Slashdot Mirror

Why do so few free services appear these days? What happened to, "I'm doing it for fun, and if I make a few bucks, then that's icing on the cake"? Like Slashdot, for instance, and photo.net, for another. Everything now has to make millions of bucks, or else it's not worth doing, apparently.

No, not pixels. Feet.

Heck Polaroid did it years ago, how much harder could it be for digital technology?

Let's ask Philip if he's reaped any benefits from online publishing. He has written "Travel's with Samantha" and countless articles about photography online, on what could possibly be considered the foremost photo community online photo.net. He is very intelligent, and has been interviewed here before...

Of course, people actually downloading the whole human genome probable wouldn't worry about this, but couldn't they use a better compression format than .zip? I bet using bzip2 or rar would shave a couple of hundred MBs off of that 753MB file. Also, the differences in compression techniques would be interesting to see on a large group of files mainly consisting of G, A, C, and T. -- demiurge You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!! Score one for the downtrodden hacker!

• G -- 00
• A -- 01
• T -- 10
• C -- 11

This would only work for the .fa files, but .fa files can contain "N"s also. If you just want to browse the Genome, look through the pieces directory. .

You'll want to use a "real" RDBMS. I'm not trying to flame here, but MySQL is inadequate for storing your customers' data because it doesn't support transactions. If one of your scripts accidentally breaks (due to bad user data), you do not want to bill them or store their order accidentally. Likewise, you want to update "stock/availablility information" atomically. There are probably some parts of your site that you could use MySQL for (i.e. authentication), but since you will need transactions for a critical part of your product anyway, you may as well go with Sybase, Oracle, PostgreSQL or SOLID. The MySQL developers have made it pretty clear that even if they implement something "called" transactions, it will fail the ACID test. (see the links from http://openacs.org for more objective info.) In any case, don't run the db server on the same machine as the WWW server -- remember the example set by CDUniverse.com, who lost many credit card numbers to a cracker.

If you have any db/php beginners on your team, you might want to show them this article I wrote for the Linux Journal -- it features a (cursory) overview of some of the topics you'll need to teach them.

Best of luck! ~wog

One morning, I found a beheaded Barbie about two blocks from my house.

Hate to think about Ken's fate...

Definitely. I've put up quite a few of my travel stories up on the net. Travel writing is practically impossible to sell and so I haven't even tried, but on the Net, with no advertising other than a few search engine submissions, I've gotten thousands of readers and lots of feedback. Write a really good story, like Philip Greenspun, and you'll get hundreds of thousands.

Philip also explains why he isn't a writer and why the Net is far better medium than dead trees. Excellent reading.

Cheers,
-j.

Definitely. I've put up quite a few of my travel stories up on the net. Travel writing is practically impossible to sell and so I haven't even tried, but on the Net, with no advertising other than a few search engine submissions, I've gotten thousands of readers and lots of feedback. Write a really good story, like Philip Greenspun, and you'll get hundreds of thousands.

Philip also explains why he isn't a writer and why the Net is far better medium than dead trees. Excellent reading.

Cheers,
-j.

The chairman of the company that I work for released his book free online, and as a dead-trees book.

Apparently, the online version has not hurt the sales of the print edition. The two versions of the book offer a profoundly different reading experience.

The print version adds value by being printed on easy-to-read glossy paper, and by having interesting photographs scattered throughout. No monitor is as easy on the eyes.

On the other hand, the online version is frequently updated, and provides people with an easy way to reference passages via online searches. Many people who start reading the book online eventually buy the print version. In that sense, it could be considered an effective marketing tool. (Though convincing a publishing house that this is the case may be problematic.)

docwolf

You should never need a photo. A credit card processing agency requires only the number, expiration date, name and address. Optional are the "extra" numbers on the back of the card and a phone number. The processor sends the card number to the bank which sends back the address on the card and expiration date. Based on this information, the company you are buying a product from can accept or deny the charge; even if the addresses don't match the company can take a risk and accept the card.

This is detailed very well in Philip Greenspun's book, availible fulltext online. Here's the book.

Flashpix is actually a pretty cool format. It allows zooming and very good resolution (good enough to print), with fairly small filesizes. Unfortunately, it requires either a plugin or a Java applet, and the plugin is impossible to find. Plus, it doesn't even exist for Linux browsers. The Java applet kinda works on Netscape, and doesn't work in Mozilla M15. The GIMP can't read the format, and I'm not sure if Photoshop can, either (at least, without a plugin). It's too bad, because it's pretty nifty. Take a look at Phil Greenspun's page to see how FPX can be used well.

I can see where exciting design tricks are usful for, say, a magazine or TV show. But on the web, where I for one am working with a low resolution monitor and (often) a text based connection, and where others may be using anything from IE5 on a shiny new Mac to the default browser on a Palm VII, I have a hard time seeing the point in making flashy 'designed' web pages. The 'benefit' of having to turn off javascript just to be able to read the font that looked best on your monitor just doesn't work for me. But then again, I'm not the fancy web designer, I'm just a happy little page minimalist.

