We did this where I work. It's been great using CVS instead of SourceSafe, as CVS doesn't corrupt projects for no apparent reason. We're using WinCVS on the desktops. Sure, it doesn't have integration into the VS6 IDE, but we've made do pretty easily without it.
The other advantage of this was we got to build a nice linux box and put it in the 'officially supported' rack.. heh.:)
HTH.
Re:Cookie Pal from Kookaburra Software
on
Web Bug Detector
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· Score: 1
I've also been using CookiePal for quite some time. It works well, and is easy to configure.
I did a foolish thing and installed the IE6 Preview, and it changed the behavior of IE... you don't get the cookie dialog anymore! Even after removing it, the cookie settings have no effect; no dialog is raised for CookiePal to intercept.
I scoured M$'s site, and found a registry setting that you can change in IE6 to re-enable the cookie warning dialog and get CookiePal up and running with IE6; here's my registry change (W2K Prof./IE6 Preview):
I remember when those v.Everythings were ~$500 in the Computer Shopper. Like you, I still have mine sitting here, it's been flashed over time to a full x2/v90 unit.
I remember when they bumped it from 28.8 to 33.6, and I got my first 33600 connect -- from the FIDO mail hub.
*sigh*:) --
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
My employer sent me to this same training (the week-long one, and I got a Palm Vx from Verisign, too..) and I have a similar deal: I stay for a year afterwards.
They sent me for the same reason: They wanted to be a Checkpoint reseller, hell, we've installed it twice without being one: no fun.
What gets me, is that you're *supposed* to take the exam to be certified. Verisign sent the damned paper certificates to my employer, who decided that meant I was certified, but Checkpoint says nope. *sigh*
At least you got to take your exam. I can't get my employer to wake up on the issue.
-Steve --
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
Microsoft had help in limiting the 'ownership' of software. As en example, I quote this in verbatim from the dBase executable that is gathering dust on the development network at work:
dBASE III version 1.10 IBM/MSDOS ***
COPYRIGHT (c) ASHTON-TATE 1984
AS AN UNPUBLISHED LICENSED PROPRIETARY WORK.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Use of this software and the other materials contained in the software package
(the "Materials") has been provided under a Software License Agreement (please
read in full). In summary, Ashton-Tate grants you a paid-up, non-transferrable,
personal license to use the Materials only on a single or subsequent (but not
additional) computer terminal for fifty years from the time the sealed disk
has been opened. You receive the right to use the Materials, but you do not
become the owner of them. You may not alter, decompile, or reverse-assemble the
software, and YOU MAY NOT COPY the Materials. The Materials are protected by
copyright, trade secrets, and trademark law, the violation of which can result
in civil damages and criminal prosecution.
dBASE, dBASE III and ASHTON-TATE are trademarks of Ashton-Tate.
It's sure all but forgotten, but that's a very concrete 50-year license... and Ashton-Tate doesn't exist anymore.
I'm not advocating Microsoft's new licensing scheme, just shedding a spotlight of another color on the whole mess. Fun, fun, fun... not. --
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
That's ok, I remember when the Kodak 2x burner was in the $5,000 ballpark, and 2x media was at about $15 per disc. If I recall correctly, that was sometime around 1994/1995.
Ouch.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
Re:MAPS use is voluntary, what's the beef?
on
MAPS Sued Again
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· Score: 1
Interesting.
I wasn't aware that Consumer Reports had been sued before, but I don't find that suprising. I guess that I'd have known something about it if they had been sued and *lost*.
I'm behind MAPS for the usefulness of the RBL (and the DUL, etc.) but am not so sure about this whole lawsuit thing. I just don't want the RBL to go away... it sure catches a *lot* of shit.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
Personally, I'll use my systems and the ones that I am responsible for in the manner I see fit.
I'm stuck with a few remote sites at one place that are connected over heavily saturated 56k leased lines. When I started using the MAPS RBL, the amount of email traffic over those lines diminised greatly, and i'd say it bought the company another year or so before they have to rethink their infrastructure.
So someone explain to me how the spammers have the right to force a company to upgrade their backbone, simply because it's being pushed beyond it's limit by junk mail? I don't feel they have the right... and so I use the MAPS RBL.
*sigh*
What is the world coming to... --
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
MAPS use is voluntary, what's the beef?
on
MAPS Sued Again
·
· Score: 5
It's completely voluntary for a sysadmin to set their system up to use MAPS; nobody is forcing it down anyone's throat. This is basic freedom of choice.
In regard to the Consumer Reports comparison:
If CR finds that a particular Ford vehicle is less comfortable to drive than a comparable Chevrolet model, by polling test drivers or the general public, it's not illegal for them to report this. I don't see CR bring sued. It's also completely voluntary to buy and/or read Consumer Reports. Nobody is forcing it upon you.
