However for audio the situation is a lot different I think. There are many remarkable open source audio software projects that I don't want to discount in any way, but on the other hand I'm also a working as a composer for a living in film, TV and video games both in Hollywood and in my native Finland, and I can pretty much say that in 99% of the cases the professional composers are sequencing with Logic Pro (OS X), Digital Performer (OS X), Pro Tools (OS X + Windows), Cubase (OS X + Windows) or Sonar (Windows). There's lots of other cool apps like Live etc., but I've yet to meet anyone who would use them only, and I can't really see how that would be efficient unless you're only working with loops etc.
Certainly -- no argument there. There are some very simple audio utilities on Linux, but having just purchased a low-end consumer sound program (Cakewalk Music Creator 3), I can see that the other OSS tools I've tried are not *yet* competitors (E.g., Ardour, Audacity, the JACK and ALSA plugins in some packages). At your level the OSS tools obviously will not work.
But that's the gist of my point. I am not a sound/creative professional as you are. The most I'll need is something to maybe clean up some sound, normalize a few tracks, etc.. Maybe at some point synchronize it to the time signal that's currently unused in my video editing software. If an OSS tool does that then good for me.
It's also, I think, good for the high end from both vendor and consumer perspectives. For the consumer it "floats the boat". I.e., the whole software base for the niche gets better because of increased competition on the low end. The low end software must make their product attractive versus the free/oss versions. They do this by adding features. At some point, the feature set of the low-end consumer software starts rivaling the mid-end, which in turns starts rivaling the high-end. Even if the vendors do not compete on price they will need to make the product more attractive either by services, free updates, more plugins, more samples, etc.. This is markedly apparent in the video editing field as even the low-end bundled packages are doing things that once cost in the hundreds of dollars.
The same can easily be said of closed source. Or are you trying to tell me that Adobe Photoshop has always remained the same and that this is the side effect of closed source?
Except for an unrelated point about OpenOffice being "good enough", I never implied that closed source, proprietary software is not improving. Are you trying to tell me that Canada is evil? It makes as much relevance as your post. The obvious difference is that OSS can be downloaded and used without cost. Of course, OSS helps drive the proprietary development too. After all, it's very difficult to compete with "free". MS IE stagnated for years until other products innovated forcing MS to improve their product.
Standards are easy. Anyone can write up a standard. It's a question of the overall validity of this standard in any particular market that determines if the standard applies.
So, aside from Linux tell me where this accepted standard in the world of open source vs. closed source exists?
Again, I didn't impugn closed source but I guess you need something to argue about. Apache is something of a standard. MySQL is something of a standard. Look at the software space and you'll see thousands of products that assume apache, or perl, or gcc, or countless other products.
Also, I feel where you think the strength of open source exists is not the real strength at all. For one, the values you're putting on OSS as a strength really hasn't appeared to be one because of dominating closed source pro-tools. Second, I feel you're missing the point of having something that people can work with on their own to produce something that is closer to what they need while the same feature may not have real marketability. This is the only real plus I see to OSS; the ability to make mods where you need them the most. The sad fact about this is that if someone else hasn't already adopted this mod into a OSS (or closed source model for that matter) project than there probably isn't much of a call for it.
And you missed my point completely and entirely, much as a 747 in New York misses an airfield in Paris as it flies into LaGuardia.
OSS gives anyone the ability to use and experiment with production quality tools. It can be something as complex as CGI tools or viewers for Protein Database molecules. Or it can be something as simple as a CD burner. I bought a laptop the other day that included a DVD/CD burner. However, the inluded software was crippled and couldn't burn ISOs. It's such a basic functionality of a CD burner software that you'd expect the most limited commercial offering to include the feature. But it didn't. Until this stops happening there's going to be a need for proper OSS tools. And if proprietary vendors are more focused on making profit rather than functionality, then OSS already has a leg up.
OK, I'm a Linux user (geek, dork, whatever), but bias aside, there's a lot to said for Open Source and Free software. Right now many of the tools may not be as good as commercial counterparts (though many are better). But the powerful thing about OSS is that it tends to get better. Sometimes improvements are slow and dependent upon a particular developer, but more often there's rapid change. The music software right may not have all the needed features of a pro or semi-pro package, but it may be just "good enough" for a lot of folks. In a few months it becomes "good enough" for a few more. At some point it crosses a threshold where it's not only good enough but something of a standard.
Take OpenOffice for example. MS Office power users will miss some features, but the vast majority of students and home users can now use it for all their tasks.
This is completely anecdotal, unscientific... Since building out two servers a couple years ago, each with approximately 800G of drive space, I've had to replace drives on average of one every 8 weeks. In my lab there are about twenty drives across 8 machines, so that number is not too bad. Or so I thought. After replacing all my power supplies my drive failures have gone way down. The only drive I've lost recently is one in an older machine with an ancient 300W power supply.
OK, here's a shameless plug for local talent... There's lots of great music in the clubs, lounges, open mics and hundreds of other venues around your house (unless you live in Antarctica). Here's a couple videos from a local singer that was filmed in Coral Springs, FL just a couple miles from my house:
I don't mind people copying all the docs I've written.. Most are GPL anyway. But I remember one particular guy... One day he writes me and asks all sorts of questions about printing in Linux. He asks for examples, he asks me to explain how the print system works. At first I started answering him then I just point him to my online docs. I don't hear from him again. Months later I'm browsing another site and find an article about Linux printing. It sounds vaguely familiar. Sure enough, the bastard had pretty much taken my emails and the structure of my docs and submitted it for pay as his own to an online documentation site. Not a single reference to my docs, even though he cut/pasted whole sentences. Bastard.
Quality costs money, but you know what? I buy for the long term. I'd rather pay 2-3x up front for something that'll last a lifetime. I'll do that even for equipment that might be obsolete in 5 years because at least I'll know that it simply won't fail in those 5 years because it's built right.
I understand the sentiment, but I won't pay much more at this point. I turn over laptops every 18-24 months, and *for my needs* it's just not worth putting too much extra in for a better built unit. Others will of course have different needs. There are things that I miss on the cheaper units (built in keyboard light, touchpad and button mouse, decent speakers) but if the unit is $500 I'll live without.
"Buddy" programs can be effective. Have the newbie work with another employee to teach them the basics such as how to access the important intranet sites, where to rent projectors, good eating spots, how to change/reset passwords, etc.. Presentations don't seem too useful, and are probably driven more by HR's CYA policy than anything (i.e., an ethics class is mandatory so people know what they can't do).
That's closer to ideal.. In reality most people get an email. I've heard that a near one-on-one instructor/student training class is optimal.... I've also heard that there's a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. I'm still waiting for both.
The main benefit, IMHO, of online suites is the instant availability of the product. For dashing off a quick note they are perfect since you can do so within a browser. Many people have browsers running constantly. On older, whitebox, non-MS, or home-built machines it could be the only readible available suite. There's a trend too. First desktops were king. Then laptops. Now people are carrying around handhelds with more power than the desktop I used 4 years ago. Add an Internet connection and you open up a whole catalog of software that would normally not be available on a minimal system.
Some of the Ajax suites don't store information on the server. Everything is local. Not that I'd personally edit confidential files from software downloaded on the spot from the Internet, but for most tasks it's a non-issue.
So yes, I'd say that it's a good technology. Maybe not for the masses at this point but getting there.
I drink a bottle of room-temperature water at the beginning of the morning. After that it's pretty much continuous coffee until I leave for work. Before my doctor told me to lay off the coffee, I was drinking one 10-cup carafe before 8AM every morning. It was usually the light-roast breakfast blend which, contrary to many people's beliefs, seems to have more kick than the darker roast I drink towards the afternoon. Now it's just the water and one or two cups of drip brew with creamer and no sugar.
This said, mornings are not a problem for me. My slowest part of the day is immediately after lunch around 1PM. It's exceedingly difficult for me to concentrate at that time. The remedy is usually a cup or two of coffee and another bottle of water.
I really dislike the taste of soda so rarely drink it.
Many species of cod are endangered or near-endangered. A while ago some politician (don't remember who) made a statement to the effect that, "who cares about insect." Would be funny if human survival ended up being dependent on some obscure snail.
I personally would like to see a Fallout IV that picks up after Fallout II. I know nothing about game engines, but it seems that the NWN Single Player engine could be converted/re-skinned for a Fallout IV. Considering that I spent $30 on NWN and have already logged a hundred hours playing (and still not finished), then I'd be happy to pay $100 for FalloutIV.
Requiring a "balanced" view can be just as bad as being completely one-sided. For example, say that there's an issue where 95% of the poll participants agree. In order to present a balanced view containing the opposing side, a new journalist may take the majority opinion and a minority opinion. When presented as opposing sides it may give the impression that people are evenly divided. This occurs quite often with scientific, religious and economic issues. It's not a case of intentional deception, but the effect can be the same.
Absolutely correct.. I "learned" the same way -- by having to convert English to Metric for all sorts of quantities. *Never* was I asked to take a scale or ruler and measure directly. Maybe the teaching idea was that we already knew how to measure and learning conversion was better.
The only place I'd disagree is this concept of a "metric ruler". All the rulers I've seen have both scales so it's not even a matter of buying new rulers, but just using the Metric side. In other words, no excuse.
I have this dream where this guru sits in a lotus position and says, "All paths are the same." About him, his students engage in debate about the true path to enlightenment. We are focused on the guru so we hardly hear the smattering of sound bites: "Emacs all the way!" "vi, my friend." "Namaste, but SuSe is the way." "In the beginning was the command line, and so shall it be in the end." "The GUI is easier, and easier is better."
In this dream a light wells up behind the guru. He gestures to the earth, touches it, the Kernel tree grows up from that spot. He pulls a leaf from the Kernel tree, crushes it in his palm and casts the pieces to the wind. Where each bit of leaf falls, a new Distribution Tree grows. Soon there are hundreds of trees about him, innumerable as the stars in the heavens.
The students are aghast. So many distributions, so alike and so different. They scrabble around in confusion. Which is the true Way? Then light erupts from the guru. The students understand: All spring from the One Tree.
A critical fact in Al Gore's film: after compiling the results of 1,100 serious scientific papers about GW not one suggests that it is anything but man's fault. The percentage of journalistic articles suggesting that it may not be man's fault: 53%.
This is an extremely important point. From reading regular articles, many people believe that the scientific community is evenly balanced on the question of whether human activity is causing global warming.
There's a trap in journalism that can cause this. In an effort for scientifically untrained reporters to report "fairly", they may try to get both sides of a story, even if the other side is not scientifically valid. This leads to the disproportionate number that you quoted above.
That said, there are enough reports that news articles and supposedly scientific studies have been influenced by corporations that I can't blame the journalists entirely.
You can. You don't just 'drop it into a folder' in real life, either. You put it in a folder, inside a drawer, inside a filing cabinet, inside a room, inside a building, etc etc.
No, I put them on my desk.
You can. Don't ERASE the information in the file when you change it. Just cross it out with a strike-through, instead. You've got the same thing as the paper now.
No.. The point of the computer is to ease this sort of revision. With the oldest code versioning software I can do this. Apply it on the fly to arbitrary files and it would improve how we manage our documents. Rather than every application dealing with the versioning, have the OS take care of it.
Because something bad is happening. If the network disconnected and DIDN'T tell you, you'd be pissed. If you got a virus and it DIDN'T tell you, you'd be pissed. (If you get THAT many warnings, you are doing something seriously wrong, btw.) If you delete a file... Well, maybe you don't need a warning for that, since the trashcan DOES now save the doc in case you want it back.
No again.. I'm not doing anything *wrong*. I'm working at my computer doing normal stuff. When I disconnect from the wired LAN, it should resume on the wireless. The NetworkManager under Linux makes a good effort at doing this, but it's still not transparent. When a virus scan finishes it shouldn't tell me unless there's a problem. When I close a window, the app should close and if files remain unsaved then save them as a temporary doc unless I disable this.
With EASE? No it can't. Video is websites is a HUGE kludge, and only exists because so many people wanted it. Most people do not feel the need to have a 300mb video file inside a 1kb document. Text DOES flow around images... What word processor are you using? What are you looking to make a menu for? A video? Use a DVD. That's what it's for. If the videos are on the hard drive, they don't have much use for a menu. And if they're on an optical disc, DVD exists to handle that.
No, it's very easy to embed video in a web page. What most people want is hardly my concern. I want to work how I am accustomed, not now 99% of the population does. DVDs are hardly as convenient as an email, but maybe you think it is. But what you're saying is that since YOU don't want the functionality, then it shouldn't exist. It's amazing that you can't see beyond how you currently work to see how changes in workflow can be better. The computer should conform to how *I* work, not some arbitrary, half-implemented metaphor.
So you're looking for a document that contains video, and a system of links inside it so they can click them. And you want to stuff their mailbox with it? JUST USE HTML.
Wow, and to think that just a few lines above you say HTML is a horrible kludge for video.
Host it on a free website somewhere and send them a link. Their email box cannot handle a 300mb video greeting card. Or even a 30mb one. (Which would be pretty crappy in quality.) If you want 'video links', use Flash. There's a REASON Flash is so complicated, you know. It's a complicated thing to do. Any attempt to make it 'easy' would end up pathetic and useless.
Flash is hardly complicated. Maybe you should learn it before talking about something you know nothing about.
It's a shame that techno-Luddites resist change because they've never seen it before. Here's a clue -- computers are tools. They evolve. They change. What worked 10 years ago does not work today.
The reason your ideas don't exist is because they aren't practical, even though that was your reason for creating them. Technologies exist that cover the need more than adequately, and do the job well. You would like to invent needly complexity and probably break a lot of other stuff on the way.
This obviously ignorant comment that they don't exist shows just that, your ignorance. Microsoft demoed some of the versioning functionality in an early incarnation of Vista (though similar things h
Part of the problem was the whole desktop metaphor. It's slightly implemented, but just for pretty pictures. For example, when I want to save some physical document I'm working on, I either drop it into a folder or a binder. The current desktop metaphor is to navigate a menu system to save the file in a hierarchical location that's easier for computer OSes to manage. Why can't I just drag the document to a folder?
When writing a document with pen/paper I can easily pull back revisions since I just cross them out. If I organize a presentation with index cards I can easily re-arrange them. With a computer saving a file will often blow away previous revisions. With the amount of hard drive space available, everything should be version controlled unless explicitly disabled.
What's with all the warnings and popup dialogs too? In a typical session my AV software puts up a warning, the updater puts up a warning, when I connect/disconnect from the LAN I get a warning, when I close a window I get a warning, when I delete a file I get a warning. The latter is annoying too because when I delete a physical file it's just a matter of retrieving it from the trash. The OS should just save the current and do what I asked. If I need to retrieve, so be it.
Simple things that are within the capabilities of a modern PC but alien to a "real" desktop are missing. For example, why is it so difficult to embed multimedia within a word processing document (yup, HTML can do this with relative ease, but most word procs can't). Text should auto-flow around images. Video should be as easy as dropping in a link to YouTube or other video hosting sites. Ideally, menuing systems like those in DVD authoring packages should be available.
Outside of business users, people use computers for relatively few purposes: sending emails, writing some documents, keeping in touch with family/friends, browsing for entertainment and information. When I send a message to a family member it would be wonderful if they could open the letter, see the video and click on video links for other stuff.
Welcome to the real world.. I know some otherwise functional induhviduals (sic) who take what they hear on the news or TV as scientific fact. Maybe it's the problem of "simple truths". People, IMHO, like easily digestible nuggets of information. For example, the cause of the downfall of the Roman Empire are varied. There was no one reason. Yet, more than one person has claimed that it was the fault of lead pipes that lead to madness among the elite (i.e., those who could afford pluumbing) that eventually caused the downfall. It's simple, maybe contributed in some fashion, but was hardly *the* reason. There are countless things to remember in our lives and professions.
At one point, a rule-of-thumb was to allocate twice the virtual memory as you physical memory. This may or may not be a good idea. When driving a car, it may or may not be better to let it warm up before driving. It may or may not be better to "break in" a car hard when first purchased.
My point is that some celebrity can go on TV with a very limited understanding of a complex system, yet his/her explanation may be perfectly and perfectly wrong. This does not lessen the appeal of the "simple truths".
It's going to be like the episode of ST:TNG where Data finds his head.. Indiana Jones descends into a tomb. He opens a door and sees a horrible, ancient mummy. Rachel Weisz appears and says some Egyptian words, but nothing happens. Jones swings his walking stick at the mummy.. It crashes to pieces. Just then everyone realizes it was a mirror and Ford was looking at his reflection!
This sucks. Except for Doctor Who, there's nothing else on television that I enjoy. I own all the BSG DVDs and will get the latest when it's issued. Anyhoo, there are a few problems I see the writers/producers having:
1) The episodes are less balanced. I.e., they are more standalone episodes than before. IMHO, getting new viewers is very difficult if there's a lot of backstory needed to understand new episodes. For example, when X-Files was good it relied on some backstory. Regular viewers could be very interested. At some point they made it a freak-of-the-week show. Maybe this was at the direction of the marketing folks who said that they needed to appeal to non-regular viewers. Who knows. BSG seems to be heading in the freak-of-the-week direction...
2) Too much morality preaching. This is coming from someone who enjoyed watching Starbuck interview the Cylon because of the psychology war. Now it seems to be more about adding current topics to the storyline to make it, ummm, topical. Sure, science fiction always has a dose of morality, but don't beat us to death with it.
3) Not enough explosions. Seriously. My favorite movie is Apocalypse Now. I can appreciate the deep mind-fuck and the near-perfect understanding of Conrad's story, but it had lots of guns too. BSG is getting way too touchy-feely to appeal to the 25-45 male demographic.
4) Cylons are too human. No mystery, no intrigue. They're just human now and that makes it really boring. I.e., if it looks like a duck and talks like a duck, call it a duck. It was interesting that they could not die, but now they can, so the morality question of, "Does mortality make us human" just blows away. They're too human and too weak as a result. That's why the Borg was so terrifying at first. Then they became human and that just made them weak.
And for God's sake, please don't do any time travel or evil twin episodes..
First thing, storing passwords is a bad idea but sometimes cannot be avoided. There are a few things that can be done. None can really prevent someone from dumping the memory contents because, unless you use more sophisticated client/server validation (based on IP, MAC, host auth, etc.), someone with the right privileges can core dump the system or strace the process. Yes, if someone has access to strace a process you probably have bigger issues, but it's conceivable in a DMZ environment where a particular host is compromised.
1) With most implementations of crypt() you can specify a salt value. This salt can be hardcoded or based on some property of a secondary file. For example, store the hash in a config file, but use the MD5SUM of another file as the salt. This prevents someone from just running the script/binary elsewhere and extracting your passwords.
2) Use a proxy mechanism that you can control. I.e., you may not be able to modify the server side, but you could setup a secondary server with restricted privileges that acts as a gateway to the database. Instead of the DB being accessible from a DMZ, the accessible machine authenticates against the proxy. You can set up many times of authentication on the proxy.
3) When possible, keep the stored password in memory only as long as is necessary to build the connection. I.e., clear the memory immediately after auth to prevent a dump from showing the plaintext of the password.
I've seen the exact same behavior. In a line of cars, one person will tap their brakes and a cascade of braking occurs. However, I live in Florida. I've driven in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Floridians by far are the worst drivers. If you allow more than a car length in front of you then some moron on a cell phone will swerve into it and more often than not, slam on their brakes because they're too close to the person in front. I'd love to take a poll to see which state has the worst drivers; my prediction is Florida by a landslide.
Slashdot Mirror
However for audio the situation is a lot different I think. There are many remarkable open source audio software projects that I don't want to discount in any way, but on the other hand I'm also a working as a composer for a living in film, TV and video games both in Hollywood and in my native Finland, and I can pretty much say that in 99% of the cases the professional composers are sequencing with Logic Pro (OS X), Digital Performer (OS X), Pro Tools (OS X + Windows), Cubase (OS X + Windows) or Sonar (Windows). There's lots of other cool apps like Live etc., but I've yet to meet anyone who would use them only, and I can't really see how that would be efficient unless you're only working with loops etc.
Certainly -- no argument there. There are some very simple audio utilities on Linux, but having just purchased a low-end consumer sound program (Cakewalk Music Creator 3), I can see that the other OSS tools I've tried are not *yet* competitors (E.g., Ardour, Audacity, the JACK and ALSA plugins in some packages). At your level the OSS tools obviously will not work.
But that's the gist of my point. I am not a sound/creative professional as you are. The most I'll need is something to maybe clean up some sound, normalize a few tracks, etc.. Maybe at some point synchronize it to the time signal that's currently unused in my video editing software. If an OSS tool does that then good for me.
It's also, I think, good for the high end from both vendor and consumer perspectives. For the consumer it "floats the boat". I.e., the whole software base for the niche gets better because of increased competition on the low end. The low end software must make their product attractive versus the free/oss versions. They do this by adding features. At some point, the feature set of the low-end consumer software starts rivaling the mid-end, which in turns starts rivaling the high-end. Even if the vendors do not compete on price they will need to make the product more attractive either by services, free updates, more plugins, more samples, etc.. This is markedly apparent in the video editing field as even the low-end bundled packages are doing things that once cost in the hundreds of dollars.
The same can easily be said of closed source. Or are you trying to tell me that Adobe Photoshop has always remained the same and that this is the side effect of closed source?
Except for an unrelated point about OpenOffice being "good enough", I never implied that closed source, proprietary software is not improving. Are you trying to tell me that Canada is evil? It makes as much relevance as your post. The obvious difference is that OSS can be downloaded and used without cost. Of course, OSS helps drive the proprietary development too. After all, it's very difficult to compete with "free". MS IE stagnated for years until other products innovated forcing MS to improve their product.
Standards are easy. Anyone can write up a standard. It's a question of the overall validity of this standard in any particular market that determines if the standard applies.
So, aside from Linux tell me where this accepted standard in the world of open source vs. closed source exists?
Again, I didn't impugn closed source but I guess you need something to argue about. Apache is something of a standard. MySQL is something of a standard. Look at the software space and you'll see thousands of products that assume apache, or perl, or gcc, or countless other products.
Also, I feel where you think the strength of open source exists is not the real strength at all. For one, the values you're putting on OSS as a strength really hasn't appeared to be one because of dominating closed source pro-tools. Second, I feel you're missing the point of having something that people can work with on their own to produce something that is closer to what they need while the same feature may not have real marketability. This is the only real plus I see to OSS; the ability to make mods where you need them the most. The sad fact about this is that if someone else hasn't already adopted this mod into a OSS (or closed source model for that matter) project than there probably isn't much of a call for it.
And you missed my point completely and entirely, much as a 747 in New York misses an airfield in Paris as it flies into LaGuardia.
OSS gives anyone the ability to use and experiment with production quality tools. It can be something as complex as CGI tools or viewers for Protein Database molecules. Or it can be something as simple as a CD burner. I bought a laptop the other day that included a DVD/CD burner. However, the inluded software was crippled and couldn't burn ISOs. It's such a basic functionality of a CD burner software that you'd expect the most limited commercial offering to include the feature. But it didn't. Until this stops happening there's going to be a need for proper OSS tools. And if proprietary vendors are more focused on making profit rather than functionality, then OSS already has a leg up.
OK, I'm a Linux user (geek, dork, whatever), but bias aside, there's a lot to said for Open Source and Free software. Right now many of the tools may not be as good as commercial counterparts (though many are better). But the powerful thing about OSS is that it tends to get better. Sometimes improvements are slow and dependent upon a particular developer, but more often there's rapid change. The music software right may not have all the needed features of a pro or semi-pro package, but it may be just "good enough" for a lot of folks. In a few months it becomes "good enough" for a few more. At some point it crosses a threshold where it's not only good enough but something of a standard.
Take OpenOffice for example. MS Office power users will miss some features, but the vast majority of students and home users can now use it for all their tasks.
This is completely anecdotal, unscientific... Since building out two servers a couple years ago, each with approximately 800G of drive space, I've had to replace drives on average of one every 8 weeks. In my lab there are about twenty drives across 8 machines, so that number is not too bad. Or so I thought. After replacing all my power supplies my drive failures have gone way down. The only drive I've lost recently is one in an older machine with an ancient 300W power supply.
OK, here's a shameless plug for local talent... There's lots of great music in the clubs, lounges, open mics and hundreds of other venues around your house (unless you live in Antarctica). Here's a couple videos from a local singer that was filmed in Coral Springs, FL just a couple miles from my house:
Moving On
Original
I don't mind them copying my docs and putting them up on their site with proper credit. I do mind people taking my words and claiming credit for them.
