I've worked professionally with computers for 23 years. I can tell rather quickly when something is not working, inefficient or simply not meeting expectations. Troubleshooting does not necessarily mean beating your head against the wall.
I worked with it for 1.5 hours. I felt that was sufficient for my goals regarding this PC. UAC, poor downloading speeds and difficulty with my graphics card/monitor: that was enough frustration.
IF (big if) I see any DX10 game come out that interests me enough to try it, I expect by then Vista and driver issues will have been resolved OR there will be a XP DX10 conversion. Either way the bottom line is Vista is not for me at this time. Maybe later.
I'm sorry you fail to believe, but everything I posted is absolutely true.
Some clarification for you:
- as someone pointed out, my dual monitor issue may have been with the nVidia driver. That's the hardware I chose, and if Vista doesn't support it correctly, then I choose to move away from Vista.
- Just as you cannot explain why XP has slow downloads for you, I cannot explain why Vista was slow for me. The one file I noted, latest nVidia 8800 driver, ~53Mb. In Vista with IE7, it capped out at 444KB/s and took several minutes to download. A little while later in XP with Firefox, it hit 1.73MB/s and downloaded in a few seconds. Exact same NIC, cable, router, fiber connection. Only difference was the OS and browser. I've noticed IE7 in XP is also slower, so I'll leave IE6 on XP now though I don't use it.
- I knew I could turn UAC off somehow, but I was much more interested in getting OS, patches and software loaded than having to deal with it. Granted spending 5-10 minutes to find it and turn it off would have saved me the headache of all those prompts. Yes, they did pop up after every other action that either accessed the internet, tried to install something or tried to access some device or part of the OS. The first few occurrences I expected, but after five or so it was tiresome and repetitious.
- I did indeed get UP TO SP2 within 20 minutes. The first wave of 67 patches all come down at once and install at once with a single reboot at the end. This took less than 2 minutes to download and about 10-12 minutes to install. THEN downloading and installing SP2 took a total of about 20 minutes more (I forgot the download or install times as I was doing other things). One more reboot.
I am neither of the things you claim. I was simply sharing my recent experience in relation to the Vista article.
I just bought a new gaming system a few weeks ago and it arrived last week. I thought I'd give Vista a try.
Specs: Core 2 Duo E6300, 2GB RAM, dual nVidia 8800 GTS 320Mb in SLI config, Seagate 320GB perpendicular storage SATA HD, ASUS P5N32 SLI mobo.
Installation was the best part. It asked a few questions and took off. I came back 30 minutes later to the sign-on screen. It went downhill from there.
I downloaded Vista updates (don't think there were many) which required a reboot. No big deal; reboot is rather quick (
Since I couldn't right click on the desktop to get my display settings, I dug into Control Panel. Looked for Display. Looked for Graphics. Aha, nVidia control panel. Interesting that it installed that. I wanted to extend my desktop to my second monitor. Only the single monitor choice was given. Checked device manager. Both graphics cards detected, but only one monitor. Checked 3D settings. It recognized my PC was SLI capable and recommended enabling it. Sure. "Accept or deny?" Accept. Reboot.
Back into control panel, nVidia panel. Still only one monitor choice even though I see both monitors now listed. I downloaded the 53Mb nVidia driver file. "Accept or deny?" Accept. (Crap, that Mac commercial is 100% true.) I'm on 15Mb fiber. Throughput was only 400KB/s and took this about five minutes. Installed, reboot.
Back into the panels. Still only sees one monitor. THAT'S IT!!! I'm done.
Out comes the XP Pro CD. Wipe the disk. Install.
I downloaded all 67 updates in less than 2 mins. Installed in about 7 mins.
Downloaded nVidia 53Mb driver at 1.7MB/s in less than 30secs. Installed. Reboot.
Right click, properties, settings, extend. Viola! Two 19" LCD monitors working together.
Downloaded Serive Pack 2 in one minute and installed in about 10 minutes.
Am I the only one picking out the "just graduated last May" part?
IMO you don't have enough experience in any workplace to know what a miserable job really can be. Try working for a company for three years, then being outsourced as if you're a piece of property then shipped around the country away from your family as you're being told "we may have to let you go after this contract."
Stick the year out to fulfill the contract and get what you can out of it.
Keep looking for jobs where you want to live. (a few interviews? That's nothing. Try a few dozen before you feel you're getting nowhere.) Use as many sources for jobs as possible (multiple recruiters, careerbuilder, monster, dice, computerjobs, local job websites) When I've been unemployed I send out about 40 resumes a day and make about 10 phone calls. When I'm employed but unhappy with my work, I send out about 20 resumes a week from job board search agents.
Just keep looking. Broaden your expectations. There are tons of jobs out there; you just have to find them. It's definitely much easier to find a new job while you have one.
I agree with staying "behind the curve," or as I see it, "best bang for the buck." Thus my choice of the E6600 instead of the 6700 or extremes; they jump quickly in price. My choice of graphics was a lengthy discussion with peers, reading reviews, etc. until I finally justified the price for the GPUs I selected.
