Well in Australia we can get a Samsung Bluray player for under AU$1000 (approx US$600 if you take into account the 60GB PS3 price in both countries) so the last paragraph of the article is wrong although it could be right saying Sony won't produce a sub US$1000 player till next year but I very much doubt it now that Samsung has produced a sub AU$1000 player. This player will go to 1080p, has HDMI and can do up-scaling for DVD as well. I can even get a BD player/recorder for a PC for approx AU$1300 although BD disks are still not cheap but this is just like DVD prices back in 2000.
The article is not specific on if the Chinese HD-DVD player can upscale and for people with a large DVD collection this can be a deciding factor.
If you read the link at the bottom of the article, Toshiba is taking a very big gamble and one that could hurt it badly. The Bluray consortium is for the moment not going to have the player/recorder made in China but if they feel the pinch they will. This would reduce the price of both BD and HD-DVD but the consumer would still be confused.
The game is not over yet in fact all we have seen is some minor skirmishes.
In many ways people have to eventually have some measure of trust for the application they download be it Linux or Unix or even MS Windows. It is very possible to provide an rpm with a valid checksum that contains a nasty surprise however if you compile from source it is normally safer because if you have the knowledge or if you know someone who can you can vet the source but unfortunately this is normally after the fact.
While most people will not look at the source there are a significant few who can and will if there is any suspicion of foul play and many of these people do know how to contact the appropriate authorities. Sill it is most unlikely a black-hat would give out source with a payload since it is too easy to get found out and possibly traced.
For a cracker a binary is much safer and it is even more safer if delivered by a bot or email. Putting malicious code in a repository is risky for the cracker but this does not mean that they won't do it so for the person who downloads a binary from a site the risk even though small is always there.
Rating the risk, any down loadable program source would be the safest followed by a reputable site for rpm's with access to source or even "*.exe" files with source, however you always take a chance downloading binaries be it rpm's or "*.exe" even with checksums. Binaries without a checksum should always be suspect but most people are sometimes to trusting, still if you want to download "flash", "media player", a repo update or even an Microsoft update you have to have some degree of trust that the site is not going to screw you.
From personal experience you can download an rpm and load it into your personal directory however you can do the same with a "*.exe" file if the install program allows you. What makes MS Windows a problem is that while it can be reasonably a secure environment if you know what you are doing most people don't and set themselves up with administrator privileges so that a bad program will cause enormous problems. I have even seen this done on Linux and Unix platforms by people who should know better which is quite worrying, since this could be a portent of things to come. User education is vital here.
As to sudo I have found that unless this managed carefully it can be a major security hole. I personally use "su -" since I am the System Admin and then exit when I have finished.
With regard to a Makefile you don't actually need to read through it especially if it is auto generated by./configure. You should see the one generated by "imake" (1000+ lines). What you need to be aware of is what will be installed and where it is going to be installed and this is very easy to do with "make -n install" or just try to install as your non-privileged self (small risk here). Baring that you can always search for "install" in the Makefile and see what it does. It is important to have some Unix programing knowledge here otherwise your security can easily be compromised.
This is not to say I can not be compromised it just means there is a less likely chance of me being compromised, of course I do have to assume the source code I have compiled does not have something nasty since I am not going to actually look at thousands of lines of code. I can debug code in the case of failure but it is much easier to look for something that works and that is normally an rpm in the case of Linux or a "*.exe" in the case of MS Windows. Of course this does increase the risk.
To sum up the most important thing a user can do do to protect themselves is to become more educated with regard to using a computer be it MS Windows, Linux or Unix (note a Mac is Unix). But this does not mean everyone should become a Senior Systems Admin but they should become aware of the basics. Unless this occurs mall-ware is only going to get worse as crackers look to social engineering (it is actually easier to do this) for their exploits. No one even myself can honestly say they can avoid all explo
Just recently I brought a wireless modem and connected it my ISP's modem. This enabled me to allow my son who is an avid gamer and myself to use my personal laptop and my work laptop without any interference. I actually am wondering why I did not do this sooner since the cost was under AU$90 and it is so flexible. In addition I also use my personal laptop (Linux only) to act as a file-share and backup controller.
What I noticed when using the wireless on our PC's to connect to my router was a few other wireless routers. All you would need is some method of joining each router via wireless and I know this works since I have friends who do this. So you end up with a small network dependent on neighbour cooperation that can easily be used for file-sharing (think videos or music) so you have a reasonably cheap fast "grey" network (one cost upfront then it is free) and an ISP (hopefully secure) Internet connection.
If an ISP is hobbled by government then many subscribers won't notice or feel powerless to do anything but once the government starts to try and control the grey networks everyone notices and this will insure political suicide for any government that tries to propose this. Of course if the grey networks grow you start to have another Internet and things could get interesting since you now have individual householders controlling the infrastructure. Of course I am not holding my breath on this but still it is feasible.
