Is there any work being done to put all the pieces together. Perhaps a modded distribution geared specifically to creating and setting up a Media Center type environment.
Yes, Angula. I've seen Demudi run off CD Live with zero configuration. It worked well on a 1GHz class computer. Show me a CD from M$ that does half as much.
Knoppix does some of the same.
Mepis also does much of the same but comes with non free goodies like Flash, Real Audio and a version of Xine that plays WMF.
I also think that players like Xine, Noatum etc. have been able to play non free formats for a long time. While it sucks that companies continue to make devices that use such nasty formats, it sucks even worse to not be able to use all those toys. Free software is more than up to the challenge. Sooner or later, those companies are going to turn to free formats as it's cheaper and better.
Boot Knoppix. Sure, the $10.00 is still handy as a mounted storage device you can get to with one click ease using kdf. If your at school, you have a book bag with enough room for a CD. Why settle for the crappy Windoze interface when you could have KDE or Window Maker?
Since they can't get people to believe SCO's spin when it's reported via credible news sources, they figure it's going to get a better reception when posted on an admittedly self-serving web site?
I'll bet it's more like no one in the press is going to print their BS anymore so they have to do it themselves. They might get one or two reporters to look at it, but that will stop when the reporters notice that there's no difference between the site and their nutty press releases. They won't stop reading Groklaw.
It's amazing, you tell lies and people quit listening to you.
But we need to admit to ourselves that there are people out there who use our work to pass off a system as having an operating system installed when they know full well that the computer is going to get a bootleg copy of Windows.
I don't get it. Why do people bother putting Linux on a system they know is going to be wiped? Why not sell it empty and save yourself the effort and cost?
Oh wait, I think I see, you are saying that the vendor is helping the purchaser conceal their bootlegging. OK, that's deplorable, but the same thing applies to Windoze.
Do you blame Dell and HP for piracy when they sell a Windoze box with no applications? Windoze by itself does next to nothing and the above logic would blame the vendor when the user puts on a bootlegged copy of Office, AutoCAD, Matlab or any of that jazz.
The whole argument looks like Microsoft marketing to me. It says, Linux is used to "pirate" Windoze and that Windoze is somehow more desirable than Linux. Neither, by common sense, is true and I'd like to say that the practice does not exist. For 99% of desktops, the purchaser is better off with Linux.
It's funny to see an AC who is not himself reading at 0.
They are not here to read, they are here to harass. Getting a few stories accepted has earned me a swarm of them that post the most vile things. Have a look at my posting history and you will see one or two of them for everything I say. Oh well.
I think someone is paying them to disrupt conversation here. Along with the various flavors of trolls, it looks like an evolved Barkto system.
Are you saying this doesn't happen with Linux? You do realize where the term "rootkit" originated, yes?
Sorry, Bungi man, Linux browsers don't auto download and install as root browser help objects. They also don't give websites shell level access. Rootkits take more effort than that on Unix and Linux systems.
Aren't you glad you need admin privileges for day-to-day operations on too many windows boxes?
Pity that, but so what? All the attacker has to do is upload a root kit via browser help object, cookie or similar then execute the kit. Who executes the kit should not matter if the kit is made right.
The thought of the day is, "just another hole in a screen door." Why are people still running Microsoft junk?
i have a problem figuring out where "M$" and "Winblows" fit into this post. since you never post about anything else, i'm thinking maybe someone stole your Slashdot account...
AC, I think you are a moron, paid to harass people.
Most people stick with Windows because it's there and it takes effort to get something better.
That's what Windows says, sucker. It's just another lie. Try Mepis, Knoppix, Debian Sarge or Fedora when she's not looking or when she has the inevitable nervous breakdown on you again. Mepis and Knoppix are discreet and that whore will never know.
Get a major PC manufacturer to start shipping some dual boot systems and see how well it fares...
You don't even want to know what a bitch she is to manufacturers. Let's just say that it's heroic of them to even talk about another OS.
