Your question is not so much "How does your ISP handle top-usage customers?" as much as it is, "How do I pick an ISP that doesn't suck?"
I work with and sometimes for the major local DSL provider in my area. I enjoy giving people tips on how to find and maintain good broadband service because I remember what it was like not having any clue how DSL, cable, or even ISPs in general worked. So, assuming that you're living in the US, here are some things you'll need to know.
1) Do not order cable Internet access unless there is absolutely no other alternative.
2) Flip through the phone book, talk to people, and go online to get a list of all of the providers who can deliver broadband Internet to your door. But when you talk to people, don't make the mistake of discarding a provider just because a few people had a bad experience. There are a lot of people who bad-mouth my ISP but they've always been awesome to me. Their support people are always happy to help and have even more of a clue than I do sometimes. (Plus, for almost one year solid I was paying for 768kbps down and actually getting 5mbps.)
3) Cross out all the cable providers and telephone monopolies.
4) Call up the sales department of each ISP and ask them all of the questions that are important to you. Such as their policy on top-usage customers, whether they give you a real Internet IP address or force you in behind a NAT, whether they use PPPoE, what their response time is when a link goes down, if they block any ports in or out, and so on.
5) Hang up on sales once you've gotten your answers and dial into their support queue. When someone picks up, ask them the same questions as above. No, really. The support folks are the ones that literally keep the ISP running and they'll definitely give you a more honest answer than the person whose job it is to sell you something. Besides, most of them are happy to have an "easy" phone call and will gladly drag it on for as long as you like rather than have to answer another "Halp! My Internets are borken!" call.
6) Pick your ISP. BTW, any provider worth their own weight won't make you sign a one or two-year contract and won't stick you with cancellation fees. That way you aren't stuck with them if it turns out that they suck.
7) If you found a good ISP, please let other people know, especially those who are looking for broadband. It's extremely difficult for a local provider to compete with cable and incumbent telcos who literally spend millions per month getting their brand name burned into the public consciousness. On top of that, the local providers usually have to go through the incumbent telcos to have your DSL hooked up and lets just say that the telcos seem to experience a high degree of human error when connecting up phone lines for their competitors.
Another one is the Sony Reader. I've played with a couple of those, and they're excellent. E-ink serves the device extremely well, it's very readable, and customizable. Sure, there's something to be said about holding a paper book in your hands, but there's also something to be said for downloading.pdf books from Bittorrent, or digital magazine subscriptions. The problem is that at something like $300, that's quite an investment in books. Sony has yet to partner with a digital book store that subsidizes the reader's purchase with a subscription fee, which could be one answer. The other answer is rumors and an FCC filing of an upcoming $50 ebook reader from Amazon.
I would easily shell out $300 for a device that uses e-ink and can read PDFs, plain text, and HTML and do so as effectively as they read whatever proprietary formats are on the device. I wouldn't mind paying for e-books, but I want good support for non-DRM'd formats as well since I do a lot of technical reading. Problem is, nobody makes nor is planning to make such a device. (Or at least, not that I'm aware.)
Part of the reason is that publishing companies are scared beyond belief that e-books might actually catch on, just as record companies feared that they would be made obsolete with the advent of the Internet. They don't yet realize that they can harness the electronic book model to their advantage. But of course the truth is, the first company that comes along and endorses a good inexpensive reader and really starts pushing e-books with light or no DRM is going to make a killing and could possibly control the market for a good long time.
If Amazon can follow through on this, good on them. Apple would also do extremely well and could very probably change the book industry as quickly as they changed the music industry. Practically every college student in the world now stores their music collection on an iPod, it's not a stretch that they'd also like to carry their entire textbook collection on an iReader.
Although Iridium failed commercially, it's not quite fair to call it a flop. The military makes extensive use of Iridium phones. Sea-faring vessels, aircrew, ground forces, you name it. In many cases, Iridium phones are replacing medium- and long-range radio communications altogether. I've no idea what the phones or service cost. But for what civilian companies usually charge the government for well, anything, I'm sure it's more than enough to keep Iridium afloat for a good long time.
Also the external Iridium antennas look like dildos.
Even so, they want you to buy Office -- they get more money that way. OO.o has no such financial arrangement, and it would be tricky for Dell to attempt to charge customers for it.
How so? There's absolutely no legal or moral reason they can't charge for open source software. Even the GPL--most restrictive of all OSS licenses--states that you can charge money for GPL'd software. You just can't forbid your customers from sharing it freely or charge any (real) money for the source code.
