I can't attest much to the PCMCIA cards because I have never used one, but I currently have the unlimited data add-on to my voice plan through T-Mobile and a bluetooth mobile (Sony Ericsson T610). Get a bluetooth adapter for the notebook and configure pretty much like a dialup device (with a little extra stuff for the bluetooth). The bluetooth stack I'm using is bluez, and there are docs available there for connecting a laptop through a cell phone connection. I think that's pretty much the standard bluetooth stack in the kernel at this point.
The best thing about this scheme is that I got a bluetooth adapter for my PDA, and it can use the connection through the cell phone to get Internet connected too (not at the same time, obviously, but you get the idea).
The data transfer rate is about dialup speed, about 4KB/sec. Latency is awful, about 800-1000ms, but that was my impression for all wireless cellular data services. As far as reliability and coverage, the only place I've ever had huge problems was in rural areas, but that's usually just because there's no coverage there from most carriers. But for around $20/month, the idea of being connected to the Internet just about anywhere tickles the geek inside of me to pieces.
I can concur with the part about working at least once in a small company, because I am currently living in that situation, and I think it has been more valuable then I could have possibly imagined.
When I was deciding on a job just out of college, I had two main choices, the small company I'm working for now, and a large megacorporation based in Redmond, Washington (for the sake of anonymity, we'll simply called it MS:-) ), the recruiter at the small company gave me a good analogy.
The big company (could be said about government/public sector as well) is like a luxury cruise ship. It isn't going to sink anytime soon, but you are one person in a large group of people. You will tend to focus on one narrow facet of the whole job, and not much else.
The small start-up is like a river rafting ride. There is a chance you're going to crash into the rocks, but you are an integral part of a small team that gets the job done. It's a lot more responsibility, but it's a lot more rewarding, and on the whole, you learn a lot more.
And I can still say that even as our little raft is getting nearer and nearer to those damn rocks.:-)
It's got to be that Gideon version. Every single hotel I've stayed at, I open the dresser drawer, and BANG!, there one is. If every hotel is buying a copy for each and every one of their rooms, that's got to be tens of millions!
This isn't spyware anymore...
on
Spyware Fights Back
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
There's already a name for software that, when installed on a computer, goes through and deletes other data on the machine unbeknownst to the user. It's called a virus.
Just because it's stated in their EULA that they can do that, doesn't allow them to circumvent the law. Of course IANAL, but it sounds like this struggle has gotten to the point where it is legally challengeable.
I think what would have gotten a bigger rise out of people would have been CPAN changing from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network to the Comprehensive Python Archive Network. That would have been humorous... If it was 8am this morning, that is, instead of 7 hours and 30 Apr. 1 stories later...
I know all of the famous ones, and love them all to pieces (I'm sure I have all of them spread out across my Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies collection), but the one which I think shows Chuck Jones at his best is Much Ado About Nutting. It's about a squirrel who happens to find a nut stand and takes home a nice large coconut. The entire cartoon involves this squirrel trying to crack into this thing.
The amazing thing about this cartoon is that there is not a single word spoken. Everything was done through the facial expressions and body language of the squirrel and the music. But it is every bit as funny as all of his others, even more so, and it takes a genius to do that. Makes me bust out laughing every time.
Just my little addition to the tribute. RIP Chuck Jones. You mean a lot to a lot of people.
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
-- Jebediah Springfield
Another solution might be to pair down what you backup. It isn't strictly necessary to backup everything on your hard drive. OSes and programs can be reinstalled, but the data that you create with them is the more precious commodity. Of course, figuring out exactly what you need to backup is the problem, and you still lose some information that isn't easily backed up or restored (like settings for programs in the Windows registry). It's taken several reinstalls of Windows before I figured out exactly what I needed to save...
As a person who works with the internals of a Java Virtual Machine day in and day out, and a user of Java applications, I have to say Java has some ways to go before it matches C in all aspects.
I submit this example: Forte is a Java application, and I recently saw it being run on a 700MHz PIII machine with 256MB RAM. It literally crawled on bootup, and the performance at runtime was not on par with other non-Java GUI apps.
Now true, I would love for Java to match C performance-wise (would make my job a lot easier:-), but there would be a lot of value in something that could compile C to a platform-independent format that would execute at native C speeds.
Now as much as everybody would like to deny that Microsoft has come up with anything new and original, you have to give them this:
All of their research on the blue screen of death has paid off. And they obviously know how to allocate their resources, devoting the most effort to the feature that gets seen most often.
I remember when I used to use mSQL for the database backend of a site. Complete pain in the a$@!^. I remember having to write C-based scripts (there may have been perl or PHP interfaces at the time, but definitely not available from Hughes directly...). Left too much of a bad taste in my mouth, especially given MySQL works much better, is more featureful, and has an open source version to boot.
