It's not about the Mac's. They just don't want you to run Vista under a VM under Linux. It might be possible for Vista to detect that it was running under a VM and shut down, maybe not.
While BGA chips are a PITA for a hobbyist to use, leaded SMT chips are not that bad. If you can get pc boards made for your project even hand soldering is possible. You place the part, solder one pin in a corner, recheck the placement and then solder another corner, then continue soldering the other leads. You first put down some flux paste on the board and part leads to insure good solder flow. Don't worry about solder bridges, you can remove them very easily after the fact with solder wick (braid).
There are proto boards available in all smt configurations that allow you to solder your part onto the proto board, and then mount the proto board onto standard.100" vector type board. The proto boards made by schmaartboards http://www.schmartboard.com/ are VERY easy to solder to. They now even make a way to use BGA parts!!
As long as the business demands compatibility with MS format documents there is nothing you can do. If you start out from scratch in a start up company and had to build the IT structure from the ground up you could do it. Open source software fine for running a business as long as you are not locked into some vendor already for something. I'm sure somewhere out there, there is a company that has gone this route and was running Linux from day one (or maybe gave MS the iron boot, bit the bullet and started over from scratch).
CFL's make no sense in applications where the lamp is only on for short periods of time. Short, frequent duty cycles will vastly shorten the life of a CFL making it much MORE expensive to use than an incandescent lamp. Such as in places like garage door openers, closets, etc. In places where the lamp is almost NEVER turned off (exit signs, night lights, hall lights) they will be great money savers.
It IS possible to make a radio that will receive BOTH services. Niles Audio (http://www.nilesaudio.com) makes a whole house audio system that let's you pick your audio sources a-la-cart. Plug in source cards are available for BOTH XM and Sirius radio, as well as digital HD AM/FM, analog AM/FM, iPod, as well as a card that interfaces to ANY external audio source with full IR control. (Yes I work for Niles)
I'm not aware of any auto radios that can receive both services, but you could always just get two portable satellite receivers and hook them to your in dash radio via an FM modulator.
Well designed panels can be removed and re-installed as part of a re-roofing job. I had the roof on my house redone and in the process my solar hot water panel was carefully removed and later re-installed. It works as well now as it did before the roof was replaced. (Note that only the water proofing material on the roof IE: roofing felt and shingles were replaced). A plumbing contractor approved for solar heaters was used for the work before and after the roofer did his job. The only glitch was that the roofer had to come back twice to seal the roof around the panel mounts and pipe feeds to fix leaks in the roof. (He didn't do a good enough job the first and second time!).
Granted a solar heater panel is a much smaller job than a photo voltaic installation and the cost of removal and re-installation will be higher, but it should not be impossible.
Pigs warmed up and ready to fly, Temperature in Hell drops to 75F, and "W" announces we are pulling out of Iraq.
Sounds like the RIAA's IQ has risen by a few notches. Now I wish they'd also offer the choice of ogg in addition to MP3. You know, they could still 'finger print' the music files with tags to identify who the original customer was that paid for the download. That way, they could still sue anybody who shared their purchased music. The finger printing would NOT prevent inter-operation of the files.
Yeah and if you store too much of the stuff in one place the resulting magnetic radiation will reach a critical level causing a titanic explosion that will knock the moon out of earth orbit!
Actually we are currently at the LOW END of the solar cycle with activity at a MINIMUM. (the 10 meter ham band being dead most of the time these days).
The only way to force a format switch.... 1: Offer players that will play BOTH current DVD's and the new format. 2: Price new players at the SAME price point as current DVD players. 3: discontinue current DVD format. 4: New format disks sold for same price as current DVD's
Gee, if I can buy a blue ray or HDDVD for $100 that will continue to play the DVD's I now own, plus can buy new releases at the same price I'm paying now count me in!
As a model railroad buff I rather like the idea of the Volt's hybrid model. Its the same as a modern diesel locomotive, with the engine driving an electric generator which in turn drives electric traction motors. Only they haven't taken the concept all the way, by putting an electric motor at each wheel like the trains do. This would give all wheel drive, and electric computer controlled positraction.
