Sadly the only problem with the chromecast audio was the standard price. $35 was just too high. I got mine on a holiday sale last year for $15 with a discounted google home speaker. It let me upgrade me old yamaha 6.1 to allow easy streaming. I would have snapped up 4 more if the price was $15-$20 all the time. For $35 it was just too expensive for what it did.
Honestly however if they add a 3.5 mm jack to the google home puck speaker I would get go that route.
I always hear about the shortage of skilled technical people, but I've witnessed the opposite being true. A number of people have IT related skills but cannot find a job because companies are often looking for rare skillsets. When I say rare I mean tools that were developed in house and not commercially available. If you don't have 10 years experience with their internal process they want nothing to do with you. They then claim they couldn't find anyone and try to find a H1B or H2B visa holder.
The side of the coin I'm on is I have 15 years of PLM experience. I work a full time position for good pay, and I've had the following experiences in the last two years.
-I get 5-10 calls a week for positions that are short term contracts of 3-6 months for pay less than I make on my salary.
-I've been flown out for a interview with a company in California for a job that was supposed to be in Michigan. After the interview they met my salary requirements, but told me they were closing their Michigan location and the job would be in the Bay area. What would have been a nice career move turned into a major downgrade. I refused and suddenly the job was made available for an H1B position.
For rare skills sure there is a shortage of people, but that's because no one is hiring at the entry level and training up. I know a lot of engineers who have had a degree for 10 years or more who have not had engineering positions and instead work retail. The people are out there. It's a HR problem, not a supply problem.
Lets face facts. We're still trying to understand how intelligence works. Even in neural networks of the past we had this issue. Once you delve into this area you should just be happy that it works.
I'm going to have to second this. I've gotten my older family members PCs in the past and it's always turned into a major headache for me. Your best bet is one of two solutions:
1) Apple everything: Macintosh based computers, Ipad tablets, iphones (if they are cellular users), and apple TV streaming devices. While many rip on apple (including me. I was a mac fan in the apple 2/ mac 2 era, but got burned in the shift to OS X) once your completely in everything just works. If they need help applecare or the apple stores are there to assist or you can use something like Teamviewer to log in remotely.
2) Google everything: Chrometop based computers and Chromebook laptops, Android tablets and phones, and finally Nexus players for TV's and stereos. Much like the apple ecosystem Google equipment works well together. Maybe not as much at the local level, but once you tie them to your Google account everything is tied nicely through web services. Unlike PC (and even apple equipment) Chromebooks and Chrometops are immune to viruses as each time you hard boot they get a fresh OS from ROM. Use their existing PC to push their music and photos to Google Music and Photos.
As for the printer get a networked hard wired multi-function printer. I've found issues with WiFi printers including poor sleep states and difficulty getting them to resync to the WiFi after a power event. A hard wired printer is more reliable. By hard wiring it you make sure everything is in one location. Cable modem, WiFi router, and printer. Tie it all into the same surge protector and if anything goes wrong your mom and dad just need to know to turn off the surge strip for a minute then kick it back on.
As for your dad's 3tb drive I'm not sure what he would be storing on that. In the Apple ecosystem he could either just attach it as a external to what ever mac he chooses to use, link it to his router and use it as network attached storage, or plug it into a real NAS box like a synology. On the Google ecosystem you are limited to just external storage. You probably could push the files to google docs if he wants to pay for more storage (unless it's all photos and music then the basic account would probably do) and just hang on to the 3TB drive as an emergency backup.
Hope this helps. While windows is the primary OS, I'm finding older relatives who are less technical are better served by other technologies. Especially since these "Indian tech support scams" are becoming more commonplace. I've had to remind all of my relatives that "Microsoft will never call you". The ones who have Macs and Chromebooks usually just hang up because they already understand that Microsoft wouldn't provide support for their device.
So having worked at a number of car companies I can estimate why they said it was the product of a couple of engineers.
Manager to Engineer 1) "We need you to set up a software routine to make sure than our new TDI is compliant with emissions standards. Make sure you tie it to a CANBUS flag that we can modify in testing to show that the software is working."
Manager to Engineer 2) "I need you to write a routine to modify the state of this CANBUS flag. If all four wheels are in motion we want it off. If only the front wheels are in motion we want it on."
