morphine takes away the fear of death as much if not more than pain. i wonder if i was given the opportunity to take morphine just for the hell of it would i be able to turn it down or would i risk the chance of addiction and if i did take that chance would i continue up and beyond the point of addiction.
yes it is that good or bad, but certainly a good way to die, without fear or apprehension.
Your Linux box can be any one of a number of disk images / (including assorted versions of windows) and can run under a few virtual environments, Virtualbox being one. Drivers are not an issue with emulated hardware.
You might even find it interesting or challenging and if you can live without there being a high score you might well find it the best value game you ever played. you can even save your game at any point.
It probably will not too long before you will be getting to grips with windows 8 and having some experience of different ways of doing things will ease the transition.
The problem is fuel prices are increasingly expensive and accounting for a greater and greater percentage of our income, I don't need to see people starving in Africa to know my quality of life is being eroded by increasing fuel costs and i don't need a crystal ball to tell that it is going to become increasingly expensive to keep warm in winter and so it pays me too make better use of what's available to me.
I used to use a desktop pc then a laptop and now 99% of what i do can be done on a 12 watt netbook or even an arm based tablet. I have a simple nas which is equally miserly. I used to use bulbs which used to be 100 or 60 watt and now can be as little as 3 - 10 watts.
I use washpowders which can clean at lower temperatures and fridge freezers which sip electricity compared to older fridge freezers.
Luckily even the electricity I do use is generated by hydro-electric. these choices doesn't really reduce my bills but it does stop them rising at such an alarming rate. and while yes i am being a bit greener and lowering my carbon footprint it is with completely selfish intentions.
Now for a company to adopt more energy conscious strategies it reduces overheads which lead to better returns and more competitive products. Fact is you can do more with less. Automation of production facilities reduces the number of bodies needed for that process thus making places with relatively high wages competitive with places with low wages and inferior production facilities. even with comparable production facilities one of the biggest costs is transportation and one of the hardest to reduce. Surely it is cheaper to ship shorter distances.
Truth is energy was very cheap and now the price is rising it is going to reshape the way we do things everywhere.
You don't need to be a believer in climate change to find incentives to modernise and reduce production costs. It is just a happy coincidence that being more energy efficient and using alternatives to fossil fuels reduces carbon emissions, what is not to like.
I'm probably halfway between Washington and Moscow and there are pirated goods in every country in between. There is no utopia where piracy doesn't occur.
I sincerely doubt there is a city on earth where you cannot obtain your drug of choice , tax free alcohol pirated games and movies and a woman willing to fuck you for an appropriate sum.
The risks and penalties may vary but everything is available if you look for it and it is going to get easier as more and more people are looking for ways to make a buck and save a buck.
Our world economies are a house of cards and they are starting to fall.
I wasn't losing my hair at 17 but I am now so rather than prolong the agony I just shave it every day or so.
Hair is all about vanity and insecurity. You want to look attractive but to be honest confidence is more attractive than any hair style. So grasp the nettle shave off all or most of it and get on with living your life. The sooner you do it the sooner your skin tone will even out and you know women love a confident self assured man.
The guy worried about his hair loss isn't that man. For women hair loss is probably harder to handle and pretty common but again do it bald women have character and attitude both sexy attributes.
There is nothing wrong with standing out from the crowd in fact it is an asset.
There is no cure for baldness just ways of looking a little less bald even hair transplants don't work they look like somebody who has had a hair transplant.
so feck it go get the razor and get on with your life.
it's got a lot less inside a slower 600 mhz cpu compared with a 1000mhz cpu no gps no bluetooth no camera. 2.1 not 2.3 the lenovo has far more bang for the buck and hopefully as an European the $199 version will be available here.
Amazons yet to be released color ereader is already going to struggle to compete with this.
Actually I have friends who have first languages other than English who will post in whichever language they feel like posting in. I don't really have friends who can't post in English but I do have friends who will post in languages other than English.
I'm happy enough to be able to translate for myself when i feel like it and occasionally reply in languages other than in English. Firefox has a few plugins for translation and google translate is quite able, even coping with spelling mistakes and letter substitution.
Facebooks translation might be better for facebook but it is a problem already solved for facebook users who use more than just English.
unfortunately? there is no bluetooth on the archos 7 (i have a usb dongle somewhere so it might possibly work. There is a fairly nice case for the apad on ebay with a usb keyboard (8 - 15 euro's depending on location) the width is fine but the archos is narrower than the apad, but i guess there are ways to make use of that.
you make it sound like 92 Elements is restrictive, it isn't. The science of materials does not rely on one element but of a number of elements in combination to achieve the desired properties and it is not just the combination of elements and the proportions but the treatment of these alloys that determine the properties they have.
Once you have the material designed it then takes an engineer to produce a design for a structure that utilises the properties of the materials available.
Sure we don't have unobtanium, atoms are bonded together and there is no unbreakable bond given a big enough hammer and sometimes you get desirable properties in combination with very undesirable ones.
