Re:Instead of OS X...
on
iPod Shuffle RAID
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Hmmm, I was trying to think of an example of what to put on this and all I could think of was terrorist plans. Does this make it a bad idea?
How about corporate secrets? You know, like how the Coca Cola formula is supposed to be stashed in several bank vaults in Atlanta?
If you have 1/5th of the data (plus parity) you can even duplicate your iPod Shuffle as needed to keep the data intact.
Just make sure that 4 out of your 5 all fly on the same plane or travel in the same car (or really, attend the same conference) with their share of the data.
You can also scale it up and down (4 drives needing 3 or 25 drives needing 24).
The only downside with RAID5 is that you can only lose 1 device, so with larger numbers you need a higher and higher majority of your group to unlock the data.
Another idea is to RAID the data and form a tontine using iPod Shuffles. It worked for Abe Simpson.
I never said there were no benefits to a PDA. I can do a lot of what you've outlined with my phone and I certianly wouldn't call it a PDA.
Regardless, what I'm saying is this: I've used a lot of PDAs since late 1995 or early 1996 and while they've all held me attention for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, they've all fallen short - for me - of the usefulness of a pen and pad.
I'll hold my final reservation for Apple if or when they ever bring another PDA out. I'll try it again and see if they still "have it" when it comes to PDAs.
They were HUGE - that was mostly a limitation of the tech of the day. It was also partly a design compromise, as the original MP was destined to be a "slate" computer.
The price point got lots of complaints, but there were plenty of buyers. I shelled out a lot for my MP2000 and it was worth the money in terms of its features (my opinion).
The biggest win for the Message Pad was the OS (which was called "Newton OS"). Forget a scaled down BeOS, that would still be like craming Windows into a PDA (oh wait, they do). Newton was graceful, well thoughout and worked amazingly well for pen input.
It was designed from the ground up to be a new paradigm in the way we interact with a computer and that is what Apple nailed. I have tried a lot of different PDAs and hardware over the years, and no PDA-OS or add-on software has provided the overall feeling that Newton did.
It's part of the "Mac experience" and hard to describe other than, "excellent." The interaction with the MP was simply excellent.
If Apple could take their then way-ahead-of-everyone-today technology, give it some updates and put it in a small package you would have the ubiquitous PDA. It would sell like mad.
Everyone pooh-pooed the iPod when it came out at what, $400? And they sold like hot cakes. They're still $300 for a basic MP3 player and yet I see no shortage of people carying iPods where I live.
I've owned a lot of PDAs. I started with a Sharp ExpertPad (a rebranded Apple Newton MP100). I then moved up to a Message Pad 110, traded that for a Message Pad 120. I drooled over the backlighting on the Message Pad 130, but I couldn't afford it when it came out.
I saved my pennies and bought a Message Pad 2000 when it came out. Then I upgraded it to the 2100 model. It was the best PDA ever despite it's unweildy size. If you wear cargo pants everywhere it might be considered a "pocket" computer.
Somewhere around 1997 a friend let me use an IBM PDA which was just a re-branded Pilot. It was pretty slick, but the funcationality was nowhere near the Newton. The biggest benefit of the Pilot was it's size. It truly was a pocket computer.
I ran out and bought a Palm III when it came out, and about a year later I got a Palm V. Then in late 2003 I picked up an HP 1945 iPaq running PocketPC.
None of them functioned as well as the Newton, but they did "okay". I would use each device for a few months and then find myself slowly moving back to a pad of paper and a pen. Without fail, I abandoned every PDA I tried, though the Newtons held my useage the longest. Their form factor made them difficult to keep nearby. Now I have this tiny iPaq which I can easily keep nearby and I have no desire to do so.
I've since bought some nice fountain pens, and I take joy in stroking the nib across the page with the ink trailing smoothly behind. I had to learn to not press as hard as I do with a Bic, as to not break the nib!
I am off the PDA scene until Apple gets back in. They had it nailed years ago before technology was at a place where it was small enough to carry everywhere easily. Once they do another PDA I'll take another look - they'll do it right.