Since you asked I'll give details:
Gamer Infinity Ultra SLI is the base system.
- Apevia 680W Beast power supply
- Core 2 Duo E6600
- Asus P5N32-SLI Premium motherboard
- 2GB Corsair RAM
- 2x nVidia 8800 GTS 320Mb video cards in SLI config
- no monitors because I have two Viewsonic 19" LCD gaming monitors
- 250Gb HD (even though I'll be replacing it w/ a Seagate perpendicular storage model)
- no optical drives because I already have a DVD-R and CD-RW
- on board sound
- already have speakers
- no OS (I have a current XP license)
I typically buy components from www.zipzoomfly.com and www.newegg.com with the occasional rebate deal on a HD from Frye's to give you an idea of my building resources.
I'm sure they've upgraded it to an ASCII,.bat driven menu by now.:-)
Thing I hated about the C64 disk load times: time. You could make two sandwiches and eat them while watching half a Cosby episode before a game would load. My TI-99 4/A tape drive was faster getting me into Tunnels of Doom.
Agreed on the sentiment, but not quite right on the price.:-)
I've been playing with computers since 1981 and working on them since 1984. I've built numerous systems over the past 10 years. Over the past year I've been configuring a gaming system and waiting until the money situation was right to order/build it.
I was amazed to discover that you can buy a pre-built (w/ three year warranty) for a bit cheaper than building it yourself now. The system I wanted to build (Core 2 Duo E6300, 2Gb RAM, dual 8800 GTS 320Mb in SLI) was going to cost about $2,000 to build. I just ordered it from www.cyberpowerpc.com for $1700.
We'll see if Commodore is blowing smoke, labeling generic PCs or coming out with something revolutionary. I'll take door #1, Monty.
FTA: "Probst will stay on with the company as the executive chairman of the board of directors."
Doesn't that mean he gets more of the company's profits but he doesn't get a regular paycheck?
At first I thought this was just a publicity stunt by EA to show the customer's that they are listening about "sequel-itis." Now I'm thinking it may be more of setting Riccitiello up as a scapegoat in case "Spore" doesn't produce on time, as expected, etc. et al.
Either way looks like Probst definitely isn't hurting nor has he suffered any shame for leading the least imaginative company in the world.
That's the first word that came out of my mouth when I saw some of the new content artwork. Some of the locations and architecture are absolutely gorgeous.
After getting into BC a bit, overwhelming applied to how much new quest, gear and instance content there is.
I'd say I'm a casual gamer even though I play WoW ~25 hours a week. I've played since beta, played every class to some extent, achieved a few level 60's, run all the non-raid instances and half of the raiding ones. I still felt like I had quite a bit more to do and see in the old content. Then BC came out and I feel like I'm starting over again.
I've started new characters to experience the new starting zones, and I have a few of my characters in Outland. My guild is quite divided about the content: hardcore group has muscled ahead and reached 70 planning to lead the guild through raiding, casual group is still reaching 60 and wants to raid the old content.
I haven't purchased any other game since November 2004. I played Ultima Online for 7.5 years. WoW is considerably better than that, so I expect to be playing for a very long time. The review is fairly accurate though I disagree with the author's negative opinions about the old content.
I guess it all boils down to the question of whether somebody can just be "born bad".
This points to a very fundamental conflict that my friends and I have debated for years, and I'm sure it has probably surfaced or been researched before in various circles.
My friends, like you, state that people are basically born "bad" or "evil" and must make a conscious effort to be civil to other people and in general be "good."
My stance is that people are born "good" and they let environment and their own conscious choices influence their actions and turn them "bad."
I'd guess there may have been experiments in this. I've never watched the show, but by descriptions from co-workers I think the "Survivor" show is a good example of these situations. Provided an impetus (prize money), deprived of comfort and forced to struggle to satisfy basic needs (sort of), people react differently. Some will become a leader, make sure everyone is taken care of and in general, exhibit "good" traits for the betterment of the whole tribe. Others will do almost anything to make sure they are the only one that will survive at the expense of everything and everyone else.
My friends often use caveman examples. If one group of cavemen had the basics (water, shelter, warmth, food) and the other lacked any one of those, most likely conflict would ensue because there is a need.
If all of the basics are provided for, then by my hypothesis, everyone can be good because there is no need to be bad. In reality once the basics are provided, people then get greedy and want more again causing conflict.
Some people are satisfied with who they are and what they have; others are never satisfied no matter how much they have.
The former (minority in my opinion) give hope that mankind will transcend and become a successful species that can surmount any obstacle; the latter (the majority) will drag mankind into ruin and ultimately bring about our destruction.
As others have stated, it definitely sounds like you may have other factors causing your HD failure.
If you do lots of read/writes, in theory you should see better performance from RAID 5; more spindles = more reads (as long as the data is distributed across multiple disks).
If you set it up as it's own storage/backup server, then you're looking at network speed as your bottleneck. If you install it as a cage within your system (not sure if these models can), you're at least providing RAID 1, 5 or 10 redundancy, but you'll still have other factors (P/S, environment) impacting the drives.
