Find me a Linux distro where the 10 year old version is considered better than the newest version by 90% of the users; and the new versions are avoided by non-Luddite companies such as Intel.
Seems only someone with Ballmer's management skills can accomplish such a feat.
I agree, you might try contacting someplace like David Rumsey Historical Map Collection to see if they would be interested in helping, or might otherwise make recommendations.
You might not be able to push a new server and new ways of working, but perhaps you could push a new service. Look into dropbox, and try selling it as backup, revision control, remote access, and the ability to easily transfer files with clients. Don't sell it as a fix to the son's problems, but a way for him to be productive outside the office as well as in. Appeal to the company being left behind technically if they don't start using cloud services for backup and revision control (with dropbox, the files will be backed up on Amazon's EC2 servers.) It runs on Mac, Linux, and even Windows, so all the systems can utilize the tool.
I would also spend some time working on my resume.
Now those rumors about Microsoft purchasing the Shake-Weight company makes perfect sense - the paring on sales at Amazon are going to skyrocket Shake-Weight sales. Running low on energy always reseting your phone from a BSOD? Get Shake-Weight and have the arm strength you need to reset any Microsoft phone....
Quoting the earlier story: "Now a team led by Los Alamos National Labs thinks it knows why. They say that although the forces that terahertz waves exert on double-stranded DNA are tiny, in certain circumstances resonant effects can unzip the DNA strands, tearing them apart. This creates bubbles in the strands that can significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. With terahertz scanners already appearing in airports and hospitals, the question that now urgently needs answering is what level of exposure is safe."
Well stated, but I think when you also combine this news with the recent story that MSFT is looking to double the price of an XBOX Live subscription to $100/year or more, then it paints a picture that MSFT is getting desperate to squeeze a profit out of their gaming devision for fear of losing the whole thing if they don't soon. Makes me really wonder about their financial picture in general that they seem to not be able to invest in this area with a long term growth vision anymore, even when they are currently losing to the Wii.
It is rather funny (and sad) that so much of the IT industry is still awash in problems that were observed, and solutions published for, with UNIX years ago. I've read at least three UNIX books that address this issue, among others. And yet the majority of IT industry (and even many "CS" programs) act like there just is not any solution to these problems, when I learned of them in undergraduate level courses.
"This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface." - Doug McIlroy
"Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." - Henry Spencer
Some might even say this is just a part of Microsoft's proxy battle with Google, a quid pro quo after Microsoft's heavy investment in Facebook. But everyone would just laugh if Ballmer said the same stupid thing.
No, but I predict people will start pronouncing it as "Bung". As in:
I went to google the answer, but this damn computer has the wrong search installed and my question went down the bung hole!
I love how the live desktop search tells you everything install chronologically after it is going to stop functioning if you remove the MS search. Well, maybe bung will finally let you find answers to technical issues half as well as google search - then MS might be able to bribe some more people to play with it's bung.
Personally, I think the future of high end computing is going to be mostly in medicine and genetics - not something your Aunt Tilly is likely to be doing in her garage.
I can't help but notice it looks a lot like this guy's ride. If they could work out immunity from DWI than I suspect they could probably sell quite a few of them.
Lumenary7204 said:
> The Net Applications survey seems to be centered on desktops and personal-use devices only, while Microsoft's graphic conceivably includes OS deployment across all kinds of devices (desktops, servers, network appliances, etc.).
It would be a nice feature on a motherboard to have four shunt pin switches that determines the first boot drive priority from the four SATA drives. They could ship the motherboard with just the drive 0 shunted, but then you could get a four position switch that would shunt the different pins. It would not have any effect if turned when the computer is on, but could signal the bios to the top boot priority during post (and just have the bios default to 0 if either multiple or no pins are shunted.)
Go to one of the SAGE conferences, and you will have a hard time finding a Windows notebook, other than the Microsoft employees. They are pretty scarce at the O'Reilly conferences as well. (Yes, I only use Linux on the desktop.)
Anyway, that is not a "typical" netbook - it even has an old slow hard drive rather than a modern SSD, but my example is - a Dell Mini 9. Which can not run Vista, and will not be able to run Windows 7 (or should we say Mojave 1.5?), because it has the same (or worse) hardware requirements. Lets look at Windows 7 minimum requirements
1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
1GB of main memory
16GB of available disk space
Support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)
No, that won't fit on any Dell Mini 9's being sold, so how is it more efficient like XP again? (The default Dell mini 9 sells with 512MB of RAM, and a 4GB SSD, and maxes out at 1GB RAM, with 8GB SSD. This does not even begin to look at performance and actually running anything useful, for which for every past release of Windows you have to basically double whatever MS says the minimum requirements are.
Chris Flores from the Windows Vista Team Blog said,
"One of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7."
So how exactly will Win7 fit on your Dell Mini 9? It won't, Microsoft just figures if they lie often enough there will be enough suckers who believe it.
Slashdot Mirror
Find me a Linux distro where the 10 year old version is considered better than the newest version by 90% of the users; and the new versions are avoided by non-Luddite companies such as Intel.
Seems only someone with Ballmer's management skills can accomplish such a feat.
That's easy, it will see the big red nose and recommend "Pineapple Juice"
Why not, it worked out pretty well for them last time, and now they will be better prepared.
I agree, you might try contacting someplace like David Rumsey Historical Map Collection to see if they would be interested in helping, or might otherwise make recommendations.
A collection of other links that might be of interest:
Historical Map Web Sites
The files you work on are local copies - you do not even need to be online to work.
