Slashdot Mirror

1. This one you can stumble upon by clicking arround...
   Go to any "CNET Comparison Chart", click to the "Printer Friendly" version, and look for a clear GIF just below the words "CNET Review" in the left most column...
   • the page
   • where it takes you
2. This one you have to know how to tweak the URL...
   yomama=fat
   reload for a random "Yo Mama" joke everytime

1. This one you can stumble upon by clicking arround...
   Go to any "CNET Comparison Chart", click to the "Printer Friendly" version, and look for a clear GIF just below the words "CNET Review" in the left most column...
   • the page
   • where it takes you
2. This one you have to know how to tweak the URL...
   yomama=fat
   reload for a random "Yo Mama" joke everytime

1. This one you can stumble upon by clicking arround...
   Go to any "CNET Comparison Chart", click to the "Printer Friendly" version, and look for a clear GIF just below the words "CNET Review" in the left most column...
   • the page
   • where it takes you
2. This one you have to know how to tweak the URL...
   yomama=fat
   reload for a random "Yo Mama" joke everytime

This paper analyzes the amount of source code in GNU/Linux, using Red Hat Linux 7.1 as a representative GNU/Linux distribution, and presents what I believe are interesting results.

In particular, it would cost over $1 billion ($1,000 million - a Gigabuck) to develop this GNU/Linux distribution by conventional proprietary means in the U.S. (in year 2000 U.S. dollars). Compare this to the $600 million estimate for Red Hat Linux version 6.2 (which had been released about one year earlier). Also, Red Hat Linux 7.1 includes over 30 million physical source lines of code (SLOC), compared to well over 17 million SLOC in version 6.2. Using the COCOMO cost model, this system is estimated to have required about 8,000 person-years of development time (as compared to 4,500 person-years to develop version 6.2). Thus, Red Hat Linux 7.1 represents over a 60% increase in size, effort, and traditional development costs over Red Hat Linux 6.2. This is due to an increased number of mature and maturing open source / free software programs available worldwide.

Many other interesting statistics emerge. The largest components (in order) were the Linux kernel (including device drivers), Mozilla (Netscape's open source web system including a web browser, email client, and HTML editor), the X Window system (the infrastructure for the graphical user interface), gcc (a compilation system), gdb (for debugging), basic binary tools, emacs (a text editor and far more), LAPACK (a large Fortran library for numerical linear algebra), the Gimp (a bitmapped graphics editor), and MySQL (a relational database system). The languages used, sorted by the most lines of code, were C (71% - was 81%), C++ (15% - was 8%), shell (including ksh), Lisp, assembly, Perl, Fortran, Python, tcl, Java, yacc/bison, expect, lex/flex, awk, Objective-C, Ada, C shell, Pascal, and sed.

The predominant software license is the GNU GPL. Slightly over half of the software is simply licensed using the GPL, and the software packages using the copylefting licenses (the GPL and LGPL), at least in part or as an alternative, accounted for 63% of the code. In all ways, the copylefting licenses (GPL and LGPL) are the dominant licenses in this GNU/Linux distribution. In contrast, only 0.2% of the software is public domain.

This paper is an update of my previous paper on estimating GNU/Linux's size, which measured Red Hat Linux 6.2 [Wheeler 2001]. Since Red Hat Linux 6.2 was released in March 2000, and Red Hat Linux 7.1 was released in April 2001, this paper shows what's changed over approximately one year. More information is available at http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc. 1. Introduction The GNU/Linux operating system has gone from an unknown to a powerful market force. Netcraft found that, of the systems running web servers on June 2001, GNU/Linux was now the second most popular operating system (with 29.6%, versus Windows' 49.6%) [Netcraft 2001]. Another survey, of primarily European and educational sites, found that GNU/Linux was used more than any other operating system (of the sites it surveyed) [Zoebelein 1999]. IDC found that 25% of all server operating systems purchased in 1999 were GNU/Linux, making it second only to Windows NT's 38% [Shankland 2000a].

There appear to be many reasons for this, and not simply because GNU/Linux can be obtained at no or low cost. For example, experiments suggest that GNU/Linux is highly reliable. A 1995 study of a set of individual components found that the GNU and GNU/Linux components had a significantly higher reliability than their proprietary Unix competitors (6% to 9% failure rate with GNU and Linux, versus an average 23% failure rate with the proprietary software using their measurement technique) [Miller 1995]. A ten-month experiment in 1999 by ZDnet found that, while Microsoft's Windows NT crashed every six weeks under a ``typical'' intranet load, using the same load and request set the GNU/Linux systems (from two different distributors) never crashed [Vaughan-Nichols 1999].

