Errr... sounds more and more like bait all the time.
Anyway, the whole point is that I dont have to carry around my laptop all day, I bring it maybe once a week or so, and use it occasionally around the house.
Every point you mention against a laptop as a replacement for a desktop is even more true as a point against a palmtop as a replacement for a laptop.
I think people are foolish to get a laptop as a replacement for a desktop. You can buy two desktops and a palm pilot and be better in every regard (including spending less money) then buying a single similar laptop.
A laptop is a supplement to desktops and PDA's. I believe a palmtop (like the WinCE devices) replaces neither desktops or laptops (IMHO).
I would futher argue that if it has less then 2 weeks battery life without recharging, if it costs more then $350 or so, if it is not particularly durable, if it is too heavy to fit comfortably in a belt pack, and if the user interface is so unwieldy that I cannot make an entry while walking down a flight of steps, that it is not a substitute for a PDA either.
Anyone who rejects a laptop as a replacement for a desktop (as you did) is indeed uncommonly wise.
Anyone who thinks a palmtop is a replacement for a laptop is delusional (or does not intend to do much of anything interesting with their laptop).
The argument that if the Palm user wanted more power they'd buy a laptop doesn't sit well with me. I don't get it, why would you buy both a Palm and a laptop when you can just buy a PocketPC and have all your needs covered?
I am assuming this is an honest question, and not just bait.
The palm does the PDA functionality nearly flawlessly, and it has the size, cost, and battery life factors necessary to be able to strap it to my belt day in and day out, and completely forget about it. I can't count the number of times during a day I use it without even thinking about the fact it is a computer.
A PDA that is not at your fingertips and does not need to be tethered to a PC every evening is (IMHO) the only usefull PDA. You can get a fully functional Palm for $150 to $250 depending on RAM.
For about $700 or less, you can pick up a used laptop like my Sharp Actius A150. It has a pentium 266 cpu, an 8 gig hard drive, 64MB of ram, a built in modem, USB port, and a PCMCIA slot. I added a $40 10/t ethernet card, a $75 wireless ethernet card, and a $99 24x CDRom.
It dual boots both Linux and Windows (depending on my needs at the time). It holds plenty of MP3's, runs ALL native Linux and DOS apps perfectly, has a real live keyboard with fantastic touchpad. It includes a 800x600 24 bit LCD that is to die for. It is less then 1" thick (a cheaper VAIO knockoff), and weighs less then a pound.
The newest versions of these Sharp Actius's (Actium?) adds a 1023x768 resolution (XGA) screen, built in 10/100 ethernet, and second PCMCIA and USB slots, and sells new for less then $2k. The whole package fits nicely in a backpack or briefcase with lots of room to spare for books, etc.
A palmtop would be a toy... you can't do real work without a real keyboard and real screen (800x600 is already getting awfully tight for many of my activities as a web developer).
The palmtops are too heavy, too big, too expensive, and have insufficient autonomy (battery life primarily) to strap to my hip and forget about until I need it... I would have to tether them to an outlet every evening and carry them every day in a briefcase or backpack.
The palmtops have too small a screen, too weak a processor, not affordable enough memory, and too limited battery life to be used for any real productivity. (IMHO)
1) Go to e-bay and sell your visor deluxe.
2) Go to www.trgpro.com and buy a trg pro ($329)
3) Go to buy.com and get the 64, 128, or 340 MB compact flash card and plug it into said TRG Pro.
Done. The perfect hack. Other Palm devices have some memory expandability. The AxePac will add smartmedia to a IIIx, the visors have memory and backup modules for the springboard, and the Sony Clie has a memory stick slot.
Only the TRG Pro however has a working and delivered OS tweak that allows many applications and databases to be stored on the compact flash and transparently swapped into memory on demand.
If you want to hack a palm, a much nicer hack is to get the M100 for $149 and add 8megs to it for another $39 (if you do your own soldering).
I'm not missing it... that was scenario number two (free as not only in beer and speach, but further as in total anarchy).
The point I was trying to make is that the GPL is simply another restrictive license introduced to achieve a particular set of ends. Just like the Microsoft EULA.
I have no beef with people that want to release software under the GPL... I also agree the GPL is very "open", but I don't buy the argument that it is "free".
In most cases, I prefer the GPL because its license is the least onerous. But there has been at least one case where I ditched GPL software and picked up my purchased copy of the Borland compiler because the GPL prevented me from doing something I needed to do.
My beef is with someone who advocates GPL software while at the same time telling me intellectual property and copyright are "evil" and "immoral" (their words, not mine). How can they create and enforce a restrictive license (like the GPL) if they have no property right over software and no right to license software? That is illogical.
I am only clarifying my position, not accusing you of being one of those people. Actually, as I read through your post, I agree with most of what you say...
I posted something similiar to this a month or so back, but it bears repeating.
It is important to Microsoft to make money, and they have written restrictive licenses to accomplish that end.
It is important for academics to gain prestige and recognition for themselves and their organizations, and they write restrictive licenses (use only with attributions) to accomplish that end.
It is important for free software advocates to make all software completely free and always open, and they write restrictive licenses (the GPL) to accomplish those ends.
It is important to me to show people God's love in practical ways, and I wrote my restrictive license (LGPL with a further explanation of intent) for my open source published software to accomplish that end.
