unimatrix

This program is quite handy indeed. A lot like Viso , only a lot more practical for project planning and it does generate code. Best part: its BSD-license meaning you can take the source, modify and then resell or do whatever the heck you want with it without the restrictions of GPL. I know at work we are restricted and try not to use GPL stuff in general. Mainly because if we do spend the time to develop or intergrate a program into our own stuff and then want to turn around and sell it we can avoid legal hassles by starting or using BSD stuff.

Word of advice: wait till the 2nd generation Nano's come out. 1st Generation Apple Products generally always have issues. As a big fan of Apple products, I've found it best to wait about 6 months before getting anything new. Any problems will generally be reported and fixed by then.

See I swore at the AMD Thunderbird series and what drove me finally to Macintosh. I had universal problems with heat, VIA motherboard chipsets, more heat issues. We finally had to clock down the processors from 1.2Ghz to 900Mhz to get enough stablity to run our applications. Also the fact that Adobe Premeire 6 was a peice of crap vs. Final Cut Pro 3 then 4 was the final nail in the coffin. I've used a bunch of processors in my day and I will still swear by DEC ALPHA's too bad Compaq screwed the pricing policies and HP didn't know what to do with DEC labs. Anyway. Generally I've had more consistant results using Intel chips on Intel chipsets in the past. (in the x86 world) My experience with AMD has been mixed. The 486 I bumped up to 133Mhz is still working and running an AMD k5 75-Mhz processor that is configured to run as a 133Mhz 486 chip (CPU upgrade kit. My Dad has a Compaq 5345 with a 400Mhz K6-2 processor that is still running for him without any problems for the last 6 years. I've had far more chipset conflicts (mainly thanks to VIA and the fact that a majority of Mobo's use VIA chipsets) and heat issues with the Althon line of chips vs. the Pentium 3 and 4 series on almost all levels including failure rates and DOA rates. I've had very few of the same problems with excecption to some of the early P4 chips that were...well crap with Intel based machines period. I've had my best luck so far with Apple machines running both G4 and G5 processors, although the G5's can have more heat issues. Now I did get a 1st generation of Snow white iBook. The ones with the constant logic board and heat issues (trust me the damn thing ran extremely hot even with a 700Mhz g3 Processor). My 1Ghz Powerbook G4 on the hand has worked flawlessly for the past 2+ years. If I were going to buy a new laptop today, I'd wait for the new iBooks due out next year that will be running on the Intel mobile technology. We have 2 Developer Mactels in the office now and OS X on Intel runs much faster than the G4's and even the G5's in several tasks. (like rendering animation). Intel chips aren't quite as fast as rendering audio or video output, say from FCP, vs. the G5.

This program is one of those one tool jobs: ie it does one thing and does it well. Again, if you need more detail or more features and have a butt load of time to learn, Blender (https://www.blender.org/) is still the best free 3D package out there. It will do all the basics and many things that higher priced 3D packages such as Max, Lightwave, or Maya can do as well. And Blender is only about a 6MB download. (used to be only 1.5MB then they started to add a lot of featues since it was opensourced)Also Blender will work on about a half dozen platforms from windows, linux, OSX to more obsure OS's such as FreeBSD, Solaris, and IRIX.

Get one of those new iPod Nanos....not many have those yet. When it comes to MP3 players, there really is iPod and everything else is junk. Rio is out of the MP3 business now just leaving Dell and Creative to compete against Apple. Yes, other players have more features, but the iPod's interface has yet to be beat. I am on my way this afternoon to see about picking up a new iPod phone since I already use Cingular as my wireless provider and its phone upgrade time for me. This one is about 3 years old now. There are those that "I don't want to be with the crowd because then I'm cooler", but in this case, the Ipod is the player that everyone is using for a good reason: the interface doesn't suck. Plus team it up with iTunes and it is a combo that is almost impossible to defeat even by the likes of Sony and other major players.

Superdrive/iDVD/DVD Studio Pro 4We have Macs, what do you expect?

