Two spring to mind... 1. They just plain were not as organised. Here in NZ submissions on legislating spam just closed on June 30. So we are a wee way behind on enabling legislation. That could be one factor, and I'm not sure how Canada is currently placed eh.
2. Canada and NZ were both more hesitant and vocal against getting involved in Irag. This may be one of the little political machinations that went down faster between the three states that are more buddy buddy - UK, USA and Australia. I think NZ and Canada have been more on the outer since the war on Irag.
Agree with another poster here... they rolled out a mobile cell site at the Pentagon on Sept 11, and handed out precharged mobile phones for the responders to use.
Here in New Zealand we have had mobile cell sites at popular New Years holiday spots (to handle surge capacity) when the country goes on holiday for a week or two at Xmas/New Year. They have been doing this a couple of years at least.
I had Firefox 0.7 and Thunderbird 0.5 (I think those are right, it was the end of Jan/start of Feb when I did it) running off a USB memory stick for a uni course at the start of the year. It worked sweetly and it was so nice getting away from IE and back to tabbed browsing in the lab. I don't recall anything tricky to setting it up at the time, except maybe the creation of the profile, but that wasn't hard.
What would be fun is to hook up a GPS as well, and overlay a moving map on the video as well. I must try this in New Zealand, as we have some awesome highways through the Southern Alps and lovely driving road... mmmmm...
Both are suffer from the 'not in my backyard' mentality... for zero-loss transmission lines...
You forgot the fact that more distribution needs to occur closer to where it is used. Large cities will need their generation nearby to reduce transmission loss. Of course this brings up NIMBY again as no-one wants solar panels, or wind farms in their own back yard. But I feel that is the price that people are going to have to pay in the future.
Email is one of the few applications that bring people back for many pageviews. Note how Google state on the GMail page that you'll only see 'relevant ads'?
I've been seeing Adsense popping up on all sorts of new sites recently. Having ads delivered based on the content of your email is pretty clever. I wonder what adverts it will show when the spam comes rolling in?;)
Sure, it is a little fine for MSFT, but what is going to happen to the money.
Can you imagine what that could do for open source developers?
BillG may not like paying a half billion euro fine, but think how pissed he would be if that money then went towards funding open source software development.
Perhaps then he might not be so keen to get fined in the future...
Whilst the US maintains control, they can pay for it. The US has chosen in the past to impact GPS coverage at certain times, there is no reason for other countries to contribute until service is not impacted by political whim.
You have some sort of company where people open up Microsoft note-taking software when they receive a phone call rather than using a text-editor or word-processor or a postit note like everyone else? Do you take your computers into meetings and try to take notes on that?
Its not for taking notes in meetings - paper is still used for that. But I have found that OneNote provides a better environment for making notes whilst thinking - text, word, spreadsheets are not appropriate for more freestyle thinking. So it is used more like a personal virtual whiteboard rather than for recording meeting minutes. Drawing diagrams in a text editor doesn't really work well.
Thanks Robin, I shall be revisiting OOo to experiement! I also see that OOo Draw has some of the tools I've been using in Visio too. Shows what happens when work is too busy to experiment more with the software.
This topic has been on my mind for the past year whilst I've been setting up a small (3 location, 5 person) management consulting practice. I'm going to dump as much as I can here.
1a. File-sharing across multiple locations. Haven't done this because bandwidth isn't quite cheap enough yet, but perhaps in the near future, I'll be setting up rsync'd shares between the 3 locations so we can work from the same file base. Hasn't been a problem when working on separate projects but with more joint projects, it is starting to get messy with people keeping their own project directories.
1b. Search interface to files. Heirarchical file structures suck for trying to find things. Good for filing once, but I reckon I could retreive files quicker with a google-like interface. So, I want a prebuilt web front end that can automatically provide a search interface to samba shares. I should be able to treat each share as a collection, so I can chose to search just one collection or many. This would be very useful.
Personally, I want to work towards the following solution.
* samba shares of heirarchical folders that can be mapped and synced to laptops
* a web search interface to the samba shares that understands doc/xls/pdf etc a la htdig
* rsync to maintain similar shares across multiple sites
Alternatively, it would be interesting to investigate peer-to-peer as an alternative - as long as files could still be synced to go on the road. Cool P2P features would be to define how many copies should be stored of each file on the network (to force backup) and to have the primary files migrate to where they are used the most to cut down bandwidth transfers.
2. Groupware - I've been meaning to look at the OSS groupware packages available, because with more shared projects, we need a centralised way of managing projects, tasks, calendars and contacts. These should be able to be accessed from Outlook ideally (Outlook 2003 is pretty good I have to admit). It would be nice to have faxes received via a modem in a linux box arrive in the groupware where appropriate staff can access them from wherever they are at the time. The groupware would naturally be a good home for the web interface to the samba file shares.
3. Office software - OpenOffice.org appears to lack the ability to track changes - essential for multiple people working on a project. Compare document is not enough. You need to be able to identify changes, and add comment bubbles for the development and review process. Additionally OOo needs to have a basic project management tool, drawing tool, and even a note taking tool a la MS Project, Visio and OneNote. That would cover most business needs.
4. Security phpki looks interesting and useful for managing email certs. Naturally most network communication should be encrypted between locations with SSH tunnels or similar.
5. Intelligence. Haven't seen anything like this but it would be very very useful for any business. There needs to be a web interface to an intelligence gathering and searching tool. So I hear that "so-and-so is planning to do this" I can record it in a database. Later, someone could search for so-and-so and be provided with the gossip from the different sources within the organisation. Could be a very useful tool. Perhaps something like an OSS version of the NSA's Intelink software - a means of providing, sharing and searching business intelligence.
6. Timesheet. A good OSS web based timesheeting system would be very useful.
7. NNTP. Thats right, I want to use good ole newsgroups. I tried web forums, but they didn't go down well because you had to be online. With NNTP you can use an offline reader, and reply offline. I reckon I can get my technophobe partners to use that because its so similar to email. Email is a bane for internal communication because of the cc's and everyone archiving mail. It would be easier to move as much as possible to a newsserver and use email only for direct communication between two people. Then a web interface from the intranet would be nice as well!
Been to Crater Lake, too. Now THAT was a big ol explosion, but it happened way before I got there.
Another of the biggies was reported to be Lake Taupo in New Zealand. As well as having one of the largest (I think the 26.5ka Oruanui event has been estimated at 800 cubic km). The more recent eruption around 181AD was only about 50 cubic km, but is estimated to be one of the most violent eruptions.
They have found metres of deposits from Taupo in Auckland which is over 250km away. One of the field trips we did on the Cities on Volcanoes 2 conference in Auckland in 2001, took us to Tamaki in Auckland where we could see around 6m worth of deposit from one Taupo eruption. I think it was this eruption that has been linked to the Chinese noticing changes in their sunsets.
Hear hear! If hardware makers could agree to move the drivers down to the BIOS, that could be a significant move to tear down one of MSFT's strengths. Right now, they have a very wide range of supported hardware. There could be a significant industry reshuffle if the industry was able to achieve this. Then hardware vendors would only have to produce one driver (and it wouldn't necessarily have to be OSS - although it would be nice). They could spend more time improving their one driver, removing the bugs rather than supporting how many operating systems. MSFT would choke on this however because of their loss of competitive advantage - how much easier would it be to create new operating systems? Opps I mean window managers;)
Thats a bit of water to create a computer, but as we know, creation is but a small cost of running something. How much water is used to power said computer? (ok, we use hydro for most of our power in NZ). I'll bet that far more resources are used to keep them running than to create them in the first place...
Exactly, I've mostly moved out of IT, except for our own small consulting business. That said, I look forward to the not-to-distant future when I can get back into IT as a hobby. I'd really like to create or build upon some open source software in my spare time. This is going to be that much easier because I won't be working IT on a day-to-day basis.
Actually it depends on your bank. Some banks will not charge you if you have a positive balance on your cc. Quite handy for drawing down cash from your cc on international travel.
The good news is that they're only attacking infected machines (and in a way that's easy to block), but the bad news is that parasites like these can add nasty payloads to viruses that were fast but not particularly nasty themselves.
And this is potentially a big kicker... a fast spreading virus that does little apparent damage may not attract such an immediate response, thereby allowing it to spread further. Following this up with a worm with a nasty payload could have major consequences. Separating the means of infection and the payload could be a very clever evolution to make infections that much harder to manage.
This would set a nasty precident for MSFT, once one country has seen that MSFT may remove their global pricing, every country with a currency weaker than the USD will be clamouring for the same benefits. Guess its part of a larger trend away from US companies that need to earn in USD to survive. If you think about that, there are some nasty implications for the US ahead in international trade because of the relatively strong USD...
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder why Canada and NZ were not involved?
Two spring to mind...
1. They just plain were not as organised. Here in NZ submissions on legislating spam just closed on June 30. So we are a wee way behind on enabling legislation. That could be one factor, and I'm not sure how Canada is currently placed eh.
2. Canada and NZ were both more hesitant and vocal against getting involved in Irag. This may be one of the little political machinations that went down faster between the three states that are more buddy buddy - UK, USA and Australia. I think NZ and Canada have been more on the outer since the war on Irag.
OK I take that back somewhat, they have made a lighter faster model to increase the response time.
Agree with another poster here... they rolled out a mobile cell site at the Pentagon on Sept 11, and handed out precharged mobile phones for the responders to use.
Here in New Zealand we have had mobile cell sites at popular New Years holiday spots (to handle surge capacity) when the country goes on holiday for a week or two at Xmas/New Year. They have been doing this a couple of years at least.
Whata so special about this one?
I had Firefox 0.7 and Thunderbird 0.5 (I think those are right, it was the end of Jan/start of Feb when I did it) running off a USB memory stick for a uni course at the start of the year. It worked sweetly and it was so nice getting away from IE and back to tabbed browsing in the lab. I don't recall anything tricky to setting it up at the time, except maybe the creation of the profile, but that wasn't hard.
What would be fun is to hook up a GPS as well, and overlay a moving map on the video as well. I must try this in New Zealand, as we have some awesome highways through the Southern Alps and lovely driving road... mmmmm...
Someone has found that the dinosaur turned up between 1100 and 1200 NZST on the 5th of May. :)
20040505-1100
20040505-1200
Both are suffer from the 'not in my backyard' mentality... for zero-loss transmission lines...
You forgot the fact that more distribution needs to occur closer to where it is used. Large cities will need their generation nearby to reduce transmission loss. Of course this brings up NIMBY again as no-one wants solar panels, or wind farms in their own back yard. But I feel that is the price that people are going to have to pay in the future.
Not to mention the $10k or so it saves the organisation... I think thats around the price to get someone cleared.
Email is one of the few applications that bring people back for many pageviews. Note how Google state on the GMail page that you'll only see 'relevant ads'?
;)
I've been seeing Adsense popping up on all sorts of new sites recently. Having ads delivered based on the content of your email is pretty clever. I wonder what adverts it will show when the spam comes rolling in?
go towards Open Source. Imagaine how far the money would go on OSS projects. Then BillG would feel the pain of ~$600 million in more ways than one!
Sure, it is a little fine for MSFT, but what is going to happen to the money.
Can you imagine what that could do for open source developers?
BillG may not like paying a half billion euro fine, but think how pissed he would be if that money then went towards funding open source software development.
Perhaps then he might not be so keen to get fined in the future...
Whilst the US maintains control, they can pay for it. The US has chosen in the past to impact GPS coverage at certain times, there is no reason for other countries to contribute until service is not impacted by political whim.
You have some sort of company where people open up Microsoft note-taking software when they receive a phone call rather than using a text-editor or word-processor or a postit note like everyone else? Do you take your computers into meetings and try to take notes on that?
Its not for taking notes in meetings - paper is still used for that. But I have found that OneNote provides a better environment for making notes whilst thinking - text, word, spreadsheets are not appropriate for more freestyle thinking. So it is used more like a personal virtual whiteboard rather than for recording meeting minutes. Drawing diagrams in a text editor doesn't really work well.
sorry its only shockwave, but you might find this British TV commercial rather appropriate...
:)
Swearing
Enjoy
Thanks Robin, I shall be revisiting OOo to experiement! I also see that OOo Draw has some of the tools I've been using in Visio too. Shows what happens when work is too busy to experiment more with the software.
Cheers Gav
This topic has been on my mind for the past year whilst I've been setting up a small (3 location, 5 person) management consulting practice. I'm going to dump as much as I can here.
;)
1a. File-sharing across multiple locations. Haven't done this because bandwidth isn't quite cheap enough yet, but perhaps in the near future, I'll be setting up rsync'd shares between the 3 locations so we can work from the same file base. Hasn't been a problem when working on separate projects but with more joint projects, it is starting to get messy with people keeping their own project directories.
1b. Search interface to files. Heirarchical file structures suck for trying to find things. Good for filing once, but I reckon I could retreive files quicker with a google-like interface. So, I want a prebuilt web front end that can automatically provide a search interface to samba shares. I should be able to treat each share as a collection, so I can chose to search just one collection or many. This would be very useful.
Personally, I want to work towards the following solution.
* samba shares of heirarchical folders that can be mapped and synced to laptops
* a web search interface to the samba shares that understands doc/xls/pdf etc a la htdig
* rsync to maintain similar shares across multiple sites
Alternatively, it would be interesting to investigate peer-to-peer as an alternative - as long as files could still be synced to go on the road. Cool P2P features would be to define how many copies should be stored of each file on the network (to force backup) and to have the primary files migrate to where they are used the most to cut down bandwidth transfers.
2. Groupware - I've been meaning to look at the OSS groupware packages available, because with more shared projects, we need a centralised way of managing projects, tasks, calendars and contacts. These should be able to be accessed from Outlook ideally (Outlook 2003 is pretty good I have to admit). It would be nice to have faxes received via a modem in a linux box arrive in the groupware where appropriate staff can access them from wherever they are at the time. The groupware would naturally be a good home for the web interface to the samba file shares.
3. Office software - OpenOffice.org appears to lack the ability to track changes - essential for multiple people working on a project. Compare document is not enough. You need to be able to identify changes, and add comment bubbles for the development and review process. Additionally OOo needs to have a basic project management tool, drawing tool, and even a note taking tool a la MS Project, Visio and OneNote. That would cover most business needs.
4. Security phpki looks interesting and useful for managing email certs. Naturally most network communication should be encrypted between locations with SSH tunnels or similar.
5. Intelligence. Haven't seen anything like this but it would be very very useful for any business. There needs to be a web interface to an intelligence gathering and searching tool. So I hear that "so-and-so is planning to do this" I can record it in a database. Later, someone could search for so-and-so and be provided with the gossip from the different sources within the organisation. Could be a very useful tool. Perhaps something like an OSS version of the NSA's Intelink software - a means of providing, sharing and searching business intelligence.
6. Timesheet. A good OSS web based timesheeting system would be very useful.
7. NNTP. Thats right, I want to use good ole newsgroups. I tried web forums, but they didn't go down well because you had to be online. With NNTP you can use an offline reader, and reply offline. I reckon I can get my technophobe partners to use that because its so similar to email. Email is a bane for internal communication because of the cc's and everyone archiving mail. It would be easier to move as much as possible to a newsserver and use email only for direct communication between two people. Then a web interface from the intranet would be nice as well!
I'm not asking for too much am I?
Another of the biggies was reported to be Lake Taupo in New Zealand. As well as having one of the largest (I think the 26.5ka Oruanui event has been estimated at 800 cubic km). The more recent eruption around 181AD was only about 50 cubic km, but is estimated to be one of the most violent eruptions.
They have found metres of deposits from Taupo in Auckland which is over 250km away. One of the field trips we did on the Cities on Volcanoes 2 conference in Auckland in 2001, took us to Tamaki in Auckland where we could see around 6m worth of deposit from one Taupo eruption. I think it was this eruption that has been linked to the Chinese noticing changes in their sunsets.
Check out google for more info
Hear hear! If hardware makers could agree to move the drivers down to the BIOS, that could be a significant move to tear down one of MSFT's strengths. Right now, they have a very wide range of supported hardware. There could be a significant industry reshuffle if the industry was able to achieve this. Then hardware vendors would only have to produce one driver (and it wouldn't necessarily have to be OSS - although it would be nice). They could spend more time improving their one driver, removing the bugs rather than supporting how many operating systems. MSFT would choke on this however because of their loss of competitive advantage - how much easier would it be to create new operating systems? Opps I mean window managers ;)
will be able to get a refund on their linux servers. That whooshing sound are their customers up and leaving...
Thats a bit of water to create a computer, but as we know, creation is but a small cost of running something. How much water is used to power said computer? (ok, we use hydro for most of our power in NZ). I'll bet that far more resources are used to keep them running than to create them in the first place...
Exactly, I've mostly moved out of IT, except for our own small consulting business. That said, I look forward to the not-to-distant future when I can get back into IT as a hobby. I'd really like to create or build upon some open source software in my spare time. This is going to be that much easier because I won't be working IT on a day-to-day basis.
Actually it depends on your bank. Some banks will not charge you if you have a positive balance on your cc. Quite handy for drawing down cash from your cc on international travel.
The good news is that they're only attacking infected machines (and in a way that's easy to block), but the bad news is that parasites like these can add nasty payloads to viruses that were fast but not particularly nasty themselves.
And this is potentially a big kicker... a fast spreading virus that does little apparent damage may not attract such an immediate response, thereby allowing it to spread further. Following this up with a worm with a nasty payload could have major consequences. Separating the means of infection and the payload could be a very clever evolution to make infections that much harder to manage.
This would set a nasty precident for MSFT, once one country has seen that MSFT may remove their global pricing, every country with a currency weaker than the USD will be clamouring for the same benefits. Guess its part of a larger trend away from US companies that need to earn in USD to survive. If you think about that, there are some nasty implications for the US ahead in international trade because of the relatively strong USD...
I am 100% sure that the reason for the high prices of text books is purely the greed of the textbook publishing cartel.
;)
They're not the same bastards that run the journal publishing cartels are they?