I love how it always boils down to an engineer or two and not a business decision.
BenFranske is correct. You're looking for a matrix switch for the video. They are sized by the number of video inputs and outputs. You're probably looking for a 6x2 ( inputs( pc1 screen 1, pc1 screen2, pc2 screen1, pc2 screen1, laptop screen1, laptop screen2) x outputs (screen 1, screen2). Remember these devices will not use a keyboard shortcut to direct sources to outputs. You'll either need to use the remote or rig something up with an arduino as most of these devices accept RS-232 commands that are fairly simple.
Something like this would work http://amzn.to/1L2pWmU
As for inputs such as keyboard and mouse that would be something different. I used a USB switch and a hub to create this solution, but now this type of gear exists.
http://amzn.to/1FB3dyd
I believe this would solve your issue. Your other choice would be to get two 4 port HDMI KVMs each hooked up to a monitor. You only need to hook a keyboard and mouse up to one (say screen 1's kvm). The issue here is you'll have to use the remote or buttons to trigger Screen2's KVM as you won't be able to use a keyboard shortcut where as you can on Screen1.
I believe the best option out there currently would be a raspberry pi 2 (4 USB ports, faster processor, and still relatively inexpensive). It's easily serviced, stupidly simple to get set up, and finally easily unhooked and carried with the student. Any issues encountered can be resolved by re-flashing the SD card. Just make sure your students use a USB thumb drive for file storage. Unfortunately you are off in your cost estimate. You cannot assume that a monitor or television will be present in your student's home. Just the pi, mouse, keyboard, power supply, case, and SD card can run $70. A monitor can run $100 easily on average. Bulk USB thumb drives can be had for as little as $5.
Assuming a $170 cost at the US minimum wage of $7.25 you're looking at 23.44 hours to earn the money needed (3 days pay). That's an expense you cannot shift to your students because you want to get papers typed. Lets face it, this is your requirement. Knowledge transfer is just as applicable via hand writing as the typed word. As you stated internet access is a whole separate issue that you are not addressing.
In today's day and age $170 is really the bare minimum for what can be termed a PC. You can always keep an eye on Woot or Meh for tablets. Meh has a sale on a 9" android tablet for $33 + s&h. This would be without a physical keyboard though.
Your best bet here would be to round up to $200 per student, contact your local cable provider and find out the details on their low income internet program. Comcast has something like this in my area. Slow internet, but it is internet. Then apply for a grant to cover the expense.
Yeah. You could probably replace the thing with a raspberry pi.... at each location... with a custom controller card.. and another one to control them all... for about $5,000
$2M ? Someone's pork barrel overfloweth.
I think we're all forgetting that the HVAC system as a whole is that old. Pumps, valves, and compressors all have finite life spans. My first reaction was also to use some Rpi's at each location which could add up to under $200 per building I then considered the cost to forklift and upgrade the HVAC at each facility. This would be about right.
As someone who has a choice of one cable provider (Brighthouse) or one telecom company (AT&T) I've been following fiber deployments fairly closely. There are a few companies deploying Google Fiber style networks in my state but they are moving slowly and not hitting my area any time soon. As such I contacted Google to ask if there was anything on the net to help interested communities build out their own networks.
Within a few hours they got back to me with this: http://www.ftthcouncil.org/
While Cable and Telecom companies continually try to stamp out such efforts there are a number that have gone through. If we can get more communities on this bandwagon it would help make them harder to stop. Head to the page, share the information, and start evangelizing in your area.
Same comment I just posted to the Dice article.
As someone with a degree in Electrical Engineering I find this article somewhat lacking in the needed information to draw any form of conclusion. Millennials are being accused of being behind others in problem solving skills, but no mention as to what specific area they are behind in. Problem solving is a fairly broad area. Usually it’s used as a placeholder for something else. My experience with both foreign and domestic tech workers has been they are on fairly equal footing. The difference is in how much it costs to train them up to your needs.
