Slashdot Mirror
Bob Cringely's Predictions For 2005
An anonymous reader writes "Bob Cringley publishes his predictions for developments in the world of IT every year. His latest column contains his predictions for 2005 and a brief look back at his predictions for 2004."
- Microsoft sues
- SPAM increases
- RIAA sues users
Even my Aunt Nellie predicted these to happen!
I'd be interested in what major software is going to take off - spam filters, chat, music?
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
I wonder why guys like Cringley never put their predictions up on Idea Futures Exchange? Maybe its because their predictions aren't that surprising?
Seastead this.
Someone care to explain why we should be so interested in this?
I just logged out to test it, the AC is correct. The newest article shown is one from a bit before noon today.
Now that I'm logged back in, it works fine.
"Microsoft's entry into the anti-virus and anti-spyware businesses will be a disaster for users."
What does Microsoft do that ISN'T a disaster for its users?
Sugapablo
"I wrote that spam would get worse"
"Microsoft would propose proprietary technologies"
"Apple will take a big risk in 2005...though I am at a loss right now for what that might be."
Well at least he goes out on a limb and his predictions aren't vague or anything. If John Edward stops hosting Crossing Over, I know where they can get a new host.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
If the beta release is any indication, it sure looks like MS has a homerun on their hands with the Giant Antispyware application. Everyone I have spoken with has had new, undiscovered apps discovered running on their machine after installing and running the beta.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Nothing earth shattering here. The same old Microsoft and RIAA will perish while desktop linux will make inroads. Then a few other vague things like apple will do something big and voip will become more popular.
I could have just easily said that in north east america, the year will start out cold, get warmer, get hot, get cold, and then finally get really cold. I just wish advertisers would pay me for that.
Because fake little internet futures exchange sites are seriously lame.
with mention of the RIAA. "The music business is a cruel and shallow trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men lie like dogs." - Hunter S. Thompson
from the article: I said Apple wouldn't introduce a G6 in 2004 (right) and wouldn't sell as many G5s as it would like, either (right again). really? this guy must be looking at a different Apple than I am. I follow Apple pretty closely, and there's nothing resembling a post-G5 chip. What is he talking about?
"And today is the day that I will .. AAARRGH!"
He predicted a G6 chip for Apple in 2004 and that Wal-Mart would take away the music download market? Why do people read this guy's column anyway?
Slashdot will continue posting Cringely articles two to three times a month whether or not he has anything worthwhile, interesting or surprising to say, just because it's Cringely.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
4) The Recording Industries Association of America will continue to sue customers while their business slowly dissolves. The big threat here isn't file swapping, but affiliate programs like Apple's iTunes Affiliate Program that I am sure will be shortly copied by all the online music stores. These affiliate programs turn bloggers into shills and blogs into record stores, with the result that record company's last source of power -- marketing clout -- is taken away. This will take time, but it is the beginning of the end for old-style record companies.
I didn't realize iTunes had an affiliate program, but it seems like a logical step. Amazon's been doing this for a long time with music CDs, of course, as have other vendors. While viral marketing is definitely a good way to promote things, I don't see it reducing the record companies' marketing clout. I've posted before about how they used viral marketing to promote Christina Aguilera when she was new. This is just another marketing avenue for them. But really, you still need to reach people who don't read blogs. People still watch TV. Still listen to the radio. Still read magazines and newspapers.
EricWhy is William Shatner's face on my All-Bran?
You mean like Firefox.exe?
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
All they did was buy the company, reskin the program, and turn around and offer it for free. They have not had a chance to screw it up...yet.
If John Edward stops hosting Crossing Over, I know where they can get a new host.
Please God -- let there never be another John Edward.
Crossing Over must die, and never again be channeled to the living!
-kgj
-kgj
FTA:"I predicted that all kinds of software companies would abandon support for older products, thus forcing us to upgrade to new operating systems and new hardware. Bingo." This is a prediction? why?
I predict that Cringely will be way off at the end of '05.
There, now where is my $8,000 journalism compensation?
Table-ized A.I.
But can microsoft keep up with the rate of mutation in the spyware/worm/virus category?
Microsoft certainly has a head start in heuristically detecting things (after all, they're the only people who know what all the random gibberish in the registry means, or whether mswin03.dll really belongs in 2003 server's windows directory), but I suspect that their heuristics are only going to get them so far, and that the people who wrote spyware that worked so hard to keep the other players from finding it are going to figure out how MS found them and "fix" it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Expect some big hobbling of VOIP, at least for John. Q. Public.
I predicted that all kinds of software companies would abandon support for older products, thus forcing us to upgrade to new operating systems and new hardware. Bingo.
We've all grown accustomed to Bob's vagueness in these predictions, but here he doesn't even list any examples to support the veracity of his already vague (and super-obvious) prediction. -Joe
and how many MS beta releases have not had feature removals and other de-improvements before final release?
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1743742,00.as p
especially about the future.
Worthless punting by Cringely - obvious predictions about obvious things, useless predictions about useless things. Just like a "Best of year X", everybody needs to do a "Predictions for year X+1" - and Cringely's predictions are as good as anyone else's (i.e. worthless).
Cool, but useless.
That's beacause Microsoft BOUGHT the program from another company. Which proves that Microsoft can't create, they can just buy...buy...buy... And charge lots of money, too.
2005 or 206
Foresight exchange is not fake; if you predict the future, you win, elsewise, you lose. I'm losing right now, because i thought GBStock was the same as Bush04 for some reason. Have I been trolled?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
This guy sounds like a pompous, arrogant, moron. I predict he will sound like a pompous self-aggrandizing moron in 2005.
It also detects lots of legit apps as spyware.... From our own testing.
"The sex symbol, airplane enthusiast and adventurer continues to write about personal computers and has an active consulting business in Silicon Valley, selling his cybersoul to the highest bidder." On his about page. Don't know if I agree with that first part, heh.
- Apple will patent colors, making beelions on royalties
- Jobs distortion field will become reality, and vice-versa
- Apple will finally buy apple records and be done with it
- '05 will be the year of the G5 and '06 the year of the G6. As a consequence of the distortion field, this century will be known as the G century.
To whatever device 'techn-uh-logy' spreads, virii and worms are sure to follow.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
tions will be between 50 and 75%. :0)
Seriously, though, 73% is a pretty poor prediction accuracy. Think about it, if you predicted outcomes of events at random as binary answers, you'd get 50% "accuracy".
Slashdot will still not have a Cringely category, even though nearly every week his stories get greenlighted.
