May I politely ask WHY anyone would one to continue making browsers "heavier" and "thicker" all the time, instead of simply making a good old fashioned rich client (thick client if you prefer)???
I am not looking to start a "Wep-app-vs-client-app" war here. I think there is a time and place for both thick client applications and web applications. And I am a very happy G-Mail user (among other web-app-things). But sometimes I am REALLY amazed when I see the lengths some web-developers will go to, in order to achieve PRECISELY the same goals that thick clients has been able to do for literally several decades!
The platforms and standards for making web applications are continuously MOLESTED in order to give them primitives abilities which, at the end of the day, are STILL only a shadow of the power a rich client has.
Stuff like AJAX hits the scene, and people call it a "milestone" or a "revolution". Wow. Now a user can get his screen updated async without hitting a "submit" button. Big stuff there.
Next thing will be... what? Better graphics? Actual integration between applications? Easy third-party data integration? Ah, wait, maybe it will be an continuous (and actually working) user session? No no... wait... I got it... it will be model-based programming. Yes. The revolutionary new "model-view-controller" design will totally change the landscape of web applications. It will be ground-breaking stuff to any web developer! Yeah!
The finest achievement any web application can get, is being described like it is "just as good as a rich client". Hasn't anybody stopped a moment to think about WHY that is? Perhaps it would be better just to use web clients where they make sense, and rich clients where they make sense?
Why on earth do some people continue to abuse the thin (read: skinny and bone-rattling) web standards for tasks that are clearly more suited for a traditional rich client application?
This is an honest question - technical answers are more than welcome. I genuinely want to understand what is going on in the minds of all these "progressive" web developers who are seriously proposing the introduction of advanced server-processes as part of a browser...
I am not trying to deffend Microsoft here - but there is a simple question you need to ask yourselves:
Do you REALLY think that the ONLY reason for the release of the code under the GPL was the issue of this single driver?
Personally I find it hard to believe that a company with such massive development resources at its disposal would not simply fix the issue in another way (for example by simply writing a new driver for the job?).
Perhaps Microsoft did have an ulterior motive with their GPL release of the code. Fine. But I honestly find it hard to believe they would release 20.000 lines of Hyper-V code just because they goofed up with a static link on a single driver. If they didn't want to release the code, they wouldn't have. Trust me.
So sure: perhaps there was ulterior motives. But I can hardly believe this simple driver is the answer.
IF there is an ulterior motive it is probably something else...
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the following companies and/or any of its representativs or employees. I am merely an very very satisfied customer.
If you don't want to build your own system you could consider buying a prebuilt system. It saves you a ton of trouble, lowers your electrical bill, reduces your carbon footprint, and has cool features that are hard to get right in a homebuilt system (such as small size, passive cooling, hot-swap bays or wall-mount kits).
I researched the market for prebuilt WHS servers and ended up with a Tranquil SQA-5H (see http://tranquilpc.co.uk/ for the full product range) and it is probably the best piece of computer hardware I have ever purchased. Room for 5 harddrives, easy to work with, and the machine itself uses only 29 W.
There is also the option to install push-agents on each windows client, for daily backup.
The client-backup repository is based on Windows Server 2003 principles. It creates an initial image of the host, and then does sector-based differential backup. This greatly reduces the time needed to backup individual clients.
The backups can be used to restore complete images of the host harddrive (in case of complete failure) or individual files. Individual files are accessed through the Windows Home Server Console where the user can simply open the backup for any day (where a backup was performed) and browse to the desired file(s) using a normal Explorer window.
I have been using WHS for quite some time now and I am extremely satisfied with its features and performance. To my knowledge there are no push-agents for non-windows operating systems so I am scripting the backups of my Mac and openSUSE mahines. And obviously there is nothing "open source" involved. But the server runs a ton things for me that no NAS device could ever do. In addition to backup and media streaming my WHS also serves as a mailserver, enhanced local DHCP, network booting, centralized antivirus control, media library for ripped DVDs (with plugins for various players and a ton of metadata for the ripped movies) a bunch of homebre web applications (i use ASPX but it is no problem to install a mySQL and Apache webserver if that is your flavor) and remote access to my files from anywhere on the internet.
I am not trying to turn this into a FOSS-vs-Microsoft flamewar. I am simply saying that WHS is actually a pretty good product regardless of your personal feelings about Microsoft.
