The advantage that TW has right now with their DVR is that (AFAIK) they have one that records HD programming and actually works - at a cost of just $10/mon. It's my understanding that the TiVo HD DVR not only costs $1k, but also seems to have some major build quality issues (they fail after a short while or something of that nature?).
there could be a quick patch that removes the uselib function unless the user has built in kernel support for something other than ELF binaries. From what others have posted, this is a legacy function that has long gone out of vogue.
I was talking about this idea to a coworker the other day. It seems to me that this is a no brainer - Firefox, et. al. would store things like bookmarks, cookies, and settings on a central server. The browser would read/write to this via a simple web service-style application.
This way, all you have to do is provide firefox with a URL and it works the same on any computer that you use. I'm surprized that this doesn't exist yet in some form, although the Bookmarks Sync. extension is a step in that direction.
It may or may not be a consideration, but Kinkos might wipe the machines to protect from licensing troubles... Say I go to Kinkos to print something and need to install a font on the system. I probably have a licensed right to do so (most font licenses allow this, IIRC) but it must be removed from the system after printing.
By wiping the machine fresh each time, they don't have to worry about any spyware *or* licensing issues & the user can install whatever they need to get their printing done.
One step closer to taking the "Holy Orders"
on
Bibble 4.0 for Linux
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
This is excellent news. I've been using Capture One's software on my PC for a while now to convert RAW images and do the basic digital-darkroom stuff. Unfortunately, the software does not run in Linux and the company (not surprisingly) has no plans to support it. Their software is quite expensive, but does the job nicely.
Bibble looks like a very complete package. I'll certainly be doing a thorough feature comparison and then will *very* strongly consider purchasing the Linux version. Working with my photos has been on the of last roadblocks for me running a linux-only workstation... I'm looking forward to trying this out!
"Hibernate is simply trading more features for increased complexity. ActiveRecord appears to be taking a more bare bones approach."
Yep - I think that's the point. I'm not knocking Hibernate, either - Java development is what pays the bills for me too; it's just hard to swallow the Hibernate requirements after you use something like ActiveRecord a bit. Hibernate clearly has more features and is significantly more mature than AR (just a few months old). That said, you can do a lot with AR after you scratch the surface - just a matter of looking at some of the examples.
XDoclet does simplify things a bit & is a good way to deal with that. Yes, AR is (AFAIK) tied to working with SQL databases. Also, Ruby itself has the capability to connect to Oracle and SQL Server with the proper driver. AR requires a special interface be implemented for access to a given brand of database since it retrieves more information about the tables than the typical ruby-dbms driver provides (at least, I think this is why; I haven't dug into it much). It's pretty straightforward to implement and it's where you would do things such as custom handlers for things like sequences. Hopefully more of these will be contributed to the project soon as people use AR against Oracle, et. al.
Thanks for some good discussion (typically hard to find here...). -Ryan
Agreed; to be fair, it is not appropriate to compare Rails to Hibernate. Rather it is better to compare ActiveRecord (the persistance portion of Rails (which, btw is fully independant of the web framework)) to Hibernate.
Given a table "Items" with many attributes describing an item, the *complete* code that you'd need to write to represent this object in the program is:
class Item < ActiveRecord::Base end
No XML mappings, no attribute accessors, nothing but this code (to be 100% correct, there needs to be a line in a class somewhere that just tells ActiveRecord how to connect to the DB, but that's truly all). More complicated things like relations are just as trivial to add. Sure, this is *not* the Ruby equivalent of a "POJO", but who cares? Are you really serious in that your objects are so much more "pure" (or, I guess "plain")? Take away the many dozen lines of XML config and your app is *not* going to work; I'd hardly say that your objects are plain - they're merely decorated by a step after the compilier.
Plus - want to add a new attribute to the object? With AR, all you do is add a column to the table. That's *ALL*. What do you do with Hibernate? Add a column to the table, add a private member and accessors to the POJO, and finally add lines in the XML config file that map that column into the object. The next steps involve testing it and then figuring out which thing you spelled incorrectly in the XML config that's preventing your app from working ("Oh - I spelled it 'naem' instead of 'name'!").
ActiveRecord is a core part of Rails; it's easy to forget that Rails a whole framework and that Hibernate is simply persistence. It just seems like Hibernate must be doing more since the so much more work involved in getting it running...
Rails is a pretty incredible framework. It really makes developing webapps (at least the core functionality) a trivial procedure. While clearly not as "High performance" as a Java/hibernate app could potentially be, it can handle more than enough load for nearly all applications. It's certainly worth checking out - even if you can't use it in production, you can prototype an app *very* quickly. The author has a neat "contest" between a Hibernate app and the same concept developed in Rails on his blog.
Java *is* quite verbose. But, that's just Java. Fortunately we're getting some more sane iterator constructs in the 1.5 release, but Java will probably always be a highly verbose language (declaring types everywhere, semi-colons at the line ends, etc.)
I'm a big fan of Ruby, but as far as Java integration goes I'm not sure how actively developed it is. The JRuby project may or may not have a lot of steam behind it. Groovy, on the other hand, is being developed pretty actively and does eliminate a lot of the verbosity.
Jim Weirich has an excellent presentation about Groovy that shows a simple Java app convert into Groovy, bit-by-bit &explains the steps along the way. highly recommended!http://onestepback.org/articles/groovy/
I'm not suggesting that you are not, but the key to being successful (efficient) at the cmd line is to have a certain level of mastery over the tools which are available. I know what you're saying in your example about moving the "30 of 500" files created today using the gui. A fairly simple "find" using one of it's many flags can do all this and more (and very quickly & correctly). For example, the "-newer " flag will only match files that are newer than the given file. "man find" shows off the tons of options available to you.
I think it's critical to learn what tools you have and how to use them correctly before you can really say "this is easier to do here vs. here".
Unfortunately that is the problem with the Dell 8600 (and 8500 like I have). APM is not an option on these laptops and the only available DSDT that works is a bit tricky to figure out.
I've had to go back and forth on my laptop with Linux and XP mostly because of that fact... it's pretty hard to deal with no suspend on a laptop.
I'm liking this/. subscription thing! I would have never have been able to read this if I didn't get the "preview release" article....
Thanks to good records and a Small Claims judge, Steve Oualline got a $199 refund for his unused copy of Microsoft Windows XP. One Linux user's story shows how to establish a good refund case.
Getting a Microsoft Windows refund from a manufacturer is seldom easy to do. In this article, I describe some techniques you can use to get your refund, including how to deal with the manufacturers (and all their excuses) and going to small claims court.
The first step to getting a refund is to ask for on. In most every case, you immediately hit a wall of stupidity and evasion when you do this. Dealing with this part properly is important, though, because you are building a record for the court case that may follow. Your job is to be as reasonable as possible and to make them look as dumb, inflexible and unreasonable as possible.
It's important to know what excuses the manufactures will come up with and how to counter them.
Excuse: You aren't entitled to a refund. Answer: Then why did the software come with a license that said I was. Isn't the license a binding contract?
Excuse: Contact Microsoft about the refund.
Answer: The license said contact the manufacturer. That's you. Why should I contact Microsoft when they said to contact you?
Excuse: The software comes bundled with the hardware and can't be separated.
Answer: Then why did you give me a license that said they could?
Excuse: We'll give you a refund, but not for the retail price.
Answer: I paid retail for the computer and the software.
Excuse: The software is only worth $10.
Answer: Okay. Send me the check.
Although this doesn't look like it, you've won a major victory with these words--that check is written evidence of the fact that the manufacturer owes you a refund. If you go to court, you don't have to establish that the company owes you something. All you have to do is establish the amount.
But before you do that, you should follow up with the company. There are several ways of doing this.
Follow up #1: I got your check for $10. You say Windows XP costs only $10, so I'd like to buy 100 copies please. To whom do I make out the check for $1000? You won't sell me Windows XP for $10? I'll have to pay $199 for it? Then that means the check you sent me is too low. Please send me a check for the full amount.