Firewire is useful for 3 Things: External Harddrives, External Burners, and downloading video from DV video cameras. It can transer at 400MBS (800MBS on the newer systems). Sometimes video can run 30 GB+ from a DV camera. I can vouch that the OSX on Intel exists, we have two developers boxes at work. I am using it now on a near daily basis. Although we've already tested all our in house code for portablity. If I had a choice between shelling out money for a G5 PowerMac (or iMac) and waiting another 6 months for the Mactels to come out, I'd error towards waiting for the Mactels. I can't say why, but trust me. OSX really needs 512MB of ram to run well. My ibook only has 256MB. IT runs OS 10.3 okay for business needs, but it can be slow at times. (Also only 700Mhz G3 processor and 16MB of vid ram). My machine at work has 512MB of Ram (Mac Mini 1.25 Ghz G4 OS 10.4). And whether its the fact the processor is better and 500 Mhz faster or the double the ram, double the vid ram, I dunno, but it just runs a lot smoother.

This is just a story from my college days a couple years ago. I grew up around computers since age 5 started Basic programming when I was about 7ish. Still like DOS better than Windows. Anyrate. My Senior year there were a couple freshmen that hung out at one of my friend's apartment. One kept going on about how cool his skills were and how cool AMD and Linux were and how he could hack etc.. He used my friend's PowerMac a lot to play muds. Well my friend's DSL router kept locking up and the kid using swore that maybe my friend's system was being hacked. When the kid was gone on time I was over with a couple other pals and my friend was concerned about it. I thought it was BS and pulled up the system logs from OSX and started looking through them. Took less than 5 minutes to notice the number of outbound requests going out. Looking further back, noticed the IP address and port were the same used for the kid's favourite MUD and client. This coupled with the fact the kid had no clue what he was talking about in terms of processor design and with Linux. (which I'm not an expert, but I started with Linux in the Slackware 2 days...ended with SuSE 6.4 and moved on to *BSD) I uninstalled the client and said, looks like the program keeps trying to connect. I moved away after college for a job and a couple months later on my friends and I were chatting online. Turns out the kid redownled the damned client and it was doing the same thing again. He also ended up failing out of college and moved back home and was working as a checker at Wal-Mart. My point. The "I want to be a hacker so I can mispell words with letters" is a bunch of crap. Anyone who can't, or more importantly won't, spell elite correctly is just a poser-wannabe. People that too often have other issues and try to fit into the "computer nerd" subculture which doesn't quite exist as it did in the 1960's - 1980's. My interest in network security comes from being a self-taught network and webserver admin. I ran a browser-based online text game for several years and eventually had issues with the player community trying to beat the system not the game. After someone managed to compromise an OpenBSD box I gave up because the game wasn't making that much money plus Real Life® was taking over (last semester my senior year of college)Network security is a big business. It is the ones that can spell and use proper gramer that get paid the big bucks as consultants. As far as learning, there are a lot of books and articles on securing networks. Try taking a class at a local community college. Several around where I am offer professional courses designed for non-degreed students looking to sharpen their skills.And for the record. My degrees are in International Business and German. Computers was something I learned on my own all self-taught and everytime I try to walk away, some how get sucked back in...

If I am going to use a database online for say a CMS where there are more visitors and less updating (more select queries than anything else) then MySQL is my first choice.If I am developing something inhouse, like for accounting, where data intergrity and features are needed in place of speed, then PostgeSQl is usually my top choice. ALthough working with pgSQL isn't as bad as it was five years ago. Also, if I am going to run an online browser-based game (like Promisance or Merchant Empires) I'd choose pgSQL. I was in the middle of porting Promisance to pgSQL after having some serious database issues with tables corrupting when Real Life® interuppted. In other cases, even Access may be the best choice. When that case may arise, I'm not sure. I'd take a well written PERL script and CSV file before Access anyday, but...

Most likely cause: driver issue.What chip set is on your motherboard? Intel, VIA, or nVid? If it's VIA, I can almost garuntee you what the issue is (VIA chipset on the motherboard). IF that is the case, only one solution: get a different motherboard.