At least your pages seem to work okay when I disable the gadgetry -- that's an excellent start. And it also looks okay in Lynx -- an easy thing to do, but too often overlooked (as it translates into "looking good" on palmtops, for search engines, and on alternative browsers for e.g. the blind). I give you points for that. But I still don't see the point -- the benefit -- of all the flashiness. Maybe it's just my sense of aesthetics -- I like a nice clean simple site, without all the trappings (think photo.net. Different strokes...

I guess that's the gist of my question though: when there are so many benefits to having a straightforward, Lynx friendly site, and when it takes so much effort to get an "enhanced" site to degrade to the older level, what exactly do you gain by the effort? What, in short, makes it worthwhile?

Check photo.net. It's probably not as sophisticated as some you've seen but it's free software and represents a good start over starting from scratch.

Anonymous Coward: Amorous? Candy now! | Raw Cod Annoy Sumo

set handle [ns_db gethandle]

Using ns_db with other arguments you then get to do your queries/inserts/etc (simplifying just a little):

ns_db $handle "select * from table"

ns_db dml $handle "insert into table (field1, field2) values ($value1, $value2)"

Then, when you are done, you just release the handle:

ns_db releasehandle $handle

Each AOLServer process can hold 8 database connections open.

AOLServer 2.3.3 is free, non-open source. AOLSerer 3.0 is free and open source, thanks to the efforts of Philip Greenspun and company.

Philip has written an intro to AOLServer that was published in Linux Today, it is now available in two parts here:

Part 1

Part 2

A quick quote from part 1: "AOLserver runs as a single Unix process. You can deliver the 20 dynamic pages per second of our example without your server having to start any new programs. If those pages need to connect to Oracle, they simply ask AOLserver to let them use an already-open connection from a configurable pool. Note that this ability to pool database connections is a consequence of AOLserver's one-process-with-threads architecture. With a process-pool Web server such as Apache, nothing stops you from linking in the Oracle C libraries. Your Apache server can then function as an Oracle client. However, there would be no way to share a database connection among Apache server processes. What's the bottom line difference? A site like http://photo.net can serve 700,000 hits per day, to about 120 simultaneous users at once, with one AOLserver process holding open eight connections to Oracle. That's a total of nine Unix processes (one AOLserver, eight Oracle). With Apache, providing the same level of service from photo.net would require 120 Apache server process, each of which held open two connections to Oracle: 360 processes total.

Another dividend from the single-process architecture of AOLserver is that you can cache stuff in AOLserver's virtual memory. For example, consider the Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock (http://www.webho.com/WealthClock). It gets as many as two hits per second at peaks. Yet it relies on invoking CGI scripts running at foreign Web sites where they probably wouldn't appreciate getting hammered by my server. The solution is to cache the page in AOLserver's virtual memory. Again, this is something you could do with a process-pool server such as Apache but you'd be gradually building up 120 separate copies of the same data. "

Part 2 shows how to use the "ns_db" command that I mentioned above in some detail.

P.S. Philip Greenspun developed a great open source toolkit that sits on top of AOLServer called the Ars Digita Community System (aka the ACS) and wrote a book about it that is well known as a must-read for web-heads. It is on line for free, complete with all the photos:

Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing

P.P.S. There's a version of the ACS available that uses the open-source Postgresql database, if you don't want to pay for Oracle: Open ACS (they have a working beta but are waiting for Postgresql 7 to come out before making an official release).

set handle [ns_db gethandle]

Using ns_db with other arguments you then get to do your queries/inserts/etc (simplifying just a little):

ns_db $handle "select * from table"

ns_db dml $handle "insert into table (field1, field2) values ($value1, $value2)"

Then, when you are done, you just release the handle:

ns_db releasehandle $handle

Each AOLServer process can hold 8 database connections open.

AOLServer 2.3.3 is free, non-open source. AOLSerer 3.0 is free and open source, thanks to the efforts of Philip Greenspun and company.

Philip has written an intro to AOLServer that was published in Linux Today, it is now available in two parts here:

Part 1

Part 2

A quick quote from part 1: "AOLserver runs as a single Unix process. You can deliver the 20 dynamic pages per second of our example without your server having to start any new programs. If those pages need to connect to Oracle, they simply ask AOLserver to let them use an already-open connection from a configurable pool. Note that this ability to pool database connections is a consequence of AOLserver's one-process-with-threads architecture. With a process-pool Web server such as Apache, nothing stops you from linking in the Oracle C libraries. Your Apache server can then function as an Oracle client. However, there would be no way to share a database connection among Apache server processes. What's the bottom line difference? A site like http://photo.net can serve 700,000 hits per day, to about 120 simultaneous users at once, with one AOLserver process holding open eight connections to Oracle. That's a total of nine Unix processes (one AOLserver, eight Oracle). With Apache, providing the same level of service from photo.net would require 120 Apache server process, each of which held open two connections to Oracle: 360 processes total.

