ummm. No... The 'recovery' disks I'm refering to do not contain the Dell crap.. The disk is
simply a Windows XP SP2 install disk, with 'wiring' to prevent use on any other machines besides a Dell.. Once you boot from one of these disks, and install Windows, you have a virgin WinXP install, with zero post-SP2 patches....
Ironic though it is, if you buy Optiplex's thru the 'corporate' side of Dell, its damn hard to get them to NOT send recovery CD's.. I support a flock of Dells in my day-job, and we're retiring the old GX110/P3s with new GX620/P4D's.. We specifically unchecked the 'include CD' box, and they send the disks anyway.. This has been going on with the earlier GX280's etc too... This causes me to have an ever-growing stack of Dell XPPro SP1/SP2 recovery disks...
You can get VERY good deals on machines from the Dell Outlet.. I recently bought an Inspiron 2200 laptop for $447 and a GX620 (their latest model corporate Optiplex) for $495. The laptop was a Celeron370 w/256mb, but since it was replacing an IBM P2/300, thats fine. I'd ordered a 1gb Crucial ram upgrade for it prior to arrival. The GX620 was a P4/2.8/HT, virtually the same machine we buy at the day-job for nearly $1000. The only diff between the outlet machine and the ones we buy are the CPU.. outlet=P4/HT vs P4D/Dual core on the work machines... And of course, both were wiped and a fresh install done.. Funny thing: The work machines are ordered specifically without the CD's (since we reimage immediately out of the box) but Dell insists on sending them..
We've noted on the online order page to not include them, but they keep coming, so I've got a ever-growing stack of SP1 and SP2 Dell recovery disks...
Talk about a bizarre 'rebate'.. When my wife and I went shopping for a new car, we wanted a Hyundai Santa Fe.. So since we have three Hyundai dealers in town, we cruised them all and came up with very similar prices, with one exception.. One dealer was offering free gasoline for a year.. hmmm. To make a long story short, we bought our Santa Fe from this dealer.. I must have been wearing my 'stupid' hat that day, because I went for this deal before reading the 'fine-print' on the free gas.. Some of the highlights: They give you a coupon book, you have to hand-carry (no mail) the dated-with-seven days-receipt to the dealer with the coupon for that month, you get no more than 17 gals on one receipt per month.. If you miss it for that month, you miss-that-month.. In short, its a ROYAL PAIN IN THE BUTT.. --But I'm getting some satisfaction.. When I do the fillup for a receipt, I go to one of our few full-serve stations, get the full-serve, put in premium (at nearly $4/gallon).. snicker..snicker..snicker...
Thats what I've been doing for over 5 years.. I absolutely/positively WILL NOT pay the
outrageous prices to see any of the shite that Hollyweird is emitting today. In fact, I've seen ALL of the Star Wars saga, all more than once, and in the case of the original, over 20 times. Having said that, I'll also say I've yet to see the latest installment, and won't until it comes out on DVD...
I'd agree in many cases, however, there's one place I'd really LOVE to have voice capability, and that's in SecondLife! http://secondlife.com/ I'm a resident there, and a crappy typist, and I'm crazy about the MST3K/Home Game that happens there every couple of days, but since SL is typing/chat-based, I'm pretty screwed on putting my timely (and often funny) comments.. Voice would be great here...
Here in Las Vegas, we've had the usual $$$ suspects, like $tarbucks, Borders, for a long time, but lately, we've recently gotten a lot of new freebie locations, along with 4 new Panera Bread locations, and several chains of coffee shops with free access. In fact, I'm typing this at my favorite, the 'Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf' branch across the street from the University Of Nevada @ Las Vegas.. From where I'm sitting, there is at least two $$$ AP's, and several freebies (according to Stumbler).. I've started a webpage to track the increasing number of free ap's in Las Vegas.. http://lvfreewifi.net/
Don't I know it.. I was in Orlando last October with the Red Cross, and got a chance to drive out to KSC for a couple of hours. Didn't even have time to take the visitors center tour.. Saw the VAB in the distance from the visitor center parking lot.. Now I'm back in Las Vegas, with no chance of getting back for the launch... Grrrrr....
I have a Dell X30, and I'll concur 100% on the absolutely STUPID network config to get the wifi working... In my day-job, I support WinBlows machines, so I'm not clueless on how to configure a network, but GEEEEZZZ, who designed the WindowsMobile2003 network configuration menus?? Was he on crank?? The native config menus are so hozed, I've tried several of third-pty managers, like the Boingo PPC client.. No help there either.. The bottom line is I've pretty much given up on using the X30 wirelessly, however, in all fairness, I like sync'ing via Bluetooth, though it was weird to get/keep working....