The simple fact that MAPS is so popular, and being used by so many people, should also speak volumes. I haven't heard (but this doesn't mean that there aren't) of anyone who *uses* the service complaining about it... it's just the companies who wind up on the RBL who complain.
Don't they realize that if they changed the way they treated the Internet in regard to e-mail that they wouldn't stay on the list, and if they had the proper method of using e-mail systems they wouldn't have been on the list in the first place?
I think that MAPS is akin to your local public utilities commission or similar, in that they help a great deal in keeping e-mail systems in-check. (And they're not as arrogant as the ORBS people, but that's a whole different discussion.)
It's also very simple to get off the list.. I know, as I have had to get several clients off it lately. (Amazing how Exchange sets up as an open relay out of the box.)
People need to grow a clue. --
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
...of a good number of their resellers. In fact, you have to format the file in a very specific way and submit it via their web site. (Used to be via a dialup modem and EDI software.)
Of course there are some sort of discounts for doing this, and so far it hasn't appeared to hurt the area resellers that I know of that are doing this... but it's still kinda scary.
I remember several of them asking, "What, are they going to try to steal our customers away?" They don't go into *clear* detail what is going on.
(After we nix the lawyers, the marketing folk are next in line IMHO..) --
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
Microsoft has a 'Feedback' link on their 'Microsoft OEM System Builder' site, where the article this/. story is about lives.
My reply to Microsoft is below:
To: msoemnet@microsoft.com
Subject: Microsoft OEM System Builder: Feedback
Your article at http://www.microsoft.com/oem/nakedPC.htm has a problem. About two months ago, I had to hassle the hell out of a local OEM to sell me a so-called 'Naked PC'. They did, as you suggested in that article, try to convince me that this was a bad idea.
Unfortunately, what they couldn't understand is why I *did not* want to use Windows, or any other Microsoft product, on the machine. I had to explain no less than three times that I was looking to replace my Pentium-75 class server with a new machine, and would be using my existing NOS. Once again, they tried explaining how things have changed and the Windows that they preinstalled on the machines was 'so much better' than older versions.
They couldn't understand all I wanted was the hardware, so I could migrate over my trusty, *free* Linux NOS over to it and be back up and running in about a half an hour. (Including kernel recompiles to take advantage of the new features a modern system provides.)
What Microsoft *still* doesn't seem to get through it's head is that there is *no* valid reason why I should have to pay for a copy of Windows that I *will never use* on a new system. (Especially a hampered, re-image only version of Windows... as Microsoft no longer allows OEM's to offer the full, normal install CD's with machines. This *used* to be my only recourse, to transfer the software and license over to someone else, for the difference between a comparable 'naked' machine and one with Windows. Now even that isn't possible.)
My questions to you guys at Microsoft are these:
- When are you going to stop being a bunch of hardasses for no reason, and give the consumer what they really want? Telling them what is best for them isn't listening to your customers (the OEM's).
- Why should I be forced to purchase a copy of your software for a machine if I will never use it? (Please, spare me the canned replies. I've been reading them since 1993.)
- Why does Microsoft write technical articles that have both glaring errors and omissions? (Most technically-educated readers spot these right away, and the immediate thought is, "...well, it's Microsoft, what do you expect?" Why does a company (any company) knowingly do things like this, also knowing that they have such a technical audience?)
I usually don't write lengthy messages regarding such issues to large companies, as they always go straight to the circular file. In this case, however, I felt compelled to at least try and make at least one person see a dull grey flash of light.
-Steve Smith
p.s. Sorry, I don't give my physical address to you guys anymore. I did that years ago when VB4 first came out, via the registration card. As a result, I get more VB/Programming garbage at four different physical street addresses than I have seen in most programming shops' 'rag pile. I hope you made your $2 selling my old address... I've definately paid for it. >:-(
I can only wonder if I'll get anything aside from a canned reply. Somehow, I think not.:-)
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:..or corporations..)
DC has to get a clue. Back in 1985 I wrote an inventory management program that was used at the liquor store next door to my house for quite a few years. It was done in C=64 BASIC, and used what barcodes were available on products. (Not *everything* had one then, IIRC.)
DC wasn't even a gleam in someone's eye then, nor was the 'Internet' anything that anyone outside the real ARPAnet knew about.
Things are getting to the point where i'm seriously considering leaving all this computer shit behind. They're great tools, but it's quickly becoming not worth the headache to do anything *purely* 'innovative' (to use an overabused term) or creative with them... or else be hounded by a million lawyers.
People will be able to "...surf the internet free of charge over the next six months..." -- okay, but what happens after that? Who gets left holding the bag? Do I have to support it if I don't use it?
