Slashback: Cinelerra, Dolphiname, Phoenix

Slashback with a success story about video editing on Free software, and all-important updates on the MySQL dolphin, MP3 software for Red Hat (why?), the fast-rising Phoenix, and more, all below.

And you don't want your database being a Flipper. MySQL has finally announced the name of their logo dolphin, and the winner is... Sakila! The name, submitted by Ambrose Twebaze of Swaziland, was chosen from 6357 entries "because it represents the global reach of MySQL as well as the friendly, open nature of the company." Slashdot covered the contest back in January, and MySQL listed some of the more popular names submitted back in April.

Perverse incentives are the most fun. Mark Barnett writes in reference to the ongoing pets.com lawsuit story Update: 10/04 00:18 GMT by T : Sorry, that's "PetsWarehouse," not "pets.com.":

"I was one of the settling parties. I did not settle out of fear. I settled because he wanted me to run his banner on my website for 120 days. The settlement did not say anything about the number of times it had to run. I ran it once per day at about 4 AM EST for 120 days. It was my joke on him. I think I got the better deal. I ran the defense fund banner about 1.5 million times versus his 120 times."

Wings for a lizard. Espectr0 writes "Phoenix 0.2 has been released!. Improvements include the return of the sidebar, extensions management and web form autocomplete. It's also a little smaller and faster, and 0.3 will be released in about a week. Get the scoop here."

Unsolicited testimonial. boomerang_56 writes "Wanting to see what the fuss was about, I just installed Red Hat 8. For me, working IEEE1394 features are a must. It was nice to see that now I don't have to recompile the kernel just to have Firewire working. So I downloaded and compiled Kino, and was able to capture from my camcorder, and even control it, without the major tweaks I used to have to do. Then I found out that Cinelerra has been released at version 1.0!!! So I downloaded and installed it via RPM (Pentium II binaries). I had to install an old version of libstdc++-3, but that was easy. No "--force" or the other hassles we used to have to go through. So the first time I fired up Cinelerra, after changing the preferences for IEEE1394 capture, I was impressed to see it actually captured on the first try. I guess the bottom line for this submission is as a user I wanted to say "thanks" for all the developers working on this kind of thing. We all know that besides gaming, video editing is the big killer app. It's really nice to be able to have this kind of power in open source software and not have to boot to Windows just to edit video now. It's not easy enough for my mom yet, but the way things are going, it won't be long. Oh, links... get Cinelerra here (check out the screenshots too). Get Kino here."

Blinkenlampen ueber Paris. fluxdvd writes "In celebration of the Nuit Blanche art festival in Paris, Project Blinkenlights has transformed Tower T2 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France into what is claimed to be the world's largest computer screen. The system used to drive the display runs an embedded version of Linux.

Read the story at Linuxdevices.com. They have live streams of the building at night (Paris time) and replay the previous night's display druing the day. It's quite impressive :)"

We mentioned the plans for this display a few weeks ago.

Don't you hunger for a patent-free, royalty-free, better-at-identical-bitrate alternative? The release of Red Hat 8.0 included the notable, intentional ommission of MP3 software, a decision Red Hat made on the basis of possible patent and royalty problems.

Now SnowDeath writes "After two days of trying to get my ALSA install to work correctly in RedHat 8.0 (Psyche), I finally headed over to the xmms website to see if there were any known bugs with ALSA. Low and behold, the first thing my eyes read tells how RedHat Software decided to not include the mp3 plugin in their xmms install in Psyche in fear of pending patent problems. So, do not despair, there is an rpm "update" for this particular problem on the xmms site."

Comments

wow, didn't know it had that

[kingOFgEEEks]

ok, i guess i'm probably the last to know, but Redhat 8.0 has firewire support? sweet! maybe i will have to get it

Re:wow, didn't know it had that

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm selling toasters with firewire support, want one? They're $99 and explode if you don't set them up just right.

Re:wow, didn't know it had that

[kingOFgEEEks]

hmm... sounds like a good h4x0r challenge to me. I'll take 100 of them, but they'll have to be 277 Volt AC (bet you've never seen that one before)

CS

[El Pollo Loco]

"In celebration of the Nuit Blanche art festival in Paris, Project Blinkenlights has transformed Tower T2 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France into what is claimed to be the world's largest computer screen. The system used to drive the display runs an embedded version of Linux.

Am I the only one thinking this was someone's plan to play counter-strike on the worlds biggest screen?

Re:CS

[Anonymous Coward]

Not CS. But they _did_ intend to play the odd game of good-old Pong on it once in a while ;-) The resolution of this "screen" suits that of a 70s video game better than a 90s high-res PC one, I think. Not even to begin thinking about framerates.

Sakila

[unicron]

because it represents the global reach of MySQL as well as the friendly, open nature of the company.

Shit, that's what I thought when I first glanced at that name.

Re:Sakila

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people thought they'd go with the obvious name SQueaL, MySQueaL.

Re:Sakila

[netsharc]

Well when I first looked at it, it reminded me of Shakira, maybe her name pronounced by a Japanese person? (Don't flame me, I'm Asian :P). Actually the Japanese can say their R's quite okay, it's L they have a problem with...

Mmmm, Shakira...

Re:Sakila

[Jonny Ringo]

Because if you pronounce SQL with out saying each individual letter it sounds like dolphin talk :-)

Re:Sakila

[namespan]

(1)Take the letters S,Q, and L.

(2) Add arbitrary vowels between them to make it a three syllable word: Sa-Qi-La.

(3) Observe that people will pronouce the middle term "Chi" or "Qui" or something like that.

(4) Change Q to K. Reflect on how the KDE project will be happy about this (Symbolic Kuery Language), and also, how it sounds like a Latin crossover star. Be pleased.

(5) Think of how cool the name Squall would have been. Masculin, sea-related, implies a disruptive yet powerful force, has S,Q, and L in it...

(6) Sigh.

Re:Sakila

[namespan]

Actually the Japanese can say their R's quite okay, it's L they have a problem with...

I had a Japanese roomate/friend/coworker for a while, and I'd beg to differ. We worked for weeks trying to get his english R's right (while I worked on trying to get my japanese ra, ri, ru, re, & ro right), especially on words that ended with an r (like door, more, etc).

One day we were leaving the appartment and he absentmindedly refered to closing the door and said it exactly right. "Iwi!" I almost yelled, "you said it!" Unfortunately, he never could reproduce it again.

Re:Sakila

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the East indians that would pronounce Shakira that way.
They often pronounce "sh" as "s"

Re:Sakila

[vco123]

i would have thought MySquirrel a better choice.
the theme works, follow me here:

nuts -> databases
cache -> servers
multiple caches -> replication! distribution!
cache to nest -> access time

which makes the better fuzzy plush toy...a dolphin or a squirrel. i ask you!

Re:Sakila

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

(7) Profit!!!

Damn, missed out on that one again.

Re:Sakila

[chas7926]

Great sig. You just /.'ed some poor bastards fan site. Now he is going to be greeted soon by a nasty email from Yahoo!/Geocities that he has surpassed his monthly bandwidth usage for the next 10,000 years. :)

Re:Sakila

[bigox]

I thought that in Romanized Japanese the 'r' sound was actually pronounced like an 'l' sound but slightly cut-off.

Re:Sakila

[drDugan]

the first thing that came to my mind was

tequila!

Re:Sakila

[foobar104]

Actually the Japanese can say their R's quite okay, it's L they have a problem with...

It's more complex than that. The Japanese "r" sound, found in common words like "ryori," meaning cooking or cuisine, is sort of a cross between the American "r" and "l" sounds. Whereas Americans (typically) make the "r" sound with their lips, and the "l" sound with their tongue, the Japanese "r" sound is made with a little bit of lip and a little bit of tongue. (Er, you know what I mean.)

So Japanese speakers often have trouble with both initial "r" and initial "l" when speaking English. Terminal "r" and "l" sounds, of course, just disappear entirely. "Door" becomes "doh," and "pull" becomes "puh."

But the average American has a much harder time pronouncing a Japanese word like "ryori" than Japanese people seem to have saying a world like "library."

Re:Sakila

[spRed]

I Just thought

Tequila! followed by Pee-Herman dancing

Re:Sakila

[spRed]

err, s/Pee-Herman/Pee-Wee Herman/

Re:Sakila

[Anonymous Coward]

But you don't pronounce Rs where they come at the end of a word. English "door" is pronounced almost exactly the same as Japanese "dou".

Oh... you're American? Silly me. ^^

Re:Sakila

[Dahan]

Whereas Americans (typically) make the "r" sound with their lips

I can't figure out how it's even possible to make an "r" sound with one's lips... I make an "r" sound by curling my tongue back so the tip presses against the middle of my palate, then making some sort of noise with my vocal cords. My lips aren't particularly involved... they just stay open during the process.

Japanese "r" keeps the tongue flatter and taps the tip close to the front of the mouth, making it sound sort of like a soft "d". Check this page for a more complete explanation, plus sound samples.

Re:Sakila

[slide-rule]

I read an article in Sci-Am (I believe it was; June or July-ish; the cover refers to alternative explanation to dark matter, yatta yatta) where they discussed scientific work done with respect to brain wave responses to people "hearing" the "r" and "l" sound. For "us Westerners", each sound produced two distinct lobes in a response/feedback (bleh... I'm no brain scientist) map thing, which denotes our brains ability to hear and be affected by the differences in the sound. Japanese natives, however, say their "r" with a slight tapping of the roof of the mouth (somewhat similar to Spanish, if your teacher was good enough to beat the fact into your pronunciation)... and the sound for a single "ra" sorta sounds like "rla". They studied such people, and the response/feedback map showed just a single lobe for both "r" and "l", which seems to indicate (according to the article) that their brains can't easily distinguish a difference between the sounds. (Granted, that's probably a consequence of their syllabary versus ours, and no doubt with training they can 'learn' (to hear and speak) the difference just as Westeners have from an early age.) Anyway, I found article rather interesting to have covered this.

Re:Sakila

[mirko]

I thought of Sakura which means "Cerisier en fleur" (how'd this translate in English ? "Cherry tree in flowers" ? :-)

Re:Sakila

[Ctrl-Z]

Just trying this myself, and I can't understand how you could make an "r" sound while pressing your tongue against your palate.

It seems to me that *my* tongue remains fairly neutral on the "r" sound. It seems to be mostly made by the shape of my lips.

Re:Sakila

[MeepMeep]

Quote : >>I thought of Sakura which means "Cerisier en fleur" (how'd this translate in English ? "Cherry tree in flowers" ? :-)

Probably closer to 'Cherry Tree In Bloom', or maybe Cherry Blossoms?