I've been in IT for 23 years. I haven't seen it all by any means, but I've seen enough to consider myself an expert on many things. IT, yes; business, no.
At a previous company we were very flexible and provided everything we could for users, especially remote users: OWA, VPN, wireless, SSL-VPN, Terminal Server for those legacy apps that no one could do without, etc. et al. We held a pretty secure ship, filtered only what was legally necessary and monitored traffic/e-mail only when requested by HR.
Regardless we still had this Shadow IT. Typically it was the guy who ran his own network and Exchange server at home telling us how we should run things, how he should have two monitors even though no one else had that and that he should be allowed unfiltered internet because it made him more productive.
Then there was the time the top salesman left his laptop at home, connected to our VPN, his son used it and it began attacking our firewall with a SQL slammer worm. One time can be forgiven, but this was the third time in a year that this occurred.
IT was thrown under the bus on these accounts and others.
Mr. Know-it-all got his second screen and caused a chain reaction of others crying for them and costing the company a sizable chunk of change.He also won having the internet opened up for sports and games. IT watched productivity drop as non-business internet usage climbed.
Mr. VPN received a third "warning" in his HR file, but IT had it's hand slapped because we hadn't really educated him on how to use his laptop, the VPN or the update programs. This in spite of us producing a document signed by the guy that stated "I understand IT policy and proper use of issued equipment and the network."
Back and forth this struggle has continued for the past 20+ years I've been in IT. For a few years, we're heroes. We implement technology and methods that allow businesses to grow and profit at the speed of light. We save businesses from going under when disaster strikes because we backed up the data. Then for the next few years we're the villains. We don't implement the latest technology just because the CFO said not to spend any money. We're thrown under the bus because an executive sent an illegal e-mail and IT had the nerve to have it backed up and accessible for the legal system.
The longer I'm in IT, the more I wish I'd have learned a real skill like cooking or carpentry.
while I was acting manager for a company, we wanted to hire a laptop/desktop tech to fill out our team. We read a few hundred resumes and picked the top 20, some internal, most external for phone interviews and narrowed it down to 10 for live interviews.
This one candidate looked great on paper. He showed up in a nice suit, very polite and kept saying "Oh, yeah, I know all about that," and "Sure, I can do that." After hearing this five times my co-worker and I started digging deeper and asked for more detailed explanations. It soon became clear that he had no clue what he was talking about, what we were talking about or much about Windows or PCs in general. We felt sorry for the guy.
We immediately stopped the interview process and told him flat out he did not have the skills for the position. We then spent 15-20 minutes providing suggestions of websites, honesty on his resume and how he could start at a lower level and learn his way up to desktop support. (Sad but true.)
Now I'd be more guarded. As others have said here, it's dangerous to do anything beyond the legal minimum of communication.
Without studying a good bit of meteorology, it's difficult to know who to believe on many of the GW and weather reports. Obviously, when the consensus of the weather community agrees, there must be some truth there.
Most of what I've read and seen indicates we're just near a peak of the cyclical process (or a low in the ice age, however you flip your sine wave). What they always seem to discount, though, is that 100,000 years ago when the world warmed up naturally (animal C02), there weren't 6 billion humans around with 2 billion+ (guess) mechanical sources of heat, C02 or fossil fuels. Most reports shrug human factors off as negligible. That fire ant mound of only 100k fire ants in my backyard is negligible, too, until they start multiplying.
What's really odd about this report is how inconsistent my local weather has been. The report shows Texas as recording many record high days. On an average over the year, yes, I guess we were, but this was one of the mildest summers and falls I've ever known in my 30+ years of living here. We had a handful (maybe three) days that hit 100 or higher, as opposed to a few years ago where we had over 100 consecutive days of 100+ temperatures. What's really been off is the lack of rain. Currently we're having an average winter of 50-60 degree days, but again it's not nearly as wet as it usually is.
With the GW what I expect over the next 10-20 years is that Texas will shift to a climate more like Central America (or northern Africa) and our Texas climate will shift to Nebraska and the Dakotas.
It's a definite concern that I feel many governments and the world have neglected for too long. All I can hope is that we'll be able to adapt like our ancient ancestors did to other "natural" disasters. I'm really hoping that I might see off world colonization in my lifetime. Get the people off the planet and let it return to a natural state.
...will Wal-mart carry good quality name brands of CFLs and will those products from those companies be their best products?
It is (or should be) widely known that Wal-mart saves money and makes people feel like they're saving money by buying and selling seconds from manufacturers. From slightly irregular jeans to half-filled fountain pens, I've witnessed Wal-mart's "savings" first hand.
Pushing the concept behind CFLs and possibly exposing to or causing people to research LED is a good thing.
Selling inferior products of the genre and giving consumers a bad taste in their mouth for the technology as a whole is not so good.
This has the possibility of adding to the legacy and retaining the quality of story and action. Then again, Star Wars episodes 1-3 had huge potential and blew it. I just hope this doesn't end up being a bunch of cliches, dialog that doesn't belong in the 30's & 40's ("Indy, you're so cool.") or overblown digital effects where the more realistic, classical stunts fit much better.
