Now, I'm thinking of leaving the country, simply because the places in the US where I like to live (i.e. warm weather locations) are pricey and getting more expensive every day. If I have an enterpeneurial project based on the net (that could be run from anywhere), I'm costing myself huge extra bucks by staying in the US.
I could live a $100k Los Angeles lifestyle for about $25k in the Philippines, for example. Amazing but true. And even a full-on nerd can find a wife, which is not true in LA at all.
That being said, I don't have this feeling of being oppressed in the US. It's just too expensive a place to do business nowadays.
Where does your feeling of oppression come from? And do you really think other countries are any less oppressive?
I will admit I haven't read the license, but I could have sworn that I have no obligation to distribute the source of software I write using LGPL-licensed libraries. I thought I could freely distribute software using them them for any purpose even if I was distributing binaries only of my proprietary software.
In fact, I thought that was the whole difference between the GPL and LGPL.
Did I get this wrong, or is this a non-story?
D
Re:Sendmail? In a secure system
on
Hardening Linux
·
· Score: 1
Okay, I really wanted to learn about the Piano-playing MTA.
Alas:
Your search - "sendmail plays the piano" - did not match any documents.
I don't know what your situation is, but for the average sexually frustrated single male, I don't think it's realistic to say "Don't visit porn sites," however worthy that advice is. And in any event, I think a lot of these problems come through email, and so if you have a public email address you're going to get it no matter what.
That being said, I think the real problem is in the antivirus and antispyware programs, both in frequency of operation and in the effectiveness of the programs themselves.
I don't think he runs them on a regular basis, and since he has a laptop, it's generally snoozing during the times these programs would run automatically. This doesn't seem like an unreasonable way for him to behave, but of course it's deadly for this problem since if the software doesn't run the spyware gets its tentacles into your computer.
However, when I tried running the antivirus and antispyware programs, I found that it did not appear to disinfect the computer successfully. When you start IE, this obnoxious program runs offering porn for a $1.99 setup fee plus $1.99 a minute. It has no menu and so you can't quit it. You can force quit it through the task manager and that's about it. I was intrigued by their business model; what sane person would surf porn for $1.99 plus $1.99 a minute? Ouch.
And the McAfee antivirus/antispyware program I bought for him did not work at all to get rid of this pest, no matter what I did.
So I'm not convinced that this software would have worked for him even if he'd used it properly. No wonder users are frustrated.
I just use MacOS X. I'm sure it's saved me thousands of dollars of aggravation just from comparing it to my experience with my friend's computer. If you don't want to spend the rest of your life being paranoid about your computer, well, buy a Mac.
Unless you make everything a web service, usable on a web browser. Then nobody cares what platform you used to develop it on, and with a little extra care you can make it run on Windows and the competition.
That's definitely the way forward for Microsoft haters such as myself. And that's why Microsoft is pushing their new web services initiative right now. They want to tempt guys like me into using Windows to do our new web services, therefore strenghtening their monopoly.
It's not going to work for me because I have over a decade of loathing Microsoft, based on flaky software, broken promises and the like. But it might work for enough people to help them keep market share.
Within three months of purchase it became unusable even though I set him up with anti-virus and anti-spyware software.
When the lifespan of a consumer product becomes that short, people do notice.
The real problem is that people simply give up on computing instead of trying to understand the problems or fixing things. My friend's a decent guy but he's not very bright and so he has about as much chance of fixing his computer as I do of running the marathon without collapsing. (Not that I would want to do such a silly thing, of course.)
I think he'll get a Mac next time. Until then he's having his Mac-owning assistant do all the computer stuff.
If this person said stuff like "Professor X is a lousy professor", I would agree. He absolutely should be allowed to say that.
But what he apparently did was attempt to launch a conspiracy:
The offending material posted to Facebook, also provided to the Globe by Walker, read: ''Either we get a petition going [we need at least 500 signatures] or we try and set him up. He's got to do something wrong, in either case, he's gotta foul up at some point . . . anyone willing to get arrested?" A day later, on Sept. 21, Walker posted a message saying the officer ''loves to antagonize students . . . and needs to be eliminated."
"Needs to be eliminated"? "anyone willing to get arrested"? That looks like an actual plan of attack against the officer.
