Only thing that makes a iPod or laptop battery cost more is the weird packaging it it is in.
You said "Batteries are often as finely crafted to voltage and current ratings that mean that you may be hard pressed to find replacements for certain products that don't match the ratings of the device."
This isn't really true. All that a laptop needs for functioning is a battery that is the same voltage. It CAN be a higher AMP hour rating because that is just that...a rating. A higher one is actually better because it usualy means the battery will last longer, but still be chargeable by the circuit thats built in. Laptop batteries are just chruned out....sometimes as a afterthought. Only exception to this are manufacturers who are trying to eek out every ounce of power out of the battery....except that they do this with circuitry built into the device usually Although I see a disturbing trend that some manufacturers are starting to include chips....IN THE BATTERY! Just like inkjet carts! I wonder how much longer it will be til iPods and then laptops will follow the razor blade theory that inkjets already do?
OK....the recording he has obviously must be made up huh? Considering how tiny iPods are, I would not be the least bit surprised that it would cost Apple this much to replace the battery. Consider this as well: MOST PEOPLE do not surf the web 24 hrs a day and don't miss a thing like yourself! He very well may not have heard about the policy until after he had his site up. While the "journalist" obviously did not do his research well enough, Casey did not do his either. IN any case, 99 bucks for replacing a 49 dollar battery Even if you paid the tech 20 bucks an hour, it probably only took 20 minutes.....figure they make about 20 bucks per replacement. Even at the 99 price, this is way too much to do something that if the design had been better, would be doable by a user.
Um, the iPaq has not had one for a while. Since about the 3800 or 3900 series. The 3600 did not have a replaceable battery. There were just as many people that were upset about this as there were iPoders. Compaq (before HP bought them) rediesigned it and ever since the iPaq has had a replaceable battery. At least the ones that work with the sleeves do. Not sure about the 1900 series. The iPaq itself is testament that a cool design can be done that has a user replaceable battery. For the iPod, I see that they COULD rediesign it and make the face a bit larger and the shell on back smaller. put a seam on the side and in that have a small slot. They could make the battery spring loaded or something. Either that or add a cover over the internals and add a small, unnoticeable screw (the user replaceable battery screw!:D ) Make it easier to replace the battery.
Others are right. If Apple doesn't fix this, I am sure that Creative or Sonic Blue or even RCA (with the Lyra line) will create a just as small unit, for half the cost, with a replaceable battery. I almost said that they have already, but I checked both sites and none of these have a user replaceable battery. The company that does it first will have the new device that is the coolest. Sure, devices with more drive space may come out and some people may want them, but my music collection all fits in about 5 Gigs. I will end up buying an external harddrive with firewire and USB 2.0 before I end up upgrading my Zen. The reason that is is because I just got my miniDV Camcorder (which while not the best model, is still pretty awesome....firewire worked like a charm! Could even control the device via the computer software.) and I would like to store the DVD images I will create and be able to take them to work as well as using it to shuttle work data back and forth!:D 20 GIGS worth of MP3 is alot for most of us who remained legal (ie did not download music incesantly from Napster, Kazaa, GNUtella or whatever).
Amen to that. It just reminded me about Wild, Wild West with Will Smith. The only thing good about that movie was the remake of the Wild, Wild West song and even it was not great.
Yes but my point is that 64 bit is not the end all be all just like 32 bit processors were not. There will always be apps that need more bits and apps that peform better with more bits. Eventually, 64 bits won't be enough and we'll need 128 bits for some things. The fact is that today 64 bit technology isn't for eveyone. If it was, then we'd all be running Alpha's now.
Why? Because say if I buy a non hollywood movie in another region. If it uses region coding, I can't play it at home. Say if a European buys BOTH their DVD player and some discs here and take it back with them. They can buy new discs that work in thier country. PAL/NTSC is not really a huge issue here. Region coding is stupid.
I have had a 64 bit AIX machine running for a while with the 64 bit kernel. While I have not really had the load yet to test it, I and many others in the AIX realm don't necessarily think that 64 bit is going to increase performance. How do you test a performance increase when it only increases by a few nanoseconds??