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
The Giant spyware application nukes stuff the other vendors decided was benign. For example, there are a bunch of tool-bar and assistants that are on their own safe, but can and will install other applications if not instructed otherwise by the user. AdAware won't nuke those; It nukes the spyware they can install, however.
This is where the majority of the "Wow, I found spyware!" factor comes from.
It also makes a bigger deal out of wiping files after the spyware has been nuked. AdAware and SpyBot leave the odd DLL, the odd this, the odd that lying about from time to time. The spyware is gone (It neither runs nor is capable of running) but Giant will claim this as an infection and bitch at the user that they have SPYWARE, when in fact they have an unusable dll stub in their windows directory.
.sig: Now legally binding!
- Linux on the Desktop
Been predicted over and over again, but "major inroads"? Linux will grow gradually, but I can't see how he missed a glaring hole: Linux wireless support. My prediction for 2005 would have been wireless drivers for Linux that work just as easily as the built in networking drivers we have now. THEN you can start talking about major inroads, especially on laptops (which I think Linux is more suitable for than the Desktop).
Just my 2 cents.
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
They have a nice keyboard design.
I use one on my Linux box. It works great.
I don't have carpel tunnel now.
I just want to give credit where credit is due.
Someone will probably post that they didn't design it.
It is still a good keyboard.
Although I doubt we'll see it, whether we see it or not, I'm going to make the bold prediction that in 2005, Slashdot users will continue to complain that Apple hardware is too expensive.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
Sorry, that one won't fly.
Linspire is grabage, worse than pure M$.
With it's glaring security failures and it running already flakey M$ apps, it's doomed to fail. I hope Linspire goes the way of the Dodo and soon. I know people who tried it and were so turned off by that they said they will never again even consider trying any other Linux distro. It's such a poor product that the company should be sued and the big shots do the perp walk..
Do you want accurate predictions or fantasy?
Here's my easy prediction: Aliens will land from Alpha-centari, buy Apple, release a new L-Mac that comes with Linux pre-installed, and it'll put Microsoft out of business. Tune in in twelve months to see how right I was.
Bob Cringley, on the other hand, will be right 75-80% of the time (and I hope he is on his loss-leader Mac product prediction).
Sam
I'd like to be the counterexample to your assertion; I ran the MS program and found nothing, then immediately afterward, I ran Adaware and Spybot, in that order, and found one file with Adaware and a whopping 19 with Spybot.
The thing that makes me sad is that I kind of like finding spyware on my system, just to make me feel like I'm a kind of savvy Internet user who does what she can to protect her computer, and the much-vaunted Microsoft adware utility didn't give me any satisfaction at all.
Could happen, but the computers are far more valuable to those that write such things as zombies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Spyware seems to have an issue where not everyone sees the same thing as spyware. Which explains why each spyware scanner detects different amounts of spyware... Something that is important here (like spam-filtering) is false positives. A couple people I know mentioned they had a couple odd results from this (like I noticed it found WinPcap of all things as spyware).
I wrote that I would masturbate thinking about myself having sex with myself.
Bingo.
I guess we're safe for another year.
Pshwew!
ICANN taxes all internet domains
P2P makes giant leap forward
SPAM increases then decreases...
if there are N events, that makes for 2^N distinct possibilities. Only 1 will occur. Thus, the chance of guessing right, at random is 2^(-N) * 100%, well below 50%.
Wait a second, just hold everything... Microsoft release buggy, flawed software in a hurry to get the first to market advantage, and then the unscrupulous use those flaws to hijack the computers of hundreds of thousands world wide... then Microsoft PURCHASES THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE to apply band aids to their seeping wounds?
Maybe I'm going mad here, but since they wrote the damned OS in the first place, wouldn't they know best where to apply system patches etc., and wouldn't it be better and faster to get the people that originally developed the OS to fix it up?
But why would they when they can actually charge people for their patches now? Sure its free for now, but not for long, as the EULA states. Not to mention their OS authentication services (which you can turn off, if you buy that line), which their patches ostensibly never mentioned.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I know when someone is trying to pass off horse manure as honey...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
that on January 9, 2006, I will predict that on January 7, 2007 Cringley will predict the same stuff he predicted one year earlier.
:>
p.s. Why is everyone so hooked on Cringley? Did I miss something?
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
I predict that in 2005, stupid fucks will continue to do stupid fucking things.
In january 2006, noone will remember, much less give a rats ass about, what Cringley "predicted" a year prior.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
how about the rise of "commonist" party. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66209,00. html?tw=wn_tophead_1
Would all of this have happened WITHOUT the presence of Microsoft (or some single dominant OS maker)?
If the answer is No, then Microsoft has a legitimate claim to causing all of those things you mentioned. If the answer is Yes, then perhaps Microsoft's ubiquity really hasn't helped the computing world.
I think that for a lot of people here at Slashdot, the answer is Yes, and the computing world would've gotten to where it is today without MS's so-called "help."
My userid is prime!
...your post is a self-fulfilling prophecy, grasshopper!
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
man RXC never ceases to amaze me with asshettery
I said Apple wouldn't introduce a G6 in 2004 (right) and wouldn't sell as many G5s as it would like, either (right again).
Well im sure apple would have *like* to sell 50 G5 macs to every man, woman, child, and house pet on planet earth... Its easy to be right when you leave yourself an ocean to drown in there Bobbo.
Why would I want a dll stub left over in the windows directory?
.ini files and whatnot.
It's like having spider eggs waiting to attach, one day some web app or whatnot calls some obscure function in that dll and my box is owned again.
At the least, it's cruft on my drive I don't want.
I want my anti-spyware tool to remove all of it, all registry entries, every trace of it. And while I'm on it, I want uninstallers to do so to. I'm sick of uninstallers leaving behind empty folders and
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
That's why I said "binary" outcomes. Yes or no. Which is what all his predictions boil down to, ultimately.
My karma will drop to a new low and create a black hole on Slashdot, not even letting the +50's escape.
He gets a lot of page veiws, thanks to slashdot. My prediction: he keeps his job because people read him, and pbs is not exactly capitalist anyway. btw news hour with jim lehrer kicks some serious ass (the only fair and balenced news you can get). just make sure to have some sort of background techno beat playing to keep you awake for it.
They are all going to go out and buy Macs because 1) they have decided that Macs are cool, 2) that Macs are BSD under the hood means it runs all of their stuff, and they prefer BSD to Linux given the choice, 3) they have funds to pay for it and always wanted a Mac anyway.