> Running./configure or make or make install could cause just as large a problem. > Do you read through those scripts before running them?
Ok now we are getting into compiling source code and this is not what an normal user would do, even under Unix or Linux much less MS Windows. I can and do on occasions but normally try to get an "rpm" kit (Linux) but I can compile from source.
On Linux/Unix when I get source I always work as a non privileged user (myself). First I read the README then after setting up any parameters and/or environmental variables I run./configure and normally make, after which I test the program(s) and then only when I am satisfied tat everything works as it is supposed to will I install the software, even then I will normally only allow installation in/usr/local.
Do I read through the source the simple answer is no! but if I suspect anything I can. I normally only get source from reputable sites such as Freshmeat and Sourceforge, however for Linux I normally get rpm's from reputable repos. I always check the the source or rpm against it's check-sum. Basically I never install binaries from a non trusted site.
While it is possible to get source for MS Windows programs, compiling it can be a nightmare although this depends on the skills of the person and the compiler used. In the majority of cases many people just download a "setup.exe' and run it. Of course this means that you completely trust the site and the download without any possibility of seeing the source code.
Are you really sure Sony is loosing money on their console?
I know many so called bloggers' and games magazines are stating that with cost breakdowns however if you do some comparisons the write-ups are nearly identical (plagiarism anyone!) and the seem to be concentrating on cost to the public or some badly (IMHO) thought out cost. When you are a large electronics manufacturer and Sony is then your overall costs are going to be much smaller than if you or I walked onto an electronics shop and asked for a particular electronic part.
Consider the Cell chip it has cost US%500M+ to develop this however the cost is actually shared between Sony, IBM and Toshiba, so once you start fabricating it the overall cost is basically the raw materials (mainly silicon on insulator - approx US$1000/30cm diam wafer) and some doping materials (not sure n cost here - can anyone supply this?) plus the overall cost of the fabrication plant (approx US$5M to US$15M) and it's running costs. Providing you are producing millions (and Sony, IBM and Toshiba are) then overall costs/chip are not that expensive. Of course if you increase the yield (ie reduce from 90nm to 65nm) the costs come down dramatically.
Now to Bluray. If you walk into a shop and get a Bluray ROM you are going to pay approx US$10 to US$20 but if you are a games producer who is going to stamp out about one million games then your cost per BD disk is going to be in the US$0.5 to US$1.00 mark (this is very much like the costs associated with DVD's when they first came out).
Now getting back to if Sony is loosing money per console. IMHO I think they are but how much I don't know and only Sony can tell you that and they won't (Lets get real here why should they). To put this in a better perspective the PS2 was initially sold at a loss (it was quite small) and of course all the game writers though they were losing big time (they were wrong) but in a few months Sony was making a profit on every console sold. The only company that lost money big time was Microsoft on their Xbox to the tune of US$5B. Microsoft was willing to loose this amount to get into the lucrative console gaming market.
In Australia the police and emergency vehicles can run a red light providing they do it with care (this can be difficult to define) and only in an emergency which must be logged with their dispatcher or control. If the incident is not logged then the driver is fined, just turning on your siren is no excuse. High speed pursuits are always an issue but do you let the crim's or idiots get away because they speed and/or drive dangerously or try and catch them which entails risk to the public? The debate world wide on this continues.
Re:Does anyone even use this OS?
on
CentOS 5 Released
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I know you are trolling but yes. CentOS is great for Development were your System Admins' take care of everything and if you move the machine to production you can get a CentOS or Redhat maintenance contract.
Hmm! the old "Command not found". Well you can try and set your PATH variable but unfortunately that is for more advanced users, so keep reading the IBM articles.
I don't think you can compare MS Vista to HD-DVD and Bluray since with MS Vista you don't really have much choice when you purchase a new computer. With the High Def disks and MS Vista upgrade packs you have a choice if you want to purchase them. In the case of High Def disks it would be rather pointless purchasing them if you don't have a High Def TV (720p or 1080p) and of course a High Def disk player.
Even if you do have a HDTV and a HD player you can still play your older DVD movies so if you see a High Def movie at say $25 and a DVD at $20 you have a choice of which one you want to purchase.
Personally I have found that if you get a HDTV below 100cm (40in) it will be a 720p (1280 × 720 pixels) with most DVD movies displaying well even though you are watching Standard Def TV. Also depending on screen size you may find it hard to tell the difference between HD Disk and DVD on a good quality HDTV and HD player. When the HDTV is larger than 100cm you have the option of 720p or 1080p (1920 × 1080 pixels) and it is here particularly when you get to larger screen sizes that you can see significant differences. Of course you are going to pay much more for a 1080p but if you have the money and many do then why not.
The largest spanner in the HD Disk war is the HD Disk player or even a good quality Amplifier with DVD upscaling. Even some HDTV's can do this but they are more expensive.
Many would say that HD TV's are expensive compared to a tube TV but in a few years you will be hard pressed to actually find a tube TV and even at today's prices a good quality reasonable sized (less than 100cm) LCD or plasma TV can be purchased well below $1000. Again freedom of choice is at work here.
As to why people are purchasing more DVD's to High Def Disk, well they are cheaper and many people have not made the leap to HDTV (small HDTV's don't really count) so many can't see the point yet and the Blueray, HD-DVD war does not help. Still you are free to make a choice.
The actual patent reads like a maths paper with lots of buzzwords. Sorry I try not to to read too much of the patent since the Legal Jargon actually gives me a headache. Maybe that is intentional for all patents. What annoys me is this patent is not really an invention since it defines how their software does something which is not even physical. I suppose the physical aspect occurs when someone is taken to court.
All PS3 games will be region free, however PS1 and PS2 games will be region locked hence anyone in Europe or Australia/NZ importing a PS3 from the USA or Japan better have PS1 and PS2 NTSC games from those regions otherwise any existing PAL games they have will not play. In case you don't believe me get a PAL PS1 or PS2 game and try to play it on a US NTSC PS2 (unless it is chipped) or the other way around. Can anyone tell me if any of the Grey PS3 importers warned their prospective customers about this? If they didn't then they were doing a great disservice to their customers.
My nephew was in the market for a laptop and I offered him mine at a very good price with 9 months warranty however he did not want Fedora Core 6 (fully updated) even though it would do nearly (could have difficulty playing some Microsoft Games) everything he wanted so I put back the Win XP pro OS. I was not overly surprised since most people (even my relatives) don't know anything but Microsoft so I was not going to argue and this is the reason why I don't get a refund on any MS licenses. Anyway I will use the Fedora Core updates on my new laptop which I hope to get soon.
I made enquiries with regard getting the Vista upgrade (just in case) and while the upgrade CD was free the post and packaging was AU$29. This would not be too bad but the laptop has an AMD dual core 64 bit processor and the MS Vista Business OS was 32 bit, which meant I would have to get the 32 bit OS and then apply to Microsoft for the 64 bit one and most likely pay post and packaging (a possible double hit). What is more annoying is the fact the registered mailing of the laptop cost AU$17. To me it seems that the vendors (including Microsoft) are ripping you off big time. Needless to say I am going to suggest to my nephew that he forgets about MS Vista (he already has heard some horror stories from friends) unless he upgrades his laptop ram from 512MB to at least 1GB and even then if he wants MS Vista he will have to pay for it. I don't think he is going to be disappointed with Win XP Pro though and he will have the recovery DVD's in case his hard disk fails and he has to replace it (type "R" and wait about one hour and forty minutes).
When you purchase a new PC (AMD or Intel) computer in the majority of cases you are going to get a version of MS Vista. Of course what makes this hard is the fact that there are six editions in 32 and 64 bit variants not to mention the extra hardware requirements. Given this complexity (and for many it is) and the fact that MS Windows XP just works (to quote Microsoft) there is no overwhelming need for existing MS Windows users to upgrade. Of course for those people who just have to have the latest MS OS version well it's your money.
Until Linux is commonplace in the Government sector which would cause private enterprise to follow, then and only then will the home user start to adopt Linux. I cannot see this happening anytime soon in the USA, but correct me if I am wrong here since I would love to be proved wrong on this.
Currently Governments in countries like Europe, Asia and China are seriously looking at adopting Linux for a variety of reasons and this is starting the acceptable adoption of Linux, but it will be many years unless certain Government heads push a very courageous decision (commonly called political suicide) to adopt Linux overnight.
Linux adoption is happening but it is slow since MS Windows is so entrenched.
With regard to trying to get your friends and acquaintances to adopt Linux I think this is going to be very frustrating for you. I have tried to get close family to make the switch and while they agree that Linux is excellent they all eventually backslide back to MS Windows, so now I only do full (no dual booting) Linux installs so there is no backsliding. Of course I tell people about this and in the majority of cases they say no (I know all the excuses) which is great so I don't waste my time.
Disk requirements to backup of a 320GB hard drive using a double sided disk (forget about a single sided disk). 1) CD - don't be silly, 2) DVD - 32 minimum, 3) Bluray - 6 minimum, 4) HD-DVD - 10 minimum. I will leave it to you to work out the cost but needless to say it is not going to be cheap. Now lets make it more interesting try backing up 1TB and your costs just went up three fold.
It does not take much to work out that a CD is great for music, DVD is great for Standard Definition TV while Bluray or HD-DVD are aimed at the rapidly growing High Definition TV market. Using them as a backup media is going to get expensive, especially now that home users' storage requirements are approaching or well past 1TB.
The only viable backup solution for the average home user is to backup to hard disk but this does not take into account fire, flood, theft.. etc and stupidity. Sure there is tape (the commercial industry standard) but that is not exactly cheap and neither is HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) which hopes to replace tape in the fairly foreseeable future.
So what do we do for home backups? The cheapest solution is a hard disk (or disks) backup system and hope.
I personally have never had any issues with Sony since I have never been forced to purchase their products but I don't think Bluray is going to be much use as a backup medium given the ever increasing storage requirements of the home PC market.
I can got back to 1982 and SUN, SGI and Apollo Domain (it's OS was sort of Unix like) were using high res graphics in the order of better than 1024x1024. They did cost though but when you consider MS-DOS was still tty with just floppy disks and had very few applications these Graphincal Workstations did have their uses especially in areas such as CAD/CAM and visualization.
You are right on this. Most system Admin's I know (myself included) are fairly weak in network administration and the main reason for that appears to be the growing division between Network administrators and System administrators to the extent that nearly all our *nix tools are effectively blocked so you cannot determine if you have a problem and of course the Network people are adamant that their network is not at fault. This I have found to be especially true in large sites however I have found the reverse is true when the site is smaller.
Back in the 1980's there was no division. The *nix Admin was the Network Admin as well.
> Oh that's right I forgot, ther is no real OSS community anymore
Thats funny I could have sworn I have Fedora Core 6 on my laptop. I better check: $ uname -a Linux helios.org.au 2.6.19-1.2911.fc6 #1 SMP Sat Feb 10 15:16:31 EST 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> Yet, ODF is just as patented and closed as OOXML
Really were did you get that from?
If you want some facts it takes 6000 pages to define the so called OOXML standard, compared to 600 pages of the ODF standard (a 10 to 1 ratio). Read into that what you may.
Many corporations buy business software but instead of modeling their business practice on the software methodology they insist on making the software conform to their business practices. Actually this is great for the consultant who can say "please open cheque book and I will tell you when to close it" (SAP is a great example here). If the business did their homework properly and was willing to change their practices to conform to the software they would save a fortune but this rarely happens since many business have people with too much invested interest or shear bloodymindedness and the consultant walks away with a fortune and the business is usually a few million dollars lighter.
It is rare that the consultant gets outsourced since they normally deal face to face with the business, but unfortunately it is all to easy to outsource the programmer. For those interested it is nothing unusual for an SAP consultant to ask and get US$100 to US$300+ per hour and the greater the changes wanted (not necessarily required) the better for the consultant or consulting firm.
Biofeedback has been around for a very long time (I remember reading a popular electronics article about mid 1960's) however instead of training your mind to attain a certain "alpha" rhythm relaxed state you need to have to train your brain "waves" to change very quickly if you want to control a game and that is not easy. There is also quite a big difference between connecting finger clips to connecting a head set which may get quite uncomfortable over extended time. Either way you still need to train your mind to do something and this is not remotely like manipulating a keyboard or game-pad, which can be done by just about anyone with hands or manipulating appendages.
I would not be surprised given the state of the US patent department if there is a patent on this even though this methodology is well known and has been around along time. Basically all you have here is a more comfortable?? skull cap and more sensitive selective amplifier. Of course don't forget the software.
You don't give free choice in this matter. If a government organisation decides to do it's own thing contrary to what is being mandated then the rogue department's head is usually found rolling around on the floor. This applies to all Government Departments worldwide except that in some countries the "head rolling around" would be more than a figure of speech.
Standards are designed to work across everything and are agreed on by a respected group people from many different disciplines. In the case of ODF vs OOXML, Microsoft has had it's say (in fact a lot of say) in this this as well. The standard is then Mandated by an appropriate government agency. This can be local (State Government) or worldwide and can cut across all societies.
Well for me 2006 was the year of the Linux desktop (err sometimes server when I want it to be be) and no viruses.
What is sad is most people who look at my machine think I am running MS Windows Vista. I try to inform them otherwise but I have found that walls do seem to listen more.
Does not appear to work with Firefox 2.0.0.1 on Fedora Core 6. Still unless someone can prove that this affects me and I need to upgrade immediately I will upgrade this coming Friday as part of my normal update procedures.
Slashdot Mirror
Well in Australia we can get a Samsung Bluray player for under AU$1000 (approx US$600 if you take into account the 60GB PS3 price in both countries) so the last paragraph of the article is wrong although it could be right saying Sony won't produce a sub US$1000 player till next year but I very much doubt it now that Samsung has produced a sub AU$1000 player. This player will go to 1080p, has HDMI and can do up-scaling for DVD as well. I can even get a BD player/recorder for a PC for approx AU$1300 although BD disks are still not cheap but this is just like DVD prices back in 2000.
