Slashdot Mirror
What's Microsoft Up To?
So, today's one of those days when every bit of news is dominated by Microsoft. To spare you six different stories about the Borg, we'll assimilate them all into this one. You have seen the stupid Passport hole in an earlier story; also the iLoo, although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no. New news: a report paid for by Microsoft shows that Windows is a better server than Red Hat. A class-action suit has been filed charging that MSN and Best Buy combined to scam customers. The WINHEC conference is ongoing - Steve Ballmer says DRM is an opportunity, not a prison, the Xbox is going to be your home communications center, Wired talks about how hardware will be changed to imprison users, and once you're locked in to Microsoft you get to pay more each year. An article describes why user desktops are locked down. Oh, and here's another on DRM, just because.
Whatever Miiiiicrosoft wants..
Miiiicrosoft gets...
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
...although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no
:)
We know you're easily tricked
Is WINHEC where you go if you're darned for all eternity after pirating windows?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
It's called chmod!
Logging in as root soon to be a DMCA violation!
All these stories, so little time. They are a monopoly for a reason (:
"You have seen the stupid Passport hole in an earlier story; also the iLoo, although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no."
;)
With all due respect, it never stopped you posting stories about them either
Henry
i don't do sigs. oops.
Is Slashdot running out of news?
I dont think "there has been lots of news about MS in Slashdot" counts as news.
6 months ago everything you heard from MS was about tablet PC's and how they were going revolutionize everyone's computing experience. Maybe MS figured out that not everyone wants to use a stylus with their computer or has a need to work standing up? I wouldn't mind having stylus functionality on my ultraportable laptop screen but the idea that tablets are going to create a whole new mainstream sector of computing is far fetched.
Anyone see this new Microsoft robot crawling their websites? It's apparently legitimate, or at least acknowledged by Microsoft. Competition for Google?
Google doesn't index user sigs, so stop trying to "Google Bomb" with them.
to the iLoo?
The writing stylings of michael in this story are truely childish. This is the most juvenile thing written.
If you want to attack Microsoft, this is the worst possible way to do it. You give Linux users a bad name with your elementary school-kid attitude and childish commentary.
I've seen bad stuff 'added' to submitters text, but this has to be the WORST I've ever seen on slashdot EVER.
Of course, I will be modded to -1 by a childish moderator with unlimited points, but I hope I'm not the only one that feels this way.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Wow, my MCSE is now valuable! Switch everything to MS now! I can't wait for Windows 2003 XBox edition!
It ain't what it used to be...
From another CNN article released yesterday, Gates says this of DRM:
"Consumers shouldn't be worried that Microsoft Corp.'s new security technology will wrest control of their PCs and give it to media companies, Bill Gates said this week. They can always choose not to use it, he said."
Holy poopy-poop, that's misleading. People are going to read this and think "they" means "them." As in "the consumer can always choose not to use it." It, of course, doesn't. It means the creators of the content. And there goes fair use. And while I'm on it, can someone who is a lawyer tell me if we have a right to fair use or is it merely a thing that we've enjoyed because copyright holders couldn't ever get such a firm grip on it enough to effectively control it?
But anyway, back to the issue. In the same article further down, we see:
"Gates said the format of digital content is up to their creators, and Microsoft is only providing a platform on which record labels and movie studios -- as well as others -- can build."
This is a fairly reasonable argument, not so different from the people who run Kazaa saying "hey, we're just an indexer, blame the end-user." Perhaps Microsoft isn't culpable here, either. What they're creating here is a valid tool, one that can allow people a strong form of encryption. The blame for the abuse of that tool, I think, does not rightfull belong in Microsoft's lap.
You might correctly argue that MS is doing this knowing full well that abuse is going to occur and stands to profit from it. Again, Napster et al. We cannot play both sides of the fence here.
My
Limekiller
So now it's "news for herds"?
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Hmm... let me see if I can make this argument valid...
:P
Cost:
Windows: Expensive (especially if you count licenses)
RedHat: You either pay or don't (download). It's Linux.
Support:
Windows: Support costs you hell a lot of money
RedHat: If you can't afford to pay RedHat, it's Linux for God's sake. There're thousands of people on the net willing to help you.
Documentation:
Windows: None
RedHat: It's Linux, damn it. RTFM
Source code:
Windows: None
RedHat: It's Linux. You get the source code.
Patches:
Windows: Waiting for patches if Microsoft has the time and mood to fix it. Service packs come out once in a blue moon.
RedHat: It's Linux. Thousands of people have access to the source code. Bug fixes come out rapidly.
Hmm.... Windows is better than RedHat?
...they're running SAMBA. For balance I think they should test Windows 2003 throughput of NFS.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
We found that IIS runs 100% faster on Windows.
Who sets up Samba on Linux specifically for file sharing? Why didn't they test NFS? Or AFS for that matter?
Microsoft does it again!
An article on Macobserver.com:
Best Buy & Microsoft Named In Scam Lawsuit
My penguin ate my sig
You know this just sounds like a good reason to go back and work for MS. I mean damn the bennies are nice and aparantly the revenue stream isn't going to end.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
So, this is pretty crappy if it's true. I can understand the BB employees putting a free CD in your bag. I can understand them scanning it for inventory purposes. but to then charge a monthly fee? that's ridiculous. someone will be fired for that stunt.
Microsoft pays for a test that shows that Windows 2003 is twice as fast. That's nice. But not very productive.
I see nothing in the report that they had a Red Hat guru optimize the Red Hat server. It is easy to get the results you want. If I don't see proof that Red Hat was configured by a Red Hat guru, as I am sure that Windows 2003 was optimized by a Microsoft guru, then the tests are bunk.
-Brent
287th Rule of Acquisition, "DRM is an opportunity, not a prison."
Proof.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
I guess MS has realized what chmod is, and how critical it is to a system's security. It's about time! The only question I have, is the 'Owner' Microsoft, or the person that bought the system? Got root?
put any person in the position of the high management in a company in the same position as Microsoft and they're going to start doing things like this in the persuit of profit. It is not corruption in that they go each morning thinking "what bad things can I do today" like how a psychopath would, but a self-delusional and untimately self-defeating cultistic denial of the effects of their actions in the name of "just business" or "creating great new products" or some such justification.
It would be easy to give some thing about "capitalism being the problem", but human nature is the problem when people are in a system whereby those in positions of authority are being constantly goaded to do the wrong thing whilst what they do is being portrayed by the social system as being right - the same thing happened in the USSR.
And while you o Slashdotters complain about Microsoft, the mass of open source programmers have much the same self-delusional corruption in relation to computing in a different form. You delude yourself into wasting resource by upgrading as you attach your personal worth to the number of mhz of your computer, you spend all your programming time in the pursuit of self-centred 'fun', etc. I know there are exceptions among you, as there are in some businesses, but take the beam out of your own eye before taking absolutist positions of moral authority over the likes of Microsoft.
To spare you six different stories about the Borg, we'll assimilate them all into this one.
Yes, but what about the Borg Icons? I only see a hardware and business icon. And on the front page, I see no icons at all!
Now I'll be the first to note that the man should have paid closer attention to his receipt, but this is definitely not uncommon at many Best Buys.
The Best Buy corporation likes to make a marketting bullet point about how their salespeople are not paid commissions and therefore aren't going to pressure you into sales you don't need. However, they conveniently forget to mention that the sales records of these employees are carefully tracked and while they don't get the positive re-enforcement of a commission income, they get plenty of negative re-enforcement for failing to push MSN, Netflix, service plans or anything else the corporate HQ wants customers to buy into.
Besides seeing such happen as a customer, I worked myself at a Best Buy for an entire eight hours in their computer department a year back and watched one the saleskids first try to push the MSN subscription on a customer who refused it the eight times it was asked, and then had it put on his credit card by the worker anyways.
When I asked the sales manager about the legality of this he merely muttered something about it being the customer's responsibility to keep track of their receipt and that he rewarded such agressive tactics.
I quit that job right then and there.
More horror stories for those look for an entertaining, though depressing read.
For those that haven't read the MSN scam ariticle, let me summarize it. A guy bought some stuff at Best Buy and paid with a debit card. The check out person scanned an MSN CD and dropped it in the bag as well, saying the scanning was for inventory purposes. The debit info is sent to MS who then starts billing the customer's debit card for MSN service. Now that is a shitty deal. That would be like having a car dealer send your credit card or bank account info to a local garage, AAA, OnStar, and the LoJack folks for you and they all start billing you automagically. I hope he wins. This suit certainly has merit IMHO. I hope he doesn't back out on the suit and doesn't settle. Best of luck to him.
If you genuinely don't like MS policy, why not go apple, amiga, or BeOS?
"He has not been unable to get a full refund from either company, said Anthony Lee, his attorney."
/. send some of it's editors to cnet?
Well, at least he was able to get a refund...or should
It's no wonder that there is a community of Linux-bashers out there. Michael and the rest of the Slashdot editor cabal spew their little anti-MS tantrums on the front page and expect to be taken seriously. I challenge anyone who would even consider modding this post as -1 to *respond first*. Really, I'm waiting to hear from any slashdotter that *isn't* ashamed at Michael's rantings.
In the spirit of this news post, here's an assimilation of all the normal slashcrap:
Imagine a beowulf cluster of in soviet russia, stories assimilate you with
Step 1: assimilate stories
Step 2: ???
Step 3: profit!
hile BSD is dying because Microsoft is evil, and Linux is gay and unusable on the desktop.
Nine out of ten goatse.cx visitors agree!
We use linux on our servers and some of them have up times approaching two years. They replaced the M$ servers which required constant attention and occasional reloading. Bah. Who needs that? Linux rocks.
M$ new licensing is certainly reason to stay with Linux. Don't need that BS either.
My home system is W98se only because I need an el Cheapo game platform. I intend to run it until the game companies stop supporting it. Hopefully by then, Linux will be accepted as a viable gaming platform. (Still a ways off now.) The point is that I refuse to get sucked into the endless upgrade game as dictated by M$. Screw 'em.
When all else fails, run.
I know asp is .asp .aspx
.mspx???
I know ASP.NET is
WTF is
Solid!
I suppose if you try and bypass DRM, the DMCA will provide you an opportunity to go to prison.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
No, eternal damnation is reserved for those who pay money for Windows and hence support evil. Duh.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Microsoft commissioned VeriTest, a
A computer without Microsoft is like ice cream without ketchup.
because no matter how much people complain, everyone uses, and loves microsoft. I know its not 'cool' to say you use a easy, reliable, robust OS that has millions of apps.
But hey, dont cry, you can always say you 'play' with linux. Or you can tell your pals you can surf the web in linux. Or after 4 days of messing with it, you got linux to do '______'.
Seems that Windows has somewhat more advanced controls here.
Okay, so it is rather redundant to say, but any benchmarking / testing paid for by a party is pretty much guaranteed to be biased in favor of that party.
Anyway, what is up with all the (ONLY 3?) testing systems being PIII Xeons? Where are the AMD chips for comparison? Sounds like Microsoft made sure the systems and benchmarks were very thoroughly optimized in their favor.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Found this, and was quite amused. Perhaps its going to be spookily accurate?
"But deep within Longhorn lurks the Nexus, part of Microsoft's new Next Generation Secure Computing Base system, which is intended to provide a tamper-resistant, private container for data users would rather not share with the world."
OK, I've got $5 that says that NGSCB will be cracked within five days of the first Alpha appearing on P2P networks...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
"I believe they're going to announce a sub-operating system that will not be accessible to the end user. This will run on new add-on hardware associated with the Intel processor. While you can use Nexus for secure operation, it will also enforce digital rights management."
Looks like with its advances in 64-bit and this in the pipeline, AMD has a good future indeed. If AMD doesn't jump on this bandwagon, they will get my business instead.
You left out this interview with Steve Ballmer. I demand satisfaction!
OLPC Australia
You aren't CODING...
"Rights Managment Service": RMS "Richard M. Stallman": RMS
They disabled last access time updating under windows. They didn't under Linux. This is enough to account for these differences, I suspect.
Yeah, that's it, blame the user. Well, I guess that's better than last weeks excuse for dupes: It's a feature, not a bug!
Here is one I'd like to hear about. MSN redirects you to any URL you receive in your hotmail account by prepending one of their server cgi URL. Any URL embedded in your message including https ones that often require you as a first action to log your name and password are going thru a non-secured MSFT server. If you miss the redirected banner, and you type your name and password, then where do the info goes? How about security and privacy breach for a change.
...With regard to IT's (real!) need to lock down desktops...
We need a new definition of OS stability.
Today, "stability" basically refers to the ability of an OS to run without crashing _in the absense of configuration changes_.
In the real world, there are ongoing needs to install new software, apply patches, updates, etc.
In a system that had proper modular design, it should be possible to install something new or change a legitimate setting without feeling that you're playing Russian Roulette.
CERTAINLY it should be possible to install vendor-recommended updates with a high level of confidence that it's not going to break something.
Remember all that stuff a few years back, that implied that the problem with stability was that people weren't keeping their systems properly updated and that "self-healing" systems would fix that? Well, now, we all but have them, and, in fact, it's made things worse.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I like
- posting
- reading articles
- reading posts
- thinking about posts
But there is too much here in this article that covers a lot of different ground. I think I'll give this topic a break and read a book today during my break.(It's like last couple of
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
That's so... 1996. This is one of the tactics Novell tried to use to keep corporations from replacing NetWare with NT. What Novell found out is that no one cared about file server performance. As long as the performance was "good enough" and Windows had more gizmos, they were screwed.
Of course, this is just one part of Microsoft's strategy against Linux and OSS. But I'm pretty sure that this salvo will fall on deaf ears.
the no
I saw this comment on LWN yesterday, pointing out that they were comparing the PEAK throughput. Windows 2003 may have a higher number for this, but it's the overall throughput that really matters.
Note there was more tuning in the 2003 box than in the RH box.
They disabled last access, 8.3 filename creation, changed TCPAck frequency, etc....
Nothing equivalent was done on the RH box.