It's certainly the deathnell for the Las Vegas wifi Meetup! I took over as organizer of it about six months ago, when the previous organizer dropped out. He had it being held at a Starbucks, and I moved it to a nearby Coffee Shop with free wifi.. We're probably like many small meetups, 20-30 people actually registered with the group, but only a tiny subset of that who actually come to the the monthly meets. In fact, the last couple of months, It's been me and one other guy showing up. In fact, tonight's the monthly meeting, and after reading this, if the turnouts like usual I'm gonna pull the plug tommorrow.... I certainly am NOT going to pay $9 or $19/mo to these bloodsuckers.. Now, if we had a thriving meetup, and I could get everybody to chip in, maybe..
Goodbye, Meetup.. Greed got ya in the end..
While unemployed a while back, my TekSystems
recruiter called and asked if I'd be willing to do
a short-term contract doing something similar. Apparently some co's outsource these test runs to co's like TekSystems. To make a long story short, they needed two people in each car, the driver (who was paid $10/hr) and the equipment tech, at $13/hr.
I wasn't THAT desparate, so I turned it down...
Back in July last year, I, stupidly, bought a Kingston 512MB DIMM from Frys, which of course, had a $30 rebate. The Phoenix AZ rebate house they use seemed real inept, as they kept claiming they didn't have my info. Finally, in December, last year, I got fed up, and, using planetfeedback, complained to Kingston directly. Funny thing, I got an email in a couple of days after posting the complaint, from a very nice lady at Kingston who magically got my rebate, in only an additional 2 weeks, after the planetfeedback complaint... Seems that planetfeedback works wonderfully when you use words in your complaint, such as "fraud", and "State Attorney General"....
AFAIK this isn't new... When I entered the US Army in 1969, almost all of the multitudes of shots that are given during the medical part of military induction were given by some kind of air gun, which was nearly painless.. I'd always wondered what happened to these air-guns.. Guess I'm from a alternate universe, if this is really new here in this universe...:->
LVDave
Well, sure Google has said 'Do_No_Evil', but to feel warm/fuzzy about this, you need to first define exactly what they define as 'evil'.. Since I have idea what they define as 'evil' and they're not forthcoming with this tidbit of info, I'll keep my data on my own systems, thank you very much, google...
Actually, The Dell Dimension series (the home market machines) are similarly quiet. I run a 4550 P4/2.53Ghz right next to my bed and I have no trouble sleeping with it running. (No I don't use earplugs!)...
Just asking, but hasn't Novell included their eDirectory/NDS into their SUSE Linux offerings? I know they ported it to Linux back a few yaren ago..
Enquiring minds wanna know...
LVDave
Same problem at the Henderson NV store.. The last 5 or so times I've gone there, the AP was hozed. It's so bad, I check out the situation before going in with my PocketPC & Ministumbler to be sure the AP's working.. Sounds like this is co. polioy....
I frequent the three Paneras here in Las Vegas, all three of them have wifi, but Nevada is completely unlisted in the FA... Oh well... Funny thing, the Henderson NV store's SSID is 'linksys', and the last few times I've been there, it's been hozed (good signal, but no DHCP server found).. Most of the managers are clueless, though once I lucked out to a manager on duty who was willing to cycle the power on the AP, which brought things back to normal.. Another thing I've found, both here at the LV stores and ones I visited in FL and GA a few months back, don't expect to stream any shoutcast/WMP stuff, the dropouts will drive you crazy.. It appears they're sharing their store network, as I found a WinNT server in my network neighborhood with the store number as a name...
LVDave
Yeah, MARS has been around since, I think, just after the Korean war, but it really took off during Vietnam. I was trained as a ground surveillance radar repair tech, but after arriving in Vietnam, was assigned as an operator since there were no slots open for depot repair at the unit I was assigned to. An operator of the units was basically a glorified grunt/rifleman, so I finagled my way into being transferred to the MARS station.. Much better assignment...:->
Another stroll down memorylane....
Boy, does this take me back to my tour in Vietnam, 30+ years ago... All we had back then was the MARS system (Military Affiliate Radio System) doing phone patches via HF radio.. I spent most of my tour working at AB8AX...I'm not sure just what the propagation is to/from Iraq and the US.. We used to use just below the 15m ham band (~21mhz) for most of our patches to the west coast of CONUS.
LVDave
Slashdot Mirror
ummm. No... The 'recovery' disks I'm refering to do not contain the Dell crap.. The disk is simply a Windows XP SP2 install disk, with 'wiring' to prevent use on any other machines besides a Dell.. Once you boot from one of these disks, and install Windows, you have a virgin WinXP install, with zero post-SP2 patches....