64 bit is all about memory addresability. You can directly address more memory on a 64 bit machine then you can a 32 bit machine. Period. When you would like to get the best performance you can out of your RDBMS, most shops like to load as much of the DB as they can into memory. DB's are getting larger then 4 GB now!:) So, the need for more memory is upon us.
BillG said 640 KB out to be enough for anyone..ha ha Bill. Very funny.
That depends. His father would probably be OK with it. For those who need to do CMYK separations for really high quality print jobs, then the GIMP won't do. It works fine for me though and it's what I use. I think I heard the Gimp is supposed to have these in the 2.0 version.
Yeah thats a good point. There's no room to add comments to the registry even if the programmer wanted to. I have never really needed a man file to read/edit any/etc/*.conf file as it's documentation is right there. Come to think of it, AIX's ODM also hase that issue, but the layout of the ODM is easy enough to understand once you learn the acronyms. I guess the same can be said about the registry except soem programs can put some pretty wacky stuff in their entry.
I just had a Windows programmer/sysadmin type tell me that all he does is play with the program in question until he figures out how it works. He told me that help files are useless. I on the other hand live by the documentation and everything better damn well be documented or I ain't trying it.....not on my production system. I don't mean the easy stuff either. the more touchy something is, the more I want to read befor I attempt it. Man pages can and do suck, but everyone I have come across pointed me in the right direction. Windows likes to hide things even from the programmer. I don't think thats a correct way even if your writing a program focusing on the end user. If something goes wrong, how do you track it down?
The registry would not be as bad as it is if it was better documented. I know I know....if you subscribe to MSDN or some other microsoft money scheme, you can read the documentation. Well, users should have access to that if they so want.
Things like this is why OS/X does well on both fronts. You don't HAVE to look at the commandline ever if your just using it. If you want to write a little script or automate something, the command line is there if you need it. Microsoft on the other hand went so far as to say that Windows ME had no access to the DOS prompt, yet with in a minute of installing it, I had a DOS prompt.
I happen also to disagree with this guy that UNIX programmers typically write a command line program first. Some do, but I have seen others which are useless without a GUI program.
Commandline is valued because you can take different command line programs and pipe it here, append to a file there and have a script or program that does what the original writers of each module never dreamed. There's something to be said for that!
Just one tiny example where the UNIX way ends up being better for users:
The gpsd project is a project that takes the gps data collected by a serial port and makes it availble not just to apps running on the local machine, but also across a network. The advantage is that if you have programs wrote to work with gpsd, you can use MULTIPLE map programs at the same time each showing your current position. You don't have to juggle the serial port between 2-3 programs if you use one map program because of one reason and another map program for another reason. This has not even been dreamt of yet on Windows and the only way to accomplish it on Windows is using 2 GPS's each on their own serial port. To make the data available to any application that want/needs it, you just configure the daemon to look at the serial port your GPS is connected to and then other programs can get the data from the daemon instead of the serial port.
UNIX programmers program to work around limitations in the platform and are able to make the platform do what they want to do. Windows programmers will just say that it's not possible or Microsoft does not support it. UNIX programmers say: Nonsense! You are a programmer right? Then write a program or API that does what you want. Some say that this is a weakness, but I say it's a strength that makes UNIX a tool that actually makes it easy to make it do what you want. Some users don't want or need this kind of power, so they are happy with Windows. The ones that need it turn to Linux or UNIX.
Also has the ability to interfere with alot more service including your TV. There are better ways to bring broadband to the rural areas. One example is getting the LEC's to friggin upgrade the rural cable plant!!! It is not hard but because there are not alot of people in rural areas, it's not a priority for cable companies or phone companies. Once the cost goes way down, the rural communities will get it....and we'll have something better. BPL would not bring the internet to anyone who does not have power so that would probably not help remote areas like africa and such. Satellite CAN be better in all respects. Also, most powerlines have limited shielding and power companies are notorius for not upgrading cable plants as well. If it works, don't screw with it.