Until then I keep a bottle of ink on my desk and a Parker in my pocket. It's also fun to watch the faces of others when you pull out a fountain pen in a meeting. Many people even older than I have never used one and everyone wants to check it out.
Coke's employee base is very nearly fanatical in their loyalty to their product
It's not just Coke/Pepsi. The husband of a lady I work with is employed by DPSUBG (Dr. Pepper, Seven-up Bottling group). One of their key products is Royal Crown cola (RC).
When RC big-wigs are in town for a visit, the local account reps get a detailed agenda built, including all dining stops while said big-wig is in town.
The local reps then work with the restaruants to make sure that RC and only RC is served in the presence of said Royal Crown big-wig.
There is just about no place I know of in town that serves RC products. So this is a highly choreographed ritual they go through about twice a year. They even coach the hostesses and wait staff to offer an "RC" cola, not just a "soda" or even worse a "Coke".
Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon, and now Gates... The robber baron syndrome. It helps them psychologically deal with the things they've done to become super-wealthy.
Actually, these people became super-rich because they know how to give their money to useful causes. Check out books like "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George S. Clason or just about any book by Napoleon Hill (Deepak Chopra is another good one, but some people get turned off because he's not as "western" of a writer).
You gotta give it to get it brother. And when Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gates, Morgan, etc. give they can give big.
There ain't nothing wrong with wealth! It's the rentless pursuing of wealth with no other purpose than to build riches that's wrong. Gate's wealth is a by product of his desire for a "computer on every desktop." The wealth is a result of filling a need (and a few predatory practices by the company he founded, I'll admit that). But look at every uber-wealthy person out there and most will fit Gate's M.O. - they were trying to fullfill a vision, the wealth just sorta tagged along.
I have tried - multiple times in the last 5 years - to switch to a PDA. I started with a Newton 100, upgraded to a Newton 110 then a 120. Finally I settled for about 2 years on a Newton 2100. Then I got a hand-me-down Pilot, I rushed to buy a Palm III when it first came out. I upgraded to a Palm V because it was sleek-n-sexy. I bought an HP iPaq 1945 because I had tried PalmOS and thought maybe PocketPC was for me. Now, even my phone has PDA capabilities!
And I still use a $0.89 Mead Composition book (UPC #043100090236) for my daily to-do and I keep it tucked inside a small calendar to track my "appointments". Why? Because it's just easier for me to grab a pencil and scratch an entry down. I was never able to get the entry down quickly with a PDA (despite using Rosetta, Graphiti, Jot and Transcriber). It's just not fast enough for me. As a plus I also get to use some of my nice fountain pens, they are a joy to write with.
The calendar folds out to the size of a comp book when open (9.75"x15") and gives me an easy view of my month or my week. Flipping forward and back is a cinch and takes no time at all. I always hated hunting for appointments and tasks on a PDA because I could only efficiently see one day at a time no matter what the platform (though the Newton did it best, but was the largest unit).
If I drop it on the way to a meeting it doesn't break, and I don't have to worry about batteries running down at the worst possible moment. Plus the comp books are literally $0.89 and the Calendar was about $11.99 and is refillable.
Sure, I can't play super break out or solitare or freecell, but I don't care. At work I'm there to work and when I'm someplace waiting I'm usually reading a paper or adding notes and "todo's" in my book. Or I just put the damn thing down and enjoy the environment I'm in. I don't miss the games.
I've converted...back to paper for good I think. I'm not planning on rushing out and upgrading with the next generation of PDAs (unless Apple does another one). I'll save that money and buy another Pelican or Parker or Delta fountain pen instead.
Re:Legal uses - DSL: Downloads SLowly
on
Today in P2P
·
· Score: 1
That's about the poorest excuse for a DSL for a Downloads SLowly connection I've ever heard of.
I live at pretty much the limit of my telco's ability to provide a quality DSL connection and I only get about 384Kb/s total throughput.
You're not the only one who thinks it sucks.