It is important for musicians to control their message and generate income, and they write restrictive licenses to accomplish that end.
So, do we honor the original authors wishes, or is intellectual property immoral... you can't have it both ways! It is either totally free (not only as in beer and speech, but even further as in total lawless anarchy), or it is "owned" by the original author and you must respect their "license" that meets their goals and desires if you wish to use their work.
I found a couple of people offering to do this hack for you for $79 or so. They have been doing this thing on the Palm V's for some time now, and the M100 is a far easier mod.
But I can't find an online source for the chips. Anybody scare up a wholesaler that has these in stock and is willing to deal in small volumes?
I did a very similiar hack to turn my original Pilot 5000 (512k) into a professional (1MB... woo hoo!). Great fun. Make sure you have a grounded soldering iron, otherwise you could very easily blow the gates internal to the chip.
Actually, while this is true, the TRG Pro includes an "autoCF" tool that will dynamically (and for the most part invisibly) swap applications and databases in and out of the memory in its compact flash slot.
That means that my 8 meg TRG Pro has about 20 megs of applications and data loaded, and still has 4 megs free:)
You are right as well about increased battery usage, but we should keep it in perspective... Even with some 26 Megabytes in my TRG Pro, I still get over a week at a time usage of rechargable alkalines (at about 65% discharge).
I think (danger, I am going from memory here), you can type "make oldconfig" and it will restore the default previously built settings. I ran across this in some red hat kernel building documentation while I was trying to get my wireless ethernet cards working.
This will not solve all your problems mentioned, but it is a good step in that direction.
Nope, no idea who that is. I put together a simple little collection of perl scripts that (in theory) allows you to capture any stream (for example from tar, dd, etc) of data to a sequence of CDR or CDRW drives.
It generally works, but is subject to some bugs in dd that show up when moving large amounts of data to the CDRom subsystem. It has been sorely neglected for some time now, and I wish they would get UDF packet writing supported so the whole thing could just go away.
s/Napster/Your Credit Card/ s/RIAA/You/ s/song/purchase/ s/on emusic/at my friends apartment/
"I've been using your credit card, but mostly because the you don't provide a real alterntive. I would be willing to pay, say, a buck a purchase (like at by freinds apartment) rather than using your credit card-- if the option were available. In other words, yes, I think what people are doing on your credit card is illegal (although, your credit card itself isn't;) -- but, in some sense justified. --tim"
Not meant to be a flame, just food for thought...
It is an interesting paradox that many of those that advocate "free" software are simply substutiting one set of highly controlled and restrictive licenses for a different set of highly controlled and restrictive licenses.
Corporations write and release software because they have a strong personal desire to accumulate wealth and power. They control this software in a selfish desire to do the thing important to them (generate wealth and accumulate power).
Strong "free software" advocates write and release software because they have a strong personal desire to make information completely free. They control this software in a selfish desire to do the thing important to them (make information free).
I write and release GPL'd software because I have a strong personal desire to show people God's love in a practical way. I control this software in a selfish desire to do the thing important to me (show God's love in a practical way).
Either you respect a persons right to control distribution of content they have created to further their personal goals, or there can be no restrictions on redistribution (like the GPL).
I have tried many types of rechargables in my TRG Pro (palm device with compact flash slot).
Any of the rechargables will work well.
The self discharge rate (leakage current) of NiMh batteries is pretty high (something like 1% per day), so in a power frugal device like the palm your batteries are often leaking more current then the device is using.
I just swap batteries weekly with either NiMh or rechargable alkalines, and have had great luck. NiMh have more power fresh out of the chargers, rechargable alkalines store better in the backpack or desk drawer. Both likely work out about the same in terms of bang for the buck.
Thomas Distributing has a nice collection of good NiMh cells and chargers for sale at good prices, and has a good collection of tech info as well.
NiMh can't be beat for my digital camera, but for the Palm I would probably use the semi-disposable rechargable alkalines.
The Palm OS also has a backdoor for setting the battery type for the low battery warnings and bar graph.... enter [command] (a fish standing on it's tail), a dot, and the number 7 in notepad and a little message will pop out telling you the battery type the device is currently set for (different battery types have different discharge curves, none are linear).
You forgot to mention more common sense legislation... Why would anyone ever need to buy more then one computing device in a month?
Not to mention requiring a keyboard lock, it only costs a few pennies after all.
And no one should be in such a hurry that they can't handle a 5 day cooling off period before picking up a new computer.
And we REALLY need to do something about those high capacity hard drives, did you know one 20 gig drive can store tens of thousands of ILLEGALLY obtained MP3 files?
And don't get started about "easily concealed computing devices" like the palm pilot, especially the inexpensive "saturday night special" variation, the Palm IIIe.
Before the "big bust", Kevin had already been busted for for other cracks, and was already on probation.
He violated that probation, and went on a year long cracking spree.
The guy has addiction issues with the cracking... and enforced total abstinence is a reasonable requirement for probation . Remember, probation says "You should be in jail, but we will let you out early and give you some limited freedoms if you if you will agree to these particular terms".
Speeding is recoginized as a minor infraction, but if I get caught speeding 200 times in a year, and skip out on every required court appearance, and ignore the fact that my license was suspended, then finally get nailed, you can bet I will be facing some serious jail time. Just for speeding? Sort of... but not really.