You might not be able to push a new server and new ways of working, but perhaps you could push a new service. Look into dropbox, and try selling it as backup, revision control, remote access, and the ability to easily transfer files with clients. Don't sell it as a fix to the son's problems, but a way for him to be productive outside the office as well as in. Appeal to the company being left behind technically if they don't start using cloud services for backup and revision control (with dropbox, the files will be backed up on Amazon's EC2 servers.) It runs on Mac, Linux, and even Windows, so all the systems can utilize the tool.
I would also spend some time working on my resume.
Now those rumors about Microsoft purchasing the Shake-Weight company makes perfect sense - the paring on sales at Amazon are going to skyrocket Shake-Weight sales. Running low on energy always reseting your phone from a BSOD? Get Shake-Weight and have the arm strength you need to reset any Microsoft phone....
This is a better link to information on the damage to DNA from Terahertz scanners. It was covered in Slashdot earlier, don't know why it is not a related story.
Quoting the earlier story:
"Now a team led by Los Alamos National Labs thinks it knows why. They say that although the forces that terahertz waves exert on double-stranded DNA are tiny, in certain circumstances resonant effects can unzip the DNA strands, tearing them apart. This creates bubbles in the strands that can significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. With terahertz scanners already appearing in airports and hospitals, the question that now urgently needs answering is what level of exposure is safe."
Well stated, but I think when you also combine this news with the recent story that MSFT is looking to double the price of an XBOX Live subscription to $100/year or more, then it paints a picture that MSFT is getting desperate to squeeze a profit out of their gaming devision for fear of losing the whole thing if they don't soon. Makes me really wonder about their financial picture in general that they seem to not be able to invest in this area with a long term growth vision anymore, even when they are currently losing to the Wii.
It is rather funny (and sad) that so much of the IT industry is still awash in problems that were observed, and solutions published for, with UNIX years ago. I've read at least three UNIX books that address this issue, among others. And yet the majority of IT industry (and even many "CS" programs) act like there just is not any solution to these problems, when I learned of them in undergraduate level courses.
"This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface." - Doug McIlroy
"Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." - Henry Spencer
Some might even say this is just a part of Microsoft's proxy battle with Google, a quid pro quo after Microsoft's heavy investment in Facebook. But everyone would just laugh if Ballmer said the same stupid thing.
Punxsutawney Phil! Thank you, I was racking my brain for a reference I knew I was missing!
No, but I predict people will start pronouncing it as "Bung". As in:
I went to google the answer, but this damn computer has the wrong search installed and my question went down the bung hole!
I love how the live desktop search tells you everything install chronologically after it is going to stop functioning if you remove the MS search. Well, maybe bung will finally let you find answers to technical issues half as well as google search - then MS might be able to bribe some more people to play with it's bung.
Oh, you mean like that time that the Massive Microsoft WGA meltdown fingered legit Vista and XP owners as pirates?
;-)
Lot's of fun I think - but since Microsoft is changing the name from WGA to WAT you should trust them to put the kill switch in your computer
I'm so happy I can do all my computing without having anyone's kill switch in my computer... sorry was I gloating?
Not science so much, but an interesting view of history and science in HG Wells:
The Outline of History
Don't count on it, high end digital cameras have already hit the "good enough" barrier in terms of adding mega-pixels, so normal users will never hit "32MP" photos.
Personally, I think the future of high end computing is going to be mostly in medicine and genetics - not something your Aunt Tilly is likely to be doing in her garage.
I can't help but notice it looks a lot like this guy's ride. If they could work out immunity from DWI than I suspect they could probably sell quite a few of them.
> Less "beta" and more "it's not WinME/Vista redux, honest!", I guess.
Windows 7 is Mojave , not Vista 1.5!
Lumenary7204 said:
> The Net Applications survey seems to be centered on desktops and personal-use devices only, while Microsoft's graphic conceivably includes OS deployment across all kinds of devices (desktops, servers, network appliances, etc.).
According to EWeek, you are wrong and Ballmer was only discussing desktops with that slide. This seems to be collaborated by this story at brighthand which shows a different Ballmer slide just for phone OS share. Which makes the original story more interesting....
It would be a nice feature on a motherboard to have four shunt pin switches that determines the first boot drive priority from the four SATA drives. They could ship the motherboard with just the drive 0 shunted, but then you could get a four position switch that would shunt the different pins. It would not have any effect if turned when the computer is on, but could signal the bios to the top boot priority during post (and just have the bios default to 0 if either multiple or no pins are shunted.)
than guess what, you not only are a spammer, but you probably also broke the law.
Go to one of the SAGE conferences, and you will have a hard time finding a Windows notebook, other than the Microsoft employees. They are pretty scarce at the O'Reilly conferences as well. (Yes, I only use Linux on the desktop.)
Anyway, that is not a "typical" netbook - it even has an old slow hard drive rather than a modern SSD, but my example is - a Dell Mini 9. Which can not run Vista, and will not be able to run Windows 7 (or should we say Mojave 1.5?), because it has the same (or worse) hardware requirements. Lets look at Windows 7 minimum requirements
No, that won't fit on any Dell Mini 9's being sold, so how is it more efficient like XP again? (The default Dell mini 9 sells with 512MB of RAM, and a 4GB SSD, and maxes out at 1GB RAM, with 8GB SSD. This does not even begin to look at performance and actually running anything useful, for which for every past release of Windows you have to basically double whatever MS says the minimum requirements are.
Exactly, Windows 7 == Vista SP3
Chris Flores from the Windows Vista Team Blog said,
"One of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7."
So how exactly will Win7 fit on your Dell Mini 9? It won't, Microsoft just figures if they lie often enough there will be enough suckers who believe it.