I'm curious if they'll get Sean Connery for more comic relief, too.
As we all know, George lives by another of Harrison's lines: "I don't know. I'm making it up as I go along."
I started in beta in 2004, bought the collector's edition upon release and bought my wife her own account a week later.
Any game that has this much depth and breadth, that can keep me interested and still discovering new content after this long, that continues to pull in new players after reaching a mind-blowing 7 million subscribers proves that there is a magic formula to a game.
I've heard of many people leaving, but we see them come back within a few months. One of our guildmates bought a Wii when it released. He spent 6-8 hours one Saturday playing some game on it, logged on to WoW that evening and stated that he had finished it. I ventured out and tried a few others myself, especially betas of other MMOs. I keep coming back to WoW because it has everything I want in a game for now.
Just like it took WoW to pull me away from 7.5 years of Ultima Online, it will take something even more earth-shattering to pull me away from WoW. New content every few months, new dungeons, new gear, seasonal events and items and the ability to explore the world anew from a different perspective any time I want. WoW will likely be my game of the year for many years to come.
Is that how often Panasonic says it will need to be replaced, or do you leave the TV on 24x7?
Every DLP set I know of states 3-5 years of "typical" watching. I thought the LCoS projection were the same. April will be 3 years for my Samsung DLP set, so I'll find out soon about replacing the bulb.
This TV has a surface like any other LCD monitor or display -- if you push on it, it gives and exhibits discoloration temporarily just under where you're pressing. If you were to really push it hard or ram things into it, it would get permanently damaged. But honestly, unless you have a beastly cat attacking images on the display, or a rotten little kid who likes beating televisions with plastic golf clubs, or you go insanely wild with your Wiimote and throw it into the screen, it's not an issue. Just treat the thing normally and it does fine. If you need to move the TV in a moving truck or something, you'll probably want to put a soft blanket over the screen and then tape a piece of plywood over that to protect the screen. So definitely not tough like a CRT or plasma screen, but not a big issue to me.
Thanks for reminding me. That's one more point I like about DLP (or at least my Samsung set).
The screen is tough. I have two kids who do not abuse the screen, but they touch it and have accidentally poked things (pencils, chopsticks) at it when they weren't paying attention. Screen is still dent and scratch free. I just wipe it down with a computer/laptop screen cleaner now and again to remove the fingerprints.:-)
What plasma screen have you seen that is tough? Every plasma I've seen reacts just like an LCD - you push on it, the screen gives and the gas gets distorted.
I've used a Samsung 50" DLP (first generation chip) TV for nearly three years now. I researched the differences between Plasma, LCD and DLP for several months before making my decision. Several factors that were relevant then are no longer major factors and now there are several more choices.
Upside of each technology:
- CRT projection: (drawing a blank here for what's good about CRT projection)
- Plasma: fluid picture, closest to CRT smoothness.
- LCD: sharp, bright picture.
- DLP: sharp, bright picture. Only one part needs maintenance (bulb). Lowest cost of all technologies. Largest screen sizes available. Wider viewing angle than LCD or plasma. Low power consumption. Lightweight (my wife moved ours out of the van by herself when we bought it).
- LCD projection (LCoS): quality of LCD with size and reliability of projection. Sony (perhaps others) use three LCDs, one for each color light, to prevent "rainbow effect."
- HD-ILA: triple DLP chips removes "rainbow effect" of single DLP (see below). Otherwise same benefits as DLP. (This is a new technology that to my knowledge only JVC has this at this time.)
Downside of each technology:
- CRT projection: heavy and bulky. Requires regular adjustment and annual maintenance by a professional. Smaller viewing angle than any other technology. Dim picture needs dark room.
- Plasma: fades over time (usually 3 years or less) starting with upper (violet) end of the spectrum and requires recharging which costs nearly as much as a new one. Picture burn in. Most expensive. Black levels are gray on most models, and everyone I've seen appears to have a reduced spectrum of color (washed out look).
- LCD: pixel death (much less prevalent now but still a factor). Cost. Screen size limit (40" largest). Pixelization on fast moving pictures (racing, action movie).
- DLP: warm-up time like regular projector (20-30 seconds). Cost of replacement bulb ($300-500). Smallest screen size available is 42". Some viewers experience "rainbow effect" when looking at picture, blinking and looking away (basically you see the separate light channels - I've experienced this once in 3 years and have never been able to repeat it.) Not as thin as Plasma or LCD (18" usually) so not wall-mountable.
- LCD projection: pixel death still a possibility. These may need regular adjustment or maintenance like older CRT projection TVs.
- HD-ILA: same drawbacks as DLP minus the "rainbow effect."
Keep researching to find what fits your needs. If you're only considering LCD or plasma, LCD all the way. I'd rely on home theater or HD forums more than/.
I seriously doubt I'll replace my current DLP for years, but whenever we look to replace our second TV, I'll be looking at the HD-ILA.
I loved the K-mart theme because you were looking for the blue light special and had to fight cafeteria ladies and mall zombies. Dr. Who was always a favorite.