All colleges teach your basic skillset (Higher mathmatics, circuitry, DSPs, Dynamics, Statics, Physics, etc) when it comes to a STEM degree. When these people leave school and hit the workforce the fact they require training in a particular methodology (Six Sigma, Agile, etc) is now being viewed as a lack of skills. These skills used to be taught to new hires during the first few months of employment in entry level positions. Now companies are expecting new hires to already have this knowledge that is unique to their company alone creating a perfect catch 22 scenario.
Foreign tech workers have these skills because said companies train them in much the same way they used to train domestic workers. It just costs them less. Why do you think these same companies push so hard for more H1B visas?
Unfortunately STEM is quite broad. I'm an Electrical Engineer by degree who has worked in software development and testing his whole career. In that time I've seen people from various backgrounds get into dev work. Fresh out of college I worked with a systems integrator who specialized in AMX and Crestron development who had a liberal arts degree. I know a few MCSE's who were high school teachers who now work with Microsoft Sharepoint. None of these people went back to school for more formal (expensive) education. Most either fell into it or did this sort of thing on the side as a hobby, and the hobby took over. My suggestion is look at what you can already do and start pursuing that. If you repair computers for friends and family start looking for entry level tech work. If you write code and can produce some sample applications (or even better publish some useful apps for IOS or Android) then use that as a stepping stone to apply for code work.
I do not recommend you head back to school or join the military for this purpose. There are better resources at hand. If you're looking to code codecademy.com is an excellent resource. If you're looking for more STEM education coursera and kahn academy are excellent resources to brush up with. I would recommend certs to prove your worth. Find jobs you are interested in and see if they require certain certifications. Get certifications that are affordable and in your wheelhouse, but don't go after a $2000 certification that only a few places want you to have. In most cases your skill should get you in the door, and a company should be willing to get you certified at their expense to sell your services.
I did some research into this when I was first transitioning to a LCD HDTV. At the time there wasn't quite enough to make the transition worth it. Now between Hulu, Netflix, FTA antenna tv, and a few other streaming sources I'm looking at this again to fill the gaps.
DVB-S is supported by WMC and would offer you a descent way to combine Antenna and FTA Satellite services. Take a look into this if you find the DVR included with your kit lacking.
I am not sure if you could set this up with MythTV and XBMC.
You can add a motorized mount to this kit if you find you need it. If you are doing a roof mount you may want to order it now. The extra cost now may be worth not having to scale your home twice. If you're doing a deck mount then no worries!;)
Most likely "poor programming" is not even an issue here. Customer's are very quick to claim anything they find as a bug including scope creep, last minute change of requirements, or poorly written requirements resulting in something they didn't want. My favorite example of this was a customer who over the course of developing a new application to replace a legacy system discovered features in the old system they were not aware of. They found it the week of code acceptance well past the point of getting it into the current contract. So they just opt to scream "bug!" and demand we fix it. Luckily having a good contract upfront can help shield you from this. If you have not seen it, hit youtube and search for "Fuck you, pay me".
Finally the poster is asking for a Cadillac programmer with skills in all languages, testing, and validation for a bargain basement price. My tip to them is "piss off". How much are you paying your contractors for one man for the entire year? I'll bet you're shelling out more than $100k easily. What you are looking for is someone with specialized skills and the knowledge to use them. As such adjust your salary expectation upward. You get what you pay for.
I've been using my old faithful G1 as a streaming music player for my stereo setup. Some other uses I've toyed with include using the android ADK board to create a poor man's AMX equivalent for home theater control, robotics projects, and even as a touch screen interface for a Rep Rap printer.
These applications don't require the latest and greatest versions of the android OS, or the fastest processor. To keep the phone from slowing down I usually don't load more than just the target application I need. Also I'm running CM5 to help things along.
I'm afraid I don't know what you could do with the old iphones. If you decide you don't want these devices I'm sure some makers would be happy to take them off your hands. Blanking the devices is quite easy. A quick google search for each device should give you the procedure.
My beef with windows phones starts off with being a Zune owner. Now I purchased my brown Zune when woot was clearing out the 30gb refurbs so I wasn't drinking the coolaid, just grabbing a bargain. While the Zune has proven a far superior device to my 20gb 3rd gen ipod, and even my fieance's 5th gen nano there are some issues:
1) Microsoft chose a proprietary physical mechanism for docking. For the ipod this was fine since they were first to market. For the Zune this was a death blow. Not many accessories came out other than what microsoft produced.
