So I have used Roboform for god knows how long, it sync across all my devices. Up until recently the last version, you could stick a version on a USB stick and it would allow you to load up an instance on a computer that didnt have Roboform installed. An when you took the USB out, the app disappears. I have something like 500 different passwords managed with it.
But - I also provide every site a separate e-mail.
slashdot@nuttybee.com yahoo@nuttybee.com
If slashdot@nuttybee.com starts getting Viagra spam, theres a good chance that they got my address from Slashdot. And when that happens, I TKO the address, it goes directly to trash.
If you're lucky enough to figure out my login - slashdot@nuttybee.com and my password '3l13t3haxor', it is usable at absolutely zero other sites.
I can put their portable app on my thumbdrive, plug it into a Windows PC, (e.g. my work PC) and it plugs itself into to Firefox/Iexplore. When I remove the drive, the application disappears. Nothing is left on the work PC.
As someone who can barely see a 0603 SMD device, I find this quite impressive. He was able to remove the flash from the board, get it to function, watch it communicate, and identify the multiple mechanisms used by the chip to communicate and where on the flash it accessed. I always suspected the way the FBI did it was a brute force attack on copies of the chip data.
The last mile is very expensive. It costs a ton to maintain that infrastructure.. Yeah, so I can add a downstream DOCSIS QAM to an existing chassis for $50.. Say 8*50 = $400, it is just the beginning. Cable modem termination systems? Go buy and maintain a bunch of uBR10012s and ASR routers and tell me how cheap it is. The taps, the wiring, the amplifiers, the trouble calls cause the plant is old. Do I need additional chassis to handle, will the lasers even do it, if I split the node how far will I need to trench new fiber? Do I even have spare fiber back to my headend? Will it even fit in my existing building, do I need more AC? Have I maxxed out my power panel?
The broadband CEOs quoted have no clue.. They clearly don't work for tier-1 MSOs.. Multiply by 10s of thousands and it starts getting real -- very fast. Anyone can run 50 service groups out of one small town. (E.g. Sonic?) Frontier hardly faces the same constraints.. They have distributed DSLAMs and offer crap speed through them.
In the real world, broadband demand is quickly outstripping cable plant capacity. Just adding 8 or 16 QAMs would be too easy. (Assuming you have it and a lot of plants don't.) This means - more money. Plant upgrades to 1.2 Ghz, CCAP, all active/passive component upgrades, and it still only buys you a few years the way things are going.
If it were up to me, municipalities would run fiber to each house and then connect us to the provider of our choosing. It's a nice dream.
Yes, it creates electricity, water, and activated sludge... What heats the sludge? Do they start an oil based fire, and then use off-gassing from the sludge to continue the reaction?
I just got an amazing toy. It's got all these free built in applications. It comes with an e-mail client. It has a beautiful 1920x1080 display and responsive touch screen..
It was only $229 and it was made by Asus for Google. Seriously, you intend to compete with that? The margins on the device have to be thin. How does Microsoft plan to make it up? Do I need an Office 365 subscription to go with it?
Call me skeptical. The first iteration of tablet wasn't that good, I still hate Windows 8, and the price point you'd have to get to in order to make me consider a Win8 tablet is so low, it would be unprofitable. Those people who would buy the Win8 tablet at $200, will just as happy with the Android equivalent.
I think you may be right on this one. I use my Windows machines for everyday work, Quicken, etc, My e-mail is on a Linux VM somewhere, and my tablet is a brand new Nexus 7 2nd Ed. I must say, I really like the Nexus too. It really does everything I need in a form factor that is hard to beat and at $229!
Not a lot of margin for MS in a $229 device where the OS is free..
I do the same... I love it when they tell me how safe they are.. I am sure they all have PhD's in Physics and can tell me how ionizing and non-ionizing radiation are different and how various parts of the body absorb radiation differently. They don't care if you are delayed, they just set you aside and ask the next victim to step up.
