Windows Error Reporting, for example, has privacy built into it. When there is a problem with the system we want to know about that, because it is perhaps the only way that we can fix it. But we also understand that you need to have the choice about whether the information is sent. So, before it gets sent, you have to affirmatively say "please send".
...I hate that "Send/Don't Send" screen with a passion. Why not just tell us the error message instead so we can try and fix it?
...the reality is that until companies such as EMI, Sony, etc, realise that DRM hurts their profits more than benefit, we will continue to see new and more invasive DRM technology being pushed on to us.
All we can do is veto such products and make it known to the bands that the DRM their company placed on the CD are hurting their sales.
I'd love to get some of the latest CD, but, with the copy protected emblem on the back and saying it may not actually work on pretty much any device makes me keep my money.
Laws would be nice, but it wouldn't surprise me if the industry fought such a thing all the way to the high courts. Being told what to do would be such a culture shock for the industry:)
I decided to go with a nice, large, 5U Rackmount case that gave plenty of room for drives and airflow.
Since it's only purpose was to be a fileserver, I opted for an older AMD Sempron (2800+ 754 socket). I purchased 4 Seagate 300GB PATA drives (this was a slight mistake).
Going slightly off topic here, but since I had 6 PATA devices, I needed a ATA133 PCI card to handle 2 of the 300GB drives. Everything went fine during the installation (Ubuntu), although it was a tad slow. I found out why once I could access the system. It seems that the IO transfer for the PCI based drives always reverted to 16bit. Since 2 drives were on 32bit, and the other on 16bit, it created a nasty little bottleneck. hdparm fixed it, but one drive seems to drop the settings after a while which recreated the bottleneck (Over 10 hours to sync 30% with bottleneck, 2 hours to do over 40% without).
In hindsight I should of bought two PATA and two SATA to keep everything on the motherboard. I've got a couple of IDE to SATA converters sitting here ready for tonight, I plan on moving the CDROM and OS HDD onto the SATA system, and then placing the 300GB directly into the motherboard to see if it fixes the problem.
So now I have a nice 900GB SW RAID5 to play with that utilises Samba so the Windows machines can play with it too. Its fast and the CPU doesn't even break a sweat. The bottleneck is a pain, but it's temporary, and only noticeable while copying a lot of files.
Take the recent Gnome release. A few screenshots, a bit of bragging about what they felt was cool and a simple overview that showed they had added some interesting stuff. Got me interested enough to go look at Ubuntu.
Now look at the KDE. All we have is a feature plan which isn't even directly linked to anywhere on the page. Now add that a lot of people aren't interested in how replacing the klistbox with a klistview will improve usability. The end result is that the average user won't get the information that tells them why 3.5 is going to rock their world, and compel them to upgrade.
Sure its a beta, but even then, it would be nice to know what is planned/implemented thats in plain English.
Where would I spend it though? All the console vendors use the same tactics.
In my case, I keep looking at the Japanese market and eyes off all these games that I simply cannot play unless I either buy a JAP console or get it chipped/modded.
Either option isn't very good in my own eyes, so I decide on the option that will benefit both me (I get what I want) and the company (I still buy legit games).
However, the number of games I will buy will dramatically decrease, since I cannot browse my local store and get sucked into an impulse buy, which I'm a real sucker for. Instead I have to be really careful, since importing will be expensive.
It's not the best message in the world, but it's a start.
I've seen something like this coming since they started bragging how good the free-trade agreement will be for Australia. Of course, most politicians here don't comprehend copyright, patents, and the such, since they are concentrating on the now so they get elected into office again in 3 years time. If it makes them look good, they don't care how it will affect us long term.
I had already decided that with the PS3, I would by from Japan, I'm sick of having so many games out of my reach. Such behavior by Sony only strengthens the resolve to learn Japanese.
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All we can do is veto such products and make it known to the bands that the DRM their company placed on the CD are hurting their sales.
I'd love to get some of the latest CD, but, with the copy protected emblem on the back and saying it may not actually work on pretty much any device makes me keep my money.
Laws would be nice, but it wouldn't surprise me if the industry fought such a thing all the way to the high courts. Being told what to do would be such a culture shock for the industry :)
Since it's only purpose was to be a fileserver, I opted for an older AMD Sempron (2800+ 754 socket). I purchased 4 Seagate 300GB PATA drives (this was a slight mistake).
Going slightly off topic here, but since I had 6 PATA devices, I needed a ATA133 PCI card to handle 2 of the 300GB drives. Everything went fine during the installation (Ubuntu), although it was a tad slow. I found out why once I could access the system. It seems that the IO transfer for the PCI based drives always reverted to 16bit. Since 2 drives were on 32bit, and the other on 16bit, it created a nasty little bottleneck. hdparm fixed it, but one drive seems to drop the settings after a while which recreated the bottleneck (Over 10 hours to sync 30% with bottleneck, 2 hours to do over 40% without).
In hindsight I should of bought two PATA and two SATA to keep everything on the motherboard. I've got a couple of IDE to SATA converters sitting here ready for tonight, I plan on moving the CDROM and OS HDD onto the SATA system, and then placing the 300GB directly into the motherboard to see if it fixes the problem.
So now I have a nice 900GB SW RAID5 to play with that utilises Samba so the Windows machines can play with it too. Its fast and the CPU doesn't even break a sweat. The bottleneck is a pain, but it's temporary, and only noticeable while copying a lot of files.
IMHO I have to agree.
Take the recent Gnome release. A few screenshots, a bit of bragging about what they felt was cool and a simple overview that showed they had added some interesting stuff. Got me interested enough to go look at Ubuntu.
Now look at the KDE. All we have is a feature plan which isn't even directly linked to anywhere on the page. Now add that a lot of people aren't interested in how replacing the klistbox with a klistview will improve usability. The end result is that the average user won't get the information that tells them why 3.5 is going to rock their world, and compel them to upgrade.
Sure its a beta, but even then, it would be nice to know what is planned/implemented thats in plain English.
Where would I spend it though? All the console vendors use the same tactics.
In my case, I keep looking at the Japanese market and eyes off all these games that I simply cannot play unless I either buy a JAP console or get it chipped/modded.
Either option isn't very good in my own eyes, so I decide on the option that will benefit both me (I get what I want) and the company (I still buy legit games).
However, the number of games I will buy will dramatically decrease, since I cannot browse my local store and get sucked into an impulse buy, which I'm a real sucker for. Instead I have to be really careful, since importing will be expensive.
It's not the best message in the world, but it's a start.
I've seen something like this coming since they started bragging how good the free-trade agreement will be for Australia. Of course, most politicians here don't comprehend copyright, patents, and the such, since they are concentrating on the now so they get elected into office again in 3 years time. If it makes them look good, they don't care how it will affect us long term.
I had already decided that with the PS3, I would by from Japan, I'm sick of having so many games out of my reach. Such behavior by Sony only strengthens the resolve to learn Japanese.
Sony will get no more impulse buys from me.