Was that hefty pullout truly editorial, or was it an advertising section clearly funded by Microsoft?
I thought that pullout was the advertisement that made the paper free, and surely is no different from, say, any newspaper selling a pullout section of coupons from the local market.
I have no doubt that Murdoch shapes and pollutes the minds of his readers, but his readers are self-selected - the people who buy the paper are the people who agree with his basic viewpoint. Those who don't can always buy the Guardian. In that context, I think Murdoch's role is relatively benign.
The real problem with Microsoft is that it's making a concerted effort to be the world's only software company. I don't see Murdoch as even coming close to that. Within the Murdochian universe, you will always be able to buy a competitor's paper.
I suspect the problem is that emacs uses its own system for cut and paste that was basically grafted on to the original emacs keyboard commands. That probably doesn't play nice with whatever was built into X.
Someone emailed me suggesting xemacs, which I do in fact use on my SGI workstation in the office, where it works great. But for some reason under Linux it comes up with this totally bizarre and unreadable colour combination (something like black on a dark blue or purple background). Even using xemacs' built-in colour change commands doesn't switch it - I think it might be some kind of X colour thing, but I'll be darned if I know what to do about it. I'm using KDE with SuSE Linux, I think version 6.1.
I think it would be fair to say that I'd trust Microsoft to secure my data if I made a credit card purchase over the phone, where there's no implicit connection with the outside world. I might even trust them if I made a purchase via the Internet, and it was a one-time thing, because they would (at least theoretically) simply pass the number straight to their processor, without actually saving it on their servers.
But I don't trust Microsoft to take my credit card number and selectively make it available to others, in the mould of Microsoft Passport. That seems like a far riskier proposition than trusting them for a single order.
I know nobody wants to pay for a browser, but you did just tell me you might.:-)
In any event, the Mozilla people will keep on trudging towards release, and it certainly looks like they'll eventually come up with a nice product, whether Netscape offically releases it or not.
Of course the browser wars are never lost as long as people use platforms other than Windows(tm) and MacOS(tm).
I think people didn't buy it because even Microsoft didn't seem to care. I remember reading some tepid-at-best pronouncements which seemed to be designed to convince you to skip 98 and go straight to Windows2000.
Check out the andover.net public offering prospectus.
/. doesn't need the money anymore.:-)
D
----
Re:Sorry, but you know NOTHING about video
on
New iMac Rolled Out
·
· Score: 2
Actually, I've done some real-world video editing with EditDV on a G3, and in my experience modern ATA [extended IDE] drives work great and is, of course, much more cost-effective than SCSI.
From the discussion of the Sun SPARC systems with IDE, I have the impression that IDE performance does fall over when you're doing multitasking. Fortunately, video capture doesn't require that - if a system can run a single process fast enough to capture the data, it will work. In my experience, it does.
Bear in mind that Digital Video isn't just about $3,700 three-chip MiniDV camcorders like my Canon XL1. There's a new crop of $1,995 three-chip models, and there's Sony Digital8 (DV format, 8mm tapes) for the sub-$1,000 end.
There are loads of gadget lovers who are going to love this stuff to death. I bought my beige G3 for basically the same purpose as the DV iMac and it was $ 2,800 plus monitor. This is very impressive work on the part of Apple.
The only problem is the monitor's a shade small for video editing. They need a 17" model, and then, darn, I might even buy one.
Sony has a video capture application only. They use a "lite" version of Premiere to do the actual editing. What I hear from users is that the video is captured just fine (which is quite an impressive technical achievement), but editing and playback are very poor. For that reason, I can't recommend those machines.
The Mac, on the other hand, is the best machine by far for editing DV. I have one; no fuss, no muss, no problems at all. Highly recommended.
It's also relying on FireWire for its external drive interface, and that doesn't sound so hot to me - Isn't most of the FireWire interface's power needed just to capture the video?
I'm much curious about this because I'd love to own a machine capable of running Final Cut, since it looks like a really, really cool program. But without the capacity for additional internal IDE drives, it seems like it would be basically a toy in the video editing world.
Well, it is true. Linux has its roots in Unix, which was created in the 1970s. Linux was written to be compatible with Unix, because Linus Torvalds thought Unix was cool and wanted a Unix for his own use. He also had the Minix source code to look through as a reference.
The cool thing about Unix is that it was designed as an infinitely flexible basic foundation on which to do anything. It was developed originally to play Spacewar. From there, it was moved to text processing applications. Now we have Netscape, StarOffice, Gnome and KDE - all four of which are indisputably late 20th century programs.
The big advantage of that 30-year development is that we know it works, and works well. It's been honed to the point that there are minimal amounts of bugs. That's a tremendous advantage over NT, an operating system that was created under strict deadline pressures unimaginable in the Unix and open source worlds.