I've seen some remarks made by several people including the Mayor of New Orleans that has me shaking my head a bit. Honestly, the only way to respond to such disasters in the first week is to declare martial law, suspending Posse Comitatus, and let the military take over. The Military is the only orgainzation in the Federal Government that has the means to undertake such action and rapid response. It also installs a single person with authority over everything for rapid decision making. One of the problems they are having with DHS/FEMA is the fact decisions takes 2 -3 hours each via commitee. There are times when having a dictator makes sense.Second off, the government's wheels cannot turn quickly, but once they do, they can do a lot. This was a perfect example. In 4 days there was an 8-mile long convoy of supplies into New Orleans. The military could have made decisions to retask assets, say to evacuate hospitals first, without a lot of discussion, or reroute supplies to the convention center as soon as the need was identified. After 5 days or so, transition authority over to DHS/FEMA and let the national guard and federal agencies take over.The other issue to understand is the sheer magnitude. The federal government had to worry not only about New Orleans, but half of the state of Mississippi was destroyed and just as many, if not more, people displayed there not to mention Alabama in the mix too. THey had to worry about getting supplies to folks in those areas as well. For this administration, politically it was pick your poison. Let DHS try and handle the situation through civilian channels and have the press ***** the response wasn't fast enough, or two: declare martial law and let the press ***** it was the first steps towards a neo-facisist police state.

Not a lot I am guessing. My PC won't run the game and when they announced a version for the PS2/Xbox I decided to wait. $50 for the PS2 version is a lot cheaper than $650 for a new system.BF2 has had a lot of issues including an initial patch that made things worse, and the fact the system requirements is causing a lot of problems with heat in systems. Or the systems required have issues with heat...either way.

This is just the beginning of Hurricane season. Really serious questions need to raised when it comes time to rebuild. Mainly, Should New Orleans be rebuilt at all? Move the population zones out of town on to higher ground and maybe just have a downtown business district. Really it doesn't matter if the levees were built to with stand a Cat 5 Hurricane, you don't screw around with mother nature because mother nature will win every time especially with water.I grew up in St. Louis and remember the floods of '93. Today in the Chesterfield valley a new shopping superplex has been built with Wal-Mart's, Sams, Target, Movie theaters, you name it it's there. About 200 Million in development in the last 5 years. I remember when all that area was under 30 feet of water for a month and it will happen again. We don't seem to remember these things.

Really they had game play mastered with Sega Hockey. Anyrate, I bought NHL 2003. Last version before that was NHL 1994 for Sega CD. So maybe NHL 2011 or 2012 I'll think about it...

I have used Oracle 8i, MySQL, mSQL, Access, PostgreSQL, and flat-file databases in my day. Unless your database is going to scale into the Terrabyte range, forget Oracle exists. Two most focused here are mySQL and PostgreSQL. The thing that a lot of people forget is you first have to decide what your going to do and then pick the best database for the job. MySQL was designed from the outset for fast SELECT command. For a majority of websites, 90%+ of all queries to the database will be SELECT. MySQL makes a very good choice for this arena especially along with PHP, PERL, or Python. However, if your database, lets say for an online text-based RPG, is going to use a lot of insert, update, delete queries, MySQL's performance degrades quickly. I've also had a lot of issues of data corruption on heavily used databases with MySQL and the Promisance game engine under heavy load. If you are going to have a lot of insert, update, delete queries and repeat processes, or looking for better data protection or using it on a smaller scale, say for a small office with 100 employees, PostgreSQL really shines. I was in the process of porting Promisance to the PostgreSQL database system when other things came up and I abandoned the project. PostgreSQL's speed is not the issue it once was as is MySQL's features list now supporting triggers and transactions in version 5.0+, however a lot of services/ISP's still are using MySQL 4.x.I use MySQL now because that is the package supported by Mambo Openserver. If I had my choice, it would probably be PgSQL,

This can be very useful. We sometimes will support a version of Photoshop for 2 - 3 years until we can't find copies of the old version just so everyone is using the same program. Not such a big issue with Photoshop, but it is with programs like Lightwave. Features differ greatly from 5.6 - 7 and even 7 - 8.

If I am going to run a really active messageboard, my first choice is vbulletin. I'm baised as I've been familar with Keir Darby's work (VB creator) for almost 7 years now. Between invision and phpBB, invision has always been the package I've chosen. phpBB has a larger install base and a lot more security exploits. However, lately I've used whatever messageboard intergrates with Mambo (I think its simpleboard).Personally I like invision board for moderately active boards.