Still, they would probably earn the trust of the OSS community more if they made it clear that what you're really buying is support rather than the software itself. Every Dell machine that's sold comes with a service tag. In order to get technical support for OpenOffice, you'd have to give them your service tag. When helpdesk looks up your service tag and shows that you bought OpenOffice with the machine, they proceed to offer support.
The only downside is that OpenOffice is actually quite a bit more buggy than your average piece of software (which is reasonable, as there is quite a bit more complexity) and there are a lot of operations that *should* be simple to do in OO, but aren't. Dell could actually lose out on trying to support OpenOffice. But something like AbiWord, Firefox, or GNOME itself would probably work OK.
You do realize that a little $2 dongle adapts d-sub to dvi, right?
Sorry, but I don't see how that would help. I wanted an all-digital solution, but that's impossible without an affordable dual-head digital-output card.
Okay, a lot of people are coming down hard on the OP, but I sympathize a bit as I was in a similar situation. A year ago, I wanted to upgrade to dual-head DVI on a reasonable budget, but found it to be impossible. Not because 19" DVI monitors are expensive, but because there was simply no video card was available that had:
* Dual head * DVI on each head * An nVidia-based GPU * AGP 4x/8x * A low price
None fit this criteria. But there's really no good reason why. Inexpensive single-head DVI cards have been around for ages. So have inexpensive dual-head analog cards. But for some reason, every manufacturer assumes that every one of their customers who wants dual-head DVI with nvidia chipset is looking for a multi-hundred-dollar gaming card.
The best option at the time would have cost me $160. I don't play computer games, so I have no need for thirteen-gazillion polygons-per-second k-rad gaming card. I just wanted decent good-looking DVI video from a chipset manufacturer that I trust. (Yes, having an nVidia card is important as their drivers are good and occasionally I have a need for *some* 3D capabilities.) Even now, there's only one card that comes close on newegg, but it's still $90.
I ended up settling for a $40 GeForce FX somethingorother and two analog monitors just to stay within budget. I wish I hadn't, because the second video port on the card has uncorrectable color issues, meaning I can only do graphics work on one screen.
Maybe one day, an nVidia manufacturer will create an affordable dual-DVI card. Today is not that day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.
This happened with the Inspiron 1100 laptop too. The BIOS that shipped with the laptop reported the wrong amount of video memory (4MB instead of whatever was allocated through AGP), causing X to refuse to go higher than 800x600. An X hacker created a patch that ignored this misreported amount, but after a year or so, Dell finally posted an updated BIOS that fixed the root problem.
One thing I will say for Dell is that they're actually pretty good about fixing bugs in their firmware, even if it takes awhile. Of course, it would be even better if they just tested the darn things on a decent array of hardware and operating systems before shoving them out the door.
If, like me, you typically only use AA or AAA batteries, just go to your local department store and get the bundled 4-pack of Energizer NiMH batteries and charger for $15-20. Spring for the better, more expensive charger (or buy one online) only if you're constantly going through batteries or need sizes other than AA and AAA.
When buying the batteries themselves, go for the highest capacity they have in stock, 2500mAH or higher. Compared to alkalines, they pay for themselves after just a few recharges and each charge lasts about as long or longer than your typical alkaline battery. Most NiMH batteries are rated to last up to about 1000 charges. In my case, that means I have a better chance of losing them before they go permanently dead.
You can't replace alkalines with NiMH in all situations, though. NiMH batteries lose their charge at a rate of about 1% per day, so this takes them out of the running for low-drain applications like remote controls, digital clocks, and smoke alarms. Things that you'd never change the batteries in more than once a year. They also don't replace NiCad batteries in especially high current draw devices like RC cars.
Another possible con is that devices which contain built-in battery meters (MP3 players and PDAs) are calibrated for alkalines. Thus, when you put in an NiMH battery, they usually show the battery as being only 80% right out of the charger. However, they will stay at that level for quite a long time and then start to drop off quickly when the power is almost gone. When your device says you have about 20% left on your batteries, you probably only have a couple of minutes before they die completely. It's not a smooth discharge curve like alkalines.
But on the whole, the savings are worth it. I used to pay more in batteries for my GameBoy Advance than I did for the unit itself and the games. Now, after a $30 investment in a charger and batteries, I just rotate through the same set of batteries.
