I'm a sysadmin and love using OSS stuff. I don't have to go through the maze of approval, budget, purchasing and installing licenses. I don't have to worry about tracking the license for users, to transfer to another machine or deal with a downed license server.
Even if you discard all those barriers, I find OSS to be a bit easier to support. Not always, but more often.
Anyways, that's using OSS tools. Code is another issue and I imagine there can be a whole 'nother mess of red tape there and lots of reasons to avoid it as a developer.
OTOH, I wonder how many developers are even aware that they're using OSS code. I know developers that haven't checked in clearcase views for 3 years. Some have issues with figuring out what their.cshrc does and source it over & over until they run out of memory and crash their xterm. Some have code that hard codes IP addresses instead of using a *variable* to allow use on another subnet.
At work, when I need to coordinate with others for meetings, etc, Exchange + Outlook works. I've used Notes in the past also. It's not as good. I've also used MeetingMaker. Also not as good.
It also syncs with my Blackberry and my Palm. The BB can sync on the road.
Home calendar
palm, synced to as much as possible. Yahoo calendar so my wife can see my schedule. jpilot on the desktop. Outlook at work. Yes, I mix home/work appointments.
Shared calendaring is different from personal calendaring. Syncing can help bridge the gap. I use the palm for when I don't have a real computer. It lets me carry a chunk & add to it when I get back. The BB does too.
Most of the FOSS I've looked at doesn't address shared calendaring. For me that means palm syncing and PC user access. I've played with Plan, Solaris CM (Ok, SunOS era). They didn't cut it.
AFAIK ZIP was evil because of some patent issues, and that's why gzip was developed. The patent has supposedly expired in the US, but not necessarily in all other countries (same as with GIF). Any info on that?
There's some confusion here. ZIP and gzip are really related.
A) ZIP was created as a result of pkarc vs arc. Some of it was on file format, some on pkarc allegedly including code from arc. Because of this, the file format was documented and made freely available. zip compressed better and BBS sysops converted overnight partly for that, partly because they were pissed at arc's tactics. Other archivers such as lha, arj, zoo, etc enjoyed limited sucess. Remember, this was in the days of 8 bit PCs with no hard drive and 1200 baud modems.
B) gzip was created because the Unisys was (threatening to) using the LZW patent against anyone who wrote software that used LZW to compress files. GIF uses LZW. So does the compress program (.Z files). GNU created gzip w/o LZW for creating. gzip can uncompress files compressed with compress's LZW..gz files tend to be smaller then.Z files. It also helped that GNU tar has -z to use uncompress or gzip on the fly.
This is not my network exactly, but more of the generic geek network:
Internet connection Firewall Network hub/switch System to play with (gaming PC/console) System to work on (main desktop/laptop) Systems to hack on (not the main, not the game, not needed to run stuff) Server(s) of some sort (might be the firewall or the main system or a seperate system(s))
Beyond that, add various devices: Wireless access Printers PVR Old systems Custom devices
Terminals
X10
Terminal servers
KVMs
I'm sure I've missed stuff but I think for a generic description, this sums it up.
Some of these may be combined or in multiples. Some firewalls also serve DHCP. I have 3 laptops as my main systems with a file server in the basement.
GIMP is 8 bits. But CinePaint (ne Film Gimp) does do 16bits. It's used by the motion picture industry to clean up individual film frames for dust, etc. They surely have Photoshop to do this but they've put time and resources into CinePaint....
I bet coins last longer. You don't find many pennies older then 1959. That's the year the obverse (back) changed to the Lincon Memorial from the Wheat ears.
I've gotten nickles from the late 40's in my change every now and then. They were silver during the war; nickle was a more stratigic material then silver.
Dimes, quarters, etc were last minted from silver in 1964 so 1965 is the last year you'll generally see of them.
The 50 cent piece was silver (instead of nickle) clad in '65 (through '70?).
The 1976 quarter had a bicentenial theme. People tend to hoard them, thinking they'll be valuable. I don't think this will happen *as much* with the current quarters with different state themes. Everyone seems to be collecting one set but circulate the rest.
