How about Crash Bandicoot? Wrath of Cortex is coming out relatively soon, and should be enough of a platformer to attract more kids. I personally prefer the smart action of Oddworld though to jumping on enemies' heads to kill them.
Thank you, that is very interesting. I compiled and verified that this works, it's pretty neat. I may have to use to find out what runs some of the annoying programs automatically that are not even set to start at runtime, eg some Real popups.
I feel your pain, and I have no idea how I got used to it either. But somehow, after a long time, my mind is now capable of switching between the "bad" key arrangement and the good, at work and at home. Again, if it wasn't for the fact that I had to use it at work, and didn't really feel like bringing in my own keyboard to replace it, I probably never would have adjusted. God, even worse than the Insert key (which I use rarely) are the arrow keys, arranged in a cross instead of a _|_ - that's what screwed me up more regularly. What a poor design, oh well.
You're talking about the MS Natural Elite, which is really not that bad once you get used to it (my work has them so I had to). At home I definitely have the better Natural Pro version. Here is the MS site with all the info.
Of course if I just searched for a minute more, I would've found it. They're LaserLine brand, and I'm not going to provide any vendor link, b/c you can easily find them through Google, but the model number is "MMW250DSS." Here is the link to LaserLine's site - it's the first rack they list.
I never understood anyone who would want to keep their entire music collection in a cd-changer. As someone with hundreds of cds, I can say that I love my 200 cd changer, but only because it allows me to load twenty or so cds at a time and to have continuous music play as I'm working at home or studying. 3-cd changers run out too fast and require constant tending to, and also make it impractical to listen to singles, which may have some great b-side tracks.
As for the organization, I recently invested in some oustanding free-standing shelves, initially getting 2 and then quickly realizing I'm going to need a 3rd very fast. They were only about $25 online, and I'm very happy with them, though my memory fails me at the moment. When I get home, and if I remember, I'll try to post the brand or even a link to these shelves. Regardless, after a few hours of alphabetizing, I was able to get rid of all my old plastic single-insert storage, and now have shelves that allow for easy insertion of new titles. I'm very happy with my current arrangement, and would choose it over any cd-changer-loading, cross-linking, or database-catalog solution.
Let me see if I got this right. The top reasons for raising the tariff from $0.21 to $0.59 per CDR are:
1) Increase in number of users who are purchasing CDRs and using them to copy music. Ok, and why does this justify raising prices? Since the tariff applies to all CDRs, this means that more people are already paying, and they should be making proportionately more tariff money. How does one justify raising the cost of the product when more people are buying said product?
2) 80 min CDRs are now more popular Let's see, because of the miniscule rise in the fraction of storage now available, they want to increase the price 2.8 times. Again, I haven't seen this magic formula, but that additional 50MB must sure weigh in heavily.
3) 37.5% discount should not apply because few are copying whole album. Right, so copies should now be worth even less, as most of them are incomplete. To me, this is an argument for raising the discount instead of lowering it. How do you raise the price for something you're now arguing went down in value?
I doubt anyone will even see this, as this article is now "ancient", but I managed to get an official response from Microsoft Legal that answers this question, and pretty much makes sense. Short version - "Essentially the machine running VNC, PC Anywhere, or other software would need an XP license as well." Essentially, if they didn't prohibit it, anyone could use 1 license of something to sponsor 20 remote sessions of users without a license.
From: Eric Ligman Subject: RE: XP Licensing
I went through this last week and took it up with Corporate. Here is the response from the Windows XP LCA team:
I've reviewed the article and our Windows XP eula. The article suggests that using software other than Microsoft's NetMeeting, Remote Desktop, or Remote Assistance to access Windows XP from another desktop violates the terms of the eula. The Windows XP eula doesn't prohibit end users from using third party remote access applications. If an end user wants to use Virtual Network Computing, PC Anywhere or some other remote access application to access Windows XP, they can do so as long as the user has a separate license for the device used to access the Windows XP desktop. If an end user wants to use NetMeeting, Remote Desktop, or Remote Assistance to access Windows XP, the eula grants such rights even though Windows XP is installed on only one computer. If an end user uses NetMeeting, Remote Desktop, Remote Assistance or some other remote access application to access other Microsoft or Non-Microsoft products, the end user needs to review the applicable license agreement to determine whether the use of such remote access technology is permitted without an additional license. I've attached the relevant portions of the Windows XP eula below. Let me know if there are any other questions about the Windows XP eula.
Except as otherwise permitted by the NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop features described below, you may not use the Product to permit any Device to use, access, display or run other executable software residing on the Workstation Computer, nor may you permit any Device to use, access, display, or run the Product or Product's user interface, unless the Device has a separate license for the Product.
NetMeeting/Remote Assistance/Remote Desktop Features. The Product contains NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop technologies that enable the Product or other applications installed on the Workstation Computer to be used remotely between two or more computers, even if the Product or application is installed on only one Workstation Computer. You may use NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop with all Microsoft products; provided however, use of these technologies with certain Microsoft products may require an additional license. For Microsoft and non-Microsoft products, you should consult the license agreement accompanying the applicable product or contact the applicable licensor to determine whether use of NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, or Remote Desktop is permitted without an additional license.
Now I'm as much against silly lawsuits as the next guy, but Sun is being awfully nice here, and the letter did not strike me as at all menacing. I mean, Sun does own the trademark, and whether the word has other meanings in other contexts is entirely irrelevant.
They don't want to shut down the site, they just want the site to honor the trademark in an appropriate way. The article post specifically talks about how the JavaRanch people hoped it would all go away - if they started slowly updating the site at the URLs Sun wanted, they would have been done by now. Sun mentions in the letter that they appreciate what the site has done, and some pretty high-ups in the company want the site to stay. I don't think updating a logo and a couple URLs is too much to ask. But perhaps I'm wrong.
Although I understand what you're saying, I'd like to respectfully disagree. Rather than "unprofessional", it makes your letter more personal and distinctive. If you have hundreds of emails or typed correspondence to go through, and there is one that is handwritten, I think it has a better chance of being examined. It is exactly because "essentially all correspondence is printed from a word processor" that one wants to be differentiated, especially for a government representative who wishes to appease all constituents, not just those that know how to type.
Remember that email link we had in another story that allowed you to submit comments to the government committee regarding this issue? Well, I submitted my voice, only to get this today
So although it's too bad that this apparently means that all those emails were ignored, here is yet another chance to make your voice heard. Please take advantage of it. In my case, I just pasted my email to the comments form.
I realize that faster hardware may cause faster load times, but my comment was in response to the assertion that even with faster hardware, apps seem slower.
As for your comment that loading things at Startup is only available to Microsoft, I don't see how this is valid - any program can add items to registry or Startup group, and have them load at any point. Anyone can write a service that will be loaded by the OS at boot time, and available at logon, there are instructions on doing it freely available. Your statement is therefore inaccurate and potentially biased.
I don't know, I had someone without any Morpheus-type programs installed go to amazon.com and they get redirected to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/redir ect.html/002-6952020-6514439 as well. Are we sure this is not a feature of the particular site? I always thought their referrals URLs looked differently in structure.
Well, this is all a matter of opinion, but I respectfully disagree. My IE starts instantaneously, whereas older Netscape loaded and loaded some modules or other, and Office 2000 starts so fast I can't even see the logo window, in comparison to older Office suites. Now of course one can say this is because of certain things in the OS, or preloading, but I consider all those valid techniques for getting programs to start faster, which in my experience has happened in many cases with newer versions.
Yes, Windows 2000 does not load as fast as Windows 3.1, but besides the fact that it loads many more functions, a lot of this just has to do with hardware drivers, which there is really no shortcut for. And unlike Win 3.1, newer OSs can be hypernated/put to standby, which allows instant boot from disk, eliminating boot time. Those are just a few examples off the top of my head.
I'm pretty sure not in the patch version, where installing the patch is just like checking the checkbox and never being able to uncheck it. And most companies that installed them installed them for everyone. Of course I guess the company could create a software distribution policy and only enable this on certain machines. I guess I was just saying it'd be nice to have a server-side policy for this by groups/accounts, which I don't think is provided.
The IT people weren't in charge of backups? They didn't have the keys to the room where backups would've been made? I don't know, this sounds questionable to me. I would've been clamoring for more control over backups to my manager, or his manager, if I knew that this was the situation at hand. "Dutifully buying Zip disks" is not enough of an excuse to say that there was nothing IT could've done to prevent this disaster, IMO.
I knew it wasn't meant to be, but I still tried getting it. It's funny watching my transfer rate start at 22KB/Sec and quickly drop to 1.68 as I type this. I can smell the DSL connection smoke, methinks.
Sorry about the confusion with the quote. I wanted to save time and respond to your post and another post supporting you in the same thread (have you read other responses to your post?). If I understand the rest of your point, once again, as someone else has said in a better fashion than I, I think you might be confusing code maintenance with updating. If I understand him correctly, he was saying that when he goes in to fix bugs, he uses this as an opportunity to clean up the code and make it better, throughout the initial process. That way, later on, the code is understandable, 1 year or 4 years from that point.