Probably because anyone with half a brain can RTFA and come to the same conclusion -- Cringely's a doofus, and those predictions are mostly pretty obvious.
March 2003: http://www.thinksecret.com/news/tsnotes.html
December 2004: http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0412expo3.html
Mee too :-D
heh, I just love when every single comment is mocking the article Especially the ones that totally tear it appart, like the whole G6 thing heh Slashdotter's kinda evil but hey it's a dog eat dog world anyways ya I agree that I hope few future slashdot articles have the importance of this one oh ya and my prediction is that google will introduce at least one new product in 2005, I'll bet on that too, heh
Signatures are so 90s
Appearantly you've not tried it yourself. There are no MS apps that come with it. While I understand what you are saying about some security issues relating to root access, I have installed Linspire 4.5, on multiple machines and found it to be easy to install, easy to add/remove applications to and found it to be quite serviceable. You can easily add users so as to avoid running as root.
I've really got to give Michael Roberts a lot of credit for his attempt to get the average user away from the grips of Microsoft, spam, viruses and malware. When my son's P4 HP Pavilion ground to a halt with malware, I loaned him an old PII-266 running Linspire 4.5 while I roto-rootered his Windows machine. He and his wife were able to start using it for surfing and e-mail with about 2 minutes training. It worked just fine with winmodem for dialup access, too. Now I'm having trouble getting it back from him.
I'm currently running SuSE 9.2 myself and have experience with RedHat, Fedora, Mandrake, Knoppix and Xandros as well as Linspire. No Linspire doesn't have as much geek appeal, but it's a reasonably good product IMHO. Oh, and no, I have no affiliation with Linspire in any way other than as someone who's tried it.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
In the case of SGI, at least, you've kinda got that wrong. While it's true that SGI did at one time have an interest in selling cheap desktop computers with Linux on them, that died pretty quickly when they realized that lots of other people were also doing same.
No, SGI took Linux because it enabled them to get a mostly-sorta-source-code-compatible operating system up and running on IA-64 more quickly than they could have if they'd ported IRIX.
Apple, on the other hand, went with BSD because that's what NEXTSTEP was based on, and I believe NEXTSTEP pre-dated Linux by quite a ways. Or at least it pre-dated useful Linux. The fact that BSD didn't have lots of nasty IP-related entanglements the way Linux does was, in my totally inexpert opinion, more of a lucky break than conscious design.
The Second Coming of Timothy McVeigh might not happen but then if I can match Cringley's stellar record, who gives a shit?
Seastead this.
You can tell they just got a few source graphics and threw the Microsoft logo in, the color scheme does not work at all.
Microsoft's entry into the anti-virus and anti-spyware businesses will be a disaster for users. This is based on everything I know about Microsoft, having watched the company for almost 28 years.
--Gee, why haven't more people noticed this trend!?
Carrying over from last year, I predict that Burst.com will beat Microsoft in their current lawsuit...Microsoft DID violate their patents, DID violate Burst's non-disclosure agreement, DID attempt to illegally put them out of business, and DID attempt to control the market.
--Don't strain yourself on this one, Bob...
The Recording Industries Association of America will continue to sue customers while their business slowly dissolves.
--That crystal ball of yours is really smoking now...
Sony's PS3 will be delayed yet again, giving a real advantage to xBox2 IF Microsoft can get it out the door this year in volume.
--Consoles? Delayed?? Are you fucking kidding me???
I mean COME ON NOW. Aside from the fact that we're "predicting" the glaringly obvious, how can you call it a prediction to begin with if you're building escape clasues into half your statements?! "Well, the market will crash... IF stock prices fall and IF frogs fall from the sky." Honestly, I can go to the fair grounds palm reader for this crap...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
cringely claims a lot of things, but you shouldn't always believe him.
Why? Because if it turns into a part of their security center, and becomes standard on all windows machines, it will have a nice big target on its forehead.
That means, all these spyware writing scumbags are going to put the majority of their efforts into coming up with ways to circumvent this particular program so they can continue to scrounge for dollars at others expense.
With MS anti-spyware becoming the "main target" that will cut some slack off the other anti-spyware programs. Allowing all of us, who have been using a mix of various anti-spyware programs to have an even easier time combating whatever new comes down the pipe.
Besides, even if MS anti-virus and anti-spyware never proves to be exceptionally good, something is better than nothing for all those average joe users who don't use anything at all. And, it's their totally unprotected systems that are making life harder for the rest of us who know what we are doing. Better some cruddy protection than nothing at all. The rest of us will just turn it off, use our softwear of choice, and have a little more breathing room because of it.
So yeah, I agree with this guy's nebulous predictions that MS's protection products will fail. Not because the underlying softwear is bad, and not because MS won't try and keep it updated, but because they will make themselves into a massive target. But either which way, the rest of us win.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
Not only is this a claim only easy to make because of hindsight, it's also one that could be applied to _any_ of the companies and software heavily involved in the dawn of personal computing - Apple, IBM, Visicalc, etc - it's just as arguable to say that any one of them "could have been someone else".
The lengths people go to so as to avoid giving Microsoft even the tinest amount of credit really is amazing.
I wonder how many weeks (days?) until we see this happen with Microsoft's antispyware app?
duh...
Le français vous intéresse?
..is detected as a threat. On the bright side, though, its default action is to ignore VNC.
1) You have a 50% chance of guessing correctly _ONE_ prediction.
2) You have 25% chance of guessing correctly two predictions.
3) you have 12.5% chance of guessing correctly 3 predictions.
...
n-1) You have 1/2^(n-1) * 100 % chance of guessing correctly n-1 predictions.
n) profits
Yes, I never new that the automatic update feature of my keyboard and mouse software was spyware. I'll never buy a Logitech keyboard/mouse again, and I'll tell my friends.
Also, I'll never use Spybot S&D's immunization feature, because that's spyware too.
Their software has lots of false positives, and their counter is very "bogus" in the way it counts, to make it seem like it finds more. Microsoft have barely touched it, so I can only attribute this to how bad Giant's anti-spyware is.
SSdtIGFzIGJvcmVkIGFzIHlvdSBhcmUK
Wireless isn't the only thing holding back Linux on the Laptop. It needs to have full, native ACPI support as well. Get these working as well as they work in Windows, and Linux becomes a killer mobile OS.
Actually, I can envision all sorts of tablet devices running Linux. LinuxPADD, anyone?
dinner: it's what's for beer
It's January 7, 2004!
I have two of these keyboards. I've never used them with Windows. Used them with Debian on an old Dell, Gentoo on an iMac and OS X on a Power Mac. They are great keyboards... I guess I'm just supporting what I think Microsoft does right!
