Go-L is a known scam business, selling(?) over-hyped, under-powered equipment
as other-worldly, "killer" rigs. their web-site is a photoshop composite of product
images from other manufacturers/vendors with configurations that are at best, suspicious.
i was going to quote directly from their website, but it's really too much effort to refute
a scam-site when careful shoppers will see that everything is "pre-order".
and if my poor memory serves me, there was also some noise about this on
some of the other enthusiast sites/forums; some review sites asked for
systems to review and benchmark but were 'rebuffed', to put it politely.
there was one actual review of a notebook they purported to sell, but overall, the
evidence is largely not positive.
their weird history of claiming ultra-high(read: impossible) performance systems
with conflicting equipment specs and configurations lead many to assume
they were fakers, or at the very least over-representing their products. there are
reports of buyers who paid large sums($20k) but never received anything.
i'd ignore these guys for now.
that said, there are solid state disks available for sale, but at extraordinarily
high cost. a google search turns up
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,790,000 for solid-state disk. (0.30 seconds)
the local NPR station here in the Los Angeles area, KCRW is having their
spring fund-drive and will be giving away one of the newly announced
products to a subscriber. the DJ said she didn't know what it was, as
it was still secret, but they would announce what it is on tuesday.
my guess is similar to what some previous posters have said: a mini-based
plasma DVR.
i'll be sending this to their board of ed in a few moments:
--
To: Kansas State Board of Education
I do not live in Kansas, but as a citizen of the United States, I am
embarrassed by the decision of the Board to Mandate the teaching
of "Intelligent Design" in Biology classes. Congratulations on
making the your State, and the USA by extension, the laughing
stock of the Education World.
If you truly intended to provide a "balance" between Science and
Theology/Philosophy, then perhaps it would have been better to
require the availability of an Elective course covering such material.
Of course, to be fair, you would also have to include detailed
sections covering _all_ other religeon's teachings of the Creation,
but I suppose it would be optimistic of me to think the Board would
be so broad-minded.
It is no surprise then that we will be continually falling behind other
nations in Basic Science, Medicine, and other technology disciplines
when Non-Scientific material is mandated to be taught alongside
Real Science _as_ Real Science. I will be trying my hardest to ensure
that my children learn Science the way it was intended to be taught,
without religeous overtones, even if it means teaching them myself.
Religeon has it's place, and it is not in Science Class.
Links to MCE 2005 systems(their e-stores)
I know this takes all the fun out of it, but sometimes it really is just too much work
to get a computer to do stuff that should be easy(i.e. Suse vs. Gentoo; i use both).
Consider these a few points of reference for your plans for World Domination
("...What are we going to do tonight Brain?...";-)
Shuttle: Shuttle m1000
which looks like a 'normal' audio/video component,
and a variety of SFF-based systems from 899$US.
the advantage of the SFF-based systems would be customizability(video cards up to 6800gt, HDDs to 400GB
(three drives in a P-series chassis=1.2TB),
HP(Hewlett-Packard): HP z500 series
also a 'component' style chassis, five models of varying performance and capacity, also customizable.
Gateway: Gateway FX400
sadly, all towers, but customizable(dual-core!)
Sony's newest vaio system: Sony VGX-XL1
a bit pricey at 2300$US but totally full featured with a dual-core P-D 820, and a 200-disk optical jukebox
NOT customizable.
(why can't i get the HP link to NOT be green? OR, better yet, why can't i get the other links to BE green? bah.)
although not as popular as python, there's been decent
growth and development(ruby on rails, etc.) recently.
it's at least a bit more palatable than python for an old duffer like me who finds python a bit of a headache to learn.
i've never been good at math, so just _looking_ at this made my head hurt, so off to google i went...
after a number of very good sites that also made my head hurt, i found:
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.fractions.htm l/
which still made my head hurt, but at least i now understood the technique.
forget about running only from batteries for now; take a small, very efficient ICE/diesel(like the one VW used a couple years back to set a world record), hook it to a small battery/alternator/generator/regenerator, use a small fuel tank(5gal or less) and you'd have the F1 cars beat on HP/weight. a small diesel has more than enough torque to spin up a decent alternator, so readily available voltage would be a cinch. imagine a prius with these much better electric motors...
wouldn't it be pretty cool to have a PCI Express card with a dual core Pentium(or maybe an athlon64X2) and all the requisite goodies on a single card?(albeit a LARGE, HOT and powerhungry card;-)
let's see,
- CPU
- memory controller(looking more like AMD)
- a couple slots for RAM(2Gigs!),br>
- gigE?
