clutch

Quote: i don't understand, how is it the same as the automobile industry? He was drawing parallels with automobiles and consumer electronics in general vs. the PC industry. So yes, the comparisons do apply. In both, you have the hardware and software portions. Each model year brings out newer items and fixes, and unless it's major enough to mandate a recall, these new items never make it to older products (whereas in the PC world they tend to). With respect to the comment on NT4 not supporting AGP, USB, and newer versions of DirectX I imagine that this was because the OS was always geared for stability, and not too much for multimedia/gaming. Win2K was designed from the ground up to support this, and WinXP was the next extension on this. I still really like NT4 myself, but I love my USB gadgets even more .

I can understand what you are saying, but the thread started spinning off into a rant about how MS wants to make more money and how they don't want to support older stuff. There just comes a time when you decide that you have the platform you need for a while and not worry about it, or move forward. However, it looks like you will have to move forward in *some* manner (either by upgrading the OS/WMP or finding another media player). thkourier's post basically pointed out that the PC industry is one of the few (if not only) industries where upgrading is permitted, rather than all out replacement. And the comment he made about game consoles is why I haven't ever bought one; I don't care for the idea of buying a console and games for it, and then not being able to get new games for it a few years down the road when the new unit comes out. The PS1 lasted a long time, and the PS2 is backward compatible, so this is the best attempt I have seen at this yet but I am still waiting to see what's next.

Quote: Clutch........ As mentioned earlier, we're a small business running on two PCs (connected by a LinkSys Router). Please correct me if I am wrong, but unless I'm missing something here, the (trumpets blaring) "CORPORATE VERSION" would seem to be a bit overkill for our two-piece LAN. OK, (loudspeakers set to MAX) "CORPORATE VERSION" in this scenario can be had for as little as a 5-license pack (maybe 3, I can't remember for sure) and it comes with server licensing for future expansion. So, unless you plan on staying at 2 seats forever and have "ZERO" chance for other systems that may come and go, it isn't such a bad idea. Plus, it meets your other criteria as listed before. But, then again, it is merely a suggestion. I don't care for any of the virus scanners on the market in consumer trim because they all have too much garbage on the interface.

@thekourier, Nice post.

It's actually pretty snappy, but it does have a ton of stuff to configure initially. It's going to be really nice once released.

Quote: As usual, looks instead of substance... as an experienced audio engineer, I can tell you that tubes have absolutely NO advantages and several disadvantages. Maybe they can sell these to the same people that buy "premium" speaker wire and audio CD rim weights. In what field, specifically? I have seen many uses of tube amps where they are implemented in high quality systems because of the "warm" sound they provide. While I am not sure that such coloring of sound is a great selling point, I imagine that there might be a performance difference of some sort. I was just wondering if you worked with an equipment manufacturer, and what class of switching amp that you normally recommend.

You will find that many things are disabled in .Net server to promote stability, but then again you would know that as you are a registered beta tester, right? The last email I received asking about bug reports clearly stated that many unnecessary features (like themes and most multimedia items) come disabled by default, and they recommend that they are not to be enabled as they may compromise integrity. So, I would imagine that as there are more builds coming out, you will see less and less support for such things (finally).

Quote: Clutch....... Guess I should check into the "corp" version of their software. My guess is, as a "small" business owner vs. a corporation, the cost will be prohibitive. Nonetheless, relative to MCAfee's retail products, my experience(s) indicate the best way to use them is to suggest them to people you don't like. The cost is actually pretty low, and you can pick for a couple of different packages (we use Active Virus Defense) which includes Netshield for servers and Exchange/Lotus server virus scanners. Ours wound up running about $25US per station from what I remember, and while we like using the subscription method (so I can get all the newest versions and get cheaper licensing for more stations) you can still get DAT and SuperDAT file updates for free regardless of the tenure of ownership. The only limiting factor is that they eventually phase out support for older versions in their SuperDATs, but that's to be expected. As for performance, the virus catching ability has been on par with other systems and the only problem I had was when they changed the engine format in one DAT file and the older versions that I had running took a nose dive. Once I got the right SuperDAT and pushed it with SMS, it was fixed. I currently manage networks running it with NT4, Win2K, and WinXP Pro.

Wild, since I have had nothing but problems with anything from Norton/Symantec, and I use McAfee 4.5.1 corp with ePolicy Orchestrator to manage my stations. It all works great here.

Why in the world do you have to pay for updates? McAfee doesn't charge for them, and I don't think other AV companies do either. I'll have to check that FTP link just for the hell of it.

