Yes, every joe six pack, who happens to run that cd that says something along the lines of "run this cd before doing anything else", will be given step by step easy to follow, very clear instructions on how to plug in the router, attach network cables, set up wireless access, and secure the wireless connection.
I've either owned, or had room mates/family own Dell's, HP/Compaq's, Toshiba's, and most recently an LG, first one I've ever worked with. Fresh out of the box, none of them ever automatically connected to either of my wireless networks (parents ADSL connection and my cable connection). Now I've never had the pleasure of owning a brand new IBM/Lenovo, I'd never touch an Acer laptop, so I cannot vouche for 100% of the more common vendors out there, but I personally have never encountered this out of the box.
Being 'forced' into XP due to my love of games, my primary machines have always ran it since SP1 release, even then, I used pre SP1 xp, and gradually upgraded from there. I have been using wireless since wireless B hardware became cheap enough (the 70~ dollar CAD for a NIC range) for my then after school job would allow me to afford. Never once, has windows automatically connected to the most powerful random network unless I had the AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT TO NON-PREFERRED NETWORKS box selected under the advanced properties for wireless networks. If there is no preferred network, it merely tells me some are in range, and asks me to select one if I choose to. This is how it's been since day one, that box has never been checked by default after any fresh installation either.
I'm sorry, but in this day and age the 'I don't know how to lock it' cop out just won't fly any more. Every joe six pack runs that stupid cd that comes with the router, and it guides them through, step by step, VERY CLEARLY, how to configure, AND SECURE their router. Most of the technology illiterate in my condo complexes have their routers on WPA, a few on WEP, some even realized that not broadcasting the SSID helps out as well. The one network out of ten in range of my house that is sitting at factory defaults is a cheap-o network everywhere, it likes to eat DHCP assignments randomly, and stop all connections for an hour here and there. I'm sure the router is a piece of garbage, and that's why the owners don't bother. Even my router is left open for that reason, I have to set the damn thing to factory defaults about once a month, even then, I cannot actually turn on any encryption because the firmware sucks (and is fully updated). Also, I don't really care if someone jumps on my network to check email, or download crap, hell, there's a random xbox 360 that connects from time to time, I just wish I could find out when they're playing halo so I can start up a random lan game and hope they connect.
Personally, I wish I had looked into this before it was discontinued. However I'm just hearing about it now, I know, I suck, whatever, what I'd love is a local version. I install the backend on my primary desktop and my other machines sync from there. I often find myself browsing 10+ tabs on one machine, only to want to go sit outside for a while, bringing the laptop and spending half the time picking up where I left off. I know VNC would work, but it's sorta cumbersome, and terrible with media. So what I want is something that syncs cookies, bookmarks, currently open URL's, passwords, forms, hell, even history in case I need to go back through something.
Actually you CAN get better game hands by exiting and restarting freecell. You don't -have- to open and close it, you can just hit F2 or select new game. If you look in the title bar it will say FreeCell Game #(1-100000). It only has 1000000 possible games, so if they restart FreeCell it changes to one of those hands, some being easier than others. Alternatively they could just write down one of their favorite hands and press F3 to enter said hand number.
Oh, I've played FreeCell maybe.. three times in my life, and that was on win95.
A couple years ago when 720p plasma tv's came out, we picked up a cheap one. My room mates and i discovered it's VGA port in the back. Instantly we had turned it into a monitor. 1024x768 never looked so good. It's not a -really- high resolution, but most of the games we were playing at the time looked pretty good on it. That was a 42 inch cheap-o brand plasma.
Then we upgraded to a 58 inch, name brand that does 1080p. 1920x1080 resolution is -more- than most laptops native display. Example: mine is currently at 1280x800. If anything, games weren't meant to run at that resolution. They mentioned DVI, so it's safe to assume they aren't going to be using an old s-video cable like we all did in 1997. Combined with a good home theatre setup, and a laptop with SPDIF output, why WOULDN'T you want to use your tv?
If you want a fun controller, play Steel Battalion for the X-Box. One controller for ONE game (two if you count the sequel) trumps everything else ever.