The article is not specific on if the Chinese HD-DVD player can upscale and for people with a large DVD collection this can be a deciding factor.
If you read the link at the bottom of the article, Toshiba is taking a very big gamble and one that could hurt it badly. The Bluray consortium is for the moment not going to have the player/recorder made in China but if they feel the pinch they will. This would reduce the price of both BD and HD-DVD but the consumer would still be confused.
The game is not over yet in fact all we have seen is some minor skirmishes.
Excellent informative reply.
./configure. You should see the one generated by "imake" (1000+ lines). What you need to be aware of is what will be installed and where it is going to be installed and this is very easy to do with "make -n install" or just try to install as your non-privileged self (small risk here). Baring that you can always search for "install" in the Makefile and see what it does. It is important to have some Unix programing knowledge here otherwise your security can easily be compromised.
In many ways people have to eventually have some measure of trust for the application they download be it Linux or Unix or even MS Windows. It is very possible to provide an rpm with a valid checksum that contains a nasty surprise however if you compile from source it is normally safer because if you have the knowledge or if you know someone who can you can vet the source but unfortunately this is normally after the fact.
While most people will not look at the source there are a significant few who can and will if there is any suspicion of foul play and many of these people do know how to contact the appropriate authorities. Sill it is most unlikely a black-hat would give out source with a payload since it is too easy to get found out and possibly traced.
For a cracker a binary is much safer and it is even more safer if delivered by a bot or email. Putting malicious code in a repository is risky for the cracker but this does not mean that they won't do it so for the person who downloads a binary from a site the risk even though small is always there.
Rating the risk, any down loadable program source would be the safest followed by a reputable site for rpm's with access to source or even "*.exe" files with source, however you always take a chance downloading binaries be it rpm's or "*.exe" even with checksums. Binaries without a checksum should always be suspect but most people are sometimes to trusting, still if you want to download "flash", "media player", a repo update or even an Microsoft update you have to have some degree of trust that the site is not going to screw you.
From personal experience you can download an rpm and load it into your personal directory however you can do the same with a "*.exe" file if the install program allows you. What makes MS Windows a problem is that while it can be reasonably a secure environment if you know what you are doing most people don't and set themselves up with administrator privileges so that a bad program will cause enormous problems. I have even seen this done on Linux and Unix platforms by people who should know better which is quite worrying, since this could be a portent of things to come. User education is vital here.
As to sudo I have found that unless this managed carefully it can be a major security hole. I personally use "su -" since I am the System Admin and then exit when I have finished.
With regard to a Makefile you don't actually need to read through it especially if it is auto generated by
This is not to say I can not be compromised it just means there is a less likely chance of me being compromised, of course I do have to assume the source code I have compiled does not have something nasty since I am not going to actually look at thousands of lines of code. I can debug code in the case of failure but it is much easier to look for something that works and that is normally an rpm in the case of Linux or a "*.exe" in the case of MS Windows. Of course this does increase the risk.
To sum up the most important thing a user can do do to protect themselves is to become more educated with regard to using a computer be it MS Windows, Linux or Unix (note a Mac is Unix). But this does not mean everyone should become a Senior Systems Admin but they should become aware of the basics. Unless this occurs mall-ware is only going to get worse as crackers look to social engineering (it is actually easier to do this) for their exploits. No one even myself can honestly say they can avoid all explo
Just recently I brought a wireless modem and connected it my ISP's modem. This enabled me to allow my son who is an avid gamer and myself to use my personal laptop and my work laptop without any interference. I actually am wondering why I did not do this sooner since the cost was under AU$90 and it is so flexible. In addition I also use my personal laptop (Linux only) to act as a file-share and backup controller.
What I noticed when using the wireless on our PC's to connect to my router was a few other wireless routers. All you would need is some method of joining each router via wireless and I know this works since I have friends who do this. So you end up with a small network dependent on neighbour cooperation that can easily be used for file-sharing (think videos or music) so you have a reasonably cheap fast "grey" network (one cost upfront then it is free) and an ISP (hopefully secure) Internet connection.
If an ISP is hobbled by government then many subscribers won't notice or feel powerless to do anything but once the government starts to try and control the grey networks everyone notices and this will insure political suicide for any government that tries to propose this. Of course if the grey networks grow you start to have another Internet and things could get interesting since you now have individual householders controlling the infrastructure. Of course I am not holding my breath on this but still it is feasible.
> Running ./configure or make or make install could cause just as large a problem.
./configure and normally make, after which I test the program(s) and then only when I am satisfied tat everything works as it is supposed to will I install the software, even then I will normally only allow installation in /usr/local.
> Do you read through those scripts before running them?