Re:/.ed already?
on
Today in P2P
·
· Score: 5, Informative
GET REAL January 11, 2005 BitTorrent, eXeem, Meta-Torrent, Podcasting: "What? So What?" Posted by Marc Eisenstadt
SUMMARY: The index that facilitates the sharing of files on a large scale is also the Achilles heel of peer-to-peer file-sharing, because it is vulnerable to litigation and closure. So what happens if the index is itself distributed? I try to get my head around the latest in peer-to-peer file sharing, and explain a bit about what I've learned, including the fact that BitTorrent's power rests in its 'swarm' distribution model, but not necessarily in your end-user download speed. What has this got to do with podcasting? (Answer: invisible P2P plumbing helps the podcasting wheel go round).
[Warning: lengthy article follows].
First, some history (skip ahead to the next section if you're already bored with the Napster, Gnutella, KaZaa, and BitTorrent saga).
Napster opened our eyes to the power of distributed file sharing on a massive scale. But it was closed down by lawsuits to stop it from listing copyrighted works for which the owners would naturally have preferred to collect royalties (there are thousands of commentaries on the pros and cons of such royalties, but that's not the focus of this posting). Successive generations of tools such as Gnutella, KaZaa, and now BitTorrent have created their own buzz, their own massive followings, their own headaches, and their own solutions to others' headaches. Here's my rundown of the 'big ideas' (and the people behind them):
Napster (Shawn Fanning): This was the Mother of big-time peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfers, i.e. my computer directly to yours, with a central server to maintain lists of who had what in order to initiate the transactions. It had a pretty decent user interface, plus the rapid growth, novelty, excitement and publicity that ensured plenty of good content. Those central server lists, leading to mass free trading of copyrighted material, also led it to be shut down.
Gnutella (Justin Frankel and Tom Pepper, creators of WinAmp): This was an open-source protocol that linked autonomous 'nodes' (users of the network) to other nodes, thereby eliminating the need for a central server list. Searching reliability varies, however, because it is subject to outages according to the connection/disconnection of individual users along the way.
KaZaa (Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who later created Skype): This technology built on a proprietary protocol called 'FastTrack', conceptually an extension to Gnutella, that deployed distributed 'supernode' search indices whose IP addresses were built in to the software, and which avoided the problems of (i) Napster's centralized lists and (ii) Gnutella's over-distributed nodes suffering outages and weakening the search. The prevalence of built-in 'adware' and the distribution of 'junk files' that masqueraded as originals were two of the weaknesses of the (still) wildly popular KaZaa.
BitTorrent (Bram Cohen): This was the next 'creative leap' in the P2P world, based on the following insight: distributing large files in fragments among large numbers of users, and requiring every downloader to be a partial uploader (of these fragments), enables the 'best of breed' of swarming behaviour -- as a file becomes more popular, so it becomes easier to download, rather than harder (as is the case with traditional file distribution)! A good overview explanation and a helpful analogy are provided in this excerpt from Brian Dessent's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide:
BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file. However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers. The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth. The key philosophy
Legal uses
on
Today in P2P
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Just a few days ago I used BT for the first time to download a Knoppix 3.7 ISO. I was trying to download from the various mirrors, but the speed I was getting was terrible - around 2.9KBps.
I grabbed BT for Win2000 and installed it in about 7 minutes, then I hit the torrent link for Knoppix. I was downloading the ISO at around 36KBps (about the limit of my DSL connection).
Since I was heading to bed while it downloaded, I left BT up that night and the next day while I was at work to help other people out.
I had seen BT as a place to snag nothing but rips of movies, and I've stayed away. The legal-usese BT community needs to do a better job of promoting the positive and allowable uses of BT and P2P sharing tools. They have a way to negative stigma right now.
Hmm, I like the price point, but I don't like the "no screen" bit. Part of the allure of the iPod is how easy the UI is to navigate and use.
How well will you be able to navigate with no feedback?
When there is a problem, you'll probably get a fix slipstreamed within 24 hours, vs what you get from ps, a series of meetings, evaluation, and then a decision if they will bother to fix or not, and if they do, a schedule for deployment sometime in the next quarter.
It really depends on the case and whether or not the critical incident is a software bug or something else. When I've opened P1 cases with PeopleSoft I've had excellent and extremely responsive service from their analysts.
In the few cases where a software patch was needed, the analyst worked with me to ensure that a viable workaround was in place so that we could continue to process transactions while a patch was created.
