SCO claimed that Windows interferes with the SCO intellectual property. Furthermore, SCO claimed that the money they got from Microsoft did NOT prevent SCO going after Microsoft's customers for violation.
So why did Microsoft pay all that money? Officially, to protect Microsoft (but not Microsoft's customers) against claims from SCO.
Yes, PROVIDED THAT THE NECESSARY DRIVERS ARE INCLUDED IN WINDOWS BY DEFAULT. My printer driver isn't. My NIC is, thankfully. But I've installed Windows on plenty of computers with NICs whose drivers were not included on the Windows XP install CD. Or, say, computers whose SATA controller driver was not included.
Now, perhaps your specific computer's components all had the necessary drivers included in Windows, but this is certainly not the norm these days.
Actually, it shouldn't be at all hard to back out. All you need to do is recopy the correct kernel to the hard drive. You could do this easily enough with a restore CD, it should take no more than a couple of minutes per computer, almost all of which is bootup time.
No, you couldn't push a fix like this out to each computer because they are, as you say, hosed. Unless they boot over the network, of course, in which case you just fix a single central server (or 7, or however many).
Note that currently the architecture supports 48 bits of addressing (see the wikipedia, though you'll have to do your own calculations to figure it out (256 terabytes = 2^48).
I figure we'll exhaust that probably sometime around 2028 or so (doubling memory requirements each 18 months). I may be approaching retirement age by then, but statistically am likely to still be alive.
It may be possible to extend the architecture to support full 64-bit addressing, however, which would be likely to do us for almost another 50 years from now.
I just priced out a Dell Inspiron 1150 with the extended battery for $750. Add an additional $30 for a PCMCIA firewire card and I think it meets your requirements. X Windows support, etc. is of course available in Linux or FreeBSD, both of which are free. Or use cygwin in Windows.
Now, you can certainly say that the Inspiron 1150 isn't up to the level of quality of the Apple laptops. You may have a point, though Dell hasn't been hit with as many class action lawsuits over their laptop quality recently as Apple has.
You may say that the Apple laptop is better at something or other than the Dell. That may be, but note that the Dell laptop has a MUCH more powerful processor.
You may say that the Dell laptop doesn't get as good battery life. I would debate that. The iBook and TiBook laptops I've used didn't get any better battery life than a Dell laptop with the regular (single) battery, let alone the larger battery, and I was quite disappointed by that. But it may be that 96 WHr on the Dell doesn't provide as much life as the 50 WHr Apple battery does for the Apple.
Dell undoubtedly has a better warranty available on their laptops, in the guise of the CompleteCare coverage. This is simply a fact. However, it may be that you need to use the warranty more often if you buy a Dell.
Now, I certainly wasn't pricing out Dell's cheapest laptops. There is a cheaper model available, so I could likely knock off another hundred dollars or so, but I was already coming in well under a third below the price you listed.
In that case, don't ever consider installing Longhorn for your mother when it is finally released. If the K icon confuses her, she'll be completely lost with all the user interfaces in Microsoft's next operating system.
For that matter, better keep her with her current version of office. Microsoft often adds new features and rearranges existing layouts when they release a new version of Office.
Also, for the love of god, don't ever get her a new car. New cars often look and feel quite different from older models. I have to adjust my sideview mirrors manually, for example, but my girlfriend has power mirrors. I doubt your mother could handle a much more significant difference like that.
Personally, I consider it rather sad that your mother cannot handle a change like that.
Hear hear. I love itsyourturn. When I have paid off some of my most immediate debts, I'm going to subscribe. However, I've been playing there for well over a year without paying. It's a great site.
The first hard-drive based MP3 player I bought was a Creative. The second was an Apple. Why did I switch? Simple, the software that shipped with the Creative was lousy. I ended up buying the Notmad software from an independent third party and that was much better, but I really don't feel like I should have to. My MP3 player should just appear as an external hard drive in Windows, should work as easily in Linux, and the MP3 software should be of high quality as well.
I can't say I'm particularly impressed with iTunes, mind you, but at least an iPod appears as an external drive when I plug it in. I don't need to cart around extra software to install.
I have performance problems on an Athlon XP1700+ system with 768 megs of RAM. Music will often stutter when I'm doing anything involving the hard drive (and yes, DMA is enabled on my drives). Starting syncing with the ipod causes iTunes to become quite unresponsive for a while. And I still can't get my right mouse button to work for most of the functionality, such as for creating a new playlist. Instead, I have to click on the menu or on the + icon at the bottom of the screen. Searching for music in the library is incredibly fast, however. And I don't really have any other concerns with the speed of iTunes.
