- Use a reliable brand. There are thousands of comments already about this.
- If you are reading your burned CDs one year on, and finding 10% have read errors, how can you be sure they didn't have these read errors at the time they were burned? Very few people properly verify or scan discs for errors after burning them, and many may be surprised to find that depending on the brand of media, unrecoverable read errors on 'successfully' burned discs can be as common as one disc in 10 (or, for a recent batch of no-brand CD-Rs I was given at work, over half).
- Consider using DVD media rather than CD, as it is more resilient for a couple of reasons. Physically, it is more resilient because the data layer is located half way between the label and data side, whereas on a CD it is located about a hair's width beneath the label, making it much more susceptible to shallow scratches. Secondly, DVD has a more sophisticated error correction algorithm, allowing for full bit-for-bit recovery of much more random error and longer error runs (= resilience to wider scratches).
- Obviously, store your discs out of the sun and away from dust. Don't move them around too much and don't heat them up or cool them down too rapidly (like, by leaving them in a car).
- Always have redundancy in your backup strategy. If you backup to CDs, that's better than nothing, but it is never 100% reliable. Reliability increases exponentially with the number of times you backup the same information in different ways - if you only have a single backup copy of something, the chance of failure is great. Consider backing up to different formats, different brands, and storing the backups in other locations. Online backup is becoming a worthwhile option now, if you can trust the company with your privacy/security.
- I use the software CD/DVD speed (now called Nero Discspeed) to verify discs after burning. On certain burners you can also see statistics from the error correction algorithm (C1/C2 errors) though the reliability of this depends on the burner.
- As others have said, do not assume that burning at slower than the rated speed will increase reliability. On poor quality media, it is a lottery no matter what speed you burn at. On high quality media, the media may have a lower and upper bound of recommended speeds. Going below the lower bound is likely to reduce reliability. Other media may state a lower bound of 1x, but even in these cases I have found that sweet spot in terms of reliability is just one step below the maximum rated speed of the media - so, burning 16x DVD+R at 12x is right for me and burning 52x CD-R at 48x seems good. Your mileage may vary, and you should always stay within recommended bounds and realise that nothing is 100% reliable.
You may be referring to the 'Qwerty was designed to slow typists down' story which is a popular myth which seems to persist despite reason. The mythology alleges that the qwerty keyboard layout prevented typewriter jams because it slowed typists down. In reality, it avoided placing letters which are commonly used consecutively too close together on the keyboard, which if anything speeds typing up because commonly used letters are placed near the stronger fingers. The myth also alleges that scientific studies have proven Dvorak's speed or efficiency is better than Qwerty. This is mostly hype; conclusions are varied and there has been no clear sign of a significant benefit in efficiency in real world tests.
I think the bottom line is that Dvorak Simplified is a good keyboard layout but the extent of its benefit over Qwerty, or Qwerty's deficiencies, have been greatly exaggerated.
Photoshop's antialiasing settings have special purposes.
They allow you to control the level and type of hinting vs antialiasing applied, for example. 'Smooth' has no hinting, so it maintains the letter shapes most accurately at the expense of fuzziness, whereas sharp has the most hinting applied while still having antialiasing on, which is great for on-screen text - if the font hints well (most "web" fonts or fonts designed for screen use do).
Unfortunately Photoshop still does not support sub-pixel antialiasing (eg, "Cleartype") as one of its options, which would be useful when producing graphics designed to be read on computer screens, most of which are now colour LCD screens. So even Photoshop is not perfect with font antialiasing.
Hinting is hard to do cross-platform. Microsoft owns patents on pre-hinting Truetype fonts which it has licensed to Apple, so Linux misses out. Consequently, hinting of fonts on Linux cannot benefit from the extra hinting information embedded into the font, and the font loses its ability to look as if it was designed specifically for the point size you're viewing it at. Nonetheless, Mac OS X and many Linux distros disable hinting on antialiased text, preferring the more accurate, but more fuzzy, look.
I presume that GIMP has only two settings - antialiasing on with no hinting, and antialiasing off with whatever default hinting the OS has.
Firefox 3 has/had an open development process. Test builds of Firefox 3 have been available to anyone who wishes to try them, basically since the day after Firefox 2.
