I have a DeLorme Earthmate GPS LT-20 with Street Atlas USA software that I run on my laptop on company trips. The best thing about the software is that it gives you directions in a (semi) human voice. This really comes in handy when you are driving in a city environment and you don't really have the ability to look at a screen for directions. It will even tell you how long you have before each turn and tell you several times. It has been a real lifesaver on several occasions.
Maybe, just maybe, when they decide to build another spacecraft they could possibly get around a few of the issues they've had with the current space shuttles. You know, falling foam, bad o-rings, things that tend to make them explode into giant balls of fire!
Pretty much though, as long as we're putting satellites into space, we're going to need a way for people to get up there and work on them. We'll at least need to continue finding new ways of putting them up, if we ever get to the point where we just let them fail and replace them with another one.
Either way, there will still be advances in spacecraft technology even if they don't end up taking us to another planet.
I take it you haven't heard of AVG. They already detected it (without releasing a new signature) on Janurary 16th.
Oh yeah, I tried that as well, but as far as I can tell, it was zero day and nothing was working. Of course this was an email worm and it was not on one of my own machines. First and foremost, the first line of defense for this sort of thing is education. If we didn't have people out there that would open any attachment they receive, we wouldn't have anywhere near the problem with this sort of attack. Unfortunately, relying on the end user to make sure their own computer is secure is a pipe dream at best.
Not very long ago, when the Kama Sutra (Nyxem.E, MyWife, whatever) worm was released to the world it seemed to take absolutely forever to find anyone with a solution for the removal or even the detection of the thing. I think it was almost a full week before the signatures were widely distributed. Even though this was a attack was very mild (as far as viruses are concerned), what would have been the outcome had this been "the Big One"?
Today for review I have the smallest scanner yet, it's from Planon, and they actually made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Designers seem to keep making devices smaller and smaller just because they can. Some devices are becoming so small it's making them virtually unusable.
Future Review: New scanner released that's the size of a needle, unfortunately the review has been delayed because we dropped it in a haystack.
Perhaps they're spending all this time making sure they get a rootkit on all the games. You never know, somebody might just try to copy one of those things with a PC or something.
First of all, not knowing how to do something has absolutely nothing to do with stupidity. I never claimed anyone who didn't know how to tweak a UI was stupid. In fact, it's people who take advantage of novices or call them stupid that give those of us in computer related fields the reputation of being arrogant pricks.
I have seen alot of computer illiterate people walk into a computer store and let the salesman sell them anything.
Yes, and let's assume that this is the norm also shall we? Not everyone goes into a computer store to buy their first PC. Many people buy them at low prices because they saw a Dell or Gateway ad that claims a "Powerful, Entry-Level PC" for $400. In either instance, the price they paid doesn't have anything to do with the fact that first time PC users aren't likely to know how to tune a low-end PC so that it can run a graphics-intensive UI without slowing to an absolute crawl.
Besides, just because you like to go out and waste a few hundred bucks on a POS doesn't mean everyone else will. I myself would rather spend a few hundred more and get something that will do what I want without having to tweak the UI so much it looks like Windows 3.1.
AMEN! Isn't that the whole point? Bargain basement PCs don't come with a $600 graphics card installed.
I may not know much about Vista, but based on previous performance by Microshaft, I really don't have to.
Prophesy: Vista will come out, will be plagued by hardware and software incompatibility issues (sound familiar?), will suck eggs for about a year, and will finally be widely accepted. Blah, blah, blah ad nauseam.
Most of those bargain systems ran okay once you turned off all the UI improvements and brought it down to something that more closely resembles Win2K
While this is true, it goes back to my comment about the difference between running the OS to spec and just booting it. Run of the mill bargain basement shoppers aren't going to know how to turn off the UI enhancements, and therefore will be stuck with a computer that is too slow. They also won't know enough about the system in most cases to undertake a RAM upgrade either.
