I use a Nokia 7650 (which replaced a Nokia 6310). This phone is fully J2ME (in fact, I use a Java app to browse HTML pages coz the internal WAP browser doesn't cut it).
(Disclaimer: My J2ME experience on cellphones is limited to the Nokia 7650 and the 6310i. Everything stated for here applies only to those platforms)
When you download a J2ME application, 2 things need to be taken in to account. 1) Does the app use a resolution that will fit on your screen (same size or smaller that is). 2) Do you have enough storage space for it?
Once you've answered those, there is no other hassles with a J2ME application (short of any programming or compatibility issues). Just install it and run it from the menu.
You can download the J2ME applications from anywhere you choose. Download them to your PC and then transfer them across (via irda or bluetooth in my case), or download them directly from the net to the phone. With the Nokia 7650 you can even get them via POP3/IMAPv4 if you wanted.
Anyway.... J2ME applications reside on the phone, run on the phone, and are controlled by you and the settings of your phone. Once you've downloaded the application, the Telco/ISP has no control over the application itself (outside of licensing issues).
You do not need the Telco/ISP to write your own J2ME applications and run them on your J2ME capable phone.
I can understand that, but how much of it would really be as useful as the existing devices if they were combined? Usually you sacrifice something for combining the devices, even moreso than with things like PC hardware or stereo equipment.
Just my experience... I have done something along those lines. I have gone from carrying a Visor Edge, 6310 and a digicam to carrying just a Nokia 7650. Its worked out perfectly.
The Symbian OS 6.1 has enough features to keep a technophile like me very happy. Plenty of distractions and bells and whistles. J2ME midlets make things even better in that my software is not limited to just Symbian native SIS files but also the J2ME compatible apps (so long as they're setup to use a screen res the same or smaller than my 7650).
The PDA features of the 7650 are very well put together. The calendar app has replaced my PDAs app, the contacts beats anything the visor could do without getting extra software to use instead. Todo is there with priorities, memo pad/notes are there. Then there's a good supply of games when I'm bored. I got around the fact that its only a WAP phone by downloading a HTML browser midlet which is very useful. And I have IM+ so I can get onto ICQ/AOL directly. It works out that ICQ via GPRS is a lot cheaper than sending SMS messages back and forward between the phone and ICQ.
Aside from things like a much smaller software range at the moment, the phone is a complete replacement for my PDA and I very rarely take the PDA off the cradle now unless I need a specific piece of software. But then, thanks to Nokia releasing the API for their Series 60 phones, I'm in the process of working slowly to write my own Symbian versions of the software I absolutely need. Why not?
Oh, and yes, there is even VNC and SSH clients for the Symbian based 9200 phones and I'd say they won't be far off for the Series 60 phones;) Well, SSH client is more what I want at the moment.
Still, we'll get there. As more people start buying these phones, the software will start to be available for them. Tis what happened with Palm units and Windows. Given that not just Nokia, but Sony-Ericsson and others are building on Symbian, it should prove to be a very prolific software industry in the not too distant future.
Still, thats just my experience. What have I given up when I put the Visor Edge down? Not really a lot... Just reduced the current software choices I have for a little while.:) Given how old my digicam was, the resolution is still the same:)
Personally I recommend a tri-band GSM phone. That will cover you in nearly every country in the world.
CDMA is a good standard.. Very fast data compared with GPRS (CDMAx1=144Kb/s theoretical vs GPRS=40.2Kb/s) but over all, I find that its limited use globally makes it way too restrictive for my use.
With Tri-band GSM (800/1800/1900) you cover all five major continents. You're covered for Europe, Africa, Asia/Pacific, and Nrth America. Very useful if you just want a phone. Due to the limited release of GPRS, you may have to rely on 14.4Kb/s GSM Data (9600bps in some places) or if you're lucky, HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) at 42.0Kb/s (mostly in Europe).
There are also phones like the dual band Treo 270 (GSM 800/1900) (also note, the Treo 300 is a CDMA phone) that will cover you for Europe, Asia and the Nrth American continents but when you're on Safari in Africa somewhere, its not usable.
AMPS is pretty limited. In fact, most places have phased it out by now with it kept purely for backwards compatibility and it has a very limited life span now. I'd say good luck buying a phone now that could still handle it and works across all regions. New Zealand (my backyard) has phased it out a long time ago, TDMA replaced it before CDMA replaced that. GSM was the catalyst for that progression when Bell South (who has since sold their GSM network here to Vodafone in the early 90's) originally set up shop in NZ in the 80's.
I personally run around with a Nokia 7650 (dualband 800/1800). I don't go to Canada too often so that when I do, its viable to rent a phone. I am intending to purchase a Nokia 3650 (GSM/EGSM 800/1800/1900) next year to solve that problem. That and MMC cards are sorely missed in my 7650.
The convenience of being able to just plug a sim card in to any phone is a huge bonus. Makes number portability a real sweet deal:)
I've read it, and the counter arguements, and the pooled quotes from Miguel, and I'd say he is pretty pro-.NET. What do you think Sun will make of that?
Not a hell of a lot. Why should they care about what happens down the line in regards to Mono when they have a HUGE say in the development path (based on amount of code contributed and number of full time staff working on Gnome)? If the rest of the developers go crazy and do implement.net/Mono, Sun can just pull all its developers back and fork the existing code base. Not something they're going to want to do, but if they're pushed into a corner, they probably would. Given the amount of people opposed to.net, they'd probably get a huge chunk of the existing developers going with them if it ever came down to that.
Do you beleive they are going to remain vendor neutral when it comes to the technology of the future versions of GNOME?