- WiMax?
- Gameport?
- a few extra USB2 ports?
This would make your dual-G5 _really_ kick some serious @ss. woof. multi-core, multi-CPU, multi-OS.
you could run XP/Longhorn/Gentoo/UML _AND_ OSX simultaneously with no need to recompile any applications or operating systems(well, maybe a few parts of the host OS...)
instead of talking about their reports, how about the ugly reality of using Windows instead?
Aggressive, Mass-Mailed Sober.p Worm Poised To Smack Users
By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News
Monday may be a very bad day, a security researcher said Friday as he warned that the aggressive Sober worm of early May is timed to download new code the first day of next workweek.
Sober.p, the mass-mailed worm that spread voraciously by virtue of its offer of free World Cup tickets, is poised to launch another attack Monday, said Dmitri Alperovitch, a research engineer with an Alpharetta, Ga.-based security firm CipherTrust"
whenever someone gets the urge to post another stupid article about how MS is winning the FUD war, they should just post another REAL worm/virus/update/phish article complete with catchy tagline, links to other important security sites, etc.
these are telling numbers... that said, even the mighty BMW can't figure out how to make iDrive easy to use; it's too complicated to navigate, too cumbersome to use - imagine trying to figure out something in your new M$-CAR-OS:
there are unused functions on your dashboard, do you want to remove them?
...NOT
there's nothing quite like software that makes assumptions for you...
CAR-OS has detected a new piece of hardware[Brakes], you need to load drivers.
for those of you who haven't read any of the musings over at http://www.macsimumnews.com/, you should realise that this is one of those 'oh yeah, i should have seen _that_ coming shouldn't i?' things.
damn. your link seems to have been removed. when i try it i end up here:
"file:///private/tmp/271/TemporaryItems/AOLTemp.ht ml"
which sounds to me like you've hit a raw nerve.
it's been posted here before(searched but couldn't find it); an extremely in-depth series of articles(four sections) from ExtremeTech: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1752639,00.asp/ covering display technology and colorimetry written by Dr. Raymond Soneira, author of DisplayMate.
"Non-technical readers can piss up a rope" - nice attitude.;-)
and who made you the arbiter of "respectable" computers? there's plenty of crap that's put together with screws, so what makes a respectable computer? it's a computing _appliance_ not a hacker's dream. are you just afraid that your choice of platform is less secure and less usable than a mac, and that's why a mac is crap?
"Clicking on the close gadget of a non-foreground iTunes window will raise the window! Idiots." - i just opened up itunes and then raised safari to the front; clicking on the close button of itunes closed the window. your description doesn't seem to happen on my desktop(dual g4/400/768MB 10.3.8), doesn't do it on my XP box either. what are you talking about?
i do agree with you about the mini's lid; it's a dumb design for someone who wants to get inside, but again, the target audience _isn't_ slashdot's highly technical readers. slashdotters who want to use a mini will appreciate the design and then take it apart anyway and use the guts as they see fit. it seems to bother you that apple's industrial design surpasses a large percentage of the PC industry and allows them to design a computer that's more like an appliance; when was the last time you opened up your microwave to overclock it? we're not talking Tool Time with Tim here.
the expandability of the EPIA(mini-itx) series is cartainly better than the mini(there's 2 slots for ram, ususally a PCI slot, SATA, IDE, sometimes a flash reader) but you don't get apple's software. and not everyone wants to spend a lot of time building apps(not that it's big deal with gentoo, but i'm not an average user.)