It sounds to me like the same deal with CD-R music disks. There is no reason that you should be forced to buy a new drive, unless it's not possible to add the required functionality to the drive with new firmware, or the drive can't have it's firmware upgraded (in rom instead of flash). The special DVD's would probably ONLY be available in the R (not RW) versions, and would cost a bit more (for the same reason as CD-R music disks, a kickback to the studios).
The AMD64 processors somewhat correct the old mistakes. While they are backward compatible with the old x86 instruction set, they also double the number of registers and provide a more risc like machine in 64 bit mode than the x86. Since the AMD64 processors (and Intel's CoreX cpus with the same instruction set extensions) are the successors to X86, as software moves toward 64 bits things will change.....
BTW the benefit of RISC isn't from the simplified and unified instruction set along with lots of registers (though that helps). It's from the reduced number of clock cycles per instruction (or increased number of instructions per clock cycle!). This is usually obtained by a move from a microcoded machine to a hard wired one. With increased number of transistors to throw at the problem, a CISC machine can run in as few clock cycles as a RISC.
A big roadblock to switching to Linux was that users would have to be retrained. OpenOffice is not a bad suite, it's just as good as MS office for most people. Switching from Windows to Linux would mean going through a learning curve, and most of that would involve OpenOffice, the programs that you'd be using instead of MS Office.
Now with a new Windows AND a new Office hitting the streets about the same time anybody having to make a decision of not upgrading, upgrading and re-training, or switching to Linux and re-training will see that with the retraining issue a problem no matter what, maybe switching to Linux isn't such a bad idea now.
As good as CFL's are, they need to get better. I am using them now in about half of the lamp sockets in my house. I can't use them in the other half until dimable CFL's are available. In several rooms in my house I have dimmer switches (some X10 controlled) that only work with incandescent lamps.
The other problem with CFL's is that they take so damn long to warm up. When the bulbs are brand new, this problem isn't so bad, but after only a few hours of use, they no longer light up full right away. Why?
At least you can now buy CFL's that look like normal bulbs. I have normal looking globe CFL's over the counter in my bathroom that are dead ringers for the incandescent lamps they replaced.
Another idea.... No property tax need be paid, except under trigger conditions. 1: you sue someone for copyright violation. 2: you distribute your property under DRM'ed media. The tax would be a one time tax, using a capital gains type calculation.
If you ever put the property into public domain, it is considered a donation and you may take a tax write-off on it. The value of the tax write off is the remaining value in the property at the time of the donation.
those compact fluorescent lamps that are supposed to save energy have their problems. I've noticed that after just a few days of use they start taking a long time to 'warm up'. The "60 watt" unit in my bathroom now starts out at about 5 watts worth of light (talk about pissing in the dark) and takes about 5 minutes to come up to full light. It's enough to make be go back to the power hogg "Edison" original.
Point 3. Revenue is more important than, well... anything else that Microsoft does. My View: That's not the way it should be. Making money should always take a back seat to satisfying the customer first. Screw the stockholders. As long as their stocks aren't going down, they have no right to expect them to continue increasing. There's only so many people who will buy the products and pushing out stuff that really isn't much different than the previous version in terms of actual functionality and stability is not a good approach. Ever. There is such a thing as being reasonably profitable and it doesn't mean pounding your competitors into the ground. Sorry. In business thats the ONLY way it should be. However, it would seem that if you DON'T satisfy your customers, you soon WON'T have any customers, and that will screw your bottom line. So it is actually GOOD for business IF you do try to satisfy the customers, that will make the stock holders happy.
UNLESS.....you happen to be a monopoly. Then, screw the customer cause they don't have a choice! (sound of penguin knocking on the door.......)
Until recently electric power was less than $0.10 / kw-hour (in south florida anyway). So 15KW costs about $3.00. Currently thats a bit MORE than the price of a gallon of gas (USA). So, it don't work.
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It's not about the Mac's. They just don't want you to run Vista under
a VM under Linux. It might be possible for Vista to detect that
it was running under a VM and shut down, maybe not.
While BGA chips are a PITA for a hobbyist to use, leaded SMT chips are not that bad.
.100"
If you can get pc boards made for your project even hand soldering is possible.
You place the part, solder one pin in a corner, recheck the placement and then
solder another corner, then continue soldering the other leads. You first put
down some flux paste on the board and part leads to insure good solder flow. Don't
worry about solder bridges, you can remove them very easily after the fact with
solder wick (braid).
