The processor may be more expensive, but those $89 spared buying two separate processors will also have to pay for a more expensive, dual-socket motherboard.
Actually, Word really destroys Works files (at least last time I tried - was a while a go, think it was Works 5 => Word 97 or something). The formats are totally different (or at least MS makes them look different)
The import function is really crappy - such things as image positions go bad. Beleive me, I tried. In my OO.o, there isn't any support for Works files, but if there had been, I would eat my hat if it wouldn't had beaten Word.
There's actually an easy way for MS to go around that problem - that is - IF they would be willing to bundle any PDF-creating possibility (ok, it's a theorethical possibility, considering Metro etc - it just probably won't happen).
A friend of mine actually did this at the company I was working, not for Word documents though, but for SolidWorks drawing (poor man's document handling system - being able always to know what drawing was really given to the workshop - this was a constant "should have been done yesterday" place).
He implemented a simple script, making a print to PDF with Acrobat, saving under a drawing numer in a special archival folder, and saving description and number in an Excel file, used as a database (simplistic but works). Excel could of course have been exchanged with OO.o or whatever...
Agreed. Probably Radioshack isn't aiming for DIRECT sales (ie today or tomorrow), but they're still a company, they're aiming for sales, for sure (but future ones - ie next year, next decade). I can see two obvious reasons to sponsor FIRST: 1) Market recognition, 2) increased market size.
For you who don't know marketroidish, that means: 1) they want geeks to know Radioshack sells stuff you can make cool things with, 2) more people become geeks when having the chance to build and compete with robots.
Similar laws are being used in Sweden, and as far as I know in Germany too (don't know the german laws that well - but Apple Store Germany is claiming part of the price goes to the RIAA-equivalent).
In Sweden, the law has traditionally been on tape cassetes, video tapes etc that are specifically used for recording audio/video. A new copyright law, probably due this summer, will make the fees eligible for all media, and also raise them. The fees really are meant to be used as a compensation for fair use copying (for close friends, ipod and car cd player).
In the same law they make it illegal to crack copy protection schemes (however poor they are) for making a copy. Basically all DVD's are copy protected. Many CD's are too. Bought downloaded songs too. Basically, they take the fair use rights away, but still get the chance to charge for it...
He could show how to do it under supervision by whoever asked him to check the network (not going straight for the right solution perhaps).
Also - if he's specifically has been asked to check the network security - it would be rather dumb of the school to nail him for making a good check. That would as he has already said, more or less just lead to the holes being open for the years to come, too...
Yep, but that are that usual saying - there's lies, damned lies, and there's statistics. The fact is, most disks fail in a couple of year (or get so old you don't want to use them anymore, because they're too small/slow). They would actually be doing this, even if you just wrote the info to them once, and then let them run for a couple of years...
And - 10^5 rewrites should be enough for the envisioned usage, actually. As has been explained in other answers in this part of the thread, the flash would only be used when the hard drive has spinned down, and only for non-volatily storing write requests. A rough calculation shows, 10^5 rewrites would be enough, assuming one rewrite every quarterhour, to last for 2.85 years of use (it's not realistic they're continuous - at least in non-slashdot user scenarios). Higher disk activity than that would probably be a good motivation for spinning the disk up (and thereby not using the flash at all), lower would reduce the disk access frequency.
Also, the flash failing wouldn't really have to be a problem actually. Use some error-checking procedure (like is already being used on the disks themselves), mark bad blocks. In the end, ok, we won't used the fried flash, but we still have a "usual" disk to use.
Actually, he could tell them that, if they really ask for it, as long as he doesn't say he knew it all the time anyway. If they don't know how to close the holes, they probably don't know how to track some one using them...
Why do I think this? Well, when evaluating their network security, of course he's going to be testing it in practice!:)
Also, a big part of the evaluation could be "filtering != security".
But the thing about flash memory is that they wear out after a certain number of write cycles. You wouldn't want to use that for your cache too!
I do understand they aren't perfect. I also know there are ways to work around that, like checking the integrity of the flash (basically the same technique already used for disk drives, you could also use ECC technologies for example).