2) Due to a proprietary software interface even if you have a USB interface in your car that is USB and Ipod compatible you cannot interface your Zune to it. With the exception of a Sync based car stereo and some recent high end Chevy stereos your zune cannot be controlled with the steering wheel controls.
3) The one add on that microsoft kept promising to allow existing stereos to use the Zune directly was put out by soundgate. The issue here was that it only works with a limited cross section of cars, and even soundgate couldn't get the story straight on their product. Some pages claimed that it only charged the zune, others claimed full functionality.
4) Promised functionality never really formed. I have a full microsoft environment in my home. WHS, WMC, xbox, zune, etc. Transfering shows from my WMC recordings was never as easy as promised. WHS never really integrated with the zune software to centralize the library for whole home access, and xbox functionality was somewhat sad.
The problem with the Windows phone is that I'm not seeing any indication from Microsoft that they have fixed the Zune's shortcomings. I would like to know this before I invest:
1) Will a Lumia (or any other WP7 device) work with existing Non-ipod accessories like the USB based alarm clocks?
2) Will a WP7 device work with any USB enabled car stereo? Either OEM or after market. Or am I limited to "Microsoft blessed" stereos? My Android phone works with any USB stereo and does this by acting like a standard USB Storage device.
3) Will microsoft start updating the phones independent of the carriers? Even then how long will a phone be supported? My android phone (Mytouch 4g) was easily rooted and is now running ICS. While I know rooting and flashing isn't standard, android is open source which means I can do this. Microsoft WP7 probably won't be as flexible.
4) Did microsoft give up on these proprietary connectors? Give me a mini or micro USB please! Something where I can keep two of the same cable in my car, and not have to dig through a box of wires.
I love my android phone. I owned a G1 from the preorder, and moved to a mytouch a year and a half ago. In a year I may upgrade and wouldn't mind moving to a WP7, or swapping my work blackberry for one. Just as long as I know answers to the above.
The solution here is for the hacker community to announce that they found a common flaw that affects a large percentage of sony games, then list about 62% of the catalog. A few titles can be dropped and they can take the fallout. Take down that many titles and the platform will be in trouble.
Oh no we're not incompetent or on the take. This is a very important... thing... we need to tackle. We can't have Google plugging the pipes of the internet. The fact that you all are still loosing your homes and the banks are profiting three times off of your home each time you loose it isn't something we want you thinking about, so look at this google thing! yea! Oh thank you Mr. Bank charman for another campaign donation!
Seriously... this whole thing reads exactly like the movie script.
I used to do AV work in college. We set up a system with a Channel Plus like product for a customer where they could send a DVD loop over coax to various TV's on channel 80. It works, but the picture quality won't pass standard def no matter how high the quality of the signal you feed in.
Hasn't Zelda been rebooted every two or three games? It's the same basic story retold from the beginning each time. A few of the games are sequels to a previous game, but for the most part Zelda's been restarted at least five times now.
I used to do this for a living working my way through college. We used a high end cable tester ($1000+) with a screen that would rate the cable and output a pdf with each cable assigned a serial number. Everything we made passed.
If you're pulling in wall you're going to have to clip an end anyway, and most pro / retail cable is not plenum rated. To comply with building codes you may be forced to crimp your own.
Guys like me started the rumor that 'Handmade isn't as good as retail' because of idiot sales guys who would rather save the $2.00 for a 6' cable and have the staff make 200+ of them.
Hire a student to do this.
I was a student in a university and I'm rather erked at the number of jobs that used to be for work study, and are now being phased out thanks to half baked tech replacements. A homemade system will never be as secure as having a human being there to verify ID and record who checked out what.
A work study student would cost you nothing, and give someone the ability to collect their financial aid. Why are we trying to replace jobs a person could do in a recession?
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly the only problem with the chromecast audio was the standard price. $35 was just too high. I got mine on a holiday sale last year for $15 with a discounted google home speaker. It let me upgrade me old yamaha 6.1 to allow easy streaming. I would have snapped up 4 more if the price was $15-$20 all the time. For $35 it was just too expensive for what it did. Honestly however if they add a 3.5 mm jack to the google home puck speaker I would get go that route.
