...detroit starts selling cars that can levitate and fly over intersections? The traffic code isn't equipped to deal with that!
Or, what if someone discovers a way to read minds and record exact thoughts? What is the legal system going to do!
My advice: it's best when systems (bureaucracies esepcailly!) trail the phenomenon that they control, so the controls adapt to reality, and not the other way around.
Sledgehammer theatre in san diego did a few productions 5 or 6 years ago that were really ahead of their time, and quite good. It was a mixed live theatre / video approach, where people would go offstage and TV's would show another part of the story.
In particular, I remember one about the angst of a department store worker, where the live play was about her home life and the videos were of crappy things happening to her at work.
Well, I partially agree with what you've said. Certainly the net value-add of privacy does help porn to some degree, but I don't think the effect is as big as you think. I don't have current figures, but at the ia2000 trade show last year, estimates were that the net was producing about 10% of revenue in "adult content." (the remainder being traditional video and magazine sales).
I do think you've hit the nail on the head about the lack of value in much of the information out there. Just because someone puts 50 people to work creating it, and spends millions of dollars a year subsidizing it, doesn't mean it's any good!
However, I do believe that there is a real future in pay content for mainstream stuff. Not driving directions or dictionaries -- those are commodities. The trick lies in producing unique content which *has* inherent value. People have always been willing to pay for value, and always will be.
I agree that egrops, et al, are doomed to be free (or ad supported). There's not enough value there to charge monthly fees. But that's why those companies should follow the lead of free adult sites; hook up with for-pay content sites and create a revenue sharing model. Draw people in with the free content, and charge a premium for filtered / vetted / personalized content.
It's going to take a radical change. Not the smallest change will be the abandonment of the idea that people are somehow entitled to make money just because they spent a lot of time on something. If you can't or don't produce content that *is* worth paying for, either get out of the business or adapt your business to be a feeder site for those who can.
ther models may work out as well. But if I were sitting at the helm of a sinking free content site, I would be doing some serious research on the adult internet industry. Sure, not everything is applicable. But a lot of it is.
If there's one thing history has shown us, it's that adult entertainment leads the way in both technology adoption and maxmimizing revenue. So let's look at the current state of the adult internet industry as a model for where everyone else will be in a couple of years.
The reason the adult industry is always ahead of mainstream industries is the complete lack of "wishful thinking" business plans. Well, that's not entirely true. How about, "the complete lack of funding available for 'wishful thinking' business plans"? There is nobody to give you $20 million in the adult industry; if you want that kind of money, you have to get it the old fashioned way: by earning it.
For that reason, bad ideas die quickly... whereas in the so-called real world, bad ideas can persist for years if the people responsible have the right connections and are good with powerpoint.
So let's move on to how people are really making money on the net.
The adult industry is stratified into two key market segments: pay sites and free sites. Pay sites charge membership fees, usually between $9.95/month and $29.95/month. The subscriptions are typically auto-renewing. General stats show an average of about 3 months/signup, or revenue on the order of $80/signup (gross).
Free sites act as feeders to pay sites. The sole purpose of a free site is to send traffic to one or more pay sites, in return for a percentage on sales. Free sites run banners for the affiliate programs they participate in, and want to minimize free pageviews before sending people to the pay sites.
See what's going on here? Pay sites don't *pay* anyone to run banner ads. It's a market solution, where free sites are constantly hunting for sponsors who have higher conversions, pay out more, etc. It is up to the free site to generate pageviews (preferably by good content and word of mouth, but all too often by spam and fraud).
However, free sites are really the entry level of the industry. There are a few that make some real money, but the fast majority make hundreds to the low thousands of dollars a month; not enough to support a real business.
Still, there are thousands and thousands of hobbyists making those hundreds to low thousands of dollars, and they in turn generate huge traffic volume for pay sites, where much higher revenues are concentrated among fewer players.
Why does it work that way in the adult internet? Because the people involved are running actual businesses that depend on cash flow and profitability.
What we're seeing in the mainstream internet is the crash and burn of the "lose money on every pageview, but make it up in volume" approach. And the "we'll lose a fortune, but people will really like our site" approach.
Bottom line: it costs real money to create (most) content, and it costs *real* money to operate a real business. That money can either come from the business itself (profitability), or from outside investors (funding, loans, selling stock). The first approach is what energy folks would call renewable; the second approach is basically just buying time.
The mainstream internet is already starting to evolve to more colosely resemble the adult industry. Community sites (like/.) can generate huge amounts of pageviews, and (hopefully) make money by getting percentages on revenue they drive to advertisers, either hard goods or for-pay content sites.
There certainly was a bill to strengthen protection for databases, but according to Bitlaw, databases are protected when they are a compilation that adds value by selecting, arranging, or coordinating the underlying information. A compilation is a value-added coallation of what may themselves be basic facts.
It's important to understand, as that same article mentions, that the underlying data itself is not protected. It's the compilation itself. CDDB certainly counts as a compilation of data, even if they are turning out to be a bunch of greedy f*cks.
You may work somewhere big, but you don't know the first thing about SQL server.
Yes, it installs with a blank password by default. However, in over 50 SQL server intstallations, with literally hundreds of MS and third party apps, I have yet to see a single app that has this hardcoded. I would faint at the sight of an app that requires a blank SA password.