You can argue with the sentance if you want, and that may or may not be reasonable... Mitnick was such a prolific cracker that he set himself up for some serious jail time... but arguing about the terms of probation is a little silly, Kevin is always free to return to jail if he finds that a better alternative...
O.K., we are not that far apart on the issue. If you have been invited to crack a box by an owner, then more power too you, you are providing them a valuable service (not unlike the $10 I paid secure-me.org to test my recently deployed firewall).
We are probably agreed.
Telnet or ftp into my system and look for an anonomyous accont? No problem.
Check my web pages published? No problem.
Do a full portscan against my system?... getting grey here, I have to do a little investigation to make sure you don't know something I don't, and that your portscan was not followed up by a successfull exploit.
Get root on my box and I find you? I am looking at a BUNCH if time looking for rootkits and backdoors regardless if you have installed them or not.
My point is, even weak probing or completely passive presence on a system where you have not been invited is theft of my time... I can't afford to ignore you. The only "harmless" cracks are done against systems you own or have been invited too, in which case they should probably be called "hacks" and not "cracks".
The first crack was a gimme... they were running an old version of bind for which there were known exploits. It was a script kiddie... they even used "pico" as their editor of choice, so that tells you something...
After that, I did what I could to clean house, and am pretty sure I found everything, and removed all back doors. The system was clean for a month or two, and used/etc/hosts.deny to shut down access from all but three trusted hosts, and installed the latest greatest patches.
Then we got a serious crack by some sort of pro. To this day, I have no idea how they got in, and we only spotted them because their rootkit was defective (and ls -l showed/bin/login was last modified tomorrow! Yikes!).
I told her to pull the plug until I set up a firewall for her. It is hard enough to set up a secure firewall, much less try and set up a full secure server. I said pull the plug because it was eating too much of our time.
I would much rather have spent all the time devoted to the whole thing developing open source software, but until I can secure my systems effectively, everything else is on hold.
The ethics are even more simple then that. If you are on or attacking a box you have not been invited to, you are acting unethically.
I helped clean up when a cracker was discovered on static IP Linux box my Sister put up.
The cracker was only doing "harmless exploration" (running bind scans against lots of other boxes on the local subnet and installing rootkits and trojans).
This clean up cost me about 20 hours that I would rather have been spending with my wife and two year old son... which is the most precious thing I have.
After the second crack, I told her to pull the plug. One less Linux server on the internet (she was using it for a bug tracking database for a startup company she was working with, her husband was using it to give free accounts for students at a local community college where he teaches).
On less corporation Linux had penetrated, 20 fewer students every quarter that can have a free account to learn to create web pages on *nix based systems. Congratulations, cracker boy.
I am a professional programmer, and in my spare time a humble open source developer (backburner, check freshmeat). Guess how many bugfixes have been released to backburner in the last year... Exactly 0. Why? Because I have had to spend all my time cleaning up cracked boxes and setting up firewalls just to keep my systems from being invaded, destroyed, or used to attack other systems (stealing precious time from others).
If you want to explore, set up your own network. 486's are a dime a dozen, NIC's can be found for about $15 each.
The moment you touch a system you have not been invited onto, you are stealing precious time from somebody, period. Somebody had to initially secure the system to keep you out, somebody has to monitor your crack attempts, and somebody has to respond to your actions.
Next time you are on a system you don't own, think about the fact that you are not just exploring, but taking a VERY high chance that you will force somebody somewhere to respond to your actions, and thereby steal that persons time.
I am telling you from personal experience, that theft REALLY hurts. Bill
I asked this same question to one of the TRG guys (the company that found the bug in the first place, and had the first patch out).
According to them, this won't make a significant difference in battery life. They still use a power saving mode, just a different one then the one that causes the problem.
Thats why I said "with hundreds of megabytes of effective memory" instead of "with hundreds of megabytes of memory".
You point out some valuable information, and I am glad it is posted here, but in terms of day to day use one would be hard pressed to tell a difference for any reasonably static information (which is just about all programs and a big percentage of larger databases).
I guess the distinction should be brought up though, so I am glad you made the point. Offhand, the only time I can think that this might be an issue is with huge collections of AvantGo data, which might be large and is generally pretty dynamic.
As for PDB's however, I have the entire NIV translation of the new testament in compact flash now via AutoCF, and it runs great. Let me try a doc file (....click....scratch....click) Yup, doc files (most definately PDB's) work great (with Teal Doc anyway) also.
It would be interesting to know the swapping (which is effectively what is happening here) algorithim TRG uses, and how it handles things like TealDoc, which can open any one of many PDB data files. Though this is a tangent to a tangent to the original post, so I suppose we ought to take it to palm station or some other palm forum (where more then the two of us care about the TRG Pro:)
Interestingly, it was TRG that found the bug, and told Palm and Handspring. These guys are really on top of their game. This is probably why the TRG fix is out first.
Also, TRG released yesterday their AutoCF enhancement, that lets many applications and databases reside on the compact flash. What this effectively means is that you can now have a palm with hundreds of megabytes of effective memory. They did an outstanding job on it.