I don't see what a new version is going to bring to the table (they certainly don't tell you much on the site, and neither does the antelope:-). Then again, I may just be cynical.:-)
Eval kits and other cheap devices have always been my savior. Not the $3K ones that some companies dish out (ick), but in the $100-300 vein.
The uCsimm has already been mentioned, and that is based on the Dragonball (MC68EZ328) just like the Palm. You can get an ARM evaluation board that has a 25MHz ARM implementation from Sharp (LH77790B) for about $150. The URL.
Both of these have all sorts of logic already on board, such as serial ports, LCD controllers, timers, yada yada. The uCsimm runs uClinux (again, as mentioned before), and the ARM eval. board can run eCos, a product of Cygnus^H^H^H^H^H^H Red Hat. Both CPUs are supported by gcc, so no having to deal with weird third-party compilers. eCos is a little rough around the edges, but it might be sufficient for what you need.
Advantech has a fair selection of x86 hardware of all different shapes, sizes, colors, textures, and flavors. Their use in portable applications is questionable at best... (Where did Transmeta go?!?)
There is also the LART, which is a StrongARM-based board, but they aren't sold pre-assembled, so it is a DIY job. And unless you have the facilities to do boards with surface-mount components, it would be rather difficult to accomplish solo. I would have one were it not for that one wrinkle.
You can do web searches on things like "embedded processor", "microcontroller", "digital signal processor" and find other eval kits (maybe even reasonably-priced ones!). There are plenty out there.
I think it is just the plain and simple truth that the searching algorithms all of the search engines use currently are not suitable for the task. I will perform searches on what I think are pretty obscure terms and return >10,000 hits on some of these search engines. Of course, none of them mean anything to me.
I'm not saying that this problem won't be figured out at some point. It's going to take a little more technology than we have right now, but no doubt it's on its way even as we speak. (Any AI experts out there?:)
Until then, indexing by hand seems to be the only 100% solution. Humans are fallible, but much less than the machines are at this present stage. Plus, directories geared towards specific topics would help narrow down your search before you even start searching.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't attest much to the PCMCIA cards because I have never used one, but I currently have the unlimited data add-on to my voice plan through T-Mobile and a bluetooth mobile (Sony Ericsson T610). Get a bluetooth adapter for the notebook and configure pretty much like a dialup device (with a little extra stuff for the bluetooth). The bluetooth stack I'm using is bluez, and there are docs available there for connecting a laptop through a cell phone connection. I think that's pretty much the standard bluetooth stack in the kernel at this point.
The best thing about this scheme is that I got a bluetooth adapter for my PDA, and it can use the connection through the cell phone to get Internet connected too (not at the same time, obviously, but you get the idea).
The data transfer rate is about dialup speed, about 4KB/sec. Latency is awful, about 800-1000ms, but that was my impression for all wireless cellular data services. As far as reliability and coverage, the only place I've ever had huge problems was in rural areas, but that's usually just because there's no coverage there from most carriers. But for around $20/month, the idea of being connected to the Internet just about anywhere tickles the geek inside of me to pieces.
Provided it doesn't hose your partition. :-)
I can concur with the part about working at least once in a small company, because I am currently living in that situation, and I think it has been more valuable then I could have possibly imagined.
:-) ), the recruiter at the small company gave me a good analogy.
:-)
When I was deciding on a job just out of college, I had two main choices, the small company I'm working for now, and a large megacorporation based in Redmond, Washington (for the sake of anonymity, we'll simply called it MS
The big company (could be said about government/public sector as well) is like a luxury cruise ship. It isn't going to sink anytime soon, but you are one person in a large group of people. You will tend to focus on one narrow facet of the whole job, and not much else.
The small start-up is like a river rafting ride. There is a chance you're going to crash into the rocks, but you are an integral part of a small team that gets the job done. It's a lot more responsibility, but it's a lot more rewarding, and on the whole, you learn a lot more.
And I can still say that even as our little raft is getting nearer and nearer to those damn rocks.
It's got to be that Gideon version. Every single hotel I've stayed at, I open the dresser drawer, and BANG!, there one is. If every hotel is buying a copy for each and every one of their rooms, that's got to be tens of millions!
There's already a name for software that, when installed on a computer, goes through and deletes other data on the machine unbeknownst to the user. It's called a virus.
Just because it's stated in their EULA that they can do that, doesn't allow them to circumvent the law. Of course IANAL, but it sounds like this struggle has gotten to the point where it is legally challengeable.
I think what would have gotten a bigger rise out of people would have been CPAN changing from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network to the Comprehensive Python Archive Network. That would have been humorous... If it was 8am this morning, that is, instead of 7 hours and 30 Apr. 1 stories later...