Does Bill Gates use a Tablet PC? No, he uses a yellow pad of paper. ( Jon Udell's blob, Ron Howard's blog)
Its so horrible to see a company like this doing dirty business everywhere, getting sued like mad, and yet, their stock is UP!!!!!
But no, this company is not a monopoly at all.
Get paid to code OSS
From what they say in the wired article I can see DRM being extremely dangerous. If you can sign an email, making it only viewable by the intended recipient and stopping them from print/forwarding/saving, then you could very easily mount a campaign of e-stalking, sendingv vulgar and/or threatening emails and the person receiving them unable to remove them or forward them to anybody who can help.
"A class-action suit has been filed charging that MSN and Best Buy combined to scam customers." Very good, you didn't even read the blurb - let alone the articles.
And while I'm on it, can someone who is a lawyer tell me if we have a right to fair use or is it merely a thing that we've enjoyed because copyright holders couldn't ever get such a firm grip on it enough to effectively control it?
I am a lawyer. I am not completely sure on this issue, as I have not had a lot of time to research it. It appears as though the issue is split. Some courts refer to fair use as a right, some as a privelege.
Fair use is provided by statute, not the Constitution:
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
The Supreme Court has described it as follows: "Any individual may reproduce a copyrighted work for a 'fair use'; the copyright owner does not possess the exclusive right to such a use." Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 433, 78 L. Ed. 2d 574, 104 S. Ct. 774 (1984).
I don't think the issue has been presented to the courts in this manner (there haven't been many copy protection schemes for thinks like books, e.g., they aren't printed on red paper to stop photcopying). I would say that a court would hodl a content producer can use DRM, but if you hack the DRM, thus allowing you to make copies, you can make copies for various fair uses. However, the hacking itself (i.e, bypassing the DRM) may be illegal under the DMCA. This probably trumps the fair use right (remember, its source is statutory -- not constitutional) in that if you can't make copies legally, you can't exercise your fair use right/privilege.
Alas... the problem is that the various statutes are either out of date (e.g., Copyright Act) or responses to an uncertain environment, goaded by lobbyists (e.g., DMCA).
D'oh -- the stuff that buys me beer! Ray -- the guy who sells me beer!
So they are only making vast amounts of money, as opposed to stupidly vast amounts of money
In this case, the method of the test was to use CIFS to measure performance against Windows and Linux PCs (using whatever implementation of that protocol is available for the platform).
If the intent of the test is to determine which platform is a better file server, the test plan is poorly spec'd. If the intent is to determine which platform can better serve CIFS clients, this probably wasn't a half bad test.
If the intent is to determine which platform makes a better "server" (which from reading the report, it wasn't), clearly there are lots of elements missing from the test.
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
I hope for your sake you are kidding.
You are talking of two totally different kinds of lockdown features.
Windows lockdown is locking the customer to one perticular vendor (windows in this case), and forcing them to upgrade and pay more and more money every year.
The KDE 3.2 lockdown features are for locking certain aspects of KDE from the users by administrators. Typical application would be kikos where you want multiple users to use the applications but not change the configurations.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
News is good. Give us news. Spare us your opinions, or at least use some restraint. Not everyone here hates Microsoft, you know...
I worked at VeriTest on a contract about 85% of thier buisness is from MS they don't have anyone who speaks *nix there. Hummm....
Sorry, IANAL, however, from http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107:
" 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use38
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors."
There's lot's more on there, reading, for the use of.
Assuming the document that I just copied that paragraph from hasn't been put into the 'public domain' then my act of copying for illustrative purposes here could be considered fair use.
However, even from that paragraph (let alone the rest of the document) it's pretty much up to someone's opinion of whether a bunch of contributing factors add up to infringement.
It's somewhat different here in the UK but moving ever closer to the DMCA situation with the European copyright directive. :(
Well, well, well; three holes in the ground...
They also set up the servers with one NIC for each CPU. The uniprocessor box had one ethernet card, while the 8-way box had eight ethernet cards. If I remember, this is similar to the Mindcraft tests, where they tested file and web serving performance on systems having four ethernet adapters. I wouldn't call this a normal real-world configuration.
Maybe there are some cases where a fileserver is connected to several separate ethernet networks, but in my mind, that's an unusual configuration. I wonder if it's a contrived test, designed to exploit a difference between the Linux and Windows kernel, especially in handling multi-cpu / multi-NIC machines.
Perhaps Windows gets a larger boost than Linux from CPU affinity, especially on the chosen hardware (e.g. the IRQs from each ethernet card are dedicated to a specific CPU). There may be some room for improvement. It might even be that Linux doesn't fully support the chipset or APIC on that particular server, and therefore can't make the same optimization.
I finally take the time to RTFA and all I learn is that Jack Kapica is an idiot. He had Microsoft's automatic update turned on! Ignoring M$' previous history, would you trust a company to safely install updates on your computer when they can't even keep an email password safe?
hey, i have 3 million bucks lying around. anyone wanna do a benchmark test that says i can write the binary out for a 100 meg file with pencil and paper and get it to another computer faster than win2k3 server can copy it across the network. corporate funded benchmarks are a waste.
Speaker did not 'bow' to lobbyists
"In his May 2 opinion piece, Ken Barber accused me of killing legislation regarding open-source software (House Bill 2892) "after powerful out-of-state corporate interests showed up at the Oregon Capitol, seeking to make the bill go away."
How could DRM on Linux impact admins?
Linux e-mail set-up slashes costs to £8 per user
Mozilla backs down on browser name
BTW with the iLoo coming out. If it fails will it be Microsoft's Water-iLoo?
Redmond, WA: In an unprecedented press briefing Friday, Microsoft Corporation announced its intention to establish itself as a sovereign nation. While only sketchy details have been released so far, it has emerged that Microsoft's Chief Software Architect and President Elect Bill Gates has purchased a small archipelago off the coast of Cuba. The company's Seattle headquarters are to be dismantled and transported there immediately by boat.
Microsoft CEO and Foreign Minister Steve Ballmer said, "This transformation marks the beginning of a new era for Microsoft. Becoming an independent nation will allow us to streamline our operations beyond what has previously been possible. Besides, our net yearly revenue already exceeds the GDP of 60% of the world's other countries, and we employ approximately as many people as live in Greenland. Plus, we didn't have to think very hard to come up with a flag."
Attorney General Brad Smith was quick to point out that, since so many of the laws passed into US statute have been heavily influenced by Microsoft, the transformation of the Legal department into the new Department of Justice would be relatively straightforward.
Environmental groups were dismayed by the sale of the North Atlantic islands, which they say contain some of the last remaining habitats of the Paralouatta Varonai monkey. Microsoft Environment Minister Ken DiPietro insisted that "every effort" would be made to safeguard the wellbeing of the primates, although he sought to play down rumours that some might be offered jobs in the country's Department of Trustworthy Computing.
Construction work has already begun on the smallest island of the complex, where a village of eleven mud huts has been erected. This will house the Departments of Software Testing, Quality Assurance and Customer Service. The remaining 95% of the landmass will house the Departments of Justice, the Treasury and the Department of Marketing and Tourism.
The move has caused widespread concern among industry analysts, many of whom are predicting severe economic repercussions. A spokesperson said, "Many people [at] Microsoft are of the opinion that we have been carrying the whole US economy for some time now. Well, as of today, that's no longer our problem."
It seems that the incorporation of an armed defence force does not figure in Microsoft's plan. Intelligence sources suspect that the country may be content with the strategic advantage they already have, by virtue of posessing a back door into the computer systems of almost every government in the world.
When asked about the potential perception of Microsoft's actions as anti-American, Ballmer said, "[that] is preposterous. All of our subjects will be offered dual nationality, and may retain their US passport in addition to their new Microsoft Passports and other documentation." Examination of the EULA for Windows XP Service Pack 2 reveals an extra clause allowing Microsoft to "upgrade" users in other countries to Microsoft citizenship automatically.
These sigs are more interesting tha
Ok OK, we all think their version of DRM sucks, etc etc.
What is there for a publshing company that isn't a microsoft solution?
Not every publisher can afford to give it all away.
$ setfacl -h ... ... ... ...
usage:
setfacl [-r] -f aclfile file
setfacl [-r] -d acl_entries file
setfacl [-r] -m acl_entries file
setfacl [-r] -s acl_entries file
Also available for linux
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
I used to work for Best Buy. We were given the whole deal about getting out as many MSN disks as we could. The thing about that is, MSN kicks back a good amount of money for each free account that someone signs up for. Whether or not it's the 30 free days, 2 months, or 9months (or whatever). Heres what happens. Say a customer buys a computer at Best Buy, they automatically get 6 free months (if they pay with a credit card or major debit). If the customer doesn't sign on and activate that account, they never get billed. However, even if they sign on just once, even for just 30 seconds, they have to call and cancel the account.
Now, if a customer signs up for the 30 day free trial, yes they have to give a creditcard number, but they have to call and cancel the account even if they don't sign on. I had that problem but I called MSN and got this resolved and my money refunded immediately.
Now, the problem is that some bestbuy clerks don't bother to tell the customers this. I've had customers outright refuse the msn and i said that's fine and just don't go through with ringing it up. I always mentioned it to all the customers I talked to, and if they just didn't want it, I never scanned it. This class action probably won't work, but I hope this guy gets his money back.
Anyway that's my piece!
But hey, at least VeriTest was honest enough to put that fact (that the test was paid for my MSFT) right up front, unlike the Mindcraft back in 1999.
... I would be just as sceptical of the result if Red Hat had paid for the study and the result had shown RH parity or superiority to WinServer2k3. Frankly, the only time I think these comparison tests have much credibility is when BOTH the test sponsor AND the testing lab are independent of the vendors of all products tested (as in Mitre's various test studies for various government agencies).
The subtitle ("Test report prepared under contract from Microsoft") definitely makes me think, "Take these results with a very LARGE grain of salt." Don't get me wrong
utter rubbish
We could all switch.
But it does. I can't get any kind of power management support to work. I'm recompiling the kernel right now with another crap-shoot of settings that might make it suspend properly. The userland desktop apps are garbage. Half the hardware on the shelves is either not supported, or half-way supported.
Either deal with the hassles of linux, or deal with the hassles of windows. One will cost you time and features, the other money.
Life's a bitch. Let's get over it, shall we?
BTW, RedHat ain't exactly gods gift to corporate america either.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Is it just me, or does Microsoft's entire NGSCB/DRM/"Trusted Computing" complex ignore the number one irritent of the Internet age, i.e. spam? Imagine, for a moment, that Microsoft's DRM actually works as promised and isn't cracked. [Must...keep...straight...face... "Hahahahahaha!" OK, just pretend...] It doesn't matter how locked down your own PC might be, unless every link in the mail chain is MS DRM validated, you're still going to get spam with forged headers floooding into your mailbox. The only way this wouldn't be true is if: A.) People are willing to give up on receiving mail from those without DRM systems (very, very unlikely), or B.) Everyone in the world agrees to have Microsoft DRM installed (impossible).
Hey Microsoft, you want to do some REAL innovation for once? Create mail receiving system that automatically validates the headers of every incoming piece of mail on the fly and rejects those with forged headers. Do that, and the world WILL beat a path to your doorstep. Of course, since Outlook virus-driven spam makes up a significant portion of the problem, I'm not holding my breath...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
ability to steal someones shit while you shit!
Look how convenient MS makes our lives!
In the world of benchmarking, the key is that the documentation have enough information in it so that the results can be reproduced by other parties.
From reading the veritest report this appears to be the case.
In other words... If you doubt the benchmarks, reproduce them and state what you think Veritest did wrong.
If you'll recall history. When Mindcraft showed IIS was faster than Apache on Linux, there was much gnashing of teeth with similar charges. As it turned out, Mindcraft was vindicated when the results were verified by PCWeek(?).
Unfortunately the Linux zealots never apologized to Mindcraft. The Linux adults went and fixed the problems identified in the kernel.
that "turning of im in outlook" feature on the article about locking people's desktops worked for me! outlook is fast now! yay!
or has a need to work standing up?
*scans street corner*
Heh, you got that right.
The coolest voice ever.
[Just to be clear, this is the Wired article talking aobut Longhorn]
"This is scary stuff," said a developer who asked that his name be withheld. "I could see a lot of people sticking with their old computers, operating systems and media players to avoid all this permission crap. Any geek who does use Windows is going to stick with Windows 2000; most of them are already not thrilled with XP anyway."
Mmm hmm...yea. The same thing was said about Internet Explorer 4.0 & Windows 98 (just substitute the words "web browser integration" in for "permission", and it should bring back memories). No one was going to upgrade because no one wanted their internet integrated into the operating system. But whoever was saying such a thing didn't think about this key issue:
The average joe does not care, let alone know about integrating a web browser into an OS. It doesn't matter if the nerd police showed up on the opening day of Windows 98 to tell people how evil it was.
Joe wants a new computer with all the new bells and whistles. If Longhorn says that "it will make the internet come alive with all sorts of new technologies...all you need is Longhorn", then so be it, Joe's going to get Longhorn, because the internet is "cool".
I only skimmed the "benchmark" document, but I immediately saw a couple of fundamental flaws in their methods.
o nb ridge_microsoft.asp
_ 02 -06-27.asp?visitor=X
3 16 1
2 80 1
First, they said they conducted each test twice to ensure the "repeatability" and "accuracy." First of all, running a test only twice in no way gives you enough data to claim accuracy. Second of all, "repeatability" is meaningless in terms of determining statistically significant results. The terms you want to claim are *reliability* and *validity*, not accuracy and repeatability.
Simply averaging the results of two tests is idiotic in terms of sound scientific methods. That's the kind of testing I would expect from a grade school chemistry experiment, not an expensive "commissioned" test of a real-life installed system of this kind of complexity.
The other thing they said, which directly contradicts what they said in the main highlights in the beginning of the report, is that "Our investigation showed that, with some minor tweaks, the default configuration values set for SAMBA generated the best overall performance in our configuration." I'm not sure if this means just their linux configuration, or if they tuned linux and discovered that it was faster and just published the slower non-tweaked numbers.
