Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Tim O'Reilly loves to tout Amazon.com as the ultimate web-based killer app? He used it as an example in the ORA Open Sources book, I seem to recall him pointing it out in another article recently, and now we're hearing it again in his LinuxWorld keynote. I'm no conspiracy nut, but isn't it true that the Linux/Open Source community as a whole is ORA's largest customer base? Maybe he's just trying to sell more books by having people think about Amazon, but here's my real beef: If the web is going to be the new platform for the next round of "killer applications" isn't it about time you started offering a few new example, Tim? I've personally never heard of anyone buying a computer so that they could specifically visit a certain online vendor such as Amazon. The closest information source that might be considered a true "Killer App" would have to be AOL. I *do* know a few people who have bought computers (or sometime bought *new* computers) just so that they could get onto America Online. At the beginning of every year of college I've scratched my head in astonishment as incoming freshman would dial-up to AOL from their dorm rooms, all the while they had LAN access to my university's T-3 connection. The last two years most of these people actually already had Ethernet adapters in their brand-new computers, but didn't know that they could get on the internet through it, or that at the very least they could still log on to AOL through TCP/IP (which many of them continue to do even after they learn they don't have to) In all seriousness, I'm not trying to negatively critisize Tim O'Reilly, but I really do believe that it's time that he started offering further proof of web-based "killer apps" besides Amazon.com
Next Time: How much stock does Microsoft have in ZDNet anyway?
So let me get this straight. The Microsoft monopoly is now being threatened by the AOL/Netscape/Sun merger, and now it looks like Intel's marketshare is being threatened by a gathering together of it's rivals - AMD and Motorola.
It seems like the computer industry is seeing a mass movement for the major parties to align themselves together. Sounds like what Europe was going through just before WWI broke out (ok, well it sorta does anyway).
I think you may have missed the point of my comment. I am question whether geek culture is diverging between those who are total privacy advocates, who want absolutely NO personal information about them available to anyone else, and at the other extreme you have the geeks who are throwing up webcams in their kitches so that the world will know when they run in for a midnight snack.
I suppose the difference really comes down to a matter of freedom of choice.
I apologize if this questions seems just slightly off topic, but I couldn't resist:
Why is it that whenever the government or a corporation tries to instate virtual communities with either tracking systems or any sort of personal information tracking, we all cry out "Big Brother" and the privacy advocates flip their lids. *BUT* when we see stories like this, we think that it's cool and we cheer it on?
Perhaps more importantly, it seems that for some geeks, the more they learn about how easy it is to have their personal information leaked onto the internet, they cringe, while at the same time we have geeks who can't wait to get their entire lives out there in plain site by filling their homes with webcams and wiring their toaters to the net?
Is the geek culture diverging or am I just looking at the extremes and missing the larger picture?
IPMasq to [your toaster's] rescue
on
CNN On IPv6
·
· Score: 4
Why would every client in the so-called technological home of the future even require it's own internet IP address?
Except for the appliances that one might need to gain access to from the outside world (security system, garage door opener, etc) you wouldn't even need (any in many cases you specifically wouldn't want) any incoming connections from the outside world. If i'm surfing the web with my toaster, all I need is an internal IP address and an IP Masquerading firewall between me and the rest of the internet. Simple port redirection would suffice for gaining access to most other appliances.
This is how I handle computers at my own place, I have an @Home cable modem, with a single IP address attached to a 486 box with two NIC cards running debian. This box acts as an IPMasq'ing firewall/dhcp server for the rest of the computers in my house. I use port redirection to ssh or ftp into the rest of the machines, and save myself having to pay for all of those extra IP's.
There's no reason that I can think of why every machine on the net needs its own IP address anyway, it's far more secure to have a firewall sitting in between you and the rest of the world, and IP Masquerading works with everything that a typical user would need (http, ftp, instant messenger, icq, quake, realvideo, etc.) and as far as latency is concerned, my 486 only has 8 megs of ram, and both NICs are old ISA NE2000 clones, but I get an average of 50-100 pings for quake2, and have downloaded up to 180 KB/s (which is darn near the max for my cable connection anyways), with room to spare - certainly more than my toaster needs to tell me that it's done or for my X10 server to tell my coffee maker to start brewing in the morning.
I seem to recall a similar story four or five years ago, about a computer that had been programmed to write stories in a similar vein to a specific author, whom I believe was deceased. (I unfortunately don't remember any further information such as the author's name or the name of the computer, sorry)
I think that this would present an interesting opportunity to have computers write new Shakespearian Plays, write sequels to exiting works, or even computer unfinished masterpieces whose author's died before they were finished. (The Canturbury Tales comes to mind)
Problems I foresee-Someone moderates a comment, and immediately the moderation is moderated (jeez, i should choose a new word) to be Unfair. So does the moderator go back and change it? Is that unfair pressure?
Here's a solution: If the whole point behind M2 is to weed out the "good" moderators from the "bad" ones, why restrict M2 moderation to posts over 1 day old (or some such number)?
Under this scheme you are no bringing back posts that have been unfairly moderated down into the current conversation, but as a tradeoff you no longer have to worry about "unfair pressure."
That's right, it doesn't currently work under IE, only Netscape and Appviewer (If you notice I *did* say that it's playable over the web, "under netscape"). Unfortunately, the IE JVM doesn't seem 100% compatible with Sun's JVM (no surprise there, really) and I am lost to determine what is causing the NPE - although I have a feeling it has somethign to do with an anal security model (which actually would be a surprise)
If you're still interested, give it a shot under netscape...
For those who are interested in IF (Interactive Fiction) Engines, you might want to take a look at the COG Engine, a Java-Based, GPL'd Online Gaming Engine that will let you play your games via the web, through netscape:
I don't personally have access to a Dreamcast of my own to experiment on, but let's have a little more information, please! A have a few questions about this article...
1) Through what means was the portscan performed? Was the modem attached to some sort of ISP or what?
2) What about the other protocols running: 23 open tcp telnet 80 filtered tcp http 113 open tcp auth 179 open tcp bgp 12345 filtered tcp NetBus 12346 filtered tcp NetBus
Did anyone try to access the web server and see what was open (if not exactly what happened)? What about the two "NetBus" ports? Is there a version of NetBus for WinCE (or whatever Dreamcast runs) that I don't know about? If people are concerned about telnet insecurities, wouldn't NetBus be a larger risk?
3) Has anyone attempted to brute-force their way through telnet, or any known exploits for the other protocols to check against a faulty implementation?
I find this information very interesting, but honestly I'm not sure whether or not I believe it without further details!
I just want to thank the Debian developers for keeping on top of issues such as this. I think that it's great that we have distributions like Redhat that are willing to stick to the GPL for their own software, but if the Community is going to stick to their roots we really do need *some* sort of organization to keep track of who is and who is not playing by the rules.
I'm also looking forward to Debian's next package freeze, due to take place on Nov. 6th...
I would not go so far as to call the man a liar, but let's take a quick look at his responce to once question:
"Zombiehead: James, what's your stance on Java in relation to open source?
It's one of the reasons Linux is successful. Do you see this as a future possibility?
JG: We'd like to deal with the problem of Java not working on Linux. It's a somewhat complex problem.
The inter-operability problems with Linux are just horrible. You have to be excruciatingly careful because all the different flavours of Linux are all slightly different."
The questioner points out the success of linux as proof of the power of Open Source, and asks for the authors stance of the question of Open Sourcing Java.
His answer has *nothing* to do with answering this quesiton, he merely dodges the question by saying that Java has problems with Linux because the differences between distributions. The question was in regards to Java's License, *not* Java on Linux!
All I know is right now I have C, C++, Pascal, Basic, LISP, Perl, and a few other program language compiliers/interpreters that don't seem to have any problems with "interoperability" between distrutions on my Debian, SuSE, and Redhat machines.
I was surprised, upon following the links in the article to the Gimp/Win32 maintainer's website ( http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/ ) that it appears only one person is covering this program to Windows. I don't understand this, as I can think of many users (schools, libraries, small businesses, etc.) that could use a powerful, yet "free" alternative to Adobe Photoshop on the Win32 platform. It seems to me that if we (as in the Open Source Community) are going to suceed in bringing Open software to the masses, the GIMP would be the perfect starting point. Anyone else have any comments?
This may be coming in a little late, but anyone interested in developing their own open-sourced video games with the minimum of fuss might be interested in checking out the COG Engine:
I'm also working with a sony VAIO, it's been keeping me in touch wonderfully while I've been studying abroad in France this summer. It has a 10.4" screen, does 1024x768 @ 16bit, came with 64 megs of RAM, a 300 mhz processor, and a 6 gig harddrive, all for just under $2000. The damn thing is 0.9" thick and weighs in under 3 lbs. *with* the battery.
Personally, I don't see how much smaller notebook computers can become. If it was any thinner, I couldn't plug a PCMCIA card into it (it only has room for one card) and if it were any smaller I couldn't type comfortably on it (it's warm pourrage right now) Most of the larger parts are already external, e.g. the floppy drive and all of the standard I/O ports (although it has one USB as well) because they would take up too much real estate otherwise. It actually works out better that way, since it's like a free port replicator that comes with the machine.
I think that laptops will not be able to shrink appriciably past what is sitting in front of me right now, due to interface limitations. A wearable computer would be excellent, but without a keyboard we're going to have to come up with an easy, convenient, and flexible means for people to find new ways of interacting with computers first.
Voice won't do it, I think much faster than I type, and who want's to program by spelling out variables and procedure calls? Single-handed keyboards don't appeal to me, I don't need to learn a new way to get carpal-tunnel syndrome. Following my eyeball around on the screen would be interesting, but how would you click? Blinking would look silly after awhile. Pen based with decent hand-recognition would be useful, but my hard gets tired whenever I have to write more than a page, I don't think long computing sessions would be very nice. At least pen recognition would half the size of the computer, since you'd only need the screen (and a cover of course).
In the meantime, all of my communication, information gathering, and programming needs are taken care of my "ultra-portable". I can even play Q2 rather descently (ok, so we still have to wait for descent video acceleration in a laptop) so I'm off to relieve some post-exam stress gib'in and cap'in...
You might want to take a look at the COG Engine, it's a Java-based Online Gaming Engine, released under the GPL. Feel free to use any of the code, I'm the author! (c:
I just got off the phone will Dell techinical support. The web page is worded a little confusingly. The page mentions a "special release" of Red Hat linux - specially tailored for these workstations (note - not servers). The lack of support for Dual-CPUs refers to *that special release* of RedHat linux. Actually, Dell isn't even offering the support, they have a deal with RedHat. You buy the support from Dell, but you talk to RedHat when you need it. The tech rep did not know if a more "advanced" release of RedHat was in the works for Dual-CPU support, RAID support, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Tim O'Reilly loves to tout Amazon.com as the ultimate web-based killer app? He used it as an example in the ORA Open Sources book, I seem to recall him pointing it out in another article recently, and now we're hearing it again in his LinuxWorld keynote. I'm no conspiracy nut, but isn't it true that the Linux/Open Source community as a whole is ORA's largest customer base? Maybe he's just trying to sell more books by having people think about Amazon, but here's my real beef:
If the web is going to be the new platform for the next round of "killer applications" isn't it about time you started offering a few new example, Tim? I've personally never heard of anyone buying a computer so that they could specifically visit a certain online vendor such as Amazon. The closest information source that might be considered a true "Killer App" would have to be AOL. I *do* know a few people who have bought computers (or sometime bought *new* computers) just so that they could get onto America Online. At the beginning of every year of college I've scratched my head in astonishment as incoming freshman would dial-up to AOL from their dorm rooms, all the while they had LAN access to my university's T-3 connection. The last two years most of these people actually already had Ethernet adapters in their brand-new computers, but didn't know that they could get on the internet through it, or that at the very least they could still log on to AOL through TCP/IP (which many of them continue to do even after they learn they don't have to)
In all seriousness, I'm not trying to negatively critisize Tim O'Reilly, but I really do believe that it's time that he started offering further proof of web-based "killer apps" besides Amazon.com
Next Time: How much stock does Microsoft have in ZDNet anyway?
So let me get this straight. The Microsoft monopoly is now being threatened by the AOL/Netscape/Sun merger, and now it looks like Intel's marketshare is being threatened by a gathering together of it's rivals - AMD and Motorola.
It seems like the computer industry is seeing a mass movement for the major parties to align themselves together. Sounds like what Europe was going through just before WWI broke out (ok, well it sorta does anyway).
I can't wait for the *price* wars to break out...
I think you may have missed the point of my comment. I am question whether geek culture is diverging between those who are total privacy advocates, who want absolutely NO personal information about them available to anyone else, and at the other extreme you have the geeks who are throwing up webcams in their kitches so that the world will know when they run in for a midnight snack.
I suppose the difference really comes down to a matter of freedom of choice.
I apologize if this questions seems just slightly off topic, but I couldn't resist:
Why is it that whenever the government or a corporation tries to instate virtual communities with either tracking systems or any sort of personal information tracking, we all cry out "Big Brother" and the privacy advocates flip their lids. *BUT* when we see stories like this, we think that it's cool and we cheer it on?