Don't forget that all of these benefits that are often touted as a result of working for Google are only (generally) available to the upper brass and engineers. Google has plenty of lower-level employees doing the tech equivalent of grunt work and they're treated about the same as in any other company.
Or even somewhat worse...
I interviewed with them for such a job and was startled to learn that although Google does all the interviewing and hiring, they always hire their entry-level employees through a temp agency for the first year. So while many companies have a one- to three-month probation period, Google has a full year before they trust you enough to bring you on as a real employee.
1) Off buttons that really turn off the power, not just put the device in a 'standby mode'.
I agree with you, but electronics manufacturers won't. The first being remote controls and other remote-powering-on devices. There has to be some source of power if you want your device to power on when you press the power button on the remote control. Of course you CAN build a small battery and circuit into the device that monitors the IR sensor and closes a relay when the correct signal is recieved. However, the power savings might not adequately offset the power required to charge the battery and it would probably add a non-trivial cost to the production of most devices under $100. It also adds some complexity to the operation of the device. (In some cases, your TV would have to "charge" before it could be turned on, or it would have a second "on" button in the back.)
Also, consumers have fallen in love with modern power buttons. Most people aren't consciously aware of it, but it's a serious power trip (no pun intended) when the lightest touch of a button makes your home entertainment theatre come to life in high-defintion video and booming surround sound. The first consumer devices to go back to the chunky 15A 110V power switches will collect dust on the shelves.
2) Manufacturers should be obliged to make low-voltage devices have transformers internal(and wired after the power switch), and make those really annoying power bricks you now get with everything illegal.
Again, cost. Manufacturers use wall warts and floor warts for their devices because it keeps their production costs low. Power transformers are no trifling thing to build into a piece of electronic gadgetry. Especially when A) omitting them from the device itself saves enormously on manufacturing costs (both parts and labor), B) consumers continually demand smaller and lighter devices, C) they can order wall warts from factories that do nothing but churn out wall warts for pennies each and just bundle one with each device.
Mmmm, no, the zipper analogy doesn't hold. Most of the time, traffic is sparse enough that everyone can continue at a reasonable speed if they merge early and carefully. The Last Minute Mergers think they're going to shave a few seconds off their trip by shooting ahead of a dozen or so cars in the non-merging lane. In reality, many of them (or most, depending on how heavy the traffic is) end up cutting off cars in the non-merging lane, forcing them to brake which slows down every single car behind them. If they would merge as soon as they see the 'Lane Closed Ahead' sign, everyone would go through the construction with no problem and very little speed penalty. I've seen it happen many times. Unfortunately, I've seen the former many more.
It's my personal policy to try to carefully merge into the next lane (checking mirrors, with blinkers on and all that) the very instant I see that my lane is about to close, no matter how far up the actual merge point may be. It infuriates me when idiots on the highway tool around in the closing lane, whizzing past literally miles of signs warning them that their lane will soon expire and then they want to cut ME off when their bumper is inches from the cones. Sorry, maybe someone behind me will be more sympathetic to your inability to read enormous bright orange road signs.
I called Vancouver, B.C. Canada from Portland, OR and it was all but horrible..using Comcast Cable or Qwest DSL... both sucked wind and echo was fairly constant.
Er, not that I'm quick to defend Skype or anything (closed applications, closed protocols), but let's look at the evidence here. You were using Comcast and Qwest, but you blame Skype for the quality issues? Sorry, but the train ride can only be as smooth as the track underneath.
Also, if you read up on the topic of VoIP echo, you'll find that it's always caused by dodgy equipment or wiring on the analog portion of the call route. Although some digital echo cancelling can be done, there's no sure way to eliminate it except by keeping the call path 100% digital. (Echo is present in analog-to-analog calls as well, but the latency is usually low enough that it's not perceptible.)
If you're talking about CIMX (A.K.A. 89X), um no. Kudos to them for sticking it to the FCC, but the content is just more Clear Channel garbage crapping up the airwaves. Also, they're taking advantage of broadcasting out of a part of the spectrum that's normally reserved for non-profit and public stations in the US. Their obligation to the Canadian government? A couple hours of Canadian talk radio on weekend mornings long before anyone's out of bed. Once 6:50AM hits, 100% of their content is ad-infested American radio poo. I doubt Detroit/Windsor is the only place where this happens.
Sorry, did that come across as bitter and spiteful?