Now, the officer may well be a bad guy. I don't know. But clearly what's being done here looks like it's beyond free speech and into direct action against someone. It seems to me like it might be justifiable to expel someone who would plan such action, even if it was done, say, at a party, meeting or some other offline venue.
Note that none of the other members of the group were disciplined. Of course I don't know what they said. But I strongly suspect that this one particular person wanted to execute a conspiracy and nobody else wanted to go along with it.
I think Inmarsat is quite a bit more reliable on the high seas. Because of wave action the antenna has to be stabilized which makes equipment a lot more expensive.
Alas, my project fits in that awkward space between free non-commercial stuff and heavy-duty commercial stuff that has money to burn and can budget stuff like this.
Fortunately, I'm pretty good at getting along without tools. In fact, I think most of them tend to complexify something simple. But I would have seriously considered making an exception for Ajax since the cross-browser issues are tough and time-consuming to research.
I seem to remember my friend's Iridium equipment for his yacht was something like $25,000-$50,000. The Skymate service uses a $1,000-odd receiver/dish. That difference in equipment cost pretty much insulates Skymate from price comparisons with Iridum.
Actually, it sounds like SailMail offers very similar services for a much cheaper fee, apparently $250 a year. (That's up from $100 when I'd first heard of them - yikes). Sailmail uses SSB radio which I think is less spiffy than satellite, but I understand it does the job, and there's a 10k limit on messages instead of the rather pathetic 1k limit from Skymate. Worth a look.
You can actually get a broadband RV service for (if my memory serves) about $6500 for the service plus $150 a month but it appears not to work for boats, which is a real pity. That kind of company might be worth looking for next time you or your parents go on a cruise.
Skymate's still a bit expensive, with a total monthly allocation of 50,000 characters even for the most expensive ($69.95 monthly) plan.
And you can't surf the web or do anything interactive.
Still, it's a sign that the cost of this kind of service is going down.
I think that was true of this service as well, but nonetheless with the time required to set up and tear down the connection and likely minimums it probably cost almost a minute's worth of call time to send an email.
I'd love to know how much this new service is; anyone know?
In the late 90s, I talked to a very nice fellow who owned a gorgeous 120' yacht and was travelling around the world as he chartered it. Of course cut-price or no, a 120' yacht is not one of the cheapest things in the world to run, even if you get your diesel from Venezuela at $0.10 a gallon!
We got to talking about boats and Inmarsat and the like, and he was kind enough to tell me his 56k connection cost $12 a minute. The mere act of emailing me must have cost a few bucks an email!
So it's not at all meaningful to know that INMARSAT service is getting better, without understanding how expensive it is. I think the satellite phone service is a couple of dollars a minute.
If it's that expensive, I fear it's of limited interest to most Slashdot users:-(.
I always worry about this sort of thing since they're going to try to tempt me into using a tool that after the beta period, I find that I could not possibly afford. Then all the time I spend working on it is wasted.
There's a competing product called backbase that goes for either almost $1,000 or almost $6,000 a server depending on how you use it. Since my new project requires a dedicated server, it's $6,000. I might consider $1,000, but $6,000? No way on the planet.
At least Backbase (which has a tag language, sort of like ColdFusion) would allow me to use a Linux server and the text editors and such I know and love.
I think the biggest advantage of Fairplay is having Steve Jobs negotiate price and terms on my behalf.
Whatever other faults the man has, he's a master negotiator and manipulator, and although he wants to make a buck, he knows that there are two sides to the transaction, and low prices are necessary for the two sides to enter into an agreement. He was also the first DRM advocate to understand that people would rather buy music than rent it. This is sensible since right now I'm listening to music I've bought years ago. Clearly, it retains its value!
Now, I agree that Steve really should keep a record of what we've ordered and let us re-download it, but as has been said before, Apple does allow and encourage the making of backup copies. You're better off with Apple's system than if you had a physical CD protected by DRM.
On the whole, then, Apple has earned our trust as customers. I'm not going to lurch into fanboyism and say that Apple's flawless or that Apple hasn't done a few bad things to its customers, but on the whole their record's a lot cleaner than their competition.
Don't forget that the iPod is a much-loved device thanks to the carefully-crafted synergy between hardware and software.
