I use mine right now. It is hooked up to my UPS rig.
I have several other rs232 ports connected to a multitude of LED-controllers. These still dont come with USB strangely enough...
Amusingly enough though you probably use rs232 without realizing it frequently. A lot of devices that were originally rs232 devices had a tiny rs232usb module tacked on them and a driver written to make it an "usb" device. Granted the port is going away but the hardware is alive and kicking even in consumer items:)
Unfortunately the 4-pin firewire connector used on most laptops I've used is so flimsy that after a few months of use with an external drive the connector starts to get flakey...
Suddenly you have a port which is a whole lot faster but suffers random outages...
Probably not a unique experience but hopefully not everyone use the rather cheap sockets Dell use on the Inspirons...
Personally I think you might have been the victim of one of the many cd-key-looting worms out there. There are a lot of them, I've written some in my 'less than honorable'-days... Not hard to do at all.
I can see the frustration of not being able to use the cdkey but what would you suggest Valve do about it other than what they already do?
It is a bit of a hazzle but would you not require proof if someone were to get what you ask for from you?
Or...
Just buy the big valve pack on steam and get all 27 (I think?) valve games in one big happy pack for 99usd.
The price is reasonable as hell and you'll have them linked to your account at the time of purchase;)
I bought HL back in the day too, but I have no idea where my cdkey is now... Easier to buy the big pack than look for it:-p
Hell, I've seen enough 'fun' stuff end up in lost and found dirs on the server... stuff I really should -not- have seen. Like a performance review of myself where my performance was being thrashed in a period of time where I worked 80 hour weeks... (the legal limit in norway is 42 a week, over that and the boss is breaking the law:-p)
The junk-mail data is already there, or they wouldnt be sending you the stuff would they?:-p
But on a serious note. Such a lottery you describe is a really nice way for the company to get a large base of customers whom they can send advertising material.
On a different note I would love to see some statistics on the risks involved here. Especially the chance of someone sniffing the information as opposed to the use and disclosure of said information in the resulting database at the recipient.
While encryption is good, finding a better example to promote it would probably be a good idea. At least it would save you some ridicule;)
A screen scraper on a separate computer and a keyboard/mouse emulator (hardware).
A tad harder to do with WoW but not impossible. Since you can so heavily modify the GUI of WoW with mods (which ARE allowed) you could probably put up most of the info you need for botting in an easily scrapable format...
Being an ass and doing it is an entirely different matter though;)
And not only will the game often ungracefully exit... sometimes (often actually in my experience) the game will just silently NOT start.
You hit the start shortcut and... nothing happens...
No trivial way to find out why either...
Case in point: Command and Conquer First Decade. I played the games cracked for months and figured I would buy it (when I started working and had money!) and guess what... No way to play the original due to the DRM... So I went back to the crack... Meh.
Wouldnt be very hard to set up a cell-phone activated wipe in 2 weeks...
I have all the hardware needed sitting in a box in my apartment:-p
If you can do something from a single machine through some sort of scripting it is rather trivial to build a hardware gizmo that takes a cellphone call and runs the script.
I hope they learn from this whole major fuckup though.. Hope.. Hope....
Due to time constranits and plain moronic management of our development department most of the code used in the highly specific systems are owned by me personally...
The reason for this is that during my regular work hours I got put doing maintenance and McJob-ish work like tech support (my email doesnt update!) etc.. So I had to do most of the actual dev work on my own time then 'sell' it to my employer.
Needless to say I have them by the proverbial balls at this point:-p Amusing how they refused me a raise when I got a job offer that paid 8k USD more a year .
Now... What about those license deals my old boss-man! *cackles madly*
In two days, on wednesday, it is expected that Riksdagen will give the swedish intelligence service the right to scan all email, sms and telephone traffic that passes swedish borders. Christop Andersson is reminded of the surveillance in the old DDR and poses questions regarding privacy.