As for other comments on the lack of flashable roms on the handspring (and some palms like the IIIe), the only real disadvantage is that patches must be layered back on in the event of a total system rebuild, and take up just a little more memory. Neither of these things is even remotely a big deal in real world use.
Palmstation has a lot more information on the topic, complete with some appearences from at least one of the TRG folks to answer questions.
The actual bug had to do with one of the ways you can instruct the DRAM to self refresh in sleep mode... the hardware was buggy. There was about a 1/8000 chance that it would corrupt some random memory location, and it got executed once a minute. This translates to something being nuked once a week, which may or may not be used memory, and may or may not cause a problem.
The patch was simply to use a different self refresh mode, that is almost as good, and has the added advantage of not being broken.:)
Hats off to TRG... these people continue to amaze me, from the days of custom modifying their 8MB upgrade cards to boot linux to the current crop of TRG-Pro compact flash enabled Palm units.
Yeah boy, if only he would be more like RMS and stick to the topics at hand:):):) Heck, the last time I heard RMS speak, he at one point was describing marriage as a repressive male institution designed to subvert women... How exactly is that related to open source or the GPL?
Seriously, ESR and RMS are both extremely bright and thoughtfull philosophers with important things to say. I agree with one more then the other, but I think both are important to listen too, and I don't think you can listen to them in a vaccuum.
If you listen to a speech, you get listen to what the speaker feels is important to say. If you want to hear just what you want to hear, write your own speech or pick speakers that are more fully aligned with your world view.
There is enough bigotry and censorship already (against both the left AND the right wings)... lets not add to it and give our guest speakers a list of "approved topics"...
I second this motion. I looked at the LRP distributions, and choose freesco.
Materhorn (the last I looked at) is rich and powerfull, but very painfull to find all the parts and get set up. The documentation was spotty at best. Coyote has an easy setup, but only works as an ethernet to ethernet router, and won't support dial up.
Freesco is flexible, nicely integrated, well documented, and darned easy to set up. It works from a floppy or from the hard drive, and supports many different configurations (dial-up, ethernet, etc) right out of the box.
You should be able to set up a freesco router from scratch in less then an hour... It took me that long just to try and figure out what the latest version of the LRP and where to get the parts, much less get it installed.
It also got a basically perfect score from both saint and secure-me.org when I ran security audits against it.
I wonder what approach they will take to make sure their software is decoupled enough from the rest of the system to insure they don't run afoul of the GPL?
Either they open source (or free software for people obsessed with semantics) everything they have (a radical departure for their corporate culture), or they try to keep a clean boundry between the Linux/GNU system and their own proprietary software.
If they try and keep a boundry and maintain their own closed products, they are likely to do as much work trying to stay clear of the GPL and similiar licenses as they are to put the distribution together... Lets see, this product links to the c library, which is LGPL, so I can do that, but it requires this kernal modification, so I have to release that, but it requires this utility, which is GPL, so I have to include the source for that...
Their web page worries me a little, they sing the praises of open standards, but open standards != open source... both are good but they are apples and oranges.
I am not trying to slam any companies or criticize any of the licenses out there... I am just pointing out that all the current major Linux/Gnu distributions have avoided running afoul of any of the "open source" or "free" software licenses by making everything they add "open source" or "free" as well. If you release everything you add under the GPL or similiar license, you can't be violating the licenses. It keeps it relatively simple.
If they are the first to try to create a hybrid distribution, they will have some new ground to break and some work to do.
The problem they used to address was easier... we have this closed system and we are adding some open source / free software tools. Hard to violate the GPL in this case, just release the source to any GPL software you add. When things are turned around and you are trying to add closed source / non-free software to an open distribution, it is tougher to make sure you have not violated the GPL.
A DEWAYNE OLDHAM v. THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF TENNESSEE, INC. No. 3-93-0472 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE, NASHVILLE DIVISION 849 F. Supp. 611; 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4974
An excerpt from the Judges ruling:
"[*613] In early May, 1993, the ACLU sent a letter to Tennessee public school officials. The letter stated, in part, that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. , 112 S. Ct. 2649, 120 L. Ed. 2d 467 (1992), precluded all speakers, including students, from leading prayers at graduation ceremonies. The letter further stated: "Please understand that if your school system does sponsor prayer at its graduation ceremonies and we are contacted by students and their families, we will most likely pursue litigation." Exhibit No. 1 to second amended complaint (filed October 25, 1993; Docket Entry No. 38). "
Granted, there is a lot of wiggle room here based on what "sponsors" and what "prayer" are meant to say. There were a couple of other cases in the news local to Cincinnati here where student led prayer was challenged by the ACLU.
I am not trying to slam the ACLU in general. I think they do for the first ammendment what the NRA does for the second ammendment, and I think both organizations are extremely important to our nation. I _want_ them to be a little nutty on defending the extremes, just to protect the middle.
I just wish they would treat conservative Christians with the same extreme views with which they treat everyone else.
I would be happy to listen to any counterexamples. Surely there is a case somewhere where the ACLU defended the rights of a conservative Christian to share their personal belief system in a highly public forum...
Slashdot Mirror
Errr... sounds more and more like bait all the time.
Anyway, the whole point is that I dont have to carry around my laptop all day, I bring it maybe once a week or so, and use it occasionally around the house.