At what point is all this academic? I looked at TFA and didn't see a price mentioned anywhere for the 3D1, but I imagine it's not affordable. Let me qualify that, I don't expect cheap because it's a new toy and a dual toy at that, which will mean there is a price preimum.
But at what point do people say, "Gee, that's neat but call me later?" I'm not against the expansion of technology, but there becomes a point of diminishing returns for the price. Is this that point?
Also the article points out "...the 3D1 requires Gigabyte's own GA-K8NXP-SLI motherboard to operate." How much does that add to the price and does the GA-K8NXP-SLI offer all the features in a MoBo that your average user would need/want?
I actually want more effort and research put into making our computers quiet, did you see the size of the fan on the 3D1? My computer is noisy enough without having to have not just active cooling on every major component, but massive active cooling on every major component.
Hey, technologists; I can play all the games I care to on my current hardware, work on making things quieter and consume less electricity!
I wanted a HERO jr in the worst way; I remember seeing it first on an episode of Mr. Wizard back in the 80's. My parents couldn't afford a robot so they got me a cat. Stupid cat...
In the late 90's I had a friend who had a HERO jr collecting dust in his parent's basement. So I forced him to drag it out so I could play with it. It wasn't nearly as cool as I thought it would be.
The moral? To this day I hate cats. Parents, don't buy your kids a pet when they really want a computer/robot/remote control gadget. Get 'em hooked on science!
What is there about the system that caused the project manager to make poor decisions?
Well, in several cases it was upper management not having a methodology for selecting a qualified project manager; thus putting the wrong person in charge of the project where it promptly fell on its face.
Everything got much better when that person unexpectedly quit and walked out. A bit of panic and frenzy and then things smoothed out quite nicely.
So if you don't have both a top-down and bottom-up methodology for projects the blame can be pinned largly on the underqualified P.M. and on the management structure that put him there in the first place.
Every project, whether it's a development project, implementation or business process engineering, that has failed for us has been because of poor project management. Period.
We've had people who didn't know how to accurately scope business requirements, get buy in from other departments and generally "play nice" enough to keep everything running smoothly. Your P.M. needs to be able to be a hard ass, but also to be a buddy.
It boils down to excellent management skills and excellent people skills and without both you're setting a project up for disaster. A good P.M. needs to know when to tell senior management it's asking for the impossible too, and a good P.M. needs to know he has kung-fu so he can get away will telling senior management their idea won't be implemented.
predict your laptop will be taken away from you. This will happen, trust me...You have disturbed the balance of the Universe by being so cocky with your "pay attention" comment...
That's why I keep regular tape backups and have insurance. Oh, and I write off the cost of the laptop, the insurance and the backup system through my company.
This is one of the dumber things I've ever seen. They recommend you put the box in your bag, but isn't this exactly why they would want you to buy this in the first place?
Putting your PowerPizza in a carrier bag will not only increase the level of disguise - it'll keep it dry too.
And how awkward would it be to walk around carrying a pizza box? If you tucked it under your arm, people would know it wasn't a pizza. If you walked around with it held in a proper pizza manner that would suck too.
Really, how hard is it to pick up a nice black leather or blastic nylon bag that isn't plastered with "TARGUS" logos and just KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE DAMN LAPTOP?
I've owned many laptops for many years and I've never once come close to having it nicked because I tend to pay attention to my surroundings when I'm carrying it with me.
I keep up a blog and I write regularly in a journal too. My journal isn't online but my blog is and they are two different vehicles.
I will usually put more personal or goal related information that's not important to anyone but me in my journal. Things I would just as soon not be out in public (sadly there is nothing really scandalous in my journal though).
In my blog I post things I find interesting that I might want to reflect back on in the future. If it's interesting information to other people, so much the better, and that's why I post it publically.
I also post things that other people might find useful. I have a couple of hobbies and I know that when I search for information if I can add my own out there I'm helping give back to others with the same hobbies. Mpix is a perfect example. I blogged about my good experiences with them and just the other day received a comment on my (very) lightly read blog thanking me for the tip.
I feel good knowing that maybe I was able to help someone else out.