Who? Sun? Are they vendor neutral? Ximian? Even though they're helping develop Gnome, even Ximian has a huge bias towards Linux based software. Mono is the child of Miguel, and he heads the team working on it. To my knowledge, he doesn't actually work much on Gnome at all lately because of his enjoyment and pleasure with.net/Mono.
Or the touch of death, depending on how pesimistic you are;-)
(The joke hasn't been missed, however....)
I don't think that in any way, either could lose from this partnership. Remember, Sun is helping build a platform that is very slick, very easy to use and is becoming a defacto standard for many other OS's as well. Having a common GUI across the various platforms can only be good, and the fact that its free is even better...
Crucially though I think this gives them a back door into the X86 architecture that they blew away when they ditched the new version of Solaris for X86 platforms.
I don't think they're going to bother with the X86 platform again. I think the closest they'll get is the Colbalt servers, but I don't ever expect to see an X86 version of Solaris (as a server or workstation) again. It is a pity, but X86 will never be a viable platform for anyone as long as M$ dominate the desktop and as long as Linux and the *bsd's remain free and open.
Okay, let me be sure I understand this - Miguel and his gnomies wanna base GNOME on MONO which is an open source implementation of.NET
Nope.. Not correct at all. Think again. Miguel said he would like it to go that way, and was talking about Gnome 4 which doesn't even have a road plan yet, let alone any code for it. You have not followed up those stories I take it.
Gnome will not be based on Mono. The devel lists and more were seething when The Register made those announcements and Miguel quickly followed up with a clarification. His standing is that he would like to see it go that way. Not that he fully and completely intends to push it in that direction. Remember, Miguel is just one man on the foundation and just one man in the sea of developers. He can have his opinion, but he still has to go with what the majority recommends.
Besides, Mono is no where near completed. And with the change in the license, I doubt it will get much usage at all when it is anyway. I personally would rather the effort put into Java or something more open. As a result, even when Mono is finished, I don't intend to use it or anything based on it if I can help it. However, that said, I guess it depends on what apps are released down the line.
You read his post too literally... I suggest you interpret it a little more figuratively and then think about it for a while.
Evidently, your ranting on about his "lack of understanding" has shown your very own. You have already admitted to being neither a christian scholar or a biblical scholar. Maybe in future you should take the contextual, not the literal, meaning. By your own ranting, you've completely eliminated your own argument, if you ever had any.
I am still wondering why they left FSGS alone which does the exact same thing as bnetd??
They haven't. If you go to the FSGS website, you'll see on their front page a notice that says they've been contacted by Blizzard and have shut down downloads of the app.
[QUOTE] As some of you might have expected Net-Games got a dissuasion from Blizzard's lawyers today regarding mainly the support for Warcraft III beta (which FSGS in fact does NOT support and never did) and the lack of the CD-KEY checks. Currently now we cannot say too much about the case, since our lawyers are busy with checking the stuff. And we cannot say yet what will happen. Everything is possible, from closing down FSGS to nothing or something in between. We will keep you updated about the progress.
Until we get an ok from our lawyers we have taken the downloads and the forums offline to prevent any damage. And we hope that you understand that we need to protect the company from any damage.
[/QUOTE]
(Un)fortunately, they didn't close all avenues and you can still get the files (at least the linux version) via other means. Wasn't hard to work out, so I'm sure most of you out there wanting a copy for "archive" purposes will know how to go about it.
Perhaps it should best be said that Windows users find it easier to find people to help them simply because there are so many others familiar with the platform.
Actually, wouldn't it be even more accurate to say that there are more people familiar with the problem?;-)
In all honesty, there has not been a single Windows problem I have come across in my years as an admin that wasn't already documented. A few friends have been on beta trials and found bugs, but most problems discovered IRL are already known and documented in the MS KB (Online, Technet, or internal).
My point is, yes, many more people are familiar with the platform, but that, by a very vague extension, also means that there are likely to be many more people experiencing the same problem and therefore able to help resolve it.
Just my agreement with and extension of your comment;-)
The role of someone on the GNOME Board of Directors is to represent the best interests of the GNOME project not the interests of any other third party. Can RMS make this distinction?
I honestly believe that no he cannot. I have no confidence in RMS as any kind of leader any longer. I believe that he would ensure there is nothing "proprietry" mentioned anywhere in the project or by anyone involved in the project and after that, he'd be struggling to fit in.
As has been pointed out... What has RMS contributed to the Gnome project beyond writing the GPL a long time ago? It is a well known fact he doesn't even use a GUI of any kind. RMS is not suited to the position of member of the board of the Gnome Foundation. Anyone that votes him on is doing so purely on his reputation and not his merits.
people may (perhaps rightly) criticize him for portraying himself as a martyr, but he's not starved for attention
The issue is that RMS is dangerous to the productivity of projects and they're likely to fork when he is involved. GCC is the best known example of this. RMS also has a superiority complex where he must be in control and determine the way a project goes, as in the failed attempt on GLIBC
If he's not trying to get the attention that doing those things causes, why else would he want to do it? Surely, even if a project is part of the GNU, it is up to the project leaders and the developers to determine which way a project goes and how it does things. Not RMS as he seems so desperate to do...
I don't ignore what RMS has done for the community as a whole. He has contributed a lot and I do acknowledge that. But I am sick of him riding on the back of his PAST achievements to get leverage in todays projects.
As for your ESR comment... At least ESR is a lot more level headed. ESR is passionate, but RMS is an extreme zealot.
RMS is against the KDE project because it is based on Qt which is not a GPL application. Because Qt is not fully Free or OpenSource software, RMS refuses to acknowledge it for what it is. As a result, he excludes KDE and anything else that relies on Qt libs as well.
