What I find amusing is we are still in the stone age compared to Japan. They put up a satellite back in 2007 with minimum download of 100 Mbps to max of 1.2 Gbps download, depending on size of dish, and we are satisfied with a paltry 12- 25 Mbps. I install Netkaster & Xplornet systems up in Canadian arctic. We have to put up with download restrictions, actual data blockage and excessive monthly fees. I pay $150/month for only 2 Mbps with a 20 GB cap and $2/GB above cap. My download full speed is only available from 0600Z to 1400Z. Outside this time, hit and miss, mostly miss. Xplornet recently launched a new satellite capable of up to 25 Mbps, but this satellite is not available for northern users. They promise a 2nd satellite that might cover our area, but not holding my breath. Broadband in the north is a joke.
This is interesting in that a TV show from 1994 used a Dodge Viper equipped with such a device to stop vehicles the 'Good' guy was chasing. They were also able to morph the car. I can see that coming soon as well.
I believe that some insurance companies now have a clause that if you were using a phone while in an accident, your policy is null and void, meaning you have no coverage, plus no medical coverage. To carry this further, if you cause a death, then you should be charged with murder.
I went out and got one of the Planon Pen Scanners. Depending on what you want, they can go all the way to 600 dpi in color.
Check out their web site. You can also get bargains on refurbished earlier models if you only need B&W and up to 200 dpi.
http://www.planonstore.com/SearchResults.asp
I purchased 2 Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST31000304AS Aug 27/08. One failed 3 days ago taking 800 GB with it. Given type of failure, their i365 Site is saying it will cost me $399 to $1700 just to recover. No talk about them trying to recover at their cost. Also, fine print says replacement drive could be a re-manufactured. Needless to say, no more Seagates for me
I have been living in the Canadian North for 42 years now. We first had dialup with reduced rates to Yellowknife until Bell offered their DirecPC which piggybacked download on E1 then E2. After that, several organizations along with the Feds put together a 'broadband' wireless system in order to give each community better and cheaper service then dialup. As has already been commented, costs are considerably higher then you southern user. Telsat came up with their Ka system which operates around 20Ghz giving more bandwidth then earlier Ku. They put F2 into orbit about 3 years ago and started offering their service directly(Anikast),and through 2nd party ISP's, like Netkaster, Xplornet, etc. I have been installing both the Netkaster and Anikast systems for over 2 years now. Original systems were $500-750 complete with installation extra. Four packages are provided starting with 500 Kbps, 1 Mbps, 1.5 Mbps, and 2.0 Mpbs. Downloads are usually 1/4 upload speeds. Up until last May, 2007, the service was quite good. Unfortunately, Telesat decided to 'Improve' the service and it has sucked big time since then. From where I am, it looked like they took some of our bandwidth in order to satisfy their southern customers, figuring us Northern customer wouldn't notice. Sound familiar-Concast, Bell, etc. Of course they denied all of this but results and experiences says otherwise. Unfortunately, HughesNet, a Ku 2-way satellite service is not being offered on any satellites that we can use up here, so the Ka is it. VOIP does work but Skype works better. Costs are not bad considering what else is available. The 500 Kbps is going for $55-65 CDN up to $150-$200 for the 2Mbps service. For those requiring more bandwidth, they could use several units tied together with a Load Balancing router. As for outages, we have 4 beams covering the Canadian north with most going through Vancouver hub. It has been very reliable with far fewer outages then the other provider. It takes real heavy precipitation to kill satellite signal and even that it not for long. Equipment failure does happen but is so infrequent that I might have to fix 5-8 in a year of the 75-80 units now installed in my community. I saw that Japan launched their own BroadBand satellite that is capable of 50 Mbps, so the potential is there, but so is the higher cost. No free lunch up here, but at least we can surf the net anywhere you have a power source(approx 100watts), and depending on your location to the 4 beams, work as far north as 80 degrees(Eureka). Just my 2 cents worth, or maybe 5 cents worth due inflation.
