Have you done any Android development work? I have, and I can say that it's more likely that Activities & Intents have fueled his rage. The debugging thing was just the kindling that got the fire started.
I was a sysadmin, and pulled down somewhere in the neighborhood of $80k Canadian a year. Before the on-call pay.
I hated it though. The stress, day in and day out was just too much. So, I dropped my $80k a year job and went back to school to study Physics.
To pay the bills (without digging into savings), I sell Mac computers part-time at the local Mac store for $8 / hr. I'm relatively poor, but I'm happier than I've ever been in the past 12 years.
And how do you think it takes over your machine's monitor, keyboard, mouse and internet connection over USB?
It mounts a small partition containing an X11 server for Windows (or your OS of choice), then runs that server and connects to its onboard Linux environment with it.
So yes, it does have quite a bit to do with being seen as a drive by the desktop. Otherwise, your Windows machine wouldn't be able to talk to it.
If you really do want a PDA that can handle reminders *and* take decent notes, then the only real option is the Apple Messagepad 2100. You can pick them up on eBay for a pretty low price.
Why the Newton?
First, the user interface is designed around getting things done. Simple notepad-like gestures (ie: scribble over something to erase it) means that you don't have to deal with navigating menu systems to find things.
Secondly, the screen is large enough to actually take notes on if you really want to. Try jotting handwritten notes on a Palm or Pocket PC and you'll quickly find that you can only squeeze a couple words per line.
Of course, on a Palm or Pocket PC you could always learn Graffiti (or the PPC equivl.) and enter your notes as text. This works great if you're taking a Humanities course, where you deal only with words. If you're in the Sciences or Engineering, you'll quickly find that trying to scribble down formulas and diagrams a pain in the butt.
The Newton has some great calendaring functionality built around the "Intelligent Assistant" - you can scribble a quick "physics class at 5 on friday", tap the IA button, and the Newton will setup an appointment for you complete with reminder.
I'd still recommend the paper & pen approach for most of your organizational needs. But if you seriously do need an electronic device to remind you, the Newton is the way to go.
Lots of free software out there for it, and a good user community that is willing to help out newbies. The hardware itself is solid & sturdy and can withstand abuse. Finally, there are ongoing projects to offer sync support with today's operating systems, including OS X.
I bought a Newton while studying Physics back in the mid-90's and found it very useful. I ended up going back to school a few years ago, and tried a Palm and PocketPC - neither worked will in the student environment. Picked up a used Newton and I'm happy again.
Interface is confusing and inconsistent.
No it's not. You're coming from windows, that's all.
Yes, it is.
Just because they are coming from Windows does not mean that the Linux UI is inconsistent. It is.
There are no established guidelines for UI development on Linux, at least none that are stringently adhered to. Each developer is free to use whatever GUI library they wish to develop their user interface. That's great, in that it means everybody has the freedom to choose exactly how their app will work.
On the other hand, it also means that the UI is inherently inconsistent. If I don't feel like putting a "file" menu in my app, why should I? What if I prefer to use Tcl/Tk instead of Swing, GTK, or some other GUI library? Don't forget about mixing and matching KDE apps in Gnome or vice-versa.
Distributions also like to tinker. In Mandrake, the shutdown button might be a link on a toolbar, whereas in another distro, it's a menu item, and in a third, you manually type "shutdown -h now".
The freedoms bestowed upon developers and users by Linux guarantee an inconsistent interface, moreso than any proprietary operating system.
(note: I'm not defending Windows, I'm simply pointing out the truth about UIs in Linux)
Before you make high & mighty commments about learning to suck eggs, you might want to re-read my post. I believe I said that I tended to ignore minor mistakes. Obviously, you don't.:)
You don't like to be criticized? Makes you grumpy does it?
That's how I feel when I'm forced to try and make sense of a "document" written by somebody that can't make the effort to use something close to proper grammar and spelling.
Unlike some of the grammar-Nazis out there, I'm happy enough to pass over minor mistakes. However, if I have to spend extra time trying to decode your message to me, of course I'm going to correct you. That way, in the future I won't have to waste my time trying to decipher your cruddy excuse for a document again.