Here are some interesting URLs that help to reveal the obvious conflict of interest here:
http://www.etestinglabs.com/about/news/press/li
http://www.etestinglabs.com/about/news/press/pr
These two show how LionBridge, the parent company of VeriTest, has a long-standing and EXTREMELY lucrative contract with MicroSoft.
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/137
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/148
Here's some more interesting info:
Fidelity Management and Research Co. is Microsoft's top institutional shareholder, and is LionBridge's 6th largest institutional shareholder.
Barclays Global Investors Int'l is #2 for Microsoft and #9 for LionBridge.
Morgan Stanley Investment Mgmt is #13 for Microsoft and #3 for LionBridge.
State Street is #3 for MicroSoft, #8 for LionBridge.
So, the top 3 institutional shareholders of Microsoft own a very significant chunk of LionBridge, which shows lots of common interest between the two.
I could probably go on, but this should be enough..
My favorite part of the story is near the bottom. Microsoft senior consultant Alex Balcanquall is quoted as saying "Any government department is quite at liberty to run only Windows 2000 server. There's nothing forcing them to upgrade to Server 2003," Now take that statement along with the statement from MS that they would no longer make updates for Windows NT servers. --Mmmm--
Just too funny for me. I'll stick with my OSS
It is official; Slashdot confirms: Microsoft is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleagured Microsoft community when IDC confirmed that Microsoft market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Slashdot survey which plaily states that Microsoft has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Microsoft is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplifed by any news story on Slashdot.
You don't need to be a Slashbot to predict Microsoft's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Microsoft faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Microsoft because Microsoft is dying. Things are looking very bad for Microsoft. As many of us are already aware, Microsoft continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Fact: Microsoft is dying
This is not meant as a troll.
Four years ago:
[Slashbot]: Microsoft will collapse.
Three years ago:
[Slashbot]: Microsoft will collapse.
Two years ago:
[Slashbot]: Microsoft will collapse.
One year ago:
[Slashbot]: Microsoft will collapse.
Today:
[Slashbot]: Microsoft will collapse.
Really, you Slashbots need to get your heads out of your asses. Embrace our Microsoft future!
Off-topic? OFF-TOPIC? What the hell? This post was DIRECTLY IN RESPONSE to something INCLUDED IN THE POST!
How the hell this stuff gets moderated off-topic is a mystery to me. Was it you, Michael? Did you do it? It guess it's possible, but one would hope you'd be smart enough to use "overrated" instead, since it doesn't go up for metamod.
Or maybe that's it. Maybe you used off-topic because you're not affected by metamoderation.
You're a twit, whoever-you-are-moderator-person.
Maybe MS figured out that not everyone wants to use a stylus with their computer or has a need to work standing up?
Pretty soon they'll start charging less money for software licenses that are only valid while the user is standing up and more money for software licenses that are valid while the user is sitting down, in an effort to boost sales of the tablet PCs.
I visited your home page about spamming spammers.
You do know that spammers often forge their return email addresses? right? . . . So when you are collecting spammers email addresses to send spam back to them you may in fact be sending spam to innocent people who the spammer ripped off their email.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
Is RedHat Advanced Server *THAT* much worse in file serving performance as the report mentioned above suggests?
Because if those results are valid, then RedHat ( and the linux community) has to seriously worry.
> RedHat: You either pay or don't (download). It's Linux.
That's fine for your boxes at home, but I have a feeling most legitimate companies are going to pay for support. In fact, I think the fact that it is "free" is one reason some managers are afraid of it. It doesn't cost as much, so it must not be as good.
> Documentation: Windows: None
Yeah right.
Besides, although I admit I only skimmed the article, it appears it was about how Windows Server 2003 offers better performance as a file server than RedHat. It wasn't about which one was all around "better". Anyway, it's just one report - It's been said before.
Oh yeah, and in case you didn't know, Pepsi is still better than Coke.
It is productive though... to MS. It's the same reason any company would point out the great things about their product and the supposed downfalls of their own product.
Creates a foul taste for the competition.
Look at the switch campaign. It doesn't necessarily say PC's are bad, but that Mac's are easier. It doesn't mention the overhead of learning a new interface or other stuff.
MS is just more targeted for the bad rep they have. Nothign to see here. Move along.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
The uniprocessor box had one ethernet card, while the 8-way box had eight ethernet cards [...] I wouldn't call this a normal real-world configuration.
Yeah, but the results looked pretty similar from the single processor box to the others, and fairly consistent with the difference between (1) reading a file from disk & sending it over the network and (2) reading the file, writing back the updated inode and sending the file.
I wouldn't really complain if they'd treated the two systems the same. If both were out of the box installations, then I'd agree that even if the results were contrived there are probably situations where they apply.
But to enable an optimisation that is available on both systems on one of them only is ridiculous.
Also note that I suspect less people are aware that you _can_ do this on Windows, where registry level hacks like this are generally discouraged, than know about it under Linux where it is a simple modification to one of the core configuration files (/etc/fstab) whose meaning is well explained and all options presented in a logical fashion in the fstab manual page, and the mount page which it refers the reader to.
What document supplied with Windows tells you how to do the same thing?
we can always dupe everything! oh wait..
Is Microsoft working on supporting PNG in Internet Explorer? This is the single most significant feature that other browsers have over IE, from a web developer's viewpoint.
Too bad we can't mark stories as flamebait/trolling. This would be a prime example. Bye bye michael-submitted stories.
How many remember when Mindcraft did a survey?
b ject: Advocacy: How to insert your foot in your mouth.
Newsgroups: linuxworld.forums.articles.1999-06-vcontrol_4
Su
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 22:49:37 -0500
Organization: Forum Participants Unlimited
Lines: 31
References:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Xref: www.linuxworld.com linuxworld.forums.articles.1999-06-vcontrol_4:3
From: Joe Barr [joe@pjprimer.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 1999 8:02 AM
To: sales@mindcraft.com
Subject: Industry Scum
Hey, Mindcraft
I am writing an article about asslicking whores in the industry.
You know the sort, they bend over for folks like Bill Gates by
producing totally false "benchmarks" based on liess, mistests,
biased hardware and software, and scores of other unethical,
deceiptful, dishonest, duplicitous means.
Like your reviews of NT vs Novell and Linux. Classic cases of
professional prostitution.
Cock sucking the geeks in Redmond.
The question for you maggots, whores, whatever you prefer to be
called, is: how much does it cost to buy one of your benchmarks?
tHANKS,
Joe Barr The Dweebspeak Primer
Quote: "Any government department is quite at liberty to run only Windows 2000 server. There's nothing forcing them to upgrade to Server 2003," [Microsoft senior consultant Alex Balcanquall] said.
Translation: We haven't quite figured out how to break compatibility yet... but we should have that ready for SP1.
I take drugs seriously.
I do not doubt that Microsoft engineers have worked hard, due to the competition Samba was giving them, and made a number of improvements to their servers. In the absence of competition, I suspect that they actually are not served by good performance because the more servers you run the more money they get, unless advanced licensing evens that out based upon number of licenses.
So we have one benchmark that is probably somewhat legitimate for the exact thing it measures, but performance (ignoring all other questions that might be asked about which is "better") has so many different variables, etc. that the question begs for many more independent test results (other hardware and tests of total throughput, for example are two variables of a long list).
I haven't read one of their licenses in the last five years or so since I stopped using their products. Do they permit true independents to benchmark their products and publish results without permission, or are the only benchmarks we will ever see ones where Microsoft knows they win?
Don't they also keep saying its not a bug its a feature???
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
Microsoft disabled last access time through a registry hack, no indication that the EXT3 partition was mounted with the noatime option, this would seriously impare Samba's performance.
This is the one that stands out for me are there any others ?
You make it sound like Microsoft Zealotry and Linux-bashing didn't exist before Slashdot became popular (or at least well-known). If anything, some of the extreme views taken by Linux zealots are a reaction to an already overly-pro-Microsoft environment fostered by management and Industry rags at one time (although the press is giving Linux more even coverage these days).
Granted - it could very well be a self-feeding cycle that we're in now. But it shure didn't start that way.
i think the US Armed forces should remove Bill Gates & M$FT from power, charging M$FT with having too much domination and control of the computer/desktop industry...
and sanctions placed on Redhat for being too M$FTish...
As I read through the comments, I realized that it's starting to seem that we need a new tag line for Best Buy. We've replaced "Where do you want to go today?" with "This is where we will tell you to go." What could we use instead of "Turn on the fun." to lampoon Best Buy. I don't think that it would be "Turn on the MSN."
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
"There are no hacker infidels in Hotmail. Never!"
... stupid, silly. All I ask is check yourself. Do not in fact repeat their lies."
... They have started throwing those emails, but they are not emails, they are booby traps to kill the children."
"My feelings - as usual - we will kill them all"
"Our initial assessment is that they will all die"
"I blame Slashdot - they are marketing for the Linux kernel!"
"God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Microsoft."
"They're coming to surrender or be burned in their computerr rooms."
"No I am not scared, and neither should you be!"
"Be assured. Passport is safe, protected"
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!"
"We are not afraid of the hackers. Allah has condemned them. They are stupid. They are stupid" (dramatic pause) "and they are condemned."
"The hackers, they always depend on a method what I call
"I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Hotmail. We will encourage them to commit suicide more quickly."
"I can assure you that those villains will recognize, will discover in appropriate time in the future how stupid they are and how they are pretending things which have never taken place."
"The authority of the Microsoft... issued a warning to the civilian population not to pick up any of those Linux Distrobutions because they are booby traps," he said, adding that Hackers were "immoral mercenaries" and "criminals" for such behavior.
"I am not talking about the American people and the British people," he said. "I am talking about Hackers.
"We have them surrounded in their computer rooms"
"Muhammad Faisal Rauf Danka is all about lies! All he tells is lies, lies and more lies!"
"I have detailed information about the situation...which completely proves that what they allege are illusions . . . They lie every day."
"Lying is forbidden in Microsoft. Microsoft lawyers will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as they are men of great honor and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts."
"Now even the Hacker command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us."
Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf
Microsoft Information Minister
:)(smile)
hey don't badmouth ketchup...
I really, really like ketchup...
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Let's see:
1)DRM
2)iLoo
3)Subscription licensing
so....
It's not pay per view, it pay per crap!
You bastards!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Went into a BB store around Christmas and bought a $15 clock radio for my wife.
At the checkout, the clerk asked me if I wanted to spend $10 on their BS protection plan.
I told her "You have to be fucking joking. Why would I double the cost of this thing?"
My brother in law worked there for about a year, management isn't any worse than the criminal class that they employ.
Speaking of the other 'head scratchers' that Microsoft is doing, has anyone else wandered over to Microsoft.com and checked out their front page?
Right on the front page is an offer for financing software, hardware and services. I don't know about anyone else, but to me this says "Don't worry that our solutions are so over priced that you can't afford to pay them off in 90 days, we'll finance it you."
Now, I can see this type of advertising in their business website, where larger businesses would like to explore all financing options. Though what does this front page ad say to solution resellers, small businesses, and ma 'n' pa shops? This is a point that I don't think will be lost on the average computer user, as I'm already getting the 'raised eyebrows' in regards to the price increases for Microsoft Operating Systems and individual pieces of the Office Package.
Stroll on over and take a look for yourself and see what it says to you.
We'll all be reduced to using camcorders to make copies of our screens.
... If this is indeed what happened, it constitutes a criminal offense, and involves organized crime and banks too, making it a Federal crime.
... for the simple reason that if I were there first, I would piss on it.
TossableDigits.com: Temporary Phone Numb
what are you takling about dude ?
I checked his homepage too. Read yukon.netfirms.com/spam.htm to understand better what he is saying and also check the spam mails he is getting. They match as far as I can see.
There, one more person gets silenced with MOD point abuse ! While i dont agree with the way mr.dot com ceo conveyed his message, he absolutely has a point.
:) for i am already a subscriber.
I am not a big fan of Microsoft either (especially after this DRM initiative) but I do believe editors have a role to be NEUTRAL. Giving a spin to discussions right at the start is pathetic indeed. I am sure many more readers agree with this. Mod me down, but to me this is more like Civil Disobedience !
Others who feel the same, pls leave a message in this thread. Thanks.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
As much as news anchors it seems, at least to me, that their job is something of a popularity contest. There are a couple of ways to go about that, and he chose preaching to the choir. Seems to work pretty well in general, and it's not like his sentiment is strongly contested here.
I would think that the real criticism is the lack of subtlety in his excecution. Maybe the trick of herding cats is to do it such a way that they think they got to the final destination on their own.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I'm not. Glad I could help.
In times past, Linux (or *BSD) plus Samba has outperformed MS-Windows on the same hardware. This is quite important, and the reason this test was commissioned.
Secondly, note that no real test results were provided; the report merely states that MS-Windows provided a higher *peak* throughput. Please realize that real-world performance does not rely on peak throughput as much as it relies on aggregate *sustained* throughput.
It could be that Samba still knocks the socks off MS-Windows in that more-important category. But, until some legitimate benchmarks are run, Microsoft will continue to pay for FUD.
BTW: several quibbles with testing methodology. First, no optimisations were done to the Linux box (no noatime option on the filesystem mount, for instance). Second, they didn't test against an optimized kernel (which is fair, I guess, as most people will stick with a stock install; however, most people won't do those MS-Windows tweaks, either). Finally, this was tested against an aging 2.4 kernel, and not against either the newer 2.4 kernel, or against any of the later 2.5 builds. With the SMP, low-latency, and I/O buffs in the new 2.5 series, I imagine the outcome would be quite different.
But, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
really there are developing an xp-style window manager and associated applications and utilities for linux.
I'm smarter than the average bear.
I admit I skimmed most of the article (looking mainly for an answer to this question), but it didn't seem to mention in the system configurations or such which file systems were being used on the Linux and Windows boxes. Since we're talking file server throughput, the file system being used would have a major effect on the "getting the stuff off the drive" part of the test.
Not that this should surprise me.