One day I was at the airport and a RapidScan technician was leaving for the day. He was wearing a radiation dosimeter, because clearly the company is concerned enough to monitor their employees exposure.
I use to fly 150k domestically. I no longer do. I'm not sure the scanners did much for aircraft security as lets face it, Abdulmutallah, Reid, and that crazy Jet Blue pilot all managed to get through security and were stopped by -- passengers, not overgrown xray machines.
I don't believe terrorists are going to be stopped by $12/hr screeners with video oogling equipment. The terrorists are far smarter and more dedicated to their cause. Nothing the US government will ever do will change that.
Besides, you wouldn't believe the things people shove up their ass..
I formerly flew for a living and got patted down atleast once or twice a week because I won't use the Rapidscan 1000 which is installed at Phoenix Airport. I have no idea whether 10 uRems of ionizing radiation is bad for me, but all the Rapidscan techs all wear radiation dosimeters. Clearly, someone is concerned. Alas, I get enough radiation as is - so why risk it? I don't have the same concerns about the Thz non-ionizing radiation units made by L3. However, I don't have that job anymore and won't get on an airplane unless someone is paying me!
These scanners are worthless though. I am an American citizen with provable birth record, gun licenses, completed KnownTraveler screening, and my strong dislike of Muslim fundamentalism is far from hidden. I am a member of multiple frequent flier programs and if I haven't tried to blow something up in 7 years, why would I start now? Could I go through the metal scanner instead? No. However, the black muslim immigrant in head scarf who works at the Starbucks is allowed to.
Who do you think is more likely to be a threat? According to the brain trust at the TSA, me.
How long before Al Qaeda has people terrorists board with Ebola or Hemoraggic Fever or some other horrendous disease that you can't treat? As long as we're focused on "things", we're doomed. Terrorists have proven to be smarter than the US government at every turn.
Besides, couldn't the terrorist just stick it up their ass and get through anyway? Our government should send the scanners to the same destination.
Hmmmm, I wonder who owns the multiple new CRS-3 chock full of 10G Ethernet ports next to my cage... I have a pretty good idea - and 500M is a drop in the bucket for them.
I have been to an awful lot of data centers and it's not trivial to build or maintain them. I am aware of more than one that wanted to expand but couldn't because of power issues. One of them was going to require a "couple" of new substations. Another one needed a new power main that would require substantial trenching through an urban area.... Datacenters are not built like normal buildings. They are built to be hardened, self-sufficient, and have multiple levels of fail-safes -- that isn't cheap. If my home AC goes out, I'll just be hot. If a Liebert 20 ton AC fails in one of these places, blade servers overheat, vast arrays of businesses go dark.
Dimon's comments are interesting, but the costs don't strike me as far outside the norm. There are more than a few companies out there who have made very major expenditures in infrastructure.. Most don't detail it, for obvious reasons.
It's really never made sense in the last few years to continue to have terrestrial OTA TV. Crazy you say? Not really, half the time people can't even receive the signals anyway without cable or satellite. We'd be better off just letting the satellite and cable companies deal with distribution and subsidize life line service for the people who cannot otherwise afford it. In so many markets cable penetration is 80-90% anyway.
Ka spot beam satellites allow essentially the entire US local channel markets to be transmitted over satellite. There are no dead zones. No areas where the antenna isn't strong enough. TV broadcasts take up a lot of valuable spectrum that could be used better. In addtion, TV broadcasts would be easier to obtain if delivered to consumers via unencrypted satellite -- not only that -- it costs a lot to power all those transmitters that not many people watch anyway..
I believe strongly in the value of local broadcasts, but our over the air mechanism for home delivery is dated at best and woefully inefficient at worst. Broadcasters and consumers should have better options for signal delivery. I wish the government would take some of that money their getting to make it happen.