But I'm afraid it doesn't do much for me until it supports Linux in liu of Windows. It's just virtualization, so Linux *can* be supported, right? And should such support be easier since we have all the source code already?
Whole-heartedly agree. The problems mainly seem to be centered around POP, though. I have to suspect that hardly any Thunderbird developers actually use POP. I use Thunderbird with IMAP at home and at work daily, but our POP customers have nothing but troubles with it. After having to go out and do tech support on almost every single installation, we stopped started recommending Thunderbird altogether because most of our customers already had Outlook and liked it better anyway. Not to say that Outlook doesn't have its fair share of idiocy, but Thunderbird is a nightmare to support.
Is there any other decent free email client for Windows? Is the current version of Eudora worthwhile?
Back in the days when dial-up Internet began taking off, Qualcommm actually shipped quite a lot of Internet connectivity software, though mainly to ISPs to give away to their customers (often rebranded). At that time, the popular desktop OSes (Mac OS and Windows 3.x) didn't have much in the way of Internet connectivity. My first dial-up Internet account was accompanied by a disk of Qualcomm software containing Eudora, a Mosaic-derived web browser, and a TCP/IP stack for Win 3.1. Of course the quality of the latter two was horrible and I ended up replacing them with Netscape and Winsock after only a few months. Seems Eudora was the only thing to survive those times.
'The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms,' said Mr Burmaster. "
Mr. Burmaster has never been around the US military much, which puts the whole geek community to shame in terms of sheer number of acronyms. The Air Force, in particular, doesn't have names for anything, they have acronyms instead. Forms and equipment almost never have names either, but are rather referred to by whatever series of numbers and/or letters were assigned to thems.
"At my PDS, I changed into my 36-2903-compliant BDUs, slipped on my BCGs, and dropped off my DA 31 at the 58 SOW MPF. When I got back to the MXS, I then R^2'ed a IDAS/MATT LRU on an MH-53J, filled out a DD 1577-2 on it and took the POS to the backshop.
I really meant that about the forms, btw. Ask for a form by name and you get that deer-in-the-headlights look from everyone. Probably like that in every government job.
Internet piracy may be tougher for lawmakers to conceptualize, entertainment companies fear.
Feh! Like's that's ever been an obstacle in the past...
MPAA: Mr. Lawmaker, Internet Piracy of our copyrighted works is bad. When everyday people decide that they can download movies illegally without fear of repercussion, we find that sales plummet, the industry suffers, and the culture as a whole is significantly damaged.
Lawmaker: Eh?
MPAA: We're hemorrhaging money thanks to Intarwebs!
Lawmaker. Oh.
MPAA: And you see, accounting has this weird thing where our profits are directly linked to the campaign contributions that we make to you.
Lawmaker: And what would you like your new law called?
1. Original Series: brash captain, hot-looking women, dangerous adventures in a ship designed for living but not for tourism
If by "brash," you mean "talentless ego-maniac," then yes. Also, I dispute your claim of the women being "hot-looking".
2. The Next Generation: refined captain who talks like an English professor, women who emphasize their intellect, adventures in a ship designed like a luxury hotel
Spot on.
3. Deep Space Nine: captain who talks like a high-school dropout, women who emphasize their intellect, adventures in a space hotel
Wait, what? "Captain who talks like a high-school dropout"? Sisko speaks perfectly well. He was typically a little more jovial than the other captains, but I don't see anything wrong with that. I think you accidentally let some of your racism show through.
4. Voyager: captain who emphasizes her intellect, women who emphasize their intellect, dangerous adventures in a ship designed like a luxury hotel
Just what is it you have against shows that portray females as intelligent people? The whole "women-as-set-pieces" concept should have died along with the original series, what a shame it lives on in the form of you.
5. Enterprise: captain played by an actor who cannot act, women who emphasize their intellect, dangerous adventures in a ship run by characters played by actors and actresses who cannot act
I can handle inexperienced actors, the real travesty here was the writers. "Oooh, I know, let's create a new Star Trek to predate the others, but instead of writing new material, let's just rehash all of the characters, places, and technology from the other series' whilst excusing the overall sheer implausibility of it with a bit of hand-waving!"
Slashdot Mirror
Your question is not so much "How does your ISP handle top-usage customers?" as much as it is, "How do I pick an ISP that doesn't suck?"
I work with and sometimes for the major local DSL provider in my area. I enjoy giving people tips on how to find and maintain good broadband service because I remember what it was like not having any clue how DSL, cable, or even ISPs in general worked. So, assuming that you're living in the US, here are some things you'll need to know.
