Posted 05/08/2009 at 06:24:05pm

Why is Hulu blocking everyone outside the US? And why can't I used the BBC Player from the US?

Posted 04/17/2009 at 09:09:01pm

How is it that my electric company, gas company, phone company (landline & cell) water, sewer, local gas station, local supermarket, etc., etc. all abide by strict governmental regulations regarding weights & measures BUT THESE ISPs don't?

How is it these ISPs think that they are exempt from providing accurate, metered service without oversight? How is my usesage determined? Where is my meter? How is my meter calibrated? What standards are used to determine the calibration? What guarantees that my service is metered correctly and accurately.

Why is it that these ISPs think that my exceeding an arbitrary threshold warrants punitive action? If I exceed my minutes allotment on my cell plan I pay for it. If I use more water this month than last, I pay for it. If my car is almost empty I fill it and pay for it. All of these are heavily regulated by strict weights & measure standards set by the government. IMHO it's the governments job to set and enforce these standards.

Who maintains and enforces standards for metered bandwidth? Frankly I don't trust the ISPs to self regulate.

All scales, meters, pumps, anything that a consumer would use to make a purchase from a utility or vendor is government regulated. Why is it that these ISPs have circumvented this? Do they think they are exempt?

The following is from NJs Office of Weights & Measures:

"The Office of Weights and Measures represents one of New Jersey's oldest efforts at consumer protection and traces its origins to the Code of Hammurabi, the Magna Carta and the United States Constitution. Created in 1911, after an "epidemic" of fraud which shortchanged the states' citizens, the Office of Weights and Measures is responsible for ensuring that all commercial weighing and measuring devices accurately measure the commodities sold to consumers."

The following FAQ is provided: Most Frequently Asked Questions "FAQs"

What weighing/measuring device is employed by Time Warner and Comcast to determine my useage? Is the device registered with the state? Have registration fees been paid? Is it properly calibrated? By who? What regulations exist to ensure that the unit price is accurately accessed? What is the unit price?

I can easily determine unit pricing looking at any of my utility bills or commodity purchases. Why is it that these ISPs think they can skirt the law regarding their service?

Write, call or visit your states Office of Weights & Measures and find out.

Posted 03/13/2009 at 02:28:37am

In the late 80s there was an idea to use memory as RAM drives. One could buy an isa or vesa card that DIMMs were mounted on. Then as now they were blazing fast and cost prohibitive. The interesting thing is now memory is so cheap and there are many memory makers ready to go under. The opprotunity exists for this to take off. Let's hope they don't handle it like Sony did with Blu Ray.

 If Steve Wozniak can pull this off the potential can be astonishing...

Posted 03/07/2009 at 04:58:56am

ESET Smart Security 4. These two should go head to head...

Posted 01/24/2009 at 08:03:35pm

Check Seagates site for their newly released firmware...

Posted 01/19/2009 at 05:20:57am

With all the trouble Seagate is having with their 1Tb and 1.5 TB drives, I just hope that Western Digital can maintain their usual high standards.

Posted 12/19/2008 at 10:31:45pm

and have a very reliable "Kick Ass" system!!!!

Posted 12/18/2008 at 02:18:32pm

Reports that Seagate is having “random freeze” problems on its new 1.5 TB drives may be more serious than the company has admitted: 1 TB Seagate drives may be affected as well.

The following are direct quotes from this article:

... But then I got a note from a senior engineer at a cloud storage company:

"What seagate doesn’t seem to be admitting is that their 7200.11 1.0 TB drives have that same problem also.  We’ve had to remove from service and rebuild 2 expansion servers with overnighted Samsung drives in the last 48 hours . . . ."

Pulling servers and replacing all the drives is more than an “inconvenience.” It is a major operational problem.

It can kill your desktop RAID
A Tech Report commenter noted that this problem can kill a desktop RAID. How?

. . . the problem may cause a RAID system to think the drive has died. The RAID system automatically removes the drive and continues to run degraded (as designed). 20 minutes later when another drive exhibits the problem the RAID system drops the second drive and dies.

Your data is in there somewhere, but good luck ever seeing it again. Yet another reason to avoid desktop RAID unless you a) know what you are doing and b) absolutely need it.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=369

Considering the seriousness of this issue, it is more likely that this "Kick Ass" graded company CAN'T afford to stand behind it's warranty.  Moot point really when your data is gone...

Posted 12/01/2008 at 04:47:06am

My dad's old PC has a BFG 7300GT.  What about this version?  They'll take back 6800s, 7600s and 7800 but not 7300s?

C'mon now!!!

Posted 10/04/2008 at 10:28:33pm

After RMAing my lousy Striker Extreme 3 times and presently needing a fourth, ASUS has lost my trust...

Their horrible customer service and return policies have assured me that they are not the company they once were.

Never again...