However, possibly the most important reason for GNU/Linux's popularity among many developers and users is that its source code is generally ``open source software'' and/or ``free software''. A program that is ``open source software'' or ``free software'' is essentially a program whose source code can be obtained, viewed, changed, and redistributed without royalties or other limitations of these actions. A more formal definition of ``open source software'' is available from the Open Source Initiative [OSI 1999], a more formal definition of ``free software'' (as the term is used in this paper) is available from the Free Software Foundation [FSF 2000], and other general information about these topics is available at Wheeler [2000a]. Quantitative rationales for using open source / free software is given in Wheeler [2000b]. The GNU/Linux operating system is actually a suite of components, including the Linux kernel on which it is based, and it is packaged, sold, and supported by a variety of distributors. The Linux kernel is ``open source software''/``free software'', and this is also true for all (or nearly all) other components of a typical GNU/Linux distribution. Open source software/free software frees users from being captives of a particular vendor, since it permits users to fix any problems immediately, tailor their system, and analyze their software in arbitrary ways.

Surprisingly, although anyone can analyze GNU/Linux for arbitrary properties, I have found little published analysis of the amount of source lines of code (SLOC) contained in a GNU/Linux distribution. Microsoft unintentionally published some analysis data in the documents usually called ``Halloween I'' and ``Halloween II'' [Halloween I] [Halloween II]. Another study focused on the Linux kernel and its growth over time is by Godfrey [2000]; this is an interesting study but it focuses solely on the Linux kernel (not the entire operating system). Paul G. Allen posted some results from running Scientific Toolworks, Inc.'s tools on the Linux kernel, but this analysis only considered C code (including headers) - ignoring the many other languages used in constructing the Linux kernel (e.g., assembly language), and only concentrating on the kernel. The Free Code Graphing Project at http://fcgp.sourceforge.net generates a graphical representation of a program (currently, the Linux kernel), but only of the C code. In a previous paper, I examined Red Hat Linux 6.2 and the numbers from the Halloween papers [Wheeler 2001].

This paper updates my previous paper, showing estimates of the size of one of today's GNU/Linux distributions, and it estimates how much it would cost to rebuild this typical GNU/Linux distribution using traditional software development techniques. Various definitions and assumptions are included, so that others can understand exactly what these numbers mean. I have intentionally written this paper so that you do not need to read the previous version of this paper first.

For my purposes, I have selected as my ``representative'' GNU/Linux distribution Red Hat Linux version 7.1. I believe this distribution is reasonably representative for several reasons:

1. Red Hat Linux is the most popular Linux distribution sold in 1999 according to IDC [Shankland 2000b]. Red Hat sold 48% of all copies in 1999; the next largest distribution in market share sales was SuSE (a German distributor) at 15%. Not all GNU/Linux copies are ``sold'' in a way that this study would count, but the study at least shows that Red Hat's distribution is a popular one.
2. Many distributions (such as Mandrake) are based on, or were originally developed from, a version of Red Hat Linux. This doesn't mean the other distributions are less capable, but it suggests that these other distributions are likely to have a similar set of components.
3. All major general-purpose distributions support (at least) the kind of functionality supported by Red Hat Linux, if for no other reason than to compete with Red Hat.
4. All distributors start with the same set of open source software projects from which to choose components to integrate. Therefore, other distributions are likely to choose the same components or similar kinds of components with often similar size for the same kind of functionality.

Different distributions and versions would produce different size figures, but I hope that this paper will be enlightening even though it doesn't try to evaluate ``all'' distributions. Note that some distributions (such as SuSE) may decide to add many more applications, but also note this would only create larger (not smaller) sizes and estimated levels of effort. At the time that I began this project, version 7.1 was the latest version of Red Hat Linux available, so I selected that version for analysis.

Note that Red Hat Linux 6.2 was released on March 2000, Red Hat Linux 7 was released on September 2000 (I have not counted its code), and Red Hat Linux 7.1 was released on April 2001. Thus, the differences between Red Hat Linux 7.1 and 6.2 show differences accrued over 13 months (approximately one year).

Clearly there is far more open source / free software available worldwide than is counted in this paper. However, the job of a distributor is to examine these various options and select software that they believe is both sufficiently mature and useful to their target market. Thus, examining a particular distribution results in a selective analysis of such software.

Section 2 briefly describes the approach used to estimate the ``size'' of this distribution (more details are in Appendix A). Section 3 discusses some of the results. Section 4 presents conclusions, followed by an appendix. GNU/Linux is often called simply ``Linux'', but technically Linux is only the name of the operating system kernel; to eliminate ambiguity this paper uses the term ``GNU/Linux'' as the general name for the whole system and ``Linux kernel'' for just this inner kernel. 2. Approach My basic approach was to:

1. install the source code files in uncompressed format; this requires carefully selecting the source code to be analyzed.
2. count the number of source lines of code (SLOC); this requires a careful definition of SLOC.
3. use an estimation model to estimate the effort and cost of developing the same system in a proprietary manner; this requires an estimation model.
4. determine the software licenses of each component and develop statistics based on these categories.

More detail on this approach is described in Appendix A. A few summary points are worth mentioning here, however. 2.1 Selecting Source Code

I included all software provided in the Red Hat distribution, but note that Red Hat no longer includes software packages that only apply to other CPU architectures (and thus packages not applying to the x86 family were excluded). I did not include ``old'' versions of software, or ``beta'' software where non-beta was available. I did include ``beta'' software where there was no alternative, because some developers don't remove the ``beta'' label even when it's widely used and perceived to be reliable.

