Or file some frivilous lawsuit against me because someone's 8-year-old saw something they shouldn't have and think that I'm responsible.
My concern is that now I WILL be responsible. If I don't go to the trouble of chasing off the 'squatters myself, it could be construde as lack of due diligence(?) on my part and then I'm libel. If I didn't have legal recourse, then it wouldn't be my fault. Now that I do it is my responsibility to exercise it.
Sure, but my take on Smart Tags is that they are equivalent to the customer bringing along a representative of their choice to annotate the book before they read it, after they bought it. I believe this is much closer to the real nature, as the Smart Tag is part of the User Agent and not part of the HTTP transaction.
An interesting point. My concern (and I believe, the concern of others) is that my site would become the victum of the user's stupidity. As I said before, most users won't understand the distinction. It would be sort of like the IRS offering a new tax preperation service for free. It might sound like a good idea to someone who doesn't understand how it really works but it's really a new way to increase tax revanue(sp?).
Scoundrel didn't offend me at all
It shouldn't (nerdy Star Wars refrence here) If you were you'd get to nail Carrie Fisher! - seriously though, I understand what you meant now. I've just seen a couple of people who are pretty obviously using multipe accounts to mod up their troll posts. Creative, but annoying.
True, but are you saying the user doesn't have the option of adding their own content to what you provide? If this is the case then you'd better also disallow scribbling on any textbook in college because that is EXACTLY the same thing.
No, I'm saying a third party doesn't have the right to modfy the user's experience for me. Remember the user is not creating these links for themselves, a third party is doing it. While I agree that a technical user would understand the difference and could put the smart links to good use, the typical user won't.
Garbage. The user has the right to do whatever they like with your site for their own personal use. They can wrap it around a three-dimensional naked sheep that sings a lewd ballad about goats if they want to. The user can decide to only look at every third word, or run a filter to remove every single link to doubleclick. You have NO rights as to what the user does with the published work as long as they don't republish it themselves.
The thing about the sheep was funny. I'd mod you up just for that. Otherwise see my above point. We aren't really talking about the user doing this. If it was completely user set up I wouldn't mind, and I'd even agree with you. Unfortunately it's not the users setting it up, it's anyone who decides they want add some links in and can come up with some way to get the user to do it. (social engineering, virii, etc...) I'm not convinced that this will remain off by default, and for that matter I'm not even convinced it will always be an option.
So either include the META tag on your site. You still have no rights as to what users do once they have downloaded your site. If they want to interpret it by rearranging the words until they get Nazi war slogans then it's up to them.
As has been noted by others, I shouldn't have to add a non standard tag to get standard results (I would fully support this technology if it were on an opt in basis). Beyond that I agree with you, the user's perception of my site is their own. I just don't want someone else modifying their perception of my site. I think I might have said this before but I'd be more likely to just deny IE6 all together.
If you honestly believe that Addison Wesley has the right to demand that no annotation be done on a textbook then you can feel free to continue your line of discussion.
I would say that Addison Wesley has the right to demand that Barnes and Noble can't annotate books prior to sale. How would it look if I bought a book on ecommerce web design from Amazon.com, and in that book they used fatbrain.com as a test case, so Amazon decided to put a bunch of notes to the effect that fatbrain was a bad case and I should instead look at Amazon for inspiration? I would consider that closer to what we are discussing.
Umm... you can't mod up your own posts. You can't even use moderator points in the same thread.
I'm well aware of that, but by your comment I wasn't sure you were... or I figured you might have a second account with mod points waiting to mod yourself up. In regards to that comment I would say that I misrepresented you as a scoundrel. I might think you are misguided, and I'd still like to know what that line about wishing you had mod points meant, but the scoundrel comment was probably uncalled for.
Let me finish by saying that I'm not claiming that this should be illegal... My guess is that it will eventually be that sites opt in not only for smartlinks but for certain lists of smartlinks. For instance amazon.com would opt in for Microsoft's and Amazon's smartlink list, but not AOL's and fatbrain's. Of course once we get to that it's mostly useless except that it will make it easier for the web developers to generate highly linked content.
(i) If links are part of the content of a page, then the whole DeCSS case is sunk. You have to choose what you believe. Smart tags may indeed be the EFF's best friend here because if Microsoft can convince the courts that they are permitted to add whatever links they like because they are not part of a web page, then by implication you also have the right to link your page wherever you like and not be responsible for the content at the other end. So, either Microsoft and the EFF are both correct, or both are wrong. You can't have it both ways.
Good job. You got yourself modded up by mentioning DECSS, and I don't think that was even covered by the karma whoring patent (I'd put the link in but it seems to not be around anymore... guys?). This is a bad example because a good part of the case is exactly that... is there anything wrong with the content that was linked to? That aside, the choice to link or not to link is up to the web publisher, this is a different issue than responsibility for the content that was linked to.