Under Tiger, SMB filesharing *screams* as compared to how it ran under Panther and earlier incarnations of OS X. I'm able to connect to my samba fileshare on my Linux box, and my Win XP box, without any trouble whatsoever.
In the past, I was always able to connect, but file transfers were dog-slow. They seem normal now.
We moved from Ontario (Ottawa) to the west coast and are much happier here.
The tech industry is much better out here, more opportunities than back east. Vancouver is good, but homes are pricey. Kelowna, BC has a decent IT infrastructure and is more affordable.
If you're looking for 6 weeks of vacation, good luck! It can be done however. My girlfriend works in IT here in BC and has 9! The trick? She took a job at a local university, and her job is officially a "faculty" position (even though she only has a bachelors and works in IT). As a result, she gets the same vacation that faculty does - 45 days. Paid. Oh yeah, and since I'm her immediate family, I can take courses for free. So I consult on the side, and study physics full-time.
Ottawa was especially hard-hit by the dot-com fallout a couple years back. Funny story: In December we were visiting friends in Ottawa during the holidays. I happened to notice that one of our "regular crowd" was missing.
"What's Jim doing these days?" I asked...
"Working with windows" was our host's reply.
"Windows? I thought he was a die-hard Unix guy!"
"No, you don't understand. He couldn't find a job in IT after the layoffs. He's installing energy-efficient windows in new homes."
Get a clue. Not all of Canada is a frozen wasteland.
I live in BC. In a desert.
Seriously.
Portions of the interior of BC, around the Thompson-Okanagan region are actually considered deserts. We get little precipitation (ie: snow) and in the summer temperatures can hit 40 degrees C or 104 F.
In winter, we don't usually drop below -10 (about 15 F).
Vancouver, a 3 hour drive away, gets almost no snow in the winter (although a lot of rain) and is more temperate in the summer.
"these aren't your ordinary units of measurement we're talking about"?
Yes. They are.
An increment of 1 degree Kelvin is exactly the same as a 1 degree Celsius increment. The difference between the two scales is only where the 0 is.
0 degrees Kelvin is absolute zero, or -273.15 degrees Celsius (approximately). 0 degrees Celsius is 273.15 degrees Kelvin. To convert between the two, simply add or subtract 273.15 depending on the direction of conversion.
For example: 1 degree Celsius would be 273.15 K + 1 K = 274.15 Kelvin.
Also want to toss in my recommendation for Waterfield Designs (sfbags.com).
Excellent, robust bags. Everything from full bags to simple "sleeves". My girlfriend and I both own sleevecases for our iBooks, and couldn't be happier.
Kudos to their customer service folk too. We placed the order online, and got an email back nearly instantaneously from one of their support folk, explaining that they had just switched to a new shipping agent for Canada, and they'd like us to let them know the minute the bag arrived. It arrived a day early, and with a handwritten note of thanks from sfbags.
My chemistry is a bit rusty (HA! PUN!). But if I recall, uranite reverts to a soluble form when it is exposed to oxygen. So, while these bacteria might be a good short-term solution, one would have to take care that the resultant uranite is isolated in an anaerobic atmosphere, to prevent it from turning soluble again.
You're right. From a business point of view it *does* make sense. Personally though, I do enjoy the irony of the "We don't have access to the underlying operating system" comment - especially since the underlying operating system is Darwin and open-source.:) More than likely though, they were referring to all the little gluey-bits that Apple layers on top of Darwin to produce OS X.
Yup, that's right. Keep perpetuating the myth. Have you looked at the Apple Store lately? iBooks are <$1K... compare to a Dell or similar notebook and you'll find that Apple matches or beats their pricing.
True - the desktops are still somewhat pricey. $1000 more? No. Not if we're talking iMacs, and if you're comparing them to a machine purchased from a major manufacturer like Dell or Compaq - If you're talking beige-boxes, well then yes. Apple computers are $1000 more than a beige box... as are the Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM and Gateway machines.
But keep in mind, Apple is really focusing on the portable market segment this year, so that's where most of the value is going to be.
