Nothing gets America going more than a little competition.
The article says nothing about the method, the cheapest way (just off the top of my head) would be to update the Saturn 5, but (I think) the best solution would be to leverage a Space Station (one in the "right" orbit) and use that as a way station.
That way you could reuse a moon obiter lander repeatedly.
Oddly enough, one of Smalley's main points is that to produce the enzyme or ribosome entity the nanobot would need to have a liquid core. So I quess the answer is "yes, you would need to get them drunk!"
I think that I got most of the arguments, but it's hard to take a stand. I especially liked this "counterpoint" quote:
Much like you can't make a boy and a girl fall in love with each other simply by pushing them together, you cannot make precise chemistry occur as desired between two molecular objects with simple mechanical motion along a few degrees of freedom in the assembler-fixed frame of reference. Chemistry, like love, is more subtle than that. You need to guide the reactants down a particular reaction coordinate, and this coordinate treads through a many-dimensional hyperspace.
*sigh* I'm touched.
Also I found it interesting that the usage of Nanotechnology was changed so greatly that the creator of the term accepts the newer phrase 'molecular assemblers' for that process.
Well, It's a lot easier to "consult" for a company which is located just around the corner, or for your kids to have really good summer jobs. I'm sure more than a few lunches (and perhaps much more) were purchased. Of course, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that but there might be. I think that with the recent corporate scandals, it is certianly something to keep an eye out for.
Just because they are listed in a U.S. stock market doesn't mean the they give substantial jobs to American Delelopers, I bet even in the U.S. they are heavy users of H1-B visas.
Next, assume the student is working for 1/2 tuition credit
Have you ever heard of work-study. I haven't been to college in a number of years and I don't know what the current rates are but I am sure that it doesn't pay that well. I bet there are dozens of students saying "where can I get half off my tuition", show us that link.
Also who says you have to pay them anything, hell, it could be a class project.
Last time I checked MIT was an Educational Institution, that means they are in the BUSINESS of educating their students. Building and deploying an application would be good assignment, perhaps even a *gasp* "learning experience".
No wonder it cost so much to go to college these days, even MIT doesn't use it's own students for cheap labor these days.
I guess that it's hard for the school administrators to soak money off a project unless it's got a big budget.
Perhaps a conversation to a close friend goes like this: "Yea, we're outsourcing the project to an Indian company which is paying me to consult"
I'm still waiting for the "h-chip" (for human-chip; but perhaps it will just be known as "The Chip") to be implanted at birth. It would prove idendity and log scans into a database (Oracle, of course).
Speaking of nitpicking...
I believe that the industry is settling in on the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) name. Tivo, ReplayTV, and (dare I mention) UltimateTV refer to themselves on their homepages as DVRs. So it is probally most proper to refer to them individually as a "DVR", or as a "DVR(aka PVR)".
On the other hand, Hauppauge has WinTV-PVR and a google showed several articles refering to those devices as PVRs. So the "jury is still out", but "I see the tide turning", [[insert more sayings here]]
Also, you are sorta right about not knowing that is available with DVRs, I have seen them used and played with a couple (including my father's house), but I do not yet own one. I will (most likely) purchase one over the next year. I am a little confused over your comment that "they sell themselves to a giant Asian firm" and that being better than the hated Hollywood, but the price factor of ReplayTV might push me to that system.
As far as Digital cable sucking, well you must not have any experience with the best feature, on-demand, because the channel quide will start (predictably) at "1" (which is On-Demand). However, I don't use the channel quide in "full format", somtimes I use it to see which "reqular" movies are starting or to check my "favorites", otherwise it's a bit of a pain flipping through over a hundred channels on screen of (maybe) 10 titles at a time. However, mostly I like the show title which shows up even when it's on commercial (a must have for channel surfing). From that I can check that channel's shows for the rest of the night (and find out the "info").
That is nothing new, I remember that an interview with a Nielson "family" some years ago, at the time people filled in a sheet that detailed what they watched on TV. The woman didn't want to be associcated with her "guilty pleasures" and would just put down "Gilligan's Island" instead of what she really watched.
Yes, GOOD advertising already does exist, but you cannot play them "ala carte". You need to sit and watch needless hours of (American) football, just to watch the latest antics of your favorite sock puppet. Even with a DVR, you need to fast forward the programming and the unwanted commercials just to find the one you want, assuming of course that you happened to record the block of programming that the commerical was shown on. On Demand tuning for commercials would change this, and allow for longer more specialized commericals for those who are already shopping for that product. Maybe, even a "buy now" button, which places the order, adds the total to you cable bill and ships to your address.
I'd have to disagree, digital cable works well for me. The on-screen quide has become very important to my tv viewing, and the on-demand movies and programs are becoming so as well. On related news, Comcast is starting to deploy DVRs included in (or with) their set top boxes, it is what people are pushing for and like any *cough* good company they are deploying what the customer whats (I am really mixed on that last part). Of course they are just adding a service for which people are willing to pay. However, I wouldn't be suprise if the device does some heavy logging/ reporting of your TV viewing patterns.
Where I see the industury going in the future is more to the "pay TV" standard, with the price of a channel is included in your package. Some cable companys already include "comercial-less" channels in their various packages. It might even get to the point where if you want the history channels package you'll need to pay $2/month, the news package of CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC will be another $2/month. The stations themselves will have more pay-for-placement and inline ads. The cable companies will have in-line flash-like ads for the various menus (static ads are already there for digital cable). Also, I believe that good story-telling ads will become more important, where people even choose to watch the ads because they are funny, interesting or touching. With on demand tuning you might even be tempted to say "hey, man, play the new Subway ads they're side-splitting funny". Ads which the viewer choose to watch are certainly much more effective.
