Remote administration on *nix systems is so easy that it astonishes people that come from an MS Window background. Also your desktop admins are typically also the server admins since you no longer need a dedicated mail server admin to keep MS Exchange boxes from falling over.
That means time savings so you need less staff. I look after a mixed environment of 120 systems and have to spend a disproportionate amount of time on the 25 MS Windows machines
Your experience is what I experienced at a telco with Windows Servers, OS/2 Servers, Lotus Notes Servers, Linux Servers, Unix Servers and mainframes. The Linux and Unix servers only came down when we brought them down. Amazing how much you can do with those to OS NIXs that do NOT require bringing down the servers. OS/2 had the next best uptime; than Lotus Notes and finally Windows.
In a similar MS Windows shop there were four of us putting in a lot of overtime. Now I don't make close to twice what I did when I was one of four people, what does that tell you about the expenses in those two cases?
Tell me about it, I would have loved to have more administrators working with me, not to mention make more money. The salary BS is very much another lie. As if a company is going to pay your more these days with so many System Administrators out of work thanks to off shoring, yea right! We are living the free market dream...as if lobbyists do not prevent markets from functioning based on supply and demand as a truly FREE market.
I have heard of Unix/Linux System Admins making north of $120K per year, those guys/gals are worth every penny too. The one I personally knew, was managing north of 300 servers and still had time to test software and do even more. Why, simple, he was a true "expert" and no paper tiger. He configured the systems to save him time, do things faster and was simply more effective not only for himself, but the company as well.
An expert knows the answer off the top of their head, period. If they pause to think about it, they are considering one of the 10 - 20 options for that specific command and want to give you the correct option. Either that or they are considering one of many ways to accomplish the task and want to suggest the one that would be most effective given the constraints involved, usually self imposed constraints of the hardware/software used at that site. Anything less than this definition, in my opinion, is NOT an Expert. This is also why an "Advanced" professional, by my definition, is a much stronger job candidate than 98% of the so called "Experts" out in the industry. In most jobs with most companies you simply do not have the time required to become an "expert" in any given one area and if you did, not only would your type A, non techie manager be ragging on your performance, but you would not be "qualified", per Human Resources, for that next position at the same or another company simply because that next job would require you to be a so called "expert" in 5 other programming languages, scripting languages, SQL database derivatives, software application packages, network protocols, etc, etc, etc,...
And remember you have to have had actual work experience on those 10 topics in the last 3 years also to qualify....what a farce.
Also since there are few licence costs (and the commercial software we use has floating licences) that means you can have spare machines lying around to be swapped in when something goes wrong. Try asking for an extra MS Exchange licence to do that and see what accounts say. It's also easy to keep desktop machines configured identically so that you have a spare desktop machine you can swap over to the user in minutes - no $1000 or so in extra licencing costs for a spare machine.
I other words, the "extra expense" tactic is a preemptive lie where MS salesmen are attempting to accuse other platforms of something that is true on the MS platform. It's childish and quite d
Can you say ZaReason and System 76. Linux PC Vendors that avoid proprietary hardware/bios/software crapware...these PCs will even run Windows 7, so you have the best of all the worlds. If you love Microsoft, pay them their tax and use it, however when Microsoft stops supporting that operating system, you KNOW the hardware will run a variety of other Linux operating systems.
Quality hardware at a fantastic price, who does not love that?
My non tech friends have been installing ubuntu and loving it. The
OpenOffice.org replaces MS Office fantastically. gMail long ago surpassed anything that Outlook could do and if you are worried about email being outside your company, there are great Linux solutions, you just have to stay away from Outlook as it was designed to vendor lock-in companies to Microsoft in the first place. Duh moment there.
It is no wonder that Microsoft continues to attack and lock in people/companies with data formats, Outlook,.NET, etc... They even changed the document formats from one version of MS Office Word to the next, talk about ironic. I for one want to know that my data that I store today in the format that I use will be available to me in the future, no matter whose software I use. The fact that Microsoft, on a whim, changes data formats from one release to the next creates an abnormally high future business risk to any company. If you honestly mitigate your business risk, you MUST move away from vendors that artificially create and/or inflate RISK just to vendor lock-in and force automatic updates. Anything else is less than honest.
Does the vendor support "open" formats with their software applications? Meaning I can put my data in AND get it out without converting it to do so. If not, next....
One of my favorite things about Flash is that it's easy to block and control.
To coin a phrase, "that is not entirely accurate". It is well documented (2009 Study) that "Private Browsing" does not actually protect you, (blog post) that the Flash cookies + Javascript code simply store the Flash cookies in a location that is not monitored and/or controlled.
Linux using Symlinks to redirect the Flash stuff to a (/tmp) directory that gets automatically erased every time you reboot your PC is a great option. See (Banish flash cookies forever under linux. Since Mac OS X is based on BSD Linux, you should be able to do the same thing with that operating system. With Windows, you could always count on DOS to allow you to erase junk also, however with Windows 7 I honestly have no idea if it is even possible. As many of the articles pointed out, vendors will tell you that you are safe and browsing privately, but the reality is often something else. At best they only do a partial job with Flash. At worst they do nothing. Adobe blames the browsers API, which is interesting. I am not buying that at all.
As for browsers, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome do not allow you to control Flash junk 100%, allowing for only a false sense of security. Since Google has partnered with Adobe, this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. See the comparison link below to see how those browsers stacked up based on Privacy.
With Firefox + NoScript + Linux you can at least control the Flash stuff after a reboot of your PC. However between reboots, Flash can track your activity on the web. Since there are over a 100 web browsers to choose from, surely a few of them will allow you to successfully control your Privacy and not just pay lip service to it.
Another options might be MPlayer or gnash, the point is you do NOT have to use Flash if you do not want too. HTML5 should be another positive development to diminish Flash.
I was annoyed that Google Chrome would let me only block the website cookie, not all the related tracking cookies from 3rd parties that are not named the same as the website. Even if you are not concerned about your privacy, you have to hate your Internet browsing experience slowing to a crawl because a website you are spending a second at wants to set 20 to 30 Flash cookies on your PC. This quote from the comments of the Linux article to banish flash cookies mentioned above, sums it up nicely...
Redmond is targeting real-world applications based on real-world data.
~ from the link in your post....
I almost could not stop laughing...so that is what they were doing in Redmond when they ignored previous Web browser standards, instead implementing proprietary features that only worked in IE and not in other browser, especially not in Firefox. What hogwash.
Or perhaps that is what they were targeting when the refused to implement either H.264 or X.264 into Silverlight in order to push their own proprietary standard? And it is not forgivable that they implemented H.264 compliance into Silverlight over two years later when the market refused to go down yet another proprietary format blind alley that only supports and promotes Microsoft products over any and every one else...often breaking those other company products in the process.
That explains Embrace, Extend and Extinguish, silly me for not realizing.
Irony is when their own proprietary format does not work with the next version of their application that only supports yet another proprietary format...
And they wonder why their stock price is not growing...duh moment here. In reality, given their massive loss in market share, that is expected to continue into the future, they are doing GREAT, at holding their own stock price. Just goes to show you that the people making money on wall street, that do not produce anything, are not very bright either.
Microsoft cast stones way before almost anyone else in the proprietary format and browser wars...they really do live in a glass house and not acknowledging their deceptions does not revise history enough for the average person to understand how they have abused their monopoly position.
Thankfully they are becoming less and less a force for many reasons, browsers being mitigated to only a small one...finally.
Not only has it NOT been a problem for years...device drivers in Linux...there are literally more device drivers for linux than ANY operating system in the history of computers.
The problems with proprietary hardware are easy to avoid...don't purchase proprietary hardware, ever.
Two great sources for PC hardware that will run anything are ZaReason and System 76. Avoid any company that is stupid enough to pay a Microsoft Tax (can you say LinPro as they use hardware that is rigged to only work with Microsoft Windows and break under Linux.) as they are using hardware that will not work readily with all Linux distros.
You can even install Windows on them if you want, but all the hardware is configured knowing from day 1 that it will run under Linux. If the hardware will not run under Linux, it is not used...problem solved.
To add an additional layer of security, learn about hardware, and for any company that ships hardware that will not work with Linux and refuse to immediately fix it or provide information so others can fix it...do not buy any hardware or software from them for a minimum of 7 years since the last "Linux-Show-Stopper" event. If we all did that, no company would dare release BS hardware that does not work with Linux on day 1, as they would lose your business for 7 years, with the clock getting restarted at each new occurrence.
Thus their words NO LONGER MATTER, only their actions! If after 7 years of good behavior, once again add them to your list of bonafide companies to do business with. For definition of bonafide, see O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)
Your enemy is a multinational cartel, which means they have NO alliance to this or any other country or their beliefs, would have NO problem perverting laws and removing rights in trade for higher profits, and finally has billions of dollars to use against you with everything from SLAPP style lawsuits to outright bribery of elected officials.
Mod him up.
If Americans truly understood the enemy, no Republican candidate would EVER get elected. The majority of Democratic candidates would not be elected either. No Libertarian candidate would stand a chance as they are way too pro corporate. Citizen's United vs FEC was the plan-goal, 12 - 20 years in the making. Its way past time for wake up calls for people who are easily distracted by Religion; think giving up "rights" make them safer or who think a magic bullet killed Kennedy and that our own government would not act to our disadvantage in the name of multi-national corporate interests, calling it American interests. If you are not awake now, you will be starving within 10 years when your local grocery store shelves start running bare and you can not afford food, much less gasoline. Predictions have that starting by the end of this year (2010 or next year 2011)...so you have time to start learning how to grow crops now...better get started.
The past great wars (WW I and WW II) were fought to prevent this type of abuse and keep Americans free, how is it working for you? All wars since them have been stupid, short sighted and for the wrong reasons, like big Oil in Iraq. The Birchers were thrown out of the Republican party at one time, now those people are running the Republican party. (Like we need an example like the Religious cult leader in Gainesville Florida who was threatening to burn the Koran for us to realize our founders truly understood why we needed separation of Church and state.)
Many counties have banned very large, big box, multi-national corporations from getting permits to own land and/or run businesses in their county. I know Walmart buys land just across the county line. We need to find a county, surrounded by counties with the same ban...giving us a 240 mile buffer (4 hour drive @ 60 mph one way) so small business can finally create decent paying jobs for Americans. And Americans can afford to provide for their families. This would also benefit churches...a Win - Win - Win - Win. We are not talking about only a few counties here, but literally hundreds of counties across the country. I saw the list on a Youtube video about Walmart abuses...it was 20, 30 or 40 minutes long and well worth the time to watch. That list would be a good place to start your search for a new home.