Get more people involved. Get business partners. It will greatly increase your chances of success.
You can generally devide partners into two categories: internal partners (who own a chunk of your business) and external partners (with whom you share a set of common business goals IN ADDITION to simply earning profit).
It is hard to find people you can actually partner up with, and share your business with (internal partners). You need mutual trust, good chemestry, and to some extent agree on the strategy of the business and the product. But it is not impossible. Use your personal network. I am not talking about "LinkedIn", I mean real people. Talk to friends and family and tell them your thoughts. Talk to Ask them about prospective partners. And be open to people who disagree with you when you talk with them.
Stay away from "business angels" and venture capitalists a little longer. You are not ready for them - you need to get a more clear picture of your product and your business (or they will rip you off and leave you with only a fraction of your original potential).
For external partners, look for companies that your product can complement - or vice versa. Could be other software vendors, hardware vendors, system builders, studios, etc. Find someone who sees your product as a valuable supplement to their existing business. A good business partners is ALWAYS someone who can see more potential than just simple profit. You need happy customers and a lot of success-stories. An external partner who is only interested in fast cash will care less about customer satisfaction.
Seriously dude: try out one of many dedicated SDKs for game-creation. And then MAKE a game for yourself. You don't need to switch jobs just to give it a shot!
The PopCap framework could be a good place to start (the company PopCap no longer accepts 3rd party submissions and has closed down its own developer-forum but the PopCap framework itself is released as Open Source on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/popcapframework/).
You basically explain that DVD region encoding was invented so big corporations could circumvent free markets mechanisms and thereby disable free competition...
I know Novell has been the target of a lot of criticism lately (some of it fair, some of it totally bogus), but if you are truly scanning the market for alternatives you should take a look at the products they offer.
Novell has made a business out of Identity Management and network security. It is what they do. Not all of it is Open Source, but all of it runs on open platforms and is easy to integrate with. Their products run on Linux (SUSE Enterprise, but I suppose other distros would work as well).
I think you will find Novells products very mature and rich in features. They integrate a lot better with a FOSS based infrastructure than most alternatives, and the quality is commercial-grade (in the positive sense). There are ready-to-go tools for migrating ADs to new non-Microsoft servers, and do Identity Management with many different security technologies concurrently.
After evaluating it you may decide you don't like it (perhaps because of a religious opposition to closed source binaries or simply because you don't like the flavor of the UI) but at least you would be making a qualified choice.
Looks like a buncha kids opened up newegg and built themselves machines in their head...
I agree. Why the hell pay more than 10K for a homebuild rig when I can pay around 9K for an Alienware ALX rig with similar specs (i7 Extreme, liquid cooling, SLI gfx, 1200 W PSU, 2xFlash based HDDs in RAID0)?
Not only is it waaaaay cooler to have an Alienware rig, it also means that you get everingthing delivered as a working machine, not as a damn do-it-yourself-kit. I buy computers from serious computer resellers not from IKEA dammit. And I certainly don't want to waste precious gaming-time bending liquid-cooling tubes with a screwdriver when I could be slaying Big Daddies and Necromorphs instead!
The article was clearly written by hardware-freaks with a wet dream NOT by gamers!
I think you will see increased competition over time in the US. You guys may be ahead of Europe in some aspects, but not in all.
In many EU countries, internet connections based on cable or DSL can be purchased from many different providers, and in many different packets and forms.
My own internet connection is "clean" and free of bundled products. No fancy telephone services, no "free" content, no TV channels. Hell, my provider doesn't even have a mailserver for their customers, only an SMTP relay for outbound mail. They provide their customers with a cheap ZyXel router, an IP address, and a low price.
Oh, and did I mention: no filtering, no throttling and no traffic shaping?
The subscription is paid monthly with my credit card, and all contact with the company has to go through their homepage. Service is "non-existing" but on the other hand: very few people need will ever need customer service for such a simple product. (They do have a technical hotline but I have never needed it)
The company (I won't mention its name here) profiles itself as a "low-price-low-service-no-bullshit" ISP. And I think that concept will spread.
The only reason the traditional ISPs try to bundle a lot of additional "services" (read: crap!) with their connections, is to reduce the transparency of the price. And that strategy backfires - the complexity of their infrastructure gets very complex BECAUSE of that strategy. They need more servers, more power, many different types of technology, and a lot of people to support it.
Hopefully free markets will produce more "low-price-low-service-no-bullshit" ISPs. And their market terms will be a lot simpler for everyone involved: who can provide the best and simplest internet connection for the lowest possible price.
Having said all that, the end-users I help are requesting AVG over Avast. I am not trying to bash AVG and promote Avast. I think they both have strengths and weaknesses.:-)
AVG instability. I've yet to have any stability problems across 6 PCs in my immediate family, all of which are used daily for gaming, VPN and web surfing.
Fair enough. My own experience is different though, and being an IT professional I am pretty sure the problems are due to AVG. It could be a problem only occurring on non-US English installations though, or some other "local" condition. Or a conflict with some other installed software - though the only applications present on ALL computers where programs like Firefox, Sun Java VM, OpenOffice, etc.
Your rationale seems to be that you want to stop it because you think it kills system performance when gaming and similar activities. The only time AVG sucks up more than 0% CPU is when it is A) checking URLs or B) actually performing a scan on your HDD.
My experience tells me otherwise. Framerates in FPS games drop as much as 20% when the real-time engine is running alongside my games. I assume this is because of anti-malware functionality scanning my network activity, scanning local files which are updated by games (some games have a tendency to make many temporary files), as well as monitoring memory usage for possible signs of "yet unidentified malware" (typically this is called "heuristics scanning" and I have no idea what is actually involved from a technical perspective, but it sure DOES consume a lot of resources when other memory intensive programs are running).
Both of these can be mitigated 100% by A) disabling the URL checker and B) scheduling your scans to happen late at night or disabling the automatic one and scanning yourself every so often.
I don't know how you have configured your own AVG installation, but I want my antivirus software to use the real-time engine to actually catch malware attempting to get a foothold on my computer. A timed scan is, IMHO, a supplement to using a real-time scanning engine. And while it is true that the real-time engine uses virtually no resources when you examine it in Windows Task Manager, it is a very different matter when you are actually USING your computer. AN idle desktop will reveal between 0-1% CPU usage for your real-time scanner, and not a lot of memory. But if you start resource-hungry applications like games or video-editors, the picture is VERY different.
--> Lots of "BUY ME! I'M EVER SO SEXY!" ads for the full version. Agreed if you're rebooting your machines every day. My machines run 24/7, so I rarely see these ads. I might suggest using Suspend or Hibernate instead of powering your machines off; it's easier on the hardware and everything else than full reboots regardless.
I often hibernate, but games generally run a little smoother if the machine is rebooted at least 3 times a week. I can't say why, I can only observe that games such as Crysis and Team Fortress 2 increase slightly in FPS if they are played after a clean boot, compared to their performance after being hibernated turned back on many times.
The "BUY ME NOW" ads also appear on virtually every information screen, so if you ever open the main AVG console and try to actually use/change anything in there, you will be pestered by them.
I have tried both AVG and Avast, after choosing not to continue my TrendMicro PC Cillin subscription. I have also installed/tested both on computers belonging to friends and family. Here are a few of my experiences.
AVG good stuff:
Good interface with all the bells and whistles a modern app needs
Easier for end users to use than Avast (according to my mom and girlfriend)
Finds more spyware and tracking cookies (I experienced Avast miss a real life spyware once, for about 22 hours until it was updated)
Easy to install, even for end users
AVG bad stuff
Users (including myself) experienced multiple browser crashes and computer stability issues. Problem first arrived with installation of AVG and disappeared when AVG was uninstalled. Coincidence? Not likely:-/ Acceptable? Not in a million years!
The URL malware detection browser plugin is crap. It reads ahead every single URL on a homepage, and displays a little GIF icon with a checkmark when the URL is good and clean. Nice in theory BUT it makes your bandwidth usage explode, and makes browsing a drag - to say nothing of what the result must be for the owners of homepages you visit. Magically "all pages are now visited" by all users?
Virus engine can not be stopped easily if desired. I sometimes play games, and being behind a NAT gateway I don't want my antivirus running alongside Day of Defeat, Natural Selection and Team Fortress 2. AVG is hard to disable, and clicking on the tray icon will only let you disable the management interface (and thereby the tray icon) while the scanning engine continues to run.
Too many tricks and attempts to lure the user into buying the paid-for version. Almost resembles "legal phising" on occasion, which is kinda sad. Key information screens are supplied with "warnings" that you are using the free product.