"I've got to stop masturbating! It makes me too lazy! Stop it, Albert. Stop it." -- Albert Einstein
Cringely says that one third of all internet traffic is from torrents.
Is this true? I have a hard time believing it. I know huge files are transferred via bittorrent, but I don't think that many users are using it.
Any links to support this fact?
was that Cringely would go the way of Jon Katz. Who knew he'd still be showing up in /. articles all these years later?
dinner: it's what's for beer
His predictions are distinct events with binary outcomes. 50% would mean he got half of them right which is what he would statistically get if he assigned outcomes at random (wins/loses, buys/doesn't buy, releases/doesn't release, etc.).
I believe that more obvious predictions were missed -
- The IPod(TM) fad takes a major hit, and by the end of 2005/beginning of 2006, is replaced with something slightly larger than a credit card, (probably with less memory,) possibly with integrated noise cancelling, making the IPod itself "so last year."
- AOL becomes less and less profitable, due to their business model. Later, in 2006, they will become a $9.95/mo (unlimited) ISP with instant sign up and be on path to dominate the ISP market.
- The discovery of a widespread major security problem (such as a back-door with root access,) resulting from a trojan/worm/drive-by-download will convince most major corporation IT departments to require Mozilla/Firefox rather than IE, and explore alternatives to Outlook. This will end the requirement to run Windows for these applications, but the de-facto standard of Office will still lock the corporations into Windows.
Just guessing, but the trends seem obvious.
I definitely think Microsoft deserves credit for popularizing computer usage. But I think that's more a function of Microsoft's marketting than their technology.
(I'm putting myself out on a limb here, but) Microsoft got their really big break with Windows 95, when their marketting department actually managed to make an operating system release an event. Before Windows 95, Microsoft was just another operating systems vendor, with an inferior product than the competition, but one that proved relatively suitable for mundane tasks like word processing -- it was an acceptable solution for small businesses. Windows 95 (and the ensuing Bill Gates mania) made Microsoft a household name.
After all, I am strangely colored.
The thing that makes me sad is that I kind of like finding spyware on my system, just to make me feel like I'm a kind of savvy Internet user who does what she can to protect her computer
I'm so torn between making a woman hacker joke and trying to be polite.
Actually, it was an easy decision.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Everyone here always idolizes Cringely but no one seems to want to acknowledge that he is just another babbling commenetator claiming to be someone he isn't.
Wifi vendors are reluctant to release drivers because adapters are actually programable radio devices. Someone so inclined, and with the source, go out and jam police and fire communication systems. The FCC wouldn't like that and the manufacturers would probably get sued.
Predict that a lot of people will get it wrong this year.
There are still over 100 million PC's in use in the world. That's 10%. And that assumes the PC market doesn't grow at the same time. Plus you need to convince everyone out there that the software in the stores will run on their Mac. It won't. Try to find lots of Mac software at say, Best Buy. Or Wal-Mart. Won't happen. Apple might sell the unit for $100 as Cringe predicted, but all it will do is win over current Mac users who want another unit for their kids or living room or something.
Apple, IBM, Visicalc, etc - it's just as arguable to say that any one of them "could have been someone else".
Yes it really could have been someone else. There were so many players in th 1980s that any one of those companies could have vanished and the computer industry would still be, more or less, what it is today.
Wow! Great link! Someone needs to mod your original post up to +5 - Informative.
Microsoft or Sunbelt Software Systems? I doubt this is a serious issue with Microsoft.
Konqueror is bundled with KDE, but can run outside KDE. I've used it under IceWM and it works beautifully there.
Also, the KDE KHTML engine also powers Apple's Safari browser. This has been good not only for Apple, but for KHTML and Konqui because Apple has been contributing back to KHTML.
I wish Konqui was as good at rendering pages as Firefox is. However, Konqui wipes the floor with IE, anyday. The KDE people should strongly consider a port to Windows and get in on the fun of giving IE the beatdown it deserves.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I predict that Windows users will continue to not update or perform even the most basic maintenance on their machines leading to an increase of bitching about Windows. I further predict that no Linux distro will be able to be dumbed down enough to keep these folks productive and out of trouble.
1.) Edit the apt sources list to include "kosher" Debian repositories. http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ is a repository which is good and fast, to give but one example. So is USC's. I suggest putting links to testing and unstable (don't be afraid of unstable...Debian's idea of "unstable" is way different than, for example, Fedora's idea of "unstable.") and both main and contrib. Add non-free and non-us if desired.
2.) #apt-get update
3.) #apt-get dist-upgrade
4.) Reboot after the dist-upgrade finishes.
Revel in your brand spanking new Debian install, which has been thoroughly cleansed of Linspireness. Never reinstall again. Be happy.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Market follows trend, movie at 11.
I first read that as "John Edwards", and it scared the living sh*t out of me!
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
In #15 he mentions Sony's Playstation 3 "will be delayed yet again". Huh?
This would be my prediction for the big Apple "risk". I would love to see this happen :)
:p
It has already started:
iFolder from Novell http://www.ifolder.com/
They have already started using the "i"
/TTT
Listen, dumbass, while I may enjoy finding the occasional tracking cookie, the fact is that I use Mozilla and am in general pretty paranoid about what I'll let onto my computer, just like any other sane person (as opposed to my idiot boyfriend, who stubbornly uses IE despite all his friends' adminitions to do otherwise). I like finding spyware on my system because it means the software's working, and I'm sure many male hackers secretly enjoy the chase as much as I do, but it doesn't happen too often.
/. is annoying sometimes. But I guess I brought it on myself by revealing my own shameful femininity.
God,
Some of his video game predictions are preaching the obvious. For example, his prediction about Sony "delaying" the Playstation 3. Sony doesn't intend to relesae their next system this year domestically. It's possible although unlikely the Playstation 3 will be released in Japan this year. But it's more than likely to be released in Japan in March 2006 (just before the end of the fiscal year) and in North America the following Fall. He also claimed the Xbox 2 was delayed which is fascinating since like the Playstation 3, it was never planned to be released in 2004, even Microsoft is sharp enough to realize that releasing a followup platform three years after the release of their last system is a disaster in the making.
Seriously, is it just me or does apple hardware seem to decline in price _extremely_ slowly over time?
I guess that's a good thing, 'cause it's reliable and all. But still. I want to be able to afford a mac!
cos none of us give two fucks bout his 0pinions.