(iii) Smart Tags will probably be disabled by default, or at the very least be an option in the Internet Connection Wizard. This means the end user is actually defining how they want to parse your web site - whether they want the tags or not.
First, probably is not good enough. Second, the user can decide how my site looks, but the content is my business, hence it being MY site.
(iv) Third parties can provide their own smart tag filters to link wherever they like. This isn't a Microsoft-only club. You can even have a Slashdot smart tag if you like that links to articles on the subject.
To me this is one of the most disturbing issues. I don't want political, religious or any other type of special interest group to have any oppertunity to bombard me with propoganda. I especially don't want them able to bombard my web site with their propoganda.
(iv) This isn't about publisher's rights. Microsoft isn't changing what is published, they are effectively providing reference material on what is published. As I stated in (i), links aren't content - they are just references to other content.
And once again links are content. People choose to link or not link for specific reasons, and it is not the place of microsoft or anyone else to add or take away links. Especially when they do it in a way that may confuse users as to the provider of the content (and no, the squiggly purple lines are NOT different enough... many users won't get the distinction, and what about colorblind persons?)
...and I wasted all those moderator points I would have loved to spend on this thread to bring you this.:-(
If I was the type of insecure scoundrel that had to mod my own posts up I certainly wouldn't admit it.
... because I am a writer, I need three things: a good word processor that won't die... there are no word processors out there that can compete with Microsoft Word... might have been tempted to use StarOffice for word processing if only it could use a blue background and white text...
I would have quoted more, but you get the idea. Ok, you're a writer, and you want a system on which to write. That's great, but why would you use Microsoft Word? If you really are a novelist name one "feature" that you actually need. Publishing houses don't run on word documents, so don't tell me about formatting. For a novel I can't really see you using OLE. Graphs? no. Oh wait, tables... no. hmmmmmm Auto spell checking? seems useless when you can save time by running it once at the end. Oooh, wait, the paper clip guy! I knew you had a good reason:-)
Really, I'm just getting to my rant, and it is this. Microsoft Word (and WordPerfect, and any other word processor you can think of) is NOT the killer app. In fact, I would say that programs of that ilk are responsible for some of the worst business practices I have ever seen evolve (the absolute worse probably has to do with the proper use of AutoCAD, but I digress). Most of your larger companies have standards. Fonts, headers, etc... all have some sort of standard look and feel. Comnpanies that do most of their document management using Word Processor software have to open each document and reformat any time these standards change. People writing the documents have to constantly change their formatting as they write to accomdate these standards. Publishers are no different, they have standards to, and even if they don't, they need to change the formatting for a number of documents or several places in a document all at once(as in chapter headers) think they want to scroll through your word document to change all of the 'Arial' headers to 'Times New Roman'? Ask O'Reilly or New Riders how they manage their documents and books (Hint: it's NOT with word).
There are also many times when documents need to be found. For instance, if a key secratary leaves, that person may have been managing hundreds of documents in what ever fasion they had developed over the years. This documentation system might not be obvious to somone coming in 'blind'. With a word processor you have to open each file inside of that word processor to find a particular document you are looking for. There is no easy way to catagorize and index the documents left by that secratary.
Switching from word processors to a well designed mark up language (at one time I would have said SGML but now XML) will fix all of these problems, if implemented correctly. Since your headers, quotes, citations, body text, and everything else is now marked by function and not feel. It is trivial to select a formatting style when you produce output (display or print). If that important secratary leaves, it is a simple thing to take every document s/he had stored and index by date, subject, recipient, or any other field.
Anyone who is using a word processing program is castrating their computer in favor of a slightly more advanced pencil. Word, Word Perfect, etc... are good for keeping your resume, and perhaps writing a letter to a friend (if you were going to print it out and mail it). Even then, I'd stack a good markup editor aginst them any day.
I know I rambled, but this is a pet peeve of mine. In any case, I'd rather show business how much that office suite they love so much is hurting them than try to reproduce the same lump of steaming crap for GNU/Linux.
Re:You won't see the linux boxen on the artist's d
on
Linux and Shrek
·
· Score: 1
even though they're preparing to switch their workstations to Linux (but haven't yet)
You say you are "in the know" about the situation, and I have no basis on which to argue that, so I won't. I will, however, quote the article once again:
Pixar Animation Studios,
which helped bring Walt
Disney Co. into
computer-generated
animation with "Toy
Story," is also converting
its workstations to Linux.
The studio was in the
process of switching from
SGI technology to
Microsoft's Windows NT
platform, but shifted to
Linux in midstream...
I can't read this any other way than they were converting to NT, but are now converting to Linux. If this report is accurate, there are some techs at Pixar right now (or at least there were during working hours) switching users over to Linux based machines. I make this claim because 1) they were in the process of switching to NT - past tense; 2)they sre converting their workstations to Linux - present tense. If this report is in error, you have my apologies.