In one city, in Colorado I think...name escapes me, all the local banks and financial institutions have created their own currency, which can be converted to US Dollars whenever. With 10% - 20% discounts given to people to use the local currency instead of dollars, that community is better insulated from the multi-nationally owned Federal Reserve System (Read "Secrets of the Federal Reserve System" if you can find one to learn how it is privately owned by 6/7 families around the world...it was an edification to say the least). Its time to realize that FDIC insurance is not worth the paper it is written on and free up local banks to support their community.
Now add a law, first preventing local politicians from taking money from any company (large or small) to campaign and run for office and perhaps you will get some decent people who really want to work for the community in which they live. I suggest a poison-pill provision such that if they accept corporate financing or violate their oath of office, the police come in and remove them from office in order to "protect and serve" the community. A substitute with the same "political" leanings can run the office while they defend themselves in court...after all, innocent until proven guilty, right? And if they are innocent the accuser will
It's their new open source data format, totally compatible with all operating systems and all applications. You can't read it until you pay your Microsoft tax.
You nailed it, the individual and the individual's opinion, perspective, is the real gold always has been, always will be. The fact that corporations will NEVER be able to totally control individuals is their problem.
Of course the "standard" web tools are limited for selfish, proprietary and wasted attempts at controlling the individual thus they fail, continue to fail, will always fail.
.Net, Flash, excessive html markup, overblown cascading style sheets, huge libraries (which try to do everything rather then a few things well and bog down a user's system in the process), any video resolution less then 1080p and less then 30 frames per second, and so many more examples.
Already some people wrongly believe that everything that needs to be coded, has been, thus to have anyone write new code is useless...yea right...keep thinking that...your wrong.
The problem is that all the current websites do a crappy job of helping you to find "good" versus "excellent" versus "bad" comments, posts, opnions.
It does not help that 100% of Cable companies throttle our access to the Internet, can not wait to have Fiber...
The N900 may be important this year but over the decade I think the most important was the first phone with WiFi.
I too noticed this slight when I read the article referenced in the post above and left a comment there as well. The Nokia N770 came out in 2005; in 2006, the Nokia N800 was released. I think the N810 was released in 2008. These devices had GPS modules, extra cost + monthly service, so that would technically classify them as mobile devices. They just were NOT cellular.
I agree with you, WiFi + VoIP was the killer app for the decade. The next decade will be Fiber and virtual reality, at least that is my guess. 3G and cellular simply will not have the bandwidth of Fiber. And while the telcos have been able to take our money and lobby to suppress Fiber deployment for well over two decades; they simply can not keep this up if for no other reason then it is hurting the GNP of the United States and costing Americans jobs.
I would suggest to you that without job creation we are going to be in the recession/depression longer.
Smart communities will put in City wide WiFi connected to Fiber backbones. Perhaps we will see a technology that I first read about in 2000, it was a communication spectrum with a wave length so long that it could deeply penetrate buildings and other normal blockages of signals. It also could travel farther distances. A small company in Canada had invented the technology. The router like device basically could break apart a communication (as TCP/IP packets are done now via the Internet) and put pieces on different parts of the spectrum. The spectrum's bandwidth was virtually unlimited and made existing FCC licenses for Wireless spectrum obsolete. In fact that was one of the biggest stumbling blocks to acceptance, adoption and deployment; the fees received on FCC licenses. They would all be worthless as soon as the technology was released and rolled out. The packets could be encrypted and sent on different parts of the spectrum which would make eavesdropping on communication practically impossible. That was expected to be a concern to the various security agencies that want to know what everyone is saying, with or without a court order.
The Nokia N770 was out in 2005 and the Nokia N800 was out in 2006. They were/are great Linux computer / hand helds / VoIP smart phones / GPS + so much more. The Nokia N800 is still the standard by which I measure all other devices. No point in taking a step backwards technologically. And I do not give a rats about cellular. Weened myself many years back from that hole in the ethers to dump money in.
What are the two happiest days in the life of a cellular customer, the day they purchase their cell phone/service and the day the purchase a Linux hand held + VoIP + WiFi and churn/dump cellular! (N800, N810, N900, in 2010 Google Android)
Read liked your posts and that was a bad car analogy, but all this is off topic...more on topic per your quote:
We didn't spend bajillions of dollars through the 1900s to set up a nation wide telco infrastructure just so we could avoid setting up a 12G cell network in the early 2000s.
That's not entirely accurate...
We, you, your parents, their parents, all of us have give American telcos more than $200 Billion in tax money (out right cash + additional taxes and additional fees; all of which was approved by our elected leaders) since 1990; for their promise to Americans to provide Fiber To The Home FTTH; over the last mile, not just to our neighborhood, but to our house/apartment.
Not only is it economical and feasible, but instead of honoring their promises, they lobby our elected officials at the rate of $1.8 Million per week to not give us fiber, to not give us net neutrality, to not give us high speed broadband.
I pay over $50 per month for 16,000 Kbps down and 2,000 Kbps up stream bandwidth. They do not even give me that. I see it and sometimes during the Speed Test, but as soon as the Speed Test finishes, my cable (100% of Cable users experience this) broadband is throttled back to lower than the FCC definition of broadband. The FCC definition is 768Kbps, however I do not see above 400Kbps down or above 120 Kbps up stream bandwidth.
The US is not slightly behind the rest of the world, we are way behind the rest of the industrialized world. Thanks to putting in Fiber infrastructure (and density is relative as it costs more then anyone admits to dig up infrastructure in a large city where in rural areas they can lay miles of fiber in short periods of time) In 2007, we were 13th in the world.
In 2000, Japan had 100Mbps / 100Mbps bi-directional synchronous fiber broadband service for less than $55 per month. In 2006, thanks to Fiber, all the Japanese had to do was switch out the customer's modem and they could give them 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps bandwidth for less than $53 per month. Yes competition drove the price down. Their market is working, the US market has not worked for well over two decades.
I read about a Fiber / laser router that could multiplex a single strand of fiber from 1X to 1024X back in 2004. That is a 1024 bandwidth increase over a single strand of fiber...still think bandwidth scarcity is anything but a myth.
Why? simple, follow the money. The telcos want you to believe bandwidth is scarce. The bandwidth scarcity myth is well a myth. (Proof is in their statements to stock analysts, especially in the light of current economic realities) A lie to keep their failed tiered pricing strategy. Their goal to drive all customers up to $150 per month. However it is back firing on them and for the very reasons that I mentioned above. Once you realize you are throttled and they are not delivering you a fraction of the bandwidth you are paying for; you will quickly discover that a DSL line providing you 1,500Kbps down and 384Kbps up stream is well over 3X faster than Cable Modem Internet access. And DSL service costs you between $20 - $30 per month. In fact for the price of one Cable Internet access you could have 2 DSL providers (redundancy and increased bandwidth). And remember 1 DSL line is 3X faster than a single throttled coaxial cable access. Ignore what they say you will get as they will never give you or me 12Mbps down or 2Mbps up. Just will never happen.
I do not mean to get on your case, I like your posts, but whenever I see another American acting as a Shill for the industry while getting screwed in the process, well some learning is in order.
Consider this: In 2006, a Telco executive said in the future the average household will consume at least 300GB of bandwidth per month. I would suggest to you that by 2010, you will need much more than 300 GB per household, just auto updating for most people will ap
What, no mention of the Motorola F3? It made the biggest positive change for a mobile devices in the past 10 years. Namely, it dropped features - all of them, except for making calls. Give me a phone with a decent battery life and slim-enough to fit in a shirt pocket, I can bring my own damn camera. I can even bring a netbook if I feel withdraw symptoms from lack of youtube videos, I'm a man after all, I was made to haul stuff around. Get off my lawn!
Sorry, but that phone, with limited software application, with an itty bitty little screen is simply not that phenomenal. Also, it was released this year....past 10 years, come on already.
The Nokia N800 was released in 2006, the screen is about as small as I would ever want in the future. Thanks to the full browser, you surf the web in the same manner as you would on a desktop, laptop, and net book. This is a huge plus! If you had City wide WiFi (admittedly very few places did/do) it was mobile. Granted the GPS module would give you some interesting mobile tracking however you had to pay extra for that.
Now that its younger sibling, the Nokia N900 has arrived and provides for cellular capability in addition to everything else one could want on a hand held computer / smart phone, the only device that comes close, will be released in the 1st quarter 2010, the Google Android ~ unlocked with Linux root access capability. No tethering, no limitations, anything you can do on your netbook and laptop, except perhaps software development and video manipulation you will be able to do on this device.
And why limit yourself to an MP3 Player when you can have a Music player that pulls in other resources, information, fan sites, tour schedules, recent releases, photos and more while you are listening to the music as you can with Amarok (Linux Music playing software). Buy your music ONCE and listen to it on all your devices. Blows a little ole MP3 player away. Oh yea, you can watch H.264 codec formated high definition video on the device in addition to listening to music.
Once you get a taste of the possibilities with a Nokia Nxxx (N770, N800, N810, N900) and soon Android Google phone you will not want to use other devices. I mean I have a camera, I have a device that can do pretty much every thing else, why would I carry another phone, I would not.
No carrier subsidy = $571 (Amazon.com). THAT's why no one has it.
Or go radical, ditch cellular and go 100% WiFi. I did and I have some friends that did. One friend of mine did this prior to the first WiFi phones after two different cellular companies tried to stick him with additional illegal charges over more than 10 years. He switched to VoIP and Skype. Back in the day he was paying over $150 per month for cellular so reducing his yearly costs to around $60 per month saved him almost $2,000 per year.
Today you can get cellular service by either Metro PCS or TMobile for approx $50 per month. Skype costs you $5 per month. So based on Amazon's price, that $571 phone cost could be recouped in just over 1 year ($571 / $45 = 12.68 months) No contracts, no tethering, the only limitation might be no cellular, unless you purchase the N900 which gives you cellular as well. And the next year, you would be free and clear except for the $60 fee to Skype.
For me Skype VoIP is the killer app of the decade, quickly followed by the Linux operating system. It gave me freedom, choice and options, which is better than FREE!
Actually ditching cellular is not that radical, it used to be considered bad business to allow your work to be interrupted by constant phone calls. When driving a car, in many states its illegal to talk on the cell phone without a hands free device. Back in olden land line telephone days, if someone called you when you were not home, they left a message and you called them back when it was convenient for you. (I remember when very few people had answering machines, if they did it was reel to reel tape on a unit the size of a desktop IBM PC) If a company wanted you to be on call, they provided a beeper and paid you extra for the privilege of interrupting your after hours life and being on call. A much more logical, simpiler time.
I consider not being connected to the Internet the same as not being home in the past. If someone calls, my Skype VoIP service allows them to record a message and I choose when to call them back based on what is going on in my life.
unfortunately I'm not so hardcore as to untie myself completely from 3G BUT BUT BUT I do get a work phone for free which means my personal phone is a bit of a luxury (ie keeping my 10 year old number alive, etc.) so I'm very much inclined towards a n900. Doubly so because I've been using nokia maps GPS since it came out and I like and trust it (google maps on droid is all well and good but I'm old fashioned, I want my data ON MY GODDAMNED LOCAL STORAGE)
I like others am hardcore enough to ditch cellular to save allot of money each month. I absolutely love Skype. Paying only around $5 per month for VoIP phone service has its advantages. Compared to cellular, the cheapest of which is around $50 per month, well its no contest. Considering that there are over 20 million Skype customers, growing daily, I am in good company.