I've had this bag's ancestor for about nine years. The organizer pockets are awesome, with three palm top sized pockets, each with smaller pocket in front for holding five pens, several pc cards CF and other things. The main compartment has room for a good sized laptop, such as a thinkpad, a binder, an engineering pad and book or two or a large camera. A smaller zippered pocket fits wires, chords and a cell phone. It's not a slick as a real brief case or a Hartman leather bag, it's cheaper and more comfortable while looking good enough for any interview.
With that and a folding bag for clothes and books, I've got enough for days on the road. The laptop rides in front of me and the clothes ride behind me so that the straps go over my head and cross each other.
I liked my Eastpak. It's leather bottom was rock solid and none of the fabric ever had a problem. The zipper started to die.
Then I got a Jansport, this bag's grandfather. The organizer is very cool, with enough pockets for CF, several PC cards, wires, pens, freaking everything. I've had it for nine years and it has held up to daily use and abuse on bike. Overloading it ripped one seam, which was not used to hold anything in and was easy to sew back up.
When traveling, I came to prefer the shoulder bag to a back pack for compactness and difficulty of pick pocketing. I had started to wear my back on my belly in crowds but it was uncomfortable.
Just never leave your laptop anywhere you might be observed. When you put it in the trunk, make sure you drive off with it. It is unlikely that someone will follow you for it, so you can leave it when you get where you are going. But if you have taken it out, keep it with you.
Never, ever leave anything in your hotel room. My laptop goes in the Jesus bag that has return tickets and other must have stuff. The Jesus bag rarely leaves my side and most often rides right on my belly. Usually, my clothes bag rides in the trunk and the Jesus bag rides on the passenger seat, unless I'm someplace where carjacking and other in your face break ins happen. If I'm going to dinner and don't want to lug the bag, it might ride in the trunk.
Both bags, of course, come inside with me.
For laptops, I prefer a purse style shoulder bag to a backpack. It's easier to sling other shoulder bags that way and I don't have to worry about people picking it behind my back.
Tom Hayes says, 'I think that people can be comfortable that security has beamed this man out of our building.'
Oh yeah, Tom, that's some high security operation you have there. I'm sure you know exactly what's running on those "servers" and have not been owned by any of the 5,000 or so new worms born for it each month. Considering that you hire people who "can't... find [intelligent life] in the mirror in the morning" to run said junk, the taxpayers know how zealously you are looking after their resources. The poor guy obviously did not find intelligence in upper management. Nice work, you have your 15 seconds of infamy.
Next time, earn your employee's loyalty by sweeping the thing under the rug. Say something nice like, "Holy crap, if my overseer/master/boss sees this, we'll both be canned. We'll take it off and forget it ever happened, OK?" What on Earth gave you the idea to make your former employee, yourself and your organization a laughing stock by telling a reporter what happened?
And if you're stupid enough to make publically humiliating statements about your (ex) employees, you deserve what you get too.
Yeah, he wanted to prove how clever he was to waste everyone's time by hiring someone stupid. I'm afraid that this is definitive proof that Hayes is incompetent and that incompetents in general don't know how bad they are at things. We can assume much else about the workings of his office. Yep, Windoze, what a dumb fuck. Nothing but the best waste of taxpayer money there.
Sooner or later, he's going to figure out that the "standard" non free software he's using on that "server" is:
filled with spyware
filled with malware
owned by spammers and porn masters
He'll notice it as CNN and the other ways he spends his time run slower and slower. Then he will wish that he had someone to help him fix it and SETI to blame. At least with SETI, he knew what he was running
Like I said, it's your choice. It's still five lines of code. If you want to push the fix across the enterprise to 1,000 servers I suppose an unattended MSI package install is a bit better. But wait, what am I saying!? Only "free software" is capable of these things!
Having worked a BankOne "upgrade" I can say that it's true free software is much easier to push through a network than crap that requires M$ registry bullshit to work.
Yep [M$ will have the same problem again], and it will get fixed and it won't be quite so the end of the world as you and Slashdot would like to think it is. But I'm sure you'll still bitch cluelessly about it.
No, I'll just laugh thinking about how you will spend your weekend. Either way, code rewrite or patch push, it's loser. I've got better things to do with my time. How about you?