Ironic though it is, if you buy Optiplex's thru the 'corporate' side of Dell, its damn hard to get them to NOT send recovery CD's.. I support a flock of Dells in my day-job, and we're retiring the old GX110/P3s with new GX620/P4D's.. We specifically unchecked the 'include CD' box, and they send the disks anyway.. This has been going on with the earlier GX280's etc too... This causes me to have an ever-growing stack of Dell XPPro SP1/SP2 recovery disks...
You can get VERY good deals on machines from the Dell Outlet.. I recently bought an Inspiron 2200 laptop for $447 and a GX620 (their latest model corporate Optiplex) for $495. The laptop was a Celeron370 w/256mb, but since it was replacing an IBM P2/300, thats fine. I'd ordered a 1gb Crucial ram upgrade for it prior to arrival. The GX620 was a P4/2.8/HT, virtually the same machine we buy at the day-job for nearly $1000. The only diff between the outlet machine and the ones we buy are the CPU.. outlet=P4/HT vs P4D/Dual core on the work machines... And of course, both were wiped and a fresh install done.. Funny thing: The work machines are ordered specifically without the CD's (since we reimage immediately out of the box) but Dell insists on sending them.. We've noted on the online order page to not include them, but they keep coming, so I've got a ever-growing stack of SP1 and SP2 Dell recovery disks...
Talk about a bizarre 'rebate'.. When my wife and I went shopping for a new car, we wanted a Hyundai Santa Fe.. So since we have three Hyundai dealers in town, we cruised them all and came up with very similar prices, with one exception.. One dealer was offering free gasoline for a year.. hmmm. To make a long story short, we bought our Santa Fe from this dealer.. I must have been wearing my 'stupid' hat that day, because I went for this deal before reading the 'fine-print' on the free gas.. Some of the highlights: They give you a coupon book, you have to hand-carry (no mail) the dated-with-seven days-receipt to the dealer with the coupon for that month, you get no more than 17 gals on one receipt per month.. If you miss it for that month, you miss-that-month.. In short, its a ROYAL PAIN IN THE BUTT.. --But I'm getting some satisfaction.. When I do the fillup for a receipt, I go to one of our few full-serve stations, get the full-serve, put in premium (at nearly $4/gallon).. snicker..snicker..snicker...
Thats what I've been doing for over 5 years.. I absolutely/positively WILL NOT pay the outrageous prices to see any of the shite that Hollyweird is emitting today. In fact, I've seen ALL of the Star Wars saga, all more than once, and in the case of the original, over 20 times. Having said that, I'll also say I've yet to see the latest installment, and won't until it comes out on DVD...
I'd agree in many cases, however, there's one place I'd really LOVE to have voice capability, and that's in SecondLife! http://secondlife.com/ I'm a resident there, and a crappy typist, and I'm crazy about the MST3K/Home Game that happens there every couple of days, but since SL is typing/chat-based, I'm pretty screwed on putting my timely (and often funny) comments.. Voice would be great here...
Here in Las Vegas, we've had the usual $$$ suspects, like $tarbucks, Borders, for a long time, but lately, we've recently gotten a lot of new freebie locations, along with 4 new Panera Bread locations, and several chains of coffee shops with free access. In fact, I'm typing this at my favorite, the 'Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf' branch across the street from the University Of Nevada @ Las Vegas.. From where I'm sitting, there is at least two $$$ AP's, and several freebies (according to Stumbler).. I've started a webpage to track the increasing number of free ap's in Las Vegas.. http://lvfreewifi.net/
Don't I know it.. I was in Orlando last October with the Red Cross, and got a chance to drive out to KSC for a couple of hours. Didn't even have time to take the visitors center tour.. Saw the VAB in the distance from the visitor center parking lot.. Now I'm back in Las Vegas, with no chance of getting back for the launch... Grrrrr....
I have a Dell X30, and I'll concur 100% on the absolutely STUPID network config to get the wifi working... In my day-job, I support WinBlows machines, so I'm not clueless on how to configure a network, but GEEEEZZZ, who designed the WindowsMobile2003 network configuration menus?? Was he on crank?? The native config menus are so hozed, I've tried several of third-pty managers, like the Boingo PPC client.. No help there either.. The bottom line is I've pretty much given up on using the X30 wirelessly, however, in all fairness, I like sync'ing via Bluetooth, though it was weird to get/keep working....
I thought Mojave airport, where SS1 took off/landed was jokingly called 'Mos Eisley'...