As for personal attacks, I did not make one. I only stated an opinion in regards the personal attack that, according to you, your employer made.
I just watched the "Making of Shrek" program on HBO, and in every shot that had a computer that system was an SGI running IRIX.
That's because they are preparing to move to Linux. Since Shrek is a completed product they wouldn't have used it yet. Look for Linux in the making of Shrek II, the quest for more money (or was that Spaceballs?).
Re:You won't see the linux boxen on the artist's d
on
Linux and Shrek
·
· Score: 1
but you won't see Linux replacing SGI and NT on the desktops of CG shops for a while... My employer thinks my opinions are crap
Your employer is right. I quote:
... preparing to replace nearly half of its 1,300 SGI workstations with a variety of Linux-based hardware... Pixar Animation Studios, which helped bring Walt Disney Co. into computer-generated animation with "Toy Story," is also converting its workstations to Linux.
Both of these quotes specifically say that they are switching their workstations to Linux. In regards to Pixar I'm quite sure that this means the machines the animators are using as they (according to the Toy Story II credits) previously used SGI workstations for animation and Sun servers for rendering. Doubt that one? Once again I quote: Sun Microsystems Inc. gloats about Pixar's longtime use of its servers for features that include the coming "Monsters Inc."
As if that isn't enough, I'll close with: But Linux is being used on an increasing number of animators' workstations, as well as the rendering servers that apply shades and textures to images that the artists create.
I just happy to see sombody finally stop squabbling over price and cite the TRUE benifit of Free Software : "Although we're a shop of 1,300 people, we don't have the clout to get Microsoft to change their operating system," says Andy Hendrickson, director of systems development at Industrial Light & Magic. "With Linux, we can do it all ourselves."
It's refreshing to see somone tout the value of freedom.
This was once true, but have you use it lately? Since Mozilla.8 came out I have seen it crash once, and I use it for more than 10 hours/day, every day. I recently switched to.9 and am nothing but impressed.
I see your point but I think it's outdated.
The things I'm interested in out of this article are that 1) RH said that this was a question of philosophy - good move for those that argue OSS as a business model. and 2) the writer completely skipped the fact that Netscape 6 == Mozilla.6. I think that this says a lot about when commercial companies consider something worthy of non beta release vs. OSS programmers consider it to be worthy of non beta release.
I realize that:
1) you are an idiot
2) this is off topic
3) this post gets posted all the time
Still, I feel compelled to respond. You say that Linux does not affect the flow of money in the real world. In fact IDC and Deutsche Banc Alex.Brown estimate that Linux will have a financial impact of 11 billion dollars US this year and 75 billion dollars by the year 2004.
My previous installs have gone OK. I haven't installed 7.1 before, though. I would guess that you probably needed to do your install through YaST instead of YaST2. You could probably get it going by typing yast from the rescue boot but I've never actually tried that so I don't know. Yast does make it easy to install over the network (lucky for you w/ no cd drive), all you have to do is change the installation media to the ftp site (or a mirror). In any case, I'm glad you got something working for you besides Solaris.
For the people asking why use Linux instead of Solaris? two reasons: 1) it's LOTS faster. 2) Free as in speech.
they won't have to worry about deploying/managing updates and upgrades
What? How won't they? As somone who has spent time developing and excecuting plans to deploy and upgrade software packages across the enteprise (I spent a year as a consultant for Production Management in a telecom firm, we managed the software on several thousand pc's and servers for y2k) I can tell you that a major upgrade every three years will be a severe setback and expense for many companies. Stop, you were going to say SMS weren't you? SMS is NOT qualified to upgrade several thousand PC's at once (I know this all to well).
The other thing you don't seem to understand is the way some companies will stick to standards. I was consulting for an engineering company some time ago. Take a guess what their word processing department was using. WordPerfect 5.1 for dos. I kid you not. Why? It has a certain font that had become a company standard, so they used it just to get that one font. Software hangs around longer than you think. Did you know that until 1998 Win3.1 was still the most deployed desktop in the world? My point is that for most people and especially most companies this WILL be a problem. As other's have said, companies would rather just get somehting installed and go with it. And for the people who like to talk about taxes, they fail to realize that companies would rather depriciate their software and hardware for loss dollars than anything else (including lease).
I have worked with both Business Objects and Cognos as an application architect and as an administrator and I can say without a doubt that Cognos kicks BI's ass all over the place. Cognos was designed WELL. It is scalable, configurable, stable, and it sets up fast. BI has the most bass-ackwards clustering I have seen, Is tempermantal at best, and only fully supports NT. (I don't know if that's an issue for you or not). I must admit that I haven't done a large amount of work with either one as a user (like many people here, I don't use that type of tool for data analisys... but then most programmers/admins don't) so I can't speak to it being easy to use or effective. I will say that considering your requirements I would NOT use Crystal Reports. It certainly does NOT seem like it would fit your needs. For what you are describing you need Business Objects or Cognos, and I would easily reccomend Cognos.
