unimatrix

Photoshop 7 for Mac....actually I've not used any of the new features since PS 5.5. In fact I think I have PS 6 on my PC and haven't upgraded in years. The texture and graphics art people in the office all have the CS, and now CS2, suite. But they seem to use Illistrator more than PS. Gimp had that 4 year period there where really not much happened and PS really was beating GIMP badly in features and new innovation. GIMP 2 is much improved and if I didn't have access to PS for free, I'd probalby use it.

Get a Mac Mini and a KVM switch.Since you already have keyboard, monitor, mouse, get a Mac Mini and a KVM switch where you can share that same keyboard, mouse, and monitor with the Mac and PC. Then you just have to flip a switch. I do the same thing at work. I have a an Xserve unit on one side and a Mac Mini on the other. I use the Mac Mini to check my email and general surfing and then just flip the switch when I need to do something to the Network. The set up works great.

try looking through the code in the log-in script. Somewhere it has to have a call to what ever encryption scheme they are using.

I've worked in Internet technologies for over 10 years now. Started out as a Web Page designer, the learned PERL, then PHP/MySQL, then PHP/PostgreSQL, then I got into systems administration and networking. I've been in charge of Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris 5 & 8, AIX, OpenBSD, and Xserve systems and lately designing Xgrid systems.Somewhere along the way I got interested in 3D animation programs and video editing using Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, and Blender 3D. I'm not artistic enough to be really good, but I do know how to build renderfarms and understand the underlying tech pretty well.I have degrees in International Business and German. I have done translation of websites and software in the past from German to English. Currently I am a consultant to small and medium sized video production companies, in particular those using Apple hardware and Final Cut Pro.

Don't store your images in a database. Use method #2 and store them in a directory. One reason is the befored mentioned "when the database crashes you don't loose anything", but if you have a half way busy site, the added data in the database will cause the system to slow down and probably crash real quick, especially if the files are like 150k+ each. If you must use a database, I would take a serious look at PostgreSQL instead. It may be slower than MySQL for most web requests, but if your going to be transfering lots of data, it will hold up better under load. Still I recommend not putting image data into a database period and store the images in a folder.

Here is a cheap $6 solution (if not approved by the FCC) http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

I mainly use Safari. I will say that I am not surpirsed that FF borrowed some the interface design from Apple. (like the Search bar, tabs, etc...) When I am in windows I use Netscape 8 now which gives me the choice of rendering with either the MSIE engine (trident? iirc) or the FireFox Engine with tabbed browsing and some other features that are cool and like.

First off, RISC or no RISC, Intel chips are ripping apart the PPC in many of the tasks that Apple/PPC once dominated, mainly Graphics and rendering. Plus IBM is getting out of the hardware market slowly but shurely and shifting to a consulting company. Also, Intel has some killer stuff in the pipeline over the next few years. Mac OS X is NOT the FreeBSD operating system because Mac OS X uses a MACH kernel, not a BSD Kernel. While OSX uses many technologies from BSD, technically it is not BSD. The reason people buy Macs are either for Apple Software (ie Final Cut Pro) or they want a complete system that is designed to work. These people could care less, and most often don't know, about the differences between Intel and PPC other than they don't work with each other. So long as the software and hardware they want work and is easy to use they are happy.Many now have purchased Macs to replace older Unix workstations. Many of those old workstations from SGI, Sun, and DEC were $15,000 - $20,000 a piece when they were purchased. Suddenly a $6,000 to those folks seems like a huge bargin. Code is fairly portable, so long as it was good code in the first place. We had to change less than 50 lines in our in house software packages to get them to compile on the X86 version. Security actually has a lot more to do than with just the Operating system. In the corporate world, that also includes physical security (who is alllowed to touch the systems). Just like the stories of people walking into a building and stealing mainframes with no one questioning them. It has actually happened before. Being able to run Windows without emulation, cool. We have virtual PC and XP on a couple machines, although we rarely use it. As far as the fact your home built machine won't run Mac OSX: how does that really change things compared to now? I mean can your home built machine run MacOS X now? I rest my case. Personally I think this is from a bunch of people who really WANT to run MacOSX, but won't because it's "Apple" and not as cool as "Linux" in my l33t network of friends.Linux...the Kernel might be Linux on PPC/Intel/Alpha/ARM, but why is it to get an application to work across distros is a pain in the *bottom*? That was why Red Hat became the defacto standard with SuSE trying to make their distro compatiable. If you want to Run Maya on Linux, you'd better have Red Hat or SuSE. Considering that RH and SuSE now charge per seat licences, the cost factor over other platforms isn't as attractive. Futher more, why is the httpd directory never in the same place between all the distros? Also, the fact that Linux users are more apt to have their boxes custom tweaks makes writing binaries for many different distros extremely costly mainly because of the support costs involved more than development. At least with MacOS it really is the same on PPC/x86. (same goes for *BSD)