I used md5 checksums to identify and ignore duplicate files, so if the same file contents appeared in more than one file, it was only counted once (as a tie-breaker, such files are assigned to the first build package it applies to in alphabetic order).

The code in makefiles and Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) specifications was not included. Various heuristics were used to detect automatically generated code, and any such code was also excluded from the count. A number of other heuristics were used to determine if a language was a source program file, and if so, what its language was.

Since different languages have different syntaxes, I could only measure the SLOC for the languages that my tool (sloccount) could detect and handle. The languages sloccount could detect and handle are Ada, Assembly, awk, Bourne shell and variants, C, C++, C shell, Expect, Fortran, Java, lex/flex, LISP/Scheme, Makefile, Objective-C, Pascal, Perl, Python, sed, SQL, TCL, and Yacc/bison. Other languages are not counted; these include XUL (used in Mozilla), Javascript (also in Mozilla), PHP, and Objective Caml (an OO dialect of ML). Also code embedded in data is not counted (e.g., code embedded in HTML files). Some systems use their own built-in languages; in general code in these languages is not counted.

This paper analyzes the amount of source code in GNU/Linux, using Red Hat Linux 7.1 as a representative GNU/Linux distribution, and presents what I believe are interesting results.

In particular, it would cost over $1 billion ($1,000 million - a Gigabuck) to develop this GNU/Linux distribution by conventional proprietary means in the U.S. (in year 2000 U.S. dollars). Compare this to the $600 million estimate for Red Hat Linux version 6.2 (which had been released about one year earlier). Also, Red Hat Linux 7.1 includes over 30 million physical source lines of code (SLOC), compared to well over 17 million SLOC in version 6.2. Using the COCOMO cost model, this system is estimated to have required about 8,000 person-years of development time (as compared to 4,500 person-years to develop version 6.2). Thus, Red Hat Linux 7.1 represents over a 60% increase in size, effort, and traditional development costs over Red Hat Linux 6.2. This is due to an increased number of mature and maturing open source / free software programs available worldwide.

Many other interesting statistics emerge. The largest components (in order) were the Linux kernel (including device drivers), Mozilla (Netscape's open source web system including a web browser, email client, and HTML editor), the X Window system (the infrastructure for the graphical user interface), gcc (a compilation system), gdb (for debugging), basic binary tools, emacs (a text editor and far more), LAPACK (a large Fortran library for numerical linear algebra), the Gimp (a bitmapped graphics editor), and MySQL (a relational database system). The languages used, sorted by the most lines of code, were C (71% - was 81%), C++ (15% - was 8%), shell (including ksh), Lisp, assembly, Perl, Fortran, Python, tcl, Java, yacc/bison, expect, lex/flex, awk, Objective-C, Ada, C shell, Pascal, and sed.

The predominant software license is the GNU GPL. Slightly over half of the software is simply licensed using the GPL, and the software packages using the copylefting licenses (the GPL and LGPL), at least in part or as an alternative, accounted for 63% of the code. In all ways, the copylefting licenses (GPL and LGPL) are the dominant licenses in this GNU/Linux distribution. In contrast, only 0.2% of the software is public domain.

This paper is an update of my previous paper on estimating GNU/Linux's size, which measured Red Hat Linux 6.2 [Wheeler 2001]. Since Red Hat Linux 6.2 was released in March 2000, and Red Hat Linux 7.1 was released in April 2001, this paper shows what's changed over approximately one year. More information is available at http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc. 1. Introduction The GNU/Linux operating system has gone from an unknown to a powerful market force. Netcraft found that, of the systems running web servers on June 2001, GNU/Linux was now the second most popular operating system (with 29.6%, versus Windows' 49.6%) [Netcraft 2001]. Another survey, of primarily European and educational sites, found that GNU/Linux was used more than any other operating system (of the sites it surveyed) [Zoebelein 1999]. IDC found that 25% of all server operating systems purchased in 1999 were GNU/Linux, making it second only to Windows NT's 38% [Shankland 2000a].

There appear to be many reasons for this, and not simply because GNU/Linux can be obtained at no or low cost. For example, experiments suggest that GNU/Linux is highly reliable. A 1995 study of a set of individual components found that the GNU and GNU/Linux components had a significantly higher reliability than their proprietary Unix competitors (6% to 9% failure rate with GNU and Linux, versus an average 23% failure rate with the proprietary software using their measurement technique) [Miller 1995]. A ten-month experiment in 1999 by ZDnet found that, while Microsoft's Windows NT crashed every six weeks under a ``typical'' intranet load, using the same load and request set the GNU/Linux systems (from two different distributors) never crashed [Vaughan-Nichols 1999].

However, possibly the most important reason for GNU/Linux's popularity among many developers and users is that its source code is generally ``open source software'' and/or ``free software''. A program that is ``open source software'' or ``free software'' is essentially a program whose source code can be obtained, viewed, changed, and redistributed without royalties or other limitations of these actions. A more formal definition of ``open source software'' is available from the Open Source Initiative [OSI 1999], a more formal definition of ``free software'' (as the term is used in this paper) is available from the Free Software Foundation [FSF 2000], and other general information about these topics is available at Wheeler [2000a]. Quantitative rationales for using open source / free software is given in Wheeler [2000b]. The GNU/Linux operating system is actually a suite of components, including the Linux kernel on which it is based, and it is packaged, sold, and supported by a variety of distributors. The Linux kernel is ``open source software''/``free software'', and this is also true for all (or nearly all) other components of a typical GNU/Linux distribution. Open source software/free software frees users from being captives of a particular vendor, since it permits users to fix any problems immediately, tailor their system, and analyze their software in arbitrary ways.

