Funny thing, is I do see SOME games oriented for women....development and designed by other women. Trouble is they are an extreme minority in the game development. (come to think of it, there are FAR too women in IT in general). The irony is, studies indicate that while organizations are trying to actively bring more women in the coding and development parts of the IT field, women are leaving in that capacity virtually as fast as they are brought in. How do we fit fix this, I don't know. If we could get more females in gaming as DEVELOPERS as opposed to manager, PR and admin type stuff, we'd probably have way cooler games in general and a breath of fresh air. (It would also be WAY easier for socially awkward male developers to get a date...;-) ) I'd love more women doing software development in general and so would all my colleauges.
Yep, in the United States of America you are entitled to due process of law...unless some rich corporations say otherwise. This is the United States of America I now know:
The Land of Life(of Servitute to greedy corporations), Liberty(Unless the someone shouts "terrorist", "government protest", or "lack of obsene corporate profits") and The Pursuit of Happiness(if you are a corporation bribing, aka lobbying the proper government officials).
The people of the USA have basically had all liberties and due proces taken from them, first in small doses then in larger doses more visible to the point the US Constitution is basically a joke. The people can do one of two things:
1. Take it up the rear end and love it, or
2. Stand up to it and say "no" like human being who still believe in the constitution (if it hasn't been totally shreaded yet).
We'll see which the people the USA decide. Perhaps they could use from lessons from the French who still know how to fight for and protect their rights. Unfortunately the people of the USA have so far been relatively uninvolved with politics worrying about things at home and on TV. Guess what? This IS your home and reality television is anything but real.
The Americans make Doctor Who?!? To quote another famous golden (literally) Sci-Fi character, "OOO, How Horrid." The Doctor Who movie they made was bad/cheesy enough, couldn't believe the BBC allowed it to be broadcasted. Sorry but when it comes to writing for TV (let alone movies) it compares to American vs. European Cake: way to much sugar in the American cake. Why? its cheap, addictive and fast to produce. I'll stick with my European desserts AND entertainment thanks. (Okay, UK is not strictly Europe, but they don't cover everything in sugar, cheese and grease..hey is THAT why Americans are the king of fast food, bad TV and more recently, poor leadership?)
Actually they've left a loophole (not that they couldn't invent one) It seems the producers that worked with Tom Baker decided to create one well in advance. Remember the one and only episode (at least that I can remember) where The Doctor is alone? Episode titled, "The Deadly Asssassian". The Master is at the end of his 12th regeneration. To cheat death, he attempts to use The Eye of Harmony which is the prime source of the Time Lords power, meaning it is (or was) a critical link to the Time Lord technology including the Time Travel ability (as in Tardis or whatever they called the latest model before the destruction of Gallefrey). The Time Lords may have been destroyed but I suspect that if a 13th doctor is reached they'll pull out the Eye of Harmony, the Sash and Rod of Rassilon, and remember that The Doctor is the only Time Lord since Rassilon to actually hold the Great Key (see the Invasion of Time, 4th Doctor again). So although there is an official limit, the producers seemed to have planned for this LONG in advance. Of course the Master went from being Time Lord to basically Ghoul who may still retain "lingering" powers of the Keeper of Traken (2nd last Episode of Tom Baker..wow lots of mentions of ways to cheat even Time Lord death with the writers there...) which apparently includes the ability to take over the bodies of others. Anyway, the Sun is not known for having reliable stories (or perhaps their stories change peoples original decision just to spite them..who knows...) so I'm not convinced they will terminate The Doctor yet. He's becoming a British Icon (yes he was already with Baker but...Tennant seems to be doing him one up with Davies leading the team.). that said, I believe Baker left as Turner came in and managed to mangle what had made Doctor Who so Popular. So a new producer could lead the show towards a slow painful demise. (like the last time the show died off) but I wouldn't put any stock into the Sun...yet. Time will tell all thing...
For windows users it can be a pain to backup on to a single file (or fileset). Here are a few approaches that worked for me on Windows: Norton Ghost Network or Enterprise Edition, Restrospect Workstation(this is my best recommendation for user friendly methods), Acronis Trueimage Workstation(with Universal Restore component), Windows 2000 Backup Utility included in Windows 2000(a little awkward but works well), xcopy, Nero. Acronis TruImage Workstation(with Universal Restore Component) is one of my top choices for "users" because it has a easy to use wizard wrapper around the MS syspart tool in Windows to create a "bare metal" backup which can be transfered to a new computer easily as well as make file backups to a number of medias while the OS is running. Retrospect also works well but I didn't see any tools for imaging an OS, bare-metal or otherwise.
