Slightly not exactly what you asked, but Mac OS Internals by Amit Singh is a fantastic book. Highly reccommended if you like looking and thinking about the guts of the OS. If you have one of the 'good' editions of Windows Internals, then you know pretty much what to expect.
I've had a very hard time getting anywhere with LISP, but anyone with any comp.sci. tendencies at all should enjoy the SICP videos which are easily available on the web, and in iPod (tm) format.
If you can put up with the really annoying guy in class asking questions, and the terrible terrible fashions of the mid-80's MIT students, and Gerry Sussman's somewhat aggressive lecture (I enjoyed it) delivery, there are some absolute gems of knowledge waiting for you at every turn.
I'm upto about lecture 5, and the last lecture basically said, "Here's digital circuit simulation, and how to implement it in about an hour. Oh yes, I we used this to simulate a real computer." Some assembly required, but this is a great great course and I clearly understand where the adulation / hate of the SICP book comes from.
Seriously, there are many bands out there, that only appeal to a smallish part of the listening and record-buying public. These aren't small numbers of people, but they are too small to appeal to Warner etc.
For example, Emma Pollock is great, and her old band The Delgados were just fantastic, but there's no way they would be picked up and screwed by Warner, when Warner can take 5 hot-looking idiots and milk them for all they are worth, and in fact *recoup* all the band's advance by back-charging them for making and distributing and promoting the record. 'Music Fans' will lap it up, then clamor for the next spoonfeed of musical gruel.
The more you look at it, the more the Record Industry at large is just a huge cesspool of fat-cats and scumbags. I've voted with my feet and wallet and listen to and support, and buy mainly indie music. Make an effort to listen to something different.
Just like in some smaller places, they use days to test something on one or two computers. When it works they spend an hour putting it on all 500 company desktops, most of the time just waiting for network transfers and rebooting.
Wow, 2 years to copy some files across the network.
Is Debian network performance even worse than Mac OS?
Apparently, with several months remaining til the promised ship date, Microsoft have decided to 'reset' Vista, again.
Along with the 'reset', the product name has been tweaked to "Vista by MicroSoft", which by a startling, and some may say planned coincidence spells 'VMS', exactly one letter back from the previous versions' WNT.
Details about the new system are sketchy, but removal of several problematic features such as graphics support and UI are promised to lead to vastly improved stability.
MicroSoft declined to provide screenshots of the updated MicroSoft Office for VMS for undisclosed reasons.
Yeah, some real-life figures on a 1.83 Cure Duo Mini, from the Activity Monitor:
1. Copying around the internal drive, about 12 MBytes/sec 2. Copying between firewire externals, about 17-20 MBytes/sec 3. Copying to a scavenged Compaq 60 Gig laptop drive over USB, 9 - 10 MBytes/sec
Note that CPU usage is usually minimal even when moving this quantity of data around in a sustained manner.
Given these figures, I'm contemplating imaging to the external, and booting off that instead, but it's hardly worth as the machine is easily the fastest and most responsive desktop I've ever used.
For comparison, I've seen 60 MBytes/sec out of a AMD64 with a SATA Raptor.
Operating Systems (Top 10) - Full list/Versions - Unknown
Operating Systems Hits Percent
Windows 20435 72.6 %
Macintosh 4658 16.5 %
Unknown 1903 6.7 %
Linux 1080 3.8 %
Sun Solaris 15 0 %
FreeBSD 13 0 %
Unknown Unix system 8 0 %
Symbian OS 7 0 %
Hahahah. Not very much judging by the steady backwards progression of anything graphics related in Windows.
Here's an example: Office 2000/XP(?) had the cool little Photo Editor app. This is absolutly indispensible for helping to build Word docs with screenshots for bug reports etc.
Office 2003 is completely lame in this respect. The laughable POS supplied can't even pull a screenshot from the clipboard. Functionality in Office is actually going backwards. I am not planning to upgrade to Vista, and I'm sticking with pre-2003 vintage Office versions. It's a shame because, if Microsoft really tried to please users, I'm sure their Office team could do a fantastic job.
Even though I'm kinda Mac guy nowadays, Excel is still probably my favorite program ever, and I'd love to see it get even better.
Lots of people actually do buy a new computer. My inlaws have a stack of perfectly decent but probably jacked-up software-wise PCs, including quite a cool looking Sony Vaio 'Monolith' tower.
To "people like us" (tm) the software is fixable, and hardware may be fixable.
To regular Joe User it is just a failing computer, and they have not much more chance of fixing whatever it is, than performing open heart surgery on the Pentium III or whatever powers their piece of junk.