I have yet to see an open-source project that has a design comparable to an iPod or even MacOS X. Until I see one, the announcement, however well-meaning, is a bit of a non-starter when it comes to design.
I don't know anyone in Pennsylvania who'd be willing to pay $500 a month to rent a car.
The guy in Redondo can probably afford it because his house is worth more than the space shuttle(*), but for ordinary people it seems like a deal breaker.
D
(*) Okay, I exaggerate for a cheap laugh. But it's probably worth about as much as that car cost to build.
First, to me this is just a rumor. I'll believe it when Jobs himself says it's true.
I don't think the Pixar people would be particularly happy under Disney, although it's likely that any deal would include a promise of considerable autonomy for the team. After all, it's been making the hits and Disney has not, so it has an awfully strong position.
John Lasstaer's employment prospects are unlimited no matter what happens. If Disney's people wind up being tyrants, he will quit and found his own animation studio. With his track record, getting financing is an absolute certainty. John would also be able to drag most of Pixar's team off with him, and he would own a much higher percentage of the company than he does Pixar.
So maybe the stakes aren't that high for Pixar employees since they will be in high demand anyway. And I'm sure Jobs knows that. I'm sure he realizes that he's selling a worthless shell if Disney doesn't make his people happy.
Google will never charge for raw search results (as opposed to adwords). Google has plenty of competition that does exactly that, and uses underhanded methods (i.e. spyware) to direct people to their sites. Despite these tricks, those sites are nowhere near as popular as Google and don't make the kind of money Google does. Google is not going to mess that up.
Your observations would appear to mean that Google Adwords are effective advertising.
My business partner and I have a business here, and even though it's geographically focused to a specific area, AdWords has been our most effective advertising, comfortably surpassing TV and radio advertising and even exceeding our second most effective method, blanket handing out of flyers.
It's hard to get away from monopolies, especially in small markets like ours. For example, Comcast, the cable provider we used for our TV ads, is a monopoly, too. Google Adwords is effectively a monopoly. Whichever one is effective is what we'll continue to use; it may be an evil monopoly, but it's saved us from the evil of the other guys. It was a lot cheaper than TV ads.
Steve Jobs is a different kind of control freak from Bill Gates. Gates wants to do what's cheap and practical; Jobs wants to make things that are wonderful.
The burning desire to make wonderful things is something you rarely see, and it's most often seen in private companies, not in free software. Every free software product I can think of but the GIMP is just a pale copy of something already designed by commercial organizations. And I think the GIMP created a user interface only its creators love.
I'm glad Linux is succeeding in many areas - better it than the rapacious Gates. But it's just a copy of Unix, just as mySQL is a copy of Oracle or DB2, just as KDE is a copy of Windows 2000.
I'm a Mac guy because what I really want in a computer is one where a team of people works consistently to design something both original and great. So far, free software, which is more about adhering to standards than anything else, hasn't done anything like that.
Replacing their already fast and innovative 3.0 ghz computer, Dell announced today their new 3.2ghz computer, their fastest ever. Identical in every way with the previous model, other than the innovative new processor, the Dell 3.2ghz computer includes USB 2, FireWire and serial interfaces. The video card is specially designed to connect with the new color coordinated line of 17" and 19" monitors.
##
Okay, my friend.
Are you still awake?
Apple's announcements have certainly kept me awake lately.
The press really doesn't care about Apple. They care about good copy. They care about a news story people will read without falling asleep, since that's their job: To tell us about interesting stuff going on in the world. If they don't, well, we'll go somewhere else for our news.
People in this conversation have pointed out that I'm a horrible person, my reasoning is poor, and so on. Alas, none of them have told you or me any concrete change that would be made for the better if we didn't control it.
Slashdot Mirror
The damages are near limitless.
$30,000 per infringement means $30,000 per sale of each CD. This is how they got to such huge damage claims in the peer to peer wars.
Sony's in genuine trouble on this one, and no matter what they look like hypocrites.
I have the strangest feeling DVD Jon's current boss knows a few good lawyers, so this won't be swept under the rug.
D
Now, I'm thinking of leaving the country, simply because the places in the US where I like to live (i.e. warm weather locations) are pricey and getting more expensive every day. If I have an enterpeneurial project based on the net (that could be run from anywhere), I'm costing myself huge extra bucks by staying in the US.
I could live a $100k Los Angeles lifestyle for about $25k in the Philippines, for example. Amazing but true. And even a full-on nerd can find a wife, which is not true in LA at all.
That being said, I don't have this feeling of being oppressed in the US. It's just too expensive a place to do business nowadays.
Where does your feeling of oppression come from? And do you really think other countries are any less oppressive?
D
I will admit I haven't read the license, but I could have sworn that I have no obligation to distribute the source of software I write using LGPL-licensed libraries. I thought I could freely distribute software using them them for any purpose even if I was distributing binaries only of my proprietary software.
In fact, I thought that was the whole difference between the GPL and LGPL.
Did I get this wrong, or is this a non-story?
D
Okay, I really wanted to learn about the Piano-playing MTA.
Alas:
Your search - "sendmail plays the piano" - did not match any documents.
What was your point again?
D
I don't know what your situation is, but for the average sexually frustrated single male, I don't think it's realistic to say "Don't visit porn sites," however worthy that advice is. And in any event, I think a lot of these problems come through email, and so if you have a public email address you're going to get it no matter what.
That being said, I think the real problem is in the antivirus and antispyware programs, both in frequency of operation and in the effectiveness of the programs themselves.
I don't think he runs them on a regular basis, and since he has a laptop, it's generally snoozing during the times these programs would run automatically. This doesn't seem like an unreasonable way for him to behave, but of course it's deadly for this problem since if the software doesn't run the spyware gets its tentacles into your computer.
However, when I tried running the antivirus and antispyware programs, I found that it did not appear to disinfect the computer successfully. When you start IE, this obnoxious program runs offering porn for a $1.99 setup fee plus $1.99 a minute. It has no menu and so you can't quit it. You can force quit it through the task manager and that's about it. I was intrigued by their business model; what sane person would surf porn for $1.99 plus $1.99 a minute? Ouch.
And the McAfee antivirus/antispyware program I bought for him did not work at all to get rid of this pest, no matter what I did.
So I'm not convinced that this software would have worked for him even if he'd used it properly. No wonder users are frustrated.
I just use MacOS X. I'm sure it's saved me thousands of dollars of aggravation just from comparing it to my experience with my friend's computer. If you don't want to spend the rest of your life being paranoid about your computer, well, buy a Mac.
D
Unless you make everything a web service, usable on a web browser. Then nobody cares what platform you used to develop it on, and with a little extra care you can make it run on Windows and the competition.
That's definitely the way forward for Microsoft haters such as myself. And that's why Microsoft is pushing their new web services initiative right now. They want to tempt guys like me into using Windows to do our new web services, therefore strenghtening their monopoly.
It's not going to work for me because I have over a decade of loathing Microsoft, based on flaky software, broken promises and the like. But it might work for enough people to help them keep market share.
D
I have a friend who bought a Windows computer.
Within three months of purchase it became unusable even though I set him up with anti-virus and anti-spyware software.
When the lifespan of a consumer product becomes that short, people do notice.
The real problem is that people simply give up on computing instead of trying to understand the problems or fixing things. My friend's a decent guy but he's not very bright and so he has about as much chance of fixing his computer as I do of running the marathon without collapsing. (Not that I would want to do such a silly thing, of course.)
I think he'll get a Mac next time. Until then he's having his Mac-owning assistant do all the computer stuff.
D
But what he apparently did was attempt to launch a conspiracy:
"Needs to be eliminated"? "anyone willing to get arrested"? That looks like an actual plan of attack against the officer.
Now, the officer may well be a bad guy. I don't know. But clearly what's being done here looks like it's beyond free speech and into direct action against someone. It seems to me like it might be justifiable to expel someone who would plan such action, even if it was done, say, at a party, meeting or some other offline venue.
Note that none of the other members of the group were disciplined. Of course I don't know what they said. But I strongly suspect that this one particular person wanted to execute a conspiracy and nobody else wanted to go along with it.
D
Me bad. Sorry. I meant Inmarsat.
I think Inmarsat is quite a bit more reliable on the high seas. Because of wave action the antenna has to be stabilized which makes equipment a lot more expensive.
D
Alas, my project fits in that awkward space between free non-commercial stuff and heavy-duty commercial stuff that has money to burn and can budget stuff like this.
Fortunately, I'm pretty good at getting along without tools. In fact, I think most of them tend to complexify something simple. But I would have seriously considered making an exception for Ajax since the cross-browser issues are tough and time-consuming to research.
D
I seem to remember my friend's Iridium equipment for his yacht was something like $25,000-$50,000. The Skymate service uses a $1,000-odd receiver/dish. That difference in equipment cost pretty much insulates Skymate from price comparisons with Iridum.
Actually, it sounds like SailMail offers very similar services for a much cheaper fee, apparently $250 a year. (That's up from $100 when I'd first heard of them - yikes). Sailmail uses SSB radio which I think is less spiffy than satellite, but I understand it does the job, and there's a 10k limit on messages instead of the rather pathetic 1k limit from Skymate. Worth a look.
D
You can actually get a broadband RV service for (if my memory serves) about $6500 for the service plus $150 a month but it appears not to work for boats, which is a real pity. That kind of company might be worth looking for next time you or your parents go on a cruise.
Skymate's still a bit expensive, with a total monthly allocation of 50,000 characters even for the most expensive ($69.95 monthly) plan.
And you can't surf the web or do anything interactive.
Still, it's a sign that the cost of this kind of service is going down.
Eventually.
D
I think that was true of this service as well, but nonetheless with the time required to set up and tear down the connection and likely minimums it probably cost almost a minute's worth of call time to send an email.
I'd love to know how much this new service is; anyone know?
D
In the late 90s, I talked to a very nice fellow who owned a gorgeous 120' yacht and was travelling around the world as he chartered it. Of course cut-price or no, a 120' yacht is not one of the cheapest things in the world to run, even if you get your diesel from Venezuela at $0.10 a gallon!
:-(.
We got to talking about boats and Inmarsat and the like, and he was kind enough to tell me his 56k connection cost $12 a minute. The mere act of emailing me must have cost a few bucks an email!
So it's not at all meaningful to know that INMARSAT service is getting better, without understanding how expensive it is. I think the satellite phone service is a couple of dollars a minute.
If it's that expensive, I fear it's of limited interest to most Slashdot users
D
I always worry about this sort of thing since they're going to try to tempt me into using a tool that after the beta period, I find that I could not possibly afford. Then all the time I spend working on it is wasted.
There's a competing product called backbase that goes for either almost $1,000 or almost $6,000 a server depending on how you use it. Since my new project requires a dedicated server, it's $6,000. I might consider $1,000, but $6,000? No way on the planet.
At least Backbase (which has a tag language, sort of like ColdFusion) would allow me to use a Linux server and the text editors and such I know and love.
D
Over $900 for a version running on a shared server, or over $5,000 for one for dedicated servers?
:-(.
I like the concept, but don't have that kind of money
D
I think the biggest advantage of Fairplay is having Steve Jobs negotiate price and terms on my behalf.
Whatever other faults the man has, he's a master negotiator and manipulator, and although he wants to make a buck, he knows that there are two sides to the transaction, and low prices are necessary for the two sides to enter into an agreement. He was also the first DRM advocate to understand that people would rather buy music than rent it. This is sensible since right now I'm listening to music I've bought years ago. Clearly, it retains its value!
Now, I agree that Steve really should keep a record of what we've ordered and let us re-download it, but as has been said before, Apple does allow and encourage the making of backup copies. You're better off with Apple's system than if you had a physical CD protected by DRM.
On the whole, then, Apple has earned our trust as customers. I'm not going to lurch into fanboyism and say that Apple's flawless or that Apple hasn't done a few bad things to its customers, but on the whole their record's a lot cleaner than their competition.
So who do I trust, Apple or Sony?
Pretty easy call, no?
D
Don't forget that the iPod is a much-loved device thanks to the carefully-crafted synergy between hardware and software.
I have yet to see an open-source project that has a design comparable to an iPod or even MacOS X. Until I see one, the announcement, however well-meaning, is a bit of a non-starter when it comes to design.
D
I don't know anyone in Pennsylvania who'd be willing to pay $500 a month to rent a car.
The guy in Redondo can probably afford it because his house is worth more than the space shuttle(*), but for ordinary people it seems like a deal breaker.
D
(*) Okay, I exaggerate for a cheap laugh. But it's probably worth about as much as that car cost to build.
First, to me this is just a rumor. I'll believe it when Jobs himself says it's true.
I don't think the Pixar people would be particularly happy under Disney, although it's likely that any deal would include a promise of considerable autonomy for the team. After all, it's been making the hits and Disney has not, so it has an awfully strong position.
John Lasstaer's employment prospects are unlimited no matter what happens. If Disney's people wind up being tyrants, he will quit and found his own animation studio. With his track record, getting financing is an absolute certainty. John would also be able to drag most of Pixar's team off with him, and he would own a much higher percentage of the company than he does Pixar.
So maybe the stakes aren't that high for Pixar employees since they will be in high demand anyway. And I'm sure Jobs knows that. I'm sure he realizes that he's selling a worthless shell if Disney doesn't make his people happy.
D
Google will never charge for raw search results (as opposed to adwords). Google has plenty of competition that does exactly that, and uses underhanded methods (i.e. spyware) to direct people to their sites. Despite these tricks, those sites are nowhere near as popular as Google and don't make the kind of money Google does. Google is not going to mess that up.
Your observations would appear to mean that Google Adwords are effective advertising.
My business partner and I have a business here, and even though it's geographically focused to a specific area, AdWords has been our most effective advertising, comfortably surpassing TV and radio advertising and even exceeding our second most effective method, blanket handing out of flyers.
It's hard to get away from monopolies, especially in small markets like ours. For example, Comcast, the cable provider we used for our TV ads, is a monopoly, too. Google Adwords is effectively a monopoly. Whichever one is effective is what we'll continue to use; it may be an evil monopoly, but it's saved us from the evil of the other guys. It was a lot cheaper than TV ads.
D
It's true. "Apple Introduces new PowerBooks with significantly higher resolution" isn't all that exciting.
If Dell introduced a new laptop with a similar bump in resolution, nobody would talk about it.
Quad processor PowerMacs are exciting, but less than one might hope since they're on the higher end only and the higher end is pretty darn expensive.
But Aperture genuinely IS exciting, and so the reporters walk out of that room having really enjoyed a really cool demo of it.
And that's an interesting PR approach.
Mix and match the mundane with the exciting, leaving everyone with something to talk about.
Maybe Dell should try developing uber-cool Windows software? Sadly, I don't think they have the talent for it.
Let's just say the company with the talent gets the press.
D
Steve Jobs is a different kind of control freak from Bill Gates. Gates wants to do what's cheap and practical; Jobs wants to make things that are wonderful.
The burning desire to make wonderful things is something you rarely see, and it's most often seen in private companies, not in free software. Every free software product I can think of but the GIMP is just a pale copy of something already designed by commercial organizations. And I think the GIMP created a user interface only its creators love.
I'm glad Linux is succeeding in many areas - better it than the rapacious Gates. But it's just a copy of Unix, just as mySQL is a copy of Oracle or DB2, just as KDE is a copy of Windows 2000.
I'm a Mac guy because what I really want in a computer is one where a team of people works consistently to design something both original and great. So far, free software, which is more about adhering to standards than anything else, hasn't done anything like that.
D
DELL INCORPORATED
"It's not dull, it's Dell!"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Michael Dell, (555) 555-1212
DELL COMPUTER INTRODUCES NEW 3.2GHZ COMPUTER
Replacing their already fast and innovative 3.0 ghz computer, Dell announced today their new 3.2ghz computer, their fastest ever. Identical in every way with the previous model, other than the innovative new processor, the Dell 3.2ghz computer includes USB 2, FireWire and serial interfaces. The video card is specially designed to connect with the new color coordinated line of 17" and 19" monitors.
##
Okay, my friend.
Are you still awake?
Apple's announcements have certainly kept me awake lately.
The press really doesn't care about Apple. They care about good copy. They care about a news story people will read without falling asleep, since that's their job: To tell us about interesting stuff going on in the world. If they don't, well, we'll go somewhere else for our news.
Fair enough?
D
That's exactly what I wanted to say.
People in this conversation have pointed out that I'm a horrible person, my reasoning is poor, and so on. Alas, none of them have told you or me any concrete change that would be made for the better if we didn't control it.
Thanks.
D