Excellent post, I hope my service provider doesn't take action towards the same. I use Rogers in Canada, it's 15 cents to send a text message, free to receive, 25 cents for an MMS message, free to receive. Something like an extra 25 dollars a month over and above my regular plan gives me voicemail, call id, whocalled, unlimited text messaging, and 2500 mms messages, 5mb of mobile data I have never once approached using all of thanks to opera mini, and some other stuff I cannot remember. It seems AT&T is just profiteering from those who think it is un-necessary to have an unlimited sms package. But.. you've already explained all that:).
I never would have found this out if you hadn't mentioned something. While I do download a lot of music in mp3 format, and at 128kbps, I do try my damnedest to find flac and ogg rips of things instead. I don't own very high end sound equipment, but even on what I own I can honestly tell the difference between said encryptions, and to hear that producers are actually going to CATER to users of higher compression, thus, crappier sound quality, is pretty enraging.
If I had mod points, I'd mod this up. Every time I've looked at the billboard top 100 hits of whatever year, it seems that music died in 2001, and had been on it's last legs for a while. Now it's slim pickings through manufactured trash to find anything worth holding on to in the 'mainstream' of music. There will always be independent artists to count on at least, they're just harder to discover.
And you're not even kidding. It takes less time to use your exiting XP home/pro cd to install windows, and just download the drivers you need from HP's site than it does to take to restore the HDD image from -3- DVD's. Besides, they bundle wild tangent products in their install, so, I tossed that install the instant I bought an HP. It now dual boots XP Pro and Ubuntu 7.10 64bit. Quite pleased with the machine, except the LCD panel is pretty shoddy and filled with dead pixels through light wear.
I run Ubuntu 7.10 on my HP, and have a fresh install of XP pro sp2. The HDD access light is blinking constanly under windows, while sitting idle at the desktop. I can hear the HDD being accessed all the time too, plugged in or not. Under Ubuntu the HDD access light never lights up while sitting idle until the screensaver kicks in, then it's for a quick flicker. Plugged in or not. Ubuntu gives me better battery life, almost double of what windows does (approx 45m to an hour with windows, almost two hours with ubuntu) with power settings all set to leave everything running, backlight full on, ect. So I personally think, Windows is gonna pack this drive in before Ubuntu does.
Funny that you mention a hinge breaking not being covered by warranty. My room mate leaves his machine on a desk, and in a bag when moving it anywhere. One day he opened it, the hinge jammed, and the plastic outer casing is now broken around the left hinge. HP refuses to fix it claiming it's abuse that caused it.
I'll drink to that, the broadcom card in my HP is useless under Ubuntu. I've even tried ndiswrapper a million times and finally gave up and went with an old WPC11v4 I had laying around.
Actually most of those characters started in the 8bit era of gaming. So was Sonic actually, with the first Sonic the Hedgehog game being on the Master System and Game Gear.
I'm in pretty much that exact boat. I have a P4 1.4ghz OC'd to 1.8ghz with stock cooling, no real difference in temperature, 768mb of ram, an ok video card; radeon 9550 256mb, the few games I do play on pc it runs amazingly. Basically the only short coming was the 40gb drive it used to have. I've since put just over 500gb worth of drive into it, and have no intentions of givin' that machine up. When I'm not doing my day to day activities on it, it's playing mp3's.
If China makes it there first (or anyone else for that matter) I'm sure they're going to shoot for relatively close to the first moon landing site. It will finally put an end to the question "Did the USA really reach the moon?" If the US makes it first, and they never really did in the 60s, they're going to make it look like they really did and finally be able to say "well, we have proof now!"
If China makes it, you -know- they'll pride themselves in proving that the US didn't make it there after all.
As far as I know (as a canadian, i'm only able to go on what others have said) the iPhone refuses AT&T sim's that are on prepaid. I don't know how that works, because the SIM would still be at&t branded.. When activating a phone at my store, prepaid or otherwise, we just grab from a pile of sim cards. Prepaid or postpaid makes no difference in the sim, so I really don't get how it's doing it:|
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Yes, every joe six pack, who happens to run that cd that says something along the lines of "run this cd before doing anything else", will be given step by step easy to follow, very clear instructions on how to plug in the router, attach network cables, set up wireless access, and secure the wireless connection.