Another dividend from the single-process architecture of AOLserver is that you can cache stuff in AOLserver's virtual memory. For example, consider the Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock (http://www.webho.com/WealthClock). It gets as many as two hits per second at peaks. Yet it relies on invoking CGI scripts running at foreign Web sites where they probably wouldn't appreciate getting hammered by my server. The solution is to cache the page in AOLserver's virtual memory. Again, this is something you could do with a process-pool server such as Apache but you'd be gradually building up 120 separate copies of the same data. "

Part 2 shows how to use the "ns_db" command that I mentioned above in some detail.

P.S. Philip Greenspun developed a great open source toolkit that sits on top of AOLServer called the Ars Digita Community System (aka the ACS) and wrote a book about it that is well known as a must-read for web-heads. It is on line for free, complete with all the photos:

Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing

P.P.S. There's a version of the ACS available that uses the open-source Postgresql database, if you don't want to pay for Oracle: Open ACS (they have a working beta but are waiting for Postgresql 7 to come out before making an official release).

set handle [ns_db gethandle]

Using ns_db with other arguments you then get to do your queries/inserts/etc (simplifying just a little):

ns_db $handle "select * from table"

ns_db dml $handle "insert into table (field1, field2) values ($value1, $value2)"

Then, when you are done, you just release the handle:

ns_db releasehandle $handle

Each AOLServer process can hold 8 database connections open.

AOLServer 2.3.3 is free, non-open source. AOLSerer 3.0 is free and open source, thanks to the efforts of Philip Greenspun and company.

Philip has written an intro to AOLServer that was published in Linux Today, it is now available in two parts here:

Part 1

Part 2

A quick quote from part 1: "AOLserver runs as a single Unix process. You can deliver the 20 dynamic pages per second of our example without your server having to start any new programs. If those pages need to connect to Oracle, they simply ask AOLserver to let them use an already-open connection from a configurable pool. Note that this ability to pool database connections is a consequence of AOLserver's one-process-with-threads architecture. With a process-pool Web server such as Apache, nothing stops you from linking in the Oracle C libraries. Your Apache server can then function as an Oracle client. However, there would be no way to share a database connection among Apache server processes. What's the bottom line difference? A site like http://photo.net can serve 700,000 hits per day, to about 120 simultaneous users at once, with one AOLserver process holding open eight connections to Oracle. That's a total of nine Unix processes (one AOLserver, eight Oracle). With Apache, providing the same level of service from photo.net would require 120 Apache server process, each of which held open two connections to Oracle: 360 processes total.

Another dividend from the single-process architecture of AOLserver is that you can cache stuff in AOLserver's virtual memory. For example, consider the Bill Gates Personal Wealth Clock (http://www.webho.com/WealthClock). It gets as many as two hits per second at peaks. Yet it relies on invoking CGI scripts running at foreign Web sites where they probably wouldn't appreciate getting hammered by my server. The solution is to cache the page in AOLserver's virtual memory. Again, this is something you could do with a process-pool server such as Apache but you'd be gradually building up 120 separate copies of the same data. "

Part 2 shows how to use the "ns_db" command that I mentioned above in some detail.

P.S. Philip Greenspun developed a great open source toolkit that sits on top of AOLServer called the Ars Digita Community System (aka the ACS) and wrote a book about it that is well known as a must-read for web-heads. It is on line for free, complete with all the photos:

Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing

P.P.S. There's a version of the ACS available that uses the open-source Postgresql database, if you don't want to pay for Oracle: Open ACS (they have a working beta but are waiting for Postgresql 7 to come out before making an official release).

My comments on languages and their usefulness in Web programming (I have to make this short, but I've been doing this for a long time now, so email me if anyone has questions and wants my humble opinion)

Perl
Awesome language. Great library support (stellar, really) and very easy to learn. Stick to good programming practices, avoid the dark side, and you can do a lot with it.
For anything beyond trivial apps, mod_perl or a similar accelerator is definately needed.
Object oriented programming is fairly nice; it allows OOP without being strictly wedded to it, and it has very powerful introspective and adaptive features (closures, ability to interrograte and modify the symbol table so you can actually *add* methods dynamically as the code runs. Wow. Allows multiple inheritence if you really need it).
Database programming via DBI/DBD is very well supported.

Java
Another good tool. A very nice OO syntax, strict exceptions to insure a robust system, and an architecture for using it with a Web server (Servlets). Add to that JDBC (which is well supported, and not hard to use or learn). Also add introspection and built-in RMI.
I haven't used Enterprise Java Beans at all yet, but I like the concept. Implementations seem fairly weak and non-performant so far, however.
I would prefer Java over Perl in cases where I needed to have a distributed system that might talk to other systems I didn't code or have ability to modify. In Java, CORBA and RMI are pretty easy to use, and EJB support will probably be well worth having in the somewhat near future.
Java is a lot more inherently performant than Perl, although the difference between jserv and mod_perl is not all that huge in our tests.