MeepMeep

Re:Sakila

[MeepMeep]

Quote: >>(5) Think of how cool the name Squall would have been. Masculine, sea-related, implies a disruptive yet powerful force, has S,Q, and L in it...

Cool yes, but not exactly friendly...

Re:Sakila

[mirko]

Thanks to both of you guys, actually it's easier, for a non-native like me to speak English about Computing than about the real life :)

Re:Sakila

[Dahan]

Hmm, do you have a Babwa Wawa (Barbera Walters) type of accent, where "r" sounds similar to "w"? (what type of accent is that anyways?)

Here's a description of where various parts of the mouth are positioned to make different sounds:

retroflex

In retroflex sounds, the tongue tip is curled up and back. Retroflexes can be classed as apico-postalveolar, though not all apico-postalveolars need to be curled backward enough to count as retroflex.

The closest sound to a retroflex that English has is [r]. For most North Americans, the tongue tip is curled back in [r], though not as much as it is in languages that have true retroflexes. Many other North Americans use what is called a "bunched r" -- instead of curling their tongues back, they bunch the front up and push it forward to form an approximant behind the alveolar ridge.

(Actually, the [r] is an upside down r, but since /. filters out unicode now, I can't put the right character in). I take it you do the "bunched r" thing? But even so, that requires tongue movement too.

Re:Sakila

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah i had a japanese roommate too and all he did was sit around and watch sumo wrestling and bukkake movies. fucker didn't even cleanup the sushi he left all over my living room.

and he never could pronounce "gilligan's island" (best show on earth) right. he would just mumble "rilligon! riwwigon!". weird guy.

Re:Sakila

[Ctrl-Z]

Getting more off-topic...

Okay, I'm still not sure, but I think that I do the "bunched r" thing. I suppose that there is some tongue movement, but I'm pretty sure that the tip doesn't come very near to the palate in the process. I also think that my lips are rounded during that sound.

It really seems to me that I make that sound mostly in my throat and secondly in the lips. The tongue does a little bit of work, but not very much. I definitely do not have a "Baba Wawa" type of accent.

FWIW, I am Canadian, from Southern Ontario.

This seems like the type of discussion that one would find on alt.usage.english, which I haven't visited in quite some time.

MySQL new version

[jasenko]

Can't wait this on Mac OSX.

Re:MySQL new version

[MattRog]

Sybase ASE is already on OS X.

Re:MySQL new version

[Jonny Ringo]

I would like to see that just so I can see the little devil guy ride the dolphin. :-)

Re:MySQL new version

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't you just love to see a MPEG that I have... dolphins are cute, cuddly and sexy!

pets.com?

[helmutjd]

Uhh.. shouldn't that be petswarehouse.com?

Re:pets.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes--the way to remember the "S" in it is to think of it as petSWEARhouse as it will "make you want to swear" as one person put it. (It's petSWAREhouse, actually, but my spelling ability hasn't been impaired that much by slashdot... yet)

Re:pets.com?

[PhoenxHwk]

It could be pets-overnight.com if you've played enough Grand Theft Auto 3.

Re:pets.com?

[larien]

Hehe, very silly advert. I still prefer "Pogo the Monkey", though. "Idiot Gamer voted 'Pogo the Monkey' the best springing simian game since 'Bouncing Bananas'"

Re:pets.com?

[Vinum]

Hehe... i perfer the talk shows... exploitation of children... shesh, how can i exploit something that I own?!?!

Mark Barnett

[geekoid]

you still caved, even if you found a way to be weasily about it.
Sure its funny, but now they can tell other people that previous suits have been successfull settled out of court and they had better pay up.

All actions have consequences.

"Weaseling out of things is makes us different from animals...except the waesel." H.Simpson.

Re:Mark Barnett

[benedict]

People's gullibility is their own damn problem.
All a settlement means is that both parties agreed
to something. If one -- obviously insane -- party
says the terms were favorable to them, and you
believe them without checking, then you're a fool.

Re:Mark Barnett

[orenzero]

Not so fast -- Mark's solution was, IMO, quite pragmatic and well-played.

-oZ

Re:Mark Barnett

[Anonymous Coward]

"Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals...except the weasel." H.Simpson

"Worst Simpsons quote ever!" C.B.Guy

Re:Mark Barnett

[swdunlop]

Considering that the plaintiff was representing himself, and the defendants were driven to set up a legal defense fund and hire counsel, I find it more than a little comic that the terms of the settlement were abused in this fashion.

A settlement doesn't imply a profession of guilt; it only indicates that the parties involved have decided on an out-of-court solution to a problem. It should have little impact on the proceedings with the other defendants.

Besides, if he tried to use this out of court settlement as leverage against the other defendants, I'm sure they could simply ask for the exact same terms. (snicker)

Re:Mark Barnett

[skyhawker]

you still caved

How is it that you can conclude that Mark Barnett "caved" and not the other way around? Sounds to me as if he got the better deal. Just because the other guy didn't realize he was getting screwed doesn't mean that he didn't get screwed. And why should Mark abuse himself when such an opportunity presented itself? I think you're being unnecessarily judgmental here.

It would be interesting to see what you would do under similar circumstances.

As a programmer...

[Anonymous Coward]

What version of Linux should I be programming to? Should I go with The Standard, Redhat? The Pure, Debian? The Cool, SuSE? or The Esoteric, Sorcerer? I would love to develop applications for Linux, but it is too difficult to nail down a baseline system what with each distro constantly adding and removing components all the time.

Each distro also demands tradeoffs. Redhat sacrifices everything to be "easy to install". Debian sacrifices currentness for stability (ha-ha). SuSE sacrifices compatibility with other distros for ease-of-use. And Sorcerer sacrifices that compatibility even more.

When Redhat removes another component like they did here, it's just business as usual in the Linux distro world. But for those developers out here who want to write applications, it's really hard with moving targets like these.

Re:As a programmer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Develop on one platform, and know the differences between them that are relevant to your application. Periodically, and definitely before any releases, test on all platforms that you want to support.

Program to only one platform and ignore the others, and you better not tell your users that you support them.

Re:As a programmer...

[leoboiko]

I believe you should make the program plataform independent, and then let the guys working at each distro port it - they probably can do it better than you anyway.

Of course, you should learn how to package for your favorite distro.

Re:As a programmer...

[Curtman]

Whats that got to do with anything? Use whatever distro you want. The decision is what gui toolkit you're going to use. Package up RPMs, and let the Debian maintainers do their thing.

Re:As a programmer...

[Jason Earl]

Programming under Linux is a bit tricky. Basically its a tradeoff between using the libraries specified in the LSB (which doesn't help you at all for GUI programming), or to simply target a specific set of libraries (probably the ones bundled with the newest RedHat). Too many of Linux's APIs are currently in flux, and so it is a crapshoot which versions people will have installed.

The good news is that fixing the problem is usually as easy as making sure the right libraries are installed.

This problem, however, is a horse of a different color. This doesn't have anything to do with shifting APIs or the difference between distributions. This has to do with the fact that MP3 compression is patented, and the patent holders have changed the terms for use of the patents. RedHat can't distribute MP3 codecs without paying royalties, and so they don't distribute the libraries that XMMS uses to decode MP3s.

Re:As a programmer...

[Mr. Slippery]

What version of Linux should I be programming to?

What sort of application are you writing where any of the differences are significant?

It's a Unix-oid platform. If you're writing user apps you should be able to write your software so as to be able to compile and run on GNU/Linux, Solaris, AIX, IRIX, or whatever, with only a few #ifdefs.

Re:As a programmer...

[StuffYourReligion]

Jason Earl said...
RedHat can't distribute MP3 codecs without paying royalties, and so they don't distribute the libraries that XMMS uses to decode MP3s.

Err, umm.... well, xmms.org says:
To clarify, since the beginning of our mp3 licensing program in 1995, Thomson has never charged a per unit royalty for freely distributed software decoders. For commercially sold decoders - primarily hardware mp3 players - the per-unit royalty has always been in place since the beginning of the program.

So all this about RedHat not being able to distribute MP3 codecs without paying royalties actually appears to be, as we say, a bunch of FUD. Maybe they have different reasons, but it's not about royalties.

Re:As a programmer...

[ekrout]

What version of Linux should I be programming to? Should I go with The Standard, Redhat? The Pure, Debian? The Cool, SuSE? or The Esoteric, Sorcerer?

Why not code for The Best, Gentoo?

Re:As a programmer...

[Phroggy]

What version of Linux should I be programming to? Should I go with The Standard, Redhat? The Pure, Debian? The Cool, SuSE? or The Esoteric, Sorcerer?

What about The Stable And Secure, Slackware?

Re:As a programmer...

[samdu]

IANAP, but the way I understand itis that you write to the kernel and libraries and then put packages together for the different distros (if'n you're nice and so inclined). Actually sounds like a good plan to me. It's not a lot different than writing for Windows. There are almost as many flavors of Windows as there are Linux distros.

Re:As a programmer...

[SCHecklerX]

Moving target? Why not just use autoconf and automake? ./configure && make && make install has worked on every linux system I've seen.

Re:As a programmer...

[damiam]

Stable, Secure, and Scarce.

Re:As a programmer...

[Jason Earl]

Last I checked RedHat sold RedHat Linux, and that's almost certainly the catch. It's easy enough to take Thomson's word that they aren't going to prosecute, but the fact of the matter is that you don't need to protect patents like you protect trademarks. As long as RedHat doesn't have it in writing that they are free to distribute MP3 codecs then RedHat is liable for royalties (and penalties as well should it go to court).

Thomson probably isn't going to go after the folks working on XMMS, but RedHat Linux could easily be categorized as a "commercially sold decoder." Nullsoft pays licensing fees, by the way, and they clearly give their WinAmp away as well. The world of law is a murky place where it is always better to be safe than sorry. You can't blame RedHat for staying clear of potential problems.

Re:As a programmer...

[rodgerd]

Yeah, that's right. Redhat should just keep shipping software in the face of legal opinion telling them they can't. Selfish bastards. They should include a pirated copy of Windows for dual-boot gaming, too.

Re:As a programmer...

[foobar104]

Why not just use autoconf and automake?

Because setting up such things can be more of a pain than writing the application itself. Autoconf is a good idea only because it works under some fairly extreme conditions. There's nothing else at all to recommend it.

Re:As a programmer...

[marko123]

ALternatively, you could try Open Kylix from Borland.com, and get everything statically linked into a single binary when you compile. (oh, and it compiles VERY quickly, has a great gui, and forces you to distribute with the GPL, it shows a friggin splash screen when you execute your binary, and you better be jiggy with pascal, but it has very nice auto-completion, and debugging tools in a consistent IDE) Phew!

Re:As a programmer...

[StuffYourReligion]

Hmmm, yes. Point well taken.