I've either owned, or had room mates/family own Dell's, HP/Compaq's, Toshiba's, and most recently an LG, first one I've ever worked with. Fresh out of the box, none of them ever automatically connected to either of my wireless networks (parents ADSL connection and my cable connection). Now I've never had the pleasure of owning a brand new IBM/Lenovo, I'd never touch an Acer laptop, so I cannot vouche for 100% of the more common vendors out there, but I personally have never encountered this out of the box.
Being 'forced' into XP due to my love of games, my primary machines have always ran it since SP1 release, even then, I used pre SP1 xp, and gradually upgraded from there. I have been using wireless since wireless B hardware became cheap enough (the 70~ dollar CAD for a NIC range) for my then after school job would allow me to afford. Never once, has windows automatically connected to the most powerful random network unless I had the AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT TO NON-PREFERRED NETWORKS box selected under the advanced properties for wireless networks. If there is no preferred network, it merely tells me some are in range, and asks me to select one if I choose to. This is how it's been since day one, that box has never been checked by default after any fresh installation either.
I'm sorry, but in this day and age the 'I don't know how to lock it' cop out just won't fly any more. Every joe six pack runs that stupid cd that comes with the router, and it guides them through, step by step, VERY CLEARLY, how to configure, AND SECURE their router. Most of the technology illiterate in my condo complexes have their routers on WPA, a few on WEP, some even realized that not broadcasting the SSID helps out as well. The one network out of ten in range of my house that is sitting at factory defaults is a cheap-o network everywhere, it likes to eat DHCP assignments randomly, and stop all connections for an hour here and there. I'm sure the router is a piece of garbage, and that's why the owners don't bother. Even my router is left open for that reason, I have to set the damn thing to factory defaults about once a month, even then, I cannot actually turn on any encryption because the firmware sucks (and is fully updated). Also, I don't really care if someone jumps on my network to check email, or download crap, hell, there's a random xbox 360 that connects from time to time, I just wish I could find out when they're playing halo so I can start up a random lan game and hope they connect.
Personally, I wish I had looked into this before it was discontinued. However I'm just hearing about it now, I know, I suck, whatever, what I'd love is a local version. I install the backend on my primary desktop and my other machines sync from there. I often find myself browsing 10+ tabs on one machine, only to want to go sit outside for a while, bringing the laptop and spending half the time picking up where I left off. I know VNC would work, but it's sorta cumbersome, and terrible with media. So what I want is something that syncs cookies, bookmarks, currently open URL's, passwords, forms, hell, even history in case I need to go back through something.
Actually you CAN get better game hands by exiting and restarting freecell. You don't -have- to open and close it, you can just hit F2 or select new game. If you look in the title bar it will say FreeCell Game #(1-100000). It only has 1000000 possible games, so if they restart FreeCell it changes to one of those hands, some being easier than others. Alternatively they could just write down one of their favorite hands and press F3 to enter said hand number. Oh, I've played FreeCell maybe.. three times in my life, and that was on win95.
MSN Messenger V5.0 for Windows 95 is still available for download from microsoft.com, and it works just fine on a machine running win 95 and 98.
A couple years ago when 720p plasma tv's came out, we picked up a cheap one. My room mates and i discovered it's VGA port in the back. Instantly we had turned it into a monitor. 1024x768 never looked so good. It's not a -really- high resolution, but most of the games we were playing at the time looked pretty good on it. That was a 42 inch cheap-o brand plasma. Then we upgraded to a 58 inch, name brand that does 1080p. 1920x1080 resolution is -more- than most laptops native display. Example: mine is currently at 1280x800. If anything, games weren't meant to run at that resolution. They mentioned DVI, so it's safe to assume they aren't going to be using an old s-video cable like we all did in 1997. Combined with a good home theatre setup, and a laptop with SPDIF output, why WOULDN'T you want to use your tv?
Slightly offtopic, although on topic too.. But the B-52s recently released an album.
She accepted, and laid a firm beat down. I destroyed her at mariokart 64 though.. yeah!
Actually, it wasn't months ago.. apparently it was years ago: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/01/159241/
Is it just me.... or.... did I read the same article on /. a few months back?
