I remember stopping by the Intel booth at the National Computer
Convention in New York in 1971-1973 timeframe (can't remember exact
date).
My Dad had put me on a train to New York to expand my teenage
horizons. I returned with 4004 and 8008 data sheets and some chip
samples. I spent the next few months dreaming up what I was going to
do with the chips and drawing schematics.
I never did build anything with them, because owning a terminal and a
modem was more important to me at that time than a having a uP - if I
had had my priorities straight, I might be famous now [grin]. I did end up
designing and building 3 different video terminals, though.
MS wants me to send them a cleartext email message...
Thank you for writing to Microsoft.NET Passport.
We're sorry, but we can't delete your Passport until we can verify that this is your account. Please send us the following information:
- Answer to your secret question (Mother's maiden name?)
- Zip code or postal code
- Country/region
- Birth date
- First 5 digits of your credit card in your Passport wallet (if applicable)
Its entirely possible that their current support is iffy, or at least the person you got is. They have a successful product and success breeds support calls.
However, their support in the past has been outstanding. Including support for Linux users. We reported several issues with this router in the summer of 2000. Some of the problems were clearly things that only a Unix/Linux box would need.
Linksys support and engineering was awesome. Support would forward the bug reports to engineering and we would get bug fixed firmware back with a turnaround of 2-3 days.
Point taken regarding most Unix utilities versus the GNU ones, but ksh versus bash is a bad example. Bash is only just now catching up with ksh as a scripting language. Its wasn't until the most recent release of bash that I could get many of my 10 year old ksh functions to execute under bash. Plus, there is a version of ksh with scriptable Motif calls build in (ala tk/tcl).
I collected a hundred different IP addresses that were attacking my machine. Then I went to each of those web servers and took a look. 90% of them were completely unpopulated.
Based on this statistic, I come to the conclusion that most of the problem lies with people that don't even realize they are running a web server. Perhaps when they installed NT they thought you needed to enable the web server in order to access the Internet. I don't know -- its hard to get into the minds of the clueless.
I further conclude that unless these people are proactively notified that they are the root of the problem, these servers will never get turned off or updated.
If you don't fight this now, then when you get up tomorrow you will find that you can no longer do your banking online because your bank switched to CURL.
CURL corporation has *already made the decision* that Linux and Mac users are not important to them. Our only choice is to fight back.
I am sick to death of companies that promise Linux versions of
software "coming soon".
From now on, if a company does not release the Linux version
of its software on exactly the same day (or before) the Windows
version, I will do everything in my power to dissaude people
from using that companies products.
The CURL company qualifies. Let the war begin. CURL must die.
When I started buying Legos for my kids, I was dismayed to find that you couldn't buy just plain blocks from Lego anymore, like when I was a kid in the 60s. No doubt, this is due to the expiration of the patents on the blocks.
But you can get large quantities of the plain blocks from the knockoff companies. We bought a large number of plain blocks from one of the knockoff companies. Plus, of course, my son has dozens of the various Lego-branded project kits that he's gotten on birthdays and XMAS.
You know what? My son (now 7) puts the Lego projects together exactly once, in record time. Then he rips them apart and tosses the pieces into the box of all other Lego parts. Then he builds fabulously complicated things out of the collection of parts that he has. The stuff he dreams up and builds is way beyond what I was building with just the plain parts. He's got all kinds of new pieces to choose from and the possibilities are far greater than ever before.
I think the situation with Lego is way better now than it ever was. There is no dumbing down of Lego that I can see. Just dumb kids and parents that can't see the possibilities.
Mostly, its probably compulsive parents that urge their kids not to destroy or alter the intended project in any way. They want little Johnnies bedroom neat and tidy with the Lego projects showcased up on some shelf. This is not Legos problem, this is the anal compulsive behavior forced on middle-age society by the likes of Mr. Clean and Mr. Hoover, and TV shows like My Three Sons and Family Affair.
The damage was done to the parents of today's kids back in the 60s and 70s.
Luckily, I was smoking so much pot back then that the brainwashing did not take. I view the array of Lego parts littering my sons bedroom floor for what it is: the remains of a successful battle between his engineering skills and the creative visions of his mind.
