Boo...my bookmark doesn't work after an article gets archived. Oh well...serves me right for not checking the preview. The cracking article I was linking to (to show that you can't ever stop students from using Palms to cheat) was
As soon as teachers found out that you could beam information between them, they were pretty much banned at a lot of high/junior high schools in the area where I live.
This is a real deja vu for me because I had an HP calculator that suffered a similar ban because of the IR window...even though I was the only person who owned one in that particular class.
The most useful program for getting Palms into educators hands would be a program to lock off the IR access with a password. The teacher would enter a password and IR beaming would be disabled until the teacher unlocked it after class.
Of course, this would be cracked in ten seconds because pretty much anyone can crack 68K programs in just a few moments work. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my posting on a previous article about reverse engineering.
In my opinion, they should forget about Palm and focus on Visor. Palms are really too expensive for studnets (except maybe the IIIe, which is in reality an ice Visor Solo). Visor has already announced hardware modules that will measure light, pH, speed, temperature, et. which would make them a nature for physics, chemistry and natural science classes.
They could possibly make a module that teachers could load with acceptable reference materials and would also disable beaming on a hardware level. I don't know if this is even possible but it seems a lot more plausible on the Visor than on the business-oriented Palm.
The problem with Star Trek, as I see it, is that there is simply not enough danger. Star Trek is always about one ship that HAS to survive to keep the series going. Even if by some chance the ship is destroyed (as has happened in several episodes)...it is always explained away by some ridiculous space/time continuum thingie.
What if, instead of beating the Dominion, the Federation had gotten theie butts kicked? What is Earth was captured and the federation destroyed. That's it...all gone.
All that's left is the former Federation outcasts...the Maquis. You could build a whole series around the Maquis as they fight to destroy the Dominion. It's the whole futile odds-are-impossible thing that makes Star Wars thrive. Difficult struggles, lots of potential conflicts...and best of all...a rotating cast so that people can actually DIE. Not the leaders of course...they never die but, you could follow a ship for a couple weeks until it meets a gruesome (tho noble) death.
Another way cool tangent would be to have Voyager reach the Alpha quadrent somewhere around the fourth season when things are getting dull. They would of course be stunned to find the Federation gone, but have lots of way cool Delta Quadrent technology that would help reverse the losing battle. Borg sheilds or whatever. Could even wake up Seven's borg implants so she could start assimilating Jem Hadar (sp?) warriors and turning them to fight for the Maquis.
Anyway... It would have been cool. The bottom line, Rick Berman (if you are a slashdotter), is that if you keep everything happy, audiences get tired of it. Without sorrow, you can't know what makes joy so good.
Okay...no one seems to have mentioned this, so thought I'd share a dirty little secret with my fellow slashdotters.
When a company pisses you off...fails to respond to your questions...or is just generally unreachable...there is something can get you on the inside track...run a WHOIS. Check out what is listed for handspring.com:
JD TECHNOLOGY (HANDSPRING-DOM) 189 RENARDO AVE. MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA 94043 US
Presto...look at all that information. There's a couple of fax numbers. Why not sent them a firm, but polite request for information? According to the WHOIS, they have phone numbers that begin with 650-230 and 650-470. Why not try wardialing them to see what other extensions you can find?
Notice the e-mail addresses and the pattern they follow: first initial plus last name. That means that you probably know the e-mail addresses for everyone on the Executive Team like Donna Dubinsky, Ed Colligan, Bernard Whitney, Mike Gallucci and so forth.
Also rememeber that any other domains that show up on a WHOIS can lead to more information. Check out all the other domains that ol' Jeff currently owns.
Now, of course, this is dirty dirty pool. These people are not going to like being contacted directly. But this only underscores how STUPID it is that Network Solutions forces us to put our real information in a public database. That's why I run a WHOIS on major technology companies every day. Whenever I get a busy Vice President on the phone...I am sure to let him know how I got this phone number so he can be sure to let that @#$!@$#! Network Solutions know what he thinks of this WHOIS nightmare.
Anyway...if you goal is to find out when your Visor is shipping...contacting someone on a WHOIS is a good way to make sure you get put last on the list. But a friend of mine had Handspring put an $800 hold on his credit card (which would cover the cost of THREE Visors, not the ONE he ordered) and after politely alerting everyone at Handspring to his problem, he got a personal apology from Donna. And later that day, a phone call from Sally, the head of customer service promising to resolve it ASAP.
So...to review...if you have a SERIOUS issue...go ahead and try a WHOIS. But remember that this type of contact can easily be considered abuse, so if aren't careful and tactful you will end up doing yourself more harm than good.
(As an aside...I find it disturbing that I see "The site is heavily loaded already" from the person who SUBMITS the article. Jeez, is that website running on a 486 with Windows 95 and Personal Web Services???)
Anyway, color is the natural order of things. Television became color...laptops became color...printers became color...and yes, GameBoy became color. Color is ALWAYS preferred to black and white or greyscale because (drumroll) color as a feature includes both black and white and greyscale.
Think about it...if color is truly unnecessary to a program...then a color screen can always display the information in black and white or greyscale (like a word processor).
So what stops someone from using color from the get go? Answer: price and performance. If color is too expensive, people will not choose it over pure greyscale. If the color screen tears up the battery, people will not choose it over the more efficient greyscale screen.