I however also know that as far as my hard drives go, the very same problem applies. They also have a limited lifetime (both disks of my athlon have died on me)... But you sure don't have a problem with storing things on disk, do you?
The thing is, you wouldn't want to use volatile memory as write cache (even if you run Linux, some might cut the electricity), even if it works nice for reading. Having a flash memory integrated with the hard drive gives you the possibility to have all your data safely stored, and not staying in cache for 10+ minutes.
Reminds me of my first job. Part of it was programming PLC:s, using ladder programming (for non-PLC-geeks: somewhere in between of electrical schedules and assembler)...
I was one of two people maintaining the code. Unfortunately, the editor had at several occasions "eaten" the saved code, forcing an upload from the PLC (which didn't contain neither comments nor variable names - i.e. just hardware adresses). The only help I had was an incomplete excel file over DMs (ONE of the ~5-10 memory areas in the system). It had also "died" at some occasion, so it was incomplete too. I got some help from the other coder too (even though he was CEO of the (small) company too, so it was limited... (of course, hardly any design documentation at all)
This is a REALLY good training for reading code. It's also a really good way for getting annoyed. I took me around a year (not full time programming though, and the programming I did was on other software too). This for a program base of ~5k lines (more comparable to assembler lines then HLL:s, but still a lot easier to understand than pure assembler thanks to the IDE:s).
I don't really have to say, the program contained A LOT more comments when I left the company...
You're asuming the "stop rule". That doesn't apply in Europe, so here it, for sure, is the other way around. We have the "right hand rule" instead (of course, the britons are doing it backwards - left hand rule. Also, the french/italians/blah don't really follow it... [/FLAME]). You shall ALWAYS let the car from the right drive first, even if you were at the stop sign first (assuming it's a four road crossing with stop signs in all directions - they're really unusual. If not, you still have to wait - the stop signs mean "let all crossing vehicles pass first", not just "stop", at least here.).
With these trafic rules, a roundabout actually IS better. There's going to be quite a lot of holes in the traffic flow. With stop signs, you have to wait for the time when there's a hole in BOTH directions (except if turning right). In a roundabout, one direction is enough.
Yeah, I do agree with you, but the more "America" is used where "USA" can be used without problem, the less the canadians and mexicans want to be called americans. "Americans", is in fact a word that's harder to exchange. The only solution I see is using "gringos" in english too (which is the explanation at least the mexicans shouldn't really care that much).:)
Stats exchange then - I'm a Swede, currently living in Germany (studying...), using Miranda and Adium X (depending on computer). I have about 30 ICQ contacts, about 10 MSN contacts and NOT A SINGLE ONE AIM contact. I do have an account though, even though it's mostly dead, strangely enough.;-)
The only strange thing for Europe here I would say is that I should've had more MSN contacts. Suppose that's mean I'm a fully qualified geek.:)
Isn't Canada part of America? Though not of the USA.
However, what is being said about Canada is also true about Europe. Tech savvy people use ICQ, lusers MSN, real geeks use a 3rd party multiprotocol client (Miranda / Trillian / Gaim / Fire / Adium X / whatever).
Just think if someone had patented the "mouse" when the Mac came out.
Yep, you're lucky Håkan Lans never patented the computer pointing device aka "mouse" he constructed (ie: XEROX Parc may have attached it to a computer, but not invented it). Otherwise it could have gone as with color screens for PC:s. Huge license fees. Oh, wait. Most companies don't pay them, and when they were taken to court, judgement was against Håkan Lans!)...
You heard right, most PC vendors don't pay their license fees. This means Håkan Lans has been losing around 1 billion SEK (about 1e8/$1.5e8!) Read more here, here, here and here (sorry, some links only in Swedish).
I guess if it's that hard for small companies to get licenses fees paid for hardware patents, I don't want any software patents. Hope the EU parliament keeps them off of Sweden in the future too (swedish law didn't allow software patents before, if I remember correctly).
Yep, YMMV, of course. Perhaps because I'm mainly installing OpenSource programs? I know many commercial ones are keeping install programs.
