I believe that one of KDE's design goals is to emulate Windows 'enough' that is should be easy for switchers to come to KDE.
Keep in mind you can modify KDE for behavior you find more appropriate.
Also consider enlightenment; that sounds like something you might prefer. One of the nice things about Linux is choice; you don't have to use KDE. Many distributions come with a wide selection of Window managers, and enlightenment is often on the list (it is for SuSE).
None of these are as 'integrated' as KDE, however, but I do not think you can fault the KDE project for acheiveing their design goals, especially because I consider their goals admirable (think, for example, of the recent Novell switch to desktop linux. Do you really think it would have been possible without Windows-like KDE and Gnome?)
I understand that you acknowledge this, but the political motivation really *does* make a lot of sense, especially when you consider that many of the KDE 'developers' work for or in conjunction with the 'ties to IBM, Redhat, (Novell)' that you speak of.
Most 'city' broadband programs encompass a 'co-op' type of ISP setup.
I'm sure they'd have all sorts of zany city council rules, but hey; so will the private ISPs, too (telecom rules are crazy).
I honestly feel that if private companies are not providing the service than there is nothing wrong with the cities jump starting a community organization, and this is how most of the current projects look.
Many IT admins will say you cannot use Firefox on their Network, or a non-Windows 2000 box (even XP, or Mac, or Linux), because they aren't secure.
When you have IT admins living in the darkages breaking the rules sometimes can be the difference between getting the job done and failing miserably.
Also, when the people violating the rules out-rank the people running the IT department breaking the rules mainly just gets you nasty looks rather than canned.
If its nasty looks versus getting the job done (or making your life *significantly* easier), than I choose nasty looks.
I worked at a market research firm, and one of the jobs they did was take responses entered out on an old unix system, coallated into a CSV file, and enter them into an old file maker database.
This was done by printing out the CSV files, and typing the responses, one by one, into filemaker. Very, very time consuming.
I did it by using some simple scripts to parse it and dump it into a format that we could import into file maker. Days or work translated into minutes.
Did my supervisor like this? (I was grunt level, college job). No; she thought it was black magic. Did her boss like it? Yeah, we finally got it done on time.
Did the supervisor have enough clout to make me stop? Nope; the manual entry had been one of her jobs, and she was more than happy to not have to do it anymore. But till the last day I worked there she never believed that the 'scripts' could possibly be doing the right thing, and was suspicious of any method that was not manual entry.
Just saying there are two sides to every position, mind you. It's usually not a good policy to violate company IT policy, especially in companies that have a competent IT staff.
Yes, I know its a good idea from the beginning, but it doesn't always work like that.
Many small through mid-sized businesses *still* only use a couple of out-dated Win95 machines for secretaries, and rely upon paperwork for everything else!
I was shocked when a couple of friends and I started wondering around the *largest* industrial park in the midwest (located outside chicago), offering our services fixing systems (this is *way* before geek-squad and things like that. Like 6 years ago). Roughly 1/3 of the companies we walked into did *not* use computers at all, even for secretaries. Another 1/3 had a DSL connection (or even dial-up) and 1-4 computers, store bought, plugged in, and run.
Now, I'd expect that large companies should fix this sort of problem. But I know someone at a large manufacturing company (international scope, 60-70 people *per* office, hundreds of millions in sales) and when this individual needed an FTP server the IT staff installed some FTP software on her her Windows 2000 desktop told this individual to tell contacts to login at such and such an IP address.
At this company? Plug-in random computers to network? Check. Bring laptops in and out of network? Check.
Recently (3-4 months ago) the IT staffed issued an e-mail understanding that spyware and viruses were becoming a problem in the computing world, and that they were investigating purchasing some sort of antivirus and spyware software to solve these problems.
Not even every *large* company is at the top of their game, IT-wise, and these aren't failing Korean megaliths; these are succesful, highly profitable corporations.
I would find it hard to believe that a majority of small companies *did* have their IT policies locked down.
1. It will *fail*. The cable companies, and alternate provides (like TiVO) will crush Intel, Microsoft, and anyone elses who attempts to develop a media pc. Why? Because the average consumer is much more willing to have an instant-on appliance managed by an outside operator which looks to cost very little (only $5 more on your monthly bill!) than an expensive looking ($500-$1000 at your local electronics store) box with a moderately arcane setup (all you have to do is use this IR transceiver to transmit codes to your cable box, and then program it for the right codes!, or something to do with this new 'cablecard' deal, which few people (especially the cable companies) seem to know much about)).