Follow up #2: I got your check for $10. But your $10 price is far lower that the retail price of Windows XP ($199). Because of the vast difference in the amounts, I'm going to have to ask you for a copy of your purchase contract with Microsoft so I can verify the price.
You can't verify the price. Well, I can only find one documented price and that's $199. You'll have to pay that amount or document your price.
One company tried this excuse with me. When I asked for documentation, the customer service representative said, "I don't have access to price information".
"Then how did you come up with the $10 price figure?"
"I just know it's the right amount."
"So what you are really doing is guessing. Well, my guess is the software is worth $1,000,000. Tell you what, let's split the difference. Send me a check for $500,005."
Excuse: We'll give you a refund but that applies to only Microsoft Windows, not the other bundled software.
Answer: No problem. Please provide me with a copy of all the other software on another disk so I can install it under Linux using the Wine program.
In all of these cases, follow up the phone conversation with a written letter describing what was said and why you're unhappy with it. Remember you are creating a record for the judge.
At some point in this process you'll either get your refund (rare) or you'll realize the manufacturer is going to be totally unreasonable. So now is the time to
I didn't mean "anti-pro tools" as in "you don't use software tools to record, produce, distribute, etc. your music". I'm a strong supporter of the new inexpensive & powerful tools we have available to us and I hope they continue to improve!
What I mean by the "anti-pro tools" movement is that artists do not use these software tools to mend poor performances and create artificial music. I'm suggesting that these tools be used as tools & not as instruments.
Your post is right on - new popular music is simply unlistenable. Fortunately we've got people as attractive as Britney Spears spitting this garbage out... At least you can watch it, even if it's hard to listen!
*** I'm personally hoping for an "anti-pro tools movement" that may bring genuinely *good* music back into the mainstream. The real musicians & artists aren't making music for a paycheck.
WTF is going on with all of the silly hardware reviews lately on/.? Posts on the main page are getting less and less interesting lately - a case review earlier today, a videocard showdown on this post? Seriously - these articles are exactly what a thousand sites like [H]ardOCP post all day long... Why clutter/. with stuff that isn't "News for Nerds" OR "Stuff that Matters"???
I'm tired of listening to people on/. complain about their browsers (et. al.) not working properly. That's what you're signing up for when you installed Linux as your desktop OS in the first place! You've got to do a little more work than everyone else does to get the same results.
I love Linux & have used it as my server OS of choice for 5 years now. But to this day, I can't deal with it on the desktop. This applet worked just fine for me on Win2k with JDK1.4 and Opera 6.1 as my browser.
By the way, the applet is really cool - I love this concept!
Re:Why not show an AC's IP if modded way down?
on
Slashdot Updates
·
· Score: 1
You're missing my point - the IP of an AC would be posted if their post was an abusive one. I agree that people should be able to post completely anonymously if they'd like. The only time this would be used is on abusive posters - i.e. Not flaimbait, but goatse.cx
The idea here is to have some kind of weapon against the people that are posting with the sole intent of destroying the good conversation. The "Post a Message" page would have a little warning on it that says "you are free to post whatever you'd like, but if you're obviously trying to destroy a conversation we'll post your IP next to your message." The community would be deciding two things here - 1) Is this post an obvious attack on the forum AND 2) Is this serious enough that I'm going to send the script kiddies after this guy.
All message boards and forums say "your IP is logged" but none of them ever do anything with said log. This is just taking it a step further.
I know that you could use some sort of proxy to post abusive messages with to avoid having your IP posted, but that inconveniece may be enough of a deterant to cut down on abusive posts.
-Ryan
Why not show an AC's IP if modded way down?
on
Slashdot Updates
·
· Score: 1
Here's an idea: Why don't you set it up so that if some AC's post gets modded way down (because of goatse.cx or other flaimbait) their IP address is posted along with their stupid post? I envision a little Special Ops team of slashdotters that would spend all of their free time hacking these peoples' boxen. This little force would eventually convince lamers that they don't want to post stupid shit on \. They would be fuxored if they tried & they'll know it!