I suppose if you're mentioning my placeholder Cox homepage
Yep, one day you might have time to put something there or change your Slashdot homepage.
Now, as for comparing Wintel laptops to Powerbooks. I find that much of what makes a computer seem fast or slow is the smoothness with which the OS runs. The G4 chip is not going to perform as well as the newer P4 laptops. However, the OS runs VERY smoothly, so it FEELS more powerful than many Wintel laptops.
Going down to the store is a good idea. I did this for myself last month and was stunned by how well the Macs worked. I thought about it for a while and it made sense. OSX is a clean OS, much like Linux or BSD and requires much less processing power for what it does.
I ended up getting a used PII thinkpad and put Sarge on it. It is a little slow for big honkers like OpenOffice and KDE3 but can easily have multiple documents up and would do everything the reviewer wanted as "work". Running Window Maker and KOffice, I don't have to wait for it. The availability of multiple named workspaces makes it easy for me to organize and find my work. This is still a killer feature of X and free software.
Gigahertz class Macs will do everything just fine. They really are snappy.
The same thing can not be said of the same hardware running Windoze. The OS does not do as much out of the box and most "bundles" of software only include enough to get the most basic work done. You will have to buy/download movie editing software, music ripping software, and other stuff that the Mac just comes with. You might even get your hands on some crippled version of Office that will make you even crazier than Office itself. Worse, everyone knows how Windoze gets buggy and craps out if you load it up with software or just use what you have for a couple of years. Sooner or later, some malware will get through and screw things up for you.
My conclusion was that $1000 was about the price for a decent laptop in either camp but the Mac will be easier. When my mom's PII laptop dies, I'm going to recommend she gets a Mac.
You're saying that this platform, which is known to be on the pricier side of the computer experience, is unwilling to pay for mpeg licensing?
Could it be that an 800lb gorilla, known for fuck you deals, has made things expensive for Apple? You know, "We will use your format if you give us X per copy and charge everyone else way too much money for it," kind of deal. Sort of like the "You must make OS/2 more expensive than Windoze or we cut off your oxygen," deal they gave computer builders.
All of this hinges on Mac not being able to play a video format, which I doubt. Macs are well known for doing video stuff out of the box. Anything is possible.
Ho would you push an update to a text file (code at that) through "Windoze Update", oh Master Developer Guru. Please enlighten us.
The same way Debian manages global some configuration files. If you chose, an auto configuration section will be marked by text in the file "#start auto configuration", "#end auto configuration" and managed. Customization of the file can still be done manually after the auto section.
If all that was required is a 5 line change to a global file, I'm sure that even M$ could manage it. Windoze updater can modify any file on your system can't it?
The problem is that it's not a simple five line change, it's a code rewrite and it does not really fix the problem.
letting the market forces regulate corporate behavior just isn't good enough
Laws that make people pay for the bad things they do are much better than a permission system where you have to please some government clerk before you can do anything.
Did you ever stop to think that most government regulations are actually efforts by big dumb companies to limit competition so they don't have to work as hard? When you cluster everything up with regulations, the result is less safety and a public that's less well served.
The need for regulation occurs because of the possibility for much larger damage and more people being affected.
You could do more damage with a truck than you can with Spaceship one.
Assume that something fell off one of these things and caused significant damage. The injured people probably could win a suit for negligence for a substantial sum, which would more than likely put an end to the industry. Instead, if we have regulation, the injury is much less likely to occur, if it does occur, there are set damages and penalties, and the affected parties can still recover (and because of the regulation, others in the industry have less to fear, if they conform to the regulation.)
But they don't have less to fear, they have more to fear. The way regulations work, some clerk comes and inspects things and they carry the power to shut you down. Conforming to regulations don't let you off the hook for what you do and people should not look at things that way. Guidelines, without the clerk and without having to beg for permission work much better.
Why shouldn't I be able to have some say in whether or not you can hurl objects into space which might endanger my life?
Because they don't endanger you and you don't own the sky.
If a small change to a single file is all that's required, why all the fuss? Why didn't M$ just push it out with Windoze Update?