The companies who win are the companies who add color when the time is right. GameBoy came out at the same time as both NEC's TurboGraphix portable, Atari's Lynx and Sega's GameGear. Customers flocked to the GameBoy because it was cheaper, had better software, and long battery life. The other devices failed to hold onto their place in the market and were discontinued.
Now...ten years later...there is a ColorGameBoy. Why was this not done from the beginning? Well, because ten years ago there was no way Nintendo could put a color screen in a $69 device and have it run 30 hours off two double A batteries. But now that technology has improved to the point that this is possible...it makes sense to do it.
Despite the fact that there are other color portables...like the NeoGeo portable...GameBoy is still selling better because the new color portable can run all of the existing software.
To review...Nintendo focused on growing the platform in a cheap, efficient state and then introducing color after they had proven to be a winning device.
Now look at Palm...while WinCE devices have jumped right away to color, Palm focused on growing the market in a cheap, efficient state. People obviously want handhelds...Palm is giving them a tool while WinCE is trying to give them everything.
Palm is clearly the winner...now Palm wants to make a color model and I, for one, think it will be a success. Because technology exists that can make this color Palm do everything the orignal Palm (if it had been color) could not.
Consider that the screen is only 256 colors. this pales in comparison to the 16-bit 65556 colors for some WinCE devices. Yet, it will probably be MUCH cheaper and much more energy efficient than those screens.
Consider the new injection molded lithium ion batteries. Companies can now develop their entire product without allocating any space for the battery. After they are done, the remaining airspace can be filled with a gel that, once solidified, becomes the battery. This is what is allowing Erisson to design a cell phone that is as thin as a pencil.
In summary, I think color is a necessary step and I applaud Palm's decision to hold off on color until they had gotten a lot of developers and software to support the platform. About the only thing Palm could do to screw it up is not make the color Palm backwards compatible...but since they are using the same Motorola chip family, I don't think this is a realistic fear.
NOTE TO SLASHDOT: Update the news article to include the proper URL...it's PenOp not PalmTop.
If you read the Product information, you can plainly see PenOp software can verify the identity of the signer using biometrics (such as signature dynamics and fingerprints), digital ids (such as Entrust certificates), and infometrics (such as passwords. I also noticed when I went to download a copy that it is appear to be keyed to your Palm's serial number. You get a PIN to unlock the software that will probably be matched to this serial number...
So to those people whining about fraud...this is not about sending a bitmap image of your signature around. That tech has existed on the Palm for years (TealPaint is a good one) and is not newsbreaking in any way.
This is secure because, in order to pretend to be you, someone would need:
1) You physical Palm device 2) The ability to sign a document in the same biometrical (if that's a word) manner...not just looking at it and copying it visually 3) A pin number to verify their identity 4) A copy of the conduit on your home PC, which probably has the other part of a digital key.
I'm no expert but the "something you have + something you know" approach in a very good one. You need a physical device and detailed information about how a person signs and/or what their PIN is.
Please, people, avoid making uninformed comments on your interpretation of how you think a system might in fact sorta kinda maybe work. =)
Just because our eyes are in arranged in a 16:9 shape doesn't mean this is how the screen should work. Have you ever turned around or stood in the aisle to watch people at the movies? Their eyes and heads move a lot...even in the back rows.
I think it's because...if the director has a 16:9 canvas, he or she is going to use the whole thing...and since our eyes are trained to focus on a single point, we subconciously move them around to follow what's going on.
I can't speak for everyone but...when Windows 98 came out, the first thing I did was throw in a second video card. I used this dual-monitor system for about two weeks. The new crick in my neck from moving my focus between monitors just wasn't worth the extra desktop space.
I'm more excited by advancements in head mounted display technology. With a nice set of glasses, I would could get the picture equivalent of a 30 foot screen, and have 3D capability to boot!
Yes, I know the idea of two people slipping on separate pairs of VR goggles isn't nearly as romantic as curling up in front of the television but...I really think this is where we are all headed...Like how most minivans have built in headphones jacks so parents and kids can listen to two different audio programs.
I think someday everyone will be carrying around a cheap video headset they can plug in at work, in public theaters, on planes, in cars, on their home player, or wherever they need to see digital content. That'll be cool.
Just as long as they aren't implanting them in my eyeball...that's where I draw the line... =)
Yes, movies are filmed in widescreen (16:9)format, but is this really any better than the existing standard (4:3) format?
Speaking from personal experience...I'd much rather view something on a 4:3 device than on a 16:9 device. You can digest the information much faster when it is contained inside a square area. You don't have to scroll your eyes (or worse, your head) back and forth as much.
Besides, anyone who make a movies these days are thinking ahead to video and TV playback. They make sure they can fit what's important in a 4:3 area, while the rest of the scene is useless fluff or scenery. If they can't fit it all in, they play that clever trick where they squash the scene to make more of it fit in the same horizontal space.
The only movies that truely look wrong on 4:3 are the really, really old ones that weren't planning on the television format. As a result, part of the key action is cut off or they have to digitally zoom the image and pan around.
Any movie made from 1980 onward is going to look fine on a 4:3 device. I don't see that this is likely to change considering the length of time it would take for 16:9 to trickle down. During this period, people with 16:9 devices will have to play 4:3 content with black bars on either side or chop the top and bottom off of the 4:3 image. This is exactly why people argue you should by 16:9 in the first place...so you don't have to see black bars or cut off part of the scene.