Re:As a programmer...

[Paranoid]

Pretty much. The difference being that on Linux, you can report bugs you find and they actually get fixed. They don't just ignore bugs for 7 years which have never been fixed.

Another nice thing is that if you release the source for your application, the distro people themselves generally do all the work necessary to get your stuff working. In my experience, the parent question has really been a non-issue.

Re:As a programmer...

[Paranoid]

Autoconf is a pain, I agree. That's what Automake is for - it does all the work for you. IMHO, the two together create a rather nice build environment, without too much setup hassle.

Re:As a programmer...

[mikeb]

BINGO! You have just discovered why most of the rest of the commercial suppliers of Linux lined up behind United Linux. Not because it's better or worse or whatever, but because apps developers in the real world, those that have to make a living and provide support, want a single target that they can certify their software for. I'm not involved in it in any way, but I sure can understand their motivation.

Re:As a programmer...

[PainKilleR-CE]

I believe you should make the program plataform independent, and then let the guys working at each distro port it - they probably can do it better than you anyway

Umm if it needs to be ported, it's not platform independant.

Anyway, the easiest thing to do is just keep track of your dependencies when building your software. If you know exactly what your software requires to run, you can look at the items included with each distro and get some idea of where it *should* run properly. If you're going for the broadest base possible, look around to see what's supported on each platform and try to avoid using the latest bleeding edge build of everything your software depends on.

Re:As a programmer...

[PainKilleR-CE]

IANAP, but the way I understand itis that you write to the kernel and libraries and then put packages together for the different distros (if'n you're nice and so inclined). Actually sounds like a good plan to me. It's not a lot different than writing for Windows. There are almost as many flavors of Windows as there are Linux distros.

In most cases you just have to test your software on different versions of Windows to make sure you didn't do anything that would cause it not to work on a particular version. In that way, it's the same as writing Linux software. The difference is that there's a rather small number of things that will be different between versions of Windows, from a programmer's perspective, unless you're trying to take advantage of a lot of new features in a newer version and still have it run on older versions. Even then, you can have one set of binaries and installer that works with all versions if you do it right. The things most likely to trip up Windows compatibility are unicode support, threading, and hardware (NT and 9x have different methods for interfacing all 3 of these, so you use ifdefs and release separate binaries or you check your Windows version at run-time and use different calling methods/arguments). The things that continually trip up Linux developers are getting better over time, such as what combination of software is being run to generate a GUI on the machine, what library/compiler versions are there, and so on. It's still a bit rare that you'd be able to just download a binary and run with it on Linux, unless they've specifically developed or tested it on your distro. Of course, that's what open source is really good for, just download the source and compile to your platform and, in most cases, it'll work with at most minor changes ;)

Re:As a programmer...

[Haeleth]

But to Joe ex-Windows user, the very concept of having to install libraries is unfamiliar. (Sure, there's DirectX, but that's about it.)

Therefore one should probably develop for the newbie systems (Red Hat, Mandrake), on the basis that anyone who uses Debian will probably be savvy enough to get it working without help - while a Mandrake user will probably give up if it doesn't compile first time.

Re:As a programmer...

[jdavidb]

I've used automake for several projects, and never for portability. It is a nice build system. Automake+CVS+a test suite can be a beautiful rapid development environment.

Re:As a programmer...

[FooBarWidget]

Don't program for *any* "version". Use autoconf and automake and stick to the standards! (POSIX, libc, LSB)

Lossy formats are louse

[Anonymous Coward]

Since RedHat removed mp3 libraries from their distribution we should embrace a new format. This time, we should use a lossless format such as FLAC or Monkey's audio or even Meridian not only because of sound quality but because we need to show the Labels that we mean business. With lossless formats we will have equal standing with their business model technically and literally. We need to establish an age of freely distributed carbon copies of their material so that they become completely irrelevant. College dorms have enough bandwidth to exchange 30mb songs between each other. We should actively encourage people to adopt lossless file formats so we have more freedom in dissemination and use of OUR content. We need to defeat the Labels every way possible. By completely eliminating every reason for their existance we might come closer to their demise.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Anonymous Coward]

Lossless are just too big
I'd rather send 1/5th of the data than the whole thing. If people needed 100% quality they could be given it but I'd rather save time and take the quality loss over the HUGE amount of bandwidth and huge file sizes.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Anonymous Coward]

blah.

i don't think you'll find anyone agreeing with you.

as far as your comments about college dorms having enough bandwidth...blah blah blah

maybe you have not noticed but universities, isp's and the like are busting chops more then ever on p2p...i don't know what kind of crack you are smoking over there in tardland, but proposing a 10 fold increase in bandwidth usage to share songs is a sure fire way to get yourself called the biggest moron to walk the face of the earth.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/29/2218 21 2&mode=thread&tid=95

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the dude's solution to large files is to sample at 22 kHz 8-bit mono and then encode lossless.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[reidbold]

How does having such a large lossless file give us more freedom? Ok, it might sound better, but it's impracticaly for everyone who doesn't live in a colleg dorm (read: most people). Does this make us realistically more free (not fundamentally moreso) then say, 256 kbit ogg's?

By sharing music, are we really showing record companies they don't need to exist, or are we showing them they need to tighten the reigns on people sharing music so they can top off their profit margin?

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Anonymous Coward]

"We need to defeat the Labels every way possible. By completely eliminating every reason for their existance we might come closer to their demise."

Um... if the record labels disappear, won't it make it a little hard to obtain music in the first place? The artists need somewhere to record/distribute their music. I definately agree that the music industry has too much power, and they use it to rip off artists and consumers, but I don't think killing them is the solution. Now, if we can get them to lower prices and increase artists' royalties...

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[jormurgandr]

But with the demise of the record label comes the end of the recording industry, at least as we know it. Do you really think that Korn or even Jimmy Buffet is going to hang around and make music for free? will eminem be as amusing if he isnt fu*ked up (from record-industry money/drugs) all the time? We're stuck in a catch-22.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Mad_Newt]

You must also realize that not everyone is on a college network. Most of the world is still on dialup. And a good percentage of those people don't even get 56K. Wow, isn't it fun to swap 1 song every 3 hours?

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[billn]

Like every good lie, this one has some grain of truth to it, but IMHO, it's mostly FUD.

First off, not all of the record labels out there exist to screw you out of your hard earned cash. While you may think you're 'fighting the man' by swapping music with your buds, ultimately, you ARE doing damage to the artists. The bigger a problem swapping becomes, the more money the labels are going to spend trying to fight it, and legislate it, and ultimately, that means a tighter grip on artist rights and material. The labels are draconian enough, and like enough, as copyright owners, they hold the cards. You're not being Robin Hood by trading those mp3s.

Next, using 30 megs of space/bandwidth for a single song is more than ludicrous, it's flat out stupid. One, I've got better uses for the disk space (like porn). Two, I've got better uses for the bandwidth (like streaming porn). Moreover, pegging out the pipes on your schools network just costs them more money, and by extension, the students.

Like as not, there are things in this country you may THINK you have fundamental rights to, but you're operating on borrowed time if you expect to go forward in life with that attitude. Here's an idea: how would you feel if I wandered up to your house at 2 am with a handset, tapped the J box on the side of your house, and spent an hour on the phone to Tibet? How about if I did this every night for a month until you got the bill for it? The usage pattern alone is enough for the phone company to tell you to take a hike when you say it wasn't you. You still wind up paying.. for my usage. While abstract, this is roughly how it works out for colleges and businesses across the country, footing the bill for your playtime.

You want to give the RIAA the finger? Good for you! Do it by producing your own quality material, and don't license it to them. You want a nice phat digital on-demand archive of quality audio in your home? Pay for the damn CD. Think it costs too much? Wait a few months and buy it used, or GET A DAMN JOB.

While our nation may be founded on acts of civil insubordination, I hardly find the tyranny of the RIAA to be affecting my life to such a degree that I need to resort to what amounts to petty theft from an artist who spent more than a few years busting ass playing shitty bars and clubs because they believed enough in their music to keep at it. Sure, I've swapped mp3's with people. The things I didn't like, I deleted. The stuff I liked, I bought. Don't screw it for the rest of us because you're a cheap bastard.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Anonymous Coward]

sometimes it isn't possible to buy the record in question, it might be rare you know.
So you go out on kazaa or some ftp and all you can find is shitty 128/196/256kbs mp3s of said record. Then you don't give a shit about RIAA, jobs, america, and whatnot, all you care about is to put an end to mp3.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[snol]

Lossless audio compression has its place and that place is in archiving samples and such that are going to be repeatedly used and compressed. For final products lossless compression is a colossal waste of bits. I don't care what kind of audio snob you are, there's no way you can hear the difference between a CD and a 320kbit mp3; probably a much lower bitrate would do, and an even lower bitrate than that would be rougly equivalent for ogg. If you want better audio quality, petition for a new media format that has a better sample rate and more bits per sample than CD audio; compress that down to maybe half of CD audio size with your choice of lossy compressor and you'll be amazed how much better it would sound. Lossy audio compression tries to throw out bits that don't matter; sampling at 44100Hz/16bit just throws out all information about frequencies above 22500Hz indiscriminately. Bottom line is that lossless formats don't even try to be efficient whereas lossy formats are actively going for the best sound for the bitrate. You want better sound, use a better codec and compress at a higher bitrate.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[nzhavok]

Two, I've got better uses for the bandwidth (like streaming porn)

Put up or shut up ;-)

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Sj0]

Musicians and programmers have a lot in common in this regard. Some do it for the money, but the majority of the really good ones(actually good, not nessessarily popular) do it for the love of the art. Perhaps if the labels dissapeared, the music industry would change so dramatically you wouldn't recognise it, but there would still be people who write music and play for the love of it, rather than the money. The would also still be people getting paid to make music.

As both a programmer and a musician who doesn't get paid for either(though I am employed in the tech field), I can honestly say that there will always be people who are willing to create music, or programs, for free. Along the same vein(but off the subject entirely), When I read about Microsoft bad-mouthing a huge group of coders who are coding just for the love of code(the OSS movement), it sparks a flame deep inside me; It seems fundamentally wrong. I won't elabourate too far on this, because I tend to get far too deep in my comparisons, but face it -- a big company(or rather, since it's the software industry and a monopoly, THE big company) is critisizing a worldwide volunteer effort, bad-mouthing it in a way that would land most people in court for slander(or is that libel? It's been too long since I brushed up on my legal...) if the tables were turned, and regular people are actually buying into it. Maybe I should write about those nasty communist orphanages?