While it *looks* like Microsoft is on-track with Comcast, Comcast excutives have repeatedly said they are evalutating both iGuide (their current supplier) as well as Microsoft for their boxes. And historically, Microsoft has a terrible record when dealing with cable companies: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/Articl eID/15996/15996.html
Do you *really* expect to have any of these companies roll out a full MS solution on-time without siginificant bugs? I don't, and as soon as one supplies switches, or has a miserable failure (ready Comcast's Oregon MS set-top system freezes for a week) the whole market will break loose.
Which, incidentially, is how Microsoft lost the *rest* of the world regarding IPTV and set-top boxes, which is especially ironic given their size (4737489372 pound gorrilla), and that most content providers started out by saying that the MS solution was their future.
2. Intel's DRM will be cracked. Anyone play a DVD on linux? Did you do it using your licensed player, or your technically illegal libdvdcss? (Except, of course, in a few countries in the world. U.S. is *not* including). This is the primary way that people play DVDs on linux; this is not a niche solution.
3. Most likely, Intel will provide a closed-source kernel module that will provide an API to interact with a closed-source graphics driver. Nvidia and ATI will do the same thing, as well. So you'll be able to get gimped, DRM TV on your linux box, as well.
People have been crying that the sky has been falling for a long time. The problem is, Intel/Micosoft have never been able to deliever the 'killer' solution that ends all competition. They are always a day late and a dollar short. I really just don't consider them a serious threat.
A *far* more serious threat to home linux theatre PCs is the arcane setup required for most linux DVR projects. Fix that mess, and you'll see cheap linux home theatre pc's avaliable at walmart.
Not that I'm blaming the MythTV developers, or the Freevo developers. But it is hard to get those projects up and running correctly at home, and I imagine that from a developer perspective it looks easier to build an MS solution than a Linux solution, which is why the big media distribution companies are looking at MS first.
Once they get their hands wet (as the European firms did), they give up on the MS bugs. I expect an annoucement from Bellsouth to that effect shortly.
Don't be a hypocrit; otherwise, if you seek to insult people using the word boxen, than you should also stop using words such as libre, rendevouz, bonjour, and other foreign words that enter the English speaking world.
Strictly, boxen=German for boxes. No ifs, ands, or buts. And it *doesn't* even matter that slashdot's geeks don't know that. It *is* a correct usage, and its silly to deny inter-lingual 'hops' of various terms.
I'm not sure as to when the first usage of the word 'boxen' came into hackerdom, but I imagine that it had something to do with a German hacker with moderate/low English skills, "I have setup these boxen," or some trivial mistake like that.
And no, that's not an insult to people who don't speak perfect English; I'm bilingual, and myself and my family members (many of whom do not speak English as a primary language) find plenty of amusment in the various mis-mashes of language that we come up with (Fari-glish. Span-glish. Other silly -glishes.)
Not everyone speaks 'The Queen's English', and many trendy terms that do end up entering the common dictionaries do indeed start out as foreign terms.
Get used to it. This is how languages progress over time. English has come a *long* way since old England.
Yes, it'd be nice if the whole world play well together.
On the other hand, it's a great slap in the face to Microsoft if all sorts of pages, left and right, start blowing up in IE.
When you're designing your site, you have every right to dump out IE users, for whatever reason you like. More often than not, the users will not blame your site; they'll blame Microsoft, and look for another browser.
It's a dog eat dog world, and sometimes underhanded tactics like this work very well.
People don't understand why OpenOffice.org doesn't always open Doc files correctly, or Safari/Konqueror/Opera/Mozilla blow up on IE sites; well, more often than not, its the result of MS's underhandedness.
But users *still* blame Safar/Konqueror/Opera/Mozilla/OpenOffice.org.
What's good for the goose, is good for the gander.
Now, what would be best is if these people utilized IE's bug to cause their sites to display incorrectly. Like, say IE's inability to render transparent PNGs correctly.
Something that would render correctly in any other browser, but IE's unique buginess would break. This would be better than utilizing Javascript to boot other browsers out.
Not that many IE sites don't already do that (hence the reason so many browsers allow you to fake an IE identification)
He violated the circumvention clause of the DMCA. He should eat his own dog food.
I feel the same way about RIAA industry-people's kids. I personally know one such individual who rode the napster wave, rode the audiogalaxy wave, and currently uses limewire.
Send 'em to jail! Than maybe they (such as the author of the blog), or their parents (of the RIAA people kids) will change their tune!
Yes, the worst enemy of capitalism is capitalism. What that means is that as MS continues to become less and less paltable, competitors will take their place.
People are much more willing to engage in the little 'r' revolution, than to start over with a new system
The unencubered nature of OSS, and the much more limited DRM of apple-like systems will simply be another feature that savvy salespeople will use to push competitors products.
You know what pissed me off about the home/professional thing?
Before XP, every edition of Windows that sold on a laptop/desktop for home use had support for logon's to NT domains.