At about 2200, we were reconfiguring some mail files which, with a lot of help from Windows NT, got put in the wrong place during the backup procedure.
I don't think that there is anything I can add that would do it justice.
You are blaming the software for the faults of the users. Just because/. is populated with trolls and idiots there is no reason to think that the same type of forum, populated with professionals, couldn't be a succesful arena for the exchange of ideas. I agree that I wouldn't want anyone in the world to have post access (just like not everyone gets commit access to the Mozilla CVS) but for limited group the form has merits.
part of the problem might have been in the homes and family lives of the shooters.
I think you might be missing your own point about personal responsiblity. No matter how much you (and many others) want to avoid it, the fact is that nobody but the kids are to blame. While I'll agree that their parents didn't provide a good environment for them and the school was apathetic at best, the fact remains that those young adults decided and planned to pick up guns and bombs, take them to a public place (school) and kill people with them. Nobody is more responsible than they are, and they are dead. Everybody seems to be participating in this fact finding orgy to figure out who is to blame for what happened. Blame the people who did it.
If my 3 year old breaks my VCR by cramming a tape in sideways, I blame him for not following the rules. It was, after all, his fault. Perhaps their parents didn't teach them responsibility for their own actions, but I don't think that it makes the kids any less responsible.
Microsoft made it's Q4 2000 numbers by selling off many of it's stakes it "other" businesses, for instance Web TV. Add to that the fact that Microsoft is STILL considered to be overvalued at ~$60 and I would say that yes, it is on the ropes. And 10 billion in revenues is not huge, as has been previously noted.
So far we have 4 sites completely/.'d - The real site, two GeoCities sites and an independant mirror. Is this some sort of record? If I read about a new outbreak of DDoS incedents(aimed at Yahoo and a site in Japan, of course) on CNN, I'm really going to be ROTFLMAO.
I understand that it is hoped that the advanced features of TUX 1.0 will eventually make their way into Apache.
I understand you didn't check your facts. The main feature of TUX will NEVER make it into Apache. It's impossible because the main feature of TUX is that it is compilied into the kernel. I'm not defending Microsoft on this one, I would consider uptime and security to be important factors, more so than performance. If they are looking for performance only, tell them to look at using Netscape iPlanet (sorry, but TUX isn't by any means ready for prime time) on their OS of choice.
You make an excellent point about the file extensions, especially for a developer (that wan't a dig, most developers get scared when I make changes to the system... they always thing it will break their app...). I don't think that the comment about hotfixes was off base, it happens fairly often. This is, of course, a result of people being human again. Sorry I'm answering your comments randomly... I never said you should ASSUME that the patch doesn't work, I just said you souldn't ASSUME that it does. I quote Paul Leach... "We deliberately and cynically make the smallest band-aid fixes we can, just enough to convince customers that the problem is fixed when it really isn't". - I admit that's taken out of context so he may have meant it as sarcasm, but Microsoft has many times shown this to be true in their actions. I agree about the global.asa file, but I'm so tired of fighting that war I finally just gave up. The last thing I'll say is that Microsoft should put those fixes (smart administration, such as removing the rouge file extensions) into the MCSE cirriculum(sp?). Right now they have a bunch of worthless hacks running around with no idea, but who have a certificate from Microsoft saying they know their shit. (I tech review guys constantly... 99% of MCSEs don't know the difference between regedit.exe and regedt32.exe).
the other last thing I'll say is thanks for replying. That is much more important to me than being modded up or down. Sorry again for the random replies, I'm in a hurry.
Erm, the bug (in IIS4 and IIS5) was patched on July 17th, and if I interpret the text correctly, that's THE SAME...
Yes. You did interpret the text correctly. Your failing, however, it to assume that MSPatch==ProblemFixed. I am an MCSE and a security consultant. I have been doing this since 1997. Right now I'm managing the security on about 200 NT 4 servers. My experience would lead me to guess that either one of two things happened: A) The fix was a "band-aid" that defeated the given exploit code but ignored root cause B) The patch was merged into the wrong source tree and was subsequently broken by the next patch.
Both of these are very common occurences. I have had to back many hot fixes out because of regression errors. I have also seen many cases (especially in the last few months) where Microsoft has released a patch only to release a second patch a few days later because the first one was inadiquate. I'm not saying that the Nasdaq admins didn't drop the ball, I don't know the specifics of their environment. Making OS updates that often is a pain, even Microsoft has trouble keepi ng up. I find this whole thing funny simply because Microsoft has spent the last two years holding the Nasdaq up as one of their big success stories. I hope lots of CIO's see that article so that we can start to bring sanity to the server room and shed the Microsoft shackles.
Slashdot Mirror
Or file some frivilous lawsuit against me because someone's 8-year-old saw something they shouldn't have and think that I'm responsible.