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Sj0]

I think the best thing to do would be to bypass the RIAA directly -- send a band a cheque for twenty dollars(or a twenty dollar bill if you're paranoid) for every 60-75 minutes of music you download from them. If enough people did this, bands might start realizing that there are better ways to make money out there than getting screwed over by the RIAA.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[mOdQuArK!]

I wouldn't be surprised if the big labels probably have the contracts set up so that their bands aren't legally allowed to collect money for themselves - it has to go through the label's services so that the label can take their cut first.

If that's the case, sending checks directly to the band probably won't help much either, since they would be forced to hand them over to their label anyway.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[billn]

Does the waiter report all his cash tips? Send a note with a 20 dollar bill.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[billn]

There *are* labels, and by extension a lot of bands, that aren't associated with the RIAA. Smash my link above, I do work for one. I've had many an argument with the owner about the use of mp3's for promotional works (similiar to what Linkin Park did, in some cases), because his concern is protecting the artists. As a label, it's in his contracts to take 'reasonable efforts' to protect the artists from the exploiting of their music. This includes piracy. Another example of this kind of activity is the Rolling Stones smacking Microsoft for using 'Start it up' in one of their old ad campaigns for Win95/98.

Having worked in the local music scene, I can say, the best way to support your favorite local artists is to buy a CD at one of their shows.

Historically, I've been a strong supporter of mp3 trading, but I've seen both sides of it. I've stood next to an artist at a concessions table when some ass attending the event asked how much the cd was (15 bucks), and snorted and said he'd just download it online. Right there in front of the artist. The only response I could muster that didn't involve a fist was 'Have a nice day, sir.' Needless to say, the artist wasn't too thrilled either. Cheap bastard.

Re:Lossy formats are louse

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but I'm dead center in the middle of nowhere when it comes to concerts. If I wanted to go to one, it'd be a four hour drive in any given direction.

On the other hand, I just write my own music. It's quite rewarding being able to enjoy something you've made yourself. As long as you have some skill(ie. you have enough talent to make something remotely interesting), it can be fun to make, fun to listen to, and a real kick to the ego when you realize other people are enjoying it too.

SJ Zero
Powerusrs Gaming
http://powerusr.sphosting.com/

big screen

[ottothecow]

what happens when someone hacks it and it starts adding hardcore porn to the paris nightlife?

Re:big screen

[El Pollo Loco]

The geeks out in paris might get a chance to score!

Oh yeah! You like hyperthreading, don't you baby?? Who's your daddy? Red hat's your daddy!

Re:big screen

[0xdeadbeef]

I don't think they'd notice. Unless it was American porn, then they'd complain about how bad it is.

Re:big screen

[unicron]

Actually 6 nights out of the week it is used for hardcore porn.

But in all seriousness..time to find out if that bitch has an active internet connection...

Re:big screen

[dr_dank]

No hacking needed for that, just any old television set will do... :)

Re:big screen

[Rainier Wolfecastle]

Obviously you've never been to Paris. They won't even notice.

Re:big screen

[harmonics]

No one notices, it's Paris man!

MySQL Control Center

[gurnb]

Don't know if you MYSQL users know about the MySQL Control Center application provided by MySQL, but it is pretty cool.

PROS:

1) Sleek User Interface (graphically shows PRI keys and I believe you can map relations (FK), but I haven't figured that out yet, also graphically shows indices).

2) Some queries download faster than web browser and telnet/ssh. Some SQL statements execute quite quickly like DELETE and INSERT.

3) Multi-window display helps to show historical SQL statements and current actions.

CONS:

1) System crashes with "large" queries. Kind of bad that I tried a simple SELECT of one of my "large" tables with 2,500 rows/records and my computer crashed. Yea, I quoted "large" because is is relative between my tables, not to the maximum number of rows that can be stored in MySQL tables. Your mileage may vary as I have really old computer at home - (64 MG/Ram, Pentium I, 32-bit Virtual Memory, Windows 95b).

2) Not very user-friendly in terms of SQL beginners. You have to know SQL in order to operate the application via the SQL pane.

3) Compared to other products like MS SQL Server Enterprise Manager, some of the screens are difficult to interpret (related to #2).

Hope this helps

Re:MySQL Control Center

[Eloquence]

I also recently discovered MyCC (which is open source) and I agree, it's a great new front-end that simplifies usage a lot. I used MySQL-Navigator before, which isn't bad but nowhere nearly as feature rich as MyCC. MyCC has both an SDI and an MDI interface and lets you directly edit data in the table display. Since it uses a Qt-based interface the GUI should immediately feel familiar to Windows users.

Take note that MyCC is still alpha software, though, so crashes are to be expected. I'm glad that MySQL AB is working on this, a nice graphical client should really speed up the adoption of open source databases. Now an Access-style desktop database with a form designer would be nice -- the GNU Enterprise project is working on this. theKompany also has a proprietary product called Rekall. Any others?

Re:MySQL Control Center

[Fjord]

I like dbVisualizer . It works with any Java 2.0 drivers to give you TOAD like access to the database. I doesn't have everything TOAD gives you (no wizards), but it does relational mapping and you can have all your databases in one tool (I have Oracle, Postgres, and MySQL on there).

Re:MySQL Control Center

[whitegold]

Maybe a little off topic, but as a windows user I use MySQL-Front. Sadly I think the project is dead now. Sigh.

It's not without flaws, but in a windows environment it's a hell of a lot easier to work with than the alternatives. (Whatever the alternatives are!)

Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browser!

[thesolo]

I'm using Phoenix right now, and seriously, I'm blown away by it. Not only is it lightning fast in comparison to Mozilla, but it already has the things I've been trying to get in the Mozilla trunk for a long time now. (For those of you who browse Bugzilla, you know how frustrating getting something into the trunk can be sometimes!) Some of the notable features of Phoenix are:

1) Customizable Toolbars

2) Home button where it SHOULD BE!

3) Inline form management (Mozilla's form manager is all but worthless unless you've already filled out 20+ pages of forms.)

4) Theme that respects my system colors! (Go ahead, change your system colors, Phoenix changes with them!)

5) No bundled on software--I just want a browser! And if you use Mozilla for the mail, don't worry, the Mail client will be getting the same overhaul as the browser. It's a project called Minotaur, and will be started on roughly when Phoenix hits .5

There are tons of other things to mention here like the extensions manager, default popup blocking, tabs, worthwhile sidebars, ability to remove the throbber, a clean statusbar that actually works, etc., but it's best if you just see it for yourself! Go grab a copy, and then while you're enjoying it, thank Asa Dotzler, Blake Ross, Dave Hyatt, and the other guys who are making this a reality!

Thanks guys!

pets.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

the ongoing pets.com lawsuit story:

That link goes to a lawsuit redgarding petswarehouse.com. Are we mad at pets.com too?

Poor Norwegian Server

[$carab]

It might be a good idea to not link directly to an rpm file located somewhere on the campus of a Norwegian Agricultural School. Hope they dont have upload quota caps, or some unlucky students going to get quite a few profanity-laced emails from sysadmins.....

Just to show how open MySQL is...

[Myuu]

they even included the profane name suggestions...

bastardo 14

absolutely hilarious

Re:Just to show how open MySQL is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Other good ones:

adolph 18
douglas 14
bubba 14

Imposing your personal viewpoint?

[Anonymous Coward]

FLAC is champagne, and mp3 is beer. Sure, champagne is better, but that doesn't mean there isn't a market for beer.

Phoenix Review

[zulux]

Phoenix is going to be the default browser in all Windows boxes that I admin - simply because it doesen't need to "install". Just plunk the directory over the network when a new version comes out and - wham! New broswer!

No "Updating Windows Installer"
No rebooting.
No IE vunerabilities!
No Unnesesary features from Mozilla.
No EULA to click through.

Oh. No rebooting!

Re:Phoenix Review

[Phroggy]

Phoenix is going to be the default browser in all Windows boxes that I admin - simply because it doesen't need to "install". Just plunk the directory over the network when a new version comes out and - wham! New broswer!

Doesn't the .zip version of Mozilla do all this same stuff, aside from obviously the "no unnecessary features" bit? The .tgz version on Linux works fine for me without rebooting or clicking a license; the only problem is having to copy the plugins back over (which is not a problem on Mac OS X, since it uses the /Library folder).

Re:Phoenix Review

[dnoyeb]

Installation on windows is a way to let the OS, and in turn other applications, know of your presence. As such you are hindering what the DOJ has sued for. If your browser does not tell the OS its their, other applications will have to "fallback" on IE for their web content. Such applications include Quicken, MSMoney, TurboCAD, Media Jukebox, etc...

Windows 2000 was supposed to end all the rebooting. How soon we forget the promises.

I have learned since I set up a samba PDC at home that some of the installation features play well with network domains. You dont want everything to be on the network. Some things are local to the computer, some things are local to the user, and some things are totally global. For instance, your OE mailboxes can be on the network, but the server information is kept in the registry.

M$ does not employ stupid people. Their products are nice, but their management is questionable.

Re:Phoenix Review

[wolverine1999]

I wasn't able to set proxies and other settings.
Advanced settings will be back soon, the program tells you.

firewire in kernal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just installed Red Hat 8. For me, working IEEE1394 features are a must. It was nice to see that now I don't have to recompile the kernel just to have Firewire working

Does this mean that the many users of redhat who don't use firewire should recompile the kernal to remove an unused feature?

Re:firewire in kernal?

[Anonymous Coward]

And exactly why the hell would you want to do that? To save maybe 10k of ram? Then what do you do when you get a firewire camera for christmass? Have to rebuild to put it back? The days when computers only had 16k of ram are LONG GONE. Get over it!

Re:firewire in kernal?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Does this mean that the many users of redhat who don't use firewire should recompile the kernal to remove an unused feature?"

Of course not!

The default implementation is loadable modules, so if you don't have a 1394 card, your system won't auto-load the modules.

Even if it does, all 3 modules (ochi1394, ieee1394 and raw1394 only take up 80K bytes). If you can't afford 80K bytes, just rmmod the modules.

That's one more reason why Linux rocks. :>

Red Hat and software patents

[JamesKPolk]

Of course Red Hat respects the mp3 patents. Red Hat (through employee Ingo Molnar) is applying for its own software patents, after all. If Red Hat does anything to interfere with the mp3 patents, then they would threaten their own ability to use the courts to quash competitors, should they win their own patents.

What patents are Molnar and Red Hat applying for? Why, patents on parts of Linux itself. See applications 20020059330 and 20020091868 at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

Re:Red Hat and software patents

[GigsVT]

20020059330
Method and apparatus for atomic file look-up. An atomic look-up operation allows an application to find out whether a file is opened atomically based on whether or not the file path is present in a file system namespace cache. If not, the file open request can be redirected, avoiding or minimizing impacts to the scheduling of various operations involved in executing an application. The request can be redirected by the application to a process that includes blocking point handling. An operating system according to the present invention includes a file system including a file system namespace, and an operating system kernel is operatively connected to the file system. The operating system kernel includes the file system namespace cache and the atomic look-up operation.

