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Invisible wrote:
> (You'll note that my own USB stick is not backed up anywhere. You will
> also note that it contains nothing I wouldn't mind losing.)
My USB Flash drive is simply a convenient way of moving data from
Computer A to Computer B where Computer B is not accessible from the
network. It's nice to have everything I need to run diagnostics on a
machine in the shop without needing to configure one of those confounded
USB wireless network adapters that work only half the time, and never
during lunchtime.
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>> (You'll note that my own USB stick is not backed up anywhere. You will
>> also note that it contains nothing I wouldn't mind losing.)
>
> My USB Flash drive is simply a convenient way of moving data from
> Computer A to Computer B where Computer B is not accessible from the
> network. It's nice to have everything I need to run diagnostics on a
> machine in the shop without needing to configure one of those confounded
> USB wireless network adapters that work only half the time, and never
> during lunchtime.
My USB stick mainly contains diagnostic tools and my assorted
playthings. (*cough* POV-Ray *cough*) Nothing I couldn't download again
- or just get another copy off my computer anyway...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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"Invisible" <voi### [at] dev null> wrote in message
news:48b50995$1@news.povray.org...
> If stuff costs money then fine. But don't claim something is free when
> it isn't. That's deception.
I gather you have never come across the expressions like "no free lunch",
"too good to be true"... etc, and that you never ever seen any products
advertisements, be it on TV, radio or in papers. Either that, or you
genuinely belive that a deodorant will make you irresistable to the opposite
sex.
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"scott" <sco### [at] scott com> wrote in message
news:48b500ec$1@news.povray.org...
> > Of course it's not your fault that you have no respect for software
> > developers, it's their own making. The problem with is that academics
have
> > given away too much for too long,
> Also because a lot of computer programmers do it only as a hobby, and as
> such they have another source of income so don't mind if they don't get
paid
> for their hobby work. But I wonder why it is different for other hobbies
> like photography, you would never find some unknown person to do your
> wedding for free. But people are happy to spend *years* writing code and
> then give it away for free to unknown people. Maybe it says more about
the
> sort of people who program as a hobby.
I think it's more of a perception issue based on the logistics of the
situation. A photographer offering free services to random people would have
to deal with customers and be on their terms. When you are actually on
someone else's terms, you feel like you are working. It's a misconception,
of course. Like you said, a programmer can be spending/wasting much more
man-hours, but without an external deadline and project specifications, he
may not feel like he is essentially working for free for somebody else.
There is of course also the portfolio building or competitive aspect, which
is equally misguided (hobby projects count very little at job interviews,
one needs to be able to work under deadlines and specs).
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> My USB stick mainly contains diagnostic tools and my assorted playthings.
> (*cough* POV-Ray *cough*) Nothing I couldn't download again - or just get
> another copy off my computer anyway...
I picked up a 4GB USB stick for 12 euros or something, and I use it mostly
to watch movies on the PS3. For some reason the streaming software I'm using
on the PC (tversity) quite often screws up when you pause the PS3 in the
middle of a film, meaning you have to start again from the beginning and
then seek to where you were before (if you remember). No such problems if I
just copy it to the memstick first, plus I can turn off the PC while
watching the film (I don't need any more heat generators in my house at the
moment!)
Also my little mini-hifi thing in the kitchen has a USB socket, so I
sometimes put mp3s on the stick for that.
I regret not paying the 200 euro for the USB socket in my car, that would
save a lot of CD burning and/or cables for the iPod.
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> No. But if somebody shouts "FREE STUFF!" and then carefully tricks you
> into having to actually pay money for it... to me, that's very dodgy.
>
> If stuff costs money then fine. But don't claim something is free when
> it isn't. That's deception.
Claim that it's free* instead, then it's fine ;-)
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Invisible wrote:
>
> No. But if somebody shouts "FREE STUFF!" and then carefully tricks you
> into having to actually pay money for it... to me, that's very dodgy.
>
> If stuff costs money then fine. But don't claim something is free when
> it isn't. That's deception.
>
I generally won't buy if the sample version only serves to be an
advertisement for the full version. (IOW, I can't really evaluate if it
will do what I need it to do, sure it tells me I can recover files, but
will it, and is the level of recovery worth the money I'm about to
spend?) Otherwise I go by the recommendation of those whose opinions i
respect. Adobe did it right.. You can get a working version of Photoshop
and play around with it for 30 days, with premiere elements, it was a
bit different. You had a 30 day trial, but any movie you created had an
annoying overlay, which was fine, I could actually see that it fit my
needs.
The most insidious I've found is some games have a 60 minute trial
period. You'll be happily playing the game and Bang! you're kicked out
at 1 hour with a message saying "You can continue playing if you pay up,
NOW."
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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Well, well... It appears one of our employees kept "everything" on a USB
>> flash drive. And guess what? Yah, that's right. Now every time she tries
>> to use that drive, it says the drive isn't formatted.
>
> Flash drive? Do you really mean flash memory, or just a USB hard disk with
> the normal magnetic system?
>
> Flash memory does "wear out". Write cycles are more limited than you may
> expect.
>
Our equipment uses CF cards and you'd be surprised at how long they can
last, given that the equipment constantly writes production logs to the
card among other things. We do occasionally replace them, but only after
a couple of years in service at a minimum.
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Invisible wrote:
>
> Yeah, I can see how that might corrupt the filesystem. But badly enough
> to render it unreadable? You would think you'd just get a few filesystem
> inconsistencies. The error message sounds more like the superblock is
> unreadable or something...
>
Depends on what the computer is doing when the stick is pulled out.
Think what could happen, if the computer were writing file allocation
tables...
--
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
http://www.zbxt.net
aer### [at] removethis zbxt net invalid
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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, I can see how that might corrupt the filesystem. But badly
>> enough to render it unreadable? You would think you'd just get a few
>> filesystem inconsistencies. The error message sounds more like the
>> superblock is unreadable or something...
>>
>
> Depends on what the computer is doing when the stick is pulled out.
> Think what could happen, if the computer were writing file allocation
> tables...
Or, say, the superblock. ;-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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