Slashdot Mirror
The advantage that TW has right now with their DVR is that (AFAIK) they have one that records HD programming and actually works - at a cost of just $10/mon. It's my understanding that the TiVo HD DVR not only costs $1k, but also seems to have some major build quality issues (they fail after a short while or something of that nature?).
there could be a quick patch that removes the uselib function unless the user has built in kernel support for something other than ELF binaries. From what others have posted, this is a legacy function that has long gone out of vogue.
I was talking about this idea to a coworker the other day. It seems to me that this is a no brainer - Firefox, et. al. would store things like bookmarks, cookies, and settings on a central server. The browser would read/write to this via a simple web service-style application.
This way, all you have to do is provide firefox with a URL and it works the same on any computer that you use. I'm surprized that this doesn't exist yet in some form, although the Bookmarks Sync. extension is a step in that direction.
It may or may not be a consideration, but Kinkos might wipe the machines to protect from licensing troubles... Say I go to Kinkos to print something and need to install a font on the system. I probably have a licensed right to do so (most font licenses allow this, IIRC) but it must be removed from the system after printing.
By wiping the machine fresh each time, they don't have to worry about any spyware *or* licensing issues & the user can install whatever they need to get their printing done.
This is excellent news. I've been using Capture One's software on my PC for a while now to convert RAW images and do the basic digital-darkroom stuff. Unfortunately, the software does not run in Linux and the company (not surprisingly) has no plans to support it. Their software is quite expensive, but does the job nicely.
Bibble looks like a very complete package. I'll certainly be doing a thorough feature comparison and then will *very* strongly consider purchasing the Linux version. Working with my photos has been on the of last roadblocks for me running a linux-only workstation... I'm looking forward to trying this out!
-Ryan
"Hibernate is simply trading more features for increased complexity. ActiveRecord appears to be taking a more bare bones approach."
Yep - I think that's the point. I'm not knocking Hibernate, either - Java development is what pays the bills for me too; it's just hard to swallow the Hibernate requirements after you use something like ActiveRecord a bit. Hibernate clearly has more features and is significantly more mature than AR (just a few months old). That said, you can do a lot with AR after you scratch the surface - just a matter of looking at some of the examples.
XDoclet does simplify things a bit & is a good way to deal with that. Yes, AR is (AFAIK) tied to working with SQL databases. Also, Ruby itself has the capability to connect to Oracle and SQL Server with the proper driver. AR requires a special interface be implemented for access to a given brand of database since it retrieves more information about the tables than the typical ruby-dbms driver provides (at least, I think this is why; I haven't dug into it much). It's pretty straightforward to implement and it's where you would do things such as custom handlers for things like sequences. Hopefully more of these will be contributed to the project soon as people use AR against Oracle, et. al.
Thanks for some good discussion (typically hard to find here...).
-Ryan
Given a table "Items" with many attributes describing an item, the *complete* code that you'd need to write to represent this object in the program is:
No XML mappings, no attribute accessors, nothing but this code (to be 100% correct, there needs to be a line in a class somewhere that just tells ActiveRecord how to connect to the DB, but that's truly all). More complicated things like relations are just as trivial to add. Sure, this is *not* the Ruby equivalent of a "POJO", but who cares? Are you really serious in that your objects are so much more "pure" (or, I guess "plain")? Take away the many dozen lines of XML config and your app is *not* going to work; I'd hardly say that your objects are plain - they're merely decorated by a step after the compilier.
Plus - want to add a new attribute to the object? With AR, all you do is add a column to the table. That's *ALL*. What do you do with Hibernate? Add a column to the table, add a private member and accessors to the POJO, and finally add lines in the XML config file that map that column into the object. The next steps involve testing it and then figuring out which thing you spelled incorrectly in the XML config that's preventing your app from working ("Oh - I spelled it 'naem' instead of 'name'!").
ActiveRecord is a core part of Rails; it's easy to forget that Rails a whole framework and that Hibernate is simply persistence. It just seems like Hibernate must be doing more since the so much more work involved in getting it running...