In the east-german security-police archive are shelves of yellow, redish or dark brown files. The total length of which is 110 miles. Here there are transcripts of regular east-german telephone conversations and long logs of people's phone use with timestamps. Especially interesting to Stasi was the telephone traffic across the east-german borders.
The giant system of surveillance had as a purpose to protect "Democracy" in DDR against "hostile negative forces" and "terrorism". The threats gave Stasi the right to check up on everyone.
Since 1989 the Stasi is gone. Yet, a similar but perhaps worse system of surveillance is about to be created. This time in Sweden. For this purpose the Forsvarets Radioanstalt (FRA) has aquired a monster computer worth millions of SEK according to Computer Sweden. It is expected to get company in the near years.
With help of the computers FRA will scan through all emails, all sms and all telephone calls that cross swedish borders. Every day, every hour, every minute and every second. Just like in the old DDR the purpose is to prevent "terrorism" and prevent outer threats against society.
The system will be fed search-word both in Swedish and other languages. Further the FRA will search after text strings with randomly selected words and numbers.
Encryption, the defense minister closest man state secretary(?) HÃ¥kan Javrell in a video interview shown at the group "Gravande journalisters"(investigating/digging journalists) seminar in Gotenburg in april.
In the interview he makes it clear that mail with encrypted contents are of special interest to the FRA. Possible terrorists would likely not use clear-text naming of where they will strike and with what sort of force. Supposedly encryption applications like PGP are hard to break but with one or more computers in the million SEK range it will be possible to break everything from encrypted love-letters to journalist correspondance with protected sources. The latter is protected by constitutional rights. FRA can not know anything about the content before the encryption is broken. Thus a catch-22 is created. In practice the constitutional paragraph regarding protection of sources worthless.
The only thing required for the green light for FRA is the approval of Riksdagen for "En anpassad forsvarsunderettelsestjenst". "An adjusted defense intelligence service". Behind the inocious title is a breach of swedish privacy without comparison in the swedish history. FRA will not just search for terrorism but will also search for "forsorjingskriser", ecological imbalance, threats to the environment, ethnical and religious conflicts, large scale refugee and migration and economic cases like currency and interest rate speculation. The mind wanders back to the Stasi system of surveilance.
At the same time HÃ¥kan Javrell and the right wing politicians promise that the public has nothing to fear. The only traffic that will be scanned is the traffic that crosses the swedish border and not traffic inside the country. The problem is just that even email within the country will pass the border. Partially because businesses and organizations use foreign email-servers, partially because email does not heed borders. The email between Lulea and Malmo could just as well go through the US if there is available bandwidth.
Stricly by the rules any information gathered from in-country traffic should immediately be destroyed if it is cought in FRA's net. The problem here is that there is no way for FRA to know if the data is covered by this rule.
Further vagueness in the proposed law conserns the protection of sources in
I know the feeling. I spent 6 years in a elementary school where most of my days were pretty much "avoid fights". Everything else came second.
Being able to go hom and shot the hell out of monsters (duke3d) and afterwards relax and do something more brainy (sim city / transport tycoon deluxe), helped me a -lot-.
To those that say "spend time with your friends"... I didnt have many. When walking to school i would wait behind the last bend in the road for them to get to school, then walk on a few minutes later so they didnt have to be seen with me and become targets for the fucktards at the school.
And I built my -own- computer. I gathered parts from all over the place, and figured it all out on my own. What goes where etc. Which has left me with know-how on fixing hardware that i still have use for now in college.
Dont be blinded by violence in games and ignore all the other aspects of it. If the kid learns something... maybe that is a good thing. Might help to give the kid some *cough* limitations too? You know.. no more than 2-3 hours in front of the screen at a time? My parents used to send me out for a walk. They would be ok with just a 10 min walk around the neighbourhood, but I usually met -someone- on the walk. So it usually lead to gaming at someones place. *misses the Amiga500*
Dont think gaming is just shooting and killing. Two xboxes linked with a racing game can be a really good social event. Even though you might have the option to run over people.