Not to confuse anyone with the above - just because the SmartStart CD doesn't allow you to run the "Assisted Install" wizard for a Linux installation doesn't mean you can't install Linux on the box. Just do a regular OS install.:)
Just noticed something else this afternoon. I normally don't bother using the HP/Compaq SmartStart CDs to configure my servers, preferring to do the OS installation by hand. For those of you not "in the know", HP/Compaq servers (at least the Proliant models) ship with a CD that will walk a new user through hardware config, OS install, etc. It automatically sets certain firmware/BIOS settings based on your chosen OS, etc... and helps you load the necessary drivers into your freshly installed OS.
Anyhow, back to what I noticed: The old SmartStart CDs were Windows based (yup, bootable Windows, or a subset thereof, on a CD). The SmartStart CDs that shipped with my new DL380 G3s are *Linux* based. They boot into a web browser from which all system config is managed. CTRL-ALT-F1 gets you a bash prompt. X is running on F3. Window manager is icewm. Browser is phoenix. PHP seems to be present as well, as there is a/php.ini file... haven't looked much further yet.
cat/proc/version shows that it's running 2.4.18-4smp, and is the kernel shipped with RH 7.3 (or an update).
Very interesting, as this Linux-based tool helps people install Windows on their servers. For fun, I asked it to walk me through an OS install - it noticed that I had configured my OS in the BIOS as Linux (yes, there is a BIOS Linux-specific option), it told me that it couldn't assist a Linux install, only Windows.:)
We're in the middle of rolling out two new HP/Compaq DL380 servers, and have run into the same problem as you.
There are a variety of agents and monitoring tools that make up the Insight Management toolset. We've found that some of the tools are better than others.
Pretty much the only *essential* tool that's required is the cpqhealth drivers and daemons. This poll the health of the onboard systems such as fans, CPUs, disk arrays, etc, and will log to syslog when there is a fault. Unforunately, the open source lm_sensors and cpqarrayd packages don't talk to the hardware in the new G3 DL380's, so cpqhealth is your only option. You can find it on HP's support site, as part of the hpasm package for Linux... I grabbed my copy for RedHat 7.3 from here.
cpqhealth comes with pre-built modules for RedHat 7.3, 8.0 and a few other distros (SuSE for example). But I've found that even the most up to date stuff from HP's site only supports the kernels shipped on the RedHat cd, and nothing newer. Luckily, cpqhealth (part of the hpasm package) does allow you to build new modules. You'll need a compiler on the machine. Take a peek at this script:/opt/compaq/cpqhealth/custom_cpqhealth.sh - it will build a new cpqhealth RPM for you, containing the drivers and daemons necessary to log hardware faults to the syslog (as well as to take action on them).
The script will break when you first run it - it will look for the following two files:
Both of which are missing in the most recent hpasm release. Create the S10cpqasm file yourself (it's just a startup script that gets dumped/etc/init.d - a simple touch of that file is fine for now - you can put a proper one together later), and copy hpuid from/bin (where it gets installed when you installed the hpasm RPM).
Once done, you'll have an RPM that installs the following:
two kernel modules: cpqasm.o, cpqevt.o
two daemons:/opt/compaq/cpqhealth/cpqasm/casmd /opt/compaq/cpqhealth/cpqevt/cevtd
Make sure the kernel modules and daemons get loaded, and you'll now get warnings when a fan fails, disk in the RAID array dies, etc.
Even better - unlike the rest of the HP/Compaq Insight stuff, this doesn't use SNMP, doesn't install a web server that listens to 0.0.0.0, and seems to work quite well.
Other annoying things I've discovered about the rest of the HP/Compaq toolset:
Dumb OS-detection routines - the Storage Monitor Agent greps/etc/issue for "RedHat" + "7.3"...
Over-reliance on SNMP.
Unclear documentation - the agents indicate they'll work with the snmpd shipped with RedHat, whereas HPs site indicates you need to install the HP-modded snmpd.
Corporate schizophrenia - some daemons called hpxxxx, others called cpqxxxx... some scripts fail, looking for the old filename (HP renamed Compaq daemons, forgot to update script).
Check ports 2301 and 2381 - One or more of the agents installs webservers there, for "remote management". They listen to 0.0.0.0 and have no IP-filtering ability. So make sure that it's firewalled off. netstat -anp is your friend.