Now to be clear I do not consider a second drive or RAID a backup solution, only protection against defective/worn hardware. The reason is that if an electrical problem, virus or accidental file destruction occurs the file would not be protected. A true backup needs to be entirely separate from the system being backed up. DVDs fit this criteria (slow to write, fast to retrieve) but are not ideal because contrary to popular belief, their shelf life is 2-5 years (according to an article by IBM) max depending on quality of DVD in use. Convenient, but not ideal. A Hard drive in my experience lasts between 2-10 years. USB enclosures make this very easy and notebook drives/usb enclosures make this very portable. Tapes have a shelf life of up to 10 years, although its slow.(I've heard some say 30 but what home user has a controlled environment). USB Sticks (Flsh memory) are fast to write and retrieve but I believe they degrade per write more rapidly than Tapes or Hard drives. But all of these would qualify as a true backup because they can be contained separately. For home users I suggest either a USB Enclosure for a hard drive(replace every 3-4 years recommended) or Tape (DAT 72 is the best for the money these days and backwards compatible with DDS-4). There are SATA DAT Tape drives available so SCSI controllers are less of a concern now. I don't recommend DVD's as 2 years later you may be in for a nasty surprise on an attempt to retrieve.
The other thing for all users (business and home) to keep in mind: They should have TWO kinds of backups: File backups (incremental) and OS image backups. The reason for the OS image backup (or drive image) is that even if your essential files are saved, your application installation files/dependencies may not. Many files cannot be backed up properly because an active process has ownership of them while the OS is running. So for a TRUE OS backup, a separate boot CD or USB disk should be creaetd (Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage (really friendly for this) or "Recovery Is Possible" (RIP, a free open source linux based recovery tool you burn to a separate CD) all have tools to do this. A image backup (again done with a separate boot disk) should be done once all applications you require are installed, or you add a new application. This way should data on your hard drive be destroyed, you can easily restore your OS and all its application installs, logs and user dat files in one step. Otherwise it can take HOURS to do a new setup (OS install, drives, applications, tweaking settings...)
Hope this helps everyone.
PS: I'll check out Bacula, its not for general home users, but it looks good for techies.
PPS: RIP (Recovery is possible) has been great for rescuing data from dying hard drives when windows couldn't read the data. Just in case a users didn't do their backups in time and wants to avoid paying hundreds of dollars to recover the data. Just do a new image of the bad drive using the RIP tools, and read the files off the new drive.
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Noob-body knows..the trouble you'll see....Noob-body knows, till a package goes jez3$%#$!#
Funny thing, is I do see SOME games oriented for women....development and designed by other women. Trouble is they are an extreme minority in the game development. (come to think of it, there are FAR too women in IT in general). The irony is, studies indicate that while organizations are trying to actively bring more women in the coding and development parts of the IT field, women are leaving in that capacity virtually as fast as they are brought in. How do we fit fix this, I don't know. If we could get more females in gaming as DEVELOPERS as opposed to manager, PR and admin type stuff, we'd probably have way cooler games in general and a breath of fresh air. (It would also be WAY easier for socially awkward male developers to get a date...;-) ) I'd love more women doing software development in general and so would all my colleauges.
The Land of Life (of Servitute to greedy corporations), Liberty (Unless the someone shouts "terrorist", "government protest", or "lack of obsene corporate profits") and The Pursuit of Happiness (if you are a corporation bribing, aka lobbying the proper government officials).
The people of the USA have basically had all liberties and due proces taken from them, first in small doses then in larger doses more visible to the point the US Constitution is basically a joke. The people can do one of two things:
1. Take it up the rear end and love it, or
2. Stand up to it and say "no" like human being who still believe in the constitution (if it hasn't been totally shreaded yet).
We'll see which the people the USA decide. Perhaps they could use from lessons from the French who still know how to fight for and protect their rights. Unfortunately the people of the USA have so far been relatively uninvolved with politics worrying about things at home and on TV. Guess what? This IS your home and reality television is anything but real.
The Americans make Doctor Who?!? To quote another famous golden (literally) Sci-Fi character, "OOO, How Horrid." The Doctor Who movie they made was bad/cheesy enough, couldn't believe the BBC allowed it to be broadcasted. Sorry but when it comes to writing for TV (let alone movies) it compares to American vs. European Cake: way to much sugar in the American cake. Why? its cheap, addictive and fast to produce. I'll stick with my European desserts AND entertainment thanks. (Okay, UK is not strictly Europe, but they don't cover everything in sugar, cheese and grease..hey is THAT why Americans are the king of fast food, bad TV and more recently, poor leadership?)