---
Avast good stuff:
Uses less resources
Gets the job done without tons of bloatware and fancy extra browser plugins (easier to install without tons of fancy plugins and extra features which have nothing to do with basic virus protection)
Can be disabled easily if desired, with right-click on tray icon. Good for gamers in their mid 30's who know what they are doing!
No crashes and instability like AVG
Avast bad stuff:
Interface less intuitive, says mother + girlfriend.
Installation requires slightly more finesse as the installer is a little more confusing.
Perhaps (?) slightly slower on updates. My mom had a malware file sent to her by mail, and it remained undetected by Avast 22 hours longer than an identical file on my girlfriends PC which had AVG.
---
At the end of the day, I went with Avast. Stability and low performance impact is more important to me than a fancy GUI. Clueless end-users disagree though, and actually want AVG back inspite of the stability issues. So the GUI really made a difference for them. They simply felt more "at home" with AVG.
Counterstrike (pre-source), or CS, was the first community-driven mod that turned into a huge commercial success. Based on the original HalfLife 1 engine, the now classic war between Terrorists and Counter Terrorists ran smoothly on even an old 300 MHz Celeron with a 3DFX graphics card. In a way CS is "the mother of all 3D mods" (that is to say: the first serious mod for a 3D FPS). Read more on Wikipedia.
Day of Defeay (pre-source), or DOD, was very much like CS but was the first mod to bring deployable weapons and player-classes to the world of modding, in a WW2 setting. While not as successful as CS in total number of players, it was the first 3D FPS mod to achieve huge success in a relatively short period of time. Read more on Wikipedia.
Natural Selection (pre-source), or NS, is the first game to mix FPS and RTS gameplay, by allowing a "Commander" to order his "troops" (all other players on his team) around the map using an FPS-like interface - a concept many games has since copied. Set in a sci-fi horror world, Natural Selection tells the story of the good and friendly aliens with big sharp teeth vs. the evil-evil Space Marines with their big and nasty guns... To my knowledge it was also the first FPS mod to allow multiple "game modes". Having a rather advanced gameplay which demands a lot of cooperation from players, "combat maps" where introduced as a means of teaching new players the basic concepts of the game. Read more on Wikipedia or on Unknown Worlds homepage where you can also read about the progress on Natural Selection 2.
Why does it need to be non-profit? Why can't it just be reasonably priced?
Well, no particular reason. But I personally believe that non-profit organizations are good at focusing on the customers actual needs as well as keeping the price down. The do not need to consider "profit maximization" parameters all the time, and they never deliberately try to cripple their products or devide them into a gazillion different sub-products and product types.
And "non-profit" is not free by default. It could very well be "reasonably priced", where the level of "reasonably" is determined by the actual costs of running the service - minus what ever donations and grants the operation may get from elsewhere.
The real value would consist of actually attempting to verify the identities of those requesting a certificate. Otherwise it would all be pointless, and self-issued CAs would be just a s good.
You ask a couple of good questions, and I have no clear answers for you. I am not already on the CA business - in fact the goal of my original post was to gain further insight and hear suggestions on the matter.;-)
Having said that, I am pretty sure it would be possible to establish some level of identity checks. The current model relies almost 100% on completing a financial transaction. Or in other words: paying for a certificate will almost 100% guarantee you a valid commercial certificate. I think a dedicated community could do better. And one thing which many enthusiasts are able to contribute to such a project, is TIME. Time spent on validating the identities of applicants.
Perhaps establishing a non-profit issuer is a possible solution?
Similar to the concept of OpenDNS it could be a free (as in freedom) and very cheap alternative to the large commercial certificate issuers?
If I wanted to undertake such a project myself, thereby contributing to the community, what would it involve? (I am ready to pull some cash out of my pockets, but I am no millionaire, just a tech-geek, so be realistic). And do you have the expertise to help establish such an "openCertificate" service?
I found this article (actually it is a book review) on Ars Technica to be much better. It is longer, explains some of the problems in detail, and includes an interview with the authors of the book which prompted the Wall Street Jurnal to run the story.
I found this article (actually it is a book review) on Ars Technica to be much better. It is longer, explains some of the problems in detail, and includes an interview with the authors of the book which prompted the Wall Street Jurnal to run the story.
Suggestion number 12, Home User Licensing, already exists in a way. If you have a Vista license you can buy additional licenses at a reduced price, provided the new Vista licenses are of the same type as the one you already have.