Bad points of Java: the compile cycle bites once you're used to Perl (edit and run). It also is a tad too strict (again, once you're used to a more free-wheeling approach in Perl).

Tcl
Phil at photo.net loves this. He uses it in AOLServer, which handles embedded Tcl (somewhat like mod_perl?). It has the same sort of benefits as Perl (no compile cycle, loose syntax and ability to do things more than one way, several libraries), but I personally never liked Tcl all that much. I wouldn't rule it out, though, check out photo.net.

C/C++
As usual, use this for maximum speed. Despite any claims people might make, Java is even in the best of cases not as fast as C. However, C is not going to be the fastest language to develop in, and since speed to market and ability to adapt are often key in Web programming, I tend to not consider C or C++ a good choice. The lack of a lot of external support or common specs hurts C and C++ -- I'm not aware of a server-independent API for "embedded" C code (like Servlets are for Java, for instance -- code that runs with the Web server persistantly or on some other persistant server). C could be great for implementing a separate server process that front-end scripts connect to from the Web server. Imagine a mod_perl front-end that connects to a server written in C -- this could be pretty fast and have a lot of flexibility.

Just throwing ideas out. Maybe this answers some part of your question??

A free software business model provides a service, as such, must leverage the fact that the software is used widely. This is contrasted by the traditional software business model which leverages the market by creating artificial scarcity by restricting software distribution.

Phil Greenspun builds on one of the central observations of the GNU Manifesto, that software benefits society the most when it is used by the most people, in this article about software pricing. He argues that selling software like a traditional manufactured goods doesn't promote good quality software or provide full benefit to society. He proposes selling a portfolio of software packages via a subscription service for which subscribers pay a flat fee, revenues are distributed to authors according to how many people use their software. He doesn't advocate free or closed software in the article but it is not hard to see a RedHat or SourceForge providing the subscription service.

On his photonet site Philip has an article on Using CVS for Web Development. I haven't read it but I have read his Guide to Web Publishing and if that is any indication you'd be wise to follow his advice.

On his photonet site Philip has an article on Using CVS for Web Development. I haven't read it but I have read his Guide to Web Publishing and if that is any indication you'd be wise to follow his advice.

Oracle plays a central role in your current toolkit. Have you considered switching to an an open-source database?

There is no open-source replacement for a true enterprise-level RDBMS. MySQL and PostgresSQL are as close as you can get; neither is a viable alternative to Oracle, Sybase, or DB2 (or even MS SQL Server). Given the complexity of modern database software, and the highly specialized knowledge needed to write it, I don't see the open-source community coming up with an enterprise-class RDBMS any time soon. Phil explains his choice of Oracle on his web site.

That being said, Oracle is a very expensive piece of software, and is a tempremental beast to configure and support. Oracle 8i for Linux can be downloaded for free (free registration required), but AFIK you have to pay for a licence if you use it in a production enviornment. Also, it is a practical impossiblity to run an Oracle installation without a full-time, knowledgable DBA. The high expense of the software and the salary of a DBA makes Oracle infeasable for small businesses or those on a limited budget. Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) 11.0.3 for Linux is gratis for both production and development; ASE 11.9.2 is gratis for development but requires a paid licence for production deployment. ASE 12.0 hasn't been ported to Linux (yet). ASE, while easier to administer than Oracle (IMHO), still requires a knowledgable DBA. Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere (ASA) (the database engine behind SQL Anywhere Studio) requires far less knowlege to administer, making it far more suitable for small operations. Free evaluation versions of SQL Anywhere Studio are available for Linux, Unix, and Windows.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'

you seem to be rather critical of Vignette's StoryServer.

http://www.photo.net/wtr/vignette.html
http://www.photo.net/wtr/vignette-old.ht ml

They seem to be a "markitecture" company. Marketing first, technology second. So the philosophy that the market will decide which is the better product seems to lead one to the conclusion that they should be headed for doom (I wish). Unfortunately, the people who know the technology aren't always the ones who are making the decisions.

We've seen this before with DOS vs. Mac, and VHS vs. Beta in the mid-80s. I'm a Darwinist myself, but I grow impatient with evolution, and the natural way isn't always the best.

Where do you see their destiny leading, and what kind of a future do other hyped-up cruddy products have?

you seem to be rather critical of Vignette's StoryServer.

http://www.photo.net/wtr/vignette.html
http://www.photo.net/wtr/vignette-old.ht ml

They seem to be a "markitecture" company. Marketing first, technology second. So the philosophy that the market will decide which is the better product seems to lead one to the conclusion that they should be headed for doom (I wish). Unfortunately, the people who know the technology aren't always the ones who are making the decisions.

We've seen this before with DOS vs. Mac, and VHS vs. Beta in the mid-80s. I'm a Darwinist myself, but I grow impatient with evolution, and the natural way isn't always the best.

Where do you see their destiny leading, and what kind of a future do other hyped-up cruddy products have?