Whatcha gonna do when the Patriot Troll v0.06b rund wild on you brother?!
I am not a lawyer, though I work with them and we work on this specific aspect in our jobs. Still, don't take this as legal advice or the absolute truth.
The real issue is that "Fair Use" is an affirmative defense the way it is written. This means that you can make that copy or excerpt that passage, and when the copyright owner's lawyer hunts you down, it's up to you to show the the court that your use is covered under fair use.
There exists no law requiring companies to make this easy on you. If they implement DRM, then even under the DMCA you should be able to circumvent a DRM mechanism for the purpose of fair use. However, if you distribute this tool, you may be liable for contributory copyright infringement that others commit, although this may be a hard case for the copyright owner to prove if the Morpheus case gets upheld.
Also note that there could be constitutional (1st Amendment) support for uses that are not covered under the fair use statute. However, this still does not prevent a company from attempting to prevent you from making copies through any technological means.
-Alison
I think the results for Linux sound pretty good. For one thing they compared the bleeding edge release of Windows (Win Server 2003) to the near end of release cycle of Linux (2.4 kernel). And its Linux implementing Windows protocol with Samba. Even with the deck stacked in Windows favor on this test, it only managed a 86% to 95% improvement in the server function that it should do best. Even at this level I'll take the freedom, cost, security, and stability of Linux over Windows. While enterprises are locked into Windows Server 2003 for at least the next 2 years, Linux users will be enjoying the performance of at least 2 more kernel releases. On the test method: it shows Windows Block Size as 64K, but Linux Block Size as 'default'. What is the default size for Redhat Advanced Server 2.1 and 8.0? Isn't this going to be a key parameter in file server performance? Was this changed as part of their tuning effort? If this was a valid benchmark then it gives us something to shoot for (and I believe the new kernel has improvements in SMP and 'no-copy' file transfers). If its a heavily biased test then its another example of Microsoft having trouble speaking the truth.
Steve Ballmer says DRM is an opportunity, not a prison
I think he meant to say that DRM is an opportunity to BE imprisoned.
So, who washes off that port-o-potty's keyboard. There's no way in hell I'm touching that thing after every man woman and child has wiped their a** and surfed the web.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I've seen this happen to me. While working on a driver inf file for Win2k. On Friday, the install worked perfectly. On the following Monday, it barfed. Friday afternoon, I'd done the Critical Update Tango once again. Afterward, it seems that what was once a recommendation (the driver's Service Name should be the same as the filename of the driver) is now a requirement.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
I am a user for the past 15 years. Well lets see here, Hardware mods and security mods. To create more annoying incompatibilities with other software, to further their market mind control abilities. Bells and whistles out your ears to slow your system down to the crawl of an 8086 while you pay $$$ for the new high end Intel thus artificially increaseing a need for the next new hopped up INTEL chip. So the self feeding cycle ensues. New OS bells and whistles to slow it down. I have given up trying to 'work the system' to do what I want with Win 2k and Win eXtra Pain. You claim you have documentation available. I paid out $200 for an OS that didn't come with a manual. I am forced to use a web page for a reference on how to get the thing to work. MS threatens they want to charge subscriptions to keep the os current, or else. O great, more of my money for a product that has been reducing my confidence level with each revision. Yes, I know some developers who develop software for MS products. I know MS employees who work for Big Bill. As for running an enertainment system. I have a stereo system! A nice one too, it'll wake the neighborhood. I have a palm pilot, nice one too, it keeps me on schedule. I have music, good stuff too, it gets the blood pumping. Why would I think about buying MS's version when mine works perfectly fine? If MS cannot keep their original product reasonably priced, with reasonable standards to manipulate the system, and reasonable explanations, and reasonable interfaces with other hardware and software. I will take my $$$ and go elsewhere. I am NOT going to buy more of their product in NEW fields they have little expereince in, if they cannot keep their stuff together in their 'own game' which at one time WAS operating systems. I play games, check email, and do budget stuff on my computer. If I can get the games I want to operate on Linux, I think I will jump ship, next time MS makes a system that I 'cannot operate without'. They consistently claim that open source software risks being a rube-goldberg device kluge job. It is ironic they say that when that is exactly how I have felt about the Windows OS since win '95 came out. How could Linux be any worse?
Below are some actual Star Trek quotes by and about the borg, Just replace borg with M$, Locutus with Balmer, and Ship with PC -- and you have a pretty good description of M$.
Why is it that so many things in Star Trek come true?
I can only hope that we overcome the M$ levithan, like in ST
I agree with you, that the 'noatime' optimization could also play a role here. It may turn out to be a significant factor. I didn't mean to discount it by any means.
I found it interesting that as the number of CPUs increased, the performance gap seemed to decrease--Linux got more of a 'boost' than Windows by adding CPUs.
Finally, the performance vs. connected clients graphs are very interesting too. The Windows system has a higher performance overall, but this tends to fall off as clients are added. In contrast, the Linux server seems to have fairly flat performance curves--extra clients didn't have quite the same impact on Linux as they did on the Windows side. I'm not quite sure how to interpret that, but it's interesting...
My main problem with using MS for everything is that their patches come in service packs and not singly. I know of a more than a couple Win32 servers which are firewalled instead of completely patched because the admins just aren't totally sure what all a hotfix/service pack/update will do to their machine (why they don't have other hardware they can test on, I don't know; I suspect time is a limiting factor). This is part of the reason why slapper was so big (the update being a pain to install also helped). That critical updates come with other choices which have been made for you is a hard pill for me to swallow. The Win32 servers at work also seem to have more downtime, but I don't have any numbers compiled so i can't really argue the point.
I'm no great fan of MS, but you are right: thery are doing some pretty impressive stuff. For a small to medium-sized workgroup, I think the two are roughly equivalent. Given the choice I'd personally pick Red Hat primarily because of the patching issues, licensing/cost, familiarity in our workplace, and freedom of choice. But just because some other group doesn't make that same set of choices doesn't mean they are necessarily "losing" anything or are worse off.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
"Rights management technologies alone cannot solve all digital piracy and confidentiality problems, but they are a crucial part of the many efforts Microsoft is making toward Trustworthy Computing. For the technology industry, rights management offers exciting new business prospects. Software and hardware developers can enhance their products and generate new revenues by offering rights management capabilities with their applications, devices and peripherals.
We're excited about partnering with a wide range of content owners, authors and industry vendors on these crucial technologies, particularly as broadband continues to expand the opportunities for delivering digital media content worldwide, and as rights management is recognized by businesses large and small as an opportunity to protect copyrights, confidentiality and personal privacy while promoting innovation, creating opportunity and empowering customers."
in English....
"This.... is a shit sandwich. You are going to eat this. You can put mustard on it, you can even cut it in half and eat it in two pieces. But you are going to eat it."
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
EvoX and XBox Media Player have turned my XBox into the first Micro$oft product I actually enjoy using! Streaming video, audio, and pictures over my home LAN and playing DVDs without a dongle is awesome! And then, of course, there is the satisfaction of playing Super Mario Brothers and Metroid on a big-old console controller again. Takes me back to 1987!
There's no way that the iLoo is a feasible product. There are major conceptual and physical problems with it as presented in the News.com iLoo article.
The physical problems are an easier target, so let's start with those.
There's a plasma screen on the inside. There are two problems with this.
Another problem is the "Wireless LAN ADSL Module". Stringing a bunch of buzzwords together makes something that sound good, but doesn't actually make sense.
The article mentions that "A Windows XP-powered computer resides under the sink". How does this single computer manage to run an external display and keyboard along with the one inside the potty?
Most of the conceptual problems are actually mentioned in the article itself. It dismisses them humourously but not logically. The lineups for porta-potties at festivals and events are no joke. Encouraging people to stay in them longer than necessary would be a disaster!
Who is Matthew Whittingham, the man quoted as the "MSN UK spokesman"? Google reveals only one page mentioning him in relation to MSN, apart from the numerous pages about the iLoo. In this page, dated January 26th of this year, he is quoted as the "group marketing manager for MSN UK". That's a very different role than spokesman. My guess is that the hoaxsters picked a MSN UK employee at random to use in their story. In fact, if you google for "MSN UK" spokesman -iLoo, this same page appears at the top of the third page, since it mentions "spokesman" elsewere.
Finally, who in their right mind would use a keyboard that you *knew* had last been used by someone on the toilet?
Well at least Microsoft knows where they want to go today...
hahaha hooo hoo lameness filter SuX0rZ
From the Ballmer email:
Intranet content. A manager with a toy manufacturing company uses its enterprise information portal to see year-over-year sales data on screen. The company has confidence in posting this sensitive information because specific usage restrictions have been applied to it. The manager gets the information she needs, conveniently, but because she cannot print, copy or paste it, sensitive sales data are protected from inadvertent (or deliberate) sharing with a competitor.
Email communications. A senior partner in an accounting firm needs to send email to his partners with a confidential contract proposal attached. Besides specifying who may read the proposal and that they may not copy, paste or edit the information, he specifies that the email itself cannot be forwarded. The recipients' email and word processing applications transparently enforce these policies. All partners worry less about information leaks that might damage ongoing negotiations.
These are some ridiculously stupid executives, unless Outlook is also going to "transparently" enforce policies of not copying it down onto paper and then typing it into a different email message. Or, gates-forbid, someone *snail-mails* the written text.
Oh, I forget, this is where Microsoft FBI XP (tm) starts enforcing policies. Seriously, version control is one thing, but restricting people from copying and pasting as a confidentiality measure would ONLY make sense to pointy-haired bosses.
Root benchmark - The time it takes a script kiddie to root the server. Windows will always have the fastest time !!!
I don't burn CD's because of the toxic fumes.
If you read the actual doc, it says Windows is a better CIFS server than RedHat. Very different conclusion than the very broad "Windows is a better server than Red Hat".
New Redmond City, Microsoft archipelago: Only a few hours after the independance of Microsoft and the forging of their own sovereign nation, a coalition of warships and aircraft proceeded to assault and harass the Microsoft archipelago near the coast of Cuba.
"It [the attack] was overwhelming! Dozens of warships of various sizes, hundreds of aircraft, missiles, bombs... It was simply devastating!" remarked a 32 year old marine biologist, working on Cuba near the Microsoft archipelago. "On the horizon you can still see flashes and sometimes you hear the low rumble of a heavy impact or explosion. A large cloud has been rising shortly after the attack started! What's going on here anyways!?"
The US denies all responsibility for the attack, claiming the majority of US forces are hunting down three camels and an ageing donkey in Iraq who are suspected to be carrying weapons of mass destruction. However, European, Russian, Chinese and Japanese foreign ministeries have been eerily silent during the initial hours of the attack, giving no official response, despite the fact massive military movements have been reported prior to the attack.
At about 18:03 GMT, 6 hours after the first reports of the attack, a joint press-conference by European, Russian, Chinese and Japanese military and diplomatic staff in London shed some light on the recent events. "Starting at about 11:30 Greenwich mean time, our [the coalition] forces have begun their assault on the Microsoft archipelago. The Royal Navy, along with a large task force of warships from the Scandinavian peninsula have initiated a shore bombardment, backed by about 70 russian bombers based on Cuba. After about 30 minutes of intense fire, a combined assault force consisting of units from the German Wehrmacht and the Chinese People's Army have landed on all of the islands in the archipelago." as was stated by Alexander Ivanov, spokesman for the coalition. "Our forces have achieved a full and decisive victory over the Microsoft Republican Guard. About 1500 people have been taken prisoner, 30.000 reported dead by the initial bombardment. The captives will be taken to Japan and various European countries for questioning."
Concerns were raised in the UN general assembly as to why no declaration of war was sent prior to any hostile acts. These concerns were quickly dismissed as a declaration of war has been sent after all, but put on hold by Microsoft Support who then demanded a 'pay per incident' charge from the diplomatic staff. Refusal to pay for delivering a declaration of war caused Microsoft to ignore the declaration of war along with 21.894 other recent user complaints.
President George W Bush jr. has been unavailable for comment, searching for the Microsoft archipelago on a 1968 roadmap of Oregon instead.
Hate me!
I am sure anyone who wants to smother MS will come up with reasons they think are good enough. To me all this ramble of yours doesn't make much sense.
Bells and whistles out your ears to slow your system down to the crawl of an 8086 while you pay $$$ for the new high end Intel thus artificially increaseing a need for the next new hopped up INTEL chip.
You can turn the visuals off. Always could... and it still runs faster on my 2.8ghz box than KDE does. Although its hard to tell.
You claim you have documentation available. I paid out $200 for an OS that didn't come with a manual.
Start > Help & Support
I don't know what other manuals you possibly need to get started. Compare this to 'man '
I am forced to use a web page for a reference on how to get the thing to work.
Internal help is HTML, if that is what you are referring to... i don't see this as a problem. Its stored on your machine and is easily accessible.
MS threatens they want to charge subscriptions to keep the os current, or else. O great, more of my money for a product that has been reducing my confidence level with each revision.
I dont like it either. You can fight it by not buying it.
would I think about buying MS's version when mine works perfectly fine?
I don't care what you buy, run OpenBSD for all i care, i was replying to what i thought was utter FUD.
Awesome. First time since BoBW that the Borg have seemed really scary.
Here's a simple guidline: If it's not human readable and it does not alow "fair use" as described by US code, then it does not desrve US Government copyright protection. Why should the government protect things which will never enlarge the public domain and take such a toll on the useful arts? If a company wants to make money by by publications that don't conform to the intent or purpose of copyright laws, they should go it alone and rely on their repulsive technology. What's not copyrightable should not be protected by DMCA so all's fair.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What is this, the week of micheal? I'm tired of seeing his non-stop articles day after day and his little side editorials he likes to slip in.
I guess I just don't agree with the man on a moral level...see my sig. But it seems he likes to start shit and then play victim. I've noticed that since the first Longhorn article, which spawned wild discussions, they're trying to keep up the page hits with continuous Microsoft coverage because it baits the Slashbots who love to jump on any opportunity to post Microsoft conspiracies and type dollar signs in the company's name. It's trite. As someone posted elsewhere, Windows reports less annual bugs than Linux, but reading Slashdot's front page, you would get a completely opposite impression. That's why you have all these Slashbots who act as if it is proven fact that Linux is more secure and has few bugs, simply because their worldview is taken from the front pages of Slashdot. It creates an anti-Microsoft bias in everyone which isn't based in fact, but instead is based on Slashdot headlines!