Level 3, Qwest, and others have lots of unused fiber (much which may never be used) in conduits that they can light up if they see fit. Right now they may have 160 wavelengths on a pair of fibers, maybe 320 lambdas on the next gen of Infineras. Today the lambdas are OC-192s, tomorrow they will be OC-768s, and then 100G Ethernet. All on the same 2 fibers already in the ground.. And they have lots more than 2 fibers available to expand on.
Who in their right mind would try to compete with that? Their cost to attempt to run you out of buisiness is absurdly low.
I don't see Google, Microsoft, Facebook and the like laying fiber in the ground all across the country. In some cases, they are buying it. I suspect they are mostly buying lambdas and dedicated circuits *FROM* Tier 1 providers. However, instead of going over the Tier 1 providers IP network, they are buying an OC-12 directly to where their customers are.
Who would they possibly buy a point to point OC-12 from? Who has fiber in the ground and wavelength to spare? A tier 1 provider. Traffic is shifting, but not really AWAY from those who have the infrastructure to provide transit services.
HD-SDI never made it to the consumer market because it is expensive to handle and nobodys TV will decode it.
As for the rest of your comment:
"Single coax cable terminated with BNCs that can deliver 4k (four times the resolution of 1080p) or higher with 16 channels of audio, all uncompressed, at a length of over 100m"
No, what you are referring to is 3Gig, which is actually 2 HD-SDI cables and my experience has been that 300 feet out is sometimes a touchy place to be. 3gig on 1 cable = fiber
Reasonable MSOs have restricted program routers and isolated adult islands. No comment about how I know this.
Malicious use of video router - inside job.. Malicious use of a CherryPicker - inside job.. Poor use of access controls - Ignorance
Assuming they already waterboarded the on-site operators... This wasn't some random Capt. Midnight hacker with an uplink available to him. This person had the ability to the control LAN via VPN and then had the passwords to make those changes.
This person was an operator or engineer at Comcast..
I have been working on the digital transition for a certain national TV provider for 4 years. We are DONE and ready to go all digital. In 1996, the drop dead date was set as 2006. It was extended to 2009. 13 years.
How much longer do we really need?
Those who aren't ready will get ready really quick. I'm happy to get them a kick in the pants.
And you can't watch Telemundo and TV Azteca without having seen lots of ads over the last year telling the viewer, in Spanish, changes are coming and you can get a coupon to cut the cost of the box.
It wasn't possible to miss it. I'm tired of excuses.
I can't speak for everyone, but --. I've been working on some facet of DTV for the better part of 10 years. My most recent project has been for a large cable/satellite TV provider to ensure they are transition ready. I can assure you, although there will likely be minor glitches in the 24-48 hours after the switch, I expect nearly everything to be operating normally on satellite and cable. (Even in cases where the broadcaster has changed channels, gone from UHF to VHF, or even changed transmitter locations.)
Over the Air: We're already on our second postponement. The spectrum has already been sold off, we are on borrowed time. Analog TV transmitters are on their last legs, they need to go away. I remember my first OTA 8-VSB receiver, was a DirecTV receiver, it was $700+ and worked poorly. Today, I am the proud owner of an Insignia brand $60 converter that I paid $20 for and will lock onto signals the original DirecTV receiver would never get. I got my coupon when it was initially offered, a little less than a year ago. (Early bird gets the worm) My locals have never looked so good with my $20 converter and $7 antenna.
I am so sick of seeing DTV transition soft-tests and PSAs about the pending transition that I can't wait for it to be over. It's not like you didn't have time to get your stuff in order.
Worst case scenario: On February 17th, you have to pay the full price for the box. $60 instead of $20, because you didn't pay attention. I got a parking ticket recently, I put money in the wrong meter. I was fined $30 because I failed to pay attention.
The boxes exist and are plentiful, if you didn't pay attention and get your free coupon when they had money for them - oh well. That isn't the fault of the Federal Government.