I think Canada eliminated the paper $1 when they came out with the loonie $1 and the $2 coins. That's the only way $1 and $2 coins will work in the US. Eliminate the paper.
Why on earth would I care about hooking up the camera to transfer images via USB 1.1 when I can put the card into a USB 2.0 or firewire reader or a PCMCIA adapter?
This is probably the 90% solution. (read "The Unix Philosophy")
Why would I want to balance my expensive camera on a cable near my computer while transfering, increasing the chances of knocking it to the floor? I'll leave it in the bag while I bring the card over thank you. I think most photo kiosks only allow media; there's no direct USB camera connector.
Now, I have a crappy camera that doesn't have removable media. But that's a rare case and getting more rare.
There are some programs out there that let you control the camera remotely to take pictures, etc. They're getting more rare too I think.
Back when Ray Ozzie was heading up Notes, I saw a quote from Bill Gates along the lines of: There are 5 top programmers in the world today. 4 work for me and Ray Ozzie is the other one.
This was reported in the Washington Times 12/17/01
I remember reading the original there, but it seems to have expired. Some googling for: fish game washington fur dna lynx wenatchee
What happened: They took fur from a captured lynx and planted it in a few different parks to show proof that endangered lynx were in the parks. This would have closed the parks to most recreation (fishing, hunting, mountain biking, motorcycling). They were found out by DNA testing.
Things have turned the other way. I'm not sure which is worse.
There are a number of solutions in off road motorcycle racing.
Mousse- a solid foam thing that gets *wedged* inside tire. Made by michelin and has problems with overheating and wear at high speeds.
Tire balls - someone experimented w/ tennis balls instead of a tube. Now they have balls custom made for the purpose. If one goes poof, you have several others. I'd imagine high speeds would be a problem, but this is offroad.
Tire slim - pour it into the tube before inflating & it'll seal small punctures.
Having done some OSX server work, I like some things in it (compared to Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, NetBSD and OpenBSD) but I get thrown off when things don't work as expected.
Case in point: using OSX as a file server for Appleshare (mac clients). I need to move files from one directory to another.
On the server, I use the GUI to drag 'em. Ownership & permissions are not preserved. Rats. Plus I have to sit there like a trainned monkey for the error message & to fix things if they don't go right.
Ok, I have lots of files so I want to script it anyways. I use cp -r or mv or tar cpf - | (cd blah;tar xpf -). Permissions & ownerships are right, but all the icons are wrong. Mac files have a data and a resource fork. The unix command above only works on the data fork so you lose the resource bits.
The solution is a modified version of rsync (rsyncX) or a program called ditto that comes w/ MacOSX. Intuitivly obvious 'eh?
>No, they've learned to write down their passwords >on post-it notes stuck to their monitors or >elsewhere.
I'll encourage a habitual forgetter to put it on a piece of paper in their wallet or some other place they're likely not to show others. IFF the environment allows that kind of thing. It's better then using a default password that they may stick with.
There are a number of tools for palm & pocketPC that store encrypted passwords and I mention them if they have them.
My management dictated that users enter a ticket. They also allowed me to say "I will forget what you just asked me by the time I get back to my desk. Please enter a ticket so I don't".
For the problem users, I'd sometimes bring up the web page to read along with them. Most would get the point. For ones that did not, I'd get thier managers involved. This was for a group of engineers who should know how to use their tools a bit.
Hear hear. I collected comics in the late 80's - 90's. At one time I collected Xmen but got tired of all the loose ends/forshadowing etc. It was the only Marvel comic I got.
I turned to Watchmen, Love & Rockets, Lone Wolf & Cub, Sandman.
I remember Spider Man #1 w/ Todd McFarlane writing and drawing. Awesome art, but the writing made it unbearable.
In version 3.mumble (older?) format c: would do so without asking so much as "Are you sure?". A subsequent version of DOS (3.3?) would ask the question.