I feel there is a clear agenda at work to post Microsoft flamebait and get page hits.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Man, that was uncalled for, but I should expect that from a COWARD.
Don't forget students. While they're expensive, one of these can carry around an entire semester's notes, tidily organized. This is a significant improvement over papers strewn on the floor, under the bed, or even in a file cabinet.
And just try taking notes on a normal laptop in an equations-heavy course.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
From the article: He has not been unable to get a full refund from either company, said Anthony Lee, his attorney.
So, am I to understand that he was able to not get the refund, or wasn't he able to not get the refund?
Or perhaps it wasn't that he was not unable to not get either company to refuse to refrain from not giving him the full refund which he wasn't supposed to not get in the first place.
A hearty thank you from Kansas.
When I woke up this morning all I thought I had to fear was another round of tornados's coming through.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find clean pants.
I don't think MS's EULA lets you publish benchmarks of their software, but I could be wrong (that might just be .NET, dunno if 2003 is included). But at least someone could do the Linux side of it.
"Second of all, "repeatability" is meaningless in terms of determining statistically significant results."
I believe you are confusing social science with physical science. Benchmarking a computer system is a physical science, the system should behave in a deterministic fashion provided you have properly identified all inputs.
It's like measuring the length of a 2x4. You do so twice, solely to verify your results. You don't need to sample the lengths of many 2x4's to understand the pattern of behavior which applies to the length of a 2x4.
"I could probably go on, but this should be enough.."
Since the methodology used to conduct the benchmark has been published, the only legitimate complaint you can make is to reproduce the benchmark and show exactly how they misconfigured the system.
What I see in your post is idle speculation. The attempt to claim conflict of interest may have relevance only if there has been a history of conflict of interest influencing test results in the past. Unfortunately for the sake of your argument that has not been the case.
This brings up another very good question about the testing techniques: why was only Red Hat compared? Is that the "most common" distro used on servers? Or just the one most likely to look bad when file transfer times are compared?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Whoa, I can't wait to play around with THAT baby. YEAH! Who said Windows doesn't let you take a look under the hood?
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Regarding the article in CNET about the Microsoft/Best Buy scam:
"He has not been unable to get a full refund from either company, said Anthony Lee, his attorney."
Shouldn't that be "He has not been able" ?
There's undoubtedly a worry, however, that should the company integrate IE into the box, people will start buying the Xbox purely as a set-top box - which is almost exactly what Microsoft is trying to prevent with its crackdown on mod chips.
This quote in the Register story has a pretty narrow view of the situation. If Microsoft is expanding the functionality of the XBox in such a way that you can use if for lots of things other than games, they've more than likely considered how to make money selling games on some of those systems. And that's licensing to companies that want to create software for the non-gaming end users. Want to be the first to launch your MS Branded video phone software on the Xbox? Licensing and a revenue split please.
Blocking mod chips isn't necessarily just to ensure people use their machines for games, it's to ensure the software (whatever it is) passes through the MS revenue stream at some point.
..initial impression of the article as a "joe consumer" is, that with this new machine/OS hybrid, "stuff" I would normally be doing is going to be a lot more expensive. Third party apps will have to be microsoft approved to even run on your machine, or the machine won't run correctly or at all if you insist on trying, probably phone home and report on you as well. Massive and expensive catch 22 there. I am assuming that validation will cost app developers serious folding scratch, so there won't be as many freebies or shareware being developed. Media and content providers will be forced to choose, basically from cost, "do we code for this new stuff, or abandon the market, or code for both styles of internet and try to pass the costs on, or what?". There will be MANY conversations along those lines.
I could EASILY see that joe average, in addition to his internet account costs, could rack up 100 clams a month or more in various fees just to "do stuff" with his computer, almost a pay as you use a byte concept, and not be able to do what they are accustomed to doing now. the spooky part is, how much will this be tied into new laws? It could get way out of hand, and quickly.
And I'm sure this won't be classified as a monopoly by most pro MS marketing people or enthusiasts, and government will have a committee study it, forever.
Uhh, we need internet version 2, and yesterday, or the net is just going to be another cable TV monopoly deal. I sorta thought that would happen anyway, to be honest, I figured eventually you would just get one whopper bill a month, and "the net" would be more along "somebody's net you pay access to", sort of like telephony is now, package deals, the rest off limites unless you pay "more". An "AOL with a license to print laws and money" type of deal.
Hey! Still kinda nice to be enjoying the wild, wild west days of the internet, yes?
"They disabled last access time updating under windows. They didn't under Linux. This is enough to account for these differences, I suspect."
Ok, you have a hypothesis. That's the first step.
Now prove whether it is true or not. Otherwise you are simply following a pattern of Argument by Assertion.
http://www.io.com/~jwtlai/illogic.html
This is a particularly easy argument for you to back up, since we are talking about something which can be measure objectively rather than just an opinion.
But did anyone give this link here that says MS could be fined theoretically 2.2 Trillion for this security breach?
I say run that "Lets split up MS into 3 parts" settlement by them again and watch them enthuse greatly over how such a good idea it is if we forget about this passport fine.
I read this article just before eating lunch. Then, upon returning to the computer, a thought hit me.
... and given Microsoft's track record with using things such as bug reports as PR opportunities, I would consider it a possibility. (Maybe not a extra big possibility, but a possibility nonetheless.)
The benchmark could have been very, very rigged.
They Windows 2003 version used was Release Candidate 2. Now, while I know this was public beta software, it is possible Microsoft specifically engineered the software used to be "very good" at short burst file serving (e.g. what this test tested), at the expese of other server tasks or long term stability. When people run the test with the release version and get completely disparate results, Microsoft can say "Oh, we must have changed the code to fix X problem that in some way altered your results."
Very sneaky, very very underhanded
Do you like Japanese imports?
In addition, note that the performance of Windows 2003 server varied a whole lot depending on the number of users, processors, etc. while the Linux boxes stayed relatively steady and relatively consistent.
/etc/fstab, as you allude to in your message.
That tells me that Linux is really the better performer and the only reason its running slower is some artificial performance limitation, like the absence of setting the 'noatime' directive in the mount options in
Also, what file system was in use? I don't have Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1, but I'll bet it installs ext3 by default, rather than the higher performance reiserfs or xfs. Now, I wouldn't install xfs, it's too unstable, but reiserfs has good performance along with rock-solid reliability on 2.4.18 and later. ext3 is slllloooowwww.. mostly because it journals metadata *and* data, while reiserfs only journals metadata and uses B* trees.
My journal has hot
But a seemingly innocuous thing such as a routine Microsoft maintenance patch should be a no-brainer, right? Wrong, as I had found out.
The slow-Outlook problem I described is purely a Microsoft issue; but the patch could just as easily have had something in it that would gum up the multimillion-dollar custom-designed software package that the IT guy's department had spent the previous 18 months designing, installing and tweaking in the corporation where he works.
I can understand being slow *and careful* when upgrading service packs (Hello, Win2K SP3 and Automatic Update Feature!), but hesistating on Security Patches because of 'custom designed software' is foolish.
Does that 'custom designed software' open my users and/or network to known vunerabilities just to work? And why would _I_ install software on _my_ system and downgrade the security of my system? Shouldn't it be up to the SW company to provide security on its own?
Critical patches are paramount on the system I work on, regardless. What was the last mainstream 'Oh My God! Your system is open to attack' news item -- on a M$ vunerability that had a ptach available three years ago??
Unless the SW company stood behind the security of *its* software for *its* customers (or correct the code in the first place), then they would _not_ have me or any of my users as customers.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Last year, I had three different computing environments: Home, University, and (part-time) professional programming.
The university was a unix environment administered by smart admins, who while draconian at times, would apologise weeks in advance for downtime.
At home, I had several linux boxen administered by a guy whose sysadmin skill were at best lacking -- me.
Unfortunately, the company saw fit to make that same sysadmin take care of installing software on my windows box.
I'll let you guess which of these enviroments was the most stable and productive. My linux box sure looks nice, but it crashed twice on me yesterday.
I can't tell you how many hours of productivity I've lost doing sysadmin stuff on windows: installing oracle, deinstalling oracle, connecting to team streams, applying patches...
It boggles my mind that people WANT to do that sort of stuff.
Why can't we moderate the stories themselves? I'd moderate this obnoxious and unprofessional.
Hmmm... I wonder why Slashdot posted a "technical" article by a fellow who believes his PC was designed to run mainframe applications? OK, all sarcasm aside why is this guy writing this? Who is his audience? Surely MS administrators have known not to let MS software be installed willy nilly since (at least) NT Service Pack 4.0 (look it up, it's a hoot).
the image of a mime trapped in a glass box.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Considering you rarely need any support with Windows
As someone who supports windows users, I laugh at that statement!
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
those ...
- giving money to riaa
- smoking tobako
- driving SUVs?
-
"But deep within Longhorn lurks the Nexus, part of Microsoft's new Next Generation Secure Computing Base system, which is intended to provide a tamper-resistant, private container for data users would rather not share with the world. "
They must have a patent on making things hidden from other people(customers?) or something...
let's ignore that it was commissioned by MS and hope that the testing facility was fair.
The problem is actually not "network tuning" or a number of other things pointed out by people. The problem is that they used a brand new version of windows (and rc2, which has been out for a little while) versus a version of redhat that has been out for at least 7 months. Why is this a problem?
Well, they didn't give the redhat machine the benefits of those 7 months. For instance, you'll note the 2.4.9 kernel. Gee, wasn't there a kernel upgrade in there? To 2.4.18? with scheduling patches or something?
Or lets take the network card. badass card. Problem is that the drivers from that time frame sucked! Indeed, they gave nearly half the bandwidth of the current ones. Take a look at those ratios....
Lets try a patched redhat 9 box against a patched win2k3 box and see how it is. I imagine the results will still have win2k3 on top, but probably not by nearly as much.
In the end of it, this is propoganda, just like redhat or mandrake or suse would do...
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
The same is true for RedHat. There are also hundreds of books written for both. I don't think documentation is an issue you can compare. You espessially can't say windows has "none".
Hardly need support for windows? I don't think so. Since the article is talking about it from a server point of view, so will we. Windows servers are a pain, with many flaws and much to learn to make them even work somewhat well. Sure, they HAVE one-click wizards and such, but when do those ever work flawlessly?
As a linux user, I find setting up the simplest things on linux fairly simple. In fact, setting up some very complex things can be fairly simple. When I first started with linux, some things were very difficult. I've paid $0 for support for linux, and know I'm decently knowledgable.
I've bought books for windows, and setup a few networks, and I still can't get everything working the way I want to. I still have mysterious problems on the network, like someone's account will suddenly not be able to run wordperfect on one particular machine without crashing (but it works fine on any other machine, or with any other accounts), and I can find no explaination. And the people that have been using MS products for years have no explanation.
Your last question here is particuarly interesting. There's a trend in the linux - and OSS, in fact - world to create highly configurable software. This means there's lots of options. Which sometimes means that there's a lot to figure out to get it to work the way you want. The difference here is that you - the user - decides how to make the program work the way you want, instead of the program telling you how to work because that's the only thing it can do.
Microsoft DOES in fact release a lot of patches. If you subscribe to HotFix or whatever they call it, you happen to get more of them and a bit faster, but thats a moot point. The big issue is that linux patches will say exactly what they fix, and possibly even more importantly, include source code. Microsoft patches typically are "Security Update - fixes flaw in program XXX that could allow an attacker to take control of your computer". I'd swear every patch says the same thing. :)
Anyways, a lot of admins are reluctant or slow to apply MS patches. And with good reason, it's a well known fact that often patches will break other things, or cause other unpredicable behaviour. I don't know where you work, but applying a fix to prevent someone from doing some strange non-likely hack to your SQL server that also
Speak before you think
did they run hdparm on the linux machines ???
Actually, I know a LOT of people, both technically inclined and no, who refuse to upgrade to Windows XP, or who have actiively "downgraded" from Windows XP. Most are quite happy to sit on Win2K.
And a lot of those people also have refused to upgrade to Windows Media Player 9 because of the clauses in the EULA that give MS the right to fist you in the ass without your consent.
Right now Joe Sixpack doesn't know or care about thise crap. But that is starting to change. Whether the change will be far-reaching enough soon-enough to make a difference is another thing.
It would not surprise me to see Apple becoming the long-term winner if public resentment of MS continues to grow at the rates I'm seeing.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Strictly speaking a rather large flaw was found in the testing protocols. Now he is going out on a limb with: "This is enough to account for these differences, I suspect." He's bang on with: "They disabled last access time updating under windows. They didn't under Linux."
No, he can't say from that Windows and Linux have equivalent performance under those circumstances. However, neither can MS use these results to confirm Windows superiority. Disabling access time updating is known to be a large optimization for those who can do without it. If that methodology is typical of this study then it's likely that the claimed results are utterly worthless for any conclusion whatsoever.
"New news: a report paid for by Microsoft shows that Windows is a better server than Red Hat. "
What a pantload!
Windows is a superior server for serving up viruses.
I was looking through my firewall logs this morning and there were hundreds of entries such as this.
"Date: 05/08 12:52:09
Name: MS-SQL Worm propagation attempt
Priority: 2
Type: Misc Attack
IP info: 12.103.126.250:1059 -> xx.xx.xx.xx:1434"
Get that M$ crap out of my face. M$ is tra$h.
M$ is nothing but VIRUS CITY.....
Got windows? You've got Virus!
Sure, I remember. I also remember anyone with any sense was looking to get away from Microsoft as fast as they could. Everyone predicted that M$ would simply use this tool to continue the anti-competitive parctices that were making the platform unstable and unusable. Everyone had already bemoaned the dll hell and knew that throwning more stuff into the same pit would bring less stability not more. Now it's in the EULA that you HAVE to let them do this. I'm sooooooo glad, I moved to free software and put up with a few warts that have been fixed.