As a blogger I feel compelled to say, "No, please don't hold blogging up as an ideal." Yeah, it's the power of the fourth estate in the hands of the masses, blah, blah, blah. Remember, by and large, the masses are asses.
Face it, 99% of all the blog material out there is shit (my own included). We need better blogging out there, not more of it!
They should have held up one or two exemplary examples of blogging done right - good content and timley information (and a lack of words like "dat", "ur", "OMG", "LOL", and "ROFLMAO")
<John Stewart>
Stop, please stop butchering language. You're hurting our vocabulary and you make yourself sound stupid
</John Stewart>
Is this really a "security update" as much as it's fiddling a bit with some PHP code?
And this "beneficial" worm still defaces the site too:
Sites that have been attacked by the anti-Santy worm are defaced with the words: "viewtopic.php secured by Anti-Santy-Worm V4. Your site is a bit safer, but upgrade to >= 2.0.11."
If I break into your house and clean your bathroom you could call me beneficial, but you might get a little upset if I used spray-paint to write "This house is a bit cleaner, but buy some Lysol" on your front door.
Slashdot Mirror
- Hmmm, I was trying to think of an example of what to put on this and all I could think of was terrorist plans. Does this make it a bad idea?
How about corporate secrets? You know, like how the Coca Cola formula is supposed to be stashed in several bank vaults in Atlanta?If you have 1/5th of the data (plus parity) you can even duplicate your iPod Shuffle as needed to keep the data intact.
Just make sure that 4 out of your 5 all fly on the same plane or travel in the same car (or really, attend the same conference) with their share of the data.
You can also scale it up and down (4 drives needing 3 or 25 drives needing 24).
The only downside with RAID5 is that you can only lose 1 device, so with larger numbers you need a higher and higher majority of your group to unlock the data.
Another idea is to RAID the data and form a tontine using iPod Shuffles. It worked for Abe Simpson.
Regardless, what I'm saying is this: I've used a lot of PDAs since late 1995 or early 1996 and while they've all held me attention for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, they've all fallen short - for me - of the usefulness of a pen and pad.
I'll hold my final reservation for Apple if or when they ever bring another PDA out. I'll try it again and see if they still "have it" when it comes to PDAs.
The price point got lots of complaints, but there were plenty of buyers. I shelled out a lot for my MP2000 and it was worth the money in terms of its features (my opinion).
The biggest win for the Message Pad was the OS (which was called "Newton OS"). Forget a scaled down BeOS, that would still be like craming Windows into a PDA (oh wait, they do). Newton was graceful, well thoughout and worked amazingly well for pen input.
It was designed from the ground up to be a new paradigm in the way we interact with a computer and that is what Apple nailed. I have tried a lot of different PDAs and hardware over the years, and no PDA-OS or add-on software has provided the overall feeling that Newton did.
It's part of the "Mac experience" and hard to describe other than, "excellent." The interaction with the MP was simply excellent.
If Apple could take their then way-ahead-of-everyone-today technology, give it some updates and put it in a small package you would have the ubiquitous PDA. It would sell like mad.
Everyone pooh-pooed the iPod when it came out at what, $400? And they sold like hot cakes. They're still $300 for a basic MP3 player and yet I see no shortage of people carying iPods where I live.
I saved my pennies and bought a Message Pad 2000 when it came out. Then I upgraded it to the 2100 model. It was the best PDA ever despite it's unweildy size. If you wear cargo pants everywhere it might be considered a "pocket" computer.
Somewhere around 1997 a friend let me use an IBM PDA which was just a re-branded Pilot. It was pretty slick, but the funcationality was nowhere near the Newton. The biggest benefit of the Pilot was it's size. It truly was a pocket computer.
I ran out and bought a Palm III when it came out, and about a year later I got a Palm V. Then in late 2003 I picked up an HP 1945 iPaq running PocketPC.
None of them functioned as well as the Newton, but they did "okay". I would use each device for a few months and then find myself slowly moving back to a pad of paper and a pen. Without fail, I abandoned every PDA I tried, though the Newtons held my useage the longest. Their form factor made them difficult to keep nearby. Now I have this tiny iPaq which I can easily keep nearby and I have no desire to do so.