Oh.. and last..
There is this thing with distinguishing a game from reality. I honestly think most people can do that. The people who cant make a lot of noise and are interesting to the media. That doesnt make them many though. Just loud:p
The classroom is focused on making you comply with what the teacher teaches. At least here in norway. Say something 'wrong', people laugh, teacher says you are wrong, class moves on. The idea is, to not be laughed at you shut the hell up.
Given the choice to look stupid or just silent, what do you think a somewhat shy 10 year old is going to chose?
And in middle school? If I had the choice to answer things without it being picked apart by everyone in the room, I think i would have gotten a lot better grades in classes that requred a certain level of "activity" in class...
Use it too much and you have a problem, but the idea is good.
Have a look at what the TV-Chef Jamie Oliver is doing over in England.
Started a program to get rid of the junkfood in schools, and he is currently working his arse off doing it. Trained the cooks, made the recepies, worked to get the funding. A nice first step in the right direction.
Also introduced a "Food Week" program to make kids aware of what is actually -in- the junk food. Quite funny to watch an 8 year old go "EEEEW!!!" as he sees what his "chicken nugget" is actually made of.
Also, the schools noticed a change in student behaveour after the new food was put in. Seems like kids were not on a suger-high all day and managed to stay focused longer.
Some call it a PR stunt. I dont think it is.
He is trying to make people move in the right directions, and cred to him for taking a first step. (and making it work too!)
I know there are torrents out there, just check for "Jamies school dinners".
For a portable music player it is pretty useful. Unless you want an ipod that takes your backup tapes that is:p
Data integrity and reliability over time isnt a problem with this use, nobody is going to notice if the device marks a few % of the drive as dead. And if the drive dies? Warranty is a neat concept.
It is only music you have on your computer anyway, no real harm done.
1. I get SMS, GPRS internet, everything the SonyEricsson k500i supports. It has a modem built in, so I can surf on my laptop while on a moving bus if I feel like it:p
2. I can buy "fill-up" cards in all grocery stores, gas stations and most small kiosks. There is the option to register your debit-card on the providers website, that way i can transfer money from the card, to my cellphone account giving me full control over my spendings. I can also fill up at in just about every ATM in Norway, I have yet to find one that doesnt support it:p Anyone else can fill up any phone by using their card and the recievers phone-number, nice for giving people birthday presents etc:p
3. Se above for answer:p For the Netcom cards, there is a 13 digit pin code. No offense, but if your mother cant re-fill her own cellphone using a simple pin system... maybe she should learn it... My 73 year old grandmother can do it durn it... *Without help*
If you really think this is too much a hassle, buy a regular service... You pay to get rid of the hassle, you cant have it both ways:p
Slashdot Mirror
I use mine right now. It is hooked up to my UPS rig.
I have several other rs232 ports connected to a multitude of LED-controllers. These still dont come with USB strangely enough...
Amusingly enough though you probably use rs232 without realizing it frequently. A lot of devices that were originally rs232 devices had a tiny rs232usb module tacked on them and a driver written to make it an "usb" device. Granted the port is going away but the hardware is alive and kicking even in consumer items :)
Unfortunately the 4-pin firewire connector used on most laptops I've used is so flimsy that after a few months of use with an external drive the connector starts to get flakey...
Suddenly you have a port which is a whole lot faster but suffers random outages...
Probably not a unique experience but hopefully not everyone use the rather cheap sockets Dell use on the Inspirons...
*peers over at the zip-drive on his shelf...*
Yes, must burn indeed!
Um... rs232 is not nearly dead.
It might not be used much in the world of personal computing but in industry applications it is still king. Along with 422 and 485.
If it is so dead, why do most if not all servers come with it? :-p
What? You dont approve the use of Frontpage 5.0 for generating wonderfully looking websites?