Also, in the pre 5.0 DOS days most versions were customized to a vendor's systems with various extra programs and features. I had Zenith and they always asked that question. Panasonic's DOS did not.
I got mine about a year ago - a series 2. I bought the lifetime subscription.
It rocks. I have season passes for my favorite shows. I have wish lists for my interests. It keeps up (mostly) with ESPN's instantly changing schedules. Better then I could *ever* do with a VCR.
I've got a USB ethernet on it so it gets everything over my internet connection. I tried the Home Media Option but was disappointed that the agent was Windows only and it cost $$.
HMO is now free. And, there's a reverse engineered java version (http://javahmo.sourceforge.net) that will run on my linux file server. I can use my tivo to browse my photos or slide show them. I get a local weather report. Listen to MP3s or streaming MP3s and shoutcast. Very cool.
It will change how you watch TV. I have a 2nd TV and wish I had a tivo on that too. Oh, with HMO you can watch stuff recorded on the other tivo...
Slashdot Mirror
How useful are random sounds?
I used to have specific sounds play when email arrived in specific folders.
I also had a sound monitor for syslog messages too. That was really useful.
But random? I guess it'd be like having random text pop up when you got email.
I'm a sysadmin and love using OSS stuff. I don't have to go through the maze of approval, budget, purchasing and installing licenses. I don't have to worry about tracking the license for users, to transfer to another machine or deal with a downed license server.
.cshrc does and source it over & over until they run out of memory and crash their xterm. Some have code that hard codes IP addresses instead of using a *variable* to allow use on another subnet.
Even if you discard all those barriers, I find OSS to be a bit easier to support. Not always, but more often.
Anyways, that's using OSS tools. Code is another issue and I imagine there can be a whole 'nother mess of red tape there and lots of reasons to avoid it as a developer.
OTOH, I wonder how many developers are even aware that they're using OSS code. I know developers that haven't checked in clearcase views for 3 years. Some have issues with figuring out what their
At work, when I need to coordinate with others for meetings, etc, Exchange + Outlook works. I've used Notes in the past also. It's not as good. I've also used MeetingMaker. Also not as good.
It also syncs with my Blackberry and my Palm. The BB can sync on the road.
Home calendar
palm, synced to as much as possible. Yahoo calendar so my wife can see my schedule. jpilot on the desktop. Outlook at work. Yes, I mix home/work appointments.
Shared calendaring is different from personal calendaring. Syncing can help bridge the gap. I use the palm for when I don't have a real computer. It lets me carry a chunk & add to it when I get back. The BB does too.
Most of the FOSS I've looked at doesn't address shared calendaring. For me that means palm syncing and PC user access. I've played with Plan, Solaris CM (Ok, SunOS era). They didn't cut it.
AFAIK ZIP was evil because of some patent issues, and that's why gzip was developed. The patent has supposedly expired in the US, but not necessarily in all other countries (same as with GIF). Any info on that?
.gz files tend to be smaller then .Z files. It also helped that GNU tar has -z to use uncompress or gzip on the fly.
There's some confusion here. ZIP and gzip are really related.
A) ZIP was created as a result of pkarc vs arc. Some of it was on file format, some on pkarc allegedly including code from arc. Because of this, the file format was documented and made freely available. zip compressed better and BBS sysops converted overnight partly for that, partly because they were pissed at arc's tactics. Other archivers such as lha, arj, zoo, etc enjoyed limited sucess. Remember, this was in the days of 8 bit PCs with no hard drive and 1200 baud modems.
B) gzip was created because the Unisys was (threatening to) using the LZW patent against anyone who wrote software that used LZW to compress files. GIF uses LZW. So does the compress program (.Z files). GNU created gzip w/o LZW for creating. gzip can uncompress files compressed with compress's LZW.
Well, Debian runs on a number of platforms and has a slow release schedule.
What about NetBSD? It's got far more platforms and a faster release schedule. Maybe Debian needs to add more platforms.
