Microsoft needs to keep everything locked up. NTFS was good enough for a while but now the linux driver is maturing to the point where it is no longer a weapon. Remember, with Microsoft, everything is security through obscurity. And that goes for their financial security as well.
I'm sorry, but I do not agree with you on many points... seriously, the Hotmail signup process requires a LOT more unchecking of boxes than the 3 unchecks you need when downloading Acrobat... it's a very common practice
You know,
Crime is also a very common practice. Just because it is common doesn't mean that it is right. Someone needs to start making examples of this garbage and I think that Adobe is a good place to start.
We don't want Adobe Reader on Linux. For that matter, we don't want it on any platform.
Adobe, like a page from the Evil Corporation book, has taken it upon themselves to cash in on the success of Acrobat Reader. Currently, if you're a Windows Joe User who wants to download it, you'll wind up with all sorts of stuff. You'll get the Adobe Download Manager, the Yahoo Toolbar, Adobe Photoshop SE, and some mysterious Adobe Internet Printing that just appears in the start menu. Didja ever wonder why SO MANY people have the Yahoo toolbar even though they don't use Yahoo?
This is bullshit. While I realize that, in an ideal world, everyone would uncheck the little checkboxes and opt out of it but this isn't an ideal world. Adobe needs to be punished.
If some programming hero wanted to step up, it wouldn't be hard to knock a few hundred million dollars off of the value of Adobe's stock. Here's how:
1) Create free, open-source PDF writer and reader with none of the typical Evil attributes. 2) Distribute.
Adobe derives a significant amount of their revenue from their Acrobat Writer product. Most people simply want to create PDF files so they buy it. The company that I work for has thousands of licenses because they just want simple PDF creation functions. This is mind-boggling. They use none of the advanced features.
While we can all create PDFs in OpenOffice for free, I think that a set of PDF tools would devastate Adobe. This needs to happen if only for the simple fact that they've crossed the line.
Umm... I don't know about you... but that description didn't help me much... infinite bandwidth? What is this? How is this?
Agreed.
They should have called it "SynerBand" as in, "Synergized Bandwidth". Alternatively, eSynerBand-Numa.iFlex2@@@ would have been a good choice.
n00b - help!
on
Effective XML
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
After seeing what can be done with simple javascript and XML, I'm wanting to get into this. Can someone point me to the best OSS way to do this (I can hear the groans now). I like Postgres but I don't see much in the way of getting it to spit out XML. I like documentation... MySQL? Am I missing something?
The ignorance is astounding. I actually thought that they were doing this on purpose for the sake of making it easy to steal, thus maintaining their monopoly.
Microsoft was dumb enough to put the product activation code on the outside of the damn PC. Anyone can walk into a store, take a pic of the code on a new PC (since they are bulk activated) and get free Windows.
This can only be good for free software however. Part of the Windows dominance comes from the fact that it is free for those who want it.
You mean like Yahoo! Calendar, Outlook, and just about every other kind of groupware offers?
So you are saying that existing software will allow me to maintain separate personal and work calendars from any location, view both simultaneously as needed from any location and maybe throw friends and family into the mix as well? Where do I sign up?
I use Lotus Notes at work. I have a Palm Pilot at home. I *can* use Lotus EasySync to get Lotus Notes on my Palm Pilot but that erases my personal calendar. So I'd need to maintain personal and work calendars on my employer's equipment. The proposed solution would work like this:
Regardless of calendaring software of choice, a tool continuously syncs calendar data to server on internet. This is helpful for work calendars. The sync is two-way so my Lotus Notes or Outlook calendar at work can be maintained from home.
Add the separate overlays for personal calendars as well as the public/invite calendars for friends/family/et cetera. At some point, the "work calendar" will simply give in and use the proposed product. Establishments can roll their own and allow free synchronization with other establishments globally.
I'd pay lots for a service like this but it does not yet exist.
I want a calendar that I can maintain on my own, yet, allow for a dynamic overlay of a subset of this calendar to be viewed and/or maintained in other user calendars.
For example:
I have a work calendar and a personal calendar. It would be nice if I could see both my work calendar and personal calendar at both home and work (yes, I know it is possible to fudge this...). Also, I'd like to add my wife's calendar info to my view as well. And verse vica.
So we can all maintain our calendars anywhere and have realtime info from anywhere. A simple sort-by would allow me to see only work or only personal, etc. Friends could publish overlays for other friends to see (allowing for public and private data, of course).
This would be huge. Is it possible?
As I see it, we'd need a local copy of the calendar data as well as a server copy that is publically accessible (insert security concerns here). Standardize an "overlay" file and it would be pretty simple to send someone the link to a subset of your calendar.
I would imagine that, for tomorrow, my public-to-friends overlay would look like:
Darren, 2/25/2005, 5PM EST to ?, Beer and movies at my place.
And Mac's still don't amount to a significant percentage of the market.
Apple has realized that, at the right price, they can be a huge player. We all know it isn't in the best interest of the end-user, but if Apple switches from Firewire to USB for most, if not all of their infrastructure, they can attain lower price points. And that's what its all about.