Clearly, it's a no-win situation...I say follow the standards that computers use. We still don't have a TV that can match the clarity of a plain old 640 x 480 VGA monitor. If the TV industry wanted to truly impress the viewing public, they would quit the @#%@#% interlacing and just display a static image (thankfully, there's at least one most of HDTV that uses a non-interlaced display mode).
Sega does have to make a choice between cable and DSL, though.
I don't think this is the case. I have seen three different brands of cable modem and two different brands of DSL modems and both have plain 10Base-T on the back. The new cable modems @Home is using in Georgia have dual coaxial input and a 10/100 connection.
I don't have cable, so I'm not sure how many cable modems out there have Ethernet hookups.
I'm willing to bet all of them, since it makes little sense to invent new technology when 10BaseT ethernet is just so dirt cheap. Even if the cable modem doesn't need that much speed it's still much cheaper to get an ethernet card than rig some new proprietary connection. Although, some of the newer Motorola modems are using a USB connection. This is clearly not the option for techies since you can no longer connect to a hub and you are onyl supported with Win98.
Also worrying are those people who are now buying DSL modems on a card instead of an external modem with Ethernet jack.
Again, this isn't a move for techies since they will want the high speed connection to go to more than one computer (via a hub). Or, this is for techies who are smart enought to make that one computer the proxy/NAT machine and then put a plain ol' 10BaseT to a hub that has the other boxes (including the hypothetical high-speed DreamCast).
If you have an ethernet card on something, then by definition it support a hub...since the hardware is the same, just some connections (card to card or hub to hub) require a crossover. Assuming there was a switch to crossover or not (like on most hubs) this would be find.
I maintain that it would be way easy to ping or flood a Dreamcast connection if they went anywhere but a private network. Once I have the IP, it is maybe ten seconds work to get rid of some puny modem connection.
Or were you talking about ping flooding from the DreamCasts? How the hell would you do that without access to the operating system?
Brings up a good point...why in the hell didn't Sega include the ability to play MP3 CDs in the DreamCast? I mean...the OS is Windows CE, so you would think that MP3 playback would be a no-brainer (look at all the WinCE devices like Casio and Jornada that support MP3 playback).
Note to Nintendo/Sony: Do this! I want to be able to play my MP3 CDs somewhere besides my computer room. My Video games systems are already wired to the kick ass stereo in my living room, so the ability to toss in an MP3 CD and be able to navigate it would be truly, truly killer.
At this point anyone who makes a device that has a CD player would be truly dumb for overlooking this capability...it would be dirt cheap to implement MP3 support and I'd probably pay $200 just for a player that would do this.
Yes, I know such devices exists but the ones I have seen are only for cars and not standalone devices...can anyone provice a URL to a standalone or preferably portable MP3 CD player?
Isn't is just as short-signed to ignore the number of homes that have cable modems or DSL and would like to run 10Mbit connection to that puppy?
I'm hoping (for Sega's sake) that they are working on an addon module to enable a good ol' 10Base-T (or maybe even 10/100) connection.
Of course, if they simply upgraded the modem (by swapping out the part) to support home networking that would be a great solutions. Home networking is basically DSL connectivity within a household, something computer makers like Compaq are already doing.
I really, really, really hope Sega wasn't stupid enough to hard wire the modem on the motherboard. Anyone who has been around more than two years know that modem tech changes practically every six months, and I sure hope the Dreamcast has a long lifespan than that.
I don't even have a phone line in one of my residences because my cell phone is my primary phone and the residence has a cable modem. This means I can't even get digital cable service because the stupid GE box requires a regular phone line! (duh? TCI spend how many millions to enable two-way communication over their cable network, then decides on a cable box supplier that uses phone lines).
I also couldn't use DIVX, but I don't consider that much of a problem at all. =)
Does anyone here remember when www.ati.com was run by some company calling itself "Artificial Turd Industries"? The home page featured a very large, very detailed image of rubber doggie doo.
The thing that was neat was that this page stayed that way for as long as I could remember. The owner took great delight in posting letters from lawyers demanding he turn over the domain name. Companies like ATI Technologies (the graphics card maker most people are trying to find when they type in www.ati.com), American Tractor Incorporated, Arand Typeset and Ink...and about a dozen others.
ATI ended up getting www.atitech.com which they still own. But now I just found that they also have acquired www.ati.com!
How did this happen? I don't remember reading about it on/. and I'm sure the fall of such a rebel would have been noticed...? Does anyone know if the guy finally sold out or if some how the courts decided that ATI should get the site (even though there are many other companies that have the same initials trademarked!)
A many people have already pointed out, scientists have been talking about a possible Planet X for years...when I read the article...what news was there?
Did they prove it exists? No...it's still just a theory they can't prove with existing technology
Did they prove where it exists? No...two different groups are giving two different numbers...I don't know what the significant digits are but if you can't get anything more precise that "really really far away" what does that tell me?
Even if I was the most die hard astronomy fan, I don't see anything in this article that leads me to believe anything newsworthy has happened here. For the record...I think there is a Planet Y in orbit at least 50000 AU away. Do have any conclusive proof, but it's still a theory and maybe someday, there will be a away to prove it and they'll have to call it planet JoeShmoe.
Is there some joke I don't know about? Is PEZ some crazy geek icon like Spam? Who the hell embedded "PEZ" in their code?
Now...I think the idea behind this legal threat is good because every porn site on the planet is putting legitamate words in their tags so searching on the name of any famous female yeilds a ton of porn links.
Maybe there is a huge market for underground PEZ porn and this how they are trying to stop it?
