Just goes to show that a great company with a great reputation, skilled professionals, and a solid product line are no match for really bad management.
Let me second that. I've got a ML-1210 too. It's connected to a Fedora Core 2 box and used with both the Linux box and several Win 2K/XP machines. Had it for two years - performs very well, no problems. Operationally a LOT cheaper than the inkjet printer it replaced.
Honestly, what is the obsession with Microsoft Bob and Clippy around here? I don't get it or find it funny.
Clippy (and Bob) are a metaphor for building a GUI that goes beyond "user friendly" to "user obsequious". A good GUI expends CPU cycles to make the users interaction easier and less complex. A "user obsequious" GUI makes the interaction more annoying and adds no value. Microsoft is just lucky that they haven't been sued by the Sirius Cyberbetics Corporation (or the estate of Douglas Adams).
And that explains part of where the cycles went - bad GUI's and chrome. Add in sloppy coding and the fact that most of the programmers that knew how to write tight code have been promoted to management, retired, or were layed off with the dot-bomb. Finally, MS's desire to embed EVERYTHING in the OS. And that's where all the cycles went.
Gates wrote a Basic interpreter for the Altair (first hobbyist microcomputer) way back at the dawn of time. According to a bio, he did some programming on minicomputers back in High School. However, your point is valid - he's far better known for his business practices (his dad was a lawyer) than his programming skills.
The right to free speech is part of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution (the 1st Amendment). This ruling is from a court in Norway. Many country's do not have a constitution or a Bill of Rights. Many democratic countries have limits on free speech (so-called 'hate speech' laws, limits on 'defaming' the government, etc.). I would hope that a case like this would get tossed out in the U.S. On the other hand, many U.S. judges are sorely lacking when it comes to technical literacy.
It's called being 'mortal' - deal with it. If you read all the 'scare journalism' and start to take it seriously, you'll never get out of bed in the morning. There's a lot of junk science that's reported as though it was valid. There's a lot of very low probability threats reported without addressing the probability. There's a lot of legitimate problems reported without reference to solutions or means of avoiding / averting the threat.
The problem is that too many journalists are scientifically illiterate or have an agenda (or both).
I started my career at Bell Labs over twenty years ago. When I was hired I was told by several people that the Labs had a no layoff policy, and even in the great depression had not layed off employees. Many people had been there for their entire careers - started fresh out of college and planned to work to retirement. Today Bell Labs is a division of Lucent, and mostly a brand name. The vast majority of employees have been layed off. The remaining work is in the process of being off-shored. This is happening all across the industry. My advice - learn something outside the tech field. Because, you'll never make it to retirement as a programmer.
Kane's estate in Citizen Kane. Kane was (looosely) based on the life of the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. Xanadu was based on Hearst's San Simeon estate.
True, true. From a user perspective combining ActiveX's poor security with IE's tight integration with the OS has been a disaster. From a MS perspective, using ActiveX as a (FUD) competitor with Java combined with "poisoning" the Java VM in Windows accomplished it's purpose. It killed off Java as a desktop competitor for Windows.
We're talking circa 1996 - you know back at the dawn of time, dinosaurs walked the earth. No flash, (slowwwww) dial-up access to the Internet. Video over the Internet was a bad joke. Conventional wisdom (which was wrong) was that Java applets were going to replace the Windows desktop. MS decided to position ActiveX to go head-to-head with Java. They also licensed Java (embrace / extend / extinguish) to hedge their bets. Both Java and ActiveX have evolved. My point is that the architecture of one was built considering security up front and one was not. Grafting on security is always more difficult (and often unsuccessful) than designing it in from day one.
When ActiveX was first announced in the 90's people complained about it's lack of security model. ActiveX was MS's answer to Java applets. Problem was that Java was built from the ground up with security in mind. The security model runs applets in a constrained (sandbox) environment to eliminate the threat of malware. ActiveX initially had no security model. Early on, when complaints were voiced MS added code-signing putting the onus on users to distinguish between legitimate code and malware.
Over the years, the view of the critics have proved accurate. Java applets have had a few security problems - usually related to buffer overflows in the VM. ActiveX has been and continues to be a security disaster.
No unsigned byte primitive. Grrrrrrr!! Also, the way Java handles date / time. Starting with mostly-deprecated util Date object, then abstract Calendar object AND GregorianCalendar object. Unless of course you're accessing a database, and then you need the SQL Date object, not to be confused with the util Date object. And don't forget the TimeZone, SimpleTimeZone, DateFormat, and SimpleDateFormat objects.
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Just goes to show that a great company with a great reputation, skilled professionals, and a solid product line are no match for really bad management.
Let me second that. I've got a ML-1210 too. It's connected to a Fedora Core 2 box and used with both the Linux box and several Win 2K/XP machines. Had it for two years - performs very well, no problems. Operationally a LOT cheaper than the inkjet printer it replaced.
Honestly, what is the obsession with Microsoft Bob and Clippy around here? I don't get it or find it funny.