1) Do not order cable Internet access unless there is absolutely no other alternative.
2) Flip through the phone book, talk to people, and go online to get a list of all of the providers who can deliver broadband Internet to your door. But when you talk to people, don't make the mistake of discarding a provider just because a few people had a bad experience. There are a lot of people who bad-mouth my ISP but they've always been awesome to me. Their support people are always happy to help and have even more of a clue than I do sometimes. (Plus, for almost one year solid I was paying for 768kbps down and actually getting 5mbps.)
3) Cross out all the cable providers and telephone monopolies.
4) Call up the sales department of each ISP and ask them all of the questions that are important to you. Such as their policy on top-usage customers, whether they give you a real Internet IP address or force you in behind a NAT, whether they use PPPoE, what their response time is when a link goes down, if they block any ports in or out, and so on.
5) Hang up on sales once you've gotten your answers and dial into their support queue. When someone picks up, ask them the same questions as above. No, really. The support folks are the ones that literally keep the ISP running and they'll definitely give you a more honest answer than the person whose job it is to sell you something. Besides, most of them are happy to have an "easy" phone call and will gladly drag it on for as long as you like rather than have to answer another "Halp! My Internets are borken!" call.
6) Pick your ISP. BTW, any provider worth their own weight won't make you sign a one or two-year contract and won't stick you with cancellation fees. That way you aren't stuck with them if it turns out that they suck.
7) If you found a good ISP, please let other people know, especially those who are looking for broadband. It's extremely difficult for a local provider to compete with cable and incumbent telcos who literally spend millions per month getting their brand name burned into the public consciousness. On top of that, the local providers usually have to go through the incumbent telcos to have your DSL hooked up and lets just say that the telcos seem to experience a high degree of human error when connecting up phone lines for their competitors.
1.5 weeks.
But of course, I run Gentoo.
Another one is the Sony Reader. I've played with a couple of those, and they're excellent. E-ink serves the device extremely well, it's very readable, and customizable. Sure, there's something to be said about holding a paper book in your hands, but there's also something to be said for downloading .pdf books from Bittorrent, or digital magazine subscriptions. The problem is that at something like $300, that's quite an investment in books. Sony has yet to partner with a digital book store that subsidizes the reader's purchase with a subscription fee, which could be one answer. The other answer is rumors and an FCC filing of an upcoming $50 ebook reader from Amazon.
I would easily shell out $300 for a device that uses e-ink and can read PDFs, plain text, and HTML and do so as effectively as they read whatever proprietary formats are on the device. I wouldn't mind paying for e-books, but I want good support for non-DRM'd formats as well since I do a lot of technical reading. Problem is, nobody makes nor is planning to make such a device. (Or at least, not that I'm aware.)
Part of the reason is that publishing companies are scared beyond belief that e-books might actually catch on, just as record companies feared that they would be made obsolete with the advent of the Internet. They don't yet realize that they can harness the electronic book model to their advantage. But of course the truth is, the first company that comes along and endorses a good inexpensive reader and really starts pushing e-books with light or no DRM is going to make a killing and could possibly control the market for a good long time.
If Amazon can follow through on this, good on them. Apple would also do extremely well and could very probably change the book industry as quickly as they changed the music industry. Practically every college student in the world now stores their music collection on an iPod, it's not a stretch that they'd also like to carry their entire textbook collection on an iReader.
Although Iridium failed commercially, it's not quite fair to call it a flop. The military makes extensive use of Iridium phones. Sea-faring vessels, aircrew, ground forces, you name it. In many cases, Iridium phones are replacing medium- and long-range radio communications altogether. I've no idea what the phones or service cost. But for what civilian companies usually charge the government for well, anything, I'm sure it's more than enough to keep Iridium afloat for a good long time.
Also the external Iridium antennas look like dildos.
Even so, they want you to buy Office -- they get more money that way. OO.o has no such financial arrangement, and it would be tricky for Dell to attempt to charge customers for it.
How so? There's absolutely no legal or moral reason they can't charge for open source software. Even the GPL--most restrictive of all OSS licenses--states that you can charge money for GPL'd software. You just can't forbid your customers from sharing it freely or charge any (real) money for the source code.
