Anybody have any idea what the quality will be like? Close to current proprietary Win32 players? I supppose it won't feature hardware acceleration, so it's probably software-only, but I'd like to be able to have it comfortable at a smooth 30 FPS+ @ 1024x768 in 32-bit color.
While trying to maintain a deisgn that looks decent in both Internet Explorer 3/4/5 and Netscape 3/4, I've become more and more frustrated with Netscape with each iteration of thier browser (their Preview Release 1, based on Mozilla, doesn't look too encouraging to me either). How far do you think they have fallen behind Microsoft's IE in compatibility and performance of HTML? Specifically, how bad are Netscape's problems with CSS, JavaScript, iframes, and the myriad other gripes developers hold for it?
Do you think 6.0 will bring it close to IE's level of functionality?
Spitfire was the internal name for this processor, just as Katmai/Coppermine were for P III chips. Spitfire is for the "value" segment while Thunderbird will be the new performance unit. Spitfire/Duron will have Integrated L2, a.18 micron fab process, and a "Socket A" packaging. Sounds a lot like the Celeron 2 to me.
Here is Anand's Comdex '99 coverage, which is an excellent resource for those wanting to know more about AMD's future.
Here's a HardwareCentral review of the Celeron 2 (today must be the day NDAs were lifted; look for other butt-kicking sites like Thresh's and Sharky's to maybe have something on it later today.
Here's BP6.com, an excellent reference for those of you with that funky Abit board. Check out the video preview of the Powerleap FC-PGA adapters - basically they plug into Coppermines and allow two of them (new stepping ONLY) to run in SMP mode. Of course, your BP6 would be running at 100MHz FSB by default - and overclocking well past 100MHz (which is what is required to unlock the true potential of Coppermines) is flaky on any BX board.
Coppermines seem, for me, an excellent buy. I have a 500E running at 733Mhz (147MHz FSB) on an MSI MS-6309 Apollo Pro 133A board. Excellent performance, and super stable.
The 66MHz FSB for these new Celerons is a double-edged sword. It's good that the 66MHz+ gap is open, which is really what made the original Celerons such good overclockers; but besides the performance hit (naturally), the lower FSB means a higher multiplier. The internal multiplier (locked by Intel) for the 600MHZ Celeron 2 is 9.0x. That's ass-high, people. I don't think many motherboards currently support that. At the very least I think a BIOS upgrade is in order, unless you're absoluely sure the board can handle that high a multiplier - but getting back to the performance hit, not only is your memory, etc. running at only 66MHz, but with the high multiplier your chip is running 9 times faster than your system. That's a low of waiting on its part.
My advice? Get a 500E or 550E (both can be had for around $200, if you know where to look) and overclock them beyond insanity. 150MHz FSB is not out of the question for these chips, especially the ones with the new core stepping. I'll be going for a 600E (FC-PGA) as soon as school lets out for me for the Summer.
For a truly bent journalistic look at the Coppermines, check out this piece I wrote for the fantastic Overclockers.com over Winter Break.
Thinking of interactivity (or at least a more personal feel, with backstage cameras, etc.), I noticed one thing in particular that seems atypical of previous Oscar celebrations: when the guy from King Gimp started spasming wildly once his film won an Oscar, the camera didn't turn away. It showed the older man (William Whiteford) and woman (Susan Hadary) trying to calm him, and it showed (15? 20? more?) backstage security people in tuxedos lining up ready to control anything out of the ordinary.
I don't mean to harp on the man's disability, or make it more of a subject than it is, but it's something I distinctly remember from the show. It was indeed something that was not intended by the producers, but I thought it was odd that the camera didn't cut to something else. The shot was uncomfortably long.
2000-03-12 11:06:22 MS announces official X-Box specs (articles,microsoft) (declined)
2000-03-12 18:59:47 FiringSquad looks at X-Box (articles,microsoft) (declined)
I'm not kidding here. All of these were rejected. Is there a thread to discuss rejection of timely comments? Look at the datestamp on the press release - it's March 10, the day I submitted it under "Microsoft Announces X-Box."
I agree. IE beats Netscape flat out at HTML 4.0 spec support, iframes, CSS sheets, and the like.