Three of the former employees have started a new service under the name Domain Host Services (dhs.org).
They run their service on time, money and hardware donations from kindhearted folks. They have several domain services, one of which is pointing yourname.dhs.org to a static or even a dynamic IP address.
So far they have proven to be quite stable. HEad on over to their Member page and signup for a free account.
Everyone is fighting over.com addresses...the dumbest, most ambiguous endings possible. What the hell is "com" supposed to mean? Commercial? What the hell kind of category is that? It more likely should stand for "common". If I have to spend money, I should be able to get an address that I really want...like
www.joe.shmoe
Or for famous corporations...
www.microsoft.inc
Or for specialized products...
www.redhat.linux
WHY WHY WHY is it that ICANN and/or Network Solutions still feels it is necessary to try and group things into categories?
It's all BS. No one respects the categories. A big company like Microsoft is going to have microsoft.com microsoft.net microsoft.org. If you create a.web top level domain, Microsoft will demand this one too. If you created a top level domain.tractors there is a good chance that Microsoft would try to take it, even though the law allows for two companies to hold the same trademark, if they are in unrelated fields.
On the other hand, if there ARE no stupid categories, and you can have infinite choice, then companies can register their LEGAL name (like Microsoft, Incorporated is www.microsoft.inc) and I can do get www.microsoft.sucks or whatever else I want. There are simply too many possible domain combinations for TLDNS (http://www.tldns.com/download/) is trying to accomplish. If we could get major browsers to automatically install TLDNS support then suddenly the Internet would be a whole new world overnight.
First of all...I'm not one to whine about postings but REALLY...how does this fall under "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters"
Let's say you can prove there article is true...
BFD? There is probably a ton of crap out there that has yet to be discovered. Before we go rewriting all the science books, shouldn't we consider if someone this "large" and this "far away" is even a planet at all?
It's like back in the 16th century when people thought the Earth stood still and everything else move around. For all we know OUR sun is orbitting around this thing, or even some other much larger thing...
Which brings me back to my original point...since when does someone coming up with a new theory about a rock 30 gazillion miles away have ANYTHING at all to do with my fairly diverse nerd life?
Just my OPINION...but I think my submission about Visor's now being on sale (though not yet shipping) would have been a much more nerdly topic for the front page.
How about a keyboard that gives the proper level of attention to those character we geeks are typing every few seconds?
Like at (@) and dot (.) and slash (/)? And for programmers, let's not forget #, %, &, = and !.
Hell...for most geeks the stupid punctuation symbols should be on the home row!
Speaking of home row...if we do get an Internet keyboard (around the time the US adopts the metric system) then I vote we put the slash key and the dot key be right next to each other so we all can shamelessly kiss up to our favorite news site/././././././././././././.
Get IPs out of the argument. We all know how easy it is to spoof IP information. The issue here is the physical connection.
If attacker formats packets to spoof the source as IP 1.2.3.4 then it still has to come from somewhere. IF it comes from another router, then the first router is simply ignoring packets with IP 1.2.3.4 from that router. It has no effect on the data flowing from the REAL 1.2.3.4 many many hops away.
So if you wanted to truly reverse DoS 1.2.3.4 then you would either have to A) spoof the attack to a huge number of routers that you know 1.2.3.4 connects through...in which case your attack has been diluted and unlikely to truly work or B) attack the one or two routers that serve as 1.2.3.4's entry point...which is basically the very kind of DoS attack the routers are now trained to block.
At some point...it all tracks back to a unique MAC address so there is at least ONE router in the whole world that can stop an abusive stream at the source...witout even looking at IP information at all.
And again...in case I haven't made it clear...
YES the extra thinking will slow down the routing of packets but DoS attacks are already slowing down that same routing of packets. If you spend a couple extra milisecond of thinking to decide to exclude DoS information that can last minutes or even hours there is going to be an increase.
Script kiddies love to attack EFNet servers to split them off the network and gain ops in a popular channel. So IRC server started using a policy where no ops are giving during a split. Thus, they are no longer a target because there is no reason to attack those servers and quality of service increases.
Likewise, if script kiddies find that a certain route point drops their ping flood, they have to find another route until eventually no routers will carry that traffic at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I sure hope they don't try to patent it...
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- JoeShmoe
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Boo...my bookmark doesn't work after an article gets archived. Oh well...serves me right for not checking the preview. The cracking article I was linking to (to show that you can't ever stop students from using Palms to cheat) was
8 .shtml
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http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/99/09/29/041820
Set threshold to five and look for "Start simple...start with Palm"
With apologies...
- JoeShmoe
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As soon as teachers found out that you could beam information between them, they were pretty much banned at a lot of high/junior high schools in the area where I live.
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This is a real deja vu for me because I had an HP calculator that suffered a similar ban because of the IR window...even though I was the only person who owned one in that particular class.
The most useful program for getting Palms into educators hands would be a program to lock off the IR access with a password. The teacher would enter a password and IR beaming would be disabled until the teacher unlocked it after class.
Of course, this would be cracked in ten seconds because pretty much anyone can crack 68K programs in just a few moments work. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my posting on a previous article about reverse engineering.
In my opinion, they should forget about Palm and focus on Visor. Palms are really too expensive for studnets (except maybe the IIIe, which is in reality an ice Visor Solo). Visor has already announced hardware modules that will measure light, pH, speed, temperature, et. which would make them a nature for physics, chemistry and natural science classes.