There are proto boards available in all smt configurations that allow you to solder
your part onto the proto board, and then mount the proto board onto standard
vector type board. The proto boards made by schmaartboards http://www.schmartboard.com/
are VERY easy to solder to. They now even make a way to use BGA parts!!
As long as the business demands compatibility with MS format documents
there is nothing you can do. If you start out from scratch in a start up company
and had to build the IT structure from the ground up you could do it.
Open source software fine for running a business as long as you are not
locked into some vendor already for something. I'm sure somewhere out there,
there is a company that has gone this route and was running Linux from day one
(or maybe gave MS the iron boot, bit the bullet and started over from scratch).
CFL's make no sense in applications where the lamp is only on for short periods of time.
Short, frequent duty cycles will vastly shorten the life of a CFL making it much MORE
expensive to use than an incandescent lamp. Such as in places like garage door openers,
closets, etc. In places where the lamp is almost NEVER turned off (exit signs, night lights,
hall lights) they will be great money savers.
The sound of a CFL inside a microwave oven exploding!
Great idea!
It IS possible to make a radio that will receive BOTH services.
Niles Audio (http://www.nilesaudio.com) makes a whole house audio system that let's you pick
your audio sources a-la-cart. Plug in source cards are available
for BOTH XM and Sirius radio, as well as digital HD AM/FM, analog AM/FM,
iPod, as well as a card that interfaces to ANY external audio source
with full IR control. (Yes I work for Niles)
I'm not aware of any auto radios that can receive both services, but you
could always just get two portable satellite receivers and hook them to your
in dash radio via an FM modulator.
Well designed panels can be removed and re-installed as part of a re-roofing job.
I had the roof on my house redone and in the process my solar hot water panel was
carefully removed and later re-installed. It works as well now as it did before the
roof was replaced. (Note that only the water proofing material on the roof IE: roofing felt and
shingles were replaced). A plumbing contractor approved for solar heaters was used for
the work before and after the roofer did his job. The only glitch was that the
roofer had to come back twice to seal the roof around the panel mounts and pipe feeds to
fix leaks in the roof. (He didn't do a good enough job the first and second time!).
Granted a solar heater panel is a much smaller job than a photo voltaic installation and
the cost of removal and re-installation will be higher, but it should not be impossible.
Pigs warmed up and ready to fly, Temperature in Hell drops to 75F, and "W" announces we are pulling out of Iraq.
Sounds like the RIAA's IQ has risen by a few notches. Now I wish they'd also offer the choice of ogg in addition to MP3. You know, they could still 'finger print' the music files with tags to identify who the original customer was that paid for the download. That way, they could still sue anybody who shared their purchased music. The finger printing would NOT prevent inter-operation of the files.
Guess he meant the smell of 'Natural' Methane.
If the astronauts run out of rocket fuel and get stranded they can always eat beans.
Somebody suggested they should just move to Luxembourg.
I wonder if Luxembourg served as a model for the
country of Grand Fenwick?
Yeah and if you store too much of the stuff in one place
the resulting magnetic radiation will reach a critical
level causing a titanic explosion that will knock the
moon out of earth orbit!
Actually we are currently at the LOW END of the solar cycle with activity
at a MINIMUM. (the 10 meter ham band being dead most of the time these days).
The only way to force a format switch....
1: Offer players that will play BOTH current DVD's and the new format.
2: Price new players at the SAME price point as current DVD players.
3: discontinue current DVD format.
4: New format disks sold for same price as current DVD's
Gee, if I can buy a blue ray or HDDVD for $100 that will continue to play
the DVD's I now own, plus can buy new releases at the same price I'm paying now
count me in!
I expect pigs will fly first though.......
As a model railroad buff I rather like the idea of the Volt's hybrid model.
Its the same as a modern diesel locomotive, with the engine driving an electric generator
which in turn drives electric traction motors. Only they haven't taken the concept all
the way, by putting an electric motor at each wheel like the trains do. This would give
all wheel drive, and electric computer controlled positraction.
It sounds to me like the same deal with CD-R music disks.