I've gone looking for a Linux port but haven't found anything - IE on Linux, as corny as it sounds, would be my ideal setup. Until then I'm stuck with Mozilla and Netscape.
I'm having problems creating a Mozilla.kdelnk for my KDE desktop in Linux Mandrake 7.0. I point it to usr/bin/mozilla/mozilla (or wherever I unpack the files) but I can't get it to start up the browser. I've tried using the "run in terminal" option but I have the same problem. Whenever I go through Konsole, though, and do a./mozilla it starts up fine. What am I doing wrong? Please help.
This is an excerpt from the most recent Information Technology e-mail newsletter, where the helpdesk people try to tell us there's nothing wrong with the Novell network here (it's slower than a 33.6 line from lunch to dinner):
New Stuff
Napster and other bandwidth hogging programs can cause slow Internet connections for everyone
The Chronicle of Higher Education published the following article in the issue dated February 25, 2000. Salisbury State University is facing similar bandwidth issues with the proliferation of Napster and similar programs, plus other bandwidth stealing applications such as Spinner, Real Player, WinAmp (when used to receive Shoutcast Stations) and Instant Messenger programs such as AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger, and ICQ. As a consideration, please be aware that using these programs during peak hours (usually 9 AM to 9 PM) causes the network to slow significantly, so please try to limit your use of these programs (especially the Napster-like programs and the streaming audio programs like Spinner, etc) to non-peak hours. In this way, we can ensure that the Internet is available at an acceptable level of speed to everyone that needs it.
"Napster, a tool for finding MP3 audio files online, is causing headaches among network administrators -- not because of its potential for copyright infringement, but because when students use it en masse they can clog even high-bandwidth campus Internet connections.
A growing number of universities have responded to the resulting congestion by cutting off the software's access to the Internet.
The program runs on personal computers and allows a user to share his or her collection of MP3 files. MP3's on users' hard drives are made available for both searches and downloads over the Internet by anyone else who runs the program. At peak times, this network of Napster users can offer access to several hundred gigabytes of data, or hundreds of thousands of individual files.
At any given time, each user can be sending and receiving dozens of files. Multiply that by hundreds of students on one campus, and the consequence can be a serious traffic jam.
"We found that, on average, that particular program was using 10 to 40 percent of our campus Internet bandwidth," says Marjorie F. Proell, communications director for Saint Cloud State University, in Minnesota. "There were times it peaked even at 60 percent."
Such high traffic can slow down everyone else's use of the Internet, whether for surfing, for transferring scholarly journal articles, or even just for sending mail. "It was reducing the speed and reliability of our Internet services, which is something that's felt by everyone on campus --students, staff, and faculty," says Ms. Proell. In October, network engineers at Oregon State University noticed increased Internet traffic, which they traced to Napster. "It was using 5 percent of O.S.U.'s total bandwidth going out of the university," says Christopher White, the administrator for the university's residential network. That percentage "doesn't sound like a lot, but it is -- a real, real lot," he says. By November, Napster was using up 10 percent of the bandwidth.
At first, administrators responded by calling students who were using the program and telling them that such bandwidth-hogging programs violated the university's policies on acceptable use of the network. But when it became clear that hundreds of students were using the program, officials decided to block the network channel that carries Napster traffic.
"If we had let it go much longer, I think we definitely would have had serious problems," says Mr. White.
Other institutions have reported similar traffic problems. Institutions that have reportedly banned the program include Boston, North Carolina State, and Northwestern Universities, and the Universities of New Hampshire, Pittsburgh, and Texas. Institutions don't just face slow Web connections as a result of Napster -- they can face significant Internet access costs as well. According to Curtis R. Pederson, Oregon State's vice provost for information services, Napster was costing the university about $1,500 per month at the time it was shut off.
The university normally spends $12,000 to $15,000 a month for Internet access. Mr. Pederson says the university is planning to hold a forum with students to talk about "Internet use and ethics, and the reality of the budget." Other institutions have had similar meetings.
Administrators who have blocked access to Napster say that bandwidth is their main concern, rather than the continuing controversy over MP3 files, which are often used to illegally transmit copyrighted music. The Recording Industry Association of America is pursuing a lawsuit against the makers of Napster because of the ease with which the program lets users share pirated music.