"Doomsday talk" is about how this flaw lets people into your "administrative" site. Want to imagine how many.NET programmers are going to miss this little talk and have their servers used with ease by any old deviant?
All thats required is a couple of lines in Global.asax. Thats hardly a rewrite.
That sounds like a fix to me. Why provide a "guideline" when a fix is available? While the the name implies modularity, the Microsoft code samples show otherwise. It looks like a rewrite of code, written to previous guidelines, is required so that your code will then point to that file because the previous "easy" method was so easy to defeat. Think about it for one instant and you will realize that an easy, global fix would be pushed out by Windoze Update and no fuss would be made.
The ominous portion of the warning is that "administrative" areas were also protected by the same scheme. That makes sitting ducks out of every one of the 2.9 million sites dumb enough to trust M$ with security.
Among concerns are safety of uninvolved public (to ensure boosters or other launch vehicle parts don't land on the unsuspecting public), assessing risk to passengers and level of fitness necessary to withstand the forces and conditions of spaceflight.
The same things can be said about riding a horse. Where's the body of regulations on them?
Once upon a time we were free to take risks and responsible for the consequences. You did not need permission to ride a horse, though it might hurt you and others. Congress did not make criteria for who was fit enough to ride and it still does not. If you managed to hurt yourself, that was your problem. If, through negligence, you hurt someone else you paid the price. Accidents happened, but it is in everyone's interest to be free. Guidelines are nice. Regulations stifle.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, Angula. I've seen Demudi run off CD Live with zero configuration. It worked well on a 1GHz class computer. Show me a CD from M$ that does half as much.
Knoppix does some of the same.
Mepis also does much of the same but comes with non free goodies like Flash, Real Audio and a version of Xine that plays WMF.
I also think that players like Xine, Noatum etc. have been able to play non free formats for a long time. While it sucks that companies continue to make devices that use such nasty formats, it sucks even worse to not be able to use all those toys. Free software is more than up to the challenge. Sooner or later, those companies are going to turn to free formats as it's cheaper and better.
I'll bet it's more like no one in the press is going to print their BS anymore so they have to do it themselves. They might get one or two reporters to look at it, but that will stop when the reporters notice that there's no difference between the site and their nutty press releases. They won't stop reading Groklaw.
It's amazing, you tell lies and people quit listening to you.
I don't get it. Why do people bother putting Linux on a system they know is going to be wiped? Why not sell it empty and save yourself the effort and cost?
Oh wait, I think I see, you are saying that the vendor is helping the purchaser conceal their bootlegging. OK, that's deplorable, but the same thing applies to Windoze.
Do you blame Dell and HP for piracy when they sell a Windoze box with no applications? Windoze by itself does next to nothing and the above logic would blame the vendor when the user puts on a bootlegged copy of Office, AutoCAD, Matlab or any of that jazz.
The whole argument looks like Microsoft marketing to me. It says, Linux is used to "pirate" Windoze and that Windoze is somehow more desirable than Linux. Neither, by common sense, is true and I'd like to say that the practice does not exist. For 99% of desktops, the purchaser is better off with Linux.
They are not here to read, they are here to harass. Getting a few stories accepted has earned me a swarm of them that post the most vile things. Have a look at my posting history and you will see one or two of them for everything I say. Oh well.
I think someone is paying them to disrupt conversation here. Along with the various flavors of trolls, it looks like an evolved Barkto system.
Sorry, Bungi man, Linux browsers don't auto download and install as root browser help objects. They also don't give websites shell level access. Rootkits take more effort than that on Unix and Linux systems.
Pity that, but so what? All the attacker has to do is upload a root kit via browser help object, cookie or similar then execute the kit. Who executes the kit should not matter if the kit is made right.
The thought of the day is, "just another hole in a screen door." Why are people still running Microsoft junk?
i have a problem figuring out where "M$" and "Winblows" fit into this post. since you never post about anything else, i'm thinking maybe someone stole your Slashdot account...
AC, I think you are a moron, paid to harass people.