There is no reason that you should be forced to buy a new drive,
unless it's not possible to add the required functionality to the
drive with new firmware, or the drive can't have it's firmware upgraded
(in rom instead of flash). The special DVD's would probably ONLY be
available in the R (not RW) versions, and would cost a bit more
(for the same reason as CD-R music disks, a kickback to the studios).
The AMD64 processors somewhat correct the old mistakes. While they
are backward compatible with the old x86 instruction set, they also
double the number of registers and provide a more risc like machine
in 64 bit mode than the x86. Since the AMD64 processors (and Intel's
CoreX cpus with the same instruction set extensions) are the successors
to X86, as software moves toward 64 bits things will change.....
BTW the benefit of RISC isn't from the simplified and unified instruction
set along with lots of registers (though that helps). It's from the
reduced number of clock cycles per instruction (or increased number of
instructions per clock cycle!). This is usually obtained by a move from
a microcoded machine to a hard wired one. With increased number of transistors
to throw at the problem, a CISC machine can run in as few clock cycles as a RISC.
A big roadblock to switching to Linux was that users would have to be retrained.
OpenOffice is not a bad suite, it's just as good as MS office for most people.
Switching from Windows to Linux would mean going through a learning curve, and most
of that would involve OpenOffice, the programs that you'd be using instead of MS Office.
Now with a new Windows AND a new Office hitting the streets about the same time anybody
having to make a decision of not upgrading, upgrading and re-training, or switching to
Linux and re-training will see that with the retraining issue a problem no matter what,
maybe switching to Linux isn't such a bad idea now.
Thanks MS!
Now, where's that FCC when you need them?
Busy promoting BPL!
A few HOURS of use? Something's wrong.
Well, within two weeks of use anyway.
BTW those bulbs were bought at Wal-Mart.
As good as CFL's are, they need to get better. I am using them now
in about half of the lamp sockets in my house. I can't use them in the
other half until dimable CFL's are available. In several rooms in my house
I have dimmer switches (some X10 controlled) that only work with incandescent lamps.
The other problem with CFL's is that they take so damn long to warm up. When the
bulbs are brand new, this problem isn't so bad, but after only a few hours of
use, they no longer light up full right away. Why?
At least you can now buy CFL's that look like normal bulbs. I have normal looking
globe CFL's over the counter in my bathroom that are dead ringers for the incandescent lamps
they replaced.
Looks like 10 meters will be open for DX in a few years. Maybe even
some 'crossing the pond' on 6 meters too!
Another idea....
No property tax need be paid, except under trigger conditions.
1: you sue someone for copyright violation.
2: you distribute your property under DRM'ed media.
The tax would be a one time tax, using a capital gains type calculation.
If you ever put the property into public domain, it is considered a
donation and you may take a tax write-off on it. The value of the tax
write off is the remaining value in the property at the time of the donation.
those compact fluorescent lamps that are supposed to save energy
have their problems. I've noticed that after just a few days of use
they start taking a long time to 'warm up'. The "60 watt" unit in my
bathroom now starts out at about 5 watts worth of light (talk about
pissing in the dark) and takes about 5 minutes to come up to full light.
It's enough to make be go back to the power hogg "Edison" original.
Point 3. Revenue is more important than, well... anything else that Microsoft does.
My View: That's not the way it should be. Making money should always take a back seat to satisfying the customer first. Screw the stockholders. As long as their stocks aren't going down, they have no right to expect them to continue increasing. There's only so many people who will buy the products and pushing out stuff that really isn't much different than the previous version in terms of actual functionality and stability is not a good approach. Ever. There is such a thing as being reasonably profitable and it doesn't mean pounding your competitors into the ground.
Sorry. In business thats the ONLY way it should be. However, it would seem that if you DON'T satisfy your customers, you soon WON'T have any customers, and that will screw your bottom line. So it is actually GOOD for business IF you do try to satisfy the customers, that will make the stock holders happy.
UNLESS.....you happen to be a monopoly. Then, screw the customer cause they don't have a choice!
(sound of penguin knocking on the door.......)
Until recently electric power was less than $0.10 / kw-hour (in south florida anyway). So 15KW costs about $3.00. Currently thats a bit MORE than the price of a gallon of gas (USA). So, it don't work.