Surprisingly, although anyone can analyze GNU/Linux for arbitrary properties, I have found little published analysis of the amount of source lines of code (SLOC) contained in a GNU/Linux distribution. Microsoft unintentionally published some analysis data in the documents usually called ``Halloween I'' and ``Halloween II'' [Halloween I] [Halloween II]. Another study focused on the Linux kernel and its growth over time is by Godfrey [2000]; this is an interesting study but it focuses solely on the Linux kernel (not the entire operating system). Paul G. Allen posted some results from running Scientific Toolworks, Inc.'s tools on the Linux kernel, but this analysis only considered C code (including headers) - ignoring the many other languages used in constructing the Linux kernel (e.g., assembly language), and only concentrating on the kernel. The Free Code Graphing Project at http://fcgp.sourceforge.net generates a graphical representation of a program (currently, the Linux kernel), but only of the C code. In a previous paper, I examined Red Hat Linux 6.2 and the numbers from the Halloween papers [Wheeler 2001].

This paper updates my previous paper, showing estimates of the size of one of today's GNU/Linux distributions, and it estimates how much it would cost to rebuild this typical GNU/Linux distribution using traditional software development techniques. Various definitions and assumptions are included, so that others can understand exactly what these numbers mean. I have intentionally written this paper so that you do not need to read the previous version of this paper first.

For my purposes, I have selected as my ``representative'' GNU/Linux distribution Red Hat Linux version 7.1. I believe this distribution is reasonably representative for several reasons:

1. Red Hat Linux is the most popular Linux distribution sold in 1999 according to IDC [Shankland 2000b]. Red Hat sold 48% of all copies in 1999; the next largest distribution in market share sales was SuSE (a German distributor) at 15%. Not all GNU/Linux copies are ``sold'' in a way that this study would count, but the study at least shows that Red Hat's distribution is a popular one.
2. Many distributions (such as Mandrake) are based on, or were originally developed from, a version of Red Hat Linux. This doesn't mean the other distributions are less capable, but it suggests that these other distributions are likely to have a similar set of components.
3. All major general-purpose distributions support (at least) the kind of functionality supported by Red Hat Linux, if for no other reason than to compete with Red Hat.
4. All distributors start with the same set of open source software projects from which to choose components to integrate. Therefore, other distributions are likely to choose the same components or similar kinds of components with often similar size for the same kind of functionality.

Different distributions and versions would produce different size figures, but I hope that this paper will be enlightening even though it doesn't try to evaluate ``all'' distributions. Note that some distributions (such as SuSE) may decide to add many more applications, but also note this would only create larger (not smaller) sizes and estimated levels of effort. At the time that I began this project, version 7.1 was the latest version of Red Hat Linux available, so I selected that version for analysis.

Note that Red Hat Linux 6.2 was released on March 2000, Red Hat Linux 7 was released on September 2000 (I have not counted its code), and Red Hat Linux 7.1 was released on April 2001. Thus, the differences between Red Hat Linux 7.1 and 6.2 show differences accrued over 13 months (approximately one year).

Clearly there is far more open source / free software available worldwide than is counted in this paper. However, the job of a distributor is to examine these various options and select software that they believe is both sufficiently mature and useful to their target market. Thus, examining a particular distribution results in a selective analysis of such software.

Section 2 briefly describes the approach used to estimate the ``size'' of this distribution (more details are in Appendix A). Section 3 discusses some of the results. Section 4 presents conclusions, followed by an appendix. GNU/Linux is often called simply ``Linux'', but technically Linux is only the name of the operating system kernel; to eliminate ambiguity this paper uses the term ``GNU/Linux'' as the general name for the whole system and ``Linux kernel'' for just this inner kernel. 2. Approach My basic approach was to:

1. install the source code files in uncompressed format; this requires carefully selecting the source code to be analyzed.
2. count the number of source lines of code (SLOC); this requires a careful definition of SLOC.
3. use an estimation model to estimate the effort and cost of developing the same system in a proprietary manner; this requires an estimation model.
4. determine the software licenses of each component and develop statistics based on these categories.

More detail on this approach is described in Appendix A. A few summary points are worth mentioning here, however. 2.1 Selecting Source Code

I included all software provided in the Red Hat distribution, but note that Red Hat no longer includes software packages that only apply to other CPU architectures (and thus packages not applying to the x86 family were excluded). I did not include ``old'' versions of software, or ``beta'' software where non-beta was available. I did include ``beta'' software where there was no alternative, because some developers don't remove the ``beta'' label even when it's widely used and perceived to be reliable.