Things changed when Trolltech changed the licensing policy for the Qt libs so that there were essentially 3 different licensing models... Free, Open and Proprietry. However, even with this change, RMS still refuses to acknowledge it.
I find it funning that Miguel was inspired to launch "OUR" third desktop project... I didn't know RMS had any part in the code base at all.. Much less that he used a Graphical GUI of any kind.
Besides, while I use Gnome and haven't even looked at KDE since 2.0 was released, Gnome hasn't succeeded yet. Like Edward Scissorhands, its not finished yet.
I truly hope that RMS is not voted on. While he has done great things in the past, his more recent attitude towards the community as a whole as done nothing but annoy me.
Maybe, just maybe, I'm wrong, but I strongly believe RMS has gone from evangelist to extremist. Claiming to be the father of OpenSource, true or not, I feel rather strongly that he has grown too egotistical for his own good and just wants to be in the lime-light more than he wants to promote the over-all success and benefits of OpenSource and the Free Software Foundation.
Maybe if he wasn't so anti commercial products and accepted that they do have a place and are necessary things would be a lot easier to swallow, but I've just had enough of him.
Bill Gates and him should have a Celebrity Deathmatch to see who really is the father of OpenSource:-)
spent a lot more money on purchasign Linux distro's, books, software than I have on Windows anything.
I pre-order my distro's from the various sites (inc Redhat and SuSE) so that when they are released, they're shipped to me as quickly as possible. I purchase update CD's instead of downloading a whole heap of software.
I only have a simple dial up and home, no DSL or cable, so its a lot easier for me to support the software I actually enjoy and have a strong passion for by purchasing it than downloading it. The way I see it, if you truly like something then you don't really have a problem spending a bit of money to get that item, and help those that put it together. This applies to anything, not just software.
Re:GSM/USA - I thought it actually worked
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SMS vs. E-mail?
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The only time I have paid for a cell phone has been when I wanted a major feature update over the phone that came (extremely) subsidized with my contract. The fact that I do not venture to the US/Canada often does not put me in much frame of mind to consider a triband phone just yet. The majority of my travels have been within the Asia/Sth Pacific region (Singapore, Australia mostly) where the 900/1800 freq's are used.
Rental, if I get it in NZ before I leave, is pretty cheap and the charge goes on my phone bill at the end of the month instead of having to pay it up front. Makes life a lot easier that way.
Besides, I don't intend replacing my Nokia 6210 until I can buy a 9210 in NZ. I'm tempted to get one when I go to Europe at the end of the year, but can't justify it the expense when I have basically the same functions using my PDA and 6210. Even if it is two devices and I suck the batteries dry with IR communication, it negates any real reason for purchasing the 9210 other than the "wow!" factor.
Still... Rental of a triband phone will suffice for now unless prices go up severely.
European, many Asian (not all), and nearly all of Australasia are using this great standard known as GSM (and GSM2 and GPRS are coming soon to a quality vendor near you).
The great thing about GSM is that I can use my GSM phone in nearly every part of the world I go to. Most countries have standardised on the bands used and so its a breeze to travel with. The only time a tri-band phone is needed is when you head for the US.
I have no problems with GSM and although there are some limitations, they're really not anything worth complaining about. I can send SMS messages to my friends in Australia, England, Germany and they can reply. Why would I want anything else?
In New Zealand we really only have two providers. Telecom NZ and Vodafone. Telecom NZ has lost huge market share to Vodafone because the corporates want to be able to use their phone from anywhere, without a hassle. Telecom only allows you to go to Sydney from NZ if you want to use international roaming. The are about to roll out CDMA (end of July) but even that only increases the roaming capabilities marginally. With so many using GSM already, GPRS is going to have a much larger market share than CDMA.
Its great when friends come over from the UK because before they even get through customs (but after they're off the plane) we can be talking away, making sure someone is there to collect them. If it wasn't for GSM, this would be nearly impossible.
GSM is the most widely used network in the world. I have always lamented the fact that if I want to go to the US or Canada, I have to make special arrangements, rent a phone and probably lose a lot of functionality. I have never been able to understand why it is that Americans can't just bite the ego bullet and accept something that was not developed by the US and use something the majority of the rest of the world is very much enjoying. Surely the frequencies used is not the issue... However it would be a lot better if there was a global standard, instead of the US and the Rest.
Only MS is seasoned enough to provide such services
Oh so not true!!! IBM, Sun, Novell are all capable of doing exactly the same thing. IBM would never get the 'job' because its always been likened to Big Brother ever since Apple's famous SuperBowl add in the 80's (Either Steve Jobs was a great forward thinker, or he fluked that one). Lotus Notes/Domino could quite easily be modified to be very much along the same lines as.NET is intending, it just doesn't have the advertising budget or the market share to make it worth while.
Sun.... Well, they tried... But everyone was against it then so it didn't happen.
Novell... OneNET is actually functional and you could use it right now if you wanted. But its biggest hurdle is market share and advertising. Every ad I've seen from Novell is about the company and what it can do, not about individual products.
Microsoft are not the only ones, they're just the ones that have made it seem like a good idea and have put a huge (as they always do) marketing hype to push it forward quite outstandingly.
All this latest flaming and full frontal attacks from Microsoft is totally out of character. And its worked. Nearly everyone has stopped thinking about.NET and is taking notice of these comments from MS. I know I did for one.
MS are very smart in this regard. They know that people have a lot of pride in the OpenSource community and by attacking OpenSource directly, people will instantly react. Everyone moves to take on these attacks from Microsoft while the.NET platoon out-flanks and out-manuvers the OpenSource community.