You might want to check this site out. They make several pen scanners with their RC800 model being the best. Looks like a fat pen but allows scans up to 36" long and 8" wide. Works real great on books, blueprints, etc. Only downside is their USB drivers are not yet 64bit ready. Some models are B&W only but their top ones do B&W, documents and color photos, from 100 dpi to 400 dpi. On board memory can be expanded to 1 GB on the RC800.
http://www.planon.com/index.php
James
Try http://www.abebooks.com/ . This site links up book stores from all over the world. I have used it many times to complete previously owned SciFi series and other rare books that are no long in print. Highly recommended.
James
So basically consumers in this case have 3 choices: Satellite(slow), Cable(throttled), DSL(throttled).
How are they going to vote with their wallet? No matter what they choose, they're supporting sub-standard internet. This seems to me a case in which the ISPs need to be regulated because they have a monopoly. Except our 2-way satellite is also being throttled. Telesat 'Improved' our service in May/June 2007. Ever since, service has been crap. We are lucky to get speeds we paid for, 10% of the time. Their answer is it's our fault, not theirs. Things like bird shit, tilt of earth's axis, increased moisture in atmosphere due global warming, etc. Even speed test site is their's and we all know how Comcast cheated on theirs.
I just watched a CNN report on this crash and it was brought up that the FAA issued a notification that water could get into the electronics giving the same results that happened in this crash. You would think that the electronic systems would be better insulated for just such a problem.
I quess I must also be an HP geek as I started out with the HP35 back in 1973, then worked my way through an HP55, HP67, HP97, HP15c, HP16c, HP41CV(3x), HP28S, & HP48SX. Except for the HP35, which I sold several years ago, the rest still all work. My father gave me the best example why HP were better then TI. He would take one HP and one TI calculator, put them on a table, turn both on, then hit the table real hard. He said that the TI would try to do calculations, whereas, the HP was not effected. During the early years, I really like the HP calculator library, where users could submit programs for others to use. I still find RPN much better to do calculations. One point not mentioned is that once the HP35 was introduced, the North American slide-rule industry almost disappear in one year, and yes, I still have several slipsticks and still know how to use them. For simplier times.
James
Slashdot Mirror
Did no one catch on to fact that this is the first air date of the original Star Trek series James
What I find amusing is we are still in the stone age compared to Japan. They put up a satellite back in 2007 with minimum download of 100 Mbps to max of 1.2 Gbps download, depending on size of dish, and we are satisfied with a paltry 12- 25 Mbps. I install Netkaster & Xplornet systems up in Canadian arctic. We have to put up with download restrictions, actual data blockage and excessive monthly fees. I pay $150/month for only 2 Mbps with a 20 GB cap and $2/GB above cap. My download full speed is only available from 0600Z to 1400Z. Outside this time, hit and miss, mostly miss. Xplornet recently launched a new satellite capable of up to 25 Mbps, but this satellite is not available for northern users. They promise a 2nd satellite that might cover our area, but not holding my breath. Broadband in the north is a joke.
This is interesting in that a TV show from 1994 used a Dodge Viper equipped with such a device to stop vehicles the 'Good' guy was chasing. They were also able to morph the car. I can see that coming soon as well.
I believe that some insurance companies now have a clause that if you were using a phone while in an accident, your policy is null and void, meaning you have no coverage, plus no medical coverage. To carry this further, if you cause a death, then you should be charged with murder.