Safari developers, like the rest of us, would have had a very clear and unhindered access to Firefox 3 as it was being developed.
I guess this shows that Firefox development can improve other browsers even before it releases its own browser.
> For a bit over that amount you can get a full blown laptop with larger screen and hard drive, higher resolution and more comfortable keyboard. What am I missing here?
Convenience, portability and durability. It's small enough to fit in your purse, it's very light, and it has a solid state drive that is durable and will outlast any hard drive.
Previously, you had to pay $2000 for that (and either get an underpowered UMPC without any keyboard, or a Sony UX or TZ). The new inexpensive mini-laptops are finally making that kind of portability affordable without the price premium - about one fifth the price!
> I don't know of any people who have their PC cases far away from their monitors,
Reducing noise is the main reason I have my case located far away from my monitor/keyboard.
If you want to reduce noise, I would highly recommend it as noise decreases significantly with increases in distance.
As for the comment about not being able to hear anything from one metre away - well that depends on how quiet the room is!
I agree.
So, what makes this camera better than a real SLR?
- You can't change lenses.
So, what makes this camera better than other compact cameras?
- Bulkier
- Much more expensive
Sounds like this is a real loser of a camera, really. All the bulkiness and expense of an SLR, without the benefit of interchangeable lenses.
On the plus side, the large sensor size is a plus over typical compact camera. So I guess you could sum up this camera as being an abnormally expensive and bulky compact camera with a large sensor size.
Many audio CD players now can play MP3s too; in other words even audio CD players these days 'act' like CD-ROM drives. Any copy protection method designed to allow playback on an audio CD player but not on a CD-ROM drive is likely to affect the ability to play back that CD on a newer model audio CD player which is MP3-capable.
I bought a CD recently which would not play in my car CD player, because the car CD player can play MP3s as well, and saw a data track on the CD...
If you RTFA, you'll notice that they're referring to the percentage of female viewers of the digital television channel "Sci Fi UK", which shows both sci-fi and fantasy.
If you're concerned about it, tell Sci Fi UK's management to get a separate fantasy channel. No more "Xena's not sci-fi" comments please.
It is true that there isn't a 'fair use policy' in Australia equivalent to the US. However, this has nothing to do with lack of Australian TiVO models. We have plenty of personal video recorders, both for free-to-air and pay (cable) TV. Most of those are more permissive than the TiVO - we have no broadcast flag issue here, and we can freely copy files from PVRs to computers via USB. As for why TiVO doesn't seem to be available here, you'd have to ask them about it. They probably have their own reasons for not producing an Australian model.
That's interesting, thanks.
Do you believe that the sound cards of today actually do this type of processing on the sound, or when they refer to '3D' is it more of a buzzword that really stands for 'surround sound' as many people here seem to be interpreting it?
Presumably this effect could be simulated when wearing headphones, but not (feasibly) with room speakers, as the sound will be transformed by your head anyway as it reaches you.
Also I would presume that the shape of the individual listener's head and ears would heavily influence the effectiveness of this.
So do you think the '3D' as claimed by the manufacturer is valid or a buzzword?
What is "3D audio" anyway?
What I'm getting at is that the only two indicators of where a sound is coming from that we have are its amplitude (which might suggest distance) and the direction in the horizontal plane, which is calculated by our brains from the delay between sound reaching the left and right ears. There is no way for humans to tell whether sounds are coming from up high or down low without other cues, making the 'z' dimension unattainable in sound reproduction. Any other indication of where a sound is coming from is implied by our environment as perceived by our other senses.
Or are there really humans with more than two ears?
When I noticed an article on Slashdot with the title 'March of the Penguins Tops Box Offices' I really did assume that 'March of the Penguins' was a documentary about Linux distributions (and their brave struggle against the elements of er, MS, I guess).
Slashdot Mirror
They may be. Are you looking at the Kensington lock slot? It seems to be horizontal, to the left of the ethernet port.
To my knowledge the graphics on the 1000HE are basically a shrunk down and overclocked version of the same GMA950 platform.
Check out the Asus N10 series. Some models have HDMI out.
They are the only netbooks I know about that have HDMI, and they're about as big as a 1000H.