The association also regularly requests that colleges shut down online archives of illegal MP3's on campus networks and has created an educational campaign intended to teach students about copyright law.
Oregon State's Mr. White says the decision to block the program was definitely made easier by Napster's illicit uses. "If it was a program that had real educational value to it, it probably would have been a lot harder," he says. But, he adds, "we wouldn't have even noticed it if it wasn't for the bandwidth issue."
BTW, I received this mail from my school account - one "powered" by Groupwise - but that's all I use that account for, because it's literally down as much as it is up. But I guess that's another story...
I've been very pleased with XFree86 as of late, mainly because of better and better hardware support - since 3.3.6 my ATI Rage 128 card has been recognized and supported very well, well enough so that I'm happily running 32 bit color @ 1024x768.
Thanks go out to the XFree86 team, and I'm eagerly waiting 4.0!
The Web is a mass of information. It's no surprise that much of that information has to do with us, people, because we (well, most of us) enjoy social interaction. Why is it that there's a huge backlash against the pursuit and use of information? Surely I know people identify the Web as a safe haven, a place of privacy (i.e. connecting from the home), of personal identity (personalization and customization in Web development). But when do people realize that the vast majority of online entities are "not out to get you"? I don't know about you, but if I can't feel secure using my credit card online, then that (rather than the credit card) is my greater problem. But I do use it, egregiously, in fact.
It's a shame people like the author are jumping at shadows, seeing the boogeyman under the proverbial bed because he wants to think in his mind it's there (so of course it is).
Considering this MSNBC story, I don't think this Yahoo! article could have come at a better time. I don't have to say the Web gives racists (along with pedophiles, sexists, criminals, communists, and innumerable others) a haven for distributing their garbage and hate. The lack of consistent regulation online, while a blessing to all of us, is also a curse.
Linux hackers wanted to play DVDs on their Linux boxes...
That's exactly how I see it. I own a great DVD library, but the lack of DVD support in Linux has kept me dual-booting with Win 2000 on my personal machine.
To MPAA et al.: I'll stop using DeCSS the minute I find a complete Linux DVD solution.
I've searched high and low, checking recent distributions, to no avail. I just put on Mandrake 7 (finally with USB mouse support! Yeah!) and I noticed it installed a DVD player, but it seems it's just not in the cards quite yet.
I think the Office disk actually cost $25 (I'm pretty sure they rationalized it by calling it a complete desktop publishing suite, that's a laugh), and outside of FrontRage it's probably the worst piece of software they had up to sell. I'll stick to Notepad and (argh) WordPad for my NT text editing...I use StarOffice under RedHat 6.1 currently for my office-like stuff.
Free is one of the most misused words to ever have been thrown around, however, and I wonder exactly how much people will have to pay...
There's always something hidden. My school offered "free" OEM copies of Microsoft software this past semester (Win 98 SE, Win NT Workstation 4.0, FrontRage 98, etc.) through this agreement and naturally I was interested in picking up a few "legit" copies of Win NT. You guessed it, it wasn't exactly free - they weren't letting people take the CDs as they please.
Instead, you paid $5 for the "media" (although I don't believe it costs MS $5 to burn a CD in volume). Fair enough, I say, here's a $5 bill. Now hand me my NT!
Nope, you have to sign a contract first. Oh, this is some fun shit. I'm supposed to use it only on one machine, and only when it's in the best interest of the school, and I can forget about reselling it, or anything else...so I sign the contract and get my CD. Part of the contract I signed said that I'm only able to buy one copy - I guess MS isn't sympathetic to people with more than one PC, because if I can't buy more than one copy, and I can only use the one copy I do get on a sinlge machine, I'm SOL. Now was the software *really* free, or was it equal to the cost of the media plus agreeing to the contract?
Anyway, I got four friends to each buy me a copy and I slipped them each a $5 bill as soon as I got out of the university bookstore.
[bs]By the way, I have a couple copies of NT workstation available, $15 OBO:) Just kidding. I saw an anti-piracy expo at a recent computer fair this past weekend and it turned me into a fine Internet citizen(TM). I even destroyed those other four semi-legally acquired copies of NT as per the agreement I signed.[/bs]
There's a much stronger feeling of a "team effort" with distributed.net, and how can you help loving those cool little cow icons?
