I use my cable modem ($39/mo) and my T-Mobile HotSpot account ($29/mo) so that I can stay connected to the Internet as much as possible for this very reason with my Dell Inspiron 5150 ($!) that is currently back home for the third time since August 2003 with Michael Dell in the UT dorm he recently bought to house the Hindi tech support workers to make good on his promise to bring the jobs back to the US, but I digress, and my therefore necessary home computers ($!, $!) to find printers that will work with my new Debian-based systems since my Lexmark z55 ($80) doesn't -- I bought an HP deskjet 5150 ($69; thankfully not made by Dell) -- and to hunt eBay for Toshiba Mangnia server appliances (RedHat 7.3, basically and great for firewalls and WiFi Access points) that used to retail for $1200+ but can be had for $200 (last year) brand new; great boxes. Of course, being on the Internet as much as I am and running Windows as much as I *did* I spent a lot of money on anti-virus software, which is why I made the move to the Magnias and Linux and needed the new printer, etc.
What did I learn in my search for the Internet Bargain?I found the holy grail, or, grissle: Dumpster Diving.
Yes. A couple of years and thousands of dollars and untold hours later and I discover that all along I should have been digging around in the alley dumpster.
That's it. I've had enough of this crap. Good bye. /quit
+++AT0h
NO CARRIER
I've had to set up a couple new computers for various purposes over the past couple days, so this is fresh to me. But I don't burn a CD; I Google or go direct to the web page to get the latest/greatest; if applicable, I'll put the downloaded copy on a file server locally.
My Products from Click 'N Run (their central server remembers what I've downloaded and allows me to set these up on my new computer with one click. A true improvement to apt-get, IMHO.
Home Game Machine, Windows 98SE
Windows Update (to IE6sp1, DirectX9, then I unplug it forever from the Internet)
Learning Company Kindergarten
Thomas the Tank Engine
Tonka Fire & Rescue
Tonka...
Reader Rabbit
Clifford the Big Red Dog
Put-Put
Blues Clues
Quake (kidding)
(Yes, this is for my kids, all under 5 years of age now)
Dev Laptop, iBook G4
9 Updates to stock 10.3.3
Mozilla
X11 for Apple (from CD)
MySQL
XCode
FINK!!!
too many things to name, 'cause eventually, at the end of the day, I don't like UNIX, I like GNU versions of UNIX tools.
Secret ballot voting is a novel right. Electronic voting gets you one step closer to "aggregating" voting records in zip codes and then "special case" subpoenas of your voting record. Someday in addition to GMail, Google will provide GVote, ad words tied to your voting record cross-pollenated with your shopping history on Froogle.google.com.
Some things shouldn't be electronic. Cash, for instance. Votes. Airplane tickets^W^W^Wooops.
During the last election, the one after we elected the doing-better-than-anticipated Arnold Schwartzanegger (I can't spell) Governor, I voted in Rancho Santa Margarita and our polling location used electronic voting machines. Exiting the booth one of the 4 or 5 volunteers asked if I liked the new machines, clearly expecting a hearty "Hell yeah". Since no one else was in the polling area at the time I stopped and told them the truth: I did not and I was worried about my vote, other's votes and the potential for loss or after the vote manipulation, present company excepted. They were shocked and the leader asked me to please explain. I gladly told them that
the user interface was different than the punch cards we'd used for so long; that meant confusion, especially since there was no way to "train" on the new equipment before casting the actual vote(!),
there was no physical record of the vote
being that there was no physical record changing the vote count would be simple.
there was no "receipt" showing me my vote so I knew I voted correctly.
I did not get into the hacking issues, since these were not the brightest people; which was another problem in itself. They responded that they did indeed have a record of each vote -- on a central machine controlled by a lady who had a running tally of votes and could print a vote audit trail for each machine. But each machine depended on that central one to hold its votes and there was no corroborrating (I can't spell) record from each machine. I asked what would happen if the central computer failed. I don't rememeber the precise details but it was clear that there was one backup and if it was also lost, all was lost. What is a recount? Re-print the vote total you just printed. There is no way to recount the counted votes. They thought this was a feature ("no need to recount") instead of a flaw ("no way to recount").
Then I told them I was responsible for databases. At different times I have been responsible for hundreds of thousands of credit card settlements daily and explained how our failsafe measures failed to the extent a days worth of customers (say, half a million US dollars, without including AMEX) were doubled and, due to an API error, the fix resulted in a triple billing. Wheee. Our systems had much more checks and balances, backups and audit trails than there silly voting system and yet one days transactions went wildly wrong (we somehow avoided the news, though our problem involved the same processor as Walmart's in their recent fiasco). How would they retract double/triple counted votes? Replace lost votes?
The good people at my polling place had received the warm fuzzies from the people promoting inaccountable electronic voting; they didn't like hearing my input. But why would we treat our money as more precious than the foundation of our republican democracy?
On Friday the last day of the MySQL Users' Convention (not be be confused with the previous MySQL User's Conventions held in Monty's home, but I digress...) I walked across the street to the former FAO Schwartz-themed shopping mall and was mauled by a couple of guys touring on Segways amidst pedestrian traffic. Some kind of promotion company allowed people to ride a Segway (followed closely by a man riding a smaller, easier to manuver scooter, which is what I would have chosen, too, funnily enough) at tourists (Orlandoan's hate tourists). These guys were whooping it up about how drunk they were, barely avoiding the properly behaved British tourists all about.
That's when I decided that the Segway really would require cities to be redesigned -- PRIOR to their mass adoptoin -- which has about as much chance as Darl McBride winning the Linus Torvalds Medal of Freedom.
You think that's something to have a recording from 1971? I've got hours and hours of tape from a group of guys in 1963 through 1967; it doesn't just have their voices but they sing, too! Songs about advice with girls (She Loves Me, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Baby You Can Drive My Car, Hey, Jude), recreational drugs (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Strawberry Fields), politics (everything else, basically). And my aged dad, now a granddad himself, has tapes and "LPs" (larger than a CD but with better quality audio; infinite bits, ya know) of dudes from the 1940s and 1950s! Whoo!
I resigned the leadership of Rancho Santa Margarita LUG with the news that Linux was being used to power parking meters. Power to the people! Down with repression!
Yes, I am completely mocking his heartfelt position as being nearly equivelent to my pretended protest.
There was a big one heading in to Seattle back in '98
Was? It's about 50 feet north of the Pierce/King county line, visible from I-5
Sorry, I was only up that direction for a short time -- in 1998 I moved to Bellingham to run a radio station with some friends for about 8 months. I'm back in Sunny Southern California, thank-you-very-much.:) -- so I used the "was" to hedge my information in case a gust of sanity hit the area and knocked the thing down.
Digital BillBoards. Running Windows. Why else would they be called BillBoards, anyway?
But they're not new. There was a big one heading in to Seattle back in '98. And in Vegas I saw the digital marquee at the convention center with the Win2k Login screen saver bouncing around it. Really sad.
Now in addition to gloating over the demise of SCOX (and panicing over temporary fluctuations upward in the same) I can add ClariaGator to the list of companies standing for things I find reprehensible.
I just hope I don't have to look too closely at too many companies, 'cause I don't want a really long list...
Forget about things there is no future in -- unemployment ends and severance runs out. The best you can do is maintain a good reference, which most employers will not allow today (just start/end employment dates and salary). Do your duty to your employer and leave.
Instead concentrate on the future: you next job but also your next career. Try to figure out why your last position could be replaced by someone who doesn't necessarily grasp the intracacies of the society for whom he (usually) now works. Could it be that trade school certificate with no education in humanities, business, economics, physics, literature, language...you know, things commonly found in a broad-based university education? Could it be that you don't have a grasp of the intracacies of the society you *used to* work in works?
In the mid-90's I had the opportunity to volunteer with freshmen at junior colleges. Many times the discussion of whether to suffer through the long years of university or take the relatively short (and easy) trek through tech school -- with the advantage of have a job right out of school -- came up. My response then was the same it is now: tech schools train you how to use a tool; universities offer the chance to learn to think. While you won't have a job right out of school, you won't be loosing a job with no where to go when the tools change; and in technology the tools change!
How can you have faith in an education promoted to people who have the time and inclination to watch Day-Time Television wherein they are told they, too, can have a High Paying Job right out of school! Amazing! You can take DTTv'ers and make them MCSE's in two years and they can earn "Big Bucks"...uh, huh. Overinflated salaries earned by minimally skilled inexperienced workers; no wonder companies are dealing with time shifts, language barriers, cultural disconnects -- they were already having to put up with slightly retouched Jerry Springer regulars!
Instead, round out your development with a dash of human life experience. It is amazing how much more you can do with technological tools if you have experience doing that thing first without the technology. Look it -- you can learn all about Gimp but unless you have talent you're still not an artist. Teach an artist how to use digital tools...then you're in for some fun. Say, Maya's been available for how many years now to whosoever wants to grab it? How many tech grads have produced 1/5th what an experienced filmographer has with the same tool, even if the arist began not knowing how to hold the mouse when she began?
Think about it. Learn how to do something, then learn how to do it better with technology. Now, go do the right thing.
Weird. There was a $16xx P4 3.0GHz with an ok LCD monitor next to a Sony, HP and a eMachine. Comes with MS Office tools but only Word and MS Works (icky).
I went into a Gateway store once, in 1999 iirc, looking for a cable for my 1997 Gateway2000 P5/200MMX. Ha! What a mistake! There's no parts just sample machines and sales people offering to help you fill out a credit app.
So, feeling dumb for thinking I could get parts for my Gateway (how stupid could I be?) I pretended REALLY to be interested in a new laptop:
"Oh, forget the cable, I was really looking for a laptop like that one, can I see? Oooh. Nice. Ah. Color? Neat. Hmmm. Say I could use something like that -- say how's the screen in bright light, I notice that it's rather dark in here."
It's great -- how do you spell your mother's maiden name?
"Could we remove it from the shackle for a minute and take it near the window to get an idea?"
Sorry, we're not allowed to do that -- its against our security policy. Do you rent or own?
"No, no, I don't want to take it OUTSIDE, just over near the, er, tinted *sigh* window to get an idea how...
"Will you want a printer with your purchase?"
What we had there was a failure to communicate.
So, good bye Gateway Stores -- you sucked and we're better off without you.
Gates is simply trying to justify the high cost of Windows in an age of $299 computers. This has been one proof of the detrimental effect of MS' monopoly power on the computer market -- that is, if not for MSFT's monopoly Windows would cost $29, not $299 (or whatever). So, to counter this obvious observation he has to argue that hardware, which cannot be electronically "copied" infinitely but must be manufactured in each iteration, is headed towards "zero" and software, which once written can be duplicated and distributed with almost no added expense, is stable in terms of price.
Also worth noting MS, a software company, has been trying to sell its XBox for what many believe is less than the cost of manufacturing in order to boost sales of its software games. He's probably also trying to deflect investor/analyst criticism for lowering the retail price of the XBox to $150.
Bill has so little credibility its amazing MSFT lets him talk in public.
CLO's exist currently, but they are mainly responsible for licensing of one's own patents and technology to others or complying with gov't license restrictions on core business activities. I saw those, too, as I was writing my post and didn't refer to them b/c they were different in nature and function. I kept the name "CLO", though, b/c my description was sufficient to diffrientiate my meaning.
OOo is good. Good enough that I use it myself and install it on executives' PCs instead of MS Office w/ PowerPoint. It isn't as polished as MS Office; this is true. But it isn't "finished" yet, either.
Anyway, the real killer feature of OOo is lack of concerns over license compliance (for users, I mean, not developers; but that's an interesting distinction to need to make considering that license compliance with MS Office unambiguously refers to end-users). In a reasonably sizeable corporate office software license compliance is enough of a concern to have created a burgeoning market for compliance tracking and auditing tools.
In fact, I believe you'll soon have a new executive level CxO designation: CLO -- Chief Licensing Officer. This person's job is to oversee the department in charge not of installation, acquisition, maintenance, training, selection of software but merely of adhering to license terms. The impetus will be to avoid draconian (or has it progressed to Machevellian yet?) BSA audits carried out by warrant-holding sherrifs. Think I'm kidding?
With Open Source there are many benefits. One that cannot be denied is the total elimination of license management and compliance. This is true on both sides of the software equation -- producers and users. Imagine how much better MS Office would be if MSFT didn't have its brightest minds inventing ways to stop the software from working (XP Activation being only the latest incarnation; now you know the great advantage OOo has over MS Office -- it doesn't have to delay waiting for the Activation team to finish its work.) Anyone who's had to track licenses for a large installation knows the headache on the user side.
Don't forget to add the potential for fines and/or prison as well as the overhead needed to maintain license compliance records to avoid them into the TCO equation.
Chris Schlager, vice president of research and development for SUSE, thinks the differences between KDE and Gnome developers have been overstated. Apparently he's not a regular/. reader.
He did say those differences were overstated, i.e., stated over and over and over -- so he sounds like a/. regular to me.
That, or he is a reader like CmdrTaco loves: reads every story but ignores the comments.
Hilarious. Now he'll need to sue NBC 4 and AP for making an even bigger fool out of him than the APPROPRIATE link to his, apparent, disciplinary record.
What are the chances and do/. readers think this will ever happen?
What are the chances/. readers care if this happens?
It would be like AOL acquiring CompuServe. Oh, yeah, they did -- but only after CompuServe was becoming quickly irrelevant. MSN is popular because of MS' dominance on the desktop and their inclusion of access to MSN properties in many places on it. AOL is an embarrassment to Wall Street investors and "new media" business gurus who thought AOL==Internet at some level and thought it was more influential than TimeWarner which it bought in a bubble-priced stock swap days (ok, weeks) before the March 2000 collapse.
If MSN bought AOL most people would yawn. What would it mean to non-AOL/MSN subscribers? Nothing.
Re:Talk about a weird week.
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
Because this is Slashdot and he already posted a response.
Slashdot Mirror
What did I learn in my search for the Internet Bargain?I found the holy grail, or, grissle: Dumpster Diving.
Yes. A couple of years and thousands of dollars and untold hours later and I discover that all along I should have been digging around in the alley dumpster.
That's it. I've had enough of this crap. Good bye.
/quit
+++AT0h
NO CARRIER
Secret ballot voting is a novel right. Electronic voting gets you one step closer to "aggregating" voting records in zip codes and then "special case" subpoenas of your voting record. Someday in addition to GMail, Google will provide GVote, ad words tied to your voting record cross-pollenated with your shopping history on Froogle.google.com. Some things shouldn't be electronic. Cash, for instance. Votes. Airplane tickets^W^W^Wooops.
- the user interface was different than the punch cards we'd used for so long; that meant confusion, especially since there was no way to "train" on the new equipment before casting the actual vote(!),
- there was no physical record of the vote
- being that there was no physical record changing the vote count would be simple.
- there was no "receipt" showing me my vote so I knew I voted correctly.
I did not get into the hacking issues, since these were not the brightest people; which was another problem in itself. They responded that they did indeed have a record of each vote -- on a central machine controlled by a lady who had a running tally of votes and could print a vote audit trail for each machine. But each machine depended on that central one to hold its votes and there was no corroborrating (I can't spell) record from each machine. I asked what would happen if the central computer failed. I don't rememeber the precise details but it was clear that there was one backup and if it was also lost, all was lost. What is a recount? Re-print the vote total you just printed. There is no way to recount the counted votes. They thought this was a feature ("no need to recount") instead of a flaw ("no way to recount").Then I told them I was responsible for databases. At different times I have been responsible for hundreds of thousands of credit card settlements daily and explained how our failsafe measures failed to the extent a days worth of customers (say, half a million US dollars, without including AMEX) were doubled and, due to an API error, the fix resulted in a triple billing. Wheee. Our systems had much more checks and balances, backups and audit trails than there silly voting system and yet one days transactions went wildly wrong (we somehow avoided the news, though our problem involved the same processor as Walmart's in their recent fiasco). How would they retract double/triple counted votes? Replace lost votes?
The good people at my polling place had received the warm fuzzies from the people promoting inaccountable electronic voting; they didn't like hearing my input. But why would we treat our money as more precious than the foundation of our republican democracy?
On Friday the last day of the MySQL Users' Convention (not be be confused with the previous MySQL User's Conventions held in Monty's home, but I digress...) I walked across the street to the former FAO Schwartz-themed shopping mall and was mauled by a couple of guys touring on Segways amidst pedestrian traffic. Some kind of promotion company allowed people to ride a Segway (followed closely by a man riding a smaller, easier to manuver scooter, which is what I would have chosen, too, funnily enough) at tourists (Orlandoan's hate tourists). These guys were whooping it up about how drunk they were, barely avoiding the properly behaved British tourists all about. That's when I decided that the Segway really would require cities to be redesigned -- PRIOR to their mass adoptoin -- which has about as much chance as Darl McBride winning the Linus Torvalds Medal of Freedom.
You think that's something to have a recording from 1971? I've got hours and hours of tape from a group of guys in 1963 through 1967; it doesn't just have their voices but they sing, too! Songs about advice with girls (She Loves Me, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Baby You Can Drive My Car, Hey, Jude), recreational drugs (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Strawberry Fields), politics (everything else, basically). And my aged dad, now a granddad himself, has tapes and "LPs" (larger than a CD but with better quality audio; infinite bits, ya know) of dudes from the 1940s and 1950s! Whoo!
Damn kids. 1971 is a benchmark for longevity?
I resigned the leadership of Rancho Santa Margarita LUG with the news that Linux was being used to power parking meters. Power to the people! Down with repression!
Yes, I am completely mocking his heartfelt position as being nearly equivelent to my pretended protest.
The LALUG is better off.
- There was a big one heading in to Seattle back in '98
Sorry, I was only up that direction for a short time -- in 1998 I moved to Bellingham to run a radio station with some friends for about 8 months. I'm back in Sunny Southern California, thank-you-very-much.Was? It's about 50 feet north of the Pierce/King county line, visible from I-5
Damn moderators can't get anything right!
:)
But they're not new. There was a big one heading in to Seattle back in '98. And in Vegas I saw the digital marquee at the convention center with the Win2k Login screen saver bouncing around it. Really sad.
Now in addition to gloating over the demise of SCOX (and panicing over temporary fluctuations upward in the same) I can add ClariaGator to the list of companies standing for things I find reprehensible.
I just hope I don't have to look too closely at too many companies, 'cause I don't want a really long list...
In the mid-90's I had the opportunity to volunteer with freshmen at junior colleges. Many times the discussion of whether to suffer through the long years of university or take the relatively short (and easy) trek through tech school -- with the advantage of have a job right out of school -- came up. My response then was the same it is now: tech schools train you how to use a tool; universities offer the chance to learn to think. While you won't have a job right out of school, you won't be loosing a job with no where to go when the tools change; and in technology the tools change!
How can you have faith in an education promoted to people who have the time and inclination to watch Day-Time Television wherein they are told they, too, can have a High Paying Job right out of school! Amazing! You can take DTTv'ers and make them MCSE's in two years and they can earn "Big Bucks"...uh, huh. Overinflated salaries earned by minimally skilled inexperienced workers; no wonder companies are dealing with time shifts, language barriers, cultural disconnects -- they were already having to put up with slightly retouched Jerry Springer regulars!
Instead, round out your development with a dash of human life experience. It is amazing how much more you can do with technological tools if you have experience doing that thing first without the technology. Look it -- you can learn all about Gimp but unless you have talent you're still not an artist. Teach an artist how to use digital tools...then you're in for some fun. Say, Maya's been available for how many years now to whosoever wants to grab it? How many tech grads have produced 1/5th what an experienced filmographer has with the same tool, even if the arist began not knowing how to hold the mouse when she began?
Think about it. Learn how to do something, then learn how to do it better with technology. Now, go do the right thing.
Since I run a webserver on localhost, my host file entry brings up interesting results based on what template I have active at the time.
I guess Lindon and London are both the homes of litigious bastards.
- (B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
Put that in your IM and you'll understand a great truth of life, especially for college-age folks. Woof.(Quality tested with Trillian, Gaim and MSN)
Stolen from T3kno's sig.
- "Oh, forget the cable, I was really looking for a laptop like that one, can I see? Oooh. Nice. Ah. Color? Neat. Hmmm. Say I could use something like that -- say how's the screen in bright light, I notice that it's rather dark in here."
What we had there was a failure to communicate.It's great -- how do you spell your mother's maiden name?
"Could we remove it from the shackle for a minute and take it near the window to get an idea?"
Sorry, we're not allowed to do that -- its against our security policy. Do you rent or own?