Now, I'm not a Windows admin, and refuse to use MS products, so I don't know why this was the case, but in order to enable internet access at my sister's college she had to log onto an NT domain.
Thinking that XP was similar to 2000, or 98SE, or 95, for that matter, I pointed out where I thought the option should be.
She said it wasn't there, that only the top half of the dialog looked like what I was describing. I didn't believe her; sure enough, when I got my hands on her laptop, it *wasn't* there. A little bit of investigation on http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article10-002 revealed that XP home didn't support NT domain logins.
I was *not* happy, and neither was she. Of course, she went to her local drug... ahem, Microsoft dealer, the local school bookstore, where they were selling educational copies of XP pro for $3.
I found it appaling that the 'latest' and 'greatest' Windows didn't support features that came standard with older Windows.
Linux gaming is here, now. Sure, I don't have a huge catalog avaliable.
But I've got the Unreal series, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, Guild Wars, Everquest, most every game developed before 2 years ago, and a good portion of games developed since then.
Linux gaming is a far more viable option that Mac gaming at the moment, and I say that as someone with a great deal of Linux and OS X experience.
Don't get my wrong, I love my powerbook. And my mac mini. But for gaming? My AMD64 box with a Geforce 5950 (getting a little dated now, but still quite powerfully) rock. In SuSE 9.3.
Except we don't get degraded playback, we get no playback.
How many desktop Linux users in the U.S. users have licensed DVD playback software? (Now now, don't be mean, us Linux-only desktop users *do* exist)
That's right, maybe a couple percent. By far the majority of desktop linux users use Xine or Mplayer, using the illegal libdecss.
It doesn't come with our distributions, you have to download the library seperately.
Do you *really* think that MS will managed to make this scheme uncrackable? I'm more than a little suspicious. We'll go on using our quasi-legal software until some giant decides to pickup the market (like PowerDVD linux) and start selling a package that will handle the decryption of this content on Linux PCs.
Then 80% of us will continue using the quasi-legal software, and the remander will use the software.
The Compiler produces MMX, SSE, SSE2, and SSE3 optimized code, but will revert to emulation and pure integer/floating point processing if it does not detect 'Genuine Intel' and 'Pentium 4'.
It's not a question of producing optimal code in terms of processor configuration; that's a gimme. Its a question of not even permitting competitor processors to utilize standard processor extensions, including *older* intel processors that support a partial subset of those features.
Athlon 64s, by the way, support all of these, and operate perfectly, if they are tricked into reporting 'Genuine Intel'.
AMD is not asking Intel to have the compiler produce code that takes advantage of the Athlon architecture; there could be different optimizations because of the Athlon's better memory architecture, or lesser penalty for misprediction, and shorter pipeline.
No, AMD is asking that Intel not produce a compiler that intentional disables standard processor extensions for non-Pentium 4 processors.
No, if it was using proprietary 'processor specific improvements (TM)'.
However, it is *not*.
The real answer (not Intel's answer), is Yes, because Intel's compiler (which is widely regarded as producing some of the fastest binaries out there) produces code that will only take advantage of standard processor extensions (MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3) on 'Genuine Intel' Processors. Regardless of whether or not AMD processors support these extensions, the code excutes in slower, emulation mode if it does not detect 'Genuine Intel'.
When you 'fake' the compiler out by having all processors return 'Genuine Intel', the compiler generates code that will utilize standard extensions that it recognizes (everything but 3DNow, and 3DNow-2), on *any* processor that supports them.
This means your athlon will run SSE code, and your athlon 64 will run SSE,SSE2, and SSE3 code.
Not to mention MMX code, which Intel even disables for non-Pentium 4 Intel processors, even though Intel processors have supported MMX since the Pentium MMX!
This kind of manipulation is clear, and the only purpose is to portray the Pentium 4 as superior, and both older Intel processors and all AMD processors would appear siginificantly faster if the compiler simply utilized whatever extensions where avaliable (on the order of 10-40% for some programs) rather than relying upon the 'Genuine Intel' flag.
Intel *is* a monopoly, and although it is not illegal for a monopoly to exist, monopolies, under current U.S. law, are not permitted to use predatory tactics, especially when going from one market to another (compilers->processors).
It is true that they may have improved; I really don't know. But when I used to use 9x/ME, that stuff *sucked*. Really, really *sucked*.
I had a 2000 system. It was better than 9x/ME, but it still sucked. This was pre-SP1, near the release of 2000. I had problems with 9x/ME apps that were buggy. All in all, a poor experience.
So, I left "Microsoft World". And now I'm much happier, and I will not consider going back to Microsoft World because I was burned in the past; unless they have something *very* compelling to look at, I won't even consider their solutions because I have a beef to pick with that company.