That's what Windows says, sucker. It's just another lie. Try Mepis, Knoppix, Debian Sarge or Fedora when she's not looking or when she has the inevitable nervous breakdown on you again. Mepis and Knoppix are discreet and that whore will never know.
Get a major PC manufacturer to start shipping some dual boot systems and see how well it fares...
You don't even want to know what a bitch she is to manufacturers. Let's just say that it's heroic of them to even talk about another OS.
With that and a folding bag for clothes and books, I've got enough for days on the road. The laptop rides in front of me and the clothes ride behind me so that the straps go over my head and cross each other.
Then I got a Jansport, this bag's grandfather. The organizer is very cool, with enough pockets for CF, several PC cards, wires, pens, freaking everything. I've had it for nine years and it has held up to daily use and abuse on bike. Overloading it ripped one seam, which was not used to hold anything in and was easy to sew back up.
When traveling, I came to prefer the shoulder bag to a back pack for compactness and difficulty of pick pocketing. I had started to wear my back on my belly in crowds but it was uncomfortable.
Never, ever leave anything in your hotel room. My laptop goes in the Jesus bag that has return tickets and other must have stuff. The Jesus bag rarely leaves my side and most often rides right on my belly. Usually, my clothes bag rides in the trunk and the Jesus bag rides on the passenger seat, unless I'm someplace where carjacking and other in your face break ins happen. If I'm going to dinner and don't want to lug the bag, it might ride in the trunk.
Both bags, of course, come inside with me.
For laptops, I prefer a purse style shoulder bag to a backpack. It's easier to sling other shoulder bags that way and I don't have to worry about people picking it behind my back.
Oh yeah, Tom, that's some high security operation you have there. I'm sure you know exactly what's running on those "servers" and have not been owned by any of the 5,000 or so new worms born for it each month. Considering that you hire people who "can't ... find [intelligent life] in the mirror in the morning" to run said junk, the taxpayers know how zealously you are looking after their resources. The poor guy obviously did not find intelligence in upper management. Nice work, you have your 15 seconds of infamy.
Next time, earn your employee's loyalty by sweeping the thing under the rug. Say something nice like, "Holy crap, if my overseer/master/boss sees this, we'll both be canned. We'll take it off and forget it ever happened, OK?" What on Earth gave you the idea to make your former employee, yourself and your organization a laughing stock by telling a reporter what happened?
Yeah, he wanted to prove how clever he was to waste everyone's time by hiring someone stupid. I'm afraid that this is definitive proof that Hayes is incompetent and that incompetents in general don't know how bad they are at things. We can assume much else about the workings of his office. Yep, Windoze, what a dumb fuck. Nothing but the best waste of taxpayer money there.
Sooner or later, he's going to figure out that the "standard" non free software he's using on that "server" is:
He'll notice it as CNN and the other ways he spends his time run slower and slower. Then he will wish that he had someone to help him fix it and SETI to blame. At least with SETI, he knew what he was running
Having worked a BankOne "upgrade" I can say that it's true free software is much easier to push through a network than crap that requires M$ registry bullshit to work.
Yep [M$ will have the same problem again], and it will get fixed and it won't be quite so the end of the world as you and Slashdot would like to think it is. But I'm sure you'll still bitch cluelessly about it.
No, I'll just laugh thinking about how you will spend your weekend. Either way, code rewrite or patch push, it's loser. I've got better things to do with my time. How about you?
I suppose if you're mentioning my placeholder Cox homepage
Yep, one day you might have time to put something there or change your Slashdot homepage.
Going down to the store is a good idea. I did this for myself last month and was stunned by how well the Macs worked. I thought about it for a while and it made sense. OSX is a clean OS, much like Linux or BSD and requires much less processing power for what it does.
I ended up getting a used PII thinkpad and put Sarge on it. It is a little slow for big honkers like OpenOffice and KDE3 but can easily have multiple documents up and would do everything the reviewer wanted as "work". Running Window Maker and KOffice, I don't have to wait for it. The availability of multiple named workspaces makes it easy for me to organize and find my work. This is still a killer feature of X and free software.
Gigahertz class Macs will do everything just fine. They really are snappy.