If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the question is answered here:
http://www.photo.net/wtr/dead-trees/ story.html

======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

First of all, thanks a lot for Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing and introducing Edward Tufte's excellect books.

My Question is:
What's the merit of tightly-coupled-to-Oracle architecture of acs(ars digita community system) as a web application platform? ZOPE is in my mind as the not-tightly-coupled-to-any-RDBMS web applicaton platform?

Some people came to ZOPE because they can not afford an Oracle(in my case, the prefernce of python to tcl played a lot).

Or any comment on the web application servers/platforms which does not have the honor of being commented upon in your web tools review is apprecitated GREATLY!


I know I have almost no chance of being moderated up. But please do nice to a question simillar to mine but written by a native English(or European language) writer.

I was very impressed on photo.net with your welfare reform essay, and particularly taken by your thesis that America's domestic aid policy is primarily driven by a sour and puritanical terror of giving money to those who might not deserve it.

I was therefore surprised to find your elaborate dissection of how Bill Gates doesn't deserve his money.

Of course he doesn't deserve his money! No economy has ever managed to allocate wealth by merit! But, by losing sleep over that fact, aren't you participating in something very like the nosiness you elsewhere deplore?

I was very impressed on photo.net with your welfare reform essay, and particularly taken by your thesis that America's domestic aid policy is primarily driven by a sour and puritanical terror of giving money to those who might not deserve it.

I was therefore surprised to find your elaborate dissection of how Bill Gates doesn't deserve his money.

Of course he doesn't deserve his money! No economy has ever managed to allocate wealth by merit! But, by losing sleep over that fact, aren't you participating in something very like the nosiness you elsewhere deplore?

I remeber reading Travels with Samantha when it first came out on the world wide web (some of my first real reading on the web). What struck me about it, aside from the fact that I enjoyed reading it, was how much of yourself was laid bare in the story. Publicly exposing oneself like this is something that celeberties do all the time, but it was (particularly at that time) a rare thing for Joe private citizen to do (although certainly within your nature ;-).

I'm wondering you can describe what happened as a result of exposing so much of yourself online. I remember reading the comments on the story, and there were certainly a wide range of responses, but I was wondering if you noticed any larger consequences?

I agree with RG Ristroph's post -- the hard part is establishing version control -- the tool is not the most important part. That said, CVS is a pretty good tool. It works well over both LANs and WANs (unlike sourcesafe, for example), handles branching/merging about as well any as tool can, and bonus, is free. You *will* need someone who is dedicated to managing the system and answering questions. It may not (should not) be a full-time job, but until people are up-to-speed, they will make mistakes, and you need someone whose priority it is to fix those mistakes, and help the other developers learn how to accomplish what they need. (The above is true of any version control system, by the way, not just CVS.)

Before you install any VC system, you need to decide what you're trying to accomplish, and design the procedures to do that. CVS (or whatever) is a tool, not a methodology.

Finally, here are some hopefully useful links:

• Karl Fogel's CVS book (actually, portions of it, mostly dealing with using CVS), which I find more readable than the Cederquist manual.
• Some links about using CVS for websites:here, here, and here. Different view points, worth reading, and generally applicable even if you choose something besides CVS.

As a camera geek as well as a computer geek, I can say that I rather have film over most ditigal solutions at this point. The only digial solution that I have even considered is a digital back for my Mamiya 645, which would shoot 128mb images right to a 10gig HD. This setup would / could easily cost more than my car. It's image resolution, and film as someone else put it, near 1000 LPI, which on a 35mm (3.5cm / 2.54 = 1.377 inches) offers 1377 lines of image resolution. The best 35mm solution is the Nikon N90 with Kodak's digital back which costs nearly $18,000 new. I have yet to see one of these machines listed used. Stick with either Kodak's Royal Gold 100 & 400, or Fuji's 100 & 400, play with Kodak's CM-41 for BW photography (very nice, & have the red lens filter for outdoors!) and you will rarely go wrong. Use photo.net to learn, and shop at B&H Photo for your equipment.

I did a lot of research into digital cameras last year. I didn't buy one, but here's some of the info I found . . .

How good of a camera you need (and how much you end up spending on one) depends on what you plan to do with the pictures.

If all you want to do is post pix on the web, any 1-megapixel (or less) camera should do a respectable job for you, since web pix are generally low res (640 x 480 or less). At 72 ppi screen res, that's 8.9 x 6.7 inches (pretty big).

What you need the extra pixels for is printing photos onto paper. There's a big controversy over the resolution photos should be printed at, with the general consensus being in the 150 to 300 ppi range. Generally, you should avoid printing at less than 200 ppi.

At 200ppi, you'll need a 1 mp camera to print a standard 4x6 shot, 1.5 mp to do a 5x7, 3.2 mp to do an 8x10, 6.2 mp to do an 11x14.

The highest res digicams available today for under US$1,000, are ~3 mp. Best 3 mp models currently include the Canon PowerShot S20, Nikon CoolPix 990. The 2 mp models of these cameras are the S10 and Coolpix 950. They are all great cameras, and 2 mp models just dropped in price with the introduction of the 3 mp models.