20020091868
Method and apparatus for handling communication requests at a server without context switching. An application protocol subsystem and protocol modules are disposed within an operating system kernel at a server. The protocol subsystem creates an "in-kernel" protocol stack that stores information regarding application protocol requests, such as HTTP and FTP requests, in a kernel request structure. A user space application can then continue execution while the operating system responds to the application protocol request without context switching. In this way, application protocol requests received over a network are handled and responded to by the server without causing a context switch.

---------
What has Red Hat done to cause you not to trust them? They are a solid GPL supporter, they don't play games like Lindows does with EULAs on GPL software. We have no reason to believe that they will do what they said, use these patents to protect open source, not hinder it.

They are not distributing the MP3 code because it opens them up to potential lawsuits. They are selling the code, along with distributing it freely, so Frauenwhosit just might have a problem with that, and decide a 200 million dollar bank account like Red Hat has, is a juicy target.

Re:Red Hat and software patents

[GigsVT]

We have no reason to believe that they will do what they said,

Uh, I meant "won't"... damned double negatives.

Re:Red Hat and software patents

[Arandir]

What has Red Hat done to cause you not to trust them?

1) They're applying for patents. Buying a handgun (copyright) for personal self-defense is reasonable. Buying a thermonuclear device (patent) for personal self-defense is not.

2) They have already stated that only GPL software will have a free ride, regardless of the software freedom other licenses provide. These patents allow them, should they choose to excercise their legal rights, to extort royalty fees out of every other distribution, since every distribution includes non-GPL software such as XFree86, Apache, etc. To reiterate, no one needs a thermonuclear device for personal self-defense.

Re:Red Hat and software patents

[foobar104]

They're applying for patents. Buying a handgun (copyright) for personal self-defense is reasonable. Buying a thermonuclear device (patent) for personal self-defense is not.

You obviously have no understanding of what patents are, or how they're different from copyrights. Put simply, you cannot both copyright and patent the same thing. Copyrights apply to certain things, and patents apply to other, different things. There's no overlap.

Before you speak out against something, you should learn about it. It helps cut down on the looking like an idiot.

Re:Red Hat and software patents

[amorsen]

1) They're applying for patents. Buying a handgun (copyright) for personal self-defense is reasonable. Buying a thermonuclear device (patent) for personal self-defense is not.

Hand-guns are not very useful if all your opponents have thermonuclear weapons. Anyway, I will always prefer being hit by a patent lawsuit to being hit by a thermonuclear weapon.

Re:Red Hat and software patents

[cduffy]

Yes, patenting the idea and copyrighting the implementation are indeed two very different things. That said, patents are indeed a much "bigger stick", with far greater potential for misuse. I don't see how his argument is inherently untenable -- and didn't read him as trying to claim that it would be the same property protected by either.

Re:Red Hat and software patents

[JamesKPolk]

In this case, the two *do* overlap. Ingo wrote some code. He can

A) copyright the code.

B) patent the design of the code

C) all of the above

D) release the code to the public domain

Red Hat has chosen C, when they could have chosen A or D.

Re:Red Hat and software patents

[Arandir]

If Redhat wishes to engage in a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction with respect to patents, then I will be opposed to them.

Redhat has stated that it will allow GPL software only to use its patented "technology". This shows a complete misunderstanding of what patents are. Patents cover the use of the technology. It's not about Redhat versus Evil Corporation, it's about Redhat versus users. It's using patents where it should be using copyright. The concept of copyleft is not meant for patents.

An example: I use FreeBSD. Should FreeBSD mess up and incorporate GPL code into BSD code, then Redhat will call them on the table. The problem will get fixed. It will not affect my use of FreeBSD. On the other hand, if Redhat has a patent on that same code/technology, then it will become illegal for me to use FreeBSD. In addition, there would be no way for FreeBSD to recitify the problem, because they couldn't even write their own implementation of the technology. Redhat could shut FreeBSD down completely with their thermonuclear device.

Even if they are honest about making their patents free to GPL code (and when was the last time you heard of an honest corporation), you have to remember that every Linux distro ships some non-GPL code that would give Redhat the "moral authority" to demand royalty payments.

Sakila

[Zakabog]

Linux has Tux the penguin. (Linus Torvalds likes penguins and there's the joke that penguins look like they're wearing tuxedoes which can be seen in many cartoons)

BSD has the BSD Daemon (sometimes known as Beastie, the daemon story is pretty long and I'm not going to type it here)

GNU has a Gnu (Well they share the same name so it was a fitting animal)

So umm why does MySQL have a dolphin? Named Sakila?

Not to mention...

[illusion_2K]

From the release notes:

6. Why would I want to use 0.2?

It has a cool build ID. 20021001 (October 1, 2002).

...nifty

Phoenix Screenshots...

[phatvibez]

I love Phoenix and have been using it as my primary browser since 0.1 was released.

I have posted severl screenshots on my site:

0.1 screenshots are here:
http://www.phatvibez.net/reviews.php?ID=phoenix

0.2 screenshots are here:
http://www.phatvibez.net/reviews.php?ID=phoenix2

Re:Phoenix Screenshots...

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh, looks just like IE with a skin. Course because it's mozilla only 50% of pages will render correctly if at all. And forget https. But it's so anti-establishment I got to use it!

Re:Phoenix Screenshots...

[gid]

Actually, it's pretty damn nice so far. I'm quite suprised.

https works great, cookies work, bookmarks work. And it renders stuff great. And it's FAST! Who woulda thunk it?

MySQL Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the name Sakila more global than any other name? I think the choice of a non-White African name is a manifestation of the typical White liberal hatred of their own kind. They hate the fact that the origins and legends of the open source movement are White, so they need to feel trendy and pick an African name to prove how progressive, enlightened and tolerant they are. It's cool to be a race traitor. How about the name Mugabe instead? Maybe they can commission a talented Ugandian artist to fashion a dolphin logo out of elephant dung?

Re:Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browse

[mrpuffypants]

thanks for the suggestion! I tried Mozilla when they had their first big "release" and was less than impressed. Phoenix, however, is a great browser in the first 10 minutes that I've been using it (downloaded it on your recommendation)

It's exactly what I need on my windows box: a BROWSER nothing more. Pages load fast and look just as good as they do when opened in IE.

I do most of my browsing on my iBook anyway and Apple Mail is for all of my mail accounts so this works perfectly! Thanks!

EVERYONE should try this out!

sakila?

[edrugtrader]

"an african flavor to MySQL??"

seriously. WHAT THE FUCK.

the dolphins name is SQUEAL. EVERYONE thinks it should be SQUEAL. i am starting my own form of mysql starting today, and the ONLY thing different is that the dolphin is named SQUEAL!

on that note:
ARE YOU A PHP DEVELOPER? WORK WITH ME AND MAKE MILLIONS!
Web Developer II

Re:sakila?

[iCEBaLM]

I am PHP developer and would like to make millions please!

Education required: BA or BS.

Yes, I have a bad attitude and I am educated in the fine art of bull shitting.

-- iCEBaLM

Re:sakila?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I have a bad attitude

we wll NEed to kNOW you're MAEsruemnet on hte Baracus-o-meter bfore ProCESssing you're request.

Re:sakila?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's it. Now I have a real reason to switch to PostgreSQL.

An African flavor for the database? WTF? What F'n dolphin lives in Africa????

I can just imagine what the plush toys are going to look like... A dolpin wearing a funky outfit and a hat

I'm not racist or anything. I'd make fun of 'culturalizing' the mascot if it had an Italian slant too. (Yes I'm Italian, you got a problem with that? Huh?)

Re:sakila?

[Afty0r]

Just worth pointing out : while you're free to take the MySQL code licensed under the GPL, you're not free to use their dolphin which is a trademark.

Re:Sakila?

[Maran]

Cartman: "Dolphins, esikimos... who cares? It's all just a bunch of tree-hugging hippie crap."

Maran

Blinkenlights

[Bobulusman]

The Blinkenlights people have a page about the Paris project here.

It sounds really cool. Based upon what I've heard on the radio, it is designed so that someone in Paris can call it on their mobile phone and play Tetris, Pong, Breakout, etc.

Plus, you can submit animated GIFs to them and they will play it. Neat.

Free beer!

[yerricde]

FLAC is champagne, and mp3 is beer.

Ogg is quality beer, and MP3 is Bud beer. How is Bud beer like repairing your filesystem on a boat? They're both fscking close to water.

Re:Free beer!

[Sj0]

Personally, I'd like six Holsten Maibock far more than a bottle of champagne.

As a Canadian, and therefore a connaisseur of all things alcoholic :), I find the robust, beery taste to be superb, where champagne is nice for a special occasion, it is generally too sweet for my taste buds.

Nice to see that Slashdot got a reply.

[AtariDatacenter]

I asked them a few times over the past few months what was going on with the dolphin naming contest. Never once got a reply. Never once an update on their web site, which HAD said it would be done "in a month or two"... that was back in January.

Finally, I ended up forgetting about it. All the better. The name that they chose was equally forgettable. A "global" name probably means one that isn't trademarked that you're likely to forget in 5 minutes unless you're bombarded with heavy advertising and brand building.

So what did the dolphin namer win, anyhow? ;)

Re:Nice to see that Slashdot got a reply.

[Jaeger]

So what did the dolphin namer win, anyhow?

A free copy of MySQL, obviously!

Concurrent use of Mozilla and Phoenix

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Is it possible to use them both, do they use the same configuration data?

Re:Concurrent use of Mozilla and Phoenix

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you can use both of them at the same time. The authors were smart and placed the configuration files in a different directory, unlike some other company which uses the mozilla code for their web browser.

Re:Concurrent use of Mozilla and Phoenix

[RadioheadKid]

No they do not, at least on windows. For example on XP, in the Application Data folder, there's a folder for Mozilla and one for Phoenix. Also, on the Phoenix web site they recommend you delete the old config data from 0.1 before using 0.2

You start smoking pot

[Inoshiro]

Because you think you are in Amsterdam.

Re:Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browse

[Niten]

Just to add a couple points that I personally enjoy about Phoenix:

• Has an interface for adding and removing browser extensions (this Mozilla lacks)
• There is a mouse gestures plugin available already!
• There is a text-field item available in the custom toolbar that allows you to type text to search for either in the currently loaded page or on Google or DMOZ. This, in my opinion, is very useful.
• The download manager as of 0.2 is not an annoying pop-up window, but rather a sidebar panel.