If Gartner is making the bet that 40% of large financial institutions will have deployed Linux by 2005, they are making a very safe bet. There's what, 45 days left in 2004? Presumably, then, the 40% figure has already been reached or will be reached immediately. It's really no big deal to predict the state of IT 45 days in the future.
I'll make some predictions, we can see if I'm as accurate as Gartner. Microsoft will control more than 90% of the desktop market by 2005. Apache will run approximately 67.77% of all websites, by domain, by 2005 (plus or minus one percent). The Linux kernel will be on version 2.6.9.x or 2.6.10.x by 2005. Microsoft will not release any new service packs or new editions of Windows 2003 or Windows XP by 2005.
See, it's really easy! Come on, Gartner, try predicting MORE than 45 days in advance. Predicting 'by 2005' is just too easy.
Re:Disconnect and motivation
on
The Music Man
·
· Score: 1
You are mistaken. From the Board's decision, "There is no requirement [...] that the source copy be a non-infringing copy. Hence, it is not relevant whether the source of the track is a pre-owned recording, a borrowed CD, or a track downloaded from the Internet."
Re:Disconnect and motivation
on
The Music Man
·
· Score: 1
You do seem to be correct. I can find no reference to uploading being legal in Canada. I had thought that placing a file in a shared directory (i.e. making it available for download) did not constitute copyright infringement as you would be safe to assume that nobody else was breaking the law (just as you wouldn't be breaking the law if you were to download it yourself). I can find no reference to this now, though.
Get with the program. Her nude scenes have been cut.
Re:Disconnect and motivation
on
The Music Man
·
· Score: 1
In Canada, neither downloading, nor uploading, nor burning music to CD is illegal (provided it isn't done for commercial gain). Of course, that probably doesn't apply here.
MS audits can be painful to companies that illegally copy these, but there is a difference from one random sound file editor compared to an entire company/corporation intentionally using pirated software.
Yes. That's exactly what many companies audited by Microsoft/BSA have been saying. Doesn't matter in that case, though, they are still stuck with hefty fines. All it takes is suspicion (not proof) that you've pirated a single piece of software and they can knock on your door (or bust it down with the Secret Service (?)) and force an audit.
How will they make this error right? Spend $350 on a license. Voila.
If only this was all that was required for other companies audited by Microsoft/BSA. But unfortunately, it isn't. Not by a long shot.
A complete, comprehensive graphical configuration utility. Something like the xDrake tools provided with Mandrake, but that handles configuration for ALL the software included in a Linux distribution.
Note that such a tool isn't available in Windows. But in Linux, you are expected to configure much of your software using text files. I think this is great, but I wish there was also some nice graphical configuration tool.
There are also some web-based tools such as webmin. They get close, but still leave a LOT of programs to be hand-configured. On Windows, the Control Panel is also close but almost all Windows apps that you install won't stick a configuration widget in there.
That sounds reasonable to me. Unfortunately, with the exception of EULAs that are available online, I do not know of a single local software store here that would allow you to return software because you did not accept the EULA (but had opened the software). Granted, I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, so it may be different in the U.S., or even in other cities in Canada. But I have tried returning software before when I did not accept the EULA, to CompuSmart and to FutureShop, and neither place would accept the return.
Next time I try, I should bring in a document for them to sign that acknowledges that they refuse to honour the EULA. That should be good for a laugh.:)
(I wasn't the author of the grandparent post) What if I buy some software but do not get to see the EULA until after I have purchased it (say, it isn't available online) and, after purchasing it and reading the EULA, I am not permitted to return the product for a refund? Am I still obligated to follow the EULA in that case?
Not the release version, you haven't. I'd throw out any resumes that started counting from when they first downloaded the beta version UNLESS they specifically noted this fact.
Oh, you were serious? Come on... China doesn't enforce copyright and patent legislation anything _like_ the U.S. does. Just consider, as a single data point, how many pirated copies of Windows exist over there. I'm constantly bombarded with people from China offering the business I work for dubious copies of sewing machines and sergers that we sell already. They are cheaper because they are 'exactly like' the brand-name machines we buy from legitimate manufacturers, but these are manufactured in grey-market factories. And no, they are NOT from the same factory lines as the brand-name machines, we've checked.
Now, that's not to say that not licensing firmware will help prevent knock-offs. Near as I can tell, it wouldn't help at all as really only the binary is what is important, and that's currently distributed by the legitimate manufacturers anyway.