Slashdot Mirror
May I politely ask WHY anyone would one to continue making browsers "heavier" and "thicker" all the time, instead of simply making a good old fashioned rich client (thick client if you prefer)???
I am not looking to start a "Wep-app-vs-client-app" war here. I think there is a time and place for both thick client applications and web applications. And I am a very happy G-Mail user (among other web-app-things). But sometimes I am REALLY amazed when I see the lengths some web-developers will go to, in order to achieve PRECISELY the same goals that thick clients has been able to do for literally several decades!
The platforms and standards for making web applications are continuously MOLESTED in order to give them primitives abilities which, at the end of the day, are STILL only a shadow of the power a rich client has.
Stuff like AJAX hits the scene, and people call it a "milestone" or a "revolution". Wow. Now a user can get his screen updated async without hitting a "submit" button. Big stuff there.
Next thing will be ... what? Better graphics? Actual integration between applications? Easy third-party data integration? Ah, wait, maybe it will be an continuous (and actually working) user session? No no ... wait ... I got it ... it will be model-based programming. Yes. The revolutionary new "model-view-controller" design will totally change the landscape of web applications. It will be ground-breaking stuff to any web developer! Yeah!
The finest achievement any web application can get, is being described like it is "just as good as a rich client". Hasn't anybody stopped a moment to think about WHY that is? Perhaps it would be better just to use web clients where they make sense, and rich clients where they make sense?
Why on earth do some people continue to abuse the thin (read: skinny and bone-rattling) web standards for tasks that are clearly more suited for a traditional rich client application?
This is an honest question - technical answers are more than welcome. I genuinely want to understand what is going on in the minds of all these "progressive" web developers who are seriously proposing the introduction of advanced server-processes as part of a browser...
- Jesper
I am not trying to deffend Microsoft here - but there is a simple question you need to ask yourselves:
Do you REALLY think that the ONLY reason for the release of the code under the GPL was the issue of this single driver?
Personally I find it hard to believe that a company with such massive development resources at its disposal would not simply fix the issue in another way (for example by simply writing a new driver for the job?).
Perhaps Microsoft did have an ulterior motive with their GPL release of the code. Fine. But I honestly find it hard to believe they would release 20.000 lines of Hyper-V code just because they goofed up with a static link on a single driver. If they didn't want to release the code, they wouldn't have. Trust me.
So sure: perhaps there was ulterior motives. But I can hardly believe this simple driver is the answer.
IF there is an ulterior motive it is probably something else...
- Jesper
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the following companies and/or any of its representativs or employees. I am merely an very very satisfied customer.
If you don't want to build your own system you could consider buying a prebuilt system. It saves you a ton of trouble, lowers your electrical bill, reduces your carbon footprint, and has cool features that are hard to get right in a homebuilt system (such as small size, passive cooling, hot-swap bays or wall-mount kits).
I researched the market for prebuilt WHS servers and ended up with a Tranquil SQA-5H (see http://tranquilpc.co.uk/ for the full product range) and it is probably the best piece of computer hardware I have ever purchased. Room for 5 harddrives, easy to work with, and the machine itself uses only 29 W.
Similar products are available from HP (check out http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/mediasmart-server/) and a lot of other vendors (like Acer, Velocity Micro, Niveus). They are all available under the "Buy" tab of the Windows Home Server website: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx
- Jesper
There is also the option to install push-agents on each windows client, for daily backup.
The client-backup repository is based on Windows Server 2003 principles. It creates an initial image of the host, and then does sector-based differential backup. This greatly reduces the time needed to backup individual clients.
The backups can be used to restore complete images of the host harddrive (in case of complete failure) or individual files. Individual files are accessed through the Windows Home Server Console where the user can simply open the backup for any day (where a backup was performed) and browse to the desired file(s) using a normal Explorer window.
I have been using WHS for quite some time now and I am extremely satisfied with its features and performance. To my knowledge there are no push-agents for non-windows operating systems so I am scripting the backups of my Mac and openSUSE mahines. And obviously there is nothing "open source" involved. But the server runs a ton things for me that no NAS device could ever do. In addition to backup and media streaming my WHS also serves as a mailserver, enhanced local DHCP, network booting, centralized antivirus control, media library for ripped DVDs (with plugins for various players and a ton of metadata for the ripped movies) a bunch of homebre web applications (i use ASPX but it is no problem to install a mySQL and Apache webserver if that is your flavor) and remote access to my files from anywhere on the internet.