If you want a fun controller, play Steel Battalion for the X-Box. One controller for ONE game (two if you count the sequel) trumps everything else ever.
Excellent post, I hope my service provider doesn't take action towards the same. I use Rogers in Canada, it's 15 cents to send a text message, free to receive, 25 cents for an MMS message, free to receive. Something like an extra 25 dollars a month over and above my regular plan gives me voicemail, call id, whocalled, unlimited text messaging, and 2500 mms messages, 5mb of mobile data I have never once approached using all of thanks to opera mini, and some other stuff I cannot remember. It seems AT&T is just profiteering from those who think it is un-necessary to have an unlimited sms package. But.. you've already explained all that :).
I never would have found this out if you hadn't mentioned something. While I do download a lot of music in mp3 format, and at 128kbps, I do try my damnedest to find flac and ogg rips of things instead. I don't own very high end sound equipment, but even on what I own I can honestly tell the difference between said encryptions, and to hear that producers are actually going to CATER to users of higher compression, thus, crappier sound quality, is pretty enraging.
If I had mod points, I'd mod this up. Every time I've looked at the billboard top 100 hits of whatever year, it seems that music died in 2001, and had been on it's last legs for a while. Now it's slim pickings through manufactured trash to find anything worth holding on to in the 'mainstream' of music. There will always be independent artists to count on at least, they're just harder to discover.
And you're not even kidding. It takes less time to use your exiting XP home/pro cd to install windows, and just download the drivers you need from HP's site than it does to take to restore the HDD image from -3- DVD's. Besides, they bundle wild tangent products in their install, so, I tossed that install the instant I bought an HP. It now dual boots XP Pro and Ubuntu 7.10 64bit. Quite pleased with the machine, except the LCD panel is pretty shoddy and filled with dead pixels through light wear.
I run Ubuntu 7.10 on my HP, and have a fresh install of XP pro sp2. The HDD access light is blinking constanly under windows, while sitting idle at the desktop. I can hear the HDD being accessed all the time too, plugged in or not. Under Ubuntu the HDD access light never lights up while sitting idle until the screensaver kicks in, then it's for a quick flicker. Plugged in or not. Ubuntu gives me better battery life, almost double of what windows does (approx 45m to an hour with windows, almost two hours with ubuntu) with power settings all set to leave everything running, backlight full on, ect. So I personally think, Windows is gonna pack this drive in before Ubuntu does.
Funny that you mention a hinge breaking not being covered by warranty. My room mate leaves his machine on a desk, and in a bag when moving it anywhere. One day he opened it, the hinge jammed, and the plastic outer casing is now broken around the left hinge. HP refuses to fix it claiming it's abuse that caused it.
I'll drink to that, the broadcom card in my HP is useless under Ubuntu. I've even tried ndiswrapper a million times and finally gave up and went with an old WPC11v4 I had laying around.
Actually most of those characters started in the 8bit era of gaming. So was Sonic actually, with the first Sonic the Hedgehog game being on the Master System and Game Gear.
Hey! She'll make point five past light speed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts..
I'm in pretty much that exact boat. I have a P4 1.4ghz OC'd to 1.8ghz with stock cooling, no real difference in temperature, 768mb of ram, an ok video card; radeon 9550 256mb, the few games I do play on pc it runs amazingly. Basically the only short coming was the 40gb drive it used to have. I've since put just over 500gb worth of drive into it, and have no intentions of givin' that machine up. When I'm not doing my day to day activities on it, it's playing mp3's.
If China makes it there first (or anyone else for that matter) I'm sure they're going to shoot for relatively close to the first moon landing site. It will finally put an end to the question "Did the USA really reach the moon?" If the US makes it first, and they never really did in the 60s, they're going to make it look like they really did and finally be able to say "well, we have proof now!"
If China makes it, you -know- they'll pride themselves in proving that the US didn't make it there after all.
As far as I know (as a canadian, i'm only able to go on what others have said) the iPhone refuses AT&T sim's that are on prepaid. I don't know how that works, because the SIM would still be at&t branded.. When activating a phone at my store, prepaid or otherwise, we just grab from a pile of sim cards. Prepaid or postpaid makes no difference in the sim, so I really don't get how it's doing it :|