I don't mind people copying all the docs I've written.. Most are GPL anyway. But I remember one particular guy... One day he writes me and asks all sorts of questions about printing in Linux. He asks for examples, he asks me to explain how the print system works. At first I started answering him then I just point him to my online docs. I don't hear from him again. Months later I'm browsing another site and find an article about Linux printing. It sounds vaguely familiar. Sure enough, the bastard had pretty much taken my emails and the structure of my docs and submitted it for pay as his own to an online documentation site. Not a single reference to my docs, even though he cut/pasted whole sentences. Bastard.
Quality costs money, but you know what? I buy for the long term. I'd rather pay 2-3x up front for something that'll last a lifetime. I'll do that even for equipment that might be obsolete in 5 years because at least I'll know that it simply won't fail in those 5 years because it's built right.
I understand the sentiment, but I won't pay much more at this point. I turn over laptops every 18-24 months, and *for my needs* it's just not worth putting too much extra in for a better built unit. Others will of course have different needs. There are things that I miss on the cheaper units (built in keyboard light, touchpad and button mouse, decent speakers) but if the unit is $500 I'll live without.
"Buddy" programs can be effective. Have the newbie work with another employee to teach them the basics such as how to access the important intranet sites, where to rent projectors, good eating spots, how to change/reset passwords, etc.. Presentations don't seem too useful, and are probably driven more by HR's CYA policy than anything (i.e., an ethics class is mandatory so people know what they can't do).
That's closer to ideal.. In reality most people get an email. I've heard that a near one-on-one instructor/student training class is optimal.... I've also heard that there's a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. I'm still waiting for both.
Ahh... Didn't notice that distinction.
The main benefit, IMHO, of online suites is the instant availability of the product. For dashing off a quick note they are perfect since you can do so within a browser. Many people have browsers running constantly. On older, whitebox, non-MS, or home-built machines it could be the only readible available suite. There's a trend too. First desktops were king. Then laptops. Now people are carrying around handhelds with more power than the desktop I used 4 years ago. Add an Internet connection and you open up a whole catalog of software that would normally not be available on a minimal system.
Some of the Ajax suites don't store information on the server. Everything is local. Not that I'd personally edit confidential files from software downloaded on the spot from the Internet, but for most tasks it's a non-issue.
So yes, I'd say that it's a good technology. Maybe not for the masses at this point but getting there.
I drink a bottle of room-temperature water at the beginning of the morning. After that it's pretty much continuous coffee until I leave for work. Before my doctor told me to lay off the coffee, I was drinking one 10-cup carafe before 8AM every morning. It was usually the light-roast breakfast blend which, contrary to many people's beliefs, seems to have more kick than the darker roast I drink towards the afternoon. Now it's just the water and one or two cups of drip brew with creamer and no sugar.
This said, mornings are not a problem for me. My slowest part of the day is immediately after lunch around 1PM. It's exceedingly difficult for me to concentrate at that time. The remedy is usually a cup or two of coffee and another bottle of water.
I really dislike the taste of soda so rarely drink it.
And a cod is not an insect, it's a fish.
Many species of cod are endangered or near-endangered. A while ago some politician (don't remember who) made a statement to the effect that, "who cares about insect." Would be funny if human survival ended up being dependent on some obscure snail.
I personally would like to see a Fallout IV that picks up after Fallout II. I know nothing about game engines, but it seems that the NWN Single Player engine could be converted/re-skinned for a Fallout IV. Considering that I spent $30 on NWN and have already logged a hundred hours playing (and still not finished), then I'd be happy to pay $100 for FalloutIV.
Requiring a "balanced" view can be just as bad as being completely one-sided. For example, say that there's an issue where 95% of the poll participants agree. In order to present a balanced view containing the opposing side, a new journalist may take the majority opinion and a minority opinion. When presented as opposing sides it may give the impression that people are evenly divided. This occurs quite often with scientific, religious and economic issues. It's not a case of intentional deception, but the effect can be the same.
Absolutely correct.. I "learned" the same way -- by having to convert English to Metric for all sorts of quantities. *Never* was I asked to take a scale or ruler and measure directly. Maybe the teaching idea was that we already knew how to measure and learning conversion was better.
The only place I'd disagree is this concept of a "metric ruler". All the rulers I've seen have both scales so it's not even a matter of buying new rulers, but just using the Metric side. In other words, no excuse.
I have this dream where this guru sits in a lotus position and says, "All paths are the same." About him, his students engage in debate about the true path to enlightenment. We are focused on the guru so we hardly hear the smattering of sound bites: "Emacs all the way!" "vi, my friend." "Namaste, but SuSe is the way." "In the beginning was the command line, and so shall it be in the end." "The GUI is easier, and easier is better."
In this dream a light wells up behind the guru. He gestures to the earth, touches it, the Kernel tree grows up from that spot. He pulls a leaf from the Kernel tree, crushes it in his palm and casts the pieces to the wind. Where each bit of leaf falls, a new Distribution Tree grows. Soon there are hundreds of trees about him, innumerable as the stars in the heavens.