Re:My NOC is 66 square feet,3TB of traffic
on
Build Your Own NOC
·
· Score: 1
Well, if you need more then your typical office air condition in your NOC, then you have way too many things in there. A NOC should not ALSO contain your servers. They should be in a computer room. The NOC does typically need more wiring then another office though mainly because of the monitoring machines you have running all of the time. These could be servers, but they don't have to be. A NOC could simply be setup with low walled cubes and a PC running a large display filling it with info your servers and switches are reporting back to you. Those large plasma's better be showing good info otherwise everything you could see just fine on your own machine. It would also be nice to have a lab near the NOC, but labs don't need anything more then a rack in a office environment. You shouldn't typically have more then maybe 5 to 10 servers in your lab anyway.
NOC's can be useful, but I have seen more of these that were just setup for blikenlights and not any more useful then giving all of the NetOPS their own machine with a couple monitors running a dual head setup.
Now we can be rest assured this guy won't come to power again. I can't imagine a better day for our armed forces short of the day they all go home. Good job guys!
NO system is invulnerable. I will agree that most UNIX systems are not as vulnerable as a windows machine, but to be so arrogant as to say the OS/X exploit he states in the article is insignificant is full of baloney. ANY vulnerability no matter how insignificant is bad. Every OS has vulnerabilites. Get over it.
That much is true, BUT not having any security on the AP is still a very bad idea. First off, enterprising idividuals could also just use the AP for a quick deathmatch. Trust me....not securing it...even if you have it segmented, it a BAD idea.
Security at the AP IS needed. First, if there's no security built into the AP, anyone can get on your network. It's like putting a Ethernet jack on your unsecured front porch or even worse....at the mailbox. Sure they may not be able to get to your servers, but they still can steal bandwidth from your applications.
Second, anything that is broadcast over the air can be picked up and recorded. If it's not encrypted, you run the risk of letting anything you do on your WiFi. They don't even have to connect to your AP....they could just fire up the laptop with the WiFi card in promiscuous mode and scan away. I agree with you that cc numbers and really important things SHOULD be encrypted befor sent, but personally, I really don't want just anyone else knowing what websites I go to even though I do have nothing to hide.
Lastly, even if you did have some security built into the AP (even if your using something more then WEP), I'd still require a VPN to get to the internal network. As it is, AP's probably don't have the horsepower to do user authentication plus you probably already have LDAP or something else internally for authentication. Plus adding the VPN as a requirement for WiFi users also adds another layer of security.
Sysadmin's only have what they are given. If the developer can't convey the setup information correctly, then we can't isntall it correctly. You have System Admins because we care about the stuff you don't. Developers typically don't care much about system config until their app all of a sudden needs an extra 20 GB of space. You told us you only needed 10 Gb and now you need more? That's YOUR problem especially when we don't have the extra 20 Gb to give you. Developers now, unfortunately, don't have much of a concept on what it takes to support the OS or the DB. They take it for granted when it works. When it gets in their way they bitch even when it's their fault. Oh the developers that know their shit I hear, but when I hear a developer bitch about getting a new PC....well, I have no sympathy. You as a developer should know the specifics of teh system your writing on. Just saying I need an extra 20 GB of space ain't going to make an extra disk fall into our laps.
Yeah I don't get hoaxes either...I just get a link to the same damn jpeg. e-card or whatever time and time again. I would use the tactic that someone earlier in this thread did, but then I like these people when they e-mail me other things. Most times they can't think of anything I would like to know (like simply hey we did this or that for Thanksgiving and we bought a new card and blah blah blah) and they decided well I'll just forward this chain letter or this "humorous" image. Usually it's something I had seen about 5 times or more (and usualy on a web page). The Hoax crap I hardly ever see (cuz I also forwarded the snopes link and talked to them and asked them if they really thought microsoft can trace how many times a e-mail has been forwarded or if a famous restaurant would send e-mail from yahoo.com. After a while, they, like me, finally get that e-mail, and computers, are not sophisticated enough to do 90 percent of the hoax things and that snopes is a good web site for the ones like the HIV needle thing.
This looks like the named them to me (at least the Gaussians). Personally, I don't know if I want to be known for finding the signal. Jodi Foster's character sure got alot of negative attention in Contact.
Slashdot Mirror
Only thing that makes a iPod or laptop battery cost more is the weird packaging it it is in.
You said "Batteries are often as finely crafted to voltage and current ratings that mean that you may be hard pressed to find replacements for certain products that don't match the ratings of the device."