Also, "...municipal governments will regulate the time local users can spend on the system, based on demand in each locale...". It sure would suck to be kicked off while writing a message because demand is so high that you only get about two minutes a pop. Wonder how they're rating/measuring this?
Today's lesson: Sunblock. Shouldn't have left home without it. ( ~sizzle~ ) --
...and upset he didn't ever follow though on his ideas.
This might sound like a buncha BS to some of you, but when I was in 6th grade, I remember vividly his explaining a flywheel concept to me. After reading the article, it sounds like the same thing, except my dad's plan had a huge flywheel... to generate large amounts of power. I don't know how they're mounting the motor, but my dad's concept had it mounted on a rail, and a servo system could move it toward the outer edge or toward the center. This would allow a fairly small motor (like their coffee-mug job) to spin a humongous flywheel... by starting at the extreme outer edge. As the flywheel speed comes up, the motor is moved inward, toward the center of the flywheel.
I guess it goes to show that one should never sit on a good idea, no matter how absurd-sounding it is in 1985.
(I think the problem there was that he had no idea how to initiate a patent on anything -- who do you trust to help you patent something without having your plans plain-out stolen?)
I think i'm going to go though my old 6th grade notebooks (yes, I still have some of them) and see if I can find any of his concept drawings. If nothing else, it'll make my old man feel like he knew what he was doing.
I've got the D-450 Zoom, and I agree: the menuing system will drive you nuts, especially if you put it down for a couple weeks... as you tend to forget. I also got sick of waiting for pictures coming over the serial line, so went back and bought the Flashpath adapter... this is way cool.
I learned of the 460 yesterday. I wish I had waited a few months, but oh well. What I can't tell, is how much different *is* the menuing? Olympus' site doesn't give a diagram or anything, and nobody else has details. I guess I'll have to drop by the store someday and check one out.
The images are good though, and printing them out on photo paper on a Deskjet 880 series printer at the best settings yields a useable picture... even if it's not as good as a traditional camera.
I got this reply today in response to the previous email I sent to WMGK. Glad to see something aside from a canned response. It gives me hope, anyway.
From: Roy Perry -- Greater Phila Radio Group
Subject: Windows Media Player Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status:
Thanks for the highly knowledgeable input re: web audio. Your ideas and suggestions have been forwarded to our streaming providers for a response.
Roy Perry WMGK
Now I wonder if I'll hear what the 'response' is to this is...
On a side note.. why in Sam Hell is/. so freakin' slow? Christ.. it's almost a part-time job just trying to post a message.:-) Seems anything that calls user.pl is slow too...
In checking various local radio stations' web sites, it's interesting to find what each site uses to stream audio to listeners:
WMGK Windows Media Player WMMR Windows Media Player WSTW RealAudio WJBR RealAudio Y100 RealAudio
I sent a letter to WMGK, and will send a similar one to the others that use the Windows Media Player streams.
The letter:
Hello!
I just wanted to comment on your chosen format for streaming audio from your website. Do you realize that you're locking out a significant segment of your listening audience with your choice of Windows Media Player streams as your audio format? Many people where I work, and many friends that I know, run the Linux operating system. No 'Media Player' equivalent exists on that platform for playing.ASX streams. There is currently an article on slashdot (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/01/22/19332 47&mode=thread) about this very topic, and it makes an interesting read... you should at least have a look.
Here at home I happen to have a Windows machine set up simply due to the fact that I cannot run Quicken on the Linux platform. This allows me to have a copy of the Windows Media Player to listen to the WMGK stream when I want to... however, since that box isn't running very often this isn't usually available. (For the record, i'll often tune in to http://www.wstw.com/, http://www.wjbr.com/, http://www.y100.com/ when I want to listen to stations over the Internet... these all use the much more widely accepted RealAudio streaming format, which *has* a Linux player (along with other UNICES). For what it's worth, when I get done writing my Quicken replacement (which will run on Linux), the Windows box goes goodbye.
It's unfortunate that I can't listen to my favorite station with a computer. I can merely suggest that you and/or your website design team seriously think about the choice in streaming media format that you have chosen, and consider adding RealAudio to complement your existing Windows Media Player stream. (This to save face with existing listeners, so as not to alienate them; they wouldn't even notice unless they went looking that RealAudio was an alternative.)
I thank you for your time in reading my concerns. You may reply to me at if you wish to follow up with anything.
Sincerely,
Bear, Delaware.
