"They presumably don't need a DRM solution - why not adopt what youtube has done - it's pretty difficult to download youtube stuff unless you're technically savvy enough to do major circumvention."
Or, unless you are technically savvy enough to go to any one of many websites like http://vixy.net/ and paste the address of the YouTube video into the provided box and have it automatically converted and downloaded for you.
Backed up seems perfectly reasonable to me... I have dozens and dozens of Elmo, Sesame Street, Barney, Carebears, Baby Einstein, and many other DVDs and CDs backed up and living in the original cases while the original disks are in a binder on a tall shelf in the office...
Anyone not backing up while having small kids has a lot more money to throw away than I do.
"If I'm right, listed U.S. prices don't normally include sales tax"
Just for the record, in the US sales tax is generally 8.5% or less, and you are correct, it is not usually included in prices. Though I'm not certain, in most places it is less than that. Where I am in Texas it is 8.25% and I consider that a bit high. When I left Florida the sales tax was 7%. It's also worth noting that neither of these two states have a state income tax so it's not like the sales tax is lower due to a statewide income tax.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that watched every episode of Enterprise and liked every one. OTOH, I did not like DS9 past the first season or so, and never liked voyager at all. I did also like TOS and TNG, heck even the TAS.
Without going into business grade routers I've found one so far that seems well above any other solutions. I've tried many different brands and models but this is what I finally decided on and have running (and love).
I've never been a fan of DLink at all but these routers make up for it in spades. Firstly, the switch ports are gigabit and the WAN port is 10/100, not just 10. Also, with all the other "home grade" routers I never had enough port forwards (for hosting servers etc.). Those two DLink routers don't have that problem. So far I don't think there is a limit to the number of forwards you can have. My ping times have also been drastically reduced compared to other routers. It also has fairly robust QoS settings (for a home router anyway). The other big thing is that it can handle thousands of sessions at once. No more firing up Bittorrent and having to hard reset the router an hour lately because it's frozen and has stopped routing. The only things so far that I see that could even be improved would be better logging (so I could get bandwidth reports from it with Wallwatcher http://sonic.net/wallwatcher/). Currently it just does plain old syslog logging. My only other complaint is that the Dynamic DNS feature only will keep track and update one name for you. So if you have multiple domains pointing to your dynamic address you'll have to have another solution to update all but one.
I believe they do themselves a disservice by advertising this exclusively as a gaming router. This thing could handle most small (and even some not so small) business without any kinds of problems. It does cost more than the Linksys you can get at Walmart but, at least to me, it has been more than worth it. I personally use the wireless version since I prefer to keep my AP and router as 2 separate pieces of equipment (both for security and if my router breaks I don't wanna be out an AP or vice-versa.) I can tell you that I've put mine through the paces and it has not locked up or had to be reset once thus far.
The other option that I would have chosen would have been M0n0wall http://m0n0.ch/wall/ on a Soekris http://www.soekris.com/ board. In particular I was going to go with one of the bundles found at http://www.soekris.com/bundles.htm. I wanted the Net4801 with the Lan1641 4 port NIC expansion. That would have given a total of 7 ethernet ports. The only reason that I didn't end up going in that direction was because they offer no gigabit options. Otherwise that would have been an awesome setup.
While I'll agree that should be the case, I have Vonage and a POTS line here side-by-side. I also have a dial-up ISP in case of travel and what not. From here, I can connect to the dial-up ISP faster over the Vonage connection than the POTS line. And the POTS line is connecting at a decent 52k. I've done speed tests and it's not just the initial connection, it can actually sustain a higher transfer rate as well.
For those not in the US, or for those too young to know...
I believe the poster was talking about the old days of land-line phones and phone companies in the US (and maybe other places). Starting in 1877 when they became available, an individual could not own their own phone. Instead the phone company was happy to lease you one of its phones for a "small" monthly fee. Of course you could practically drive over these phones and there wouldn't be a scratch on them. There are actually some of these still out there in service. The practice was very common until the latter half of the 1900's.
I know when my great grandmother died over a decade ago she still had an old black rotary telephone from the telephone company and still paid her few dollars every month. It's the only phone I ever saw in her home. I wonder how many years she paid that few dollars a month. What an expensive phone.
Either that's what he was talking about or I'm older than I thought.
"But do people really buy computers from Wal-Mart?"