The only way to resolve this is to ignore Microsoft's public comments like this. Instead, concentrate on what they're actually producing, not what they're flaming. Let guys like RMS throw the mud back (I suggest him because he does it so well) and let the rest of us carry on doing what we do best... Building a great community, pretty damn excellent software and something that everyone can use freely and openly without fear of "The Man".
If it weren't for work, I'd be totally free of MS software and their crap. If I didn't have to keep up with issues about their software, I'd completely ignore them altogether. Nothing I do in my own time has anything to do with them, my software isn't trying to use or emulate their 'standards', just provide an alternative that does what I want the way I want it to.
Those that can, I strongly suggest that you ignore the statements MS make like this. Just keep an eye on the products they actually produce (its not smart to not know what "the other side" is doing).
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
Unbelievable. Either I'm misinterpretting what Mr Ballmer is saying here, or he really has no idea at all about the GPL.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the GPL state that dirivatives of Open Source software covered by the GPL must also be made available as Open Source and fall under the bounds of the GPL?
I read what he's saying as being "If I use MySQL on MS Windows, I must also make MS Windows Open Source" (for lack of a better example).
Microsoft annoy me. I cannot stand their arrogance or their dirty play... But it just goes to show that MS don't really understand Open Source at all. They can't even interpret the GPL as its intended, they have to twist the meaning of that to suit them too.
I can empathize with this man considering I've been in a similar situation once before, only I lasted 2 weeks before the company went broke.
Its a scary world we live in, and the tech world is probably the fastest place for things to happen. Who would've thought that real time became more than just real time?:)
Hopefully he'll find the dream job he's after. They're out there, I know that for sure. After 3 years of looking, the past 2 years working in a very boring job, I'm now on track to getting the job I've been after for a very long time. Just takes perserverance.
Either you are totally trolling or just plain ignorant, but I have to bite anyway.
Now it is a complete joke compared to modern distributions like Red Hat (Mandrake), Debian, and SuSE
I for one prefer Slackware over these other distros of yours because I don't need all the bloated and useless crap like a fancy GUI to do everything for me. Don't need tools like LinuxConf because if I use another Unix OS or clone, I don't have those tools to do my job for me. I actually have to have a clue and know what I'm doing. Slackware has never made claims of being a "desktop" distribution... In fact, its always maintained that it is for more advanced users who have a clue about what they're doing without needing to resort to GUI tools.
If I want to get a DNS server up and running fast, I find me a 486 with say 500meg hdd. I install a very basic installation of slackware (which effectively gives me the kernel and the necessities of the command shell) and then I install bind into a chroot'd environment. I then have a DNS that will do exactly what its required to do, has bugger all crap loaded on it (and thus reduces the chance of something being exploited and the box hacked) and the machine is able to handle the load without a hassle because all its doing is running as a DNS.
Try and do similar on a Redhat or SuSE or Mandrake installation. You get all the bloated tools, most of it stuff you'll never use, and a system filled with software that consistantly seems to be filled with buffer overflows and exploitable flaws. I get lots of security bulletins about Redhat and its off-shoots, but not very often do I get one about a flaw in Slackware.
These great modern distros of yours are more headache and bloatware than a sys-admin needs if they just want a server up and running that is going to be reliable and do the job they need. Most of them now won't even run on a 486. Half my servers are old 486's that would've been thrown out otherwise. They all run Slackware and attempts to install other more "modern" distro's fail 9 out of 10 times.
Get your facts straight before suggesting that a distro sucks. Better yet, RTFM and learn how to really run the software instead of relying on GUI's to do it for you. Maybe once you know how to work the system properly without relying on wrappers to do it for you, you might actually discover that Slackware isn't quite as backwards as you think.
 
Note: I'm not saying that wrapper apps are bad, but my personal experience is that they make me lazy and when I do use a box that doesn't have them, I find I either miss stuff I should do or just completely blank out on what/how to do it. I use the command line and manually edit the files to keep me honest and my mind awake. Its good practice because going from say a Redhat server with LinuxConf to a SunOS server without it is a lot easier when you actually know how to edit the conf files for things like sendmail, apache and bind yourself.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely my own opinion. Many many other people are guaranteed to have differing opinions, and thats their perogative.
Slackware Dev Team - Excellent work guys, keep the good news coming:)
This is pretty excellent news to come on the back of the Compaq announcement of their new Linux clusters. Maybe now Compaq will start putting more thought into releasing Alpha clusters powered by Slackware with a touch of beowulf...
Damn... There's something that could truly be a piece of art to have sitting in the server room... A cluster of Alpha machines running Slackware and Beowulf... Now... Time to convince the boss that the current proliants are truly useless and we need at least 5 Alphas to replace them.:)
As far as I'm aware, IBM does all their own support... As for Compaq, I'd say the majority of their Linux support would be external. Based on what I know of the Presario & Deskpro support structures, I'd say that Compaq will support the hardware and Compaq specific software, but the Linux support itself will probably be outsourced. Either that or Compaq is going to be doing some serious overhaul of their Proliant support teams.
Its good to finally see that the main players are starting to be a little more active about their Linux servers and not just making idle promises like so many have done in the past. This promises to make high end servers that are truly reliable a much easier and affordable option for many companies out there.
As an aside, now that Sun owns Cobalt, does anyone know if the Cobalt servers are going to have Linux replaced by SunOS or whether Sun intends to keep Linux as the primary OS for the Cobalt servers. In all honesty, I cannot see devices like the Cube and so on remaining competitive if a proprietry/commercial OS like SunOS is used. They would then have to directly compete with Windows NT/2K and HP's servers.
With Compaq up'ing the stakes like this, now what you truly are paying for is the server and the technology. Most excellent. This will truly help the Linux community increase its reputation as well as put some real servers out there that can be used to directly compare stats against the other more established server OS's.