The answer is: if only it were that simple. Time Warner and Brighthouse are trying to get Viacom to maintain or increase only slightly because as soon as they pay more for Viacom - Disney, Fox, Turner, and Discovery will raise their rates. $0.25 turns into $4 really quickly.
Everyones stuggling and Viacom's solution is to charge more. I don't really blame them, but given the choice -- I'd like my cable a-la-carte -- minus Viacom channels. I don't watch them. Unfortunately, it would likely make the 10 channels I do watch on an a la carte basis basis nearly as expensive as the package.
I'd like a value combo meal, an ESPN, a Discovery, and hold the MTV. Programmer: Would you like to add VH1 Classics for a dollar more? Nevermind, I'll take the c-span special and live with it.
I mostly agree. It's really hard to beat a Guardian unit hooked up to natural gas in a sound reducing enclosure hooked up to an ATS and distribution panel. The Hondas are great as well, but the Guardian is a nice package for the average homeowner.
If you just need a small generator to ride out an eveing, buy an EU series Honda and keep it in the garage.
While Microsoft bashing is great for sport. There are some things Microsoft is doing better, if not well.
Powershell - They finally made a decent shell for Windows that allows you to make use of.NET, COM, Windows function calls without the joys of VB or MFC or as I vividly recall a bunch of 'C' boilerplate code to create a window that said "Hello World".
Windows Driver Foundations - Their wrapper for WDM. It is a vast improvement over where you started from in the past.
And my Windows XP is quite stable after 300 patches.;)
Slashdot Mirror
So I have used Roboform for god knows how long, it sync across all my devices. Up until recently the last version, you could stick a version on a USB stick and it would allow you to load up an instance on a computer that didnt have Roboform installed. An when you took the USB out, the app disappears. I have something like 500 different passwords managed with it.
But - I also provide every site a separate e-mail.
slashdot@nuttybee.com
yahoo@nuttybee.com
If slashdot@nuttybee.com starts getting Viagra spam, theres a good chance that they got my address from Slashdot. And when that happens, I TKO the address, it goes directly to trash.
If you're lucky enough to figure out my login - slashdot@nuttybee.com and my password '3l13t3haxor', it is usable at absolutely zero other sites.
I can put their portable app on my thumbdrive, plug it into a Windows PC, (e.g. my work PC) and it plugs itself into to Firefox/Iexplore. When I remove the drive, the application disappears. Nothing is left on the work PC.
That alone is worth $20/yr to me.
As someone who can barely see a 0603 SMD device, I find this quite impressive. He was able to remove the flash from the board, get it to function, watch it communicate, and identify the multiple mechanisms used by the chip to communicate and where on the flash it accessed. I always suspected the way the FBI did it was a brute force attack on copies of the chip data.
Neat!
The last mile is very expensive. It costs a ton to maintain that infrastructure.. Yeah, so I can add a downstream DOCSIS QAM to an existing chassis for $50.. Say 8*50 = $400, it is just the beginning. Cable modem termination systems? Go buy and maintain a bunch of uBR10012s and ASR routers and tell me how cheap it is. The taps, the wiring, the amplifiers, the trouble calls cause the plant is old. Do I need additional chassis to handle, will the lasers even do it, if I split the node how far will I need to trench new fiber? Do I even have spare fiber back to my headend? Will it even fit in my existing building, do I need more AC? Have I maxxed out my power panel?
The broadband CEOs quoted have no clue.. They clearly don't work for tier-1 MSOs.. Multiply by 10s of thousands and it starts getting real -- very fast. Anyone can run 50 service groups out of one small town. (E.g. Sonic?) Frontier hardly faces the same constraints.. They have distributed DSLAMs and offer crap speed through them.
In the real world, broadband demand is quickly outstripping cable plant capacity. Just adding 8 or 16 QAMs would be too easy. (Assuming you have it and a lot of plants don't.) This means - more money. Plant upgrades to 1.2 Ghz, CCAP, all active/passive component upgrades, and it still only buys you a few years the way things are going.