Just look at what has been achieved already with those few elements and what has been built with them. both in nature and designed by man. Our tools for designing are getting better and faster allowing us to proceed much faster with selecting materials and designs and refining designs with simulations to enable weaknesses to be found and designs modified and discarded. As a species we are barely out of the stone age compared to where we may be in a 100, 200 years. Even 20 years should show some considerable advances.
Our design tools and manufacturing processes are so much more advanced than when man first stepped on the moon. It's also a lot cheaper now to produce workable designs which is why private companies can now produce working space craft and launch platforms.
There are 6 billion of us on the planet each with the potential to increase our knowledge as a species and make it available to the rest of us to google. Yes there are limits to what is physically possible but what we think those limits are has to be rethought on a regular basis these days.
sounds like a more expensive version of an archos 7, I have a version 2 archos with android 2.1 running the kindle app.
It did have a problem with drm when i bought a book from amazon it downloaded but it said to delete it and download it again, which happened repeatedly.
In the end i got a kindle pc version running in wine and used deswindle in wine (had to install python for windows too) to remove the drm from the book and side load it to my archos 7.
my archos 7 cost around 120 euro's from car phone warehouse and the android version is reasonable with most apps working. Yes the archos 7 has a resistive touch screen. (there is an archos7c which has capacitive touch) but it works fine.
It also has wifi can be tethered via barnacle and has usb host mode which enables mass storage and hid devices. It is a bit lacking in the sensor department just having a g sensor but do you really need more?
As an ereader, my archos 7 performs adequately the battery life is maybe 7 hours or so but can do better if wifi is turned off. bright sunlight makes it near impossible to read some angles are better than others but its still difficult.
The nice thing about the archos and pretty much any android device really is that it works with my existing infrastructure. Printing works with google cloudprint which is bundled within chrome browser (even in ubuntu) so i could get my printers (connected to an iomega iconnect) to enable printing from android. There are a lot of printing apps but non seem to work with my printer setup other than cloud print.
There is even an app for my satellite box, (enigma 1) dreambox clone.
So far Amazon's new ereader seems to have little to recommend it. However perhaps being dedicated to being an ereader the user experience will be polished, mythbusters proved it is possible.
There always has been a market for tablets only they used to be called pda's or pocket pc's
Smart phones have pretty much replaced the older style pda, with tablets catering for those who need a bigger screen.
I think 10" screens are a little too big to be easily portable, a 7 inch screen size is still pocketable for many people especially good for men in white coats who have a suitable sized pocket. The 7inch screen is big enough for reading slashdot where the phone screen is awful.
I'm fairly happy with my low end archos 7 with android 2.1 (120 euro) I can carry it round with me in a pocket, i can use my android phone as an access point. (my mobile phone service provides me with unlimited data and the modem is 7.2 meg.
I would like a few (maybe even 1) physical buttons for caret browsing (not needed if i attach a keyboard)
Printing is annoying mainly since it uses the cups drivers but seems to be provided by paid apps which are using gpl drivers. however both hp and samsung have free apps for printing. Printing should be core functionality even if its main use would be printing photo's or email attachments.
There are a couple of little niggles which could be sorted fairly easily such as gps The Gps location information could be served via a phone with a gps unit and with my tablet as a client it would make a great sat nav.
my satellite box records and streams to vlc it would be nice to be able to tap that on my archos 7 at the moment i can login to the satellite box and change channels and record but need a pc to watch remotely.
my biggest gripe is finding a keyboard which is small enough to be pocket-able and usable. A full size usb keyboard works but is not really portable enough.
Some tablets have hdmi out which could be used for a larger screen when required. Although i would be happy for a usb screen dongle (which currently are not supported and too expensive).
Tablets are an interesting niche, they are great for consuming but weak on creating content. They can be more than they are and perhaps the ipad is better than android at providing a ready built environment.
however there is a lot that can be done with tablets and a lot more which will be done with tablets
what i wanted to do was use the powerline networking to get from the bar where the main router was into an outside building easily within 40 meters of the bar. however the power for the new building although originating from the old was a different circuit and nothing was detected. for a single fused circuit it works as soon as i was trying to make the jump between one run of cable to another it was a no go even when the distance was a few feet. For English or Irish circuits sockets tend to be on a ground floor circuit an upstairs circuit and kitchen on its own circuit. This will tend to mean linking via a down stairs socket to an upstairs one will not work.
perhaps there is an issue with ring mains, (signal would be moving in 2 directions perhaps). I've known a few people try these mains networking systems and it has always been a failure.
on more hub orientated circuits perhaps there is less interference.
devolo dLAN units were used in my case and returned due to the inability to do the job required, the salesman who sold me the units assuring me they would work was re educated by his manager...
i am kind of reminded of a friend of mine who taught special needs children, who he also took for swimming lessons. He made a point of making sure his hands were visible and that he was never alone with any of the children. As you can imagine this was to protect him from the children rather than the other way around.