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I use a Nokia 7650 (which replaced a Nokia 6310). This phone is fully J2ME (in fact, I use a Java app to browse HTML pages coz the internal WAP browser doesn't cut it).
(Disclaimer: My J2ME experience on cellphones is limited to the Nokia 7650 and the 6310i. Everything stated for here applies only to those platforms)
When you download a J2ME application, 2 things need to be taken in to account. 1) Does the app use a resolution that will fit on your screen (same size or smaller that is). 2) Do you have enough storage space for it?
Once you've answered those, there is no other hassles with a J2ME application (short of any programming or compatibility issues). Just install it and run it from the menu.
You can download the J2ME applications from anywhere you choose. Download them to your PC and then transfer them across (via irda or bluetooth in my case), or download them directly from the net to the phone. With the Nokia 7650 you can even get them via POP3/IMAPv4 if you wanted.
Anyway.... J2ME applications reside on the phone, run on the phone, and are controlled by you and the settings of your phone. Once you've downloaded the application, the Telco/ISP has no control over the application itself (outside of licensing issues).
You do not need the Telco/ISP to write your own J2ME applications and run them on your J2ME capable phone.
Just my experience... I have done something along those lines. I have gone from carrying a Visor Edge, 6310 and a digicam to carrying just a Nokia 7650. Its worked out perfectly.
The Symbian OS 6.1 has enough features to keep a technophile like me very happy. Plenty of distractions and bells and whistles. J2ME midlets make things even better in that my software is not limited to just Symbian native SIS files but also the J2ME compatible apps (so long as they're setup to use a screen res the same or smaller than my 7650).
The PDA features of the 7650 are very well put together. The calendar app has replaced my PDAs app, the contacts beats anything the visor could do without getting extra software to use instead. Todo is there with priorities, memo pad/notes are there. Then there's a good supply of games when I'm bored. I got around the fact that its only a WAP phone by downloading a HTML browser midlet which is very useful. And I have IM+ so I can get onto ICQ/AOL directly. It works out that ICQ via GPRS is a lot cheaper than sending SMS messages back and forward between the phone and ICQ.
Aside from things like a much smaller software range at the moment, the phone is a complete replacement for my PDA and I very rarely take the PDA off the cradle now unless I need a specific piece of software. But then, thanks to Nokia releasing the API for their Series 60 phones, I'm in the process of working slowly to write my own Symbian versions of the software I absolutely need. Why not?
Oh, and yes, there is even VNC and SSH clients for the Symbian based 9200 phones and I'd say they won't be far off for the Series 60 phones ;) Well, SSH client is more what I want at the moment.
Still, we'll get there. As more people start buying these phones, the software will start to be available for them. Tis what happened with Palm units and Windows. Given that not just Nokia, but Sony-Ericsson and others are building on Symbian, it should prove to be a very prolific software industry in the not too distant future.
Still, thats just my experience. What have I given up when I put the Visor Edge down? Not really a lot... Just reduced the current software choices I have for a little while. :) Given how old my digicam was, the resolution is still the same :)
Personally I recommend a tri-band GSM phone. That will cover you in nearly every country in the world.
:)
CDMA is a good standard.. Very fast data compared with GPRS (CDMAx1=144Kb/s theoretical vs GPRS=40.2Kb/s) but over all, I find that its limited use globally makes it way too restrictive for my use.
With Tri-band GSM (800/1800/1900) you cover all five major continents. You're covered for Europe, Africa, Asia/Pacific, and Nrth America. Very useful if you just want a phone. Due to the limited release of GPRS, you may have to rely on 14.4Kb/s GSM Data (9600bps in some places) or if you're lucky, HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) at 42.0Kb/s (mostly in Europe).
There are also phones like the dual band Treo 270 (GSM 800/1900) (also note, the Treo 300 is a CDMA phone) that will cover you for Europe, Asia and the Nrth American continents but when you're on Safari in Africa somewhere, its not usable.
AMPS is pretty limited. In fact, most places have phased it out by now with it kept purely for backwards compatibility and it has a very limited life span now. I'd say good luck buying a phone now that could still handle it and works across all regions. New Zealand (my backyard) has phased it out a long time ago, TDMA replaced it before CDMA replaced that. GSM was the catalyst for that progression when Bell South (who has since sold their GSM network here to Vodafone in the early 90's) originally set up shop in NZ in the 80's.
I personally run around with a Nokia 7650 (dualband 800/1800). I don't go to Canada too often so that when I do, its viable to rent a phone. I am intending to purchase a Nokia 3650 (GSM/EGSM 800/1800/1900) next year to solve that problem. That and MMC cards are sorely missed in my 7650.
The convenience of being able to just plug a sim card in to any phone is a huge bonus. Makes number portability a real sweet deal
I've read it, and the counter arguements, and the pooled quotes from Miguel, and I'd say he is pretty pro-.NET. What do you think Sun will make of that?
Not a hell of a lot. Why should they care about what happens down the line in regards to Mono when they have a HUGE say in the development path (based on amount of code contributed and number of full time staff working on Gnome)? If the rest of the developers go crazy and do implement .net/Mono, Sun can just pull all its developers back and fork the existing code base. Not something they're going to want to do, but if they're pushed into a corner, they probably would. Given the amount of people opposed to .net, they'd probably get a huge chunk of the existing developers going with them if it ever came down to that.
Do you beleive they are going to remain vendor neutral when it comes to the technology of the future versions of GNOME?
Who? Sun? Are they vendor neutral? Ximian? Even though they're helping develop Gnome, even Ximian has a huge bias towards Linux based software. Mono is the child of Miguel, and he heads the team working on it. To my knowledge, he doesn't actually work much on Gnome at all lately because of his enjoyment and pleasure with .net/Mono.