There aren't a whole lot of things you can't prototype up in a few hours armed with only a few basic data structures.
Most of the problem is having the experience and guts to pick an approach and start.
I think there's a whole raft of IT people / developers out there who can cut and paste, but may never have actually created something. That's pretty sad.
If Google have patented this, and want to keep it to themselves, then it's goodbye Nielsen ratings.
My wife actually did a Neilsen log for a week, and it was laughably low-tech. Google's method of fingerprinting background/TV sounds looks like a near perfect solution for identifying when a TV is being watched, when ads are being skipped, and probably most importantly, when ads are being watched.
I'm looking a couple years down the line, when a Google DVR based on Mac Mini hardware, with permanently wired in mic will bw given away free by Google, in return for tracking what people watch, and serving targetted ads.
I worked for Toyota for a bit in 2004, and at the time, it cost about $450 in advertising for every person who walked through the showroom door. That's a lot of money. It wouldn't take much of a benefit in ad targeting to easily pay for free hardware, and Google could do for TV advertising what they've done for web advertising.
Interesting discussion. It had crossed my mind that you could pull the data straight off the iTunes visualizer, but a quick peek at the relevant docs shows that whilst you *can* get the data, it's downrezzed to 8 bits. OTOH, it does also pass a 512 point FFT to ya... Heh. There's always a catch.
Seriously, just burn the playlist to a CD. It's legal and easy.
Slashdot Mirror
Slightly not exactly what you asked, but Mac OS Internals by Amit Singh is a fantastic book. Highly reccommended if you like looking and thinking about the guts of the OS. If you have one of the 'good' editions of Windows Internals, then you know pretty much what to expect.
I've had a very hard time getting anywhere with LISP, but anyone with any comp.sci. tendencies at all should enjoy the SICP videos which are easily available on the web, and in iPod (tm) format.
If you can put up with the really annoying guy in class asking questions, and the terrible terrible fashions of the mid-80's MIT students, and Gerry Sussman's somewhat aggressive lecture (I enjoyed it) delivery, there are some absolute gems of knowledge waiting for you at every turn.
I'm upto about lecture 5, and the last lecture basically said, "Here's digital circuit simulation, and how to implement it in about an hour. Oh yes, I we used this to simulate a real computer." Some assembly required, but this is a great great course and I clearly understand where the adulation / hate of the SICP book comes from.
Is that you Von Daniken?
Never, never, never allow your kids to read any paranoid UFO stuff. They will only *believe* it.
"No posting complaints about Windows Genuine Advantage for you !"
Not impossible. My company 'hotels' cubes, so you could be in a different cube every week.
Sweet. I keep my binders in a cardboard box!!
Well, maybe the only 'huge' money-making artiste.
Seriously, there are many bands out there, that only appeal to a smallish part of the listening and record-buying public. These aren't small numbers of people, but they are too small to appeal to Warner etc.
For example, Emma Pollock is great, and her old band The Delgados were just fantastic, but there's no way they would be picked up and screwed by Warner, when Warner can take 5 hot-looking idiots and milk them for all they are worth, and in fact *recoup* all the band's advance by back-charging them for making and distributing and promoting the record. 'Music Fans' will lap it up, then clamor for the next spoonfeed of musical gruel.
The more you look at it, the more the Record Industry at large is just a huge cesspool of fat-cats and scumbags. I've voted with my feet and wallet and listen to and support, and buy mainly indie music. Make an effort to listen to something different.
Try it. You'll like it.
Nah, the Aeron is a weapon of 'ass' destruction.
Hey, and it's made in Michigan!
Wow, 2 years to copy some files across the network.
Is Debian network performance even worse than Mac OS?
Have a look at some typical Excel graphs with their gaudy data series, clutter and heavy lines.
Now take a look at a Tufte book.
There is a difference.
Just read this on Digg.
Apparently, with several months remaining til the promised ship date, Microsoft have decided to 'reset' Vista, again.
Along with the 'reset', the product name has been tweaked to "Vista by MicroSoft", which by a startling, and some may say planned coincidence spells 'VMS', exactly one letter back from the previous versions' WNT.
Details about the new system are sketchy, but removal of several problematic features such as graphics support and UI are promised to lead to vastly improved stability.
MicroSoft declined to provide screenshots of the updated MicroSoft Office for VMS for undisclosed reasons.