My concern is that now I WILL be responsible. If I don't go to the trouble of chasing off the 'squatters myself, it could be construde as lack of due diligence(?) on my part and then I'm libel. If I didn't have legal recourse, then it wouldn't be my fault. Now that I do it is my responsibility to exercise it.
IANAL but this is what I'm concerned about.
Sure, but my take on Smart Tags is that they are equivalent to the customer bringing along a representative of their choice to annotate the book before they read it, after they bought it. I believe this is much closer to the real nature, as the Smart Tag is part of the User Agent and not part of the HTTP transaction.
An interesting point. My concern (and I believe, the concern of others) is that my site would become the victum of the user's stupidity. As I said before, most users won't understand the distinction. It would be sort of like the IRS offering a new tax preperation service for free. It might sound like a good idea to someone who doesn't understand how it really works but it's really a new way to increase tax revanue(sp?).
Scoundrel didn't offend me at all
It shouldn't (nerdy Star Wars refrence here) If you were you'd get to nail Carrie Fisher! - seriously though, I understand what you meant now. I've just seen a couple of people who are pretty obviously using multipe accounts to mod up their troll posts. Creative, but annoying.
True, but are you saying the user doesn't have the option of adding their own content to what you provide? If this is the case then you'd better also disallow scribbling on any textbook in college because that is EXACTLY the same thing.
No, I'm saying a third party doesn't have the right to modfy the user's experience for me. Remember the user is not creating these links for themselves, a third party is doing it. While I agree that a technical user would understand the difference and could put the smart links to good use, the typical user won't.
Garbage. The user has the right to do whatever they like with your site for their own personal use. They can wrap it around a three-dimensional naked sheep that sings a lewd ballad about goats if they want to. The user can decide to only look at every third word, or run a filter to remove every single link to doubleclick. You have NO rights as to what the user does with the published work as long as they don't republish it themselves.
The thing about the sheep was funny. I'd mod you up just for that. Otherwise see my above point. We aren't really talking about the user doing this. If it was completely user set up I wouldn't mind, and I'd even agree with you. Unfortunately it's not the users setting it up, it's anyone who decides they want add some links in and can come up with some way to get the user to do it. (social engineering, virii, etc...) I'm not convinced that this will remain off by default, and for that matter I'm not even convinced it will always be an option.
So either include the META tag on your site. You still have no rights as to what users do once they have downloaded your site. If they want to interpret it by rearranging the words until they get Nazi war slogans then it's up to them.
As has been noted by others, I shouldn't have to add a non standard tag to get standard results (I would fully support this technology if it were on an opt in basis). Beyond that I agree with you, the user's perception of my site is their own. I just don't want someone else modifying their perception of my site. I think I might have said this before but I'd be more likely to just deny IE6 all together.
If you honestly believe that Addison Wesley has the right to demand that no annotation be done on a textbook then you can feel free to continue your line of discussion.
I would say that Addison Wesley has the right to demand that Barnes and Noble can't annotate books prior to sale. How would it look if I bought a book on ecommerce web design from Amazon.com, and in that book they used fatbrain.com as a test case, so Amazon decided to put a bunch of notes to the effect that fatbrain was a bad case and I should instead look at Amazon for inspiration? I would consider that closer to what we are discussing.
Umm... you can't mod up your own posts. You can't even use moderator points in the same thread.
I'm well aware of that, but by your comment I wasn't sure you were... or I figured you might have a second account with mod points waiting to mod yourself up. In regards to that comment I would say that I misrepresented you as a scoundrel. I might think you are misguided, and I'd still like to know what that line about wishing you had mod points meant, but the scoundrel comment was probably uncalled for.
Let me finish by saying that I'm not claiming that this should be illegal... My guess is that it will eventually be that sites opt in not only for smartlinks but for certain lists of smartlinks. For instance amazon.com would opt in for Microsoft's and Amazon's smartlink list, but not AOL's and fatbrain's. Of course once we get to that it's mostly useless except that it will make it easier for the web developers to generate highly linked content.
(i) If links are part of the content of a page, then the whole DeCSS case is sunk. You have to choose what you believe. Smart tags may indeed be the EFF's best friend here because if Microsoft can convince the courts that they are permitted to add whatever links they like because they are not part of a web page, then by implication you also have the right to link your page wherever you like and not be responsible for the content at the other end. So, either Microsoft and the EFF are both correct, or both are wrong. You can't have it both ways.
...and I wasted all those moderator points I would have loved to spend on this thread to bring you this. :-(
Good job. You got yourself modded up by mentioning DECSS, and I don't think that was even covered by the karma whoring patent (I'd put the link in but it seems to not be around anymore... guys?). This is a bad example because a good part of the case is exactly that... is there anything wrong with the content that was linked to? That aside, the choice to link or not to link is up to the web publisher, this is a different issue than responsibility for the content that was linked to.