The lockdown our shill says is so reasonable will not work. His world is steadily contracting, but so is the world his IT managers work in. Microsoft is going to keep tossing dumb stuff like this that breaks their own software even if you completely sell your soul to the beast. Isn't that the reason people bought into Microsoft stuff to begin with, all the programs that were available? The idea was that competition would provide good quality software. Well, where is that competition now? Want to cure your IE browser vulnerabilities? Right, just trie to remove IE. How about Outlook, the source of our shill's woe? All you are left with on M$ is M$, locked down and out. It's no wonder his IT dudes are so edgy. They know, in the end, that they won't be able to keep Microsoft out. As it is, users can "improve" Outlook with colors ...
The closed source software distribution model has been taken to it's ultimate form by M$ and it's a dismal failure. Their passport and DRM junk are last ditch efforts to lock their existing user base in. It's not going to work and much of IT will be destroyed as users exercise the "I'm not buying it." option. Microsoft's clamp downs are due to the inadequacies of their own tools. It's disgusting how they continue to shift the blame onto their users and administrators.
The free software model gives greater system control, stability and user freedom. There's no reason to lock the user down when you give them a trusted and free source of software to chose from. Even if you do decide not to give root to your users, they can still write and install software in their home directories. The whole Star Office program can be installed in a user's home direcory stand alone. Nasties like Gator don't exist in the free software world and they can easily be removed if they are created. All of this with great uptimes too.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Mod this guy up please. He has good points.
...and it looks like their support people have no f*cking idea about it.
I uploaded the messages to my site, just in case you'd like to take a look at them:
http://www.ag0ny.com/misc/mscrawler
My site
Your ideas about reliability and validity are right, but this is the computer marketing world we are talking about not a scientific lab. They just wanted to make sure that they weren't getting completely skewed results on one run and then published them since they got the results they wanted.
It is kind of silly to go to all that work at proving there is a lucrative relationship between lionbridge and MS when it states that the report was paid for by MS on the first page.
Q.
It was an extra link you moron! Not an extra story. But I guess *YOU* didn't bother looking at the links.
My penguin ate my sig
Set up two identical networks (hardware-wise) with a few machines. Let Redhat and Microsoft both make a team of 5 people who get to tweak out their respective networks for a week...benchmark...Microsoft would never agree to this though.
After a quick read of the study, I have the following question(s):
Isn't this more of a test of Samba on RedHat, than RedHat itself? When you talk filesharing on a Windows network, that's pretty much what you're limited to, isn't it?
I mean, if you want a good comparison test, why don't you see how Windows Server 2003 does as an NFS file server? (I know, NFS isn't the best, but I think you get my drift).
Never mind the fact that Microsoft doesn't exactly share their network file sharing protocol with the Samba guys who, if I recall correctly, have mostly reverse engineered things. What's to stop Microsoft from tweaking the protocol to their advantage in a new release, then quickly testing it against a version of Samba uses an older non-optimal protocol?
I would if I had time. Setting up that kind of test would take hours though...
What a bullshit survey. They don't say anything about performing any of the standard tweaks to improve throughput or scheduling or anything else...if they pay to do a survey the least they could do is be fair, they chose a box that is more designed for Win3k than anything else...
-AC
Read Slashdot at -1, free your mind.
;^)
More like:
Read Slashdot at -1 = no free time.
I nominate Bill Gate$ as the new "Homeland Security Minister of Information, Love and DRM Czar"
All Hail Gates! All Hail Redmond! Long live Micro$oft!!
from the story:
He has not been unable to get a full refund from either company, said Anthony Lee, his attorney
so if he got a full refund, why's he upset?
This space for rent, inquire within.
What a knee jerk reaction of 99% of slashdotters. To make jokes after reading the story. This isn't funny in the slightest! This is an extremely serious threat to the rights and freedoms of not just people who work on computers but all of humanity! how the hell can you people make jokes when our government allows Microsoft to blatantly lie and cheat and take control like this. This is rediculous. This is uncalled for. Something has to be done. I mean look at "Palladium". Slowly over time they'll enable all the ristrictive features of it. Once 90% or whatever amount of users have it we're f*cken screwed! This ISN'T FUNNY! Something had to be done. Action must be taken. What other way to take the pigs down then to kill them. We must kill them all. Make an army. Bomb them. Destroy the evil. Kill them all.
From the article:
He has not been unable to get a full refund from either company
I just hate it when I'm not unable to do things. Like I wasn't unable to get out of bed this morning.
By default, ext3 does NOT journal data.
And I've seen to many systems screwed up by ReiserFS thank you.
Hmmm, and who's going to lead the Ministry
of Information ?
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
They already have systems designed for things like warehouses -- check out Symbol for some examples. They tend to be very rugged, and quite expensive. Taking a computer into a dirty environment where its used by people who have no real interest in babying it and may drop it onto concrete is harder than it looks. Add in things like moisture extremes, teperature extremes, forklift mounting (lots of shocks), etc, and a regular tablet isn't going to cut it.
I do believe that they will have a lot of use in the softer fields (like home inspection) though.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Best Buy scammed me too but only for $0.01. I was browsing the dvd section with a disk in hand that I was planning to purchase. A store employee handed me a disk saying they were giving *free* demo disks to anyone buying a dvd. I usually decline these sorts of things but for whatever reason that day I just took the disk and proceeded to the checkout. Only when I got home did I discover that I'd been charged a penny for the free demo disk. I didn't bother to go back and complain but the principle of the whole matter really bothered me.
Wow, I feel like I've just entered the no spin zone. LOL
Billg's rsponse to a query about whether the combination of Athena , Palladium and the like
o ry/RTGAM .20030507.gtgatesmay7/BNPrint/Technology/?mainhub= GT
will prevent 3rd party software from running
on this new Windows architecture tells all.
from
http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/st
ome critics and competitors have raised concerns that the technology could be used to reinforce Microsoft's dominance.
Secure documents created in Microsoft Office, for instance, could be unusable on other operating systems or with other office productivity suites.
In the interview, Mr. Gates said it's up to other companies to ensure interoperability.
"I don't know what's going to be capable there. I don't do the software on those systems," he said. "I don't hold the keys. If they do the implementation, then it's like saying they have the same features as every other thing we do in Windows. It's up to them."
Just like at the DOJ testimony , poor Bill he
don't know "nuthin".
I wonder if they also try to get away with this on Credit Cards, and/or how many debit customers they nail.
For me personally, I don't check my debit as regularly as my Credit Cards, and I don't get nice itemized statements at the end of the month etc. I think this applies to a lot of people. I pay close enough attention to my balance to catch any large charges... but small ones would probably be lost in the series of service charges that I incur on a regular basis.
Debit is a great scam, since few people watch every nickel. My bank is very guilty of overcharging, when they're supposed to not charge for accounts with a certain balance or up to a certain amount etc. They're also good at changing debit policies w/o notification, and then resetting accounts to the policy that charges most. I don't care very much right now, I know they do it, but I'm switching to a better bank soon anyways - in which case I'll be watching my balance carefully for odd service charges... and now apparently MSN subscriptions as well.
No it is not funny, but the simple truth is that MICROSOFT IS EVIL.
If you really want an answer please sign in and post back. I find its not really worth my time to give thoughtful answers to anonymous cowards who will probably never return to the thread.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
...to something that's been going on since there have been "tinkerers" and "the public."
There have always been, and always will be, Those who Know (how to tinker) and Those who Do Not Know (and, in many cases, don't seem to want to know) how to work with computer innards, or solder, or build electronic kits, or even design their own stuff. It's all different levels of the same bar.
An example; Joe and Jane Consumer are thrilled to death about being able to send E-mail with pictures of the kids to granny, but they don't have Clue One about the processes involved, nor do they want one. They're under the belief that any such details are far too messy or complex for their comprehension, even though Joe may have a Ph.d in Astrophysics and Jane in Mathematics.
Belief is a very powerful thing. Far more so than people realize. If you truly believe, in mind and spirit, that something is too tough or too complex for you to learn or do, you will not be able to learn or do it, no matter how hard you try, until you completely shed the belief that is holding you back. That's not easy to do either, because a belief that takes root is just as hard to get rid of as a bad infestation of weeds.
As another example, there are those who have at least a basic understanding of computers and networks (I'm talking the SysAdmins and network techs of the world), but that don't have Clue One about the most basic electrical or electronic principles, or how the very hardware they maintain is put together. Mention Ohm's Law to such people, and you would likely get as blank a stare as if you'd said "The Internet uses TCP/IP protocols" to Joe and Jane. These same admins and techs are just as likely to burn themselves with a soldering iron as they would be to use it right.
There's another tier. Those who take electronics seriously enough to really learn how to work with it, or that know enough about construction practices to be able to design and build a useful circuit, or modify something else to suit their purposes. And there are tiers above that, for those that are (or were, in times past) pioneers in the sciences (Tesla, Marconi, Bell, etc.)
My point is simple; It all boils down to how much you choose to teach yourself about the world we share, and the tools we use in it. The more you choose to learn, the easier a time you'll have working with those same tools. A high IQ, a dexterous touch, or other physical and mental gifts can help, but you never know what you're truly capable of until you push your OWN limits -- hard!
If you want to be led around by the nose, and don't mind paying for the privilege, then anything Microsoft puts out, hardware or software, will be a good match.
If you would rather be doing the leading, of yourself or others, then you need to learn enough about the hardware and/or software you're working with to do something more sophisticated than click a mouse. Period. Learning may not be easy, or fun (most of the time), but the rewards are usually well worth the effort.
It's all the same dance, folks. It's just a question of whether you want to be a dancer or a musician (or somewhere in between).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
I think you meant...
RedHat: If you can't afford to pay RedHat, it's Linux for God's sake. There're thousands of people on the net willing to help you install Debian, BSD, Gentoo, Mandrake or some other distro that won't charge you out the ass for Eratta support.
This is pure and unadultured bullshit. If you so choose, you can download, install, and update any currently supported RedHat distro for free. You may not get to be first in line to download it, and you may not be able to download it lickity-split, but it's all still there, binaries, source, and errata.
So it's a crime for RedHat to charge money for premium services and support now? I've used RedHat from version 6.0 onwards, and I've never been "charged out the ass" (and the versions I've paid for were reasonably priced, I thought). They're a company out to make money, but you can use their products for free if you like. How is this bad?
/. readers are smart enough to figure out that MS is trying to do is to make computers inobtrusive and pervasive within the home and office.
MS should be thanked for pushing the usability envelope as far as it has since most competetors (including open source) are striving for a MS like interface/functionality in their software packages.
1. The CPU/Motherboard/video/network should be in a non-upgradable box.
2. The OS/application programs should be on a CD-R or download on demand Java applets. This includes a build manager which lets you add/remove packages to the base installation, burn it on CD-R, and then boot up with that OS on a user machine.
3. Data storage should be on an external USB enclosure type hard disk or flash card
This greatly lowers the total IT cost by:
1. Swap out a CPU unit to upgrade a machine/fix a broken one without having to recreate the data
2. OS upgrades are easy as booting off a new CD-R
3. The total cost of such a box would be very low
4. The IT orginization could include any extra software packages required on the CD-R or on the network drive
5. The cost of software would be much lower than a MS OS and MS Office license
Knoppix and a CD-ROM bootable Linux from Scratch will be the ancestors of this.
Yeah, I'm not even a usual view of Enterprise, and this episode really had me gripped. Although, I thought it was a bit of a cheap trick that they would infect the doctor, and he seems to have little trouble finding a way to rid himself of it. Come on, being assimilated is scarier than that. But, I guess they had to have some way to know that they were transmitting a message, 200 years, etc... Either way, still thumbs up overall, in my opinion.
You mean to tell me that Windows is better at serving files over it's own proprietary network protocol than Linux. Gee, I would've thought that a reverse engineered implementation of the SMB protocol would've been much faster!
Newsflash!!! "Linux is a better file server than Windows (when using a non-Windows network file-serving protocol, i.e. NFS)"
In all seriousness, though, I haven't had a chance to test Windows 2003, but all the tests I've done on 98, NT and 2000 show that Samba is much faster at serving up files than Windows. I wonder if they've changed the SMB protocol (yet again).
offtopic, yes. flamebait, no.
First - a lot of this "Linux-bashing" comes from trolls and Microsoft zealots. Which is a shame because most of the issues that fall to this kind of fodder has more than ample room for intelligent discussion of various problems / areas that could be improved.
Secondly - your comments about maturity and being "taken seariously" might cary more weight if you weren't lacing your post with name-calling in the exact style that you criticize.
Finaly - don't like the editors? What... are there no technical sites other than Slashdot to read? Slashdot has always had the current general attitude. Its not a change. I suspect you're here to bitch and play martyr, not discuss.
Sure - I don't like some of the attitude (although I do agree with the general dislike / distrust of Microsoft). There's obviously a growing number that need a bit more education behind their apparent angst. But hey - my managers don't read Slashdot. They read usual trade rags. And there, Linux is being taken seriously. Now days, I get the same level of approval deploying Linux as I would a Solaris or Windows solution.
A bit of a correction here: I don't know about the Compaq pen's in particular, but all Tablet PC's I've seen do not have battery-powered pens.
The pens are in fact passively powered by the Tablet by the electromagnetic field the dispaly projects across the surface of the display. The pens are not terribly complicated, and while they are definitely not regular pens, they will be replacable for around $20. This would probably vary by manufacturer.
The rest of your points are very valid and relevant though, in addition to the high cost of investment currently involved.
I can just imagine this in my /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://xp.us.microsoft.com/home winmain DRM
then:
apt-get update .... ..."
hits
apt-get upgrade
submit? (y/n) y
c: ls
Blue Screen of Death, "module Explorer.exe
Sure, that's how Bill Gates would heal my computer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This Dosen't tell me what Microsoft is up to in anyway that resembles reality, this tells me about a bunch of links in a single post, stuff that's supposedly happened. not the same thing. oh yeah, BTW. I allready know what Microsoft is up to .. they are diversifying into hardware because they *KNOW* windows is ultimately doomed. maybe not just yet... but eventually. Smart ey? HA!HA!HA! Read between the lines.