Every point you mention against a laptop as a replacement for a desktop is even more true as a point against a palmtop as a replacement for a laptop.
I think people are foolish to get a laptop as a replacement for a desktop. You can buy two desktops and a palm pilot and be better in every regard (including spending less money) then buying a single similar laptop.
A laptop is a supplement to desktops and PDA's. I believe a palmtop (like the WinCE devices) replaces neither desktops or laptops (IMHO).
I would futher argue that if it has less then 2 weeks battery life without recharging, if it costs more then $350 or so, if it is not particularly durable, if it is too heavy to fit comfortably in a belt pack, and if the user interface is so unwieldy that I cannot make an entry while walking down a flight of steps, that it is not a substitute for a PDA either.
Anyone who rejects a laptop as a replacement for a desktop (as you did) is indeed uncommonly wise.
Anyone who thinks a palmtop is a replacement for a laptop is delusional (or does not intend to do much of anything interesting with their laptop).
But hey, it's just my opinion.
Bill
The argument that if the Palm user wanted more power they'd buy a laptop doesn't sit well with me. I don't get it, why would you buy both a Palm and a laptop when you can just buy a PocketPC and have all your needs covered?
I am assuming this is an honest question, and not just bait.
The palm does the PDA functionality nearly flawlessly, and it has the size, cost, and battery life factors necessary to be able to strap it to my belt day in and day out, and completely forget about it. I can't count the number of times during a day I use it without even thinking about the fact it is a computer.
A PDA that is not at your fingertips and does not need to be tethered to a PC every evening is (IMHO) the only usefull PDA. You can get a fully functional Palm for $150 to $250 depending on RAM.
For about $700 or less, you can pick up a used laptop like my Sharp Actius A150. It has a pentium 266 cpu, an 8 gig hard drive, 64MB of ram, a built in modem, USB port, and a PCMCIA slot. I added a $40 10/t ethernet card, a $75 wireless ethernet card, and a $99 24x CDRom.
It dual boots both Linux and Windows (depending on my needs at the time). It holds plenty of MP3's, runs ALL native Linux and DOS apps perfectly, has a real live keyboard with fantastic touchpad. It includes a 800x600 24 bit LCD that is to die for. It is less then 1" thick (a cheaper VAIO knockoff), and weighs less then a pound.
The newest versions of these Sharp Actius's (Actium?) adds a 1023x768 resolution (XGA) screen, built in 10/100 ethernet, and second PCMCIA and USB slots, and sells new for less then $2k. The whole package fits nicely in a backpack or briefcase with lots of room to spare for books, etc.
A palmtop would be a toy... you can't do real work without a real keyboard and real screen (800x600 is already getting awfully tight for many of my activities as a web developer).
The palmtops are too heavy, too big, too expensive, and have insufficient autonomy (battery life primarily) to strap to my hip and forget about until I need it... I would have to tether them to an outlet every evening and carry them every day in a briefcase or backpack.
The palmtops have too small a screen, too weak a processor, not affordable enough memory, and too limited battery life to be used for any real productivity. (IMHO)
Bill
It is a simple hack really....
1) Go to e-bay and sell your visor deluxe.
2) Go to www.trgpro.com and buy a trg pro ($329)
3) Go to buy.com and get the 64, 128, or 340 MB compact flash card and plug it into said TRG Pro.
Done. The perfect hack. Other Palm devices have some memory expandability. The AxePac will add smartmedia to a IIIx, the visors have memory and backup modules for the springboard, and the Sony Clie has a memory stick slot.
Only the TRG Pro however has a working and delivered OS tweak that allows many applications and databases to be stored on the compact flash and transparently swapped into memory on demand.
If you want to hack a palm, a much nicer hack is to get the M100 for $149 and add 8megs to it for another $39 (if you do your own soldering).
Bill
I'm not missing it... that was scenario number two (free as not only in beer and speach, but further as in total anarchy).
The point I was trying to make is that the GPL is simply another restrictive license introduced to achieve a particular set of ends. Just like the Microsoft EULA.
I have no beef with people that want to release software under the GPL... I also agree the GPL is very "open", but I don't buy the argument that it is "free".
In most cases, I prefer the GPL because its license is the least onerous. But there has been at least one case where I ditched GPL software and picked up my purchased copy of the Borland compiler because the GPL prevented me from doing something I needed to do.
My beef is with someone who advocates GPL software while at the same time telling me intellectual property and copyright are "evil" and "immoral" (their words, not mine). How can they create and enforce a restrictive license (like the GPL) if they have no property right over software and no right to license software? That is illogical.
I am only clarifying my position, not accusing you of being one of those people. Actually, as I read through your post, I agree with most of what you say...
Bill
I posted something similiar to this a month or so back, but it bears repeating.
It is important to Microsoft to make money, and they have written restrictive licenses to accomplish that end.
It is important for academics to gain prestige and recognition for themselves and their organizations, and they write restrictive licenses (use only with attributions) to accomplish that end.
It is important for free software advocates to make all software completely free and always open, and they write restrictive licenses (the GPL) to accomplish those ends.
It is important to me to show people God's love in practical ways, and I wrote my restrictive license (LGPL with a further explanation of intent) for my open source published software to accomplish that end.