(iii) Smart Tags will probably be disabled by default, or at the very least be an option in the Internet Connection Wizard. This means the end user is actually defining how they want to parse your web site - whether they want the tags or not.
First, probably is not good enough. Second, the user can decide how my site looks, but the content is my business, hence it being MY site.
(iv) Third parties can provide their own smart tag filters to link wherever they like. This isn't a Microsoft-only club. You can even have a Slashdot smart tag if you like that links to articles on the subject.
To me this is one of the most disturbing issues. I don't want political, religious or any other type of special interest group to have any oppertunity to bombard me with propoganda. I especially don't want them able to bombard my web site with their propoganda.
(iv) This isn't about publisher's rights. Microsoft isn't changing what is published, they are effectively providing reference material on what is published. As I stated in (i), links aren't content - they are just references to other content.
And once again links are content. People choose to link or not link for specific reasons, and it is not the place of microsoft or anyone else to add or take away links. Especially when they do it in a way that may confuse users as to the provider of the content (and no, the squiggly purple lines are NOT different enough... many users won't get the distinction, and what about colorblind persons?)
If I was the type of insecure scoundrel that had to mod my own posts up I certainly wouldn't admit it.
I can't decide if you were kidding or serious on this one. I'll treat it like you were serious.
breathed the first light of the west's wisdom on those dark and primitive lands
Sorry, but the India has been civilized much longer than the west. They had streetlights in India when the europeans were still in caves.
When asked what he thought of western civilization, Ghandi replied "I think it would be a good idea."
I would have quoted more, but you get the idea. Ok, you're a writer, and you want a system on which to write. That's great, but why would you use Microsoft Word? If you really are a novelist name one "feature" that you actually need. Publishing houses don't run on word documents, so don't tell me about formatting. For a novel I can't really see you using OLE. Graphs? no. Oh wait, tables... no. hmmmmmm Auto spell checking? seems useless when you can save time by running it once at the end. Oooh, wait, the paper clip guy! I knew you had a good reason
Really, I'm just getting to my rant, and it is this. Microsoft Word (and WordPerfect, and any other word processor you can think of) is NOT the killer app. In fact, I would say that programs of that ilk are responsible for some of the worst business practices I have ever seen evolve (the absolute worse probably has to do with the proper use of AutoCAD, but I digress). Most of your larger companies have standards. Fonts, headers, etc... all have some sort of standard look and feel. Comnpanies that do most of their document management using Word Processor software have to open each document and reformat any time these standards change. People writing the documents have to constantly change their formatting as they write to accomdate these standards. Publishers are no different, they have standards to, and even if they don't, they need to change the formatting for a number of documents or several places in a document all at once(as in chapter headers) think they want to scroll through your word document to change all of the 'Arial' headers to 'Times New Roman'? Ask O'Reilly or New Riders how they manage their documents and books (Hint: it's NOT with word).
There are also many times when documents need to be found. For instance, if a key secratary leaves, that person may have been managing hundreds of documents in what ever fasion they had developed over the years. This documentation system might not be obvious to somone coming in 'blind'. With a word processor you have to open each file inside of that word processor to find a particular document you are looking for. There is no easy way to catagorize and index the documents left by that secratary.
Switching from word processors to a well designed mark up language (at one time I would have said SGML but now XML) will fix all of these problems, if implemented correctly. Since your headers, quotes, citations, body text, and everything else is now marked by function and not feel. It is trivial to select a formatting style when you produce output (display or print). If that important secratary leaves, it is a simple thing to take every document s/he had stored and index by date, subject, recipient, or any other field.
Anyone who is using a word processing program is castrating their computer in favor of a slightly more advanced pencil. Word, Word Perfect, etc... are good for keeping your resume, and perhaps writing a letter to a friend (if you were going to print it out and mail it). Even then, I'd stack a good markup editor aginst them any day.
I know I rambled, but this is a pet peeve of mine. In any case, I'd rather show business how much that office suite they love so much is hurting them than try to reproduce the same lump of steaming crap for GNU/Linux.
even though they're preparing to switch their workstations to Linux (but haven't yet) You say you are "in the know" about the situation, and I have no basis on which to argue that, so I won't. I will, however, quote the article once again:
...
Pixar Animation Studios, which helped bring Walt Disney Co. into computer-generated animation with "Toy Story," is also converting its workstations to Linux. The studio was in the process of switching from SGI technology to Microsoft's Windows NT platform, but shifted to Linux in midstream
I can't read this any other way than they were converting to NT, but are now converting to Linux. If this report is accurate, there are some techs at Pixar right now (or at least there were during working hours) switching users over to Linux based machines. I make this claim because 1) they were in the process of switching to NT - past tense; 2)they sre converting their workstations to Linux - present tense. If this report is in error, you have my apologies.
As for personal attacks, I did not make one. I only stated an opinion in regards the personal attack that, according to you, your employer made.