The olny thing that Windows Phoenix seems to be lacking from Mozilla (as far as I can tell) is a quick-launch option and the ability to change font scale on the fly with the Print Preview function (it can still be done via Page Setup, as with older versions of Mozilla.). Overall, this is a very good browser. I can see this going places... though sometimes I do appreciate the integration of Mozilla's email client, address book, and browser. I guess that this much is up to personal opinion...

As another programmer...

[KagatoLNX]

Have you ever tried programming for Linux? If the removal of a plugin from XMMS hindered you, you're probably some sort of XMMS hacker. No one touches that code except for XMMS people. Sounds more off-the-hip than a real observation.

I have three big products I often deploy:

1. An LDAP Directory w/ Pretty Frontend
2. A "Windows Printer" That E-mails PDFs
3. An Industrial Remote I/O Controller

All three run happily on Redhat, Debian, SuSE, and even Sorcerer. No tweaking. Standard install materials. Not to mention all of these have package systems (albeit a bit rudimentary for Sorcerer) which makes the above problem little more than whining. I also pose the question "as opposed to what?". If different versions of Windows with varying levels of driver support aren't a moving target, I don't know what is. The only platforms I can think of that guarantees this kind of support stability are Sun, IBM, and maybe Apple.

Since you're a "developer who wants to write applications", where's your example? Which distro removed which precious component that stymied your project?

Re:As another programmer...

[PainKilleR-CE]

If different versions of Windows with varying levels of driver support aren't a moving target, I don't know what is.

Windows has a fairly stable record of backwards compatibility, and driver support is not an issue for the majority of software (when it is an issue, there's usually an abstraction layer in Windows that you should be using anyway, at least for the basic support, since wtf knows what hardware is on the end-user's system). Just like anywhere else, you write for the lowest common platform that you want to support, and then add options/#ifdefs for the extra features that may be available based on hardware or software versions (MMX, SSE, hardware T&L, ActiveDirectory, and so on). Obviously, if your software is absolutely dependant on something being there, you have a requirement for a particular version of the platform.

ummm...

[Ender Ryan]

RedHat _SELLS_ Redhat Linux... XMMS is part of that product if it ships with it, therefore they are technically infringing on that ridiculous patent if they distribute an MP3 decoder with their product.

It's really quite simple, it IS about royalties, either they pay them to cover their ass so Thomson can't sue them a year down the road from now, or they simply don't include an MP3 decoder.

Those rpm "--force" tricks...

[Speare]

Paraphrasing Isaac Asimov, "--force is the last refuge of the incompetent."

If you are trying to install something and you find you need to use (rpm -i --force foo.rpm), you're sure to screw something up, or something's already been screwed up.

If you build a brick wall, each row of bricks depends on all of the bricks below being installed orderly. RPM and other dependency systems attempt to manage those bricks so you don't have mixed files, duplicates, holes or half-packages below the applications you want to use. Ignoring the errors or circumventing the checks for errors... well, some of us remember Humpty Dumpty.

Re:Those rpm "--force" tricks...

[entrigant]

I use --force all the time... RPM doesn't seem to like portage... strange that.

Re:Those rpm "--force" tricks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you Professor. It's not as if any of us has ever had any legitimate use for it...

In fact, I'm sure that the developers of RPM only included it because dependency problems are always expected from package managers, and nobody has ever actually needed to invoke rpm --force in the entire history of RPM. They just included the unnecessary functionality to mock the problems that constantly plague APT, I'm sure.
</dripping_sarcasm>

In seriousness, on the other hand, I hear tell that the recent incarnations of RPM have eliminated much in the way of dependency hell, and the developers deserve kudos for that. I'm still sticking with APT, though.

Re:Those rpm "--force" tricks...

[Fjord]

Spoken like someone who's installed very little "off the net" packages on RedHat.

While it's good to have a reminder every now and then of why I switched to Debian, every time I use it is a reminder of why I stay.

Re:Those rpm "--force" tricks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Root: You don't need to check dependancies.

LINUX: I don't need to check dependancies.

Root: Please install this package.

LINUX: I'll install this package.

Root: I'll be moving along now.

LINUX: Move along now.

Don't say "R"

[darkonc]

I had an alternative version of that story. During a bus strike, I got a ride from a Chinese woman. It was about a 1/2 hour drive, and I spent most of that ride trying to help her with her english pronounciation. Near the end of the trip, I finally got her able to pronounce the R's reliably correct.

When I congratulated her, she said:

"But if I speak like that, my Chinese friends won't be able to understand me!"

All that work for nothing....

Re:Don't say "R"

[Afrosheen]

What a moron she was. All she has to do is speak Chinese with her friends and english with everyone else.

Then again this is probably a b.s. story and offtopic to boot.

xmms mp3 workaround

[Speare]

I didn't go back to the xmms site, I just used the Red Hat xmms RPMs which were included in the final beta called (null). These are xmms-1.2.7-14.mp3 and xmms-skins-1.2.7-14.mp3. I figure I don't need a lot of updates to a basic file player, and I prefer Red Hat authored RPMs for a Red Hat system.

Yanking MP3 support is unfortunate but not worth crying about. If you like MP3s, you probably can handle the hunt for the appropriate files to get your fix. I only use MP3s because so few hardware solutions support OGG or other formats yet. I'd love it if my SliMP3 supported OGG too, but for now it does a great job of making a household jukebox. If I adopt a similar OGG solution, I'll just re-rip the CDs.

uh..

[honold]

somebody at work installed it today, and they had xmms running.

Soon...

[cascadefx]

In celebration of the Nuit Blanche art festival in Paris, Project Blinkenlights has transformed Tower T2 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France into what is claimed to be the world's largest computer screen. The system used to drive the display runs an embedded version of Linux.

... more pr0n will be making its way to a building front near you.

ballmer

[rogueuk]

so of course, the first thing i see on this screen is steve ballmer's "developers developers developers" dance

too bad this wasn't around when the ally our base craze got started

Re:ballmer

[stray]

actually, blinkenlights was around back then, check this all your base animation..

Phoenix......I'm back!

[DeadBugs]

I installed Mozilla 1.1 on my Win98 machine and it would crash all the time (not so often on Win2k). It got so bad that I had to remove it and install IE. I felt dirty for using IE but I had to get my daily internet fix free of crashes. I grabbed Phoenix just to check it out. It needed no install, just run it from the directory you decompress it in....

So far Phoenix has yet to crash, is "popup" free, fast and everything I wanted Mozilla to be.

Re:Phoenix......I'm back!

[crush]

on my Win98 machine [...] I felt dirty for using IE

Sort of like a man swimming in a sewer claiming that he feels dirty because he's got a turd in his hand isn't it?

Phoenix Nightly Builds

[rimdo]

are available here. Grab one today and enjoy the latest features!

-rimdo

You too are ignorant.

[Anonymous Coward]

making music isn't a full-time job, and even if we wanted it to be, that's why we have grants for artists available from public funds.

Every reasonable society needs a good, local art culture.

I'm not talking the National Enowment for the Arts...

I mean local governments supporting their own people to increase the quality of life for us all.

Call me a socialist, but if you want good art, you have to pay for it somehow. Get rid of the racket? Decentralize and _make public_ the monetary inentive system.

Obviously the corporate music system doesn't work... do you listen to that shit?

"Yeah, 'free' market!"

Bullshit.

Re:Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browse

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

Go grab a copy, and then while you're enjoying it, thank Asa Dotzler, Blake Ross, Dave Hyatt, and the other guys who are making this a reality!

Not sure about the others, but Dave Hyatt is/was one of the principles on the Chimera project and you can really see the similarity between these two browsers -- even to the point of the OS X style slide-out preference sheets. Very nice.

Blinken Ads

[stuffman64]

Hmm... I've been watching the Blinkenlights stream for about 10 minutes now, and in that time I have seen 3 ads for the new Mini Cooper. Not that I mind, but it seems it is no longer possible to do anything without staring at ads. What next, half-page ads on slashdot?

er, wait... We already have those.

Re:Blinken Ads

[drDugan]

learn about your hosts file.

if you don't like ads, your host file is your friend.

I have almost zero ads online now...

Sakila!?!?

[pyman]

Tux the Penquin.
Beastie the Daemon.
Hexley the Platypus.
Sakila the Dolphin... what the?!? should have called him/her Mr. Jones (from Johnny Mnemonic). That dolphin could detect submarines and had the uncanny ability to surf the internet and people's minds via virtual reality too. Now that is one cool dolphin...

Video editing *accomplishment*?

[Noose For A Neck]

I was impressed to see it actually captured on the first try... It's really nice to be able to have this kind of power in open source software and not have to boot to Windows just to edit video now.

That's really, really pathetic. You know what I did to capture digital video on one of the Macs at school? I plugged in the camera via Firewire, opened up iMovie, hit the "Play" button on the viewer, and then hit the "Capture" button. No additional configuration necessary.

Don't even get me started on the capabilities (or the lack thereof) of Free video editing applications. Even the feature set of iMovie makes them pale in comparison, and Final Cut Pro (which I have worked with extensively as part of a semester course on digital movie making) just completely blows them all away. I'm sorry, but Linux video editing with Free software is a complete joke. Use a Mac, it Just Works.

On the other hand, if you were willing to shell out the money required for a really nice x86 workstation and some of the high end compositing software supported under Linux, you'd definitely be good to go...

Re:Video editing *accomplishment*?

[devnullify]

Use a Mac, it Just Works.

Is that not exactly what he said RedHat did for him?

On the other hand, if you were willing to shell out the money required for a really nice x86 workstation and some of the high end compositing software supported under Linux, you'd definitely be good to go...

Or he could shell out the larger sum of money for a (new, when he's already got an x86) Mac and Final Cut Pro. Jesus you Mac fanatics are annoying. Yes Apple makes fine hardware, and steals decent OSs, but jesus people, it's not even relevent to this discussion.

Re:Video editing *accomplishment*?

[bsartist]

"Use a Mac, it Just Works."

Is that not exactly what he said RedHat did for him?

No, that's not even close to what he said RedHat did for him. What he said was:

So I downloaded and compiled Kino...

Then I found out that Cinelerra has been released at version 1.0!!! So I downloaded and installed...

I had to install an old version of libstdc++-3, but that was easy.

Sure, that's a lot less painful than it used to be - but as far as Joe Consumer is concerned, it's still voodoo. It's a long, long way from "I plugged in the camera, started iMovie, and it just worked."

Re:Video editing *accomplishment*?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do agree that video editing under linux does in fact "blow" but as to the condensending tone of your post.... F**K you.

Let's see you do what you say on a pre-firewire mac with MACOS9.0 and an version 0.5 of your beloved final cut pro... Ohh look it doesnt work.... Wahhh wahhh...