I found out the hard way that you don't want
perl 5.6.0. Lots of the CPAN stuff isn't available in RPM form for 5.6.0. I kept bumping into perl apps that I couldn't get the required
PMs for.
On August 22nd and 23rd, I asked Yahoo to search for "asfrecorder". It came up with *0* hits. I then went directly to Google and did the same search. It came up with 59 hits.
I complained to Yahoo about the lack of hits on their site, and after several exchanges on this, they stopped replying to my email.
I note that today Yahoo comes up with 45 hits, while Google comes up with 181 hits.
Lesson to be learned: if you want Google results, go directly to Google.
I think some people are missing the real importance of MPEG-4.
Using an additional compression factor of only 2-3 over DVD and MPEG-2, you will be able to get a complete DVD onto a DVD-RAM or DVD-RW disk using MPEG-4. And the quality difference will not be noticeable.
Compressing an MPEG-2 DVD using MPEG-4 down to CD size requires a factor of at least 11 and results in no better than VHS quality.
I won't watch VHS movies anymore. I wait until they come out on DVD. Why would I want to watch MPEG-4 movies at VHS quality off of a CD?
If your cell phone service provider has PCS data service, you can just throw your visor modem away. You don't need it because the cell service has a modem pool.
The cell phone becomes a "really long cable" to the modem pool, which dials out to your ISP just like any modem. In general, there is no extra cost for this from your cell service, and no need to even sign up for it.
All you will need is the cable to connect the Visor to the cell phone. See http://rick.8k.com/handspring/ for instructions on one way to make a cable to connect to a Qualcomm phone. A buddy is doing the same for a Nokia phone.
The reason you need a special cable is that the Visor cradle connector serial port is different from the Palm one. The pinout is different (no modem control signals), and the levels on the Visor are TTL but are RS-232 on the Palm. -Rick
A eeeeyew! bad, bad, bad! On the machine here at work, I now have the problem I experienced at home... where moving the mouse totally dorks the audio. Additionally, without moving the mouse or anything else-- the audio studders and skips dramatically.
The previous version I had here G2player-6.0-0.99051701 didn't do either of these nasties... Gotta get that one back!
I had a nice email convo with Rich just after TCP/IP Illustrated came out. We both attended University of Michigan and both used the MTS in the early 70's.
Here's a piece of the email convo to demonstrate just the kind of guy Rick was...
> As a troff die-hard myself (I'm the author of the JetRoff > laserjet backend for ditroff), this raised my curiosity > to a such a level that I had to write. You use troff > so well in this book that I wonder, would it be possible > to get the actual troff, tbl, pic, whatever source for > say the first couple of chapters, just for my own > personal education and gratification? I'd love to see > how camera ready troff is written for an actual book.
Hi. I've seen your name for years in the troff newsgroups. Didn't you used to be in New Jersey?
Here's a shar file for Chapters 2 and 3, along with their pic files. I also use lots of shell scripts and awk programs to automate things. For example, the automatic numbering of figures and the like is done using awk. Rather than try to explain what it all does, take a look and just ask questions if you have any. I use the -ms macros, with numerous additions of my own, and a little tinkering. Troff comments "foo" are where I put in page breaks at the end--I normally put in each page break by hand when doing the page layout. All the.ix macros are also index entries that I put in by hand at the end.
Naturally, please don't redistribute these files at all. Also, thanks for the kind words about the book--glad you enjoy it and find it useful.
Slashdot Mirror
The Judge's FAX number on the RedHat site is wrong. I believe this is the correct FAX number:
410-962-7574
If you FAX the wrong number, some poor schmuck gets a call on his answering machine.
I remember stopping by the Intel booth at the National Computer
Convention in New York in 1971-1973 timeframe (can't remember exact
date).
My Dad had put me on a train to New York to expand my teenage
horizons. I returned with 4004 and 8008 data sheets and some chip
samples. I spent the next few months dreaming up what I was going to
do with the chips and drawing schematics.
I never did build anything with them, because owning a terminal and a
modem was more important to me at that time than a having a uP - if I
had had my priorities straight, I might be famous now [grin]. I did end up
designing and building 3 different video terminals, though.
Thanks for the memories.