They could possibly make a module that teachers could load with acceptable reference materials and would also disable beaming on a hardware level. I don't know if this is even possible but it seems a lot more plausible on the Visor than on the business-oriented Palm.
Just my thoughts.
- JoeShmoe
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The problem with Star Trek, as I see it, is that there is simply not enough danger. Star Trek is always about one ship that HAS to survive to keep the series going. Even if by some chance the ship is destroyed (as has happened in several episodes)...it is always explained away by some ridiculous space/time continuum thingie.
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What if, instead of beating the Dominion, the Federation had gotten theie butts kicked? What is Earth was captured and the federation destroyed. That's it...all gone.
All that's left is the former Federation outcasts...the Maquis. You could build a whole series around the Maquis as they fight to destroy the Dominion. It's the whole futile odds-are-impossible thing that makes Star Wars thrive. Difficult struggles, lots of potential conflicts...and best of all...a rotating cast so that people can actually DIE. Not the leaders of course...they never die but, you could follow a ship for a couple weeks until it meets a gruesome (tho noble) death.
Another way cool tangent would be to have Voyager reach the Alpha quadrent somewhere around the fourth season when things are getting dull. They would of course be stunned to find the Federation gone, but have lots of way cool Delta Quadrent technology that would help reverse the losing battle. Borg sheilds or whatever. Could even wake up Seven's borg implants so she could start assimilating Jem Hadar (sp?) warriors and turning them to fight for the Maquis.
Anyway... It would have been cool. The bottom line, Rick Berman (if you are a slashdotter), is that if you keep everything happy, audiences get tired of it. Without sorrow, you can't know what makes joy so good.
Just my thoughts...
- JoeShmoe
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Before someone snipes me with this reason...let me remind you that bigger does not necessarily mean heavier.
Just make it thinner or of lighter materials like that new magnesium alloy stuff.
And of course it will be more expensive...but costs come down over time so as long as someone starts making it, I'd be happy.
Okay...no one seems to have mentioned this, so thought I'd share a dirty little secret with my fellow slashdotters.
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When a company pisses you off...fails to respond to your questions...or is just generally unreachable...there is something can get you on the inside track...run a WHOIS. Check out what is listed for handspring.com:
JD TECHNOLOGY (HANDSPRING-DOM)
189 RENARDO AVE.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA 94043
US
Domain Name: HANDSPRING.COM
Administrative Contact:
HAWKINS, JEFF (JH28760) JHAWKINS@HANDSPRING.COM
650 230 5000 (FAX) 650 230 2100
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
BOLY, JEFF (JB37706) jboly@HANDSPRING.COM
650 230 5000
Billing Contact:
JD TECHNOLOGY (JT240-ORG) no.valid.email@WORLDNIC.NET
650 470 0944
Fax- 650 470 0943
Presto...look at all that information. There's a couple of fax numbers. Why not sent them a firm, but polite request for information? According to the WHOIS, they have phone numbers that begin with 650-230 and 650-470. Why not try wardialing them to see what other extensions you can find?
Notice the e-mail addresses and the pattern they follow: first initial plus last name. That means that you probably know the e-mail addresses for everyone on the Executive Team like Donna Dubinsky, Ed Colligan, Bernard Whitney, Mike Gallucci and so forth.
Also rememeber that any other domains that show up on a WHOIS can lead to more information. Check out all the other domains that ol' Jeff currently owns.
Now, of course, this is dirty dirty pool. These people are not going to like being contacted directly. But this only underscores how STUPID it is that Network Solutions forces us to put our real information in a public database. That's why I run a WHOIS on major technology companies every day. Whenever I get a busy Vice President on the phone...I am sure to let him know how I got this phone number so he can be sure to let that @#$!@$#! Network Solutions know what he thinks of this WHOIS nightmare.
Anyway...if you goal is to find out when your Visor is shipping...contacting someone on a WHOIS is a good way to make sure you get put last on the list. But a friend of mine had Handspring put an $800 hold on his credit card (which would cover the cost of THREE Visors, not the ONE he ordered) and after politely alerting everyone at Handspring to his problem, he got a personal apology from Donna. And later that day, a phone call from Sally, the head of customer service promising to resolve it ASAP.
So...to review...if you have a SERIOUS issue...go ahead and try a WHOIS. But remember that this type of contact can easily be considered abuse, so if aren't careful and tactful you will end up doing yourself more harm than good.
- JoeShmoe
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"I am a big palm"
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Oh my god! Everyone run for their lives!
=)
- JoeShmoe
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(As an aside...I find it disturbing that I see "The site is heavily loaded already" from the person who SUBMITS the article. Jeez, is that website running on a 486 with Windows 95 and Personal Web Services???)
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Anyway, color is the natural order of things. Television became color...laptops became color...printers became color...and yes, GameBoy became color. Color is ALWAYS preferred to black and white or greyscale because (drumroll) color as a feature includes both black and white and greyscale.
Think about it...if color is truly unnecessary to a program...then a color screen can always display the information in black and white or greyscale (like a word processor).
So what stops someone from using color from the get go? Answer: price and performance. If color is too expensive, people will not choose it over pure greyscale. If the color screen tears up the battery, people will not choose it over the more efficient greyscale screen.
The companies who win are the companies who add color when the time is right. GameBoy came out at the same time as both NEC's TurboGraphix portable, Atari's Lynx and Sega's GameGear. Customers flocked to the GameBoy because it was cheaper, had better software, and long battery life. The other devices failed to hold onto their place in the market and were discontinued.