I feel the same way about AT&T Wireless, and Cingular has inherited it from me. I cannot remember the number of times I was on hold for an hour, finally got through to a representative, only to have their workstation crash on them and be actually told my only option was to call back tomorrow and make sure the changes made to my account were made (they usually hadn't been!).
Which meant another 60-90 minutes on hold (I timed it!).
When a company burns you, you make a conscious decision to avoid them. Microsoft's poor quality products in the past, and their generally poor business practicies, have dissuaded me from considering their solutions.
It's called voting with your dollar, people. Ultimately, that's what'll bring MS down; it won't matter how superior Linux (or anything else) is; it won't matter what the TCO's are; and it won't matter that companies have started Linux marketing.
What will matter is when people, both home users and corporate users (and yes, the two are very well-related, especially for small to midsized businesses), are willing to choose Linux (or anything else). The above elements are only part of the equation; the rest is overcoming a Microsoft 'mindset' that pervades the IT community and the computing public at large.
Marketing != Consumer Opinion. It's really only part of the equation, and Consumer Opinion = Market Share.
Not to mention that YaST will configure some of the exact things complained about in the article.
On newer linux distros, you expect stuff like networking and printing to be automatic, but few have proper GUI setup's for BIND, Apache, dhcpd, samba server, nfs server, etc . ..
Sure, I guess I don't have a GUI setup for tomcat; that's what SuSE server is for, and, *gasp*, SuSE server comes with GUI setups for tomcat, a webmail server, a group ware server, and more extensive autoYast configuration.
SuSE is the *most* sophisticated linux distribution out there right now; note that I say sophisticated, not complicated, or user-friendly.
Things that should be automagic generally are (new hardware detection, or picking up various network services (network printers, network shares). Things that should have a GUI for basic setup by non-techies generally do, and including a hypertext help manual, avaliable on the desktop (apache, samba, nfs). Things that should come with the distribution, but are strictly the realm of more experienced nerds are avaliable either in the default install or as packages, and you configure most of that stuff through etc/sysconfig.
The best part is that for true linux/CLI guru's, *ALL* of the above points at the text configuration files that are usually in the places that you would expect, and if not, are generally organized in a 'unixy' way, with documentation in/usr/share/doc/packages/
It's a *really* *fantastic* experience compares to Fedora Core, or Debian.
Ubuntu comes close, but just hasn't come near as far.
No matter which distributions I try these days, I always come back to SuSE. It really does everything *right*.
Yikes, I'm a fan-boy. Oh well; When other linux nerds see my systems (linux nerds who are not suse people) they are generally amazed by how well things work.
This is *exactly* the right point to ask for Linux support!
Either a) A linux native version,
or
b) Disclosure of source code to Transgaming (or Codeweavers, or whoever) to create a Supreme Commander compatible WineX/Cedega. This should be a pretty easy option for them.
I just sent them an e-mail, and I plan on asking all my friends to e-mail them.
I suggest including tidbits like "I play Doom 3, Neverwinter Nights, and the Unreal series of games natively on linux, and I play Half Life 2, and World of Warcraft through cedega."
Linux gaming needs you! Before release is the right time to pester the developers.
The gamecube's lead in Asia was not enough to compensate.
Therefore, Gamecube was a bigger flop.
WTF are you talking about, man? All of 3 of the latest generation consoles have been doing well. If the Xbox is a flop, the gamecube is a flop, leaving....one console!
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that one of KDE's design goals is to emulate Windows 'enough' that is should be easy for switchers to come to KDE.
Keep in mind you can modify KDE for behavior you find more appropriate.
Also consider enlightenment; that sounds like something you might prefer. One of the nice things about Linux is choice; you don't have to use KDE. Many distributions come with a wide selection of Window managers, and enlightenment is often on the list (it is for SuSE).
None of these are as 'integrated' as KDE, however, but I do not think you can fault the KDE project for acheiveing their design goals, especially because I consider their goals admirable (think, for example, of the recent Novell switch to desktop linux. Do you really think it would have been possible without Windows-like KDE and Gnome?)
I understand that you acknowledge this, but the political motivation really *does* make a lot of sense, especially when you consider that many of the KDE 'developers' work for or in conjunction with the 'ties to IBM, Redhat, (Novell)' that you speak of.
Most 'city' broadband programs encompass a 'co-op' type of ISP setup.
I'm sure they'd have all sorts of zany city council rules, but hey; so will the private ISPs, too (telecom rules are crazy).
I honestly feel that if private companies are not providing the service than there is nothing wrong with the cities jump starting a community organization, and this is how most of the current projects look.
That's the problem.