This is not my network exactly, but more of the generic geek network:
Internet connection
Firewall
Network hub/switch
System to play with (gaming PC/console)
System to work on (main desktop/laptop)
Systems to hack on (not the main, not the game, not needed to run stuff)
Server(s) of some sort (might be the firewall or the main system or a seperate system(s))
Beyond that, add various devices:
Wireless access
Printers
PVR
Old systems
Custom devices
Terminals
X10
Terminal servers
KVMs
I'm sure I've missed stuff but I think for a generic description, this sums it up.
Some of these may be combined or in multiples. Some firewalls also serve DHCP. I have 3 laptops as my main systems with a file server in the basement.
Emacs has something (I forgot the name) that works like that over rcp, ftp and scp. I was using it around '97 at least.
GIMP is 8 bits. But CinePaint (ne Film Gimp) does do 16bits. It's used by the motion picture industry to clean up individual film frames for dust, etc. They surely have Photoshop to do this but they've put time and resources into CinePaint....
I also think GIMP is planning on going 16bits
http://www.broadcom.com/products/Enterprise-Small+ Office/Storage+Solutions
It's semi software but it has several advantages:
Linux support (I think the driver is OSS or slated to be)
Transform from RAID 1 to RAID 5 (or 10 or 50) on the fly
Can support boot drive RAID nicely
Hot swap
I bet coins last longer. You don't find many pennies older then 1959. That's the year the obverse (back) changed to the Lincon Memorial from the Wheat ears.
I've gotten nickles from the late 40's in my change every now and then. They were silver during the war; nickle was a more stratigic material then silver.
Dimes, quarters, etc were last minted from silver in 1964 so 1965 is the last year you'll generally see of them.
The 50 cent piece was silver (instead of nickle) clad in '65 (through '70?).
The 1976 quarter had a bicentenial theme. People tend to hoard them, thinking they'll be valuable. I don't think this will happen *as much* with the current quarters with different state themes. Everyone seems to be collecting one set but circulate the rest.
I think Canada eliminated the paper $1 when they came out with the loonie $1 and the $2 coins. That's the only way $1 and $2 coins will work in the US. Eliminate the paper.
I got a Blackberry 7510 at work recently. It comes with:
USB to micro USB cable
Standard microphone/earpiece to standard connector
USB to power outlet adapter
No propritary connectors or cables.
Works great and I can't mash the adapter easily.
I have an expensive camera with removable media.
Why on earth would I care about hooking up the camera to transfer images via USB 1.1 when I can put the card into a USB 2.0 or firewire reader or a PCMCIA adapter?
This is probably the 90% solution. (read "The Unix Philosophy")
Why would I want to balance my expensive camera on a cable near my computer while transfering, increasing the chances of knocking it to the floor? I'll leave it in the bag while I bring the card over thank you. I think most photo kiosks only allow media; there's no direct USB camera connector.
Now, I have a crappy camera that doesn't have removable media. But that's a rare case and getting more rare.
There are some programs out there that let you control the camera remotely to take pictures, etc. They're getting more rare too I think.
Back when Ray Ozzie was heading up Notes, I saw a quote from Bill Gates along the lines of: There are 5 top programmers in the world today. 4 work for me and Ray Ozzie is the other one.
Jump into a nice cozy terminal
Run tar, mv, rsync (cp & rm too) to move data from 1 file system to another. I'm assuming these filesystems are sharing w/ AFP and HFS on 'em.
You just lost data. Mac files have a resource fork & a data fork. The unix commands only work on the data fork.
Ok, do it in the GUI.
You just munged permissions. *sigh*
Yes, there are some commands buried somewhere that preserve this stuff. Does the book cover them? It should!
This was reported in the Washington Times 12/17/01
.
I remember reading the original there, but it seems to have expired. Some googling for: fish game washington fur dna lynx wenatchee
What happened: They took fur from a captured lynx and planted it in a few different parks to show proof that endangered lynx were in the parks. This would have closed the parks to most recreation (fishing, hunting, mountain biking, motorcycling). They were found out by DNA testing
Things have turned the other way. I'm not sure which is worse.
There are a number of solutions in off road motorcycle racing.
Mousse- a solid foam thing that gets *wedged* inside tire. Made by michelin and has problems with overheating and wear at high speeds.
Tire balls - someone experimented w/ tennis balls instead of a tube. Now they have balls custom made for the purpose. If one goes poof, you have several others. I'd imagine high speeds would be a problem, but this is offroad.
Tire slim - pour it into the tube before inflating & it'll seal small punctures.
One of the hardest things to get for a speed run at Bonneville salt flats is decent tires. Some people have abandoned rubber for solid steel wheels.
Having done some OSX server work, I like some things in it (compared to Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, NetBSD and OpenBSD) but I get thrown off when things don't work as expected.
Case in point: using OSX as a file server for Appleshare (mac clients). I need to move files from one directory to another.
On the server, I use the GUI to drag 'em. Ownership & permissions are not preserved. Rats. Plus I have to sit there like a trainned monkey for the error message & to fix things if they don't go right.
Ok, I have lots of files so I want to script it anyways. I use cp -r or mv or tar cpf - | (cd blah;tar xpf -). Permissions & ownerships are right, but all the icons are wrong. Mac files have a data and a resource fork. The unix command above only works on the data fork so you lose the resource bits.
The solution is a modified version of rsync (rsyncX) or a program called ditto that comes w/ MacOSX. Intuitivly obvious 'eh?
>No, they've learned to write down their passwords
>on post-it notes stuck to their monitors or
>elsewhere.
I'll encourage a habitual forgetter to put it on a piece of paper in their wallet or some other place they're likely not to show others. IFF the environment allows that kind of thing. It's better then using a default password that they may stick with.
There are a number of tools for palm & pocketPC that store encrypted passwords and I mention them if they have them.
I used a web site before wikis existed.
My management dictated that users enter a ticket. They also allowed me to say "I will forget what you just asked me by the time I get back to my desk. Please enter a ticket so I don't".
For the problem users, I'd sometimes bring up the web page to read along with them. Most would get the point. For ones that did not, I'd get thier managers involved. This was for a group of engineers who should know how to use their tools a bit.
Hear hear.
I collected comics in the late 80's - 90's.
At one time I collected Xmen but got tired of all the loose ends/forshadowing etc. It was the only Marvel comic I got.
I turned to Watchmen, Love & Rockets, Lone Wolf & Cub, Sandman.
I remember Spider Man #1 w/ Todd McFarlane writing and drawing. Awesome art, but the writing made it unbearable.
Remember, this is the american buying public, not the geek population.
They're also buying to prepare for an imminent emergency and might be a little anxious & scattered.
Settled out of court. I don't have the URLs, but it was a few years ago
format c: refers to DOS, before windows.
In version 3.mumble (older?) format c: would do so without asking so much as "Are you sure?". A subsequent version of DOS (3.3?) would ask the question.
Also, in the pre 5.0 DOS days most versions were customized to a vendor's systems with various extra programs and features. I had Zenith and they always asked that question. Panasonic's DOS did not.
cd / ; rm -rf . as root in unix is similar
I got mine about a year ago - a series 2. I bought the lifetime subscription.
It rocks. I have season passes for my favorite shows. I have wish lists for my interests. It keeps up (mostly) with ESPN's instantly changing schedules. Better then I could *ever* do with a VCR.
I've got a USB ethernet on it so it gets everything over my internet connection. I tried the Home Media Option but was disappointed that the agent was Windows only and it cost $$.
HMO is now free. And, there's a reverse engineered java version (http://javahmo.sourceforge.net) that will run on my linux file server. I can use my tivo to browse my photos or slide show them. I get a local weather report. Listen to MP3s or streaming MP3s and shoutcast. Very cool.
It will change how you watch TV. I have a 2nd TV and wish I had a tivo on that too. Oh, with HMO you can watch stuff recorded on the other tivo...