Rails is a pretty incredible framework. It really makes developing webapps (at least the core functionality) a trivial procedure. While clearly not as "High performance" as a Java/hibernate app could potentially be, it can handle more than enough load for nearly all applications. It's certainly worth checking out - even if you can't use it in production, you can prototype an app *very* quickly. The author has a neat "contest" between a Hibernate app and the same concept developed in Rails on his blog.
Java *is* quite verbose. But, that's just Java. Fortunately we're getting some more sane iterator constructs in the 1.5 release, but Java will probably always be a highly verbose language (declaring types everywhere, semi-colons at the line ends, etc.)
I'm a big fan of Ruby, but as far as Java integration goes I'm not sure how actively developed it is. The JRuby project may or may not have a lot of steam behind it. Groovy, on the other hand, is being developed pretty actively and does eliminate a lot of the verbosity.
Jim Weirich has an excellent presentation about Groovy that shows a simple Java app convert into Groovy, bit-by-bit &explains the steps along the way. highly recommended! http://onestepback.org/articles/groovy/
Thats a programmer error. A bad programmer can make anything happen.
I disagree slightly to say that a good programmer can make anything happen, while a bad programmer may have anything happen....
There's a subtle but important difference there.
really, no text here...
I'm not suggesting that you are not, but the key to being successful (efficient) at the cmd line is to have a certain level of mastery over the tools which are available. I know what you're saying in your example about moving the "30 of 500" files created today using the gui. A fairly simple "find" using one of it's many flags can do all this and more (and very quickly & correctly). For example, the "-newer " flag will only match files that are newer than the given file. "man find" shows off the tons of options available to you.
I think it's critical to learn what tools you have and how to use them correctly before you can really say "this is easier to do here vs. here".
I've been fond of ctorrent lately as a BT client. It's command line only which is useful when you just want to kick off an AT job from the office.
Unfortunately that is the problem with the Dell 8600 (and 8500 like I have). APM is not an option on these laptops and the only available DSDT that works is a bit tricky to figure out.
I've had to go back and forth on my laptop with Linux and XP mostly because of that fact... it's pretty hard to deal with no suspend on a laptop.
After fourteen months of coding, Subversion became "self-hosting" on August 31, 2001.
lame. Skynet became self-aware on August 29!
I'm liking this /. subscription thing! I would have never have been able to read this if I didn't get the "preview release" article....
Thanks to good records and a Small Claims judge, Steve Oualline got a $199 refund for his unused copy of Microsoft Windows XP. One Linux user's story shows how to establish a good refund case.
Getting a Microsoft Windows refund from a manufacturer is seldom easy to do. In this article, I describe some techniques you can use to get your refund, including how to deal with the manufacturers (and all their excuses) and going to small claims court.
The first step to getting a refund is to ask for on. In most every case, you immediately hit a wall of stupidity and evasion when you do this. Dealing with this part properly is important, though, because you are building a record for the court case that may follow. Your job is to be as reasonable as possible and to make them look as dumb, inflexible and unreasonable as possible.
It's important to know what excuses the manufactures will come up with and how to counter them.
Excuse: You aren't entitled to a refund.
Answer: Then why did the software come with a license that said I was. Isn't the license a binding contract?
Excuse: Contact Microsoft about the refund.
Answer: The license said contact the manufacturer. That's you. Why should I contact Microsoft when they said to contact you?
Excuse: The software comes bundled with the hardware and can't be separated.
Answer: Then why did you give me a license that said they could?
Excuse: We'll give you a refund, but not for the retail price.
Answer: I paid retail for the computer and the software.
Excuse: The software is only worth $10.
Answer: Okay. Send me the check.
Although this doesn't look like it, you've won a major victory with these words--that check is written evidence of the fact that the manufacturer owes you a refund. If you go to court, you don't have to establish that the company owes you something. All you have to do is establish the amount.
But before you do that, you should follow up with the company. There are several ways of doing this.
Follow up #1: I got your check for $10. You say Windows XP costs only $10, so I'd like to buy 100 copies please. To whom do I make out the check for $1000?