I used md5 checksums to identify and ignore duplicate files, so if the same file contents appeared in more than one file, it was only counted once (as a tie-breaker, such files are assigned to the first build package it applies to in alphabetic order).

The code in makefiles and Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) specifications was not included. Various heuristics were used to detect automatically generated code, and any such code was also excluded from the count. A number of other heuristics were used to determine if a language was a source program file, and if so, what its language was.

Since different languages have different syntaxes, I could only measure the SLOC for the languages that my tool (sloccount) could detect and handle. The languages sloccount could detect and handle are Ada, Assembly, awk, Bourne shell and variants, C, C++, C shell, Expect, Fortran, Java, lex/flex, LISP/Scheme, Makefile, Objective-C, Pascal, Perl, Python, sed, SQL, TCL, and Yacc/bison. Other languages are not counted; these include XUL (used in Mozilla), Javascript (also in Mozilla), PHP, and Objective Caml (an OO dialect of ML). Also code embedded in data is not counted (e.g., code embedded in HTML files). Some systems use their own built-in languages; in general code in these languages is not counted.

shopper.cnet.comhas a lot of listed stores. Anyone have experience with them? --Fritz

(And I'll throw in a "me-too" for those recommending Newegg. More often than not, they will have the lowest price, or be within a few percent of the lowest price.)

I can see the headlines in CNN tomorrow:

"HACKER" WEBSITE ORGANIZES DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK ON ONLINE BOOKSELLER

Hrm. Or maybe it will be on CNET first.

Reviews: 1, 2, 3.

I don't trust USB completely. I've had problems with hubs deciding not to supply power, and the bandwidth is too narrow. From what I've heard about USB CD recorders, I'm not alone.

When I burned my first couple of cd's I was careful not to use the machine (laptop, PIII 750) for fear of swamping the USB's bandwidth... I've got a USB keyboard, USB mouse, USB compact flash reader and a USB cable for my PDA.

However, I'm happy to report, everything seems to work just fine and dandy when using other USB devices. Granted, I haven't tried using everything at the exact same time... but, I'm pleasantly surprised by the performance.

Maybe tonight I'll try my hardest at making a coaster... </evilgrin>

Anyway, I've also been thinking about getting a USB sound device... either the Stereo-Link or Extigy. I like the Extigy because it's got a lot of "stuff" (sparing the details). But, I also like the Stereo-Link because it's not Creative's product. I haven't quite decided, yet... here are some reviews:

• Extigy: 1, 2, 3;
• Stereo-Link: 1, 2, 3.

I don't trust USB completely. I've had problems with hubs deciding not to supply power, and the bandwidth is too narrow. From what I've heard about USB CD recorders, I'm not alone.

When I burned my first couple of cd's I was careful not to use the machine (laptop, PIII 750) for fear of swamping the USB's bandwidth... I've got a USB keyboard, USB mouse, USB compact flash reader and a USB cable for my PDA.

However, I'm happy to report, everything seems to work just fine and dandy when using other USB devices. Granted, I haven't tried using everything at the exact same time... but, I'm pleasantly surprised by the performance.

Maybe tonight I'll try my hardest at making a coaster... </evilgrin>

Anyway, I've also been thinking about getting a USB sound device... either the Stereo-Link or Extigy. I like the Extigy because it's got a lot of "stuff" (sparing the details). But, I also like the Stereo-Link because it's not Creative's product. I haven't quite decided, yet... here are some reviews:

• Extigy: 1, 2, 3;
• Stereo-Link: 1, 2, 3.

I am unable to go to the any of these sites.


http://www.cnet.com
http://www.news.com
http://www.com.com
http://www.download.com


Note: All these are CNet sites.


What I AM ABLE to access is

http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/

may be MSNBC has actually bought CNet ;)?

(not karma whoring, just rambling)
I've always liked the concept of lowend digital photography:
Starting with a kodak DC20...amazing light (like, hollow) small camera, 16 320x240 (or 8 493x373, never messed with that tho). Lasted forever on one of its little batteries. Got some decent shots from it.

Then later got a kodak palmpix add on to my Palm IIIc...not quite convenient/small enough to justify its drawbacks as a camera, though using the Palm as a viewfinder was kind of a trip.

My friend got a cart so he could upload pictures from his game boy camera.

I loved those old b+w quickcams, made some tiny animated GIFs out of them.

And now this...of course, now I have a tiny Canon elph powershot in my pocket at all times...but it's a bit bulky...maybe I should compromise and go for this new thing, who needs good resolution anyway? (But then I'd hardly ever use the canon, argh...)

Since the site is gone for the moment, here are some quick links:
Web Site:
www.terapin-mine.com
Purchase:
http://www.thinkgeek.com
Reviews:
http://www.digitaljournalist.org
http://www.edgereview.com
http://computers.cnet.com

Still, on the whole, OSX does work a lot better than Windows in my experience. Let's hope Apple will fix this pox, too. I believe Apple has licensed CUPS and is working on replacing the current printing system.

Note - You can now listen to Cnet Radio on the air on 890 AM Radio in Boston. which is kinda cool, having a geek radio station to listen to in Boston. It is actually located in Dedham, and is a little under powered (You really can't hear it in providence, for example.)

