Of course it takes longer to open OpenDocument files on MS Office than MS Office files.
Open MS Office file: 1. Start Word. 2. Load MS Office File.
Open OpenDocument file: 1. Start OpenOffice. 2. Load ODF File. 3. Save as MS Office File. 4. Close OpenOffice. 5. Start MS Office 6. Load Converted File.
On a serious note; is this brain fart of history seriously arguing that parsing even multi-megabyte XML files (of which most documents are not) will take more than a few seconds on modern system? Or even more than 1 second?
The problem is that government is already so heavily involved in telecom.
The electromagenetic spectrum is heavily regulated. Local governments _require_ property owners to submit to telecom easements and right-of-way for trenching and pole placement. Vast government subsidies exist for the telecom & cable companies, and every aspect of their business is protected from competition.
These politico-economic barriers are extremely high barriers to entry. We've already gone so far down the path of government control that having the government ease up now would be disasterous. Short of true deregulation and direct action against the existing, government-created oligopolists, there really isn't ANY scenario that would have SBC or Comcast or Verizon or whoever compete on a fair playing field.
Think about it; new technologies, like wireless broadband, or properly structured broadband over powerlines don't even have a chance! Not to mention that governments are being restricted from investing in new broadband municipal networks, even though the existing networks were created in exactly that fashion.
The telecos would have you believe that telecommunications arose out of vast sums of money invested by a nebulous "them". Nothing could be further from the truth.
I'm all for the free market. I'm all for deregulation. But net neutrality, while vast amounts of red tape exist to protect the existing, government created monopolists? No thank you; I'm for capitalism, but I'm not for getting-fucked-up-the-ass-ism, pardon my french.
Take a look at our terrible, terribly broadband penetration rates, and extremely poor connectivity/bandwidth/usage policies. Nearly every other developed country in the world is doing better; including countries with similar population density. The truth of the matter is that the existing telecom mess is a government created nightmare, with the regulator asleep at the wheel. Putting them into a coma (i.e. net neutrality) is NOT the answer; properly regulating the existing, government sponsored system is, while simultaneously pursing "earth-shattering" privitization/deregulation legislation is.
The current telecom deregulation "movement" is eerily similar to the Californian energy deregulation movement of a few years ago.
Well, I think that idea is that instead of just blindling pursuing random, poke-in-the-dark type science (Radioactivity & Marie Curie, anyone?), we theorize a possibility first, and then pursue long term, expensive projects to try and acheive it.
Even if the project merely proves that implementation is practically impossible, the spinoffs can be valuable.
Given that mankind is not (at this moment) capable of vast scientific leaps into the future, evolutionary improvements via theorizing seems like a valid way to "tread water".
We'll work on metamaterials while we wait for someone to intuit a Grand Unified Field Theorem that will make the metamaterials unnecessary.
Support on OS X will require a proprietary extension you can purchase for $29.99, or licensing of a software application (Photoshop Premium, anyone?) that includes the plug-in support, by which that company pays a royalty to MS.
Support on Linux will require downloading a source-only library from a non-WIPO country, and compiling it yourself. Being caught in possesion of this library will result in imprisonment and a minimum $150,000 fine.
Google provides a service. This service is distributed via their website, using search functions. The service is sold to advertisers, and the content of this service is viewers.
Google uses GPL software in providing this service. It does not distribute this software, and I highly doubt that the HTML used to generate the actual Google site, nor the Javascript, is "GPL". Although Google uses GPL code in there server software, that code in no way leaves their system.
Not to mention that the GPL does NOT require you to have "open" distribution of code. If I write a GPL app, and I sell ONE copy of that app, and only to YOU, than I only have to provide the source to YOU. You may, however, at your discretion redistribute either the binary or the source; however, you do NOT have to distribute the source to ANYONE that you do not distribute the binary to.
That's all. What you are asking for is a guaranteed derivative public domain license, and that the GPL is not.
Where's the inconsistancy? Where's the contradiction? This is using the GPL, in a commercial sense, in the best possible way. Should Google decide to compete with, say, RedHat, or Fedora, or Microsoft, or whoever, in the OS sphere; they'd have to distribute the source.
Hell; this makes GPL software suitable for military usage; they can keep the source closed as long as they don't distribute it!
Fully featured? I doubt it; there are loads of features in PDF. Much like MS Word, however, 90% of them aren't necessary for 90% of the population.
I don't use Windows; and even though I do use Creative Suite on my Mac, I generally use either Apple Preview, or KPDF (on Linux). For the times I need "full featured", I use Acrobat.
These days you can buy MiniDV camcorders, which use the standard DV format, and are supported by just about everything you can shake a stick at, including set top boxes, OR....
You can buy SD card camcorders, which use a variety of MPEG-4 formats, the majority of which are either some proprietary Sony shit which requires you to use the Sony video editing software, or WMV Mpeg-4 formats, which can be shoehorned into Final Cut and applications which take advantage of Windows Media framework. These rarely, if ever, work correctly with set top boxes.
Oh, and there are those MPEG-2 mini-DVD camcorders. The ones that use AVI MPEG-4, with some MS encoding, and drive me absolutely bonkers.
I just KNOW I'm going to end up buying one of these Windows Media Photo digital cameras that ONLY record in this crap-ass format. This is not a format targetted at consumers; this is a format targted at hardware manufacturers, so they ship a Windows Photo editing software on the CD with the camera. And Microsoft will provide whatever financial incentives are _necessary_ to support the format on the hardware.
Keep in mind that licensing the format for use in software will be prohibitively expensive. Adobe, and maybe a few other large companies will be able to afford it. What is MS licensing FAT for these days? $150,000, plus a per user royalty?
This is exactly the kind of shit that makes me hate MS. Thank GOD this will most likely fail as badly as Sony's attempts to introduce proprietary formats; at best, they'll acheive Apple like success with AAC; meaning the majority of sales might go towards it, but the market leader will continue to be MP3 (or JPEG/JPEG2000, in this case.)
I wonder how these things render in IE. I bet that their transparency will function from day 1.
Plain-text is probably better suited to ODF XML Document files.
Page-layouts of to-be-printed materials? What; do you expect me to tell all my clients to install a copy of Illustrator, or something?
PDFs can be very useful. You don't even need to you the Adobe Acrobat software (which HAS gotten better). Feel free to use KPDF, XPDF, any of the Ghostview derivative apps, Apple preview, or Wordperfect X13.
I'm sure there are many more.
Not to mention that PDF gives you DRM the way it SHOULD be. Mild, with the possibilities of restrictions on documents you distribute internally. It's more of a pull down the blinds, and you won't look around them. PDF DRM is not drop dead Trusted Computing; but it IS a mild set of restrictions not dissimilar to an MS Word DOC password.
I can't quite place my finger on it, but if the author is attempting to say that the major software companies that tend to release buggy, shitty software on a regular basis are being responsible corporations, he's full of it.
Yes, products should ship with bugs. Creating a bug free product isn't worth the time/investment. If you get 95% of the way to done, and the remaining 5% is going to occupy 70% of your budget, don't bother.
At the same time, software engineering is NOT more sophsticated than, say, aerospace, or automobile, or robotics, or any other area of modern engineering.
I'd be MIGHTY pissed off if my car was as reliable as an MS product, or if I had to put up with the same bugs, year after year (transparent PNG, anyone?)
Apple releases buggy software. Linux distributors release buggy software. Microsoft releases buggy software. NASA releases software with bugs (I can't say that NASA software is "buggy" with a straight face). But does that mean they are equivalent? Of course not.
. . . to my DRM locked down, $800.00, unable to resell games, every-title-is-a-remake, HDMI-required for HD playback console.
With all the bloody restrictions they should be paying me to take the damn thing.
Seriously; wasn't that the "promise" of all these locked down DRM systems? Hardware free, software as a service, copy protection means that companies can easily recoup their investment.
I couldn't imagine _ever_ buying one of these. It would _really_ have to blow me away.
I'm not certain why ActiveSync and HotSync require administrator privlediges. Does it have to do with USB access?
I'm a big fan of applications that can install purely in usermode. The nicest thing about having a system that can correctly elevate priviledges on a limited basis is that you usually don't even have to!
But some developers need to install things like new software or kernel-mode debuggers, so do you create a process in which faced with such requirements these devs have to go running for permission, or do you let them use an OS that is usable as a limited user and give them the admin password so they can do admin tasks when needed, and trust your employees to do the right thing?
Why shouldn't actually INSTALLS be for "This User Only". Seriously; I can understand testing the administrator version, but the focus should be on applications that succesfully install in pure-user mode, in a user's home directory.
As I've said before, I can install MS Office in usermode on Linux. Why shouldn't Windows be able to do the same thing?
Quite often system coders need lots of privilidge, like to install dll's and drivers in %systemroot%, run kernel debuggers, mess with the registry etc....
The OS group, maybe.
Shouldn't _everyone_ else be assuming installs as users? Why the HELL are you placing dlls and drivers in %systemroot%, why are you not using user-mode debuggers, why aren't you using the local users registry?
Are these things required for Windows application development? Or is it still impossible to install major windows apps in a user's home directory without seriously compromising features.
*shrug*. I can install Microsoft Office on my Linux box entirely in user mode. Can you do that on Windows?
If you are doing central administration, you might as well go for thin client solutions with mobile, portable VM images for laptop usage.
Why bother keeping 100 copies of your OS/producitivity software for each department, when you could just run 'em all centrally? It's not like each and every secretary/marketing person/accountant/.NET,PHP,JAVA,ASP,whatever developer needs a customized workstation.
Maybe I'm too close to the *nix world, but I can't really think of major customizations that you would need to implement on a user-by-user directory that couldn't be done via login profiles; and the major companies I've had some experience with (in terms of how they setup their locked-down, centrally administered systems) use basically stock setups for everyone.
Is there any reason not to use some kind of virutalization solution, and allow employees to "admin" their images, while forcing user privelidges for the host operating system?
Except for device driver development (even USB and some other stuff would work correctly in a VM), are there any disadvantages?
Are there any OS developer situations that require the performance of native access at the same time as requiring administrator privlidges?
The only arguments I can think of against this are developers that require close hardware access, but with paravirtualization solutions like Xen even thats not a big issue. Well, except on Windows, of course.
If you are doing something illegal/immoral/nasty/dumb/stupid maybe the NSA's monitoring system will make you think twice about doing it.
This argument is perhaps the single worst position one can hold in a discussion of rights.
Anytime one hears this, the intelligence and/or motives of the speaker should immediately be cast into doubt. Either you aren't intelligent enough to understand the issues at hand, have not thought about them at length, or are trying to do something evil.
Rights are not to protect the innocent. Rights are not to protect the "good people". Rights are there to protect the conglomerate of the human race. The guilty, the despised, the evil, the criminals, the dictators, the masterminds of genocide; each and every one of these has the same rights as you and me, except in so far as they can be demonstrably proven to utilize their rights to infringe yours or mine.
Furthermore, lets look at how you qualified that statement: illegal/immoral/nasty/dumb/stupid 1. Illegal: Yes, the government should be involved in cases of illegality. 2. Immoral: No, the government should NOT be involved in cases of what is or is not immoral. There is no universal standard of immorality. If you ask conservative Christian groups, they would say the Da Vinci Code movie was immoral, as it blasphemed their lord. If you talked to Catholic groups, they would say that contraception is immoral. If you talk to conservative Islamic groups, they would say that equal rights for non-believers and/or women are immoral. The government should not be picking and choosing ANY of these battles; and you should not fear for your own moral framework based upon the governments. 3. Nasty: If what you are doing is _legal_, it doesn't matter if it is nasty. There's no prohibition against being bad tempered, or even "evil". The prohibition is against illegal actions. If it infringes someone elses rights, than make it illegal, and handle it through a court of law, same as everything else the U.S. and/or state governments enforce against. 4. Dumb: Being dumb is a right. You have a right to fuck up as much as you like. As long as it is legal, the NSA should not be involved in your personal stupidity. You have a right to be as stupid as anyone else. 5. Stupid: See #4.
Here is a little better discussion of the matter. In a nutshell, determing what is "illegal/immoral/nasty/dumb/stupid" is extremely difficult, and I'm not interested in having the government determine what is and is not deviant. 70 years ago Congress would have said that surveillance of Negroes (Yes, that term is _exactly_ what Congress would have used for African-Americans)and Chinamen (Yes, this is ALSO another term that has graced the halls of Congress).
Today, there are movements with Congress to criminalize homosexuality and conduct open and unlimited surveillance/detention of AMERICAN CITIZENS of Middle Eastern origin (like myself). Might I remind you of the McCarthy era, and the House Commitee on Un-American Activities?
Joseph McCarthy, an incurable (and perhaps constant) drunk, paranoid, and somesay schizophrenic asshole routinely used phrases like, "If you have nothing to hide, why are you worried?"
Do you honestly believe that fascists like Rear Admiral John Poindexter, made infamous for his roll in Iran-Contra, who escaped life-long imprisonment on a technicality, and whom the Republic Party has now put in charge of the militaries "Total Information Awareness" (renamed Terrorist Information Awareness, har har), is more scrupulous than Joseph McCarthy?
