They could install from that CD on one machine, and then do network installs for the rest; if you install 100 or 1000 machines from that one, and then use them as install hosts for the other ~269900, you'd be done in no time with only one CD.
You're right, that probably is too complicated for the State Dept. of IT.
Second, imagine some radical group in the US. posting instructions on how to hijack some planes
and fly them into skyscrapers on the internet. Don't you think your FBI would shut these sites
down as soon as words gets out?
There goes your "free speech"...
q.e.d.
The really funny thing is that this is all documented very well in any number of books at your local public library, like The Running Man (for the crashing) and various other true and fictional books to describe how to do the hijacking itself. The average American has seen plenty of movies that involve airplane hijackings; figuring out how to do it yourself (note: this is not something I'm advocating here) would not be that difficult. Especially if you don't even use guns to do it.
In the U.S. you can still buy The Anarchist's Cookbook even! But you may have to go to court to defend that right, just like xs4all is in this case. So there is no absolute freedom of speech without at least the money to back it up.
Intranets. Which, unfortunately, won't be as affected by a usable IE alternative, since businesses have internally standardized on Windows desktops and thus Windows-platform-specific intranet content. Internal IT departments don't have to provide a choice - even if large parts of the company have to use *nix machines, they can still rule by fiat that Windows is the order of the day.
But that's an artificial limitation - "Professional" is essentially the same as "Server" in terms of the OS; one is just configured a little differently to do client connection limiting, say "Professional" on startup, etc. A while back there was even a registry hack to change one into the other.
You're buying into market differentiation if you think that somehow one of them is "extra strength" and the other one isn't. Microsoft just wants to fool you into spending more for "industrial strength", and they did.
Hang on - he's only distorting the targetted ads, not the real search results, right? So in the worst case he's ruining the market for advertising on Google, but he's not harming the actual search results.
...and then those diet pills ended up killing people by hurting their hearts, didn't they? It's good to be cautious about "miracle cures", whether it's for your flab, or for the planet's atmosphere.
What's funny is that I pay more attention to topics that I consider threatening - for example, Microsoft, infringements on civil liberties, etc. Whether or not open source is really a danger to you, do you really think burying your head in the sand is the appropriate response? Besides, you might learn something:)
I know that a lot of people are going to say "show off command-line stuff", and I personally am Mr. Command Line as well, but that's not the direction to go into for this demo. Sit down in front of VB or VC++ for a while (if you can make yourself:) and mess around with creating forms, plugging in other people's objects, etc. That is what those guys are used to; you want to convince them that they can do that same sort of thing on *nix, often in a simpler way.
I'd say make sure to include a demo of Glade for building interfaces, and maybe some brief Perl OO training. Show that *nix doesn't have to be monolithic and inflexible, like they probably think right now.
Show how easy it is to find software for the types of system administration tasks that they would be doing, and how easy it is to configure that software to work exactly the way that you want. Play up the "openness" of it all.
Hand out a sheet with info on where to find help - linuxdoc.org, man pages, etc. Also, how to use "apropos" or "man -k" - because these guys won't know what man page they want right away.
Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to have a really sharp-looking window manager session running for the demo - you know, the ones like they demo on themes.org. DO NOT just use the default RH 7.2 desktop. Appearance counts, even when it doesn't:)
Powerful, true, but on the other hand most of the power comes from regexp syntax that might be a little off-putting to someone who's never seen that before.
I've used both, in fact (I wouldn't have replied otherwise) - both Microsoft languages/development tools as well as Microsoft SDKs/specific APIs. And in both cases, if you do things the way that Microsoft expects you to, things more-or-less work. If you happen to have your own ideas about how you'd like to use, say, WinSNMP, then things generally are much more difficult to get to work. Amusingly, the answers to some of my more complicated questions come from searching Google to find links in MSDN; the built-in MSDN search/index functionality never seems to come up with anything useful that I haven't already looked into.
I think it's an attitude thing more than anything - MSDN itself, and many of the programmers who rely on it, seem to exude this feeling that all the good thoughts have already been thought up in Redmond. It isn't as an attractive a model for someone with their own ideas, especially once that someone is aware how easily they can get their ideas to work on other platforms:(
I think it's pretty clear by now that it's a farce. Let me amend my previous comment - you can be prosecuted, but it doesn't look like you get punished.
Correction - one can find out how to do something the Microsoft Way. Try to do something that you may have learned from an actual CS class, or (god forbid) apply programming concepts from other platforms, and you're SOL.
MSDN supports people that think in the Microsoft way. Nobody else need apply.