It is important for musicians to control their message and generate income, and they write restrictive licenses to accomplish that end.
So, do we honor the original authors wishes, or is intellectual property immoral... you can't have it both ways! It is either totally free (not only as in beer and speech, but even further as in total lawless anarchy), or it is "owned" by the original author and you must respect their "license" that meets their goals and desires if you wish to use their work.
Bill Kilgallon
I found a couple of people offering to do this hack for you for $79 or so. They have been doing this thing on the Palm V's for some time now, and the M100 is a far easier mod.
But I can't find an online source for the chips. Anybody scare up a wholesaler that has these in stock and is willing to deal in small volumes?
I did a very similiar hack to turn my original Pilot 5000 (512k) into a professional (1MB... woo hoo!). Great fun. Make sure you have a grounded soldering iron, otherwise you could very easily blow the gates internal to the chip.
Bill
Actually, while this is true, the TRG Pro includes an "autoCF" tool that will dynamically (and for the most part invisibly) swap applications and databases in and out of the memory in its compact flash slot.
:)
That means that my 8 meg TRG Pro has about 20 megs of applications and data loaded, and still has 4 megs free
You are right as well about increased battery usage, but we should keep it in perspective... Even with some 26 Megabytes in my TRG Pro, I still get over a week at a time usage of rechargable alkalines (at about 65% discharge).
Bill
I think (danger, I am going from memory here), you can type "make oldconfig" and it will restore the default previously built settings. I ran across this in some red hat kernel building documentation while I was trying to get my wireless ethernet cards working.
This will not solve all your problems mentioned, but it is a good step in that direction.
Bill
Nope, no idea who that is. I put together a simple little collection of perl scripts that (in theory) allows you to capture any stream (for example from tar, dd, etc) of data to a sequence of CDR or CDRW drives.
It generally works, but is subject to some bugs in dd that show up when moving large amounts of data to the CDRom subsystem. It has been sorely neglected for some time now, and I wish they would get UDF packet writing supported so the whole thing could just go away.
Bill
s/Napster/Your Credit Card/
;) -- but, in some sense justified. --tim"
s/RIAA/You/
s/song/purchase/
s/on emusic/at my friends apartment/
"I've been using your credit card, but mostly because the you don't provide a real alterntive. I would be willing to pay, say, a buck a purchase (like at by freinds apartment) rather than using your credit card-- if the option were available. In other words, yes, I think what people are doing on your credit card is illegal (although, your credit card itself isn't
Not meant to be a flame, just food for thought...
It is an interesting paradox that many of those that advocate "free" software are simply substutiting one set of highly controlled and restrictive licenses for a different set of highly controlled and restrictive licenses.
Corporations write and release software because they have a strong personal desire to accumulate wealth and power. They control this software in a selfish desire to do the thing important to them (generate wealth and accumulate power).
Strong "free software" advocates write and release software because they have a strong personal desire to make information completely free. They control this software in a selfish desire to do the thing important to them (make information free).
I write and release GPL'd software because I have a strong personal desire to show people God's love in a practical way. I control this software in a selfish desire to do the thing important to me (show God's love in a practical way).
Either you respect a persons right to control distribution of content they have created to further their personal goals, or there can be no restrictions on redistribution (like the GPL).
Bill
I have tried many types of rechargables in my TRG Pro (palm device with compact flash slot).
Any of the rechargables will work well.
The self discharge rate (leakage current) of NiMh batteries is pretty high (something like 1% per day), so in a power frugal device like the palm your batteries are often leaking more current then the device is using.
I just swap batteries weekly with either NiMh or rechargable alkalines, and have had great luck. NiMh have more power fresh out of the chargers, rechargable alkalines store better in the backpack or desk drawer. Both likely work out about the same in terms of bang for the buck.
Thomas Distributing has a nice collection of good NiMh cells and chargers for sale at good prices, and has a good collection of tech info as well.
NiMh can't be beat for my digital camera, but for the Palm I would probably use the semi-disposable rechargable alkalines.
The Palm OS also has a backdoor for setting the battery type for the low battery warnings and bar graph.... enter [command] (a fish standing on it's tail), a dot, and the number 7 in notepad and a little message will pop out telling you the battery type the device is currently set for (different battery types have different discharge curves, none are linear).
Bill
You forgot to mention more common sense legislation... Why would anyone ever need to buy more then one computing device in a month?
Not to mention requiring a keyboard lock, it only costs a few pennies after all.
And no one should be in such a hurry that they can't handle a 5 day cooling off period before picking up a new computer.
And we REALLY need to do something about those high capacity hard drives, did you know one 20 gig drive can store tens of thousands of ILLEGALLY obtained MP3 files?
And don't get started about "easily concealed computing devices" like the palm pilot, especially the inexpensive "saturday night special" variation, the Palm IIIe.
Stop the insanity!
Bill
Keep things in perspective...
Before the "big bust", Kevin had already been busted for for other cracks, and was already on probation.
He violated that probation, and went on a year long cracking spree.
The guy has addiction issues with the cracking... and enforced total abstinence is a reasonable requirement for probation . Remember, probation says "You should be in jail, but we will let you out early and give you some limited freedoms if you if you will agree to these particular terms".