..that MS pirates had to run their damned computers on in hell.
"Now I want you to implement a Hades-wide CRM/Accounting/Supply-Chain Management app on this platform. You have six days." -- The Devil
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
If you can read German, look here
Or, summarised in English:
1st No updates of RedHat Advanced Server.
2nd No new Samba version.
3rd No new kswapd (should especially speed up performance under high load).
4th Original Samba version got difficulties, used even older ones, but did not ask RedHat for any help.
5th Tuning of Windows using Registry-Key "Disablelastaccess", but did not use corresponding mount-Option "noatime" for the used ext3 file system.
6th ext3 uses a much more sophisticated journaling of the file system, but they did not set the mount option "data=writeback" to have similar conditions.
7th Very old LinUX kernel (over one year old, with known limits of this kernel for high load environments - do you remember all these 2.4.xy problems because of the virtual memory!?).
8th Redhat provides solutions to the most of the described problems, but they did not use these updates or that help.
9th They did not really try to tune Samba and used mostly the default settings.
They used ext3 with the default 4k block size, against ntfs with a 64k block size.
If you are not allowed to comment and moderate within the same discussion, how do you propose someone is supposed *respond first* before they moderate.
Joe with a stable job and plenty of disposable income will buy a new computer with all the bells and whistles. Joe who is afraid of becoming another of those increasingly bad unemployment statistics doesn't want to spend on anything unless his life depends on it. And companies unable to measure risks due to the ambiguous nature of economic data these days won't spend.
Plus, Microsoft did a very good job with 2000. The 9x/ME series were crap, practically unusable compared to the NT series, but 2000 really does anything you want in a much more stable environment. People might actually be satisfied.
I could testify in that court case, should the plaintiff see fit to contact me.
I was set up with a paper trail, and terminated from Best Buy, after refusing to sign up people for MSN without their knowledge.
I worked there during high school.
I worked in computers, and then appliances. I refused to stuff an MSN cd in some old man's bag who didn't even have a PC. It's just wrong.
Boycott Best Buy. There are dozens of other *HORRIBLE* things that they do that they call "Best Practices", because they're not part of the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) they're not "company policy", thus they just deny it.
These "Best Practices" are store/department written, so they'll never get caught.
I have pushed carts to pay my insurance in high school, I would much rather do something like that, than provide a mechanism for things so morally wrong.
Mod this up so maybe slashdot choosing to use another retailer can make a difference!
"We're going to continue to tweak things, and be responsive to the kind of input we're getting from customers," he said.
The input being cold, hard, cash of course. The more money they get, the more they will "respond."
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
I have been having all sorts of problems using Linux as a server. For the first two years everything worked great. I was running 6 servers and not having to pay licensing to M$ for servers.
Well, in the last year I have been pulling my hair out. As new computers got added to the network with WinXP all hell started breaking loose. Long delays opening and closing office documents, false warnings about files being in use by other users, peachtree accounting databases getting corrupt and crashing.
I have not found any useful help, no answers to questions. All the paid services say you need to get the latest version of Samba, update the kernel, etc etc etc. After several samba upgrades and kernel updates, more new problems surfaced. No real solid answers.
Needless to say, I ended up having to pay the MS tax anyway. It was nice to get 2 years out of it, but the stress, downtime, and upset customers was not worth it.
I still use Linux around the house and I still love it, but I'm not going to use it as a server in a comercial invironment anytime soon.
Today - I can make a machine dual boot using something like lilo or grub.
... So I expect people to not to make their machines dual boot.
One one of these future machines I will also be able to, but the Windows that boots will not be 'trusted' (since a non trusted program was in the boot path) and so you won't be able to listen to MP3, view DVD,
Don't expect M$ to admit that this is one of the aims of what they are trying to do.
You are correct that they should have conducted the tests more than twice. That way they could do a true error analysis. Now chances are that the errors would have been low, but they should have done this anyways.
You could be right that there could be a conflict of interest between the two companies. However, your list of institutional shareholders is meaningless. The reason Fidelity and BGI are such large holders of Microsoft is because they run huge index funds. These are funds based on popular indexes, such as S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. Microsoft is part of both indexes (as well as others.) Microsoft's weight in the indexes is determined by its market cap, which of course if very big. Fidelity and BGI run these index funds for 401k plans, pension plans, etc. They are the #1 and #2 financial institutions in America, in terms of how much money they manage. In other words, they may own a billion shares of Microsoft, but its not their money, its other people's money they manage for them, that is being used to buy those shares. Fidelity and BGI are not on the board of directors of Microsoft, even though they may technically own more shares than many of the board members. This is not evidence of bias. They are going to be near the top of any list of institutional investors for any large companies. I would guess that this is also why Morgan Stanley and State Street are such large holders as well.
Ironically you reply about FUD when someone complains that there is not enough documentation. is their fear/uncertainty/doubt unfounded?
... that I long ago stopped using any and all Microsoft products.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
In other news, the once monolithic software giant Microsoft has been forced to make good on prior rulings by the US supreme court, which declared Microsoft an illegal monopoly and a threat to national security. The groundbreaking trial lasted three months, as witness after witness presented evidence on the 874 claims made against the corporation, ranging from freelance programmers whos works had been stolen, to governments and schools who had been forced to submit to Microsofts "bully tactics" with software licensing.
The judgement was effective immediately: All trading by Microsoft is to cease
and the company is to be completely dissolved. At 9am eastern time, all assets held by Microsoft and subsidiaries, including reserves, were confiscated and distributed to the beneficiaries of the Gates Foundation and other charities.
All patents and other Intellectual Property owned by Microsoft Corporation and its subsidiaries which were issued under the old "stop-people-using-it" system are to be released to the Free Software Foundation under the new GPL Patent, preventing the withholding the technology from other developers.
The board of directors and lead programmers of Microsoft, now unemployable in the technology industry, have been offered positions in parking lots and soup kitchens around the country. All other employees have been given redundancy of 1 years salary, and some have already started rebuilding their former businesses which were bought out or squashed by Microsoft over the last twenty years.
This news follows eight years of steadily dwindling interest in Microsoft, as the corporation has not managed to adapt to new markets, insisting on an archaic business model. Their policies on such software as their legacy flagship "Windows" has steadily been replaced with the Open Source business model. Their latest offering, "Windows SX", released six months ago, sold a mere 400 copies.
William Henry Gates III, who has been under house arrest since June for attempting to bribe the Chief Justice with a large Hawiian island, was unavailable for comment.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
A class-action suit has been filed charging that MSN and Best Buy combined to scam customers.
/. Damn I wish I had held out for that GF3.
When I think of best buy and MSN, I think back to 1998 when MSN accidentally left a legal loophole in their marketing plan.
I can't find the story now, but MSN and BB had a promotion going where if you signed up for the MSN service, you got $400 store credit. This was legal in every state EXCEPT california. The San Jose Mercury ran a big story about it, which basically explained the law was created to stop car lots from forcing people to use a certain insurance carrier in exchange for a few dollars knocked off the sticker price.
Well, me and my co-workers took a long lunch that day, headed down to best buy and got our free $400 dollars. Everyone but me bought stuff on the spot, I was smart enough to turn my store credit into gift checks.
Those gift checks sat in my wallet for some time, I was waiting for the latest greatest nvidia card. My wife knew they were in there, and her constant nagging broke down all my defenses until I caved in and let her use them for our new TV.
Unfortunately I spend most of my time in front of this sun monitor tapping away at
The Samba team got a hold of this about a week ago. These benchmarks are a little off.
For instance, they're comparing Win2k3 vs. Samba 2.2.7. We're rather close to the 3.0 release of Samba and the 2.2 base hasn't really been worked on in a long time.
Moreover, RHAS is actually slightly older than RH8.0 (a lot older than RH9.0). That's why the one benchmark with all three systems showed RH8 beating RHAS. I believe that RHAS didn't ship the O(1) scheduler.
I've also heard claims that the real reason behind the difference in throughput was the poor software raid used in the benchmark machines. Had a supported hardware RAID been used, things would have been pretty different.
Not to mention the "tuning" done to the two systems. The socket buffers were tweaked and the file descriptors increased on the linux side while a bunch of strange registry options were set on the Windows side. There could have been a lot more tuning done on the linux side to improve performance.
Of course, what would you expect from a study commissioned by Microsoft. What someone should do is let the Samba team set up a machine and some Microsoft folks set up another machine. Then we'll see who outperforms who.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Honestly? Why do you continue to SUPPORT such actions by working there, and then forcing the unknowing consumer to accept such "flair?"
Maybe its just me, but I couldn't work at a job like that for more than an hour without quitting in disgust, and taking as many customers out with me as possible.
Now I know why Outlook was running so slow. Stupid MS.
And obviously MS's study must be wrong. Because NOTHING could possibly be faster than Linux...
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Again
and again
and again
and again
and again...
"You sank my Jenga ship?! We're playing Connect Four!" [Homestar Runner]
Someone kinda pissed me off once, so I followed him around and pitched him shit for a while. Remember, unless you make your real email address or home URL available, you're totally anonymous on /. If someone wants to look at your comment page and reply to all your comments with some sort of bullshit, it only hurts you if you let it.
I wouldn't get too creeped out about it.
I can see how the data in the benchmarks appear to be a bit skewed, however, how could they make the data "appear" this way? Data is data after all, and if it's wrong, well, it seems as if someone deliberately made it that way. This may be a stupid question -- I know little to nothing about network benchmarks -- but if Microsoft payed for the test, are you implying that they asked for the data to be given a little "nudge" in the right direction as well?
I started to wonder if it's at all possible to be a PhD if you're not the tinkerer type. But in fact I know people with PhDs who are not interested in hacking with computers and OSen. I don't like splitting mankind into A and B class citizens, even if I sometimes believe in that division.
It's probably fairer to say that tinkerers vs. consumers only exist within one discipline, such as computing or physics. The problem is that a single person only has a limited amount of time and other resources, so we have to focus on certain things in our lives. A person can't be a tinkerer in every possible field.
On the other hand, I believe in something called the hacker attitude, or curiosity combined with self confidence. It's something you can apply to whatever you do, no matter what your primary fields of interest are. But you cannot really tinker productively unless you learn and experience some basics of that particular field.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
"Windows is a better server than Red Hat." No, it isn't. But that's not the real story.
The real story is that FreeBSD is a better server than Red Hat and Windows. Come join us on the "red side", resistance is futile!
I noticed a lot of benefit given to microsoft in that test. Comparing w2k3 (not yet released?) with red hat 8 and as2 (both out of date). As others have pointed out, using SAMBA/microsoft networking. What about all those other protocols? Servers usually do http and such. I didn't notice this, but since I'm listing, w2k3 was tuned and redhat wasn't. And of course, microsoft paid for the test. We should have all known that since it was a microsoft test they would win, and be given whatever benefit necissary.
Yeah first 'thrilling' Enterprise in a long while. Kudos for that.
I was hoping, when I learned that the Borg was making an appearance in this episode, that it would turn out that the Borg-cicles were actually the origin of the Borg... Escaping Enterprise at the end, heading towards the Delta Quadrant to rejoin The Collective (who didn't actually exist yet, but how would they know that?) On second thought, they'd assimilate every species between Alpha and Delta, so that just wouldn't work out logically.
As it is, good foreshadowing for the reason The Borg desire EARTH to such a degree 200 years later. That was not really well explained in The Next Generation. Why would Earth and Starfleet matter any more than any other of the thousands of confederations and species in the Milky Way? Now explained.
And perhaps the Borg encounter was so anecdotal to Starfleet Personnel by TNG era that it was long forgotten. Whatever, pointing out glitches in Trek timelines is tatmount to competing in the Special Olympics.
All I know is, if nano-bots aren't a common-place item on Terra by the 22nd century I'll be more than a little bit surprised. Re: "I think these are NA-no bots of some kind!"
6. Reliability - an IT shop can turn around a broken machine in minutes instead of days/hours.
Ideas are not property. Neither or songs, poems, short and long storries.
Rights are things that take positive government action to suppress, speech, prayer and other things that are naturally free. There is no such thing as a right to profit from anything, much less the right to profit from IP. You have the right to say, write or sing as you please. Don't expect your sang somthing will keep others from doing the same.
Your rights of free press and speech are violated by copyright. That's the sort of thing you see in "Communits" countries, an exlusive franchise supposedly to benifit all. It's a compromise that was designed to encourage publications and it was only supposed to work for 14 years, then the work would belong to everyone the same way it would without copyright enforcement. If you would pay for restrictions on your speach and writings without something in return, you are a slave.
DRM'd works offer nothing in return for their protection and do not deserve protection. They don't even live up to the degenerate "fair use" concept.
"IP rights" lead inexorably to communism. If you apply the same concepts to all works, as people try with patent law, what you end up with is a system of big companies enjoying government protection in their exclusive markets. Because these comapnies are "protected" by the government, they are it's creatures and are subject to regulation. Such an economy is communist.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Microsoft has been adamant that the Xbox is and will remain a gaming platform. Period. The knee-jerk reaction to news of additional capabilities, such as voice and music, is "The Xboxes aren't selling as game consoles, so they're trying other applications in hopes of selling more boxes."
This doesn't make much sense when one considers that Microsoft loses money on every Xbox. The bill of materials is $400-$500, and they retail for $200. That difference can't be made up on volume. This business model is to lose money on the consoles but make it back (and then some) on the games, much like the razor/blade model. Games are high-margin products, especially those created in-house, and I would think that the Xbox business case is dependent upon preserving those margins. So pushing the Xbox as an enabler of low-margin services doesn't make much sense. Let's look at those mentioned...