If you properly encrypt the traffic, you would be fine as far as encryption goes. You will also want to keep your WAPs as far away from the exterior walls as possible (while still give all the systems a good connection) so as to cut down on traffic bleed through to the outside world. In addition, installing wireless NICs on all the systems and getting the WAPs you need (probably 3 or 4 depending on internal structural and noise interference) you might exceed your budget as suggested earlier. We have an Intermec WAP here for the handheld barcode scanners in shipping (and my iPAQ ) that works rather well at all points of the building, and it's 192ft X 192ft, with about a third of it dedicated to a 2-story office space. However, this WAP was about $1200US or so when we got it, and it's commercial grade for our production floor. We use 802.11b (WiFi) and it has worked out quite well. Now, as for charging, it sounds like this is your first time doing contract work (and maybe computer work professionally) so the best thing I can say is to charge for all the work you perform, but to charge the time that it *should* have taken to complete, rather than how long it took you to do it. This is a concept borrowed from the automotive service industry, where shops use manuals that dictate how many man hours it should take to complete a job (you can vary on this of course, such as when a client has defective hardware and you find this out halfway through an installation). Also, make sure to dictate any warranties on your work, as well as with the hardware that you have brought in to their company.

I love my APC units, both at home and at work.

What was the issue with Index server? Not that it should be installed if not needed to begin with, but I was just wondering...

I have been looking for "Lost Highway" for a while now, and while checking out an Australian site, I found it. However, while it supports regions 1-6, it is PAL enconded and the US uses NTSC. My question is this; is this difference something that can be handled in software on the PC? Can it play back both standards, or are you stuck with whatever version you initially bought for your area of the world (unless you have a dual version unit). I know that this is how it works in mainstream video equipment like TVs, VCRs, and the like, but I wanted to know if anyone has successfully used both on a PC.

New video card today, so I will update my specs... [*]WinXP Pro [*]Intel P4 1.6A@2.4GHz (16x150MHz FSB) Northwood with stock heatsink and VCore [*]SOYO Dragon P4S Ultra (SiS 645 Chipset) [*]1GB PC2700 (DDR333) Mushkin DDR-DRAM [*]WD 100GB ATA-100 HD w/ 8MB Cache [*]Samsung 5x DVD/32x CD Drive [*]GeForce4 Ti 4600, 128MB [*]Onboard C-Media 6-Channel Sound [*]Onboard SiS USB 2.0 with 5.25" Drivebay I/O [*]Onboard Highpoint UDMA/IDE RAID Controller (33/66/100/133) [*]Radius 19" Monitor (Trinitron AG CRT) [*]MS Natural Keyboard Pro [*]MS Intellimouse Explorer [*]SanDisk USB Compact Flash Reader [*]Spacetec SpaceORB 6DOF Game Controller [/list:u] Now I am just waiting for UT 2003 and Doom3 to come out.

In that case, Windows 98 must be friggin awesome as that section moves a helluva lot slower than this one...

Rock on guys, thanks!

I did mean distributor (actually, "retailer" would be more accurate) in my last post, and it would seem that the "import" that Amazon is showing is only the Canadian version which is Pan & Scan (which should be a crime). I am going to check out a few other vendors and see what they can do for me as well locally, but I am open to suggestions.

Cool, so anybody have a fav worldwide (or even Aussie for now) distributor?

For those interested in another feature to be included in SP3 besides automatic up[censored]: http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=701&a=27532,00.asp

Quote: I realise I could be misunderstanding you guys here, but are you saying that Windows itself won't allow more than 10 connections? Is this a feature of just web serving, or any connections? If it's any, then I'm afraid someone'e been giving out wrong information as I know that you can run an FTP server & have someone else connect to it with an FTP prog [eg FlashFXP], & then start a download going with Mass Downloader which makes 10 connections @ the same time, & have someone else connected as well with another FTP prog [either FlashFXP or similar], which makes a total of 12 connections by my reckoning. I apologise in advance if I've got the wrong end of the stick. No, the workstation versions of all NT OSs are limited to 10 connections using the default MS applications (like IIS) and network resources (such as file and print sharing). Whether or not there have been some applications trying to get around it, I don't know. Now, having multiple connections per user is another thing, and that sounds like what you are getting at Alien. It sounds like you might have had 12 connections, but you had 2 concurrent user connections to those resources. That might be why you were getting confused.

It's a limitation of the OS, this includes IIS as well as usage of share connections. It will more than likely extend to Apache when installed, but I don't know for certain.

Welcome back, plan on sticking around?

Quote: Doesn't them refusing to do business with some OEMs if they [the OEMs] ship machines with Linux on them count as restricting supply? BMW refused to ship the X5 SUV when it first came out to dealers (much to their dismay, and they even filed a lawsuit about it but I think the dealers lost) that didn't meet their revised standards for the showroom and service areas. Many companies refuse to send product to VARs and other distribution points, and you only hear about this because it's the "in" thing to do to bash on MS.

FedEx.