I have... about a year ago. I needed a PC, any PC, at about 3am. (As much as I dislike Wal-Mart for a lot of things, 24hr a day is nice.) I walked in and picked up a cheap eMachine w/o monitor (I did say any PC... heh) and it's been running ever since. Heck, even if it had been during normal business hours, my only other choices in town would have been Office Depot or the local computer shop. I could not have found a better deal without waiting and having parts shipped or driving 30+ miles. And believe it or not, the eMachine is actually a decent little (AMD Sempron 3400+(64bit), 512mb RAM, nVidia 6100, 160gb HDD) PC. Haven't had a moments trouble with it.
And just so I don't lose any cred, even if in my own mind, it's the only name brand PC here. Everything else was built, including the SuperMicro 1u server.
"I bought a Dell laptop with XP on it and *nowhere* did it say that XP would only work on that laptop until I actually got the thing and turned it on. Then my laptop died, so now I run one copy of XP on my homebrew box.
According to Microsoft I should have to buy another copy of XP to do this. According to me, that's crap and they can sue my shiny metal ass for it."
Just in case you were not aware, that's the difference between an OEM license and a Retail license.
Also, booby trap does not necessarily imply anything about explosives. A booby trap can be a pit dug in the ground and then lightly covered, or one of those rope traps with the loop on the ground that catapults you in the air and hangs you upside down when you step in it... (Why do I have the sudden urge to watch Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner?)
On the other hand, IED most certainly always refers to explosives.
Too bad that it's a pretty good bet that there is no large, habitable undiscovered land mass somewhere on the planet... I'm getting the feeling it's about time to abandon this one and try again.
"The Post also produced a landmark excellent article on the details of Chavez' fascist dictatorship in Venezuela (something a hard-left paper would not do, since the hard-left loves this dictator)."
To me, that just proves the point about how brainwashed the Washington Post actually is. While I don't personally know Chavez, I do know a lot of people from Venezuela, and even a lot that have moved to Venezuela (including some family) within the last 10 years. They tell me everything these "reports" keep saying is blatantly false. Apparently all these reports first started when Venezuela refused to do something the US asked them to. Up until then we were fairly buddy-buddy with them.
The people I know there are certainly happy with him and the changes he has brought to their country. Those I've talked to think this may be the best Venezuela has ever had it. Heck, land values their are currently sky rocketing.
If it ever gets too bad to stay in the US, that might just be a good place to go.
As someone that went out and bought one the very first day (I have the original from years back) I can tell you it's worth every penny. I've never seen so many adults laugh so hard at something inanimate.
Oh, by the way, it's TMX, which stands for Tickle Me 10 as it has been 10 yrs since the original was launched.
The ability of these kids to hack the internals is precisely one of the key ways in which this laptop improves their educational prospects through the availability of affordable computing resources.
Why don't we teach the kids how to read and write and maybe even some arithmetic or science before we let them try to teach themselves to be electronic engineers.
When the laptop is destroyed from tinkering, what good is it then? Hope they did learn to read and write before they broke it.
Or I guess they could always save up every penny their family makes for, oh the next 3 years or so, to buy a replacement.
Right now there are a whole lot more educational needs for these kids than knowing vaguely about how their PC works and being able to "hack the internals".
I beg to differ. Windows Server 2003 has a console mode that works quite well over serial. I run a SuperServer with a v2.0 management interface and remote management via console in Windows is quite useful.
No doubt. I have a screen shot on my office cork board of one of my NT4 servers (not Internet connected as it's a secure network for secure reasons) with an uptime report of 758 days.
Fine, but the competition is open... no need to spend money to understand it, just download the code and read it like everyone else can. Not exactly the same as the Ford/GM analogy in my mind unless they are giving the cars to each other.
So why would Microsoft spend/give money on/to a product that they don't own/control when they already spend tons of money on their own, competing, proprietary implementation?
How many kids away at college for "EDUCATION" never play a game on their PC while they are there? Never play WoW or EQ? Heck, how many of them take 6yrs to graduate versus the normal 4, partly due to these same reasons.
This might be the parents idea of an "EDUCATIONAL" PC, but I doubt it will be all that useful in the eyes of many college kids. I'm sure they'll tell you they get quite an "EDUCATION" in WoW or EQ, or Counter Strike or America's Army every single day.
I've been looking for a sedation dentist, but my area is so small that I haven't been able to find one. I have to get to the dentist before dentures become the easier option.
Slashdot Mirror
"They presumably don't need a DRM solution - why not adopt what youtube has done - it's pretty difficult to download youtube stuff unless you're technically savvy enough to do major circumvention."
Or, unless you are technically savvy enough to go to any one of many websites like http://vixy.net/ and paste the address of the YouTube video into the provided box and have it automatically converted and downloaded for you.
Ah, maybe that's why the BBC didn't do that...