The students are aghast. So many distributions, so alike and so different. They scrabble around in confusion. Which is the true Way? Then light erupts from the guru. The students understand: All spring from the One Tree.
Aum.
(Yeah, too much Christmas eggnog for me.)
A critical fact in Al Gore's film: after compiling the results of 1,100 serious scientific papers about GW not one suggests that it is anything but man's fault. The percentage of journalistic articles suggesting that it may not be man's fault: 53%.
This is an extremely important point. From reading regular articles, many people believe that the scientific community is evenly balanced on the question of whether human activity is causing global warming.
There's a trap in journalism that can cause this. In an effort for scientifically untrained reporters to report "fairly", they may try to get both sides of a story, even if the other side is not scientifically valid. This leads to the disproportionate number that you quoted above.
That said, there are enough reports that news articles and supposedly scientific studies have been influenced by corporations that I can't blame the journalists entirely.
You can. You don't just 'drop it into a folder' in real life, either. You put it in a folder, inside a drawer, inside a filing cabinet, inside a room, inside a building, etc etc.
No, I put them on my desk.
You can. Don't ERASE the information in the file when you change it. Just cross it out with a strike-through, instead. You've got the same thing as the paper now.
No.. The point of the computer is to ease this sort of revision. With the oldest code versioning software I can do this. Apply it on the fly to arbitrary files and it would improve how we manage our documents. Rather than every application dealing with the versioning, have the OS take care of it.
Because something bad is happening. If the network disconnected and DIDN'T tell you, you'd be pissed. If you got a virus and it DIDN'T tell you, you'd be pissed. (If you get THAT many warnings, you are doing something seriously wrong, btw.) If you delete a file... Well, maybe you don't need a warning for that, since the trashcan DOES now save the doc in case you want it back.
No again.. I'm not doing anything *wrong*. I'm working at my computer doing normal stuff. When I disconnect from the wired LAN, it should resume on the wireless. The NetworkManager under Linux makes a good effort at doing this, but it's still not transparent. When a virus scan finishes it shouldn't tell me unless there's a problem. When I close a window, the app should close and if files remain unsaved then save them as a temporary doc unless I disable this.
With EASE? No it can't. Video is websites is a HUGE kludge, and only exists because so many people wanted it. Most people do not feel the need to have a 300mb video file inside a 1kb document. Text DOES flow around images... What word processor are you using? What are you looking to make a menu for? A video? Use a DVD. That's what it's for. If the videos are on the hard drive, they don't have much use for a menu. And if they're on an optical disc, DVD exists to handle that.
No, it's very easy to embed video in a web page. What most people want is hardly my concern. I want to work how I am accustomed, not now 99% of the population does. DVDs are hardly as convenient as an email, but maybe you think it is. But what you're saying is that since YOU don't want the functionality, then it shouldn't exist. It's amazing that you can't see beyond how you currently work to see how changes in workflow can be better. The computer should conform to how *I* work, not some arbitrary, half-implemented metaphor.
So you're looking for a document that contains video, and a system of links inside it so they can click them. And you want to stuff their mailbox with it? JUST USE HTML.
Wow, and to think that just a few lines above you say HTML is a horrible kludge for video.
Host it on a free website somewhere and send them a link. Their email box cannot handle a 300mb video greeting card. Or even a 30mb one. (Which would be pretty crappy in quality.) If you want 'video links', use Flash. There's a REASON Flash is so complicated, you know. It's a complicated thing to do. Any attempt to make it 'easy' would end up pathetic and useless.
Flash is hardly complicated. Maybe you should learn it before talking about something you know nothing about.
It's a shame that techno-Luddites resist change because they've never seen it before. Here's a clue -- computers are tools. They evolve. They change. What worked 10 years ago does not work today.
The reason your ideas don't exist is because they aren't practical, even though that was your reason for creating them. Technologies exist that cover the need more than adequately, and do the job well. You would like to invent needly complexity and probably break a lot of other stuff on the way.
This obviously ignorant comment that they don't exist shows just that, your ignorance. Microsoft demoed some of the versioning functionality in an early incarnation of Vista (though similar things h
Part of the problem was the whole desktop metaphor. It's slightly implemented, but just for pretty pictures. For example, when I want to save some physical document I'm working on, I either drop it into a folder or a binder. The current desktop metaphor is to navigate a menu system to save the file in a hierarchical location that's easier for computer OSes to manage. Why can't I just drag the document to a folder?
When writing a document with pen/paper I can easily pull back revisions since I just cross them out. If I organize a presentation with index cards I can easily re-arrange them. With a computer saving a file will often blow away previous revisions. With the amount of hard drive space available, everything should be version controlled unless explicitly disabled.
What's with all the warnings and popup dialogs too? In a typical session my AV software puts up a warning, the updater puts up a warning, when I connect/disconnect from the LAN I get a warning, when I close a window I get a warning, when I delete a file I get a warning. The latter is annoying too because when I delete a physical file it's just a matter of retrieving it from the trash. The OS should just save the current and do what I asked. If I need to retrieve, so be it.