I am not trying to turn this into a FOSS-vs-Microsoft flamewar. I am simply saying that WHS is actually a pretty good product regardless of your personal feelings about Microsoft.
- Jesper
Get more people involved. Get business partners. It will greatly increase your chances of success.
You can generally devide partners into two categories: internal partners (who own a chunk of your business) and external partners (with whom you share a set of common business goals IN ADDITION to simply earning profit).
It is hard to find people you can actually partner up with, and share your business with (internal partners). You need mutual trust, good chemestry, and to some extent agree on the strategy of the business and the product. But it is not impossible. Use your personal network. I am not talking about "LinkedIn", I mean real people. Talk to friends and family and tell them your thoughts. Talk to Ask them about prospective partners. And be open to people who disagree with you when you talk with them.
Stay away from "business angels" and venture capitalists a little longer. You are not ready for them - you need to get a more clear picture of your product and your business (or they will rip you off and leave you with only a fraction of your original potential).
For external partners, look for companies that your product can complement - or vice versa. Could be other software vendors, hardware vendors, system builders, studios, etc. Find someone who sees your product as a valuable supplement to their existing business. A good business partners is ALWAYS someone who can see more potential than just simple profit. You need happy customers and a lot of success-stories. An external partner who is only interested in fast cash will care less about customer satisfaction.
- Jesper
Seriously dude: try out one of many dedicated SDKs for game-creation. And then MAKE a game for yourself. You don't need to switch jobs just to give it a shot!
The PopCap framework could be a good place to start (the company PopCap no longer accepts 3rd party submissions and has closed down its own developer-forum but the PopCap framework itself is released as Open Source on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/popcapframework/).
Another option is PTK which you can find on http://www.phelios.com/ptk
Both use C++ so you would probably want to get a few books on C++ programming as well.
- Jesper
Ok, so let me get this straight:
...and this is good WHY exactly???
You basically explain that DVD region encoding was invented so big corporations could circumvent free markets mechanisms and thereby disable free competition...
- Jesper
And please remember to give them your logon information so they can document the problem prior to processing your complaint...
I know Novell has been the target of a lot of criticism lately (some of it fair, some of it totally bogus), but if you are truly scanning the market for alternatives you should take a look at the products they offer.
:-)
Novell has made a business out of Identity Management and network security. It is what they do. Not all of it is Open Source, but all of it runs on open platforms and is easy to integrate with. Their products run on Linux (SUSE Enterprise, but I suppose other distros would work as well).
I think you will find Novells products very mature and rich in features. They integrate a lot better with a FOSS based infrastructure than most alternatives, and the quality is commercial-grade (in the positive sense). There are ready-to-go tools for migrating ADs to new non-Microsoft servers, and do Identity Management with many different security technologies concurrently.
After evaluating it you may decide you don't like it (perhaps because of a religious opposition to closed source binaries or simply because you don't like the flavor of the UI) but at least you would be making a qualified choice.
- Jesper
Looks like a buncha kids opened up newegg and built themselves machines in their head...
I agree. Why the hell pay more than 10K for a homebuild rig when I can pay around 9K for an Alienware ALX rig with similar specs (i7 Extreme, liquid cooling, SLI gfx, 1200 W PSU, 2xFlash based HDDs in RAID0)?
Not only is it waaaaay cooler to have an Alienware rig, it also means that you get everingthing delivered as a working machine, not as a damn do-it-yourself-kit. I buy computers from serious computer resellers not from IKEA dammit. And I certainly don't want to waste precious gaming-time bending liquid-cooling tubes with a screwdriver when I could be slaying Big Daddies and Necromorphs instead!
The article was clearly written by hardware-freaks with a wet dream NOT by gamers!
- Jesper
I think you will see increased competition over time in the US. You guys may be ahead of Europe in some aspects, but not in all.
In many EU countries, internet connections based on cable or DSL can be purchased from many different providers, and in many different packets and forms.
My own internet connection is "clean" and free of bundled products. No fancy telephone services, no "free" content, no TV channels. Hell, my provider doesn't even have a mailserver for their customers, only an SMTP relay for outbound mail. They provide their customers with a cheap ZyXel router, an IP address, and a low price.
Oh, and did I mention: no filtering, no throttling and no traffic shaping?
