Which is one of the many problems with legislation against technological innovation. There are ample examples of the US government doing things, like monitoring, to individuals that they legally can not do. But to protest that you are being monitored, you must first be aware that you are being monitored and at that time you can go to a judge, which is your write, and force the monitoring entity to justify their action or stop.
The problem is that no one tells you when you get a strike and when you are being monitored.
In fact government entities will often tell the ISP that it is against federal law to inform you that you are being monitored. Good luck finding out so you can assert your birth rights.
Its broken and broken bad. I can not think of a single instance where censorship is working effectively.
Look at Youtube, someone puts in a DCMA complaint against you, your content is taken out. The person who theoretically was offended is given adsense (a monetary value, rewarded) for lying. You spend 10 plus days fighting it, even though it should never have happened in the first place. Even if put back up, your momentum is stymied and the chance to get your content to more people is effectively prevented. After the fact, Google never goes back and penalizes the person/entity that censored you. They do not even put in place measures to prevent it from happening to you again, and again, and again.
This six strikes BS will not be any different.
As a friend of mine says, and we should all repeat as the reality of this thought is so obvious. "It is insane to assume that one every street, in every neighborhood, of every city block in every community, in every city, in every county there are torrent users stealing content. Yet the ISP, unless you have Fiber To The Home (FTTH) and a plan guaranteeing you the same bandwidth upstream as downstream...10Mb/10Mb; 50Mb/50Mb... 1Gb/1Gb, throttles every house on every street to below the FTC definition of broadband (768Kbps) 100% of the time.
Importance: No incentive to throttle, which should remove any incentive to censor, your plan becomes your effective bandwidth restriction if if you some how use 10Mb upstream every second of every minute of every hour of every day you can move to the next largest bandwidth plan for a few extra dollars....think about that. Americans should have had this as of the year 2000, except for BS legislation like this designed to force you to pay more for less. Make no mistake, this is the real reason for this type of legislation.
Especially Cable providers. If you get a DD-WRT firmware installed firewall/router, you will see your upstream / downstream bandwidth in real time. You will NEVER see upstream bandwidth throughputs above 768Kbps, except during the Speed Test. Cable plans that provide 16Mb/2Mb normally throttle to less than DSL speeds(100Kbps/10Kbps or 200Kbps/20Kbps), in fact in most cases to less than 1/4 of DSL Speeds, especially upstream. Which means DSL is not only cheaper but faster, provides more bandwidth upstream than throttled cable service.
Even when I manage to get 10Mb downstream, my upstream is throttled to below 120Kbps. How is this not FRAUD? If 768Kbps is the minimum definition for BROADBAND, than upstream speeds below that level can NOT be considered BROADBAND.
And the reason for their throttling, those evil bit torrents that they lie and say are ONLY used to steal content. I bet not a single neighbor on my street has ever used a bittorrent...so why is my service throttled 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to less than BROADBAND speeds?
You will never see it answered anywhere because its a lie. It is not true. And they know it.
Another example, why is it that Microsoft, Gnome, Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, and Apple all promoting user-interface which hinders the users productivity? Because they don't want you to be productive.
Shame you posted as Anonymous...your are very much right on the money. Whenever a company gets in bed with either Microsoft or Apple, they are usually gone within 4 years, many in less than two years. Corel might be one exception, though the numbers of their users has steadily declined over the years, despite investing in the best products for some verticals...WordPerfect is a perfect example as it was the best Word Processor. PaintShop Pro is another casualty of their requirement that you purchase the latest / greatest operating system before it will let you install. (Though friend of mine did successfully use another friends copy of Vista, Install PSP 10 to USB and run it under Windows 2000 and XP successfully years ago...though he said that it took some tweeking)
Can anyone say Linspire? How about Lotus 1-2-3? Just look at Nokia, of course in that scenario they mistakenly brought in a MS trojan horse that continues to push them toward Windows Smart phones despite it being obvious to everyone that other operating systems (esp Linux) are much more efficient for embedded devices (smaller computers, smart phones) as they require less memory, freeing up memory for the apps.
So many examples. So we should not be surprised that having been unable to beat alternative tablets that do more and cost less money, that they pursue litigation (the court system) to forestall innovation in alternative (non-Apple) platforms.
Microsoft even announced yet another vaporware product in hopes of forestalling innovation in alternative (non-Windows) platforms. If you are just now seeing a pattern, congrats, many of us have seen this for well over 20 years...not new.
My next smart embedded device will be running a Linux distro, fully rootable (meaning I can install whatever I want) and will not limit me for wrong (proprietary) reasons.
Just do your homework and purchase ONLY from a Linux vendor in order to avoid proprietary chipsets that are designed to simply vendor lock you in to their platform (and every higher forced fees and purchases). Two excellent Linux vendors are ZaReason and System 76. There are many others. The cost + shipping usually gives you more (memory, hard disk, processor) for less than most, if not all, big box stores. Best of all, if you want to install the proprietary operating system on a Linux device, usually you can, the converse is sometimes not true.
Buy with Linux in mind, even if you plan to run Windows or OS X, when the company stops supporting the software, your device will still run one of more than two dozen Linux distros (operating systems) and that is a very good thing.
I don't have any kind of smartphone yet, and in fact I was still weighing my options. I was leaning towards an Android device because I could code my own apps for it in Java,
I want to code using standalone PHP and the new HTML5 standards that will let your apps continue to function when the device (smart embedded device) is NOT connected to the Internet. Others want to use Python or Ruby.
No root access = dumb device!
If the device is open and unlocked with Administrator (Root) access than you and I both can use it as we see fit....which is the most basic definition of whether a device is truly smart.
If new device runs less software than last device = not smart, dumb device!
I would add, as a friend of mine likes to say, that if the device is beyond the first release, than it should only run more software on it than the previous release, never less. If the new device runs fewer applications than the last device, its just not smart.
No WiFi access = Dumb device!
Finally I want VoIP WiFi access which can NOT be denied to me if I have Root / Admin Access. As WiFi is available to me in over 80% of the places where I spend my life. The only place its not, is when I am in transit between places and most state laws are forcing hands free or outright bans when in transit anyway.
Is a monthly fee required = Dumb Device! (optional is okay, required is wrong. What is it doing for me that deserves that monthly fee?)
I want to use social media, chats, blogs, tweets, facebook, etc... without the need of any additional monthly fee, Wifi access guarantees all of us these options...thus I am ever hopeful.
You are right on the money, loved your post~
The fact that Apple is now twisting the market in its favor doesn't make me happy.
Apple is far from the only company doing this. I long ago realized that if I developed apps that depended on any proprietary hardware/software platform that as soon as I became profitable enough that proprietary company would take my vertical away from me...they simply would always have more money to spend, some of that raised by me on their behalf for using their closed system. That does not seem smart.
Worst of all, when it is not possible to innovate any longer, the proprietary company will put me/you out of business via a forced update / upgrade. As I would be dependent on them and they could care less about me. This is the problem with supporting any proprietary infrastructure, what happens when the company decides screw you, you are going to do it my (proprietary company) way and pay them more as a thank you for destroying your business. Added bonus if they force you out of the market through patent/copyright litigation...pathetic.
The best thing any of us can do is to simply stop purchasing their products. Give em the death penalty (since Citizens United made them people).
It should always be the owner/users choice to update and/or upgrade. If a company "forces" you to update or upgrade and does not allow you to say H E double Hockey Sticks NO, than you are one forced update/upgrade from an expensive paper weight. Of course your work flow will be interrupted at the absolutely worst possible time in your life...way too much business risk. Yet companies assume that every day with so many products these days. Its simply a sign of how far Data Processing / Information Technology has fallen as a profession.
Of course weak tarriff / trade / international economic policy has been slowly destroying the fabric of the USA for well over 50 years. To connect the dots...jobs offshoring, jobs going overseas, job losses, wages driven below the basement and into the sewer.
Of course I am not saying auto update and auto upgrade is destroying the American family...a bit of a stretch... though I would say that taxes have never been lower and the promised jobs for those lower taxes have never materialized.
I guess what I am saying is that forced policies, taking away freedom, regardless of the miss guided reasons is just wrong. I might not agree with your statement, but I defend with my life, based on the US Constitution, Its Admendments and the Bill of Rights which are given to each of us by birth in America, your right to say it...if you do not do likewise....your loss. Guess its easier to attack the man and tell him he needs Anger Management. Of course you would probably say I need Anger Management classes too...talk about reaching...pathetic.
In America today, there is very little NEW either economically or control-wise (church/state) under the sun. If you are willing to give up a smidgen of freedom for any reason, especially fake security, you honestly do deserve neither. A very smart man said that hundreds of years ago.
For those that can not see the connection between freedom and required/force updates and current economic, business and political policies over the last 100 years...well that is the reason you mistakenly vote against your own best interests...wake up. There is so much more to life than talking points...which most often are designed to prevent you from connecting the dots and realizing what is being done to you, behind your back, out of the sunlight.
Updates, upgrades SHALL always be the owner/users choice. If that choice is taken away, don't hate the entity, just stop doing any business with them. And share your experience with family, friends, co-workers, strangers so that others will do likewise. I agree with other posters, Apples actions here is costing them current Apple enthusiasts. Those that have left Apple are laughing all the way to the bank, where they notice their balance is larger for being smart enough to purchase better technology (non Apple), that can do more, for less money.
Because wireless cannot provide the bandwidth... should give you an idea how far away from reality thoughts that wired is expired and wireless is the way to go are
Sounds like you are saying wireless can not provide the bandwidth...which I totally agree with,
... however than you say wireless is the way to go or at least it seemed to me. I must disagree with that...which is it?.
Not that it matters as anything other than Fiber To The Home (FTTH) is a ponzi scheme, false promises, waste of time and money. Only FTTH offers us a viable future! Why should Americans continue to settle for less? Japan had 100Mb/100Mb in 2000 and 1Gb/1Gb in 2006, its 2011...hello, 768Kbps is broadband, really? NOT!
The current NON-synchronous Internet providers are NOT providing you the bandwidth you are paying for? Instead of “up to” some lie, how about a money back guarantee if your upstream bandwidth falls below the FCC definition? Even that is over 11 years out of date and way too slow. There is no way in heck they are going to provide more bandwidth via wireless, it does not matter how many Gs they promise you. Everyone knows that wired infrastructure, specifically Fiber To The Home (FTTH) is far, far superior to wireless 3G, 4G, 10G anything.
I bet I can serve more clients on a wired synchronous FTTH home network with a DD-WRT, OpenWRT or tomato firmware enabled firewall/router than the cellular company can serve via any level of G wireless...but that is not the point, even if it is not entirely accurate. At least I would know with 100% certainty exactly what my broadband bandwidth really is 24X7X365 thanks to the bandwidth monitors in those firmwares! Speed Tests lie!