It would be newsworthy if Windows _didn't_ come in multiple flavours.
- Use a reliable brand. There are thousands of comments already about this.
- If you are reading your burned CDs one year on, and finding 10% have read errors, how can you be sure they didn't have these read errors at the time they were burned? Very few people properly verify or scan discs for errors after burning them, and many may be surprised to find that depending on the brand of media, unrecoverable read errors on 'successfully' burned discs can be as common as one disc in 10 (or, for a recent batch of no-brand CD-Rs I was given at work, over half).
- Consider using DVD media rather than CD, as it is more resilient for a couple of reasons. Physically, it is more resilient because the data layer is located half way between the label and data side, whereas on a CD it is located about a hair's width beneath the label, making it much more susceptible to shallow scratches. Secondly, DVD has a more sophisticated error correction algorithm, allowing for full bit-for-bit recovery of much more random error and longer error runs (= resilience to wider scratches).
- Obviously, store your discs out of the sun and away from dust. Don't move them around too much and don't heat them up or cool them down too rapidly (like, by leaving them in a car).
- Always have redundancy in your backup strategy. If you backup to CDs, that's better than nothing, but it is never 100% reliable. Reliability increases exponentially with the number of times you backup the same information in different ways - if you only have a single backup copy of something, the chance of failure is great. Consider backing up to different formats, different brands, and storing the backups in other locations. Online backup is becoming a worthwhile option now, if you can trust the company with your privacy/security.
- I use the software CD/DVD speed (now called Nero Discspeed) to verify discs after burning. On certain burners you can also see statistics from the error correction algorithm (C1/C2 errors) though the reliability of this depends on the burner.
- As others have said, do not assume that burning at slower than the rated speed will increase reliability. On poor quality media, it is a lottery no matter what speed you burn at. On high quality media, the media may have a lower and upper bound of recommended speeds. Going below the lower bound is likely to reduce reliability. Other media may state a lower bound of 1x, but even in these cases I have found that sweet spot in terms of reliability is just one step below the maximum rated speed of the media - so, burning 16x DVD+R at 12x is right for me and burning 52x CD-R at 48x seems good. Your mileage may vary, and you should always stay within recommended bounds and realise that nothing is 100% reliable.
You may be referring to the 'Qwerty was designed to slow typists down' story which is a popular myth which seems to persist despite reason. The mythology alleges that the qwerty keyboard layout prevented typewriter jams because it slowed typists down. In reality, it avoided placing letters which are commonly used consecutively too close together on the keyboard, which if anything speeds typing up because commonly used letters are placed near the stronger fingers. The myth also alleges that scientific studies have proven Dvorak's speed or efficiency is better than Qwerty. This is mostly hype; conclusions are varied and there has been no clear sign of a significant benefit in efficiency in real world tests.
I think the bottom line is that Dvorak Simplified is a good keyboard layout but the extent of its benefit over Qwerty, or Qwerty's deficiencies, have been greatly exaggerated.
Here is the notable article from The Economist on the story, published in 1999. Make of it what you will: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=356
Photoshop's antialiasing settings have special purposes.
They allow you to control the level and type of hinting vs antialiasing applied, for example. 'Smooth' has no hinting, so it maintains the letter shapes most accurately at the expense of fuzziness, whereas sharp has the most hinting applied while still having antialiasing on, which is great for on-screen text - if the font hints well (most "web" fonts or fonts designed for screen use do).
Unfortunately Photoshop still does not support sub-pixel antialiasing (eg, "Cleartype") as one of its options, which would be useful when producing graphics designed to be read on computer screens, most of which are now colour LCD screens. So even Photoshop is not perfect with font antialiasing.
Hinting is hard to do cross-platform. Microsoft owns patents on pre-hinting Truetype fonts which it has licensed to Apple, so Linux misses out. Consequently, hinting of fonts on Linux cannot benefit from the extra hinting information embedded into the font, and the font loses its ability to look as if it was designed specifically for the point size you're viewing it at. Nonetheless, Mac OS X and many Linux distros disable hinting on antialiased text, preferring the more accurate, but more fuzzy, look.
I presume that GIMP has only two settings - antialiasing on with no hinting, and antialiasing off with whatever default hinting the OS has.