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SCO claimed that Windows interferes with the SCO intellectual property. Furthermore, SCO claimed that the money they got from Microsoft did NOT prevent SCO going after Microsoft's customers for violation.
So why did Microsoft pay all that money? Officially, to protect Microsoft (but not Microsoft's customers) against claims from SCO.
So you don't class a woman (or man) who is raped by an HIV+ person to be innocent?
Yes, PROVIDED THAT THE NECESSARY DRIVERS ARE INCLUDED IN WINDOWS BY DEFAULT. My printer driver isn't. My NIC is, thankfully. But I've installed Windows on plenty of computers with NICs whose drivers were not included on the Windows XP install CD. Or, say, computers whose SATA controller driver was not included.
Now, perhaps your specific computer's components all had the necessary drivers included in Windows, but this is certainly not the norm these days.
Actually, it shouldn't be at all hard to back out. All you need to do is recopy the correct kernel to the hard drive. You could do this easily enough with a restore CD, it should take no more than a couple of minutes per computer, almost all of which is bootup time.
No, you couldn't push a fix like this out to each computer because they are, as you say, hosed. Unless they boot over the network, of course, in which case you just fix a single central server (or 7, or however many).
It's also approximately 7.5 years of DVD-quality video (based on 4 gigs an hour, 24/7). In memory.
Note that currently the architecture supports 48 bits of addressing (see the wikipedia, though you'll have to do your own calculations to figure it out (256 terabytes = 2^48).
I figure we'll exhaust that probably sometime around 2028 or so (doubling memory requirements each 18 months). I may be approaching retirement age by then, but statistically am likely to still be alive.
It may be possible to extend the architecture to support full 64-bit addressing, however, which would be likely to do us for almost another 50 years from now.
This is true. However, a great many home users do exactly this.
I just priced out a Dell Inspiron 1150 with the extended battery for $750. Add an additional $30 for a PCMCIA firewire card and I think it meets your requirements. X Windows support, etc. is of course available in Linux or FreeBSD, both of which are free. Or use cygwin in Windows.
Now, you can certainly say that the Inspiron 1150 isn't up to the level of quality of the Apple laptops. You may have a point, though Dell hasn't been hit with as many class action lawsuits over their laptop quality recently as Apple has.
You may say that the Apple laptop is better at something or other than the Dell. That may be, but note that the Dell laptop has a MUCH more powerful processor.
You may say that the Dell laptop doesn't get as good battery life. I would debate that. The iBook and TiBook laptops I've used didn't get any better battery life than a Dell laptop with the regular (single) battery, let alone the larger battery, and I was quite disappointed by that. But it may be that 96 WHr on the Dell doesn't provide as much life as the 50 WHr Apple battery does for the Apple.
Dell undoubtedly has a better warranty available on their laptops, in the guise of the CompleteCare coverage. This is simply a fact. However, it may be that you need to use the warranty more often if you buy a Dell.
Now, I certainly wasn't pricing out Dell's cheapest laptops. There is a cheaper model available, so I could likely knock off another hundred dollars or so, but I was already coming in well under a third below the price you listed.
In that case, don't ever consider installing Longhorn for your mother when it is finally released. If the K icon confuses her, she'll be completely lost with all the user interfaces in Microsoft's next operating system.
For that matter, better keep her with her current version of office. Microsoft often adds new features and rearranges existing layouts when they release a new version of Office.
Also, for the love of god, don't ever get her a new car. New cars often look and feel quite different from older models. I have to adjust my sideview mirrors manually, for example, but my girlfriend has power mirrors. I doubt your mother could handle a much more significant difference like that.
Personally, I consider it rather sad that your mother cannot handle a change like that.
Hear hear. I love itsyourturn. When I have paid off some of my most immediate debts, I'm going to subscribe. However, I've been playing there for well over a year without paying. It's a great site.
That's not always true..
The first hard-drive based MP3 player I bought was a Creative. The second was an Apple. Why did I switch? Simple, the software that shipped with the Creative was lousy. I ended up buying the Notmad software from an independent third party and that was much better, but I really don't feel like I should have to. My MP3 player should just appear as an external hard drive in Windows, should work as easily in Linux, and the MP3 software should be of high quality as well.
I can't say I'm particularly impressed with iTunes, mind you, but at least an iPod appears as an external drive when I plug it in. I don't need to cart around extra software to install.