Having said that, it is my own understanding that there will be a great deal more UI enhancements in Vista than any other OS to date. This will mean an even greater slowdown for the poor user buying the $400 machine. The smart thing for Microsoft to do about this would be to make the OS a bit more intuitve about hardware contstraints. It would be great for the average home user not to have to know how to turn off UI enhancements because the OS does it for them.
Windows XP does this, but not as well as it should.
That may or may not be completely true. In the days when XP first came out, we saw boxes with that "Designed for Windows XP" sticker on them, and most of them were grossly underpowered. Just because you can run XP on a minimum of 256MB of RAM doesn't mean you should. PC manufacturers regularly shipped "bargain" PCs configured this way and they ran like crap.
Then again, maybe the PC manufacturers will have learned from previous mistakes and are going to ship PCs that are actually going to run the OS to spec, instead of just being able to boot it.
Result: Projects get finished in about half the time.
I'll have to agree with sbrown on this one. We have had the same outsourcing agency working for a particular department for several years now. Besides the empty promises of quick turnaround on projects (they have several that were simple and haven't been finished for years now), they keep piling on more and more work. All this tells me is they are trying to fill up a backlog so that they can suck more money from the company.
The only reason any company really wants to outsource is this: money. The problem is, the government hasn't realized the income it is losing because of this issue. Since the income goes out of the country, there is no income tax to collect (lost government income), the wages are used to buy goods and services in other countries (a shot to the US economy), and the sales taxes on said goods and services are lost since they are purchased overseas (yet more lost government income).
Then, we get problems like those mentioned in other posts, like higher taxes and such. This is what happens when government loses income, it makes it up by further taxing those who are already over taxed to begin with.
Slashdot Mirror
Navigation systems don't kill people, people do. I just thought I'd throw that in for the fun of it.
I have a DeLorme Earthmate GPS LT-20 with Street Atlas USA software that I run on my laptop on company trips. The best thing about the software is that it gives you directions in a (semi) human voice. This really comes in handy when you are driving in a city environment and you don't really have the ability to look at a screen for directions. It will even tell you how long you have before each turn and tell you several times. It has been a real lifesaver on several occasions.
Maybe, just maybe, when they decide to build another spacecraft they could possibly get around a few of the issues they've had with the current space shuttles. You know, falling foam, bad o-rings, things that tend to make them explode into giant balls of fire! Pretty much though, as long as we're putting satellites into space, we're going to need a way for people to get up there and work on them. We'll at least need to continue finding new ways of putting them up, if we ever get to the point where we just let them fail and replace them with another one.
Either way, there will still be advances in spacecraft technology even if they don't end up taking us to another planet.
Apparently that's about all they're going to be able to serve up. Man, I hate it when that happens. .
Maybe there should be a new gameshow out. . . instead of Punk'd it could be Slashdot'd.
www.techblog.com says, "Dude, I just got Slashdot'd!"
Yeah, I thought it sounded stupid too.
I take it you haven't heard of AVG. They already detected it (without releasing a new signature) on Janurary 16th.
Oh yeah, I tried that as well, but as far as I can tell, it was zero day and nothing was working. Of course this was an email worm and it was not on one of my own machines. First and foremost, the first line of defense for this sort of thing is education. If we didn't have people out there that would open any attachment they receive, we wouldn't have anywhere near the problem with this sort of attack. Unfortunately, relying on the end user to make sure their own computer is secure is a pipe dream at best.
Not very long ago, when the Kama Sutra (Nyxem.E, MyWife, whatever) worm was released to the world it seemed to take absolutely forever to find anyone with a solution for the removal or even the detection of the thing. I think it was almost a full week before the signatures were widely distributed. Even though this was a attack was very mild (as far as viruses are concerned), what would have been the outcome had this been "the Big One"?
If I weren't so lazy, I would have written it in binary.
Ms. Warwick built that wall to keep in her psychic friends.
Sorry, I was trying to write from more of a Jerry Springer style instead of the classic Geraldo.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
If you hack my code,
I'm going to kill you!
Good lord.
Two muppets walk into a bar. . .