I always hear about the shortage of skilled technical people, but I've witnessed the opposite being true. A number of people have IT related skills but cannot find a job because companies are often looking for rare skillsets. When I say rare I mean tools that were developed in house and not commercially available. If you don't have 10 years experience with their internal process they want nothing to do with you. They then claim they couldn't find anyone and try to find a H1B or H2B visa holder.
The side of the coin I'm on is I have 15 years of PLM experience. I work a full time position for good pay, and I've had the following experiences in the last two years.
-I get 5-10 calls a week for positions that are short term contracts of 3-6 months for pay less than I make on my salary.
-I've been flown out for a interview with a company in California for a job that was supposed to be in Michigan. After the interview they met my salary
requirements, but told me they were closing their Michigan location and the job would be in the Bay area. What would have been a nice career move turned into a major downgrade. I refused and suddenly the job was made available for an H1B position.
For rare skills sure there is a shortage of people, but that's because no one is hiring at the entry level and training up. I know a lot of engineers who have had a degree for 10 years or more who have not had engineering positions and instead work retail. The people are out there. It's a HR problem, not a supply problem.
It'll be nice to get $30 because my car is affected. In all seriousness I wonder if this will cause recalls?
Lets face facts. We're still trying to understand how intelligence works. Even in neural networks of the past we had this issue. Once you delve into this area you should just be happy that it works.
I'm going to have to second this. I've gotten my older family members PCs in the past and it's always turned into a major headache for me. Your best bet is one of two solutions:
1) Apple everything: Macintosh based computers, Ipad tablets, iphones (if they are cellular users), and apple TV streaming devices. While many rip on apple (including me. I was a mac fan in the apple 2/ mac 2 era, but got burned in the shift to OS X) once your completely in everything just works. If they need help applecare or the apple stores are there to assist or you can use something like Teamviewer to log in remotely.
2) Google everything: Chrometop based computers and Chromebook laptops, Android tablets and phones, and finally Nexus players for TV's and stereos. Much like the apple ecosystem Google equipment works well together. Maybe not as much at the local level, but once you tie them to your Google account everything is tied nicely through web services. Unlike PC (and even apple equipment) Chromebooks and Chrometops are immune to viruses as each time you hard boot they get a fresh OS from ROM. Use their existing PC to push their music and photos to Google Music and Photos.
As for the printer get a networked hard wired multi-function printer. I've found issues with WiFi printers including poor sleep states and difficulty getting them to resync to the WiFi after a power event. A hard wired printer is more reliable. By hard wiring it you make sure everything is in one location. Cable modem, WiFi router, and printer. Tie it all into the same surge protector and if anything goes wrong your mom and dad just need to know to turn off the surge strip for a minute then kick it back on.
As for your dad's 3tb drive I'm not sure what he would be storing on that. In the Apple ecosystem he could either just attach it as a external to what ever mac he chooses to use, link it to his router and use it as network attached storage, or plug it into a real NAS box like a synology. On the Google ecosystem you are limited to just external storage. You probably could push the files to google docs if he wants to pay for more storage (unless it's all photos and music then the basic account would probably do) and just hang on to the 3TB drive as an emergency backup.
Hope this helps. While windows is the primary OS, I'm finding older relatives who are less technical are better served by other technologies. Especially since these "Indian tech support scams" are becoming more commonplace. I've had to remind all of my relatives that "Microsoft will never call you". The ones who have Macs and Chromebooks usually just hang up because they already understand that Microsoft wouldn't provide support for their device.
So having worked at a number of car companies I can estimate why they said it was the product of a couple of engineers. Manager to Engineer 1) "We need you to set up a software routine to make sure than our new TDI is compliant with emissions standards. Make sure you tie it to a CANBUS flag that we can modify in testing to show that the software is working." Manager to Engineer 2) "I need you to write a routine to modify the state of this CANBUS flag. If all four wheels are in motion we want it off. If only the front wheels are in motion we want it on." I love how it always boils down to an engineer or two and not a business decision.