Seriously, two weeks ago I reinstalled the NT command line version of Seti (an ANCIENT client, but there hasn't been an update) on one of my machines and let it run all night...wouldn't you know it, it hung on sending and receivingg the data, and the stats I had (I identified myself with the same Email address I had previously used) never showed up. So I deleted it and went back to CSC.
Let's keep cracking on RC5! I can't wait for the OGR contest to start.
Slashdot Mirror
Coppermine 700, 440BX, 128MB Memory, ATI Rage Fury AGP 32MB SGRAM. Pioneer DVD-114.
Anybody have any idea what the quality will be like? Close to current proprietary Win32 players? I supppose it won't feature hardware acceleration, so it's probably software-only, but I'd like to be able to have it comfortable at a smooth 30 FPS+ @ 1024x768 in 32-bit color.
Do you think 6.0 will bring it close to IE's level of functionality?
Here is Anand's Comdex '99 coverage, which is an excellent resource for those wanting to know more about AMD's future.
I prefer Thresh's [site] over Sharky's [site] since Sharky's started to split their reviews into 20 pages or so...
And now for something completely different...another fish cam
Here's a HardwareCentral review of the Celeron 2 (today must be the day NDAs were lifted; look for other butt-kicking sites like Thresh's and Sharky's to maybe have something on it later today.
Here's BP6.com, an excellent reference for those of you with that funky Abit board. Check out the video preview of the Powerleap FC-PGA adapters - basically they plug into Coppermines and allow two of them (new stepping ONLY) to run in SMP mode. Of course, your BP6 would be running at 100MHz FSB by default - and overclocking well past 100MHz (which is what is required to unlock the true potential of Coppermines) is flaky on any BX board.
Coppermines seem, for me, an excellent buy. I have a 500E running at 733Mhz (147MHz FSB) on an MSI MS-6309 Apollo Pro 133A board. Excellent performance, and super stable.
The 66MHz FSB for these new Celerons is a double-edged sword. It's good that the 66MHz+ gap is open, which is really what made the original Celerons such good overclockers; but besides the performance hit (naturally), the lower FSB means a higher multiplier. The internal multiplier (locked by Intel) for the 600MHZ Celeron 2 is 9.0x. That's ass-high, people. I don't think many motherboards currently support that. At the very least I think a BIOS upgrade is in order, unless you're absoluely sure the board can handle that high a multiplier - but getting back to the performance hit, not only is your memory, etc. running at only 66MHz, but with the high multiplier your chip is running 9 times faster than your system. That's a low of waiting on its part.
My advice? Get a 500E or 550E (both can be had for around $200, if you know where to look) and overclock them beyond insanity. 150MHz FSB is not out of the question for these chips, especially the ones with the new core stepping. I'll be going for a 600E (FC-PGA) as soon as school lets out for me for the Summer.
For a truly bent journalistic look at the Coppermines, check out this piece I wrote for the fantastic Overclockers.com over Winter Break.
I hate to say it, but...
2000-03-22 02:01:47 NASA knew Mars Polar Lander was Doomed (articles,space) (declined)
I don't mean to harp on the man's disability, or make it more of a subject than it is, but it's something I distinctly remember from the show. It was indeed something that was not intended by the producers, but I thought it was odd that the camera didn't cut to something else. The shot was uncomfortably long.
2000-03-10 03:37:37 Microsoft Announces X-Box (articles,microsoft) (declined)
2000-03-10 14:59:38 Intel Inside X-Box (articles,microsoft) (declined)
2000-03-12 11:06:22 MS announces official X-Box specs (articles,microsoft) (declined)
2000-03-12 18:59:47 FiringSquad looks at X-Box (articles,microsoft) (declined)
I'm not kidding here. All of these were rejected. Is there a thread to discuss rejection of timely comments? Look at the datestamp on the press release - it's March 10, the day I submitted it under "Microsoft Announces X-Box."
Oh dear...I'm having some serious scrolling and font issues with M14...don't remember them from previous builds. Onward Talkback!
I've gone looking for a Linux port but haven't found anything - IE on Linux, as corny as it sounds, would be my ideal setup. Until then I'm stuck with Mozilla and Netscape.