Perhaps more importantly, it seems that for some geeks, the more they learn about how easy it is to have their personal information leaked onto the internet, they cringe, while at the same time we have geeks who can't wait to get their entire lives out there in plain site by filling their homes with webcams and wiring their toaters to the net?
Is the geek culture diverging or am I just looking at the extremes and missing the larger picture?
Except for the appliances that one might need to gain access to from the outside world (security system, garage door opener, etc) you wouldn't even need (any in many cases you specifically wouldn't want) any incoming connections from the outside world. If i'm surfing the web with my toaster, all I need is an internal IP address and an IP Masquerading firewall between me and the rest of the internet. Simple port redirection would suffice for gaining access to most other appliances.
This is how I handle computers at my own place, I have an @Home cable modem, with a single IP address attached to a 486 box with two NIC cards running debian. This box acts as an IPMasq'ing firewall/dhcp server for the rest of the computers in my house. I use port redirection to ssh or ftp into the rest of the machines, and save myself having to pay for all of those extra IP's.
There's no reason that I can think of why every machine on the net needs its own IP address anyway, it's far more secure to have a firewall sitting in between you and the rest of the world, and IP Masquerading works with everything that a typical user would need (http, ftp, instant messenger, icq, quake, realvideo, etc.) and as far as latency is concerned, my 486 only has 8 megs of ram, and both NICs are old ISA NE2000 clones, but I get an average of 50-100 pings for quake2, and have downloaded up to 180 KB/s (which is darn near the max for my cable connection anyways), with room to spare - certainly more than my toaster needs to tell me that it's done or for my X10 server to tell my coffee maker to start brewing in the morning.
I seem to recall a similar story four or five years ago, about a computer that had been programmed to write stories in a similar vein to a specific author, whom I believe was deceased. (I unfortunately don't remember any further information such as the author's name or the name of the computer, sorry)
I think that this would present an interesting opportunity to have computers write new Shakespearian Plays, write sequels to exiting works, or even computer unfinished masterpieces whose author's died before they were finished. (The Canturbury Tales comes to mind)
Here's a solution: If the whole point behind M2 is to weed out the "good" moderators from the "bad" ones, why restrict M2 moderation to posts over 1 day old (or some such number)?
Under this scheme you are no bringing back posts that have been unfairly moderated down into the current conversation, but as a tradeoff you no longer have to worry about "unfair pressure."
That's right, it doesn't currently work under IE, only Netscape and Appviewer (If you notice I *did* say that it's playable over the web, "under netscape"). Unfortunately, the IE JVM doesn't seem 100% compatible with Sun's JVM (no surprise there, really) and I am lost to determine what is causing the NPE - although I have a feeling it has somethign to do with an anal security model (which actually would be a surprise)
If you're still interested, give it a shot under netscape...
For those who are interested in IF (Interactive Fiction) Engines, you might want to take a look at the COG Engine, a Java-Based, GPL'd Online Gaming Engine that will let you play your games via the web, through netscape:
http://cogengine.linuxbox.com
CNN is carrying an article regarding the release of Dreamcast, apparently quite a few games made it out that were defective. For more info:
o blems/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/10/dc.pr
PS: I know this isn't directly related to port-scanning the box, please don't moderate me down!
I don't personally have access to a Dreamcast of my own to experiment on, but let's have a little more information, please! A have a few questions about this article...
1) Through what means was the portscan performed? Was the modem attached to some sort of ISP or what?
2) What about the other protocols running:
23 open tcp telnet
80 filtered tcp http
113 open tcp auth
179 open tcp bgp
12345 filtered tcp NetBus
12346 filtered tcp NetBus
Did anyone try to access the web server and see what was open (if not exactly what happened)? What about the two "NetBus" ports? Is there a version of NetBus for WinCE (or whatever Dreamcast runs) that I don't know about? If people are concerned about telnet insecurities, wouldn't NetBus be a larger risk?
3) Has anyone attempted to brute-force their way through telnet, or any known exploits for the other protocols to check against a faulty implementation?
I find this information very interesting, but honestly I'm not sure whether or not I believe it without further details!
I just want to thank the Debian developers for keeping on top of issues such as this. I think that it's great that we have distributions like Redhat that are willing to stick to the GPL for their own software, but if the Community is going to stick to their roots we really do need *some* sort of organization to keep track of who is and who is not playing by the rules.
I'm also looking forward to Debian's next package freeze, due to take place on Nov. 6th...
I would not go so far as to call the man a liar, but let's take a quick look at his responce to once question:
"Zombiehead: James, what's your stance on Java in relation to open source?
It's one of the reasons Linux is successful. Do you see this as a future possibility?
