Messages

AFAIK the best compression on mp3 files is rar. gzip and bzip2 fail to compare to how much space you can save. (the half a megabyte that is)

For the sake of iago I was going with something Linux natively supports. Wouldn't want him to have to go out of his way but if he won't send me the music anyways bleh @ him! :(

Like you should tar+gzip those songs and email them to razorm@gmail.com iago! I have to put together a presentation with a target audience in the same age group.

Speak for yourself.  I'm probably the closest one on the forums, excluding his girlfriend.

Quick get your defensible space prepared!

I can't believe they're letting people associated with Joe go play with fire. What the fuck are they thinking?! Oh well, atleast I live far far away.

I watched 30 minutes of it and well I want the 30 minutes of my life back.

I don't see how in the fuck it could clear anything up, take for example the pentagon story.

First he claims there was no debris. Then he wonders what the debris that was there came from. Apparantly it matches an A-3 engine but contained explosives from a cruise missile.

Of course I was kind of under the impression that there wasn't debris cause you know he only said so 5 seconds earlier.

Then he goes on about a C-130 flying overhead and some "unmarked white plane." Well had he read the 9/11 commision report he'd know that the C-130 was a national guard transport which was in route to someplace(I believe Texas) as was asked to verify an attack on the Pentagon since it was overhead at the time.

Also he failed to mention the assassination of the northern alliance leader in Aghanistan the day before 9/11 but was quick to site unconfirmed information on Bin Laden, as well as "mysterious" phone calls warning people not to fall.

Complete waste of time.

Its from a webcam that will eventually go on my robot. I'm just working on basic software for now.

So I started coding and this is as far as I've gotten for now:

x86] link=topic=5395.msg63755#msg63755 date=1144293621]
What I highly recommend is putting together a project proposal and see if they'll give you an internship.  I'll clarify.

I found out the Microsoft recruiter for my university is Kim Bremmer (you can find this out at http://www.microsoft.com/college/).  I didn't get the internship I applied for a while ago; however, when I was last on my let's-get-a-Microsoft-gig hype time, I sent her an e-mail asking, essentially, "If I put a project proposal together for something that would add value to a current Microsoft product, could I get an internship working on that project?"  She told me, essentially, "Put the project proposal together and then we'll talk."

That was more work than I had time for at the time, but I am fairly certain that they're not averse to looking into new and creative ways.  Their internships have great package benefits, and who knows?  You could be building a Microsoft battlebot running XP Embedded, while they're paying you to do something that you wanted to do (basically) anyway.  Then you could get parts and stuff for free too, *and* have the advantage of hardware pros like the people at the Xbox 360 division.

Of course, then you trade-off the notion of not being singularly identified with the project.  But it's still not a bad gig.

That might be way more in-depth than you had in mind, but it's probably worth considering.  ;)

Interesting idea but I wouldn't really know where to start since I've never done any sort of real project proposal before. Also I won't be in college until the fall but that shouldn't be a huge deal.

My basic idea for now is to start coding some of the basic software things and to see where I get. I also realized that I have a spare IR mouse that can be used for detecting/verifying movement so I'll add that in too.

On software:
My basic idea is that the robot will run a server which will control everything as well as relay information to the clients. Since I'm using C++ I'm  not really sure of how modular a design I should start with. Perhaps having it load DLLs for all the different sensors and such?

The clients will run on remote PCs and will basically be there for debugging/information purposes. As well as remote control when running in such a mode.

No, they actually offer a free 120 trial. Then I googled around and found out how to run it inside vmware. Haven't done much aside from that since it really needs a hardware profile, but the generic one will work for now.

I played around with XPe today and its actually very cool. Now I just need to figure out the best way to get a free license for it and I'm all set!

Also, add a compactflash reader/writer to my list of needed items. I figure this might help when I want to load the OS onto it.

I compared the one I bought (naked) to an equivalent one (with Windows).  They were both low end, but the naked one I bought was about $1300 and the one with Windows was a little over $1500.  That's a difference.  Although technically, the laptop came with (not installed) a cd for Thiz Linux.  I still have the cd somewhere..

I'm not really sure equivalent is good enough when you are only talking about $200. It hard to know what the discount these places are getting is but I suspect it is a large amount and that other variations between the two computers account for the majority of the price difference.

I wish they would give me the option.  It's fine if most computers come with Windows, but it would be nice if I could give up the license they'd be giving me in exchange for $150 or something. 

It annoys me that Microsoft pressures them not to sell naked PCs, though.  Forcing people to buy Windows (or another OS) when they buy their computer isn't the best way to stop piracy. 

I think attempting to get $ back for not getting Windows is unlikely to happen. I also accept that Microsoft may have some sort of lockin deal so the company may not be installing Windows on the computer but they are still paying for a license for it. This may account for the fact that there doesn't seem to be any real price difference.

Also I can see the argument for a considerable amount of piracy happening because of a computer being sold with no OS. A family might buy it without understanding exactly what it means, etc. Then if they call their local 'techy' to come and fix it the chances that hes going to install a pirated copy of windows is very high. I've heard about situations similar to this where the tech person will install lots of pirated software and such so I can see it happening.

I've never seen any hard evidence that such naked PCs are cheaper. Most of the naked PCs I've heard about are lower end models and such so they can't be compared. On the other end of the spectrum theres a company in town that sells linux laptops and workstations but they are way high end and as such they can't really be compared either.

Also you have to consider how many people out there actually could take advantage of a naked PC, its few and far between. Most people wouldn't know what to do with one or about other options. To me it'd be far more valuable to have them be able to pick which OS they want running on it. It would be rather simple then to just have to store image the harddrive(since a lot of stores like Best Buy will attempt to open+turn on any computer you buy anyhow) with the OS of choice.

x86] link=topic=5395.msg63624#msg63624 date=1144251691]
You know, Microsoft is always trying to market themselves.  You might try to exploit that by trying to get them to license you a copy of Windows XP Embedded.  Tell them you'll advertise that they donated to your project.

Thats a great idea, I should hit up Newby since he has Microsoft connections.

I'm not so sure I couldn't strip down a win2k to make it nice. The advantage of all of this is that I'd get to program on a platform I know a lot about, and I'll break the hearts of a lot of geeks who ask what it runs when I get it all working :p

Actually, I could just use Windows for the whole thing. It'd make life really easy.