[rant]
it's NOT just about looks: the mini target audience is for "adders" and "switchers" who want a computer that just works, i.e. they want their software to work - iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, Safari/Mozilla, as opposed to learning how to be a systems admin to care for their Windows computer. sure you can get a PC for less, but then you still have to buy XP and all the other software. and it's still XP.
They're buying the whole ball of wax for the "computing experience", a consistent, friendly, useful experience, so your statement, "...most of the software that most people want to run out there runs either on Linux..." is crap, since there's no decent equivalent to the iLife suite in Linux(or Windows, provide links if you can.) and due to the nature of Open Source, there will be differences(some significant) in UI for linux apps.
don't forget, all macs COME WITH iLife - you don't have to buy it, install it and learn five different ways to do the same thing(i'm thinking of the OS file browser provided to all apps and navigating directories in Explorer)...
you do non-technical readers/users a disservice by not providing proof of your statements - and your lack of experience with the Mac shows. the mac "experience" is something you realize when the computer and the software don't get in the way of what you're doing. i've got a dual-boot windowsXP/gentoo machine i built myself and several Macs. I've been using, programming, designing and destroying software professionally since 1985; i've used punch cards, TTYs, mainframes, supercomputers, PCs, i've designed my own user interfaces when there wasn't even X/OpenGL(remember the Sun1? the DEC Gigi? character graphics on a vt100? i do.) - so i have a lot of choices, my opinion? the user experience in windows is abysmal(sp?) when compared to the mac, so i'll take the mac every time. when you can get a complete, consistent set of programs that do what is included in iLife for Linux/FOSS, it _will_ be a great day indeed. until then you're saddled with inconsistent applications user-interfaces for both linux and windows. ( p.s. i like MythTV, Gimp(especially with the recent UI hacks...), blender, firefox/thunderbird and use fluxbox, but they're just short of the integration achieved on the mac.)[/rant]
to sum up the mini-memory issue: there are _many_ reviews elsewhere and it has been discussed at length in many forums that you can install your own memory, it's just if you break the lid doing it they won't replace it.
back on-topic: the EPIA series are able performers if you're not a demanding user(the dual cpu board displayed at Cebit looks promising); OK, yet another flavor of linux, why?.
since this article started out with the usual, "due to lack
of revenue" excuse, i have a seriously better idea that
will kill two birds with one stone:
more frequent driving tests(not the written)
bird #1: you must take the driving test every three years, it'll
cost 15$ - presto! instant revenue.
bird #2: we weed out the truly inept, suck-@ss drivers.
as a commuter that drives 64 miles a day through the san fernando valley(on the 101, ech) improving the driving
conditions by removing the morons would make me so much happier due to the increased safety. i'd gladly pay
$15 every three years to retake my driving test; i'm a good driver, so i don't have anything to worry about.
we almost slashdotted/. !
i waited nearly 30 minutes to get to the reply page!
finally RTFA and i understand what he was getting at, but
seriously, if you can't be bothered to find an aesthetic and
clever way to implement an external storage system(http://mini-itx.com/news/83991250//) then it's just a half-as$ed job.
what we need is a quickie questionaire that helps you decide which distro suits your needs, then burns the ISO for you, sort of like the weird quizes on bbspot.com only serious.
so far, none of these sites(except maybe mini-itx.com) have a way to configure a complete system; mostly they don't stock all the necessary components.
Slashdot Mirror
or am i the only that can't get to the donhopkins server?
um, yeah. you don't work for them. riiiiiight. ;-)
2 10
2 020
;-)
Go-L is a known scam business, selling(?) over-hyped, under-powered equipment
as other-worldly, "killer" rigs. their web-site is a photoshop composite of product
images from other manufacturers/vendors with configurations that are at best, suspicious.
i was going to quote directly from their website, but it's really too much effort to refute
a scam-site when careful shoppers will see that everything is "pre-order".
here's a link from 2004:
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=14
and one from 2003:
http://thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=13
and from 2005:
http://plex.us/outbursts/liebermann.html
and if my poor memory serves me, there was also some noise about this on
some of the other enthusiast sites/forums; some review sites asked for
systems to review and benchmark but were 'rebuffed', to put it politely.
there was one actual review of a notebook they purported to sell, but overall, the
evidence is largely not positive.