Still, they would probably earn the trust of the OSS community more if they made it clear that what you're really buying is support rather than the software itself. Every Dell machine that's sold comes with a service tag. In order to get technical support for OpenOffice, you'd have to give them your service tag. When helpdesk looks up your service tag and shows that you bought OpenOffice with the machine, they proceed to offer support.
The only downside is that OpenOffice is actually quite a bit more buggy than your average piece of software (which is reasonable, as there is quite a bit more complexity) and there are a lot of operations that *should* be simple to do in OO, but aren't. Dell could actually lose out on trying to support OpenOffice. But something like AbiWord, Firefox, or GNOME itself would probably work OK.
You do realize that a little $2 dongle adapts d-sub to dvi, right?
Sorry, but I don't see how that would help. I wanted an all-digital solution, but that's impossible without an affordable dual-head digital-output card.
Okay, a lot of people are coming down hard on the OP, but I sympathize a bit as I was in a similar situation. A year ago, I wanted to upgrade to dual-head DVI on a reasonable budget, but found it to be impossible. Not because 19" DVI monitors are expensive, but because there was simply no video card was available that had:
* Dual head
* DVI on each head
* An nVidia-based GPU
* AGP 4x/8x
* A low price
None fit this criteria. But there's really no good reason why. Inexpensive single-head DVI cards have been around for ages. So have inexpensive dual-head analog cards. But for some reason, every manufacturer assumes that every one of their customers who wants dual-head DVI with nvidia chipset is looking for a multi-hundred-dollar gaming card.
The best option at the time would have cost me $160. I don't play computer games, so I have no need for thirteen-gazillion polygons-per-second k-rad gaming card. I just wanted decent good-looking DVI video from a chipset manufacturer that I trust. (Yes, having an nVidia card is important as their drivers are good and occasionally I have a need for *some* 3D capabilities.) Even now, there's only one card that comes close on newegg, but it's still $90.
I ended up settling for a $40 GeForce FX somethingorother and two analog monitors just to stay within budget. I wish I hadn't, because the second video port on the card has uncorrectable color issues, meaning I can only do graphics work on one screen.
Maybe one day, an nVidia manufacturer will create an affordable dual-DVI card. Today is not that day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.
This happened with the Inspiron 1100 laptop too. The BIOS that shipped with the laptop reported the wrong amount of video memory (4MB instead of whatever was allocated through AGP), causing X to refuse to go higher than 800x600. An X hacker created a patch that ignored this misreported amount, but after a year or so, Dell finally posted an updated BIOS that fixed the root problem.
One thing I will say for Dell is that they're actually pretty good about fixing bugs in their firmware, even if it takes awhile. Of course, it would be even better if they just tested the darn things on a decent array of hardware and operating systems before shoving them out the door.
"a blowtorch is a great way to thaw frozen pipes,"
Wait, it isn't?
Well, on the bright side, it's open source, so the community can add those few missing features like USB, right?
I'm willing to bet that they can't open the RDP code because it's a proprietary Microsoft protocol that they had to sign an NDA to get.
If, like me, you typically only use AA or AAA batteries, just go to your local department store and get the bundled 4-pack of Energizer NiMH batteries and charger for $15-20. Spring for the better, more expensive charger (or buy one online) only if you're constantly going through batteries or need sizes other than AA and AAA.
When buying the batteries themselves, go for the highest capacity they have in stock, 2500mAH or higher. Compared to alkalines, they pay for themselves after just a few recharges and each charge lasts about as long or longer than your typical alkaline battery. Most NiMH batteries are rated to last up to about 1000 charges. In my case, that means I have a better chance of losing them before they go permanently dead.
You can't replace alkalines with NiMH in all situations, though. NiMH batteries lose their charge at a rate of about 1% per day, so this takes them out of the running for low-drain applications like remote controls, digital clocks, and smoke alarms. Things that you'd never change the batteries in more than once a year. They also don't replace NiCad batteries in especially high current draw devices like RC cars.
Another possible con is that devices which contain built-in battery meters (MP3 players and PDAs) are calibrated for alkalines. Thus, when you put in an NiMH battery, they usually show the battery as being only 80% right out of the charger. However, they will stay at that level for quite a long time and then start to drop off quickly when the power is almost gone. When your device says you have about 20% left on your batteries, you probably only have a couple of minutes before they die completely. It's not a smooth discharge curve like alkalines.
But on the whole, the savings are worth it. I used to pay more in batteries for my GameBoy Advance than I did for the unit itself and the games. Now, after a $30 investment in a charger and batteries, I just rotate through the same set of batteries.