Many IT admins will say you cannot use Firefox on their Network, or a non-Windows 2000 box (even XP, or Mac, or Linux), because they aren't secure.
When you have IT admins living in the darkages breaking the rules sometimes can be the difference between getting the job done and failing miserably.
Also, when the people violating the rules out-rank the people running the IT department breaking the rules mainly just gets you nasty looks rather than canned.
If its nasty looks versus getting the job done (or making your life *significantly* easier), than I choose nasty looks.
I worked at a market research firm, and one of the jobs they did was take responses entered out on an old unix system, coallated into a CSV file, and enter them into an old file maker database.
This was done by printing out the CSV files, and typing the responses, one by one, into filemaker. Very, very time consuming.
I did it by using some simple scripts to parse it and dump it into a format that we could import into file maker. Days or work translated into minutes.
Did my supervisor like this? (I was grunt level, college job). No; she thought it was black magic. Did her boss like it? Yeah, we finally got it done on time.
Did the supervisor have enough clout to make me stop? Nope; the manual entry had been one of her jobs, and she was more than happy to not have to do it anymore. But till the last day I worked there she never believed that the 'scripts' could possibly be doing the right thing, and was suspicious of any method that was not manual entry.
Just saying there are two sides to every position, mind you. It's usually not a good policy to violate company IT policy, especially in companies that have a competent IT staff.
You also see this in growing companies.
At what point do you need a sane LAN policy?
Yes, I know its a good idea from the beginning, but it doesn't always work like that.
Many small through mid-sized businesses *still* only use a couple of out-dated Win95 machines for secretaries, and rely upon paperwork for everything else!
I was shocked when a couple of friends and I started wondering around the *largest* industrial park in the midwest (located outside chicago), offering our services fixing systems (this is *way* before geek-squad and things like that. Like 6 years ago). Roughly 1/3 of the companies we walked into did *not* use computers at all, even for secretaries. Another 1/3 had a DSL connection (or even dial-up) and 1-4 computers, store bought, plugged in, and run.
Now, I'd expect that large companies should fix this sort of problem. But I know someone at a large manufacturing company (international scope, 60-70 people *per* office, hundreds of millions in sales) and when this individual needed an FTP server the IT staff installed some FTP software on her her Windows 2000 desktop told this individual to tell contacts to login at such and such an IP address.
At this company? Plug-in random computers to network? Check. Bring laptops in and out of network? Check.
Recently (3-4 months ago) the IT staffed issued an e-mail understanding that spyware and viruses were becoming a problem in the computing world, and that they were investigating purchasing some sort of antivirus and spyware software to solve these problems.
Not even every *large* company is at the top of their game, IT-wise, and these aren't failing Korean megaliths; these are succesful, highly profitable corporations.
I would find it hard to believe that a majority of small companies *did* have their IT policies locked down.
Not an urban legend, happened at UNC:o vell_server_discovered_after/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_n
Why do you assume its Intel->MS co-operation?
What about Intel->Apple?
Not that IntelApple wouldn't be as bad for linux, yet it is still a minor, but significant point.
Same article was posted last week, was it not?
c -usat_x.htm t rategy_in_tatters/
l eID/15996/15996.html
And anyways; big whooping deal!
1. It will *fail*. The cable companies, and alternate provides (like TiVO) will crush Intel, Microsoft, and anyone elses who attempts to develop a media pc. Why? Because the average consumer is much more willing to have an instant-on appliance managed by an outside operator which looks to cost very little (only $5 more on your monthly bill!) than an expensive looking ($500-$1000 at your local electronics store) box with a moderately arcane setup (all you have to do is use this IR transceiver to transmit codes to your cable box, and then program it for the right codes!, or something to do with this new 'cablecard' deal, which few people (especially the cable companies) seem to know much about)).
Also, I suspect the Windows-based media boxen will be notoriously unreliable and buggy. Also late. Look at Microsoft's IPTV initiative. It's running *way* late. Even for the providers that are already signed up! SBC's techs are sweating bullets right now:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2005-06-07-sb
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/01/ms_iptv_s
While it *looks* like Microsoft is on-track with Comcast, Comcast excutives have repeatedly said they are evalutating both iGuide (their current supplier) as well as Microsoft for their boxes. And historically, Microsoft has a terrible record when dealing with cable companies:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/Artic
Do you *really* expect to have any of these companies roll out a full MS solution on-time without siginificant bugs? I don't, and as soon as one supplies switches, or has a miserable failure (ready Comcast's Oregon MS set-top system freezes for a week) the whole market will break loose.
Which, incidentially, is how Microsoft lost the *rest* of the world regarding IPTV and set-top boxes, which is especially ironic given their size (4737489372 pound gorrilla), and that most content providers started out by saying that the MS solution was their future.