BTW, I too do like the Debian (or for that matter Gentoo) approach to installing programs.:)
It isn't even that difficult on a Mac, normally at least. Most programs only have to be drag-and-dropped into the Applications folder...
If it's that good, it's on my shopping list!
on
Linux Cookbook
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· Score: 1
If she really manages to squeeze that all in (I would have guessed you would have needed much more - that's quite many topics for 700 pages - and with the quality the review is talking about!) it's on my shopping list. Especially as it only costs about 40...
Try learning german, or french, or spanish, or any foreign language. Until you're totally fluent, you WILL like that feature when writing in that language, because then you're doing all those crazy small errors that you never do - but the grammar check still is looking for...
That's of course asuming you have a version of Office with multilingual spell/grammar checking, though.
The Sempron isn't the equivalent to Pentium M. It's the equivalent of the Celeron.
Actually, there isn't any _total_ match for the Pentium M, even though Turion Athlon 64's get decently close. However, they seem to be nothing else than especially binned usual A64's.
Slashdot Mirror
The processor may be more expensive, but those $89 spared buying two separate processors will also have to pay for a more expensive, dual-socket motherboard.
Well, of course there's no info, it's a No Bell Piece Prize !
(the real name Nobel is pronounced more like "No-Bell" than "Noble")
The import function is really crappy - such things as image positions go bad. Beleive me, I tried. In my OO.o, there isn't any support for Works files, but if there had been, I would eat my hat if it wouldn't had beaten Word.
A friend of mine actually did this at the company I was working, not for Word documents though, but for SolidWorks drawing (poor man's document handling system - being able always to know what drawing was really given to the workshop - this was a constant "should have been done yesterday" place).
He implemented a simple script, making a print to PDF with Acrobat, saving under a drawing numer in a special archival folder, and saving description and number in an Excel file, used as a database (simplistic but works). Excel could of course have been exchanged with OO.o or whatever...
The REALLY REAL problem - wouldn't that be the spammers? :)
And if ALL ISPs did like AOL, how many feedback loops would I have to setup with how many ISPs? Sorry, that idea really doesn't work...
For you who don't know marketroidish, that means: 1) they want geeks to know Radioshack sells stuff you can make cool things with, 2) more people become geeks when having the chance to build and compete with robots.
In Sweden, the law has traditionally been on tape cassetes, video tapes etc that are specifically used for recording audio/video. A new copyright law, probably due this summer, will make the fees eligible for all media, and also raise them. The fees really are meant to be used as a compensation for fair use copying (for close friends, ipod and car cd player).
In the same law they make it illegal to crack copy protection schemes (however poor they are) for making a copy. Basically all DVD's are copy protected. Many CD's are too. Bought downloaded songs too. Basically, they take the fair use rights away, but still get the chance to charge for it...
Also - if he's specifically has been asked to check the network security - it would be rather dumb of the school to nail him for making a good check. That would as he has already said, more or less just lead to the holes being open for the years to come, too...
And - 10^5 rewrites should be enough for the envisioned usage, actually. As has been explained in other answers in this part of the thread, the flash would only be used when the hard drive has spinned down, and only for non-volatily storing write requests. A rough calculation shows, 10^5 rewrites would be enough, assuming one rewrite every quarterhour, to last for 2.85 years of use (it's not realistic they're continuous - at least in non-slashdot user scenarios). Higher disk activity than that would probably be a good motivation for spinning the disk up (and thereby not using the flash at all), lower would reduce the disk access frequency.
Also, the flash failing wouldn't really have to be a problem actually. Use some error-checking procedure (like is already being used on the disks themselves), mark bad blocks. In the end, ok, we won't used the fried flash, but we still have a "usual" disk to use.
Why do I think this? Well, when evaluating their network security, of course he's going to be testing it in practice! :)
Also, a big part of the evaluation could be "filtering != security".
I do understand they aren't perfect. I also know there are ways to work around that, like checking the integrity of the flash (basically the same technique already used for disk drives, you could also use ECC technologies for example).
I however also know that as far as my hard drives go, the very same problem applies. They also have a limited lifetime (both disks of my athlon have died on me)... But you sure don't have a problem with storing things on disk, do you?
The thing is, you wouldn't want to use volatile memory as write cache (even if you run Linux, some might cut the electricity), even if it works nice for reading. Having a flash memory integrated with the hard drive gives you the possibility to have all your data safely stored, and not staying in cache for 10+ minutes.
I was one of two people maintaining the code. Unfortunately, the editor had at several occasions "eaten" the saved code, forcing an upload from the PLC (which didn't contain neither comments nor variable names - i.e. just hardware adresses). The only help I had was an incomplete excel file over DMs (ONE of the ~5-10 memory areas in the system). It had also "died" at some occasion, so it was incomplete too. I got some help from the other coder too (even though he was CEO of the (small) company too, so it was limited... (of course, hardly any design documentation at all)
This is a REALLY good training for reading code. It's also a really good way for getting annoyed. I took me around a year (not full time programming though, and the programming I did was on other software too). This for a program base of ~5k lines (more comparable to assembler lines then HLL:s, but still a lot easier to understand than pure assembler thanks to the IDE:s).
I don't really have to say, the program contained A LOT more comments when I left the company...
With these trafic rules, a roundabout actually IS better. There's going to be quite a lot of holes in the traffic flow. With stop signs, you have to wait for the time when there's a hole in BOTH directions (except if turning right). In a roundabout, one direction is enough.
Stats exchange then - I'm a Swede, currently living in Germany (studying...), using Miranda and Adium X (depending on computer). I have about 30 ICQ contacts, about 10 MSN contacts and NOT A SINGLE ONE AIM contact. I do have an account though, even though it's mostly dead, strangely enough. ;-)
The only strange thing for Europe here I would say is that I should've had more MSN contacts. Suppose that's mean I'm a fully qualified geek. :)
Isn't Canada part of America? Though not of the USA. However, what is being said about Canada is also true about Europe. Tech savvy people use ICQ, lusers MSN, real geeks use a 3rd party multiprotocol client (Miranda / Trillian / Gaim / Fire / Adium X / whatever).
Yep, you're lucky Håkan Lans never patented the computer pointing device aka "mouse" he constructed (ie: XEROX Parc may have attached it to a computer, but not invented it). Otherwise it could have gone as with color screens for PC:s. Huge license fees. Oh, wait. Most companies don't pay them, and when they were taken to court, judgement was against Håkan Lans!)...
You heard right, most PC vendors don't pay their license fees. This means Håkan Lans has been losing around 1 billion SEK (about 1e8/$1.5e8!) Read more here, here, here and here (sorry, some links only in Swedish).
I guess if it's that hard for small companies to get licenses fees paid for hardware patents, I don't want any software patents. Hope the EU parliament keeps them off of Sweden in the future too (swedish law didn't allow software patents before, if I remember correctly).
Yep, YMMV, of course. Perhaps because I'm mainly installing OpenSource programs? I know many commercial ones are keeping install programs. BTW, I too do like the Debian (or for that matter Gentoo) approach to installing programs. :)
It isn't even that difficult on a Mac, normally at least. Most programs only have to be drag-and-dropped into the Applications folder...
If she really manages to squeeze that all in (I would have guessed you would have needed much more - that's quite many topics for 700 pages - and with the quality the review is talking about!) it's on my shopping list. Especially as it only costs about 40 ...
Try learning german, or french, or spanish, or any foreign language. Until you're totally fluent, you WILL like that feature when writing in that language, because then you're doing all those crazy small errors that you never do - but the grammar check still is looking for... That's of course asuming you have a version of Office with multilingual spell/grammar checking, though.
The Sempron isn't the equivalent to Pentium M. It's the equivalent of the Celeron. Actually, there isn't any _total_ match for the Pentium M, even though Turion Athlon 64's get decently close. However, they seem to be nothing else than especially binned usual A64's.
Well, at least Wikipedia is available in klingon here. However, Google is also available in klingon, so perhaps it's a tie?
You mean like games like chess. Or even Go?