No, they'll let you go there without the blindfold. All you have to do is to agree to be shot afterwards.
I know all of the famous ones, and love them all to pieces (I'm sure I have all of them spread out across my Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies collection), but the one which I think shows Chuck Jones at his best is Much Ado About Nutting. It's about a squirrel who happens to find a nut stand and takes home a nice large coconut. The entire cartoon involves this squirrel trying to crack into this thing.
The amazing thing about this cartoon is that there is not a single word spoken. Everything was done through the facial expressions and body language of the squirrel and the music. But it is every bit as funny as all of his others, even more so, and it takes a genius to do that. Makes me bust out laughing every time.
Just my little addition to the tribute. RIP Chuck Jones. You mean a lot to a lot of people.
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
-- Jebediah Springfield
The thing I love most about the actual paper is the standard BT boilerplate disclaimer at the end:
"Products and services described in this publication are subject to availability and may be modified from time to time."
:-)
Another solution might be to pair down what you backup. It isn't strictly necessary to backup everything on your hard drive. OSes and programs can be reinstalled, but the data that you create with them is the more precious commodity. Of course, figuring out exactly what you need to backup is the problem, and you still lose some information that isn't easily backed up or restored (like settings for programs in the Windows registry). It's taken several reinstalls of Windows before I figured out exactly what I needed to save...
As a person who works with the internals of a Java Virtual Machine day in and day out, and a user of Java applications, I have to say Java has some ways to go before it matches C in all aspects.
:-), but there would be a lot of value in something that could compile C to a platform-independent format that would execute at native C speeds.
I submit this example: Forte is a Java application, and I recently saw it being run on a 700MHz PIII machine with 256MB RAM. It literally crawled on bootup, and the performance at runtime was not on par with other non-Java GUI apps.
Now true, I would love for Java to match C performance-wise (would make my job a lot easier
Now as much as everybody would like to deny that Microsoft has come up with anything new and original, you have to give them this:
All of their research on the blue screen of death has paid off. And they obviously know how to allocate their resources, devoting the most effort to the feature that gets seen most often.
I've heard of greasing palms before, but this is ridiculous...
I remember when I used to use mSQL for the database backend of a site. Complete pain in the a$@!^. I remember having to write C-based scripts (there may have been perl or PHP interfaces at the time, but definitely not available from Hughes directly...). Left too much of a bad taste in my mouth, especially given MySQL works much better, is more featureful, and has an open source version to boot.
I don't see what a new version is going to bring to the table (they certainly don't tell you much on the site, and neither does the antelope :-). Then again, I may just be cynical. :-)
But if you create mixed drinks with openCOLA, you have to distribute your entire formula! That darn GPL strikes again!
And what about those people who don't like cola. I'm going to announce my new beverage here and now for non-cola drinkers, and it will be called...
(you have to see this one coming from a mile away)
openJAVA!
Eval kits and other cheap devices have always been my savior. Not the $3K ones that some companies dish out (ick), but in the $100-300 vein.
The uCsimm has already been mentioned, and that is based on the Dragonball (MC68EZ328) just like the Palm. You can get an ARM evaluation board that has a 25MHz ARM implementation from Sharp (LH77790B) for about $150. The URL.
Both of these have all sorts of logic already on board, such as serial ports, LCD controllers, timers, yada yada. The uCsimm runs uClinux (again, as mentioned before), and the ARM eval. board can run eCos, a product of Cygnus^H^H^H^H^H^H Red Hat. Both CPUs are supported by gcc, so no having to deal with weird third-party compilers. eCos is a little rough around the edges, but it might be sufficient for what you need.
Advantech has a fair selection of x86 hardware of all different shapes, sizes, colors, textures, and flavors. Their use in portable applications is questionable at best... (Where did Transmeta go?!?)
There is also the LART, which is a StrongARM-based board, but they aren't sold pre-assembled, so it is a DIY job. And unless you have the facilities to do boards with surface-mount components, it would be rather difficult to accomplish solo. I would have one were it not for that one wrinkle.
You can do web searches on things like "embedded processor", "microcontroller", "digital signal processor" and find other eval kits (maybe even reasonably-priced ones!). There are plenty out there.
I think it is just the plain and simple truth that the searching algorithms all of the search engines use currently are not suitable for the task. I will perform searches on what I think are pretty obscure terms and return >10,000 hits on some of these search engines. Of course, none of them mean anything to me.
:)
I'm not saying that this problem won't be figured out at some point. It's going to take a little more technology than we have right now, but no doubt it's on its way even as we speak. (Any AI experts out there?
Until then, indexing by hand seems to be the only 100% solution. Humans are fallible, but much less than the machines are at this present stage. Plus, directories geared towards specific topics would help narrow down your search before you even start searching.
But they can't use that. M$ would file a trademark suit.