I just watched the "Making of Shrek" program on HBO, and in every shot that had a computer that system was an SGI running IRIX.
That's because they are preparing to move to Linux. Since Shrek is a completed product they wouldn't have used it yet. Look for Linux in the making of Shrek II, the quest for more money (or was that Spaceballs?).
but you won't see Linux replacing SGI and NT on the desktops of CG shops for a while ... My employer thinks my opinions are crap
... preparing to replace nearly half of its 1,300 SGI workstations with a variety of Linux-based hardware ... Pixar Animation Studios, which helped bring Walt Disney Co. into computer-generated animation with "Toy Story," is also converting its workstations to Linux.
Your employer is right. I quote:
Both of these quotes specifically say that they are switching their workstations to Linux. In regards to Pixar I'm quite sure that this means the machines the animators are using as they (according to the Toy Story II credits) previously used SGI workstations for animation and Sun servers for rendering. Doubt that one? Once again I quote:
Sun Microsystems Inc. gloats about Pixar's longtime use of its servers for features that include the coming "Monsters Inc."
As if that isn't enough, I'll close with:
But Linux is being used on an increasing number of animators' workstations, as well as the rendering servers that apply shades and textures to images that the artists create.
Please read the article before posting.
I just happy to see sombody finally stop squabbling over price and cite the TRUE benifit of Free Software :
"Although we're a shop of 1,300 people, we don't have the clout to get Microsoft to change their operating system," says Andy Hendrickson, director of systems development at Industrial Light & Magic. "With Linux, we can do it all ourselves."
It's refreshing to see somone tout the value of freedom.
Mozilla is miserable (crashes, doesn't work, etc)
.8 came out I have seen it crash once, and I use it for more than 10 hours/day, every day. I recently switched to .9 and am nothing but impressed.
.6. I think that this says a lot about when commercial companies consider something worthy of non beta release vs. OSS programmers consider it to be worthy of non beta release.
This was once true, but have you use it lately? Since Mozilla
I see your point but I think it's outdated.
The things I'm interested in out of this article are that 1) RH said that this was a question of philosophy - good move for those that argue OSS as a business model. and 2) the writer completely skipped the fact that Netscape 6 == Mozilla
I realize that:
1) you are an idiot
2) this is off topic
3) this post gets posted all the time
Still, I feel compelled to respond. You say that Linux does not affect the flow of money in the real world. In fact IDC and Deutsche Banc Alex.Brown estimate that Linux will have a financial impact of 11 billion dollars US this year and 75 billion dollars by the year 2004.
Whew, I responded to a troll.
My previous installs have gone OK. I haven't installed 7.1 before, though. I would guess that you probably needed to do your install through YaST instead of YaST2. You could probably get it going by typing yast from the rescue boot but I've never actually tried that so I don't know. Yast does make it easy to install over the network (lucky for you w/ no cd drive), all you have to do is change the installation media to the ftp site (or a mirror). In any case, I'm glad you got something working for you besides Solaris.
For the people asking why use Linux instead of Solaris? two reasons: 1) it's LOTS faster. 2) Free as in speech.
SuSE just released their latest version (7.1) for SPARC. It includes the 2.4 kernel and KDE2.
they won't have to worry about deploying/managing updates and upgrades
What? How won't they? As somone who has spent time developing and excecuting plans to deploy and upgrade software packages across the enteprise (I spent a year as a consultant for Production Management in a telecom firm, we managed the software on several thousand pc's and servers for y2k) I can tell you that a major upgrade every three years will be a severe setback and expense for many companies. Stop, you were going to say SMS weren't you? SMS is NOT qualified to upgrade several thousand PC's at once (I know this all to well).
The other thing you don't seem to understand is the way some companies will stick to standards. I was consulting for an engineering company some time ago. Take a guess what their word processing department was using. WordPerfect 5.1 for dos. I kid you not. Why? It has a certain font that had become a company standard, so they used it just to get that one font. Software hangs around longer than you think. Did you know that until 1998 Win3.1 was still the most deployed desktop in the world? My point is that for most people and especially most companies this WILL be a problem. As other's have said, companies would rather just get somehting installed and go with it. And for the people who like to talk about taxes, they fail to realize that companies would rather depriciate their software and hardware for loss dollars than anything else (including lease).
I have worked with both Business Objects and Cognos as an application architect and as an administrator and I can say without a doubt that Cognos kicks BI's ass all over the place. Cognos was designed WELL. It is scalable, configurable, stable, and it sets up fast. BI has the most bass-ackwards clustering I have seen, Is tempermantal at best, and only fully supports NT. (I don't know if that's an issue for you or not). I must admit that I haven't done a large amount of work with either one as a user (like many people here, I don't use that type of tool for data analisys... but then most programmers/admins don't) so I can't speak to it being easy to use or effective. I will say that considering your requirements I would NOT use Crystal Reports. It certainly does NOT seem like it would fit your needs. For what you are describing you need Business Objects or Cognos, and I would easily reccomend Cognos.