BenFranske is correct. You're looking for a matrix switch for the video. They are sized by the number of video inputs and outputs. You're probably looking for a 6x2 ( inputs( pc1 screen 1, pc1 screen2, pc2 screen1, pc2 screen1, laptop screen1, laptop screen2) x outputs (screen 1, screen2). Remember these devices will not use a keyboard shortcut to direct sources to outputs. You'll either need to use the remote or rig something up with an arduino as most of these devices accept RS-232 commands that are fairly simple.
Something like this would work http://amzn.to/1L2pWmU
As for inputs such as keyboard and mouse that would be something different. I used a USB switch and a hub to create this solution, but now this type of gear exists.
http://amzn.to/1FB3dyd
I believe this would solve your issue. Your other choice would be to get two 4 port HDMI KVMs each hooked up to a monitor. You only need to hook a keyboard and mouse up to one (say screen 1's kvm). The issue here is you'll have to use the remote or buttons to trigger Screen2's KVM as you won't be able to use a keyboard shortcut where as you can on Screen1.
Hope this helps!
I believe the best option out there currently would be a raspberry pi 2 (4 USB ports, faster processor, and still relatively inexpensive). It's easily serviced, stupidly simple to get set up, and finally easily unhooked and carried with the student. Any issues encountered can be resolved by re-flashing the SD card. Just make sure your students use a USB thumb drive for file storage. Unfortunately you are off in your cost estimate. You cannot assume that a monitor or television will be present in your student's home. Just the pi, mouse, keyboard, power supply, case, and SD card can run $70. A monitor can run $100 easily on average. Bulk USB thumb drives can be had for as little as $5.
Assuming a $170 cost at the US minimum wage of $7.25 you're looking at 23.44 hours to earn the money needed (3 days pay). That's an expense you cannot shift to your students because you want to get papers typed. Lets face it, this is your requirement. Knowledge transfer is just as applicable via hand writing as the typed word. As you stated internet access is a whole separate issue that you are not addressing.
In today's day and age $170 is really the bare minimum for what can be termed a PC. You can always keep an eye on Woot or Meh for tablets. Meh has a sale on a 9" android tablet for $33 + s&h. This would be without a physical keyboard though.
Your best bet here would be to round up to $200 per student, contact your local cable provider and find out the details on their low income internet program. Comcast has something like this in my area. Slow internet, but it is internet. Then apply for a grant to cover the expense.
How many times have we each thought "they should pay me for having watched that piece of crap"? Maybe it's time to try that out.
Yeah. You could probably replace the thing with a raspberry pi .... at each location ... with a custom controller card.. and another one to control them all... for about $5,000
$2M ? Someone's pork barrel overfloweth.
I think we're all forgetting that the HVAC system as a whole is that old. Pumps, valves, and compressors all have finite life spans. My first reaction was also to use some Rpi's at each location which could add up to under $200 per building I then considered the cost to forklift and upgrade the HVAC at each facility. This would be about right.
As someone who has a choice of one cable provider (Brighthouse) or one telecom company (AT&T) I've been following fiber deployments fairly closely. There are a few companies deploying Google Fiber style networks in my state but they are moving slowly and not hitting my area any time soon. As such I contacted Google to ask if there was anything on the net to help interested communities build out their own networks. Within a few hours they got back to me with this: http://www.ftthcouncil.org/ While Cable and Telecom companies continually try to stamp out such efforts there are a number that have gone through. If we can get more communities on this bandwagon it would help make them harder to stop. Head to the page, share the information, and start evangelizing in your area.
Built like a tank and designed to last. It would boot up with a copy of "The Oregon Trail" left in the drive.
Same comment I just posted to the Dice article. As someone with a degree in Electrical Engineering I find this article somewhat lacking in the needed information to draw any form of conclusion. Millennials are being accused of being behind others in problem solving skills, but no mention as to what specific area they are behind in. Problem solving is a fairly broad area. Usually it’s used as a placeholder for something else. My experience with both foreign and domestic tech workers has been they are on fairly equal footing. The difference is in how much it costs to train them up to your needs. All colleges teach your basic skillset (Higher mathmatics, circuitry, DSPs, Dynamics, Statics, Physics, etc) when it comes to a STEM degree. When these people leave school and hit the workforce the fact they require training in a particular methodology (Six Sigma, Agile, etc) is now being viewed as a lack of skills. These skills used to be taught to new hires during the first few months of employment in entry level positions. Now companies are expecting new hires to already have this knowledge that is unique to their company alone creating a perfect catch 22 scenario. Foreign tech workers have these skills because said companies train them in much the same way they used to train domestic workers. It just costs them less. Why do you think these same companies push so hard for more H1B visas?