*hides*
Personally I think you might have been the victim of one of the many cd-key-looting worms out there. There are a lot of them, I've written some in my 'less than honorable'-days... Not hard to do at all.
I can see the frustration of not being able to use the cdkey but what would you suggest Valve do about it other than what they already do?
It is a bit of a hazzle but would you not require proof if someone were to get what you ask for from you?
Or...
Just buy the big valve pack on steam and get all 27 (I think?) valve games in one big happy pack for 99usd.
The price is reasonable as hell and you'll have them linked to your account at the time of purchase ;)
I bought HL back in the day too, but I have no idea where my cdkey is now... Easier to buy the big pack than look for it :-p
In much of Europe you cant throw someone out the door in that fashion unless you can document serious charges of misconduct etc.
You are required to give notice. In some cases 3 months, in others maybe as much as 6 months.
It is rarely black and white when it comes to firing someone so you cant always fault the company ;)
It is tempting as hell but I didnt do it.
Hell, I've seen enough 'fun' stuff end up in lost and found dirs on the server... stuff I really should -not- have seen. Like a performance review of myself where my performance was being thrashed in a period of time where I worked 80 hour weeks... :-p)
(the legal limit in norway is 42 a week, over that and the boss is breaking the law
So no, some things are best left alone...
I can fully agree.
Though at the company I left there -was- nobody to replace me.
They have no IT tech people at all and are now forced to use hugely expensive external support for everything.
I wasnt fired, but left due to disagreements about quite a lot of policy ;)
They still havent hired anyone.. and I still get phonecalls *snickers*
It is math.
Sadly it isnt "cool" to know it...
The junk-mail data is already there, or they wouldnt be sending you the stuff would they? :-p
But on a serious note. Such a lottery you describe is a really nice way for the company to get a large base of customers whom they can send advertising material.
On a different note I would love to see some statistics on the risks involved here.
Especially the chance of someone sniffing the information as opposed to the use and disclosure of said information in the resulting database at the recipient.
While encryption is good, finding a better example to promote it would probably be a good idea. At least it would save you some ridicule ;)
US Customs don't get any humour ;)
That is how the successful poker-bots work.
A screen scraper on a separate computer and a keyboard/mouse emulator (hardware).
A tad harder to do with WoW but not impossible. Since you can so heavily modify the GUI of WoW with mods (which ARE allowed) you could probably put up most of the info you need for botting in an easily scrapable format...
Being an ass and doing it is an entirely different matter though ;)
And not only will the game often ungracefully exit... sometimes (often actually in my experience) the game will just silently NOT start.
You hit the start shortcut and... nothing happens...
No trivial way to find out why either...
Case in point: Command and Conquer First Decade. I played the games cracked for months and figured I would buy it (when I started working and had money!) and guess what... No way to play the original due to the DRM... So I went back to the crack... Meh.
Wouldnt be very hard to set up a cell-phone activated wipe in 2 weeks...
I have all the hardware needed sitting in a box in my apartment :-p
If you can do something from a single machine through some sort of scripting it is rather trivial to build a hardware gizmo that takes a cellphone call and runs the script.
I hope they learn from this whole major fuckup though.. Hope.. Hope....
Do what I did at my former job...
Due to time constranits and plain moronic management of our development department most of the code used in the highly specific systems are owned by me personally...
The reason for this is that during my regular work hours I got put doing maintenance and McJob-ish work like tech support (my email doesnt update!) etc.. So I had to do most of the actual dev work on my own time then 'sell' it to my employer.
Needless to say I have them by the proverbial balls at this point :-p
Amusing how they refused me a raise when I got a job offer that paid 8k USD more a year .
Now... What about those license deals my old boss-man! *cackles madly*
.
Well, this works great until they manage to pass uk-style laws making not giving up encryption keys a punishable offense.
:-p
Imagine the scenario:
You keep a dump of random data gathered from hardware as a pool for a software project.