I have performance problems on an Athlon XP1700+ system with 768 megs of RAM. Music will often stutter when I'm doing anything involving the hard drive (and yes, DMA is enabled on my drives). Starting syncing with the ipod causes iTunes to become quite unresponsive for a while. And I still can't get my right mouse button to work for most of the functionality, such as for creating a new playlist. Instead, I have to click on the menu or on the + icon at the bottom of the screen. Searching for music in the library is incredibly fast, however. And I don't really have any other concerns with the speed of iTunes.
If Gartner is making the bet that 40% of large financial institutions will have deployed Linux by 2005, they are making a very safe bet. There's what, 45 days left in 2004? Presumably, then, the 40% figure has already been reached or will be reached immediately. It's really no big deal to predict the state of IT 45 days in the future.
I'll make some predictions, we can see if I'm as accurate as Gartner. Microsoft will control more than 90% of the desktop market by 2005. Apache will run approximately 67.77% of all websites, by domain, by 2005 (plus or minus one percent). The Linux kernel will be on version 2.6.9.x or 2.6.10.x by 2005. Microsoft will not release any new service packs or new editions of Windows 2003 or Windows XP by 2005.
See, it's really easy! Come on, Gartner, try predicting MORE than 45 days in advance. Predicting 'by 2005' is just too easy.
You are mistaken. From the Board's decision, "There is no requirement [...] that the source copy be a non-infringing copy. Hence, it is not relevant whether the source of the track is a pre-owned recording, a borrowed CD, or a track downloaded from the Internet."
You do seem to be correct. I can find no reference to uploading being legal in Canada. I had thought that placing a file in a shared directory (i.e. making it available for download) did not constitute copyright infringement as you would be safe to assume that nobody else was breaking the law (just as you wouldn't be breaking the law if you were to download it yourself). I can find no reference to this now, though.
Get with the program. Her nude scenes have been cut.
In Canada, neither downloading, nor uploading, nor burning music to CD is illegal (provided it isn't done for commercial gain). Of course, that probably doesn't apply here.
Yes. That's exactly what many companies audited by Microsoft/BSA have been saying. Doesn't matter in that case, though, they are still stuck with hefty fines. All it takes is suspicion (not proof) that you've pirated a single piece of software and they can knock on your door (or bust it down with the Secret Service (?)) and force an audit.
If only this was all that was required for other companies audited by Microsoft/BSA. But unfortunately, it isn't. Not by a long shot.
A complete, comprehensive graphical configuration utility. Something like the xDrake tools provided with Mandrake, but that handles configuration for ALL the software included in a Linux distribution.
Note that such a tool isn't available in Windows. But in Linux, you are expected to configure much of your software using text files. I think this is great, but I wish there was also some nice graphical configuration tool.
There are also some web-based tools such as webmin. They get close, but still leave a LOT of programs to be hand-configured. On Windows, the Control Panel is also close but almost all Windows apps that you install won't stick a configuration widget in there.
The decimation of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago? Pardon me, but way more than one in ten dinosaur species died off in that time frame.
That sounds reasonable to me. Unfortunately, with the exception of EULAs that are available online, I do not know of a single local software store here that would allow you to return software because you did not accept the EULA (but had opened the software). Granted, I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, so it may be different in the U.S., or even in other cities in Canada. But I have tried returning software before when I did not accept the EULA, to CompuSmart and to FutureShop, and neither place would accept the return.
:)
Next time I try, I should bring in a document for them to sign that acknowledges that they refuse to honour the EULA. That should be good for a laugh.
(I wasn't the author of the grandparent post) What if I buy some software but do not get to see the EULA until after I have purchased it (say, it isn't available online) and, after purchasing it and reading the EULA, I am not permitted to return the product for a refund? Am I still obligated to follow the EULA in that case?
Not the release version, you haven't. I'd throw out any resumes that started counting from when they first downloaded the beta version UNLESS they specifically noted this fact.
Ha ha ha!
Oh, you were serious? Come on... China doesn't enforce copyright and patent legislation anything _like_ the U.S. does. Just consider, as a single data point, how many pirated copies of Windows exist over there. I'm constantly bombarded with people from China offering the business I work for dubious copies of sewing machines and sergers that we sell already. They are cheaper because they are 'exactly like' the brand-name machines we buy from legitimate manufacturers, but these are manufactured in grey-market factories. And no, they are NOT from the same factory lines as the brand-name machines, we've checked.
Now, that's not to say that not licensing firmware will help prevent knock-offs. Near as I can tell, it wouldn't help at all as really only the binary is what is important, and that's currently distributed by the legitimate manufacturers anyway.