2. Intel's DRM will be cracked. Anyone play a DVD on linux? Did you do it using your licensed player, or your technically illegal libdvdcss? (Except, of course, in a few countries in the world. U.S. is *not* including). This is the primary way that people play DVDs on linux; this is not a niche solution.
3. Most likely, Intel will provide a closed-source kernel module that will provide an API to interact with a closed-source graphics driver. Nvidia and ATI will do the same thing, as well. So you'll be able to get gimped, DRM TV on your linux box, as well.
People have been crying that the sky has been falling for a long time. The problem is, Intel/Micosoft have never been able to deliever the 'killer' solution that ends all competition. They are always a day late and a dollar short. I really just don't consider them a serious threat.
A *far* more serious threat to home linux theatre PCs is the arcane setup required for most linux DVR projects. Fix that mess, and you'll see cheap linux home theatre pc's avaliable at walmart.
Not that I'm blaming the MythTV developers, or the Freevo developers. But it is hard to get those projects up and running correctly at home, and I imagine that from a developer perspective it looks easier to build an MS solution than a Linux solution, which is why the big media distribution companies are looking at MS first.
Once they get their hands wet (as the European firms did), they give up on the MS bugs. I expect an annoucement from Bellsouth to that effect shortly.
It's German, get used to it.
http://odge.info/index.php?ebene=Search&kw=boxen
Don't be a hypocrit; otherwise, if you seek to insult people using the word boxen, than you should also stop using words such as libre, rendevouz, bonjour, and other foreign words that enter the English speaking world.
Strictly, boxen=German for boxes. No ifs, ands, or buts. And it *doesn't* even matter that slashdot's geeks don't know that. It *is* a correct usage, and its silly to deny inter-lingual 'hops' of various terms.
I'm not sure as to when the first usage of the word 'boxen' came into hackerdom, but I imagine that it had something to do with a German hacker with moderate/low English skills, "I have setup these boxen," or some trivial mistake like that.
And no, that's not an insult to people who don't speak perfect English; I'm bilingual, and myself and my family members (many of whom do not speak English as a primary language) find plenty of amusment in the various mis-mashes of language that we come up with (Fari-glish. Span-glish. Other silly -glishes.)
Not everyone speaks 'The Queen's English', and many trendy terms that do end up entering the common dictionaries do indeed start out as foreign terms.
Get used to it. This is how languages progress over time. English has come a *long* way since old England.
Yes, it'd be nice if the whole world play well together.
On the other hand, it's a great slap in the face to Microsoft if all sorts of pages, left and right, start blowing up in IE.
When you're designing your site, you have every right to dump out IE users, for whatever reason you like. More often than not, the users will not blame your site; they'll blame Microsoft, and look for another browser.
It's a dog eat dog world, and sometimes underhanded tactics like this work very well.
People don't understand why OpenOffice.org doesn't always open Doc files correctly, or Safari/Konqueror/Opera/Mozilla blow up on IE sites; well, more often than not, its the result of MS's underhandedness.
But users *still* blame Safar/Konqueror/Opera/Mozilla/OpenOffice.org.
What's good for the goose, is good for the gander.
Now, what would be best is if these people utilized IE's bug to cause their sites to display incorrectly. Like, say IE's inability to render transparent PNGs correctly.
Something that would render correctly in any other browser, but IE's unique buginess would break. This would be better than utilizing Javascript to boot other browsers out.
Not that many IE sites don't already do that (hence the reason so many browsers allow you to fake an IE identification)
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
He violated the circumvention clause of the DMCA. He should eat his own dog food.
I feel the same way about RIAA industry-people's kids. I personally know one such individual who rode the napster wave, rode the audiogalaxy wave, and currently uses limewire.
Send 'em to jail! Than maybe they (such as the author of the blog), or their parents (of the RIAA people kids) will change their tune!
Honestly, this is also the IT industries fault.
The next *BIG* drm scheme will be *secure*
Faster than Ever! More features than before! Able to deliver virtual reality in a single packet!
A large part of the blame lies on the bozos (or maybe they are smarter than we think) selling 'uncrackable' (snake-oil) DRM.
Of course, if it ever was uncrackable, they wouldn't be able to sell version x+1.
No, I do not think you are correct.
Yes, the worst enemy of capitalism is capitalism. What that means is that as MS continues to become less and less paltable, competitors will take their place.
People are much more willing to engage in the little 'r' revolution, than to start over with a new system
The unencubered nature of OSS, and the much more limited DRM of apple-like systems will simply be another feature that savvy salespeople will use to push competitors products.
You know what pissed me off about the home/professional thing?
... ahem, Microsoft dealer, the local school bookstore, where they were selling educational copies of XP pro for $3.