their weird history of claiming ultra-high(read: impossible) performance systems
with conflicting equipment specs and configurations lead many to assume
they were fakers, or at the very least over-representing their products. there are
reports of buyers who paid large sums($20k) but never received anything.
i'd ignore these guys for now.
that said, there are solid state disks available for sale, but at extraordinarily
high cost. a google search turns up
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,790,000 for solid-state disk. (0.30 seconds)
which i won't even begin to quote here.
the local NPR station here in the Los Angeles area, KCRW is having their spring fund-drive and will be giving away one of the newly announced products to a subscriber. the DJ said she didn't know what it was, as it was still secret, but they would announce what it is on tuesday. my guess is similar to what some previous posters have said: a mini-based plasma DVR.
did anyone make a coral cache of the pdf? i can't connect to their ftp site.
i'll be sending this to their board of ed in a few moments:
--
To: Kansas State Board of Education
I do not live in Kansas, but as a citizen of the United States, I am
embarrassed by the decision of the Board to Mandate the teaching
of "Intelligent Design" in Biology classes. Congratulations on
making the your State, and the USA by extension, the laughing
stock of the Education World.
If you truly intended to provide a "balance" between Science and
Theology/Philosophy, then perhaps it would have been better to
require the availability of an Elective course covering such material.
Of course, to be fair, you would also have to include detailed
sections covering _all_ other religeon's teachings of the Creation,
but I suppose it would be optimistic of me to think the Board would
be so broad-minded.
It is no surprise then that we will be continually falling behind other
nations in Basic Science, Medicine, and other technology disciplines
when Non-Scientific material is mandated to be taught alongside
Real Science _as_ Real Science. I will be trying my hardest to ensure
that my children learn Science the way it was intended to be taught,
without religeous overtones, even if it means teaching them myself.
Religeon has it's place, and it is not in Science Class.
Sincerely,
Christopher Gee
--
So there.
Links to MCE 2005 systems(their e-stores) ;-)
I know this takes all the fun out of it, but sometimes it really is just too much work
to get a computer to do stuff that should be easy(i.e. Suse vs. Gentoo; i use both).
Consider these a few points of reference for your plans for World Domination
("...What are we going to do tonight Brain?..."
Shuttle: Shuttle m1000
which looks like a 'normal' audio/video component, and a variety of SFF-based systems from 899$US.
the advantage of the SFF-based systems would be customizability(video cards up to 6800gt, HDDs to 400GB
(three drives in a P-series chassis=1.2TB),
HP(Hewlett-Packard): HP z500 series
also a 'component' style chassis, five models of varying performance and capacity, also customizable.
Gateway: Gateway FX400
sadly, all towers, but customizable(dual-core!)
Sony's newest vaio system: Sony VGX-XL1
a bit pricey at 2300$US but totally full featured with a dual-core P-D 820, and a 200-disk optical jukebox
NOT customizable.
(why can't i get the HP link to NOT be green? OR, better yet, why can't i get the other links to BE green? bah.)
although not as popular as python, there's been decent growth and development(ruby on rails, etc.) recently. it's at least a bit more palatable than python for an old duffer like me who finds python a bit of a headache to learn.
thanks, now i have to poke out my minds eye for that mental image...
i've never been good at math, so just _looking_ at this made my head hurt, so off to google i went...m l/
after a number of very good sites that also made my head hurt, i found:
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.fractions.ht
which still made my head hurt, but at least i now understood the technique.
so here's my idea:
forget about running only from batteries for now; take a small, very efficient ICE/diesel(like the one VW used a couple years back to set a world record), hook it to a small battery/alternator/generator/regenerator, use a small fuel tank(5gal or less) and you'd have the F1 cars beat on HP/weight. a small diesel has more than enough torque to spin up a decent alternator, so readily available voltage would be a cinch. imagine a prius with these much better electric motors...
wouldn't it be pretty cool to have a PCI Express card with a dual core Pentium(or maybe an athlon64X2) and all the requisite goodies on a single card?(albeit a LARGE, HOT and powerhungry card ;-)
let's see,
- CPU
- memory controller(looking more like AMD)
- a couple slots for RAM(2Gigs!),br> - gigE?