In the end, we just ended up installing cpqhealth on the boxes to warn us of hardware problems, and will use RRDtool for our other monitoring requirements.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you done any Android development work? I have, and I can say that it's more likely that Activities & Intents have fueled his rage. The debugging thing was just the kindling that got the fire started.
I was a sysadmin, and pulled down somewhere in the neighborhood of $80k Canadian a year. Before the on-call pay.
I hated it though. The stress, day in and day out was just too much. So, I dropped my $80k a year job and went back to school to study Physics.
To pay the bills (without digging into savings), I sell Mac computers part-time at the local Mac store for $8 / hr. I'm relatively poor, but I'm happier than I've ever been in the past 12 years.
I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.
Key word in the above rant is "tried to".
Unlike the country to the south of us who *has* passed wonderful things like the DMCA and the Patriot Act.
You know the old adage: when in glass houses...
And how do you think it takes over your machine's monitor, keyboard, mouse and internet connection over USB?
It mounts a small partition containing an X11 server for Windows (or your OS of choice), then runs that server and connects to its onboard Linux environment with it.
So yes, it does have quite a bit to do with being seen as a drive by the desktop. Otherwise, your Windows machine wouldn't be able to talk to it.
Stop laughing.
If you really do want a PDA that can handle reminders *and* take decent notes, then the only real option is the Apple Messagepad 2100. You can pick them up on eBay for a pretty low price.
Why the Newton?
First, the user interface is designed around getting things done. Simple notepad-like gestures (ie: scribble over something to erase it) means that you don't have to deal with navigating menu systems to find things.
Secondly, the screen is large enough to actually take notes on if you really want to. Try jotting handwritten notes on a Palm or Pocket PC and you'll quickly find that you can only squeeze a couple words per line.
Of course, on a Palm or Pocket PC you could always learn Graffiti (or the PPC equivl.) and enter your notes as text. This works great if you're taking a Humanities course, where you deal only with words. If you're in the Sciences or Engineering, you'll quickly find that trying to scribble down formulas and diagrams a pain in the butt.
The Newton has some great calendaring functionality built around the "Intelligent Assistant" - you can scribble a quick "physics class at 5 on friday", tap the IA button, and the Newton will setup an appointment for you complete with reminder.
I'd still recommend the paper & pen approach for most of your organizational needs. But if you seriously do need an electronic device to remind you, the Newton is the way to go.
Lots of free software out there for it, and a good user community that is willing to help out newbies. The hardware itself is solid & sturdy and can withstand abuse. Finally, there are ongoing projects to offer sync support with today's operating systems, including OS X.
I bought a Newton while studying Physics back in the mid-90's and found it very useful. I ended up going back to school a few years ago, and tried a Palm and PocketPC - neither worked will in the student environment. Picked up a used Newton and I'm happy again.
Yes, it is.
Just because they are coming from Windows does not mean that the Linux UI is inconsistent. It is.
There are no established guidelines for UI development on Linux, at least none that are stringently adhered to. Each developer is free to use whatever GUI library they wish to develop their user interface. That's great, in that it means everybody has the freedom to choose exactly how their app will work.
On the other hand, it also means that the UI is inherently inconsistent. If I don't feel like putting a "file" menu in my app, why should I? What if I prefer to use Tcl/Tk instead of Swing, GTK, or some other GUI library? Don't forget about mixing and matching KDE apps in Gnome or vice-versa.
Distributions also like to tinker. In Mandrake, the shutdown button might be a link on a toolbar, whereas in another distro, it's a menu item, and in a third, you manually type "shutdown -h now".
The freedoms bestowed upon developers and users by Linux guarantee an inconsistent interface, moreso than any proprietary operating system.
(note: I'm not defending Windows, I'm simply pointing out the truth about UIs in Linux)
You're absolutely right, and I even knew that one. Fingers fly a bit too fast, and looks what happens.
Thanks for the catch.
Nice catch, thanks.
:)
Before you make high & mighty commments about learning to suck eggs, you might want to re-read my post. I believe I said that I tended to ignore minor mistakes. Obviously, you don't.