Do you honestly believe that the rhetoric involved describing the constant hunt for terrorists in our borders, and the American People's demands for security is *ANY* differen
If I had the backing of my management, and my editor, I'd risk life, liberty, and limb for the fame of publishing leaks like this.
Think about it; as long as your paper is willing to fund your legal defense, as a reporter whom even peripherally covers civil liberities it can ONLY be in your interest to be at the heart of these matters.
1. Leak secret, liberty related government documents in a climate of paranoia and a fascist executive. 2. Watch as fascist executive goes beserk to silence you. 3. Watch as your newspapers sales go through the roof, and your name becomes a household one. 4..... (Hope you don't go to jail). 5. Profit big time, and have your name literally go down in the history books.
Corporations are not people. Government organs are not people.
Neither corporations nor government organizations have "rights"; as well they shouldn't. Do you really want to maintain the same ethical rules for individuals as for, say, the military?
We pay the government "taxes". We pay the phone company "service fees". In both cases, there is an implicit social contract, and in some cases explicit. The NSA is not authorized to conduct surveillance on American citizens; it is a foreign surveillance mechanism. The phone company is specifically prohibited by law and in most cases by contract, and/or local franchise agreement not to disclose records to the government willy-nilly; they must proceed through recognized procedures of due process.
Innocent until proven guilty my friend. Its funny that you think its ok to have this information gathered and leaked against their will, but not your phone records.
You're twisting the meaning of that phrase. Governments and corporations are never found innocent or guilty. They do not have rights against self-incrimination. On the other hand, citizens have the right to due process, the right against self-incrimination, the right to privacy (yes they do; its an right not otherwise enumerated in the constituion, but _is_ implicitly considered. That's the point of the 9th amendment; otherwise it serves no purpose. Furthermore, no law passed can infringe these implict rights. You'd have to change the constituion.)
Lemme quote the 4th amendment for you: Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
One particular section again, for emphasis: The right of the people to be secure in their . . . papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..
What, exactly, do you think they meant by papers and effects? I'll tell you; control of communication. Now, the Supreme Court has specifically recognized this portion of the 4th amendment to mean that the contents of your telephone communications are indeed sacrosanct, absent the suspicion of wrong-doing. In the event of wrong-doing, the powers-that-be must acquire a warrant, issued by a court of law. From Wikipedia: Modern-day consideration of this protection begins with the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment provided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). In Katz, the defendant challenged evidence gained by FBI agents from his telephone conversations, which were obtained through attaching an electronic listener to the exterior of the public telephone booth from which the calls were made. In this case, the Supreme Court stated that "the Fourth Amendment protects people --- and not simply areas." Id. at 353. The court went onto say that the Fourth Amendment was meant to protect people's privacy from the intrusions of unreasonable searches.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has also recognized that communication patterns are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. However; we DO know that a) monitoring/recording of the actual CALL is prohibity without a warrant, and b) Congress implemented statutory limitations on the ability of phone companies to communicate telephone records to the government without warrants. Given that this is an extension of 4th amendment rights, and in no way contradicts the constituion; there really isn't any argument as to why the executive should be able to ignore them. At worst, the only thing that defends us is the constituion, assuming the legislative branch rollsback all the additional protective laws passed. At best, the constitution is merely a base, and the additional priva
If you can't assume rich text, why assume _english_?
Better yet, why not send a rich e-mail (especially from a variety of applications, or in a commercial sense) that contains multiple encodings, and select the correct language based upon the recipient's lingustic settings.
No reason that iPhoto 2010 "form e-mails" containing images shouldn't contain the image metadata and a, "Hi! So and so send you these " in whatever language the client chooses.
Restricting e-mail to plaintext is no different to restricting the web to gopher. We moved on. So should you.
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Of course it takes longer to open OpenDocument files on MS Office than MS Office files.
Open MS Office file:
1. Start Word.
2. Load MS Office File.
Open OpenDocument file:
1. Start OpenOffice.
2. Load ODF File.
3. Save as MS Office File.
4. Close OpenOffice.
5. Start MS Office
6. Load Converted File.
On a serious note; is this brain fart of history seriously arguing that parsing even multi-megabyte XML files (of which most documents are not) will take more than a few seconds on modern system? Or even more than 1 second?
The problem is that government is already so heavily involved in telecom.
The electromagenetic spectrum is heavily regulated. Local governments _require_ property owners to submit to telecom easements and right-of-way for trenching and pole placement. Vast government subsidies exist for the telecom & cable companies, and every aspect of their business is protected from competition.
These politico-economic barriers are extremely high barriers to entry. We've already gone so far down the path of government control that having the government ease up now would be disasterous. Short of true deregulation and direct action against the existing, government-created oligopolists, there really isn't ANY scenario that would have SBC or Comcast or Verizon or whoever compete on a fair playing field.
Think about it; new technologies, like wireless broadband, or properly structured broadband over powerlines don't even have a chance! Not to mention that governments are being restricted from investing in new broadband municipal networks, even though the existing networks were created in exactly that fashion.
The telecos would have you believe that telecommunications arose out of vast sums of money invested by a nebulous "them". Nothing could be further from the truth.
I'm all for the free market. I'm all for deregulation. But net neutrality, while vast amounts of red tape exist to protect the existing, government created monopolists? No thank you; I'm for capitalism, but I'm not for getting-fucked-up-the-ass-ism, pardon my french.
Take a look at our terrible, terribly broadband penetration rates, and extremely poor connectivity/bandwidth/usage policies. Nearly every other developed country in the world is doing better; including countries with similar population density. The truth of the matter is that the existing telecom mess is a government created nightmare, with the regulator asleep at the wheel. Putting them into a coma (i.e. net neutrality) is NOT the answer; properly regulating the existing, government sponsored system is, while simultaneously pursing "earth-shattering" privitization/deregulation legislation is.
The current telecom deregulation "movement" is eerily similar to the Californian energy deregulation movement of a few years ago.
Well, I think that idea is that instead of just blindling pursuing random, poke-in-the-dark type science (Radioactivity & Marie Curie, anyone?), we theorize a possibility first, and then pursue long term, expensive projects to try and acheive it.
Even if the project merely proves that implementation is practically impossible, the spinoffs can be valuable.
Given that mankind is not (at this moment) capable of vast scientific leaps into the future, evolutionary improvements via theorizing seems like a valid way to "tread water".
We'll work on metamaterials while we wait for someone to intuit a Grand Unified Field Theorem that will make the metamaterials unnecessary.
Uhh... simple.
It only works (properly) on Windows.
Support on OS X will require a proprietary extension you can purchase for $29.99, or licensing of a software application (Photoshop Premium, anyone?) that includes the plug-in support, by which that company pays a royalty to MS.
Support on Linux will require downloading a source-only library from a non-WIPO country, and compiling it yourself. Being caught in possesion of this library will result in imprisonment and a minimum $150,000 fine.
Support on other platforms will not exist.
Huh? Where's the inconsistenancy?
Google provides a service. This service is distributed via their website, using search functions. The service is sold to advertisers, and the content of this service is viewers.
Google uses GPL software in providing this service. It does not distribute this software, and I highly doubt that the HTML used to generate the actual Google site, nor the Javascript, is "GPL". Although Google uses GPL code in there server software, that code in no way leaves their system.
Not to mention that the GPL does NOT require you to have "open" distribution of code. If I write a GPL app, and I sell ONE copy of that app, and only to YOU, than I only have to provide the source to YOU. You may, however, at your discretion redistribute either the binary or the source; however, you do NOT have to distribute the source to ANYONE that you do not distribute the binary to.
That's all. What you are asking for is a guaranteed derivative public domain license, and that the GPL is not.
Where's the inconsistancy? Where's the contradiction? This is using the GPL, in a commercial sense, in the best possible way. Should Google decide to compete with, say, RedHat, or Fedora, or Microsoft, or whoever, in the OS sphere; they'd have to distribute the source.
Hell; this makes GPL software suitable for military usage; they can keep the source closed as long as they don't distribute it!
Fully featured? I doubt it; there are loads of features in PDF. Much like MS Word, however, 90% of them aren't necessary for 90% of the population.
I don't use Windows; and even though I do use Creative Suite on my Mac, I generally use either Apple Preview, or KPDF (on Linux). For the times I need "full featured", I use Acrobat.
As to your question:
I don't use windows (as I said above), however, I've heard good things about this : http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
These days you can buy MiniDV camcorders, which use the standard DV format, and are supported by just about everything you can shake a stick at, including set top boxes, OR....