Actually they've left a loophole (not that they couldn't invent one) It seems the producers that worked with Tom Baker decided to create one well in advance. Remember the one and only episode (at least that I can remember) where The Doctor is alone? Episode titled, "The Deadly Asssassian". The Master is at the end of his 12th regeneration. To cheat death, he attempts to use The Eye of Harmony which is the prime source of the Time Lords power, meaning it is (or was) a critical link to the Time Lord technology including the Time Travel ability (as in Tardis or whatever they called the latest model before the destruction of Gallefrey). The Time Lords may have been destroyed but I suspect that if a 13th doctor is reached they'll pull out the Eye of Harmony, the Sash and Rod of Rassilon, and remember that The Doctor is the only Time Lord since Rassilon to actually hold the Great Key (see the Invasion of Time, 4th Doctor again). So although there is an official limit, the producers seemed to have planned for this LONG in advance. Of course the Master went from being Time Lord to basically Ghoul who may still retain "lingering" powers of the Keeper of Traken (2nd last Episode of Tom Baker..wow lots of mentions of ways to cheat even Time Lord death with the writers there...) which apparently includes the ability to take over the bodies of others. Anyway, the Sun is not known for having reliable stories (or perhaps their stories change peoples original decision just to spite them..who knows...) so I'm not convinced they will terminate The Doctor yet. He's becoming a British Icon (yes he was already with Baker but...Tennant seems to be doing him one up with Davies leading the team.). that said, I believe Baker left as Turner came in and managed to mangle what had made Doctor Who so Popular. So a new producer could lead the show towards a slow painful demise. (like the last time the show died off) but I wouldn't put any stock into the Sun...yet. Time will tell all thing...
If you want to compress in a non-proprietary format, use *.bzip2 format or *.gzip. There are two windows programs you can get:
;-)
For Gzip: http://www.gzip.org/
For BZip2: http://www.bzip.org/
This application below will compress into Bzip2 format is more user friendly, has a GUI and will split files for you:
http://www.7-zip.org/
Either one will give you compression that can be opened on ANY operating system including
Linux, Mac OS, windows, Unix.
here is a general reference page for MANY comrpession tools. Personally, I like the non-commercial ones myself.
http://datacompression.info/Zip.shtml
Hope this is useful for all..
For windows users it can be a pain to backup on to a single file (or fileset). Here are a few approaches that worked for me on Windows: Norton Ghost Network or Enterprise Edition, Restrospect Workstation(this is my best recommendation for user friendly methods), Acronis Trueimage Workstation(with Universal Restore component), Windows 2000 Backup Utility included in Windows 2000(a little awkward but works well), xcopy, Nero. Acronis TruImage Workstation(with Universal Restore Component) is one of my top choices for "users" because it has a easy to use wizard wrapper around the MS syspart tool in Windows to create a "bare metal" backup which can be transfered to a new computer easily as well as make file backups to a number of medias while the OS is running. Retrospect also works well but I didn't see any tools for imaging an OS, bare-metal or otherwise.
Now to be clear I do not consider a second drive or RAID a backup solution, only protection against defective/worn hardware. The reason is that if an electrical problem, virus or accidental file destruction occurs the file would not be protected. A true backup needs to be entirely separate from the system being backed up. DVDs fit this criteria (slow to write, fast to retrieve) but are not ideal because contrary to popular belief, their shelf life is 2-5 years (according to an article by IBM) max depending on quality of DVD in use. Convenient, but not ideal. A Hard drive in my experience lasts between 2-10 years. USB enclosures make this very easy and notebook drives/usb enclosures make this very portable. Tapes have a shelf life of up to 10 years, although its slow.(I've heard some say 30 but what home user has a controlled environment). USB Sticks (Flsh memory) are fast to write and retrieve but I believe they degrade per write more rapidly than Tapes or Hard drives. But all of these would qualify as a true backup because they can be contained separately. For home users I suggest either a USB Enclosure for a hard drive(replace every 3-4 years recommended) or Tape (DAT 72 is the best for the money these days and backwards compatible with DDS-4). There are SATA DAT Tape drives available so SCSI controllers are less of a concern now. I don't recommend DVD's as 2 years later you may be in for a nasty surprise on an attempt to retrieve.
The other thing for all users (business and home) to keep in mind: They should have TWO kinds of backups: File backups (incremental) and OS image backups. The reason for the OS image backup (or drive image) is that even if your essential files are saved, your application installation files/dependencies may not. Many files cannot be backed up properly because an active process has ownership of them while the OS is running. So for a TRUE OS backup, a separate boot CD or USB disk should be creaetd (Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage (really friendly for this) or "Recovery Is Possible" (RIP, a free open source linux based recovery tool you burn to a separate CD) all have tools to do this. A image backup (again done with a separate boot disk) should be done once all applications you require are installed, or you add a new application. This way should data on your hard drive be destroyed, you can easily restore your OS and all its application installs, logs and user dat files in one step. Otherwise it can take HOURS to do a new setup (OS install, drives, applications, tweaking settings...)
Hope this helps everyone.
PS: I'll check out Bacula, its not for general home users, but it looks good for techies.
PPS: RIP (Recovery is possible) has been great for rescuing data from dying hard drives when windows couldn't read the data. Just in case a users didn't do their backups in time and wants to avoid paying hundreds of dollars to recover the data. Just do a new image of the bad drive using the RIP tools, and read the files off the new drive.