Ok now we are getting into compiling source code and this is not what an normal user would do, even under Unix or Linux much less MS Windows. I can and do on occasions but normally try to get an "rpm" kit (Linux) but I can compile from source.
On Linux/Unix when I get source I always work as a non privileged user (myself). First I read the README then after setting up any parameters and/or environmental variables I run
Do I read through the source the simple answer is no! but if I suspect anything I can. I normally only get source from reputable sites such as Freshmeat and Sourceforge, however for Linux I normally get rpm's from reputable repos. I always check the the source or rpm against it's check-sum. Basically I never install binaries from a non trusted site.
While it is possible to get source for MS Windows programs, compiling it can be a nightmare although this depends on the skills of the person and the compiler used. In the majority of cases many people just download a "setup.exe' and run it. Of course this means that you completely trust the site and the download without any possibility of seeing the source code.
Are you really sure Sony is loosing money on their console?
I know many so called bloggers' and games magazines are stating that with cost breakdowns however if you do some comparisons the write-ups are nearly identical (plagiarism anyone!) and the seem to be concentrating on cost to the public or some badly (IMHO) thought out cost. When you are a large electronics manufacturer and Sony is then your overall costs are going to be much smaller than if you or I walked onto an electronics shop and asked for a particular electronic part.
Consider the Cell chip it has cost US%500M+ to develop this however the cost is actually shared between Sony, IBM and Toshiba, so once you start fabricating it the overall cost is basically the raw materials (mainly silicon on insulator - approx US$1000/30cm diam wafer) and some doping materials (not sure n cost here - can anyone supply this?) plus the overall cost of the fabrication plant (approx US$5M to US$15M) and it's running costs. Providing you are producing millions (and Sony, IBM and Toshiba are) then overall costs/chip are not that expensive. Of course if you increase the yield (ie reduce from 90nm to 65nm) the costs come down dramatically.
Now to Bluray. If you walk into a shop and get a Bluray ROM you are going to pay approx US$10 to US$20 but if you are a games producer who is going to stamp out about one million games then your cost per BD disk is going to be in the US$0.5 to US$1.00 mark (this is very much like the costs associated with DVD's when they first came out).
Now getting back to if Sony is loosing money per console. IMHO I think they are but how much I don't know and only Sony can tell you that and they won't (Lets get real here why should they). To put this in a better perspective the PS2 was initially sold at a loss (it was quite small) and of course all the game writers though they were losing big time (they were wrong) but in a few months Sony was making a profit on every console sold. The only company that lost money big time was Microsoft on their Xbox to the tune of US$5B. Microsoft was willing to loose this amount to get into the lucrative console gaming market.
In Australia the police and emergency vehicles can run a red light providing they do it with care (this can be difficult to define) and only in an emergency which must be logged with their dispatcher or control. If the incident is not logged then the driver is fined, just turning on your siren is no excuse. High speed pursuits are always an issue but do you let the crim's or idiots get away because they speed and/or drive dangerously or try and catch them which entails risk to the public? The debate world wide on this continues.
I know you are trolling but yes. CentOS is great for Development were your System Admins' take care of everything and if you move the machine to production you can get a CentOS or Redhat maintenance contract.
Hmm! the old "Command not found". Well you can try and set your PATH variable but unfortunately that is for more advanced users, so keep reading the IBM articles.
I don't think you can compare MS Vista to HD-DVD and Bluray since with MS Vista you don't really have much choice when you purchase a new computer. With the High Def disks and MS Vista upgrade packs you have a choice if you want to purchase them. In the case of High Def disks it would be rather pointless purchasing them if you don't have a High Def TV (720p or 1080p) and of course a High Def disk player.
Even if you do have a HDTV and a HD player you can still play your older DVD movies so if you see a High Def movie at say $25 and a DVD at $20 you have a choice of which one you want to purchase.
Personally I have found that if you get a HDTV below 100cm (40in) it will be a 720p (1280 × 720 pixels) with most DVD movies displaying well even though you are watching Standard Def TV. Also depending on screen size you may find it hard to tell the difference between HD Disk and DVD on a good quality HDTV and HD player. When the HDTV is larger than 100cm you have the option of 720p or 1080p (1920 × 1080 pixels) and it is here particularly when you get to larger screen sizes that you can see significant differences. Of course you are going to pay much more for a 1080p but if you have the money and many do then why not.
The largest spanner in the HD Disk war is the HD Disk player or even a good quality Amplifier with DVD upscaling. Even some HDTV's can do this but they are more expensive.
Many would say that HD TV's are expensive compared to a tube TV but in a few years you will be hard pressed to actually find a tube TV and even at today's prices a good quality reasonable sized (less than 100cm) LCD or plasma TV can be purchased well below $1000. Again freedom of choice is at work here.