I know there were several other themes, but I'll have to dig it out to check.
I'm very fortunate that I have two working TI-99/4As. I brought it out a year ago and gave my daughters a brief distraction with the A-maze-ing game and speech synthesis. This article is making me want to pull them back down. I also have all of the Scott Adams' adventures. Those I've found an emulator/remake for, but I didn't have much luck with the MESS or other emulators for ToD.
Very similar to what Nortel Networks did when they were profitable.
Basically a large sum of money would start at the top. Each president, VP, manager, superviser, etc. would take a slice and pass the remainder down.
I guess to add insult to injury, they would tell the company how much that lump sum started out at. When you hear numbers like "hundreds of millions" you start to dream of what you could do with a few hundred or possibly a thousand dollars. Nothing short of a kick in the crotch to receive $75 and have it taxed.
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I worked with it for 1.5 hours. I felt that was sufficient for my goals regarding this PC. UAC, poor downloading speeds and difficulty with my graphics card/monitor: that was enough frustration.
IF (big if) I see any DX10 game come out that interests me enough to try it, I expect by then Vista and driver issues will have been resolved OR there will be a XP DX10 conversion. Either way the bottom line is Vista is not for me at this time. Maybe later.
Some clarification for you:
- as someone pointed out, my dual monitor issue may have been with the nVidia driver. That's the hardware I chose, and if Vista doesn't support it correctly, then I choose to move away from Vista.
- Just as you cannot explain why XP has slow downloads for you, I cannot explain why Vista was slow for me. The one file I noted, latest nVidia 8800 driver, ~53Mb. In Vista with IE7, it capped out at 444KB/s and took several minutes to download. A little while later in XP with Firefox, it hit 1.73MB/s and downloaded in a few seconds. Exact same NIC, cable, router, fiber connection. Only difference was the OS and browser. I've noticed IE7 in XP is also slower, so I'll leave IE6 on XP now though I don't use it.
- I knew I could turn UAC off somehow, but I was much more interested in getting OS, patches and software loaded than having to deal with it. Granted spending 5-10 minutes to find it and turn it off would have saved me the headache of all those prompts. Yes, they did pop up after every other action that either accessed the internet, tried to install something or tried to access some device or part of the OS. The first few occurrences I expected, but after five or so it was tiresome and repetitious.
- I did indeed get UP TO SP2 within 20 minutes. The first wave of 67 patches all come down at once and install at once with a single reboot at the end. This took less than 2 minutes to download and about 10-12 minutes to install. THEN downloading and installing SP2 took a total of about 20 minutes more (I forgot the download or install times as I was doing other things). One more reboot.
I am neither of the things you claim. I was simply sharing my recent experience in relation to the Vista article.
Specs: Core 2 Duo E6300, 2GB RAM, dual nVidia 8800 GTS 320Mb in SLI config, Seagate 320GB perpendicular storage SATA HD, ASUS P5N32 SLI mobo.
Installation was the best part. It asked a few questions and took off. I came back 30 minutes later to the sign-on screen. It went downhill from there.
I downloaded Vista updates (don't think there were many) which required a reboot. No big deal; reboot is rather quick ( Since I couldn't right click on the desktop to get my display settings, I dug into Control Panel. Looked for Display. Looked for Graphics. Aha, nVidia control panel. Interesting that it installed that. I wanted to extend my desktop to my second monitor. Only the single monitor choice was given. Checked device manager. Both graphics cards detected, but only one monitor. Checked 3D settings. It recognized my PC was SLI capable and recommended enabling it. Sure. "Accept or deny?" Accept. Reboot.
Back into control panel, nVidia panel. Still only one monitor choice even though I see both monitors now listed. I downloaded the 53Mb nVidia driver file. "Accept or deny?" Accept. (Crap, that Mac commercial is 100% true.) I'm on 15Mb fiber. Throughput was only 400KB/s and took this about five minutes. Installed, reboot.
Back into the panels. Still only sees one monitor. THAT'S IT!!! I'm done.
Out comes the XP Pro CD. Wipe the disk. Install.
I downloaded all 67 updates in less than 2 mins. Installed in about 7 mins.
Downloaded nVidia 53Mb driver at 1.7MB/s in less than 30secs. Installed. Reboot.
Right click, properties, settings, extend. Viola! Two 19" LCD monitors working together.
Downloaded Serive Pack 2 in one minute and installed in about 10 minutes.
No mas Vista. Estupido!
IMO you don't have enough experience in any workplace to know what a miserable job really can be. Try working for a company for three years, then being outsourced as if you're a piece of property then shipped around the country away from your family as you're being told "we may have to let you go after this contract."
Stick the year out to fulfill the contract and get what you can out of it.
Keep looking for jobs where you want to live. (a few interviews? That's nothing. Try a few dozen before you feel you're getting nowhere.) Use as many sources for jobs as possible (multiple recruiters, careerbuilder, monster, dice, computerjobs, local job websites) When I've been unemployed I send out about 40 resumes a day and make about 10 phone calls. When I'm employed but unhappy with my work, I send out about 20 resumes a week from job board search agents.
