more dumb tech questions

[dcltdw]

So we got a refurbished HP Mini 1010NR, yay. One interesting/alarming thing is that it has an 8G SSD, but Windows takes up, oh, 5G. I'm throwing cygwin+emacs onto it, so I have about 2G left. It also came with a 2G USB flash drive -- it's very tiny, so it sits flush to the machine (as opposed to a thumb drive). So I'm not hosed for storage

Comments

[sylvanstargazer]

It is easy, but violates the DMCA. As long as you don't care, you aren't going to get caught doing it for personal use. Download a ripping program and have a ball (DVD DRM was cracked forever ago).

I suspect read speed will be fine. The format may matter a little, and performance would possibly be dependent on the video card, but I'd have to actually do research to find out.

[arcanology]

Tragically the DVD makers have made it a lot easier for someone who owns a DVD and wants to watch the movie on their computer to get a pirated torrent copy than make their own copy.

Good work DVD guys!

[dcltdw]

Yeah, I want to send money directly to Peter Jackson & Co without 1, making more work for me, or 2, supporting the digital pirates.

Grump. :)

[arcanology]

Just torrent it.

The only way things are going to get better is if the pirates completely break the present system, because the media companies aren't going to get a clue until it's rammed... well, let's say they need pain to learn. A lot of it.

[fredrickegerman]

I currently have a spare blank 32G thumb drive we could bring to Turkey & loan to you (they were selling them at about $2/G at MicroCenter just after Christmas). If we could download our photos onto it occasionally that'd be even dandier...

[dcltdw]

Yeah, part of our plan was to bring an 8G stick and move files if needed, so sure.

[abce]

Didn't you recently say "Memory capacity and performance are not important: we'll probably use it to run NotePad or emacs and just bat out some text files."

Dude, get your use case correct :).

Why are you running Windows, and not Linux?

[dcltdw]

Whatever; if I have to deal with creeping features, I can want 'em, too. :) Also, I'm not normally taking a flight to Turkey, so yeah, "probably" is correct. ;)

Uhh, came with Windows. Don't know how to install Linux. Not sure I want to deal with it, either; there's a reason I'm a Mac user these days.