-Rick
MS wants me to send them a cleartext email message...
.NET Passport.
Thank you for writing to Microsoft
We're sorry, but we can't delete your Passport until we can verify that this is your account. Please send us the following information:
- Answer to your secret question (Mother's maiden name?)
- Zip code or postal code
- Country/region
- Birth date
- First 5 digits of your credit card in your Passport wallet (if applicable)
I have a passport account, probably from
accessing MSN, although I don't really
recall how I got it.
I've been all over the Passport website, and I
cannot figure out how to delete my account.
Does anybody know how to do it?
-Rick
Its entirely possible that their current support is iffy, or at least the person you got is. They have a successful product and success breeds support calls.
However, their support in the past has been outstanding. Including support for Linux users. We reported several issues with this router in the summer of 2000. Some of the problems were clearly things that only a Unix/Linux box would need.
Linksys support and engineering was awesome. Support would forward the bug reports to engineering and we would get bug fixed firmware back with a turnaround of 2-3 days.
-Rick
The only way to get rid of these frivolous lawsuits is to institute a loser pays system.
Write your congresscritter and let them know you have had enough of this.
Point taken regarding most Unix utilities versus the GNU ones, but ksh versus bash is a bad example. Bash is only just now catching up with ksh as a scripting language. Its wasn't until the most recent release of bash that I could get many of my 10 year old ksh functions to execute under bash. Plus, there is a version of ksh with scriptable Motif calls build in (ala tk/tcl).
I collected a hundred different IP addresses that were attacking my machine. Then I went to each of those web servers and took a look. 90% of them were completely unpopulated.
Based on this statistic, I come to the conclusion that most of the problem lies with people that don't even realize they are running a web server. Perhaps when they installed NT they thought you needed to enable the web server in order to access the Internet. I don't know -- its hard to get into the minds of the clueless.
I further conclude that unless these people are proactively notified that they are the root of the problem, these servers will never get turned off or updated.
-Rick
If you don't fight this now, then when you get up tomorrow you will find that you can no longer do your banking online because your bank switched to CURL.
CURL corporation has *already made the decision* that Linux and Mac users are not important to them. Our only choice is to fight back.
-Rick
I am sick to death of companies that promise Linux versions of
software "coming soon".
From now on, if a company does not release the Linux version
of its software on exactly the same day (or before) the Windows
version, I will do everything in my power to dissaude people
from using that companies products.
The CURL company qualifies. Let the war begin. CURL must die.
-Rick
When I started buying Legos for my kids, I was dismayed to find that you couldn't buy just plain blocks from Lego anymore, like when I was a kid in the 60s. No doubt, this is due to the expiration of the patents on the blocks.
But you can get large quantities of the plain blocks from the knockoff companies. We bought a large number of plain blocks from one of the knockoff companies. Plus, of course, my son has dozens of the various Lego-branded project kits that he's gotten on birthdays and XMAS.
You know what? My son (now 7) puts the Lego projects together exactly once, in record time. Then he rips them apart and tosses the pieces into the box of all other Lego parts. Then he builds fabulously complicated things out of the collection of parts that he has. The stuff he dreams up and builds is way beyond what I was building with just the plain parts. He's got all kinds of new pieces to choose from and the possibilities are far greater than ever before.
I think the situation with Lego is way better now than it ever was. There is no dumbing down of Lego that I can see. Just dumb kids and parents that can't see the possibilities. Mostly, its probably compulsive parents that urge their kids not to destroy or alter the intended project in any way. They want little Johnnies bedroom neat and tidy with the Lego projects showcased up on some shelf. This is not Legos problem, this is the anal compulsive behavior forced on middle-age society by the likes of Mr. Clean and Mr. Hoover, and TV shows like My Three Sons and Family Affair.
The damage was done to the parents of today's kids back in the 60s and 70s.
Luckily, I was smoking so much pot back then that the brainwashing did not take. I view the array of Lego parts littering my sons bedroom floor for what it is: the remains of a successful battle between his engineering skills and the creative visions of his mind.
Pinstrip came with perl 5.6.0.
I found out the hard way that you don't want
perl 5.6.0. Lots of the CPAN stuff isn't available in RPM form for 5.6.0. I kept bumping into perl apps that I couldn't get the required
PMs for.