Just keep looking. Broaden your expectations. There are tons of jobs out there; you just have to find them. It's definitely much easier to find a new job while you have one.
I think the product/item/service will sell as long as people can modify their scans: tummy tuck, butt tuck, chest lift, etc.
I'd be happy with pasting my face onto a model in WoW. At least then my guild would know the face behind the paladin.
Since you asked I'll give details:
Gamer Infinity Ultra SLI is the base system.
- Apevia 680W Beast power supply
- Core 2 Duo E6600
- Asus P5N32-SLI Premium motherboard
- 2GB Corsair RAM
- 2x nVidia 8800 GTS 320Mb video cards in SLI config
- no monitors because I have two Viewsonic 19" LCD gaming monitors
- 250Gb HD (even though I'll be replacing it w/ a Seagate perpendicular storage model)
- no optical drives because I already have a DVD-R and CD-RW
- on board sound
- already have speakers
- no OS (I have a current XP license)
I typically buy components from www.zipzoomfly.com and www.newegg.com with the occasional rebate deal on a HD from Frye's to give you an idea of my building resources.
Thing I hated about the C64 disk load times: time. You could make two sandwiches and eat them while watching half a Cosby episode before a game would load. My TI-99 4/A tape drive was faster getting me into Tunnels of Doom.
I've been playing with computers since 1981 and working on them since 1984. I've built numerous systems over the past 10 years. Over the past year I've been configuring a gaming system and waiting until the money situation was right to order/build it.
I was amazed to discover that you can buy a pre-built (w/ three year warranty) for a bit cheaper than building it yourself now. The system I wanted to build (Core 2 Duo E6300, 2Gb RAM, dual 8800 GTS 320Mb in SLI) was going to cost about $2,000 to build. I just ordered it from www.cyberpowerpc.com for $1700.
We'll see if Commodore is blowing smoke, labeling generic PCs or coming out with something revolutionary. I'll take door #1, Monty.
Doesn't that mean he gets more of the company's profits but he doesn't get a regular paycheck?
At first I thought this was just a publicity stunt by EA to show the customer's that they are listening about "sequel-itis." Now I'm thinking it may be more of setting Riccitiello up as a scapegoat in case "Spore" doesn't produce on time, as expected, etc. et al.
Either way looks like Probst definitely isn't hurting nor has he suffered any shame for leading the least imaginative company in the world.
After getting into BC a bit, overwhelming applied to how much new quest, gear and instance content there is.
I'd say I'm a casual gamer even though I play WoW ~25 hours a week. I've played since beta, played every class to some extent, achieved a few level 60's, run all the non-raid instances and half of the raiding ones. I still felt like I had quite a bit more to do and see in the old content. Then BC came out and I feel like I'm starting over again.
I've started new characters to experience the new starting zones, and I have a few of my characters in Outland. My guild is quite divided about the content: hardcore group has muscled ahead and reached 70 planning to lead the guild through raiding, casual group is still reaching 60 and wants to raid the old content.
I haven't purchased any other game since November 2004. I played Ultima Online for 7.5 years. WoW is considerably better than that, so I expect to be playing for a very long time. The review is fairly accurate though I disagree with the author's negative opinions about the old content.
My friends, like you, state that people are basically born "bad" or "evil" and must make a conscious effort to be civil to other people and in general be "good."
My stance is that people are born "good" and they let environment and their own conscious choices influence their actions and turn them "bad."
I'd guess there may have been experiments in this. I've never watched the show, but by descriptions from co-workers I think the "Survivor" show is a good example of these situations. Provided an impetus (prize money), deprived of comfort and forced to struggle to satisfy basic needs (sort of), people react differently. Some will become a leader, make sure everyone is taken care of and in general, exhibit "good" traits for the betterment of the whole tribe. Others will do almost anything to make sure they are the only one that will survive at the expense of everything and everyone else.
My friends often use caveman examples. If one group of cavemen had the basics (water, shelter, warmth, food) and the other lacked any one of those, most likely conflict would ensue because there is a need.
If all of the basics are provided for, then by my hypothesis, everyone can be good because there is no need to be bad. In reality once the basics are provided, people then get greedy and want more again causing conflict.
Some people are satisfied with who they are and what they have; others are never satisfied no matter how much they have.
The former (minority in my opinion) give hope that mankind will transcend and become a successful species that can surmount any obstacle; the latter (the majority) will drag mankind into ruin and ultimately bring about our destruction.
If you do lots of read/writes, in theory you should see better performance from RAID 5; more spindles = more reads (as long as the data is distributed across multiple disks).
I'd suggest something like http://www.intel.com/design/servers/storage/ss4000 -E/index.htm or http://www.enhance-tech.com/products/desktop_array /desktoparray_Index.htm to solve several of your issues depending on how you implement it.
If you set it up as it's own storage/backup server, then you're looking at network speed as your bottleneck. If you install it as a cage within your system (not sure if these models can), you're at least providing RAID 1, 5 or 10 redundancy, but you'll still have other factors (P/S, environment) impacting the drives.