You can buy SD card camcorders, which use a variety of MPEG-4 formats, the majority of which are either some proprietary Sony shit which requires you to use the Sony video editing software, or WMV Mpeg-4 formats, which can be shoehorned into Final Cut and applications which take advantage of Windows Media framework. These rarely, if ever, work correctly with set top boxes.
Oh, and there are those MPEG-2 mini-DVD camcorders. The ones that use AVI MPEG-4, with some MS encoding, and drive me absolutely bonkers.
I just KNOW I'm going to end up buying one of these Windows Media Photo digital cameras that ONLY record in this crap-ass format. This is not a format targetted at consumers; this is a format targted at hardware manufacturers, so they ship a Windows Photo editing software on the CD with the camera. And Microsoft will provide whatever financial incentives are _necessary_ to support the format on the hardware.
Keep in mind that licensing the format for use in software will be prohibitively expensive. Adobe, and maybe a few other large companies will be able to afford it. What is MS licensing FAT for these days? $150,000, plus a per user royalty?
This is exactly the kind of shit that makes me hate MS. Thank GOD this will most likely fail as badly as Sony's attempts to introduce proprietary formats; at best, they'll acheive Apple like success with AAC; meaning the majority of sales might go towards it, but the market leader will continue to be MP3 (or JPEG/JPEG2000, in this case.)
I wonder how these things render in IE. I bet that their transparency will function from day 1.
God I hate MS.
You obviously don't know what PDFs are capable.
Plain-text is probably better suited to ODF XML Document files.
Page-layouts of to-be-printed materials? What; do you expect me to tell all my clients to install a copy of Illustrator, or something?
PDFs can be very useful. You don't even need to you the Adobe Acrobat software (which HAS gotten better). Feel free to use KPDF, XPDF, any of the Ghostview derivative apps, Apple preview, or Wordperfect X13.
I'm sure there are many more.
Not to mention that PDF gives you DRM the way it SHOULD be. Mild, with the possibilities of restrictions on documents you distribute internally. It's more of a pull down the blinds, and you won't look around them. PDF DRM is not drop dead Trusted Computing; but it IS a mild set of restrictions not dissimilar to an MS Word DOC password.
1) UNISYS : Microsoft
A) Pitbull : Beelezebub
B) 9mm : Howizter
C) Dog shit : Milwaukee Sewage System
D) All of the above.
I can't quite place my finger on it, but if the author is attempting to say that the major software companies that tend to release buggy, shitty software on a regular basis are being responsible corporations, he's full of it.
Yes, products should ship with bugs. Creating a bug free product isn't worth the time/investment. If you get 95% of the way to done, and the remaining 5% is going to occupy 70% of your budget, don't bother.
At the same time, software engineering is NOT more sophsticated than, say, aerospace, or automobile, or robotics, or any other area of modern engineering.
I'd be MIGHTY pissed off if my car was as reliable as an MS product, or if I had to put up with the same bugs, year after year (transparent PNG, anyone?)
Apple releases buggy software. Linux distributors release buggy software. Microsoft releases buggy software. NASA releases software with bugs (I can't say that NASA software is "buggy" with a straight face). But does that mean they are equivalent? Of course not.
. . . to my DRM locked down, $800.00, unable to resell games, every-title-is-a-remake, HDMI-required for HD playback console.
With all the bloody restrictions they should be paying me to take the damn thing.
Seriously; wasn't that the "promise" of all these locked down DRM systems? Hardware free, software as a service, copy protection means that companies can easily recoup their investment.
I couldn't imagine _ever_ buying one of these. It would _really_ have to blow me away.
While it is interesting to know that; screw it.
Copyright law should not be used to defend failed/failing business models.
Yes, and then some.
I'm not certain why ActiveSync and HotSync require administrator privlediges. Does it have to do with USB access?
I'm a big fan of applications that can install purely in usermode. The nicest thing about having a system that can correctly elevate priviledges on a limited basis is that you usually don't even have to!
Do Microsoft apps correctly install as users?
AFAIK, Office, WMP, ActiveSync, etc. . . all require admin access to install.
But some developers need to install things like new software or kernel-mode debuggers, so do you create a process in which faced with such requirements these devs have to go running for permission, or do you let them use an OS that is usable as a limited user and give them the admin password so they can do admin tasks when needed, and trust your employees to do the right thing?
Why shouldn't actually INSTALLS be for "This User Only". Seriously; I can understand testing the administrator version, but the focus should be on applications that succesfully install in pure-user mode, in a user's home directory.
As I've said before, I can install MS Office in usermode on Linux. Why shouldn't Windows be able to do the same thing?