On August 22nd and 23rd, I asked Yahoo to search for "asfrecorder". It came up with *0* hits. I then went directly to Google and did the same search. It came up with 59 hits.
I complained to Yahoo about the lack of hits on their site, and after several exchanges on this, they stopped replying to my email.
I note that today Yahoo comes up with 45 hits, while Google comes up with 181 hits.
Lesson to be learned: if you want Google results, go directly to Google.
I think some people are missing the real importance of MPEG-4.
Using an additional compression factor of only 2-3 over DVD and MPEG-2, you will be able to get a complete DVD onto a DVD-RAM or DVD-RW disk using MPEG-4. And the quality difference will not be noticeable.
Compressing an MPEG-2 DVD using MPEG-4 down to CD size requires a factor of at least 11 and results in no better than VHS quality.
I won't watch VHS movies anymore. I wait until they come out on DVD. Why would I want to watch MPEG-4 movies at VHS quality off of a CD?
The cell phone becomes a "really long cable" to the modem pool, which dials out to your ISP just like any modem. In general, there is no extra cost for this from your cell service, and no need to even sign up for it.
All you will need is the cable to connect the Visor to the cell phone. See http://rick.8k.com/handspring/ for instructions on one way to make a cable to connect to a Qualcomm phone. A buddy is doing the same for a Nokia phone.
The reason you need a special cable is that the Visor cradle connector serial port is different from the Palm one. The pinout is different (no modem control signals), and the levels on the Visor are TTL but are RS-232 on the Palm. -Rick
Here is how I connected my Handspring Visor PDA to
my Qualcomm cell phone and got on the net wirelessly...
http://rick.8k.com/handspring/
-Rick
I recently researched the LCD touchscreen
remotes. The best one is the Philips
Pronto, also sold as the Marantz RC 5000.
Extremely cool.
The Harmon Kardon Take Control, also sold
as the Madrigal IRIQ is second best.
The Sony is third, but could be called a Best
Buy based on its price.
Goto http://www.remotecentral.com/ for a
bunch of great information.
Personally, I like the DIY version: Linux
running on a palm pilot with a home brew
application.
A buddy of mine reports this:
A eeeeyew! bad, bad, bad! On the machine here at work, I now have the
problem I experienced at home... where moving the mouse totally dorks
the audio. Additionally, without moving the mouse or anything else--
the audio studders and skips dramatically.
The previous version I had here G2player-6.0-0.99051701 didn't do either
of these nasties... Gotta get that one back!
The May 17 version worked on RH 5.2, this one
fails dependencies...
$ root rpm -e G2player-6.0-0.99051701
$ root rpm -i G2player-6.0-0.99092901*
failed dependencies: libNoVersion.so.1 is needed by G2player-6.0-0.99092901
I had a nice email convo with Rich just after
.ix
TCP/IP Illustrated came out. We both attended
University of Michigan and both used the MTS
in the early 70's.
Here's a piece of the email convo to demonstrate
just the kind of guy Rick was...
> As a troff die-hard myself (I'm the author of the JetRoff
> laserjet backend for ditroff), this raised my curiosity
> to a such a level that I had to write. You use troff
> so well in this book that I wonder, would it be possible
> to get the actual troff, tbl, pic, whatever source for
> say the first couple of chapters, just for my own
> personal education and gratification? I'd love to see
> how camera ready troff is written for an actual book.
Hi. I've seen your name for years in the troff newsgroups. Didn't
you used to be in New Jersey?
Here's a shar file for Chapters 2 and 3, along with their pic files.
I also use lots of shell scripts and awk programs to automate things.
For example, the automatic numbering of figures and the like is done
using awk. Rather than try to explain what it all does, take a look
and just ask questions if you have any. I use the -ms macros, with
numerous additions of my own, and a little tinkering. Troff comments
"foo" are where I put in page breaks at the end--I normally put in
each page break by hand when doing the page layout. All the
macros are also index entries that I put in by hand at the end.
Naturally, please don't redistribute these files at all. Also, thanks
for the kind words about the book--glad you enjoy it and find it useful.
Rich Stevens