Yep, that's some good common sense thinking, there. Which will last until some industry or the FCC gets worked up about it and makes it illegal - just like cell phone scanners. Unfortunately, the law doesn't have to square with common sense, and in some cases goes out of its way to avoid it:)
The correct solution is technical - just use hard encryption for your signal, and you couldn't care less who's snooping on it. But I wouldn't complain too much if the actual solution just makes receivers illegal; at least such a law would ensure a wide variety of exciting video experiences for those willing to put together their own receivers...
Frankly, I wouldn't introduce my significant other to any of those freaks, but I suppose billions of dollars does kind of tend to have a reality-distortion-field effect.
This crowed is apparently not a spelling-oriented croud, though (although points for trying every possible incorrect spelling:). Which is sad, considering that they're supposed to be old enough to be out of high school and even college at the ripe old age of 25-36. Oh wait, I forgot - "technology oriented" is code for "can't spell worth a damn". CmdrTaco, for instance, is "technology oriented". Articles about gaming seem to bring out the "technology oriented".
- ethereal, likes games as well as the next guy, but has just decided that he doesn't want to be known as "technology oriented".
I don't know what planet you're from, but games and consoles do crash. Mostly this is hardware related - for example, I originally bought a used PS rather than a PS1, and had all sorts of heat problems until I traded up. I've seen console games themselves crash or get hosed on occasion, too - especially when you consider the increased complexity of console games in the last few years, it stands to reason that it can't all be tested perfectly.
I dunno about the other stuff you're saying, since I haven't really got an Xbox or researched it at all, but I will dispute the argument that games don't crash, because I've seen it happen. Now, not ever being able to complete a game sounds more like hardware problems, but it's still the end-user experience that this or that console and/or game sucks. Console users don't want any crashes at all.
They sued that one guy for "threatening" them with a cruise missile. I wouldn't be making threats of imminent physical harm that you can't defend in a long and costly court battle.
There was a letter by a Scientologist in the local paper recently - something about using L. Ron's new drug "Narcanon" or something like that to wean kids off of drugs. I don't want to think what it's weaning them off of.
The Congressional Record may be malleable, but footage of Congress in action is still stored at CNN, CSPAN, etc. Not that corporations are any less corruptible, but at least the information is replicated a little, so there's a better chance of exposing revisionist history.
Slashdot Mirror
They could install from that CD on one machine, and then do network installs for the rest; if you install 100 or 1000 machines from that one, and then use them as install hosts for the other ~269900, you'd be done in no time with only one CD.
You're right, that probably is too complicated for the State Dept. of IT.
The really funny thing is that this is all documented very well in any number of books at your local public library, like The Running Man (for the crashing) and various other true and fictional books to describe how to do the hijacking itself. The average American has seen plenty of movies that involve airplane hijackings; figuring out how to do it yourself (note: this is not something I'm advocating here) would not be that difficult. Especially if you don't even use guns to do it.
In the U.S. you can still buy The Anarchist's Cookbook even! But you may have to go to court to defend that right, just like xs4all is in this case. So there is no absolute freedom of speech without at least the money to back it up.
Intranets. Which, unfortunately, won't be as affected by a usable IE alternative, since businesses have internally standardized on Windows desktops and thus Windows-platform-specific intranet content. Internal IT departments don't have to provide a choice - even if large parts of the company have to use *nix machines, they can still rule by fiat that Windows is the order of the day.
No, I'm not bitter :)
But that's an artificial limitation - "Professional" is essentially the same as "Server" in terms of the OS; one is just configured a little differently to do client connection limiting, say "Professional" on startup, etc. A while back there was even a registry hack to change one into the other.
You're buying into market differentiation if you think that somehow one of them is "extra strength" and the other one isn't. Microsoft just wants to fool you into spending more for "industrial strength", and they did.
What's that sound? Ah yes - Joel Spolsky spinning in his, erm, website.
Orange you glad I didn't ask you another one?
Hang on - he's only distorting the targetted ads, not the real search results, right? So in the worst case he's ruining the market for advertising on Google, but he's not harming the actual search results.
...and then those diet pills ended up killing people by hurting their hearts, didn't they? It's good to be cautious about "miracle cures", whether it's for your flab, or for the planet's atmosphere.
Too bad - I was really hoping you could work in "charnel house" somewhere, but I suppose that's tough in the rhyme and meter that you've chosen.
What's funny is that I pay more attention to topics that I consider threatening - for example, Microsoft, infringements on civil liberties, etc. Whether or not open source is really a danger to you, do you really think burying your head in the sand is the appropriate response? Besides, you might learn something :)
...and cue Slashdot whining about how you shouldn't post links to the good sites so they don't get taken down.
...Leading to:
"Slow Down Cowboy! - you have to wait two minutes between submissions to give others a chance to tattle on pirates."