Therefore his contention is that code does not erode if it is documented and well done the first time. Now this might be idealistic, but I think I agree with this overall assumption - good code should be good now and later, and should not necessitate a rewrite in most cases that might be advocated by someone who won't take the trouble to figure out its function.
Yeah, this question is just like any other except that this time it's a Jaz disk vs. a normal drive. One would never think to sue WD or Maxtor to get them to fix your drives, a replacement is about all we ever expect. I've had Zip disks corrupted as well, and hd's obviously, so these are not good backup options.
There have been other "Ask Slashdot" about good backup solutions, so those are the ones that can answer this question. Everyday usable media such as Jaz should not have been used for crucial data.
I agree that that's a good solution for the corporate environment, but I never liked that solution personally, as it assumes that every user has no idea what they're doing. MS held out too long in this case, hoping that user education would enable users to not open pif/vbs/exe files, but eventually just shut off everything. So now when I want to send something, it's a pain because you have to rename the file. I thought a better solution would've been to allow Outlook to have its attachment policy set by Exchange, where some users could receive no active attachments, some could only save to hard drive, and some could execute directly. This might already be available, perhaps I'm just not aware of it.
Perhaps you shouldn't install the new version then? If you're complaining that new features are useless to you, and slow you down, don't install it. I'd also like to point out that just because program X (in this case, Eudora) became slower, that does not mean that is true for all programs. Having put plenty of new features into plenty of new versions of programs myself, I know that it's quite possible to not affect the old functionality at all if that's what one wants.
And if you have no Fortran programmers or consultants available at all, how are you going to rewrite it from scratch? All the business rules documented in there, all the bugs that (as Joel points out) have been fixed over time, are going to be lost to you. If the app works except for small part X, find the money and hire a consultant to fix. They're out there.
Just a wild guess, but maybe he was joking? No, you're right, it's much more sensible to assume that he has no clue about what he's discussing, while you are smarter. I'm looking forward to an interview with you being featured on Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
How about Crash Bandicoot? Wrath of Cortex is coming out relatively soon, and should be enough of a platformer to attract more kids. I personally prefer the smart action of Oddworld though to jumping on enemies' heads to kill them.
Thank you, that is very interesting. I compiled and verified that this works, it's pretty neat. I may have to use to find out what runs some of the annoying programs automatically that are not even set to start at runtime, eg some Real popups.
I feel your pain, and I have no idea how I got used to it either. But somehow, after a long time, my mind is now capable of switching between the "bad" key arrangement and the good, at work and at home. Again, if it wasn't for the fact that I had to use it at work, and didn't really feel like bringing in my own keyboard to replace it, I probably never would have adjusted. God, even worse than the Insert key (which I use rarely) are the arrow keys, arranged in a cross instead of a _|_ - that's what screwed me up more regularly. What a poor design, oh well.
You're talking about the MS Natural Elite, which is really not that bad once you get used to it (my work has them so I had to). At home I definitely have the better Natural Pro version. Here is the MS site with all the info.
Of course if I just searched for a minute more, I would've found it. They're LaserLine brand, and I'm not going to provide any vendor link, b/c you can easily find them through Google, but the model number is "MMW250DSS." Here is the link to LaserLine's site - it's the first rack they list.
I never understood anyone who would want to keep their entire music collection in a cd-changer. As someone with hundreds of cds, I can say that I love my 200 cd changer, but only because it allows me to load twenty or so cds at a time and to have continuous music play as I'm working at home or studying. 3-cd changers run out too fast and require constant tending to, and also make it impractical to listen to singles, which may have some great b-side tracks.
As for the organization, I recently invested in some oustanding free-standing shelves, initially getting 2 and then quickly realizing I'm going to need a 3rd very fast. They were only about $25 online, and I'm very happy with them, though my memory fails me at the moment. When I get home, and if I remember, I'll try to post the brand or even a link to these shelves. Regardless, after a few hours of alphabetizing, I was able to get rid of all my old plastic single-insert storage, and now have shelves that allow for easy insertion of new titles. I'm very happy with my current arrangement, and would choose it over any cd-changer-loading, cross-linking, or database-catalog solution.
Let me see if I got this right. The top reasons for raising the tariff from $0.21 to $0.59 per CDR are:
1) Increase in number of users who are purchasing CDRs and using them to copy music.
Ok, and why does this justify raising prices? Since the tariff applies to all CDRs, this means that more people are already paying, and they should be making proportionately more tariff money. How does one justify raising the cost of the product when more people are buying said product?