- WiMax?
- Gameport?
- a few extra USB2 ports?
This would make your dual-G5 _really_ kick some serious @ss. woof. multi-core, multi-CPU, multi-OS. you could run XP/Longhorn/Gentoo/UML _AND_ OSX simultaneously with no need to recompile any applications or operating systems(well, maybe a few parts of the host OS...)
whew, OK, i'll stop, i'm sweating now.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/163106139
instead of talking about their reports,
how about the ugly reality of using Windows instead?
Aggressive, Mass-Mailed Sober.p Worm Poised To Smack Users
By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News
Monday may be a very bad day, a security researcher said Friday as he warned that the aggressive Sober worm of early May is timed to download new code the first day of next workweek.
Sober.p, the mass-mailed worm that spread voraciously by virtue of its offer of free World Cup tickets, is poised to launch another attack Monday, said Dmitri Alperovitch, a research engineer with an Alpharetta, Ga.-based security firm CipherTrust"
whenever someone gets the urge to post another stupid article about how MS is winning the FUD war, they should just post another REAL worm/virus/update/phish article complete with catchy tagline, links to other important security sites, etc.
chris
these are telling numbers... that said, even the mighty BMW can't figure out how to make iDrive easy to use; it's too complicated to navigate, too cumbersome to use - imagine trying to figure out something in your new M$-CAR-OS:
...NOT
there are unused functions on your dashboard, do you want to remove them?
there's nothing quite like software that makes assumptions for you...
CAR-OS has detected a new piece of hardware[Brakes], you need to load drivers.
for those of you who haven't read any of the musings over at http://www.macsimumnews.com/, you should realise that this is one of those 'oh yeah, i should have seen _that_ coming shouldn't i?' things.
n dex.php/search/results/1e6ceff0d8b3e098d0784ca4fae c710e// world when HD/movies/etc over-IP happens.
the folks over at macsimum news seem to think that apple is poised to be at the center of the media/entertainment(http://www.macsimumnews.com/i
besides, why wouldn't apple want to use a media distribution channel they've already got tons of experience using and serving for (how)many years?
hope this link works:
X JsX3Jldmlld19JRD0xMTI5/
http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?d
found at The Tech Report:
- x75/index.x?pg=1/
http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2005q2/opteron
damn. your link seems to have been removed. when i try it i end up here:t ml"
"file:///private/tmp/271/TemporaryItems/AOLTemp.h
which sounds to me like you've hit a raw nerve.
it's been posted here before(searched but couldn't find it); an extremely in-depth series of articles(four sections) from ExtremeTech: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1752639 ,00.asp/ covering display technology and colorimetry written by Dr. Raymond Soneira, author of DisplayMate.
"Non-technical readers can piss up a rope" - nice attitude.;-)
and who made you the arbiter of "respectable" computers? there's plenty of crap that's put together with screws, so what makes a respectable computer? it's a computing _appliance_ not a hacker's dream. are you just afraid that your choice of platform is less secure and less usable than a mac, and that's why a mac is crap?
"Clicking on the close gadget of a non-foreground iTunes window will raise the window! Idiots." - i just opened up itunes and then raised safari to the front; clicking on the close button of itunes closed the window. your description doesn't seem to happen on my desktop(dual g4/400/768MB 10.3.8), doesn't do it on my XP box either. what are you talking about?
i do agree with you about the mini's lid; it's a dumb design for someone who wants to get inside, but again, the target audience _isn't_ slashdot's highly technical readers. slashdotters who want to use a mini will appreciate the design and then take it apart anyway and use the guts as they see fit. it seems to bother you that apple's industrial design surpasses a large percentage of the PC industry and allows them to design a computer that's more like an appliance; when was the last time you opened up your microwave to overclock it? we're not talking Tool Time with Tim here.
the expandability of the EPIA(mini-itx) series is cartainly better than the mini(there's 2 slots for ram, ususally a PCI slot, SATA, IDE, sometimes a flash reader) but you don't get apple's software. and not everyone wants to spend a lot of time building apps(not that it's big deal with gentoo, but i'm not an average user.)
