I actually swapped tech support with a buddy of mine. Its so frustrating trying to tech support your own parental unit machines. So, I tech support his parents, and he tech supports my parents. This has helped a lot in terms of stress and getting annoyed at the "stoopid" questions.
For Outlook users, the best current add-on IMHO is Nelson Email Organizer. It treats the Outlook PST file as a database and all your email is lumped into one box. After that, it allows you to set folders and other filter criteria based to sort your mail. The same email message can appear in multiple places based on filter criteria. But only one copy of the message is actually saved. You can filter based on attachment type, or relative dates (last week, last Monday) etc.
I have no association with NEO, just a happy user.
lots of products are planned obsolence. The golf club industry would hate it. At least they are looking towards hard to repair items (space stations, etc). This is just the first step. Cant wait to see the next generation...
this looks exactly like Rainbow's Cryptokey (www.rainbow.com). They sell a crypto package that locks your data - and you need the USB key to unlock your data. Of course, the key can be reloaded and updated...
Yea.. but if you *really* think you are going to be hurting the companies by making them pay for postage - good luck. Any decrease in marketing profits can easily be offset by higher "user fees" and little charges that you get nickel and dimed to death. Where do you think the ATM (money machines) fees go to? All the junk mail and credit card applications they send you.
Personally, I just shred 'em and use it for packing.
Granted, not a new idea. The BBC article, although well written, mistakens it for a robot. It it not intelligent. It is merly an extention of the doctors hands. I think this is a great step in the right direction. The more development work in this area will help to reduce heal times and complications from surgy. Look at all the operations on peoples knees to replay a torn ACL. Before, you had scars up and down your knee. now, it is just two little dots, and the heal time is much faster.
Imagine what this can do for brain surgery. No more cutting the skull open.. just a small hole and work in there!
Neural nets in the home are already starting to appear - albit in a rudimentary form. Take Fuzzy Logic for example - many new theromostats and AC/Heaters can now run at variable speeds. No longer are things just On/Off, but can operate at a graduated power. Andother example are the simple motion lights - that turn on when they sense movement, and can automatically turn off during the day. The basic technology is already here.
The next step is to start integrating all these disparate technologies into a centrally controlled unit. Look at the X10 (www.x10.com) They are making good attempts at automating existing home appliances with some sort of automated control.
So, we have some rudimentay fuzzy logic, and some automation. Now, the next step is to combine the two into a "intelligent" central point. but is this really where we need to go? We will now have a single point of failure for all home functions. If you blow a chip, the house is out of order until the central unit gets fixed.
Also, it takes another generation of devices. The neural devices will have to operate either automously, or together as a collective. Which is perfered? How can you protect your home from hacking? Power outages? Sure you can UPS the central unit, but what about the lowly light switch on the wall?
We are headed that way, but there are a lot of little details to work out first.
"Some days it ain't worth chewing through the leather straps"
uh.. I would think that a VPN solution would be in place. I kinda think its implied. Lots of companies are passing trade secrets across VPNs and they have proved pretty secure thus far. just add a little encryption and youre all set.
Iridium birds are hard wire to do only one thing - hence that is why nobody bought the company to bail them out of bankrupcy. They cant be fixed, or upgraded very much (sure, I would imagine there are some minro firmware updates...) To accomodate these short comings, there were always a few extra sats in higher orbit that could be moved into place in take over in case of failure.
Man.... making your service MP3 streaming... what an idea. Wonder what kind of market there is? What are the goals of this type of service? Reach geeks that are unable to attend in person because they are busy tring to get the server back online? Intresting idea. Whether it is actually used right now (probably an idea ahead of its time) it would be an intresting project.