Today for review I have the smallest scanner yet, it's from Planon, and they actually made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Designers seem to keep making devices smaller and smaller just because they can. Some devices are becoming so small it's making them virtually unusable.
Future Review: New scanner released that's the size of a needle, unfortunately the review has been delayed because we dropped it in a haystack.
Of course, somebody will use it to design a virus.
I can't believe I was the first to say it.
I don't care if it was cheesy, I just couldn't resist.
Perhaps they're spending all this time making sure they get a rootkit on all the games. You never know, somebody might just try to copy one of those things with a PC or something.
First of all, not knowing how to do something has absolutely nothing to do with stupidity. I never claimed anyone who didn't know how to tweak a UI was stupid. In fact, it's people who take advantage of novices or call them stupid that give those of us in computer related fields the reputation of being arrogant pricks.
I have seen alot of computer illiterate people walk into a computer store and let the salesman sell them anything.
Yes, and let's assume that this is the norm also shall we? Not everyone goes into a computer store to buy their first PC. Many people buy them at low prices because they saw a Dell or Gateway ad that claims a "Powerful, Entry-Level PC" for $400. In either instance, the price they paid doesn't have anything to do with the fact that first time PC users aren't likely to know how to tune a low-end PC so that it can run a graphics-intensive UI without slowing to an absolute crawl.
Besides, just because you like to go out and waste a few hundred bucks on a POS doesn't mean everyone else will. I myself would rather spend a few hundred more and get something that will do what I want without having to tweak the UI so much it looks like Windows 3.1.
AMEN! Isn't that the whole point? Bargain basement PCs don't come with a $600 graphics card installed.
I may not know much about Vista, but based on previous performance by Microshaft, I really don't have to.
Prophesy: Vista will come out, will be plagued by hardware and software incompatibility issues (sound familiar?), will suck eggs for about a year, and will finally be widely accepted. Blah, blah, blah ad nauseam.
Most of those bargain systems ran okay once you turned off all the UI improvements and brought it down to something that more closely resembles Win2K
While this is true, it goes back to my comment about the difference between running the OS to spec and just booting it. Run of the mill bargain basement shoppers aren't going to know how to turn off the UI enhancements, and therefore will be stuck with a computer that is too slow. They also won't know enough about the system in most cases to undertake a RAM upgrade either.
Having said that, it is my own understanding that there will be a great deal more UI enhancements in Vista than any other OS to date. This will mean an even greater slowdown for the poor user buying the $400 machine. The smart thing for Microsoft to do about this would be to make the OS a bit more intuitve about hardware contstraints. It would be great for the average home user not to have to know how to turn off UI enhancements because the OS does it for them. Windows XP does this, but not as well as it should.
That may or may not be completely true. In the days when XP first came out, we saw boxes with that "Designed for Windows XP" sticker on them, and most of them were grossly underpowered. Just because you can run XP on a minimum of 256MB of RAM doesn't mean you should. PC manufacturers regularly shipped "bargain" PCs configured this way and they ran like crap. Then again, maybe the PC manufacturers will have learned from previous mistakes and are going to ship PCs that are actually going to run the OS to spec, instead of just being able to boot it.
Result: Projects get finished in about half the time.
I'll have to agree with sbrown on this one. We have had the same outsourcing agency working for a particular department for several years now. Besides the empty promises of quick turnaround on projects (they have several that were simple and haven't been finished for years now), they keep piling on more and more work. All this tells me is they are trying to fill up a backlog so that they can suck more money from the company.
The only reason any company really wants to outsource is this: money. The problem is, the government hasn't realized the income it is losing because of this issue. Since the income goes out of the country, there is no income tax to collect (lost government income), the wages are used to buy goods and services in other countries (a shot to the US economy), and the sales taxes on said goods and services are lost since they are purchased overseas (yet more lost government income).
Then, we get problems like those mentioned in other posts, like higher taxes and such. This is what happens when government loses income, it makes it up by further taxing those who are already over taxed to begin with.
It's a vicious cycle.