"No, no, I don't want to take it OUTSIDE, just over near the, er, tinted *sigh* window to get an idea how...
"Will you want a printer with your purchase?"
So, good bye Gateway Stores -- you sucked and we're better off without you.
1f y0u n4me h3|~ J4n37 5h3`11 ju57 3nd up 5h0\/\/1n9 h3|~ 8|~3457 0n 7\/.
*snicker*
Yahoo is SO 90's.
Google is now!
Gates is simply trying to justify the high cost of Windows in an age of $299 computers. This has been one proof of the detrimental effect of MS' monopoly power on the computer market -- that is, if not for MSFT's monopoly Windows would cost $29, not $299 (or whatever). So, to counter this obvious observation he has to argue that hardware, which cannot be electronically "copied" infinitely but must be manufactured in each iteration, is headed towards "zero" and software, which once written can be duplicated and distributed with almost no added expense, is stable in terms of price.
Also worth noting MS, a software company, has been trying to sell its XBox for what many believe is less than the cost of manufacturing in order to boost sales of its software games. He's probably also trying to deflect investor/analyst criticism for lowering the retail price of the XBox to $150.
Bill has so little credibility its amazing MSFT lets him talk in public.
CLO's exist currently, but they are mainly responsible for licensing of one's own patents and technology to others or complying with gov't license restrictions on core business activities. I saw those, too, as I was writing my post and didn't refer to them b/c they were different in nature and function. I kept the name "CLO", though, b/c my description was sufficient to diffrientiate my meaning.
Anyway, the real killer feature of OOo is lack of concerns over license compliance (for users, I mean, not developers; but that's an interesting distinction to need to make considering that license compliance with MS Office unambiguously refers to end-users). In a reasonably sizeable corporate office software license compliance is enough of a concern to have created a burgeoning market for compliance tracking and auditing tools.
In fact, I believe you'll soon have a new executive level CxO designation: CLO -- Chief Licensing Officer. This person's job is to oversee the department in charge not of installation, acquisition, maintenance, training, selection of software but merely of adhering to license terms. The impetus will be to avoid draconian (or has it progressed to Machevellian yet?) BSA audits carried out by warrant-holding sherrifs. Think I'm kidding?
With Open Source there are many benefits. One that cannot be denied is the total elimination of license management and compliance. This is true on both sides of the software equation -- producers and users. Imagine how much better MS Office would be if MSFT didn't have its brightest minds inventing ways to stop the software from working (XP Activation being only the latest incarnation; now you know the great advantage OOo has over MS Office -- it doesn't have to delay waiting for the Activation team to finish its work.) Anyone who's had to track licenses for a large installation knows the headache on the user side.
Remember, one violation per the BSA's standard (i.e., not just the "license" but the original invoice is also required to establish that you are not a THIEVING PIRATE!) can cost you not only a year's worth of milk money (up to $150,000 or more) but also your freedom (up to 5 years in the federal pokey with Bubba, the federal poker). That's a big price to pay for making an "extra" copy of MS Office for Mr. Jones' take-home laptop, isn't it? With proprietary software it doesn't take much to ruin your day.
Don't forget to add the potential for fines and/or prison as well as the overhead needed to maintain license compliance records to avoid them into the TCO equation.
- Chris Schlager, vice president of research and development for SUSE, thinks the differences between KDE and Gnome developers have been overstated. Apparently he's not a regular
/. reader.
He did say those differences were overstated, i.e., stated over and over and over -- so he sounds like aThat, or he is a reader like CmdrTaco loves: reads every story but ignores the comments.
Moron. That's my opinion.
What are the chances /. readers care if this happens?
It would be like AOL acquiring CompuServe. Oh, yeah, they did -- but only after CompuServe was becoming quickly irrelevant. MSN is popular because of MS' dominance on the desktop and their inclusion of access to MSN properties in many places on it. AOL is an embarrassment to Wall Street investors and "new media" business gurus who thought AOL==Internet at some level and thought it was more influential than TimeWarner which it bought in a bubble-priced stock swap days (ok, weeks) before the March 2000 collapse.
If MSN bought AOL most people would yawn. What would it mean to non-AOL/MSN subscribers? Nothing.
Because this is Slashdot and he already posted a response.