I personally use bladenc, but I've heard good things about LAME. The key thing is that the Franhaufer (sp?) encoders are really geared to high compression ratios to make 128kbps. They do a swell job of producing good sound at 128kbps. For GREAT sound though, you want to go with 192kbps and bladenc or LAME. Franhaufer is way to tuned for 128kbps IMHO and when you boost it to 192kbps and compare with LAME or bladenc, you can actually hear the difference.
Yes, and this is exactly why SGI released it under GPL, and exactly why GPL'd software is going to have better luck getting corporate support.
Think about it for a moment... if XFS is released under a BSD license, how long before all of SGI's competitors (including MS's Windows NT) have ported the code and added it to their own OS's? At least with GPL'd software, if they're going to do it, they have to publish their own kernel as well.
I just got back from a training course on RUP, and I have to say that in my opinion it's a pretty good match to the "right way" to do software development. It certainly sounds better than what you currently have.
That said, I think Open Source projects have different goals and objectives, and this can get in the way of following traditional development processes.
In general, the more successfull OS projects have followed a lowest common denominator approach. They've general lowered the bar of entry for a "developer" to get in on the project as low as reasonably possible. This is a good strategy to follow, as the key part of open source is to get as many people involved as possible.
Just in case anyone didn't know this, the Cyrus IMAPd fully supports public folders. Scheduling is another matter. For that you need an open source calendaring project.;-)
The Cyrus server at CMU is probably your best bet. You'll find it at at this link.
It's worth noting that this project is currently supporting all of CMU's e-mail needs. It's also my understanding that it forms the basis for Netscape's Message Server and Post.Office. This should satisfy any concerns about it's scalability. It has lots of handy features like kerberos authentication, a database style message repository, support for ACAP, etc.
Alternatively try QMail. Personally, while I think it provides better SMTP performance than Sendmail, I'd rather use the Cyrus IMAP server than the UW one (the only one supported by QMail). You could go with using a combo of sendmail|postfix + Cyrus for incomming mail (i.e. what your MX records point to) and QMail for outgoing mail. It depends on your performance needs
Exchange Server is NOTORIOUS for being both difficult and expensive when you need it to scale to a large number of users, although I understand it's improved substancially since the 4.x days when it was just impossible.
Weird, I noticed the Sony MD player is actually listed as prior art, and he claims that it doesn't use compression. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't MD players compress their data? He's right about it being real-time based, but it doesn't take a genius to make an MD cutter... certainly CD cutters can do the job in non-realtime fashions.
Read the Beowulf website. The specific reason why NASA went with a free OS in the first place was that it's typically necessary to make modificiations in the OS in order to get decent performance. Computational clustering like Beowulf stresses systems in a fairly unique way, and most general purpose OS's don't rise to the challenge. BeOS may be a great OS, but I suspect even Gasse himself wouldn't be surprised if it didn't meet Beowulf needs perfectly, and consequently required some mods.
Much like the Xerox deal, Microsoft several times managed to force Apple to hand over the code for parts of the MacOS. This was largely due to threats of discontinuing Macintosh support. In retrospect, Apple probably would have been better off calling their bluff.
One of the original "building an Internet Firewall" books was written by the security guys at AT&T sometime circa 1992. Anyway, the specifically mention that the only way to have a truly secure firewall is if you have control over all the source code for the software running on it. Consequently they recommend either buying the source license or using BSD or Linux. Sorry, I can't remember the title of the book.
VPN's are based on point-to-point secured communications. If two firewalls are running IPSec they will typically be capable of "briding" the two networks they guard over a VPN. Check out the number of VPN solutions that use IPSec.;-)
1) IPSec is effectively IP-over-IP. My understanding is that the base IP packets used to transport the encyrpted packets are not compressed, so layer 4 switching should be fine.
2) SSL and IPSec are really quite different. IPSec allows you to bridge two LANs securely. So, you can having routing rules like "all packets to subnet B get encrypted and sent out over this ethernet host".
3) If you are in the US you can use S/WAN. You just can't export it out of the US.
I have no problems with Katz, in fact I like reading his articles, but please don't say he's never claimed to be a geek. He's claimed to be a geek regularly. Although he admits to not being a computer expert, his definition of geek includes himself.
Rather than having to fiddle with the numbers for your auto-scoring system, why not use a simple bell curve/standard deviation formula? For example, +1 standard deviation gets you +1 on your posting scores, and +2 standard deviations gets you +2 on your posting scores. This will make +4 very rare, as it should be, and will scale and adjust no matter how many moderation points are flowing through the system.
The one group of people I'd like to see somehow represented in the moderators group would be lurkers. I don't know how you'd select them, but I'm thinking if you can find really old accounts, which haven't posted a thing, but which visit the site regularly.
I'd also like to say I think the idea that you either post or moderate is a great idea. This prevents moderators from monoplizing the conversation. The only catch is this: if I'm a moderator, why wouldn't I just create a 2nd account for posting?
Well, that quote doesn't imply Linux is the hardest to use OS on the planet. It simply implies that the real cost is in the time you spend getting it up and running.... time that is a factor for every other operating system out there.
Did you look at how these stats were computed? They took the estimated number of people who went to Jurassic Park during it's opening (Jurassic park also had very wide release and McDonald's hype behind it) and then mutliplied that by 46% (apparently the percentage of the population that is employed full time --man, I didn't realize it was that low).
That statistic therefore assume that NONE of the full time employees will even consider the fact that they supposed to be at work as a factor when deciding when to go see the movie. How ludicrous is that? At least they could have looked at demographics for absenteeism during Jurassic Park, or better still phone polled around.
The worst part is that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that this story is making the rounds, people are going to have the attitude of, "that's a great idea, and since everyone else is doing it...."
You know, the Transmetta thing was sort of funny, until you realize that that stupid ad windows is getting hits on it like crazy thanks to this slashdot link.
God, I can't get over this: we truly live in depressing times. The sad thing about Amistad and Contact wasn't the moviews but McConaughey, who's performance was poor and stood out against those of his outstanding costars. That's how Katz can feel he's redeeming himself in a poor movie: his performance is better.
Believe it or not some people still judge actors based on how well they act, rather than how much liked the movie.;-)
From the sounds of it, this is a large hi-tech company that's suing them (who else do Segfault and UF paraody?;-). That being he case, it's a given that lots of their employees read one or both. Now, given that most tech workers have the freedom to choose where they work, how many people do you think will want to leave said company once they realize what it's been doing? I mean, would you want to work for a company that was so uncool?
I've debated stuff with him through e-mail as well, and I think a lot of people talking with him are missing the point. The guy definitely has a lot of experience with secure systems, although he doesn't have a lot of experience with security theory.
He's talking about what I refer to as SOHO security: the kind of security that a small business can afford. Yes, software security could be cheap, but hardware security is never cheap, and as such, provably secure software systems frequently don't do the average SOHO users a lot of good (because the hardware is insecure). Instead, they rely on making it cumbersome to crack their systems. In such an environment, a binary only system is helpfull, because an attacker has to work just that much harder to introduce an unobtrusive security hole.
This in no way improves the actual, proveable security of a system, but it does make a difference.
Actually, the irony of that is that it's actually a result of a key restriction in the BSD license which does not exist in the GPL. With the BSD license you are required to credit the "Regents of University of California" during startup of any derivative work you make. The GPL has no such restriction (hence a lot of GNU software goes uncredited).
Slashdot Mirror
I personally use bladenc, but I've heard good things about LAME. The key thing is that the Franhaufer (sp?) encoders are really geared to high compression ratios to make 128kbps. They do a swell job of producing good sound at 128kbps. For GREAT sound though, you want to go with 192kbps and bladenc or LAME. Franhaufer is way to tuned for 128kbps IMHO and when you boost it to 192kbps and compare with LAME or bladenc, you can actually hear the difference.
Yes, and this is exactly why SGI released it under GPL, and exactly why GPL'd software is going to have better luck getting corporate support.
Think about it for a moment... if XFS is released under a BSD license, how long before all of SGI's competitors (including MS's Windows NT) have ported the code and added it to their own OS's? At least with GPL'd software, if they're going to do it, they have to publish their own kernel as well.
I just got back from a training course on RUP, and I have to say that in my opinion it's a pretty good match to the "right way" to do software development. It certainly sounds better than what you currently have.
That said, I think Open Source projects have different goals and objectives, and this can get in the way of following traditional development processes.
In general, the more successfull OS projects have followed a lowest common denominator approach. They've general lowered the bar of entry for a "developer" to get in on the project as low as reasonably possible. This is a good strategy to follow, as the key part of open source is to get as many people involved as possible.
Just in case anyone didn't know this, the Cyrus IMAPd fully supports public folders. Scheduling is another matter. For that you need an open source calendaring project. ;-)
The Cyrus server at CMU is probably your best bet. You'll find it at at this link.
It's worth noting that this project is currently supporting all of CMU's e-mail needs. It's also my understanding that it forms the basis for Netscape's Message Server and Post.Office. This should satisfy any concerns about it's scalability. It has lots of handy features like kerberos authentication, a database style message repository, support for ACAP, etc.
Alternatively try QMail. Personally, while I think it provides better SMTP performance than Sendmail, I'd rather use the Cyrus IMAP server than the UW one (the only one supported by QMail). You could go with using a combo of sendmail|postfix + Cyrus for incomming mail (i.e. what your MX records point to) and QMail for outgoing mail. It depends on your performance needs
Exchange Server is NOTORIOUS for being both difficult and expensive when you need it to scale to a large number of users, although I understand it's improved substancially since the 4.x days when it was just impossible.
Weird, I noticed the Sony MD player is actually listed as prior art, and he claims that it doesn't use compression. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't MD players compress their data? He's right about it being real-time based, but it doesn't take a genius to make an MD cutter... certainly CD cutters can do the job in non-realtime fashions.
One could certainly argue that Sony MD players meet the requirements of said patent, and they easily predate 1995.
Read the Beowulf website. The specific reason why
NASA went with a free OS in the first place was
that it's typically necessary to make
modificiations in the OS in order to get decent
performance. Computational clustering like Beowulf
stresses systems in a fairly unique way, and most
general purpose OS's don't rise to the challenge.
BeOS may be a great OS, but I suspect even Gasse
himself wouldn't be surprised if it didn't meet
Beowulf needs perfectly, and consequently required
some mods.
Much like the Xerox deal, Microsoft several times managed to force Apple to hand over the code for parts of the MacOS. This was largely due to threats of discontinuing Macintosh support. In retrospect, Apple probably would have been better off calling their bluff.
One of the original "building an Internet Firewall" books was written by the security guys at AT&T sometime circa 1992. Anyway, the specifically mention that the only way to have a truly secure firewall is if you have control over all the source code for the software running on it. Consequently they recommend either buying the source license or using BSD or Linux. Sorry, I can't remember the title of the book.
Look at the DAV extensions to Apache. The only sad thing is the best GUI client for DAV right now comes with IE 5.0.... ;-)
According to this article on news.com they are going to give away the HotSpot VM.
VPN's are based on point-to-point secured communications. If two firewalls are running IPSec they will typically be capable of "briding" the two networks they guard over a VPN. ;-)
Check out the number of VPN solutions that use IPSec.
A few points:
1) IPSec is effectively IP-over-IP. My understanding is that the base IP packets used to transport the encyrpted packets are not compressed, so layer 4 switching should be fine.
2) SSL and IPSec are really quite different. IPSec allows you to bridge two LANs securely. So, you can having routing rules like "all packets to subnet B get encrypted and sent out over this ethernet host".
3) If you are in the US you can use S/WAN. You just can't export it out of the US.
I have no problems with Katz, in fact I like reading his articles, but please don't say he's never claimed to be a geek. He's claimed to be a geek regularly. Although he admits to not being a computer expert, his definition of geek includes himself.
Rather than having to fiddle with the numbers for your auto-scoring system, why not use a simple bell curve/standard deviation formula? For example, +1 standard deviation gets you +1 on your posting scores, and +2 standard deviations gets you +2 on your posting scores. This will make +4 very rare, as it should be, and will scale and adjust no matter how many moderation points are flowing through the system.
The one group of people I'd like to see somehow represented in the moderators group would be lurkers. I don't know how you'd select them, but I'm thinking if you can find really old accounts, which haven't posted a thing, but which visit the site regularly.
I'd also like to say I think the idea that you either post or moderate is a great idea. This prevents moderators from monoplizing the conversation. The only catch is this: if I'm a moderator, why wouldn't I just create a 2nd account for posting?
Well, that quote doesn't imply Linux is the hardest to use OS on the planet. It simply implies that the real cost is in the time you spend getting it up and running.... time that is a factor for every other operating system out there.
Did you look at how these stats were computed? They took the estimated number of people who went to Jurassic Park during it's opening (Jurassic park also had very wide release and McDonald's hype behind it) and then mutliplied that by 46% (apparently the percentage of the population that is employed full time --man, I didn't realize it was that low).
That statistic therefore assume that NONE of the full time employees will even consider the fact that they supposed to be at work as a factor when deciding when to go see the movie. How ludicrous is that? At least they could have looked at demographics for absenteeism during Jurassic Park, or better still phone polled around.
The worst part is that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that this story is making the rounds, people are going to have the attitude of, "that's a great idea, and since everyone else is doing it...."
I thought he said more along the lines of "Linux sucks less."
You know, the Transmetta thing was sort of funny, until you realize that that stupid ad windows is getting hits on it like crazy thanks to this slashdot link.
God, I can't get over this: we truly live in depressing times. The sad thing about Amistad and Contact wasn't the moviews but McConaughey, who's performance was poor and stood out against those of his outstanding costars. That's how Katz can feel he's redeeming himself in a poor movie: his performance is better.
;-)
Believe it or not some people still judge actors based on how well they act, rather than how much liked the movie.
From the sounds of it, this is a large hi-tech company that's suing them (who else do Segfault and UF paraody? ;-). That being he case, it's a given that lots of their employees read one or both. Now, given that most tech workers have the freedom to choose where they work, how many people do you think will want to leave said company once they realize what it's been doing? I mean, would you want to work for a company that was so uncool?
I've debated stuff with him through e-mail as well, and I think a lot of people talking with him are missing the point. The guy definitely has a lot of experience with secure systems, although he doesn't have a lot of experience with security theory.
He's talking about what I refer to as SOHO security: the kind of security that a small business can afford. Yes, software security could be cheap, but hardware security is never cheap, and as such, provably secure software systems frequently don't do the average SOHO users a lot of good (because the hardware is insecure). Instead, they rely on making it cumbersome to crack their systems. In such an environment, a binary only system is helpfull, because an attacker has to work just that much harder to introduce an unobtrusive security hole.
This in no way improves the actual, proveable security of a system, but it does make a difference.
Actually, the irony of that is that it's actually a result of a key restriction in the BSD license which does not exist in the GPL. With the BSD license you are required to credit the "Regents of University of California" during startup of any derivative work you make. The GPL has no such restriction (hence a lot of GNU software goes uncredited).