Hopefully, someone can wake these guys up a bit. -SsC
I'll be brutally honest about the setup I came up with. (Even though it will probably get my previous post's moderation of 1=Interesting complemented with a 1=Overrated;-)
Much to the chagrin of probably most of the/. crowd, the program is written in VB. (Hey, I learned C64 BASIC first, then VB in '95.. didn't learn Perl until '96, and don't have the time to pound C into my thick skull... i've tried. Oh well, someday. (damn pointers!)) The machine 'runs' Windows 98 , and has a run-of-the-mill PCI soundcard. Nothing fancy. I don't remember the brand of the touchscreen, it was an extra that work had, so I picked it up cheap. It just looks like a serial mouse to Windows, and works like those GlidePoint-style touchpads that many laptops have in them these days. The video card is just an ATI with a video-out, so that I can switch the reciever to Video3 and surf the web on the bigscreen if I want. It works.
The server, if you will, is a p120 running Mandrake 6.1 and Samba... so the box logs into an 'NT domain' (or so it thinks) and maps a drive to the mp3 directory. The software uses an M$ Access database, i'm just parsing the filenames (I have an ugly, but workable format) to extract the Artist, Title, Album, and Track information. It's a pretty crude setup, and could be whipped up by a good programmer in a day I'd assume. I've tinkered with it on and off for months. (It doesn't get used as much as you might think, as I've got a 5-week-old daughter to contend with, and then there's work and more work. Top it all off with a good fresh dose of being bitten by the 'Jeep bug', and well.. you see.)
It's evil, but I like it. Not too high-tech... but different. I did it mostly because shuffling around physical media to me is NOT AN OPTION. I hate moving media around.
Technology is advanced enough that we shouldn't have to.
On a side note, what I want to know is whatever happened to the quartz crystals (or whatever it was) that they were using 3D lasers to store about a terabyte of information in a 1-square-inch cube? I think they used one color laser for the X and another for the Y axis. (Something like how DVD's work?) I said that years ago I wanted to bury a huge piece under my next house in the basement. Anyone know? I saw this on TLC or TDC years ago.(Does anyone even know what I'm talking about?)
As for '...achieved quality approaching "domestic" consumer equipment...' I'd have to say it's not nearly that tight... although perhaps one day it could be. That, however, is beyond my abilities!:-)
I still buy CD's, but I only ever put them into a drive one time. After that, they sit on a rack, never to be opened again. To me, the CD is just a transport medium.. a way to get the data (songs) from the store and into my 'system'. You see, I have every song dumped onto a 25GB drive in my server machine. The house is wired with Fast Ethernet, and there's a pizza-box sized PC underneath the stereo in the family room that has one purpose: entertainment. Using homegrown software, a decent touchscreen monitor, and a wireless keyboard/mouse I have the best CD jukebox I could own. I can search by anything... title, artist, genre, etc.. or even just browse artwork from the jewel case covers. It even surfs the 'net.:-)
This is the audio system that the music/entertainment industry won't create.. so I had to take matters into my own hands. Does this make me a theif, or a breaker of the law? No. What it does mean is that the entertainment system that I poured time, money, and effort into can't potentially be used to play newer titles, without even more legwork and bulls*it. Figures.
This whole thing reminds me of when I was big into my Commodore 64... Electronic Arts went though a lot of trouble to make an unbeatable copy-protection system for their floppy disks.. even so far as to deliberately thowing the drive into a destructive head-smashing fit. It didn't take too long for "Fast Hack 'Em" to have, among other things, an 'Electronic Arts' copy function.. that made backups possible for my disk-eating-prone 1541. (I later found that this was due to misalignment, caused by EA's disks!)
It's over a decade later, and the game hasn't changed at all. Seems that the guys at the proverbial top of the corporate ladder have their heads in the clouds... still.
The problem with things like DeCSS isn't the fact that the code is out there, but in the fact that it wasn't underground. In the olden days of the Internet, the mainstream didn't really notice, or care, what happened. If DeCSS or something to 'fix' these noncompliant coasters wants to survive, it needs to do so on the underground, at least in the beginning.. long enough that many, many people have it and have perfected applying it to some useful product that the average Joe can point-and-click to use it without even knowing that he's using DeCSS or 'unfuck' or whatever the current industry-hot-potato is. Once it's reached that saturation point, let it surface. By that time, the source should be obscured well enough that the CCC(tm) (Corrupt/Confused/Contorted Ones - lawyers, corporate machines, FUD campaigns, et. al.) can't find the source and don't have the care to do so (too much time/money to locate it.)
