Monday - June 13, 2005
Computing Done Dirt Cheap
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the price of PC’s and tech items have reached record lows. For instance, you can now buy an entry-level PC from Dell (17-inch monitor, a 2.4 gigahertz Celeron processor, 256 megabytes of RAM and a 40-gigabyte hard drive) for only $299. A year ago, it was $499. Ten years ago, if you had to ask how much it cost, you couldn’t afford it.
How low can they go? Over the past few weeks, personal computers reached a significant milestone: The price for an entry-level but fully loaded system fell below $300.
Dell—which wasn’t even the first PC maker to take the step—last week was offering for $299 a Windows computer that had most of what a beginning user would want. That list includes a 17-inch monitor, a 2.4 gigahertz Celeron processor, 256 megabytes of RAM and a 40-gigabyte hard drive.
A nearly identical system a year ago cost $499, and while it had only half as much RAM, it did provide speakers. The newer, cheaper model doesn’t have any, but you can add a pair for $20.
Besides reflecting a remarkable price decline of 40% in 12 months, the fact that computers can now be had for less than $300 means they have officially entered into the territory of “consumer electronics,” at least under one set of industry rules.
Ten or so years ago, when PCs cost five or even 10 times what they do now, it was common for analysts to say that they would never become a staple in homes until they were priced the way consumer electronics were, usually defined as costing less than $300. In the days when PCs were $2,000 and even more, that target seemed to be something of a fantasy.
Now, PCs cost less than some telephones—and less than a lot of TV sets—and can be found in roughly three-quarters of U.S. homes. But while they are priced like consumer electronics, the machines still aren’t even remotely as easy to use, and the trend lines there aren’t particularly encouraging. In fact, with price no longer as significant an issue, the continuing complexity of computers may become the biggest contributor to any “digital divide” between digital haves and have-nots, especially involving access to the Internet.
Posted by The Skipper
on 06/13/2005 at 09:30 AM
Filed Under: • Computers •
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Permalink • Sunday - June 05, 2005
Star Wars: Revenge Of The Nerds
In a galaxy far, far away (Brooklyn) ....
This geek masterpiece was built by 23-year-old David Barry, of Brooklyn, New York. Barry said a man came to him in a dream, dressed all in black and breathing heavily through a black helmet, and gave him instructions on how to build this .... uh .... workstation. I see it’s running Windoze. Tsk .. tsk .. tsk ....
Posted by The Skipper
on 06/05/2005 at 01:55 AM
Filed Under: • Computers •
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Permalink • Saturday - June 04, 2005
News For Nerds Only
Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it’s scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel’s microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned.
Apple has used IBM’s PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel’s chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.
Apple successfully navigated a switch in the 1990s from Motorola’s 680x0 line of processors to the Power line jointly made by Motorola and IBM. That switch also required software to be revamped to take advantage of the new processors’ performance, but emulation software permitted older programs to run on the new machines. (Motorola spinoff Freescale currently makes PowerPC processors for Apple notebooks and the Mac Mini.)
Note: if you must know, the “endian” architecture is a definition of how a computer chip handles bits in its registers at the very lowest level, machine code, which is pure one’s and zero’s. Suffice it to say that one of the architectures reads bits normally and the other is dyslexic. I’ll leave it to the geeks to argue which is which. You just had to ask, didn’t you?
Posted by The Skipper
on 06/04/2005 at 02:41 PM
Filed Under: • Computers •
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Permalink • Saturday - April 30, 2005
Warning For BMEWS Members
To All Members:
There has recently been a rash of virus, trojan and worm attacks on certain blogs through nefarious e-mails purporting to be from the blog. Unfortunately, we are one of the targets of these asshats. Please remember the following:
- We never solicit from our members in e-mails. If we need your help with anything we’ll post it here.
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- We jealously guard our member’s e-mails and our mailing lists. Even if the FBI and President Bush asked for your e-mail address, we would have to see a court subpoena first. We will not give out your e-mail addresses to anyone except under legal duress and even then our lawyers will have to approve it.
- When you apply for membership, we send out a confirmation e-mail. All you need to do is reply to that e-mail and you are officially a BMEWS member. There is no activitation code or other such needed to be a member.
- We do not send out e-mails requesting that you change your password or update your profile. All such requests are handled here in the blog, when you login, never in an e-mail.
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- If you receive any suspicious e-mails, purporting to be from the BMEWS administrator (me), forward it to me before opening it and I will let you know if it is valid or a trap.
- Always run a good anti-virus software package on your computer (Norton or MacAfee or other) and make sure “auto-protect” is enabled.
- To get rid of 99% of spam, purchase a good e-mail screening program like Mailwasher Pro.
- Always treat every e-mail you receive from strangers suspiciously and never open attachments from anyone you don’t know personally.
This has been a public service announcement of the Barking Moonbat Early Warning System. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.