This isn't really true. All that a laptop needs for functioning is a battery that is the same voltage. It CAN be a higher AMP hour rating because that is just that...a rating. A higher one is actually better because it usualy means the battery will last longer, but still be chargeable by the circuit thats built in. Laptop batteries are just chruned out....sometimes as a afterthought. Only exception to this are manufacturers who are trying to eek out every ounce of power out of the battery....except that they do this with circuitry built into the device usually Although I see a disturbing trend that some manufacturers are starting to include chips....IN THE BATTERY! Just like inkjet carts! I wonder how much longer it will be til iPods and then laptops will follow the razor blade theory that inkjets already do?
OK....the recording he has obviously must be made up huh? Considering how tiny iPods are, I would not be the least bit surprised that it would cost Apple this much to replace the battery. Consider this as well: MOST PEOPLE do not surf the web 24 hrs a day and don't miss a thing like yourself! He very well may not have heard about the policy until after he had his site up. While the "journalist" obviously did not do his research well enough, Casey did not do his either. IN any case, 99 bucks for replacing a 49 dollar battery Even if you paid the tech 20 bucks an hour, it probably only took 20 minutes.....figure they make about 20 bucks per replacement. Even at the 99 price, this is way too much to do something that if the design had been better, would be doable by a user.
Um, the iPaq has not had one for a while. Since about the 3800 or 3900 series. The 3600 did not have a replaceable battery. There were just as many people that were upset about this as there were iPoders. Compaq (before HP bought them) rediesigned it and ever since the iPaq has had a replaceable battery. At least the ones that work with the sleeves do. Not sure about the 1900 series. The iPaq itself is testament that a cool design can be done that has a user replaceable battery. For the iPod, I see that they COULD rediesign it and make the face a bit larger and the shell on back smaller. put a seam on the side and in that have a small slot. They could make the battery spring loaded or something. Either that or add a cover over the internals and add a small, unnoticeable screw (the user replaceable battery screw! :D ) Make it easier to replace the battery.
:D 20 GIGS worth of MP3 is alot for most of us who remained legal (ie did not download music incesantly from Napster, Kazaa, GNUtella or whatever).
Others are right. If Apple doesn't fix this, I am sure that Creative or Sonic Blue or even RCA (with the Lyra line) will create a just as small unit, for half the cost, with a replaceable battery. I almost said that they have already, but I checked both sites and none of these have a user replaceable battery. The company that does it first will have the new device that is the coolest. Sure, devices with more drive space may come out and some people may want them, but my music collection all fits in about 5 Gigs. I will end up buying an external harddrive with firewire and USB 2.0 before I end up upgrading my Zen. The reason that is is because I just got my miniDV Camcorder (which while not the best model, is still pretty awesome....firewire worked like a charm! Could even control the device via the computer software.) and I would like to store the DVD images I will create and be able to take them to work as well as using it to shuttle work data back and forth!
Amen to that. It just reminded me about Wild, Wild West with Will Smith. The only thing good about that movie was the remake of the Wild, Wild West song and even it was not great.
Yes but my point is that 64 bit is not the end all be all just like 32 bit processors were not. There will always be apps that need more bits and apps that peform better with more bits. Eventually, 64 bits won't be enough and we'll need 128 bits for some things. The fact is that today 64 bit technology isn't for eveyone. If it was, then we'd all be running Alpha's now.
Why? Because say if I buy a non hollywood movie in another region. If it uses region coding, I can't play it at home. Say if a European buys BOTH their DVD player and some discs here and take it back with them. They can buy new discs that work in thier country. PAL/NTSC is not really a huge issue here. Region coding is stupid.
I have had a 64 bit AIX machine running for a while with the 64 bit kernel. While I have not really had the load yet to test it, I and many others in the AIX realm don't necessarily think that 64 bit is going to increase performance. How do you test a performance increase when it only increases by a few nanoseconds??
:) So, the need for more memory is upon us.
64 bit is all about memory addresability. You can directly address more memory on a 64 bit machine then you can a 32 bit machine. Period. When you would like to get the best performance you can out of your RDBMS, most shops like to load as much of the DB as they can into memory. DB's are getting larger then 4 GB now!