I really liked this one:
At about 2200, we were reconfiguring some mail files which, with a lot of help from Windows NT, got put in the wrong place during the backup procedure.
I don't think that there is anything I can add that would do it justice.
Blame the users, not the software!
/. is populated with trolls and idiots there is no reason to think that the same type of forum, populated with professionals, couldn't be a succesful arena for the exchange of ideas. I agree that I wouldn't want anyone in the world to have post access (just like not everyone gets commit access to the Mozilla CVS) but for limited group the form has merits.
You are blaming the software for the faults of the users. Just because
part of the problem might have been in the homes and family lives of the shooters.
I think you might be missing your own point about personal responsiblity. No matter how much you (and many others) want to avoid it, the fact is that nobody but the kids are to blame. While I'll agree that their parents didn't provide a good environment for them and the school was apathetic at best, the fact remains that those young adults decided and planned to pick up guns and bombs, take them to a public place (school) and kill people with them. Nobody is more responsible than they are, and they are dead. Everybody seems to be participating in this fact finding orgy to figure out who is to blame for what happened. Blame the people who did it.
If my 3 year old breaks my VCR by cramming a tape in sideways, I blame him for not following the rules. It was, after all, his fault. Perhaps their parents didn't teach them responsibility for their own actions, but I don't think that it makes the kids any less responsible.
Microsoft made it's Q4 2000 numbers by selling off many of it's stakes it "other" businesses, for instance Web TV. Add to that the fact that Microsoft is STILL considered to be overvalued at ~$60 and I would say that yes, it is on the ropes. And 10 billion in revenues is not huge, as has been previously noted.
So far we have 4 sites completely /.'d - The real site, two GeoCities sites and an independant mirror. Is this some sort of record? If I read about a new outbreak of DDoS incedents(aimed at Yahoo and a site in Japan, of course) on CNN, I'm really going to be ROTFLMAO.
touche
:-)
I bow to your superiour research
I understand that it is hoped that the advanced features of TUX 1.0 will eventually make their way into Apache.
I understand you didn't check your facts. The main feature of TUX will NEVER make it into Apache. It's impossible because the main feature of TUX is that it is compilied into the kernel. I'm not defending Microsoft on this one, I would consider uptime and security to be important factors, more so than performance. If they are looking for performance only, tell them to look at using Netscape iPlanet (sorry, but TUX isn't by any means ready for prime time) on their OS of choice.
You make an excellent point about the file extensions, especially for a developer (that wan't a dig, most developers get scared when I make changes to the system... they always thing it will break their app...). I don't think that the comment about hotfixes was off base, it happens fairly often. This is, of course, a result of people being human again. Sorry I'm answering your comments randomly... I never said you should ASSUME that the patch doesn't work, I just said you souldn't ASSUME that it does. I quote Paul Leach... "We deliberately and cynically make the smallest band-aid fixes we can, just enough to convince customers that the problem is fixed when it really isn't". - I admit that's taken out of context so he may have meant it as sarcasm, but Microsoft has many times shown this to be true in their actions. I agree about the global.asa file, but I'm so tired of fighting that war I finally just gave up. The last thing I'll say is that Microsoft should put those fixes (smart administration, such as removing the rouge file extensions) into the MCSE cirriculum(sp?). Right now they have a bunch of worthless hacks running around with no idea, but who have a certificate from Microsoft saying they know their shit. (I tech review guys constantly... 99% of MCSEs don't know the difference between regedit.exe and regedt32.exe).
the other last thing I'll say is thanks for replying. That is much more important to me than being modded up or down. Sorry again for the random replies, I'm in a hurry.
Erm, the bug (in IIS4 and IIS5) was patched on July 17th, and if I interpret the text correctly, that's THE SAME...
Yes. You did interpret the text correctly. Your failing, however, it to assume that MSPatch==ProblemFixed. I am an MCSE and a security consultant. I have been doing this since 1997. Right now I'm managing the security on about 200 NT 4 servers. My experience would lead me to guess that either one of two things happened: A) The fix was a "band-aid" that defeated the given exploit code but ignored root cause B) The patch was merged into the wrong source tree and was subsequently broken by the next patch.
Both of these are very common occurences. I have had to back many hot fixes out because of regression errors. I have also seen many cases (especially in the last few months) where Microsoft has released a patch only to release a second patch a few days later because the first one was inadiquate. I'm not saying that the Nasdaq admins didn't drop the ball, I don't know the specifics of their environment. Making OS updates that often is a pain, even Microsoft has trouble keepi ng up. I find this whole thing funny simply because Microsoft has spent the last two years holding the Nasdaq up as one of their big success stories. I hope lots of CIO's see that article so that we can start to bring sanity to the server room and shed the Microsoft shackles.