Don't forget that all of these benefits that are often touted as a result of working for Google are only (generally) available to the upper brass and engineers. Google has plenty of lower-level employees doing the tech equivalent of grunt work and they're treated about the same as in any other company.
Or even somewhat worse...
I interviewed with them for such a job and was startled to learn that although Google does all the interviewing and hiring, they always hire their entry-level employees through a temp agency for the first year. So while many companies have a one- to three-month probation period, Google has a full year before they trust you enough to bring you on as a real employee.
1) Off buttons that really turn off the power, not just put the device in a 'standby mode'.
I agree with you, but electronics manufacturers won't. The first being remote controls and other remote-powering-on devices. There has to be some source of power if you want your device to power on when you press the power button on the remote control. Of course you CAN build a small battery and circuit into the device that monitors the IR sensor and closes a relay when the correct signal is recieved. However, the power savings might not adequately offset the power required to charge the battery and it would probably add a non-trivial cost to the production of most devices under $100. It also adds some complexity to the operation of the device. (In some cases, your TV would have to "charge" before it could be turned on, or it would have a second "on" button in the back.)
Also, consumers have fallen in love with modern power buttons. Most people aren't consciously aware of it, but it's a serious power trip (no pun intended) when the lightest touch of a button makes your home entertainment theatre come to life in high-defintion video and booming surround sound. The first consumer devices to go back to the chunky 15A 110V power switches will collect dust on the shelves.
2) Manufacturers should be obliged to make low-voltage devices have transformers internal(and wired after the power switch), and make those really annoying power bricks you now get with everything illegal.
Again, cost. Manufacturers use wall warts and floor warts for their devices because it keeps their production costs low. Power transformers are no trifling thing to build into a piece of electronic gadgetry. Especially when A) omitting them from the device itself saves enormously on manufacturing costs (both parts and labor), B) consumers continually demand smaller and lighter devices, C) they can order wall warts from factories that do nothing but churn out wall warts for pennies each and just bundle one with each device.
Mmmm, no, the zipper analogy doesn't hold. Most of the time, traffic is sparse enough that everyone can continue at a reasonable speed if they merge early and carefully. The Last Minute Mergers think they're going to shave a few seconds off their trip by shooting ahead of a dozen or so cars in the non-merging lane. In reality, many of them (or most, depending on how heavy the traffic is) end up cutting off cars in the non-merging lane, forcing them to brake which slows down every single car behind them. If they would merge as soon as they see the 'Lane Closed Ahead' sign, everyone would go through the construction with no problem and very little speed penalty. I've seen it happen many times. Unfortunately, I've seen the former many more.
It's my personal policy to try to carefully merge into the next lane (checking mirrors, with blinkers on and all that) the very instant I see that my lane is about to close, no matter how far up the actual merge point may be. It infuriates me when idiots on the highway tool around in the closing lane, whizzing past literally miles of signs warning them that their lane will soon expire and then they want to cut ME off when their bumper is inches from the cones. Sorry, maybe someone behind me will be more sympathetic to your inability to read enormous bright orange road signs.
I called Vancouver, B.C. Canada from Portland, OR and it was all but horrible..using Comcast Cable or Qwest DSL ... both sucked wind and echo was fairly constant.
Er, not that I'm quick to defend Skype or anything (closed applications, closed protocols), but let's look at the evidence here. You were using Comcast and Qwest, but you blame Skype for the quality issues? Sorry, but the train ride can only be as smooth as the track underneath.
Also, if you read up on the topic of VoIP echo, you'll find that it's always caused by dodgy equipment or wiring on the analog portion of the call route. Although some digital echo cancelling can be done, there's no sure way to eliminate it except by keeping the call path 100% digital. (Echo is present in analog-to-analog calls as well, but the latency is usually low enough that it's not perceptible.)
Damned good station too.
If you're talking about CIMX (A.K.A. 89X), um no. Kudos to them for sticking it to the FCC, but the content is just more Clear Channel garbage crapping up the airwaves. Also, they're taking advantage of broadcasting out of a part of the spectrum that's normally reserved for non-profit and public stations in the US. Their obligation to the Canadian government? A couple hours of Canadian talk radio on weekend mornings long before anyone's out of bed. Once 6:50AM hits, 100% of their content is ad-infested American radio poo. I doubt Detroit/Windsor is the only place where this happens.
Sorry, did that come across as bitter and spiteful?