Posted by The Skipper
on 04/30/2005 at 05:13 PM
Filed Under: • Computers • Cyberspace-Internet •
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Permalink • Saturday Contest
What do the two stories below have in common? E-mail your answers to “bullshit@microsoft.com”.
Out-of-work man gets the scoop on poop: Former programmer makes living cleaning up after dogs.
DELMAR, N.Y. - Computer programmer Steve Relles has the poop on what to do when your job is outsourced to India.
Relles, one of a rising number of Americans seeking new opportunities as their work shifts to countries with cheaper labor, has spent the past year making his living scooping up dog droppings as the “Delmar Dog Butler.”
“My parents paid for me to get a (degree) in math and now I am a pooper scooper,” Relles, a 42-year-old married father of two told Reuters. “I can clean four to five yards in a hour if they are close together.”
Gates Cites Hiring Woes, Criticizes Visa Restrictions.
Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said yesterday the software giant is having enormous difficulty filling computer jobs in the United States as a result of tight visa restrictions on foreign workers and a declining interest among U.S. students in computer science.
Speaking on a technology panel at the Library of Congress, Gates said a decline in the number of U.S. students pursuing careers in science and technology is hurting Microsoft in the short run, and could have serious long-term consequences for the U.S. economy if the problem is not addressed.
Posted by The Skipper
on 04/30/2005 at 07:40 AM
Filed Under: • Computers • Economics •
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Permalink • Friday - April 29, 2005
Caption This!
What is the Borg Leader below (Bill “Resistance Is Futile” Gates) trying to tell us? What’s up with the waving hands? Inquiring minds want to know when we will be “assimilated”. Or has it already happened? Dang! Windows just crashed again ....
Posted by The Skipper
on 04/29/2005 at 06:35 AM
Filed Under: • Computers •
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Permalink • Thursday - April 21, 2005
Email the pope
The Pope has an email address now. Can you imagine the amount of spam he must get. A million Viagra and penis enlargement ads a day I bet. Click here to email the pope.
Posted by Yellow Dog
on 04/21/2005 at 03:02 PM
Filed Under: • Computers • Religion •
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Permalink • Wednesday - April 20, 2005
If a tree falls in the forest……
I have been having email troubles this morning. Could not log on with Outlook nor the host provider’s web mail system. I just received the following email from them:
Good morning happy ************ mail users! About 30 minutes ago, the mail clusters that handles
your mail started to have problems. We’re in the process of investigating the issue, and hope to
have it resolved within the next hour. We apologize for the problems this cause.
Does it strike anyone else as odd that they would send out an email alert about email being down, or is it just me?
Posted by Mr. Christian
on 04/20/2005 at 12:22 PM
Filed Under: • Computers •
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Permalink • Tuesday - April 19, 2005
For The Geeks
Just for the computer geeks out there, what does this code do? Here is the “Morse Source” (in the key of C, of course) ....
#define DIT (
#define DAH )
#define __DAH ++
#define DITDAH *
#define DAHDIT for
#define DIT_DAH malloc
#define DAH_DIT gets
#define _DAHDIT char
_DAHDIT _DAH_[]="ETIANMSURWDKGOHVFaLaPJBXCYZQb54a3d2f16g7c8a90l?e’b.s;i,d:"
;main DIT DAH{_DAHDIT
DITDAH _DIT,DITDAH DAH_,DITDAH DIT_,
DITDAH _DIT_,DITDAH DIT_DAH DIT
DAH,DITDAH DAH_DIT DIT DAH;DAHDIT
DIT _DIT=DIT_DAH DIT 81 DAH,DIT_=_DIT
__DAH;_DIT==DAH_DIT DIT _DIT DAH;__DIT
DIT’\n’DAH DAH DAHDIT DIT DAH_=_DIT;DITDAH
DAH_;__DIT DIT DITDAH
_DIT_?_DAH DIT DITDAH DIT_ DAH:’?’DAH,__DIT
DIT’ ‘DAH,DAH_ __DAH DAH DAHDIT DIT
DITDAH DIT_=2,_DIT_=_DAH_; DITDAH _DIT_&&DIT
DITDAH _DIT_!=DIT DITDAH DAH_>=’a’? DITDAH
DAH_&223:DITDAH DAH_ DAH DAH; DIT
DITDAH DIT_ DAH __DAH,_DIT_ __DAH DAH
DITDAH DIT_+= DIT DITDAH _DIT_>=’a’? DITDAH _DIT_-’a’:0
DAH;}_DAH DIT DIT_ DAH{ __DIT DIT
DIT_>3?_DAH DIT DIT_>>1 DAH:’\0’DAH;return
DIT_&1?’-’:’.’;}__DIT DIT DIT_ DAH _DAHDIT
DIT_;{DIT void DAH write DIT 1,&DIT_,1 DAH;}
For the answer, click “Continue Reading” ....
Posted by
on 04/19/2005 at 02:10 AM
Filed Under: • Computers •
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Permalink • Five Most Recent Trackbacks:
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