This topic is nothing new. I remember seeing this plastered all over that pitiful excuse of a magazine Popular Science. They thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread - (well, they still think solar power is -neat-)
It is possible to genetically engineer a carbon nased life form to consume what we humans deem to be toxic. It has been done over and over. Take for example that beer in your hand. Way back when, I mean WAY back (there are reports that beer is older than wine), the locals would take contamiated water and make beer out of it. The chamical process and yeast renders what ever foreign material in the water to be harmless to humans. Its also served as a good check - if you can make beer out of water, then the water should be fairly safe to drink.
At least/. is clear of this thing for a while... lets hope reason and sainity will win out. I mean really... injunctions againse people's web sites who report the news and/or link to information...?
Just spent the last hour or so looking thorough the site... very nice...
But - lots of it looks to be a little old. Kinda like they are abandoned projects and what not. Granted, many were PhD projects. Too bad they were kept up. Very interesting.
the visual bandwidth is very helpful. Look at any of the latest and greatet network management packages - VitalSuite, Enterprise Pro, Concord etc.. they all give slick visual reps of what is happening inside of the router, what is flowing on the wire.
W/o the visual, numbers next to your vital router stats are hard to see and understand
Well, now that Linux had gathered enough momentum to make it into a viable business venture, it was just a matter of time that Linux is made for the masses. An install that allows Win savy users to back out if something goes wrong is very appealing. Looks at the flip side, if the Win install version can hook just 1% of those who download it, they will eventually trash it, and get a real distro and become contributing members of the community. I see it as a teaser. "Here is what you could have...."
The battle for the desktop is some of the most valuable real estate in the world. M$ owns a good chunk of it, and right now, Linux has the worlds ear. Can it show it's true grit?
Money is to be made in markets that will never serve a single web page or dole out DNS entries to hungry browsers. The home user. The users who just learned Win9x and feel it is time to move on to new challenges
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. A lot less stress when working with someone elses parents.
I actually swapped tech support with a buddy of mine. Its so frustrating trying to tech support your own parental unit machines. So, I tech support his parents, and he tech supports my parents. This has helped a lot in terms of stress and getting annoyed at the "stoopid" questions.
For Outlook users, the best current add-on IMHO is Nelson Email Organizer.
It treats the Outlook PST file as a database and all your email is lumped into
one box. After that, it allows you to set folders and other filter
criteria based to sort your mail. The same email message can appear in multiple
places based on filter criteria. But only one copy of the message is
actually saved. You can filter based on attachment type, or relative dates
(last week, last Monday) etc.
I have no association with NEO, just a happy user.
lots of products are planned obsolence. The golf club industry would hate it. At least they are looking towards hard to repair items (space stations, etc). This is just the first step. Cant wait to see the next generation...
this looks exactly like Rainbow's Cryptokey (www.rainbow.com). They sell a crypto package that locks your data - and you need the USB key to unlock your data. Of course, the key can be reloaded and updated...
Yea.. but if you *really* think you are going to be hurting the companies by making them pay for postage - good luck. Any decrease in marketing profits can easily be offset by higher "user fees" and little charges that you get nickel and dimed to death. Where do you think the ATM (money machines) fees go to? All the junk mail and credit card applications they send you.
Personally, I just shred 'em and use it for packing.
Granted, not a new idea. The BBC article, although well written, mistakens it for a robot. It it not intelligent. It is merly an extention of the doctors hands. I think this is a great step in the right direction. The more development work in this area will help to reduce heal times and complications from surgy. Look at all the operations on peoples knees to replay a torn ACL. Before, you had scars up and down your knee. now, it is just two little dots, and the heal time is much faster.
Imagine what this can do for brain surgery. No more cutting the skull open.. just a small hole and work in there!
Neural nets in the home are already starting to appear - albit in a rudimentary form. Take Fuzzy Logic for example - many new theromostats and AC/Heaters can now run at variable speeds. No longer are things just On/Off, but can operate at a graduated power. Andother example are the simple motion lights - that turn on when they sense movement, and can automatically turn off during the day. The basic technology is already here.