Speeding is recoginized as a minor infraction, but if I get caught speeding 200 times in a year, and skip out on every required court appearance, and ignore the fact that my license was suspended, then finally get nailed, you can bet I will be facing some serious jail time. Just for speeding? Sort of... but not really.
You can argue with the sentance if you want, and that may or may not be reasonable... Mitnick was such a prolific cracker that he set himself up for some serious jail time... but arguing about the terms of probation is a little silly, Kevin is always free to return to jail if he finds that a better alternative...
Bill
We are probably agreed.
My point is, even weak probing or completely passive presence on a system where you have not been invited is theft of my time... I can't afford to ignore you. The only "harmless" cracks are done against systems you own or have been invited too, in which case they should probably be called "hacks" and not "cracks".
Bill
The first crack was a gimme... they were running an old version of bind for which there were known exploits. It was a script kiddie... they even used "pico" as their editor of choice, so that tells you something...
/etc/hosts.deny to shut down access from all but three trusted hosts, and installed the latest greatest patches.
/bin/login was last modified tomorrow! Yikes!).
After that, I did what I could to clean house, and am pretty sure I found everything, and removed all back doors. The system was clean for a month or two, and used
Then we got a serious crack by some sort of pro. To this day, I have no idea how they got in, and we only spotted them because their rootkit was defective (and ls -l showed
I told her to pull the plug until I set up a firewall for her. It is hard enough to set up a secure firewall, much less try and set up a full secure server. I said pull the plug because it was eating too much of our time.
I would much rather have spent all the time devoted to the whole thing developing open source software, but until I can secure my systems effectively, everything else is on hold.
Bill
The ethics are even more simple then that. If you are on or attacking a box you have not been invited to, you are acting unethically.
I helped clean up when a cracker was discovered on static IP Linux box my Sister put up.
The cracker was only doing "harmless exploration" (running bind scans against lots of other boxes on the local subnet and installing rootkits and trojans).
This clean up cost me about 20 hours that I would rather have been spending with my wife and two year old son... which is the most precious thing I have.
After the second crack, I told her to pull the plug. One less Linux server on the internet (she was using it for a bug tracking database for a startup company she was working with, her husband was using it to give free accounts for students at a local community college where he teaches).
On less corporation Linux had penetrated, 20 fewer students every quarter that can have a free account to learn to create web pages on *nix based systems. Congratulations, cracker boy.
I am a professional programmer, and in my spare time a humble open source developer (backburner, check freshmeat). Guess how many bugfixes have been released to backburner in the last year... Exactly 0. Why? Because I have had to spend all my time cleaning up cracked boxes and setting up firewalls just to keep my systems from being invaded, destroyed, or used to attack other systems (stealing precious time from others).
If you want to explore, set up your own network. 486's are a dime a dozen, NIC's can be found for about $15 each.
The moment you touch a system you have not been invited onto, you are stealing precious time from somebody, period. Somebody had to initially secure the system to keep you out, somebody has to monitor your crack attempts, and somebody has to respond to your actions.
Next time you are on a system you don't own, think about the fact that you are not just exploring, but taking a VERY high chance that you will force somebody somewhere to respond to your actions, and thereby steal that persons time.
I am telling you from personal experience, that theft REALLY hurts.
Bill
hmmm, if anyone wanted to DoS ewatch's network, it wouldn't bother me at all.
So to protect "Free Speach" you would not mind somebody shutting down a companies free speach?
Isn't this kind of like saying "We will not tolerate any show by Dr. Laura regardless of content because she is intolerant?".
A first ammendment that only protects the speech you agree with protects little.
(IMHO of course).
I asked this same question to one of the TRG guys (the company that found the bug in the first place, and had the first patch out).
According to them, this won't make a significant difference in battery life. They still use a power saving mode, just a different one then the one that causes the problem.
So don't panic yet.
Bill
Thats why I said "with hundreds of megabytes of effective memory" instead of "with hundreds of megabytes of memory".
....scratch ....click) Yup, doc files (most definately PDB's) work great (with Teal Doc anyway) also.
:)
You point out some valuable information, and I am glad it is posted here, but in terms of day to day use one would be hard pressed to tell a difference for any reasonably static information (which is just about all programs and a big percentage of larger databases).
I guess the distinction should be brought up though, so I am glad you made the point. Offhand, the only time I can think that this might be an issue is with huge collections of AvantGo data, which might be large and is generally pretty dynamic.
As for PDB's however, I have the entire NIV translation of the new testament in compact flash now via AutoCF, and it runs great. Let me try a doc file (....click
It would be interesting to know the swapping (which is effectively what is happening here) algorithim TRG uses, and how it handles things like TealDoc, which can open any one of many PDB data files. Though this is a tangent to a tangent to the original post, so I suppose we ought to take it to palm station or some other palm forum (where more then the two of us care about the TRG Pro
Bill
Interestingly, it was TRG that found the bug, and told Palm and Handspring. These guys are really on top of their game. This is probably why the TRG fix is out first.
Also, TRG released yesterday their AutoCF enhancement, that lets many applications and databases reside on the compact flash. What this effectively means is that you can now have a palm with hundreds of megabytes of effective memory. They did an outstanding job on it.