Quite often system coders need lots of privilidge, like to install dll's and drivers in %systemroot%, run kernel debuggers, mess with the registry etc....
The OS group, maybe.
Shouldn't _everyone_ else be assuming installs as users? Why the HELL are you placing dlls and drivers in %systemroot%, why are you not using user-mode debuggers, why aren't you using the local users registry?
Are these things required for Windows application development? Or is it still impossible to install major windows apps in a user's home directory without seriously compromising features.
*shrug*. I can install Microsoft Office on my Linux box entirely in user mode. Can you do that on Windows?
No kidding.
If you are doing central administration, you might as well go for thin client solutions with mobile, portable VM images for laptop usage.
Why bother keeping 100 copies of your OS/producitivity software for each department, when you could just run 'em all centrally? It's not like each and every secretary/marketing person/accountant/.NET,PHP,JAVA,ASP,whatever developer needs a customized workstation.
Maybe I'm too close to the *nix world, but I can't really think of major customizations that you would need to implement on a user-by-user directory that couldn't be done via login profiles; and the major companies I've had some experience with (in terms of how they setup their locked-down, centrally administered systems) use basically stock setups for everyone.
Is there any reason not to use some kind of virutalization solution, and allow employees to "admin" their images, while forcing user privelidges for the host operating system?
Except for device driver development (even USB and some other stuff would work correctly in a VM), are there any disadvantages?
Are there any OS developer situations that require the performance of native access at the same time as requiring administrator privlidges?
The only arguments I can think of against this are developers that require close hardware access, but with paravirtualization solutions like Xen even thats not a big issue. Well, except on Windows, of course.
Anonymous Troll. I /spit on you.
If you are doing something illegal/immoral/nasty/dumb/stupid maybe the NSA's monitoring system will make you think twice about doing it.
This argument is perhaps the single worst position one can hold in a discussion of rights.
Anytime one hears this, the intelligence and/or motives of the speaker should immediately be cast into doubt. Either you aren't intelligent enough to understand the issues at hand, have not thought about them at length, or are trying to do something evil.
Rights are not to protect the innocent. Rights are not to protect the "good people". Rights are there to protect the conglomerate of the human race. The guilty, the despised, the evil, the criminals, the dictators, the masterminds of genocide; each and every one of these has the same rights as you and me, except in so far as they can be demonstrably proven to utilize their rights to infringe yours or mine.
Furthermore, lets look at how you qualified that statement: illegal/immoral/nasty/dumb/stupid
1. Illegal: Yes, the government should be involved in cases of illegality.
2. Immoral: No, the government should NOT be involved in cases of what is or is not immoral. There is no universal standard of immorality. If you ask conservative Christian groups, they would say the Da Vinci Code movie was immoral, as it blasphemed their lord. If you talked to Catholic groups, they would say that contraception is immoral. If you talk to conservative Islamic groups, they would say that equal rights for non-believers and/or women are immoral. The government should not be picking and choosing ANY of these battles; and you should not fear for your own moral framework based upon the governments.
3. Nasty: If what you are doing is _legal_, it doesn't matter if it is nasty. There's no prohibition against being bad tempered, or even "evil". The prohibition is against illegal actions. If it infringes someone elses rights, than make it illegal, and handle it through a court of law, same as everything else the U.S. and/or state governments enforce against.
4. Dumb: Being dumb is a right. You have a right to fuck up as much as you like. As long as it is legal, the NSA should not be involved in your personal stupidity. You have a right to be as stupid as anyone else.
5. Stupid: See #4.
Here is a little better discussion of the matter. In a nutshell, determing what is "illegal/immoral/nasty/dumb/stupid" is extremely difficult, and I'm not interested in having the government determine what is and is not deviant. 70 years ago Congress would have said that surveillance of Negroes (Yes, that term is _exactly_ what Congress would have used for African-Americans)and Chinamen (Yes, this is ALSO another term that has graced the halls of Congress).
Today, there are movements with Congress to criminalize homosexuality and conduct open and unlimited surveillance/detention of AMERICAN CITIZENS of Middle Eastern origin (like myself). Might I remind you of the McCarthy era, and the House Commitee on Un-American Activities?
Joseph McCarthy, an incurable (and perhaps constant) drunk, paranoid, and somesay schizophrenic asshole routinely used phrases like, "If you have nothing to hide, why are you worried?"