MS's Anti-Spyware could be compromised, since everyone will use that as the target. It might be easy for a virus/worm using an exploit to gain priveledges and disable antivirus software before the antivirus can be updated with the definitions, the same could be done with antispyware.
Of course, when it's out of beta, you can bet they'll charge an initial buying fee AND a yearly subscription.
Consider for a moment if you will, that MS will be SELLING an application to cleanup crap that has been installed because of the bugs in their own operating system.
Insanity!
My email addy? should be easy enough.
Everyone I have spoken with has had new, undiscovered apps discovered running on their machine after installing and running the beta.
;-)
Key question: Were those new applications present before installing and running the beta?
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
Already happened.7 49409,00.as p?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000614
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1
My email addy? should be easy enough.
Wow... Cringely predicted that spam will increase and software companies would abandon support for old products. Genius. Amazing! How does he do it?
Microsoft's entry into the anti-virus and anti-spyware businesses will be a disaster for users.
Captain obvious strikes again, but I don't know if I'd characterize whatever happens as a disaster. It'll probably actually end up being good in the end as more systems will have homogenous protection in place, but there will be an inherent conflict-of-interest between these products and MS's obsessive approach towards wanting to have their hooks into everything running, so yes, it will be a mess, but you don't need Apple employee #23 who left the company in its early days without taking stock to figure that one out, or any of the other obvious predictions.
A GIRL!!! Your fans list will probably multiply incredible factors now. I could be wrong...
http://www.commaecho.com
It lies. It found 10 "problems" on my machine. 3 were merely programs that have optional spyware in the installer (which I declined and wasn't installed), and the other 7 were rated "high risk" and "critical" (nasty things like CoolWebSearch) but they were actually just a few harmless leftover registry entries from when AdAware and Spybot had previously cleaned my machine. It looked very nice and the warnings sounded very serious but I did not get any actual benefit from running the program, because it did not remove any actual spyware that was missed by AdAware or Spybot. I imagine the situation is much the same with the people you've talked with.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Oh, come on you cunt. I blushed in embarrassment for you just reading that. Running SpyBot doesn't make you a "hacker" dear. It makes you an end user. And, like a chick, you have idolized playing with the boys to the point where your entire experience is a fucking stereotype ... hence "enjoy the chase".
# ipod and mini ipod will be hit by a wave of cheap replacements that both allow you to store/play music AND video. These will integrate with mobile phones (2G).
Well, there were loads of attempts to replace the ipod, and many had colour screens and video. However the integration with the mobile phone was only half hearted and virtually all failed to beat Apple on the sexiness front. Its strange really, the ipod ISN'T that great to use, but it has an x factor where the others don't. And others development methodologies seem to be unable to work in the right way to replicate what should be easy.
# Multi processor machines will begin to take off in the business environment. Single user, multi machine setups will smooth the rollout of Linux/OpenOffice and make people more productive.
Maybe not 2004, but the rise of the dual core and virtualisation as the way forward during this year has laid the groundwork. So in one sense it was a win since the future IS away from the single core. Nobody was there to do the obvious; place a dual processor box on the desktop for those that wanted to be ahead of the game.
# Appliances that take advantage of home broadband links and WiFi will take off.
Surprisingly little has come out in this domain, certainly in the mainstream. Market penetration is there, but not the new devices.
# Microsoft will get scared, and will run towards early launch of XBox 2 as a home machine. Failure will spell the fall of Microsoft.
I think microsoft ARE scared, and they will be launching the XBox2 earlier than the PS3, but they are still too slow to catch the wave. Given the horribly late delivery of Longhorn, with much less in the way of capability than promised - I do think we have seen the beginning of the fall of the house of Microsoft.
# The Apple House will be unveiled
Nope, Apple still think they are a computer company, rather than a consumer electronics company. The door which was open to them is slowly closing. Once someone works out how to replicate their design wins, they are toast. Very poor strategy choices from Jobs here.
What are the lessons? Well, its obvious that the industry has significantly slowed down. People aren't moving far or fast to develop new markets. The bean counters and marketing geeks are looking backward at what was, not at what could be. Ordinarily this would be a time of great opportunity, a time when those with a vision could create new startups and have the time to build big enough businesses. However with the extent and misuse of patents, large companies can sit on such innovation to the detriment of the market as a whole. That creates a degree of pent up tension in the market that has to resolve eventually. Will we see it in 2005? Probably not, but the offensive use of patents, coupled with lazy bean counting approaches to commerce will become a festering issue.
What will we see then?
The open source community will start to switch from reproduction of existing elements, to creation of new solutions, possibly involving hardware. The time is right for those with vision to tie up with those with skills to create new markets - it just needs an instigator.
Outsourcing is winning many new business friends, but as is usual with these director types, the distance and lack of control threatens their position ("what value are you really adding"). Therefore expect the multinationals to attempt to create greater levers of control into the outsourced functions - which will go down like a lead balloon with China.
China will come out with a DRM free, cheap, HDTV compatible replacement for BluRay and HD DVD. It will be a low cost addon to existing cheap DVD players. Movie companies will hate it, but the world isn't as it once was. Coupled with cracking of the protection around the new forma
Yeah, tell me about it. That Sopwith owes me one for my predictions of the death of OS/2!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Incorrect - that perfect PC I want costs $2000 15 freaking years in a row!!! Ok, its specs changed quite a bit, but so did software's.
Now, since you managed to completely miss it in your second sentence, I'm going to ignore the rest of the argument. Here, enjoy ;-P
My other Beowulf cluster is... er...
Not because I think that MS must die or anything. I just think that it's better to have different computers with different OSes floating about. It'd mean that companies would have to make their products more standards compliant and open so that they can inter-operate with different systems which is always a good thing IMO.
:) Apple could only win with this.
Plus, the cheap, headless Mac would be unbelievably popular. Slashdot geeks have been screaming out for this for years. Also, all those "I'd switch but Macs are too expensive" people won't have anymore excuses
(quote from the FA): Developer Charles R. Martin and Canadian earth scientist Darren Griffith met through this column, and are in the initial stages of building an Open Tsunami Alerting System (OTAS). Although work has just started, they've established a few basic principles: OTAS will be very lightweight; will use openly available geophysical or seismic data sources; will be highly distributed and decentralized; and will be built to run on very low-powered commodity hardware. They currently foresee using Python and Java, but aren't religious about it. Anyone who wants to help out is welcome and their OTAS blog can be found in this week's links.
Lightweight --- Java? (Unless they want to run it on tourists' mobile phones, perhaps...)