Unfortunately STEM is quite broad. I'm an Electrical Engineer by degree who has worked in software development and testing his whole career. In that time I've seen people from various backgrounds get into dev work. Fresh out of college I worked with a systems integrator who specialized in AMX and Crestron development who had a liberal arts degree. I know a few MCSE's who were high school teachers who now work with Microsoft Sharepoint. None of these people went back to school for more formal (expensive) education. Most either fell into it or did this sort of thing on the side as a hobby, and the hobby took over. My suggestion is look at what you can already do and start pursuing that. If you repair computers for friends and family start looking for entry level tech work. If you write code and can produce some sample applications (or even better publish some useful apps for IOS or Android) then use that as a stepping stone to apply for code work. I do not recommend you head back to school or join the military for this purpose. There are better resources at hand. If you're looking to code codecademy.com is an excellent resource. If you're looking for more STEM education coursera and kahn academy are excellent resources to brush up with. I would recommend certs to prove your worth. Find jobs you are interested in and see if they require certain certifications. Get certifications that are affordable and in your wheelhouse, but don't go after a $2000 certification that only a few places want you to have. In most cases your skill should get you in the door, and a company should be willing to get you certified at their expense to sell your services.
I did some research into this when I was first transitioning to a LCD HDTV. At the time there wasn't quite enough to make the transition worth it. Now between Hulu, Netflix, FTA antenna tv, and a few other streaming sources I'm looking at this again to fill the gaps. DVB-S is supported by WMC and would offer you a descent way to combine Antenna and FTA Satellite services. Take a look into this if you find the DVR included with your kit lacking. I am not sure if you could set this up with MythTV and XBMC. You can add a motorized mount to this kit if you find you need it. If you are doing a roof mount you may want to order it now. The extra cost now may be worth not having to scale your home twice. If you're doing a deck mount then no worries! ;)
I've had a few editions of this book. The author has kept it up to date, and it's been very helpful in helping you pick out a toolkit as well as showing you some simple projects. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/robot-builders-cookbook-owen-bishop/1113937705?cm_mmc=googlepla-_-textbook_instock_26to75_pt99-_-q000000633-_-9780750665568&cm_mmca2=pla&ean=9780750665568&isbn=9780750665568&r=1
Most likely "poor programming" is not even an issue here. Customer's are very quick to claim anything they find as a bug including scope creep, last minute change of requirements, or poorly written requirements resulting in something they didn't want. My favorite example of this was a customer who over the course of developing a new application to replace a legacy system discovered features in the old system they were not aware of. They found it the week of code acceptance well past the point of getting it into the current contract. So they just opt to scream "bug!" and demand we fix it. Luckily having a good contract upfront can help shield you from this. If you have not seen it, hit youtube and search for "Fuck you, pay me". Finally the poster is asking for a Cadillac programmer with skills in all languages, testing, and validation for a bargain basement price. My tip to them is "piss off". How much are you paying your contractors for one man for the entire year? I'll bet you're shelling out more than $100k easily. What you are looking for is someone with specialized skills and the knowledge to use them. As such adjust your salary expectation upward. You get what you pay for.
I've been using my old faithful G1 as a streaming music player for my stereo setup. Some other uses I've toyed with include using the android ADK board to create a poor man's AMX equivalent for home theater control, robotics projects, and even as a touch screen interface for a Rep Rap printer. These applications don't require the latest and greatest versions of the android OS, or the fastest processor. To keep the phone from slowing down I usually don't load more than just the target application I need. Also I'm running CM5 to help things along. I'm afraid I don't know what you could do with the old iphones. If you decide you don't want these devices I'm sure some makers would be happy to take them off your hands. Blanking the devices is quite easy. A quick google search for each device should give you the procedure.