But I'm afraid it doesn't do much for me until it supports Linux in liu of Windows. It's just virtualization, so Linux *can* be supported, right? And should such support be easier since we have all the source code already?
Whole-heartedly agree. The problems mainly seem to be centered around POP, though. I have to suspect that hardly any Thunderbird developers actually use POP. I use Thunderbird with IMAP at home and at work daily, but our POP customers have nothing but troubles with it. After having to go out and do tech support on almost every single installation, we stopped started recommending Thunderbird altogether because most of our customers already had Outlook and liked it better anyway. Not to say that Outlook doesn't have its fair share of idiocy, but Thunderbird is a nightmare to support.
Is there any other decent free email client for Windows? Is the current version of Eudora worthwhile?
Back in the days when dial-up Internet began taking off, Qualcommm actually shipped quite a lot of Internet connectivity software, though mainly to ISPs to give away to their customers (often rebranded). At that time, the popular desktop OSes (Mac OS and Windows 3.x) didn't have much in the way of Internet connectivity. My first dial-up Internet account was accompanied by a disk of Qualcomm software containing Eudora, a Mosaic-derived web browser, and a TCP/IP stack for Win 3.1. Of course the quality of the latter two was horrible and I ended up replacing them with Netscape and Winsock after only a few months. Seems Eudora was the only thing to survive those times.
'The technology industry is perhaps the most guilty of all industries when it comes to love of acronyms,' said Mr Burmaster. "
Mr. Burmaster has never been around the US military much, which puts the whole geek community to shame in terms of sheer number of acronyms. The Air Force, in particular, doesn't have names for anything, they have acronyms instead. Forms and equipment almost never have names either, but are rather referred to by whatever series of numbers and/or letters were assigned to thems.
"At my PDS, I changed into my 36-2903-compliant BDUs, slipped on my BCGs, and dropped off my DA 31 at the 58 SOW MPF. When I got back to the MXS, I then R^2'ed a IDAS/MATT LRU on an MH-53J, filled out a DD 1577-2 on it and took the POS to the backshop.
I really meant that about the forms, btw. Ask for a form by name and you get that deer-in-the-headlights look from everyone. Probably like that in every government job.
Internet piracy may be tougher for lawmakers to conceptualize, entertainment companies fear.
Feh! Like's that's ever been an obstacle in the past...
MPAA: Mr. Lawmaker, Internet Piracy of our copyrighted works is bad. When everyday people decide that they can download movies illegally without fear of repercussion, we find that sales plummet, the industry suffers, and the culture as a whole is significantly damaged.
Lawmaker: Eh?
MPAA: We're hemorrhaging money thanks to Intarwebs!
Lawmaker. Oh.
MPAA: And you see, accounting has this weird thing where our profits are directly linked to the campaign contributions that we make to you.
Lawmaker: And what would you like your new law called?
Operating a business in a foreign country and mirroring data in a foreign country are quite two different things.
Good morning, Mr. Deadhorse. I'm here to beat you.
1. Original Series: brash captain, hot-looking women, dangerous adventures in a ship designed for living but not for tourism
If by "brash," you mean "talentless ego-maniac," then yes. Also, I dispute your claim of the women being "hot-looking".
2. The Next Generation: refined captain who talks like an English professor, women who emphasize their intellect, adventures in a ship designed like a luxury hotel
Spot on.
3. Deep Space Nine: captain who talks like a high-school dropout, women who emphasize their intellect, adventures in a space hotel
Wait, what? "Captain who talks like a high-school dropout"? Sisko speaks perfectly well. He was typically a little more jovial than the other captains, but I don't see anything wrong with that. I think you accidentally let some of your racism show through.
4. Voyager: captain who emphasizes her intellect, women who emphasize their intellect, dangerous adventures in a ship designed like a luxury hotel
Just what is it you have against shows that portray females as intelligent people? The whole "women-as-set-pieces" concept should have died along with the original series, what a shame it lives on in the form of you.
5. Enterprise: captain played by an actor who cannot act, women who emphasize their intellect, dangerous adventures in a ship run by characters played by actors and actresses who cannot act
I can handle inexperienced actors, the real travesty here was the writers. "Oooh, I know, let's create a new Star Trek to predate the others, but instead of writing new material, let's just rehash all of the characters, places, and technology from the other series' whilst excusing the overall sheer implausibility of it with a bit of hand-waving!"
I think you mean the entire season of Firefly.