You're quite right about SP5, though, and SP2 was similar.
...it sounds like your motivation here is to not use Microsoft at all costs. As a hobbyist, and for my own systems, I agree. But when you're taking a paycheck you have an obligation to deliver the best possible solution. Not only the technically best, but the best overall, including political and business considerations.
SQL Server is actually a very, very good product. Probably because it originated outside Microsoft:), but for whatever reason, it is light years (ok, just years) ahead of MySQL. SQL Server has better XML support, higher performance for most applications, distributed transactions, good (but not great) clustering/failover support, and vastly better administrative tools.
Now, there are reasons not to use it. Like, Oracle is better overall. Or MySQL is much cheaper and good enough for smaller databases that don't need enterprise-level functionality, support, or reliability.
Additionally, if your boss (and presumably company) is going in a Microsoft direction, are you really doing anyone a favor by going with something else? I mean, yeah, we all hate to give Microsoft more money. But what happens if you leave the company, and you've build this Linux/MySQL backend that's not in line with the company's strategic direction?
I'm sure I'll get plenty of hate mail. And believe me, I do my best to promote alternative solutions to the Empire when it makes sense. But if an MS solution makes the most sense in a particular situation *for a paying client*, I go with it. And SQL Server is the *one* MS product that I've frequently seen as the best solution given budget/hardware/DBA salary constraints.
So anyways, if you want to be a crusader, by all means go with the rebel solution regardless of how much sense it makes for the business. But if you want to deliver the best application, do the research and figure out what really makes sense for your particular environment and application needs. And don't be surprised if SQL Server actually looks pretty good.
I don't think anyone's saying that Utah doesn't have every right to be a backwards, sexist, prudish, pious state if the voters there so choose.
But techies also have every right to not go somewhere where their typically more libertine approach to life is likely to get them arrested and/or shot.
Hmm. I like the pre and post conditions, but doesn't it get thornier for more complex return values? Like, say, a pointer to a struct rather than a boolean value?
The API matchmaker would have to be able to parse and understand structs, which I guess is ok.
And if you look at your blort function, suppose a new version returns 255 for "OK, with a warning". The GlibC can't consider that a function that returns between 0-255, because a later version yet might return 2="Will batch process tonight". The problem fixes itself if you force tight enumeration, but is that really practical?
Interesting stuff. Are there any good books on the topic?
Hmm. I was being kind of facetious, but now I'm interested.
Overloading APIs is an interesting idea, and it solves some of the problems. You'd also have to handle an arbitrary return value; if an older version of GetFileLock returns 0=Failed,1=Worked, what are your old programs going to do when the new version returns 2=Deferred (or whatever)?
It seems to me that in order for this scheme to work, apps would need to tell your virtual GLibC each input parameter and type, and what output parameters they can handle. Alternatively, each function could be strongly versioned and there could be a compatibility map, so when an app wants GetFileLock v2.5.1, the central script knows that 2.6.3 will work, but 2.9.1 won't.
I don't like the one function = one file idea, simply because 1) You'd end up with thousands and thousands of API files, so 2) it would be next to impossible for software vendors to specify "known working" configurations.
You're only partly right about how Windows works. While DLLs cannot be updated while in use, increasingly MS is going with a "different DLL for each version of the library" approach. It's all about objects and object ID's these days, so the actual DLL's don't matter as much (where having two versions of the same DLL with the same name in different directories used to wreak havoc, if they're different versions today, they'll register different object ID's and everything will be fine). If you install an app that wants a later version of some library, it can install that later version and register it, since those object ID's aren't in use, even if an older version is. Hopefully that made sense.
Of course, this is only true of modern, COM/ActiveX based apps that create objects based on object ID, not DLL name/function name.
Apps specify the object ID that is unique to the library version they were written for (eg my app uses the ADO 2.6 library, but the ADO 2.5 library is also around and can be invoked by older apps). That works, but it doesn't get rid of the "multiple versions of the same code" problem. In fact, it makes that problem worse.
And while there's nothing to stop the OS from going out and getting ADO 2.6 if it's not installed, functionally that's not happening right now.
It's an interesting problem. Basically any solution is going to add some overhead and complexity, but it's probably well worth it.
Maybe the answer is tighter API/code integration? For the sake of argument, look at it in an OO light; maybe the program asks some API what parameters it will need to supply to accompish something, and then makes the actual API call with those parameters? Likewise on the return codes; some sort of metadata about what the return means?
You mean the app would just need to know the name of the function it's trying to call, and the API layer would figure out where that function actually is on that particular version/system?
And significant API changes would create new names of the function (GetFileLock might become, say, GetFileLockEx when new parameters are added or its return value types or meanings change)?
...I was at the San Francisco / LA XFL game on Sunday. I've been going to home 49ers games since 1978 (when they were 2-14 on the season!). I love football, and while I can't claim to be a world-class expert, I know a fair amount about it.
So let me briefly defend the play during the first XFL games.
Yes, it was sloppy. Yes, much of it was high school caliber. But I think it's a mistake to rush to judgement here.
What I saw was football play about on par with the second half of an early exhibition game in the NFL. You've got 45 guys who just met each other three months ago. They have no experience playing together. Coaches don't know who's really going to play, and who just wants to be there. Nobody's figured out how to use the rule changes to their advantage (though LA's surprise 3rd down punt was pretty clever, given the live ball rule).
Football is an incredibly complex and demanding sport. I personally don'r expect the XFL to ever deliver NFL-quality football. I could imagine it producing NFL-europe caliber play if it can keep going for a couple of years... and that would be good enough for me.
I largely blame the XFL itself for the way everyone's rushing to condemn the quality of football. By focusing on showmanship rather than the game, they imply that they've got the game all figured out. Or that they don't care about it. I don't think either one is true (at least, I hope Dick Butkis wouldn't sell out that badly!)
So look at it as entertainment. Don't expect great football in the first year, probably. But don't be down on it based on the first game in the first season; a good game of football is a lot harder than it looks!
This football article was a miscue, Jon (John?). It's finally become obvious that you are, in fact, John Madden.
Consider the evidence:
John Madden: "When you're behind by 20 points going into the fourth quarter, what you have to focus on is scoring."
Jon Katz: "Just because we can use new technology to go places doesn't mean we want to."
John Madden: "In a close game like this you don't want to turn over the football"
Jon Katz: "...the intimate utterances of most football players in most circumstances -- huddle, catch, tackle, injury, score -- are usually not worth hearing."
Jon Katz/John Madden: Master of disguise, Master of the Obvious.
...since my internet service comes through AboveNet, who thinks ORBS is satanic and the RBL is the answer to world hunger.
ORBS may have improved its functionality but the whole concept of cooperative anti-spam efforts will never work as long as the people involved are zealots. Zealots don't care who or what they're fighting, as long as they're fighting.
ORBS and RBL have probably put more effort into fighting each other than they have into fighting spam, and at least from where I sit (on AboveNet), it looks like that hasn't changed one bit. So congrats to ORBS, but the real breakthrough will be political, not technical.
Funny, that sounds like *exactly* the same philosophy that Microsoft has with regards to Java: being compatible with the rest of the world is a threat to commercial success. Best to be incompatible so people will be stuck with you.
I sure hope Linux doesn't succumb to the "you become what you hate" syndrome. I don't want people "stuck" with Linux, I want them to *like* Linux. Users and game developers alike.
Anything -- I repeat, *anything* -- that makes it easier for people to use Linux either as their first OS or as a migration target is a good thing.
Man, it was like the ad agencies conspired this year.
Ad: Computer Associates "Roosters on wall street" Premise:
A bunch of roosters mob a big city and then create a shockwave at sunrise Subtext:
You are such an idiot you don't even know you need us until a farm animal tells you.
Ad: Pepsi "prisoners steal our machine"
Premise:
A coke and pepsi machine sit next to each other for months/years. Eventually the inmates from a nearby prison tunnel under and steal the pepsi machine.
Subtext:
Convicted felons prefer Pepsi.
Ad: Budweiser "white men can't wassup" Premise:
a bunch of dorky white guys drinking heinkein look like idiots doing more or less the same thing as all the idiots in normal budweiser "wassup" commercials.
Subtext:
White people are dorky and our customers look down on them. Oops, our customers are 85% white. Our customers are stupid and can't be as cool as our commercials.
Ad: Levi "corpse donor" 569 jeans
Premise: A "cowboy" kills himself on a coin-op pony and his jeans are delivered to a loser who can't afford his own.
Subtext:
Idoiot cowboys buy our stuff, kill themselves stupidly, and if you're a loser you'll want their used jeans
Ad: CBS Becker "Airtime Abuse"
Premise: Two characters from a CBS show sit around commiserating about how outrageous it is that the network uses the superbowl to "flog" its poorer shows.
Subtext:
Our show sucks, CBS is abusing its viewers, and isn't it funny that we come right out and say it?
Ad: Levi "corpse donor" 569 jeans
Premise: A "cowboy" kills himself on a coin-op pony and his jeans are delivered to a loser who can't afford his own.
Subtext:
Idoiot cowboys buy our stuff, kill themselves stupidly, and if you're a loser you'll want their used jeans
I could go on and on. I sat there stupefied that almost every single commercial had a subtext talking about how stupid the company's target audience is. I mean, sure, you'd have to be stupid to drink Bud, but isn't it adding insult to injury to *tell* people that at the same time you sell them product?
The movie ads were ok. Too bad none of the movies themselves looked any good. But at least the ads didn't play the "morons will go see this movie" angle too strongly. Better than you can say for most of the ads.
Have you ever noticed that the right wing always talks about the liberal media, while the left wing talks about the corporate-controlled media?
The fact is, there is no such thing as "the media". It's just a bunch of normal people, like geeks or yuppie or even republicans.
There's no conspiracy. Money doesn't change hands. People aren't "bought."
People can be mistaken, misled, stupid, whatever. But there's really no malice or organization behind it. Trust me. I spent 5 years in one of the top 3 IT trade journals.
Microsoft treated me well. I could call up at get any MS software I wanted. If I had problems, I got project leads and then programmers on the line -- within hours. I'm no Microsoft fan, but that kind of treatment has to lead to good press.
So knock off the "buying press" thing. It's not accurate, and it's just another classic head-in-the-sand dodge for why Microsoft gets good press. The reality is much simpler. Think occam's razor.
By the way, I hate ZD. But I know people who work there and write there, and I can guarantee that they may be wrong, misguided, and confused, but they are not on the take. Nobody is; if that got out it would sink both Microsoft and the trade press.
I absolutely agree that speakers are probably the most important piece. I'd reccomend doing research and identifying what you want, then looking on ebay and other discounters.
However, I would strongly reccomend *against* Bose speakers, at least until you can compare them against other speakers side by side. I used to have a pair of 901's, and loved them... until I started getting knowledgeable about sound.
But Bose speakers are all about trying to make poorly recorded things sound better. Flat, lifeless recordings get room-filling sound. Great, right? Well, try playing well-recorded stuff (which most modern material is).
All the sudden it's boomy, has a huge preponderance of mid-bass, and sounds generally tweaked. It's like having an equalizer in the system that you can't adjust.
I'd vote for accuracy, myself, and if you've got source material that needs to be fixed, get an external EQ for that (don't run it all the time unless it's a very expensive EQ; most EQ's introduce phase problems).
Here's a good set of reviews of speakers in the general price range: audioholics. (I'm not affiliated with them in any way)
Well, this post is now ancient, but I thought I had to respond to this well thought out response.
While it is well thought out, and quite correct, it misses the key point about the original author's dilemma: it is not the company's job to look out for employees' long term interests. It can't be; there's no way the company could do a decent job of it.
In a small company (6-8 people in IT, the original poster said), there's not a lot of room for exciting new challenges. How often do companies of that size implement new technologies?
All I was saying was that, given the parameters of the situation, the company's response was 1) predictable, and 2) completely within reason.
It's an unfortunate situation, but try to see it from the company's perspective. They're small. They have a bright guy who they think could do the job. He doesn't want to move his career in that direction. He's (probably) fairly easy to replace with someone who might have more ambition to further his/her career (and, by proxy, the company's interests). What would you do?
I'm certainly familiar with the Peter Principle. I partly subscribe to it (not entirely, because I think it assumes people lack the free will that our original poster exhibited, and that companies are soulless machinations).
If our poster wants to go become Linus or Dennis, more power to him. He's in the wrong job for that, though. Apparently his bosses realize that, even if he doesn't.
Whoa, hold on there. I sort of agree with the two likely reasons, but you've got "valid" and "not valid" backwards.
From the company's perspective, hopefully they're willing to pay what jobs are worth. If this fine gentleman accepts the promotion, he had *better* get the pay that a new IT manager deserves. It should not be cheaper. If the company thinks it will be cheaper, there's something wrong. Not valid!
However, by refusing the promotion, this still-fine-and-upstanding gentleman has basically said "I have reavhed the pinacle of my professional development; I have no interest in learning new jobs or meeting new challenges; leave me in my box and leave me alone."
I would fire someone (or encourage them to leave) for that attitude. The nature of competition is that it gets harder every day. Every member on the team needs to pull their weight -- which I don't doubt this fine specimen of gentlemanhood does -- but they need to pull more weight every day. The brighter ones need to rise to new challenges.
So yes, he does sound less than 100% dedicated to his company (which is different than his work). Plus, there will be political trouble when they hire an outside IT manager. Our fine gentleman has (accidentally) put himself in a position where he cannot be managed; if he doesn't like what the IT manager does, he'll be saying "What do you know? They wanted me to do your job but I turned it down!" Or at least he *could* say that.
So yes, I think it's time for our fine friend to move on. But I don't think the company here is being unreasonable. If you want a keep-your-head-down and just-do-the-same-thing-tomorrow-that-you-did-today job, work someplace big enough that you can be anonymous and not run the risk of shining.
It sounds like a weird motivation to me, but you gotta do what makes you happy. But you also have to appreciate that companies exist to succeed in their fields, not to offer safe, static environments for technology enthusiasts.
Hello? Yes, I don't run MAPS on my home network. However a fair number of ISP's run the RBL, even in BGP mode, *without notifying customers*. Even if they *did* notify customers, not many people would understand what it is.
MAPS proponents constantly do this "It does a great job of stopping spam because it's so powerful" / "It's just a harmless little list, why does everyone get so worked up?" dance.
Many people, including one business I consult for, are behind MAPS enabled ISP's against their will (it's hard for a business to change ISP's, and in this case they've decided to live with it rather than renumbering their entire network over the RBL).
The whole *idea* of a list is a bad idea, because it can't work. That's why I'm not starting a better one. ORBS is somewhat "better", in that it lists servers that are actually likely to send out spam. But look at them; as an organization, they're worse than MAPS.
Lists and routing black holes are not the answer to spam. Yes, they can punish people, and coerce them. Great, if that's the goal. But if the goal is actually doing something about spam, other approaches are called for.
Slashdot Mirror
...detroit starts selling cars that can levitate and fly over intersections? The traffic code isn't equipped to deal with that!
Or, what if someone discovers a way to read minds and record exact thoughts? What is the legal system going to do!
My advice: it's best when systems (bureaucracies esepcailly!) trail the phenomenon that they control, so the controls adapt to reality, and not the other way around.
-b
Sledgehammer theatre in san diego did a few productions 5 or 6 years ago that were really ahead of their time, and quite good. It was a mixed live theatre / video approach, where people would go offstage and TV's would show another part of the story.
In particular, I remember one about the angst of a department store worker, where the live play was about her home life and the videos were of crappy things happening to her at work.
http://www.sledgehammer.org/
-b
Well, I partially agree with what you've said. Certainly the net value-add of privacy does help porn to some degree, but I don't think the effect is as big as you think. I don't have current figures, but at the ia2000 trade show last year, estimates were that the net was producing about 10% of revenue in "adult content." (the remainder being traditional video and magazine sales).
I do think you've hit the nail on the head about the lack of value in much of the information out there. Just because someone puts 50 people to work creating it, and spends millions of dollars a year subsidizing it, doesn't mean it's any good!
However, I do believe that there is a real future in pay content for mainstream stuff. Not driving directions or dictionaries -- those are commodities. The trick lies in producing unique content which *has* inherent value. People have always been willing to pay for value, and always will be.
I agree that egrops, et al, are doomed to be free (or ad supported). There's not enough value there to charge monthly fees. But that's why those companies should follow the lead of free adult sites; hook up with for-pay content sites and create a revenue sharing model. Draw people in with the free content, and charge a premium for filtered / vetted / personalized content.
It's going to take a radical change. Not the smallest change will be the abandonment of the idea that people are somehow entitled to make money just because they spent a lot of time on something. If you can't or don't produce content that *is* worth paying for, either get out of the business or adapt your business to be a feeder site for those who can.
ther models may work out as well. But if I were sitting at the helm of a sinking free content site, I would be doing some serious research on the adult internet industry. Sure, not everything is applicable. But a lot of it is.
Cheers
-b
If there's one thing history has shown us, it's that adult entertainment leads the way in both technology adoption and maxmimizing revenue. So let's look at the current state of the adult internet industry as a model for where everyone else will be in a couple of years.
/.) can generate huge amounts of pageviews, and (hopefully) make money by getting percentages on revenue they drive to advertisers, either hard goods or for-pay content sites.
The reason the adult industry is always ahead of mainstream industries is the complete lack of "wishful thinking" business plans. Well, that's not entirely true. How about, "the complete lack of funding available for 'wishful thinking' business plans"? There is nobody to give you $20 million in the adult industry; if you want that kind of money, you have to get it the old fashioned way: by earning it.
For that reason, bad ideas die quickly... whereas in the so-called real world, bad ideas can persist for years if the people responsible have the right connections and are good with powerpoint.
So let's move on to how people are really making money on the net.
The adult industry is stratified into two key market segments: pay sites and free sites. Pay sites charge membership fees, usually between $9.95/month and $29.95/month. The subscriptions are typically auto-renewing. General stats show an average of about 3 months/signup, or revenue on the order of $80/signup (gross).
Free sites act as feeders to pay sites. The sole purpose of a free site is to send traffic to one or more pay sites, in return for a percentage on sales. Free sites run banners for the affiliate programs they participate in, and want to minimize free pageviews before sending people to the pay sites.
See what's going on here? Pay sites don't *pay* anyone to run banner ads. It's a market solution, where free sites are constantly hunting for sponsors who have higher conversions, pay out more, etc. It is up to the free site to generate pageviews (preferably by good content and word of mouth, but all too often by spam and fraud).
However, free sites are really the entry level of the industry. There are a few that make some real money, but the fast majority make hundreds to the low thousands of dollars a month; not enough to support a real business.
Still, there are thousands and thousands of hobbyists making those hundreds to low thousands of dollars, and they in turn generate huge traffic volume for pay sites, where much higher revenues are concentrated among fewer players.
Why does it work that way in the adult internet? Because the people involved are running actual businesses that depend on cash flow and profitability.
What we're seeing in the mainstream internet is the crash and burn of the "lose money on every pageview, but make it up in volume" approach. And the "we'll lose a fortune, but people will really like our site" approach.
Bottom line: it costs real money to create (most) content, and it costs *real* money to operate a real business. That money can either come from the business itself (profitability), or from outside investors (funding, loans, selling stock). The first approach is what energy folks would call renewable; the second approach is basically just buying time.
The mainstream internet is already starting to evolve to more colosely resemble the adult industry. Community sites (like
Cheers
-b
There certainly was a bill to strengthen protection for databases, but according to Bitlaw, databases are protected when they are a compilation that adds value by selecting, arranging, or coordinating the underlying information. A compilation is a value-added coallation of what may themselves be basic facts.
It's important to understand, as that same article mentions, that the underlying data itself is not protected. It's the compilation itself. CDDB certainly counts as a compilation of data, even if they are turning out to be a bunch of greedy f*cks.
-b
You may work somewhere big, but you don't know the first thing about SQL server.
Yes, it installs with a blank password by default. However, in over 50 SQL server intstallations, with literally hundreds of MS and third party apps, I have yet to see a single app that has this hardcoded. I would faint at the sight of an app that requires a blank SA password.
You're quite right about SP5, though, and SP2 was similar.
-b
I hope so. You can always tell the automated ("voice rec") closed captioning systems because they read line:
TIGER WOODS WILD PUTE AND EIGHT DBFFF INTO GREEN WIDTH NON UN UNDNN HOLE A. HE SHOT NNE YUND LAST WATCH IN ALBERTA.
I think deaf people who rely on CC must have a really warped sense of english. Sounds like the CIA does too, now.
-b
...it sounds like your motivation here is to not use Microsoft at all costs. As a hobbyist, and for my own systems, I agree. But when you're taking a paycheck you have an obligation to deliver the best possible solution. Not only the technically best, but the best overall, including political and business considerations.
:), but for whatever reason, it is light years (ok, just years) ahead of MySQL. SQL Server has better XML support, higher performance for most applications, distributed transactions, good (but not great) clustering/failover support, and vastly better administrative tools.
SQL Server is actually a very, very good product. Probably because it originated outside Microsoft
Now, there are reasons not to use it. Like, Oracle is better overall. Or MySQL is much cheaper and good enough for smaller databases that don't need enterprise-level functionality, support, or reliability.
Additionally, if your boss (and presumably company) is going in a Microsoft direction, are you really doing anyone a favor by going with something else? I mean, yeah, we all hate to give Microsoft more money. But what happens if you leave the company, and you've build this Linux/MySQL backend that's not in line with the company's strategic direction?
I'm sure I'll get plenty of hate mail. And believe me, I do my best to promote alternative solutions to the Empire when it makes sense. But if an MS solution makes the most sense in a particular situation *for a paying client*, I go with it. And SQL Server is the *one* MS product that I've frequently seen as the best solution given budget/hardware/DBA salary constraints.
So anyways, if you want to be a crusader, by all means go with the rebel solution regardless of how much sense it makes for the business. But if you want to deliver the best application, do the research and figure out what really makes sense for your particular environment and application needs. And don't be surprised if SQL Server actually looks pretty good.
Cheers
-b
I don't think anyone's saying that Utah doesn't have every right to be a backwards, sexist, prudish, pious state if the voters there so choose.
But techies also have every right to not go somewhere where their typically more libertine approach to life is likely to get them arrested and/or shot.
-b
Hmm. I like the pre and post conditions, but doesn't it get thornier for more complex return values? Like, say, a pointer to a struct rather than a boolean value?
The API matchmaker would have to be able to parse and understand structs, which I guess is ok.
And if you look at your blort function, suppose a new version returns 255 for "OK, with a warning". The GlibC can't consider that a function that returns between 0-255, because a later version yet might return 2="Will batch process tonight". The problem fixes itself if you force tight enumeration, but is that really practical?
Interesting stuff. Are there any good books on the topic?
-b
Hmm. I was being kind of facetious, but now I'm interested.
Overloading APIs is an interesting idea, and it solves some of the problems. You'd also have to handle an arbitrary return value; if an older version of GetFileLock returns 0=Failed,1=Worked, what are your old programs going to do when the new version returns 2=Deferred (or whatever)?
It seems to me that in order for this scheme to work, apps would need to tell your virtual GLibC each input parameter and type, and what output parameters they can handle. Alternatively, each function could be strongly versioned and there could be a compatibility map, so when an app wants GetFileLock v2.5.1, the central script knows that 2.6.3 will work, but 2.9.1 won't.
I don't like the one function = one file idea, simply because 1) You'd end up with thousands and thousands of API files, so 2) it would be next to impossible for software vendors to specify "known working" configurations.
You're only partly right about how Windows works. While DLLs cannot be updated while in use, increasingly MS is going with a "different DLL for each version of the library" approach. It's all about objects and object ID's these days, so the actual DLL's don't matter as much (where having two versions of the same DLL with the same name in different directories used to wreak havoc, if they're different versions today, they'll register different object ID's and everything will be fine). If you install an app that wants a later version of some library, it can install that later version and register it, since those object ID's aren't in use, even if an older version is. Hopefully that made sense.
Of course, this is only true of modern, COM/ActiveX based apps that create objects based on object ID, not DLL name/function name.
Apps specify the object ID that is unique to the library version they were written for (eg my app uses the ADO 2.6 library, but the ADO 2.5 library is also around and can be invoked by older apps). That works, but it doesn't get rid of the "multiple versions of the same code" problem. In fact, it makes that problem worse.
And while there's nothing to stop the OS from going out and getting ADO 2.6 if it's not installed, functionally that's not happening right now.
It's an interesting problem. Basically any solution is going to add some overhead and complexity, but it's probably well worth it.
Maybe the answer is tighter API/code integration? For the sake of argument, look at it in an OO light; maybe the program asks some API what parameters it will need to supply to accompish something, and then makes the actual API call with those parameters? Likewise on the return codes; some sort of metadata about what the return means?
Cheers
-b
You mean the app would just need to know the name of the function it's trying to call, and the API layer would figure out where that function actually is on that particular version/system?
;-)
And significant API changes would create new names of the function (GetFileLock might become, say, GetFileLockEx when new parameters are added or its return value types or meanings change)?
So, like Windows?
-b
...I was at the San Francisco / LA XFL game on Sunday. I've been going to home 49ers games since 1978 (when they were 2-14 on the season!). I love football, and while I can't claim to be a world-class expert, I know a fair amount about it.
So let me briefly defend the play during the first XFL games.
Yes, it was sloppy. Yes, much of it was high school caliber. But I think it's a mistake to rush to judgement here.
What I saw was football play about on par with the second half of an early exhibition game in the NFL. You've got 45 guys who just met each other three months ago. They have no experience playing together. Coaches don't know who's really going to play, and who just wants to be there. Nobody's figured out how to use the rule changes to their advantage (though LA's surprise 3rd down punt was pretty clever, given the live ball rule).
Football is an incredibly complex and demanding sport. I personally don'r expect the XFL to ever deliver NFL-quality football. I could imagine it producing NFL-europe caliber play if it can keep going for a couple of years... and that would be good enough for me.
I largely blame the XFL itself for the way everyone's rushing to condemn the quality of football. By focusing on showmanship rather than the game, they imply that they've got the game all figured out. Or that they don't care about it. I don't think either one is true (at least, I hope Dick Butkis wouldn't sell out that badly!)
So look at it as entertainment. Don't expect great football in the first year, probably. But don't be down on it based on the first game in the first season; a good game of football is a lot harder than it looks!
Cheers
-b
This football article was a miscue, Jon (John?). It's finally become obvious that you are, in fact, John Madden.
Consider the evidence:
John Madden: "When you're behind by 20 points going into the fourth quarter, what you have to focus on is scoring."
Jon Katz: "Just because we can use new technology to go places doesn't mean we want to."
John Madden: "In a close game like this you don't want to turn over the football"
Jon Katz: "...the intimate utterances of most football players in most circumstances -- huddle, catch, tackle, injury, score -- are usually not worth hearing."
Jon Katz/John Madden: Master of disguise, Master of the Obvious.
Cheers
-b
...since my internet service comes through AboveNet, who thinks ORBS is satanic and the RBL is the answer to world hunger.
ORBS may have improved its functionality but the whole concept of cooperative anti-spam efforts will never work as long as the people involved are zealots. Zealots don't care who or what they're fighting, as long as they're fighting.
ORBS and RBL have probably put more effort into fighting each other than they have into fighting spam, and at least from where I sit (on AboveNet), it looks like that hasn't changed one bit. So congrats to ORBS, but the real breakthrough will be political, not technical.
-b
Funny, that sounds like *exactly* the same philosophy that Microsoft has with regards to Java: being compatible with the rest of the world is a threat to commercial success. Best to be incompatible so people will be stuck with you.
I sure hope Linux doesn't succumb to the "you become what you hate" syndrome. I don't want people "stuck" with Linux, I want them to *like* Linux. Users and game developers alike.
Anything -- I repeat, *anything* -- that makes it easier for people to use Linux either as their first OS or as a migration target is a good thing.
Cheers
-b
Man, it was like the ad agencies conspired this year.
Ad: Computer Associates "Roosters on wall street"
Premise: A bunch of roosters mob a big city and then create a shockwave at sunrise
Subtext: You are such an idiot you don't even know you need us until a farm animal tells you.
Ad: Pepsi "prisoners steal our machine"
Premise: A coke and pepsi machine sit next to each other for months/years. Eventually the inmates from a nearby prison tunnel under and steal the pepsi machine.
Subtext: Convicted felons prefer Pepsi.
Ad: Budweiser "white men can't wassup"
Premise: a bunch of dorky white guys drinking heinkein look like idiots doing more or less the same thing as all the idiots in normal budweiser "wassup" commercials.
Subtext: White people are dorky and our customers look down on them. Oops, our customers are 85% white. Our customers are stupid and can't be as cool as our commercials.
Ad: Levi "corpse donor" 569 jeans
Premise: A "cowboy" kills himself on a coin-op pony and his jeans are delivered to a loser who can't afford his own.
Subtext: Idoiot cowboys buy our stuff, kill themselves stupidly, and if you're a loser you'll want their used jeans
Ad: CBS Becker "Airtime Abuse"
Premise: Two characters from a CBS show sit around commiserating about how outrageous it is that the network uses the superbowl to "flog" its poorer shows.
Subtext: Our show sucks, CBS is abusing its viewers, and isn't it funny that we come right out and say it?
Ad: Levi "corpse donor" 569 jeans
Premise: A "cowboy" kills himself on a coin-op pony and his jeans are delivered to a loser who can't afford his own.
Subtext: Idoiot cowboys buy our stuff, kill themselves stupidly, and if you're a loser you'll want their used jeans
I could go on and on. I sat there stupefied that almost every single commercial had a subtext talking about how stupid the company's target audience is. I mean, sure, you'd have to be stupid to drink Bud, but isn't it adding insult to injury to *tell* people that at the same time you sell them product?
The movie ads were ok. Too bad none of the movies themselves looked any good. But at least the ads didn't play the "morons will go see this movie" angle too strongly. Better than you can say for most of the ads.
Cheers
-b
From the story:
Japan and the Internet. Wow. It must be cool, then.-b
...President: Bill Gates
...Vice President: Michael Dell
What a coincidence. And, they weren't even on the ballot!
-b
Um... no, I liked them until I learned to really listen to sound.
Listening is a skill like any other. You have to open up to what's really going on, rather than beign led by simple cues like huge bass.
You should try it sometime.
-b
Have you ever noticed that the right wing always talks about the liberal media, while the left wing talks about the corporate-controlled media?
The fact is, there is no such thing as "the media". It's just a bunch of normal people, like geeks or yuppie or even republicans.
There's no conspiracy. Money doesn't change hands. People aren't "bought."
People can be mistaken, misled, stupid, whatever. But there's really no malice or organization behind it. Trust me. I spent 5 years in one of the top 3 IT trade journals.
Microsoft treated me well. I could call up at get any MS software I wanted. If I had problems, I got project leads and then programmers on the line -- within hours. I'm no Microsoft fan, but that kind of treatment has to lead to good press.
So knock off the "buying press" thing. It's not accurate, and it's just another classic head-in-the-sand dodge for why Microsoft gets good press. The reality is much simpler. Think occam's razor.
By the way, I hate ZD. But I know people who work there and write there, and I can guarantee that they may be wrong, misguided, and confused, but they are not on the take. Nobody is; if that got out it would sink both Microsoft and the trade press.
Cheers, and take it easy
-b
I absolutely agree that speakers are probably the most important piece. I'd reccomend doing research and identifying what you want, then looking on ebay and other discounters.
However, I would strongly reccomend *against* Bose speakers, at least until you can compare them against other speakers side by side. I used to have a pair of 901's, and loved them... until I started getting knowledgeable about sound.
But Bose speakers are all about trying to make poorly recorded things sound better. Flat, lifeless recordings get room-filling sound. Great, right? Well, try playing well-recorded stuff (which most modern material is).
All the sudden it's boomy, has a huge preponderance of mid-bass, and sounds generally tweaked. It's like having an equalizer in the system that you can't adjust.
I'd vote for accuracy, myself, and if you've got source material that needs to be fixed, get an external EQ for that (don't run it all the time unless it's a very expensive EQ; most EQ's introduce phase problems).
Here's a good set of reviews of speakers in the general price range: audioholics. (I'm not affiliated with them in any way)
Cheers, good luck, and enjoy whatever you get.
-b
Well, this post is now ancient, but I thought I had to respond to this well thought out response.
While it is well thought out, and quite correct, it misses the key point about the original author's dilemma: it is not the company's job to look out for employees' long term interests. It can't be; there's no way the company could do a decent job of it.
In a small company (6-8 people in IT, the original poster said), there's not a lot of room for exciting new challenges. How often do companies of that size implement new technologies?
All I was saying was that, given the parameters of the situation, the company's response was 1) predictable, and 2) completely within reason.
It's an unfortunate situation, but try to see it from the company's perspective. They're small. They have a bright guy who they think could do the job. He doesn't want to move his career in that direction. He's (probably) fairly easy to replace with someone who might have more ambition to further his/her career (and, by proxy, the company's interests). What would you do?
I'm certainly familiar with the Peter Principle. I partly subscribe to it (not entirely, because I think it assumes people lack the free will that our original poster exhibited, and that companies are soulless machinations).
If our poster wants to go become Linus or Dennis, more power to him. He's in the wrong job for that, though. Apparently his bosses realize that, even if he doesn't.
Cheers
-b
Whoa, hold on there. I sort of agree with the two likely reasons, but you've got "valid" and "not valid" backwards.
y job, work someplace big enough that you can be anonymous and not run the risk of shining.
From the company's perspective, hopefully they're willing to pay what jobs are worth. If this fine gentleman accepts the promotion, he had *better* get the pay that a new IT manager deserves. It should not be cheaper. If the company thinks it will be cheaper, there's something wrong. Not valid!
However, by refusing the promotion, this still-fine-and-upstanding gentleman has basically said "I have reavhed the pinacle of my professional development; I have no interest in learning new jobs or meeting new challenges; leave me in my box and leave me alone."
I would fire someone (or encourage them to leave) for that attitude. The nature of competition is that it gets harder every day. Every member on the team needs to pull their weight -- which I don't doubt this fine specimen of gentlemanhood does -- but they need to pull more weight every day. The brighter ones need to rise to new challenges.
So yes, he does sound less than 100% dedicated to his company (which is different than his work). Plus, there will be political trouble when they hire an outside IT manager. Our fine gentleman has (accidentally) put himself in a position where he cannot be managed; if he doesn't like what the IT manager does, he'll be saying "What do you know? They wanted me to do your job but I turned it down!" Or at least he *could* say that.
So yes, I think it's time for our fine friend to move on. But I don't think the company here is being unreasonable. If you want a keep-your-head-down and just-do-the-same-thing-tomorrow-that-you-did-toda
It sounds like a weird motivation to me, but you gotta do what makes you happy. But you also have to appreciate that companies exist to succeed in their fields, not to offer safe, static environments for technology enthusiasts.
Cheers
-b
Hello? Yes, I don't run MAPS on my home network. However a fair number of ISP's run the RBL, even in BGP mode, *without notifying customers*. Even if they *did* notify customers, not many people would understand what it is.
MAPS proponents constantly do this "It does a great job of stopping spam because it's so powerful" / "It's just a harmless little list, why does everyone get so worked up?" dance.
Many people, including one business I consult for, are behind MAPS enabled ISP's against their will (it's hard for a business to change ISP's, and in this case they've decided to live with it rather than renumbering their entire network over the RBL).
The whole *idea* of a list is a bad idea, because it can't work. That's why I'm not starting a better one. ORBS is somewhat "better", in that it lists servers that are actually likely to send out spam. But look at them; as an organization, they're worse than MAPS.
Lists and routing black holes are not the answer to spam. Yes, they can punish people, and coerce them. Great, if that's the goal. But if the goal is actually doing something about spam, other approaches are called for.
-b