I know that a lot of people are going to say "show off command-line stuff", and I personally am Mr. Command Line as well, but that's not the direction to go into for this demo. Sit down in front of VB or VC++ for a while (if you can make yourself :) and mess around with creating forms, plugging in other people's objects, etc. That is what those guys are used to; you want to convince them that they can do that same sort of thing on *nix, often in a simpler way.
I'd say make sure to include a demo of Glade for building interfaces, and maybe some brief Perl OO training. Show that *nix doesn't have to be monolithic and inflexible, like they probably think right now.
Show how easy it is to find software for the types of system administration tasks that they would be doing, and how easy it is to configure that software to work exactly the way that you want. Play up the "openness" of it all.
Hand out a sheet with info on where to find help - linuxdoc.org, man pages, etc. Also, how to use "apropos" or "man -k" - because these guys won't know what man page they want right away.
Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to have a really sharp-looking window manager session running for the demo - you know, the ones like they demo on themes.org. DO NOT just use the default RH 7.2 desktop. Appearance counts, even when it doesn't :)
Powerful, true, but on the other hand most of the power comes from regexp syntax that might be a little off-putting to someone who's never seen that before.
I've used both, in fact (I wouldn't have replied otherwise) - both Microsoft languages/development tools as well as Microsoft SDKs/specific APIs. And in both cases, if you do things the way that Microsoft expects you to, things more-or-less work. If you happen to have your own ideas about how you'd like to use, say, WinSNMP, then things generally are much more difficult to get to work. Amusingly, the answers to some of my more complicated questions come from searching Google to find links in MSDN; the built-in MSDN search/index functionality never seems to come up with anything useful that I haven't already looked into.
I think it's an attitude thing more than anything - MSDN itself, and many of the programmers who rely on it, seem to exude this feeling that all the good thoughts have already been thought up in Redmond. It isn't as an attractive a model for someone with their own ideas, especially once that someone is aware how easily they can get their ideas to work on other platforms :(
I think it's pretty clear by now that it's a farce. Let me amend my previous comment - you can be prosecuted, but it doesn't look like you get punished.
Correction - one can find out how to do something the Microsoft Way. Try to do something that you may have learned from an actual CS class, or (god forbid) apply programming concepts from other platforms, and you're SOL.
MSDN supports people that think in the Microsoft way. Nobody else need apply.
That's OK - recent history indicates that you won't be prosecuted even if you abuse it :)
Yep, that's some good common sense thinking, there. Which will last until some industry or the FCC gets worked up about it and makes it illegal - just like cell phone scanners. Unfortunately, the law doesn't have to square with common sense, and in some cases goes out of its way to avoid it :)
The correct solution is technical - just use hard encryption for your signal, and you couldn't care less who's snooping on it. But I wouldn't complain too much if the actual solution just makes receivers illegal; at least such a law would ensure a wide variety of exciting video experiences for those willing to put together their own receivers...
Time to mod back down - it doesn't work anymore.
It could have been worse:
Ballmer: Develop Her! Develop Her! Develop Her! Develop Her!
Frankly, I wouldn't introduce my significant other to any of those freaks, but I suppose billions of dollars does kind of tend to have a reality-distortion-field effect.
This crowed is apparently not a spelling-oriented croud, though (although points for trying every possible incorrect spelling :). Which is sad, considering that they're supposed to be old enough to be out of high school and even college at the ripe old age of 25-36. Oh wait, I forgot - "technology oriented" is code for "can't spell worth a damn". CmdrTaco, for instance, is "technology oriented". Articles about gaming seem to bring out the "technology oriented".
- ethereal, likes games as well as the next guy, but has just decided that he doesn't want to be known as "technology oriented".
I don't know what planet you're from, but games and consoles do crash. Mostly this is hardware related - for example, I originally bought a used PS rather than a PS1, and had all sorts of heat problems until I traded up. I've seen console games themselves crash or get hosed on occasion, too - especially when you consider the increased complexity of console games in the last few years, it stands to reason that it can't all be tested perfectly.
I dunno about the other stuff you're saying, since I haven't really got an Xbox or researched it at all, but I will dispute the argument that games don't crash, because I've seen it happen. Now, not ever being able to complete a game sounds more like hardware problems, but it's still the end-user experience that this or that console and/or game sucks. Console users don't want any crashes at all.
They sued that one guy for "threatening" them with a cruise missile. I wouldn't be making threats of imminent physical harm that you can't defend in a long and costly court battle.
There was a letter by a Scientologist in the local paper recently - something about using L. Ron's new drug "Narcanon" or something like that to wean kids off of drugs. I don't want to think what it's weaning them off of.
The Congressional Record may be malleable, but footage of Congress in action is still stored at CNN, CSPAN, etc. Not that corporations are any less corruptible, but at least the information is replicated a little, so there's a better chance of exposing revisionist history.