Before XP, every edition of Windows that sold on a laptop/desktop for home use had support for logon's to NT domains.
Now, I'm not a Windows admin, and refuse to use MS products, so I don't know why this was the case, but in order to enable internet access at my sister's college she had to log onto an NT domain.
Thinking that XP was similar to 2000, or 98SE, or 95, for that matter, I pointed out where I thought the option should be.
She said it wasn't there, that only the top half of the dialog looked like what I was describing. I didn't believe her; sure enough, when I got my hands on her laptop, it *wasn't* there. A little bit of investigation on http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article10-002 revealed that XP home didn't support NT domain logins.
I was *not* happy, and neither was she. Of course, she went to her local drug
I found it appaling that the 'latest' and 'greatest' Windows didn't support features that came standard with older Windows.
Get Linux for gaming, and pay Transgaming (www.transgaming.com) to get your games working on linux.
g e
Price of 1 XP Pro >> Minimum Transgaming Price ($15)
Or build it from CVS, using the very slick, very easy to use WineCVS, avaliable here: http://winecvs.linux-gamers.net/index.php/Main_Pa
Linux gaming is here, now. Sure, I don't have a huge catalog avaliable.
But I've got the Unreal series, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, Guild Wars, Everquest, most every game developed before 2 years ago, and a good portion of games developed since then.
Linux gaming is a far more viable option that Mac gaming at the moment, and I say that as someone with a great deal of Linux and OS X experience.
Don't get my wrong, I love my powerbook. And my mac mini. But for gaming? My AMD64 box with a Geforce 5950 (getting a little dated now, but still quite powerfully) rock. In SuSE 9.3.
Except we don't get degraded playback, we get no playback.
How many desktop Linux users in the U.S. users have licensed DVD playback software? (Now now, don't be mean, us Linux-only desktop users *do* exist)
That's right, maybe a couple percent. By far the majority of desktop linux users use Xine or Mplayer, using the illegal libdecss.
It doesn't come with our distributions, you have to download the library seperately.
Do you *really* think that MS will managed to make this scheme uncrackable? I'm more than a little suspicious. We'll go on using our quasi-legal software until some giant decides to pickup the market (like PowerDVD linux) and start selling a package that will handle the decryption of this content on Linux PCs.
Then 80% of us will continue using the quasi-legal software, and the remander will use the software.
The recording industry cartel is complaining about unfair competition from a public broadcasting corporation.
Welcome to inside-out planet! Have a very confusing day!
No;
The Compiler produces MMX, SSE, SSE2, and SSE3 optimized code, but will revert to emulation and pure integer/floating point processing if it does not detect 'Genuine Intel' and 'Pentium 4'.
It's not a question of producing optimal code in terms of processor configuration; that's a gimme. Its a question of not even permitting competitor processors to utilize standard processor extensions, including *older* intel processors that support a partial subset of those features.
Athlon 64s, by the way, support all of these, and operate perfectly, if they are tricked into reporting 'Genuine Intel'.
AMD is not asking Intel to have the compiler produce code that takes advantage of the Athlon architecture; there could be different optimizations because of the Athlon's better memory architecture, or lesser penalty for misprediction, and shorter pipeline.
No, AMD is asking that Intel not produce a compiler that intentional disables standard processor extensions for non-Pentium 4 processors.
Yes, and no.
No, if it was using proprietary 'processor specific improvements (TM)'.
However, it is *not*.
The real answer (not Intel's answer), is Yes, because Intel's compiler (which is widely regarded as producing some of the fastest binaries out there) produces code that will only take advantage of standard processor extensions (MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3) on 'Genuine Intel' Processors. Regardless of whether or not AMD processors support these extensions, the code excutes in slower, emulation mode if it does not detect 'Genuine Intel'.
When you 'fake' the compiler out by having all processors return 'Genuine Intel', the compiler generates code that will utilize standard extensions that it recognizes (everything but 3DNow, and 3DNow-2), on *any* processor that supports them.
This means your athlon will run SSE code, and your athlon 64 will run SSE,SSE2, and SSE3 code.
Not to mention MMX code, which Intel even disables for non-Pentium 4 Intel processors, even though Intel processors have supported MMX since the Pentium MMX!
This kind of manipulation is clear, and the only purpose is to portray the Pentium 4 as superior, and both older Intel processors and all AMD processors would appear siginificantly faster if the compiler simply utilized whatever extensions where avaliable (on the order of 10-40% for some programs) rather than relying upon the 'Genuine Intel' flag.
Intel *is* a monopoly, and although it is not illegal for a monopoly to exist, monopolies, under current U.S. law, are not permitted to use predatory tactics, especially when going from one market to another (compilers->processors).
