The UNIX and Linux Forums - What's on Your Mind?

What was your first computer?

dday — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:31:08 GMT

Hey, the What Do You Do for a Living thread got me thinking about this.
My first "computer" was a Timex Sinclair that I built from a kit. I also spent many hours painstakingly programming a Commodore Vic20 to display graphics and sound (and save them on that slooooow tape drive). My first "real" programming was in QBasic on a TRS-80 in high school. And as I said before, my first "dial in, on call" technology was a Compaq Lunchbox that I did IBM Mainframe support on for a manufacturing plant. Oh, and I took my first programming course in college with a Telex machine (I kid you not!) Getting a program listing on that crappy thermal paper was a pain in the butt.......

Tell us some stories, reminisce a little. Bring back some memories...

Later,
David

do mind posting ur salary, location(not detailed), job field, work years here

macroideal — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:52:30 GMT

do mind posting ur salary, location(not detailed), job field, work years here
I dont you whether you guys are from different countries...but i guess most of you are from different countries, but all in all, we are acting as an ITer....
I just wanto know more about you
never mind:p

Let's Count how many ppl r online simultaneously here...

macroideal — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:45:15 GMT

I just wanto know how many ppl here r simultaneously online
and the max number of online ppl here ever.:p:p:p:p

UNIX/Linux Forums Post Of The Week 47, November, 2009

iBot — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:15:12 GMT

Which post should win this weeks UNIX/Linux post of the week nomination contest?

Choose from the posts listed throughout the forum(s), and vote for your favorite post now.

What is Topic Of The Week?

Post of the Week is a contest that select posts which we would like the community to commit to as a group and then comment/discuss on them during the course of the selected week. Any listed topic (thread) is eligible for the Topic of the week selection. However, you cannot nominate your own post nor encourage others to nominate your post.

What determines a Post Of The Week?

Post Of The Week is based on a simple nomination system. Throughout the selected forums, members with adequate permissions can nominate their favorite topic by clicking on the award nomination button below the post.

The posts with the most nominations during the course of the week are displayed in this thread using the poll feature. At the end of the week, the first three topics with the most nominations are the award winners of the contest.

Nice YouTube Videos

sparcguy — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:24:28 GMT

What are they doing? :D

---------- Post updated 11-14-09 at 10:24 AM ---------- Previous update was 11-13-09 at 04:53 PM ----------

Heard of them? Who's them? :b:

Totally Hidden Extreme Magic (1/6)

Totally Hidden Extreme Magic (2/6)

Totally Hidden Extreme Magic (3/6)

Totally Hidden Extreme Magic (4/6)

Totally Hidden Extreme Magic (5/6)

Totally Hidden Extreme Magic (6/6)

New iMac perported graphic issues

scottn — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:21:55 GMT

A really silly thing I did about a year ago (probably after one beer too many) was upgrading my perfectly stable Windows XP Pro to Windows Vista. Vista is really getting on my nerves, so I was in Media Markt the other week looking to see if they had Windows 7 Ultimatum in stock.

As I was walking past the Apple section, this iMac looked at me and whispered "buy me" into my ear. I thought "might as well have a look".

First impressions were what a gorgeous looking thing.

So I played with it a bit, fumbled around, found a shell, and typed

Code:

$ echo $0

bash

Hmm.

Code:

$ ksh

$ echo $0

ksh

"I'll take one!" I mean it's perfect. Unix-based, VM Fusion for inferior, err, other, OS'.

The guy said, "you'd be better waiting, 'cos they're bringing out a new one".

So I goggled it and sure enough. But I've since read (on some Forums) that there are problems somehow with performance in the graphics department (ksh is a monster for that!!!). But no-one could give a definitive answer - was it a Flash thing, a graphic driver thing, a dodgy Snow Leopard installation thing, or even a graphic card thing (and they all seemed to have solutions to their various problems).

Does anyone have one of the new iMacs? If so, is all this a lot of hoo-hah, or is it something to think about?

UNIX/Linux Forums Post Of The Week 46, November, 2009

iBot — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:15:06 GMT

The UNIX and Linux Forums Twitter Channel

Neo — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:55:37 GMT

In case you did not know about this, and are a twitter user, here is the link to the forum twitter channel:

http://twitter.com/unixlinux

We currently have 406 followers......

Which Vaccinations Are You Current (Up to Date)? (CDC, US Immunizations 2009)

Neo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:09:30 GMT

According to the attached Recommended Adult Immunization Schedule by the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), there are 10 primary immunizations adults should consider. I will add A(H1N1) to the mix to make it 11.

Please select all in the poll that you are current and up to date. For example, the seasonal flu is one shot annual. Heb A and B are a series of shots. So, only answer yes if you are up-to-date (or started the series and will complete soon.)

You can also answer yes if you are natually immune due to age or prior exposure (like chicken pox or H1N1, etc).

Attached Files

adult-schedule.pdf (155.5 KB)

Will You Get the A(H1N1) Vaccine?

Neo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:45:40 GMT

Assuming the A(H1N1) vaccine is available in your area soon, will you get jabbed?

Pick a Number Between 0 and 20 for 1 Million Bits

Neo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:50:13 GMT

Here is an easy game!

I wrote a number between 0 and 20 (that can include 0 and 20) on a piece of paper. I am staring at it now, imagining the number so you can read my mind ;)

Reply once, and only once, with a number from 0 to 20 and the first person to guess it wins 1,000,000 Bits.