Clippy (and Bob) are a metaphor for building a GUI that goes beyond "user friendly" to "user obsequious". A good GUI expends CPU cycles to make the users interaction easier and less complex. A "user obsequious" GUI makes the interaction more annoying and adds no value. Microsoft is just lucky that they haven't been sued by the Sirius Cyberbetics Corporation (or the estate of Douglas Adams).
And that explains part of where the cycles went - bad GUI's and chrome. Add in sloppy coding and the fact that most of the programmers that knew how to write tight code have been promoted to management, retired, or were layed off with the dot-bomb. Finally, MS's desire to embed EVERYTHING in the OS. And that's where all the cycles went.
Gates wrote a Basic interpreter for the Altair (first hobbyist microcomputer) way back at the dawn of time. According to a bio, he did some programming on minicomputers back in High School. However, your point is valid - he's far better known for his business practices (his dad was a lawyer) than his programming skills.
Someone needs to ask Clippy what he's doing with all those spare cycles.
She also voted for the governor in the state of Washington.
That'll look real nice right next to my Java ring. :-)
Now that Bill's taught the DOJ to rollover, do you suppose he'll teach them to shake and fetch.
The right to free speech is part of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution (the 1st Amendment). This ruling is from a court in Norway. Many country's do not have a constitution or a Bill of Rights. Many democratic countries have limits on free speech (so-called 'hate speech' laws, limits on 'defaming' the government, etc.). I would hope that a case like this would get tossed out in the U.S. On the other hand, many U.S. judges are sorely lacking when it comes to technical literacy.
Remove your hands from the keyboard and stand up slowly! Yeah, the dog too! Do it! Now!
1) Break-up AT&T
2) Destroy Bell Labs
3) Re-assemble AT&T
4) Profit??
I'm still waiting for the e-mail telling me to launch the attached jar file.
Endeavor to be the type of manager that you'd want to work for.
It's called being 'mortal' - deal with it. If you read all the 'scare journalism' and start to take it seriously, you'll never get out of bed in the morning. There's a lot of junk science that's reported as though it was valid. There's a lot of very low probability threats reported without addressing the probability. There's a lot of legitimate problems reported without reference to solutions or means of avoiding / averting the threat.
The problem is that too many journalists are scientifically illiterate or have an agenda (or both).
I started my career at Bell Labs over twenty years ago. When I was hired I was told by several people that the Labs had a no layoff policy, and even in the great depression had not layed off employees. Many people had been there for their entire careers - started fresh out of college and planned to work to retirement. Today Bell Labs is a division of Lucent, and mostly a brand name. The vast majority of employees have been layed off. The remaining work is in the process of being off-shored. This is happening all across the industry. My advice - learn something outside the tech field. Because, you'll never make it to retirement as a programmer.
And I thought it was originally from Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. :-)
Kane's estate in Citizen Kane. Kane was (looosely) based on the life of the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. Xanadu was based on Hearst's San Simeon estate.
If we live forever, we can work forever.
Yeah, I used to work for that company too.
Fox Interactive would need to change the name of their spy-parody first person shooter series.
I guess it would mean that the U.S. government would have to take another look at the Social Security (i.e. government pension plan) system.
Time to pull my Java Web Server (toyws) from SourceForge. :-)
True, true. From a user perspective combining ActiveX's poor security with IE's tight integration with the OS has been a disaster. From a MS perspective, using ActiveX as a (FUD) competitor with Java combined with "poisoning" the Java VM in Windows accomplished it's purpose. It killed off Java as a desktop competitor for Windows.
We're talking circa 1996 - you know back at the dawn of time, dinosaurs walked the earth. No flash, (slowwwww) dial-up access to the Internet. Video over the Internet was a bad joke. Conventional wisdom (which was wrong) was that Java applets were going to replace the Windows desktop. MS decided to position ActiveX to go head-to-head with Java. They also licensed Java (embrace / extend / extinguish) to hedge their bets. Both Java and ActiveX have evolved. My point is that the architecture of one was built considering security up front and one was not. Grafting on security is always more difficult (and often unsuccessful) than designing it in from day one.
When ActiveX was first announced in the 90's people complained about it's lack of security model. ActiveX was MS's answer to Java applets. Problem was that Java was built from the ground up with security in mind. The security model runs applets in a constrained (sandbox) environment to eliminate the threat of malware. ActiveX initially had no security model. Early on, when complaints were voiced MS added code-signing putting the onus on users to distinguish between legitimate code and malware.
Over the years, the view of the critics have proved accurate. Java applets have had a few security problems - usually related to buffer overflows in the VM. ActiveX has been and continues to be a security disaster.
No unsigned byte primitive. Grrrrrrr!! Also, the way Java handles date / time. Starting with mostly-deprecated util Date object, then abstract Calendar object AND GregorianCalendar object. Unless of course you're accessing a database, and then you need the SQL Date object, not to be confused with the util Date object. And don't forget the TimeZone, SimpleTimeZone, DateFormat, and SimpleDateFormat objects.