If it were up to me, municipalities would run fiber to each house and then connect us to the provider of our choosing. It's a nice dream.
Yes, it creates electricity, water, and activated sludge... What heats the sludge? Do they start an oil based fire, and then use off-gassing from the sludge to continue the reaction?
I just got an amazing toy. It's got all these free built in applications. It comes with an e-mail client. It has a beautiful 1920x1080 display and responsive touch screen..
It was only $229 and it was made by Asus for Google. Seriously, you intend to compete with that? The margins on the device have to be thin. How does Microsoft plan to make it up? Do I need an Office 365 subscription to go with it?
Call me skeptical. The first iteration of tablet wasn't that good, I still hate Windows 8, and the price point you'd have to get to in order to make me consider a Win8 tablet is so low, it would be unprofitable. Those people who would buy the Win8 tablet at $200, will just as happy with the Android equivalent.
I think you may be right on this one. I use my Windows machines for everyday work, Quicken, etc, My e-mail is on a Linux VM somewhere, and my tablet is a brand new Nexus 7 2nd Ed. I must say, I really like the Nexus too. It really does everything I need in a form factor that is hard to beat and at $229!
Not a lot of margin for MS in a $229 device where the OS is free..
I do the same... I love it when they tell me how safe they are.. I am sure they all have PhD's in Physics and can tell me how ionizing and non-ionizing radiation are different and how various parts of the body absorb radiation differently. They don't care if you are delayed, they just set you aside and ask the next victim to step up.
One day I was at the airport and a RapidScan technician was leaving for the day. He was wearing a radiation dosimeter, because clearly the company is concerned enough to monitor their employees exposure.
I use to fly 150k domestically. I no longer do. I'm not sure the scanners did much for aircraft security as lets face it, Abdulmutallah, Reid, and that crazy Jet Blue pilot all managed to get through security and were stopped by -- passengers, not overgrown xray machines.
I don't believe terrorists are going to be stopped by $12/hr screeners with video oogling equipment. The terrorists are far smarter and more dedicated to their cause. Nothing the US government will ever do will change that.
Besides, you wouldn't believe the things people shove up their ass..
I formerly flew for a living and got patted down atleast once or twice a week because I won't use the Rapidscan 1000 which is installed at Phoenix Airport. I have no idea whether 10 uRems of ionizing radiation is bad for me, but all the Rapidscan techs all wear radiation dosimeters. Clearly, someone is concerned. Alas, I get enough radiation as is - so why risk it? I don't have the same concerns about the Thz non-ionizing radiation units made by L3. However, I don't have that job anymore and won't get on an airplane unless someone is paying me!
These scanners are worthless though. I am an American citizen with provable birth record, gun licenses, completed KnownTraveler screening, and my strong dislike of Muslim fundamentalism is far from hidden. I am a member of multiple frequent flier programs and if I haven't tried to blow something up in 7 years, why would I start now? Could I go through the metal scanner instead? No. However, the black muslim immigrant in head scarf who works at the Starbucks is allowed to.
Who do you think is more likely to be a threat? According to the brain trust at the TSA, me.
How long before Al Qaeda has people terrorists board with Ebola or Hemoraggic Fever or some other horrendous disease that you can't treat? As long as we're focused on "things", we're doomed. Terrorists have proven to be smarter than the US government at every turn.
Besides, couldn't the terrorist just stick it up their ass and get through anyway? Our government should send the scanners to the same destination.
Hmmmm, I wonder who owns the multiple new CRS-3 chock full of 10G Ethernet ports next to my cage... I have a pretty good idea - and 500M is a drop in the bucket for them.