"Locks are for honest people." It's true. A lock only serves to keep honest people honest. No matter how tight you wrap something up, it can be copied/stolen/etc. Obviously, locking stuff up isn't the ticket... it's time to rethink the issue. What the industry needs to do is look at the root cause of the problem. (Really, very basic troubleshooting procedures.) You can spend all damn day/year/decade/century dealing with side effects(pirating CD's, DVD's, VHS tapes, games, even Microsoft mice) and still not have done a damn thing to fix the problem that is causing the undesirable actions. In this case, the #1 root cause is price. CD's are way overpriced, every poll I have seen over the years that even goes near this issue reflects that fact. (I'm sure the record companies know it too, but they're so fat that they have to eat that much, or they'll starve to death. Funny.. dinosaurs were that big too, look what happened to them..)
Well, I think I've said enough. Sorry for the formatting, but/. is running like molasses. (It's only 7 hops from my dialup to/., but it feels like 30. How can/. be overloaded? Is slashdot feeling it's own slashdot effect?)
Ssc -- don't mind my dumb.sig... that's what no sleep gets you: --
What I would find interesting would be an RBL (realtime blackhole list) sort of solution for e-commerce sites. I don't know exactly how it would be done, but I could imagine that the majority of dialup users could point their machines at some sort of proxy to do it. An interesting idea anyway, IMHO. -Steve -- Windows: Boring and mundane, even at 3am with little sleep. Linux: A rewarding challenge.. even at high noon!
I used to have a '75 Firebird, and I dumped more money into that rustbucket than I ever thought a person making minimum-wage at a fast-food joint could. Engine swaps, transmission kits, tires, new sheetmetal, and did I mention tires?:) I worked to own a car, and I owned a car to go to work. Nasty cycle.:P
I eventually got rid of that car, however, as I needed something more reliable to get me to a real job on a daily basis. (Growing up sucks.) Ever since I got rid of that car, though, I have found myself wanting an old car or truck again, I still want a nice place in the country with a big ass barn to put all my cars in.:) And.. i've also been collecting old stuff non-car related as well.
I'm a big collector of old MaBell stuff... back in the days of step central offices and *real* desk phones that actually rang with a bell. I'm intrigued by sites like Phone Trips that have managed to put the era into a sort of modern-day time capsule for everyone to reminisce in.
There's definately something about slashdot 'geek' types and old stuff. I too have been amazed when I get to some new place at work and find a stack of arcnet hubs taped to the top of a 1981 key telephone system.. and it's all still in use... with a note to "Bang here if network is down" taped to the front.
It all seems to be related... as the other post here about BBS's says... I used to run a BBS system too, and miss those as well.
Guess this pegs me as a product of the 80's.:-)
-Steve -- Windows: Boring and mundane, even at 3am with little sleep. Linux: A rewarding challenge.. even at high noon!
Slashdot Mirror
We did this where I work. It's been great using CVS instead of SourceSafe, as CVS doesn't corrupt projects for no apparent reason. We're using WinCVS on the desktops. Sure, it doesn't have integration into the VS6 IDE, but we've made do pretty easily without it.
:)
The other advantage of this was we got to build a nice linux box and put it in the 'officially supported' rack.. heh.
HTH.
I did a foolish thing and installed the IE6 Preview, and it changed the behavior of IE... you don't get the cookie dialog anymore! Even after removing it, the cookie settings have no effect; no dialog is raised for CookiePal to intercept.
I scoured M$'s site, and found a registry setting that you can change in IE6 to re-enable the cookie warning dialog and get CookiePal up and running with IE6; here's my registry change (W2K Prof./IE6 Preview):
Hope that helps someone at least.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
I remember when those v.Everythings were ~$500 in the Computer Shopper. Like you, I still have mine sitting here, it's been flashed over time to a full x2/v90 unit.
:) ..or corporations..)
I remember when they bumped it from 28.8 to 33.6, and I got my first 33600 connect -- from the FIDO mail hub.
*sigh*
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
I just burned up the last hour and a half reading every page on that site. Thanks for the link. :-)
..or corporations..)
...now if I only had mod points...
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
My employer sent me to this same training (the week-long one, and I got a Palm Vx from Verisign, too..) and I have a similar deal: I stay for a year afterwards.
..or corporations..)
They sent me for the same reason: They wanted to be a Checkpoint reseller, hell, we've installed it twice without being one: no fun.
What gets me, is that you're *supposed* to take the exam to be certified. Verisign sent the damned paper certificates to my employer, who decided that meant I was certified, but Checkpoint says nope. *sigh*
At least you got to take your exam. I can't get my employer to wake up on the issue.
-Steve
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
It's sure all but forgotten, but that's a very concrete 50-year license... and Ashton-Tate doesn't exist anymore.
I'm not advocating Microsoft's new licensing scheme, just shedding a spotlight of another color on the whole mess. Fun, fun, fun... not.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
Not anymore.. appears that Geocities pulled the plug, as both links come up with an error:
..or corporations..)
"This page is not available.
We're sorry, but this page is currently unavailable for viewing."
The link on the error page hints strongly at a TOS violation.