For reviews, visit:

• http://photo.askey.net
  http://www.imaging-resource.com
  http://www.lonestardigital.com
  http://www.steves-digicams.com/cameras.ht ml

Note that you can get good deals buying 2nd hand cameras. A lot of users sell their 1-yr-old cameras to buy the latest models. Also, you should buy a camera that's small. If it's too big to carry around, it won't get used. (The Canons are small, sturdy, and they look cool. Kodaks generally suck in this regard.)

So why didn't I buy a digicam?

I wanted to print really big pictures, and for that you still can't beat film. Film is cheap, and you can scan onto PhotoCD whatever individual frames you like. You get a 6 mp (!) image which you can print onto 11 x 17 paper.

• http://www.templetons.com/brad/pixels.html
  http://photo.net/photo/point-and-shoot.ht ml
  http://photo.net/photo/point-and-sho ot-tips.html

BTW, for a /.-style photo site, check out:

• http://www.techphoto.org

I did a lot of research into digital cameras last year. I didn't buy one, but here's some of the info I found . . .

How good of a camera you need (and how much you end up spending on one) depends on what you plan to do with the pictures.

If all you want to do is post pix on the web, any 1-megapixel (or less) camera should do a respectable job for you, since web pix are generally low res (640 x 480 or less). At 72 ppi screen res, that's 8.9 x 6.7 inches (pretty big).

What you need the extra pixels for is printing photos onto paper. There's a big controversy over the resolution photos should be printed at, with the general consensus being in the 150 to 300 ppi range. Generally, you should avoid printing at less than 200 ppi.

At 200ppi, you'll need a 1 mp camera to print a standard 4x6 shot, 1.5 mp to do a 5x7, 3.2 mp to do an 8x10, 6.2 mp to do an 11x14.

The highest res digicams available today for under US$1,000, are ~3 mp. Best 3 mp models currently include the Canon PowerShot S20, Nikon CoolPix 990. The 2 mp models of these cameras are the S10 and Coolpix 950. They are all great cameras, and 2 mp models just dropped in price with the introduction of the 3 mp models.

For reviews, visit:

• http://photo.askey.net
  http://www.imaging-resource.com
  http://www.lonestardigital.com
  http://www.steves-digicams.com/cameras.ht ml

Note that you can get good deals buying 2nd hand cameras. A lot of users sell their 1-yr-old cameras to buy the latest models. Also, you should buy a camera that's small. If it's too big to carry around, it won't get used. (The Canons are small, sturdy, and they look cool. Kodaks generally suck in this regard.)

So why didn't I buy a digicam?

I wanted to print really big pictures, and for that you still can't beat film. Film is cheap, and you can scan onto PhotoCD whatever individual frames you like. You get a 6 mp (!) image which you can print onto 11 x 17 paper.

• http://www.templetons.com/brad/pixels.html
  http://photo.net/photo/point-and-shoot.ht ml
  http://photo.net/photo/point-and-sho ot-tips.html

BTW, for a /.-style photo site, check out:

• http://www.techphoto.org

Ok, before i start I have two URLs for anyone intrested, first is Philip Greenspun's photo.net guide to digitals, albeit a bit outdated, has sound advise.
Second is the Altamira software. I have played with this, and it has a 20 use free demo. What it lets you do is use a fractal algorithm thingy to upsample lower resolution images to a high enough res to print, this is GREAT, it works well, and the results, while not as sharp as if you had started with hi-res, are decent enough for snapshots to show friends. And no, I dont work for them, but I wish I did :)
Now, on to my 2
Well, being a photographer I have to throw in my 2 (yes, a real photographer, I make money selling pictures)...
The world of digital is, intresting, to say the least. It's my feelings that digital has a _LONG_ way to go before it takes over film. In the pro photo market 35mm is only one type of film. Digital cameras today can take on 35mm for under $5000 and with a decent printer, and some software, yes, you too can be a digital photographer.
However my personal aditude towards it is that digiutal cameras are _GREAT_ for only one thing, websites. I currently own a Kodak DC215 and an Olympus D630 and both of them shoot high enough res to be used to print a fairly sharp 5x7 but nothing more. With the bigger cameras, the kodak modeks based on the Canon EOS system, and the nikon D1 you can get a decent 8x10 and those are in the $5000 range.
Most consumers will never have need for a snapshot biugger than 8x10, so I feel that these cameras "do the job" but I think they're best for just putting images on the web, and doing a photo archive of your life.
For the print/advertising world however, who often times deals with putting images on billboards, buses, and even buildings, a cheap digital camera doesn't cut it. Megavision and Lightwave Inc. both make high quality backs for medium and large format camneras that start around $20k and go up to a bit over $100k and these are getting to the point where they can be used for billboards and such, but most firms still prefer film. So...from this photographer, I say film is the way to go for at least another 10 years, and as an artform, I dont think film will go away in my life time. That's my 2 anjoy :)

First, they're cheaper, and less fragile.