I dunno... personally after a lifetime of anything, retirement sounds nice...
Or maybe a nice peaceful death.
Backed up seems perfectly reasonable to me... I have dozens and dozens of Elmo, Sesame Street, Barney, Carebears, Baby Einstein, and many other DVDs and CDs backed up and living in the original cases while the original disks are in a binder on a tall shelf in the office...
Anyone not backing up while having small kids has a lot more money to throw away than I do.
"They are doing what they percieve to be best for their shareholders."
Wait... I thought that's what corporations were bound to do by law.
"If I'm right, listed U.S. prices don't normally include sales tax"
Just for the record, in the US sales tax is generally 8.5% or less, and you are correct, it is not usually included in prices. Though I'm not certain, in most places it is less than that. Where I am in Texas it is 8.25% and I consider that a bit high. When I left Florida the sales tax was 7%. It's also worth noting that neither of these two states have a state income tax so it's not like the sales tax is lower due to a statewide income tax.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that watched every episode of Enterprise and liked every one. OTOH, I did not like DS9 past the first season or so, and never liked voyager at all. I did also like TOS and TNG, heck even the TAS.
Without going into business grade routers I've found one so far that seems well above any other solutions. I've tried many different brands and models but this is what I finally decided on and have running (and love).
.02.
http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370 DLink Wireless Gaming router
http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=371 DLink Gaming router (same but no wireless)
I've never been a fan of DLink at all but these routers make up for it in spades. Firstly, the switch ports are gigabit and the WAN port is 10/100, not just 10. Also, with all the other "home grade" routers I never had enough port forwards (for hosting servers etc.). Those two DLink routers don't have that problem. So far I don't think there is a limit to the number of forwards you can have. My ping times have also been drastically reduced compared to other routers. It also has fairly robust QoS settings (for a home router anyway). The other big thing is that it can handle thousands of sessions at once. No more firing up Bittorrent and having to hard reset the router an hour lately because it's frozen and has stopped routing. The only things so far that I see that could even be improved would be better logging (so I could get bandwidth reports from it with Wallwatcher http://sonic.net/wallwatcher/). Currently it just does plain old syslog logging. My only other complaint is that the Dynamic DNS feature only will keep track and update one name for you. So if you have multiple domains pointing to your dynamic address you'll have to have another solution to update all but one.
I believe they do themselves a disservice by advertising this exclusively as a gaming router. This thing could handle most small (and even some not so small) business without any kinds of problems. It does cost more than the Linksys you can get at Walmart but, at least to me, it has been more than worth it. I personally use the wireless version since I prefer to keep my AP and router as 2 separate pieces of equipment (both for security and if my router breaks I don't wanna be out an AP or vice-versa.) I can tell you that I've put mine through the paces and it has not locked up or had to be reset once thus far.
The other option that I would have chosen would have been M0n0wall http://m0n0.ch/wall/ on a Soekris http://www.soekris.com/ board. In particular I was going to go with one of the bundles found at http://www.soekris.com/bundles.htm. I wanted the Net4801 with the Lan1641 4 port NIC expansion. That would have given a total of 7 ethernet ports. The only reason that I didn't end up going in that direction was because they offer no gigabit options. Otherwise that would have been an awesome setup.
My
While I'll agree that should be the case, I have Vonage and a POTS line here side-by-side. I also have a dial-up ISP in case of travel and what not. From here, I can connect to the dial-up ISP faster over the Vonage connection than the POTS line. And the POTS line is connecting at a decent 52k. I've done speed tests and it's not just the initial connection, it can actually sustain a higher transfer rate as well.
So it can work... go figure.
For those not in the US, or for those too young to know...
A /Telehistory2A.htm[/URL]R L]H istory1.htm[/URL]
I believe the poster was talking about the old days of land-line phones and phone companies in the US (and maybe other places). Starting in 1877 when they became available, an individual could not own their own phone. Instead the phone company was happy to lease you one of its phones for a "small" monthly fee. Of course you could practically drive over these phones and there wouldn't be a scratch on them. There are actually some of these still out there in service. The practice was very common until the latter half of the 1900's.
I know when my great grandmother died over a decade ago she still had an old black rotary telephone from the telephone company and still paid her few dollars every month. It's the only phone I ever saw in her home. I wonder how many years she paid that few dollars a month. What an expensive phone.
Either that's what he was talking about or I'm older than I thought.
References:
[URL]http://www.privateline.com/TelephoneHistory2
[URL]http://css.psu.edu/news/nlfa98/slice.html[/U
[URL]http://www.privateline.com/TelephoneHistory/
"But do people really buy computers from Wal-Mart?"