Now...ten years later...there is a ColorGameBoy. Why was this not done from the beginning? Well, because ten years ago there was no way Nintendo could put a color screen in a $69 device and have it run 30 hours off two double A batteries. But now that technology has improved to the point that this is possible...it makes sense to do it.
Despite the fact that there are other color portables...like the NeoGeo portable...GameBoy is still selling better because the new color portable can run all of the existing software.
To review...Nintendo focused on growing the platform in a cheap, efficient state and then introducing color after they had proven to be a winning device.
Now look at Palm...while WinCE devices have jumped right away to color, Palm focused on growing the market in a cheap, efficient state. People obviously want handhelds...Palm is giving them a tool while WinCE is trying to give them everything.
Palm is clearly the winner...now Palm wants to make a color model and I, for one, think it will be a success. Because technology exists that can make this color Palm do everything the orignal Palm (if it had been color) could not.
Consider that the screen is only 256 colors. this pales in comparison to the 16-bit 65556 colors for some WinCE devices. Yet, it will probably be MUCH cheaper and much more energy efficient than those screens.
Consider the new injection molded lithium ion batteries. Companies can now develop their entire product without allocating any space for the battery. After they are done, the remaining airspace can be filled with a gel that, once solidified, becomes the battery. This is what is allowing Erisson to design a cell phone that is as thin as a pencil.
In summary, I think color is a necessary step and I applaud Palm's decision to hold off on color until they had gotten a lot of developers and software to support the platform. About the only thing Palm could do to screw it up is not make the color Palm backwards compatible...but since they are using the same Motorola chip family, I don't think this is a realistic fear.
Just my opinion...please treat it as such.
- JoeShmoe
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"Did any of your bother to READ the site?"
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"1) You physical Palm device"
[cries]
I proof-read that submission twice! Can't someone invent a program that can keep me from looking like such an idiot on a regular basis?
Serious (however off-topic)...has anyone ever ranked the number one typo on the Internet? I would be shocked if it isn't you/your...
- JoeShmoe
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NOTE TO SLASHDOT: Update the news article to include the proper URL...it's PenOp not PalmTop.
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If you read the Product information, you can plainly see PenOp software can verify the identity of the signer using biometrics (such as signature dynamics and fingerprints), digital ids (such as Entrust certificates), and infometrics (such as passwords. I also noticed when I went to download a copy that it is appear to be keyed to your Palm's serial number. You get a PIN to unlock the software that will probably be matched to this serial number...
So to those people whining about fraud...this is not about sending a bitmap image of your signature around. That tech has existed on the Palm for years (TealPaint is a good one) and is not newsbreaking in any way.
This is secure because, in order to pretend to be you, someone would need:
1) You physical Palm device
2) The ability to sign a document in the same biometrical (if that's a word) manner...not just looking at it and copying it visually
3) A pin number to verify their identity
4) A copy of the conduit on your home PC, which probably has the other part of a digital key.
I'm no expert but the "something you have + something you know" approach in a very good one. You need a physical device and detailed information about how a person signs and/or what their PIN is.
Please, people, avoid making uninformed comments on your interpretation of how you think a system might in fact sorta kinda maybe work. =)
- JoeShmoe
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Just because our eyes are in arranged in a 16:9 shape doesn't mean this is how the screen should work. Have you ever turned around or stood in the aisle to watch people at the movies? Their eyes and heads move a lot...even in the back rows.
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I think it's because...if the director has a 16:9 canvas, he or she is going to use the whole thing...and since our eyes are trained to focus on a single point, we subconciously move them around to follow what's going on.
I can't speak for everyone but...when Windows 98 came out, the first thing I did was throw in a second video card. I used this dual-monitor system for about two weeks. The new crick in my neck from moving my focus between monitors just wasn't worth the extra desktop space.
I'm more excited by advancements in head mounted display technology. With a nice set of glasses, I would could get the picture equivalent of a 30 foot screen, and have 3D capability to boot!
Yes, I know the idea of two people slipping on separate pairs of VR goggles isn't nearly as romantic as curling up in front of the television but...I really think this is where we are all headed...Like how most minivans have built in headphones jacks so parents and kids can listen to two different audio programs.
I think someday everyone will be carrying around a cheap video headset they can plug in at work, in public theaters, on planes, in cars, on their home player, or wherever they need to see digital content. That'll be cool.
Just as long as they aren't implanting them in my eyeball...that's where I draw the line... =)
- JoeShmoe
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REAL Men/Women check their posts for spelling and grammar errors before they rip everyone about their relative level of intelligence.
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Just something I "observered" about your post.
[mutter] Flamebait [/mutter]
- JoeShmoe
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Yes, movies are filmed in widescreen (16:9)format, but is this really any better than the existing standard (4:3) format?
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Speaking from personal experience...I'd much rather view something on a 4:3 device than on a 16:9 device. You can digest the information much faster when it is contained inside a square area. You don't have to scroll your eyes (or worse, your head) back and forth as much.
Besides, anyone who make a movies these days are thinking ahead to video and TV playback. They make sure they can fit what's important in a 4:3 area, while the rest of the scene is useless fluff or scenery. If they can't fit it all in, they play that clever trick where they squash the scene to make more of it fit in the same horizontal space.
The only movies that truely look wrong on 4:3 are the really, really old ones that weren't planning on the television format. As a result, part of the key action is cut off or they have to digitally zoom the image and pan around.