2) 80 min CDRs are now more popular
Let's see, because of the miniscule rise in the fraction of storage now available, they want to increase the price 2.8 times. Again, I haven't seen this magic formula, but that additional 50MB must sure weigh in heavily.
3) 37.5% discount should not apply because few are copying whole album.
Right, so copies should now be worth even less, as most of them are incomplete. To me, this is an argument for raising the discount instead of lowering it. How do you raise the price for something you're now arguing went down in value?
This whole thing is so screwy.
I doubt anyone will even see this, as this article is now "ancient", but I managed to get an official response from Microsoft Legal that answers this question, and pretty much makes sense. Short version - "Essentially the machine running VNC, PC Anywhere, or other software would need an XP license as well." Essentially, if they didn't prohibit it, anyone could use 1 license of something to sponsor 20 remote sessions of users without a license.
From: Eric Ligman
Subject: RE: XP Licensing
I went through this last week and took it up with Corporate. Here is
the response from the Windows XP LCA team:
I've reviewed the article and our Windows XP eula. The article suggests
that using software other than Microsoft's NetMeeting, Remote Desktop,
or Remote Assistance to access Windows XP from another desktop violates
the terms of the eula. The Windows XP eula doesn't prohibit end users
from using third party remote access applications. If an end user wants
to use Virtual Network Computing, PC Anywhere or some other remote
access application to access Windows XP, they can do so as long as the
user has a separate license for the device used to access the Windows XP
desktop. If an end user wants to use NetMeeting, Remote Desktop, or
Remote Assistance to access Windows XP, the eula grants such rights even
though Windows XP is installed on only one computer. If an end user
uses NetMeeting, Remote Desktop, Remote Assistance or some other remote
access application to access other Microsoft or Non-Microsoft products,
the end user needs to review the applicable license agreement to
determine whether the use of such remote access technology is permitted
without an additional license. I've attached the relevant portions of
the Windows XP eula below. Let me know if there are any other questions
about the Windows XP eula.
Except as otherwise permitted by the NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and
Remote Desktop features described below, you may not use the Product to
permit any Device to use, access, display or run other executable
software residing on the Workstation Computer, nor may you permit any
Device to use, access, display, or run the Product or Product's user
interface, unless the Device has a separate license for the Product.
NetMeeting/Remote Assistance/Remote Desktop Features. The Product
contains NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop technologies
that enable the Product or other applications installed on the
Workstation Computer to be used remotely between two or more computers,
even if the Product or application is installed on only one Workstation
Computer. You may use NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop
with all Microsoft products; provided however, use of these technologies
with certain Microsoft products may require an additional license. For
Microsoft and non-Microsoft products, you should consult the license
agreement accompanying the applicable product or contact the applicable
licensor to determine whether use of NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, or
Remote Desktop is permitted without an additional license.
I enjoyed reading your letter, as it seems very well informed, and contains an intelligent push for the direction most of us are espousing.
Now I'm as much against silly lawsuits as the next guy, but Sun is being awfully nice here, and the letter did not strike me as at all menacing. I mean, Sun does own the trademark, and whether the word has other meanings in other contexts is entirely irrelevant.
They don't want to shut down the site, they just want the site to honor the trademark in an appropriate way. The article post specifically talks about how the JavaRanch people hoped it would all go away - if they started slowly updating the site at the URLs Sun wanted, they would have been done by now. Sun mentions in the letter that they appreciate what the site has done, and some pretty high-ups in the company want the site to stay. I don't think updating a logo and a couple URLs is too much to ask. But perhaps I'm wrong.
Although I understand what you're saying, I'd like to respectfully disagree. Rather than "unprofessional", it makes your letter more personal and distinctive. If you have hundreds of emails or typed correspondence to go through, and there is one that is handwritten, I think it has a better chance of being examined. It is exactly because "essentially all correspondence is printed from a word processor" that one wants to be differentiated, especially for a government representative who wishes to appease all constituents, not just those that know how to type.
Remember that email link we had in another story that allowed you to submit comments to the government committee regarding this issue? Well, I submitted my voice, only to get this today
m ?comments=1.
We are no longer accepting comments via e-mail, as we have created a new,
web-based submission form. I encourage you to please re-submit your comments at
http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_form.cf
So although it's too bad that this apparently means that all those emails were ignored, here is yet another chance to make your voice heard. Please take advantage of it. In my case, I just pasted my email to the comments form.
I realize that faster hardware may cause faster load times, but my comment was in response to the assertion that even with faster hardware, apps seem slower.