I have... about a year ago. I needed a PC, any PC, at about 3am. (As much as I dislike Wal-Mart for a lot of things, 24hr a day is nice.) I walked in and picked up a cheap eMachine w/o monitor (I did say any PC... heh) and it's been running ever since. Heck, even if it had been during normal business hours, my only other choices in town would have been Office Depot or the local computer shop. I could not have found a better deal without waiting and having parts shipped or driving 30+ miles.
And believe it or not, the eMachine is actually a decent little (AMD Sempron 3400+(64bit), 512mb RAM, nVidia 6100, 160gb HDD) PC. Haven't had a moments trouble with it.
And just so I don't lose any cred, even if in my own mind, it's the only name brand PC here. Everything else was built, including the SuperMicro 1u server.
"I bought a Dell laptop with XP on it and *nowhere* did it say that XP would only work on that laptop until I actually got the thing and turned it on. Then my laptop died, so now I run one copy of XP on my homebrew box.
According to Microsoft I should have to buy another copy of XP to do this. According to me, that's crap and they can sue my shiny metal ass for it."
Just in case you were not aware, that's the difference between an OEM license and a Retail license.
"... windoze ..."
Could this get any older?
Regardless, it's where I stop reading.
Also, booby trap does not necessarily imply anything about explosives. A booby trap can be a pit dug in the ground and then lightly covered, or one of those rope traps with the loop on the ground that catapults you in the air and hangs you upside down when you step in it... (Why do I have the sudden urge to watch Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner?)
On the other hand, IED most certainly always refers to explosives.
Hmm... Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Too bad that it's a pretty good bet that there is no large, habitable undiscovered land mass somewhere on the planet... I'm getting the feeling it's about time to abandon this one and try again.
"The Post also produced a landmark excellent article on the details of Chavez' fascist dictatorship in Venezuela (something a hard-left paper would not do, since the hard-left loves this dictator)."
To me, that just proves the point about how brainwashed the Washington Post actually is. While I don't personally know Chavez, I do know a lot of people from Venezuela, and even a lot that have moved to Venezuela (including some family) within the last 10 years. They tell me everything these "reports" keep saying is blatantly false. Apparently all these reports first started when Venezuela refused to do something the US asked them to. Up until then we were fairly buddy-buddy with them.
The people I know there are certainly happy with him and the changes he has brought to their country. Those I've talked to think this may be the best Venezuela has ever had it. Heck, land values their are currently sky rocketing.
If it ever gets too bad to stay in the US, that might just be a good place to go.
As someone that went out and bought one the very first day (I have the original from years back) I can tell you it's worth every penny. I've never seen so many adults laugh so hard at something inanimate.
Oh, by the way, it's TMX, which stands for Tickle Me 10 as it has been 10 yrs since the original was launched.
Why don't we teach the kids how to read and write and maybe even some arithmetic or science before we let them try to teach themselves to be electronic engineers.
When the laptop is destroyed from tinkering, what good is it then? Hope they did learn to read and write before they broke it.
Or I guess they could always save up every penny their family makes for, oh the next 3 years or so, to buy a replacement.
Right now there are a whole lot more educational needs for these kids than knowing vaguely about how their PC works and being able to "hack the internals".
I beg to differ. Windows Server 2003 has a console mode that works quite well over serial. I run a SuperServer with a v2.0 management interface and remote management via console in Windows is quite useful.
You know what... they can keep em too.
No doubt. I have a screen shot on my office cork board of one of my NT4 servers (not Internet connected as it's a secure network for secure reasons) with an uptime report of 758 days.
Fine, but the competition is open... no need to spend money to understand it, just download the code and read it like everyone else can. Not exactly the same as the Ford/GM analogy in my mind unless they are giving the cars to each other.
So why would Microsoft spend/give money on/to a product that they don't own/control when they already spend tons of money on their own, competing, proprietary implementation?
How many kids away at college for "EDUCATION" never play a game on their PC while they are there? Never play WoW or EQ? Heck, how many of them take 6yrs to graduate versus the normal 4, partly due to these same reasons.
This might be the parents idea of an "EDUCATIONAL" PC, but I doubt it will be all that useful in the eyes of many college kids. I'm sure they'll tell you they get quite an "EDUCATION" in WoW or EQ, or Counter Strike or America's Army every single day.
"Won't somebody please think of the children?!?"
Right on, I'm right there with you.
I've been looking for a sedation dentist, but my area is so small that I haven't been able to find one. I have to get to the dentist before dentures become the easier option.