You don't like to be criticized? Makes you grumpy does it?
That's how I feel when I'm forced to try and make sense of a "document" written by somebody that can't make the effort to use something close to proper grammar and spelling.
Unlike some of the grammar-Nazis out there, I'm happy enough to pass over minor mistakes. However, if I have to spend extra time trying to decode your message to me, of course I'm going to correct you. That way, in the future I won't have to waste my time trying to decipher your cruddy excuse for a document again.
That's odd.
I'm running into the exact opposite scenario:
Under Tiger, SMB filesharing *screams* as compared to how it ran under Panther and earlier incarnations of OS X. I'm able to connect to my samba fileshare on my Linux box, and my Win XP box, without any trouble whatsoever.
In the past, I was always able to connect, but file transfers were dog-slow. They seem normal now.
Go figure.
We moved from Ontario (Ottawa) to the west coast and are much happier here.
...
The tech industry is much better out here, more opportunities than back east. Vancouver is good, but homes are pricey. Kelowna, BC has a decent IT infrastructure and is more affordable.
If you're looking for 6 weeks of vacation, good luck! It can be done however. My girlfriend works in IT here in BC and has 9! The trick? She took a job at a local university, and her job is officially a "faculty" position (even though she only has a bachelors and works in IT). As a result, she gets the same vacation that faculty does - 45 days. Paid. Oh yeah, and since I'm her immediate family, I can take courses for free. So I consult on the side, and study physics full-time.
Ottawa was especially hard-hit by the dot-com fallout a couple years back. Funny story: In December we were visiting friends in Ottawa during the holidays. I happened to notice that one of our "regular crowd" was missing.
"What's Jim doing these days?" I asked
"Working with windows" was our host's reply.
"Windows? I thought he was a die-hard Unix guy!"
"No, you don't understand. He couldn't find a job in IT after the layoffs. He's installing energy-efficient windows in new homes."
Horrible echo problems?
... nor did I run into it on my Dell Axim X30 PDA ... sound quality is clear, no hint of echos at all.
Not on my OS X copy of Skype
Perhaps you have your external speakers turned wayyyy up to "11". ?
Err...
"Most Canadians are coming here" ?
Last time I checked, we've still got a country full of them up here.
that would be *climate*, not "client"...
:)
I should know better than to try and reply to Slashdot postings while invoicing my clients.
You're complaining about -10 degrees Celsius?
Good grief.
Then move to Vancouver. Same client as Seattle.
Get a clue. Not all of Canada is a frozen wasteland.
I live in BC. In a desert.
Seriously.
Portions of the interior of BC, around the Thompson-Okanagan region are actually considered deserts. We get little precipitation (ie: snow) and in the summer temperatures can hit 40 degrees C or 104 F.
In winter, we don't usually drop below -10 (about 15 F).
Vancouver, a 3 hour drive away, gets almost no snow in the winter (although a lot of rain) and is more temperate in the summer.
Yes. They are.
An increment of 1 degree Kelvin is exactly the same as a 1 degree Celsius increment. The difference between the two scales is only where the 0 is.
0 degrees Kelvin is absolute zero, or -273.15 degrees Celsius (approximately). 0 degrees Celsius is 273.15 degrees Kelvin. To convert between the two, simply add or subtract 273.15 depending on the direction of conversion.
For example: 1 degree Celsius would be 273.15 K + 1 K = 274.15 Kelvin.
Also want to toss in my recommendation for Waterfield Designs (sfbags.com).
Excellent, robust bags. Everything from full bags to simple "sleeves". My girlfriend and I both own sleevecases for our iBooks, and couldn't be happier.
Kudos to their customer service folk too. We placed the order online, and got an email back nearly instantaneously from one of their support folk, explaining that they had just switched to a new shipping agent for Canada, and they'd like us to let them know the minute the bag arrived. It arrived a day early, and with a handwritten note of thanks from sfbags.
Highly recommended!
My chemistry is a bit rusty (HA! PUN!). But if I recall, uranite reverts to a soluble form when it is exposed to oxygen. So, while these bacteria might be a good short-term solution, one would have to take care that the resultant uranite is isolated in an anaerobic atmosphere, to prevent it from turning soluble again.