Personally, if I had the money I'd have an iSCSI array like http://www.equallogic.com/products/view.aspx?id=46 :-)
Anyone want to float me $20k.
At a previous company we were very flexible and provided everything we could for users, especially remote users: OWA, VPN, wireless, SSL-VPN, Terminal Server for those legacy apps that no one could do without, etc. et al. We held a pretty secure ship, filtered only what was legally necessary and monitored traffic/e-mail only when requested by HR.
Regardless we still had this Shadow IT. Typically it was the guy who ran his own network and Exchange server at home telling us how we should run things, how he should have two monitors even though no one else had that and that he should be allowed unfiltered internet because it made him more productive.
Then there was the time the top salesman left his laptop at home, connected to our VPN, his son used it and it began attacking our firewall with a SQL slammer worm. One time can be forgiven, but this was the third time in a year that this occurred.
IT was thrown under the bus on these accounts and others.
Mr. Know-it-all got his second screen and caused a chain reaction of others crying for them and costing the company a sizable chunk of change.He also won having the internet opened up for sports and games. IT watched productivity drop as non-business internet usage climbed.
Mr. VPN received a third "warning" in his HR file, but IT had it's hand slapped because we hadn't really educated him on how to use his laptop, the VPN or the update programs. This in spite of us producing a document signed by the guy that stated "I understand IT policy and proper use of issued equipment and the network."
Back and forth this struggle has continued for the past 20+ years I've been in IT. For a few years, we're heroes. We implement technology and methods that allow businesses to grow and profit at the speed of light. We save businesses from going under when disaster strikes because we backed up the data. Then for the next few years we're the villains. We don't implement the latest technology just because the CFO said not to spend any money. We're thrown under the bus because an executive sent an illegal e-mail and IT had the nerve to have it backed up and accessible for the legal system.
The longer I'm in IT, the more I wish I'd have learned a real skill like cooking or carpentry.
This one candidate looked great on paper. He showed up in a nice suit, very polite and kept saying "Oh, yeah, I know all about that," and "Sure, I can do that." After hearing this five times my co-worker and I started digging deeper and asked for more detailed explanations. It soon became clear that he had no clue what he was talking about, what we were talking about or much about Windows or PCs in general. We felt sorry for the guy.
We immediately stopped the interview process and told him flat out he did not have the skills for the position. We then spent 15-20 minutes providing suggestions of websites, honesty on his resume and how he could start at a lower level and learn his way up to desktop support. (Sad but true.)
Now I'd be more guarded. As others have said here, it's dangerous to do anything beyond the legal minimum of communication.
Most of what I've read and seen indicates we're just near a peak of the cyclical process (or a low in the ice age, however you flip your sine wave). What they always seem to discount, though, is that 100,000 years ago when the world warmed up naturally (animal C02), there weren't 6 billion humans around with 2 billion+ (guess) mechanical sources of heat, C02 or fossil fuels. Most reports shrug human factors off as negligible. That fire ant mound of only 100k fire ants in my backyard is negligible, too, until they start multiplying.
What's really odd about this report is how inconsistent my local weather has been. The report shows Texas as recording many record high days. On an average over the year, yes, I guess we were, but this was one of the mildest summers and falls I've ever known in my 30+ years of living here. We had a handful (maybe three) days that hit 100 or higher, as opposed to a few years ago where we had over 100 consecutive days of 100+ temperatures. What's really been off is the lack of rain. Currently we're having an average winter of 50-60 degree days, but again it's not nearly as wet as it usually is.
With the GW what I expect over the next 10-20 years is that Texas will shift to a climate more like Central America (or northern Africa) and our Texas climate will shift to Nebraska and the Dakotas.
It's a definite concern that I feel many governments and the world have neglected for too long. All I can hope is that we'll be able to adapt like our ancient ancestors did to other "natural" disasters. I'm really hoping that I might see off world colonization in my lifetime. Get the people off the planet and let it return to a natural state.
It is (or should be) widely known that Wal-mart saves money and makes people feel like they're saving money by buying and selling seconds from manufacturers. From slightly irregular jeans to half-filled fountain pens, I've witnessed Wal-mart's "savings" first hand.
Pushing the concept behind CFLs and possibly exposing to or causing people to research LED is a good thing.
Selling inferior products of the genre and giving consumers a bad taste in their mouth for the technology as a whole is not so good.
I do, too.
This has the possibility of adding to the legacy and retaining the quality of story and action. Then again, Star Wars episodes 1-3 had huge potential and blew it. I just hope this doesn't end up being a bunch of cliches, dialog that doesn't belong in the 30's & 40's ("Indy, you're so cool.") or overblown digital effects where the more realistic, classical stunts fit much better.
I'm curious if they'll get Sean Connery for more comic relief, too.
As we all know, George lives by another of Harrison's lines: "I don't know. I'm making it up as I go along."
Maybe Spielberg can save it. We'll see.
Will the clones also have all the hormones in them that causes our daughters to start wearing bras at age 8?
What if an original cow eats the meat of a clone cow? Do we get mad clone cow disease?