Police for some reason raid your place and confiscate your equipment.
You are required to give up the encryption key to the encrypted data (your random pool).
You -cant- give the key as there -is- no key. You're punished for this.
Woho. Best not to keep any random data around it seems unless you can explain it in absolute terms .
[/paranoia]
A slightly better translation. :D
Done by a human!
In two days, on wednesday, it is expected that Riksdagen will give the swedish intelligence service the right to scan all email, sms and telephone traffic that passes swedish borders. Christop Andersson is reminded of the surveillance in the old DDR and poses questions regarding privacy.
In the east-german security-police archive are shelves of yellow, redish or dark brown files. The total length of which is 110 miles. Here there are transcripts of regular east-german telephone conversations and long logs of people's phone use with timestamps. Especially interesting to Stasi was the telephone traffic across the east-german borders.
The giant system of surveillance had as a purpose to protect "Democracy" in DDR against "hostile negative forces" and "terrorism". The threats gave Stasi the right to check up on everyone.
Since 1989 the Stasi is gone. Yet, a similar but perhaps worse system of surveillance is about to be created. This time in Sweden. For this purpose the Forsvarets Radioanstalt (FRA) has aquired a monster computer worth millions of SEK according to Computer Sweden. It is expected to get company in the near years.
With help of the computers FRA will scan through all emails, all sms and all telephone calls that cross swedish borders. Every day, every hour, every minute and every second. Just like in the old DDR the purpose is to prevent "terrorism" and prevent outer threats against society.
The system will be fed search-word both in Swedish and other languages. Further the FRA will search after text strings with randomly selected words and numbers.
Encryption, the defense minister closest man state secretary(?) HÃ¥kan Javrell in a video interview shown at the group "Gravande journalisters"(investigating/digging journalists) seminar in Gotenburg in april.
In the interview he makes it clear that mail with encrypted contents are of special interest to the FRA. Possible terrorists would likely not use clear-text naming of where they will strike and with what sort of force. Supposedly encryption applications like PGP are hard to break but with one or more computers in the million SEK range it will be possible to break everything from encrypted love-letters to journalist correspondance with protected sources. The latter is protected by constitutional rights. FRA can not know anything about the content before the encryption is broken. Thus a catch-22 is created. In practice the constitutional paragraph regarding protection of sources worthless.
The only thing required for the green light for FRA is the approval of Riksdagen for "En anpassad forsvarsunderettelsestjenst". "An adjusted defense intelligence service". Behind the inocious title is a breach of swedish privacy without comparison in the swedish history. FRA will not just search for terrorism but will also search for "forsorjingskriser", ecological imbalance, threats to the environment, ethnical and religious conflicts, large scale refugee and migration and economic cases like currency and interest rate speculation. The mind wanders back to the Stasi system of surveilance.
At the same time HÃ¥kan Javrell and the right wing politicians promise that the public has nothing to fear. The only traffic that will be scanned is the traffic that crosses the swedish border and not traffic inside the country. The problem is just that even email within the country will pass the border. Partially because businesses and organizations use foreign email-servers, partially because email does not heed borders. The email between Lulea and Malmo could just as well go through the US if there is available bandwidth.
Stricly by the rules any information gathered from in-country traffic should immediately be destroyed if it is cought in FRA's net. The problem here is that there is no way for FRA to know if the data is covered by this rule.
Further vagueness in the proposed law conserns the protection of sources in
I know the feeling. I spent 6 years in a elementary school where most of my days were pretty much "avoid fights". Everything else came second.
:p
Being able to go hom and shot the hell out of monsters (duke3d) and afterwards relax and do something more brainy (sim city / transport tycoon deluxe), helped me a -lot-.
To those that say "spend time with your friends"... I didnt have many. When walking to school i would wait behind the last bend in the road for them to get to school, then walk on a few minutes later so they didnt have to be seen with me and become targets for the fucktards at the school.
