vvarder - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Anything in the Peavy "Classic" series (see lin (Score 1) 685

by vvarder on Friday August 12, 2011 @10:23PM (#37076566) Attached to: PC Designer Says PC "Going the Way of the Vacuum Tube"

Extremely late, but seconded. I recently bought a Peavey Classic 30 off eBay and couldn't be happier. I'm not an audiophile, but the difference is night and day. Some of the new modelers (like a line 6 amp) might get you to the same goal, YMMV etc, etc

Comment Re:when it's a hobby first (Score 1) 385

by vvarder on Friday April 23, 2010 @07:34PM (#31962536) Attached to: Confessions of a SysAdmin

I heard this lament often working in the computer lab at the University, that although I loved computers *now* I wouldn't after I had my job and hit the real world.

And I have to be honest....it's just not true, for me anyway. 10 years in the "industry" and I still enjoy coding on the train ride home, or tinkering with machines at home. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones that enjoys what I do. However, my bigger hobby was coding, and in my profession I for systems administration. But I still do both at home...

Then again, it probably helps that I don't interact with end users that often, working on the "backend" systems and interfacing with mostly tech staff.

My wife sent this article today, and I have to say, for him, it's time to move on. Be a plumber, or maybe even change jobs, because right now, he sounds a bit jaded. Or maybe he's just ranting and getting it out of his system.

Most of the problems he mentions in the article have a lot of smart people working on them. Ubuntu has made huge strides in making things easier for users, Win7 was a redesign for easier use, and hell, Mac OS markets themselves around it. It's not that they don't know it's a problem, it's that the problems are HARD to solve for everyone.

And that's really just it. As much as some might want the computer to be a appliance, it's not. It's a complex machine that can do a bunch of different things. If you want it to work like your toaster (or car) it might be more feasible if it were devoted to a single purpose. And really for those that say, "it should work like my phone!"...have you ever had to reboot your blackberry, iPhone or even iPad?

When Servers Explode 142

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 19, 2009 @01:27PM from the smash-it-up dept.

1sockchuck writes "Have you ever lost your patience with a server? We're not sure who was the first person to intentionally blow up a server, but plenty of others have followed in their footsteps, and many seem to have captured the event on video. The Gallery of Exploding Servers documents the sometimes incendiary relationship between man and machine. Those who prefer a kinder, gentler disposition may prefer the guide to Flying and Crashing Servers."

Google Map To Real Piracy 262

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 24, 2008 @05:03PM from the not-the-pretend-kind dept.

An anonymous reader noted that you can now see a Google Map of piracy. Not the pretend kind, the real kind with boats and stuff. Considering how much time we spend talking about the other kind, I think it's worth paying attention to the real problems out there.

South Carolina Wants To Jam Cell Phone Signals 601

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 24, 2008 @10:22AM from the oooo-oooo-me-too dept.

Corey Brook writes "The South Carolina state prison system wants the FCC to grant them and local officers permission to block cell phone signals. News has been out about the growing problem of them perps smuggling cell phones into prisons for a while now. Inmates use cell phones as commerce, to implement fraud, smuggle drugs and weapons, and to order hits. Of course, some may use it to just talk to a loved one any time they can." Hopefully movie theaters and restaurants do it next.

Jaguar, World's Most Powerful Supercomputer 154

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday November 14, 2008 @06:46PM from the minimum-requirements-for-crysis dept.

Protoclown writes "The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS), located at Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL) in Tennessee, has upgraded the Jaguar supercomputer to 1.64-petaflops for use by scientists and engineers working in areas such as climate modeling, renewable energy, materials science, fusion and combustion. The current upgrade is the result of an addition of 200 cabinets of the Cray XT5 to the existing 84 cabinets of the XT4 Jaguar system. Jaguar is now the world's most powerful supercomputer available for open scientific research."