I doubt any cellular company would scoff at a customer base of 20 million!
There is probably a N900 in my future as well. With the Nokia N800 I have two Memory slots (Micro SSD card + camera size adapter works like a champ. Like many others I have two 4GB Micro SSD Cards in mine, only because back when I bought it, that was the largest Micro SSD card I could get at a decent rate. I think I paid $25.00 for a USB dongle + two adapters (one for camera / N800, not sure what the other one is for) + 1 4GB Kingston Micro SSD card. Not bad for all three (USB Dongle + 4GB SSD + Adapter). That was over a year ago and prices have really come down on these Micro SSD cards.
Once you have that USB Dongle you can use it anywhere. I can purchase any Micro SSD card and copy data from My Camera or Nokia N800 to my Linux PC. In fact the same dongle works flawlessly in my Asus Eee PC (Xandros Linux Advanced Mode) as well. Friends of mine have had trouble when plugging in USBs (that have built in Windows specific software) like the Cruisers into their Asus Edee PCs. If you always use the Kingston, you are golden with the Asus Edee PCs, however if you use the Cruiser or other USB with software on it that will try to run when you plug it in, sometimes you are locked out of the USB interface on the Asus Eee PC.
Last year I saw either a 16GB or 32GB Micro SSD card on sale from Amazon for around $16.00. So storage for either the Nokia N800 or Nokia N900 should not be a problem.
I too like to have my storage local to me. I might utilize the cloud, however I will never put sensitive or private data there on purpose. And if any data is mission critical to me or my company I will have more than one local backup / copy of it just to be safe.
The big difference as I see it between the new Google Android expected in 1st quarter 2010 and the new recently released Nokia N900 are two things:
Up front cost of phone: Nokia N900 is over $500, closer to $600 while the new Android is suppose to retail at around $299.
Software applications: The Nokia N800 running OS2008 (Maemo) had well over 450 software applications running on it, with it and for it. The Nokia N900 does not list that many software packages yet. Granted I can not imagine any reasons the Nokia N800 OS 2008/Maemo applications will not run on the Nokia N900. At least you have access to the root account, so if you need to configure the application to run with the Nokia N900 you have that capability.
Since Nokia has not successfully marketed the Nokia N800, too many people believe the Nokia N900 is the first of its kind, when its the 4th generation of hardware, beginning with the Nokia N770 since 2005. Amazing gap in information and knowledge out there, that can only be explained by lack of adequate marketing. Nokia will not be the first company that has excellent products but does not market them effectively. I put Xerox, IBM in that same boat with Nokia as far as marketing or lack thereof killing off product revenue streams to the company. Its a shame.
The only thing unique about the Nokia N900 is cellular capability. I would suggest that not having a swivel webcam is actually a step backwards as that was some great functionality. At least they kept the FM chip even if they did not ship software for it, you can add it.
The thing to remember about IE6 is that anyone who is still using it has no desire to use quality software. What that means for you is that IE6 users will not notice or care if your website breaks of looks funny. To spend time making your site perfect for these users is a waste of time.
Somebody mod him up.
Of course the smartest thing to do would have been to never engage in Internet Explorer specific time wasting hacks to begin with. Many of us recognized this truth at the beginning and did not bother going there. Every minute another designer, coder spent doing browser specific hacks is a complete waste of time and money.
Same is true for Active X BS. Another Microsoft specific blunder like.NET. When will they ever learn.
The real story with the stats is not IE or FF, but Chrome, steadily climbing. I currently do not use Chrome and I WILL NEVER go to an IE browser, ever. It just is NOT an option. I will consider moving from FF to Chrome, Opera or one of the other 100 browser options out there. Yes there are over a hundred others...
IE is not an option any more. Firefox might find itself blacklisted as well if they can not get a handle on taking over a Linux desktop's processor. I use to think the Microsoft memory creep was bad, wow. I am sticking with Firefox for now, love it, but All the Microsoft BS bleeding into the Linux platform via Flash,.NET, Wine, Java, Active X and now Moonlight, is getting really, really old.
As far as making Web not war, open source never fired the first shot. Give me 7 years of changed behavior, based on your ACTIONS, not marketing BS FUD, and perhaps then I will consider a Microsoft product again.
Microsoft, Adobe You have lost my TRUST, time to earn it back. First you must try....just not seeing it.
You need to look at the trends for IE7 and IE8, it looks like the market share is trending towards upgrades from IE7 to IE8, just like how Firefox 3 lost share at around the same rate as Firefox 3.5 gained share. Going by this, you'll see that IE8 is going to head straight back up to around the 40% mark. Which, all things considered is GREAT news - IE8 is a much better browser as far as standards-compliancy is concerned and it means the web is on it's way to being a much more stable platform, rah rah rah. Also interesting, check the decline in IE6 also - I wonder if IE6 users are flocking to IE8 also - maybe IE8 will end up with ~60% market share? No matter what happens, less IE7 and IE6 = WIN.
This is GREAT news. And I do not even have to mention European, Asia or Africa stats.
40% to 60% usage is way below what it use to be. Didn't IE usage hit either 80% or 90% at one time? Regardless IE usage is trending the right way, down.
I don't know a single home user on any OS that is using IE6. My incredibly behind-the-times relatives on Windows 2000 are using Firefox, and any of my XP or newer friends and colleagues are using Firefox or a newer flavor of IE (or even Chrome). No, the thing holding up IE6 is corporate America. My company has 70 large locations in America, and probably twice that around the glob, together running about 60,000 computers. Only one (very tiny) division of our company is allowed to run anything other than IE6, and that's because they are a Windows Vista technical support group. The rest of us are forced to use IE6 because most of our applications have been replaced by browser-based 'solutions' like Siebel CRM and the like, using ActiveX and most of which aren't officially supported on newer browsers. It's painful.
So the problem is some dev head developed in Active X and now you are stuck with IE. 6. I hate IE 6, but you need to blame the development weenies that stupidly used Active X. There is a reason that many people did not use what was "easiest" and start using Active X. Same is true for Adobe Flash....hello! Its easier, not better.
2. The locking primitives in the STL aren't fine-grained. Fine-grained locking gives more chance for your thread to use up its complete timeslice rather than have to wait because another thread is holding onto the "Big F****** Lock" for some shared resource. Additionally, you take a performance hit using the STL because stl classes have virtual method lookup tables. C code doesn't have virtual method lookup tables so it runs quicker.
3. As for the benchmarks, I benchmarked it personally to prove to all the windows weenies that the STL had no place in what we were trying to do, which was a server running on bsd unix - my c99 code was a MINIMUM of 4 times faster than the same code using the stl and c++.
Great post and first hand actual experience. The only kind that is ultimately respectable as too much marketing FUD gets in the way. (Both Java and CMS come to mind with respects to marketing FUD)
Please don't get me wrong - I like c++ as much as c. Classes can be a beautiful thing. But not all the time. The biggest mistake of Java was to try to make everything a class (the second-biggest was not to have a macro processor, but that's okay... there are ways around both limitations:-)
Java will have its place, just not everywhere! Java will never be faster than alternative solutions that are optimized, just accept it. And reusable code is great, but not if it is recreating code that already works and exists in a faster lower level on the server. I learned this the hard way when writing MVC controllers in PHP, sorry but why do I need to re-write functionality that exists already in apache and http in Object Oriented PHP...of course the MVC is going to be slower...
I like that you took the time to benchmark and get the facts first hand. Cuts through the BS that people always throw out there. Yes language X is faster if you spend thousands of dollars on extra memory and memory cache tools that you do not make available to language Y, another duh moment there.
To date, no.NET solution or IIS server solution can touch Linux and better solutions. No amount of wining, no pun intended, can change the facts of this. And as for scaling the same is true. Else you would see Microsoft servers at one of the many financial exchanges around the world, but they lost their last one last year didn't they. Another duh moment.
True, but since trademarks are "first to use" not "first to file", showing that:
1) You had your brand to market first, and
2) Their brand is interfering with your brand
allows you to make an excellent case that it is your mark, and not theirs. Sounds a lot like prior art, though in the "I said it first!" version, rather than a "public domain!" result.
This is what I also know to be true, if you are in the market, for years, first using that, how the heck could another company get "trademark" over you, no matter when you and they file. Even if the St Louis company files (for trademark) after Microsoft, they have been using "Bing" for almost a decade longer. Its game over.
As for enforcing their rights to the term, they are doing it now.
And do not forget that there are two other players involved per the article as well. Per the article:
In addition, two other companies are also taking action against Microsoft over what they say are trademark infringements: a web-based shopping service called BongoBing and software company Terabyte, which has a product called BootIt Next Generation, or Bing for short.
So today we know about three possible claimants. Do you think we will hear about two more tomorrow? Three? Four? After all the term "bing" has been a huge part of the RAP scene since the beginning; probably apart of some other scene before RAP. This is all too funny, or err ironic.
I call it ironic, considering how Microsoft is quick to threaten other companies, (Tom Tom, etc...) most of which if they stood up to Microsoft, WOULD WIN!, but fear the protracted legal fees to fight, thus Microsoft usually wins by default, which is what they are counting on in 98% of the cases.
I am still looking for the company they sue, that stands up to them and causes their flimsy legal house of cards to fold and drop. One day and when that happens, as Microsoft knows all too well, their ability to enforce their BS patent trolling will die as well, at least for that patent, get enough of them to fail and it will be game over for that Microsoft side business as well. Microsoft knows this and they are selectively selecting companies like TomTom they know they can bully, because without threats, they lose. The company that can afford to stand up to this BS patent trolling on Microsoft's part will win! Many of us will celebrate. For the company that fights, even negative advertising is still advertising and they will get a boat load of it! After all Microsoft's PR machine works in overdrive spreading their FUD legal arguments, spread that FEAR, UNCERTAINTY and DOUBT, losers.
Even better, we are starting to learn today how much GPL and open source code has been included in their new software offerings (Vista, Windows 7, Office, etc...). After all they did not invent the term kernel and we all know it! I keep seeing more terminology that originated with Unix, Linux, GNU, FOSS and Open Source, creeping into Microsoft PR and news releases...its comical! Guess they have realized that if you can not beat them, join them!
Its Ironic when their Copyright/Patent trolling legal business tactics bite them in the butt! And they can afford to pay, can't they!
If Microsoft never attempted these BS legal tactics with other players in the market, I would have sympathy, however that shipped sailed long ago. And that ship has sailed, many, many times. I hope Microsoft is held accountable, as they should be.
and not realizing that the whole c# thing is just another trojan horse, as is.NET
So should the authors of Wine, Samba and OpenOffice go work for Microsoft as well? They're all _obviously_ trojan horses... right? I mean, _nothing_ good comes from Microsoft. Ever. All of their engineers are pure evil incarnate, right?
This is like "arguing" with a Glenn Beck fan....
With Wine and Mono, you are on the right track, its a weak attempt at embrace, extend and extinguish. Microsoft has pulled this time and time again. For those of us who have been in the industry a while, this is nothing new.
You are way off with OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org Writer is my Share Point and has been for well over 2 years now, just FYI. There were some problems with the release right before 3.0, but since OOo 3.0, things have been excellent!
I also do not see the problem with Samba, either.
And those comparing Gnash to Mono, sorry it just does not fly.
Was I the only one who realized that Silverlight took forever to add in H.264 codec support, I would suggest because they were trying to push their own codecs instead. I am sure others would suggest something else.
Wake up Gnome, this is a fox in the hen house, big mistake.
1) (Practically)Free VOIP when in WIFI zones instead of using minutes.
2) Internet Browser in WIFI zones.
3) No commitment plan, but maybe minutes bought on a trak phone style buying.
4) Ability to write my own custom aps on the phone.
If you do not want to bite the bullet and purchase the N900 (around $599) you can get a N800, first came out in 2006 for around $200. Remember even with the price of the Nokia N900, if you ditch your $50 per month cellular plan, you will recoup your costs in 1 year. If your cellular plan is more than $50 per month, you will recoup the cost of the phone faster.
The ONLY thing the N800 does NOT have when compared to the N900 is cellular. Based on your list, no cellular, you can do everything you want to do with the Nokia N800. The N800 still has the FM chip like the N900 also. A plus with the Nokia N800 is it has a reversible webcam, you simply rotate it to change from taking a picture of you to a picture of something/someone in front of you.
Most important, ONLY with the Nokia Nxxx (which you have root access to) can you install any Linux app you want. Expect to do some tweaking. But the reality is you have a shot at it. Remember the first Nokia Nxxx, the N770 came out in 2005. At one point there were over 450 apps for the Nokia N800. While I was NOT surprised that the website for apps for the N900 did not list them all, I would be surprised if you could not get them to work on the Nokia N900.
Ideally you want an application to just install on your phone, even Linux apps. Thanks to apt-get and yum, most Linux software applications can be configured to work on pretty much any Linux distro. All it takes is your patience and time. However if you do NOT have root access, you will be limited with what you can configure. You always want access to root with any Linux distro, or do not use it as you will end up frustrated in a blind alley one day. Just not worth wasting your precious time that way. (I use su and sudo, but I must have access to root, just in case, period, end of discussion)
Next years Androids are suppose to come (with the ability to root day 1, or so the rumor goes) from Google. If they follow through with that hope, then those phones will be equivalent (and possibly better than) the Nokia Nxxx. Currently the Android can be rooted, however Google has sent Cease and Desist orders to people who not only root the phone, but include other Google apps on it. In other words, Google does not officially sanction rooting at this time. They tolerate it as long as you do not include other apps, but that is it.
You are indeed lucky to be in a country where you can get a text and/or phone plan for only "£15 a month". Here in America, only recently did another cellular company start offering plans (voice, not text) for $50 per month unlimited. Metro PCS has had real unlimited plans for between $40 to $50 per month for years. That is definitely the direction I would go, if I had to purchase cellular today as other cellular company plans that state they are unlimited have small contract in the contract that state otherwise.
With every other cellular company, in America, you are guaranteed, check RipOffReports.com (by consumers, for consumers; Don't let them get away with it...let the truth be known!) if you do not believe me, that you are guaranteed to eventually get hit with random over-charges. Which demonstrates to anyone who looks, by their very actions, that they (cellular providers in America) believe, honestly believe, with all their little tiny hearts, that Americans HAVE NO CHOICE! Thus they can get away with it. Can they? Really, Really, REALLY. (more directed at Americans than you)
Most people these days are used to "always on" connections, and I think this is how things should and will eventually be - the ability to use on line services anytime, anyplace.
I agree with you that this is how things should be and eventually will be, even here in America. Just not today, not yet. The American corporations have no incentive to provide it. In fact they do just the opposite, when a town or city attempts to put in city wide WiFi for the benefit of their customers, the telcos fight it, and they fight it hard. Usually they successfully prevent city-wide WiFi, but not always. It like people forget that the city infrastructure, water, sewer, eclectic belong to them and them alone!
The mentality of fighting innovation and service for customers is, well, pathetic. They have been fighting against fiber over the last mile in America for years, literally decades now. In Utah and Wilson, North Carolina they have fiber to their home. Will your community be next? Its up to you!
User owned Fiber initiatives, where a community and a family in that community, can literally own the Fiber cable from the telco switching location of the town to their home. Smart families will spend the $3,000.00 (what one community charges) to own that critical fiber link for, especially if they plan to keep the home and property in the family and have children as it will bear fruit for generations. Of course the next bottleneck is having a non American Telco control fiber across the continent + undersea fiber optic cables to other continents. Utopia serves a good portion of Utah to date; Bringham City, Tremonton, Perry City, Layton, Centerville, Murray, Midvale, West Valley City, Riverton, Cedar Hills, Lindon, Orem, Payson, Cedar City
Note: About needing a non American owned company; the facts are that the current American telcos, even after receiving over 200 Billions in American Tax dollars over decades, have refused to innovate and provide fiber over the last mile to Americans. They received American tax dollars + additional taxes + additional legislative approved fees to bring Fiber to American ho
Now like many others, I figured Intel got their issues fixed, imagine my surprise when I read this, this year:
This is the third vulnerability that Rutkowska's Invisible Things Lab has discovered in the Intel processor in the past 10 months; she presented a paper on weaknesses in the Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) at the Black Hat DC conference last month.
and
"It seems that the current state of firmware security, even in case of such reputable vendors as Intel, is quite unsatisfying," Rutkowska said in her blog.
Why do people assume someone is crazy, or a conspiracy person; simply because the person mentioning it (me) is aware of facts that the dis- believer (you) had no clue about.
That's three security hits / exploits for Intel processors from June 2008 through March 2009
I bet you think the US Government has never experimented on its military...wrong, they did during the Nucleur testing.
I bet you think that JFK was killed by a magic bullet? Wrong again. Way too many facts have come to light disputing official accounts. Today we know what a poor investigation was performed and that many officials lied in reports. Not my opinion, fact. Because its happened before, governmental abuse, it will happen again. My suggestion to you, try believing them until you prove them wrong. You might find it enlightening. More important, the powers that want to divide you and I, only win if you allow the divide to occur. Next time someone attacks someone else, ask yourself this question:
What do they not want me to know about?
Is the dispute in question even possible? If so, perhaps some research is in order.
So the next time someone who knows something that you do not, why not state your reasons and facts that you believe disproves what they are suggesting/saying, without failing and resorting to Argumentum ad hominem. That is a logic fail for someone who has no basis from which to draw their conclusions.
You just might discover that you have more in common then you realize! You might actually have a new friend! Just a thought.
...for maybe $10 to $20/y with SIPdroid + IPkall DID...
If that includes the cost of your incoming phone number, I pay $24 for that (discounted from $60 with SkypePro purchase), then it is a very good deal. My less than $100 price includes the phone number + unlimited calling in North American and Answering service for when I am not connected, so I do not miss a phone call. I have caller ID and other stuff, but that is not significant.
...If however you never go outside, or otherwise spend 100% of your time in areas with free WiFi, then it's great for you, but there's no point making a big deal about it because it's a useless idea for most mobile users.....
You can extend your WiFi even outdoors, I know this is not what you mean.
I had over $150 per month plan...switched to VoIP, ditched cellular, so I save allot.
Total Cost of my Old Cellular plan:
$150 * 12 = $1,800 per year * 3 years = $5,400.00 + $500 hand set = $5,900.00 (TCO) Total Cost of Ownership over 3 years.
Skype: My service is less than $100 per year.
$100 per year * 3 years = $300 + Nokia N800 ($500, when I bought it, $200 today) = $800.
$5,400.00 - $800 = $4,600.00 in savings. That is a very big deal to me and I bet 80% of the others reading this.
I had my router/firewall, but lets say you did not. Lets say you buy one of the better DD-WRT supported device! costing $100 (I have bought these for $15 per router and they have $200 dollar routers also, with the DD-WRT software they are worth between $600 - $1000 dollars for that $15, $100 or $200 hardware cost! And there is nothing you can NOT do with DD-WRT!).
$4,600.00 - $100 = $4,500.00 in savings.
So you need cellular for emergencies, no problem... Prepaid hand set ($100), $50 for prepaid minutes the first year, if not included for the $100. (Plus $20 for year two and $20 for year 3. No one has this phone number, therefore no one can call it, just for me to call out in an emergency. The cellular plan I bought allows my minutes to remain active for one year. No monthly recharge, that would be stupid.
So I have cellular when I need it, emergencies only. I have unlimited calling and a phone number for people to call me back from any phone, cellular or landline. If I am not connected to the internet, Skype Pro takes a message, which I get the next time I connect to the internet from anywhere, at work, at home or other WiFi hotzone.
I do not fear getting a ticket for talking on my cellphone when driving, my state does not allow that, driving without hands free device. I was never worried about distractions when driving, as I have been driving for years, however with newer, younger drivers this is important. Removes the temptation to answer the phone in the car, if a phone can NOT ring.
No fear of extra charges. Does not happen with WiFi or Internet direct connected VoIP.
I do not count the cost of Internet Access at home as you have that with cellular anyway. So that is a wash. I do recommend fiber always, but if no fiber, go DSL, just say no to Cable. By the time they restrict, throttle your service you would be better off with DSL service at 1.5Mbps down / 384 Kbps upstream. Most of you do not see how bad your Cable modem / service is throttled because you do not have a firewall/router device capable of showing you this in real time like the DD-WRT software shows you. You need to know, get a DD-WRT enabled router and learn the truth.
I figured I could purchase two separate DSL providers fro the cost of one Cable provider, thus I have redundancy built in. Yea!
My next apartment/home will have fiber and I will never look back!
I call $4,500.00 in savings over three years, very significant and you should too!
Think the cost of a N900 is pricey and i agree, $599.00. What if I changed my $150 per month cellular service plan to $50 per month thanks to the WiFi capability of the Nokia N900 or Android smart phones? $599.00 / $100 = I have paid for my new Nokia in 6 months with the savings by reducing my cellular plan. If you can reduce your plan by even $50 per month, you will recoup the cost of your Nokia N900 in 1 year. And after that its paid for! Best of all its a computer with full browser, GPS and more and also your phone!
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Remote administration on *nix systems is so easy that it astonishes people that come from an MS Window background. Also your desktop admins are typically also the server admins since you no longer need a dedicated mail server admin to keep MS Exchange boxes from falling over. That means time savings so you need less staff. I look after a mixed environment of 120 systems and have to spend a disproportionate amount of time on the 25 MS Windows machines
Your experience is what I experienced at a telco with Windows Servers, OS/2 Servers, Lotus Notes Servers, Linux Servers, Unix Servers and mainframes. The Linux and Unix servers only came down when we brought them down. Amazing how much you can do with those to OS NIXs that do NOT require bringing down the servers. OS/2 had the next best uptime; than Lotus Notes and finally Windows.
In a similar MS Windows shop there were four of us putting in a lot of overtime. Now I don't make close to twice what I did when I was one of four people, what does that tell you about the expenses in those two cases?
Tell me about it, I would have loved to have more administrators working with me, not to mention make more money. The salary BS is very much another lie. As if a company is going to pay your more these days with so many System Administrators out of work thanks to off shoring, yea right! We are living the free market dream...as if lobbyists do not prevent markets from functioning based on supply and demand as a truly FREE market.
I have heard of Unix/Linux System Admins making north of $120K per year, those guys/gals are worth every penny too. The one I personally knew, was managing north of 300 servers and still had time to test software and do even more. Why, simple, he was a true "expert" and no paper tiger. He configured the systems to save him time, do things faster and was simply more effective not only for himself, but the company as well.
An expert knows the answer off the top of their head, period. If they pause to think about it, they are considering one of the 10 - 20 options for that specific command and want to give you the correct option. Either that or they are considering one of many ways to accomplish the task and want to suggest the one that would be most effective given the constraints involved, usually self imposed constraints of the hardware/software used at that site. Anything less than this definition, in my opinion, is NOT an Expert. This is also why an "Advanced" professional, by my definition, is a much stronger job candidate than 98% of the so called "Experts" out in the industry. In most jobs with most companies you simply do not have the time required to become an "expert" in any given one area and if you did, not only would your type A, non techie manager be ragging on your performance, but you would not be "qualified", per Human Resources, for that next position at the same or another company simply because that next job would require you to be a so called "expert" in 5 other programming languages, scripting languages, SQL database derivatives, software application packages, network protocols, etc, etc, etc,...
And remember you have to have had actual work experience on those 10 topics in the last 3 years also to qualify....what a farce.
Also since there are few licence costs (and the commercial software we use has floating licences) that means you can have spare machines lying around to be swapped in when something goes wrong. Try asking for an extra MS Exchange licence to do that and see what accounts say. It's also easy to keep desktop machines configured identically so that you have a spare desktop machine you can swap over to the user in minutes - no $1000 or so in extra licencing costs for a spare machine. I other words, the "extra expense" tactic is a preemptive lie where MS salesmen are attempting to accuse other platforms of something that is true on the MS platform. It's childish and quite d
Can you say ZaReason and System 76. Linux PC Vendors that avoid proprietary hardware/bios/software crapware...these PCs will even run Windows 7, so you have the best of all the worlds. If you love Microsoft, pay them their tax and use it, however when Microsoft stops supporting that operating system, you KNOW the hardware will run a variety of other Linux operating systems.
Quality hardware at a fantastic price, who does not love that?
My non tech friends have been installing ubuntu and loving it. The
OpenOffice.org replaces MS Office fantastically. gMail long ago surpassed anything that Outlook could do and if you are worried about email being outside your company, there are great Linux solutions, you just have to stay away from Outlook as it was designed to vendor lock-in companies to Microsoft in the first place. Duh moment there.
It is no wonder that Microsoft continues to attack and lock in people/companies with data formats, Outlook, .NET, etc... They even changed the document formats from one version of MS Office Word to the next, talk about ironic. I for one want to know that my data that I store today in the format that I use will be available to me in the future, no matter whose software I use. The fact that Microsoft, on a whim, changes data formats from one release to the next creates an abnormally high future business risk to any company. If you honestly mitigate your business risk, you MUST move away from vendors that artificially create and/or inflate RISK just to vendor lock-in and force automatic updates. Anything else is less than honest.
Does the vendor support "open" formats with their software applications? Meaning I can put my data in AND get it out without converting it to do so. If not, next....
One of my favorite things about Flash is that it's easy to block and control.
To coin a phrase, "that is not entirely accurate". It is well documented (2009 Study) that "Private Browsing" does not actually protect you, (blog post) that the Flash cookies + Javascript code simply store the Flash cookies in a location that is not monitored and/or controlled.
Linux using Symlinks to redirect the Flash stuff to a (/tmp) directory that gets automatically erased every time you reboot your PC is a great option. See (Banish flash cookies forever under linux. Since Mac OS X is based on BSD Linux, you should be able to do the same thing with that operating system. With Windows, you could always count on DOS to allow you to erase junk also, however with Windows 7 I honestly have no idea if it is even possible. As many of the articles pointed out, vendors will tell you that you are safe and browsing privately, but the reality is often something else. At best they only do a partial job with Flash. At worst they do nothing. Adobe blames the browsers API, which is interesting. I am not buying that at all. As for browsers, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome do not allow you to control Flash junk 100%, allowing for only a false sense of security. Since Google has partnered with Adobe, this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. See the comparison link below to see how those browsers stacked up based on Privacy.
With Firefox + NoScript + Linux you can at least control the Flash stuff after a reboot of your PC. However between reboots, Flash can track your activity on the web. Since there are over a 100 web browsers to choose from, surely a few of them will allow you to successfully control your Privacy and not just pay lip service to it.
Don't settle for security by obscurity or as this blog post (with examples) showed privacy settings that do not work 100%. A quote from that post, "Still, the private browsing features in Chrome and Firefox are a complete false sense of privacy and security". Why settle....
Another options might be MPlayer or gnash, the point is you do NOT have to use Flash if you do not want too. HTML5 should be another positive development to diminish Flash.
I was annoyed that Google Chrome would let me only block the website cookie, not all the related tracking cookies from 3rd parties that are not named the same as the website. Even if you are not concerned about your privacy, you have to hate your Internet browsing experience slowing to a crawl because a website you are spending a second at wants to set 20 to 30 Flash cookies on your PC. This quote from the comments of the Linux article to banish flash cookies mentioned above, sums it up nicely...
(The real danger in all this is cross-site tracking via third-party web beacons, whether that is stored by browser cookies, Flash Local Storage, browser Local Storage, or IP-address tracking. This article at The Inquirer, for instance, wants to notify DoubleClick, Scorecard Research, Quantserve,
LMAO, I have heard better reasons to NOT comment code than this.
This explains why most Object oriented code loads such large and unneeded libraries.
Do I need this? Don't know, better load it so nothing breaks...thanks for nothing.
Redmond is targeting real-world applications based on real-world data.
~ from the link in your post....
I almost could not stop laughing...so that is what they were doing in Redmond when they ignored previous Web browser standards, instead implementing proprietary features that only worked in IE and not in other browser, especially not in Firefox. What hogwash.
Or perhaps that is what they were targeting when the refused to implement either H.264 or X.264 into Silverlight in order to push their own proprietary standard? And it is not forgivable that they implemented H.264 compliance into Silverlight over two years later when the market refused to go down yet another proprietary format blind alley that only supports and promotes Microsoft products over any and every one else...often breaking those other company products in the process.
That explains Embrace, Extend and Extinguish, silly me for not realizing.
Irony is when their own proprietary format does not work with the next version of their application that only supports yet another proprietary format...
And they wonder why their stock price is not growing...duh moment here. In reality, given their massive loss in market share, that is expected to continue into the future, they are doing GREAT, at holding their own stock price. Just goes to show you that the people making money on wall street, that do not produce anything, are not very bright either.
Microsoft cast stones way before almost anyone else in the proprietary format and browser wars...they really do live in a glass house and not acknowledging their deceptions does not revise history enough for the average person to understand how they have abused their monopoly position.
Thankfully they are becoming less and less a force for many reasons, browsers being mitigated to only a small one...finally.
Not only has it NOT been a problem for years...device drivers in Linux...there are literally more device drivers for linux than ANY operating system in the history of computers.
The problems with proprietary hardware are easy to avoid...don't purchase proprietary hardware, ever.
Two great sources for PC hardware that will run anything are ZaReason and System 76. Avoid any company that is stupid enough to pay a Microsoft Tax (can you say LinPro as they use hardware that is rigged to only work with Microsoft Windows and break under Linux.) as they are using hardware that will not work readily with all Linux distros.
You can even install Windows on them if you want, but all the hardware is configured knowing from day 1 that it will run under Linux. If the hardware will not run under Linux, it is not used...problem solved.
To add an additional layer of security, learn about hardware, and for any company that ships hardware that will not work with Linux and refuse to immediately fix it or provide information so others can fix it...do not buy any hardware or software from them for a minimum of 7 years since the last "Linux-Show-Stopper" event. If we all did that, no company would dare release BS hardware that does not work with Linux on day 1, as they would lose your business for 7 years, with the clock getting restarted at each new occurrence.
Thus their words NO LONGER MATTER, only their actions! If after 7 years of good behavior, once again add them to your list of bonafide companies to do business with. For definition of bonafide, see O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)
Mod him up.
If Americans truly understood the enemy, no Republican candidate would EVER get elected. The majority of Democratic candidates would not be elected either. No Libertarian candidate would stand a chance as they are way too pro corporate. Citizen's United vs FEC was the plan-goal, 12 - 20 years in the making. Its way past time for wake up calls for people who are easily distracted by Religion; think giving up "rights" make them safer or who think a magic bullet killed Kennedy and that our own government would not act to our disadvantage in the name of multi-national corporate interests, calling it American interests. If you are not awake now, you will be starving within 10 years when your local grocery store shelves start running bare and you can not afford food, much less gasoline. Predictions have that starting by the end of this year (2010 or next year 2011)...so you have time to start learning how to grow crops now...better get started.
The past great wars (WW I and WW II) were fought to prevent this type of abuse and keep Americans free, how is it working for you? All wars since them have been stupid, short sighted and for the wrong reasons, like big Oil in Iraq. The Birchers were thrown out of the Republican party at one time, now those people are running the Republican party. (Like we need an example like the Religious cult leader in Gainesville Florida who was threatening to burn the Koran for us to realize our founders truly understood why we needed separation of Church and state.)
Many counties have banned very large, big box, multi-national corporations from getting permits to own land and/or run businesses in their county. I know Walmart buys land just across the county line. We need to find a county, surrounded by counties with the same ban...giving us a 240 mile buffer (4 hour drive @ 60 mph one way) so small business can finally create decent paying jobs for Americans. And Americans can afford to provide for their families. This would also benefit churches...a Win - Win - Win - Win. We are not talking about only a few counties here, but literally hundreds of counties across the country. I saw the list on a Youtube video about Walmart abuses...it was 20, 30 or 40 minutes long and well worth the time to watch. That list would be a good place to start your search for a new home.