Now it seems to me that any interaction between a teacher and student on facebook is relatively public and observable. It is certainly more public than many other places where students and teachers might interact.
I can see there are good points and bad points to social networking between students and teachers, the lack of filtering on facebook means too much might be shared, on the other hand google+ might allow a more filtered view of peoples lives and relationships. Having a forum for particular area's is useful. First class is a forum based system which allows students and teachers at the open university interact and is useful without giving too much away.
I think personally I'd be an idiot if i was to let members of my work/school life have access to my facebook account. Google + some circles would be ok to share, while leaving my personal life personal.
good grief no , there is a slight issue that mains wiring has to be on the same circuit to work and even then at a moderate distance (20 meters or so ) the speed will be the equivalent of an acoustically coupled modem connected to two tin cans and a piece of soggy string.
The advertised distances are a complete joke.
chances are you will need to run some cables and with the distances some of these probably need to be fibre to make it work in any reasonable manner.
Gps to get around your own town , it depends a lot on the town, when it is a grid system like many american cities it is fairly easy (milton keynes in the uk is an exception , it has near identical roads and junctions which make it pretty difficult to identify where you are, no landmarks as such) but i doubt there are many people who know every area of their town or city if it is of any size.
Sure most people should know their local area, the city centre and some of the nearest shopping centres and the main routes between different areas but total familiarity i doubt it. going to a new location you should be able to ignore the gps until you are in the approximate area, I figured most people do that.
London is a funny one because of the underground you may be familiar with many area's and not have much of a clue how to use the roads to get between tube stops.
Social media sites such as facebook have also been used to warn friends where trouble is occurring. There is also a strong possibility to identify posters and prosecute them being as they will be leaving their digital fingerprints so to speak all over the social media sites.
it's a stupid idea to shut down the social media sites it would inconvenience millions while not really hindering anybody from posting somewhere, maybe even slashdot.
you might as well shut down the telephone systems while your about it. Give the government this power and you can be sure it will be abused. It has been done time and time again. If you want to avoid people revolting then they need a stake in society, a job and some form of meaningful existence.
If you have no chance of getting a job in the next couple of years anyway it really makes little difference if you are on the street or locked up. There is a good chance that you already have a record or live in a dodgy area already.
Your employment prospects are already bleak when there are upstanding citizens applying for the same jobs you are. The conservatives have a track record of dumping on the poor and disadvantaged in society. It will get worse in the UK over the coming years its practically a cast iron certainty.
Maybe social media sites will help ordinary people organise and get a general election called early. When millions descend on London calling for the government to be dissolved the liberals are certain to withdraw support for the conservative government and david cameron knows this. Gagging the social media sites is about the only way he can stop organised protests gathering momentum. There are already laws in place to stop people gathering together physically is it any wonder he wants to avoid it happening online as well. If it can happen in Egypt it can happen in the UK too.
Ireland already punished its former government at the ballot box and it will not be long before the british will want to do the same.
are you really sure you need 180 watts for a file print server? I have an iomega connect which currently retails at 50 euro it runs linux has 4 built in usb ports as well as ethernet and wifi. ssh access is easy if you need it. I have 2 printers a black/white laser (samsung) and a hp multifunction inkjet for colour , it has a scanner/copier built in which i use occasionally and there is a cheap 2 tb hdd holding most of my files (on ext3) it even runs bittorrent.
I have a few desktop systems i can't remember the last time I turned them on. In fact the only real reason to turn them on is to transfer the data to the iconnect.
Still got a htc universal and it was good at a few things , java in particular wasn't one of them, The 640x480 screen the auto rotation, mine doesn't have built in gps although some did. There have been a couple of versions of linux running on it to a greater or lesser extent the slide to unlock you see on most android phones is one of them.
my old toshiba E740 is still fairly respectable as a pda built in bluetooth and usb (wifi was optional but i have a cf wifi card). the optional dock a clip on expansion port brings a vga port to the base of the pda and a standard usb port 320 by 240 screen running the old 2003 version of windows mobile , no camera off course although if the linux port had been completed you could probably run a standard web cam.
The hardware on these devices was pretty good even if the microsoft operating systems did leave a lot to be desired.
Specifications have improved faster wifi higher performing processors and more ram and better operating systems. Even my old E740 is not that far removed from the ipad or itouch or iphone. If drivers were written you could probably use a 3g modem stick with the E740 and use it for voice and maybe video calls.
It is all evolutionary not revolutionary, If toshiba wanted to upgrade the E740 to a larger screen more ram faster cpu and a decent operating system you'd probably finish up with something like the galaxy tab or the ipad.
Tablets are not new and build upon the work done by other companies, Apple shouldn't be able to use the legal system to delay competitors devices. This court injunction is not justified.
I used to have a 3g modem on contract with 3 mobile (known as hutchinson telecom in other parts of the world) till they screwed me over for going over my plan. however the prepay is excellent value for money i now use my sim in a samsung galaxy europa (2.1 android cost â90 for the phone)which has a 7.2 megabyte modem built in I pay â20 a month and use â4.99 of that to buy 500 mb of data. They also give me free skype for 30 days 3000 texts to use any time and 3000 minutes of calls for the weekends.
