TechBait

Amazon.com

Modern Warfare 2 is a first-person tactical shooter and the sixth entry in the popular Call of Duty series. True to its name and following the lead of its predecessor, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, it places players in modern combat settings, as opposed to the WWII environments of the earlier Call of Duty games. This modern approach brings with it new weapons, action and options. Coupled with a variety of gameplay modes including single player, multiplayer and the c (more…)

Amazon.com

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Kingston¿s family of convenient, compact and reliable DataTraveler USB Flash drives just got bigger with the addition of the DataTraveler 101. With capacities up to 8GB, DataTraveler 101 contains room for high-definition photos, graphics-intensive documents, videos, spreadsheets, presentations, term papers, and music that can be stored and retrieved in a flash. Sleek, practical, and attractively designed, the affordable DataTraveler 101 serves the needs of the budgetconscious (more…)

From the Manufacturer

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I was trying to ascertain if an Inspiron 560 with an Intel 5400 CPU had the VT-x extensions.  Some part numbers of that CPU have it and some do not.  Well, if there is any more proof that outsourcing your customer service or chat staff is an utter failure, read on.

Well, there you go, an utter waste of time…..

Thanks Dell, you lost a potential sale…

Hewlett Packard plans to buy Palm for (Dr. Evil voice) one BILLION dollars….. in cash.  I guess by laying off all those HP workers, closing all those offices, and offshoring so much work to India and China has enabled the “deep pockets” that HP sports.  Well, I guess this gives HP more of an “in” in the mobile phone market, but I still say Android is where it’s at these days.  I have no experience with the Web OS that runs some Palm devices, and I know that some swear by it….  I guess we’ll see.  It’s nice to see Palm get saved, but as with any acquisition all of those peripheral accounting, HR, IT and other jobs are gone….

I’m happy to see that the Rite Group still has their page up on how to set up a Solaris DHCP client.  This works and it is very useful.  I always would point field engineers who needed to accomplish this task to this page, and I used it myself for any in house Solaris machines that had to be set up as DHCP clients.  Find this useful method HERE.

Solaris is Sun Microsystems’ version of UNIX.  For non NIS/NIS+ Solaris machines, the things necessary to add it to an IP network are:

• The /etc/hosts file must have the hostname and IP address of the machine.
• There must be an /etc/hostname.[interface] file which contains the system hostname.  The [interface] is the designation of the network interface assigned the address, for example, /etc/hostname.eri0 or /etc/hostname.dmfe0
• There must exist an /etc/netmasks file which holds the subnet mask for the machine.
• The /etc/resolv.conf file must contain the DNS server if the host relies on DNS for name to IP address resolution.
• Finally, the /etc/defaultrouter file needs to hold the IP address of the router for the subnet – or in other words the default gateway address.

I agree with Google that the outlook for Android is VERY good since they are doing with mobile phones what Microsoft did with PC operating systems.  It’s funny that Microsoft was there first and failed horribly at the PDA/mobile phone OS market.  Android is one OS that is running on the devices from multiple manufacturers, and in time there will be so many more Android devices than iPhones.  It’s just the Law of Averages at work.  The article mentions that Microsoft is entering the fray by attacking HTC over patent violations, but another story states that HTC cut a deal with Microsoft, which would mean Microsoft sticking it to Apple by giving HTC a pass of sorts through a royalty agreement.  The software business is once again looking like a soap opera script.  It’s fun though.  :)

HTC is licensing Microsoft patents as they are facing patent lawsuits and possible injunctions by Apple, who wants the HTC phones banned from the US market.  Sorry, but IMO this is just another illustration how these micro patented features are just a bad idea.  It hobbles creative freedom and results in less choice for consumers.  If Apple’s iPhone is so great, then let it compete for the hearts and mind of consumers based on the whole Apple aura that surrounds it, rather than Apple using these patented features to force HTC to stop selling what seems like great phones in the US market.  This is just Apple afraid of Android, IMO.

The article also proposes a fun conspiracy angle claiming that maybe Microsoft is “throwing HTC a life preserver” in it’s pending battle with Apple.  i.e. Microsoft sticking it to Apple.  That is funny, and very possible.