCIA 'g' card for under ten quid, the same as a USB adapter. And most five-year-old laptops (i.e. 2003 vintage) have USB ports.
for something that is likely to be unreliable
No signs of it yet. Whilst we're talking anecdotes and guesses, though, I do have a friend who's had to return two new Mac laptops due to overheating in the last few years.
I've just overridden compatibility on the extensions I'm using (using the Nightly Tester Tools extension) with no problems so far.
Most extensions tend to work fine if you do this, but as always YMMV. It's rightly not a default option because it could screw up a profile for a less confident/techy user who wouldn't know how to fix things.
I haven't tried it, but apparently this modification of OO.org handles Works:
http://go-oo.org/discover/#ms-works-import
Are exactly the sellers that should leave ebay or simply be banned outright.
Nah, it's gonna fuck over small sellers who clear out non-commodity items more than people who sell thousands of things a month. The first time they encounter someone who pays, then tries to blackmail them outside of eBay's message system into refunding (without returning the goods) on threat of negative feedback... a lot are likely to stop selling. Out goes the stuff that can't be found elsewhere, leaving just the items that're increasingly available cheaper from places such as Amazon Marketplace (due to eBay's rising fees.)
There's PriceMinister.com, which is a fairly big brand in mainland Europe and seems to be about to launch a UK variant. I've had some joy finding rare CDs on the original site, so I'll be checking the new site out when it launches.
Nobody wants to feel that an expensive piece of software they paid for (probably a tool they rely on for business) could stop working if someone remotely flicks a switch.
Absolutely. I don't think bad sellers are difficult to spot; I've encountered a couple in seven years, and one of those was where I took a stupid risk because the seller had a listing that was virtually illiterate. Sellers and buyers with poor communication skills are the ones to avoid, and that's usually obvious from the way they write.
It's the seller who sends (often expensive) goods and is at risk of a buyer claiming non-delivery, claiming a refund for items not being described correctly when they were and the buyer didn't read or just wants the goods for free, etc. "The buyer sends money to a stranger" is only a valid point if you assume the goods are without value -- both sides are taking a risk.
I for one welcome a campaign setting where you can walk 20 miles without meeting a 20th level NPC. Play a different setting? It certainly won't appeal to all, and if WotC wanted to virtually mothball FR and focus on another campaign world I wouldn't be hugely bothered. Recasting a setting in major ways to make it fit seems like the worst of both situations -- alienating existing players/readers and still having to pitch it to new customers. Although... overpowered NPCs showing up all the time is only likely to be a problem if you have a DM who can't resist bringing them in or who can't say no to their players.
On a related point: Forgotten Realms, one of the main (A)D&D campaign settings. Am I being cynical in assuming that the decision to advance the timeline to a point where most known NPCs are dead is primarily a move to make gamers abandon a lot of time and money invested in source material? Do the core designers feel that there are substantial sales to be gained by making such OTT breaks with existing customer bases? Because I suspect I'll only be buying from this point on to complete novel series, if authors are allowed to finish them...
Ah. Spoke too soon, or rather only noticed the "I'm a simple windows end-user" bit -- cutting off the guessers, setting up the standard handles for anyone who might be trying to contact you for business purposes, etc. is certainly simplest. The trouble with SPF is that it relies on the recipient to check it and drop the message if found to be fraudulent. It's unlikely to actually reduce the quantity of bounces you receive by much. Can't hurt to publish a record, though, and this might be useful: http://cs.thefoleyhouse.co.uk/blogs/karl/archive/2 004/07/29/154.aspx
Sorry about not being bothered to read your full message first time through.
Have you got an admin panel on those domains? Basically you just set up the ones you want and remove the catch-all, but the procedure for doing so will vary from host to host. Shoot them an email and ask.
As long as the machine isn't counting the ballots... because otherwise it's easy to arrive at a scenario where the printed slip says one candidate but the vote itself is entered for another candidate.
You can get very cheap emergency chargers that will funnel the juice from a set of batteries into your handset.
Some people are susceptible to things others aren't -- lots don't notice 60Hz CRT screen refresh as anything more than the occasional flicker, others get migraines from anything less than 120Hz (or a stable display such as a TFT.)
Some people have the misfortune to be allergic to sunlight or even water.
It doesn't follow that because most people are fine in an environment that it doesn't make others ill.
It's up to screen readers to honour display:none, as with any other browser -- and JAWS, Window Eyes and Home Page Reader (to pick some popular examples) do.
You probably built your karma up back before the CAPTCHA was introduced, haven't logged out, etc. For instance, I'm just about to log in and there's a CAPTCHA.
I'll just shop at a competitor that does have these things enabled.
Such as?
I don't think "number of windows open" is as relevant as how you organise what's loaded... things like media players sit quite happily aside as icons along with temperature readouts, email notification, etc.
When writing I've usually got a browser, filer window, thumbnail browser, text editor and FTP client "open" (but only one maximised at a time -- never been able to get to grips with lots of windows on top of each other, personally, despite growing up with RISC OS) with email, music and a dictionary app to one side and in occasional use. Throw in a couple of launch icons and a few hotkeys and everything's not far away. Browser tabs? Anywhere between one and twenty plus.
Also important is whether applications save their state when closed -- browsers and editors in particular -- and what window handling you're using (taskbar, some items sidelined to a separate menu, etc.)
At about 70Mb here after a few hours, with eight tabs still open.
You using any extensions? That seems to be the first thing to check. I've currently got Adblock Plus, AiOS, DownThemAll, Launchy, Nightly Tester Tools, Nuke Anything Enhanced, Pearl Crescent Saver Basic, QuickJava, Tab Clicking Options and User Agent Switcher installed. Some tab extensions seem to be amongst the biggest culprits.
Yeah, it has no problem with iframe, although I seem to recall it bitches about those too if they're below a certain height and width, as people were using them to surreptitiously inject attacks.
From what I gather it's because IE treats all object tags as potential ActiveX components, which in turn is probably due to the browser's handling of MIME types.
Because search engines profit by serving up relevant results, and relevancy is more in content than markup. Given two otherwise equal documents it might be preferable to privilege the better-formed one, but that's a best-case test scenario.
The <object> tag.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<object height="400" width="400" data="http://www.amazon.co.uk/" type="text/html"></object>
</body>
</html>
"This page is accessing information that is not under its control. This poses a security risk. Do you want to continue?"
Welcome to the wonderful world of Internet Explorer.
Without iframes (currently supported by IE, Firefox and Opera, at least) 4.01 Strict isn't workable for most sites that rely on third-party content for advertising -- eg, ads from Amazon. And that's a large chunk of the web.