And how many apps & other processes is your system running at the moment? Mine's running 58 with 518 threads.
But what's the processor utilization? On most systems, its usually less than 10 percent. So when a user does something, the bottleneck is usually not the processor. Its usually the hard drive.
Money would be better spent on RAID, rather than dual core or dual processor.
Put a TV jack in the bathroom as well... Since the price of LCDs are dropping, you might find the morning or evening news a welcome addition to your daily shower.
Before building the house, dig a large pit in the ground and sink some geothermal radiators. Where I live (Michigan), we can dig down about 5 feet and reach an area that is about 53dF year-round. If I threw a radiator down there, I could effectively use the Earth to liquid cool pretty much anything, including a server or even the whole damn house.
A flat out copy of OSX's graphical driver model wouldn't be a bad deal since the two big graphics manufacturers already have excellent drivers available for that system.
Whatever they do, driver quality needs to be at the top of the list. This is getting crazy. Its almost like someone at Microsoft is paying someone to keep this from happening.
Great suggestions... it would be nice to see them in the finished product. One thing that I'd like to see:
IDIOT PROOFING
Right now, the software is far too intrusive in many modes. I just want something that will run when the screensaver comes on (or the PC is locked) and eliminates a predetermined "level" of crap. This would be a blessing for anyone who has to remove this crap all of the time.
It would be nice if we could avoid stuff like this pest. Or maybe this one.
Random thought:
I recently lived in a Michigan subdivision that was built in the 50s and 60s. The developer, back then, thought that it would be a good idea to litter the subdivision with Ash trees. 50 years later, it appeared to be a wonderful idea, as the streets of this subdivision were now canopied by beautiful ash trees. And then the emerald ash borer became a problem. The trees were all clearcut and disposed of. Now there are no trees. If this particular developer had used a variety of tree species, then this particular place would be much better off today.
This reminds me of the computer world. Too many homogenous PCs on the internet and we'll have an ash borer or Dutch Elm problem there, too.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft needs to keep everything locked up. NTFS was good enough for a while but now the linux driver is maturing to the point where it is no longer a weapon. Remember, with Microsoft, everything is security through obscurity. And that goes for their financial security as well.
I'm sorry, but I do not agree with you on many points... seriously, the Hotmail signup process requires a LOT more unchecking of boxes than the 3 unchecks you need when downloading Acrobat... it's a very common practice
You know,
Crime is also a very common practice. Just because it is common doesn't mean that it is right. Someone needs to start making examples of this garbage and I think that Adobe is a good place to start.
If only they'd fix Acrobat Reader for linux...
We don't want Adobe Reader on Linux. For that matter, we don't want it on any platform.
Adobe, like a page from the Evil Corporation book, has taken it upon themselves to cash in on the success of Acrobat Reader. Currently, if you're a Windows Joe User who wants to download it, you'll wind up with all sorts of stuff. You'll get the Adobe Download Manager, the Yahoo Toolbar, Adobe Photoshop SE, and some mysterious Adobe Internet Printing that just appears in the start menu. Didja ever wonder why SO MANY people have the Yahoo toolbar even though they don't use Yahoo?
This is bullshit. While I realize that, in an ideal world, everyone would uncheck the little checkboxes and opt out of it but this isn't an ideal world. Adobe needs to be punished.
If some programming hero wanted to step up, it wouldn't be hard to knock a few hundred million dollars off of the value of Adobe's stock. Here's how:
1) Create free, open-source PDF writer and reader with none of the typical Evil attributes.
2) Distribute.
Adobe derives a significant amount of their revenue from their Acrobat Writer product. Most people simply want to create PDF files so they buy it. The company that I work for has thousands of licenses because they just want simple PDF creation functions. This is mind-boggling. They use none of the advanced features.
While we can all create PDFs in OpenOffice for free, I think that a set of PDF tools would devastate Adobe. This needs to happen if only for the simple fact that they've crossed the line.
PLEASE!?
Umm... I don't know about you... but that description didn't help me much... infinite bandwidth? What is this? How is this?
Agreed.
They should have called it "SynerBand" as in, "Synergized Bandwidth". Alternatively, eSynerBand-Numa.iFlex2@@@ would have been a good choice.
After seeing what can be done with simple javascript and XML, I'm wanting to get into this. Can someone point me to the best OSS way to do this (I can hear the groans now). I like Postgres but I don't see much in the way of getting it to spit out XML. I like documentation... MySQL? Am I missing something?
Solution Here.
Brand new, from what I hear.
The ignorance is astounding. I actually thought that they were doing this on purpose for the sake of making it easy to steal, thus maintaining their monopoly.
Microsoft was dumb enough to put the product activation code on the outside of the damn PC. Anyone can walk into a store, take a pic of the code on a new PC (since they are bulk activated) and get free Windows.
This can only be good for free software however. Part of the Windows dominance comes from the fact that it is free for those who want it.
You mean like Yahoo! Calendar, Outlook, and just about every other kind of groupware offers?
So you are saying that existing software will allow me to maintain separate personal and work calendars from any location, view both simultaneously as needed from any location and maybe throw friends and family into the mix as well? Where do I sign up?