BillG said 640 KB out to be enough for anyone..ha ha Bill. Very funny.
That depends. His father would probably be OK with it. For those who need to do CMYK separations for really high quality print jobs, then the GIMP won't do. It works fine for me though and it's what I use. I think I heard the Gimp is supposed to have these in the 2.0 version.
Yeah thats a good point. There's no room to add comments to the registry even if the programmer wanted to. I have never really needed a man file to read/edit any /etc/*.conf file as it's documentation is right there. Come to think of it, AIX's ODM also hase that issue, but the layout of the ODM is easy enough to understand once you learn the acronyms. I guess the same can be said about the registry except soem programs can put some pretty wacky stuff in their entry.
THANKS! :) Althought am I the only one who did not think that Winamp 3 wasn't that bad? Well, except for the bloat?
Unless you use CDex. Then it does not bother you as much! ;)
I just had a Windows programmer/sysadmin type tell me that all he does is play with the program in question until he figures out how it works. He told me that help files are useless. I on the other hand live by the documentation and everything better damn well be documented or I ain't trying it.....not on my production system. I don't mean the easy stuff either. the more touchy something is, the more I want to read befor I attempt it. Man pages can and do suck, but everyone I have come across pointed me in the right direction. Windows likes to hide things even from the programmer. I don't think thats a correct way even if your writing a program focusing on the end user. If something goes wrong, how do you track it down?
The registry would not be as bad as it is if it was better documented. I know I know....if you subscribe to MSDN or some other microsoft money scheme, you can read the documentation. Well, users should have access to that if they so want.
Things like this is why OS/X does well on both fronts. You don't HAVE to look at the commandline ever if your just using it. If you want to write a little script or automate something, the command line is there if you need it. Microsoft on the other hand went so far as to say that Windows ME had no access to the DOS prompt, yet with in a minute of installing it, I had a DOS prompt.
I happen also to disagree with this guy that UNIX programmers typically write a command line program first. Some do, but I have seen others which are useless without a GUI program.
Commandline is valued because you can take different command line programs and pipe it here, append to a file there and have a script or program that does what the original writers of each module never dreamed. There's something to be said for that!
Just one tiny example where the UNIX way ends up being better for users:
The gpsd project is a project that takes the gps data collected by a serial port and makes it availble not just to apps running on the local machine, but also across a network. The advantage is that if you have programs wrote to work with gpsd, you can use MULTIPLE map programs at the same time each showing your current position. You don't have to juggle the serial port between 2-3 programs if you use one map program because of one reason and another map program for another reason. This has not even been dreamt of yet on Windows and the only way to accomplish it on Windows is using 2 GPS's each on their own serial port. To make the data available to any application that want/needs it, you just configure the daemon to look at the serial port your GPS is connected to and then other programs can get the data from the daemon instead of the serial port.
UNIX programmers program to work around limitations in the platform and are able to make the platform do what they want to do. Windows programmers will just say that it's not possible or Microsoft does not support it. UNIX programmers say: Nonsense! You are a programmer right? Then write a program or API that does what you want. Some say that this is a weakness, but I say it's a strength that makes UNIX a tool that actually makes it easy to make it do what you want. Some users don't want or need this kind of power, so they are happy with Windows. The ones that need it turn to Linux or UNIX.
Don't we all. Somehow, I think my wife may not like the price of that! :D
Also has the ability to interfere with alot more service including your TV. There are better ways to bring broadband to the rural areas. One example is getting the LEC's to friggin upgrade the rural cable plant!!! It is not hard but because there are not alot of people in rural areas, it's not a priority for cable companies or phone companies. Once the cost goes way down, the rural communities will get it....and we'll have something better. BPL would not bring the internet to anyone who does not have power so that would probably not help remote areas like africa and such. Satellite CAN be better in all respects. Also, most powerlines have limited shielding and power companies are notorius for not upgrading cable plants as well. If it works, don't screw with it.