It was the KT-133A set I personally had all the issues with, however every time I go looking at new motherboards and barebones kits, a majority of the ones I found have VIA chip sets. I know of the new nVidea chipsets and that would be what I use would use if I would go back to AMD. All the boxes we had there had AMD processors with factory installed heatsinks and CPUfans. Still they had several fry under heavy use, inparticular during long rendering runs in Lightwave. However, if I am going to purchase a PC for personal use I'll go with a Sony Vaio with a warrenty. Being in corporate IT and consulting I've learned the value of time/money.

I like SMG + SMG....I can fire one while reloading the other and keep up a constant rate of fire until I'm out of ammo. Yeah, you might get killed, but the goal is to provide covering fire. If your playing with a good team in single or multi player it is perfect for laying down cover fire while people with rifles take out targets with accurate fire. Although it is basic small squad tactics. The SMG's take the place of the SAW gunner in other games. One of my friends and I have perfected this Spot On. Makes us extremely hard to defeat. We used to use the same tactics with Halo 1 with the Machine gun and pistol back in our Friday night lan parties where we'd have 8-10 people playing 4v4 in seperate rooms.

I am looking into creating an opensource MMPOG based off the Plane Shift engine, which is based on the Crystal Space Engine, set in World War I, in particular either the battle of Verdun or the Somme. Blender 3D will be used to create the models because it is free, I can use it, lots of other users use it, and there is already partical intergration between Blender and Crystal Space 3D. In fact, there is a project now to replace the Blender Game Engine (which is extremely dated and needs to be overhauled) with the Crystal Space Engine so these two programs (both Opensource) are the logical programs to use. I hope that much of it will be Opensource. The game AI, however, may not be OSS because it is being developed by a friend as a PHD project. He's nice enough to let me license a free copy, but he is really looking to sell the design after he finishes in a couple years. Also there will probably be some kind of non-OSS file to play on the main server to help prevent cheating. But that will be discussed later.Bottom line, anyone else her familiar with either Plane Shift or Crystal Space 3d in general?

We're still at Adove PS 7 series at work even though video and graphics is our primary business. However, much more of our business is using Final Cut Pro and Lightwave than Photoshop. There are some cool new features, plus this is the year to spend the $$$$ on Adobe upgrades. We usually update Adobe one year, FCP the next, and get at leat 1 new update of Lightwave every year since we can install it on our render farm just by buying 1 copy.

having created several websites, one of the best ideas is to find a community of like minded people with a popular forum, make good posts, and add a link in your sig as par their rules.If you have an online business, Google Adwords advertising is where I've found us getting the most new paying clients per $ spent. Our second best method is we advertise in a couple related industry magazines. That is expensive, but our premium services are the main focus there and people are willing to spend the money.If it is cool enough, there is always Slashdot...

I don't play online, but I play with friends and go to the local casino boats a couple times a year. Way I see it, if I loose $100 twice a year, big deal. Cheap entertainment since we go for an entire day. Last time at the boat I walked off with $1,400 from poker and black jack. I was upto about 2000 at once point. Figured when I got to $1000 it was time to leave. I've tried playing online, but just not the same to me. It lacks the human element that makes the real thing a thrill.

I have lived in Germany and the United States. The phone I had in Germany circa 2003 was a couple years ahead of the US. And I had a cheap Pre-paid one from Vodaphone. The United states has been behind the rest of the world in cell phone technology for the past two decades. Why? Well there are a lot of reasons. First off, people in the United States use their phones to talk on. In Germany I rarely called anyone, I SMS text messaged more than anything. Only time I talked was when people from the United States called me because it costed me nothing to talk when they called in. (I wish it worked like that in the US). Its been only recently has sending pictures and stuff like that has become popular. Second off is that the United States & Canada is far larger geographically and it costs a lot of money to set up new telecom infracstructure. Also the united states has the best, in terms of coverage, wired infrastructure in the world that was invested into for well over a 100 years. Countries like China, it is now cheaper to put in wireless coverage, so in that respect devloping nations are at an advantage for wireless technologies over the United States. Also I should note, the whenever I say United States, I really should really say North American since Canadian telecom tech is very close to that of the United States for obvious reasons. As a cell phone user in the United States, we use Sprint at work and I have one of those fancy do-everything-including SSH dataphones. At home I have cingular, in fact I switched to the new no-contract plan that just bills my credit card monthly because I travel between the US and Germany (Consultant). I'm contracted in the US through December 1st of this year, but my next contract might be in Germany. So I could cancel my plan without termination fees and move. The company I work for has a no camera policy in the server area and development area because we develop our own inhouse stuff. Plus, I have a DOD security clearence and do work from time to time for DOD contractors where cameras are also forbidden. It is now becomming harder for me to find phones with good call reception and clarity without the fancy gizmos. All I want is a flip with outside caller-id and that is it. The phone I have now is a flip, but no out side caller ID. It works for the $80 I paid for it from Cingular, but not what I would have preferred. So I would say some of it has to deal with geopgraphy, existing tech infrastructure, and how North Americans use cell phones.