The next step is to start integrating all these disparate technologies into a centrally controlled unit. Look at the X10 (www.x10.com) They are making good attempts at automating existing home appliances with some sort of automated control.
So, we have some rudimentay fuzzy logic, and some automation. Now, the next step is to combine the two into a "intelligent" central point. but is this really where we need to go? We will now have a single point of failure for all home functions. If you blow a chip, the house is out of order until the central unit gets fixed.
Also, it takes another generation of devices. The neural devices will have to operate either automously, or together as a collective. Which is perfered? How can you protect your home from hacking? Power outages? Sure you can UPS the central unit, but what about the lowly light switch on the wall?
We are headed that way, but there are a lot of little details to work out first.
"Some days it ain't worth chewing through the leather straps"
- Hondo
gotta admit - thats a cool troll icon...
uh.. I would think that a VPN solution would be in place. I kinda think its implied. Lots of companies are passing trade secrets across VPNs and they have proved pretty secure thus far. just add a little encryption and youre all set.
Iridium birds are hard wire to do only one thing - hence that is why nobody bought the company to bail them out of bankrupcy. They cant be fixed, or upgraded very much (sure, I would imagine there are some minro firmware updates...) To accomodate these short comings, there were always a few extra sats in higher orbit that could be moved into place in take over in case of failure.
bet that last hop close to timing out!
Man.... making your service MP3 streaming... what an idea. Wonder what kind of market there is? What are the goals of this type of service? Reach geeks that are unable to attend in person because they are busy tring to get the server back online? Intresting idea. Whether it is actually used right now (probably an idea ahead of its time) it would be an intresting project.
This thing looks like the one of the advertisments in the back of Popular Science. You send $24.95 for a set of plans.
yea...
another reason to keep your browser patched upto par - send the prof an email tjojan to upload copies of the borwser cache to you.....
This topic is nothing new. I remember seeing this plastered all over that pitiful excuse of a magazine Popular Science. They thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread - (well, they still think solar power is -neat-)
It is possible to genetically engineer a carbon nased life form to consume what we humans deem to be toxic. It has been done over and over. Take for example that beer in your hand. Way back when, I mean WAY back (there are reports that beer is older than wine), the locals would take contamiated water and make beer out of it. The chamical process and yeast renders what ever foreign material in the water to be harmless to humans. Its also served as a good check - if you can make beer out of water, then the water should be fairly safe to drink.
At least /. is clear of this thing for a while... lets hope reason and sainity will win out. I mean really... injunctions againse people's web sites who report the news and/or link to information...?
Just spent the last hour or so looking thorough the site... very nice...
But - lots of it looks to be a little old. Kinda like they are abandoned projects and what not. Granted, many were PhD projects. Too bad they were kept up. Very interesting.
the visual bandwidth is very helpful. Look at any of the latest and greatet network management packages - VitalSuite, Enterprise Pro, Concord etc.. they all give slick visual reps of what is happening inside of the router, what is flowing on the wire.
W/o the visual, numbers next to your vital router stats are hard to see and understand
No matter what.
No matter how mant precautions
No matter how many checks and list you go through
Mr. Murphy will be there.
Well, now that Linux had gathered enough momentum to make it into a viable business venture, it was just a matter of time that Linux is made for the masses. An install that allows Win savy users to back out if something goes wrong is very appealing. Looks at the flip side, if the Win install version can hook just 1% of those who download it, they will eventually trash it, and get a real distro and become contributing members of the community. I see it as a teaser. "Here is what you could have...."
The battle for the desktop is some of the most valuable real estate in the world. M$ owns a good chunk of it, and right now, Linux has the worlds ear. Can it show it's true grit?
Money is to be made in markets that will never serve a single web page or dole out DNS entries to hungry browsers. The home user. The users who just learned Win9x and feel it is time to move on to new challenges
Congrat on the IPO - I hope that Rob and crew will get a piece of the action.
Keep doing what you always have - minor improvements and good content!