If I had any need for more data i can switch the sim card to the 3G modem if I really want but to be honest I don't need too. I tend to use barnacle if I want to use my archos7 (2.1 android based and â119.99 at carphone warehouse) or my AspireOne netbook running ubuntu.
The phone although small is quite capable yesterday with the free winamp app i was streaming shoutcast stations and playing them on my car radio via bluetooth (128k streams suffer from drop out in the country when travelling at 60 mph / 100 kmh lower bit rate stations are fine). I also use the free google navigation from time to time which can direct me to the nearest fast food joint (handy when you need to take a leak after driving the last 2 hours getting to an unfamiliar city).
Oh and 2 days ago i got a text message from the network provided i top up by â20 a month they are now going to give me unlimited data and free calls to other users on their network.
This is in Ireland but they do similar things in other countries. My uncle in Galway flew to Australia and had the rather pleasant experience of being able to use Australia's 3 network at Irish prices (a scheme called like home which unfortunately has ended).
Maybe the problem is in the contracts people sign? I personally wouldn't sign a contract with a mobile phone company again, even with 3 who obviously I like. They did sting me for an extra â100 for going over my data plan on contract which more than wiped out the cost saving over a prepay modem
I have heard of worse cases one woman it was â300 for out of plan data not something she could easily afford compared to the â20 a month she usually paid.
I am pretty sure I have the best deal in ireland but there are o2 vodaphone eirecom meteor and others. I can take my number with me across networks and have my phone unlocked legally by my carrier. By being prepay my carrier has to look after me or i walk simple as that. If you want to be treated as a valued customer then perhaps you should end your contract when it finishes and go to prepay being tied to a contract really does make you your providers bitch.
(prices are in euro's but are close enough to be american dollar prices unfortunately slashdot chews up the euro symbol)
When you see huge numbers of police acting in complete disregard of the law and beating the crap out of people it becomes a bit of a leap to accept it isn't the majority that acts this way.
Yes I accept that 99% of the time police officers do act quite reasonably but that doesn't make them the good guys either.
suppose you have a hotel next door to a blockbuster or near by and the hotel provides dvd players in its rooms a customer asks the night manager if they can nip next door and get a dvd of a particular movie , the night manager fetches the dvd from the blockbuster next door and gives the dvd to the customer in his room. Later the dvd is returned to the night manager who takes it back to blockbuster.
Or perhaps a person staying at the hotel gets a taxi driver to go to bockbuster to rent a dvd? would it make a difference if the rental was made on the hotel guests blockbuster account?
Is blockbuster prohibited from renting out a copy of a film if its returned early ? I don't think so. I have no difficulty with dvd's made for rental , costing more than dvd's made for sale to private individuals it's a different set of rights although it might be reasonable to buy and sell 2nd hand dvd's thats not illegal either, is it?
Maybe it is illegal to have a shop or store selling 2nd hand goods... who knew
your friends already know you, besides the way it works with a site like facebook is once you hook up with one friend they pretty much hook you up with everyone else.
Taking slashdot for an example there are a number of celebrities who read and post on here, do they really want to be generally known by their actual name.
Actually that's part of the fun, figuring out if someone really knows what they are talking about or just bullshitting to a convincing level.
Extracting info from the document or convert from a Word file to a PDF file + translation service Itâ(TM)s easy to convert the document from a Word file to a PDF file or any other format providing you have the Microsoft Word/Office software (preferably Word 2007 or newer). If you do not have this software you can either download the free âoeWord Viewerâ which allows you to view, print and copy Word documents, even if you donâ(TM)t have Word installed. Just do a search for the key word âoeWord Viewerâ at the following site:
Clearly it's not his use of video games which make him a whack job but his excessive use of windows and proprietary software.
There is a hybrid version which also has traffic lights which ensures you get on at peak times, but round abouts generally are pretty simple.
If cars are entering from the street next to yours you give way and wait but this also means that the next street can enter the roundabout which makes the street next to yours stop and gives you a space to enter the round about. Sometimes it takes longer but on the whole it doesn't and if you time your approach right you will not even need to pause before entering.
junctions on the other hand can be very inefficient, with the worst case where cars enter a junction when their exit is blocked leading to a blocked junction where nobody can move. This effect tends to snowball with drivers becoming increasingly selfish and making the problem worse.
This is usually a result of bad road design in one case that springs to mind is a crossroads where one exiting road has a set of lights about 6 car lengths from the main junction which tends to lead to the exit being choked most of the time.
The situation there could be alleviated by a mini roundabout which would allow traffic to leave the junction as and when.
Slashdot Mirror
morphine takes away the fear of death as much if not more than pain. i wonder if i was given the opportunity to take morphine just for the hell of it would i be able to turn it down or would i risk the chance of addiction and if i did take that chance would i continue up and beyond the point of addiction.
yes it is that good or bad, but certainly a good way to die, without fear or apprehension.