Funny thing is that Linux still has issues with a lot of drivers. I remember when I first installed SuSE 6.4 on my old PII 400 (now running FreeBSD 3.4 still. I guess I should update, but its only a 200GB file server. So until it dies...) Anyway, I finally ripped out a 33.6 modem that had jumpers from the old 486 and installed. Linux loved it. I think its funny that after all these years there are still modem issues with Linux.I learned a lot of the Unix basics from Linux, but I graduated to the real Unixes including AIX, Solaris, and then FreeBSD & OpenBSD's.

I used to manage one of the Promisance game forks from 2000 - 2003. I just wish I had the time to continue it. Finally things got to the point where too many people were trying to beat the system, not the game. When someone managed to hack and crash the OpenBSD server it was hosted on, I finally gave it up.Before that I played Starkingdom back in the beta days when there were 400 players. Made a reputation back there too. Actually that is where my handle Unimatrix comes from. If there are any former SK players, give me a holler....

I just got a new account and CPanel reports that I have -380.2 MB of quota space and using 400.2MB. This disables some of Cpanel's functions. It would have been nice to use the automated Mambo installer, but no biggy. I uploaded the latest Mambo .tar.gz from my FTP program and unpacked it via Cpanel's file manager with no problem.When I first logged into the system I created a new Database for mambo and a new user for that database and linked the two from Cpanel. I logged off to watch something on TV and came back and that database isn't being reported by Cpanel nor is the user I created for it. Futhermore, when I go to install Mambo, it says the database & user is non existant. Now when I try to create a new databases or database users Cpanel reports that they have been added, but when I go back, Cpanel acts like there is nothing there. Thought I would give a heads up on the problems I am having.

Get a Video Capture device and record the output like we did in the olden days with the NES and Sega Gensis. Although back then we'd hook 'em up to a VCR. Yeah its, not the highest tech way of "ripping" vis from any platform, but it works.Cheers

Define "crash". Would you get some error message from the application or would it crash the MySQLd service completely? I have before had issues with data in MySQL becoming corrupted on highly used datatables, which happens with all databases if you don't keep maintaince up. A little more detail could really help.

3Mb / 512k - dn/upPay $45I have charter cable.

I thought the Xbox only had a 10GB harddrive. It is possible to add a larger harddrive. I've known of people who've done it, how legal it is I'm not sure. (I think it requires a Mod chip).

OS no, Google thin client terminal....maybe.Think of something a PS2 mini size with blue tooth keyboard that hooks up to your tv and connects through broadband much like the idea behind WebTv/MSNTV. Logs you into a central Google network and then you can search/browse/playgames from there.Not a new idea. That's been Scott McNealy's vision for past couple decades only replace Google with SUN.

There was some news on Slashdot yesterday that the Mambo Openserve team has split off from Miro Corp. Mambo is my favorite CMS program over the years. I just wonder where this will lead development.

I still have to go with Lightwave. The Lightwave Rendering Engine is starting to show its age, but still its the only package that you can really use out of the box for broadcast quality stuff without a lot of tweaks. We use Lightwave because a lot of our potential hire based used it in college and learned how to crete titles and some other limited 3D work. Since we are primarily a video production company, Lightwave work is really second to editing and postproduction. We need to do 3D animation work from time to time for titles or for a true animation, but not on a day to day basis. The program I am really looking at, and I've used as a hobbist for 6 years now, is Blender 3D. They've made some impressive leaps forward in the past 2 years since going OpenSource and some of the lower end 3D packages had better watch themselves as BLender is poised to take away their market share.Even 3DS's traditional uses in game design is threaten by Blender since Blender was orginally designed to create NeoGeo games. As the Crystal Space 3d game engine is merged with Blender it should be interesting to see what develops there.