As to why people are purchasing more DVD's to High Def Disk, well they are cheaper and many people have not made the leap to HDTV (small HDTV's don't really count) so many can't see the point yet and the Blueray, HD-DVD war does not help. Still you are free to make a choice.
The actual patent reads like a maths paper with lots of buzzwords. Sorry I try not to to read too much of the patent since the Legal Jargon actually gives me a headache. Maybe that is intentional for all patents. What annoys me is this patent is not really an invention since it defines how their software does something which is not even physical. I suppose the physical aspect occurs when someone is taken to court.
P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2F srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220040230959%22.PGN R.&OS=DN/20040230959&RS=DN/20040230959
Please note I am against software patents in general although I am not against closed source or copyright and trademarks although these can also be a "can of worms". As far as I am concerned this should never be granted as a patent since it is another thing that takes away freedom in programming or even the basic human thinking process. Still if you have money and Patent lawyers on retention I suppose you could patent anything like http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=
The following is the actual patent. http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch- bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=%22warp+d rive%22.TTL.&OS=TTL/
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A comment on the above. http://www.lot49.com/2005/11/patent_issued_for_wa
The following link is when the patent was denied. Hopefully until someone can actually demonstrate a real working drive. http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2006/02/oh
You are right and wrong at the same time.
All PS3 games will be region free, however PS1 and PS2 games will be region locked hence anyone in Europe or Australia/NZ importing a PS3 from the USA or Japan better have PS1 and PS2 NTSC games from those regions otherwise any existing PAL games they have will not play. In case you don't believe me get a PAL PS1 or PS2 game and try to play it on a US NTSC PS2 (unless it is chipped) or the other way around. Can anyone tell me if any of the Grey PS3 importers warned their prospective customers about this? If they didn't then they were doing a great disservice to their customers.
My nephew was in the market for a laptop and I offered him mine at a very good price with 9 months warranty however he did not want Fedora Core 6 (fully updated) even though it would do nearly (could have difficulty playing some Microsoft Games) everything he wanted so I put back the Win XP pro OS. I was not overly surprised since most people (even my relatives) don't know anything but Microsoft so I was not going to argue and this is the reason why I don't get a refund on any MS licenses. Anyway I will use the Fedora Core updates on my new laptop which I hope to get soon.
I made enquiries with regard getting the Vista upgrade (just in case) and while the upgrade CD was free the post and packaging was AU$29. This would not be too bad but the laptop has an AMD dual core 64 bit processor and the MS Vista Business OS was 32 bit, which meant I would have to get the 32 bit OS and then apply to Microsoft for the 64 bit one and most likely pay post and packaging (a possible double hit). What is more annoying is the fact the registered mailing of the laptop cost AU$17. To me it seems that the vendors (including Microsoft) are ripping you off big time. Needless to say I am going to suggest to my nephew that he forgets about MS Vista (he already has heard some horror stories from friends) unless he upgrades his laptop ram from 512MB to at least 1GB and even then if he wants MS Vista he will have to pay for it. I don't think he is going to be disappointed with Win XP Pro though and he will have the recovery DVD's in case his hard disk fails and he has to replace it (type "R" and wait about one hour and forty minutes).
When you purchase a new PC (AMD or Intel) computer in the majority of cases you are going to get a version of MS Vista. Of course what makes this hard is the fact that there are six editions in 32 and 64 bit variants not to mention the extra hardware requirements. Given this complexity (and for many it is) and the fact that MS Windows XP just works (to quote Microsoft) there is no overwhelming need for existing MS Windows users to upgrade. Of course for those people who just have to have the latest MS OS version well it's your money.
Until Linux is commonplace in the Government sector which would cause private enterprise to follow, then and only then will the home user start to adopt Linux. I cannot see this happening anytime soon in the USA, but correct me if I am wrong here since I would love to be proved wrong on this.
Currently Governments in countries like Europe, Asia and China are seriously looking at adopting Linux for a variety of reasons and this is starting the acceptable adoption of Linux, but it will be many years unless certain Government heads push a very courageous decision (commonly called political suicide) to adopt Linux overnight.
Linux adoption is happening but it is slow since MS Windows is so entrenched.
With regard to trying to get your friends and acquaintances to adopt Linux I think this is going to be very frustrating for you. I have tried to get close family to make the switch and while they agree that Linux is excellent they all eventually backslide back to MS Windows, so now I only do full (no dual booting) Linux installs so there is no backsliding. Of course I tell people about this and in the majority of cases they say no (I know all the excuses) which is great so I don't waste my time.
Disk requirements to backup of a 320GB hard drive using a double sided disk (forget about a single sided disk). 1) CD - don't be silly, 2) DVD - 32 minimum, 3) Bluray - 6 minimum, 4) HD-DVD - 10 minimum. I will leave it to you to work out the cost but needless to say it is not going to be cheap. Now lets make it more interesting try backing up 1TB and your costs just went up three fold.