We'll probably never know the truth until 20 years from now and people start developing clone side effects.
Any game that has this much depth and breadth, that can keep me interested and still discovering new content after this long, that continues to pull in new players after reaching a mind-blowing 7 million subscribers proves that there is a magic formula to a game.
I've heard of many people leaving, but we see them come back within a few months. One of our guildmates bought a Wii when it released. He spent 6-8 hours one Saturday playing some game on it, logged on to WoW that evening and stated that he had finished it. I ventured out and tried a few others myself, especially betas of other MMOs. I keep coming back to WoW because it has everything I want in a game for now.
Just like it took WoW to pull me away from 7.5 years of Ultima Online, it will take something even more earth-shattering to pull me away from WoW. New content every few months, new dungeons, new gear, seasonal events and items and the ability to explore the world anew from a different perspective any time I want. WoW will likely be my game of the year for many years to come.
Is that how often Panasonic says it will need to be replaced, or do you leave the TV on 24x7?
Every DLP set I know of states 3-5 years of "typical" watching. I thought the LCoS projection were the same. April will be 3 years for my Samsung DLP set, so I'll find out soon about replacing the bulb.
The screen is tough. I have two kids who do not abuse the screen, but they touch it and have accidentally poked things (pencils, chopsticks) at it when they weren't paying attention. Screen is still dent and scratch free. I just wipe it down with a computer/laptop screen cleaner now and again to remove the fingerprints. :-)
What plasma screen have you seen that is tough? Every plasma I've seen reacts just like an LCD - you push on it, the screen gives and the gas gets distorted.
Upside of each technology:
- CRT projection: (drawing a blank here for what's good about CRT projection)
- Plasma: fluid picture, closest to CRT smoothness.
- LCD: sharp, bright picture.
- DLP: sharp, bright picture. Only one part needs maintenance (bulb). Lowest cost of all technologies. Largest screen sizes available. Wider viewing angle than LCD or plasma. Low power consumption. Lightweight (my wife moved ours out of the van by herself when we bought it).
- LCD projection (LCoS): quality of LCD with size and reliability of projection. Sony (perhaps others) use three LCDs, one for each color light, to prevent "rainbow effect."
- HD-ILA: triple DLP chips removes "rainbow effect" of single DLP (see below). Otherwise same benefits as DLP. (This is a new technology that to my knowledge only JVC has this at this time.)
Downside of each technology:
- CRT projection: heavy and bulky. Requires regular adjustment and annual maintenance by a professional. Smaller viewing angle than any other technology. Dim picture needs dark room.
- Plasma: fades over time (usually 3 years or less) starting with upper (violet) end of the spectrum and requires recharging which costs nearly as much as a new one. Picture burn in. Most expensive. Black levels are gray on most models, and everyone I've seen appears to have a reduced spectrum of color (washed out look).
- LCD: pixel death (much less prevalent now but still a factor). Cost. Screen size limit (40" largest). Pixelization on fast moving pictures (racing, action movie).
- DLP: warm-up time like regular projector (20-30 seconds). Cost of replacement bulb ($300-500). Smallest screen size available is 42". Some viewers experience "rainbow effect" when looking at picture, blinking and looking away (basically you see the separate light channels - I've experienced this once in 3 years and have never been able to repeat it.) Not as thin as Plasma or LCD (18" usually) so not wall-mountable.
- LCD projection: pixel death still a possibility. These may need regular adjustment or maintenance like older CRT projection TVs.
- HD-ILA: same drawbacks as DLP minus the "rainbow effect."
Keep researching to find what fits your needs. If you're only considering LCD or plasma, LCD all the way. I'd rely on home theater or HD forums more than /.
I seriously doubt I'll replace my current DLP for years, but whenever we look to replace our second TV, I'll be looking at the HD-ILA.
I loved the K-mart theme because you were looking for the blue light special and had to fight cafeteria ladies and mall zombies. Dr. Who was always a favorite.
I know there were several other themes, but I'll have to dig it out to check.
I'm very fortunate that I have two working TI-99/4As. I brought it out a year ago and gave my daughters a brief distraction with the A-maze-ing game and speech synthesis. This article is making me want to pull them back down. I also have all of the Scott Adams' adventures. Those I've found an emulator/remake for, but I didn't have much luck with the MESS or other emulators for ToD.
Ultima III definitely came with a cloth map; a friend had it, didn't want it any longer and gave it to me.
I do not know if Ultima I or II came with a cloth map or trinket. I only have the cardboard remake maps of those two.
The original Ultima Online, Collector (Dragon) edition included a cloth map and a medallion.
All of the Infocom games came with some trinket related to the game.
Nowadays, getting a cloth map is a collector's edition.
Basically a large sum of money would start at the top. Each president, VP, manager, superviser, etc. would take a slice and pass the remainder down.
I guess to add insult to injury, they would tell the company how much that lump sum started out at. When you hear numbers like "hundreds of millions" you start to dream of what you could do with a few hundred or possibly a thousand dollars. Nothing short of a kick in the crotch to receive $75 and have it taxed.