If, as you say, it irks you why don't you post comments to the Rex Baldazo? I did, first time when he reviewed Netscape 7 (claiming it cannot be run in parallel with Mozilla) and now after seeing the idiotic comment about not rendering IE specific sites. You can do this by following this link.

Regarding the cnet review, on the win xp benchmarks page,
it seems that the caffeinemark gives ie 6 a 100% performance, while its three results where 22-46-22 (hmm, those numbers could be obscene too, but I digress ;) which are *nowhere* near 100%

Anyone else notice this?

They just gave a Netscape a review, and gave it the lowest possible score they could justify given that it was faster, more stable, and more W3C compliant than the big IE.

If you read the CNET review, you would see that in their performance tests , IE6 was faster than Mozilla in the three HTML tests. In the Java test, Mozilla was faster.

CNET's review of IE6 gave it a score of 7, same as Mozilla 1.0 on XP.

Don't worry to much about the 7 out of 10. They gave IE 6 the same score.

From The CNET article Even stranger, both Mozilla and Netscape outran IE 6 in three of four tests.


From now on, "strange" will be defined as "something you would predict off the top of your head"

Y'know, when the only bad things they can say about your browser is
1)it is standards-compliant; and
2)no, IRC does not work with AIM

then I think you've done a pretty damn good job. Congratulations!

Even better: this AIM version lets you log on to the ICQ network so that you can talk with ICQ pals, too. Unfortunately, you'll have to log out of one IM to access the other; there's no three-way chatting with friends from the two IM networks.

It's definitely already been said, but it's worth emphasizing that online postings for jobs can be a huge waste of time -- resulting in a few calls from headhunters, and not much in the way of actual offers (see this CNET article for more info).

If you do rely on job postings (online, in the newspaper, or otherwise) to find employment, make sure that you are assertive, and make sure you're dealing with a human being when possible -- it's good to know who actually reads your letter when you email it to jobs@somecompany.com.

Of course, knowing a few people at companies you'd like to work at is incredibly valuable.

-ubermuffin

The latest versions of both Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Office are available for Macintosh.

This year the atmosphere is different. The "cool" Internet of pervasive e-commerce and e-marketplaces eclipsing the brick-and-mortar world has passed into history for now. Instead, the Internet has returned to its roots (which were first exposed at Interop conferences in the 1990s) as core network infrastructure and applications platform, and grown way beyond its heritage in academic circles.

In fact, we are truly at an inflection point, bridging into the next phase of the Internet. We will be able to look back at this year's N+I and say we saw not just a few indications of an economic recovery, but signs of a future in which the network truly is the computer, to borrow a phrase from Sun Microsystems.

The inflection point in evidence at N+I is the push toward a global, unified network infrastructure, based on Internet protocols. The benefits are well articulated at this juncture in terms of cost savings and flexibility, as well as industry standards and support.

N+I keynote speakers Serge Tchuruk, CEO of Alcatel, and Cisco CEO John Chambers both identified interconnected IP-based LANs and WANs that move voice, data, and video as a key enabler for more cost effective and useful Web-based applications. Tchuruk termed this ultimate evolution of IP networking protocols and open standards as the "borderless enterprise. Chambers called it the "network virtual organization."

Whatever you call this movement, it's more a question of when and how rather than if IP-networks will become the network of networks. "Almost no CIO I talk to today disagrees that within five years we will have a single infrastructure for data, voice, and video," Chambers said. The when and how is tied to providing migration paths that allow for more gradual replacement or upgrading of existing equipment within businesses.

Tchuruk said that enterprises don't need to take a "forklift" approach and replace legacy systems, but should be able to migrate to IP-based network services at their own pace. For example, deploying voice over IP (VOIP) can be done in combination with traditional phone services.

Vendors hope that this migration to a more IP-based solutions will catalyze spending and a return to profitability for their customers and themselves. In reality, unifying network architectures with Internet protocols is just a first step. Both Chambers and Tchuruk stressed that these networks must have carrier-class reliability, quality of service, and bulletproof security to succeed with enterprise customers and consumers.

This year the atmosphere is different. The "cool" Internet of pervasive e-commerce and e-marketplaces eclipsing the brick-and-mortar world has passed into history for now. Instead, the Internet has returned to its roots (which were first exposed at Interop conferences in the 1990s) as core network infrastructure and applications platform, and grown way beyond its heritage in academic circles.

In fact, we are truly at an inflection point, bridging into the next phase of the Internet. We will be able to look back at this year's N+I and say we saw not just a few indications of an economic recovery, but signs of a future in which the network truly is the computer, to borrow a phrase from Sun Microsystems.

The inflection point in evidence at N+I is the push toward a global, unified network infrastructure, based on Internet protocols. The benefits are well articulated at this juncture in terms of cost savings and flexibility, as well as industry standards and support.

N+I keynote speakers Serge Tchuruk, CEO of Alcatel, and Cisco CEO John Chambers both identified interconnected IP-based LANs and WANs that move voice, data, and video as a key enabler for more cost effective and useful Web-based applications. Tchuruk termed this ultimate evolution of IP networking protocols and open standards as the "borderless enterprise. Chambers called it the "network virtual organization."