(Gee, did the sudden traffic spike set off some internal alarm over there?)
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
This is exactly what i'm finding.
.. go do other stuff. Check. Nope? 'Reload'... :P
:-)
..or corporations..)
'Reload'
At least some of the sites are up.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
That's ok, I remember when the Kodak 2x burner was in the $5,000 ballpark, and 2x media was at about $15 per disc. If I recall correctly, that was sometime around 1994/1995.
Ouch.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
Interesting.
..or corporations..)
I wasn't aware that Consumer Reports had been sued before, but I don't find that suprising. I guess that I'd have known something about it if they had been sued and *lost*.
I'm behind MAPS for the usefulness of the RBL (and the DUL, etc.) but am not so sure about this whole lawsuit thing. I just don't want the RBL to go away... it sure catches a *lot* of shit.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
Heh.. looks like we agree on this point. :-)
..or corporations..)
Personally, I'll use my systems and the ones that I am responsible for in the manner I see fit.
I'm stuck with a few remote sites at one place that are connected over heavily saturated 56k leased lines. When I started using the MAPS RBL, the amount of email traffic over those lines diminised greatly, and i'd say it bought the company another year or so before they have to rethink their infrastructure.
So someone explain to me how the spammers have the right to force a company to upgrade their backbone, simply because it's being pushed beyond it's limit by junk mail? I don't feel they have the right... and so I use the MAPS RBL.
*sigh*
What is the world coming to...
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
It's completely voluntary for a sysadmin to set their system up to use MAPS; nobody is forcing it down anyone's throat. This is basic freedom of choice.
..or corporations..)
In regard to the Consumer Reports comparison:
If CR finds that a particular Ford vehicle is less comfortable to drive than a comparable Chevrolet model, by polling test drivers or the general public, it's not illegal for them to report this. I don't see CR bring sued. It's also completely voluntary to buy and/or read Consumer Reports. Nobody is forcing it upon you.
The simple fact that MAPS is so popular, and being used by so many people, should also speak volumes. I haven't heard (but this doesn't mean that there aren't) of anyone who *uses* the service complaining about it... it's just the companies who wind up on the RBL who complain.
Don't they realize that if they changed the way they treated the Internet in regard to e-mail that they wouldn't stay on the list, and if they had the proper method of using e-mail systems they wouldn't have been on the list in the first place?
I think that MAPS is akin to your local public utilities commission or similar, in that they help a great deal in keeping e-mail systems in-check. (And they're not as arrogant as the ORBS people, but that's a whole different discussion.)
It's also very simple to get off the list.. I know, as I have had to get several clients off it lately. (Amazing how Exchange sets up as an open relay out of the box.)
People need to grow a clue.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
...of a good number of their resellers. In fact, you have to format the file in a very specific way and submit it via their web site. (Used to be via a dialup modem and EDI software.)
..or corporations..)
Of course there are some sort of discounts for doing this, and so far it hasn't appeared to hurt the area resellers that I know of that are doing this... but it's still kinda scary.
I remember several of them asking, "What, are they going to try to steal our customers away?" They don't go into *clear* detail what is going on.
(After we nix the lawyers, the marketing folk are next in line IMHO..)
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
My reply to Microsoft is below:
I can only wonder if I'll get anything aside from a canned reply. Somehow, I think not.
--
Don't trust your Government. (Update:
DC has to get a clue. Back in 1985 I wrote an inventory management program that was used at the liquor store next door to my house for quite a few years. It was done in C=64 BASIC, and used what barcodes were available on products. (Not *everything* had one then, IIRC.)
DC wasn't even a gleam in someone's eye then, nor was the 'Internet' anything that anyone outside the real ARPAnet knew about.
Things are getting to the point where i'm seriously considering leaving all this computer shit behind. They're great tools, but it's quickly becoming not worth the headache to do anything *purely* 'innovative' (to use an overabused term) or creative with them... or else be hounded by a million lawyers.
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That would be a burning power supply, or like I saw first-hand last week, a burning spindle motor.
Nothing like watching a Seagate 4GB U/W drive actually *catch fire*!
I'd take a look at that ASAP!
(Of course, this could be a troll...)
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People will be able to "...surf the internet free of charge over the next six months..." -- okay, but what happens after that? Who gets left holding the bag? Do I have to support it if I don't use it?
Also, "...municipal governments will regulate the time local users can spend on the system, based on demand in each locale...". It sure would suck to be kicked off while writing a message because demand is so high that you only get about two minutes a pop. Wonder how they're rating/measuring this?
Today's lesson: Sunblock. Shouldn't have left home without it. ( ~sizzle~ )
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...and upset he didn't ever follow though on his ideas.