I went out and got one of the Planon Pen Scanners. Depending on what you want, they can go all the way to 600 dpi in color. Check out their web site. You can also get bargains on refurbished earlier models if you only need B&W and up to 200 dpi. http://www.planonstore.com/SearchResults.asp
I purchased 2 Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST31000304AS Aug 27/08. One failed 3 days ago taking 800 GB with it. Given type of failure, their i365 Site is saying it will cost me $399 to $1700 just to recover. No talk about them trying to recover at their cost. Also, fine print says replacement drive could be a re-manufactured. Needless to say, no more Seagates for me
I have been living in the Canadian North for 42 years now. We first had dialup with reduced rates to Yellowknife until Bell offered their DirecPC which piggybacked download on E1 then E2. After that, several organizations along with the Feds put together a 'broadband' wireless system in order to give each community better and cheaper service then dialup. As has already been commented, costs are considerably higher then you southern user. Telsat came up with their Ka system which operates around 20Ghz giving more bandwidth then earlier Ku. They put F2 into orbit about 3 years ago and started offering their service directly(Anikast),and through 2nd party ISP's, like Netkaster, Xplornet, etc. I have been installing both the Netkaster and Anikast systems for over 2 years now. Original systems were $500-750 complete with installation extra. Four packages are provided starting with 500 Kbps, 1 Mbps, 1.5 Mbps, and 2.0 Mpbs. Downloads are usually 1/4 upload speeds. Up until last May, 2007, the service was quite good. Unfortunately, Telesat decided to 'Improve' the service and it has sucked big time since then. From where I am, it looked like they took some of our bandwidth in order to satisfy their southern customers, figuring us Northern customer wouldn't notice. Sound familiar-Concast, Bell, etc. Of course they denied all of this but results and experiences says otherwise. Unfortunately, HughesNet, a Ku 2-way satellite service is not being offered on any satellites that we can use up here, so the Ka is it. VOIP does work but Skype works better. Costs are not bad considering what else is available. The 500 Kbps is going for $55-65 CDN up to $150-$200 for the 2Mbps service. For those requiring more bandwidth, they could use several units tied together with a Load Balancing router. As for outages, we have 4 beams covering the Canadian north with most going through Vancouver hub. It has been very reliable with far fewer outages then the other provider. It takes real heavy precipitation to kill satellite signal and even that it not for long. Equipment failure does happen but is so infrequent that I might have to fix 5-8 in a year of the 75-80 units now installed in my community. I saw that Japan launched their own BroadBand satellite that is capable of 50 Mbps, so the potential is there, but so is the higher cost. No free lunch up here, but at least we can surf the net anywhere you have a power source(approx 100watts), and depending on your location to the 4 beams, work as far north as 80 degrees(Eureka). Just my 2 cents worth, or maybe 5 cents worth due inflation.
You might want to check this site out. They make several pen scanners with their RC800 model being the best. Looks like a fat pen but allows scans up to 36" long and 8" wide. Works real great on books, blueprints, etc. Only downside is their USB drivers are not yet 64bit ready. Some models are B&W only but their top ones do B&W, documents and color photos, from 100 dpi to 400 dpi. On board memory can be expanded to 1 GB on the RC800. http://www.planon.com/index.php James
Try http://www.abebooks.com/ . This site links up book stores from all over the world. I have used it many times to complete previously owned SciFi series and other rare books that are no long in print. Highly recommended. James
I just watched a CNN report on this crash and it was brought up that the FAA issued a notification that water could get into the electronics giving the same results that happened in this crash. You would think that the electronic systems would be better insulated for just such a problem.
I quess I must also be an HP geek as I started out with the HP35 back in 1973, then worked my way through an HP55, HP67, HP97, HP15c, HP16c, HP41CV(3x), HP28S, & HP48SX. Except for the HP35, which I sold several years ago, the rest still all work. My father gave me the best example why HP were better then TI. He would take one HP and one TI calculator, put them on a table, turn both on, then hit the table real hard. He said that the TI would try to do calculations, whereas, the HP was not effected. During the early years, I really like the HP calculator library, where users could submit programs for others to use. I still find RPN much better to do calculations. One point not mentioned is that once the HP35 was introduced, the North American slide-rule industry almost disappear in one year, and yes, I still have several slipsticks and still know how to use them. For simplier times. James