Dont give us your opinion until our stuff has been out and working as long as your's has... only a complete idiot like you would bitch that a beta version of a program for linux isnt' as good as the 5th version of a old mac program...

Wahh, this brand new stuff doesnt work as well as this program that has been around for 5 years! how dare they!

Basically screw off and take you joke editor called a mac + final cut away...

My AVID suite will blow it away... oh and I have native control of DigiBetacamSP decks.... you dont.(final cut doesn't have the ability to control professional video equipment. AS IT IS A TOY NOT A PROFESSIONAL EDITING PLATFORM.)

Why isnt your mac so good as my AVID? it must be because it sucks......

if you dont like it then dont dish it out.

Re:Video editing *accomplishment*?

[Noose For A Neck]

Or he could shell out the larger sum of money for a (new, when he's already got an x86) Mac and Final Cut Pro. Jesus you Mac fanatics are annoying. Yes Apple makes fine hardware, and steals decent OSs, but jesus people, it's not even relevent to this discussion.

Um, no. I'm not referring to Video For Tightwads. I'm talking about professional compositing software that post-production houses have. Most x86 machines running Linux excel at this role, especially when you consider the price/performance ratio. I'm simply mentioning that in my previous post because there is, in fact, high quality software available for Linux. Just not Free software.

petswarehouse.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't confuse 'petswarehouse.com' (pets plural) with 'petwarehouse.com', which is run by Doctors Foster and Smith, and is (by all accounts) quite an upstanding company.

Now back to your regularly scheduled lawsuits.

No mp3? So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a long time, Windows didn't support mp3. You know what people did? They downloaded WinAmp.

Now, RH no longer has mp3 capability. Is that a problem? Nope. People will download xmms/etc.

Think they won't? They're idiot n00bs?

If some guy I know who couldn't figure out Norton Antivirus, and had a desktop filled to the brim with icons for *everything* (Ya couldna even see the wallpaper) could download and install WinAmp.. eh.

Linux 1394 Works

[PotatoPhysics]

I've tried for three or four years to do 1394
style video editing under Windows. I've fiddled
with every hardware configuration and used every
capture program under the sun and I still can't
capture more than a few minutes of video without
loosing frames. I read the various forums
occasionally and it seems to me that a weegie
board has more relevant things to say
about video editing.

It's not your motherboard. It's not software X.
It's all Microsoft. I dual booted RedHat (so my
other box is debian, I was lazy) and low and
behold I can capture for HOURS and nary a dropped
frame. When it did drop a frame, dvgrab politely
told me why. This stuff works. Too bad I can't edit
under linux yet. When Cinelerra has the stability
and feature set of something like Sonic Foundry's
Video Vegas desktop video will finally stop being
an aggravating trip through the worst that personal
computing has to offer.

By the way, if you are a Windows user frustrated
with your editing app crashing get Video Vegas.
Despite the crazy name it has plenty of
professional features and it's rock solid. Unlike
Premiere, which I can crash just by blowing on the
case gently, Vegas let's me get through hours of
footage with no back talk.

Re:Linux 1394 Works

[Anonymous Coward]

In Windows, try Cinestream. I worked on one of the betas before Discreet took the product over. It's one hell of a great app for Windows. Auto scene detection, pan-scan, great Quicktime support... Used to be several hundered bucks, now it's less than a hundred bucks at many places. It's a shame. Wish Discreet could be convinced to open the source code since rumor has it the product wil be abandon-ware soon.

Re:you are ignorant

[jred]

I know replying to AC is probably a waste of time, but...

Yeah, sure. A real lively music scene. How do you listen to it once you get home?

Perfect example: There's a guy here in Memphis who plays solo quite a bit, Ron Franklin (website). I really love his solo stuff, a good bluesy/folk/rock/gospel mix. But he only releases albums w/ the Entertainers. Don't get me wrong, I love RFE, too. But sometimes I'd rather listen to his solo stuff. I could probably get permission to record a show (I'm friendly w/ him), but then I'd have to mike it, try & get decent levels, pipe it into line in, .wav it, .mp3 it, etc. Much easier to give him $10 for a CD & rip it.

But hey! If you want to do all the work for me, I'd be glad to give you $10 for some .mp3s of his solo stuff...

Sakila?

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Wendy Testaburger: "Dolphins are smart!"

Eric Cartman: "Yeah, smart on rye bread with some mayonaise."

Redhat + Firewire easy?!

[claygate]

So I downloaded and installed it via RPM (Pentium II binaries). I had to install an old version of libstdc++-3, but that was easy.

What? Since when has that been easy. What do you tell your mom when she says, "I have a Pentium 4 dear, what are binaries?" and then try explaining to her the you need a older version of something. Isn't newer better? Especially when it comes to such necessities as libstdc++-3.

What is wrong here? No operating system will ever be mainstream with involvement like this. Maybe its great for elite linux geeks, but for standard desktop? I do not see that happening at this pace.

Can't get cinerella to work

[Salsaman]

I'd like to give cinerella a try, but unfortunately my camera records in m3jpeg format, and cinerella relies on xmovie which doesn't like that format.

I tried using mencoder to convert to another format, but mencoder complains about 'illegal instruction' for some reason.

Anybody have any useful suggestions ? How can I convert the files ?

Re:Can't get cinerella to work

[dfries]

Try downloading a compiling the mencode on your box. If you have an older processor the program could have been compiled with instructions that your cpud doesn't support. I recently went to try unrealtournament 2003 for Linux, but it crashed on the same error. I would have thought they would check the cpu first, but I guess they didn't.

In my case the instruction was cmove and the cpu was an AMD K6-2. It wouldn't have been playable I know, but it should have attempted to run.

Re:Can't get cinerella to work

[Salsaman]

Ah yes, I think you're right - I recently upgraded my CPU, and I recompiled mplayer so it still works, but I didn't realise I had to recompile mencoder separately. I'll try that.

Thanks for the tip :-)

Re:Can't get cinerella to work

[Salsaman]

Hmmm...I think I'm out of luck. I got mencoder working, but it appears that xmovie doesn't like video with no sound (which is what my camera records). So, no xmovie, no cinelerra :-(. If only there was a version which worked with mplayer.

Opera needs --force and works fine

[Wee]

If you are trying to install something and you find you need to use (rpm -i --force foo.rpm), you're sure to screw something up, or something's already been screwed up.

There are exceptions to every blanket statement, I guess. The Opera 6.x RPMs need --force on my system because I'm missing a Tk library which the RPM requires (for what I don't know). I don't want to install said libraries, so I use --force when installing Opera via RPM. Everything's fine.

-B

Sakila - how to pronounce

[phorm]

Just out of curiousity. Does anyone know how to pronounce this? Is it Sa ki la, or Sa Kee la, or something else entirely? I doubt I'll ever actually be verbalizing the name of the dolphin, but sometimes it helps to know these things should an arguement arise.

Is There A Tool For These Names?

[istartedi]

Sakila. Avaya. Verizon. Aquent (used to be MacTemps). Akamai.

Oh sure, they always say it comes from someplace. Akamai, for example, is supposed to mean something in Hawaiian. I forget what. It doesn't really matter because all these names sound the same. I think there is a secret Perl script somewhere that they aren't telling us about.

I think it has two basic algorithms. One of them takes a regular word and changes the spelling according to an algorithm I've yet to decipher. The other, simpler algorithm uses the folling syllables:

av, ev, iv, al, el, il, ul, ti, te, vi, va, vey, ty, tra, tri (perhaps others) and strings them together randomly.

Try it. It's easy:

Aviva. Eltiva. Altria. Ultera. Tyvela.

Thank-you.

By reading this post, and using the information contained herein, you consent to pay an outrageous consulting fee to me for naming your company. Make checks payable to Steven Marthouse, 5308 Oldcastle Ln., Springfield VA 22151.

Re:Is There A Tool For These Names?

[Anonymous Coward]

By reading this post, and using the information contained herein, you consent to pay an outrageous consulting fee to me for naming your company.

With the exception of Tyvela and Eltiva, those names are already registered by other companies and will probably lead to expensive litigation. Altria is a particularly bad choice, unless your customers enjoy being sued to oblivion by a multibillion Keiretsu.

Re:Is There A Tool For These Names?

[istartedi]

For an extra $50,000, I'll type your new name into Google, and advise you of how many hits come back. If there are fewer than 50 hits, I'll research them and check to make sure that it's nothing anybody would care about.

Just by typing random names based on those sylables (and a few I left out, like "a" by itself). I had no trouble getting Google search rersults with fewer than 10 hits in some cases. An interesting side note--most of the hits came from character names used in online RPGs and/or Anime series. Is it possible that these corporate consultants are just geeks with a sense of humor?

Why Doesn't Red Hat....

[GroundBounce]

Simply include a program that pops up the first time you are connected to the internet after installation and offer to automatically download and install the RPM from the XMMS web site (after asking permission for xmms.org first, of course)? I'm sure xmms.org would cooperate here.

This way, they don't violate the patents (instead redirecting the download to xmms.org, which doesn't seem to mind distributing it), while still making it relatively simple and automatic for new users and others who then wouldn't have to figure out what's going on.

See 'ya in court!

[richie2000]

Sorry, that's "PetsWarehouse," not "pets.com.":

You'll be sued now, for sure.

Interestingly enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pronounced "Bob."

wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

they named their dolphin .. as an avid mysql user,
i'd hope they'd put as much effort in to stored
procedures, triggers and good transaction support
as they did in finding a name for their mascot

and 'sakila' is a sucky name

"suckila"

mysql walked right in to that one

It's not easy enough for my mom yet

[frankie_guasch]

It's not easy enough for my mom yet

Notice windows isn't easy enough for many people, but, with some help, they do use it.

Maybe your mom should give it a try !

RadialContext for Phoenix

[jeti]

On a related sidenote:
I just put a package for RadialContext for
Phoenix on the usual downloads page.

Re:Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browse

[brsmith4]

The olny thing that Windows Phoenix seems to be lacking from Mozilla (as far as I can tell) is a quick-launch option

This is probably because Phoenix was designed to be small and light-weight, thus eliminating the need for a "quick-launch" option. Think about it.

Re:Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browse

[jeti]

> Has an interface for adding and removing browser extensions (this Mozilla lacks)

I wish this was true. Phoenix has an interface for disabling extensions. But the uninstallation button is disabled because Mozilla still doesn't implement the functionality. (And Phoenix is a rewrite of the GUI portions. It doesn't implement anything new in the base.)

The uninstall functions in existing packages have been a pain to implement for the developers of the extensions. It's still several hundred lines of code to provide an uninstall button.

it's spelled "losing" not "loosing"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, pet peeve...