The foundation works. There's little point to changing it, especially since it outperforms NT as it is in many if not most situations.
About six or so months ago, I bought a nice shiny box with a penquin on it that had, in loud letters, "Red Hat whateverversionitwas". I think I paid something like $ 49 for it.
The reason I bought it at the time is that Rasterman was working for Red Hat, and I wanted to support the company that would do such a cool thing.
Imagine my shock and dismay when I learned that the box was not "Official" Red Hat, but rather MacMillan's version! Now, perhaps I was just being a stupid goober and what-not for not checking the package more closely before buying, but the way it was marketed still left a sour taste in my mouth.
Now, I see official Red Hat versions all over the place. If they lower their price, they'll gain most of their lost market share back, me thinks. I'm not at all sure why they priced their latest releases so high.
Well, maybe the lawyers. I don't think the deal with IBM, which catapulted Microsoft from obscurity and basically made them what they are today, was done with any aid from MS's marketing folks.
By the time they started serious marketing, they were already in the number one position - a big advantage in marketing in and of itself!
This reminds me of the Heinlein science fiction story in which the hero used every method he possibly could, from selling real estate on the moon to selling the (unusable) advertising right to the moon's surface, all so he could go. (His advertising on the moon gambit was a classic and might have wide applicability in this case - he sold the rights to a soft drink company (I think it was "Moke") with the proviso that they never be used - that is, that their competitor would be barred from buying them!)
I would think most science fiction buffs would love something like that to happen - especially since it doesn't look like we're going to the moon anytime soon without something like that happening.
I think many Linux/Unix users (including myself) wish BeOS well - in fact, I own and use a copy of BeOS at home.
I don't think Red Hat Chairman Robert Young is sitting at his desk trying to combat BeOS. Microsoft, on the other hand, has listed BeOS as a competitor in its antitrust case filing.
Jean-Louis Gassee insists, in his gallic sort of way, that BeOS is more a compliment to Windows than its enemy. BeOS, after all, coexists quite nicely with Windows. At the same time, I would guess that 90% or more of machines running BeOS have a Windows license. That doesn't make BeOS look like a Windows competitor, does it?
I would have to conclude that, in reality, BeOS has no natural enemies other than a lack of consumer desire to try alternative operating systems.
Unfortunately, indifference is a horrifyingly powerful beast - more powerful even than Microsoft.
Remember, Sun is a corporation that's trying to gain some points in order to combat NT. If Sun actually sued, or threatened to sue, a Linux developer, there would be thousands of people who would vow to never, ever use Solaris or other Sun products again. In fact, this is true almost without reference to any fault on the part of the developer!
This isn't to say Sun is a perfect company, nor that they wouldn't do their best to support Solaris in favour of Linux, but they're not going to sue. Forget it.
Sm@rt Reseller spoke to several developers, who wish to remain anonymous because of what they see as the anti-Christian hysteria Jesux caused in some circles, who claim they plan on implementing many of Jesux's ideas. So, the idea of a 'Christianized' Linux lives on.
As far as I know, Linux works just fine on not so cheap hardware. http://www.varesearch.com/ sells it, designed especially for Linux. And I believe IBM NetFinity servers are now available with Linux.
Few people using Linux at the time of the Mindcraft tests would claim that it was the best suited system for the hardware used in the test. There were well-known gaps in Linux' performance which made the test slanted.
Microsoft, on the other hand, claims that SQL Server is a fully mature database for mission-critical applications. I know this; I've read the parts of the manual that say so. (They read disgustingly like marketing hype, if you were wondering).
Oracle is saying, "Ok, if your system is this good, why can't it do this as fast as we can?" Well, the answer is that it lacks a crucial feature, but Oracle's quite reasonable position is that a "serious, enterprise-capable database" should have this feature.
Mindcraft would be comparable to this case only if (i) Linus or another directly responsible party claimed that Linux was well optimised for the hardware used, and (ii) Linux users instead of Mindcraft personnel had done the tuning of the machine.
Looks like what he's actually doing is installing pre-configured Windows98 disk images, so if his systems are all bleeding edge in exactly the same way, it should all fit fine.
I think that was the one I tried installing on my ThinkPad about a year ago. It was horrible.
But it was also prehistoric - according to their web site, Caldera 2.3 is the latest version, and I remember reading a review here saying installation was wonderfully easy.
I can only conclude that someone at CNN made a dumb mistake in issuing him a mouldy old copy of the software.
Slashdot Mirror
Was that hefty pullout truly editorial, or was it an advertising section clearly funded by Microsoft?
I thought that pullout was the advertisement that made the paper free, and surely is no different from, say, any newspaper selling a pullout section of coupons from the local market.
I have no doubt that Murdoch shapes and pollutes the minds of his readers, but his readers are self-selected - the people who buy the paper are the people who agree with his basic viewpoint. Those who don't can always buy the Guardian. In that context, I think Murdoch's role is relatively benign.
The real problem with Microsoft is that it's making a concerted effort to be the world's only software company. I don't see Murdoch as even coming close to that. Within the Murdochian universe, you will always be able to buy a competitor's paper.
D
----
I suspect the problem is that emacs uses its own system for cut and paste that was basically grafted on to the original emacs keyboard commands. That probably doesn't play nice with whatever was built into X.
Someone emailed me suggesting xemacs, which I do in fact use on my SGI workstation in the office, where it works great. But for some reason under Linux it comes up with this totally bizarre and unreadable colour combination (something like black on a dark blue or purple background). Even using xemacs' built-in colour change commands doesn't switch it - I think it might be some kind of X colour thing, but I'll be darned if I know what to do about it. I'm using KDE with SuSE Linux, I think version 6.1.
D
----
Does it? It drives me nuts that I can't cut and paste from emacs to Netscape. If Accelerated X would fix that, it might be worth the money.
D
----
I think it would be fair to say that I'd trust Microsoft to secure my data if I made a credit card purchase over the phone, where there's no implicit connection with the outside world. I might even trust them if I made a purchase via the Internet, and it was a one-time thing, because they would (at least theoretically) simply pass the number straight to their processor, without actually saving it on their servers.
But I don't trust Microsoft to take my credit card number and selectively make it available to others, in the mould of Microsoft Passport. That seems like a far riskier proposition than trusting them for a single order.
D
----
I tried it for BeOS, and it looked pretty good.
:-)
I know nobody wants to pay for a browser, but you did just tell me you might.
In any event, the Mozilla people will keep on trudging towards release, and it certainly looks like they'll eventually come up with a nice product, whether Netscape offically releases it or not.
Of course the browser wars are never lost as long as people use platforms other than Windows(tm) and MacOS(tm).
D
----
I think people didn't buy it because even Microsoft didn't seem to care. I remember reading some tepid-at-best pronouncements which seemed to be designed to convince you to skip 98 and go straight to Windows2000.
The reviews were terrible, too.
D
----
Check out the andover.net public offering prospectus.
:-)
/. doesn't need the money anymore.
D
----
Actually, I've done some real-world video editing with EditDV on a G3, and in my experience modern ATA [extended IDE] drives work great and is, of course, much more cost-effective than SCSI.
From the discussion of the Sun SPARC systems with IDE, I have the impression that IDE performance does fall over when you're doing multitasking. Fortunately, video capture doesn't require that - if a system can run a single process fast enough to capture the data, it will work. In my experience, it does.
D
----
Bear in mind that Digital Video isn't just about $3,700 three-chip MiniDV camcorders like my Canon XL1. There's a new crop of $1,995 three-chip models, and there's Sony Digital8 (DV format, 8mm tapes) for the sub-$1,000 end.
There are loads of gadget lovers who are going to love this stuff to death. I bought my beige G3 for basically the same purpose as the DV iMac and it was $ 2,800 plus monitor. This is very impressive work on the part of Apple.
The only problem is the monitor's a shade small for video editing. They need a 17" model, and then, darn, I might even buy one.
D
----
Sony has a video capture application only. They use a "lite" version of Premiere to do the actual editing. What I hear from users is that the video is captured just fine (which is quite an impressive technical achievement), but editing and playback are very poor. For that reason, I can't recommend those machines.
The Mac, on the other hand, is the best machine by far for editing DV. I have one; no fuss, no muss, no problems at all. Highly recommended.
D
----
It's also relying on FireWire for its external drive interface, and that doesn't sound so hot to me - Isn't most of the FireWire interface's power needed just to capture the video?
I'm much curious about this because I'd love to own a machine capable of running Final Cut, since it looks like a really, really cool program. But without the capacity for additional internal IDE drives, it seems like it would be basically a toy in the video editing world.
Anyone have real world performance in this area?
D
http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html - my DV FAQ
----
Well, it is true. Linux has its roots in Unix, which was created in the 1970s. Linux was written to be compatible with Unix, because Linus Torvalds thought Unix was cool and wanted a Unix for his own use. He also had the Minix source code to look through as a reference.
The cool thing about Unix is that it was designed as an infinitely flexible basic foundation on which to do anything. It was developed originally to play Spacewar. From there, it was moved to text processing applications. Now we have Netscape, StarOffice, Gnome and KDE - all four of which are indisputably late 20th century programs.
The big advantage of that 30-year development is that we know it works, and works well. It's been honed to the point that there are minimal amounts of bugs. That's a tremendous advantage over NT, an operating system that was created under strict deadline pressures unimaginable in the Unix and open source worlds.
The foundation works. There's little point to changing it, especially since it outperforms NT as it is in many if not most situations.
D
----
If my memory serves, Red Hat's support is way cheaper then Microsoft's for NT. Wasn't Microsoft charging something like $ 195 per incident?
I'd say that has to be factored into the calculations all right.
D
----
About six or so months ago, I bought a nice shiny box with a penquin on it that had, in loud letters, "Red Hat whateverversionitwas". I think I paid something like $ 49 for it.
The reason I bought it at the time is that Rasterman was working for Red Hat, and I wanted to support the company that would do such a cool thing.
Imagine my shock and dismay when I learned that the box was not "Official" Red Hat, but rather MacMillan's version! Now, perhaps I was just being a stupid goober and what-not for not checking the package more closely before buying, but the way it was marketed still left a sour taste in my mouth.
Now, I see official Red Hat versions all over the place. If they lower their price, they'll gain most of their lost market share back, me thinks. I'm not at all sure why they priced their latest releases so high.
D
----
Well, maybe the lawyers. I don't think the deal with IBM, which catapulted Microsoft from obscurity and basically made them what they are today, was done with any aid from MS's marketing folks.
By the time they started serious marketing, they were already in the number one position - a big advantage in marketing in and of itself!
D
----
The man who sold the moon - a real classic.
(See my other post on the subject).
D
----
This reminds me of the Heinlein science fiction story in which the hero used every method he possibly could, from selling real estate on the moon to selling the (unusable) advertising right to the moon's surface, all so he could go. (His advertising on the moon gambit was a classic and might have wide applicability in this case - he sold the rights to a soft drink company (I think it was "Moke") with the proviso that they never be used - that is, that their competitor would be barred from buying them!)
I would think most science fiction buffs would love something like that to happen - especially since it doesn't look like we're going to the moon anytime soon without something like that happening.
D
----
I think many Linux/Unix users (including myself) wish BeOS well - in fact, I own and use a copy of BeOS at home.
I don't think Red Hat Chairman Robert Young is sitting at his desk trying to combat BeOS. Microsoft, on the other hand, has listed BeOS as a competitor in its antitrust case filing.
Jean-Louis Gassee insists, in his gallic sort of way, that BeOS is more a compliment to Windows than its enemy. BeOS, after all, coexists quite nicely with Windows. At the same time, I would guess that 90% or more of machines running BeOS have a Windows license. That doesn't make BeOS look like a Windows competitor, does it?
I would have to conclude that, in reality, BeOS has no natural enemies other than a lack of consumer desire to try alternative operating systems.
Unfortunately, indifference is a horrifyingly powerful beast - more powerful even than Microsoft.
D
----
Not really.
Remember, Sun is a corporation that's trying to gain some points in order to combat NT. If Sun actually sued, or threatened to sue, a Linux developer, there would be thousands of people who would vow to never, ever use Solaris or other Sun products again. In fact, this is true almost without reference to any fault on the part of the developer!
This isn't to say Sun is a perfect company, nor that they wouldn't do their best to support Solaris in favour of Linux, but they're not going to sue. Forget it.
D
----
----
If you "shoot" a process, does the virtual bullet always connect? And if you miss, might you hit another process?
...
Implementation could get tricky
D
----
Huh?
As far as I know, Linux works just fine on not so cheap hardware. http://www.varesearch.com/ sells it, designed especially for Linux. And I believe IBM NetFinity servers are now available with Linux.
D
----
Few people using Linux at the time of the Mindcraft tests would claim that it was the best suited system for the hardware used in the test. There were well-known gaps in Linux' performance which made the test slanted.
Microsoft, on the other hand, claims that SQL Server is a fully mature database for mission-critical applications. I know this; I've read the parts of the manual that say so. (They read disgustingly like marketing hype, if you were wondering).
Oracle is saying, "Ok, if your system is this good, why can't it do this as fast as we can?" Well, the answer is that it lacks a crucial feature, but Oracle's quite reasonable position is that a "serious, enterprise-capable database" should have this feature.
Mindcraft would be comparable to this case only if (i) Linus or another directly responsible party claimed that Linux was well optimised for the hardware used, and (ii) Linux users instead of Mindcraft personnel had done the tuning of the machine.
D
----
Looks like what he's actually doing is installing pre-configured Windows98 disk images, so if his systems are all bleeding edge in exactly the same way, it should all fit fine.
D
----
I think that was the one I tried installing on my ThinkPad about a year ago. It was horrible.
But it was also prehistoric - according to their web site, Caldera 2.3 is the latest version, and I remember reading a review here saying installation was wonderfully easy.
I can only conclude that someone at CNN made a dumb mistake in issuing him a mouldy old copy of the software.
D
----