Traditional cameras are most definitely not cheaper. As someone who does a ton of photography, I should point out that most people don't realise it, but most of the cost of owning a camera is paying for film, development and printing.

Second, traditional cameras, are likely to be just as fragile as a digital camera, except that they have more moving parts (shutter screens, rollers, etc.) that can seize up over time. I certainly wouldn't take this into consideration when buying a camera though -- unless I knew it was going to be handled rough.

That being said, my recommendation would be to head over to www.photo.net, Phil Greenspun's excellent photography resource, and check out the ton of recommendations tips and techniques he and reviewers have posted.

Though I don't own a digital camera, I have done a ton of looking in the past few months because I am thinking of getting one to reduce the cost of photography. The Nikon Coolpix is the best I've seen for the snapshot shooter, while the Nikon D1 is the most fantastic SLR I've had the pleasure of checking out. Nikon is known for their excellent optics, and I have been nothing but pleased with anything I have owned from them. I was also impressed with some of the Kodak cameras I played with, so you might consider checking some of those out.

Before you buy any camera, ask to play around with it a bit first. Most shops will allow you to shoot a roll (or, I guess, a flash card?) if you give them collateral, or know them well. If not, ask to shoot a few in the store. And, last but not least, definitely read the reviews available on the net before you buy.

If you want an easy way to share photos with friends/family over the net, then digital is the obvious choice. Check photo.net. Phil has done a great job with that site. Cameras like the Canon Powershot S10/S20 are really good for that purpose.

However, if you intend on taking photos to print out, I would say get a film camera. I don't know if it is any cheaper, but unless you are using top-of the line archival quality ink, the photos printed from *any* inkjet printer will fade rapidly...and even then, film is still probably better (for now). expect a film print to stand up much more than an inkjet print..

Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing is a great book, but it's not a good reference if you're looking for nitty-gritty coding knowhow. It seeks to avoid that stuff, since you should be able to think about building web sites on a higher level, where the particular language doesn't matter.

However, if you'd like to be a web coding ninja, do problem sets 1-5 on this site. If you don't have the exact environment in which to complete them (AOLserver, Oracle, CyberCash account), improvise. After completing those, you should be able to tackle anything, and you'll know how to code a great site.

Phillip Greenspuns work is highly recommended: Go check it out!

I've always like Phillip's Greenspun's ideas on web development. In a nutshell, he preaches reliable and efficient code/tools. He can be a bit biased but mostly his ideas are good (according to me).

His book is available online for free.

Check out Philip and Alex's guide to web publishing. This the book you were looking for?

I agree. The whole Photo.net website is some quasi-religious experience but has more than just a textual level as it is populated with incredible photos (many of them scanned at 1500x1000 pixels as excellent wallpapers). And his book is also online for free.

The cost of an education is not directly related to its quality, but the value of the union card (diploma) does have some positive correlation. I went to an Ivy League school, got a middle of the road education and spent, what was back then, the cost of a small McDonald's franchise for the privilege. My brother graduated suma cum laude from UConn, got a top flight education for a fraction of the cost. He has done very, very well. On the other hand, when I was starting out and had no work experience, the degree opened doors. No one gave me anything; I still had to prove my worth before hiring.

Mr. Greenspun is a long-time advocate of a tuition free undergraduate education, and for good reason: Our country is not making enough engineers, not making enough good ones, and we're not learning fast enough. I've used Unix systems since the mid-80's, and the same problems that I encountered then exist today! If civil engineering learned as slowly as the computer "scientists", our bridges would fall down with alarming regularity. No, ArsDigita University is not about getting people jobs or recognizing time serverd with a diploma, it is about creating an intelligent generation of engineers who know enough about our history not to repeat it.

The cost of an education is not directly related to its quality, but the value of the union card (diploma) does have some positive correlation. I went to an Ivy League school, got a middle of the road education and spent, what was back then, the cost of a small McDonald's franchise for the privilege. My brother graduated suma cum laude from UConn, got a top flight education for a fraction of the cost. He has done very, very well. On the other hand, when I was starting out and had no work experience, the degree opened doors. No one gave me anything; I still had to prove my worth before hiring.

Mr. Greenspun is a long-time advocate of a tuition free undergraduate education, and for good reason: Our country is not making enough engineers, not making enough good ones, and we're not learning fast enough. I've used Unix systems since the mid-80's, and the same problems that I encountered then exist today! If civil engineering learned as slowly as the computer "scientists", our bridges would fall down with alarming regularity. No, ArsDigita University is not about getting people jobs or recognizing time serverd with a diploma, it is about creating an intelligent generation of engineers who know enough about our history not to repeat it.

A guy with an MD or a mother returning to the workforce after a bunch of years home with some kids might not want to subscribe to our brand of fanaticism. And they won't really be immersed in our culture as you suggest. More than half the faculty are not employees of ArsDigita (we have our share of CS PhDs but we've got work to do so we're also hiring CS PhDs whose first love is teaching).