here's a quick hint for you: don't offer 'facts' if you can't check out your facts first before blathering on.
about Apple's warranty:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30
and http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25
of course, that doesn't mean they _want_ you to do it; the case is difficult to open but it can be done if you're patient and careful: http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008276.ht
[rant] it's NOT just about looks: the mini target audience is for "adders" and "switchers" who want a computer that just works, i.e. they want their software to work - iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, Safari/Mozilla, as opposed to learning how to be a systems admin to care for their Windows computer. sure you can get a PC for less, but then you still have to buy XP and all the other software. and it's still XP. They're buying the whole ball of wax for the "computing experience", a consistent, friendly, useful experience, so your statement, "...most of the software that most people want to run out there runs either on Linux..." is crap, since there's no decent equivalent to the iLife suite in Linux(or Windows, provide links if you can.) and due to the nature of Open Source, there will be differences(some significant) in UI for linux apps.
don't forget, all macs COME WITH iLife - you don't have to buy it, install it and learn five different ways to do the same thing(i'm thinking of the OS file browser provided to all apps and navigating directories in Explorer)...
you do non-technical readers/users a disservice by not providing proof of your statements - and your lack of experience with the Mac shows. the mac "experience" is something you realize when the computer and the software don't get in the way of what you're doing. i've got a dual-boot windowsXP/gentoo machine i built myself and several Macs. I've been using, programming, designing and destroying software professionally since 1985; i've used punch cards, TTYs, mainframes, supercomputers, PCs, i've designed my own user interfaces when there wasn't even X/OpenGL(remember the Sun1? the DEC Gigi? character graphics on a vt100? i do.) - so i have a lot of choices, my opinion? the user experience in windows is abysmal(sp?) when compared to the mac, so i'll take the mac every time. when you can get a complete, consistent set of programs that do what is included in iLife for Linux/FOSS, it _will_ be a great day indeed. until then you're saddled with inconsistent applications user-interfaces for both linux and windows. ( p.s. i like MythTV, Gimp(especially with the recent UI hacks...), blender, firefox/thunderbird and use fluxbox, but they're just short of the integration achieved on the mac.)[/rant]
here's a review of the mini that i feel is fair and balanced:
http://www.sfftech.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=659
to sum up the mini-memory issue: there are _many_ reviews elsewhere and it has been discussed at length in many forums that you can install your own memory, it's just if you break the lid doing it they won't replace it.
back on-topic: the EPIA series are able performers if you're not a demanding user(the dual cpu board displayed at Cebit looks promising); OK, yet another flavor of linux, why?.
a great place for EPIA info is: URL:http://mini-itx.com//
since this article started out with the usual, "due to lack of revenue" excuse, i have a seriously better idea that
will kill two birds with one stone:
more frequent driving tests(not the written)
bird #1: you must take the driving test every three years, it'll cost 15$ - presto! instant revenue.
bird #2: we weed out the truly inept, suck-@ss drivers.
as a commuter that drives 64 miles a day through the san fernando valley(on the 101, ech) improving the driving
conditions by removing the morons would make me so much happier due to the increased safety. i'd gladly pay
$15 every three years to retake my driving test; i'm a good driver, so i don't have anything to worry about.
we almost slashdotted /. !
i waited nearly 30 minutes to get to the reply page!
finally RTFA and i understand what he was getting at, but seriously, if you can't be bothered to find an aesthetic and
clever way to implement an external storage system(http://mini-itx.com/news/83991250//) then it's just a half-as$ed job.
what we need is a quickie questionaire that helps you decide which distro suits your needs, then burns the ISO for you, sort of like the weird quizes on bbspot.com only serious.
here's a few sites so far:
http://mini-itx.com/
http://damnsmallinux.org/store/
http://idotpc.com/
http://logicsupply.com/
so far, none of these sites(except maybe mini-itx.com) have a way to configure a complete system; mostly they don't stock all the necessary components.
oh, i forgot, "spcr.com" is actually http://silentpcreview.com/