Do you honestly believe that fascists like Rear Admiral John Poindexter, made infamous for his roll in Iran-Contra, who escaped life-long imprisonment on a technicality, and whom the Republic Party has now put in charge of the militaries "Total Information Awareness" (renamed Terrorist Information Awareness, har har), is more scrupulous than Joseph McCarthy?
Do you honestly believe that the rhetoric involved describing the constant hunt for terrorists in our borders, and the American People's demands for security is *ANY* differen
If I had the backing of my management, and my editor, I'd risk life, liberty, and limb for the fame of publishing leaks like this.
.... (Hope you don't go to jail).
Think about it; as long as your paper is willing to fund your legal defense, as a reporter whom even peripherally covers civil liberities it can ONLY be in your interest to be at the heart of these matters.
1. Leak secret, liberty related government documents in a climate of paranoia and a fascist executive.
2. Watch as fascist executive goes beserk to silence you.
3. Watch as your newspapers sales go through the roof, and your name becomes a household one.
4.
5. Profit big time, and have your name literally go down in the history books.
Corporations are not people. Government organs are not people.
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Neither corporations nor government organizations have "rights"; as well they shouldn't. Do you really want to maintain the same ethical rules for individuals as for, say, the military?
We pay the government "taxes". We pay the phone company "service fees". In both cases, there is an implicit social contract, and in some cases explicit. The NSA is not authorized to conduct surveillance on American citizens; it is a foreign surveillance mechanism. The phone company is specifically prohibited by law and in most cases by contract, and/or local franchise agreement not to disclose records to the government willy-nilly; they must proceed through recognized procedures of due process.
Innocent until proven guilty my friend. Its funny that you think its ok to have this information gathered and leaked against their will, but not your phone records.
You're twisting the meaning of that phrase. Governments and corporations are never found innocent or guilty. They do not have rights against self-incrimination. On the other hand, citizens have the right to due process, the right against self-incrimination, the right to privacy (yes they do; its an right not otherwise enumerated in the constituion, but _is_ implicitly considered. That's the point of the 9th amendment; otherwise it serves no purpose. Furthermore, no law passed can infringe these implict rights. You'd have to change the constituion.)
Lemme quote the 4th amendment for you:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
One particular section again, for emphasis: The right of the people to be secure in their . . . papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.
What, exactly, do you think they meant by papers and effects? I'll tell you; control of communication. Now, the Supreme Court has specifically recognized this portion of the 4th amendment to mean that the contents of your telephone communications are indeed sacrosanct, absent the suspicion of wrong-doing. In the event of wrong-doing, the powers-that-be must acquire a warrant, issued by a court of law. From Wikipedia:
Modern-day consideration of this protection begins with the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment provided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). In Katz, the defendant challenged evidence gained by FBI agents from his telephone conversations, which were obtained through attaching an electronic listener to the exterior of the public telephone booth from which the calls were made. In this case, the Supreme Court stated that "the Fourth Amendment protects people --- and not simply areas." Id. at 353. The court went onto say that the Fourth Amendment was meant to protect people's privacy from the intrusions of unreasonable searches.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has also recognized that communication patterns are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. However; we DO know that a) monitoring/recording of the actual CALL is prohibity without a warrant, and b) Congress implemented statutory limitations on the ability of phone companies to communicate telephone records to the government without warrants. Given that this is an extension of 4th amendment rights, and in no way contradicts the constituion; there really isn't any argument as to why the executive should be able to ignore them. At worst, the only thing that defends us is the constituion, assuming the legislative branch rollsback all the additional protective laws passed. At best, the constitution is merely a base, and the additional priva
Smells like a good use for BitTorrent. Maybe I'll setup a torrent later :)
Yes, but as I understand it several of the SBC primaries where heavily involved with the old-school AT&T-is-big-brother monopoly.
The SBC executives set out to rebuild the empire. They largely succeded.
Somehow, I feel like news papers will go after this quote, and continue to release leaks.
I hope so, anyways. For our (Americans) sake.
Is e-mail an _english_ medium?
If you can't assume rich text, why assume _english_?
Better yet, why not send a rich e-mail (especially from a variety of applications, or in a commercial sense) that contains multiple encodings, and select the correct language based upon the recipient's lingustic settings.
No reason that iPhoto 2010 "form e-mails" containing images shouldn't contain the image metadata and a, "Hi! So and so send you these " in whatever language the client chooses.
Restricting e-mail to plaintext is no different to restricting the web to gopher. We moved on. So should you.