I have been to an awful lot of data centers and it's not trivial to build or maintain them. I am aware of more than one that wanted to expand but couldn't because of power issues. One of them was going to require a "couple" of new substations. Another one needed a new power main that would require substantial trenching through an urban area.... Datacenters are not built like normal buildings. They are built to be hardened, self-sufficient, and have multiple levels of fail-safes -- that isn't cheap. If my home AC goes out, I'll just be hot. If a Liebert 20 ton AC fails in one of these places, blade servers overheat, vast arrays of businesses go dark.
Dimon's comments are interesting, but the costs don't strike me as far outside the norm. There are more than a few companies out there who have made very major expenditures in infrastructure.. Most don't detail it, for obvious reasons.
It's really never made sense in the last few years to continue to have terrestrial OTA TV. Crazy you say? Not really, half the time people can't even receive the signals anyway without cable or satellite. We'd be better off just letting the satellite and cable companies deal with distribution and subsidize life line service for the people who cannot otherwise afford it. In so many markets cable penetration is 80-90% anyway.
Ka spot beam satellites allow essentially the entire US local channel markets to be transmitted over satellite. There are no dead zones. No areas where the antenna isn't strong enough. TV broadcasts take up a lot of valuable spectrum that could be used better. In addtion, TV broadcasts would be easier to obtain if delivered to consumers via unencrypted satellite -- not only that -- it costs a lot to power all those transmitters that not many people watch anyway..
I believe strongly in the value of local broadcasts, but our over the air mechanism for home delivery is dated at best and woefully inefficient at worst. Broadcasters and consumers should have better options for signal delivery. I wish the government would take some of that money their getting to make it happen.
You are correct!
Level 3, Qwest, and others have lots of unused fiber (much which may never be used) in conduits that they can light up if they see fit. Right now they may have 160 wavelengths on a pair of fibers, maybe 320 lambdas on the next gen of Infineras. Today the lambdas are OC-192s, tomorrow they will be OC-768s, and then 100G Ethernet. All on the same 2 fibers already in the ground.. And they have lots more than 2 fibers available to expand on.
Who in their right mind would try to compete with that? Their cost to attempt to run you out of buisiness is absurdly low.
And your GPS satellites got blasted out of orbit or a solar storm wipes out all of those satellite resources?
Your SONET networks and cell phone stuff are gonna need it. Your 8-VSB exiter may as well. Single Freq. Networks.
Where do you get an accurate reference from?
WWV? I haven't seen anything other than a GPS reference at any telco facility/cell site. If there ever is a loss of GPS, it's gonna be interesting.
I don't see Google, Microsoft, Facebook and the like laying fiber in the ground all across the country. In some cases, they are buying it. I suspect they are mostly buying lambdas and dedicated circuits *FROM* Tier 1 providers. However, instead of going over the Tier 1 providers IP network, they are buying an OC-12 directly to where their customers are.
Who would they possibly buy a point to point OC-12 from? Who has fiber in the ground and wavelength to spare? A tier 1 provider. Traffic is shifting, but not really AWAY from those who have the infrastructure to provide transit services.
Same companies, different product.
I have a Sidekick.
I still, a week later, can't get e-mail on it. My contacts were never lost, but the damn thing still doesn't work! I'm getting tired of waiting.
My contract is up in August and I'm going to find a phone that stores everything locally AND a new provider. I have learned my lesson.
And the max resolution on a dual link HD-SDI appears to be 1080p
HD-SDI never made it to the consumer market because it is expensive to handle and nobodys TV will decode it.
As for the rest of your comment:
"Single coax cable terminated with BNCs that can deliver 4k (four times the resolution of 1080p) or higher with 16 channels of audio, all uncompressed, at a length of over 100m"
No, what you are referring to is 3Gig, which is actually 2 HD-SDI cables and my experience has been that 300 feet out is sometimes a touchy place to be. 3gig on 1 cable = fiber
leitch / leitchadmin
Nah, nobody I know does that.. hehe..
Reasonable MSOs have restricted program routers and isolated adult islands. No comment about how I know this.