Low-powered commodity hardware --- Python? (well... mapbe, see above)
What I mean to say is: we're talking Sri Lanka, Aceh and lots of places like that which (for some time to come) will worry more (besides providing 220 Volt AC (or whatever their mains voltage is over there) and internet connectivity) about providing basic needs to their inhabitants) AT ALL!
Why go for behemoths like Java and Python when you can use a couple of "hacked" WRT54GS's or other embedded systems like that, running SOAP servers and clients, maybe even infrasound detectors, then build a network and control warning systems. They could even be run from solar power and batteries (consuming only about 15 Watts a piece with well-trimmed power circuitry).
Mind you, we should be talking about about the alerting system, not the part that does the data gathering / risk assessment. All you need is to control some powerful sirens/horns/flares/whatever to get peoples' attention. Anyone who lives there and survived the last one will know what they mean (and so will anyone who has not spent the last few weeks in a cave).
Heck, they could even tape some sensors to an elephant and detect when it starts scrambling to get to higher ground! Even that would work better than the warning system they had (i.e. none at all).
Sorry for this rant, but throwing way too much tech at a simple but extremely important task just pisses me off...
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
In the end, both the Genesis and the SNES ended up having a solid library with excellent games because they were both playing hard. It is important that the PlayStation has proven loyal console gamers will go to the platform with the best titles regardless of brand name, hardware specs, or hype. The Saturn and N64 were formidable foes in those respects. The N64 was designed by SGI, code named Project Reality, rendered CG before your eyes and had Mario. The Saturn had Virtua Fighter, was out the door earlier, and blew away the more expensive Jaguar and 3DO.
Today's console market has many more exclusives, and every console manufacturer is trying to lure customers with lasting incentives to remain on the platform, such as Live!, PSX backward compatibility, Gran Turismo, Halo 2, Final Fantasy 11, Nintendo's AAA 1st party titles, exclusive contracts for Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, which console has the most hit titles from japan, these are all things gamers have to consider when buying a console today, and with the next generation it is going to get much worse.
Microsoft are introducing PlaysForSure, the next Xbox will have Media Center tie-ins and stuff will probably be tied into Longhorn. Longhorn will no doubt feature multimedia extensions that cooperate with the XBox 2, and will feature the .NET platform. The Xbox 2 will probably feature the .NET platform as well, games will be easily moved from PC to Xbox 2 and vice versa, making both platforms more attractive.
So Microsoft is predictable (embrace and extend, third time's a charm just press on, rinse wash repeat), and we know Nintendo will have something special (both hardware/software wise, DS tie-ins, they also want to launch the earliest), the wild card here is Sony. What the hell are they going to do? What incentive does Squaresoft have to stay with Sony when MS Moneybags is probably going to do their damnedest to snap them up? Are Sony going to have a "PSX" pulled on them by MS? After Squaresoft announced the advantages of the Sony platform, it had a snowball effect on third parties, and the PSX went on to be an overwhelming success.
Sony tries to sell game systems like high priced hardware that does it all, and they expect everything else to just fall into place. But I have a feeling consumers don't really react as well to that approach when it comes to video games, and this far it has been coincidental. With the PSX they got lucky because they made the friendliest console, they didn't put vast resources into an unknown venture so they took off-the-shelf parts and tried to pull together something decent and easy to program. Luckily Square and others decided the Saturn was botched and the N64 was too limited. They got lucky with the PS2 when they launched a year before everyone else and they could still feed off the momentum from the PlayStation.
But during that first year the PlayStation 2 had a pretty poor library. Imagine if Microsoft and Nintendo had launched just then, it would have been a different story for Sony, because the PS2 needed that year to catch up to the borked launch Sony made. Have they learned from that, or will the PS3 be the same? Now that the PS3 will probably likely launch after Nintendo or MS or at the same time, and the Xbox having a decent software library with enough big names to give gamers a good looking preview of what they might see for the Xbox 2, Sony doesn't have the
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
Sadly, this can be extended to just about everything. Look at the way people drive, for one.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Well, actually I wouldn't be sure about that.
When you look at their latest problems - the endless developing of Longhorn (I often ask myself: "What the hell are they doing all the time? They throw out all the interesting features like WinFS, what is taking them so long?"), the complete lack of progress in IE, etc. - it seems a lot that the Windows codebase has become so bloated and complicated that no single person actually understands it.
Just because you want it to happen doesn't mean it's going to happen. Bob Cringely seems to quite often second guess major industry players and try to predict what they're going to do, but let me just ask you this one question:
Has Apple ever sold a computer and taken a loss on it?
Also, if Apple were to sell 10 million of these things, that's a $1 billion loss, but what if people love the cheap price and they "accidentally" sell 50 million of them? That's a $5 billion loss and now he's almost bankrupted the company. Of course, they could make it up on iPod sales, but they can't run the company on only iPod sales profits.
Good article, BTW.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Amen. Mind you this is what Cringely does for EVERYTHING.
"But can microsoft keep up with the rate of mutation in the spyware/worm/virus category?"
Welcome to one of the advantages of DRM. Not only will it keep Linux out, but it will keep everything else out too.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Really, don't you think the fact that he has to tell you "why you should pay attention to him" is enough evidence of this by itself? Most people who I pay attention to don't need to remind me why. I pay attention to them because they have accomplishments to their name which demonstrate that their words are worth something.
VOIP unlimited calling plan: $19.99/mo
2-phone cell plan with unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes: $49.99/mo
Connect one cell to your computer and leave it at home; take the other with you. Use PBX software to rig up a bridge between your VOIP and the home cell. Use the home cell as a gateway between your roaming cell and the VOIP number, abusing the free mobile-to-mobile minutes.
Poof! Unlimited cellular anytime minutes to/from anywhere in the US, and low VOIP rates on all your international calls, for $69.98 per month. If you're a heavy user of anytime minutes or international calls, the savings could add up very fast. At least until the phone company figures out what you are doing...
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
I more or less believe that the only long time thing you can credit Microsoft for, is that they have learned ordinary users that computers fail.
This again, have lowered the standards for software tremendously. (Note, I am not saying that current Windows is crap - I would not really know - I am saying that through using Microsoft software (and related Windows software) people have learned that software fails _often_).
Try asking your mom and dad, or any Windows user, if they would be ready to accept the level of failure they experience on their Windows platform and software, in their car, phone, watch, microwave oven, washing machine. Most people would say no.
But, the "Microsoft Experience" is becomming more widespread. As electronics _do_ become a larger and larger part of e.g. washing machines, they do have the occasional software failure. And people learn to accept that, _because_ they have learned that any device that contains computers will fail.