JG: We'd like to deal with the problem of Java not working on Linux. It's a somewhat complex problem.
The inter-operability problems with Linux are just horrible. You have to be excruciatingly careful because all the different flavours of Linux are all slightly different."
The questioner points out the success of linux as proof of the power of Open Source, and asks for the authors stance of the question of Open Sourcing Java.
His answer has *nothing* to do with answering this quesiton, he merely dodges the question by saying that Java has problems with Linux because the differences between distributions. The question was in regards to Java's License, *not* Java on Linux!
All I know is right now I have C, C++, Pascal, Basic, LISP, Perl, and a few other program language compiliers/interpreters that don't seem to have any problems with "interoperability" between distrutions on my Debian, SuSE, and Redhat machines.
Some smells fishy to me.
Now if only we could create a program to replace:
hairdressers
telephone sanitizers
f.u.d. mongers
flamers (of the online variety)
corporate execs
etc.
...we would all be one step closer to the "B Ark" from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Write a simple AI Agent to replace and ship 'em off into space I say...
I was surprised, upon following the links in the article to the Gimp/Win32 maintainer's website ( http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/ ) that it appears only one person is covering this program to Windows. I don't understand this, as I can think of many users (schools, libraries, small businesses, etc.) that could use a powerful, yet "free" alternative to Adobe Photoshop on the Win32 platform. It seems to me that if we (as in the Open Source Community) are going to suceed in bringing Open software to the masses, the GIMP would be the perfect starting point. Anyone else have any comments?
...version 6.2 is finally available online at
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/
Enjoy.
(Anyone know where one can find the ISO's?)
...but is there any word on PCMCIA Decoders?
...and what about software-driven decoders?
Also: Does anyone know of a PCMCIA Decoder/DVD-Interface on the same card? My laptop unfortunately only has one slot...
This may be coming in a little late, but anyone interested in developing their own open-sourced video games with the minimum of fuss might be interested in checking out the COG Engine:
http://cogengine.linuxbox.com
I'm also working with a sony VAIO, it's been keeping me in touch wonderfully while I've been studying abroad in France this summer. It has a 10.4" screen, does 1024x768 @ 16bit, came with 64 megs of RAM, a 300 mhz processor, and a 6 gig harddrive, all for just under $2000. The damn thing is 0.9" thick and weighs in under 3 lbs. *with* the battery.
Personally, I don't see how much smaller notebook computers can become. If it was any thinner, I couldn't plug a PCMCIA card into it (it only has room for one card) and if it were any smaller I couldn't type comfortably on it (it's warm pourrage right now) Most of the larger parts are already external, e.g. the floppy drive and all of the standard I/O ports (although it has one USB as well) because they would take up too much real estate otherwise. It actually works out better that way, since it's like a free port replicator that comes with the machine.
I think that laptops will not be able to shrink appriciably past what is sitting in front of me right now, due to interface limitations. A wearable computer would be excellent, but without a keyboard we're going to have to come up with an easy, convenient, and flexible means for people to find new ways of interacting with computers first.
Voice won't do it, I think much faster than I type, and who want's to program by spelling out variables and procedure calls? Single-handed keyboards don't appeal to me, I don't need to learn a new way to get carpal-tunnel syndrome. Following my eyeball around on the screen would be interesting, but how would you click? Blinking would look silly after awhile. Pen based with decent hand-recognition would be useful, but my hard gets tired whenever I have to write more than a page, I don't think long computing sessions would be very nice. At least pen recognition would half the size of the computer, since you'd only need the screen (and a cover of course).
In the meantime, all of my communication, information gathering, and programming needs are taken care of my "ultra-portable". I can even play Q2 rather descently (ok, so we still have to wait for descent video acceleration in a laptop) so I'm off to relieve some post-exam stress gib'in and cap'in...
don't forget about the European A4 standard, which is signifigantly longer (although about the same width...)
You might want to take a look at the COG Engine, it's a Java-based Online Gaming Engine, released under the GPL. Feel free to use any of the code, I'm the author! (c:
I just got off the phone will Dell techinical support. The web page is worded a little confusingly. The page mentions a "special release" of Red Hat linux - specially tailored for these workstations (note - not servers). The lack of support for Dual-CPUs refers to *that special release* of RedHat linux.
Actually, Dell isn't even offering the support, they have a deal with RedHat. You buy the support from Dell, but you talk to RedHat when you need it.
The tech rep did not know if a more "advanced" release of RedHat was in the works for Dual-CPU support, RAID support, etc.