Any technology other than Fiber all the way into the Home (FTTH) (not GPON, FTTC, DOCSIS, 3G, 4G,...10G, etc...) is simply a waste of time and a very poor attempt by your provider to extend the bandwidth scarcity myth. They use lies, like bandwidth scarcity to extort higher and higher monthly fees from you (going up yearly) forever. Or until you can no longer afford it and they dump you.
If any market was honestly FREE, prices would fluctuate both up and down, unless of course the market is NOT FREE or the provider is severely incompetent. I know what I believe and somewhat know to be true....WAKE UP.
... if its all evenly distributed... that means you would need 800 Gig's per square mile of wireless bandwidth.. We are talking data capacity... Realistically your not going to go for the wired equivalent... capacity of one of the points of aggregation/concentration...
But any way you look at it... To do a project like what Google is envisioning is not feasibly done because neither the spectrum availability is there nor equipment that could provide this type of point to multi-point network...
Back in 2006, people way smarter than you and I managed to take a single strand of Fiber and multiplex it (increase the bandwidth) from 1X bandwidth to 1024X bandwidth. This was over 4 years ago. So to say we do NOT have the technology to provide it is not accurate either. Virtually unlimited bandwidth if you are smart and run Fiber, un-interrupted by inferior technologies, all the way into the subscribers home. Not just to their neighborhood.
As for not being feasible, tell the over 20 communities with synchronous FTTH listed on this map...they all did it, therefore your hypothesis is very, very wrong. It most certainly can be done. It has been done. Hopefully you are not a shill for the industry, but if you are, be
...There's a lot of red tape (permitting, bidding, etc) that has to be cut before they can even start construction which could easily take until 2012....
First of all to become one of the Google's Think Big With a Gig communities, most if not all of the red tape issues needed to be already taken care just to be considered for selection. Definitely a commitment by those lucky enough to be selected to move forward.
LMAO I would love to hear any politician tell their citizen's that the reason they did not succeed in becoming one of the first 5 Google's Think Big With a Gig Community was because the telco or cable company paid me to sabotage the process.
Are your community's politicians bought and paid for by your local telco-cable-cellular oligopoly? How would you know?
Think about that real hard because if your community can not get Fiber To The Home (FTTH). Perhaps your politicians are corrupt and not putting you, your family, your friends, your neighbors FIRST as they should.
If the local incumbent provider can lobby your politicians and prevent your family from getting FTTH, than so can other mega-corporations.
Given the Citizens United vs FEC decision you will never be allowed to hear the truth, only the negative campaign ads against any honest citizen politician! You should solve that in the next election for the sake of your family, friends and neighbors.
EPB in Chattanooga finished their FTTH, Fiber To The Home, build-out years ahead of schedule. The first build-out took a total of only 3 years...so getting another community done in two years with Google's backing is most definitely possible. Even easier when you consider the preparation a community has to go through just to be considered for the Fiber. In Chattanooga, with a minimal influx of additional cash (a $112M federal grant) they were able to finish ahead of schedule. Chattanooga now serves 20,000 residential customers and 2,500 business customers.
I think everyone reading this would agree that Google can pump way more than $112M, $300M or even $600M into any FTTH community it decides too. So what's your point!
More important will be the prices. Check out prices for Synchronous FTTH with EPB of Chattanooga:
$57.99: 30Mbps; Internet 30 (30Mb/30Mb or 30 Mb Downstream / 30 Mb Upstream)
$69.99: 50Mbps; Internet 50 (50Mb/50Mb)
$139.99: 100Mbps; Internet 100 (100Mb/100Mb)
$349.99; 1000Mbps; Internet 1,000 (1000Mb/1000Mb or 1Gb/1Gb)
Until Google announces there five FTTH communities, there are the 16 plus communities in Utah via Utopia ($49 - $79) where the resident owns the Fiber (UOF) and can select from one of many providers. Other than that you can get 10Mb/10Mb in Wilson N.C. from Greenlight for $34.95 per month; 10Mb/10Mb in Lafayette, LA from LUS for $28.95 per month; 30Mb/30Mb in Chattanooga, TN from EPB for $57.99.
While I might wait through the end of this year to figure out where Google is going to go, there is no reason to wait until 2012, 2015 or 2020 and beyond. All of us can move today, this this map shows
I prefer my desktop to be free of mono, that's why I use Mint KDE.
I feel the same way, now that Fedora has announced that they too will support Wayland, both Ubuntu and Fedora are off my list.
Microsoft has hurt Linux in the past by leading people down proprietary and technological blind alleys. While I have no ill will toward Wayland, I do not want to look up one day and find out that something has been automated against my wishes or that I no longer have 100% control over my PC hardware.
Wayland ~ Mono ~.Net (dotNet) ~ Microsoft.
All Microsoft has to do is make a change to.Net that impacts Linux in a negative way and it will be pulled upstream into Mono and upstream into Wayland.
Anyone who says this will never happen has a short memory, practicing revisionist history or has not been in the field very long. The rest of us have seen this before...can you say Embrace, Extend and Extinguish, I knew you could.
To avoid Wayland is simple, pay attention to which distros are implementing Mono and/or Wayland by default and avoid them. Use this graphic - GNU/Linux distro timeline to make sure your distro is not impacted by those distros that are implementing Mono in their food chain!
Thankfully with Linux we have allot of other choices and this is a very good thing.
That would be stupid and fatal long term. We would never again see Linux lead the way anywhere if we hitched ourselves to Microsoft's trailer hitch
You are so right on the money!
How many times do you have to get burned and led down a proprietary blind alley before you learn to never take a step down that road as it NEVER ends well for you, your PC, open source and Linux...NEVER.
Keep in mind that Mark Shuttleworth's goals are not the same as the community at large. He wants to see a return on his $20 million. It's why he hired Windows apologist Matt Asay instead of someone deeply involved in the linux community.
You are right on about Mark Shuttleworth's goals, of course its his money and he can play the cards as he sees fit, of course we do not have to sit at his table do we.
As for Fedora, watch out, they are have announced that they are going to Wayland eventually as well. Wayland ~ Mono ~.NET is a little too much for me as well. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
Here is a great Graphics view of different Distros and which are derived from which base distros. Obviously to avoid Wayland you want to avoid any distro that gets its base from either Ubuntu or Fedora.
They can not release any personal information that you DO NOT PROVIDE to them.
I too hate this crap, but too many people do not take privacy seriously and provided the information in the past, therefore, they (companies) have no reason not to expect you to follow and give them information like you have in the past. They believe we are all sheeple!
Too many social networking sites want to lock you into bad OAuth sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Too many people forget that as soon as they have any piece of information related to you and a single phone call, monthly bill, purchase, email account, etc, they know exactly who you are.
Are you willing to stop using a site that violates your privacy? Most are not, therefore giving a nod to the company that wants to violate our privacy.
Security and privacy go hand in hand. Privacy requires you to maintain a singular mind set to maintain your privacy and not get lazy. If you give up and provide the information because someone says you should not have anything to hide, its game over from a privacy perspective. Once you slip up and give out any private information, its just one small step from putting the pieces together and identifying who you are, what you are looking at in order to market to you. Of course who besides marketers are using this info for what other purposes will never be fully disclosed to you, ever.
Our Credit information, another privacy sink, which contains all our personal information is too tightly inter-twined with our lives now, as if your credit determines what type of driver you are and should relate in any way to increasing the amount you pay for insurance. Pathetic.
Is your browser secure? Can you tightly control not just regular cookies but Flash cookies as well? With Firefox + Linux (Banish Flash cookies forever under Linux) you can. Chrome is in bed with Adobe and Flash so they will never provide a viable option to delete tracking cookies. Internet Explorer was never meant to keep information about you private, ever. What other browsers let you delete Flash cookies on a regular basis? Even with Firefox, a reboot of my PC is required to delete the stupid Flash tracking cookies, but at least I can do that with Linux!
In all cases, a company can not reveal what you do not provide to them. Do they really need your phone number? Really, REALLY, grow a pair and say NO! Where else might you get the info, there are always other options. Do they really need your email account info? Do they really need a credit card? There are always other options, granted some might not be as convenient, but they are out there if you are willing to expend the energy to seek them out.
If you are not willing to spend some time to protect your privacy, than you are probably not reading this right now.
While all sites should OPT OUT by DEFAULT, we know they do not and we know why. Of course you do not have to use that site! You have choices. If you only have two choices, you have no real choice. Sometimes you just have to say NO! Sometimes, as in this case, you have to say H8ll NO!
I'd happily trade some more info to google(i use gmail, reader, search, youtube, already)to get better routing for new places on maps.
And I would be happy for you, just do not REQUIRE me to do likewise and we are golden.
Don't force me to give my phone number to use your service.
Don't limit my OAuth options in responding to a blog. ONLY if I use Disqus, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn
Don't force me to do anything I do not want to do, or I will choose not to participate...I will vote with my dollars and you will not see even one of them.
A BETTER email system does not place the burden upon you to decide what to block. It removes that choice from you, freeing up your time and resources.
You really need to limit freedom to make it better. Remember, "choice" is a actually a cost. Each additional degree of freedom added to any system is one more bit of complexity, limiting its usefulness. The more complex you make a system, the less successful people are at using it.
What a tool comment. If you want to give me better filters fine, but not allowing me any level of fine control is unacceptable, I will stop using your product offering. Such is the case with privacy, cookies, Flash and Chrome/Internet Explorer compared to Firefox + Linux. (With Linux I can redirect the flash crap to/tmp and let it get erased between sessions, while unacceptable at least can be accomplished. Thankfully Flash is dying a slow death, it can not happen soon enough...that's what they get for attempting to take away my choice.)
If you have only two choices, you have no choice.
You really need to limit freedom to make it better. Remember, "choice" is a actually a cost. Each additional degree of freedom added to any system is one more bit of complexity, limiting its usefulness. The more complex you make a system, the less successful people are at using it.
Amazing and how sad for you. I would accept a simpleton version for someone that does not want control or access to filter to their own specifications, but you had better allow for more intelligent options for an advanced user. If not you better allow for root/admin access so I can correct your mistake or I will not use your product. To simply take it away and justify it with such an inane comment that I am somehow better off is silly. Its also extremely short sighted.
No Root access = Stupid Device = Not Smart. (Good mantra for cell phone makers)
If you are a developer and too lazy to give me options, at least give me the mechanism to fix it, or I will not purchase your product and/or user your service. You fail.
Please tell me you are not an American. As you are simply way to quick to give up the freedoms that our your birthright.
Censorship is never the answer.
You do not get more freedom by giving up freedoms. Your life does not get better when you give away your liberty or any freedoms. Once you start down that path, you will quickly reach a level that is simply unacceptable, the wise never allow themselves to be pushed down the path...ever. Not one step. You want to make my life better, give me valid options and choice.
When interviewed after Nazi Germany fell, those that went along with the status quo simply stated that the last time they took away our freedoms was not so bad, so this time will not be so bad either.
This happened once, than twice, than three times, yet another and another, until finally the path from the First time (A) to the last time (Z) was neither acceptable nor clear. By the time they got to G, it was too late and too much had been given away for nothing in return.
The powers that be understand this better than you do, as going from Step A to Step G would be unacceptable, however if they can get you to accept step B; than from Step B accept step C and so on, before you know it you are at Step G, deer in the headlights stupidity for allowing yourself to be led to the slaughter. Pathetic and easily avoidable by never allowing yourself to be pushed to step B.
Try innovation and making the product better for both the simple users and the more advance users.
Better to choose not to play than to allow your life to be controlled and prevented from becoming all that you can become.
Benjamin Franklin was right..."They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I would see your security hole and raise you two or three more for a variety of MS Products. You would always lose.
Next time someone says something you use has a security hole, check and see if it states that "local access" is required for the exploit. If so, what are you getting excited about...you giving black hatters the keys to your home/apartment/business? I certainly hope not.
There will always be security holes. Fools automatically update to supposedly avoid them. Intelligent IT professionals look into the nature of the security holes and determine if they are viable in their environment or not before upgrading. Its the way it always has been, is and always will be.
Only those that are unable to understand what the security issues are, automatically (read blindly) update without understanding what the real issues are and if they even apply or not.
More often than not, more problems are introduced than are fixed.
More importantly true experts do not settle for security by obscurity, if given the choice. Whether they have the choice or not is usually the telling part of whether someone is respected by their chain of command or not.
Blindly upgrading, updating, auto-updating is insane . . . and a sign of desperation, to be avoided at all costs.
Microsoft actually lost a golden opportunity when (t)hey treated open source the way they did....
Microsoft on the other hand, decided to try to destroy open source and bury it like it did with other companies....
All of them are dead set against Microsoft and no amount of certification is going to change that now.
Anyone who suggests, believes or tries to state the above is not true, needs to research the facts as many of us have...they are out there if you care to look for them. I understand that some do not.
Pretty much sums it up and hits the nail on the head for my friends and I.
I have yet to see a single company that has done business with Microsoft, except perhaps a couple of hardware manufacturers (but even they are unhappy and complain from time to time) that are still viable businesses after 2, 3 or 4 years.
Instead of buying the marketing hype, there are a number of us that refuse to purchase anything from Microsoft until they have, by their actions, not miss-behaved towards open source, FOSS, Linux for a minimum of 7 years. If after a 7 year positive track record they have stopped the FUD, ceased their Embrace, Extend, Extinguish business practices than and only than will we once again consider their products. Any of their products.
We call it setting our 7 year clock!
Any company that treats open source, FOSS, Linux poorly gets a clock set. For first time offenders, a 3 Year Clock is sufficient, however for a company like Microsoft that has continued their awful business practices against open source, FOSS, Linux, etc... for more than 15 years, well 3 years is simply not sufficient, thus a 7 YEAR CLOCK is more appropriate.
They can lie, deceive, etc...with marketing and words, but they can not hide their actions. And they do try to hide them, don't they, but eventually it all comes out into the light of day. Yes, it always comes out eventually. When you become aware of it, right there and then, re-set your 7 YEAR CLOCK! Its long past time for them to walk the walk. I just do not see it happening.
Each time they act badly, I reset my 7 year clock. It is that simple.
Whether I purchase another Microsoft product is up to them. Its up to them to re-earn my TRUST!
For those that think 7 years is too harsh, sorry your wrong. Microsoft specifically, has been at this for over two decades and many of us KNOW IT!
. . . is 7 years enough time considering how long they have been at it?
They say they care about TRUST, but they do not. They prove it by their very ACTIONS. At the end of the day, their words mean nothing. Well they lost allot of our TRUST over the years...shock us and actually try to earn it back. I dare you.
Trust, it was theirs to lose and lose they did.
I challenge all supporters of Open Source, FOSS, to join us in our 7 YEAR CLOCK.
Consider this, if a company knew that a large block of developers, those of us that live on the bleeding edge, would boycott their products for a period of 3 years at the slightest transgression, do you think they would dare, of course not. They can only continue such negative practices if you let them...if you continue to purchase their products. You are basically saying, yea we know you are giving us one up the back side, but we don't care, we will keep taking it.
I was wondering how large USB devices had become just last night, wow. Christmas 2008, you could purchase either a 16GB or 32GB for around $15 on sale.
My last 4GB Micro SD Kingston was FREE after the rebate came back to me. I think I paid $5 for it at the time...bought the limit. A month later they were priced back at $10 to $15 dollars.
But $799, that is a bit steep for me. My last 500GB drive cost less than $80. I think you can get 1 TB for that today.
Fun like GEO Caching
on
USB 'Dead Drops'
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Unless of course people feel there is something 'cool' about having to be in a specified location to receive information in this day and age.
GEO caching came readily to mind. Find an interesting (and hopefully somewhat safe site) and when people get there, not only can they share whatever, but they can have a unique experience as well.
From sneaker net ot peer to peer to USB Dead Drops? lmao...
It always comes back to a cheap open source iPad.... This mythical cheap open source device is never going to happen. Either the hardware will be crap or the UI. Deal with it and let's get on with our lives.
To the iPad specifically but first....a cheap open source device is never going to happen... Already has. Two years ago when you could pick up a netbook running Linux with 512MB of RAM for $300. So Cheap open source devices have already happened.
In 2006, I purchased a Nokia N800, Full Linux hand-held and saw the future there. Granted it was not super cheap in 2006, but certainly is today. I still run a server with only 128MB of RAM, of course it does not do a whole lot, but can still run MySQL and PHP. Just don't ask it to serve thousands of clients, I don't.
The point is you put 512MB of RAM on an embedded device with Root access so that you can configure and install what you want and it most certainly will do most of what a person would do with a 'phone' size device...in fact it would do more. A whole lot more, simply because I can put on whatever database I need (does not have to be a full blown SQL today, does it) PHP and if I want to get fancy, Python, Ruby, etc... Exactly what limitations would I have...I don't see any.
So your premise that you can not get a cheap open source device, is wrong....was wrong years ago and is even more wrong today.
It always comes back to a cheap open source iPad....
Now I promised I would come back to the iPad specifically. I would suggest that if you put at least 512MB of RAM, (preferably1GB of RAM) and allow for 'swappable' Micro SDs like the Nokia N800 does. We can put those in a USB adapter and use them on other computers as I do with my camera now and have for years. And I am only using 4GB SDs, they make 16GB, 32GB...probably more by now, I have not looked. Some of the new tablets have full blown USB ports. For good measure a Gigabyte Ethernet port would be nice. All of them seem to have WiFi, Bluetooth and a couple offer cellular.
I could give a crap about cellular as I have been using only WiFi + VoIP since I purchased the Nokia N800 and love it. I save enough money to purchase a new computer every year and is only one reason I think Skype VoIP was the single biggest technological improvement since 2000. This one product has done more for my life than any other and there have been allot of technological improvements over the last 10 years.
The Nokia N900 had Cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth day one when it came out, now many of the tablets are offering cellular as well. So its already been done and in a form factor smaller than an iPad for those who want that. Personally I see a need for both a pocket smart embedded Linux device / PIM / phone as well as a tablet size smart Linux embedded device. So can it be done, absolutely...again its already been done. But back to the iPad like Linux tablets...
Here are some that are either out already or coming soon:
Vendor Lock-in is far from weasel (your words) and more about expensive, costly, prohibitive, limiting, restricted, etc...
Yes, I called it a weasel word, because it *IS* a weasel word. Please explain to me how buying a Microsoft product is more "prohibitive, limiting, restricted, etc." without using the "Well if Microsoft goes out of business tomorrow, and suddenly every copy of Windows and Office and SQL server stops working, you'll be totally screwed" fairies-and-moondust argument.
What part of M$ TCO being infinite, unending, forever don't you understand.
Oh, I see - you must have missed the part where I explained that the argument is a fucking ridiculous pedantic claim because:
1) Linux requires ongoing support and maintenance of hardware & systems, just like Windows.
2) MSFT licensing is a very small component of the TCO of any computer system;
So by that, if you want to claim Microsoft TCO is "infinite," well then, so is Linux's. TCO is not just "what you spend to get a copy of the software," and you're an idiot if you don't understand that, or a liar if you do.
Allowing your business and IT budget to get hi-jacked by another business unit is poor management on your part. Will probably cost you your best people over time, thus you end up with staffing problems as well...that was real smart, not. Yet you will allow an outside company to vendor lock your IT budget in. Why am I wasting my time, you are not making any sense. Good financial management means you minimize your variable costs and mitigate your business risk as much as possible. Microsoft's business model prevents any and all attempts at this, whether you acknowledge it or not.
1) Linux requires ongoing support and maintenance of hardware & systems, just like Windows.
I did see how in your words, the argument is a fucking ridiculous pedantic claim, your argument was, so I ignored that and stayed with the facts.
Your #1 above is almost a wash for all operating system, LAN, WAN, network environments. No matter what you install you will need Systems Administrators who can keep everything running. Of course it is widely acknowledged, though I doubt you will be honest enough to own up to it, that Microsoft costs more (we disagree on how much more) to maintain then does Linux. Linux servers handle more per given instance then Windows. (we disagree on how much more) Linux can serve more customers in a shorter period of time. At least according to the customers that have left Windows servers for Linux servers. They do not migrate to Linux because its "free as in beer", but because it does the job. When a company (or government) migrates to Windows, its because of money, FEAR (the F in FUD), or some other marketing BS. And those that used it, plenty of reports in the news over the years, have acknowledged problems, slow downs and more...they said Microsoft simply would not handle their business load and needs.
Ironic that the only reason some companies stay with Microsoft is because of Outlook, Office or Excel. If you take the time to search through this one slashdot post, you will find replacements for all of those. The most absurd one was the FUD about Active Directory. Linux and Unix do NOT need active directory and we share files, data, software, databases, images, movies, etc...basically all content just fine when a user logs in to their account. I know you did not mention AD, others in this./ post did, so I added it here. Linux does not NEED to mimic AD, thus no replacement for AD is needed. Though there are a couple, again they are here for those that just must have AD, of Linux replacements if you insist on using that stuff.
And those of us who have been system administrators in all environments know this to be a simple fact. The reality is even more skewed to Microsoft's disadvantage as a typical Linux/Unix Administrator handles m
Converting an existing enterprise to Linux costs a significant amount of money, time, and manpower. That all has a dollar cost. If there is no compelling reason other than "But it's OPEN!" to shift, why would they spend the money to do so? Where will they recoup that investment? Try to answer without weasel words like "vendor lock-in" and "freedom."