As for your comment that loading things at Startup is only available to Microsoft, I don't see how this is valid - any program can add items to registry or Startup group, and have them load at any point. Anyone can write a service that will be loaded by the OS at boot time, and available at logon, there are instructions on doing it freely available. Your statement is therefore inaccurate and potentially biased.
I don't know, I had someone without any Morpheus-type programs installed go to amazon.com and they get redirected to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/redir ect.html/002-6952020-6514439 as well. Are we sure this is not a feature of the particular site? I always thought their referrals URLs looked differently in structure.
Yes, I used it successfully as well. Acrobat and this Morpheus garbage were my only 2 BHOs.
Well, this is all a matter of opinion, but I respectfully disagree. My IE starts instantaneously, whereas older Netscape loaded and loaded some modules or other, and Office 2000 starts so fast I can't even see the logo window, in comparison to older Office suites. Now of course one can say this is because of certain things in the OS, or preloading, but I consider all those valid techniques for getting programs to start faster, which in my experience has happened in many cases with newer versions.
Yes, Windows 2000 does not load as fast as Windows 3.1, but besides the fact that it loads many more functions, a lot of this just has to do with hardware drivers, which there is really no shortcut for. And unlike Win 3.1, newer OSs can be hypernated/put to standby, which allows instant boot from disk, eliminating boot time. Those are just a few examples off the top of my head.
I'm pretty sure not in the patch version, where installing the patch is just like checking the checkbox and never being able to uncheck it. And most companies that installed them installed them for everyone. Of course I guess the company could create a software distribution policy and only enable this on certain machines. I guess I was just saying it'd be nice to have a server-side policy for this by groups/accounts, which I don't think is provided.
The IT people weren't in charge of backups? They didn't have the keys to the room where backups would've been made? I don't know, this sounds questionable to me. I would've been clamoring for more control over backups to my manager, or his manager, if I knew that this was the situation at hand. "Dutifully buying Zip disks" is not enough of an excuse to say that there was nothing IT could've done to prevent this disaster, IMO.
I knew it wasn't meant to be, but I still tried getting it. It's funny watching my transfer rate start at 22KB/Sec and quickly drop to 1.68 as I type this. I can smell the DSL connection smoke, methinks.
Sorry about the confusion with the quote. I wanted to save time and respond to your post and another post supporting you in the same thread (have you read other responses to your post?). If I understand the rest of your point, once again, as someone else has said in a better fashion than I, I think you might be confusing code maintenance with updating. If I understand him correctly, he was saying that when he goes in to fix bugs, he uses this as an opportunity to clean up the code and make it better, throughout the initial process. That way, later on, the code is understandable, 1 year or 4 years from that point.
Therefore his contention is that code does not erode if it is documented and well done the first time. Now this might be idealistic, but I think I agree with this overall assumption - good code should be good now and later, and should not necessitate a rewrite in most cases that might be advocated by someone who won't take the trouble to figure out its function.
Yeah, this question is just like any other except that this time it's a Jaz disk vs. a normal drive. One would never think to sue WD or Maxtor to get them to fix your drives, a replacement is about all we ever expect. I've had Zip disks corrupted as well, and hd's obviously, so these are not good backup options.
There have been other "Ask Slashdot" about good backup solutions, so those are the ones that can answer this question. Everyday usable media such as Jaz should not have been used for crucial data.
I agree that that's a good solution for the corporate environment, but I never liked that solution personally, as it assumes that every user has no idea what they're doing. MS held out too long in this case, hoping that user education would enable users to not open pif/vbs/exe files, but eventually just shut off everything. So now when I want to send something, it's a pain because you have to rename the file. I thought a better solution would've been to allow Outlook to have its attachment policy set by Exchange, where some users could receive no active attachments, some could only save to hard drive, and some could execute directly. This might already be available, perhaps I'm just not aware of it.
Perhaps you shouldn't install the new version then? If you're complaining that new features are useless to you, and slow you down, don't install it. I'd also like to point out that just because program X (in this case, Eudora) became slower, that does not mean that is true for all programs. Having put plenty of new features into plenty of new versions of programs myself, I know that it's quite possible to not affect the old functionality at all if that's what one wants.
And if you have no Fortran programmers or consultants available at all, how are you going to rewrite it from scratch? All the business rules documented in there, all the bugs that (as Joel points out) have been fixed over time, are going to be lost to you. If the app works except for small part X, find the money and hire a consultant to fix. They're out there.
Just a wild guess, but maybe he was joking? No, you're right, it's much more sensible to assume that he has no clue about what he's discussing, while you are smarter. I'm looking forward to an interview with you being featured on Slashdot.