This might sound like a buncha BS to some of you, but when I was in 6th grade, I remember vividly his explaining a flywheel concept to me. After reading the article, it sounds like the same thing, except my dad's plan had a huge flywheel... to generate large amounts of power. I don't know how they're mounting the motor, but my dad's concept had it mounted on a rail, and a servo system could move it toward the outer edge or toward the center. This would allow a fairly small motor (like their coffee-mug job) to spin a humongous flywheel... by starting at the extreme outer edge. As the flywheel speed comes up, the motor is moved inward, toward the center of the flywheel.
I guess it goes to show that one should never sit on a good idea, no matter how absurd-sounding it is in 1985.
(I think the problem there was that he had no idea how to initiate a patent on anything -- who do you trust to help you patent something without having your plans plain-out stolen?)
I think i'm going to go though my old 6th grade notebooks (yes, I still have some of them) and see if I can find any of his concept drawings. If nothing else, it'll make my old man feel like he knew what he was doing.
-Steve
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I've got the D-450 Zoom, and I agree: the menuing system will drive you nuts, especially if you put it down for a couple weeks... as you tend to forget. I also got sick of waiting for pictures coming over the serial line, so went back and bought the Flashpath adapter... this is way cool.
I learned of the 460 yesterday. I wish I had waited a few months, but oh well. What I can't tell, is how much different *is* the menuing? Olympus' site doesn't give a diagram or anything, and nobody else has details. I guess I'll have to drop by the store someday and check one out.
The images are good though, and printing them out on photo paper on a Deskjet 880 series printer at the best settings yields a useable picture... even if it's not as good as a traditional camera.
My wife and I are happy with it.
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Now I wonder if I'll hear what the 'response' is to this is...
On a side note.. why in Sam Hell is
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WMGK Windows Media Player
WMMR Windows Media Player
WSTW RealAudio
WJBR RealAudio
Y100 RealAudio
I sent a letter to WMGK, and will send a similar one to the others that use the Windows Media Player streams.
The letter:
Hopefully, someone can wake these guys up a bit.
-SsC
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I'll be brutally honest about the setup I came up with. (Even though it will probably get my previous post's moderation of 1=Interesting complemented with a 1=Overrated ;-)
/. crowd, the program is written in VB. (Hey, I learned C64 BASIC first, then VB in '95.. didn't learn Perl until '96, and don't have the time to pound C into my thick skull... i've tried. Oh well, someday. (damn pointers!)) The machine 'runs' Windows 98 , and has a run-of-the-mill PCI soundcard. Nothing fancy. I don't remember the brand of the touchscreen, it was an extra that work had, so I picked it up cheap. It just looks like a serial mouse to Windows, and works like those GlidePoint-style touchpads that many laptops have in them these days. The video card is just an ATI with a video-out, so that I can switch the reciever to Video3 and surf the web on the bigscreen if I want. It works.
:-)
Much to the chagrin of probably most of the
The server, if you will, is a p120 running Mandrake 6.1 and Samba... so the box logs into an 'NT domain' (or so it thinks) and maps a drive to the mp3 directory. The software uses an M$ Access database, i'm just parsing the filenames (I have an ugly, but workable format) to extract the Artist, Title, Album, and Track information. It's a pretty crude setup, and could be whipped up by a good programmer in a day I'd assume. I've tinkered with it on and off for months. (It doesn't get used as much as you might think, as I've got a 5-week-old daughter to contend with, and then there's work and more work. Top it all off with a good fresh dose of being bitten by the 'Jeep bug', and well.. you see.)
It's evil, but I like it. Not too high-tech... but different. I did it mostly because shuffling around physical media to me is NOT AN OPTION. I hate moving media around.
Technology is advanced enough that we shouldn't have to.
On a side note, what I want to know is whatever happened to the quartz crystals (or whatever it was) that they were using 3D lasers to store about a terabyte of information in a 1-square-inch cube? I think they used one color laser for the X and another for the Y axis. (Something like how DVD's work?) I said that years ago I wanted to bury a huge piece under my next house in the basement. Anyone know? I saw this on TLC or TDC years ago.(Does anyone even know what I'm talking about?)
As for '...achieved quality approaching "domestic" consumer equipment...' I'd have to say it's not nearly that tight... although perhaps one day it could be. That, however, is beyond my abilities!
-SsC
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I still buy CD's, but I only ever put them into a drive one time. After that, they sit on a rack, never to be opened again. To me, the CD is just a transport medium.. a way to get the data (songs) from the store and into my 'system'. You see, I have every song dumped onto a 25GB drive in my server machine. The house is wired with Fast Ethernet, and there's a pizza-box sized PC underneath the stereo in the family room that has one purpose: entertainment. Using homegrown software, a decent touchscreen monitor, and a wireless keyboard/mouse I have the best CD jukebox I could own. I can search by anything... title, artist, genre, etc.. or even just browse artwork from the jewel case covers. It even surfs the 'net. :-)
/. is running like molasses. (It's only 7 hops from my dialup to /., but it feels like 30. How can /. be overloaded? Is slashdot feeling it's own slashdot effect?)