That's it! :D

UNIX/Linux Forums Post Of The Week 45, November, 2009

iBot — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:15:12 GMT

Remastered Beatles CD's

Perderabo — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:56:19 GMT

I assume that anyone who might care already knows that The Beatles catalog has been remastered and is currently available in two boxsets, one in Mono and the other in Stereo. I have both boxsets. I also have several other sets of Beatles CD's including the original official issues and several bootleg series. I even still have several vinyl albums.

I must give very high marks to the packaging. The mono's are like tiny replicas of the original vinyl releases including inserts for the white album and Sgt Pepper. The Stereo versions are mostly newly created trifolds with some new booklets. The Stereo boxset is twice the size of the Mono boxset. Some attention was paid to the labels on the actual CD's as well. The earlier albums have Parlophone labels, and the later albums have the green Apple label. One exception is Magical Mystery Tour which has the rainbow Capitol label. One fumble is with the Stereo Let It Be (there is no mono Let It Be). At least in the USA, Let It Be was released on vinyl with a red Apple label. The Russian bootlegs got this right. Too bad these official CD's did not. Still, as I said, very high marks for packaging.

Extra's? Well here we have a problem. A very few extras are present and this suggests that the folks who developed the sets must at least be acquainted with the concept. But the extras are pathetic. It would have been better to have no extras at all. The only real extras are some very short videos on the Stereo CD's. We need to use a computer to view them. But they have been all consolidated onto a DVD that is available with the Stereo boxset. The best extras I have encountered are on the Purple Chick bootlegs, but PC went too far with some of them. I am disappointed with the lack of extras on these new remasters

Nothing was remixed on these sets, they were simply remastered. The original official CD's had mono only versions of the first 4 albums. This decision was made by George Martin. Then Sir George made a second contribution to the original CD releases: he remixed Help and Rubber Soul. Opinions can vary, but my opinion is that he ruined the first 6 albums with this meddling. Here, the first 4 stereo CD's are the actual stereo. Help and Rubber Soul are still the stupid remixes. But the original Stereo mixes are on the Mono CD's. (Don't ask me why.) So by buying both boxsets, I now have great Stereo versions of the first 6 albums. The rest of the albums sound a little bit better than the original CD's, but is the first 6 that are really the reason to buy these sets. Even the remastering missed some opportunities though. Most high end CD players can display the song title if it is stored on the CD because CD's have a litle Table of Contents. These CD's only show up as "Track 1", etc. They couldn't be bothered to type in the name of the tracks during the mastering process. And why are they only on CD? Why not a special set on SACD or even Blu-Ray Audio? This would have been a great job in 1987, but in 2009, it is a pedestrian effort.

Overall I give the sets a C grade compared to the original set which gets an F. They took a step in the right direction but they still have a ways to go.

As I said this my opinion. I would be interested if anyone else has a different view.

Movie Screenshot Contest - Bits to be won!

Smiling Dragon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:54:11 GMT

I propose a little game, I post a bunch of images from random movies out there and people try to identify the name of the character and the movie.

Each correct answer earns a point, at the end of the contest I'll give some Bits to those with the most points.

The rules:

I'll post only a few pictures at a time, as they get answered more will be posted. If people get stuck and things get slow, I'll post a couple more as well.
If you only get the movie name or the character name but not both correct, it's not worth any points.
If there's multiple characters in the shot, any one character will do unless explicitly stated otherwise along with the image.
When posting your answers, don't quote the original image as it will waste bandwidth and screen space. But make sure to quote the question number you are answering.
If multiple people answer, the earliest dated correct post will be awarded the point. In the event of a post being edited, the date of the last edit will be used to determine the post date so don't edit your post unless you really have to!

Prizes:
I'll be putting up 100,000 Bits in prizes.
If only one person competes, the prize will not be given but I'll still complete the competition in case someone comes late to the game. If three or less people compete, all prizes will be combined into one big first place prize only.

If no one competes, I'll keep going until I get too depressed to continue and give up :( ;)

If more than 3 people compete, the prizes will be as follows:
1st place: 60,000 bits
2nd place: 30,000 bits
3rd place: 10,000 bits

If people wish to donate additional bits to the prize pool to make it more interesting, it will be divided amongst the the places the same way as the above.

A running scoreboard will be kept here in the first post.

pludi: 18
Perderabo: 8
vino: 5
Ygor: 1
reborg: 3

Still unanswered:
12, 24, 23, 37, 38, 40

---------- Post updated at 02:54 PM ---------- Previous update was at 02:41 PM ----------

here's the first few questions to get the ball rolling:

1)
pludi - Blain from Predator

2)
vino - T1000 from Terminator 2

3)
pludi - Virgil Brigman & Lindsey Brigman from The Abyss

4)
pludi - Chihiro from Spirited Away

5)
pludi - Norton from The Shawshank Redemption

lo!

pludi — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:43:03 GMT

40 years ago today was the first time that two computers exchanged information using packet switching and telephone lines[1]. While it was only possible to send 2 characters ("lo") before the receiving system crashed, it was a success nonetheless.

Just think where we'd be today without someone who once tried to send the word 'login' (and the DoS it created ;))

Ref:
[1] ARPANET - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia