on Virtualbox running on my Wintel box on a Kubuntu Karmic host if Apple would sell it to me. I already have XP installed. I want to run the best apps available on my data without having to care what OS they run on. I'd also like to be able to write reviews for apps running on the major platforms without changing machines.
I'm not that interested in Blu-Ray movies, but I've got 200G on my HD... as in a dozen DVD+R backup disks. I'm buying a Blu-Ray burner for disk archives ASAP and looking forward to TVDs.
the only confidential content on it should be the crypto key your remote control client uses to access your home/office computer on which the actual confidential information is. Which shouldn't do the aspiring data thief any good minus the password. Carry your portable entertainment content on the computer instead.
While this means that you don't get access to your own confo information unless you're hooked up to the Net via wifi or 3G wireless dongle, it also means that if you lose your computer, the expensive part is replacing the hardware, not the much more expensive job of attempting to find or recreate the actual data. And data that never was on your computer can't be stolen either by a random thief, the "bad guys", or the Feds when you cross an international border.
electronic components has no difficulty differentiating "SPARC" from "SparkFun". While a SPARC CPU is in fact an electronic component, it is one that can only be used if one is building a specialized sort of computer (i.e. one that won't run x86 code and can't run any Windows / OSX apps). If one is going to design an electronic circuit with any hope of functioning, one has to know EXACTLY what components one is designing into it.
The population of actual electronic component customers likely to mistake SPARC for SparkFun is exactly zero. There is NO public likely to be confused by this.
market because people don't have fixed expectations as to how a smartphone UI will look, feel, and act, and expect to have to dig through menus or the instruction manual to do anything over and above simply making a phone call.
Netbooks look enough like "real" computers that people expect the UI to look and feel like a computer UI, not a smartphone UI.
I don't really see any reason not to go with a conventional Linux desktop any more than netbook manufacturers see any reason to go with anything but a conventional XP or Win7-lite install for their netbooks. Give me conventional desktop icons and a normal taskbar and the normal selection of Open Source apps, not giant icons to programs that don't do much and a handful of programs from a company repository that prepare the netbook for websurfing and not much else.
The only important consideration is that the hardware drivers are available, just like on any other Linux installation.
I blew off my "easy, fun" dumbed down Xandros desktop for Kubuntu on my Eee PC900 at the first possible opportunity.
There are plenty of places to get products which are equivalent or better than anything that company sells.
IMO, the company just went from security protection to security risk.
I'm sure that Kaspersky would love to sell the technology for an "Internet Passport" to governments. If that's where their CEO wants to get its cash flow, they can have at it. They don't deserve a cent from the rest of us, either via product sale or via taxes.
If you or your company uses their products, it's time to look for alternative vendors.
everybody including normal Apple users loathes Apple fanbois. You're one of them. Sane people think that the more devices a web app like iTunes can connect to, the more useful it is.
As for me, I'm voting with my money against a business practice I don't like. You can buy all the Apple products you want to. I hope you bought an iPhone and the AT&T calling plans, but that's only because I don't like you, either, and I don't mind in the least knowing you've been burned.
to punish all of a company's users for the "crime" of making it possible for its customers to buy Apple's digital music products.
Luckily, as a Linux user, I need not worry about it, jpilot or kpilot are plug-and-play on Palm OS products.
I just lost my own Palm PDA after years of satisfactory performance. Since I mainly use it for e-books and mp3s, I was considering buying an iPod Touch to replace it for these purposes.
I think I'll look up a discounted price on another Palm PDA instead.
No, I don't carry large amounts of confidential business data around on my netbook, just e-book and multimedia content for offline entertainment. So a 16G SSD is not a problem for me. My confidential business data stays on my desktop, I access my desktop over the Net via encrypted connection when I need it, and if my netbook is lost or stolen or confiscated at a national border, I don't have to worry about the loss of a hard drive's worth of information.
However, thank you for your concern. I'm in my mid50s, I use my Eee PC900 netbook regularly for business purposes. When I need technology advice, I can get it from people with a clue, a group you aren't part of.
Should you ever become a businessperson, you'll probably figure out why people who have to carry around a computer a lot of the time prefer light and small and rugged to the boat anchors people like you would like people to saddle themselves with.
I know of, other than the use Iranian democracy protesters are making of it, is real-time messages on what's going on in Congressional and state legislator committee meetings closed to the media.
and while the technology and patents not only still exist, but IMO, could be turned into a sub-$100 device that could be placed inline with every ignition switch on all vehicles (cars, buses, trucks, planes). . . it died due to lack of market interest.
Corporations and government ignored it completely.
Given a choice, would you rather fly with a pilot who was tested during the pre-flight checklist for impairment or someone who had a random probability of being tested for drugs?
Personally, I don't care if the pilot or bus driver in a vehicle I'm riding or a truck driver next to me is impaired due to alcohol, legal drugs, prescription drugs, or lack of sleep, if somebody's impaired, I don't want them running a vehicle that affects my safety.
"Zero tolerance" is about lifestyle control and more money for the prison-industrial conplex out of our pockets by CEOs and politicians who simply do not give a shit about public safety.
is to create a new generation of Kindle device that does NOT have monitoring / control of customer content capability and give its installed base a gift certificate good either for a new device or the equivalent value in free downloads of Kindle books.
The mistake Amazon made was building a capability for monitoring/controlling content into the Kindle to begin with. AFAIK, no other e-reader either as hardware or pure software implementation, even the ones that support DRM has this, and it's a feature for which there is no known customer demand.
They can still correct the mistake now, settle with the student out of court, and get good publicity out of making this right.
Amazon's hope that nobody would sue was in vain, all they can do about this now is damage control. The damage judgment from a class action suit (they got caught with their asses swinging in the breeze, their only realistic hope of winning would be with a jury composed of RIAA/MPAA employees) is going to be a lot more expensive than simply settling out of court both in terms of damages + contingency fees and renewed bad publicity.
needed to make this work will be hard enough to keep alive even within the protection of the systems built to grow them and in the wild, have the same kind of survival prospects Bambi would have in a country full of Godzillas.
If the description is accurate, the project is intended to harvest money from investors, not biofuel from solar energy.
No need for hysterical panic unless you're one of the small investors whose money is actually involved.
with entirely transparent (i.e. entirely plastic or glass) bioreactors?
Remember that in the unlikely circumstance that this project goes to actual production, the most important ongoing cost of this project is going to be financing the capital investment which is proportional to the amount of capital going into this. So it isn't just the cost of the plastic or glass bioreactor megastructures, it's that cost times x. The numbers might pencil out at $50 minus costs of financing (though without seeing their spreadsheets, I have trouble believing that), but including financing?
access to its services immediately and without notice or warning.
Belgian ex-users should be diverted to a page explaining that the government of Belgium has made it impossible for them to do business in Belgium and provide the names and contact information for every responsible official. The page can have a link to a detailed discussion of the issues, if desired.
Let the Belgian users decide whether they like their Yahoo services better than they like their bureaucrats. If they don't, Yahoo should find more profitable uses for its resources.
Slashdot Mirror
on Virtualbox running on my Wintel box on a Kubuntu Karmic host if Apple would sell it to me. I already have XP installed. I want to run the best apps available on my data without having to care what OS they run on. I'd also like to be able to write reviews for apps running on the major platforms without changing machines.
I'm not that interested in Blu-Ray movies, but I've got 200G on my HD... as in a dozen DVD+R backup disks. I'm buying a Blu-Ray burner for disk archives ASAP and looking forward to TVDs.
the only confidential content on it should be the crypto key your remote control client uses to access your home/office computer on which the actual confidential information is. Which shouldn't do the aspiring data thief any good minus the password. Carry your portable entertainment content on the computer instead.
While this means that you don't get access to your own confo information unless you're hooked up to the Net via wifi or 3G wireless dongle, it also means that if you lose your computer, the expensive part is replacing the hardware, not the much more expensive job of attempting to find or recreate the actual data. And data that never was on your computer can't be stolen either by a random thief, the "bad guys", or the Feds when you cross an international border.
electronic components has no difficulty differentiating "SPARC" from "SparkFun". While a SPARC CPU is in fact an electronic component, it is one that can only be used if one is building a specialized sort of computer (i.e. one that won't run x86 code and can't run any Windows / OSX apps). If one is going to design an electronic circuit with any hope of functioning, one has to know EXACTLY what components one is designing into it.
The population of actual electronic component customers likely to mistake SPARC for SparkFun is exactly zero. There is NO public likely to be confused by this.
market because people don't have fixed expectations as to how a smartphone UI will look, feel, and act, and expect to have to dig through menus or the instruction manual to do anything over and above simply making a phone call.
Netbooks look enough like "real" computers that people expect the UI to look and feel like a computer UI, not a smartphone UI.
I don't really see any reason not to go with a conventional Linux desktop any more than netbook manufacturers see any reason to go with anything but a conventional XP or Win7-lite install for their netbooks. Give me conventional desktop icons and a normal taskbar and the normal selection of Open Source apps, not giant icons to programs that don't do much and a handful of programs from a company repository that prepare the netbook for websurfing and not much else.
The only important consideration is that the hardware drivers are available, just like on any other Linux installation.
I blew off my "easy, fun" dumbed down Xandros desktop for Kubuntu on my Eee PC900 at the first possible opportunity.
that's the right answer.
There are plenty of places to get products which are equivalent or better than anything that company sells.
IMO, the company just went from security protection to security risk.
I'm sure that Kaspersky would love to sell the technology for an "Internet Passport" to governments. If that's where their CEO wants to get its cash flow, they can have at it. They don't deserve a cent from the rest of us, either via product sale or via taxes.
If you or your company uses their products, it's time to look for alternative vendors.
the problem of OS vendors installing malware in Firefox isn't that big a deal at this point.
should secure Firefox to make it impossible for M$ to install anything in their browser.
I've got a Motorola cell phone with Bluetooth via Tracfone that can't be tethered. Apple didn't invent pre-crippled cellphones.
security by obscurity = automatic EPIC FAIL.
I won't be using nominum services, even if there's a free version. That's a confession of incompetence.
never mind, you can't.
Who cares?
Incumbent CEOs who fire their experts will have left the company and cashed out their options long before "new stuff" can become a problem.
It's their successors who will have to deal with the results. And of course, their customers.
everybody including normal Apple users loathes Apple fanbois. You're one of them. Sane people think that the more devices a web app like iTunes can connect to, the more useful it is.
As for me, I'm voting with my money against a business practice I don't like. You can buy all the Apple products you want to. I hope you bought an iPhone and the AT&T calling plans, but that's only because I don't like you, either, and I don't mind in the least knowing you've been burned.
to punish all of a company's users for the "crime" of making it possible for its customers to buy Apple's digital music products.
Luckily, as a Linux user, I need not worry about it, jpilot or kpilot are plug-and-play on Palm OS products.
I just lost my own Palm PDA after years of satisfactory performance. Since I mainly use it for e-books and mp3s, I was considering buying an iPod Touch to replace it for these purposes.
I think I'll look up a discounted price on another Palm PDA instead.
For Palm users who made the mistake of buying Apple, here's a tutorial on installing Linux apps on OSX.
As for digital tracks themselves, I recommend buying them from a company that has not reinvented itself as a "cooler" version of Microsoft.
No, I don't carry large amounts of confidential business data around on my netbook, just e-book and multimedia content for offline entertainment. So a 16G SSD is not a problem for me. My confidential business data stays on my desktop, I access my desktop over the Net via encrypted connection when I need it, and if my netbook is lost or stolen or confiscated at a national border, I don't have to worry about the loss of a hard drive's worth of information.
However, thank you for your concern. I'm in my mid50s, I use my Eee PC900 netbook regularly for business purposes. When I need technology advice, I can get it from people with a clue, a group you aren't part of.
Should you ever become a businessperson, you'll probably figure out why people who have to carry around a computer a lot of the time prefer light and small and rugged to the boat anchors people like you would like people to saddle themselves with.
I know of, other than the use Iranian democracy protesters are making of it, is real-time messages on what's going on in Congressional and state legislator committee meetings closed to the media.
using Twitter. . . never mind, you can't.
and while the technology and patents not only still exist, but IMO, could be turned into a sub-$100 device that could be placed inline with every ignition switch on all vehicles (cars, buses, trucks, planes). . . it died due to lack of market interest.
Corporations and government ignored it completely.
Given a choice, would you rather fly with a pilot who was tested during the pre-flight checklist for impairment or someone who had a random probability of being tested for drugs?
Personally, I don't care if the pilot or bus driver in a vehicle I'm riding or a truck driver next to me is impaired due to alcohol, legal drugs, prescription drugs, or lack of sleep, if somebody's impaired, I don't want them running a vehicle that affects my safety.
"Zero tolerance" is about lifestyle control and more money for the prison-industrial conplex out of our pockets by CEOs and politicians who simply do not give a shit about public safety.
but there's no way to install that kind of passive material in a school for the $5K budget specified assuming that it's COTS. One classroom, maybe.
is to create a new generation of Kindle device that does NOT have monitoring / control of customer content capability and give its installed base a gift certificate good either for a new device or the equivalent value in free downloads of Kindle books.
The mistake Amazon made was building a capability for monitoring/controlling content into the Kindle to begin with. AFAIK, no other e-reader either as hardware or pure software implementation, even the ones that support DRM has this, and it's a feature for which there is no known customer demand.
They can still correct the mistake now, settle with the student out of court, and get good publicity out of making this right.
Amazon's hope that nobody would sue was in vain, all they can do about this now is damage control. The damage judgment from a class action suit (they got caught with their asses swinging in the breeze, their only realistic hope of winning would be with a jury composed of RIAA/MPAA employees) is going to be a lot more expensive than simply settling out of court both in terms of damages + contingency fees and renewed bad publicity.
needed to make this work will be hard enough to keep alive even within the protection of the systems built to grow them and in the wild, have the same kind of survival prospects Bambi would have in a country full of Godzillas.
If the description is accurate, the project is intended to harvest money from investors, not biofuel from solar energy.
No need for hysterical panic unless you're one of the small investors whose money is actually involved.
with entirely transparent (i.e. entirely plastic or glass) bioreactors?
Remember that in the unlikely circumstance that this project goes to actual production, the most important ongoing cost of this project is going to be financing the capital investment which is proportional to the amount of capital going into this. So it isn't just the cost of the plastic or glass bioreactor megastructures, it's that cost times x. The numbers might pencil out at $50 minus costs of financing (though without seeing their spreadsheets, I have trouble believing that), but including financing?
IMO, story's bullshit until proven otherwise.
access to its services immediately and without notice or warning.
Belgian ex-users should be diverted to a page explaining that the government of Belgium has made it impossible for them to do business in Belgium and provide the names and contact information for every responsible official. The page can have a link to a detailed discussion of the issues, if desired.
Let the Belgian users decide whether they like their Yahoo services better than they like their bureaucrats. If they don't, Yahoo should find more profitable uses for its resources.