Any movie made from 1980 onward is going to look fine on a 4:3 device. I don't see that this is likely to change considering the length of time it would take for 16:9 to trickle down. During this period, people with 16:9 devices will have to play 4:3 content with black bars on either side or chop the top and bottom off of the 4:3 image. This is exactly why people argue you should by 16:9 in the first place...so you don't have to see black bars or cut off part of the scene.
Clearly, it's a no-win situation...I say follow the standards that computers use. We still don't have a TV that can match the clarity of a plain old 640 x 480 VGA monitor. If the TV industry wanted to truly impress the viewing public, they would quit the @#%@#% interlacing and just display a static image (thankfully, there's at least one most of HDTV that uses a non-interlaced display mode).
Just my thoughts...
- JoeShmoe
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Sega does have to make a choice between cable and DSL, though.
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I don't think this is the case. I have seen three different brands of cable modem and two different brands of DSL modems and both have plain 10Base-T on the back. The new cable modems @Home is using in Georgia have dual coaxial input and a 10/100 connection.
I don't have cable, so I'm not sure how many cable modems out there have Ethernet hookups.
I'm willing to bet all of them, since it makes little sense to invent new technology when 10BaseT ethernet is just so dirt cheap. Even if the cable modem doesn't need that much speed it's still much cheaper to get an ethernet card than rig some new proprietary connection. Although, some of the newer Motorola modems are using a USB connection. This is clearly not the option for techies since you can no longer connect to a hub and you are onyl supported with Win98.
Also worrying are those people who are now buying DSL modems on a card instead of an external modem with Ethernet jack.
Again, this isn't a move for techies since they will want the high speed connection to go to more than one computer (via a hub). Or, this is for techies who are smart enought to make that one computer the proxy/NAT machine and then put a plain ol' 10BaseT to a hub that has the other boxes (including the hypothetical high-speed DreamCast).
If you have an ethernet card on something, then by definition it support a hub...since the hardware is the same, just some connections (card to card or hub to hub) require a crossover. Assuming there was a switch to crossover or not (like on most hubs) this would be find.
I maintain that it would be way easy to ping or flood a Dreamcast connection if they went anywhere but a private network. Once I have the IP, it is maybe ten seconds work to get rid of some puny modem connection.
Or were you talking about ping flooding from the
DreamCasts? How the hell would you do that without access to the operating system?
Just my thoughts...
- JoeShmoe
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Brings up a good point...why in the hell didn't Sega include the ability to play MP3 CDs in the DreamCast? I mean...the OS is Windows CE, so you would think that MP3 playback would be a no-brainer (look at all the WinCE devices like Casio and Jornada that support MP3 playback).
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Note to Nintendo/Sony: Do this! I want to be able to play my MP3 CDs somewhere besides my computer room. My Video games systems are already wired to the kick ass stereo in my living room, so the ability to toss in an MP3 CD and be able to navigate it would be truly, truly killer.
At this point anyone who makes a device that has a CD player would be truly dumb for overlooking this capability...it would be dirt cheap to implement MP3 support and I'd probably pay $200 just for a player that would do this.
Yes, I know such devices exists but the ones I have seen are only for cars and not standalone devices...can anyone provice a URL to a standalone or preferably portable MP3 CD player?
- Joeshmoe
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Isn't is just as short-signed to ignore the number of homes that have cable modems or DSL and would like to run 10Mbit connection to that puppy?
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I'm hoping (for Sega's sake) that they are working on an addon module to enable a good ol' 10Base-T (or maybe even 10/100) connection.
Of course, if they simply upgraded the modem (by swapping out the part) to support home networking that would be a great solutions. Home networking is basically DSL connectivity within a household, something computer makers like Compaq are already doing.
I really, really, really hope Sega wasn't stupid enough to hard wire the modem on the motherboard. Anyone who has been around more than two years know that modem tech changes practically every six months, and I sure hope the Dreamcast has a long lifespan than that.
I don't even have a phone line in one of my residences because my cell phone is my primary phone and the residence has a cable modem. This means I can't even get digital cable service because the stupid GE box requires a regular phone line! (duh? TCI spend how many millions to enable two-way communication over their cable network, then decides on a cable box supplier that uses phone lines).
I also couldn't use DIVX, but I don't consider that much of a problem at all. =)
Just my thoughts...
- JoeShmoe
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Does anyone here remember when www.ati.com was run by some company calling itself "Artificial Turd Industries"? The home page featured a very large, very detailed image of rubber doggie doo.
/. and I'm sure the fall of such a rebel would have been noticed...? Does anyone know if the guy finally sold out or if some how the courts decided that ATI should get the site (even though there are many other companies that have the same initials trademarked!)
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The thing that was neat was that this page stayed that way for as long as I could remember. The owner took great delight in posting letters from lawyers demanding he turn over the domain name. Companies like ATI Technologies (the graphics card maker most people are trying to find when they type in www.ati.com), American Tractor Incorporated, Arand Typeset and Ink...and about a dozen others.
ATI ended up getting www.atitech.com which they still own. But now I just found that they also have acquired www.ati.com!
How did this happen? I don't remember reading about it on
- JoeCurious
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My point was not how is this news for NERDS...
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How is this NEWS?
A many people have already pointed out, scientists have been talking about a possible Planet X for years...when I read the article...what news was there?