And, that is crap. We should _demand_ solid quality systems all around us. Otherwise we will get crap: mp3 players with sucky firmware, washing machines that sometimes just do not wash the clothes, etc.
That is, I believe, what is the greates danger about Microsoft. As your post actually demonstrates, many people believe Microsoft have brought us gold, when in fact they have learned people to not only accept crap software, but to actually expect crap software.
With games like Jak & Daxter, Halo, Metroid Prime, Ratchet & Clank, SSX, Prince of Persia, there are all sorts of non-japanese developers capable of delivering premium content to gamers. While Japanese developers have great franchises as well, but the non-japanese have just as much attraction, and they're beginning to outnumber them. I agree it's a problem that Microsoft doesn't have these third parties and may not get them next time either. We'll have to see if MS can overcome it, but they have probably learned a thing or two on their first outing and will make themselves more attractive to japanese developers.
"Catch the wave..."
What the hell?!
microsoft have released anti-virus software before, anyone remember dos 6.22?
This is my first column of the new year, which means I have to give my predictions for 2005. We've been doing this for many years now, ...
And next year I hope my year 2005 predictions will be spot on!
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
but I feel I must point out that Cringely is a towering, drivelling arse of mammoth figurative proportions.
never been a big fan of macs but i think that an apple push to gain a significant share of the "desktop" market would be great for the whole industry.
it would force more developers to think about things like cross platform compatibility and standards more seriously than they do now...
all a net plus for linux/open source...
All the torrents you could want.
Hang on, doesn't Microsoft market keyboards and mice?
My problem with this subthread, others' pathetic sexist jokes aside, is that you seem to be suggesting that it's desirable to find all this spyware, because that reassures you that your defensive software is working effectively.
I suggest that that is a false sense of security. If your system and software were really configured effectively, the spyware would never be there in the first place. I run anti-virus software, anti-adware software and all the rest of it, but the last time they actually found anything active on my system was... wait, I've never had a single one.
It's always wise to have more than one layer in your defences, and I'd certainly recommend running the sort of tool we're discussing regularly to catch the one that gets away. But if you keep your security patches up to date, don't do dumb things like running executables from untrusted sources, and run behind a properly configured firewall, then the odds of ever needing these secondary lines of defence should be pretty slim.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
NVidia don't want to open up driver specs because they would have to open up drivers for their Quadra range of high-end cards AND their GeForce desktop range. Doing so would show up that if you change this and that, the desktop card will run the same as the high-end one, except maybe it won't clock as high or the DAC isn't as linear.
ATI don't do it because
a) They are crap at drivers
b) They don't want the TV circuits to bypass macrovision
Neither of them want to OS driver info because we could then tell where their cheating optimisations are brought in.
well..
since he did make the best documentry I ever saw about the birth of the PC industry, I'd say he did do something. and he knows something to.
but that's just my opinion.
Just wanted to helpfully point out that you are using "learned" incorrectly. The word you want is "taught" (tot), which is a conjugation for teach. Example: The teacher taught the students, but some did not learn.
You might use the word "learn" as you did if you were imitating a hillbilly or redneck (or the president): "That'll learn 'em to misunderestimate me!"
I just wanted to point this out because your English is otherwise top notch and if not for your mistake, I wouldn't have known you weren't a native speaker.
... and predict that he'll come back with a 2006 predictions list somewhere around this time next year.
Oh yeah, and I'm also willing to bet that a big round bright object will appear in the sky tomorrow morning around 6:30 and last until 5-ish in the afternoon. It will then slowly disappear and reappear again the following day. It may even repeat itself for many days to come.
"The SCO case will implode" Wow. Didn't see that one coming.
Duh! wintermute is a girl (ai) name!
=)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Thanks for the correction, and the nice words - I appreciate both.
;-)
(But I am now rather nervous about my "performance"
The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
6) VoIP will continue to shatter the telephone industry with the arrival of WiFi phones, which might finally be the killer app for hotspots. Eventually, all the backbone suppliers will figure out that VoIP is their salvation and will either start their own VoIP companies or ally with big VoIP players.
m ).
After all, who's going to want a phone that they can only use in certain places, when their mobile (cell) phone works near enough everywhere. Certainly there's work to do to make mobile phone calls cheaper, but their widespread coverage will make them difficult to un-seat.
Hmmm, Bob clearly doesn't remember the dismal failure of Rabbit in the UK (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2175804.st
Sorry Bob, you've got that one wrong...
You can no more prove or disprove the existence of God than Spock could prove or disprove the existence of Gene Roddenberry. Your statement, like mine, is a statement of faith.
Oh, that's easy to do. All one has to do is shout:
THERE IS NO GOD AND IF THERE IS MAY HE STRIKE ME DOWN!
See! I'm perfectly fine... Oh crap, I just spilt my 2 liter Mountain Dew on my keyboard and power strip. Hold on... AAAAAAARGGHHH! [NO CARRIER]
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Why do all of that, when elephants already do it.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
but the major effect of installing the anti-spyware program on our machine was that our default browser got set back to IE and we could NOT set it back to firefox or mozilla. The only way to do that was to uninstall the anti-spyware.
Since we'd been using firefox and mozilla all along we didn't have any spyware on our system. But we did get a huge raft of false positives.
Here's a hint: it's easy to make it look like you have some kind of whiz-bang technology for detecting spyware if you report a ton of false positives. You might even catch a few real threats the other guys miss, but you'll hinder people's legitimate activities along with the bad stuff.
<conspiracy theory>
This could suit Microsoft's agenday of controlling the platform very well. Microsoft's products, and products from Microsoft's preferred vendors, get a free ride, but use something that Microsoft doesn't bless and your life will be miserable; or at least it will ensure that you won't be any LESS miserable than if you use approved Microsoft products like IE.
At this stage of the game, how could an anti-spyware program interfere with firefox? It's not like its exotic anymore.
</conspiracy theory>
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That takes real skill. Not these incremental extrapolations of existing trends. Things like google's rise out of a tired search industry, etc. Or like google next hit.
Or Apple might decide to throw some of that cash into the box along with new computers by deliberately losing some money on each unit in order to buy market share.
I'd personally like to see this happen. I was at the local Apple store this weekend looking at Power Macs. I thought overnight about making a purchase (one just doesn't make impulse buys at $3000), and ultimately decided against buying one.
My reasons pretty much came down to: I didn't think it was a good value. I mean, I've paid less for a car!