Whatever you call this movement, it's more a question of when and how rather than if IP-networks will become the network of networks. "Almost no CIO I talk to today disagrees that within five years we will have a single infrastructure for data, voice, and video," Chambers said. The when and how is tied to providing migration paths that allow for more gradual replacement or upgrading of existing equipment within businesses.

Tchuruk said that enterprises don't need to take a "forklift" approach and replace legacy systems, but should be able to migrate to IP-based network services at their own pace. For example, deploying voice over IP (VOIP) can be done in combination with traditional phone services.

Vendors hope that this migration to a more IP-based solutions will catalyze spending and a return to profitability for their customers and themselves. In reality, unifying network architectures with Internet protocols is just a first step. Both Chambers and Tchuruk stressed that these networks must have carrier-class reliability, quality of service, and bulletproof security to succeed with enterprise customers and consumers.

This year the atmosphere is different. The "cool" Internet of pervasive e-commerce and e-marketplaces eclipsing the brick-and-mortar world has passed into history for now. Instead, the Internet has returned to its roots (which were first exposed at Interop conferences in the 1990s) as core network infrastructure and applications platform, and grown way beyond its heritage in academic circles.

In fact, we are truly at an inflection point, bridging into the next phase of the Internet. We will be able to look back at this year's N+I and say we saw not just a few indications of an economic recovery, but signs of a future in which the network truly is the computer, to borrow a phrase from Sun Microsystems.

The inflection point in evidence at N+I is the push toward a global, unified network infrastructure, based on Internet protocols. The benefits are well articulated at this juncture in terms of cost savings and flexibility, as well as industry standards and support.

N+I keynote speakers Serge Tchuruk, CEO of Alcatel, and Cisco CEO John Chambers both identified interconnected IP-based LANs and WANs that move voice, data, and video as a key enabler for more cost effective and useful Web-based applications. Tchuruk termed this ultimate evolution of IP networking protocols and open standards as the "borderless enterprise. Chambers called it the "network virtual organization."

Whatever you call this movement, it's more a question of when and how rather than if IP-networks will become the network of networks. "Almost no CIO I talk to today disagrees that within five years we will have a single infrastructure for data, voice, and video," Chambers said. The when and how is tied to providing migration paths that allow for more gradual replacement or upgrading of existing equipment within businesses.

Tchuruk said that enterprises don't need to take a "forklift" approach and replace legacy systems, but should be able to migrate to IP-based network services at their own pace. For example, deploying voice over IP (VOIP) can be done in combination with traditional phone services.

Vendors hope that this migration to a more IP-based solutions will catalyze spending and a return to profitability for their customers and themselves. In reality, unifying network architectures with Internet protocols is just a first step. Both Chambers and Tchuruk stressed that these networks must have carrier-class reliability, quality of service, and bulletproof security to succeed with enterprise customers and consumers.

There was actually an experiment done along these lines. 12 email addresses started with various providers. Some left untouched, some used exactly once with things like message boards, registering a domain, using an AOL chatroom, that kind of thing. Interesting results.

I also seem to recall an article about someone who designed a webpage with a mailto: on it such that every person who visited it saw a different email address. I can't remember where I saw it or what the results were, though. :(

I downloaded this thing called WordWeb (and NoteTab Light). WordWeb is limited-functionality free. It's not a total replacement for my American Heritage talking Dictionary, but wordweb is more like a really good free thesaurus.

This Abiword 1.0.1 news is not news to me. I think it's been out for more than a week, or at least I think I updated my install on 5-4-02.

References: CNet - Election 2000: High-Tech Politics

AzTeC Computing Free-Net provides free web space to Arizona based non-profits and free text based web access, local discussion groups, e-mail and usenet access.

The system has supported as many as 30,000 users and is still going, even in these days of ... flashy, blinking, dancing babies ...

Free-Nets were built all over the world in the early 1990's many have closed down, some have turned commercial and others continue to survive.

If you want to try it, you can telnet there.

The login is guest and the password is visitor

According to this story, the stock is up so far today. That's a shock to me considering that according to this story that the street expressed it's displeasure with the idea by pushing HP stock down 25%.

Maybe it's a post merger hangover?

According to this story, the stock is up so far today. That's a shock to me considering that according to this story that the street expressed it's displeasure with the idea by pushing HP stock down 25%.

Maybe it's a post merger hangover?

OK, I'm more computer-savvy than your Average Joe - heck, I read SlashDot. I'm a closet geek. But I'm not in the IT industry, nor do I program, nor do I keep close track of all these companies. I have better things to do with my time.

Now, when it comes to desktops, I roll my own, but I've never owned a notebook, and if I were to buy one, I'd buy a brand-name. I always thought Compaq was a good company. People I know and trust have said good things about them, and they even got a good rating on their customer service in this CNet article from December. Plus, both as has been mentioned in other comments here, Compaq and HP were "good for Linux."

Some here have said that Compaq's laptops suck. OK, so I've looked around quickly at the obvious places like ZDProducts.com and CNet, and while they don't have the highest ratings, they seem average and acceptable.