Why don't you consider Canada to be far enough? By far, are you speaking in a geographical sense, or politically?
You're right. From a business point of view it *does* make sense. Personally though, I do enjoy the irony of the "We don't have access to the underlying operating system" comment - especially since the underlying operating system is Darwin and open-source. :) More than likely though, they were referring to all the little gluey-bits that Apple layers on top of Darwin to produce OS X.
Yup, that's right. Keep perpetuating the myth. Have you looked at the Apple Store lately? iBooks are <$1K ... compare to a Dell or similar notebook and you'll find that Apple matches or beats their pricing.
... as are the Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM and Gateway machines.
True - the desktops are still somewhat pricey. $1000 more? No. Not if we're talking iMacs, and if you're comparing them to a machine purchased from a major manufacturer like Dell or Compaq - If you're talking beige-boxes, well then yes. Apple computers are $1000 more than a beige box
But keep in mind, Apple is really focusing on the portable market segment this year, so that's where most of the value is going to be.
Not to confuse anyone with the above - just because the SmartStart CD doesn't allow you to run the "Assisted Install" wizard for a Linux installation doesn't mean you can't install Linux on the box. Just do a regular OS install. :)
Anyhow, back to what I noticed: The old SmartStart CDs were Windows based (yup, bootable Windows, or a subset thereof, on a CD). The SmartStart CDs that shipped with my new DL380 G3s are *Linux* based. They boot into a web browser from which all system config is managed. CTRL-ALT-F1 gets you a bash prompt. X is running on F3. Window manager is icewm. Browser is phoenix. PHP seems to be present as well, as there is a
cat
Very interesting, as this Linux-based tool helps people install Windows on their servers. For fun, I asked it to walk me through an OS install - it noticed that I had configured my OS in the BIOS as Linux (yes, there is a BIOS Linux-specific option), it told me that it couldn't assist a Linux install, only Windows.
There are a variety of agents and monitoring tools that make up the Insight Management toolset. We've found that some of the tools are better than others.
Pretty much the only *essential* tool that's required is the cpqhealth drivers and daemons. This poll the health of the onboard systems such as fans, CPUs, disk arrays, etc, and will log to syslog when there is a fault. Unforunately, the open source lm_sensors and cpqarrayd packages don't talk to the hardware in the new G3 DL380's, so cpqhealth is your only option. You can find it on HP's support site, as part of the hpasm package for Linux... I grabbed my copy for RedHat 7.3 from here.
cpqhealth comes with pre-built modules for RedHat 7.3, 8.0 and a few other distros (SuSE for example). But I've found that even the most up to date stuff from HP's site only supports the kernels shipped on the RedHat cd, and nothing newer. Luckily, cpqhealth (part of the hpasm package) does allow you to build new modules. You'll need a compiler on the machine. Take a peek at this script: /opt/compaq/cpqhealth/custom_cpqhealth.sh - it will build a new cpqhealth RPM for you, containing the drivers and daemons necessary to log hardware faults to the syslog (as well as to take action on them).
The script will break when you first run it - it will look for the following two files:
Both of which are missing in the most recent hpasm release. Create the S10cpqasm file yourself (it's just a startup script that gets dumped /etc/init.d - a simple touch of that file is fine for now - you can put a proper one together later), and copy hpuid from /bin (where it gets installed when you installed the hpasm RPM).
Once done, you'll have an RPM that installs the following:
two kernel modules: cpqasm.o, cpqevt.o
two daemons: /opt/compaq/cpqhealth/cpqasm/casmd
/opt/compaq/cpqhealth/cpqevt/cevtd
Make sure the kernel modules and daemons get loaded, and you'll now get warnings when a fan fails, disk in the RAID array dies, etc.
Even better - unlike the rest of the HP/Compaq Insight stuff, this doesn't use SNMP, doesn't install a web server that listens to 0.0.0.0, and seems to work quite well.
Other annoying things I've discovered about the rest of the HP/Compaq toolset:
In the end, we just ended up installing cpqhealth on the boxes to warn us of hardware problems, and will use RRDtool for our other monitoring requirements.