This was the first gui I used on Linux way back and until I benched my Linux desktop in favor of OS X last year, it was the one I still used.
And even with Gnome improvements and the like, it's what I *still* use if I have to work on a Linux box. Something about the simplicity. I think nowadays that's a lost art. Apple's probably the closest to it, but I remember NeXTStep being really powerful, but really simple.
Users of the latest versions of Kazaa Lite and Kazaa++ also have the option of disabling a function that allows remote users to see what other files the user has. The two P2P updates allow users to block port 1214...
This is somewhat significant since it will make it harder and take longer to get a complete list of all files shared. Whereas before they (**AA) just had to find a user, right click and get a list of files, now they won't be able to.
Which makes me wonder that they have to have some automated bots doing this stuff cuz even doing that takes quite a while. That said, it's still gonna take the bots longer since they'll have to search file by file and compile a list based on file now vs. IP.
Granted, a lot of web developers have had to deal with IE, but it seems to me with the only mention of Moz as being in trouble is, well, kinda stupid. I keep reading Moz keeps getting better and better and sure enough, with each release it does get better and better. And so do the browsers based on Gecko. If anything, Moz has crossed over that hump that IE is hitting now. And let's not forget all the neat stuff coming out in XUL. Sure, it needs to be faster, but the possibilities are interesting. Especially if you don't wanna be M$'s bitch.
Maybe it's because I mostly focus on enterprise apps and not too much on client side stuff, but frankly, this guy downplays standards too much, which to me is bizarre because the whole non-standards thing is how we got into this whole mess of one browser no innovation crap. Yah sure, standards take long and companies innovate faster. But, look who you signed on the dotted line when all you web creators went strictly IE. Yes, the f-ing devil.
I probably live in the dreamy stratosphere demanding on most of my projects that we find ways around IE only stuff and make the application robust, secure, and stable, which to me and end users is far more important than js, layers and whatnot. Sure, I also know there are plenty of people who need jazzy sites and have to deal with these issues but you only have to be burned so many times to realize that you need to pull your hand away from the flame.
I guess though, I just feel like design on Moz based browsers and tweak for the rest. Because in time, these scales are going to tip out of IE's favor. I know, I'm in the minority, but I also want my stuff to work. I sacrafice a little zing for a better development experience. Cuz in the end, the users don't care.
I'm part of the seeding program and I can guarantee you 1000% that neither Apple's Xcode nor Panther are available on the ADC or via the developer DVD - last one I just got was for July '03.
As I understand it, the *only* people that got copies of Panther, possibly besides corporate partners, were people that attended the WWDC. After watching the keynote at the Apple store in SOHO, I was bouncing off the walls for weeks trying to get a copy. But now, even tho it's avail as a torrent, it's like, meh, I'll wait. The need has worn off and I got work to do.
- Millions of 'ordinary' famalies (including my own) lost homes and small businesses such thanks to 'trickle down' economics - Iran contra - Star Wars (a massive waste) - 'The evil empire' - Iran hostage crisis - Grenada - Central America - The (lost and wasteful) war on drugs - The biggest deficit in U.S. history
Yah, great years those were. And to think we have to possibly endure another 4 years of Noecon/Reaganites makes me wanna puke. If you're rich and Christian, then these guys are your best friends. Why else would one of the biggest tax breaks ever go to the top 1% and not the middle class and poor.
Hmmm, well, until the Linux non-blocking I/O kernel fixes and NGPT (this is already avail in RedHat 9 and maybe others I think) get propagated thru the various enterprise distros, Solaris will still be a viable OS for scalability and performance. I've seen external storage first hand just take a nose dive on a 8-way Xeon box because of the non-blocking I/O on Linux. The Win2k equiv smoked the Linux box, unfortunately.
That said, the above is just around the corner and it won't be long before Linux on Opteron and Itanium will make even more significant headway into the datacenter.
Unfortunately, this is very hard. Business moves fast and programming, like any other science, can be very rigid and thusly unforgiving when 1 little thing is 'incorrect'.
Most programmers I know like to take their time and think about stuff. Most biz people I know want the millions and want it yesterday - that's their job. There is very little middle road to walk here since money drives pretty much everything and ultimately that is the commanding force.
Sure, you bnag something out, the contract get's signed and everyone's happy - for that moment. However, when bugs crop up, tensions flare and people start pointing fingers, etc..
The only way I've seen it work - and I haven't seen it much - is to start from the get go and convince the people you work for/with that the project is not something that can be banged out soon. But, this will get a lot of frowns so in addition, you gotta speak the language of biz people. Make project and dollar predictions on why it will be better, in the long run, to do a better job in the beginning. When biz types start seeing dollar explainations, then they can start adjust schedules, contracts, etc.
It's not hard to do, but it does take some dilligence and foresight. Like so many, I too have the urgency to just jump right in to something. But I've seen over time success is within reach when you, unfortunately, manage others expectations. If you cannot do this, then the people writing the checks will always have your balls in a vice.
Only part of Oracle Collab Suite
on
Opengroupware
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm not necessairly a fan of Oracle and I'm definitely no fan of Exchange (out of experience), but I watched a little Oracle Collaboration Suite marketing demo on their site and for a moment, just a moment, I put myself in a biz guy frame of mind and thought "wow, that actually looks pretty kick ass". They have it intergrated not only with pda/phone but also with voice commands - everything. The whole enchalada.
Of course, I have no idea about the stability, hardware costs, and licenses. But, it seems as tho Oracle is already ahead of Titanium - not that that matters much to M$ customers. Still interesting nonetheless.
While I commend the Opengroupware product, I'm not too sure when the OS community will be able to come up with something like the Oracle Collab Suite. Not that they have to, but I guess biz types will be looking for features that exist in a shrink wrapped solution.
Second, it's pretty well known the old finders were not multitasking. Or at least, not preemptive. I always wondered about formatting a floppy, copying a file while trying to do something as well. But a lot of people I've seen use Macs are happy doing one thing at a time.
Others have claimed Macs were/are superior because they tend to just work. For a long time they came with sound on board, networking, video, Scsi, and in GUI usability terms were far ahead of Windows pre-95.
Granted, Apple has a monopoly on their OS and hardware, but there's a reason for that; they believe that the whole computer should be package, not a bunch of parts. I was not much of a Mac fan until I bought my first Titanium Powerbook. After that, my Mac has replaced my Linux and Win desktops. I still love Linux and Intel hardware, but there is something to be said about plug and play that works - even for geeks.
So yah, you're right, you're using a shitty browser on a old slow Mac. But why does it have to get to the point of calling people fanatics all the time. I'm sure all the Windoze, BSD, etc.., people speak highly of Linux zealots complaining about any OS that doesn't have skinnable everything and doesn't run on the shittiest hardware invented.
I'd still buy a Mac for my parents in a hearbeat even though they 'like' Windoze. That said, my mom runs a online store off a Gentoo box I built her, so..
My experience over the years with other developers is that the ones who stayed text based were the ones that people came to when there were questions and issues. I've tried to make it a point over the years to stay in text land and not GUI land for the very reason that the GUI tends to dumb people down. Thusly that is the reason why I stay away from tools like Visual Studio and NetBeans.
I've worked with a lot of GUI engineers that drive the mouse a lot when you ask them a question on how this broke or that broke. One of the best stories I know is when my friend went to work for Weblogic (pre-BEA days) and one of the engineers asked him to open a java file to look at it. He drove the mouse for a bit and then told the guy he couldn't find Visual Cafe. The engineer told him to move over and fired up Emacs and then that's what my friend used from that point on.
That said, there are a lot of good features people like in GUIs such as:
- find classes/objects as you type - powerful searching thru code - built-in docs - auto code generation
However for me: - I hate when something suggests some class while I'm typing - find . | grep [something] works well for me - I prefer to use the web based jdk docs as I find I learn about the classes better. Although, it's not a whole lot different than having jdk docs built in. - code gen is good, but i don't trust machines;)
Anyway, these are my preferences and experiences working with many engineers and I tend to find more GUI people on Win platform, which is the way that M$ want's people to develop. I choose *nix because I'd rather do it in text land and know 100% what's going on. Not the wrong way or the right way. Just another way.
..bypassing the high priests of tech. Those people hate MS for undermining them.
I don't think that's the case at all. Remember, Apple was the company that brought the computer to the mainstream. Others followed, Commodore, Atari, etc. IBM brought the PC to the business world. M$, rode the wave much later. M$ commoditized everything via Windoze and later Office. This thing's been going on longer than M$ can take credit. It's just shifted, that's all.
M$s' crimes have a lot more to do with other things than bringing the common Joe into the fray, all of which are well documented and don't need to be brought up once again. However, like American cars, we still don't get it like the Japanese do. They are the tech masters in not only production, but assimilation. Even the old folks are ooh'd and ahh'd buy the latest little gadget.
The average U.S. mom and pop computer users wanna do only a few things: - send/receive email - im - maybe buy something at amazon (all hail the patent!) - maybe print out some pix via email
That's it. In my experience, they care about very little else. So, my moms p2-350 still suits her just fine.
I was in a store with a friend who wanted a PC and the guys was telling us 'oh yah, you want a 80-gig drive, 256megs of ram, and a 2ghz cpu at a minimum'. I was like, 'For what?! To run a gene sequence server outta your house or something?' He didn't know what gene sequencing was. Excuse me for being from the 8-bit old school days, but what the hell is the average mom and pop or 'un-educated' computer user need the above for email, im, amazon (all hail the patent!), and photos?
Say you have two PCs today. It's a huge pain that your Favorites on this machine are different than on this machine. Moving your files from this machine to this machine, getting your e-mail, your calendar -- it's painful. Say you have a work calendar and a family calendar. Is it really easy to coordinate your family's schedule and see which events should be on both ones?
Jesus, talk about as backwards as 1995!! I can't help thinking time and time again that this is exactly what the web empowers. I never have to worry about which machine I check my Yahoo mail (or the like). Since there's pretty much a browser everywhere, that's all I need. Calendaring/scheduling, email, document management - all the 'killer app' for the enterprise web.
I'm actually a huge fan of the 'web office' - something that seemed to have a real future years ago. Dunno why it's not used more nowadays. It's like, something that simple is still too good to be true. Nope, we'll create an OS for it instead because that's what people really want.
Actually I do know what killed it(to some extent); Internet Explorer. Control the client, kill the server. It's too bad because it would have been good for so many businesses and people alike. But, that's history I guess.
Ah, all excellent points. I think this really harkens back to good 'ol Billy G that basically, from the get go, told the home brew computer club that digital copies are theft.
See, even more reasons to ban m$ products.
That said, I have these discussions with friends and family all the time. I think while most people feel it's wrong to copy a cd/movie/etc, they do it anyway. The middle class can't always afford that $120 upgrade or $20 crap cd. Plus, movies are a frickin rip. They get to raise prices due to economic factors, but the regular Joe worker doesn't neceessairly get a pay raise for the same reason. No, these are not a good rationales, but..
I was actually a little suprised when I read a Stallman article on UK Zdnet talking about the 'illegal' code in the Linux kernel. He mentioned that it is illegal to steal code and drop it in there and something he did not 100% support. It's obvious, but given Stallman's stnace on software patent and copyrights, I was a little taken back. I was of the impression that he and a lot of GNU developers/forefathers were the civil disobedient types and throughout history, that meant not abiding by the rules. Not that that means copy and paste code, but I would have thought he might have just brushed it aside..
Ben Franklin was even said to have made copies of books in the states so they wouldn't have to pay mother England - which is clearly 'piracy'; Sir Jack Valente would have put an order out to bring old Ben to the guillitine I'm sure. Anyway, I started thinking, when is it right to 'pirate' and when it is not?
Ultimately what I came to is that if I think laws are designed wrong, then it's my duty as a citizen and as someone who cares to try to change that. Prior to the Stallman incident, one of the ways I felt that I was doing that was by not paying for songs/etc (although, I rarely even buy big media stuff anymore and usually indie stuff). But now, I'm starting to feel like regardless, it is the law - not to copy. So do I try to achieve my objectives - overturning these corporate friendly and end-user unfriendly laws - legally or through illegal protest?
.... Or, bringing a burned cd to a party and er, getting too drunk and forgetting it. Thusly, opening the door to more copies of said cd.. heh heh, I'm feeling a little RIAA'ish this morning.;) Hopefullly it wears off soon..
Unfortunately, I think then, you'll be boycotting them forever.
That said, there's plenty, plenty, of good non-RIAA stuff out there. The indie/underground/non-corporate/etc scene has always flourished and always will.
This is a hugely daunting and depressing topic since when you think about it, those in power - the rich and their corporations - have not only put their fist down in the U.S., but also abroad with the WTO. It is quite useless to argue this point to all the copyright and patent holders since to them, the issue is very cut and dry - it all, 100%, comes down to profit.
They will not recognize the fact that yes, like Newton, we all stand on the shoulders of giants before us - this is only useful to those willing to 'share' and those who don't have anything. But how does that affect the members of a board - who usually sit on other boards - when they go home every night to their nice little private castles, shutting out the world? Why, it takes away what is theirs, which of course, threatens their existence, their comfortable life. This is so obvious with the current administation, btw. So obvious.
This is all possible, obviously, because of money. These people who run these corporations who lobby our government - and who stock it - have truck loads of it. I have many talks with my close friends about this and we all agree indeed that this is the Matrix. Not the sci-fi version, but the version of control. Not to turn us into a battery, but to turn us into a mindless follower willing to die or buy for the top percent who can afford pretty much anything.
Look at other examples: DMCA - control of your sewing patterns you dig out of the trash; control of the xbox that you purchased. Palladium - control of the computer that you purchased DRM - control of the information that you purchased EULAs - not only control of the software you bought (lawyers like to call it 'the license you bought' which of course, can be revoked at any time), but the ability to not be responsible for anything negative that might come of its use. Think viruses, crashes, etc...
There are probably only a very few ways out of this. Maybe you can play the game and become one of the haves and then make the same rules and propagate the same sort of attitude as the people in charge do now - some call these 'society's rules'.
Or maybe you'll become well to do and fight those rules and pursue the ideas of fairness and liberty for all. Ideas that exist in all cultures and in most religious texts, i.e., common sense.
Or maybe you'll scrape by and fight for those ideas of fairness and liberty, yet hold a grudge forever knowing you're on the short end of the stick and you probably won't have a 'comfortable life'.
Or, maybe you'll just be one of those who doesn't care and just goes with the flow. Not really content, but not caring enough to stir things up. Contributing to causality without know anything of it.
Regardless of what path you take, it will take the voices of many to 'wake up' and realize that these laws will only benefit a few - the few who can continue to afford it. They have nothing to do with fairness and justness for the whole and everything to do with greed and control by the few. Only when everyone, like the founding fathers and mothers and all other revolutionaries around the world, stands together can we make an impact. When divided, we fall.
It may not seem like it, but this really is what the people and corps who push these laws count on. In smaller numbers, all are more easily controlled. Which is the ultimate goal for them as the Slate story shows. Free your mind...
Keith Hodson, a Microsoft spokesman, said the contract could help the Army reduce its costs and "validates the Army's belief in our security model."
I can't wait to see this. I'm not sure if the Army will be significant enough pressure to make m$ security better. In fact, they're a small piece in the bigger pie.
While this is probably cheaper than the defense departments $300 toilet seat vendors (hey, they probably at least had a backup toilet seat tho), it doesn't make too much sense to me. I'm reminded of the Navy vessel that crashed running NT.
Given that XP is still having issues with updates and such, I'm wondering what the Army was thinking. But then again, that is often the case..
Slashdot Mirror
This was the first gui I used on Linux way back and until I benched my Linux desktop in favor of OS X last year, it was the one I still used.
And even with Gnome improvements and the like, it's what I *still* use if I have to work on a Linux box. Something about the simplicity. I think nowadays that's a lost art. Apple's probably the closest to it, but I remember NeXTStep being really powerful, but really simple.
Ah but you missed this little gem:
Users of the latest versions of Kazaa Lite and Kazaa++ also have the option of disabling a function that allows remote users to see what other files the user has. The two P2P updates allow users to block port 1214...
This is somewhat significant since it will make it harder and take longer to get a complete list of all files shared. Whereas before they (**AA) just had to find a user, right click and get a list of files, now they won't be able to.
Which makes me wonder that they have to have some automated bots doing this stuff cuz even doing that takes quite a while. That said, it's still gonna take the bots longer since they'll have to search file by file and compile a list based on file now vs. IP.
I think this is a good thing.
Yup. I avoided this one like the plague and stuck to slow Mozilla and later Chimera. I'm happiest with the latter but do give props to Safari.
That said, the speed of said browsers has made a noticable jump on Panther - on the same hardware with no upgrades mind u.
Granted, a lot of web developers have had to deal with IE, but it seems to me with the only mention of Moz as being in trouble is, well, kinda stupid. I keep reading Moz keeps getting better and better and sure enough, with each release it does get better and better. And so do the browsers based on Gecko. If anything, Moz has crossed over that hump that IE is hitting now. And let's not forget all the neat stuff coming out in XUL. Sure, it needs to be faster, but the possibilities are interesting. Especially if you don't wanna be M$'s bitch.
Maybe it's because I mostly focus on enterprise apps and not too much on client side stuff, but frankly, this guy downplays standards too much, which to me is bizarre because the whole non-standards thing is how we got into this whole mess of one browser no innovation crap. Yah sure, standards take long and companies innovate faster. But, look who you signed on the dotted line when all you web creators went strictly IE. Yes, the f-ing devil.
I probably live in the dreamy stratosphere demanding on most of my projects that we find ways around IE only stuff and make the application robust, secure, and stable, which to me and end users is far more important than js, layers and whatnot. Sure, I also know there are plenty of people who need jazzy sites and have to deal with these issues but you only have to be burned so many times to realize that you need to pull your hand away from the flame.
I guess though, I just feel like design on Moz based browsers and tweak for the rest. Because in time, these scales are going to tip out of IE's favor. I know, I'm in the minority, but I also want my stuff to work. I sacrafice a little zing for a better development experience. Cuz in the end, the users don't care.
I'm part of the seeding program and I can guarantee you 1000% that neither Apple's Xcode nor Panther are available on the ADC or via the developer DVD - last one I just got was for July '03.
As I understand it, the *only* people that got copies of Panther, possibly besides corporate partners, were people that attended the WWDC. After watching the keynote at the Apple store in SOHO, I was bouncing off the walls for weeks trying to get a copy. But now, even tho it's avail as a torrent, it's like, meh, I'll wait. The need has worn off and I got work to do.
I too grow tired of the bands that keep whining about everything. Put up or shut up! Esp. for the Madonna, Metallica and Radiohead types.
Your time is almost... up.
Dr Kanazawa theorises after a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output.
This is great! I have two scenerios in my head:
1. Man, hard five-o'clock shadow, wearing apron, cig hangin out of his mouth, frying eggs wondering 'how'd I get myself into this'.
2. Man sitting on couch, staring into space and kids repeatedly hit him on the head with nerf sword yelling 'play Harry Potter with us'.
What's worse and definitely not funny, btw, is that I'm just around the corner from that. Jesus... *stares out the window*
Ah yes, the Reagan years. Let's see:
- Millions of 'ordinary' famalies (including my own) lost homes and small businesses such thanks to 'trickle down' economics
- Iran contra
- Star Wars (a massive waste)
- 'The evil empire'
- Iran hostage crisis
- Grenada
- Central America
- The (lost and wasteful) war on drugs
- The biggest deficit in U.S. history
Yah, great years those were. And to think we have to possibly endure another 4 years of Noecon/Reaganites makes me wanna puke. If you're rich and Christian, then these guys are your best friends. Why else would one of the biggest tax breaks ever go to the top 1% and not the middle class and poor.
Hmmm, well, until the Linux non-blocking I/O kernel fixes and NGPT (this is already avail in RedHat 9 and maybe others I think) get propagated thru the various enterprise distros, Solaris will still be a viable OS for scalability and performance. I've seen external storage first hand just take a nose dive on a 8-way Xeon box because of the non-blocking I/O on Linux. The Win2k equiv smoked the Linux box, unfortunately.
That said, the above is just around the corner and it won't be long before Linux on Opteron and Itanium will make even more significant headway into the datacenter.
if you wanna make a non-patented AI, then you have to go for the average humanity despising type. Boy, this will be interesting to see in the lab.
.....Where they're still running Windows 2003.
Lab Tech: Uh, the AI just broke out of the network.
Professor: Great, I thought you knew how to lock down Windows 2010?! Where's it headed?
Lab Tech: Um, looks like the experimental weapons lab. [turns head slowly]
Professor: Well, nothing we can do about Skynet now except see what happens.
Unfortunately, this is very hard. Business moves fast and programming, like any other science, can be very rigid and thusly unforgiving when 1 little thing is 'incorrect'.
Most programmers I know like to take their time and think about stuff. Most biz people I know want the millions and want it yesterday - that's their job. There is very little middle road to walk here since money drives pretty much everything and ultimately that is the commanding force.
Sure, you bnag something out, the contract get's signed and everyone's happy - for that moment. However, when bugs crop up, tensions flare and people start pointing fingers, etc..
The only way I've seen it work - and I haven't seen it much - is to start from the get go and convince the people you work for/with that the project is not something that can be banged out soon. But, this will get a lot of frowns so in addition, you gotta speak the language of biz people. Make project and dollar predictions on why it will be better, in the long run, to do a better job in the beginning. When biz types start seeing dollar explainations, then they can start adjust schedules, contracts, etc.
It's not hard to do, but it does take some dilligence and foresight. Like so many, I too have the urgency to just jump right in to something. But I've seen over time success is within reach when you, unfortunately, manage others expectations. If you cannot do this, then the people writing the checks will always have your balls in a vice.
I'm not necessairly a fan of Oracle and I'm definitely no fan of Exchange (out of experience), but I watched a little Oracle Collaboration Suite marketing demo on their site and for a moment, just a moment, I put myself in a biz guy frame of mind and thought "wow, that actually looks pretty kick ass". They have it intergrated not only with pda/phone but also with voice commands - everything. The whole enchalada.
Of course, I have no idea about the stability, hardware costs, and licenses. But, it seems as tho Oracle is already ahead of Titanium - not that that matters much to M$ customers. Still interesting nonetheless.
While I commend the Opengroupware product, I'm not too sure when the OS community will be able to come up with something like the Oracle Collab Suite. Not that they have to, but I guess biz types will be looking for features that exist in a shrink wrapped solution.
Dude, first off, that's an old machine.
Second, it's pretty well known the old finders were not multitasking. Or at least, not preemptive. I always wondered about formatting a floppy, copying a file while trying to do something as well. But a lot of people I've seen use Macs are happy doing one thing at a time.
Others have claimed Macs were/are superior because they tend to just work. For a long time they came with sound on board, networking, video, Scsi, and in GUI usability terms were far ahead of Windows pre-95.
Granted, Apple has a monopoly on their OS and hardware, but there's a reason for that; they believe that the whole computer should be package, not a bunch of parts. I was not much of a Mac fan until I bought my first Titanium Powerbook. After that, my Mac has replaced my Linux and Win desktops. I still love Linux and Intel hardware, but there is something to be said about plug and play that works - even for geeks.
So yah, you're right, you're using a shitty browser on a old slow Mac. But why does it have to get to the point of calling people fanatics all the time. I'm sure all the Windoze, BSD, etc.., people speak highly of Linux zealots complaining about any OS that doesn't have skinnable everything and doesn't run on the shittiest hardware invented.
I'd still buy a Mac for my parents in a hearbeat even though they 'like' Windoze. That said, my mom runs a online store off a Gentoo box I built her, so..
Observations:
;)
My experience over the years with other developers is that the ones who stayed text based were the ones that people came to when there were questions and issues. I've tried to make it a point over the years to stay in text land and not GUI land for the very reason that the GUI tends to dumb people down. Thusly that is the reason why I stay away from tools like Visual Studio and NetBeans.
I've worked with a lot of GUI engineers that drive the mouse a lot when you ask them a question on how this broke or that broke.
One of the best stories I know is when my friend went to work for Weblogic (pre-BEA days) and one of the engineers asked him to open a java file to look at it. He drove the mouse for a bit and then told the guy he couldn't find Visual Cafe. The engineer told him to move over and fired up Emacs and then that's what my friend used from that point on.
That said, there are a lot of good features people like in GUIs such as:
- find classes/objects as you type
- powerful searching thru code
- built-in docs
- auto code generation
However for me:
- I hate when something suggests some class while I'm typing
- find . | grep [something] works well for me
- I prefer to use the web based jdk docs as I find I learn about the classes better. Although, it's not a whole lot different than having jdk docs built in.
- code gen is good, but i don't trust machines
Anyway, these are my preferences and experiences working with many engineers and I tend to find more GUI people on Win platform, which is the way that M$ want's people to develop. I choose *nix because I'd rather do it in text land and know 100% what's going on. Not the wrong way or the right way. Just another way.
..bypassing the high priests of tech. Those people hate MS for undermining them.
I don't think that's the case at all. Remember, Apple was the company that brought the computer to the mainstream. Others followed, Commodore, Atari, etc. IBM brought the PC to the business world. M$, rode the wave much later. M$ commoditized everything via Windoze and later Office. This thing's been going on longer than M$ can take credit. It's just shifted, that's all.
M$s' crimes have a lot more to do with other things than bringing the common Joe into the fray, all of which are well documented and don't need to be brought up once again.
However, like American cars, we still don't get it like the Japanese do. They are the tech masters in not only production, but assimilation. Even the old folks are ooh'd and ahh'd buy the latest little gadget.
The average U.S. mom and pop computer users wanna do only a few things:
- send/receive email
- im
- maybe buy something at amazon (all hail the patent!)
- maybe print out some pix via email
That's it. In my experience, they care about very little else. So, my moms p2-350 still suits her just fine.
I was in a store with a friend who wanted a PC and the guys was telling us 'oh yah, you want a 80-gig drive, 256megs of ram, and a 2ghz cpu at a minimum'. I was like, 'For what?! To run a gene sequence server outta your house or something?' He didn't know what gene sequencing was.
Excuse me for being from the 8-bit old school days, but what the hell is the average mom and pop or 'un-educated' computer user need the above for email, im, amazon (all hail the patent!), and photos?
Exactly..
Expect it any day. In fact, unfortunately, when I was half way thru the article Ashcroft's face popped into my head. *shudders*
Why is the only other country in the world interested in building up more and more N. Korea? Ge, great company.
He's not CEO tho, that's Monkey Boy. Billy G's Chief Software Architect and head of the board.
Say you have two PCs today. It's a huge pain that your Favorites on this machine are different than on this machine. Moving your files from this machine to this machine, getting your e-mail, your calendar -- it's painful. Say you have a work calendar and a family calendar. Is it really easy to coordinate your family's schedule and see which events should be on both ones?
Jesus, talk about as backwards as 1995!! I can't help thinking time and time again that this is exactly what the web empowers. I never have to worry about which machine I check my Yahoo mail (or the like). Since there's pretty much a browser everywhere, that's all I need. Calendaring/scheduling, email, document management - all the 'killer app' for the enterprise web.
I'm actually a huge fan of the 'web office' - something that seemed to have a real future years ago. Dunno why it's not used more nowadays. It's like, something that simple is still too good to be true. Nope, we'll create an OS for it instead because that's what people really want.
Actually I do know what killed it(to some extent); Internet Explorer. Control the client, kill the server. It's too bad because it would have been good for so many businesses and people alike. But, that's history I guess.
Ah, all excellent points. I think this really harkens back to good 'ol Billy G that basically, from the get go, told the home brew computer club that digital copies are theft.
See, even more reasons to ban m$ products.
That said, I have these discussions with friends and family all the time. I think while most people feel it's wrong to copy a cd/movie/etc, they do it anyway. The middle class can't always afford that $120 upgrade or $20 crap cd. Plus, movies are a frickin rip. They get to raise prices due to economic factors, but the regular Joe worker doesn't neceessairly get a pay raise for the same reason. No, these are not a good rationales, but..
I was actually a little suprised when I read a Stallman article on UK Zdnet talking about the 'illegal' code in the Linux kernel. He mentioned that it is illegal to steal code and drop it in there and something he did not 100% support. It's obvious, but given Stallman's stnace on software patent and copyrights, I was a little taken back. I was of the impression that he and a lot of GNU developers/forefathers were the civil disobedient types and throughout history, that meant not abiding by the rules. Not that that means copy and paste code, but I would have thought he might have just brushed it aside..
Ben Franklin was even said to have made copies of books in the states so they wouldn't have to pay mother England - which is clearly 'piracy'; Sir Jack Valente would have put an order out to bring old Ben to the guillitine I'm sure. Anyway, I started thinking, when is it right to 'pirate' and when it is not?
Ultimately what I came to is that if I think laws are designed wrong, then it's my duty as a citizen and as someone who cares to try to change that. Prior to the Stallman incident, one of the ways I felt that I was doing that was by not paying for songs/etc (although, I rarely even buy big media stuff anymore and usually indie stuff). But now, I'm starting to feel like regardless, it is the law - not to copy. So do I try to achieve my objectives - overturning these corporate friendly and end-user unfriendly laws - legally or through illegal protest?
Much still to think about...
.... Or, bringing a burned cd to a party and er, getting too drunk and forgetting it. Thusly, opening the door to more copies of said cd.. heh heh, I'm feeling a little RIAA'ish this morning. ;) Hopefullly it wears off soon..
You find it a waste of time because you are an adult. Haven't you figured out that all the kids stuff sucks by now?!? ;)
Seriously, times change, people change. What was hot with kids in 1903/1953/1978 isn't necessairly what's hot in 2003. Jesus I'm getting old...
Unfortunately, I think then, you'll be boycotting them forever.
That said, there's plenty, plenty, of good non-RIAA stuff out there. The indie/underground/non-corporate/etc scene has always flourished and always will.
And this is how the machine feeds..
This is a hugely daunting and depressing topic since when you think about it, those in power - the rich and their corporations - have not only put their fist down in the U.S., but also abroad with the WTO. It is quite useless to argue this point to all the copyright and patent holders since to them, the issue is very cut and dry - it all, 100%, comes down to profit.
They will not recognize the fact that yes, like Newton, we all stand on the shoulders of giants before us - this is only useful to those willing to 'share' and those who don't have anything. But how does that affect the members of a board - who usually sit on other boards - when they go home every night to their nice little private castles, shutting out the world? Why, it takes away what is theirs, which of course, threatens their existence, their comfortable life. This is so obvious with the current administation, btw. So obvious.
This is all possible, obviously, because of money. These people who run these corporations who lobby our government - and who stock it - have truck loads of it. I have many talks with my close friends about this and we all agree indeed that this is the Matrix. Not the sci-fi version, but the version of control. Not to turn us into a battery, but to turn us into a mindless follower willing to die or buy for the top percent who can afford pretty much anything.
Look at other examples:
DMCA - control of your sewing patterns you dig out of the trash; control of the xbox that you purchased.
Palladium - control of the computer that you purchased
DRM - control of the information that you purchased
EULAs - not only control of the software you bought (lawyers like to call it 'the license you bought' which of course, can be revoked at any time), but the ability to not be responsible for anything negative that might come of its use. Think viruses, crashes, etc...
There are probably only a very few ways out of this. Maybe you can play the game and become one of the haves and then make the same rules and propagate the same sort of attitude as the people in charge do now - some call these 'society's rules'.
Or maybe you'll become well to do and fight those rules and pursue the ideas of fairness and liberty for all. Ideas that exist in all cultures and in most religious texts, i.e., common sense.
Or maybe you'll scrape by and fight for those ideas of fairness and liberty, yet hold a grudge forever knowing you're on the short end of the stick and you probably won't have a 'comfortable life'.
Or, maybe you'll just be one of those who doesn't care and just goes with the flow. Not really content, but not caring enough to stir things up. Contributing to causality without know anything of it.
Regardless of what path you take, it will take the voices of many to 'wake up' and realize that these laws will only benefit a few - the few who can continue to afford it. They have nothing to do with fairness and justness for the whole and everything to do with greed and control by the few. Only when everyone, like the founding fathers and mothers and all other revolutionaries around the world, stands together can we make an impact. When divided, we fall.
It may not seem like it, but this really is what the people and corps who push these laws count on. In smaller numbers, all are more easily controlled. Which is the ultimate goal for them as the Slate story shows. Free your mind...
Keith Hodson, a Microsoft spokesman, said the contract could help the Army reduce its costs and "validates the Army's belief in our security model."
I can't wait to see this. I'm not sure if the Army will be significant enough pressure to make m$ security better. In fact, they're a small piece in the bigger pie.
While this is probably cheaper than the defense departments $300 toilet seat vendors (hey, they probably at least had a backup toilet seat tho), it doesn't make too much sense to me. I'm reminded of the Navy vessel that crashed running NT.
Given that XP is still having issues with updates and such, I'm wondering what the Army was thinking. But then again, that is often the case..