We attack the recruiting problem with little sports cars and other, more immediate, incentives. But ultimately the best thing that we have to offer people is the guarantee that they'll be working with other smart folks (our Pasadena office was started by four Caltech PhDs) and that they'll be free to build great things without meddling from clueless managers or designers.

I first learned of him when read something he write called Travels With Samantha -- it's about a trip around the country he took one summer after his dog George died. It really is worth reading -- his description of Minnesota (where I spent a year in college) is one of the best-written things I've ever read about the state.

Oh well, sorry for the WOB.

Take care,

Steve


========
Stephen C. VanDahm

While I like the Freenet's technical capabilities (dynamic caching and mirroring), I dislike their philosophical stance on "free speech", to wit:

The simple answer is that copyright is economic censorship (ie. restricting the free distribution of information for economic reasons), and thus Freenet will make it difficult or impossible to enforce copyright.

This is ridiculous. Copyrights are not economic censorship, unless the copyright holder chooses to use it as such. For example, Philip Greenspun lets web admins use his photos, generally for free, as long as they attribute him. He maintains the copyright. This is economic censorship? No, it's a legally enforceable method of control of somebody's intellectual property. (I know, IP is a dirty word...) Philip might spend hours setting up and taking a shot -- if he wants to retain control of his interpretation of an idea, that's his legal right.

You cannot have free speech without tolerating speech that you personally don't agree with. If you don't want to risk aiding the distribution of "kiddie porn" (which is *already* freely distributed on the Internet anyway), then steer clear of Freenet - it's not for you.

So, in other words, "kiddie porn" is free speech. Really? I didn't know that. Guess ritual rape and mutilation is free speech too, and if done in a pointy hat with candles, it's a religious observance, too.

While I agree with the point that supporting free speech means supporting ideas and thoughts that you may not agree with, not every form of expression falls into free speech. Throwing a punch at someone, even if it's a cracker-ass Grand Wizard of the KKK, is not "expression". It's assault, and your butt will rightly be hauled into jail. Ass-fucking a 10 year old boy is not "expression". It's ass-fucking a 10 year old boy -- a minor, and protected (rightly) by law.

Developing a system whereby administrators (you can't even rightly call them that, since they "administer" nothing) have no control over content, you make a technically competent and interesting system that is *really* uninviting to operate, since your box can be the source of something nefarious (or something you disagree with, and do not wish to support). You are welcome to your ideas, but do *NOT* push them onto me.

A side issue is about the "voting" or "rating" system built into Freenet. I like the idea, but I think it overlooks something. What about tiny, insignificant, but really important things that don't get used much. For example, a HOW-TO on setting up an Amiga 2000 to run NetBSD. Not many A2000s out there, nobody runs NetBSD anyway... what's this node about Windows 2001? Looks neeto...

If unpopular nodes get pushed out, doesn't that run contrary to the "free speech" dictum? Unpopular now means "kill the niggers", but 40 years ago, unpopular meant "I have a dream...". Popularity is a poor substitute for personal decision.

Freenet is a great concept, but it's missing a few important concepts and components. I personally think that an philosophical ideal and a technical solution don't neccessarily mix very well. GNU software might be the rule-proving exception or the theory-smashing evidence. Freenet, however, is mostly concerned with ideology, and is developing a technical solution to promote that ideology at the expense of that self-same ideology.

At least, that's what I think. I'm also a well-known idiot

Replying to my own comment, hmm. I/They've got it... Schizophrenia

Slashdot:
sad sloth or
dash lots

Online businesses already operate under several disadvantages such as [1] shipping costs;[2] a lack of consumer confidence in doing business online vs. a local store where they can deal with a store manager if needed; and [3] credit card processing fees (you can't pay cash online and bad checks fees make them too expensive to consider, even though you can process them completely online). <humor>What is Congress going to do to level that playing field?</humor>

The purchasing power of companies like Wal-Mart enables them to buy their inventory at prices that are much lower than small local businesses (including those who are pure online businesses). In my own business efforts I have been quoted wholesale prices that are higher than Wal-Mart's retail prices!

There is another major problem with sales taxes for online transactions: delivering those taxes to the appropriate jurisdiction. There are over 7,000 tax jurisdictions in the U.S. alone. How is a small business that only made one or two sales into a particular tax jurisdiction supposed to [1] calculate those taxes accurately with current tax table information; [2] cut and deliver a check to the appropriate authority; [3] fill out their income tax form listing the 7,000 different sets of sales taxes the paid during the year; [4] maintain several years of tax records; [5] make a profit?

To those who say that sales taxes online are inevitable and should happen, I just have to ask Why?. Taxes are paid only to provide pubic services. If public services are being provided then there is no need to collect additional tax revenues in any way.

It needs AOLserver (free, open-source) and Oracle 8 (not free, not open-source). You may also be interested in InterBase or Postgres port.

Ticket Tracker, ACS module, may come very handy for managing tasks/issues/resolutions.