The statistics systems in both OS-es are voluntary and mainly activated by the people who don't have a clue about what they are doing.
Most people using Debian/Ubuntu (like myself) who do regular updates have the feedback function deactivated because of privacy concerns (yea, we tend to think about such trivial matter).
Now the 'just works' crowd does not. Of course I would favor if the just works crowd would ask a professional to install their systems and activate the automatic download (because they tend to ignore the update notification anyway), but well, thats not the way the world is spinning around.
What I wanted to say is, that this statistics are moot / only tell about a limited subset of the userbase.
e.g.... When you measure the speed of light and find it to be twice c, your first assumption would be that you've done something seriously wrong in calculating the result, not that you've just figured out a technique for FTL communications.
Damit! My calculations for the FTL drive are correct, you'll see!!
I'm all for Windows bashing, but this is kind of ridiculous! I mean, wouldn't someone already have discovered if Windows would eat 50% of the network capacity in terms of transfer? This is probably an aging NIC or something, maybe a broken cable or the update was downloading SP4 the nineteenth time. Would be cool to use sensible configurations for this kind of test, like make the machine dual boot and test it on the same hardware before making wild assumptions. And now, please excuse me, I have to look for articles that bash Windows and have some valid points..
So if we talk about questions of law, everyone says: ask a lawyer. But if we start to talk about technology, nobody says: ask a support technician.
Not being computer inclined is no bad thing, (well, at least it does not violate human rights), but it's ok, as long as people ask someone who has a clue. Does not seem to be the case here.
Code is code, not more. It is a good idea to make a reusable codebase. Seeing it as an infrastructure is also good. Still code has no fancy effects, no content and no artistic work in it. So if we would work a bit better on the base, we would stop reinventing the damn wheel over and over again and start using it for specific content like entertainment or stuff. To reinvent the wheel and copyright the n-th incarnation is really lame, an that is what we are doing since 40 years. Didn't bring us too far, did it?
If we establish a sane common software base / infrastructure, then these companies would have to start to argue with actual quality of the product for product compositions for different use cases. I'm all for it.
Seems you are on the wrong portal. This is Slashdot and I suppose most people here thing of Internet access like breathing air. Of course the abroad version is a bit tricky. The technical means to connect from a ship are mostly beyond student levels.
If the EMail option is enough for you, then you can of course set up a server somewhere (rent a virtual one with root access, would not set up one at home for so long with no supervision, also you are owned if it goes down). Then you can script an interpreter and connect it with Postfix or what ever you prefer.
It would check for a valid signature and execute the commands it reads form the data section of the email. You can also encode the pictures, binary data or whatever in Base64 and send it as text.
Pictures with jpeg compression for a blog like presentation should be well under the traffic limit too (read: you could transmit at least 2 dozen of them with one transmission). I personally would probably write the message, compress it (at least the text part, jpeg is pointless), encrypt everything and then send it as inline Base64 text with a valid signature.
Then you would have to set up some routines on the server to send it to a bogging service, but there is plenty of code / apps for that one.
Now I realize that you probably want to know if this kind of thing is doable in a point and click fashion. I actually don't know of any particular instance, but there is Google, so give it a try.
I actually like the QR code implementation better. You can encode arbitrary url's into it. The Microsoft version introduces a single point of failure model, so even if I would entrust them with my quires, if the server goes down the entire infrastructure for this system is owned. No, thanks!
I'm tired of people knowing the "true" way. It is true that without a decent planing and design period you will get nothing workable, but you can easily get lost in these phases. Also requirements often change late when first running something is up and someone actually tries it.
In my experience it works best if you do a decent planing and design without too much fuss and then create a prototype to have something to analyze. Then you complete your plan and do/redo the development. What also works out good is test driven development, writing the tests while developing. Greatly increases the maintainability and you also get a sort of documentation that has actually something in common with the actual implementation. When the basics are done, you add the features you need and then test the application. Then you let someone how is supposed to use it and is not involved in the development test it and find the stuff you would not look for. This way with added competent personal you may end up with something workable (i.e. not crappy).
Of course this would imply some conditions which are almost never met in reality:
* Assignment of the necessary resources to the project (enough time and money)
* Developers who have a clue what they are doing (rare, expensive)
* Sane development guidelines and practices.
In the end it is a question of what works out the best for you and what kind of environment, requirements and customers you have.
How about removing the swiss cheese security model of the operating systems that are affected so the bad guys won't be able to spread bot-nets. I know, I know, many people would loose support jobs then.. never mind, carry on.
Why not the NSA? They don't tell anyone what they are doing the most time, so they probably won't have to be scared of a lawsuit. If it goes wrong, then it was the Chinese? On the other hand, probably a bad idea, they might have more creative ideas with it than destroying it..
Not only is it a problem of breaking the law, but there's the problem of "cleaning gone wrong". What if the cleaning program fouls a hospital's computers? Or fouls up some other important infrastructure. Do you want to be the guy standing next to the enter key in that event?
Well, that really depends on the outcome. If the result would be something like SkyNet, then I couldn't care less. I mean, what do you want to do if the world goes BOOM? Sue me? Oh, wait..
This reminds me of the story of Irish potatoes. In the 18th century the Irish people were planting exactly one kind of potato and used it as main food supply. Then one day came a disease and all the crop died. As a result thousands of Irish people starved.
I like to bring this analogy in the same line as Microsoft software, but that the Irish people would do the same mistake twice.. Makes me wonder if humans are really able to learn out of failures?
The problem with ext3 is the same as with NTFS. They are journaling file systems, meaning that they do a lot of read/writing to the media. This is no problem with hard drives but flash media have just a limited amount of these. That's why non journaling file systems are employed on them. Mainly some kind of VFAT but ext2 would also do the job quite nicely. Problem is, that ext2 is not supported on the Windows platform as a default option. Additional installation is not an option for the avarage Joe. The bigger media will have some sort for FAT for the same reason. I'm qurious, is this new version of FAT also readable on non Windows platforms? Anyway, if you feel like it, it should be no problem to reformat them to ext2. Just your Windows friends will look a bit surprised that it seems unformatted. If you go more into the thing, you probably can also partition that thing like normal USB flash media, put a standard VFAT in one partition to it's limit and fill the rest with ext 2 to 'hide' your info from your clueless friends / boss / whatever. Or you put an array of normal FAT partitions on it with their maximum limitations. Did I miss something?
Yes, totally agree. After a while of Ad-block usage I was trying to use less Ad-blocking to support the sites I visit, but the plague of these things is really overwhelming, so I'm back on full Ad-block. White listing my favorite sites is also too much hassle, so unless the community of the Internet content providers get to some consent, there is not much future for on-line advertising. Anyway, I'll be the first one to drop a party to the death of that crappy IE browser.
Basically I agree to you except for the GUI thing. Did you see a well configured Compiz on potent hardware lately?
(14.a) As shiny and powerful it may be, you will still have a hard time to find sane documentation for GUI's in Linux.
That would be an argument.
Also:
(20) Vendor lock-in and lack of thinking will keep Win OS where it is.
(21) Linux keeps being difficult to figure out for technically not inclined people, and thy won't even get the idea to try.
(22) Games will keep the majority of the rest with the OS.
Can't they just ask Google - for instance - to give the cache records of the site? I mean, we all know that what is released on the web is mirrored over and over again? No?
Slashdot Mirror
The statistics systems in both OS-es are voluntary and mainly activated by the people who don't have a clue about what they are doing.
Most people using Debian/Ubuntu (like myself) who do regular updates have the feedback function deactivated because of privacy concerns (yea, we tend to think about such trivial matter).
Now the 'just works' crowd does not. Of course I would favor if the just works crowd would ask a professional to install their systems and activate the automatic download (because they tend to ignore the update notification anyway), but well, thats not the way the world is spinning around.
What I wanted to say is, that this statistics are moot / only tell about a limited subset of the userbase.
Damit! My calculations for the FTL drive are correct, you'll see!!
/jk
I'm all for Windows bashing, but this is kind of ridiculous! I mean, wouldn't someone already have discovered if Windows would eat 50% of the network capacity in terms of transfer? This is probably an aging NIC or something, maybe a broken cable or the update was downloading SP4 the nineteenth time. Would be cool to use sensible configurations for this kind of test, like make the machine dual boot and test it on the same hardware before making wild assumptions. And now, please excuse me, I have to look for articles that bash Windows and have some valid points..
So if we talk about questions of law, everyone says: ask a lawyer. But if we start to talk about technology, nobody says: ask a support technician.
Not being computer inclined is no bad thing, (well, at least it does not violate human rights), but it's ok, as long as people ask someone who has a clue. Does not seem to be the case here.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090114/apple_jobs.html has an article on it.
Code is code, not more. It is a good idea to make a reusable codebase. Seeing it as an infrastructure is also good. Still code has no fancy effects, no content and no artistic work in it. So if we would work a bit better on the base, we would stop reinventing the damn wheel over and over again and start using it for specific content like entertainment or stuff. To reinvent the wheel and copyright the n-th incarnation is really lame, an that is what we are doing since 40 years. Didn't bring us too far, did it?
If we establish a sane common software base / infrastructure, then these companies would have to start to argue with actual quality of the product for product compositions for different use cases. I'm all for it.
Seems you are on the wrong portal. This is Slashdot and I suppose most people here thing of Internet access like breathing air. Of course the abroad version is a bit tricky. The technical means to connect from a ship are mostly beyond student levels.
If the EMail option is enough for you, then you can of course set up a server somewhere (rent a virtual one with root access, would not set up one at home for so long with no supervision, also you are owned if it goes down). Then you can script an interpreter and connect it with Postfix or what ever you prefer.
It would check for a valid signature and execute the commands it reads form the data section of the email. You can also encode the pictures, binary data or whatever in Base64 and send it as text.
Pictures with jpeg compression for a blog like presentation should be well under the traffic limit too (read: you could transmit at least 2 dozen of them with one transmission). I personally would probably write the message, compress it (at least the text part, jpeg is pointless), encrypt everything and then send it as inline Base64 text with a valid signature.
Then you would have to set up some routines on the server to send it to a bogging service, but there is plenty of code / apps for that one.
Now I realize that you probably want to know if this kind of thing is doable in a point and click fashion. I actually don't know of any particular instance, but there is Google, so give it a try.
I actually like the QR code implementation better. You can encode arbitrary url's into it. The Microsoft version introduces a single point of failure model, so even if I would entrust them with my quires, if the server goes down the entire infrastructure for this system is owned. No, thanks!
You missed the unbelievably useful new touchscreen control!
So while this hits the fan, you should get a body building subscription.
Yes
I'm tired of people knowing the "true" way. It is true that without a decent planing and design period you will get nothing workable, but you can easily get lost in these phases. Also requirements often change late when first running something is up and someone actually tries it.
In my experience it works best if you do a decent planing and design without too much fuss and then create a prototype to have something to analyze. Then you complete your plan and do/redo the development. What also works out good is test driven development, writing the tests while developing. Greatly increases the maintainability and you also get a sort of documentation that has actually something in common with the actual implementation. When the basics are done, you add the features you need and then test the application. Then you let someone how is supposed to use it and is not involved in the development test it and find the stuff you would not look for. This way with added competent personal you may end up with something workable (i.e. not crappy).
Of course this would imply some conditions which are almost never met in reality:
* Assignment of the necessary resources to the project (enough time and money)
* Developers who have a clue what they are doing (rare, expensive)
* Sane development guidelines and practices.
In the end it is a question of what works out the best for you and what kind of environment, requirements and customers you have.
Did you honestly just put Windows and Linux people in one boat? Somehow sounded like it. Must be my imagination.
How about removing the swiss cheese security model of the operating systems that are affected so the bad guys won't be able to spread bot-nets. I know, I know, many people would loose support jobs then.. never mind, carry on.
Why not the NSA? They don't tell anyone what they are doing the most time, so they probably won't have to be scared of a lawsuit. If it goes wrong, then it was the Chinese? On the other hand, probably a bad idea, they might have more creative ideas with it than destroying it..
We will see more diversified spam?
Well, that really depends on the outcome. If the result would be something like SkyNet, then I couldn't care less. I mean, what do you want to do if the world goes BOOM? Sue me? Oh, wait..
This reminds me of the story of Irish potatoes. In the 18th century the Irish people were planting exactly one kind of potato and used it as main food supply. Then one day came a disease and all the crop died. As a result thousands of Irish people starved.
I like to bring this analogy in the same line as Microsoft software, but that the Irish people would do the same mistake twice.. Makes me wonder if humans are really able to learn out of failures?
The problem with ext3 is the same as with NTFS. They are journaling file systems, meaning that they do a lot of read/writing to the media. This is no problem with hard drives but flash media have just a limited amount of these. That's why non journaling file systems are employed on them. Mainly some kind of VFAT but ext2 would also do the job quite nicely. Problem is, that ext2 is not supported on the Windows platform as a default option. Additional installation is not an option for the avarage Joe. The bigger media will have some sort for FAT for the same reason. I'm qurious, is this new version of FAT also readable on non Windows platforms? Anyway, if you feel like it, it should be no problem to reformat them to ext2. Just your Windows friends will look a bit surprised that it seems unformatted. If you go more into the thing, you probably can also partition that thing like normal USB flash media, put a standard VFAT in one partition to it's limit and fill the rest with ext 2 to 'hide' your info from your clueless friends / boss / whatever. Or you put an array of normal FAT partitions on it with their maximum limitations. Did I miss something?
Well, dont know, but the stats e.g. http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html don't exactly convince me that Java is dead..
Yes, totally agree. After a while of Ad-block usage I was trying to use less Ad-blocking to support the sites I visit, but the plague of these things is really overwhelming, so I'm back on full Ad-block. White listing my favorite sites is also too much hassle, so unless the community of the Internet content providers get to some consent, there is not much future for on-line advertising. Anyway, I'll be the first one to drop a party to the death of that crappy IE browser.
(14.a) As shiny and powerful it may be, you will still have a hard time to find sane documentation for GUI's in Linux.
That would be an argument. Also:
(20) Vendor lock-in and lack of thinking will keep Win OS where it is.
(21) Linux keeps being difficult to figure out for technically not inclined people, and thy won't even get the idea to try.
(22) Games will keep the majority of the rest with the OS.
Can't they just ask Google - for instance - to give the cache records of the site? I mean, we all know that what is released on the web is mirrored over and over again? No?
tool@corporate: rm -rf /
rm: deleting '/': Operation not permitted
On the other hand, if you can not trust your operator(s), you are most probably owned - no matter what system you are on.
Now get of my lawn!
The page in the last link seems to be down here. Anyway, here is the Google cache link: http://209.85.129.132/search?hl=en&as_q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.finfacts.ie%2Firelandbusinessnews%2Fpublish%2Farticle_10005150.shtml&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images
I really hope they build better launch facilities than websites ( http://www.spaceportamerica.com/ ).