.. etc and stupidity. Sure there is tape (the commercial industry standard) but that is not exactly cheap and neither is HVD (Holographic Versatile Disk) which hopes to replace tape in the fairly foreseeable future.
It does not take much to work out that a CD is great for music, DVD is great for Standard Definition TV while Bluray or HD-DVD are aimed at the rapidly growing High Definition TV market. Using them as a backup media is going to get expensive, especially now that home users' storage requirements are approaching or well past 1TB.
The only viable backup solution for the average home user is to backup to hard disk but this does not take into account fire, flood, theft
So what do we do for home backups? The cheapest solution is a hard disk (or disks) backup system and hope.
I personally have never had any issues with Sony since I have never been forced to purchase their products but I don't think Bluray is going to be much use as a backup medium given the ever increasing storage requirements of the home PC market.
I can got back to 1982 and SUN, SGI and Apollo Domain (it's OS was sort of Unix like) were using high res graphics in the order of better than 1024x1024. They did cost though but when you consider MS-DOS was still tty with just floppy disks and had very few applications these Graphincal Workstations did have their uses especially in areas such as CAD/CAM and visualization.
Well it could have been worse it could have been "Hello Kitty" http://www.exonome.com/fj/phkl/. My eyes my eyes!
You are right on this. Most system Admin's I know (myself included) are fairly weak in network administration and the main reason for that appears to be the growing division between Network administrators and System administrators to the extent that nearly all our *nix tools are effectively blocked so you cannot determine if you have a problem and of course the Network people are adamant that their network is not at fault. This I have found to be especially true in large sites however I have found the reverse is true when the site is smaller.
Back in the 1980's there was no division. The *nix Admin was the Network Admin as well.
> Oh that's right I forgot, ther is no real OSS community anymore
Thats funny I could have sworn I have Fedora Core 6 on my laptop. I better check:
$ uname -a
Linux helios.org.au 2.6.19-1.2911.fc6 #1 SMP Sat Feb 10 15:16:31 EST 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> Yet, ODF is just as patented and closed as OOXML
Really were did you get that from?
If you want some facts it takes 6000 pages to define the so called OOXML standard, compared to 600 pages of the ODF standard (a 10 to 1 ratio). Read into that what you may.
Many corporations buy business software but instead of modeling their business practice on the software methodology they insist on making the software conform to their business practices. Actually this is great for the consultant who can say "please open cheque book and I will tell you when to close it" (SAP is a great example here). If the business did their homework properly and was willing to change their practices to conform to the software they would save a fortune but this rarely happens since many business have people with too much invested interest or shear bloodymindedness and the consultant walks away with a fortune and the business is usually a few million dollars lighter.
It is rare that the consultant gets outsourced since they normally deal face to face with the business, but unfortunately it is all to easy to outsource the programmer. For those interested it is nothing unusual for an SAP consultant to ask and get US$100 to US$300+ per hour and the greater the changes wanted (not necessarily required) the better for the consultant or consulting firm.
Biofeedback has been around for a very long time (I remember reading a popular electronics article about mid 1960's) however instead of training your mind to attain a certain "alpha" rhythm relaxed state you need to have to train your brain "waves" to change very quickly if you want to control a game and that is not easy. There is also quite a big difference between connecting finger clips to connecting a head set which may get quite uncomfortable over extended time. Either way you still need to train your mind to do something and this is not remotely like manipulating a keyboard or game-pad, which can be done by just about anyone with hands or manipulating appendages.
I would not be surprised given the state of the US patent department if there is a patent on this even though this methodology is well known and has been around along time. Basically all you have here is a more comfortable?? skull cap and more sensitive selective amplifier. Of course don't forget the software.
You don't give free choice in this matter. If a government organisation decides to do it's own thing contrary to what is being mandated then the rogue department's head is usually found rolling around on the floor. This applies to all Government Departments worldwide except that in some countries the "head rolling around" would be more than a figure of speech.
Standards are designed to work across everything and are agreed on by a respected group people from many different disciplines. In the case of ODF vs OOXML, Microsoft has had it's say (in fact a lot of say) in this this as well. The standard is then Mandated by an appropriate government agency. This can be local (State Government) or worldwide and can cut across all societies.
Well for me 2006 was the year of the Linux desktop (err sometimes server when I want it to be be) and no viruses.
What is sad is most people who look at my machine think I am running MS Windows Vista. I try to inform them otherwise but I have found that walls do seem to listen more.
Does not appear to work with Firefox 2.0.0.1 on Fedora Core 6. Still unless someone can prove that this affects me and I need to upgrade immediately I will upgrade this coming Friday as part of my normal update procedures.