Yeah, some real-life figures on a 1.83 Cure Duo Mini, from the Activity Monitor:
1. Copying around the internal drive, about 12 MBytes/sec
2. Copying between firewire externals, about 17-20 MBytes/sec
3. Copying to a scavenged Compaq 60 Gig laptop drive over USB, 9 - 10 MBytes/sec
Note that CPU usage is usually minimal even when moving this quantity of data around in a sustained manner.
Given these figures, I'm contemplating imaging to the external, and booting off that instead, but it's hardly worth as the machine is easily the fastest and most responsive desktop I've ever used.
For comparison, I've seen 60 MBytes/sec out of a AMD64 with a SATA Raptor.
Looks pretty healthy to me!!!
Man, I feel really bad. I can just barely tell the difference between streamed 48KBps RealAudio and a real CD.
I think my ears are basically f*cked. Sigh.
That's awesome. Playing AC|DC's Back in Black reminds me of playing Castle Quest by Program Power on the BBC Micro back in 1982 or so.
Let's hope they don't try this method with LCD displays ...
Man 1: "Crank the brightness up on the laptop."
Man 2: "Arrrggghhh, my eyes !!!!!"
Hahahah. Not very much judging by the steady backwards progression of anything graphics related in Windows.
Here's an example: Office 2000/XP(?) had the cool little Photo Editor app. This is absolutly indispensible for helping to build Word docs with screenshots for bug reports etc.
Office 2003 is completely lame in this respect. The laughable POS supplied can't even pull a screenshot from the clipboard. Functionality in Office is actually going backwards. I am not planning to upgrade to Vista, and I'm sticking with pre-2003 vintage Office versions. It's a shame because, if Microsoft really tried to please users, I'm sure their Office team could do a fantastic job.
Even though I'm kinda Mac guy nowadays, Excel is still probably my favorite program ever, and I'd love to see it get even better.
Lots of people actually do buy a new computer. My inlaws have a stack of perfectly decent but probably jacked-up software-wise PCs, including quite a cool looking Sony Vaio 'Monolith' tower.
To "people like us" (tm) the software is fixable, and hardware may be fixable.
To regular Joe User it is just a failing computer, and they have not much more chance of fixing whatever it is, than performing open heart surgery on the Pentium III or whatever powers their piece of junk.
Or as a script kiddie ... Oh wait, that Symantec!
There aren't a whole lot of things you can't prototype up in a few hours armed with only a few basic data structures.
Most of the problem is having the experience and guts to pick an approach and start.
I think there's a whole raft of IT people / developers out there who can cut and paste, but may never have actually created something. That's pretty sad.
I dunno. It'd be a bugger to get a banana into the battery compartment of my Powerbook.
Instructions for use:
"Recharge battery when you smell rotting fruit."
But, would you get "Abort on banana transfer errors" ?
It took me days of misery, including hacking on the MPEG decoder so that switching channels didn't leak streams ...
It was hackiest, hacky mcHack thing I have ever done, aside from maybe patching running 6502 assembly code, whilst running... ohh-err.
Now I make a living writing multipage SQL statements. Sadly the closest I'll ever be to getting paid for functional programming.
The Mac Mini 1.66 Core Duo runs Flight Gear just great. It's probably the best flight sim frame rate I've seen.
Of I don't know exactly what it is, but it's very very smooth.
Just because it's Intel on-board, doesn't mean it's not any good.
If Google have patented this, and want to keep it to themselves, then it's goodbye Nielsen ratings.
My wife actually did a Neilsen log for a week, and it was laughably low-tech. Google's method of fingerprinting background/TV sounds looks like a near perfect solution for identifying when a TV is being watched, when ads are being skipped, and probably most importantly, when ads are being watched.
I'm looking a couple years down the line, when a Google DVR based on Mac Mini hardware, with permanently wired in mic will bw given away free by Google, in return for tracking what people watch, and serving targetted ads.
I worked for Toyota for a bit in 2004, and at the time, it cost about $450 in advertising for every person who walked through the showroom door. That's a lot of money. It wouldn't take much of a benefit in ad targeting to easily pay for free hardware, and Google could do for TV advertising what they've done for web advertising.
Interesting discussion. It had crossed my mind that you could pull the data straight off the iTunes visualizer, but a quick peek at the relevant docs shows that whilst you *can* get the data, it's downrezzed to 8 bits. OTOH, it does also pass a 512 point FFT to ya ... Heh. There's always a catch.
Seriously, just burn the playlist to a CD. It's legal and easy.
Dude, just burn your purchased music to a regular CD-R and re-rip it. [[ Like it says in the iTunes help ]]
The trip to Red Book Audio and back removes the DRM. It's tedious, but easy. Use a CD-RW for economy.