Surprisingly, here's Area 51, with unbelivable detail.... http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=37.139626,-116.06 7123&spn=0.088749,0.126686&t=k&hl=en
It's certainly the deathnell for the Las Vegas wifi Meetup! I took over as organizer of it about six months ago, when the previous organizer dropped out. He had it being held at a Starbucks, and I moved it to a nearby Coffee Shop with free wifi.. We're probably like many small meetups, 20-30 people actually registered with the group, but only a tiny subset of that who actually come to the the monthly meets. In fact, the last couple of months, It's been me and one other guy showing up. In fact, tonight's the monthly meeting, and after reading this, if the turnouts like usual I'm gonna pull the plug tommorrow.... I certainly am NOT going to pay $9 or $19/mo to these bloodsuckers.. Now, if we had a thriving meetup, and I could get everybody to chip in, maybe.. Goodbye, Meetup.. Greed got ya in the end..
While unemployed a while back, my TekSystems recruiter called and asked if I'd be willing to do a short-term contract doing something similar. Apparently some co's outsource these test runs to co's like TekSystems. To make a long story short, they needed two people in each car, the driver (who was paid $10/hr) and the equipment tech, at $13/hr. I wasn't THAT desparate, so I turned it down...
Cool... IF they don't block the echoLink ports (5198-5199 and 5200).. I've tried echolink at a couple of hotspots I frequent, and no joy...
Back in July last year, I, stupidly, bought a Kingston 512MB DIMM from Frys, which of course, had a $30 rebate. The Phoenix AZ rebate house they use seemed real inept, as they kept claiming they didn't have my info. Finally, in December, last year, I got fed up, and, using planetfeedback, complained to Kingston directly. Funny thing, I got an email in a couple of days after posting the complaint, from a very nice lady at Kingston who magically got my rebate, in only an additional 2 weeks, after the planetfeedback complaint... Seems that planetfeedback works wonderfully when you use words in your complaint, such as "fraud", and "State Attorney General"....
AFAIK this isn't new... When I entered the US Army in 1969, almost all of the multitudes of shots that are given during the medical part of military induction were given by some kind of air gun, which was nearly painless.. I'd always wondered what happened to these air-guns.. Guess I'm from a alternate universe, if this is really new here in this universe... :->
LVDave
Well, sure Google has said 'Do_No_Evil', but to feel warm/fuzzy about this, you need to first define exactly what they define as 'evil'.. Since I have idea what they define as 'evil' and they're not forthcoming with this tidbit of info, I'll keep my data on my own systems, thank you very much, google...
Another trip to the Wayback.. Anybody remember when yahoo was at 'akibono.stanford.edu' (or something close to this?)....
Actually, The Dell Dimension series (the home market machines) are similarly quiet. I run a 4550 P4/2.53Ghz right next to my bed and I have no trouble sleeping with it running. (No I don't use earplugs!)...
Just asking, but hasn't Novell included their eDirectory/NDS into their SUSE Linux offerings? I know they ported it to Linux back a few yaren ago.. Enquiring minds wanna know... LVDave
Same problem at the Henderson NV store.. The last 5 or so times I've gone there, the AP was hozed. It's so bad, I check out the situation before going in with my PocketPC & Ministumbler to be sure the AP's working.. Sounds like this is co. polioy....
I frequent the three Paneras here in Las Vegas, all three of them have wifi, but Nevada is completely unlisted in the FA... Oh well... Funny thing, the Henderson NV store's SSID is 'linksys', and the last few times I've been there, it's been hozed (good signal, but no DHCP server found).. Most of the managers are clueless, though once I lucked out to a manager on duty who was willing to cycle the power on the AP, which brought things back to normal.. Another thing I've found, both here at the LV stores and ones I visited in FL and GA a few months back, don't expect to stream any shoutcast/WMP stuff, the dropouts will drive you crazy.. It appears they're sharing their store network, as I found a WinNT server in my network neighborhood with the store number as a name... LVDave
Yeah, MARS has been around since, I think, just after the Korean war, but it really took off during Vietnam. I was trained as a ground surveillance radar repair tech, but after arriving in Vietnam, was assigned as an operator since there were no slots open for depot repair at the unit I was assigned to. An operator of the units was basically a glorified grunt/rifleman, so I finagled my way into being transferred to the MARS station.. Much better assignment... :->
Another stroll down memorylane....
Boy, does this take me back to my tour in Vietnam, 30+ years ago... All we had back then was the MARS system (Military Affiliate Radio System) doing phone patches via HF radio.. I spent most of my tour working at AB8AX...I'm not sure just what the propagation is to/from Iraq and the US.. We used to use just below the 15m ham band (~21mhz) for most of our patches to the west coast of CONUS. LVDave