.sig... that's what no sleep gets you:
This is the audio system that the music/entertainment industry won't create.. so I had to take matters into my own hands. Does this make me a theif, or a breaker of the law? No. What it does mean is that the entertainment system that I poured time, money, and effort into can't potentially be used to play newer titles, without even more legwork and bulls*it. Figures.
This whole thing reminds me of when I was big into my Commodore 64... Electronic Arts went though a lot of trouble to make an unbeatable copy-protection system for their floppy disks.. even so far as to deliberately thowing the drive into a destructive head-smashing fit. It didn't take too long for "Fast Hack 'Em" to have, among other things, an 'Electronic Arts' copy function.. that made backups possible for my disk-eating-prone 1541. (I later found that this was due to misalignment, caused by EA's disks!)
It's over a decade later, and the game hasn't changed at all. Seems that the guys at the proverbial top of the corporate ladder have their heads in the clouds... still.
The problem with things like DeCSS isn't the fact that the code is out there, but in the fact that it wasn't underground. In the olden days of the Internet, the mainstream didn't really notice, or care, what happened. If DeCSS or something to 'fix' these noncompliant coasters wants to survive, it needs to do so on the underground, at least in the beginning.. long enough that many, many people have it and have perfected applying it to some useful product that the average Joe can point-and-click to use it without even knowing that he's using DeCSS or 'unfuck' or whatever the current industry-hot-potato is. Once it's reached that saturation point, let it surface. By that time, the source should be obscured well enough that the CCC(tm) (Corrupt/Confused/Contorted Ones - lawyers, corporate machines, FUD campaigns, et. al.) can't find the source and don't have the care to do so (too much time/money to locate it.)
"Locks are for honest people." It's true. A lock only serves to keep honest people honest. No matter how tight you wrap something up, it can be copied/stolen/etc. Obviously, locking stuff up isn't the ticket... it's time to rethink the issue. What the industry needs to do is look at the root cause of the problem. (Really, very basic troubleshooting procedures.) You can spend all damn day/year/decade/century dealing with side effects (pirating CD's, DVD's, VHS tapes, games, even Microsoft mice) and still not have done a damn thing to fix the problem that is causing the undesirable actions. In this case, the #1 root cause is price. CD's are way overpriced, every poll I have seen over the years that even goes near this issue reflects that fact. (I'm sure the record companies know it too, but they're so fat that they have to eat that much, or they'll starve to death. Funny.. dinosaurs were that big too, look what happened to them..)
Well, I think I've said enough. Sorry for the formatting, but
Ssc
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don't mind my dumb
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What I would find interesting would be an RBL (realtime blackhole list) sort of solution for e-commerce sites. I don't know exactly how it would be done, but I could imagine that the majority of dialup users could point their machines at some sort of proxy to do it. An interesting idea anyway, IMHO. -Steve
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Windows: Boring and mundane, even at 3am with little sleep.
Linux: A rewarding challenge.. even at high noon!
I used to have a '75 Firebird, and I dumped more money into that rustbucket than I ever thought a person making minimum-wage at a fast-food joint could. Engine swaps, transmission kits, tires, new sheetmetal, and did I mention tires? :) I worked to own a car, and I owned a car to go to work. Nasty cycle. :P
:) And.. i've also been collecting old stuff non-car related as well.
:-)
I eventually got rid of that car, however, as I needed something more reliable to get me to a real job on a daily basis. (Growing up sucks.) Ever since I got rid of that car, though, I have found myself wanting an old car or truck again, I still want a nice place in the country with a big ass barn to put all my cars in.
I'm a big collector of old MaBell stuff... back in the days of step central offices and *real* desk phones that actually rang with a bell. I'm intrigued by sites like Phone Trips that have managed to put the era into a sort of modern-day time capsule for everyone to reminisce in.
There's definately something about slashdot 'geek' types and old stuff. I too have been amazed when I get to some new place at work and find a stack of arcnet hubs taped to the top of a 1981 key telephone system.. and it's all still in use... with a note to "Bang here if network is down" taped to the front.
It all seems to be related... as the other post here about BBS's says... I used to run a BBS system too, and miss those as well.
Guess this pegs me as a product of the 80's.
-Steve
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Windows: Boring and mundane, even at 3am with little sleep.
Linux: A rewarding challenge.. even at high noon!