The subscription is paid monthly with my credit card, and all contact with the company has to go through their homepage. Service is "non-existing" but on the other hand: very few people need will ever need customer service for such a simple product. (They do have a technical hotline but I have never needed it)
The company (I won't mention its name here) profiles itself as a "low-price-low-service-no-bullshit" ISP. And I think that concept will spread.
The only reason the traditional ISPs try to bundle a lot of additional "services" (read: crap!) with their connections, is to reduce the transparency of the price. And that strategy backfires - the complexity of their infrastructure gets very complex BECAUSE of that strategy. They need more servers, more power, many different types of technology, and a lot of people to support it.
Hopefully free markets will produce more "low-price-low-service-no-bullshit" ISPs. And their market terms will be a lot simpler for everyone involved: who can provide the best and simplest internet connection for the lowest possible price.
- Jesper
Mjeah ... well ...
...
;-)
Actually, this movie may hold an answer to that
I will give it some thought, now that you mention it.
- Jesper
*LOL*
That might help. But the "Easy to install" point seems to ... loose its merit ... with that approach ;-)
- Jesper
Having said all that, the end-users I help are requesting AVG over Avast. I am not trying to bash AVG and promote Avast. I think they both have strengths and weaknesses. :-)
- Jesper
AVG instability. I've yet to have any stability problems across 6 PCs in my immediate family, all of which are used daily for gaming, VPN and web surfing.
Fair enough. My own experience is different though, and being an IT professional I am pretty sure the problems are due to AVG. It could be a problem only occurring on non-US English installations though, or some other "local" condition. Or a conflict with some other installed software - though the only applications present on ALL computers where programs like Firefox, Sun Java VM, OpenOffice, etc.
Your rationale seems to be that you want to stop it because you think it kills system performance when gaming and similar activities. The only time AVG sucks up more than 0% CPU is when it is A) checking URLs or B) actually performing a scan on your HDD.
My experience tells me otherwise. Framerates in FPS games drop as much as 20% when the real-time engine is running alongside my games. I assume this is because of anti-malware functionality scanning my network activity, scanning local files which are updated by games (some games have a tendency to make many temporary files), as well as monitoring memory usage for possible signs of "yet unidentified malware" (typically this is called "heuristics scanning" and I have no idea what is actually involved from a technical perspective, but it sure DOES consume a lot of resources when other memory intensive programs are running).
Both of these can be mitigated 100% by A) disabling the URL checker and B) scheduling your scans to happen late at night or disabling the automatic one and scanning yourself every so often.
I don't know how you have configured your own AVG installation, but I want my antivirus software to use the real-time engine to actually catch malware attempting to get a foothold on my computer. A timed scan is, IMHO, a supplement to using a real-time scanning engine. And while it is true that the real-time engine uses virtually no resources when you examine it in Windows Task Manager, it is a very different matter when you are actually USING your computer. AN idle desktop will reveal between 0-1% CPU usage for your real-time scanner, and not a lot of memory. But if you start resource-hungry applications like games or video-editors, the picture is VERY different.
--> Lots of "BUY ME! I'M EVER SO SEXY!" ads for the full version. Agreed if you're rebooting your machines every day. My machines run 24/7, so I rarely see these ads. I might suggest using Suspend or Hibernate instead of powering your machines off; it's easier on the hardware and everything else than full reboots regardless.
I often hibernate, but games generally run a little smoother if the machine is rebooted at least 3 times a week. I can't say why, I can only observe that games such as Crysis and Team Fortress 2 increase slightly in FPS if they are played after a clean boot, compared to their performance after being hibernated turned back on many times.
:-)
The "BUY ME NOW" ads also appear on virtually every information screen, so if you ever open the main AVG console and try to actually use/change anything in there, you will be pestered by them.
- Jesper
AVG good stuff:
AVG bad stuff
---
Avast good stuff:
Avast bad stuff:
---
At the end of the day, I went with Avast. Stability and low performance impact is more important to me than a fancy GUI. Clueless end-users disagree though, and actually want AVG back inspite of the stability issues. So the GUI really made a difference for them. They simply felt more "at home" with AVG.
Direct links for both products:
AVG Antivirus Free Version Download and Wikipedia Description.
Avast Antivirus Free version download and Wikipedia description.
brgds
- Jesper
(Experience is from: 3x Vista computers with reasonable hardware specs, and 2 older Windows XP computers)
I totally agree.