Malicious use of video router - inside job..
Malicious use of a CherryPicker - inside job..
Poor use of access controls - Ignorance
Assuming they already waterboarded the on-site operators... This wasn't some random Capt. Midnight hacker with an uplink available to him. This person had the ability to the control LAN via VPN and then had the passwords to make those changes.
This person was an operator or engineer at Comcast..
I have been working on the digital transition for a certain national TV provider for 4 years. We are DONE and ready to go all digital. In 1996, the drop dead date was set as 2006. It was extended to 2009. 13 years.
How much longer do we really need?
Those who aren't ready will get ready really quick. I'm happy to get them a kick in the pants.
And you can't watch Telemundo and TV Azteca without having seen lots of ads over the last year telling the viewer, in Spanish, changes are coming and you can get a coupon to cut the cost of the box.
It wasn't possible to miss it. I'm tired of excuses.
I can't speak for everyone, but --. I've been working on some facet of DTV for the better part of 10 years. My most recent project has been for a large cable/satellite TV provider to ensure they are transition ready. I can assure you, although there will likely be minor glitches in the 24-48 hours after the switch, I expect nearly everything to be operating normally on satellite and cable. (Even in cases where the broadcaster has changed channels, gone from UHF to VHF, or even changed transmitter locations.)
Over the Air: We're already on our second postponement. The spectrum has already been sold off, we are on borrowed time. Analog TV transmitters are on their last legs, they need to go away. I remember my first OTA 8-VSB receiver, was a DirecTV receiver, it was $700+ and worked poorly. Today, I am the proud owner of an Insignia brand $60 converter that I paid $20 for and will lock onto signals the original DirecTV receiver would never get. I got my coupon when it was initially offered, a little less than a year ago. (Early bird gets the worm) My locals have never looked so good with my $20 converter and $7 antenna.
I am so sick of seeing DTV transition soft-tests and PSAs about the pending transition that I can't wait for it to be over. It's not like you didn't have time to get your stuff in order.
Worst case scenario: On February 17th, you have to pay the full price for the box. $60 instead of $20, because you didn't pay attention. I got a parking ticket recently, I put money in the wrong meter. I was fined $30 because I failed to pay attention.
The boxes exist and are plentiful, if you didn't pay attention and get your free coupon when they had money for them - oh well. That isn't the fault of the Federal Government.
The answer is: if only it were that simple. Time Warner and Brighthouse are trying to get Viacom to maintain or increase only slightly because as soon as they pay more for Viacom - Disney, Fox, Turner, and Discovery will raise their rates. $0.25 turns into $4 really quickly.
Everyones stuggling and Viacom's solution is to charge more. I don't really blame them, but given the choice -- I'd like my cable a-la-carte -- minus Viacom channels. I don't watch them. Unfortunately, it would likely make the 10 channels I do watch on an a la carte basis basis nearly as expensive as the package.
I'd like a value combo meal, an ESPN, a Discovery, and hold the MTV.
Programmer: Would you like to add VH1 Classics for a dollar more?
Nevermind, I'll take the c-span special and live with it.
I mostly agree. It's really hard to beat a Guardian unit hooked up to natural gas in a sound reducing enclosure hooked up to an ATS and distribution panel. The Hondas are great as well, but the Guardian is a nice package for the average homeowner.
If you just need a small generator to ride out an eveing, buy an EU series Honda and keep it in the garage.
While Microsoft bashing is great for sport. There are some things Microsoft is doing better, if not well.
Powershell - They finally made a decent shell for Windows that allows you to make use of .NET, COM, Windows function calls without the joys of VB or MFC or as I vividly recall a bunch of 'C' boilerplate code to create a window that said "Hello World".
Windows Driver Foundations - Their wrapper for WDM. It is a vast improvement over where you started from in the past.
And my Windows XP is quite stable after 300 patches. ;)