My beef with windows phones starts off with being a Zune owner. Now I purchased my brown Zune when woot was clearing out the 30gb refurbs so I wasn't drinking the coolaid, just grabbing a bargain. While the Zune has proven a far superior device to my 20gb 3rd gen ipod, and even my fieance's 5th gen nano there are some issues: 1) Microsoft chose a proprietary physical mechanism for docking. For the ipod this was fine since they were first to market. For the Zune this was a death blow. Not many accessories came out other than what microsoft produced. 2) Due to a proprietary software interface even if you have a USB interface in your car that is USB and Ipod compatible you cannot interface your Zune to it. With the exception of a Sync based car stereo and some recent high end Chevy stereos your zune cannot be controlled with the steering wheel controls. 3) The one add on that microsoft kept promising to allow existing stereos to use the Zune directly was put out by soundgate. The issue here was that it only works with a limited cross section of cars, and even soundgate couldn't get the story straight on their product. Some pages claimed that it only charged the zune, others claimed full functionality. 4) Promised functionality never really formed. I have a full microsoft environment in my home. WHS, WMC, xbox, zune, etc. Transfering shows from my WMC recordings was never as easy as promised. WHS never really integrated with the zune software to centralize the library for whole home access, and xbox functionality was somewhat sad. The problem with the Windows phone is that I'm not seeing any indication from Microsoft that they have fixed the Zune's shortcomings. I would like to know this before I invest: 1) Will a Lumia (or any other WP7 device) work with existing Non-ipod accessories like the USB based alarm clocks? 2) Will a WP7 device work with any USB enabled car stereo? Either OEM or after market. Or am I limited to "Microsoft blessed" stereos? My Android phone works with any USB stereo and does this by acting like a standard USB Storage device. 3) Will microsoft start updating the phones independent of the carriers? Even then how long will a phone be supported? My android phone (Mytouch 4g) was easily rooted and is now running ICS. While I know rooting and flashing isn't standard, android is open source which means I can do this. Microsoft WP7 probably won't be as flexible. 4) Did microsoft give up on these proprietary connectors? Give me a mini or micro USB please! Something where I can keep two of the same cable in my car, and not have to dig through a box of wires. I love my android phone. I owned a G1 from the preorder, and moved to a mytouch a year and a half ago. In a year I may upgrade and wouldn't mind moving to a WP7, or swapping my work blackberry for one. Just as long as I know answers to the above.
The solution here is for the hacker community to announce that they found a common flaw that affects a large percentage of sony games, then list about 62% of the catalog. A few titles can be dropped and they can take the fallout. Take down that many titles and the platform will be in trouble.
Oh no we're not incompetent or on the take. This is a very important... thing... we need to tackle. We can't have Google plugging the pipes of the internet. The fact that you all are still loosing your homes and the banks are profiting three times off of your home each time you loose it isn't something we want you thinking about, so look at this google thing! yea! Oh thank you Mr. Bank charman for another campaign donation! Seriously... this whole thing reads exactly like the movie script.
I used to do AV work in college. We set up a system with a Channel Plus like product for a customer where they could send a DVD loop over coax to various TV's on channel 80. It works, but the picture quality won't pass standard def no matter how high the quality of the signal you feed in.
Hasn't Zelda been rebooted every two or three games? It's the same basic story retold from the beginning each time. A few of the games are sequels to a previous game, but for the most part Zelda's been restarted at least five times now.
I used to do this for a living working my way through college. We used a high end cable tester ($1000+) with a screen that would rate the cable and output a pdf with each cable assigned a serial number. Everything we made passed. If you're pulling in wall you're going to have to clip an end anyway, and most pro / retail cable is not plenum rated. To comply with building codes you may be forced to crimp your own. Guys like me started the rumor that 'Handmade isn't as good as retail' because of idiot sales guys who would rather save the $2.00 for a 6' cable and have the staff make 200+ of them.
Hire a student to do this. I was a student in a university and I'm rather erked at the number of jobs that used to be for work study, and are now being phased out thanks to half baked tech replacements. A homemade system will never be as secure as having a human being there to verify ID and record who checked out what. A work study student would cost you nothing, and give someone the ability to collect their financial aid. Why are we trying to replace jobs a person could do in a recession?