Or the touch of death, depending on how pesimistic you are ;-)
(The joke hasn't been missed, however....)
I don't think that in any way, either could lose from this partnership. Remember, Sun is helping build a platform that is very slick, very easy to use and is becoming a defacto standard for many other OS's as well. Having a common GUI across the various platforms can only be good, and the fact that its free is even better...
Crucially though I think this gives them a back door into the X86 architecture that they blew away when they ditched the new version of Solaris for X86 platforms.
I don't think they're going to bother with the X86 platform again. I think the closest they'll get is the Colbalt servers, but I don't ever expect to see an X86 version of Solaris (as a server or workstation) again. It is a pity, but X86 will never be a viable platform for anyone as long as M$ dominate the desktop and as long as Linux and the *bsd's remain free and open.
Okay, let me be sure I understand this - Miguel and his gnomies wanna base GNOME on MONO which is an open source implementation of .NET
Nope.. Not correct at all. Think again. Miguel said he would like it to go that way, and was talking about Gnome 4 which doesn't even have a road plan yet, let alone any code for it. You have not followed up those stories I take it.
Gnome will not be based on Mono. The devel lists and more were seething when The Register made those announcements and Miguel quickly followed up with a clarification. His standing is that he would like to see it go that way. Not that he fully and completely intends to push it in that direction. Remember, Miguel is just one man on the foundation and just one man in the sea of developers. He can have his opinion, but he still has to go with what the majority recommends.
Besides, Mono is no where near completed. And with the change in the license, I doubt it will get much usage at all when it is anyway. I personally would rather the effort put into Java or something more open. As a result, even when Mono is finished, I don't intend to use it or anything based on it if I can help it. However, that said, I guess it depends on what apps are released down the line.
You read his post too literally... I suggest you interpret it a little more figuratively and then think about it for a while.
Evidently, your ranting on about his "lack of understanding" has shown your very own. You have already admitted to being neither a christian scholar or a biblical scholar. Maybe in future you should take the contextual, not the literal, meaning. By your own ranting, you've completely eliminated your own argument, if you ever had any.
They haven't. If you go to the FSGS website, you'll see on their front page a notice that says they've been contacted by Blizzard and have shut down downloads of the app.
[QUOTE]
(Un)fortunately, they didn't close all avenues and you can still get the files (at least the linux version) via other means. Wasn't hard to work out, so I'm sure most of you out there wanting a copy for "archive" purposes will know how to go about it.As some of you might have expected Net-Games got a dissuasion from Blizzard's lawyers today regarding mainly the support for Warcraft III beta (which FSGS in fact does NOT support and never did) and the lack of the CD-KEY checks. Currently now we cannot say too much about the case, since our lawyers are busy with checking the stuff. And we cannot say yet what will happen. Everything is possible, from closing down FSGS to nothing or something in between. We will keep you updated about the progress.
Until we get an ok from our lawyers we have taken the downloads and the forums offline to prevent any damage. And we hope that you understand that we need to protect the company from any damage.
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps it should best be said that Windows users find it easier to find people to help them simply because there are so many others familiar with the platform.
Actually, wouldn't it be even more accurate to say that there are more people familiar with the problem? ;-)
In all honesty, there has not been a single Windows problem I have come across in my years as an admin that wasn't already documented. A few friends have been on beta trials and found bugs, but most problems discovered IRL are already known and documented in the MS KB (Online, Technet, or internal).
My point is, yes, many more people are familiar with the platform, but that, by a very vague extension, also means that there are likely to be many more people experiencing the same problem and therefore able to help resolve it.
Just my agreement with and extension of your comment ;-)
The role of someone on the GNOME Board of Directors is to represent the best interests of the GNOME project not the interests of any other third party. Can RMS make this distinction?
I honestly believe that no he cannot. I have no confidence in RMS as any kind of leader any longer. I believe that he would ensure there is nothing "proprietry" mentioned anywhere in the project or by anyone involved in the project and after that, he'd be struggling to fit in.
As has been pointed out... What has RMS contributed to the Gnome project beyond writing the GPL a long time ago? It is a well known fact he doesn't even use a GUI of any kind. RMS is not suited to the position of member of the board of the Gnome Foundation. Anyone that votes him on is doing so purely on his reputation and not his merits.
people may (perhaps rightly) criticize him for portraying himself as a martyr, but he's not starved for attention
The issue is that RMS is dangerous to the productivity of projects and they're likely to fork when he is involved. GCC is the best known example of this. RMS also has a superiority complex where he must be in control and determine the way a project goes, as in the failed attempt on GLIBC
If he's not trying to get the attention that doing those things causes, why else would he want to do it? Surely, even if a project is part of the GNU, it is up to the project leaders and the developers to determine which way a project goes and how it does things. Not RMS as he seems so desperate to do...
I don't ignore what RMS has done for the community as a whole. He has contributed a lot and I do acknowledge that. But I am sick of him riding on the back of his PAST achievements to get leverage in todays projects.
As for your ESR comment... At least ESR is a lot more level headed. ESR is passionate, but RMS is an extreme zealot.
Let me rephrase...
"RMS _was_ against the KDE project because it is based on Qt which _was_ not a GPL application."
I should've checked my own statements. My head is still in the clouds.
RMS is against the KDE project because it is based on Qt which is not a GPL application. Because Qt is not fully Free or OpenSource software, RMS refuses to acknowledge it for what it is. As a result, he excludes KDE and anything else that relies on Qt libs as well.