Simple things that are within the capabilities of a modern PC but alien to a "real" desktop are missing. For example, why is it so difficult to embed multimedia within a word processing document (yup, HTML can do this with relative ease, but most word procs can't). Text should auto-flow around images. Video should be as easy as dropping in a link to YouTube or other video hosting sites. Ideally, menuing systems like those in DVD authoring packages should be available.
Outside of business users, people use computers for relatively few purposes: sending emails, writing some documents, keeping in touch with family/friends, browsing for entertainment and information. When I send a message to a family member it would be wonderful if they could open the letter, see the video and click on video links for other stuff.
This is at least what I would like...
Welcome to the real world.. I know some otherwise functional induhviduals (sic) who take what they hear on the news or TV as scientific fact. Maybe it's the problem of "simple truths". People, IMHO, like easily digestible nuggets of information. For example, the cause of the downfall of the Roman Empire are varied. There was no one reason. Yet, more than one person has claimed that it was the fault of lead pipes that lead to madness among the elite (i.e., those who could afford pluumbing) that eventually caused the downfall. It's simple, maybe contributed in some fashion, but was hardly *the* reason. There are countless things to remember in our lives and professions.
At one point, a rule-of-thumb was to allocate twice the virtual memory as you physical memory. This may or may not be a good idea. When driving a car, it may or may not be better to let it warm up before driving. It may or may not be better to "break in" a car hard when first purchased.
My point is that some celebrity can go on TV with a very limited understanding of a complex system, yet his/her explanation may be perfectly and perfectly wrong. This does not lessen the appeal of the "simple truths".
It's going to be like the episode of ST:TNG where Data finds his head.. Indiana Jones descends into a tomb. He opens a door and sees a horrible, ancient mummy. Rachel Weisz appears and says some Egyptian words, but nothing happens. Jones swings his walking stick at the mummy.. It crashes to pieces. Just then everyone realizes it was a mirror and Ford was looking at his reflection!
This sucks. Except for Doctor Who, there's nothing else on television that I enjoy. I own all the BSG DVDs and will get the latest when it's issued. Anyhoo, there are a few problems I see the writers/producers having:
1) The episodes are less balanced. I.e., they are more standalone episodes than before. IMHO, getting new viewers is very difficult if there's a lot of backstory needed to understand new episodes. For example, when X-Files was good it relied on some backstory. Regular viewers could be very interested. At some point they made it a freak-of-the-week show. Maybe this was at the direction of the marketing folks who said that they needed to appeal to non-regular viewers. Who knows. BSG seems to be heading in the freak-of-the-week direction...
2) Too much morality preaching. This is coming from someone who enjoyed watching Starbuck interview the Cylon because of the psychology war. Now it seems to be more about adding current topics to the storyline to make it, ummm, topical. Sure, science fiction always has a dose of morality, but don't beat us to death with it.
3) Not enough explosions. Seriously. My favorite movie is Apocalypse Now. I can appreciate the deep mind-fuck and the near-perfect understanding of Conrad's story, but it had lots of guns too. BSG is getting way too touchy-feely to appeal to the 25-45 male demographic.
4) Cylons are too human. No mystery, no intrigue. They're just human now and that makes it really boring. I.e., if it looks like a duck and talks like a duck, call it a duck. It was interesting that they could not die, but now they can, so the morality question of, "Does mortality make us human" just blows away. They're too human and too weak as a result. That's why the Borg was so terrifying at first. Then they became human and that just made them weak.
And for God's sake, please don't do any time travel or evil twin episodes..
First thing, storing passwords is a bad idea but sometimes cannot be avoided. There are a few things that can be done. None can really prevent someone from dumping the memory contents because, unless you use more sophisticated client/server validation (based on IP, MAC, host auth, etc.), someone with the right privileges can core dump the system or strace the process. Yes, if someone has access to strace a process you probably have bigger issues, but it's conceivable in a DMZ environment where a particular host is compromised.
1) With most implementations of crypt() you can specify a salt value. This salt can be hardcoded or based on some property of a secondary file. For example, store the hash in a config file, but use the MD5SUM of another file as the salt. This prevents someone from just running the script/binary elsewhere and extracting your passwords.
2) Use a proxy mechanism that you can control. I.e., you may not be able to modify the server side, but you could setup a secondary server with restricted privileges that acts as a gateway to the database. Instead of the DB being accessible from a DMZ, the accessible machine authenticates against the proxy. You can set up many times of authentication on the proxy.
3) When possible, keep the stored password in memory only as long as is necessary to build the connection. I.e., clear the memory immediately after auth to prevent a dump from showing the plaintext of the password.
I've seen the exact same behavior. In a line of cars, one person will tap their brakes and a cascade of braking occurs. However, I live in Florida. I've driven in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Floridians by far are the worst drivers. If you allow more than a car length in front of you then some moron on a cell phone will swerve into it and more often than not, slam on their brakes because they're too close to the person in front. I'd love to take a poll to see which state has the worst drivers; my prediction is Florida by a landslide.