As for other comments on the lack of flashable roms on the handspring (and some palms like the IIIe), the only real disadvantage is that patches must be layered back on in the event of a total system rebuild, and take up just a little more memory. Neither of these things is even remotely a big deal in real world use.
Palmstation has a lot more information on the topic, complete with some appearences from at least one of the TRG folks to answer questions.
The actual bug had to do with one of the ways you can instruct the DRAM to self refresh in sleep mode... the hardware was buggy. There was about a 1/8000 chance that it would corrupt some random memory location, and it got executed once a minute. This translates to something being nuked once a week, which may or may not be used memory, and may or may not cause a problem.
The patch was simply to use a different self refresh mode, that is almost as good, and has the added advantage of not being broken.:)
Hats off to TRG... these people continue to amaze me, from the days of custom modifying their 8MB upgrade cards to boot linux to the current crop of TRG-Pro compact flash enabled Palm units.
Bill
Yeah boy, if only he would be more like RMS and stick to the topics at hand :) :) :) Heck, the last time I heard RMS speak, he at one point was describing marriage as a repressive male institution designed to subvert women... How exactly is that related to open source or the GPL?
Seriously, ESR and RMS are both extremely bright and thoughtfull philosophers with important things to say. I agree with one more then the other, but I think both are important to listen too, and I don't think you can listen to them in a vaccuum.
If you listen to a speech, you get listen to what the speaker feels is important to say. If you want to hear just what you want to hear, write your own speech or pick speakers that are more fully aligned with your world view.
There is enough bigotry and censorship already (against both the left AND the right wings)... lets not add to it and give our guest speakers a list of "approved topics"...
All, of course "IMHO"
I second this motion. I looked at the LRP distributions, and choose freesco.
Materhorn (the last I looked at) is rich and powerfull, but very painfull to find all the parts and get set up. The documentation was spotty at best. Coyote has an easy setup, but only works as an ethernet to ethernet router, and won't support dial up.
Freesco is flexible, nicely integrated, well documented, and darned easy to set up. It works from a floppy or from the hard drive, and supports many different configurations (dial-up, ethernet, etc) right out of the box.
You should be able to set up a freesco router from scratch in less then an hour... It took me that long just to try and figure out what the latest version of the LRP and where to get the parts, much less get it installed.
It also got a basically perfect score from both saint and secure-me.org when I ran security audits against it.
Bill
export EDITOR=emacs
or on newer systems (including HP-UX)
export VISUAL=emacs
Works in bash and ksh.
Bill
I wonder what approach they will take to make sure their software is decoupled enough from the rest of the system to insure they don't run afoul of the GPL?
Either they open source (or free software for people obsessed with semantics) everything they have (a radical departure for their corporate culture), or they try to keep a clean boundry between the Linux/GNU system and their own proprietary software.
If they try and keep a boundry and maintain their own closed products, they are likely to do as much work trying to stay clear of the GPL and similiar licenses as they are to put the distribution together... Lets see, this product links to the c library, which is LGPL, so I can do that, but it requires this kernal modification, so I have to release that, but it requires this utility, which is GPL, so I have to include the source for that...
Their web page worries me a little, they sing the praises of open standards, but open standards != open source... both are good but they are apples and oranges.
I am not trying to slam any companies or criticize any of the licenses out there... I am just pointing out that all the current major Linux/Gnu distributions have avoided running afoul of any of the "open source" or "free" software licenses by making everything they add "open source" or "free" as well. If you release everything you add under the GPL or similiar license, you can't be violating the licenses. It keeps it relatively simple.
If they are the first to try to create a hybrid distribution, they will have some new ground to break and some work to do.
The problem they used to address was easier... we have this closed system and we are adding some open source / free software tools. Hard to violate the GPL in this case, just release the source to any GPL software you add. When things are turned around and you are trying to add closed source / non-free software to an open distribution, it is tougher to make sure you have not violated the GPL.
Just some thoughts...
Bill
I did a quick search...
From the following case:
A DEWAYNE OLDHAM v. THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF TENNESSEE, INC.
No. 3-93-0472
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE, NASHVILLE DIVISION
849 F. Supp. 611; 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4974
An excerpt from the Judges ruling:
"[*613] In early May, 1993, the ACLU sent a letter to Tennessee public school officials. The letter stated, in part, that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. , 112 S. Ct. 2649, 120 L. Ed. 2d 467 (1992), precluded all speakers, including students, from leading prayers at graduation ceremonies. The letter further stated: "Please understand that if your school system does sponsor prayer at its graduation ceremonies and we are contacted by students and their families, we will most likely pursue litigation." Exhibit No. 1 to second amended complaint (filed October 25, 1993; Docket Entry No. 38). "
Granted, there is a lot of wiggle room here based on what "sponsors" and what "prayer" are meant to say. There were a couple of other cases in the news local to Cincinnati here where student led prayer was challenged by the ACLU.
I am not trying to slam the ACLU in general. I think they do for the first ammendment what the NRA does for the second ammendment, and I think both organizations are extremely important to our nation. I _want_ them to be a little nutty on defending the extremes, just to protect the middle.
I just wish they would treat conservative Christians with the same extreme views with which they treat everyone else.
I would be happy to listen to any counterexamples. Surely there is a case somewhere where the ACLU defended the rights of a conservative Christian to share their personal belief system in a highly public forum...
Bill