Well, if you need more then your typical office air condition in your NOC, then you have way too many things in there. A NOC should not ALSO contain your servers. They should be in a computer room. The NOC does typically need more wiring then another office though mainly because of the monitoring machines you have running all of the time. These could be servers, but they don't have to be. A NOC could simply be setup with low walled cubes and a PC running a large display filling it with info your servers and switches are reporting back to you. Those large plasma's better be showing good info otherwise everything you could see just fine on your own machine. It would also be nice to have a lab near the NOC, but labs don't need anything more then a rack in a office environment. You shouldn't typically have more then maybe 5 to 10 servers in your lab anyway.
NOC's can be useful, but I have seen more of these that were just setup for blikenlights and not any more useful then giving all of the NetOPS their own machine with a couple monitors running a dual head setup.
Battlestar Galactica Box Set
Only way it couuld look cooler is if the Cylon head's light actually scanned back and forth.
I want a MiniDV Camcorder. Don't need integrated still ability. Any suggestions?
Now we can be rest assured this guy won't come to power again. I can't imagine a better day for our armed forces short of the day they all go home. Good job guys!
NO system is invulnerable. I will agree that most UNIX systems are not as vulnerable as a windows machine, but to be so arrogant as to say the OS/X exploit he states in the article is insignificant is full of baloney. ANY vulnerability no matter how insignificant is bad. Every OS has vulnerabilites. Get over it.
That much is true, BUT not having any security on the AP is still a very bad idea. First off, enterprising idividuals could also just use the AP for a quick deathmatch. Trust me....not securing it...even if you have it segmented, it a BAD idea.
Security at the AP IS needed. First, if there's no security built into the AP, anyone can get on your network. It's like putting a Ethernet jack on your unsecured front porch or even worse....at the mailbox. Sure they may not be able to get to your servers, but they still can steal bandwidth from your applications.
Second, anything that is broadcast over the air can be picked up and recorded. If it's not encrypted, you run the risk of letting anything you do on your WiFi. They don't even have to connect to your AP....they could just fire up the laptop with the WiFi card in promiscuous mode and scan away. I agree with you that cc numbers and really important things SHOULD be encrypted befor sent, but personally, I really don't want just anyone else knowing what websites I go to even though I do have nothing to hide.
Lastly, even if you did have some security built into the AP (even if your using something more then WEP), I'd still require a VPN to get to the internal network. As it is, AP's probably don't have the horsepower to do user authentication plus you probably already have LDAP or something else internally for authentication. Plus adding the VPN as a requirement for WiFi users also adds another layer of security.
Sysadmin's only have what they are given. If the developer can't convey the setup information correctly, then we can't isntall it correctly. You have System Admins because we care about the stuff you don't. Developers typically don't care much about system config until their app all of a sudden needs an extra 20 GB of space. You told us you only needed 10 Gb and now you need more? That's YOUR problem especially when we don't have the extra 20 Gb to give you. Developers now, unfortunately, don't have much of a concept on what it takes to support the OS or the DB. They take it for granted when it works. When it gets in their way they bitch even when it's their fault. Oh the developers that know their shit I hear, but when I hear a developer bitch about getting a new PC....well, I have no sympathy. You as a developer should know the specifics of teh system your writing on. Just saying I need an extra 20 GB of space ain't going to make an extra disk fall into our laps.
Yeah I don't get hoaxes either...I just get a link to the same damn jpeg. e-card or whatever time and time again. I would use the tactic that someone earlier in this thread did, but then I like these people when they e-mail me other things. Most times they can't think of anything I would like to know (like simply hey we did this or that for Thanksgiving and we bought a new card and blah blah blah) and they decided well I'll just forward this chain letter or this "humorous" image. Usually it's something I had seen about 5 times or more (and usualy on a web page). The Hoax crap I hardly ever see (cuz I also forwarded the snopes link and talked to them and asked them if they really thought microsoft can trace how many times a e-mail has been forwarded or if a famous restaurant would send e-mail from yahoo.com. After a while, they, like me, finally get that e-mail, and computers, are not sophisticated enough to do 90 percent of the hoax things and that snopes is a good web site for the ones like the HIV needle thing.
First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price? That's what I would say! :)
This looks like the named them to me (at least the Gaussians). Personally, I don't know if I want to be known for finding the signal. Jodi Foster's character sure got alot of negative attention in Contact.