To make a long story short (too late!), my girlfriend just bought a new Compaq Presario 2800 yesterday. And now the merger went through. And now I'm thinking, what if that was a bad decision? We wanted to support a Linux-friendly company, which Gateway is not, and Dell is not, and we wanted better support than she's had through Gateway. We didn't want to buy from a small company; she had a cheapo laptop once before and it had tons of problems. We're both more comfortable with the big players...

So the big question is: what's going to happen to Compaq's support? Any thoughts? Should we try to cancel this order as quickly as possible? Or will everything probably be acceptable?

In Europe we have a system called GPRS which is an enhancement to the existing GSM networks. GPRS gets about 56kbps, although some systems do up to 128kbps I hear (in an ISDN style dual-channel arrangement). In the US though, I hear that GPRS is limited to 19.2kbps-28kbps, which sounds nuts.

Is 3G also limited in the US? The theroetical maximum speed for 3G in Europe and Japan is 384kbps downlink and 64kbps uplink.. which makes 144Kbps mentioned here sounds kinda pathetic. If I were in the US, I'd stick with GPRS, which is pretty cheap and as fast as logging on with my 56.6kbps modem indoors!

CNET has an article comparing cellphone data protocols, although it seems to be using the American data rates and lists GPRS as only able to do 28.8kbps!

I'm in the market as well and I found this article pretty helpful. To summarize, unless all you do is hack audio/video, it's a waste of money to get a P4-M w/ DDR memory, despite the faster bus, etc. Photoshop and AutoCAD tests were actually faster on the PIII-M.

I was leaning toward the Toshiba Satellite 5005-S504 until I read this. Running linux is a must, so now I'm considering a Dell Inspiron 8100.

Both of the above have UXGA (1600x1200) displays. I originally tought I wanted a Powerbook G4, but am not convinced that I can be productive on a 1152x768 display. My development environment looks like this: Left 1/3 of the screen is an Eterm running screen. Right 2/3 is XEmacs. A higher resolution means more code visible at a time and/or a more readable font.

Click here for example

• Asia: Dumping ground for high-tech trash
• Recycled Electronics Pose a Health Hazard in Asia
• Cleaning Up Computer Trash

The costs of diverse and incompatible documents (e.g. different versions of MS-Office) is still high even if you're in a shop where the management buys into single platform (e.g. All-Shall-Be-Microsoft) myth. Take MS-Word, the new versions usually have difficulty with the next most recent version until the patch / upgrade is installed. It often takes a bit of gymnastics to make the conversion successfully especially if you're an early adopter. Powerpoint is even worse. Quite often only one or two presentations will fit on a 3.5" floppy, so that means bringing two or three floppies to conferencs to make sure I can use the conference locale's version of PowerPoint.

Here comes the cost: Imagine nearly everyone in a 120 person organization learning that the hard way, either for their own work or by trying to help some one else. The actual salary is often only 50% of what the employer has to shell out per employee.

It gets more expensive with e-mail attachements. It used to be whenever I got an MS-Office document as an attachment, it was a virus from a stranger. Everyone I actually knew, back then, used file sharing. Now that most shops don't have file sharing, these must be sorted by hand, at least in a MS-Windows environment.

And that's just the cost now. 3 or 4 years from now you have the added issue of trying to identify and read the old formats. So in reality the interoperability part the oft-cited cost benefit of running all MS products hasn't been there.

Link to auto reboot info: CNet Win XP Nightmares

The causes may be bad drivers etc, but the point of a solid OS is to keep humming and allow you to kill a process gone wrong in most cases.

According to this CNET page [cnet.com] Creative might also come out with a 40GB version with 16MB of on board DRAM. With the File Manager & PlayCenter software bundle this should make for an interesting iPod alternative...wouldn't you say?

I noticed C|Net has posted their own lukewarm review of the Zaurus. They give it a 6 out of 10. Interesting that cnet readers give it around a 92% good. Maybe their readers are more technically inclined than they think.

i still have not seen on up close. i'd like to see one before i decide if i should get it.

I had not read the bit on CNet about the distributed computing system that was being included with KaZaA until today. I find this interesting since the reason I switched from KaZaA to BearShare several weeks ago was because my whole computer became sluggish the moment I started KaZaA up, and 1ghz Thuderbirds aren't supposed to be sluggish. I don't know if this is what caused it, but I'm glad I stopped using it when I did nevertheless.

...and a karma whoring followup link to Ad-Aware (recently updated to v. 5.7).

Hell, Nethack runs on PocketPC devices like the iPaq as well, with graphical tileset to boot. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Palm port.

...or, at least they would be if I wasn't blocking that information from leaving my computer with my firewall!

Actually, this post from 15 minutes before yours notes that there is an eval available here.

What is so odd about this? The fact that it's not free? Come on! 80 bucks isn't an outrageous amount to pay for a program, I mean compare (since this is being compared to office XP) that to $330 for office XP...

I'm considering buying this, because I'm not a hardcore office user, but for the occasional letter this might be good... and I've got an older computer, so some of the free office suites *might* not be as quick as this supposedly is.