And I built my -own- computer. I gathered parts from all over the place, and figured it all out on my own. What goes where etc. Which has left me with know-how on fixing hardware that i still have use for now in college.
Dont be blinded by violence in games and ignore all the other aspects of it. If the kid learns something... maybe that is a good thing. Might help to give the kid some *cough* limitations too? You know.. no more than 2-3 hours in front of the screen at a time? My parents used to send me out for a walk. They would be ok with just a 10 min walk around the neighbourhood, but I usually met -someone- on the walk. So it usually lead to gaming at someones place. *misses the Amiga500*
Dont think gaming is just shooting and killing. Two xboxes linked with a racing game can be a really good social event. Even though you might have the option to run over people.
Oh.. and last..
There is this thing with distinguishing a game from reality. I honestly think most people can do that. The people who cant make a lot of noise and are interesting to the media. That doesnt make them many though. Just loud
--Kjetil--
You got to be kidding me.
The classroom is focused on making you comply with what the teacher teaches. At least here in norway.
Say something 'wrong', people laugh, teacher says you are wrong, class moves on. The idea is, to not be laughed at you shut the hell up.
Given the choice to look stupid or just silent, what do you think a somewhat shy 10 year old is going to chose?
And in middle school? If I had the choice to answer things without it being picked apart by everyone in the room, I think i would have gotten a lot better grades in classes that requred a certain level of "activity" in class...
Use it too much and you have a problem, but the idea is good.
Have a look at what the TV-Chef Jamie Oliver is doing over in England.
s chool_dinners/index.html
:p)
Started a program to get rid of the junkfood in schools, and he is currently working his arse off doing it.
Trained the cooks, made the recepies, worked to get the funding. A nice first step in the right direction.
Also introduced a "Food Week" program to make kids aware of what is actually -in- the junk food. Quite funny to watch an 8 year old go "EEEEW!!!" as he sees what his "chicken nugget" is actually made of.
Also, the schools noticed a change in student behaveour after the new food was put in. Seems like kids were not on a suger-high all day and managed to stay focused longer.
Some call it a PR stunt. I dont think it is.
He is trying to make people move in the right directions, and cred to him for taking a first step. (and making it work too!)
I know there are torrents out there, just check for "Jamies school dinners".
http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/J/jamies_
(yes i'm a fan of him
Good, i've been waiting since the last one!
More hacking with Ramzi! *grins*
For a portable music player it is pretty useful. :p
:p
Unless you want an ipod that takes your backup tapes that is
Data integrity and reliability over time isnt a problem with this use, nobody is going to notice if the device marks a few % of the drive as dead. And if the drive dies? Warranty is a neat concept.
It is only music you have on your computer anyway, no real harm done.
My two euro-cent anyway
In norway using the provider Netcom:
:p
:p :p
:p
:p
1. I get SMS, GPRS internet, everything the SonyEricsson k500i supports. It has a modem built in, so I can surf on my laptop while on a moving bus if I feel like it
2. I can buy "fill-up" cards in all grocery stores, gas stations and most small kiosks. There is the option to register your debit-card on the providers website, that way i can transfer money from the card, to my cellphone account giving me full control over my spendings.
I can also fill up at in just about every ATM in Norway, I have yet to find one that doesnt support it
Anyone else can fill up any phone by using their card and the recievers phone-number, nice for giving people birthday presents etc
3. Se above for answer
For the Netcom cards, there is a 13 digit pin code.
No offense, but if your mother cant re-fill her own cellphone using a simple pin system... maybe she should learn it...
My 73 year old grandmother can do it durn it... *Without help*
If you really think this is too much a hassle, buy a regular service... You pay to get rid of the hassle, you cant have it both ways
--KSH--
And you cant use the solderless way with the new 1.6 Xbox version.
;)
Thank $deity!
Solderless chips were putting me out of business
I live in norway... where modchips are legal.