I'm still interested in buying one, but maybe I'll look on eBay or buy one of their refurb models. I like the idea of a *nix system that has a GUI that actually works (sorry X.11, but I've never liked you).
Chip H.
There's no Internet Explorer, there's no MS Office, etc. The default browser/e-mail client is Mozilla. Open Office is the office suite that comes with Linspire. The only way you'd see an MS ap running on a Linspire machine is if the user has loaded Wine or WinforLin and then an MS application on top of it. Please take a look at the Distrowatch page for Linspire. There are no MS applications that come with this distro. I'd be interested to learn what IP theft and GPL violations were found. Maybe there are some, but I'm not aware of them.
d ows
I will give you partial credit on the security issue, but even as it comes without any adjustments, it's still a LOT less prone to the usual attacks against consumer machines with respect to the sorts of malware that infests over 80% of Windows machines connected to the Internet.
Again, my disclaimer that I have no interest in Linspire other than as a user who thinks they are trying to do the right thing in offering an easy to use alternative to the vulnerability plagued Windows OS and make a buck in the process. I've also been using/evaluating Xandros recently and like them very well, too. I'd not hesitate to also recommend it to people looking to break the MS lock.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=lin
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
To both you and the grandparent: What does this tell you about Richard Stallman's crusade to destroy the very idea of intellectual property rights [as a first step towards abolishing any notions of private property whatsoever]?
That maybe there's some underlying value in intellectual property? That maybe it takes a lot of time and effort to create intellectual property? That maybe people who go to the effort of creating and distributing intellectual property aren't all that thrilled when a certain rogue element in society steals that intellectual property from them and BitTorrents/KaZaAs it for free? That maybe The Evil One(TM) might have been onto something?
I predict that the government will act like government
I predict that Microsoft will act like microsoft
I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow morning
I predict that the sun will set tomorrow evening
A bunch of FUCKING OBVIOUS predictions by a self-serving, egomaniacal moron... My eight-year-old is more insightful than this idiot
I wrote that Microsoft would make a bold run for video game leadership,
:) Easy.
--> -1 vague prediction
I predicted that we'd see no major example of cyber-terrorism
--> +1 Insigtful. somewhat insightful but not a bold prediction
I wrote that spam would get worse,
--> -2 Obvious, long term trend
that there would be useless laws passed to stop it (Can-Spam, anyone?)
--> that was sort of a random crapshoot
and that Microsoft would propose proprietary technologies (Purported Responsible Address) in an attempt to take advantage of the situation and increase its power over the market. I was right, but fortunately the IETF shot down PRA.
--> Good prediction, but not suprising for MS
I predicted that all kinds of software companies would abandon support for older products,
--> -5 Stupidest prediction ever since it's been going on since the beginning of time.
risis in the Linux community thanks to the SCO threat, and that some new governing structure would emerge as a result.
--> Good prediction but not correct. Maybe over the next few years we'll see effects from SCO but not within a year.
I wrote that the SCO legal case against Linux would implode and it did.
--> Yup, it was always increasingly clear that it probably would.
I predicted that 2004 would be a critical year for streaming media. What I meant then was that Burst.com was going to beat Microsoft
--> nice try Bob with bringing Burst.com in here, but nothing big and public happened in streaming media. MPEG4 is moving forward however! Maybe we'll see some implementations ready for use this year!
I predicted that digital convergence would accelerate in 2004 with a rise in VoIP and broadband content, along with a bunch of mergers.
--> Also generally obvious, long term trend, though focusing on VoIP was very insightful! Certainly something to watch this year!
I said that U.S. IT would grow except for HP and Sun, and that Dell would start selling MP3 players and TVs, and that their stellar customer satisfaction numbers would suffer. I was right, right, right.
--> Yup.
I predicted that Cisco would maintain its market leadership in routers (correct)
--> that would take several years to erode
I said WiFi would continue to grow, but would still be lacking a business model.
--> Duh
Here is a contentious one. I wrote that IT outsourcing would become an issue in the 2004 Presidential race. One reader claims that's not the case, but since it was an important subject in two of the debates and in many Kerry speeches I think I was right.
--> I agree, it was an issue, but outsourcing in manufacturing as well and in general *ought* to have been bigger.
I wrote that touchscreen voting problems wouldn't resolved or improved, and I was right.
--> Yup, though it was looking pretty likely.
Finally, I wrote that Microsoft would settle tons of legal cases for cash, but that nothing would be learned from it by anyone. Three billion dollars later, I am absolutely correct.
Now to my predictions for 2005, which come in no particular order.
1) Microsoft's entry into the anti-virus and anti-spyware businesses will be a disaster for users. This is based on everything I know about Microsoft,
--> Certainly it's always very possible with MS, but they also get it right-- or good enough-- on many products. Likely they will buy some virus scanning product from some company (not Norton), and it will be OK, but other stuff will be better.
2) Carrying over from last year, I predict that Burst.com will beat Microsoft in their current lawsuit.
--> +1 Interesting. Excellent prediction, it could go either way I think-- interested to see what happens!
3) Apple will take a big risk in 2005.
--> This is so vague, it shoud be counted out entirely.
'"The vast majority of anti-spyware providers do not consider WeatherBug to be spyware, including Aluria, our own anti-spyware provider," said AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein.'
Ha ha! Aluria is the software that sold out to WhenU. Too funny. Thanks for the link.
What I meant was that if you are finding spyware on your computer, perhaps you are not as computer savvy as you might like. How did the spyware get there in the first place? (OK, so if your not-so-savvy boyfriend uses your computer, then it is totally different. Nevertheless, running anti-virus/spyware does not even come close to making you a hacker.)
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
You're an idiot. RMS is "crusading" for freedom for software users, not free downloading of copyrighted material. Read the four freedoms document and also his opinion on why non-free written works are no problem.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
...as opposed to my idiot boyfriend...
;-)
Who's the bigger idiot? The idiot, or the idiot who dates him?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
VOIP unlimited calling plan: $19.99/mo 2-phone cell plan with unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes: $49.99/mo
Connect one cell to your computer and leave it at home; take the other with you. Use PBX software to rig up a bridge between your VOIP and the home cell. Use the home cell as a gateway between your roaming cell and the VOIP number, abusing the free mobile-to-mobile minutes.
I think there's already a company doing something like this - a VoIP company with banks of cellphones for their side of the call. With them you have the VoIP subscription and use your ONE-cellphone sub to call into their cellphone bank to bridge to your VoIP subscription.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That's insightful if anything is.
That's it : Apple is doing in low prices now Liberation article (french). 499 Euros. As predicted. Am pretty impressed.