What Windows OS and version of Premiere are you using? I switched to from Win98 to Win2000 and from Premiere 5.1 to 6.0 a year ago. I can't remember the last time this combo crashed...
Am I just lucky?

-Peace-

Re:it's spelled "losing" not "loosing"...

[Dahan]

What happened to LoseNotLooseGuy?

Huh?

[IamTheRealMike]

We all know that besides gaming, video editing is the big killer app.

Uhh, we do? Could somebody explain why please? I've heard it's more popular in the States than elsewhere, but I can count with one hand how many times I've seen (or even heard of) people editing their home movies on their computer: none.

Apple seem to make a big deal of this as well. Is this some kind of craze that never reached Europe, much like text messaging/sms never made the crossover to the US? Or is it just the latest round of tech industry hype, not actually backed up by substance?

Re:Huh?

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

anybody that owns a modern camcorder (read: most upper middle class familes/people or above) also owns a home computer. there is no reason for them to be deprived of functionality that lets them communicate together. For these reasons, most people with digital video cameras edit their video, at least primitively, on their home computer. If they don't do it in europe, then that's not our fault.

its not as big a deal as downloading and listening to MP3's, but if you take into account only people that own DV cameras (which is just about everyone with a camcorder), then pretty much most of them want to edit the video at least partially on the PC. Given a newer PC, and a digital camcorder, there is no reason NOT to hook them together. Same reasoning goes for having DSL, and a playstation2, but not owning the ethernet adapter for it. Its just plain silly to not do.

hope this helps answer your question...

Re:Huh?

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

Just thought of another analogy...

Would you even bother with a digital still camera if you couldn't upload the images to your PC? I thought not.

African flavor? More likely the arab peninsula

[XNormal]

About a third of the population of Swaziland is muslim. I'm pretty sure the name Sakila comes to SiSwati from the Arabic word Shakila which means beautiful or handsome (Shaquille is the masculine form of the same name).

Write to the standard

[Nailer]

Configs in /etc, services in /etc/init.d, documentation in /usr/share/doc, user bins in /usr/bin unless your apps is necessary to rescue to the system, sbin for yoru admin bins, /usr/lib for your libraries, /usr/share for everything else, RPM for your packages, stable releases of glibc and gcc for C library and compiler, etc.

Do you want to know more?

Program portably, modularly, openly

[pjc50]

If you write your core logic in ANSI C, or Perl, with the POSIX library functions, your program will be portable to any UNIX system with almost no trouble.

If your program is modular, then you can put all the non-portable stuff into abstraction modules. Targeting another system just means porting the abstraction, not the whole program.

Finally, open the source to your program and people will fix the portability problems for you if they want to use your program.

Re:Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browse

[PainKilleR-CE]

I started using it when I heard about the .1 release, and upgraded to .2 yesterday. My one major gripe about .1 was fixed in .2: CTRL+mwheel for font size changes.

1) Customizable Toolbars

One of my biggest reasons for using it ;)

2) Home button where it SHOULD BE!

Yes, GONE! No home button at all is exactly as it should be.

4) Theme that respects my system colors! (Go ahead, change your system colors, Phoenix changes with them!)

Exactly. WTF should my browser be blue when my system is silver or grey?

5) No bundled on software--I just want a browser!

Again, exactly. If I wanted the other software, I would download it.

There are tons of other things to mention here like the extensions manager, default popup blocking, tabs, worthwhile sidebars, ability to remove the throbber, a clean statusbar that actually works, etc.

Sidebar hidden by default, some of the mozilla preferences have returned, such as keeping scripts from screwing up your browser window and status bar, return of a normal download progress dialog.

The best part, imo, is that even without loading crap up at system startup, it loads almost as quickly as IE. There are only a few sites I still use IE to load any more, the vast majority of my browsing is in Phoenix (even hotmail is just better under Phoenix).

From the Phoenix FAQ

[mindriot]

What can I do to help?

We need all the distribution we can get. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell your coworkers. If you're a student, get it distributed at your college. If you like Phoenix, please also submit a story to Slashdot about the release. The more interest we show to the editors, the more likely they'll accept the story.

:-)

Linux Standard Base & GCC 3.2

[NZheretic]

If your a developer who wishes to distribute binary packages then you should consider targeting Linux Standard Base C libraries. Be prepared to provide binaries of any non-LSB based libraries, either static linked or make sure that all binaries are called via shell scripts that set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to a directory containing the unpacked dynamic libraries. Thank RMS, the licensing of almost all of the Libraries in Linux distributions make this a breeze. GNOME2 is heading towards a consistant ABI interface, expect a LSB style spec and toolkits next year.

If you develop in C++, make the effort to upgrade to GCC 3.2 and the new style standard C++ library style of programming. Believe me it's worth the effort. The only execption to this is if your interacting/recompiling with older KDE or Mozilla. The latter needs GCC-2.96 to load plugins.

Re:Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browse

[blakeross]

This is incorrect. Phoenix is NOT just a rewrite of the GUI portions, it already has plenty of its own backend (i.e. C++) code. Changes were made in the chrome registry to support the new extensions manager *specifically for Phoenix*. The Phoenix team is not waiting on "Mozilla" to implement uninstall functionality, it just hasn't gotten the time to do it itself yet.

Re:Linux Standard Base & GCC 3.2

[jdavidb]

Do not set LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Compile with -R or LD_RUN_PATH instead.

That essay about LD_LIBRARY_PATH is one of the most interesting things I've ever read. Reading it helped me understand not only the issues involved, but affected a lot of my thinking about programming in general. It's good for you! :) I never can remember where it is, but I see that it's the first hit you get when you search for LD_LIBRARY_PATH on google now.

So what is the story backlog anyway?

[gosand]

In all seriousness, I am not just bitching because I submitted the story on the Paris display on MONDAY, I am just curious how long it takes for a story to get posted once it is submitted. I have submitted several stories, only to have them rejected and show up days later attributed to someone else. If there are that many stories being submitted that it takes 4 days to get through the queue, I am not even going to bother submitting anymore, because eventually someone else will either submit it, or everyone will see it anyway because the story will be a week old.

Re:So what is the story backlog anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic?

IF YOU WANT OFF TOPIC, ILL GIVE YOU OFF TOPIC YOU ASS FUCKING MORON.

*flips moderator off*

MAY THE METAMODERATORS FUCK YOU IN THE ANUS, BITCH.

Obligatory "Are You Being Served?" Reference

[Rude Turnip]

Captain Peacock: "The Japanese can't get their tongue around their r's."

Mr. Humphries: "Ohhhh...what a shame!"

(close enough quote anyway :) )

SAKILA!!!

[CyberGarp]

I can here the music now.
Mannanap, nah nah nah nah nah nup.
Mannanap, nah nah nah nah nah nup.
SAKILA!

tune of Tequila

Pronounciation of Door?

[hackwrench]

So you're saying that "door" should be pronounced like Homer's "doh"... Is that what he's been saying all this time...

Phoenix i686 on K6

[TeknoHog]

Interestingly, the i686 build works on my K6-III+ which is technically an i586. Can anyone elaborate on the difference between i586 and i686 in this sense?

Re:Phoenix i686 on K6

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the difference between -mcpu and -march in gcc. Redhat's builds (for example) are optimised for the 686 architecture, but use 386 instructions. It gives them most of the speed (at least, most enough so that no-one will notice) of a full 686 build with a binary that runs on any 386+ system.

Re:Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browse

[tomk]

Just a note to point (2): You can put the home button in its proper place in mozilla by installing Home Button.

It's strange that moz doesn't put the home button there anyways. Maybe that will be fixed eventually.

-TomK

Cherry blossoms

[hackwrench]

It translates in Enlgish usually to Cherry blossoms.

Sakila?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Pee Wee Herman dance to a song by this title in one of his movies?

Re:Lossy formats are louse (lousy)

[mcrbids]

OK, FLAC is "lossless" but it doesn't compress all that well.

Start with a 50 MB WAV file. Compress with Flac, and you *might* get 60% cut out. I honestly don't see much advantage over gzip or zip! Why bother with a new format name? ("Oh, our FLAC is better than zip/gzip, because... eh... we have a different name! We offer 2.2% better compression ratios!")

So now you have a 20 MB file. Lesee, over a 28.8 modem connection, you have...

A royal nightmare.

Ogg, on the other hand, compresses comparably to MP3. Your 50 MB WAV file might compress down to 4 MB with reasonable audio quality.

Lesee, over a 28.8 modem connection, you have...

Something reasonable.

I hope...

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

your sig is a joke.

Re:I hope...

[jdavidb]

I can see how you would fervently hope so. Heaven forbid someone should hold a non-mainstream but perfectly reasonable view on the subject that different from yours. There ought to be a law to prevent such people from airing their views in public in places like slashdot sigs.

sakila = sa killa?

[bsd-mon]

unintentional dig at MS SQL?

Squall....

[Anonymous Coward]

"(5) Think of how cool the name Squall would have been. Masculin, sea-related, implies a disruptive yet powerful force, has S,Q, and L in it..."

...and comes with gunblade?

Re:Lossy formats are louse (Troll)

[Anonymous Coward]

I intended this post to be a troll. Its funny how a bunch of commie hippies fell for it.

But when will it have Typeahead Find?

[psydeshow]

I've been using Mozilla 1.2alpha and I'm already addicted to Typeahead Find-- land on a page, type / then a search string, and moz scrolls right to the first match on the page. No Ctrl-F, no dialog box!

Typeahead Find: the best thing to happen to browsers since the scroll wheel.

Kino

[gnugnugnu]

Has anyone else gotten so familiar with the daft Gnaming Konventions of many Free Software projects that they mistakenly assumed Kino was related to KDE?
(It is gkt based, see the build requirments page)

Sakila, makes me think of tequila ...
Mmm, tequila. It's gonna be a fun weekend :)

Re:Lossy formats are lousy -- shorten rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

What about shorten? It's a lossless compressed format very popular with the www.etree.org crowd.

Re:Don't say "R" (OT)

[Black Copter Control]

"Chinese" is a language family -- like "European". Only the writen language is the same. Speaking Cantonese to a Mandarin listener is like speaking Spanish to a French listener. In Canada, English becomes the common ground.

-- And, no it's not BS. It really happened (almost replying as AC because it's getting really offtopic).

this is not me

[gosand]

And to those of you thinking that I posted this response as an AC, I didn't. I only post logged in.

To my supportive, but angry "friend", I would say to chill out. It was off-topic, in a way. I have enough "venting karma" to last a while, but I would have liked to get some kind of response to my questions. Too bad you can't get modded UP even when you are off-topic.

Last Post!

[alpg]

Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two
complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through
rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining
errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this
design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the
result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the
problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the
system.
-- A.L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage
Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and
Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4.

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...