Seriously, if you've still got the documentation, send that to AMD's legal team.
That's a clear instance of them using their monopoly power to damage AMD's reputation with a developer (you).
This *exactly* the sort of evidence they will be using to build their case.
The best solution to linux printing and scanning at the low end is HP All-In-One units.
You can get a printer and scanner for $100, well supported by HPOJ in linux.
Yes.
I was burned by Micro-crap.
It is true that they may have improved; I really don't know. But when I used to use 9x/ME, that stuff *sucked*. Really, really *sucked*.
I had a 2000 system. It was better than 9x/ME, but it still sucked. This was pre-SP1, near the release of 2000. I had problems with 9x/ME apps that were buggy. All in all, a poor experience.
So, I left "Microsoft World". And now I'm much happier, and I will not consider going back to Microsoft World because I was burned in the past; unless they have something *very* compelling to look at, I won't even consider their solutions because I have a beef to pick with that company.
I feel the same way about AT&T Wireless, and Cingular has inherited it from me. I cannot remember the number of times I was on hold for an hour, finally got through to a representative, only to have their workstation crash on them and be actually told my only option was to call back tomorrow and make sure the changes made to my account were made (they usually hadn't been!).
Which meant another 60-90 minutes on hold (I timed it!).
When a company burns you, you make a conscious decision to avoid them. Microsoft's poor quality products in the past, and their generally poor business practicies, have dissuaded me from considering their solutions.
It's called voting with your dollar, people. Ultimately, that's what'll bring MS down; it won't matter how superior Linux (or anything else) is; it won't matter what the TCO's are; and it won't matter that companies have started Linux marketing.
What will matter is when people, both home users and corporate users (and yes, the two are very well-related, especially for small to midsized businesses), are willing to choose Linux (or anything else). The above elements are only part of the equation; the rest is overcoming a Microsoft 'mindset' that pervades the IT community and the computing public at large.
Marketing != Consumer Opinion. It's really only part of the equation, and Consumer Opinion = Market Share.
Not to mention that YaST will configure some of the exact things complained about in the article.
.
/usr/share/doc/packages/
On newer linux distros, you expect stuff like networking and printing to be automatic, but few have proper GUI setup's for BIND, Apache, dhcpd, samba server, nfs server, etc . .
Sure, I guess I don't have a GUI setup for tomcat; that's what SuSE server is for, and, *gasp*, SuSE server comes with GUI setups for tomcat, a webmail server, a group ware server, and more extensive autoYast configuration.
SuSE is the *most* sophisticated linux distribution out there right now; note that I say sophisticated, not complicated, or user-friendly.
Things that should be automagic generally are (new hardware detection, or picking up various network services (network printers, network shares). Things that should have a GUI for basic setup by non-techies generally do, and including a hypertext help manual, avaliable on the desktop (apache, samba, nfs). Things that should come with the distribution, but are strictly the realm of more experienced nerds are avaliable either in the default install or as packages, and you configure most of that stuff through etc/sysconfig.
The best part is that for true linux/CLI guru's, *ALL* of the above points at the text configuration files that are usually in the places that you would expect, and if not, are generally organized in a 'unixy' way, with documentation in
It's a *really* *fantastic* experience compares to Fedora Core, or Debian.
Ubuntu comes close, but just hasn't come near as far.
No matter which distributions I try these days, I always come back to SuSE. It really does everything *right*.
Yikes, I'm a fan-boy. Oh well; When other linux nerds see my systems (linux nerds who are not suse people) they are generally amazed by how well things work.
This is *exactly* the right point to ask for Linux support!
Either a) A linux native version,
or
b) Disclosure of source code to Transgaming (or Codeweavers, or whoever) to create a Supreme Commander compatible WineX/Cedega. This should be a pretty easy option for them.
I just sent them an e-mail, and I plan on asking all my friends to e-mail them.
I suggest including tidbits like "I play Doom 3, Neverwinter Nights, and the Unreal series of games natively on linux, and I play Half Life 2, and World of Warcraft through cedega."
Linux gaming needs you! Before release is the right time to pester the developers.
Gamecube.
The xbox outsold the gamecube in Europe and U.S.
The gamecube's lead in Asia was not enough to compensate.
Therefore, Gamecube was a bigger flop.
WTF are you talking about, man? All of 3 of the latest generation consoles have been doing well. If the Xbox is a flop, the gamecube is a flop, leaving....one console!
Yup.
TA is my favorite RTS, bar none.
There have been some decent gamess (distractions) since then, like Rise of Nations, but nothing even comes close to TA.
If Supreme Commander comes close to TA with improved graphics it'll be the best modern RTS. Bar none.
Now I only hope and pray it works in Linux.