I've since bought some nice fountain pens, and I take joy in stroking the nib across the page with the ink trailing smoothly behind. I had to learn to not press as hard as I do with a Bic, as to not break the nib!
I am off the PDA scene until Apple gets back in. They had it nailed years ago before technology was at a place where it was small enough to carry everywhere easily. Once they do another PDA I'll take another look - they'll do it right.
Until then I keep a bottle of ink on my desk and a Parker in my pocket. It's also fun to watch the faces of others when you pull out a fountain pen in a meeting. Many people even older than I have never used one and everyone wants to check it out.
- Coke's employee base is very nearly fanatical in their loyalty to their product
It's not just Coke/Pepsi. The husband of a lady I work with is employed by DPSUBG (Dr. Pepper, Seven-up Bottling group). One of their key products is Royal Crown cola (RC).When RC big-wigs are in town for a visit, the local account reps get a detailed agenda built, including all dining stops while said big-wig is in town.
The local reps then work with the restaruants to make sure that RC and only RC is served in the presence of said Royal Crown big-wig.
There is just about no place I know of in town that serves RC products. So this is a highly choreographed ritual they go through about twice a year. They even coach the hostesses and wait staff to offer an "RC" cola, not just a "soda" or even worse a "Coke".
- Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon, and now Gates... The robber baron syndrome. It helps them psychologically deal with the things they've done to become super-wealthy.
Actually, these people became super-rich because they know how to give their money to useful causes. Check out books like "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George S. Clason or just about any book by Napoleon Hill (Deepak Chopra is another good one, but some people get turned off because he's not as "western" of a writer).You gotta give it to get it brother. And when Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gates, Morgan, etc. give they can give big.
There ain't nothing wrong with wealth! It's the rentless pursuing of wealth with no other purpose than to build riches that's wrong. Gate's wealth is a by product of his desire for a "computer on every desktop." The wealth is a result of filling a need (and a few predatory practices by the company he founded, I'll admit that). But look at every uber-wealthy person out there and most will fit Gate's M.O. - they were trying to fullfill a vision, the wealth just sorta tagged along.
And I still use a $0.89 Mead Composition book (UPC #043100090236) for my daily to-do and I keep it tucked inside a small calendar to track my "appointments". Why? Because it's just easier for me to grab a pencil and scratch an entry down. I was never able to get the entry down quickly with a PDA (despite using Rosetta, Graphiti, Jot and Transcriber). It's just not fast enough for me. As a plus I also get to use some of my nice fountain pens, they are a joy to write with. The calendar folds out to the size of a comp book when open (9.75"x15") and gives me an easy view of my month or my week. Flipping forward and back is a cinch and takes no time at all. I always hated hunting for appointments and tasks on a PDA because I could only efficiently see one day at a time no matter what the platform (though the Newton did it best, but was the largest unit).
If I drop it on the way to a meeting it doesn't break, and I don't have to worry about batteries running down at the worst possible moment. Plus the comp books are literally $0.89 and the Calendar was about $11.99 and is refillable.
Sure, I can't play super break out or solitare or freecell, but I don't care. At work I'm there to work and when I'm someplace waiting I'm usually reading a paper or adding notes and "todo's" in my book. Or I just put the damn thing down and enjoy the environment I'm in. I don't miss the games.
I've converted...back to paper for good I think. I'm not planning on rushing out and upgrading with the next generation of PDAs (unless Apple does another one). I'll save that money and buy another Pelican or Parker or Delta fountain pen instead.
- That's about the poorest excuse for a DSL for a Downloads SLowly connection I've ever heard of.
I live at pretty much the limit of my telco's ability to provide a quality DSL connection and I only get about 384Kb/s total throughput.You're not the only one who thinks it sucks.
GET REAL
January 11, 2005
BitTorrent, eXeem, Meta-Torrent, Podcasting: "What? So What?"