Woman Admits Sending $400K To Nigerian Scammer 857

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 13, 2008 @03:44PM from the headdesk dept.

svnt writes "Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account, remortgaged their paid-for house, and took out a lien against the family car in an attempt to cash in on the deal. A undercover officer involved with the investigation called it the worst example of the scam he's ever seen. Thoughtfully, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."

Identifying People By Odor As Effective As Fingerprinting 157

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 12, 2008 @02:13AM from the can-you-smell-me-now dept.

A study has found that everybody has a unique body odor, like their fingerprints, that could be used as an unique identifier. The study showed that a persons unique odor stayed the same even if they varied their diet with strong smelling foods such as garlic and spices. "These findings indicate that biologically-based odorprints, like fingerprints, could be a reliable way to identify individuals," said Monell chemist Jae Kwak. I would have thought that hundreds of years of dogs tracking people would have proved this, but it's nice to know that science has figured it out officially now.

Windows 7 Benchmarks Show Little Improvement On Vista 369

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 11, 2008 @06:23AM from the second-verse-same-as-the-first dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy examines Windows 7 from the kernel up, subjecting the 'pre-beta' to a battery of benchmarks to find any signs that the OS will be faster, more responsive, and less resource-intensive than the bloated Vista, as Microsoft suggests. Identical thread counts at the kernel level suggest to Kennedy that Windows 7 is a 'minor point-type of release, as opposed to a major update or rewrite.' Memory footprint for the kernel proved eerily similar to that of Vista as well. 'In fact, as I worked my way through the process lists of the two operating systems, I was struck by the extent of the similarities,' Kennedy writes, before discussing the results of a nine-way workload test scenario he performed on Windows 7 — the same scenario that showed Vista was 40 percent slower than Windows XP. 'In a nutshell, Windows 7 M3 is a virtual twin of Vista when it comes to performance,' Kennedy concludes. 'In other words, Microsoft's follow-up to its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues.'"

Barack Obama Wins US Presidency 3709

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 05, 2008 @09:30AM from the enough-of-that-now-this dept.

Last night, around 11pm, all the major networks announced that Senator Barack Obama had won the election. Soon after, Senator McCain conceded. There were no crazy partisan court hearings, just a simple election. This is your chance to talk about it and what it means for the future of our nation.

Discuss the US Presidential Election & Education 1515

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 03, 2008 @10:00AM from the running-out-of-time dept.

In 24 hours, many of you will be able to vote. So as we come down to the wire, this is really our last chance to talk about the issues. We've already discussed Health Care, the War, and the Economy. Today I'm opening up the floor to discuss education. Perhaps no other issue will matter more in 50 years. Which candidate will make the next generation smarter?

Comment Re:More IT Jobs require Mac skills (Score 1) 383

by vvarder on Monday April 28, 2008 @07:11PM (#23231066) Attached to: Macs Gaining a Bigger Role In Enterprise

I never reply, only signed up for an account because of Discussion2. However....

I also work for Publicis and know David, and I don't know who he knows to be featured in these articles all the time. Yes, they run parallels (no boot camp), our Image Dev team had to build in WinXP support. However, most of the apps they use (Notes, Photoshop, other Adobe products, etc) run native, parallels is a recent addition - and not Enterprise wide. The thing is, we had about 2000 Macs last I knew (2-3 years ago), and Publicis has bought many more brands since, so I don't imagine those are "PC converts" as he implies. In fact, I can't think of a single case where that's true. Either he's misquoted, or the "requests" are getting stopped before they come to fruition.

It's not a convert story at our company. It's creative companies that have always used macs and probably always will. If I wanted a mac (and do) there's no way I'd be able to get it funded - because it costs the same as a HIGH END PC, not our normal Desktop model.

BTW- we have something like 12-14000 Users US wide (more now I think) so 2500 isn't 25%. As a disclaimer, I like the Mac platform - and help support it from the systems end, but this story just isn't what it seems, at least from Publicis.

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