Then pay for supported FOSS - you can get support from Novell/RedHat/Canonical and from Sun for StarOffice for significantly cheaper than you pay for Microsoft licenses with their "support", and you have the added benefit of running open source, and therefore being awesome.
Do you think organisations like schools and government units use Microsoft tech support? I know for sure that all the schools I've ever been to have their own IT staff who manage any problem that comes up... and it's not hard to find a tech with *nix administration experience.
I completely agree - our school has a phenomenal amount of money spent on Microsoft and other proprietary licenses (300+ Windows machines with office and photoshop elements, 5-10 windows servers (eugh), and the monstrosity that is SharePoint to "manage" everything... I haven't seen the bill, but it must cost a fortune.
Sure, I can understand needing Windows for now - there are _some_ classes that use software other than web and word processing. But spending money on Office when OO.o does absolutely everything we use it for? Inexcusable.
What's the dealeo with all these ridiculously tiny "fully functional" Linux boxes coming out? Does anyone have a use for them, other than attempting to cram a distributed computing network into a backpack? A machine that needs an external keyboard, screen and power adaptor has no need to be any smaller than a midget-ITX.
Yes, legal hackintosh would be nice... somehow, though, I doubt they'll win. Apple (obviously) has a good legal team, and while their behaviour could be considered anti-competitive, I don't think that will hold up in court - they offer the OS and hardware as a single product, with the software purchased off the wall clearly designed to "upgrade" a slightly dated Mac.
Let's hope the little guys win.
Magnetic field != radiation. Even a fluctuating magnetic field isn't going to effect humans - I think the issue is more the EM interference a strong fluctuating field can bring about.
Unless I've misunderstood the linked article, this is just the same technique that has been used in transformers for decades - a fluctuating magnetic field created by an AC current through a solenoid inducing power in another solenoid. Sure, 75% efficiency is pretty good for a few metres, but those coils are bloody huge. Anyone care to enlighten me as to whether or not this is actually new?
I agree... the way it is now is good: if you're happy to use closed-source (but free-beer) software for an enhanced experience, you do (often with the help of a distro like ubuntu), and if you want to be a purist, you can do that too.
Personally, I think closed source is necessary for a full viable desktop at this point, depending on what your hardware is - a lot of drivers are closed-source yet work perfectly on Linux.
Myself, I'll be sticking with the official nvidia drivers and the "oh-so-evil copyrighted firefox logo".
Yes, XPE certainly works, and I'm not claiming that *nix is far superior or never crashes - it does, and it hurts when it does. I just think it's a ludicrous idea to build lightweight embedded systems on a platform that was originally designed as a full desktop OS, and still retains much of the underlying code.
I've seen quite a few... every ticket machine at Melbourne Airport one day was going through a BSOD-reboot loop, placed quite a workload on the human employees.
I really don't understand how any company who's done a tiny bit of research could think Windows is an appropriate platform for something that should really be running a custom embedded system like a cut-down *nix.
I agree to some extent: certainly, the packet mixes are useless, and an "automatic" coffee machine that just makes the equivelant of instant or poor percolator coffee is useless: but I must say, it does take a good bit of effort to make an espresso cappuccino, and the more you need the coffee, the less proficient at making it you will be.
Then again, the instant espresso machines make fairly mediocre coffees too... you can't beat a hand-made one you make yourself, unless you get someone else to make you a greek coffee.
While I don't think MS are making a good move for themselves by stopping XP in any way, it can only be a good thing for OSS: Vista may not be that bad (if you have the latest updates, and some lucky hardware... all my personal experiences with vista have been bad), but it's made a very bad name for itself, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot more of the slightly tech-savvy yet not already OSS-running people out there trying out alternatives (particularly the "easy" Linux distros like Ubuntu), and finding that for the average user, they are perfectly adequate and, in many ways, easier and more pleasurable to use than whatever Microsoft is offering.
MS are in with problems unless Vienna/win7 comes out soon, and is good. And that's a good thing.
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Then pay for supported FOSS - you can get support from Novell/RedHat/Canonical and from Sun for StarOffice for significantly cheaper than you pay for Microsoft licenses with their "support", and you have the added benefit of running open source, and therefore being awesome.
Do you think organisations like schools and government units use Microsoft tech support? I know for sure that all the schools I've ever been to have their own IT staff who manage any problem that comes up... and it's not hard to find a tech with *nix administration experience.
I completely agree - our school has a phenomenal amount of money spent on Microsoft and other proprietary licenses (300+ Windows machines with office and photoshop elements, 5-10 windows servers (eugh), and the monstrosity that is SharePoint to "manage" everything... I haven't seen the bill, but it must cost a fortune. Sure, I can understand needing Windows for now - there are _some_ classes that use software other than web and word processing. But spending money on Office when OO.o does absolutely everything we use it for? Inexcusable.
What's the dealeo with all these ridiculously tiny "fully functional" Linux boxes coming out? Does anyone have a use for them, other than attempting to cram a distributed computing network into a backpack? A machine that needs an external keyboard, screen and power adaptor has no need to be any smaller than a midget-ITX.
Old enough for you? Idle needs more... something.
Yes, legal hackintosh would be nice... somehow, though, I doubt they'll win. Apple (obviously) has a good legal team, and while their behaviour could be considered anti-competitive, I don't think that will hold up in court - they offer the OS and hardware as a single product, with the software purchased off the wall clearly designed to "upgrade" a slightly dated Mac. Let's hope the little guys win.
Magnetic field != radiation. Even a fluctuating magnetic field isn't going to effect humans - I think the issue is more the EM interference a strong fluctuating field can bring about.
Unless I've misunderstood the linked article, this is just the same technique that has been used in transformers for decades - a fluctuating magnetic field created by an AC current through a solenoid inducing power in another solenoid. Sure, 75% efficiency is pretty good for a few metres, but those coils are bloody huge. Anyone care to enlighten me as to whether or not this is actually new?
I agree... the way it is now is good: if you're happy to use closed-source (but free-beer) software for an enhanced experience, you do (often with the help of a distro like ubuntu), and if you want to be a purist, you can do that too.
Personally, I think closed source is necessary for a full viable desktop at this point, depending on what your hardware is - a lot of drivers are closed-source yet work perfectly on Linux.
Myself, I'll be sticking with the official nvidia drivers and the "oh-so-evil copyrighted firefox logo".
Yes, XPE certainly works, and I'm not claiming that *nix is far superior or never crashes - it does, and it hurts when it does. I just think it's a ludicrous idea to build lightweight embedded systems on a platform that was originally designed as a full desktop OS, and still retains much of the underlying code.
Yes, this is certainly a sensible decision... let's hope similar precedents are set everywhere, or we're not going to have much free wi-fi around.
Is THAT was happened to Columbia?
Yes! Join Stallman and the Trojan ninjas in overthrowing our oppressors!
I've seen quite a few... every ticket machine at Melbourne Airport one day was going through a BSOD-reboot loop, placed quite a workload on the human employees. I really don't understand how any company who's done a tiny bit of research could think Windows is an appropriate platform for something that should really be running a custom embedded system like a cut-down *nix.
lynx is bloated. ;)
Indeed, it would be profitable to transfer even iron ore from the moon... mass drivers are great.
I agree to some extent: certainly, the packet mixes are useless, and an "automatic" coffee machine that just makes the equivelant of instant or poor percolator coffee is useless: but I must say, it does take a good bit of effort to make an espresso cappuccino, and the more you need the coffee, the less proficient at making it you will be. Then again, the instant espresso machines make fairly mediocre coffees too... you can't beat a hand-made one you make yourself, unless you get someone else to make you a greek coffee.
While I don't think MS are making a good move for themselves by stopping XP in any way, it can only be a good thing for OSS: Vista may not be that bad (if you have the latest updates, and some lucky hardware... all my personal experiences with vista have been bad), but it's made a very bad name for itself, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot more of the slightly tech-savvy yet not already OSS-running people out there trying out alternatives (particularly the "easy" Linux distros like Ubuntu), and finding that for the average user, they are perfectly adequate and, in many ways, easier and more pleasurable to use than whatever Microsoft is offering. MS are in with problems unless Vienna/win7 comes out soon, and is good. And that's a good thing.
Is it really that hard to build a nuke? Seriously, plutonium, compression shell (beryllium or something), high explosives, kaboom.