Posted by Marc Eisenstadt
SUMMARY: The index that facilitates the sharing of files on a large scale is also the Achilles heel of peer-to-peer file-sharing, because it is vulnerable to litigation and closure. So what happens if the index is itself distributed? I try to get my head around the latest in peer-to-peer file sharing, and explain a bit about what I've learned, including the fact that BitTorrent's power rests in its 'swarm' distribution model, but not necessarily in your end-user download speed. What has this got to do with podcasting? (Answer: invisible P2P plumbing helps the podcasting wheel go round).
[Warning: lengthy article follows].
First, some history
(skip ahead to the next section if you're already bored with the Napster, Gnutella, KaZaa, and BitTorrent saga).
Napster opened our eyes to the power of distributed file sharing on a massive scale. But it was closed down by lawsuits to stop it from listing copyrighted works for which the owners would naturally have preferred to collect royalties (there are thousands of commentaries on the pros and cons of such royalties, but that's not the focus of this posting). Successive generations of tools such as Gnutella, KaZaa, and now BitTorrent have created their own buzz, their own massive followings, their own headaches, and their own solutions to others' headaches. Here's my rundown of the 'big ideas' (and the people behind them):
Napster (Shawn Fanning): This was the Mother of big-time peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfers, i.e. my computer directly to yours, with a central server to maintain lists of who had what in order to initiate the transactions. It had a pretty decent user interface, plus the rapid growth, novelty, excitement and publicity that ensured plenty of good content. Those central server lists, leading to mass free trading of copyrighted material, also led it to be shut down.
Gnutella (Justin Frankel and Tom Pepper, creators of WinAmp): This was an open-source protocol that linked autonomous 'nodes' (users of the network) to other nodes, thereby eliminating the need for a central server list. Searching reliability varies, however, because it is subject to outages according to the connection/disconnection of individual users along the way.
KaZaa (Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who later created Skype): This technology built on a proprietary protocol called 'FastTrack', conceptually an extension to Gnutella, that deployed distributed 'supernode' search indices whose IP addresses were built in to the software, and which avoided the problems of (i) Napster's centralized lists and (ii) Gnutella's over-distributed nodes suffering outages and weakening the search. The prevalence of built-in 'adware' and the distribution of 'junk files' that masqueraded as originals were two of the weaknesses of the (still) wildly popular KaZaa.
BitTorrent (Bram Cohen): This was the next 'creative leap' in the P2P world, based on the following insight: distributing large files in fragments among large numbers of users, and requiring every downloader to be a partial uploader (of these fragments), enables the 'best of breed' of swarming behaviour -- as a file becomes more popular, so it becomes easier to download, rather than harder (as is the case with traditional file distribution)! A good overview explanation and a helpful analogy are provided in this excerpt from Brian Dessent's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide:
BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file. However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers. The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth. The key philosophy
I grabbed BT for Win2000 and installed it in about 7 minutes, then I hit the torrent link for Knoppix. I was downloading the ISO at around 36KBps (about the limit of my DSL connection).
Since I was heading to bed while it downloaded, I left BT up that night and the next day while I was at work to help other people out.
I had seen BT as a place to snag nothing but rips of movies, and I've stayed away. The legal-usese BT community needs to do a better job of promoting the positive and allowable uses of BT and P2P sharing tools. They have a way to negative stigma right now.
Last Tuesday called; it wants its story back.
Hmm, I like the price point, but I don't like the "no screen" bit. Part of the allure of the iPod is how easy the UI is to navigate and use. How well will you be able to navigate with no feedback?
- When there is a problem, you'll probably get a fix slipstreamed within 24 hours, vs what you get from ps, a series of meetings, evaluation, and then a decision if they will bother to fix or not, and if they do, a schedule for deployment sometime in the next quarter.
It really depends on the case and whether or not the critical incident is a software bug or something else. When I've opened P1 cases with PeopleSoft I've had excellent and extremely responsive service from their analysts.In the few cases where a software patch was needed, the analyst worked with me to ensure that a viable workaround was in place so that we could continue to process transactions while a patch was created.
But at what point do people say, "Gee, that's neat but call me later?" I'm not against the expansion of technology, but there becomes a point of diminishing returns for the price. Is this that point?