Vendor Lock-in is far from weasel (your words) and more about expensive, costly, prohibitive, limiting, restricted, etc...
The parent that you responded to stated the obivous, you seemed to miss it in your post, so I will repeat it for you here in response to your post...
You won't own anything; you can't even sell the PC with the software. There's no ownership.
Which means, as you put more and more money through upgrades into M$ hands, the TCO goes stratospheric and M$ people get richer (you, of course, get poorer).
That's why I said the M$ TCO is infinite.
What part of M$ TCO being infinite, unending, forever don't you understand.
Every business I worked for, managed and owned expected some return on their investment, even in IT...so owning something gives you a return, perhaps a small one, but still a return on your investment.
Can't seem to get sound working in Ubuntu on a desktop with an nVidia GT 240 w/ HDMI. No sound is a huge deal breaker.
If you have problems related to WiFi, Audio, recent Nvidia GPUs, etc... its because you made the cardinal mistake of purchasing hardware from a pro Microsoft Vendor/big box store and not a company that knows how to do Linux.
Pro Linux vendors like ZaReason and System 76 know which proprietary hardware (read designed only to work correctly with Windows) to use and which proprietary hardware to avoid. I have four cores, more than enough memory to even run Windows 7 if I wanted, a very recent GPU from NVidia and more. I have absolutely no problems with anything hardware wise with any Linux distro. You have never seen high definition video play (w/ sound of course) better than I do. If a video is not rendering well for me now, its usually because the website content provider mistakenly converted it to a lower resolution then what is considered High Definition. Common with pro Microsoft video codecs. It took Silverlight 2 years to realize their mistake with H.264 and offer it, instead Microsoft attempted once again to vendor lock in people with their own proprietary video codec...the market did not buy it, thus after two years H.264 is finally being implemented into the product before they lose even more customers.
Stop buying hardware only designed to work with Windows and you will be fine.
You see Linux vendors that will build systems that will run Linux or Windows 7, however Microsoft vendors build systems that only run with Windows 7 and often have proprietary hardware and/or BIOS issues that prevent Linux from running successfully.
Thanks to the open source community, even the proprietary BS can be overcome, but sometimes you have to jump through hoops, only because of the proprietary BS that you should have stayed away from in the first place.
After all it is common knowledge that their are more device drivers for Linux than any other operating system in the history of computers. You just want to avoid companies that are forced to cripple their hardware because of Microsoft.
Another hint, if a company pays Microsoft a licensing fee, stay away from them, as eventually Microsoft will put them out of business and you will be hung out in the cold. This happened to Linpro purchasers who got stuck with a BIOS rigged against Linux on Foxconn motherboards...it was not pretty. So many more stories.
Excellent post, you hit the nail on the head here..
The media played a large role in the perception of the project by eagerly latching on to every bit of bad news about the project
Funded by Microsoft, no doubt.
They wrecked the entire ISO organization for the sake of a file format they never intended to use themselves... why not this?
The list is growing, migrating away from Microsoft, the world economy is just too bad right now for it to be any other way. So Microsoft spent billions to prevent this one...bully for them, but hardly a "win" in the technical sense of the transition.
Am I the only one who has noticed the paid Microsoft shills changing history via Wikipedia. The revisionist history executed by Microsoft surpasses even the Pro Corporate American political parties who are experts at this type of FUD.
Please be honest and serious - there were better implementations of mail transfer agents and email clients before either of those two existed (both are still flaky at times).
That's about a quarter of the functionality Outlook+Exchange offers.
Okay you said it, the following list he included is only 1/4 of the functionality of Outlook+Exchange (your words): Please add to his list which I repeat here as a start for you please?
His List:
~ Calendar
~ Blackberry sync
~ Global Address list look up
~ Calendar (Obviously this means not just putting a date in the Calendar but scheduling a meeting and having the invites send along with repsondents verifying that they are going to be in attendance or not.)
~ Delegate Checking email to another (PA for Executive)
~ Task List (Personally I consider this part of the Calendar too, but he mentioned it separately)
~ Straw Polls w/ simple yes/no around office.
I am honestly curious what the 21 additional functional tasks are that he missed? My guess is you will only have additional Calendar/Scheduling/Meeting related tasks which I would by default include with the Calendare, but I hope I am wrong and looking forward to seeing your list):
Based on my experience with Outlook, he pretty much nailed it based on what was actually used at my offices over the past years...?
But macros are still macros. Now, try that Excel macro in OO on Linux and let me know whether there's a difference in training for those who make macros.
Actually had to take a client's Excel Spreadsheet under Vista and verify that I could get all the macros to work under OpenOffic.org (OOo) Calc. I too was leery until I actually did it. And it is very doable. While I do not remember which format I settled on now over a year later, I was able to find one export format that would allow me to get most of the spreadsheet and I only had to hand edit and copy a few cells to get them to work.
As far as being seamless, Microsoft will never let that happen anyway, so I did not expect that. They have a long history of Embracing standard setting groups, extending whatever is being done only long enough to attempt to Extinguish with their own proprietary standards. In at least one case overseas, they not only paid money, but being unable to drive the standards into a Microsoft only blind alley, simply delayed the standards from getting set. Thus they extended the life of their inferior, proprietary product at the expense of everyone else that just wanted to be able to share their data and documents. Pathetic.
As for Macros in OpenOffice Calc, no problems at all. I was able to finish the task and get paid for my work and using OOo Calc was not an issue. After seeing OOo Calc running on Ubuntu that client said he was NOT going to go to Windows 7 from Vista, he too was long tired of all the BS pushed down the pipe by Microsoft. We live, we learn...most of us anyway.
Great post, here are some more reasons why Microsoft Project is simply not on the critical path any more...and it does not stop with Microsoft Project...
Today with rapid development, testing and release that is Agile, I am unaware of a single software development shop that is wasting time putting up a Project Management project. Once you have a sustainable velocity, not only are your developer's happier, but your customers are seeing you fix problems more rapidly as well. Its smart and a win - win - win - win.
Years ago, thanks to Joel on Software I took a hard look at project management in general. It really opened my eyes to how much time can be wasted if you are not careful. When I looked at the differences between Microsoft Project and Open WorkBench, I found Open WorkBench to be superior. The fact that Open WorkBench saves a company significant money as compared to Microsoft Project, simply makes it better. The Savings vs Buying Microsoft Project as of Sept 19, 2010 are listed as $350,855,864 and that is for only 585,736 downloads.
Even though Joel does not want you to read about Painless Software Scheduling and he wants you to read instead about Evidence Based Scheduling, from a KISS perspective I discovered that I was able to do rapid estimating of projects using a spreadsheet. In fact before I ever started putting a project in Microsoft Project (when a company required that tool) I would first use Joel's method using an Excel spreadsheet. Naturally when I moved from Windows to Linux I found that OpenOffice Calc did everything that Excel would do. I will freely admit that there are things that some people do with Excel and Macros in Excel specifically that I would never do and/or use. In fact I have programmed some of those Macros for small businesses that insisted using Excel as their tool. However I have always felt that it was smarter to pick the correct tool for the correct job. If it is honestly Microsoft, so be it. In most cases, Macros and Excel are NOT better than open source software dedicated to that business function. From a pure Macro standpoint, there is nothing that one can do in Office Excel, that can not be done in OpenOffice Calc. And the price is right. From my perspective, OOo Calc is far superior!
My lesson did not start there, nope, I learned along the way with other smart purchases after doing a feature by feature comparison of products.
Many years before I needed a Graphics package to create, edit and reduce the size of images for the web. At that time, PaintShop Pro could do everything that Adobe PhotoShop could do at about 1/10th of the Price. It was a no brainer...I bought PaintShop Pro. (PaintShop Pro should not be mistaken for Microsoft Paint.). When the company that produces PaintShop Pro mistakenly attempted to force me to update my Windows operating System before using their new version of PaintShop Pro, I borrowed a Laptop running the new version of XP and installed PaintShop Pro on a USB device (yes they did try to prevent that in the install process, however if you know what you are doing
Total cost of ownership is a tricky calculation, but my sense is that with Windows, you pay more for the software but less for support, with Linux, the software is free but the support is costly, and in the long run, as Linux is more flexible and reliable, it works out to be cheaper, as long as you don't skimp on support.
It actually works out cheaper in every case from all perspectives to go from Windows to Linux. For years now Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Linux is, has been and will be cheaper than Windows.
This is one of the proprietary vendor FUD tactics in the hopes of perpetuating the Embrace, Extend and Extinguish tactics to prevent people from adopting Linux.
Take the often reported "training costs". There are not any in over 99% of the cases. How many of your workers went to training in the following Windows transitions?
From Windows 3.0/3.1 to Windows 95? None at my company.
From Windows 3.1/3.1 to Windows NT? None at my company.
From Windows 95 to Windows 98? None at my company.
From Windows 95/98/NT to Windows 2000? None at my compnay.
From Windows 2000 to Windows XP? None at my company.
From Windows XP to Windows Vista? None at my company.
From Windows Vista to Windows 7? None at my company.
Guess what, when you go from Windows (any version) to Ubuntu Linux, you do not need training either. Its just a fact. It does not take you very long to go through the potential window menu options to find what you need. In many cases, going from one version of Windows to another was in reality more difficult. Had you gone to Ubuntu Linux, Mint Linux, Fedora Linux, Debian Linux, SUSE Linux you would have found the transition eaiser.
There is a reason many people have put non techies on Linux, who have never used anything but Windows, and they are proficient with the new operating system in a day or two tops, usually the same day. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize this is FUD, yet they persist on floating it, don't they.
More than one grandparent thinks the new Linux is yet another version of Windows and refer to it as such. Kids are even better, my daughter had an Asus Eee PC, running Xandros Linux, responding to her voice commands the same day that her brother gave it to her. She was under 10 at the time. Not bad for an inexpensive netbook for under $300. And those of us who know understand that Xandros Linux is far from a "better" Linux then others that are out and available to use.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't see this answered anywhere.
Which is one of the many problems with legislation against technological innovation. There are ample examples of the US government doing things, like monitoring, to individuals that they legally can not do. But to protest that you are being monitored, you must first be aware that you are being monitored and at that time you can go to a judge, which is your write, and force the monitoring entity to justify their action or stop.
The problem is that no one tells you when you get a strike and when you are being monitored.
In fact government entities will often tell the ISP that it is against federal law to inform you that you are being monitored. Good luck finding out so you can assert your birth rights.
Its broken and broken bad. I can not think of a single instance where censorship is working effectively.
Look at Youtube, someone puts in a DCMA complaint against you, your content is taken out. The person who theoretically was offended is given adsense (a monetary value, rewarded) for lying. You spend 10 plus days fighting it, even though it should never have happened in the first place. Even if put back up, your momentum is stymied and the chance to get your content to more people is effectively prevented. After the fact, Google never goes back and penalizes the person/entity that censored you. They do not even put in place measures to prevent it from happening to you again, and again, and again.
This six strikes BS will not be any different.
As a friend of mine says, and we should all repeat as the reality of this thought is so obvious. "It is insane to assume that one every street, in every neighborhood, of every city block in every community, in every city, in every county there are torrent users stealing content. Yet the ISP, unless you have Fiber To The Home (FTTH) and a plan guaranteeing you the same bandwidth upstream as downstream...10Mb/10Mb; 50Mb/50Mb... 1Gb/1Gb, throttles every house on every street to below the FTC definition of broadband (768Kbps) 100% of the time.
My friends FTTH map: Less than 40 communities have FTTH where all the plans include the same bandwidth upstream as downstream. Hint: Not all of FIOS plans give you the same bandwidth upstream as downstream!
Importance: No incentive to throttle, which should remove any incentive to censor, your plan becomes your effective bandwidth restriction if if you some how use 10Mb upstream every second of every minute of every hour of every day you can move to the next largest bandwidth plan for a few extra dollars....think about that. Americans should have had this as of the year 2000, except for BS legislation like this designed to force you to pay more for less. Make no mistake, this is the real reason for this type of legislation.
Especially Cable providers. If you get a DD-WRT firmware installed firewall/router, you will see your upstream / downstream bandwidth in real time. You will NEVER see upstream bandwidth throughputs above 768Kbps, except during the Speed Test. Cable plans that provide 16Mb/2Mb normally throttle to less than DSL speeds(100Kbps/10Kbps or 200Kbps/20Kbps), in fact in most cases to less than 1/4 of DSL Speeds, especially upstream. Which means DSL is not only cheaper but faster, provides more bandwidth upstream than throttled cable service.
Even when I manage to get 10Mb downstream, my upstream is throttled to below 120Kbps. How is this not FRAUD? If 768Kbps is the minimum definition for BROADBAND, than upstream speeds below that level can NOT be considered BROADBAND.
And the reason for their throttling, those evil bit torrents that they lie and say are ONLY used to steal content. I bet not a single neighbor on my street has ever used a bittorrent...so why is my service throttled 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to less than BROADBAND speeds?
You will never see it answered anywhere because its a lie. It is not true. And they know it.
Another example, why is it that Microsoft, Gnome, Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, and Apple all promoting user-interface which hinders the users productivity? Because they don't want you to be productive.
Shame you posted as Anonymous...your are very much right on the money. Whenever a company gets in bed with either Microsoft or Apple, they are usually gone within 4 years, many in less than two years. Corel might be one exception, though the numbers of their users has steadily declined over the years, despite investing in the best products for some verticals...WordPerfect is a perfect example as it was the best Word Processor. PaintShop Pro is another casualty of their requirement that you purchase the latest / greatest operating system before it will let you install. (Though friend of mine did successfully use another friends copy of Vista, Install PSP 10 to USB and run it under Windows 2000 and XP successfully years ago...though he said that it took some tweeking)
Can anyone say Linspire? How about Lotus 1-2-3? Just look at Nokia, of course in that scenario they mistakenly brought in a MS trojan horse that continues to push them toward Windows Smart phones despite it being obvious to everyone that other operating systems (esp Linux) are much more efficient for embedded devices (smaller computers, smart phones) as they require less memory, freeing up memory for the apps.
So many examples. So we should not be surprised that having been unable to beat alternative tablets that do more and cost less money, that they pursue litigation (the court system) to forestall innovation in alternative (non-Apple) platforms.
Microsoft even announced yet another vaporware product in hopes of forestalling innovation in alternative (non-Windows) platforms. If you are just now seeing a pattern, congrats, many of us have seen this for well over 20 years...not new.
My next smart embedded device will be running a Linux distro, fully rootable (meaning I can install whatever I want) and will not limit me for wrong (proprietary) reasons.
Just do your homework and purchase ONLY from a Linux vendor in order to avoid proprietary chipsets that are designed to simply vendor lock you in to their platform (and every higher forced fees and purchases). Two excellent Linux vendors are ZaReason and System 76. There are many others. The cost + shipping usually gives you more (memory, hard disk, processor) for less than most, if not all, big box stores. Best of all, if you want to install the proprietary operating system on a Linux device, usually you can, the converse is sometimes not true.
Buy with Linux in mind, even if you plan to run Windows or OS X, when the company stops supporting the software, your device will still run one of more than two dozen Linux distros (operating systems) and that is a very good thing.
I don't have any kind of smartphone yet, and in fact I was still weighing my options. I was leaning towards an Android device because I could code my own apps for it in Java,
I want to code using standalone PHP and the new HTML5 standards that will let your apps continue to function when the device (smart embedded device) is NOT connected to the Internet. Others want to use Python or Ruby.
No root access = dumb device!
If the device is open and unlocked with Administrator (Root) access than you and I both can use it as we see fit....which is the most basic definition of whether a device is truly smart.
If new device runs less software than last device = not smart, dumb device!
I would add, as a friend of mine likes to say, that if the device is beyond the first release, than it should only run more software on it than the previous release, never less. If the new device runs fewer applications than the last device, its just not smart.
No WiFi access = Dumb device!
Finally I want VoIP WiFi access which can NOT be denied to me if I have Root / Admin Access. As WiFi is available to me in over 80% of the places where I spend my life. The only place its not, is when I am in transit between places and most state laws are forcing hands free or outright bans when in transit anyway.
Is a monthly fee required = Dumb Device! (optional is okay, required is wrong. What is it doing for me that deserves that monthly fee?)
I want to use social media, chats, blogs, tweets, facebook, etc... without the need of any additional monthly fee, Wifi access guarantees all of us these options...thus I am ever hopeful.
You are right on the money, loved your post~
The fact that Apple is now twisting the market in its favor doesn't make me happy.
Apple is far from the only company doing this. I long ago realized that if I developed apps that depended on any proprietary hardware/software platform that as soon as I became profitable enough that proprietary company would take my vertical away from me...they simply would always have more money to spend, some of that raised by me on their behalf for using their closed system. That does not seem smart.
Worst of all, when it is not possible to innovate any longer, the proprietary company will put me/you out of business via a forced update / upgrade. As I would be dependent on them and they could care less about me. This is the problem with supporting any proprietary infrastructure, what happens when the company decides screw you, you are going to do it my (proprietary company) way and pay them more as a thank you for destroying your business. Added bonus if they force you out of the market through patent/copyright litigation...pathetic.
The best thing any of us can do is to simply stop purchasing their products. Give em the death penalty (since Citizens United made them people).
they required you to update your operating system
It should always be the owner/users choice to update and/or upgrade. If a company "forces" you to update or upgrade and does not allow you to say H E double Hockey Sticks NO, than you are one forced update/upgrade from an expensive paper weight. Of course your work flow will be interrupted at the absolutely worst possible time in your life...way too much business risk. Yet companies assume that every day with so many products these days. Its simply a sign of how far Data Processing / Information Technology has fallen as a profession.
Of course weak tarriff / trade / international economic policy has been slowly destroying the fabric of the USA for well over 50 years. To connect the dots...jobs offshoring, jobs going overseas, job losses, wages driven below the basement and into the sewer.
Of course I am not saying auto update and auto upgrade is destroying the American family...a bit of a stretch... though I would say that taxes have never been lower and the promised jobs for those lower taxes have never materialized.
I guess what I am saying is that forced policies, taking away freedom, regardless of the miss guided reasons is just wrong. I might not agree with your statement, but I defend with my life, based on the US Constitution, Its Admendments and the Bill of Rights which are given to each of us by birth in America, your right to say it...if you do not do likewise....your loss. Guess its easier to attack the man and tell him he needs Anger Management. Of course you would probably say I need Anger Management classes too...talk about reaching...pathetic.
In America today, there is very little NEW either economically or control-wise (church/state) under the sun. If you are willing to give up a smidgen of freedom for any reason, especially fake security, you honestly do deserve neither. A very smart man said that hundreds of years ago.
For those that can not see the connection between freedom and required/force updates and current economic, business and political policies over the last 100 years...well that is the reason you mistakenly vote against your own best interests...wake up. There is so much more to life than talking points...which most often are designed to prevent you from connecting the dots and realizing what is being done to you, behind your back, out of the sunlight.
Updates, upgrades SHALL always be the owner/users choice. If that choice is taken away, don't hate the entity, just stop doing any business with them. And share your experience with family, friends, co-workers, strangers so that others will do likewise. I agree with other posters, Apples actions here is costing them current Apple enthusiasts. Those that have left Apple are laughing all the way to the bank, where they notice their balance is larger for being smart enough to purchase better technology (non Apple), that can do more, for less money.
The joke is on Apple.
Because wireless cannot provide the bandwidth... should give you an idea how far away from reality thoughts that wired is expired and wireless is the way to go are
Sounds like you are saying wireless can not provide the bandwidth...which I totally agree with,
... however than you say wireless is the way to go or at least it seemed to me. I must disagree with that...which is it?.
Not that it matters as anything other than Fiber To The Home (FTTH) is a ponzi scheme, false promises, waste of time and money. Only FTTH offers us a viable future! Why should Americans continue to settle for less? Japan had 100Mb/100Mb in 2000 and 1Gb/1Gb in 2006, its 2011...hello, 768Kbps is broadband, really? NOT!
The current NON-synchronous Internet providers are NOT providing you the bandwidth you are paying for? Instead of “up to” some lie, how about a money back guarantee if your upstream bandwidth falls below the FCC definition? Even that is over 11 years out of date and way too slow. There is no way in heck they are going to provide more bandwidth via wireless, it does not matter how many Gs they promise you. Everyone knows that wired infrastructure, specifically Fiber To The Home (FTTH) is far, far superior to wireless 3G, 4G, 10G anything.
I bet I can serve more clients on a wired synchronous FTTH home network with a DD-WRT, OpenWRT or tomato firmware enabled firewall/router than the cellular company can serve via any level of G wireless...but that is not the point, even if it is not entirely accurate. At least I would know with 100% certainty exactly what my broadband bandwidth really is 24X7X365 thanks to the bandwidth monitors in those firmwares! Speed Tests lie!
Any technology other than Fiber all the way into the Home (FTTH) (not GPON, FTTC, DOCSIS, 3G, 4G,...10G, etc...) is simply a waste of time and a very poor attempt by your provider to extend the bandwidth scarcity myth. They use lies, like bandwidth scarcity to extort higher and higher monthly fees from you (going up yearly) forever. Or until you can no longer afford it and they dump you.
If any market was honestly FREE, prices would fluctuate both up and down, unless of course the market is NOT FREE or the provider is severely incompetent. I know what I believe and somewhat know to be true....WAKE UP.
... if its all evenly distributed... that means you would need 800 Gig's per square mile of wireless bandwidth.. We are talking data capacity... Realistically your not going to go for the wired equivalent... capacity of one of the points of aggregation/concentration...
But any way you look at it... To do a project like what Google is envisioning is not feasibly done because neither the spectrum availability is there nor equipment that could provide this type of point to multi-point network...
Back in 2006, people way smarter than you and I managed to take a single strand of Fiber and multiplex it (increase the bandwidth) from 1X bandwidth to 1024X bandwidth. This was over 4 years ago. So to say we do NOT have the technology to provide it is not accurate either. Virtually unlimited bandwidth if you are smart and run Fiber, un-interrupted by inferior technologies, all the way into the subscribers home. Not just to their neighborhood.
As for not being feasible, tell the over 20 communities with synchronous FTTH listed on this map...they all did it, therefore your hypothesis is very, very wrong. It most certainly can be done. It has been done. Hopefully you are not a shill for the industry, but if you are, be
...There's a lot of red tape (permitting, bidding, etc) that has to be cut before they can even start construction which could easily take until 2012. ...
First of all to become one of the Google's Think Big With a Gig communities, most if not all of the red tape issues needed to be already taken care just to be considered for selection. Definitely a commitment by those lucky enough to be selected to move forward.
LMAO I would love to hear any politician tell their citizen's that the reason they did not succeed in becoming one of the first 5 Google's Think Big With a Gig Community was because the telco or cable company paid me to sabotage the process.
Are your community's politicians bought and paid for by your local telco-cable-cellular oligopoly? How would you know?
Think about that real hard because if your community can not get Fiber To The Home (FTTH). Perhaps your politicians are corrupt and not putting you, your family, your friends, your neighbors FIRST as they should.
If the local incumbent provider can lobby your politicians and prevent your family from getting FTTH, than so can other mega-corporations.
Given the Citizens United vs FEC decision you will never be allowed to hear the truth, only the negative campaign ads against any honest citizen politician! You should solve that in the next election for the sake of your family, friends and neighbors.
EPB in Chattanooga finished their FTTH, Fiber To The Home, build-out years ahead of schedule. The first build-out took a total of only 3 years...so getting another community done in two years with Google's backing is most definitely possible. Even easier when you consider the preparation a community has to go through just to be considered for the Fiber. In Chattanooga, with a minimal influx of additional cash (a $112M federal grant) they were able to finish ahead of schedule. Chattanooga now serves 20,000 residential customers and 2,500 business customers.
I think everyone reading this would agree that Google can pump way more than $112M, $300M or even $600M into any FTTH community it decides too. So what's your point!
More important will be the prices. Check out prices for Synchronous FTTH with EPB of Chattanooga:
$57.99: 30Mbps; Internet 30 (30Mb/30Mb or 30 Mb Downstream / 30 Mb Upstream)
$69.99: 50Mbps; Internet 50 (50Mb/50Mb)
$139.99: 100Mbps; Internet 100 (100Mb/100Mb)
$349.99; 1000Mbps; Internet 1,000 (1000Mb/1000Mb or 1Gb/1Gb)
And here are prices per cbemerine comment in The Real Reason to Cut the Cable? :
Until Google announces there five FTTH communities, there are the 16 plus communities in Utah via Utopia ($49 - $79) where the resident owns the Fiber (UOF) and can select from one of many providers. Other than that you can get 10Mb/10Mb in Wilson N.C. from Greenlight for $34.95 per month; 10Mb/10Mb in Lafayette, LA from LUS for $28.95 per month; 30Mb/30Mb in Chattanooga, TN from EPB for $57.99.
While I might wait through the end of this year to figure out where Google is going to go, there is no reason to wait until 2012, 2015 or 2020 and beyond. All of us can move today, this this map shows
I prefer my desktop to be free of mono, that's why I use Mint KDE.
I feel the same way, now that Fedora has announced that they too will support Wayland, both Ubuntu and Fedora are off my list.
Microsoft has hurt Linux in the past by leading people down proprietary and technological blind alleys. While I have no ill will toward Wayland, I do not want to look up one day and find out that something has been automated against my wishes or that I no longer have 100% control over my PC hardware.
Wayland ~ Mono ~ .Net (dotNet) ~ Microsoft.
All Microsoft has to do is make a change to .Net that impacts Linux in a negative way and it will be pulled upstream into Mono and upstream into Wayland.
Anyone who says this will never happen has a short memory, practicing revisionist history or has not been in the field very long. The rest of us have seen this before...can you say Embrace, Extend and Extinguish, I knew you could.
To avoid Wayland is simple, pay attention to which distros are implementing Mono and/or Wayland by default and avoid them. Use this graphic - GNU/Linux distro timeline to make sure your distro is not impacted by those distros that are implementing Mono in their food chain!
Thankfully with Linux we have allot of other choices and this is a very good thing.
That would be stupid and fatal long term. We would never again see Linux lead the way anywhere if we hitched ourselves to Microsoft's trailer hitch
You are so right on the money!
How many times do you have to get burned and led down a proprietary blind alley before you learn to never take a step down that road as it NEVER ends well for you, your PC, open source and Linux...NEVER.
Keep in mind that Mark Shuttleworth's goals are not the same as the community at large. He wants to see a return on his $20 million. It's why he hired Windows apologist Matt Asay instead of someone deeply involved in the linux community.
You are right on about Mark Shuttleworth's goals, of course its his money and he can play the cards as he sees fit, of course we do not have to sit at his table do we.
As for Fedora, watch out, they are have announced that they are going to Wayland eventually as well. Wayland ~ Mono ~ .NET is a little too much for me as well. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
Here is a great Graphics view of different Distros and which are derived from which base distros. Obviously to avoid Wayland you want to avoid any distro that gets its base from either Ubuntu or Fedora.
They can not release any personal information that you DO NOT PROVIDE to them.
I too hate this crap, but too many people do not take privacy seriously and provided the information in the past, therefore, they (companies) have no reason not to expect you to follow and give them information like you have in the past. They believe we are all sheeple!
Too many social networking sites want to lock you into bad OAuth sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Too many people forget that as soon as they have any piece of information related to you and a single phone call, monthly bill, purchase, email account, etc, they know exactly who you are.
Are you willing to stop using a site that violates your privacy? Most are not, therefore giving a nod to the company that wants to violate our privacy.
Security and privacy go hand in hand. Privacy requires you to maintain a singular mind set to maintain your privacy and not get lazy. If you give up and provide the information because someone says you should not have anything to hide, its game over from a privacy perspective. Once you slip up and give out any private information, its just one small step from putting the pieces together and identifying who you are, what you are looking at in order to market to you. Of course who besides marketers are using this info for what other purposes will never be fully disclosed to you, ever.
Our Credit information, another privacy sink, which contains all our personal information is too tightly inter-twined with our lives now, as if your credit determines what type of driver you are and should relate in any way to increasing the amount you pay for insurance. Pathetic.
Is your browser secure? Can you tightly control not just regular cookies but Flash cookies as well? With Firefox + Linux (Banish Flash cookies forever under Linux) you can. Chrome is in bed with Adobe and Flash so they will never provide a viable option to delete tracking cookies. Internet Explorer was never meant to keep information about you private, ever. What other browsers let you delete Flash cookies on a regular basis? Even with Firefox, a reboot of my PC is required to delete the stupid Flash tracking cookies, but at least I can do that with Linux!
In all cases, a company can not reveal what you do not provide to them. Do they really need your phone number? Really, REALLY, grow a pair and say NO! Where else might you get the info, there are always other options. Do they really need your email account info? Do they really need a credit card? There are always other options, granted some might not be as convenient, but they are out there if you are willing to expend the energy to seek them out.
If you are not willing to spend some time to protect your privacy, than you are probably not reading this right now.
While all sites should OPT OUT by DEFAULT, we know they do not and we know why. Of course you do not have to use that site! You have choices. If you only have two choices, you have no real choice. Sometimes you just have to say NO! Sometimes, as in this case, you have to say H8ll NO!
I'd happily trade some more info to google(i use gmail, reader, search, youtube, already)to get better routing for new places on maps.
And I would be happy for you, just do not REQUIRE me to do likewise and we are golden.
Don't force me to give my phone number to use your service.
Don't limit my OAuth options in responding to a blog. ONLY if I use Disqus, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn
Don't force me to do anything I do not want to do, or I will choose not to participate...I will vote with my dollars and you will not see even one of them.
A BETTER email system does not place the burden upon you to decide what to block. It removes that choice from you, freeing up your time and resources.
You really need to limit freedom to make it better. Remember, "choice" is a actually a cost. Each additional degree of freedom added to any system is one more bit of complexity, limiting its usefulness. The more complex you make a system, the less successful people are at using it.
What a tool comment. If you want to give me better filters fine, but not allowing me any level of fine control is unacceptable, I will stop using your product offering. Such is the case with privacy, cookies, Flash and Chrome/Internet Explorer compared to Firefox + Linux. (With Linux I can redirect the flash crap to /tmp and let it get erased between sessions, while unacceptable at least can be accomplished. Thankfully Flash is dying a slow death, it can not happen soon enough...that's what they get for attempting to take away my choice.)
If you have only two choices, you have no choice.
You really need to limit freedom to make it better. Remember, "choice" is a actually a cost. Each additional degree of freedom added to any system is one more bit of complexity, limiting its usefulness. The more complex you make a system, the less successful people are at using it.
Amazing and how sad for you. I would accept a simpleton version for someone that does not want control or access to filter to their own specifications, but you had better allow for more intelligent options for an advanced user. If not you better allow for root/admin access so I can correct your mistake or I will not use your product. To simply take it away and justify it with such an inane comment that I am somehow better off is silly. Its also extremely short sighted.
No Root access = Stupid Device = Not Smart. (Good mantra for cell phone makers)
If you are a developer and too lazy to give me options, at least give me the mechanism to fix it, or I will not purchase your product and/or user your service. You fail.
Please tell me you are not an American. As you are simply way to quick to give up the freedoms that our your birthright.
Censorship is never the answer.
You do not get more freedom by giving up freedoms. Your life does not get better when you give away your liberty or any freedoms. Once you start down that path, you will quickly reach a level that is simply unacceptable, the wise never allow themselves to be pushed down the path...ever. Not one step. You want to make my life better, give me valid options and choice.
When interviewed after Nazi Germany fell, those that went along with the status quo simply stated that the last time they took away our freedoms was not so bad, so this time will not be so bad either.
This happened once, than twice, than three times, yet another and another, until finally the path from the First time (A) to the last time (Z) was neither acceptable nor clear. By the time they got to G, it was too late and too much had been given away for nothing in return.
The powers that be understand this better than you do, as going from Step A to Step G would be unacceptable, however if they can get you to accept step B; than from Step B accept step C and so on, before you know it you are at Step G, deer in the headlights stupidity for allowing yourself to be led to the slaughter. Pathetic and easily avoidable by never allowing yourself to be pushed to step B.
Try innovation and making the product better for both the simple users and the more advance users.
Better to choose not to play than to allow your life to be controlled and prevented from becoming all that you can become.
Benjamin Franklin was right..."They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
...limiting its usef
I would see your security hole and raise you two or three more for a variety of MS Products. You would always lose.
Next time someone says something you use has a security hole, check and see if it states that "local access" is required for the exploit. If so, what are you getting excited about...you giving black hatters the keys to your home/apartment/business? I certainly hope not.
There will always be security holes. Fools automatically update to supposedly avoid them. Intelligent IT professionals look into the nature of the security holes and determine if they are viable in their environment or not before upgrading. Its the way it always has been, is and always will be.
Only those that are unable to understand what the security issues are, automatically (read blindly) update without understanding what the real issues are and if they even apply or not.
More often than not, more problems are introduced than are fixed.
More importantly true experts do not settle for security by obscurity, if given the choice. Whether they have the choice or not is usually the telling part of whether someone is respected by their chain of command or not.
Blindly upgrading, updating, auto-updating is insane . . . and a sign of desperation, to be avoided at all costs.
Microsoft actually lost a golden opportunity when (t)hey treated open source the way they did....
Microsoft on the other hand, decided to try to destroy open source and bury it like it did with other companies....
All of them are dead set against Microsoft and no amount of certification is going to change that now.
Anyone who suggests, believes or tries to state the above is not true, needs to research the facts as many of us have...they are out there if you care to look for them. I understand that some do not.
Pretty much sums it up and hits the nail on the head for my friends and I.
I have yet to see a single company that has done business with Microsoft, except perhaps a couple of hardware manufacturers (but even they are unhappy and complain from time to time) that are still viable businesses after 2, 3 or 4 years.
Instead of buying the marketing hype, there are a number of us that refuse to purchase anything from Microsoft until they have, by their actions, not miss-behaved towards open source, FOSS, Linux for a minimum of 7 years. If after a 7 year positive track record they have stopped the FUD, ceased their Embrace, Extend, Extinguish business practices than and only than will we once again consider their products. Any of their products.
We call it setting our 7 year clock!
Any company that treats open source, FOSS, Linux poorly gets a clock set. For first time offenders, a 3 Year Clock is sufficient, however for a company like Microsoft that has continued their awful business practices against open source, FOSS, Linux, etc... for more than 15 years, well 3 years is simply not sufficient, thus a 7 YEAR CLOCK is more appropriate.
They can lie, deceive, etc...with marketing and words, but they can not hide their actions. And they do try to hide them, don't they, but eventually it all comes out into the light of day. Yes, it always comes out eventually. When you become aware of it, right there and then, re-set your 7 YEAR CLOCK! Its long past time for them to walk the walk. I just do not see it happening.
Each time they act badly, I reset my 7 year clock. It is that simple.
Whether I purchase another Microsoft product is up to them. Its up to them to re-earn my TRUST!
For those that think 7 years is too harsh, sorry your wrong. Microsoft specifically, has been at this for over two decades and many of us KNOW IT!
. . . is 7 years enough time considering how long they have been at it?
They say they care about TRUST, but they do not. They prove it by their very ACTIONS. At the end of the day, their words mean nothing. Well they lost allot of our TRUST over the years...shock us and actually try to earn it back. I dare you.
Trust, it was theirs to lose and lose they did.
I challenge all supporters of Open Source, FOSS, to join us in our 7 YEAR CLOCK.
Consider this, if a company knew that a large block of developers, those of us that live on the bleeding edge, would boycott their products for a period of 3 years at the slightest transgression, do you think they would dare, of course not. They can only continue such negative practices if you let them...if you continue to purchase their products. You are basically saying, yea we know you are giving us one up the back side, but we don't care, we will keep taking it.
I do not think so! Enough is enough.
I was wondering how large USB devices had become just last night, wow. Christmas 2008, you could purchase either a 16GB or 32GB for around $15 on sale.
My last 4GB Micro SD Kingston was FREE after the rebate came back to me. I think I paid $5 for it at the time...bought the limit. A month later they were priced back at $10 to $15 dollars.
But $799, that is a bit steep for me. My last 500GB drive cost less than $80. I think you can get 1 TB for that today.
Unless of course people feel there is something 'cool' about having to be in a specified location to receive information in this day and age.
GEO caching came readily to mind. Find an interesting (and hopefully somewhat safe site) and when people get there, not only can they share whatever, but they can have a unique experience as well.
From sneaker net ot peer to peer to USB Dead Drops? lmao...
Might be good practice for when Fascism takes over thanks to Citizen United vs FEC.
It always comes back to a cheap open source iPad. ... This mythical cheap open source device is never going to happen. Either the hardware will be crap or the UI. Deal with it and let's get on with our lives.
To the iPad specifically but first....a cheap open source device is never going to happen... Already has. Two years ago when you could pick up a netbook running Linux with 512MB of RAM for $300. So Cheap open source devices have already happened.
In 2006, I purchased a Nokia N800, Full Linux hand-held and saw the future there. Granted it was not super cheap in 2006, but certainly is today. I still run a server with only 128MB of RAM, of course it does not do a whole lot, but can still run MySQL and PHP. Just don't ask it to serve thousands of clients, I don't.
The point is you put 512MB of RAM on an embedded device with Root access so that you can configure and install what you want and it most certainly will do most of what a person would do with a 'phone' size device...in fact it would do more. A whole lot more, simply because I can put on whatever database I need (does not have to be a full blown SQL today, does it) PHP and if I want to get fancy, Python, Ruby, etc... Exactly what limitations would I have...I don't see any.
So your premise that you can not get a cheap open source device, is wrong....was wrong years ago and is even more wrong today.
It always comes back to a cheap open source iPad. ...
Now I promised I would come back to the iPad specifically. I would suggest that if you put at least 512MB of RAM, (preferably1GB of RAM) and allow for 'swappable' Micro SDs like the Nokia N800 does. We can put those in a USB adapter and use them on other computers as I do with my camera now and have for years. And I am only using 4GB SDs, they make 16GB, 32GB...probably more by now, I have not looked. Some of the new tablets have full blown USB ports. For good measure a Gigabyte Ethernet port would be nice. All of them seem to have WiFi, Bluetooth and a couple offer cellular.
I could give a crap about cellular as I have been using only WiFi + VoIP since I purchased the Nokia N800 and love it. I save enough money to purchase a new computer every year and is only one reason I think Skype VoIP was the single biggest technological improvement since 2000. This one product has done more for my life than any other and there have been allot of technological improvements over the last 10 years.
The Nokia N900 had Cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth day one when it came out, now many of the tablets are offering cellular as well. So its already been done and in a form factor smaller than an iPad for those who want that. Personally I see a need for both a pocket smart embedded Linux device / PIM / phone as well as a tablet size smart Linux embedded device. So can it be done, absolutely...again its already been done. But back to the iPad like Linux tablets...
Here are some that are either out already or coming soon:
Order now for $500 and its Root-able!
The Joo Joo (shipping despite the legal complaints w/ Crunchpad) Processor: Intel Atom N270, 1GB RAM; 4GB SSD Flash; WiFi(802.11b/g), Bluetooth, Camera (Video), USB, Speakers, Mic, only a 12.1” 1366 x 768, 1080p screen. Good: 1GB Ram, USB, WiFi, 1080p, Video; Bad: smaller screen, Adobe Flash. Wish list: 2GB RAM memory, larger screen, Ethernet port; The joo joo is rootable, the Intel Atom foundation should mean that users can wipe the Linux-based stack provided by Fusion Garage, and replace it with another Linux OS, Windows, or another x86-ready operating system. Root Access? Absolutely, a
Vendor Lock-in is far from weasel (your words) and more about expensive, costly, prohibitive, limiting, restricted, etc...
Yes, I called it a weasel word, because it *IS* a weasel word. Please explain to me how buying a Microsoft product is more "prohibitive, limiting, restricted, etc." without using the "Well if Microsoft goes out of business tomorrow, and suddenly every copy of Windows and Office and SQL server stops working, you'll be totally screwed" fairies-and-moondust argument.
What part of M$ TCO being infinite, unending, forever don't you understand.
Oh, I see - you must have missed the part where I explained that the argument is a fucking ridiculous pedantic claim because:
1) Linux requires ongoing support and maintenance of hardware & systems, just like Windows.
2) MSFT licensing is a very small component of the TCO of any computer system;
So by that, if you want to claim Microsoft TCO is "infinite," well then, so is Linux's. TCO is not just "what you spend to get a copy of the software," and you're an idiot if you don't understand that, or a liar if you do.
Allowing your business and IT budget to get hi-jacked by another business unit is poor management on your part. Will probably cost you your best people over time, thus you end up with staffing problems as well...that was real smart, not. Yet you will allow an outside company to vendor lock your IT budget in. Why am I wasting my time, you are not making any sense. Good financial management means you minimize your variable costs and mitigate your business risk as much as possible. Microsoft's business model prevents any and all attempts at this, whether you acknowledge it or not.
1) Linux requires ongoing support and maintenance of hardware & systems, just like Windows.
I did see how in your words, the argument is a fucking ridiculous pedantic claim, your argument was, so I ignored that and stayed with the facts.
Your #1 above is almost a wash for all operating system, LAN, WAN, network environments. No matter what you install you will need Systems Administrators who can keep everything running. Of course it is widely acknowledged, though I doubt you will be honest enough to own up to it, that Microsoft costs more (we disagree on how much more) to maintain then does Linux. Linux servers handle more per given instance then Windows. (we disagree on how much more) Linux can serve more customers in a shorter period of time. At least according to the customers that have left Windows servers for Linux servers. They do not migrate to Linux because its "free as in beer", but because it does the job. When a company (or government) migrates to Windows, its because of money, FEAR (the F in FUD), or some other marketing BS. And those that used it, plenty of reports in the news over the years, have acknowledged problems, slow downs and more...they said Microsoft simply would not handle their business load and needs.
Ironic that the only reason some companies stay with Microsoft is because of Outlook, Office or Excel. If you take the time to search through this one slashdot post, you will find replacements for all of those. The most absurd one was the FUD about Active Directory. Linux and Unix do NOT need active directory and we share files, data, software, databases, images, movies, etc...basically all content just fine when a user logs in to their account. I know you did not mention AD, others in this ./ post did, so I added it here. Linux does not NEED to mimic AD, thus no replacement for AD is needed. Though there are a couple, again they are here for those that just must have AD, of Linux replacements if you insist on using that stuff.
And those of us who have been system administrators in all environments know this to be a simple fact. The reality is even more skewed to Microsoft's disadvantage as a typical Linux/Unix Administrator handles m
Converting an existing enterprise to Linux costs a significant amount of money, time, and manpower. That all has a dollar cost. If there is no compelling reason other than "But it's OPEN!" to shift, why would they spend the money to do so? Where will they recoup that investment? Try to answer without weasel words like "vendor lock-in" and "freedom."
Vendor Lock-in is far from weasel (your words) and more about expensive, costly, prohibitive, limiting, restricted, etc...
The parent that you responded to stated the obivous, you seemed to miss it in your post, so I will repeat it for you here in response to your post...
You won't own anything; you can't even sell the PC with the software. There's no ownership. Which means, as you put more and more money through upgrades into M$ hands, the TCO goes stratospheric and M$ people get richer (you, of course, get poorer). That's why I said the M$ TCO is infinite.
What part of M$ TCO being infinite, unending, forever don't you understand.
Every business I worked for, managed and owned expected some return on their investment, even in IT...so owning something gives you a return, perhaps a small one, but still a return on your investment.
Can't seem to get sound working in Ubuntu on a desktop with an nVidia GT 240 w/ HDMI. No sound is a huge deal breaker.
If you have problems related to WiFi, Audio, recent Nvidia GPUs, etc... its because you made the cardinal mistake of purchasing hardware from a pro Microsoft Vendor/big box store and not a company that knows how to do Linux.
Pro Linux vendors like ZaReason and System 76 know which proprietary hardware (read designed only to work correctly with Windows) to use and which proprietary hardware to avoid. I have four cores, more than enough memory to even run Windows 7 if I wanted, a very recent GPU from NVidia and more. I have absolutely no problems with anything hardware wise with any Linux distro. You have never seen high definition video play (w/ sound of course) better than I do. If a video is not rendering well for me now, its usually because the website content provider mistakenly converted it to a lower resolution then what is considered High Definition. Common with pro Microsoft video codecs. It took Silverlight 2 years to realize their mistake with H.264 and offer it, instead Microsoft attempted once again to vendor lock in people with their own proprietary video codec...the market did not buy it, thus after two years H.264 is finally being implemented into the product before they lose even more customers.
Stop buying hardware only designed to work with Windows and you will be fine.
You see Linux vendors that will build systems that will run Linux or Windows 7, however Microsoft vendors build systems that only run with Windows 7 and often have proprietary hardware and/or BIOS issues that prevent Linux from running successfully.
Thanks to the open source community, even the proprietary BS can be overcome, but sometimes you have to jump through hoops, only because of the proprietary BS that you should have stayed away from in the first place.
After all it is common knowledge that their are more device drivers for Linux than any other operating system in the history of computers. You just want to avoid companies that are forced to cripple their hardware because of Microsoft.
Another hint, if a company pays Microsoft a licensing fee, stay away from them, as eventually Microsoft will put them out of business and you will be hung out in the cold. This happened to Linpro purchasers who got stuck with a BIOS rigged against Linux on Foxconn motherboards...it was not pretty. So many more stories.
ZaReason and System76 are the solutions.
Excellent post, you hit the nail on the head here..
The media played a large role in the perception of the project by eagerly latching on to every bit of bad news about the project Funded by Microsoft, no doubt. They wrecked the entire ISO organization for the sake of a file format they never intended to use themselves ... why not this?
I was trying to remember which organization that Microsoft actively infiltrated and "wrecking" but could not, it was that one. Anyone who doubts the efforts of Microsoft, to spend financially, to prevent Linux's adoption anywhere, especially here are quickly forgetting the last world stock exchange to migrate from Microsoft Windows IIs Server to Linux ( .NET and SQL Server failures happened as early as 2008 ) and Major League Baseballs dumping Silverlight. Two other recent blemish on the Microsoft rules the server world domination message...good luck with that.
The list is growing, migrating away from Microsoft, the world economy is just too bad right now for it to be any other way. So Microsoft spent billions to prevent this one...bully for them, but hardly a "win" in the technical sense of the transition.
Am I the only one who has noticed the paid Microsoft shills changing history via Wikipedia. The revisionist history executed by Microsoft surpasses even the Pro Corporate American political parties who are experts at this type of FUD.
Please be honest and serious - there were better implementations of mail transfer agents and email clients before either of those two existed (both are still flaky at times). That's about a quarter of the functionality Outlook+Exchange offers.
Okay you said it, the following list he included is only 1/4 of the functionality of Outlook+Exchange (your words): Please add to his list which I repeat here as a start for you please?
His List:
~ Calendar
~ Blackberry sync
~ Global Address list look up
~ Calendar (Obviously this means not just putting a date in the Calendar but scheduling a meeting and having the invites send along with repsondents verifying that they are going to be in attendance or not.)
~ Delegate Checking email to another (PA for Executive)
~ Task List (Personally I consider this part of the Calendar too, but he mentioned it separately)
~ Straw Polls w/ simple yes/no around office.
I am honestly curious what the 21 additional functional tasks are that he missed? My guess is you will only have additional Calendar/Scheduling/Meeting related tasks which I would by default include with the Calendare, but I hope I am wrong and looking forward to seeing your list):
Based on my experience with Outlook, he pretty much nailed it based on what was actually used at my offices over the past years...?
But macros are still macros. Now, try that Excel macro in OO on Linux and let me know whether there's a difference in training for those who make macros.
Actually had to take a client's Excel Spreadsheet under Vista and verify that I could get all the macros to work under OpenOffic.org (OOo) Calc. I too was leery until I actually did it. And it is very doable. While I do not remember which format I settled on now over a year later, I was able to find one export format that would allow me to get most of the spreadsheet and I only had to hand edit and copy a few cells to get them to work.
As far as being seamless, Microsoft will never let that happen anyway, so I did not expect that. They have a long history of Embracing standard setting groups, extending whatever is being done only long enough to attempt to Extinguish with their own proprietary standards. In at least one case overseas, they not only paid money, but being unable to drive the standards into a Microsoft only blind alley, simply delayed the standards from getting set. Thus they extended the life of their inferior, proprietary product at the expense of everyone else that just wanted to be able to share their data and documents. Pathetic.
As for Macros in OpenOffice Calc, no problems at all. I was able to finish the task and get paid for my work and using OOo Calc was not an issue. After seeing OOo Calc running on Ubuntu that client said he was NOT going to go to Windows 7 from Vista, he too was long tired of all the BS pushed down the pipe by Microsoft. We live, we learn...most of us anyway.
Great post, here are some more reasons why Microsoft Project is simply not on the critical path any more...and it does not stop with Microsoft Project...
Today with rapid development, testing and release that is Agile, I am unaware of a single software development shop that is wasting time putting up a Project Management project. Once you have a sustainable velocity, not only are your developer's happier, but your customers are seeing you fix problems more rapidly as well. Its smart and a win - win - win - win.
Years ago, thanks to Joel on Software I took a hard look at project management in general. It really opened my eyes to how much time can be wasted if you are not careful. When I looked at the differences between Microsoft Project and Open WorkBench, I found Open WorkBench to be superior. The fact that Open WorkBench saves a company significant money as compared to Microsoft Project, simply makes it better. The Savings vs Buying Microsoft Project as of Sept 19, 2010 are listed as $350,855,864 and that is for only 585,736 downloads.
Since most organizations are resource-constrained rather than time-constrained, the resource-based scheduling in Open Workbench typically provides a more realistic plan in less time. ~ that just makes sense to me and is obvious.
Even though Joel does not want you to read about Painless Software Scheduling and he wants you to read instead about Evidence Based Scheduling, from a KISS perspective I discovered that I was able to do rapid estimating of projects using a spreadsheet. In fact before I ever started putting a project in Microsoft Project (when a company required that tool) I would first use Joel's method using an Excel spreadsheet. Naturally when I moved from Windows to Linux I found that OpenOffice Calc did everything that Excel would do. I will freely admit that there are things that some people do with Excel and Macros in Excel specifically that I would never do and/or use. In fact I have programmed some of those Macros for small businesses that insisted using Excel as their tool. However I have always felt that it was smarter to pick the correct tool for the correct job. If it is honestly Microsoft, so be it. In most cases, Macros and Excel are NOT better than open source software dedicated to that business function. From a pure Macro standpoint, there is nothing that one can do in Office Excel, that can not be done in OpenOffice Calc. And the price is right. From my perspective, OOo Calc is far superior!
My lesson did not start there, nope, I learned along the way with other smart purchases after doing a feature by feature comparison of products.
Many years before I needed a Graphics package to create, edit and reduce the size of images for the web. At that time, PaintShop Pro could do everything that Adobe PhotoShop could do at about 1/10th of the Price. It was a no brainer...I bought PaintShop Pro. (PaintShop Pro should not be mistaken for Microsoft Paint.). When the company that produces PaintShop Pro mistakenly attempted to force me to update my Windows operating System before using their new version of PaintShop Pro, I borrowed a Laptop running the new version of XP and installed PaintShop Pro on a USB device (yes they did try to prevent that in the install process, however if you know what you are doing
Total cost of ownership is a tricky calculation, but my sense is that with Windows, you pay more for the software but less for support, with Linux, the software is free but the support is costly, and in the long run, as Linux is more flexible and reliable, it works out to be cheaper, as long as you don't skimp on support.
It actually works out cheaper in every case from all perspectives to go from Windows to Linux. For years now Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Linux is, has been and will be cheaper than Windows.
This is one of the proprietary vendor FUD tactics in the hopes of perpetuating the Embrace, Extend and Extinguish tactics to prevent people from adopting Linux.
Take the often reported "training costs". There are not any in over 99% of the cases. How many of your workers went to training in the following Windows transitions?
From Windows 3.0/3.1 to Windows 95? None at my company.
From Windows 3.1/3.1 to Windows NT? None at my company.
From Windows 95 to Windows 98? None at my company.
From Windows 95/98/NT to Windows 2000? None at my compnay.
From Windows 2000 to Windows XP? None at my company.
From Windows XP to Windows Vista? None at my company.
From Windows Vista to Windows 7? None at my company.
Guess what, when you go from Windows (any version) to Ubuntu Linux, you do not need training either. Its just a fact. It does not take you very long to go through the potential window menu options to find what you need. In many cases, going from one version of Windows to another was in reality more difficult. Had you gone to Ubuntu Linux, Mint Linux, Fedora Linux, Debian Linux, SUSE Linux you would have found the transition eaiser.
There is a reason many people have put non techies on Linux, who have never used anything but Windows, and they are proficient with the new operating system in a day or two tops, usually the same day. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize this is FUD, yet they persist on floating it, don't they.
More than one grandparent thinks the new Linux is yet another version of Windows and refer to it as such. Kids are even better, my daughter had an Asus Eee PC, running Xandros Linux, responding to her voice commands the same day that her brother gave it to her. She was under 10 at the time. Not bad for an inexpensive netbook for under $300. And those of us who know understand that Xandros Linux is far from a "better" Linux then others that are out and available to use.