Did they prove it exists? No...it's still just a theory they can't prove with existing technology
Did they prove where it exists? No...two different groups are giving two different numbers...I don't know what the significant digits are but if you can't get anything more precise that "really really far away" what does that tell me?
Even if I was the most die hard astronomy fan, I don't see anything in this article that leads me to believe anything newsworthy has happened here. For the record...I think there is a Planet Y in orbit at least 50000 AU away. Do have any conclusive proof, but it's still a theory and maybe someday, there will be a away to prove it and they'll have to call it planet JoeShmoe.
- JoeShmoe
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Is there some joke I don't know about? Is PEZ some crazy geek icon like Spam? Who the hell embedded "PEZ" in their code?
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Now...I think the idea behind this legal threat is good because every porn site on the planet is putting legitamate words in their tags so searching on the name of any famous female yeilds a ton of porn links.
Maybe there is a huge market for underground PEZ porn and this how they are trying to stop it?
- JoeShmoe
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Monolith (ml.org) closed shop for good.
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Three of the former employees have started a new service under the name Domain Host Services (dhs.org).
They run their service on time, money and hardware donations from kindhearted folks. They have several domain services, one of which is pointing yourname.dhs.org to a static or even a dynamic IP address.
So far they have proven to be quite stable. HEad on over to their Member page and signup for a free account.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I HATE TOP LEVEL DOMAINS --
.com addresses...the dumbest, most ambiguous endings possible. What the hell is "com" supposed to mean? Commercial? What the hell kind of category is that? It more likely should stand for "common". If I have to spend money, I should be able to get an address that I really want...like
.web top level domain, Microsoft will demand this one too. If you created a top level domain .tractors there is a good chance that Microsoft would try to take it, even though the law allows for two companies to hold the same trademark, if they are in unrelated fields.
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Everyone is fighting over
www.joe.shmoe
Or for famous corporations...
www.microsoft.inc
Or for specialized products...
www.redhat.linux
WHY WHY WHY is it that ICANN and/or Network Solutions still feels it is necessary to try and group things into categories?
It's all BS. No one respects the categories. A big company like Microsoft is going to have microsoft.com microsoft.net microsoft.org. If you create a
On the other hand, if there ARE no stupid categories, and you can have infinite choice, then companies can register their LEGAL name (like Microsoft, Incorporated is www.microsoft.inc) and I can do get www.microsoft.sucks or whatever else I want. There are simply too many possible domain combinations for TLDNS (http://www.tldns.com/download/) is trying to accomplish. If we could get major browsers to automatically install TLDNS support then suddenly the Internet would be a whole new world overnight.
- JoeShmoe
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First of all...I'm not one to whine about postings but REALLY...how does this fall under "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters"
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Let's say you can prove there article is true...
BFD? There is probably a ton of crap out there that has yet to be discovered. Before we go rewriting all the science books, shouldn't we consider if someone this "large" and this "far away" is even a planet at all?
It's like back in the 16th century when people thought the Earth stood still and everything else move around. For all we know OUR sun is orbitting around this thing, or even some other much larger thing...
Which brings me back to my original point...since when does someone coming up with a new theory about a rock 30 gazillion miles away have ANYTHING at all to do with my fairly diverse nerd life?
Just my OPINION...but I think my submission about Visor's now being on sale (though not yet shipping) would have been a much more nerdly topic for the front page.
- JoeShmoe
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Yes but not in the proper order and I was talking about when they are moved to the home row.
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- JoeShmoe
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Both Dvorak and Querty are outdated.
/././././././././././././.
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How about a keyboard that gives the proper level of attention to those character we geeks are typing every few seconds?
Like at (@) and dot (.) and slash (/)? And for programmers, let's not forget #, %, &, = and !.
Hell...for most geeks the stupid punctuation symbols should be on the home row!
Speaking of home row...if we do get an Internet keyboard (around the time the US adopts the metric system) then I vote we put the slash key and the dot key be right next to each other so we all can shamelessly kiss up to our favorite news site
che-tongue-ek
- JoeShmoe
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Get IPs out of the argument. We all know how easy it is to spoof IP information. The issue here is the physical connection.
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If attacker formats packets to spoof the source as IP 1.2.3.4 then it still has to come from somewhere. IF it comes from another router, then the first router is simply ignoring packets with IP 1.2.3.4 from that router. It has no effect on the data flowing from the REAL 1.2.3.4 many many hops away.
So if you wanted to truly reverse DoS 1.2.3.4 then you would either have to A) spoof the attack to a huge number of routers that you know 1.2.3.4 connects through...in which case your attack has been diluted and unlikely to truly work or B) attack the one or two routers that serve as 1.2.3.4's entry point...which is basically the very kind of DoS attack the routers are now trained to block.
At some point...it all tracks back to a unique MAC address so there is at least ONE router in the whole world that can stop an abusive stream at the source...witout even looking at IP information at all.
And again...in case I haven't made it clear...
YES the extra thinking will slow down the routing of packets but DoS attacks are already slowing down that same routing of packets. If you spend a couple extra milisecond of thinking to decide to exclude DoS information that can last minutes or even hours there is going to be an increase.
Script kiddies love to attack EFNet servers to split them off the network and gain ops in a popular channel. So IRC server started using a policy where no ops are giving during a split. Thus, they are no longer a target because there is no reason to attack those servers and quality of service increases.
Likewise, if script kiddies find that a certain route point drops their ping flood, they have to find another route until eventually no routers will carry that traffic at all.
- JoeShmoe
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