Things changed when Trolltech changed the licensing policy for the Qt libs so that there were essentially 3 different licensing models... Free, Open and Proprietry. However, even with this change, RMS still refuses to acknowledge it.
I find it funning that Miguel was inspired to launch "OUR" third desktop project... I didn't know RMS had any part in the code base at all.. Much less that he used a Graphical GUI of any kind.
Besides, while I use Gnome and haven't even looked at KDE since 2.0 was released, Gnome hasn't succeeded yet. Like Edward Scissorhands, its not finished yet.
I truly hope that RMS is not voted on. While he has done great things in the past, his more recent attitude towards the community as a whole as done nothing but annoy me.
:-)
Maybe, just maybe, I'm wrong, but I strongly believe RMS has gone from evangelist to extremist. Claiming to be the father of OpenSource, true or not, I feel rather strongly that he has grown too egotistical for his own good and just wants to be in the lime-light more than he wants to promote the over-all success and benefits of OpenSource and the Free Software Foundation.
Maybe if he wasn't so anti commercial products and accepted that they do have a place and are necessary things would be a lot easier to swallow, but I've just had enough of him.
Bill Gates and him should have a Celebrity Deathmatch to see who really is the father of OpenSource
spent a lot more money on purchasign Linux distro's, books, software than I have on Windows anything.
I pre-order my distro's from the various sites (inc Redhat and SuSE) so that when they are released, they're shipped to me as quickly as possible. I purchase update CD's instead of downloading a whole heap of software.
I only have a simple dial up and home, no DSL or cable, so its a lot easier for me to support the software I actually enjoy and have a strong passion for by purchasing it than downloading it. The way I see it, if you truly like something then you don't really have a problem spending a bit of money to get that item, and help those that put it together. This applies to anything, not just software.
The only time I have paid for a cell phone has been when I wanted a major feature update over the phone that came (extremely) subsidized with my contract. The fact that I do not venture to the US/Canada often does not put me in much frame of mind to consider a triband phone just yet. The majority of my travels have been within the Asia/Sth Pacific region (Singapore, Australia mostly) where the 900/1800 freq's are used.
Rental, if I get it in NZ before I leave, is pretty cheap and the charge goes on my phone bill at the end of the month instead of having to pay it up front. Makes life a lot easier that way.
Besides, I don't intend replacing my Nokia 6210 until I can buy a 9210 in NZ. I'm tempted to get one when I go to Europe at the end of the year, but can't justify it the expense when I have basically the same functions using my PDA and 6210. Even if it is two devices and I suck the batteries dry with IR communication, it negates any real reason for purchasing the 9210 other than the "wow!" factor.
Still... Rental of a triband phone will suffice for now unless prices go up severely.
European, many Asian (not all), and nearly all of Australasia are using this great standard known as GSM (and GSM2 and GPRS are coming soon to a quality vendor near you).
The great thing about GSM is that I can use my GSM phone in nearly every part of the world I go to. Most countries have standardised on the bands used and so its a breeze to travel with. The only time a tri-band phone is needed is when you head for the US.
I have no problems with GSM and although there are some limitations, they're really not anything worth complaining about. I can send SMS messages to my friends in Australia, England, Germany and they can reply. Why would I want anything else?
In New Zealand we really only have two providers. Telecom NZ and Vodafone. Telecom NZ has lost huge market share to Vodafone because the corporates want to be able to use their phone from anywhere, without a hassle. Telecom only allows you to go to Sydney from NZ if you want to use international roaming. The are about to roll out CDMA (end of July) but even that only increases the roaming capabilities marginally. With so many using GSM already, GPRS is going to have a much larger market share than CDMA.
Its great when friends come over from the UK because before they even get through customs (but after they're off the plane) we can be talking away, making sure someone is there to collect them. If it wasn't for GSM, this would be nearly impossible.
GSM is the most widely used network in the world. I have always lamented the fact that if I want to go to the US or Canada, I have to make special arrangements, rent a phone and probably lose a lot of functionality. I have never been able to understand why it is that Americans can't just bite the ego bullet and accept something that was not developed by the US and use something the majority of the rest of the world is very much enjoying. Surely the frequencies used is not the issue... However it would be a lot better if there was a global standard, instead of the US and the Rest.
Only MS is seasoned enough to provide such services
Oh so not true!!! IBM, Sun, Novell are all capable of doing exactly the same thing. IBM would never get the 'job' because its always been likened to Big Brother ever since Apple's famous SuperBowl add in the 80's (Either Steve Jobs was a great forward thinker, or he fluked that one). Lotus Notes/Domino could quite easily be modified to be very much along the same lines as .NET is intending, it just doesn't have the advertising budget or the market share to make it worth while.
Sun.... Well, they tried... But everyone was against it then so it didn't happen.
Novell... OneNET is actually functional and you could use it right now if you wanted. But its biggest hurdle is market share and advertising. Every ad I've seen from Novell is about the company and what it can do, not about individual products.
Microsoft are not the only ones, they're just the ones that have made it seem like a good idea and have put a huge (as they always do) marketing hype to push it forward quite outstandingly.
All this latest flaming and full frontal attacks from Microsoft is totally out of character. And its worked. Nearly everyone has stopped thinking about .NET and is taking notice of these comments from MS. I know I did for one.
.NET platoon out-flanks and out-manuvers the OpenSource community.
MS are very smart in this regard. They know that people have a lot of pride in the OpenSource community and by attacking OpenSource directly, people will instantly react. Everyone moves to take on these attacks from Microsoft while the
The only way to resolve this is to ignore Microsoft's public comments like this. Instead, concentrate on what they're actually producing, not what they're flaming. Let guys like RMS throw the mud back (I suggest him because he does it so well) and let the rest of us carry on doing what we do best... Building a great community, pretty damn excellent software and something that everyone can use freely and openly without fear of "The Man".