Counterstrike (pre-source), or CS, was the first community-driven mod that turned into a huge commercial success. Based on the original HalfLife 1 engine, the now classic war between Terrorists and Counter Terrorists ran smoothly on even an old 300 MHz Celeron with a 3DFX graphics card. In a way CS is "the mother of all 3D mods" (that is to say: the first serious mod for a 3D FPS). Read more on Wikipedia.
Day of Defeay (pre-source), or DOD, was very much like CS but was the first mod to bring deployable weapons and player-classes to the world of modding, in a WW2 setting. While not as successful as CS in total number of players, it was the first 3D FPS mod to achieve huge success in a relatively short period of time. Read more on Wikipedia.
Natural Selection (pre-source), or NS, is the first game to mix FPS and RTS gameplay, by allowing a "Commander" to order his "troops" (all other players on his team) around the map using an FPS-like interface - a concept many games has since copied. Set in a sci-fi horror world, Natural Selection tells the story of the good and friendly aliens with big sharp teeth vs. the evil-evil Space Marines with their big and nasty guns... To my knowledge it was also the first FPS mod to allow multiple "game modes". Having a rather advanced gameplay which demands a lot of cooperation from players, "combat maps" where introduced as a means of teaching new players the basic concepts of the game. Read more on Wikipedia or on Unknown Worlds homepage where you can also read about the progress on Natural Selection 2.
- Jesper
Having used the Model-View-Controller (MVC) Design Pattern for years, I know that many people (even programmers) are not aware of what it actually is.
.NET, Ruby, Python and Java examples from the main Wiki article on MVC.
I recommend skimming through Martin Fowlers excellent description.
You can also get additional links to PHP,
If you have never heard about it (and many of you haven't), you are missing out on a great design pattern.
- Jesper
Why does it need to be non-profit? Why can't it just be reasonably priced?
Well, no particular reason. But I personally believe that non-profit organizations are good at focusing on the customers actual needs as well as keeping the price down. The do not need to consider "profit maximization" parameters all the time, and they never deliberately try to cripple their products or devide them into a gazillion different sub-products and product types.
:-)
And "non-profit" is not free by default. It could very well be "reasonably priced", where the level of "reasonably" is determined by the actual costs of running the service - minus what ever donations and grants the operation may get from elsewhere.
- Jesper
The real value would consist of actually attempting to verify the identities of those requesting a certificate. Otherwise it would all be pointless, and self-issued CAs would be just a s good.
;-)
:-)
You ask a couple of good questions, and I have no clear answers for you. I am not already on the CA business - in fact the goal of my original post was to gain further insight and hear suggestions on the matter.
Having said that, I am pretty sure it would be possible to establish some level of identity checks. The current model relies almost 100% on completing a financial transaction. Or in other words: paying for a certificate will almost 100% guarantee you a valid commercial certificate. I think a dedicated community could do better. And one thing which many enthusiasts are able to contribute to such a project, is TIME. Time spent on validating the identities of applicants.
Suggestions are welcome.
- Jesper
Are there any other similar?
- Jesper
Perhaps establishing a non-profit issuer is a possible solution?
Similar to the concept of OpenDNS it could be a free (as in freedom) and very cheap alternative to the large commercial certificate issuers?
If I wanted to undertake such a project myself, thereby contributing to the community, what would it involve? (I am ready to pull some cash out of my pockets, but I am no millionaire, just a tech-geek, so be realistic). And do you have the expertise to help establish such an "openCertificate" service?
- Jesper
I found this article (actually it is a book review) on Ars Technica to be much better. It is longer, explains some of the problems in detail, and includes an interview with the authors of the book which prompted the Wall Street Jurnal to run the story.
Dont know what happened to the Ars link and my Anchor tag. Here is the full URL: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/book-review-7-08.ars
- Jesper
I found this article (actually it is a book review) on Ars Technica to be much better. It is longer, explains some of the problems in detail, and includes an interview with the authors of the book which prompted the Wall Street Jurnal to run the story.
- Jesper
Suggestion number 12, Home User Licensing, already exists in a way. If you have a Vista license you can buy additional licenses at a reduced price, provided the new Vista licenses are of the same type as the one you already have.
There is more information on the Microsoft website.
Another alternative is buying upgrade licenses for computers which already have valid Windows licenses for Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
- Jesper