The same thing can not be said of the same hardware running Windoze. The OS does not do as much out of the box and most "bundles" of software only include enough to get the most basic work done. You will have to buy/download movie editing software, music ripping software, and other stuff that the Mac just comes with. You might even get your hands on some crippled version of Office that will make you even crazier than Office itself. Worse, everyone knows how Windoze gets buggy and craps out if you load it up with software or just use what you have for a couple of years. Sooner or later, some malware will get through and screw things up for you.
My conclusion was that $1000 was about the price for a decent laptop in either camp but the Mac will be easier. When my mom's PII laptop dies, I'm going to recommend she gets a Mac.
Could it be that an 800lb gorilla, known for fuck you deals, has made things expensive for Apple? You know, "We will use your format if you give us X per copy and charge everyone else way too much money for it," kind of deal. Sort of like the "You must make OS/2 more expensive than Windoze or we cut off your oxygen," deal they gave computer builders.
All of this hinges on Mac not being able to play a video format, which I doubt. Macs are well known for doing video stuff out of the box. Anything is possible.
Yeah, so is your Cox home page.
Nice to know they fixed their little problem with a quarter meg download. Not quite a five line fix, now is it?
Why would you say it didn't? It fixes the problem. How would you now if it does or doesn't fix the problem?
Because they've had this kind of problem before and they will have it again.
The same way Debian manages global some configuration files. If you chose, an auto configuration section will be marked by text in the file "#start auto configuration", "#end auto configuration" and managed. Customization of the file can still be done manually after the auto section.
If all that was required is a 5 line change to a global file, I'm sure that even M$ could manage it. Windoze updater can modify any file on your system can't it?
The problem is that it's not a simple five line change, it's a code rewrite and it does not really fix the problem.
Feeling enlightened yet?
Laws that make people pay for the bad things they do are much better than a permission system where you have to please some government clerk before you can do anything.
Did you ever stop to think that most government regulations are actually efforts by big dumb companies to limit competition so they don't have to work as hard? When you cluster everything up with regulations, the result is less safety and a public that's less well served.
You could do more damage with a truck than you can with Spaceship one.
Assume that something fell off one of these things and caused significant damage. The injured people probably could win a suit for negligence for a substantial sum, which would more than likely put an end to the industry. Instead, if we have regulation, the injury is much less likely to occur, if it does occur, there are set damages and penalties, and the affected parties can still recover (and because of the regulation, others in the industry have less to fear, if they conform to the regulation.)
But they don't have less to fear, they have more to fear. The way regulations work, some clerk comes and inspects things and they carry the power to shut you down. Conforming to regulations don't let you off the hook for what you do and people should not look at things that way. Guidelines, without the clerk and without having to beg for permission work much better.
Why shouldn't I be able to have some say in whether or not you can hurl objects into space which might endanger my life?
Because they don't endanger you and you don't own the sky.
"Doomsday talk" is about how this flaw lets people into your "administrative" site. Want to imagine how many .NET programmers are going to miss this little talk and have their servers used with ease by any old deviant?
P.S. - I am not a microsoft supporter
I'm Glad you let us know!
That sounds like a fix to me. Why provide a "guideline" when a fix is available? While the the name implies modularity, the Microsoft code samples show otherwise. It looks like a rewrite of code, written to previous guidelines, is required so that your code will then point to that file because the previous "easy" method was so easy to defeat. Think about it for one instant and you will realize that an easy, global fix would be pushed out by Windoze Update and no fuss would be made.
The ominous portion of the warning is that "administrative" areas were also protected by the same scheme. That makes sitting ducks out of every one of the 2.9 million sites dumb enough to trust M$ with security.
The same things can be said about riding a horse. Where's the body of regulations on them?
Once upon a time we were free to take risks and responsible for the consequences. You did not need permission to ride a horse, though it might hurt you and others. Congress did not make criteria for who was fit enough to ride and it still does not. If you managed to hurt yourself, that was your problem. If, through negligence, you hurt someone else you paid the price. Accidents happened, but it is in everyone's interest to be free. Guidelines are nice. Regulations stifle.