You won't sell me Windows XP for $10? I'll have to pay $199 for it? Then that means the check you sent me is too low. Please send me a check for the full amount.
Follow up #2: I got your check for $10. But your $10 price is far lower that the retail price of Windows XP ($199). Because of the vast difference in the amounts, I'm going to have to ask you for a copy of your purchase contract with Microsoft so I can verify the price.
You can't verify the price. Well, I can only find one documented price and that's $199. You'll have to pay that amount or document your price.
One company tried this excuse with me. When I asked for documentation, the customer service representative said, "I don't have access to price information".
"Then how did you come up with the $10 price figure?"
"I just know it's the right amount."
"So what you are really doing is guessing. Well, my guess is the software is worth $1,000,000. Tell you what, let's split the difference. Send me a check for $500,005."
Excuse: We'll give you a refund but that applies to only Microsoft Windows, not the other bundled software.
Answer: No problem. Please provide me with a copy of all the other software on another disk so I can install it under Linux using the Wine program.
In all of these cases, follow up the phone conversation with a written letter describing what was said and why you're unhappy with it. Remember you are creating a record for the judge.
At some point in this process you'll either get your refund (rare) or you'll realize the manufacturer is going to be totally unreasonable. So now is the time to
I didn't mean "anti-pro tools" as in "you don't use software tools to record, produce, distribute, etc. your music". I'm a strong supporter of the new inexpensive & powerful tools we have available to us and I hope they continue to improve!
What I mean by the "anti-pro tools" movement is that artists do not use these software tools to mend poor performances and create artificial music. I'm suggesting that these tools be used as tools & not as instruments.
Your post is right on - new popular music is simply unlistenable. Fortunately we've got people as attractive as Britney Spears spitting this garbage out... At least you can watch it, even if it's hard to listen!
*** I'm personally hoping for an "anti-pro tools movement" that may bring genuinely *good* music back into the mainstream. The real musicians & artists aren't making music for a paycheck.
WTF is going on with all of the silly hardware reviews lately on /.? Posts on the main page are getting less and less interesting lately - a case review earlier today, a videocard showdown on this post? Seriously - these articles are exactly what a thousand sites like [H]ardOCP post all day long... Why clutter /. with stuff that isn't "News for Nerds" OR "Stuff that Matters"???
-Ryan
I'm tired of listening to people on /. complain about their browsers (et. al.) not working properly. That's what you're signing up for when you installed Linux as your desktop OS in the first place! You've got to do a little more work than everyone else does to get the same results.
I love Linux & have used it as my server OS of choice for 5 years now. But to this day, I can't deal with it on the desktop. This applet worked just fine for me on Win2k with JDK1.4 and Opera 6.1 as my browser.
By the way, the applet is really cool - I love this concept!
You're missing my point - the IP of an AC would be posted if their post was an abusive one. I agree that people should be able to post completely anonymously if they'd like. The only time this would be used is on abusive posters - i.e. Not flaimbait, but goatse.cx
The idea here is to have some kind of weapon against the people that are posting with the sole intent of destroying the good conversation. The "Post a Message" page would have a little warning on it that says "you are free to post whatever you'd like, but if you're obviously trying to destroy a conversation we'll post your IP next to your message." The community would be deciding two things here - 1) Is this post an obvious attack on the forum AND 2) Is this serious enough that I'm going to send the script kiddies after this guy.
All message boards and forums say "your IP is logged" but none of them ever do anything with said log. This is just taking it a step further.
I know that you could use some sort of proxy to post abusive messages with to avoid having your IP posted, but that inconveniece may be enough of a deterant to cut down on abusive posts.
-Ryan
Here's an idea: Why don't you set it up so that if some AC's post gets modded way down (because of goatse.cx or other flaimbait) their IP address is posted along with their stupid post? I envision a little Special Ops team of slashdotters that would spend all of their free time hacking these peoples' boxen. This little force would eventually convince lamers that they don't want to post stupid shit on \. They would be fuxored if they tried & they'll know it!
everything can be done with a combination of those two.
it's been a long day
first post, faggots!