I'm having problems creating a Mozilla.kdelnk for my KDE desktop in Linux Mandrake 7.0. I point it to usr/bin/mozilla/mozilla (or wherever I unpack the files) but I can't get it to start up the browser. I've tried using the "run in terminal" option but I have the same problem. Whenever I go through Konsole, though, and do a ./mozilla it starts up fine. What am I doing wrong? Please help.
Napster and other bandwidth hogging programs can cause slow Internet connections for everyone
The Chronicle of Higher Education published the following article in the issue dated February 25, 2000. Salisbury State University is facing similar bandwidth issues with the proliferation of Napster and similar programs, plus other bandwidth stealing applications such as Spinner, Real Player, WinAmp (when used to receive Shoutcast Stations) and Instant Messenger programs such as AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger, and ICQ. As a consideration, please be aware that using these programs during peak hours (usually 9 AM to 9 PM) causes the network to slow significantly, so please try to limit your use of these programs (especially the Napster-like programs and the streaming audio programs like Spinner, etc) to non-peak hours. In this way, we can ensure that the Internet is available at an acceptable level of speed to everyone that needs it.
"Napster, a tool for finding MP3 audio files online, is causing headaches among network administrators -- not because of its potential for copyright infringement, but because when students use it en masse they can clog even high-bandwidth campus Internet connections.
A growing number of universities have responded to the resulting congestion by cutting off the software's access to the Internet.
The program runs on personal computers and allows a user to share his or her collection of MP3 files. MP3's on users' hard drives are made available for both searches and downloads over the Internet by anyone else who runs the program. At peak times, this network of Napster users can offer access to several hundred gigabytes of data, or hundreds of thousands of individual files.
At any given time, each user can be sending and receiving dozens of files. Multiply that by hundreds of students on one campus, and the consequence can be a serious traffic jam.
"We found that, on average, that particular program was using 10 to 40 percent of our campus Internet bandwidth," says Marjorie F. Proell, communications director for Saint Cloud State University, in Minnesota. "There were times it peaked even at 60 percent."
Such high traffic can slow down everyone else's use of the Internet, whether for surfing, for transferring scholarly journal articles, or even just for sending mail. "It was reducing the speed and reliability of our Internet services, which is something that's felt by everyone on campus --students, staff, and faculty," says Ms. Proell. In October, network engineers at Oregon State University noticed increased Internet traffic, which they traced to Napster. "It was using 5 percent of O.S.U.'s total bandwidth going out of the university," says Christopher White, the administrator for the university's residential network. That percentage "doesn't sound like a lot, but it is -- a real, real lot," he says. By November, Napster was using up 10 percent of the bandwidth.
At first, administrators responded by calling students who were using the program and telling them that such bandwidth-hogging programs violated the university's policies on acceptable use of the network. But when it became clear that hundreds of students were using the program, officials decided to block the network channel that carries Napster traffic.
"If we had let it go much longer, I think we definitely would have had serious problems," says Mr. White.
Other institutions have reported similar traffic problems. Institutions that have reportedly banned the program include Boston, North Carolina State, and Northwestern Universities, and the Universities of New Hampshire, Pittsburgh, and Texas. Institutions don't just face slow Web connections as a result of Napster -- they can face significant Internet access costs as well. According to Curtis R. Pederson, Oregon State's vice provost for information services, Napster was costing the university about $1,500 per month at the time it was shut off.
The university normally spends $12,000 to $15,000 a month for Internet access. Mr. Pederson says the university is planning to hold a forum with students to talk about "Internet use and ethics, and the reality of the budget." Other institutions have had similar meetings.
Administrators who have blocked access to Napster say that bandwidth is their main concern, rather than the continuing controversy over MP3 files, which are often used to illegally transmit copyrighted music. The Recording Industry Association of America is pursuing a lawsuit against the makers of Napster because of the ease with which the program lets users share pirated music.
The association also regularly requests that colleges shut down online archives of illegal MP3's on campus networks and has created an educational campaign intended to teach students about copyright law.
Oregon State's Mr. White says the decision to block the program was definitely made easier by Napster's illicit uses. "If it was a program that had real educational value to it, it probably would have been a lot harder," he says. But, he adds, "we wouldn't have even noticed it if it wasn't for the bandwidth issue."