In one city, in Colorado I think...name escapes me, all the local banks and financial institutions have created their own currency, which can be converted to US Dollars whenever. With 10% - 20% discounts given to people to use the local currency instead of dollars, that community is better insulated from the multi-nationally owned Federal Reserve System (Read "Secrets of the Federal Reserve System" if you can find one to learn how it is privately owned by 6/7 families around the world...it was an edification to say the least). Its time to realize that FDIC insurance is not worth the paper it is written on and free up local banks to support their community.
Now add a law, first preventing local politicians from taking money from any company (large or small) to campaign and run for office and perhaps you will get some decent people who really want to work for the community in which they live. I suggest a poison-pill provision such that if they accept corporate financing or violate their oath of office, the police come in and remove them from office in order to "protect and serve" the community. A substitute with the same "political" leanings can run the office while they defend themselves in court...after all, innocent until proven guilty, right? And if they are innocent the accuser will
It's their new open source data format, totally compatible with all operating systems and all applications. You can't read it until you pay your Microsoft tax.
Of course the "standard" web tools are limited for selfish, proprietary and wasted attempts at controlling the individual thus they fail, continue to fail, will always fail.
.Net, Flash, excessive html markup, overblown cascading style sheets, huge libraries (which try to do everything rather then a few things well and bog down a user's system in the process), any video resolution less then 1080p and less then 30 frames per second, and so many more examples.
Already some people wrongly believe that everything that needs to be coded, has been, thus to have anyone write new code is useless...yea right...keep thinking that...your wrong.
The problem is that all the current websites do a crappy job of helping you to find "good" versus "excellent" versus "bad" comments, posts, opnions.
It does not help that 100% of Cable companies throttle our access to the Internet, can not wait to have Fiber...
The N900 may be important this year but over the decade I think the most important was the first phone with WiFi.
I too noticed this slight when I read the article referenced in the post above and left a comment there as well. The Nokia N770 came out in 2005; in 2006, the Nokia N800 was released. I think the N810 was released in 2008. These devices had GPS modules, extra cost + monthly service, so that would technically classify them as mobile devices. They just were NOT cellular.
I agree with you, WiFi + VoIP was the killer app for the decade. The next decade will be Fiber and virtual reality, at least that is my guess. 3G and cellular simply will not have the bandwidth of Fiber. And while the telcos have been able to take our money and lobby to suppress Fiber deployment for well over two decades; they simply can not keep this up if for no other reason then it is hurting the GNP of the United States and costing Americans jobs.
I would suggest to you that without job creation we are going to be in the recession/depression longer.
Smart communities will put in City wide WiFi connected to Fiber backbones. Perhaps we will see a technology that I first read about in 2000, it was a communication spectrum with a wave length so long that it could deeply penetrate buildings and other normal blockages of signals. It also could travel farther distances. A small company in Canada had invented the technology. The router like device basically could break apart a communication (as TCP/IP packets are done now via the Internet) and put pieces on different parts of the spectrum. The spectrum's bandwidth was virtually unlimited and made existing FCC licenses for Wireless spectrum obsolete. In fact that was one of the biggest stumbling blocks to acceptance, adoption and deployment; the fees received on FCC licenses. They would all be worthless as soon as the technology was released and rolled out. The packets could be encrypted and sent on different parts of the spectrum which would make eavesdropping on communication practically impossible. That was expected to be a concern to the various security agencies that want to know what everyone is saying, with or without a court order.
The Nokia N770 was out in 2005 and the Nokia N800 was out in 2006. They were/are great Linux computer / hand helds / VoIP smart phones / GPS + so much more. The Nokia N800 is still the standard by which I measure all other devices. No point in taking a step backwards technologically. And I do not give a rats about cellular. Weened myself many years back from that hole in the ethers to dump money in.
What are the two happiest days in the life of a cellular customer, the day they purchase their cell phone/service and the day the purchase a Linux hand held + VoIP + WiFi and churn/dump cellular! (N800, N810, N900, in 2010 Google Android)
Read liked your posts and that was a bad car analogy, but all this is off topic...more on topic per your quote:
We didn't spend bajillions of dollars through the 1900s to set up a nation wide telco infrastructure just so we could avoid setting up a 12G cell network in the early 2000s.
That's not entirely accurate...
We, you, your parents, their parents, all of us have give American telcos more than $200 Billion in tax money (out right cash + additional taxes and additional fees; all of which was approved by our elected leaders) since 1990; for their promise to Americans to provide Fiber To The Home FTTH; over the last mile, not just to our neighborhood, but to our house/apartment.
Not only is it economical and feasible, but instead of honoring their promises, they lobby our elected officials at the rate of $1.8 Million per week to not give us fiber, to not give us net neutrality, to not give us high speed broadband.
I pay over $50 per month for 16,000 Kbps down and 2,000 Kbps up stream bandwidth. They do not even give me that. I see it and sometimes during the Speed Test, but as soon as the Speed Test finishes, my cable (100% of Cable users experience this) broadband is throttled back to lower than the FCC definition of broadband. The FCC definition is 768Kbps, however I do not see above 400Kbps down or above 120 Kbps up stream bandwidth.
The US is not slightly behind the rest of the world, we are way behind the rest of the industrialized world. Thanks to putting in Fiber infrastructure (and density is relative as it costs more then anyone admits to dig up infrastructure in a large city where in rural areas they can lay miles of fiber in short periods of time) In 2007, we were 13th in the world.
In 2000, Japan had 100Mbps / 100Mbps bi-directional synchronous fiber broadband service for less than $55 per month. In 2006, thanks to Fiber, all the Japanese had to do was switch out the customer's modem and they could give them 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps bandwidth for less than $53 per month. Yes competition drove the price down. Their market is working, the US market has not worked for well over two decades.
I read about a Fiber / laser router that could multiplex a single strand of fiber from 1X to 1024X back in 2004. That is a 1024 bandwidth increase over a single strand of fiber...still think bandwidth scarcity is anything but a myth.
Why? simple, follow the money. The telcos want you to believe bandwidth is scarce. The bandwidth scarcity myth is well a myth. (Proof is in their statements to stock analysts, especially in the light of current economic realities) A lie to keep their failed tiered pricing strategy. Their goal to drive all customers up to $150 per month. However it is back firing on them and for the very reasons that I mentioned above. Once you realize you are throttled and they are not delivering you a fraction of the bandwidth you are paying for; you will quickly discover that a DSL line providing you 1,500Kbps down and 384Kbps up stream is well over 3X faster than Cable Modem Internet access. And DSL service costs you between $20 - $30 per month. In fact for the price of one Cable Internet access you could have 2 DSL providers (redundancy and increased bandwidth). And remember 1 DSL line is 3X faster than a single throttled coaxial cable access. Ignore what they say you will get as they will never give you or me 12Mbps down or 2Mbps up. Just will never happen.
I do not mean to get on your case, I like your posts, but whenever I see another American acting as a Shill for the industry while getting screwed in the process, well some learning is in order.
Consider this: In 2006, a Telco executive said in the future the average household will consume at least 300GB of bandwidth per month. I would suggest to you that by 2010, you will need much more than 300 GB per household, just auto updating for most people will ap
What, no mention of the Motorola F3? It made the biggest positive change for a mobile devices in the past 10 years. Namely, it dropped features - all of them, except for making calls. Give me a phone with a decent battery life and slim-enough to fit in a shirt pocket, I can bring my own damn camera. I can even bring a netbook if I feel withdraw symptoms from lack of youtube videos, I'm a man after all, I was made to haul stuff around. Get off my lawn!
Sorry, but that phone, with limited software application, with an itty bitty little screen is simply not that phenomenal. Also, it was released this year....past 10 years, come on already.
The Nokia N800 was released in 2006, the screen is about as small as I would ever want in the future. Thanks to the full browser, you surf the web in the same manner as you would on a desktop, laptop, and net book. This is a huge plus! If you had City wide WiFi (admittedly very few places did/do) it was mobile. Granted the GPS module would give you some interesting mobile tracking however you had to pay extra for that.
Now that its younger sibling, the Nokia N900 has arrived and provides for cellular capability in addition to everything else one could want on a hand held computer / smart phone, the only device that comes close, will be released in the 1st quarter 2010, the Google Android ~ unlocked with Linux root access capability. No tethering, no limitations, anything you can do on your netbook and laptop, except perhaps software development and video manipulation you will be able to do on this device.
And why limit yourself to an MP3 Player when you can have a Music player that pulls in other resources, information, fan sites, tour schedules, recent releases, photos and more while you are listening to the music as you can with Amarok (Linux Music playing software). Buy your music ONCE and listen to it on all your devices. Blows a little ole MP3 player away. Oh yea, you can watch H.264 codec formated high definition video on the device in addition to listening to music.
Once you get a taste of the possibilities with a Nokia Nxxx (N770, N800, N810, N900) and soon Android Google phone you will not want to use other devices. I mean I have a camera, I have a device that can do pretty much every thing else, why would I carry another phone, I would not.
No carrier subsidy = $571 (Amazon.com). THAT's why no one has it.
Or go radical, ditch cellular and go 100% WiFi. I did and I have some friends that did. One friend of mine did this prior to the first WiFi phones after two different cellular companies tried to stick him with additional illegal charges over more than 10 years. He switched to VoIP and Skype. Back in the day he was paying over $150 per month for cellular so reducing his yearly costs to around $60 per month saved him almost $2,000 per year.
Today you can get cellular service by either Metro PCS or TMobile for approx $50 per month. Skype costs you $5 per month. So based on Amazon's price, that $571 phone cost could be recouped in just over 1 year ($571 / $45 = 12.68 months) No contracts, no tethering, the only limitation might be no cellular, unless you purchase the N900 which gives you cellular as well. And the next year, you would be free and clear except for the $60 fee to Skype.
For me Skype VoIP is the killer app of the decade, quickly followed by the Linux operating system. It gave me freedom, choice and options, which is better than FREE!
Actually ditching cellular is not that radical, it used to be considered bad business to allow your work to be interrupted by constant phone calls. When driving a car, in many states its illegal to talk on the cell phone without a hands free device. Back in olden land line telephone days, if someone called you when you were not home, they left a message and you called them back when it was convenient for you. (I remember when very few people had answering machines, if they did it was reel to reel tape on a unit the size of a desktop IBM PC) If a company wanted you to be on call, they provided a beeper and paid you extra for the privilege of interrupting your after hours life and being on call. A much more logical, simpiler time.
I consider not being connected to the Internet the same as not being home in the past. If someone calls, my Skype VoIP service allows them to record a message and I choose when to call them back based on what is going on in my life.
unfortunately I'm not so hardcore as to untie myself completely from 3G BUT BUT BUT I do get a work phone for free which means my personal phone is a bit of a luxury (ie keeping my 10 year old number alive, etc.) so I'm very much inclined towards a n900. Doubly so because I've been using nokia maps GPS since it came out and I like and trust it (google maps on droid is all well and good but I'm old fashioned, I want my data ON MY GODDAMNED LOCAL STORAGE)
I like others am hardcore enough to ditch cellular to save allot of money each month. I absolutely love Skype. Paying only around $5 per month for VoIP phone service has its advantages. Compared to cellular, the cheapest of which is around $50 per month, well its no contest. Considering that there are over 20 million Skype customers, growing daily, I am in good company.
I doubt any cellular company would scoff at a customer base of 20 million!
There is probably a N900 in my future as well. With the Nokia N800 I have two Memory slots (Micro SSD card + camera size adapter works like a champ. Like many others I have two 4GB Micro SSD Cards in mine, only because back when I bought it, that was the largest Micro SSD card I could get at a decent rate. I think I paid $25.00 for a USB dongle + two adapters (one for camera / N800, not sure what the other one is for) + 1 4GB Kingston Micro SSD card. Not bad for all three (USB Dongle + 4GB SSD + Adapter). That was over a year ago and prices have really come down on these Micro SSD cards. Once you have that USB Dongle you can use it anywhere. I can purchase any Micro SSD card and copy data from My Camera or Nokia N800 to my Linux PC. In fact the same dongle works flawlessly in my Asus Eee PC (Xandros Linux Advanced Mode) as well. Friends of mine have had trouble when plugging in USBs (that have built in Windows specific software) like the Cruisers into their Asus Edee PCs. If you always use the Kingston, you are golden with the Asus Edee PCs, however if you use the Cruiser or other USB with software on it that will try to run when you plug it in, sometimes you are locked out of the USB interface on the Asus Eee PC.
Last year I saw either a 16GB or 32GB Micro SSD card on sale from Amazon for around $16.00. So storage for either the Nokia N800 or Nokia N900 should not be a problem.
I too like to have my storage local to me. I might utilize the cloud, however I will never put sensitive or private data there on purpose. And if any data is mission critical to me or my company I will have more than one local backup / copy of it just to be safe.
The big difference as I see it between the new Google Android expected in 1st quarter 2010 and the new recently released Nokia N900 are two things:
Up front cost of phone: Nokia N900 is over $500, closer to $600 while the new Android is suppose to retail at around $299.
Software applications: The Nokia N800 running OS2008 (Maemo) had well over 450 software applications running on it, with it and for it. The Nokia N900 does not list that many software packages yet. Granted I can not imagine any reasons the Nokia N800 OS 2008/Maemo applications will not run on the Nokia N900. At least you have access to the root account, so if you need to configure the application to run with the Nokia N900 you have that capability.
Since Nokia has not successfully marketed the Nokia N800, too many people believe the Nokia N900 is the first of its kind, when its the 4th generation of hardware, beginning with the Nokia N770 since 2005. Amazing gap in information and knowledge out there, that can only be explained by lack of adequate marketing. Nokia will not be the first company that has excellent products but does not market them effectively. I put Xerox, IBM in that same boat with Nokia as far as marketing or lack thereof killing off product revenue streams to the company. Its a shame.
The only thing unique about the Nokia N900 is cellular capability. I would suggest that not having a swivel webcam is actually a step backwards as that was some great functionality. At least they kept the FM chip even if they did not ship software for it, you can add it.
The thing to remember about IE6 is that anyone who is still using it has no desire to use quality software. What that means for you is that IE6 users will not notice or care if your website breaks of looks funny. To spend time making your site perfect for these users is a waste of time.
Somebody mod him up.
Of course the smartest thing to do would have been to never engage in Internet Explorer specific time wasting hacks to begin with. Many of us recognized this truth at the beginning and did not bother going there. Every minute another designer, coder spent doing browser specific hacks is a complete waste of time and money.
Same is true for Active X BS. Another Microsoft specific blunder like .NET. When will they ever learn.
The real story with the stats is not IE or FF, but Chrome, steadily climbing. I currently do not use Chrome and I WILL NEVER go to an IE browser, ever. It just is NOT an option. I will consider moving from FF to Chrome, Opera or one of the other 100 browser options out there. Yes there are over a hundred others...
IE is not an option any more. Firefox might find itself blacklisted as well if they can not get a handle on taking over a Linux desktop's processor. I use to think the Microsoft memory creep was bad, wow. I am sticking with Firefox for now, love it, but All the Microsoft BS bleeding into the Linux platform via Flash, .NET, Wine, Java, Active X and now Moonlight, is getting really, really old.
As far as making Web not war, open source never fired the first shot. Give me 7 years of changed behavior, based on your ACTIONS, not marketing BS FUD, and perhaps then I will consider a Microsoft product again.
Microsoft, Adobe You have lost my TRUST, time to earn it back. First you must try....just not seeing it.
You need to look at the trends for IE7 and IE8, it looks like the market share is trending towards upgrades from IE7 to IE8, just like how Firefox 3 lost share at around the same rate as Firefox 3.5 gained share. Going by this, you'll see that IE8 is going to head straight back up to around the 40% mark. Which, all things considered is GREAT news - IE8 is a much better browser as far as standards-compliancy is concerned and it means the web is on it's way to being a much more stable platform, rah rah rah. Also interesting, check the decline in IE6 also - I wonder if IE6 users are flocking to IE8 also - maybe IE8 will end up with ~60% market share? No matter what happens, less IE7 and IE6 = WIN.
This is GREAT news. And I do not even have to mention European, Asia or Africa stats.
40% to 60% usage is way below what it use to be. Didn't IE usage hit either 80% or 90% at one time? Regardless IE usage is trending the right way, down.
I don't know a single home user on any OS that is using IE6. My incredibly behind-the-times relatives on Windows 2000 are using Firefox, and any of my XP or newer friends and colleagues are using Firefox or a newer flavor of IE (or even Chrome). No, the thing holding up IE6 is corporate America. My company has 70 large locations in America, and probably twice that around the glob, together running about 60,000 computers. Only one (very tiny) division of our company is allowed to run anything other than IE6, and that's because they are a Windows Vista technical support group. The rest of us are forced to use IE6 because most of our applications have been replaced by browser-based 'solutions' like Siebel CRM and the like, using ActiveX and most of which aren't officially supported on newer browsers. It's painful.
So the problem is some dev head developed in Active X and now you are stuck with IE. 6. I hate IE 6, but you need to blame the development weenies that stupidly used Active X. There is a reason that many people did not use what was "easiest" and start using Active X. Same is true for Adobe Flash....hello! Its easier, not better.
2. The locking primitives in the STL aren't fine-grained. Fine-grained locking gives more chance for your thread to use up its complete timeslice rather than have to wait because another thread is holding onto the "Big F****** Lock" for some shared resource. Additionally, you take a performance hit using the STL because stl classes have virtual method lookup tables. C code doesn't have virtual method lookup tables so it runs quicker.
3. As for the benchmarks, I benchmarked it personally to prove to all the windows weenies that the STL had no place in what we were trying to do, which was a server running on bsd unix - my c99 code was a MINIMUM of 4 times faster than the same code using the stl and c++.
Great post and first hand actual experience. The only kind that is ultimately respectable as too much marketing FUD gets in the way. (Both Java and CMS come to mind with respects to marketing FUD)
Please don't get me wrong - I like c++ as much as c. Classes can be a beautiful thing. But not all the time. The biggest mistake of Java was to try to make everything a class (the second-biggest was not to have a macro processor, but that's okay ... there are ways around both limitations :-)
Java will have its place, just not everywhere! Java will never be faster than alternative solutions that are optimized, just accept it. And reusable code is great, but not if it is recreating code that already works and exists in a faster lower level on the server. I learned this the hard way when writing MVC controllers in PHP, sorry but why do I need to re-write functionality that exists already in apache and http in Object Oriented PHP...of course the MVC is going to be slower...
I like that you took the time to benchmark and get the facts first hand. Cuts through the BS that people always throw out there. Yes language X is faster if you spend thousands of dollars on extra memory and memory cache tools that you do not make available to language Y, another duh moment there.
To date, no .NET solution or IIS server solution can touch Linux and better solutions. No amount of wining, no pun intended, can change the facts of this. And as for scaling the same is true. Else you would see Microsoft servers at one of the many financial exchanges around the world, but they lost their last one last year didn't they. Another duh moment.
True, but since trademarks are "first to use" not "first to file", showing that:
1) You had your brand to market first, and
2) Their brand is interfering with your brand
allows you to make an excellent case that it is your mark, and not theirs. Sounds a lot like prior art, though in the "I said it first!" version, rather than a "public domain!" result.
This is what I also know to be true, if you are in the market, for years, first using that, how the heck could another company get "trademark" over you, no matter when you and they file. Even if the St Louis company files (for trademark) after Microsoft, they have been using "Bing" for almost a decade longer. Its game over.
As for enforcing their rights to the term, they are doing it now.
And do not forget that there are two other players involved per the article as well. Per the article:
In addition, two other companies are also taking action against Microsoft over what they say are trademark infringements: a web-based shopping service called BongoBing and software company Terabyte, which has a product called BootIt Next Generation, or Bing for short.
So today we know about three possible claimants. Do you think we will hear about two more tomorrow? Three? Four? After all the term "bing" has been a huge part of the RAP scene since the beginning; probably apart of some other scene before RAP. This is all too funny, or err ironic.
I call it ironic, considering how Microsoft is quick to threaten other companies, (Tom Tom, etc...) most of which if they stood up to Microsoft, WOULD WIN!, but fear the protracted legal fees to fight, thus Microsoft usually wins by default, which is what they are counting on in 98% of the cases.
I am still looking for the company they sue, that stands up to them and causes their flimsy legal house of cards to fold and drop. One day and when that happens, as Microsoft knows all too well, their ability to enforce their BS patent trolling will die as well, at least for that patent, get enough of them to fail and it will be game over for that Microsoft side business as well. Microsoft knows this and they are selectively selecting companies like TomTom they know they can bully, because without threats, they lose. The company that can afford to stand up to this BS patent trolling on Microsoft's part will win! Many of us will celebrate. For the company that fights, even negative advertising is still advertising and they will get a boat load of it! After all Microsoft's PR machine works in overdrive spreading their FUD legal arguments, spread that FEAR, UNCERTAINTY and DOUBT, losers.
Even better, we are starting to learn today how much GPL and open source code has been included in their new software offerings (Vista, Windows 7, Office, etc...). After all they did not invent the term kernel and we all know it! I keep seeing more terminology that originated with Unix, Linux, GNU, FOSS and Open Source, creeping into Microsoft PR and news releases...its comical! Guess they have realized that if you can not beat them, join them!
Its Ironic when their Copyright/Patent trolling legal business tactics bite them in the butt! And they can afford to pay, can't they!
If Microsoft never attempted these BS legal tactics with other players in the market, I would have sympathy, however that shipped sailed long ago. And that ship has sailed, many, many times. I hope Microsoft is held accountable, as they should be.
and not realizing that the whole c# thing is just another trojan horse, as is .NET
So should the authors of Wine, Samba and OpenOffice go work for Microsoft as well? They're all _obviously_ trojan horses... right? I mean, _nothing_ good comes from Microsoft. Ever. All of their engineers are pure evil incarnate, right?
This is like "arguing" with a Glenn Beck fan....
With Wine and Mono, you are on the right track, its a weak attempt at embrace, extend and extinguish. Microsoft has pulled this time and time again. For those of us who have been in the industry a while, this is nothing new.
You are way off with OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org Writer is my Share Point and has been for well over 2 years now, just FYI. There were some problems with the release right before 3.0, but since OOo 3.0, things have been excellent!
I also do not see the problem with Samba, either.
And those comparing Gnash to Mono, sorry it just does not fly.
Was I the only one who realized that Silverlight took forever to add in H.264 codec support, I would suggest because they were trying to push their own codecs instead. I am sure others would suggest something else.
Wake up Gnome, this is a fox in the hen house, big mistake.
1) (Practically)Free VOIP when in WIFI zones instead of using minutes.
2) Internet Browser in WIFI zones.
3) No commitment plan, but maybe minutes bought on a trak phone style buying.
4) Ability to write my own custom aps on the phone.
If you do not want to bite the bullet and purchase the N900 (around $599) you can get a N800, first came out in 2006 for around $200. Remember even with the price of the Nokia N900, if you ditch your $50 per month cellular plan, you will recoup your costs in 1 year. If your cellular plan is more than $50 per month, you will recoup the cost of the phone faster.
The ONLY thing the N800 does NOT have when compared to the N900 is cellular. Based on your list, no cellular, you can do everything you want to do with the Nokia N800. The N800 still has the FM chip like the N900 also. A plus with the Nokia N800 is it has a reversible webcam, you simply rotate it to change from taking a picture of you to a picture of something/someone in front of you.
Most important, ONLY with the Nokia Nxxx (which you have root access to) can you install any Linux app you want. Expect to do some tweaking. But the reality is you have a shot at it. Remember the first Nokia Nxxx, the N770 came out in 2005. At one point there were over 450 apps for the Nokia N800. While I was NOT surprised that the website for apps for the N900 did not list them all, I would be surprised if you could not get them to work on the Nokia N900.
Ideally you want an application to just install on your phone, even Linux apps. Thanks to apt-get and yum, most Linux software applications can be configured to work on pretty much any Linux distro. All it takes is your patience and time. However if you do NOT have root access, you will be limited with what you can configure. You always want access to root with any Linux distro, or do not use it as you will end up frustrated in a blind alley one day. Just not worth wasting your precious time that way. (I use su and sudo, but I must have access to root, just in case, period, end of discussion)
Next years Androids are suppose to come (with the ability to root day 1, or so the rumor goes) from Google. If they follow through with that hope, then those phones will be equivalent (and possibly better than) the Nokia Nxxx. Currently the Android can be rooted, however Google has sent Cease and Desist orders to people who not only root the phone, but include other Google apps on it. In other words, Google does not officially sanction rooting at this time. They tolerate it as long as you do not include other apps, but that is it.
You are indeed lucky to be in a country where you can get a text and/or phone plan for only "£15 a month". Here in America, only recently did another cellular company start offering plans (voice, not text) for $50 per month unlimited. Metro PCS has had real unlimited plans for between $40 to $50 per month for years. That is definitely the direction I would go, if I had to purchase cellular today as other cellular company plans that state they are unlimited have small contract in the contract that state otherwise.
With every other cellular company, in America, you are guaranteed, check RipOffReports.com (by consumers, for consumers; Don't let them get away with it...let the truth be known!) if you do not believe me, that you are guaranteed to eventually get hit with random over-charges. Which demonstrates to anyone who looks, by their very actions, that they (cellular providers in America) believe, honestly believe, with all their little tiny hearts, that Americans HAVE NO CHOICE! Thus they can get away with it. Can they? Really, Really, REALLY. (more directed at Americans than you)
Most people these days are used to "always on" connections, and I think this is how things should and will eventually be - the ability to use on line services anytime, anyplace.
I agree with you that this is how things should be and eventually will be, even here in America. Just not today, not yet. The American corporations have no incentive to provide it. In fact they do just the opposite, when a town or city attempts to put in city wide WiFi for the benefit of their customers, the telcos fight it, and they fight it hard. Usually they successfully prevent city-wide WiFi, but not always. It like people forget that the city infrastructure, water, sewer, eclectic belong to them and them alone!
The mentality of fighting innovation and service for customers is, well, pathetic. They have been fighting against fiber over the last mile in America for years, literally decades now. In Utah and Wilson, North Carolina they have fiber to their home. Will your community be next? Its up to you!
Note: About needing a non American owned company; the facts are that the current American telcos, even after receiving over 200 Billions in American Tax dollars over decades, have refused to innovate and provide fiber over the last mile to Americans. They received American tax dollars + additional taxes + additional legislative approved fees to bring Fiber to American ho
If there's one moderation that Slashdot really needs, it's +1 Paranoid Schizophrenic.
You really did not know about the privacy issues with some of Intel's chips? Sad but true, hardly paranoid. Here is info about the Pentium III Privacy issues...even if its turned off!
Wikipedia page on Pentium III exploit.
Now like many others, I figured Intel got their issues fixed, imagine my surprise when I read this, this year:
This is the third vulnerability that Rutkowska's Invisible Things Lab has discovered in the Intel processor in the past 10 months; she presented a paper on weaknesses in the Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) at the Black Hat DC conference last month.
and
"It seems that the current state of firmware security, even in case of such reputable vendors as Intel, is quite unsatisfying," Rutkowska said in her blog.
Why do people assume someone is crazy, or a conspiracy person; simply because the person mentioning it (me) is aware of facts that the dis- believer (you) had no clue about.
That's three security hits / exploits for Intel processors from June 2008 through March 2009
I bet you think the US Government has never experimented on its military...wrong, they did during the Nucleur testing.
I bet you think that JFK was killed by a magic bullet? Wrong again. Way too many facts have come to light disputing official accounts. Today we know what a poor investigation was performed and that many officials lied in reports. Not my opinion, fact. Because its happened before, governmental abuse, it will happen again. My suggestion to you, try believing them until you prove them wrong. You might find it enlightening. More important, the powers that want to divide you and I, only win if you allow the divide to occur. Next time someone attacks someone else, ask yourself this question:
What do they not want me to know about?
Is the dispute in question even possible? If so, perhaps some research is in order.
So the next time someone who knows something that you do not, why not state your reasons and facts that you believe disproves what they are suggesting/saying, without failing and resorting to Argumentum ad hominem. That is a logic fail for someone who has no basis from which to draw their conclusions.
You just might discover that you have more in common then you realize! You might actually have a new friend! Just a thought.
...for maybe $10 to $20/y with SIPdroid + IPkall DID ...
If that includes the cost of your incoming phone number, I pay $24 for that (discounted from $60 with SkypePro purchase), then it is a very good deal. My less than $100 price includes the phone number + unlimited calling in North American and Answering service for when I am not connected, so I do not miss a phone call. I have caller ID and other stuff, but that is not significant.
...If however you never go outside, or otherwise spend 100% of your time in areas with free WiFi, then it's great for you, but there's no point making a big deal about it because it's a useless idea for most mobile users.....
You can extend your WiFi even outdoors, I know this is not what you mean.
I had over $150 per month plan...switched to VoIP, ditched cellular, so I save allot.
Total Cost of my Old Cellular plan:
$150 * 12 = $1,800 per year * 3 years = $5,400.00 + $500 hand set = $5,900.00 (TCO) Total Cost of Ownership over 3 years.
Skype: My service is less than $100 per year.
$100 per year * 3 years = $300 + Nokia N800 ($500, when I bought it, $200 today) = $800.
$5,400.00 - $800 = $4,600.00 in savings. That is a very big deal to me and I bet 80% of the others reading this.
I had my router/firewall, but lets say you did not. Lets say you buy one of the better DD-WRT supported device! costing $100 (I have bought these for $15 per router and they have $200 dollar routers also, with the DD-WRT software they are worth between $600 - $1000 dollars for that $15, $100 or $200 hardware cost! And there is nothing you can NOT do with DD-WRT!).
$4,600.00 - $100 = $4,500.00 in savings.
So you need cellular for emergencies, no problem... Prepaid hand set ($100), $50 for prepaid minutes the first year, if not included for the $100. (Plus $20 for year two and $20 for year 3. No one has this phone number, therefore no one can call it, just for me to call out in an emergency. The cellular plan I bought allows my minutes to remain active for one year. No monthly recharge, that would be stupid.
$4,500.00 - $190 ($100 + $50 + $20 + $20) = $4,310.00 in savings.
So I have cellular when I need it, emergencies only. I have unlimited calling and a phone number for people to call me back from any phone, cellular or landline. If I am not connected to the internet, Skype Pro takes a message, which I get the next time I connect to the internet from anywhere, at work, at home or other WiFi hotzone.
I do not fear getting a ticket for talking on my cellphone when driving, my state does not allow that, driving without hands free device. I was never worried about distractions when driving, as I have been driving for years, however with newer, younger drivers this is important. Removes the temptation to answer the phone in the car, if a phone can NOT ring.
No fear of extra charges. Does not happen with WiFi or Internet direct connected VoIP.
I do not count the cost of Internet Access at home as you have that with cellular anyway. So that is a wash. I do recommend fiber always, but if no fiber, go DSL, just say no to Cable. By the time they restrict, throttle your service you would be better off with DSL service at 1.5Mbps down / 384 Kbps upstream. Most of you do not see how bad your Cable modem / service is throttled because you do not have a firewall/router device capable of showing you this in real time like the DD-WRT software shows you. You need to know, get a DD-WRT enabled router and learn the truth.
I figured I could purchase two separate DSL providers fro the cost of one Cable provider, thus I have redundancy built in. Yea!
My next apartment/home will have fiber and I will never look back!
I call $4,500.00 in savings over three years, very significant and you should too!
Think the cost of a N900 is pricey and i agree, $599.00. What if I changed my $150 per month cellular service plan to $50 per month thanks to the WiFi capability of the Nokia N900 or Android smart phones? $599.00 / $100 = I have paid for my new Nokia in 6 months with the savings by reducing my cellular plan. If you can reduce your plan by even $50 per month, you will recoup the cost of your Nokia N900 in 1 year. And after that its paid for! Best of all its a computer with full browser, GPS and more and also your phone!