shovelhd

I'm sure you know this, they need a coupon box. Under $50 just about anywhere.

markieta

Thanks geek patrol!

We use the ESRI suite (ArcMap, etc) at school, which has been quite often referred to as a "blackbox". The only insight you have to the underlying code is snippets of Python. There is no ability to customize the application's tools at the code level and some times you are left wondering what exactly is happening in the background when you press "calculate/run".

I was introduced to Whitebox (and open-source GIS in general), a project out of the University of Guelph. LINK
I think I will just jump right into it and see where that takes me. I'll give Visual Studio Express a try.

Thanks!

mollusk

Yeah, I know.

Yesterday my SIL went to Best Buy to buy another antenna thinking that the one from Radio Shack was the wrong kind. Still nothing, of course. I kept trying to tell her that she had an analog tuner, but she kept saying things like "My TV isn't that old. I bought it 15 years ago" and "It is digital. It is 'SD'. The 'D' stands for digital". Sigh.

shovelhd

It will be SD when she gets the coupon box.

pjcampbell

I will sell you my coupon box for $10 plus S/H. It's Sansonic brand, brand new with a remote, but I threw the box away. We don't want cable and there is no OTA available in VT.

ridethecliche

Geeks, help a brother out.

Currently debating the merits of laptop vs desktop upon the impending death of my laptop. Already have a netbook so I think I'm good for the portable stuff. So do I replace my aging laptop with another laptop or get a desktop and enjoy a bigger screen and faster computer that's tied down.

Fwiw, I rarely travel with my laptop because it's a 15.4 inch screen and I hate lugging it around. The netbook goes everywhere with me.

shovelhd

Then desktop it is. Corei5 or i7. All of our engineers have Dell Optiplex 980's with Core i7's. Solid.

ridethecliche

Word, I'll look for it.

I like AMD stuff though, but I haven't shopped for a computer since the the athlon days. Did their engineering go down the tubes? I remember AMD always used to be a better bang for the buck back in the day?

I'll spec something out. I don't play games on the computer (bought a ps3 for that), so I just need something that'll last the next 4-6 years like this laptop did. Given that my demands are movies, email, web surfing, etc, that shouldn't be too difficult.

Flatballer

I've got an iPod converter for my car stereo that has stopped working. It's a JVC stereo and there's an adapter that plugs into the CD Changer, then there's a converter box in the middle, and then the cable goes from the converter to the iPod.

The iPod end is broken and only works if you hold it just right. I took apart the converter and there's a 10 pin header soldered to the board, plus a separate ground. I was thinking of replacing just the iPod cable side, but I'm not sure I can figure out the correct pin-out. I could buy a usb-iPod cable and cut the usb end off, but there are 30 pins, so I'm not sure I'll be able to figure out which pins I need and where to connect them on the converter, without a lot of work.

I don't use my iPod anymore, but I'd like to be able to use it in the car. I have my Droid for everything else. I don't really want to use my Droid for music in the car since I can't fit all the music on it.

I could just get a cheap FM transmitter, but I would lose a lot of my audio quality, which I spent good money to have. Any other ideas? Besides spending $50 to buy another converter?

waterrockets 

I train with AMD engineers at lunch.

Their stuff is fine. Intel and AMD leapfrog each other. AMD just had a huge cash infusion because Intel was working billions of dollars worth of illegal back-room deals with Dell and others (like price penalties if Dell introduced AMD computers). So, expect the AMD/Intel leapfrog to restart and continue for another decade. AMD will have its next turn down the road thanks to all the research and engineering Intel is paying for.

I'm running an AMD quad core desktop, and it's great. Plenty fast for the photo and video processing I do. Intel stuff is great too, I just buy AMD because I have a ton of friends that work up on that hill, and the products are great. You can go peep at performance benchmarks until you're blue in the face, but you're just not going to feel any of it. If you're a gamer or heavy graphics guy, the video solution is going to make a bigger difference than the CPU anyway.

Buy on memory, HD storage, Windows package, and free gear like a monitor.

mollusk

Go Linux if you can. I greatly prefer it. I'm posting from a Linux machine right now.

kudude

seconded. dunno if gimp is a real photoshop killer, though. most other stuff, though, is dandy.

ps -- using ubuntu remix to post this

ridethecliche

I'm fine with the windoze.

I played with red hat for a bit, but made it crash so badly that I had to repartition the hard drive to get rid of the OS haha. It was a little ridiculous.

@ Wr: I do play games every now and then, but I bought a PS3 for that. Realistically, if my dying laptop were to magically come back to life, I would probably continue to use that for the next 2 years. That's how little I care. But if I'm going to buy something, I'd like for it to run well for 4-6 years like this laptop did.

In any event, something with a step or two above integrated graphics and sound is great. I'd much prefer the slightly updated soundcard though. Then I can buy better speakers in due time

Urthwhyte

Onboard sound has come a long, long way, integrated/on-die graphics are another story. You can probably pick up a Radeon 4850 for something like $90 nowadays and have last generations second best card, from the sound of it that'll easily last you four or five years.

ridethecliche

What about something like this?

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-AM3400-B4...8870841&sr=1-6

I'd love a 23inch monitor, but I think 20 should be MORE than adequate for a desktop given that I'm on a 15.4 right now...

waterrockets 

Yeah, Linux is a good option. The learning curve isn't as bad a one might fear, but it's non-zero, and that discourages many. Then again, millions of Android users out there don't seem to mind...

The problem is that you can't get a good deal on a Linux machine. A year ago, I bought an AMD quad-core HP, 1TB HD, 8Gb RAM, W7 home premium, with a 21" flat screen, and a color printer. $499. Nowhere will you find that kind of a deal with Linux on board.


That looks like about as good of a deal as you're going to find w/out a Black Friday event.

SushiJoe

I feel like Ubuntu [if that's your Linux flavor] is kickass! It's also really similar to Mac OSX so it was easy for me to learn. Dual boot'age for the win!!

SushiJoe

And Ubuntu is free!

waterrockets 

Yeah, it has gotten so much better in the last 10 years. I remember bringing home my first Linux download on seven floppy disks back in 1995. It wasn't so straightforward back then.

ridethecliche

Sweet. Forwarded it to the father. Looks like the video card is decent (1 gig) and I already have speakers so I won't be using the silly monitor speakers.

I'm psyched. This looks pretty good.


Edit: Aw poo, just checked the video card is 512megs. Not like it matters... I think my laptop has 128...
That's easily swappable in 2-3 years if need be.

I might start playing CS again
Oh noesssss.

ridethecliche

I would consider dual booting ubuntu and giving it a few gigs to play around with.

Urthwhyte

My last phone (from 2006!) could play Quake 3 at 30FPS, I think you'll manage to play CS just fine on just about anything made this millennium

SushiJoe

Do it! It's actually pretty cool!!

Scummer

That wasn't slackware by any chance with their B1,B2...Bn and D1,D2..Dn and so on for Base, Development, Manpages, X-windows and games and stuff.

That was some disc jockeying to get all those 1.44 floppies loaded. But that stuff ran rock solid right out of the box and it wasn't even kernel 1.0 yet.

mattm

Do you still have to run "./configure;make;make install" to get some apps?

Which is fine for programmers, but for the other 99% of the population it's too much complication. Redhat did pretty well with the rpm idea, but I missed having 'true' installers.

Or, you can do a "live boot" or whatever they call it, you can boot off the cd and give it a whirl.