Your Linux box can be any one of a number of disk images / (including assorted versions of windows) and can run under a few virtual environments, Virtualbox being one. Drivers are not an issue with emulated hardware.
You might even find it interesting or challenging and if you can live without there being a high score you might well find it the best value game you ever played. you can even save your game at any point.
It probably will not too long before you will be getting to grips with windows 8 and having some experience of different ways of doing things will ease the transition.
The problem is fuel prices are increasingly expensive and accounting for a greater and greater percentage of our income, I don't need to see people starving in Africa to know my quality of life is being eroded by increasing fuel costs and i don't need a crystal ball to tell that it is going to become increasingly expensive to keep warm in winter and so it pays me too make better use of what's available to me.
I used to use a desktop pc then a laptop and now 99% of what i do can be done on a 12 watt netbook
or even an arm based tablet. I have a simple nas which is equally miserly. I used to use bulbs which used to be 100 or 60 watt and now can be as little as 3 - 10 watts.
I use washpowders which can clean at lower temperatures and fridge freezers which sip electricity compared to older fridge freezers.
Luckily even the electricity I do use is generated by hydro-electric.
these choices doesn't really reduce my bills but it does stop them rising at such an alarming rate.
and while yes i am being a bit greener and lowering my carbon footprint it is with completely selfish intentions.
Now for a company to adopt more energy conscious strategies it reduces overheads which lead to better returns and more competitive products. Fact is you can do more with less. Automation of production facilities reduces the number of bodies needed for that process thus making places with relatively high wages competitive with places with low wages and inferior production facilities.
even with comparable production facilities one of the biggest costs is transportation and one of the hardest to reduce. Surely it is cheaper to ship shorter distances.
Truth is energy was very cheap and now the price is rising it is going to reshape the way we do things everywhere.
You don't need to be a believer in climate change to find incentives to modernise and reduce production costs. It is just a happy coincidence that being more energy efficient and using alternatives to fossil fuels reduces carbon emissions, what is not to like.
I'm probably halfway between Washington and Moscow and there are pirated goods in every country in between. There is no utopia where piracy doesn't occur.
I sincerely doubt there is a city on earth where you cannot obtain your drug of choice , tax free alcohol pirated games and movies and a woman willing to fuck you for an appropriate sum.
The risks and penalties may vary but everything is available if you look for it and it is going to get easier as more and more people are looking for ways to make a buck and save a buck.
Our world economies are a house of cards and they are starting to fall.
I wasn't losing my hair at 17 but I am now so rather than prolong the agony I just shave it every day or so.
Hair is all about vanity and insecurity. You want to look attractive but to be honest confidence is more attractive than any hair style. So grasp the nettle shave off all or most of it and get on with living your life. The sooner you do it the sooner your skin tone will even out and you know women love a confident self assured man.
The guy worried about his hair loss isn't that man.
For women hair loss is probably harder to handle and pretty common but again do it bald women have character and attitude both sexy attributes.
There is nothing wrong with standing out from the crowd in fact it is an asset.
There is no cure for baldness just ways of looking a little less bald even hair transplants don't work they look like somebody who has had a hair transplant.
so feck it go get the razor and get on with your life.
it's got a lot less inside a slower 600 mhz cpu compared with a 1000mhz cpu no gps no bluetooth no camera. 2.1 not 2.3 the lenovo has far more bang for the buck and hopefully as an European the $199 version will be available here.
Amazons yet to be released color ereader is already going to struggle to compete with this.
Actually I have friends who have first languages other than English who will post in whichever language they feel like posting in. I don't really have friends who can't post in English but I do have friends who will post in languages other than English.
I'm happy enough to be able to translate for myself when i feel like it and occasionally reply in languages other than in English. Firefox has a few plugins for translation and google translate is quite able, even coping with spelling mistakes and letter substitution.
Facebooks translation might be better for facebook but it is a problem already solved for facebook users who use more than just English.
unfortunately? there is no bluetooth on the archos 7 (i have a usb dongle somewhere so it might possibly work. There is a fairly nice case for the apad on ebay with a usb keyboard (8 - 15 euro's depending on location) the width is fine but the archos is narrower than the apad, but i guess there are ways to make use of that.
you make it sound like 92 Elements is restrictive, it isn't. The science of materials does not rely on one element but of a number of elements in combination to achieve the desired properties and it is not just the combination of elements and the proportions but the treatment of these alloys that determine the properties they have.
Once you have the material designed it then takes an engineer to produce a design for a structure that utilises the properties of the materials available.
Sure we don't have unobtanium, atoms are bonded together and there is no unbreakable bond given a big enough hammer and sometimes you get desirable properties in combination with very undesirable ones.
Just look at what has been achieved already with those few elements and what has been built with them. both in nature and designed by man. Our tools for designing are getting better and faster allowing us to proceed much faster with selecting materials and designs and refining designs with simulations to enable weaknesses to be found and designs modified and discarded. As a species we are barely out of the stone age compared to where we may be in a 100, 200 years. Even 20 years should show some considerable advances.
Our design tools and manufacturing processes are so much more advanced than when man first stepped on the moon. It's also a lot cheaper now to produce workable designs which is why private companies can now produce working space craft and launch platforms.
There are 6 billion of us on the planet each with the potential to increase our knowledge as a species and make it available to the rest of us to google. Yes there are limits to what is physically possible but what we think those limits are has to be rethought on a regular basis these days.
sounds like a more expensive version of an archos 7, I have a version 2 archos with android 2.1 running the kindle app.
It did have a problem with drm when i bought a book from amazon it downloaded but it said to delete it and download it again, which happened repeatedly.
In the end i got a kindle pc version running in wine and used deswindle in wine (had to install python for windows too) to remove the drm from the book and side load it to my archos 7.
my archos 7 cost around 120 euro's from car phone warehouse and the android version is reasonable with most apps working. Yes the archos 7 has a resistive touch screen. (there is an archos7c which has capacitive touch) but it works fine.
It also has wifi can be tethered via barnacle and has usb host mode which enables mass storage and hid devices. It is a bit lacking in the sensor department just having a g sensor but do you really need more?
As an ereader, my archos 7 performs adequately the battery life is maybe 7 hours or so but can do better if wifi is turned off. bright sunlight makes it near impossible to read some angles are better than others but its still difficult.
The nice thing about the archos and pretty much any android device really is that it works with my existing infrastructure. Printing works with google cloudprint which is bundled within chrome browser (even in ubuntu) so i could get my printers (connected to an iomega iconnect) to enable printing from android. There are a lot of printing apps but non seem to work with my printer setup other than cloud print.
There is even an app for my satellite box, (enigma 1) dreambox clone.
So far Amazon's new ereader seems to have little to recommend it. However perhaps being dedicated to being an ereader the user experience will be polished, mythbusters proved it is possible.
There always has been a market for tablets only they used to be called pda's or pocket pc's
Smart phones have pretty much replaced the older style pda, with tablets catering for those who need a bigger screen.
I think 10" screens are a little too big to be easily portable, a 7 inch screen size is still pocketable for many people especially good for men in white coats who have a suitable sized pocket. The 7inch screen is big enough for reading slashdot where the phone screen is awful.
I'm fairly happy with my low end archos 7 with android 2.1 (120 euro)
I can carry it round with me in a pocket, i can use my android phone as an access point. (my mobile phone service provides me with unlimited data and the modem is 7.2 meg.
I would like a few (maybe even 1) physical buttons for caret browsing (not needed if i attach a keyboard)
Printing is annoying mainly since it uses the cups drivers but seems to be provided by paid apps which
are using gpl drivers. however both hp and samsung have free apps for printing.
Printing should be core functionality even if its main use would be printing photo's or email attachments.
There are a couple of little niggles which could be sorted fairly easily such as gps The Gps location information could be served via a phone with a gps unit and with my tablet as a client it would make a great sat nav.
my satellite box records and streams to vlc it would be nice to be able to tap that on my archos 7 at the moment i can login to the satellite box and change channels and record but need a pc to watch remotely.
my biggest gripe is finding a keyboard which is small enough to be pocket-able and usable. A full size usb keyboard works but is not really portable enough.
Some tablets have hdmi out which could be used for a larger screen when required. Although i would be happy for a usb screen dongle (which currently are not supported and too expensive).
Tablets are an interesting niche, they are great for consuming but weak on creating content. They can be more than they are and perhaps the ipad is better than android at providing a ready built environment.
however there is a lot that can be done with tablets and a lot more which will be done with tablets
what i wanted to do was use the powerline networking to get from the bar where the main router was into an outside building easily within 40 meters of the bar. however the power for the new building although originating from the old was a different circuit and nothing was detected. for a single fused circuit it works as soon as i was trying to make the jump between one run of cable to another it was a no go even when the distance was a few feet. For English or Irish circuits sockets tend to be on a ground floor circuit an upstairs circuit and kitchen on its own circuit. This will tend to mean linking via a down stairs socket to an upstairs one will not work.
perhaps there is an issue with ring mains, (signal would be moving in 2 directions perhaps).
I've known a few people try these mains networking systems and it has always been a failure.
on more hub orientated circuits perhaps there is less interference.
devolo dLAN units were used in my case and returned due to the inability to do the job required, the salesman who sold me the units assuring me they would work was re educated by his manager ...
i am kind of reminded of a friend of mine who taught special needs children, who he also took for swimming lessons. He made a point of making sure his hands were visible and that he was never alone with any of the children. As you can imagine this was to protect him from the children rather than the other way around.
Now it seems to me that any interaction between a teacher and student on facebook is relatively public and observable. It is certainly more public than many other places where students and teachers might interact.
I can see there are good points and bad points to social networking between students and teachers, the lack of filtering on facebook means too much might be shared, on the other hand google+ might allow a more filtered view of peoples lives and relationships. Having a forum for particular area's is useful. First class is a forum based system which allows students and teachers at the open university interact and is useful without giving too much away.
I think personally I'd be an idiot if i was to let members of my work/school life have access to my facebook account. Google + some circles would be ok to share, while leaving my personal life personal.
good grief no , there is a slight issue that mains wiring has to be on the same circuit to work and even then at a moderate distance (20 meters or so ) the speed will be the equivalent of an acoustically coupled modem connected to two tin cans and a piece of soggy string.
The advertised distances are a complete joke.
chances are you will need to run some cables and with the distances some of these probably need to be fibre
to make it work in any reasonable manner.
Calibre seems pretty good at format shifting pdf to epub which is a lot less of a strain for an ereader , android device to cope with.
I haven't tried calibre on complicated pdfs but so far it has handled everything i have given it.
Gps to get around your own town , it depends a lot on the town, when it is a grid system like many american cities it is fairly easy (milton keynes in the uk is an exception , it has near identical roads and junctions which make it pretty difficult to identify where you are, no landmarks as such) but i doubt there are many people who know every area of their town or city if it is of any size.
Sure most people should know their local area, the city centre and some of the nearest shopping centres and the main routes between different areas but total familiarity i doubt it. going to a new location you should be able to ignore the gps until you are in the approximate area, I figured most people do that.
London is a funny one because of the underground you may be familiar with many area's and not have much of a clue how to use the roads to get between tube stops.
Social media sites such as facebook have also been used to warn friends where trouble is occurring. There is also a strong possibility to identify posters and prosecute them being as they will be leaving their digital fingerprints so to speak all over the social media sites.
it's a stupid idea to shut down the social media sites it would inconvenience millions while not really hindering anybody from posting somewhere, maybe even slashdot.
you might as well shut down the telephone systems while your about it. Give the government this power and you can be sure it will be abused. It has been done time and time again. If you want to avoid people revolting then they need a stake in society, a job and some form of meaningful existence.
If you have no chance of getting a job in the next couple of years anyway it really makes little difference if you are on the street or locked up. There is a good chance that you already have a record or live in a dodgy area already.
Your employment prospects are already bleak when there are upstanding citizens applying for the same jobs you are. The conservatives have a track record of dumping on the poor and disadvantaged in society.
It will get worse in the UK over the coming years its practically a cast iron certainty.
Maybe social media sites will help ordinary people organise and get a general election called early. When millions descend on London calling for the government to be dissolved the liberals are certain to withdraw support for the conservative government and david cameron knows this. Gagging the social media sites is about the only way he can stop organised protests gathering momentum.
There are already laws in place to stop people gathering together physically is it any wonder he wants to avoid it happening online as well. If it can happen in Egypt it can happen in the UK too.
Ireland already punished its former government at the ballot box and it will not be long before the british will want to do the same.
are you really sure you need 180 watts for a file print server?
I have an iomega connect which currently retails at 50 euro it runs linux has 4 built in usb ports as well as ethernet and wifi. ssh access is easy if you need it. I have 2 printers a black/white laser (samsung) and a hp multifunction inkjet for colour , it has a scanner/copier built in which i use occasionally and there is a cheap 2 tb hdd holding most of my files (on ext3) it even runs bittorrent.
I have a few desktop systems i can't remember the last time I turned them on. In fact the only real reason to turn them on is to transfer the data to the iconnect.
Still got a htc universal and it was good at a few things , java in particular wasn't one of them, The 640x480 screen the auto rotation, mine doesn't have built in gps although some did. There have been a couple of versions of linux running on it to a greater or lesser extent the slide to unlock you see on most android phones is one of them.
my old toshiba E740 is still fairly respectable as a pda built in bluetooth and usb (wifi was optional but i have a cf wifi card). the optional dock a clip on expansion port brings a vga port to the base of the pda and a standard usb port 320 by 240 screen running the old 2003 version of windows mobile , no camera off course although if the linux port had been completed you could probably run a standard web cam.
The hardware on these devices was pretty good even if the microsoft operating systems did leave a lot to be desired.
Specifications have improved faster wifi higher performing processors and more ram and better operating systems. Even my old E740 is not that far removed from the ipad or itouch or iphone. If drivers were written you could probably use a 3g modem stick with the E740 and use it for voice and maybe video calls.
It is all evolutionary not revolutionary, If toshiba wanted to upgrade the E740 to a larger screen more ram faster cpu and a decent operating system you'd probably finish up with something like the galaxy tab or the ipad.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,361530,00.asp checkout this review from 2002
Tablets are not new and build upon the work done by other companies, Apple shouldn't be able to use the legal system to delay competitors devices. This court injunction is not justified.
this is insane.