Firefox 3 has/had an open development process. Test builds of Firefox 3 have been available to anyone who wishes to try them, basically since the day after Firefox 2. Safari developers, like the rest of us, would have had a very clear and unhindered access to Firefox 3 as it was being developed. I guess this shows that Firefox development can improve other browsers even before it releases its own browser.
Likewise, if you are running a non-genuine copy of Windows XP, you may not be able to upgrade to IE7.
This may be a not-so-insignificant statistic. I imagine there would be a lot of people with a dodgy copy of XP.
> For a bit over that amount you can get a full blown laptop with larger screen and hard drive, higher resolution and more comfortable keyboard. What am I missing here?
Convenience, portability and durability. It's small enough to fit in your purse, it's very light, and it has a solid state drive that is durable and will outlast any hard drive.
Previously, you had to pay $2000 for that (and either get an underpowered UMPC without any keyboard, or a Sony UX or TZ). The new inexpensive mini-laptops are finally making that kind of portability affordable without the price premium - about one fifth the price!
> I don't know of any people who have their PC cases far away from their monitors, Reducing noise is the main reason I have my case located far away from my monitor/keyboard. If you want to reduce noise, I would highly recommend it as noise decreases significantly with increases in distance. As for the comment about not being able to hear anything from one metre away - well that depends on how quiet the room is!
I agree. So, what makes this camera better than a real SLR? - You can't change lenses. So, what makes this camera better than other compact cameras? - Bulkier - Much more expensive Sounds like this is a real loser of a camera, really. All the bulkiness and expense of an SLR, without the benefit of interchangeable lenses. On the plus side, the large sensor size is a plus over typical compact camera. So I guess you could sum up this camera as being an abnormally expensive and bulky compact camera with a large sensor size.
For reference, a 16x DVD burner can easily outperform 17 MB per second.
Many audio CD players now can play MP3s too; in other words even audio CD players these days 'act' like CD-ROM drives. Any copy protection method designed to allow playback on an audio CD player but not on a CD-ROM drive is likely to affect the ability to play back that CD on a newer model audio CD player which is MP3-capable.
I bought a CD recently which would not play in my car CD player, because the car CD player can play MP3s as well, and saw a data track on the CD...
If you're concerned about it, tell Sci Fi UK's management to get a separate fantasy channel. No more "Xena's not sci-fi" comments please.
It is true that there isn't a 'fair use policy' in Australia equivalent to the US. However, this has nothing to do with lack of Australian TiVO models. We have plenty of personal video recorders, both for free-to-air and pay (cable) TV. Most of those are more permissive than the TiVO - we have no broadcast flag issue here, and we can freely copy files from PVRs to computers via USB. As for why TiVO doesn't seem to be available here, you'd have to ask them about it. They probably have their own reasons for not producing an Australian model.
That's interesting, thanks. Do you believe that the sound cards of today actually do this type of processing on the sound, or when they refer to '3D' is it more of a buzzword that really stands for 'surround sound' as many people here seem to be interpreting it? Presumably this effect could be simulated when wearing headphones, but not (feasibly) with room speakers, as the sound will be transformed by your head anyway as it reaches you. Also I would presume that the shape of the individual listener's head and ears would heavily influence the effectiveness of this. So do you think the '3D' as claimed by the manufacturer is valid or a buzzword?
What is "3D audio" anyway? What I'm getting at is that the only two indicators of where a sound is coming from that we have are its amplitude (which might suggest distance) and the direction in the horizontal plane, which is calculated by our brains from the delay between sound reaching the left and right ears. There is no way for humans to tell whether sounds are coming from up high or down low without other cues, making the 'z' dimension unattainable in sound reproduction. Any other indication of where a sound is coming from is implied by our environment as perceived by our other senses. Or are there really humans with more than two ears?
That's a reasonable request. At least it wouldn't cost them any development time.
Hard drives are based on 1000 rather than 1024. Always have been. Get over it.
Email is a business tool, it is not a personal messaging system
News to me
When I noticed an article on Slashdot with the title 'March of the Penguins Tops Box Offices' I really did assume that 'March of the Penguins' was a documentary about Linux distributions (and their brave struggle against the elements of er, MS, I guess).