BTW, I received this mail from my school account - one "powered" by Groupwise - but that's all I use that account for, because it's literally down as much as it is up. But I guess that's another story...
no nudity and no sex make scream a dull movie
Thanks go out to the XFree86 team, and I'm eagerly waiting 4.0!
Also, does Red Hat support the Highpoint HPT366 ATA/66 chip?
It's a shame people like the author are jumping at shadows, seeing the boogeyman under the proverbial bed because he wants to think in his mind it's there (so of course it is).
"XMMS runs on Linux." + "Hackers use Linux." = "Hackers use XMMS"
"Hackers use XMMS" + "XMMS plays MP3 files" = "Hey, it's the DeCSS of the music industry!"
I called Vegas and the odds are 2:1 in favor of a DeCSS'ish string of arrests before the day is out. Buckle up everybody! Mirror sites, I pray for you! :)
Considering this MSNBC story, I don't think this Yahoo! article could have come at a better time. I don't have to say the Web gives racists (along with pedophiles, sexists, criminals, communists, and innumerable others) a haven for distributing their garbage and hate. The lack of consistent regulation online, while a blessing to all of us, is also a curse.
That's exactly how I see it. I own a great DVD library, but the lack of DVD support in Linux has kept me dual-booting with Win 2000 on my personal machine.
To MPAA et al.: I'll stop using DeCSS the minute I find a complete Linux DVD solution.
I've searched high and low, checking recent distributions, to no avail. I just put on Mandrake 7 (finally with USB mouse support! Yeah!) and I noticed it installed a DVD player, but it seems it's just not in the cards quite yet.
I think the Office disk actually cost $25 (I'm pretty sure they rationalized it by calling it a complete desktop publishing suite, that's a laugh), and outside of FrontRage it's probably the worst piece of software they had up to sell. I'll stick to Notepad and (argh) WordPad for my NT text editing...I use StarOffice under RedHat 6.1 currently for my office-like stuff.
There's always something hidden. My school offered "free" OEM copies of Microsoft software this past semester (Win 98 SE, Win NT Workstation 4.0, FrontRage 98, etc.) through this agreement and naturally I was interested in picking up a few "legit" copies of Win NT. You guessed it, it wasn't exactly free - they weren't letting people take the CDs as they please.
Instead, you paid $5 for the "media" (although I don't believe it costs MS $5 to burn a CD in volume). Fair enough, I say, here's a $5 bill. Now hand me my NT!
Nope, you have to sign a contract first. Oh, this is some fun shit. I'm supposed to use it only on one machine, and only when it's in the best interest of the school, and I can forget about reselling it, or anything else...so I sign the contract and get my CD. Part of the contract I signed said that I'm only able to buy one copy - I guess MS isn't sympathetic to people with more than one PC, because if I can't buy more than one copy, and I can only use the one copy I do get on a sinlge machine, I'm SOL. Now was the software *really* free, or was it equal to the cost of the media plus agreeing to the contract?
Anyway, I got four friends to each buy me a copy and I slipped them each a $5 bill as soon as I got out of the university bookstore.
[bs]By the way, I have a couple copies of NT workstation available, $15 OBO :) Just kidding. I saw an anti-piracy expo at a recent computer fair this past weekend and it turned me into a fine Internet citizen(TM). I even destroyed those other four semi-legally acquired copies of NT as per the agreement I signed.[/bs]
Imagine that...we'll have desperate hackers writing "Perl slave at 3:00AM passed out drunk" scents!
This could get ugly.
The lack of timely upgrades for the client a la distributed.net
The lack of updates of fresh content on the website a la distributed.net
Network outages
"Recycling" of data - just a horrible waste of time
I'm happy to say I was with CSC since day one and I'm still happily cracking away on RC5.
There's a much stronger feeling of a "team effort" with distributed.net, and how can you help loving those cool little cow icons?
Seriously, two weeks ago I reinstalled the NT command line version of Seti (an ANCIENT client, but there hasn't been an update) on one of my machines and let it run all night...wouldn't you know it, it hung on sending and receivingg the data, and the stats I had (I identified myself with the same Email address I had previously used) never showed up. So I deleted it and went back to CSC.
Let's keep cracking on RC5! I can't wait for the OGR contest to start.