I used to have a 3g modem on contract with 3 mobile (known as hutchinson telecom in other parts of the world)
till they screwed me over for going over my plan. however the prepay is excellent value for money i now use my sim in a samsung galaxy europa (2.1 android cost â90 for the phone)which has a 7.2 megabyte modem built in I pay â20 a month and use â4.99 of that to buy 500 mb of data. They also give me free skype for 30 days 3000 texts to use any time and 3000 minutes of calls for the weekends.
If I had any need for more data i can switch the sim card to the 3G modem if I really want but to be honest I don't need too. I tend to use barnacle if I want to use my archos7 (2.1 android based and â119.99 at carphone warehouse) or my AspireOne netbook running ubuntu.
The phone although small is quite capable yesterday with the free winamp app i was streaming shoutcast stations and playing them on my car radio via bluetooth (128k streams suffer from drop out in the country when travelling at 60 mph / 100 kmh lower bit rate stations are fine). I also use the free google navigation from time to time which can direct me to the nearest fast food joint (handy when you need to take a leak after driving the last 2 hours getting to an unfamiliar city).
Oh and 2 days ago i got a text message from the network provided i top up by â20 a month they are now going to give me unlimited data and free calls to other users on their network.
This is in Ireland but they do similar things in other countries. My uncle in Galway flew to Australia and had the rather pleasant experience of being able to use Australia's 3 network at Irish prices (a scheme called like home which unfortunately has ended).
Maybe the problem is in the contracts people sign? I personally wouldn't sign a contract with a mobile phone company again, even with 3 who obviously I like. They did sting me for an extra â100 for going over my data plan on contract which more than wiped out the cost saving over a prepay modem
I have heard of worse cases one woman it was â300 for out of plan data not something she could easily afford compared to the â20 a month she usually paid.
I am pretty sure I have the best deal in ireland but there are o2 vodaphone eirecom meteor and others. I can take my number with me across networks and have my phone unlocked legally by my carrier.
By being prepay my carrier has to look after me or i walk simple as that. If you want to be treated as a valued customer then perhaps you should end your contract when it finishes and go to prepay being tied to a contract really does make you your providers bitch.
(prices are in euro's but are close enough to be american dollar prices unfortunately slashdot chews up the euro symbol)
When you see huge numbers of police acting in complete disregard of the law and beating the crap out of people it becomes a bit of a leap to accept it isn't the majority that acts this way.
Yes I accept that 99% of the time police officers do act quite reasonably but that doesn't make them the good guys either.
it may be no different but does it make it right?
suppose you have a hotel next door to a blockbuster or near by and the hotel provides dvd players in its rooms a customer asks the night manager if they can nip next door and get a dvd of a particular movie , the night manager fetches the dvd from the blockbuster next door and gives the dvd to the customer in his room. Later the dvd is returned to the night manager who takes it back to blockbuster.
Or perhaps a person staying at the hotel gets a taxi driver to go to bockbuster to rent a dvd?
would it make a difference if the rental was made on the hotel guests blockbuster account?
Is blockbuster prohibited from renting out a copy of a film if its returned early ? I don't think so.
I have no difficulty with dvd's made for rental , costing more than dvd's made for sale to private individuals
it's a different set of rights although it might be reasonable to buy and sell 2nd hand dvd's thats not illegal either,
is it?
Maybe it is illegal to have a shop or store selling 2nd hand goods ... who knew
your friends already know you, besides the way it works with a site like facebook is once you hook up with one friend they pretty much hook you up with everyone else.
Taking slashdot for an example there are a number of celebrities who read and post on here, do they really want to be generally known by their actual name.
Actually that's part of the fun, figuring out if someone really knows what they are talking about or just bullshitting to a convincing level.
Extracting info from the document or convert from a Word file to a PDF file +
translation service
Itâ(TM)s easy to convert the document from a Word file to a PDF file or any other format
providing you have the Microsoft Word/Office software (preferably Word 2007 or newer).
If you do not have this software you can either download the free âoeWord Viewerâ which
allows you to view, print and copy Word documents, even if you donâ(TM)t have Word
installed. Just do a search for the key word âoeWord Viewerâ at the following site:
Clearly it's not his use of video games which make him a whack job but his excessive use of windows
and proprietary software.
There is a hybrid version which also has traffic lights which ensures you get on at peak times, but round abouts generally are pretty simple.
If cars are entering from the street next to yours you give way and wait but this also means that the next street can enter the roundabout which makes the street next to yours stop and gives you a space to enter the round about. Sometimes it takes longer but on the whole it doesn't and if you time your approach right you will not even need to pause before entering.
junctions on the other hand can be very inefficient, with the worst case where cars enter a junction when their exit is blocked leading to a blocked junction where nobody can move. This effect tends to snowball with drivers becoming increasingly selfish and making the problem worse.
This is usually a result of bad road design in one case that springs to mind is a crossroads where one exiting road has a set of lights about 6 car lengths from the main junction which tends to lead to the exit being choked most of the time.
The situation there could be alleviated by a mini roundabout which would allow traffic to leave the junction as and when.