Any reason why your switching distros? Any reason why Redhat 7 is no longer effective? I could understand a move to new hardware and lack of drivers for older distros. If you are going to move, have you even considered switching to FreeBSD or OpenBSD? Actually I wouldn't recommend OpenBSD unless your a security freak. But FreeBSD is worth a look and it has some really nice features. One being that once it is installed and has a connection to the internet, every part of the system can be updated as new versions come out automatically without having to purchase the next CD set (which you can DL an ISO if you really want or my favorite method, ever major release (ie 3, 4, 5, soon to be 6) get the Sams FreeBSD unleashed book that has a copy of the core OS on CD rom. Then just download the latest ports collection and run cvsup and get the latest kernal release. Chances are, all the software he is using for print, file, and web sharing will run the exact same way under FreeBSD since chances are they are the same programs. If not, FreeBSD has a Linux emulation layer and I've never had any problems running Linux applications in FreeBSD. Frankly I find FreeBSD boxes to much easier to adminster and keep up to date since FreeBSD will do most of the work for you. Being able to go into ports/postgresql7/ then type make && make install and come back a few minutes later and have PostgreSQL installed and ready to go is really, really handy.

iPod...and um....iPod.I have the $99 shuffle my self. The only bad thing: its the size of a pack of gum...and I loose things easily.

going to show my age and geekyness here:Everything since Slackware 3.....SucksBeing Flames......Now!

There are 1TB disks out there, but none you'll find outside of DOD supercomputers. At work we currently have 2x1.2TB Xraid systems and we just ordered a 6TB system from Apple last week.However, it should be noted that we're in the video production business and having a 500GB project isn't uncommon, especially if we're doing anything in HD. The general strategy with computing in general these days is more is better not bigger is better. For instance, we have our computers linked with Xgrid. If one of the computers goes down, we're operating at 95%. Back in the day they had large 8-way Alpha servers for rendering and if that server went down, you were at 0%. Anyway, I'd rather have 4x250GB disk arrayed and mirrored than 1x1TB disk any day.

Unless your going for Apple products for a reason, the mobile processor to get is Centrino from Intel. AMD really doesn't invest much into their mobile R&D and 64-bit processing for the basic needs of a laptop is really non-existant. The other problem AMD chips have had in the past is the fact that AMD runs hot. Heat is the number one problem with laptops with battery life being second. Because of those two factors, 64-bit chips at this point in time aren't worth it in a mobile platform. Your going to get better overall performance with the 32-bit Centrino chips.

If you have to buy now, get an Apple iBook. I've had mine (a G3 700 no less) for 3 years now and other than that logic board issue, I've loved it. (I should note that Apple did replace the board 3 times free and I got OS 10.3 free and an upgraded combo drive free of charge also). It will be retired next year when the Mactel notebooks are released.If you have to go PC side, get a Sony Viao. Sony builds good stuff.If you can wait about a year I would. Why? Apple will be switching their laptops over to Intel Mobile chips next year. These should offer better performance and even better battery life (which ibook battery life is pretty dang good now).As far as Mac's "Being good for design" is really a by-gone myth these days. All major graphics programs are tuned for Intel chips. A few high end rendering systems (Mental Ray) are tuned for the AMD64 platform. Adobe started coding the CS programs for Wintel first to retaliate against Apple's Final Cut Pro. (although I personally blame Adobe for releasing the POS known as Premiere 6 on both Windows and Macintosh for the reason FCP became defacto standard in small video shops)There are some other technical reasons why the x86 architecture kills the PPC in 3D animation rendering. Flip side, PPC kicks the crap out of x86 when rendering things like audio and video output (like from FCP).

BBedit - Can't live without that programQuick Time Pro - $29.99, the swiss army knife of video toolsiLife - free the Mac and hard to beatXgrid Admin - Well this is technically an OS 10.4 Server app, but really sweat!

Last couple people I've known to get Alienware systems have had some heat issues, but the same issues are being reported arcoss the board with the AMD64 chips and high end graphics boards. I suspect that Alienware's quality might beginning to slip like Dell's has in the past few years. If I were to purchase a gaming rig and spend a premium today, I'd proably go with Falcon-NorthWest https://www.falcon-nw.com/