Also the article points out "...the 3D1 requires Gigabyte's own GA-K8NXP-SLI motherboard to operate." How much does that add to the price and does the GA-K8NXP-SLI offer all the features in a MoBo that your average user would need/want?
I actually want more effort and research put into making our computers quiet, did you see the size of the fan on the 3D1? My computer is noisy enough without having to have not just active cooling on every major component, but massive active cooling on every major component.
Hey, technologists; I can play all the games I care to on my current hardware, work on making things quieter and consume less electricity!
<ObSimpsons>
Marge: "Fox turned into a hard-core porn network so gradually, I didn't even notice!"
</ObSimpsons>
In the late 90's I had a friend who had a HERO jr collecting dust in his parent's basement. So I forced him to drag it out so I could play with it. It wasn't nearly as cool as I thought it would be.
The moral? To this day I hate cats. Parents, don't buy your kids a pet when they really want a computer/robot/remote control gadget. Get 'em hooked on science!
- What is there about the system that caused the project manager to make poor decisions?
Well, in several cases it was upper management not having a methodology for selecting a qualified project manager; thus putting the wrong person in charge of the project where it promptly fell on its face.Everything got much better when that person unexpectedly quit and walked out. A bit of panic and frenzy and then things smoothed out quite nicely.
So if you don't have both a top-down and bottom-up methodology for projects the blame can be pinned largly on the underqualified P.M. and on the management structure that put him there in the first place.
We've had people who didn't know how to accurately scope business requirements, get buy in from other departments and generally "play nice" enough to keep everything running smoothly. Your P.M. needs to be able to be a hard ass, but also to be a buddy.
It boils down to excellent management skills and excellent people skills and without both you're setting a project up for disaster. A good P.M. needs to know when to tell senior management it's asking for the impossible too, and a good P.M. needs to know he has kung-fu so he can get away will telling senior management their idea won't be implemented.
- predict your laptop will be taken away from you. This will happen, trust me...You have disturbed the balance of the Universe by being so cocky with your "pay attention" comment...
That's why I keep regular tape backups and have insurance. Oh, and I write off the cost of the laptop, the insurance and the backup system through my company.Isn't not being able to copy "Who's Your Daddy?" multiple times a feature and not a bug?
- Putting your PowerPizza in a carrier bag will not only increase the level of disguise - it'll keep it dry too.
And how awkward would it be to walk around carrying a pizza box? If you tucked it under your arm, people would know it wasn't a pizza. If you walked around with it held in a proper pizza manner that would suck too.Really, how hard is it to pick up a nice black leather or blastic nylon bag that isn't plastered with "TARGUS" logos and just KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE DAMN LAPTOP?
I've owned many laptops for many years and I've never once come close to having it nicked because I tend to pay attention to my surroundings when I'm carrying it with me.
I will usually put more personal or goal related information that's not important to anyone but me in my journal. Things I would just as soon not be out in public (sadly there is nothing really scandalous in my journal though).
In my blog I post things I find interesting that I might want to reflect back on in the future. If it's interesting information to other people, so much the better, and that's why I post it publically.
I also post things that other people might find useful. I have a couple of hobbies and I know that when I search for information if I can add my own out there I'm helping give back to others with the same hobbies. Mpix is a perfect example. I blogged about my good experiences with them and just the other day received a comment on my (very) lightly read blog thanking me for the tip.
I feel good knowing that maybe I was able to help someone else out.
Disclaimer: This is my shop; I'm a capitalist.
Face it, 99% of all the blog material out there is shit (my own included). We need better blogging out there, not more of it!
They should have held up one or two exemplary examples of blogging done right - good content and timley information (and a lack of words like "dat", "ur", "OMG", "LOL", and "ROFLMAO")
<John Stewart>
Stop, please stop butchering language. You're hurting our vocabulary and you make yourself sound stupid
</John Stewart>
- Sites that have been attacked by the anti-Santy worm are defaced with the words: "viewtopic.php secured by Anti-Santy-Worm V4. Your site is a bit safer, but upgrade to >= 2.0.11."
If I break into your house and clean your bathroom you could call me beneficial, but you might get a little upset if I used spray-paint to write "This house is a bit cleaner, but buy some Lysol" on your front door.