If it weren't for work, I'd be totally free of MS software and their crap. If I didn't have to keep up with issues about their software, I'd completely ignore them altogether. Nothing I do in my own time has anything to do with them, my software isn't trying to use or emulate their 'standards', just provide an alternative that does what I want the way I want it to.
Those that can, I strongly suggest that you ignore the statements MS make like this. Just keep an eye on the products they actually produce (its not smart to not know what "the other side" is doing).
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
Unbelievable. Either I'm misinterpretting what Mr Ballmer is saying here, or he really has no idea at all about the GPL.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the GPL state that dirivatives of Open Source software covered by the GPL must also be made available as Open Source and fall under the bounds of the GPL?
I read what he's saying as being "If I use MySQL on MS Windows, I must also make MS Windows Open Source" (for lack of a better example).
Microsoft annoy me. I cannot stand their arrogance or their dirty play... But it just goes to show that MS don't really understand Open Source at all. They can't even interpret the GPL as its intended, they have to twist the meaning of that to suit them too.
I can empathize with this man considering I've been in a similar situation once before, only I lasted 2 weeks before the company went broke.
:)
Its a scary world we live in, and the tech world is probably the fastest place for things to happen. Who would've thought that real time became more than just real time?
Hopefully he'll find the dream job he's after. They're out there, I know that for sure. After 3 years of looking, the past 2 years working in a very boring job, I'm now on track to getting the job I've been after for a very long time. Just takes perserverance.
Either you are totally trolling or just plain ignorant, but I have to bite anyway.
Now it is a complete joke compared to modern distributions like Red Hat (Mandrake), Debian, and SuSE
I for one prefer Slackware over these other distros of yours because I don't need all the bloated and useless crap like a fancy GUI to do everything for me. Don't need tools like LinuxConf because if I use another Unix OS or clone, I don't have those tools to do my job for me. I actually have to have a clue and know what I'm doing. Slackware has never made claims of being a "desktop" distribution... In fact, its always maintained that it is for more advanced users who have a clue about what they're doing without needing to resort to GUI tools.
If I want to get a DNS server up and running fast, I find me a 486 with say 500meg hdd. I install a very basic installation of slackware (which effectively gives me the kernel and the necessities of the command shell) and then I install bind into a chroot'd environment. I then have a DNS that will do exactly what its required to do, has bugger all crap loaded on it (and thus reduces the chance of something being exploited and the box hacked) and the machine is able to handle the load without a hassle because all its doing is running as a DNS.
Try and do similar on a Redhat or SuSE or Mandrake installation. You get all the bloated tools, most of it stuff you'll never use, and a system filled with software that consistantly seems to be filled with buffer overflows and exploitable flaws. I get lots of security bulletins about Redhat and its off-shoots, but not very often do I get one about a flaw in Slackware.
These great modern distros of yours are more headache and bloatware than a sys-admin needs if they just want a server up and running that is going to be reliable and do the job they need. Most of them now won't even run on a 486. Half my servers are old 486's that would've been thrown out otherwise. They all run Slackware and attempts to install other more "modern" distro's fail 9 out of 10 times.
Get your facts straight before suggesting that a distro sucks. Better yet, RTFM and learn how to really run the software instead of relying on GUI's to do it for you. Maybe once you know how to work the system properly without relying on wrappers to do it for you, you might actually discover that Slackware isn't quite as backwards as you think.
 
Note : I'm not saying that wrapper apps are bad, but my personal experience is that they make me lazy and when I do use a box that doesn't have them, I find I either miss stuff I should do or just completely blank out on what/how to do it. I use the command line and manually edit the files to keep me honest and my mind awake. Its good practice because going from say a Redhat server with LinuxConf to a SunOS server without it is a lot easier when you actually know how to edit the conf files for things like sendmail, apache and bind yourself.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely my own opinion. Many many other people are guaranteed to have differing opinions, and thats their perogative.
Slackware Dev Team - Excellent work guys, keep the good news coming :)
:)
This is pretty excellent news to come on the back of the Compaq announcement of their new Linux clusters. Maybe now Compaq will start putting more thought into releasing Alpha clusters powered by Slackware with a touch of beowulf...
Damn... There's something that could truly be a piece of art to have sitting in the server room... A cluster of Alpha machines running Slackware and Beowulf... Now... Time to convince the boss that the current proliants are truly useless and we need at least 5 Alphas to replace them.
As far as I'm aware, IBM does all their own support... As for Compaq, I'd say the majority of their Linux support would be external. Based on what I know of the Presario & Deskpro support structures, I'd say that Compaq will support the hardware and Compaq specific software, but the Linux support itself will probably be outsourced. Either that or Compaq is going to be doing some serious overhaul of their Proliant support teams.
Its good to finally see that the main players are starting to be a little more active about their Linux servers and not just making idle promises like so many have done in the past. This promises to make high end servers that are truly reliable a much easier and affordable option for many companies out there.
As an aside, now that Sun owns Cobalt, does anyone know if the Cobalt servers are going to have Linux replaced by SunOS or whether Sun intends to keep Linux as the primary OS for the Cobalt servers. In all honesty, I cannot see devices like the Cube and so on remaining competitive if a proprietry/commercial OS like SunOS is used. They would then have to directly compete with Windows NT/2K and HP's servers.
With Compaq up'ing the stakes like this, now what you truly are paying for is the server and the technology. Most excellent. This will truly help the Linux community increase its reputation as well as put some real servers out there that can be used to directly compare stats against the other more established server OS's.
Kudos Compaq, Kudos IBM