Posts by Paul

Scientists: Tasers work, but we don't know how

Non-lethal?

To the best of my knowledge, tasers have killed people... So how come they are being discussed at a non-lethal weapons conference?

Skinn-Eee Asus out next week

Wot No Linux option?

Its a bit of a shame that they're not selling it with an SSD and Linux on it, that would definately be my preferred option... still may get one.

What's next for Microsoft's Flight Sim partners?

Disadvantage of closed source

Surely, if anything, this just demonstrates the disadvantages of closed source, proprietary software. In theory there is nothing to stop Microsoft pulling the plug on any of their products, including Office or Windows - I appreciate that the latter is most unlikely :-)

US airforce to get ground refuelling robot

Wrong Section?

Shouldn't this have been posted under "Rise Of The Machines"?

2TB drives arrive down under

Reliability

I'm with Mr Hell up there. Speed and to a certain extent power, aren't really an issue for me. I just want a drive to work reliably and look after my data for somewhere in the region of five years. If it can do that, and its fast enough for standard def multimedia, then I'm probably happy enough.

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 dual-GPU graphics card

Quick Linux compatibility check?

Hi,

Given that you've probably got quite a few Linux users in your readership, would it be possible to do a brief check of hardware like this on Linux?

Nvidia kit generally has very good OpenGL support, and is very good with simulators like X-Plane, Silent Wings or FlightGear. It would be nice if you could see if the ATI/AMD kit is beginning to improve the Linux driver support since the two companies merged.

It would be nice if you could do a more in-depth report than "yes, it works and it looks nice", but even thats better than nothing :-)

Thanks!

WD Caviar Black 1TB vs Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB

Warranty

With a five year warranty its quite clear that WD stands by their product. You don't say what the warranty on the Seagate unit is. If its only a year, should I have faith in the reliability of this drive? Capacity is NOT everything.

HP clocks up 24-hour laptop battery life

Linux?

Hmmm,

So they talk about XP and Vista, but about Linux?

For the record, I can get in excess of four hours from my old Dell Pecision laptop with a second battery - doesn't seem to matter if I'm using Linux or XP. If I could double that to eight hours, I don't think realistically, that I'd really ever need any more. I suspect there are very few people that are truly out of range of mains power (or a cigarette lighter power point in a car) for more than eight hours.

Asus M930 Windows Mobile smartphone

Such a shame...

They spoiled it by putting Windows on.

Ofcom steps up the power for unlicensed broadcasting

Amateur Mars Mission & P3E

I believe the Amsat-DL P5A Mars mission will be using 10.5GHz. Also the long-delayed P3E satellite definately has an X-Band (10GHz) downlink, and I believe it has an X-Band beacon too.

Having said that, I have nothing (yet) to receive on 10GHz.

Regards,

Paul

~~~~~

Leak reveals Xbox 360 Pro debut due

Copying stuff from one HD to the next

Probably quite easy. You'll need a couple of 2.5" USB HD cases to put your drives in temporarily - about 20 quid each, if you shop around, and a Live Linux distro such as Kubuntu or DSL (assuming you're not already running Linux).

The "Probably" is there because I'm assuming that the drives are going to be using a standard filesystem. If they're not, then it could get interesting. But, even then, you could still make a straight backup of the disk using the Linux dd command.

Intel puts another foot into 10GbE

What about CAT7

Well, they quote distances over CAT6 but not CAT7 cable... Wonder why not. I have an interest in this, as its what was installed when our ship was built. Uses slightly different connectors called GG45, but they're backwards compatible with RJ-45.

Ofcom starts planning for the London Olympics

70cms

I'm fairly sure I saw it in a recentish edition of RadCom.

Already going to "borrow" frequencies.

They've already said they're going to be "borrowing" part of one of the amateur radio bands - I think it was 70cm (430-440MHz).