I use Lotus Notes at work. I have a Palm Pilot at home. I *can* use Lotus EasySync to get Lotus Notes on my Palm Pilot but that erases my personal calendar. So I'd need to maintain personal and work calendars on my employer's equipment. The proposed solution would work like this:
Regardless of calendaring software of choice, a tool continuously syncs calendar data to server on internet. This is helpful for work calendars. The sync is two-way so my Lotus Notes or Outlook calendar at work can be maintained from home.
Add the separate overlays for personal calendars as well as the public/invite calendars for friends/family/et cetera. At some point, the "work calendar" will simply give in and use the proposed product. Establishments can roll their own and allow free synchronization with other establishments globally.
I'd pay lots for a service like this but it does not yet exist.
Um. Depending on who you talk to, and how precisely you define your criteria, Apple owns somewhere between 58% and 92% of the music player market.
Um. This *is* my argument. Apple's success in the music market has moved them to consider reducing the price of *all* of their products.
You seem to be in agreement, no?
I want a calendar that I can maintain on my own, yet, allow for a dynamic overlay of a subset of this calendar to be viewed and/or maintained in other user calendars.
For example:
I have a work calendar and a personal calendar. It would be nice if I could see both my work calendar and personal calendar at both home and work (yes, I know it is possible to fudge this...). Also, I'd like to add my wife's calendar info to my view as well. And verse vica.
So we can all maintain our calendars anywhere and have realtime info from anywhere. A simple sort-by would allow me to see only work or only personal, etc. Friends could publish overlays for other friends to see (allowing for public and private data, of course).
This would be huge. Is it possible?
As I see it, we'd need a local copy of the calendar data as well as a server copy that is publically accessible (insert security concerns here). Standardize an "overlay" file and it would be pretty simple to send someone the link to a subset of your calendar.
I would imagine that, for tomorrow, my public-to-friends overlay would look like:
Darren, 2/25/2005, 5PM EST to ?, Beer and movies at my place.
I know people buying Macs just because of iLife.
And Mac's still don't amount to a significant percentage of the market.
Apple has realized that, at the right price, they can be a huge player. We all know it isn't in the best interest of the end-user, but if Apple switches from Firewire to USB for most, if not all of their infrastructure, they can attain lower price points. And that's what its all about.
And how many apps & other processes is your system running at the moment? Mine's running 58 with 518 threads.
But what's the processor utilization? On most systems, its usually less than 10 percent. So when a user does something, the bottleneck is usually not the processor. Its usually the hard drive.
Money would be better spent on RAID, rather than dual core or dual processor.
Put TV jacks in every room except bathrooms.
Put a TV jack in the bathroom as well... Since the price of LCDs are dropping, you might find the morning or evening news a welcome addition to your daily shower.
It is definitely a selling feature...
Before building the house, dig a large pit in the ground and sink some geothermal radiators. Where I live (Michigan), we can dig down about 5 feet and reach an area that is about 53dF year-round. If I threw a radiator down there, I could effectively use the Earth to liquid cool pretty much anything, including a server or even the whole damn house.
It is all about surface area... Do the math...
A flat out copy of OSX's graphical driver model wouldn't be a bad deal since the two big graphics manufacturers already have excellent drivers available for that system.
Whatever they do, driver quality needs to be at the top of the list. This is getting crazy. Its almost like someone at Microsoft is paying someone to keep this from happening.
Great suggestions... it would be nice to see them in the finished product. One thing that I'd like to see:
IDIOT PROOFING
Right now, the software is far too intrusive in many modes. I just want something that will run when the screensaver comes on (or the PC is locked) and eliminates a predetermined "level" of crap. This would be a blessing for anyone who has to remove this crap all of the time.
Sprint to aquire Nextel, SBC to Aquire AT&T, Verizon to aquire MCI.
Take a freakin' breather already. All in the name of screwing the consumer over, I'd bet.
Too bad it only comes on their PBX systems [switchvox.com] (starting at $995).
This really sounds like a commercial. Do you work for them?
Dude,
You've got a better chance of getting struck by a winning lottery ticket.
Seriously.
Leaves aside...
It would be nice if we could avoid stuff like this pest. Or maybe this one.
Random thought:
I recently lived in a Michigan subdivision that was built in the 50s and 60s. The developer, back then, thought that it would be a good idea to litter the subdivision with Ash trees. 50 years later, it appeared to be a wonderful idea, as the streets of this subdivision were now canopied by beautiful ash trees. And then the emerald ash borer became a problem. The trees were all clearcut and disposed of. Now there are no trees. If this particular developer had used a variety of tree species, then this particular place would be much better off today.
This reminds me of the computer world. Too many homogenous PCs on the internet and we'll have an ash borer or Dutch Elm problem there, too.
A friend of mine used the goatse image for his MSN person icon and I had a buffer overflow of my own.
When did I ever eat corn?
(her name was Cephus, short for Cephalopod)
For a second there, I thought you were gonna say Bocephus.
Enter the "tinfoil wallet".
North Korea? That's not how it happens!