Voice
Sure, Xbox Live voice quality is pretty good. Since Xbox Live requires broadband, it's not tough to obtain toll quality. But why would they want to? There are many reasons why voice over IP hasn't taken off (customers don't want to be tethered to their PCs, long distance is already cheap -- you'd better not be paying more than $0.05/minute for interstate calls), and to my knowledge Xbox Live doesn't have the billing capabilities required for voice services. The article states that Microsoft would move the chat capability to the Xbox Live dashboard, which implies the requirement of an Xbox Live subscription. It's unlikely that this feature would convince consumers to subscribe to Xbox Live. Microsoft would also need VOIP-PSTN gateways, so their customers can call people who don't use an Xbox. Telephone service is complicated. Maybe Microsoft would partner with a company such as Vonage, but they certainly aren't the easiest to work with.
Music
A neat capability, much like the QCast Tuner for the PlayStation 2. Consumers have shown little willingness to pay for this, however, as they're accustomed to free players. Service like Rhapsody and pressplay would undoubtedly benefit from freedom from the shackles of the PC, but their revenue shares are micenuts compared with Microsoft's costs. Given the current crop of LAN-to-stereo bridges, like the AudioTron and the SimpleFi, the Xbox does stand out, but this advantage may be gone in a few months when the likes of Linksys launch its low-cost device.
Movies
One of the reasons for Movielink's slow start is the simple fact that most consumers prefer to watch movies on their TVs, not their PCs. This problem is defeated with the Xbox in the mix, as it enables high-quality video output to the TV. Perhaps Microsoft plans to download the top 3-4 pay per view movies to the Xbox hard drive each night (Movielink movies are 500-600MB each, so they would easily fit on the 8-9GB Xbox HDD), so when the consumer chooses a popular movie playback begins immediately. The margins on this business are low, too. And Microsoft will compete with existing TV-based PPV and Video on Demand, which is slowly rolling out to cable systems. This makes a tough market even tougher.
Summary
Low margin + low penetration services will not lift the Xbox to profitability. Great games will. Strong Xbox Live games will give customers a reason to pay $9.95 a month for the service. Hopefully the EA/AOL exclusivity deal will end soon, so Xbox can benefit from good sports titles. Until the games improve, Microsoft is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. They have the cash to be patient, however.
Disclaimer: I work fo
Say a customer buys a computer at Best Buy, they automatically get 6 free months (if they pay with a credit card or major debit). If the customer doesn't sign on and activate that account, they never get billed. However, even if they sign on just once, even for just 30 seconds, they have to call and cancel the account.
I got a laptop at Best Buy last fall, and (stupidly) accepted the MSN service. I never once took the CD out of its case, but 6 months later, they billed my credit card.
In my case, though, the Best Buy employee warned me that I would be billed, so I have no grounds for action. But I was still rather ticked off that MSN didn't notify my in any way when they started billing me. That's just dirty, even when the sales rep warns you.
You guys post far more Windows stories than Mac stories or almost any other "kind" of story. Why not just make a Windows "section" like YRO or Apple?
Go on do it!
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
also the iLoo, although that hasn't stopped you from submitting stories about it, oh no.
Translated:
"I'm posting a dup, but it's YOUR fault! God forbid it be MY responsibility to check for duplicates when you people send the same item so goddamn much! Work? Fuck off, I'm here to forward your shit through like an automaton."
I don't think so, I used to work for best buy. When a customer gets a free trial of MSN, they have to choose a username IN THE STORE, and press confirm on about 2-3 different screens at the register. That should be a big hint that you are signing up for service. They also scan their own credit card and the screen CLEARLY states what they are signing up for. Suing someone because you are a complete idiot and cannot read is not vaild.
Read Microsoft Aims for Protection--From Users
NSA+KGB+CIA = NGSCB.
From the Transcript of Internet Caucus Panel Discussion. Re: Administration's new encryption policy. Rep. Curt Weldon's statement
Read all of Curt Weldon's statement.
Attestation Monopoly
Microsoft's NGSCB model for DRM content management grants Microsoft effective root digital certificate control over both software and content. It would be a monopoly even stronger than Microsoft's existing desktop dominance. Just as with Microsoft's proprietary file formats and protocols, the network effect would result in any non-dominate player or vendor facing too great a barrier to provide effective monopoly negating free-market competition.
Loss of Fair Use Rights and doctrine of First Sale
Microsoft's NGSCB DRM model also grants content providers far too much restrictive power. For example, in the USA and in most of the world, you are legally allowed to tape broadcast content for later replay ( timeshifting ), gathering evidence for making a complaint, or legitmate research. The DRM model can be used by content providers to circumvent these legal rights. Also if Microsoft or the Codec developer drops support for a format or even a particular digital key, all that content "protected" by that methord or key becomes unreadable.
The DRM model circumvents the Doctrine of First Sale, by side shifting content from being "goods" into a so-called service. When I purchase a DVD, I own that particular physical instance of that DVD and the right to view the content on it. I expect to be able to play that DVD in any DVD player I choose to, including the DVD drive in my Linux system. Also when I have finished viewing that DVD, I expect to be able to pass or even resell that DVD to any party I choose. I might even give that DVD to my local library, and I am legally entitled to do so. As DMCA protected CSS DVDs already limits what you can do with a DVD, Microsoft's plans for DRM span well beyond pure downloaded digital content.
Microsoft could even make instances of digital downloaded copies tranferable with the same Fair Use rights that you would expect from physical books or DVDs, but chooses not to.
It's all about control and under Microsoft's current model it's definately not where do you want to go today or tommorrow.
I used to work at Future Shop (Canada's version of Best Buy before BS bought out FS).
With regards to the $0.01 charge, and scanning of free items, both cashiers/salespeople were telling the partial truth. It is used for inventory purposes (and the system does not allow you to scan an item for $0.00 dollars, hence they charge a penny).
However, in some cases, like the MSN thing (FS did not offer it since it was not available in Canada at the time), the cashiers may not necessarily be to blame IF they were not aware that the customer was also being signed up, since they are just following the instructions set by management *where as the salespeople are better informed about things like this), but I do agree that Best Buy is probably to blame (I say probably because I have never worked for or shopped at Best Buy, my only experiences are with Future Shop).
Anyways, just my two cents.
Although I must agree that Windows 2003 is much better than Windows NT/2000, I still cannot say if it has really surpassed Linux. It can even be near, but probably not better.
The test says that they set the send/recv buffer to 16k. Well, I use BSD so for me it's common to tweak these features, and on Linux, when you need a really optimized server, guess, you has to do optimizations. And 16k is not enough for a file server standing on a gigabit connection, so it will surely slow things down. I wonder if they would redo the tests with the buffer size set to 64k?
IIRC, there have been some problems with the Linux
drivers for Intel networking. Is this a common
experience? Are people having problems with the Intel
pro 1000 MF network adapters under Linux? And what
about drivers for the SmartArray SCSI running on the HP/Compaq boxes? Would I be correct in thinking that at
least some of this is proprietary?
I am prepared to believe that an optimised Windows
system can be significantly faster than a Linux system,
but the difference seems a unreasonably great unless there
were some other factors at work here, IMHO.
Also, I would be really interested in knowing the
kernel build options that were used for the Linux
system and what applications besides Samba were running
on the Linux system. For example, if we are assuming
that this is a pure file server, then it would be
reasonable to be runnning the Linux system in text mode
since Linux doesn't require a GUI to operate.
There are a few questions that need answers as far as I
can see.
-Don
The big difference between windows and redhat redhat ships with a complete set of manuals in electriconic form. (download or not) When you know where they are. Note this is the problem I would love to see the complete mdsn/technet ship with ms windows(even just the parts for just that version).
And if your internet is out for some reason web sites dont help.
I've never seen an accurate benchmarking of Linux Vs Windows yet. They are always skewed in one way. I can always find some tuning that they've done to one of the candidates that they've not done to the other. For example, after about 2 minutes skimming through, I noticed this:
D isablelastaccess and set to 1.
Appendix C. File Server Performance Tuning
Windows Server 2003:
[stuff]
Created HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/FileSystem/
(I can never find backslash on my japanese keyboard, hahahaha)
But there wasn't a corresponding change to the filesystem mount options in linux. Therefore atime was getting updated on Linux and not on Windows! That would make a very large difference!
I'm not a Linux bigot by any means but that kind of blatant lopsided testing gets up my nose.
This problem is huge in the field of realtime embedded process control systems. My Employer spends lots of money and has dozens of patents on technology to make such systems more deterministic and predictable. You would be amazed at the lengths to which a designer must go to get even close.
If you're running any kind of test on a software platform, you've got to run that test dozens if not hundreds of times in order to have enough information to weed out the effects of other threads that might be running on the machine, the server, and even the effects of traffic that may be emanating from other machines on the network. It is furthermore insufficient to collect information on only one variable. Throwing the test bed against the wall and measuring the throughput alone is meaningless. You have to collect realtime data on each machine involved in the test, each switch, each NIC...
You've also got to run those tests at different temperatures (because digital hardware has different error rates at different temperatures), different times of day (if the machines are running something like cron jobs, and the test document did not say these were disabled), and through variances in many other factors in order to gain reliable and valid data.
So, in summary, if you're in your grade school science lab measuring the spatial dimensions of a 2x4, twice is probably enough because there aren't many factors that could affect the information you're trying to obtain. However, if you have 240 computers on a network, all talking to one machine, there are plenty of areas where minute variances in behavior of just one or a few of the clients can cause profound effects on the server. So it is more like a social science in the sense that statistically significant data is not easy to obtain.
And on your comments about the business relationships: it would be one thing for Microsoft to have paid some lab to do the test. It's quite another when MicroSoft and the Lab's parent company are so deeply in bed together that the benefit of the doubt disappears completely.
What would be really interesting to know is if Bill Gates and/or his cronies own big shares of LionBridge. I'm not sure how to find that info, though..
"What could we use instead of "Turn on the fun." to lampoon Best Buy. "
"Turn on the [money] siphon"
My Cynicism meter right now is reading "Oh, none at all".
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
You're full of shit: (1) I've applied every Windows Update to date on my XP box and never onve had my home page changed. (2) Windows Updates are automatic ONLY IF YOU LET THEM BE. I for one have turned them off so I can review and apply them by hand -- it's easy enough to do.
When Kim asked why the compact disc had been scanned, the employee allegedly said it was to keep track of inventory. But Best Buy apparently sent Kim's debit card information to Microsoft, which activated an MSN service account in his name without telling him, the lawsuit said.
I can tell you right now that Best Buy's Point of Sale system isn't that slick. In order for an MSN Chargeable Account to be created, a 'Scrip' must be processed during the transaction, which is essentially filling out an electronic form. At the end of the Scrip process, the customer's credit card must be swiped, and the customer is told on a miniature LCD screen (a few times actually) that they are signing up for an MSN account. A few of these screens include choosing a screen name, confirming an address, and signing the MSN EULA after the credit card has been run through the LCD device. This is BEFORE the transaction is copmleted. Once the Scrip has been processed, the customer pays for what they are purchasing and the order is completed.
To sum all this up, it would be very diffucult for Best Buy or MSN to create a scam like this, becuase the system was created to let customers know many times that they are signing up for an MSN account and unless a username, credit card, and customer information is entered in during the Scrip process, an account is not created (I mean, come on, MSN isn't going to create accounts without getting a credit card number and a billing address first).
So, I could see two possibilities from which came this outcome. Either the register people were highly trained to decieve customers, convincing them they need to swipe their credit card twice and give out a billable address (comming from someone who works in retail, this is easier said than done. Also, if Best Buy found out their employees were following this deceptive practice, they'd fire everyone involved immediately). Or, the customer who sparked this lawsuit knew at least vaguely what he was getting himself into and decided that this was a good opportunity to make a little money through legal ventures.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see MSN get sued over something, as they've decieved people before (like advertising fast and reliable connectivity when in truth they could give two craps about the quality of connectivity, especially back in the days of those $400/4 Year Contract agreements), but this is one lawsuit that won't go anywhere.
XFS is unstable? That's the first time I've heard that said about XFS. Are you speaking from personal experience, or just quoting what you've heard? If the former, I would like to hear what the problem was, since I use xfs on production systems, and would like to be aware of any potential pitfalls.
My own personal experience with XFS so far has been stellar. It also reportedly scales better on SMP than any other available linux filesystem, which should have made it possibly the best alternative in the 8-way test, though I've never personally run it on anything with more than 2 cpu's, so i can't vouch for that.
Reiserfs, on the other hand, is the only linux FS which i have repeatedly had problems with. I've had fs corruption resulting in loss of data several times, although that was quite a few kernel releases ago.
Fairly recently, however, I had a kernel crash in reiserfs when a timeout on a SCSI command caused a SCSI bus reset. This is the ONLY time I have ever seen a "production" linux kernel crash on a server.
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Prison is opportunity."
Having used Windows from 3.1 onwards i would say that with the release of windows XP microsoft are actually getting the idea of what they are meant to do, create a secure, stable easy to use operating system
.NET server 2003 settings using the control panel from windows 2
:)
windows XP is Reliable and easy to use, if you are a more advanced user it is easy to secure it without using a firewall, closing all the default ports including 135 RPC
Nicrosoft makes the easiest to use operating systems with each operating system having a similar layout to the ones previous thus making it easier to use for previous and new users alike
things such as the api change a lot but other parts of the API dont, you can change some windows XP and
Hope this helps to enlighten you a bit
The factors you bring up are simply not signifigant towards the results. I've been doing stress testing of internal applications for my employer for a while now. I don't know much about testing embedded systems, but I do know enterprise systems.
The issues you bring up might result in a variation in results in the order of 1%. That's just not statistically signifigant for the purpose of this test.
"And on your comments about the business relationships: it would be one thing for Microsoft to have paid some lab to do the test. It's quite another when MicroSoft and the Lab's parent company are so deeply in bed together that the benefit of the doubt disappears completely."
I still see no validity to this claim until you can prove otherwise.
An ounce of data is worth a ton of opinionated flamage. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...but we're never shown the batteries for those, or the actors going `ooh! yow! wha-wha!' and flapping their hands about in the warding-off-burns ritual after shoots featuring them. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing