I think that's how it should be. My neighbors hop onto my network too, accidentally I'm sure. When signals drop the default behavior is to search for a new open network and jump onto it. I don't see what the big deal is. If I wanted to keep them out I'd set up WEP.
Accidental or occasional wifi sharing is just fine by me. Now, a neighbor who's seeding torrents or running a web site is something else.
Am I the only one? I see it like this - I get content for free. Somebody has to pay those people to create, host and maintain that content. I know the ads are not going away. So long as the ads are there I prefer them to be relevant to my needs. So sure, track away. I'd rather see ads for things I'm interested in than things I'm not. They don't know my name or where I live so no harm done. If ads are too pushy or distracting from the content I'll use another site This is one of the reasons Google won the search engine war - their ads are not annoying and they work for the people trying to sell us stuff.
Make a "joke" corporate web site with false bios of the management, etc. Redirect everyone from the internal office to the joke site but leave the real site up for everyone else.
Program a co-worker's computer to play funny sounds whenever certain keys are pressed. Make sure the sounds have a delay of a few seconds before a sound plays so it's hard to identify which keys are doing it.
Apply packing tape across the exit of the bedroom door, or entrance to the bathroom door.
More packing tape - tape the toilet seat to the toilet lid and wait for the splash.
Nah, after the boxes are opened and the desks are almost all the way built, the Government will find that it's missing one essential piece. Then, rather than take it apart, re-box and return the entire desk the Government can buy that single piece at a 1,000% markup. Ingenious!
Every time Apple sneezes they get press and a post on Slashdot. I continue to marvel at Apple's marketing expertise. They're being lauded now for releasing a 3G device a year late. Hey guess what - The AT&T site lists 6 other 3G smart phones, and 5 have GPS if you count Blackberry (which does not have 3G yet). That's just the Smartphones.
Personal anecdote warning: I am an Apple fan and always have been. My wife tried the iPhone and hated it. I think her words were, 'This is the most overpriced, over-hyped toy I've ever used.'
I think most people dislike the Gimp interface because it's just so different from Photoshop's. Photoshop has been top dog for a very VERY long time and people are used to how it works. Any graphic design software will instantly be compared to Photoshop, Gimp or other.
FWIW I used to use Photoshop on a daily basis, but now I have simple imaging needs, and Gimp is just fine. Sure, it's a pain to learn a new interface, but eventually I figured it out. A lot of professional digital artists I've worked with, if you told them they had to use Gimp instead of PS they would quit.
A great many extremely talented artists have spent their whole career with Photoshop. I can think of no other software with such an insurmountable market share.
Maybe because nobody wants to complain about a missing GUI when the product is free. But anyway I've found 4 GUIs for Postgresql in a quick search, not counting Navicat. I've never used it but it looks very nice. I've used PG Admin, which is great for simple work. Most of these are better than Access, which is just a toy, but not as good as Microsoft's query analyzer (now called "server management studio" I believe).
I have specialized in database applications with a web front-end for a while now. While they can't touch Oracle yet (or even MS SQL), Postgresql and MySQL are rapidly improving, and beat some of the expensive commercial offerings of not too long ago. A lot of medium-sized applications can exist just fine on either one. Eventually they will find the limitations of either system too limiting and switch, but for starting up they are both good back ends. With an expert at the helm, a serious application running either MySql or Postgresql is very possible.
At the rate they're improving MS and Oracle should be very concerned. IBM and Sun throwing serious money into the mix is a very interesting development.
I can see the reason for software "rental" - it's business driven. Large companies like annuity-based business models because it creates a steady, predictable income stream. It protects the stock price from volatility. It's a good model - for the company.
Meanwhile, business models that focus on what the customer wants will continue to grab market share. In 2010 I imagine OSX, Redhat, Ubuntu and maybe others will have really refined their OS to make them even more enjoyable and easy to use than they already are.
We've lately seen Microsoft's focus away from the customers with Vista and the whole "Vista Ready" sticker fiasco. This is a long, expensive path they're headed down and once it starts there's no getting off. It's good news for Linux and Apple.
That's a good point, but they did this only in response to Google's attempt to sell the newspaper ad inventory. Google found an untapped market they could exploit with their software, and the newspapers didn't like it. Notice though that the newspapers never thought of it until Google tried to get in.
Newspapers have been notoriously slow to change. They crept into online only when they had to. They hardly noticed that Ebay and Craigslist had utterly destroyed their classified ads (at least in this town) until it was too late.
It's another example of old media trying to hang on to the old model.
I live in the Seattle area, and I work from Tully's pretty regularly because it's free. The coffee is good too. But they're not absolutely *everywhere*. Starbucks is, and so it's the de-facto meeting place to do business. If you're meeting a client, partner, friend, study-mate or whatever in this town the standard is, "I'll meet you at the Starbucks at X-o'clock." Then it's usually, "Which one, there are 3 in that neighborhood." They're ubiquitous, and it's a nice atmosphere to be in for an hour or so. And you can have a treat. Imagine saying, "I want to pitch this idea to you, I'll meet you at the McDonalds." Yeah right.
Starbucks is doing well enough without laptop campers, but offering semi-free access must mean that at least part of their business is being taken by the shops with free WiFi. Believe me they don't make a move without studying the numbers.
As a former SCO Unix admin at work I was using their products the whole time. Although I did hate them for their draconian licensing scheme, they didn't go out of business due to admin lobbying. They went out of business because Linux came along and offered a competitive product at a better price (free).
It was all about the money. Isn't it always? We could buy cheap PC hardware and run SCO, and even though I hated it, it was much cheaper than buying an expensive Sun machine and a support license.
Even if I had LOVED SCO, their licensing restrictions weren't terrible, their customer service had been excellent (it wasn't) etc.... Linux still would've killed them. It will eventually kill Sun too, at least as we know them.
DRM has not worked, doesn't work and will never work. Given that, how would an even more hairbrained idea like this one ever work?
Re:Why is XML so popular
on
The Future of XML
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Because everyone said "XML is the future." And because it has an "X" it was perceived as shiny and cool. So therefore all managers and inexperienced developers jumped all over it. Now I have to encapsulate a few bytes into a huge XML message and reverse it on incoming messages, when I could have just said "name=value" and been done with it.
I can see a use for XML in some applications, but it's been dreadfully overused.
Let's face it, not a lot of people are going to wipe out their Windows and install Linux. But something like the 'eee' is a good platform to put a wedge in the door. Even if it's just a tiny wedge. People will use it without even knowing it's Linux. They will understand that part of the low price is because Windows isn't on the machine.
All they'll know is they can surf and do email, and maybe listen to some music. Next they'll want to know if they can open a spreadsheet or write a document. Eventually they'll say, "Oh, this is Linux. This isn't so bad."
Obviously, a good parent will take care not to let very young kids become immersed in video games - especially violent ones. Kids are extremely impressionable at this age. Letting them play games can be fine, and it's also a good exercise in teaching them restraint and keeping their lives balanced.
They started with Flash Noggin games at a young age, and the 5yo plays his portable Leapster. I don't think he's even aware that the games are educational. Diego and Dora counting games are good too. We screen each game and monitor their time on them. No shooting games are allowed.
We recently let them play Pac Man and help with some non-violent adventure games. I enjoy games and I see no reason they shouldn't enjoy them too. It just takes some common sense.
Here's my serious & naive questions: Is Microsoft really under any obligation to follow a standard?
Playing devil's advocate here, Microsoft can pretty much do whatever they want. They dominate the market, whatever format they see fit to save their documents in is what they'll do. They've always used their market share to get their own way, why would this one be any different?
I'm already getting "how do I open this.docx" document?" questions, as are many others I'm sure. It's just another way for Microsoft to get people to buy their software. If the format was open & shared it could erode their market share.. eventually, maybe. Why would they possibly adopt an open standard?
I've been using XP since day one at work. When it came out it was sluggish and really taxed my computer. Now, years later, XP is quick. It feels snappy and fast. It doesn't always seem to be low on RAM and it doesn't take much disk space. It doesn't crash and it's easy to use.
In other words the OS footprint is low enough that I can use all of my applications at once without running into system limits. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Why switch to an OS that uses twice the resources to do the same work?
I figure in a couple of years when Vista is replaced by whatever's next I'll finally switch to Vista.
My work issued T61 came with Vista, but the I.T. guys wiped it for me and put XP on it instead. Getting XP pre-loaded would have saved us a bunch of time. I don't want to use XP and I.T. doesn't want to support it. Looks like everyone's happy.
Seriously, a few photos of a conference room? And Harvey Keitel and an espresso machine? This is just a room where people sit down to discuss issues. Just like in every office everywhere in the world, except this one has some TVs on the wall.
Can I please have that 10 minutes of my life back?
The old one is now a great bargain. I have the old 30gb model, I won it at a charity auction. I always liked the thing, but with the new firmware and software it's really nice. I've seen them for $85 online with free shipping (in the U.S.) Not bad for a 30gb player with wireless and video!
Slashdot Mirror
I think that's how it should be. My neighbors hop onto my network too, accidentally I'm sure. When signals drop the default behavior is to search for a new open network and jump onto it. I don't see what the big deal is. If I wanted to keep them out I'd set up WEP. Accidental or occasional wifi sharing is just fine by me. Now, a neighbor who's seeding torrents or running a web site is something else.
I can beat that. I lost interest at level "Diablo II."
Am I the only one? I see it like this - I get content for free. Somebody has to pay those people to create, host and maintain that content. I know the ads are not going away. So long as the ads are there I prefer them to be relevant to my needs. So sure, track away. I'd rather see ads for things I'm interested in than things I'm not. They don't know my name or where I live so no harm done. If ads are too pushy or distracting from the content I'll use another site This is one of the reasons Google won the search engine war - their ads are not annoying and they work for the people trying to sell us stuff.
Make a "joke" corporate web site with false bios of the management, etc. Redirect everyone from the internal office to the joke site but leave the real site up for everyone else.
Program a co-worker's computer to play funny sounds whenever certain keys are pressed. Make sure the sounds have a delay of a few seconds before a sound plays so it's hard to identify which keys are doing it.
Apply packing tape across the exit of the bedroom door, or entrance to the bathroom door.
More packing tape - tape the toilet seat to the toilet lid and wait for the splash.
Nah, after the boxes are opened and the desks are almost all the way built, the Government will find that it's missing one essential piece. Then, rather than take it apart, re-box and return the entire desk the Government can buy that single piece at a 1,000% markup. Ingenious!
Every time Apple sneezes they get press and a post on Slashdot. I continue to marvel at Apple's marketing expertise. They're being lauded now for releasing a 3G device a year late. Hey guess what - The AT&T site lists 6 other 3G smart phones, and 5 have GPS if you count Blackberry (which does not have 3G yet). That's just the Smartphones.
Personal anecdote warning:
I am an Apple fan and always have been. My wife tried the iPhone and hated it. I think her words were, 'This is the most overpriced, over-hyped toy I've ever used.'
I think most people dislike the Gimp interface because it's just so different from Photoshop's. Photoshop has been top dog for a very VERY long time and people are used to how it works. Any graphic design software will instantly be compared to Photoshop, Gimp or other.
FWIW I used to use Photoshop on a daily basis, but now I have simple imaging needs, and Gimp is just fine. Sure, it's a pain to learn a new interface, but eventually I figured it out. A lot of professional digital artists I've worked with, if you told them they had to use Gimp instead of PS they would quit.
A great many extremely talented artists have spent their whole career with Photoshop. I can think of no other software with such an insurmountable market share.
A program that plays the boring parts of the game. Can he come up with a program that does the boring parts of my life while I'm out having fun?
Maybe because nobody wants to complain about a missing GUI when the product is free. But anyway I've found 4 GUIs for Postgresql in a quick search, not counting Navicat. I've never used it but it looks very nice. I've used PG Admin, which is great for simple work. Most of these are better than Access, which is just a toy, but not as good as Microsoft's query analyzer (now called "server management studio" I believe).
I have specialized in database applications with a web front-end for a while now. While they can't touch Oracle yet (or even MS SQL), Postgresql and MySQL are rapidly improving, and beat some of the expensive commercial offerings of not too long ago. A lot of medium-sized applications can exist just fine on either one. Eventually they will find the limitations of either system too limiting and switch, but for starting up they are both good back ends. With an expert at the helm, a serious application running either MySql or Postgresql is very possible.
At the rate they're improving MS and Oracle should be very concerned. IBM and Sun throwing serious money into the mix is a very interesting development.
Meanwhile, business models that focus on what the customer wants will continue to grab market share. In 2010 I imagine OSX, Redhat, Ubuntu and maybe others will have really refined their OS to make them even more enjoyable and easy to use than they already are.
We've lately seen Microsoft's focus away from the customers with Vista and the whole "Vista Ready" sticker fiasco. This is a long, expensive path they're headed down and once it starts there's no getting off. It's good news for Linux and Apple.
That's a good point, but they did this only in response to Google's attempt to sell the newspaper ad inventory. Google found an untapped market they could exploit with their software, and the newspapers didn't like it. Notice though that the newspapers never thought of it until Google tried to get in.
Newspapers have been notoriously slow to change. They crept into online only when they had to. They hardly noticed that Ebay and Craigslist had utterly destroyed their classified ads (at least in this town) until it was too late.
It's another example of old media trying to hang on to the old model.
I live in the Seattle area, and I work from Tully's pretty regularly because it's free. The coffee is good too. But they're not absolutely *everywhere*. Starbucks is, and so it's the de-facto meeting place to do business. If you're meeting a client, partner, friend, study-mate or whatever in this town the standard is, "I'll meet you at the Starbucks at X-o'clock." Then it's usually, "Which one, there are 3 in that neighborhood." They're ubiquitous, and it's a nice atmosphere to be in for an hour or so. And you can have a treat. Imagine saying, "I want to pitch this idea to you, I'll meet you at the McDonalds." Yeah right.
Starbucks is doing well enough without laptop campers, but offering semi-free access must mean that at least part of their business is being taken by the shops with free WiFi. Believe me they don't make a move without studying the numbers.
As a former SCO Unix admin at work I was using their products the whole time. Although I did hate them for their draconian licensing scheme, they didn't go out of business due to admin lobbying. They went out of business because Linux came along and offered a competitive product at a better price (free).
It was all about the money. Isn't it always? We could buy cheap PC hardware and run SCO, and even though I hated it, it was much cheaper than buying an expensive Sun machine and a support license.
Even if I had LOVED SCO, their licensing restrictions weren't terrible, their customer service had been excellent (it wasn't) etc.... Linux still would've killed them. It will eventually kill Sun too, at least as we know them.
DRM has not worked, doesn't work and will never work. Given that, how would an even more hairbrained idea like this one ever work?
Because everyone said "XML is the future." And because it has an "X" it was perceived as shiny and cool. So therefore all managers and inexperienced developers jumped all over it. Now I have to encapsulate a few bytes into a huge XML message and reverse it on incoming messages, when I could have just said "name=value" and been done with it. I can see a use for XML in some applications, but it's been dreadfully overused.
If you double a number every year it eventually becomes very large.
Indeed, it's been shown that people will follow the money no matter where it goes.
Let's face it, not a lot of people are going to wipe out their Windows and install Linux. But something like the 'eee' is a good platform to put a wedge in the door. Even if it's just a tiny wedge. People will use it without even knowing it's Linux. They will understand that part of the low price is because Windows isn't on the machine.
All they'll know is they can surf and do email, and maybe listen to some music. Next they'll want to know if they can open a spreadsheet or write a document. Eventually they'll say, "Oh, this is Linux. This isn't so bad."
Obviously, a good parent will take care not to let very young kids become immersed in video games - especially violent ones. Kids are extremely impressionable at this age. Letting them play games can be fine, and it's also a good exercise in teaching them restraint and keeping their lives balanced. They started with Flash Noggin games at a young age, and the 5yo plays his portable Leapster. I don't think he's even aware that the games are educational. Diego and Dora counting games are good too. We screen each game and monitor their time on them. No shooting games are allowed. We recently let them play Pac Man and help with some non-violent adventure games. I enjoy games and I see no reason they shouldn't enjoy them too. It just takes some common sense.
Here's my serious & naive questions: Is Microsoft really under any obligation to follow a standard? Playing devil's advocate here, Microsoft can pretty much do whatever they want. They dominate the market, whatever format they see fit to save their documents in is what they'll do. They've always used their market share to get their own way, why would this one be any different? I'm already getting "how do I open this .docx" document?" questions, as are many others I'm sure. It's just another way for Microsoft to get people to buy their software. If the format was open & shared it could erode their market share.. eventually, maybe. Why would they possibly adopt an open standard?
I've been using XP since day one at work. When it came out it was sluggish and really taxed my computer. Now, years later, XP is quick. It feels snappy and fast. It doesn't always seem to be low on RAM and it doesn't take much disk space. It doesn't crash and it's easy to use. In other words the OS footprint is low enough that I can use all of my applications at once without running into system limits. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Why switch to an OS that uses twice the resources to do the same work? I figure in a couple of years when Vista is replaced by whatever's next I'll finally switch to Vista.
Bah, I meant to say I don't want to use Vista and I.T. doesn't want to support it.
My work issued T61 came with Vista, but the I.T. guys wiped it for me and put XP on it instead. Getting XP pre-loaded would have saved us a bunch of time. I don't want to use XP and I.T. doesn't want to support it. Looks like everyone's happy.
Seriously, a few photos of a conference room? And Harvey Keitel and an espresso machine? This is just a room where people sit down to discuss issues. Just like in every office everywhere in the world, except this one has some TVs on the wall. Can I please have that 10 minutes of my life back?
The old one is now a great bargain. I have the old 30gb model, I won it at a charity auction. I always liked the thing, but with the new firmware and software it's really nice. I've seen them for $85 online with free shipping (in the U.S.) Not bad for a 30gb player with wireless and video!