My infant son has had a couple of problems, so I have spent a fair amount of time in the hospital over the last year and a half. Both hospitals had signs out front saying "Turn off Cell Phones". In both places I was told where to use my phone from staff directly and they gave me "interference" as the reason for not using it anywhere near the equipment (I asked, nicely). It might fall into the catagory of an abundance of caution, perhaps they haven't yet "certified" all of their equipment.
Clearly your workplace is using the Nextel cellular system for your voice (and maybe data) communications, and I am sure that your workplace has taken great care with the deployment. However, I do wonder how it all will hold up when everything is broadcasting radio signals, cellphones, PDAs, desktops, heart monitors, baby monitors (everything with a processor) etc.; not to mention tracking tags for beds, lunch trays, wrist bands, and everything else that get wheeled about the place. I am sure that questions like that won't escape the over cautious. Don't get me wrong, I love wireless, but adding features to the motherboard before some are willing to adapt (or even live with), might not be the best idea. (Grain of salt) I am sure that Intel will have a way of turning it off in BIOS for people who don't/ can't use it.
BTW, my son is is doing ok and do have a great deal of respect for the fine Nurses and Doctors who have cared for him.
Really, I did read both the article and the summary. Which blurb in the summary were you talking about, was it the one right before "Intel has said it eventually intends build a Wi-Fi radio into its microprocessors."
I am sorry to be a bit of a jerk about it, you might have noticed your error after you posted. Sometimes, it's a bit of a problem that you can't edit after you commited a comment.
Building more functionality into the motherboard is an ongoing trend, but adding a radio cannot be a good thing. Due to potential interferance, you cannot go into a hospital or airplane without being told to turn off your cellphone.
Re:Am not sure 3-click rule was really *debunked*
on
Web 'Rules' Changing?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I saw that study, and thought "what was the testing method", was it:
a bunch of internet users who agreed to have their internet activities monitored, with statiscation monitored by follow up survey.
an analysis of web logs, with the follow up survey based on a pop up after they surfed away?
click-wrapped spyware.
Each of these methods would bring along certain problems. Weblog analysis would (I believe) give the best population sample, but depending on the added popup for the "fustration data" would skew the results. If someone is truely fustrated with the site then a popup when they go will tend to be ignored. Heavy internet users also tend to ignore popups (or have a program or browser setting to kill them before they are seen). Also the survey's context may get lost amongst the windows.
Also I thought it interesting that in both of the figures they presented there seemed to be a "fustration spike" at 6 clicks. However they didn't even mention it. I can't be the only one who noticed it.
It's a tool in my toolbelt. I communicate with other developers using IM all the time. It really fits well between email and telephone.
With email (like a letter) you compose with a certain number of questions, chekc your speelling for errors, and then to make sure you tone isn't "over the top". Sometimes you can hold the channel open too long (a long email), maybe even explaining what you don't need to because you don't get any sense of what the reader understands already. You might even repeat your message in a different manner, just to be clear. Short, one liner emails tend to pile up the inbox, and they quickly loose context (by the time you get all the headers, and the reply being below the current message etc.) Most people compose email, trying to make a complete thought, changing direction is harder because the process of making the email also reinforces your opinion
With a telephone, you get instant reaction, and you can even tell where their level of comfort is with a particular conversation. Changing direction is easy. However, Voices Carry (to coin a phrase) and conversation in a cube is heard by everyone near you, which can be a distration. Also an open telephone line is a primary focus, I don't know anyone who can carry on two different conversations at the same time, or (for that matter) someone able to continue a conversation with the other person constantly flipping to a different line. Some company phone lines don't allow for call-waiting, so someone trying (my work phone) will go strait to voicemail, when the phone is otherwise used (including checking messages!).
With IM (at work we use sametime), you can shoot off a quick one liner, (i.e. "Does it work now?", "ok, I changed the config"). Also for multi-taskers you can carry on two (or more) private conversations. With an IM client you can easily go over a conversation. It is all in the right order and the correct conversation (very easy to keep context).
The thing that I don't like is to have the chat window take focus off my desktop. So I took the radical step of changing the value of "always on top". When I am in a conversation (on IM), I don't want it popping up and taking my desktop focus. Unfortunately sometimes I didn't see the item flashing on the taskbar. Recently I have be trying notes buddy (beta from IBM), and that has a neat feature to read the messages, I have it set it just to read the first line of a new conversation. Not to great if your in a cube (like a phone ringing, well kinda), but I recently got a real office (I still think it was a mixup).
yea, I see what you mean, I did a quick check on registerfly and found only springer.nu and springer.bz left (and both of those want nearly $30/yr)
But..
Springer-family.us is open. In fact registerfly only charges $5.99/yr for.us domains. Maybe, I should register it, hummm....
just for the record, <rant>one jerk with the same last name as me, is just sitting on the pinder.com,.net, and.org. Why does he need three domains just to park his content-less website, and he just renewed each of them for another two years.</rant> Other pinder domains are unavailable as well. Usually you need to "add a little" to get the address or go with an uncommon TLD (like.biz,.us, or.info)
News Flash --.name TLD opening up early next year, the format is different, they keep the domain name and sell the "server names", and they expect the name like: [FirstName].[LastName].name but I can easily see it to be [LastName].[location or other word].name (like springer.usa.name so that you could be Jerry@springer.usa.name or Jerry@springer.my.name or
Jerry@springer.our.nameJerry@springer.giveMeBackMy.name
Yes I did see that excuse, but unless the editors are into rewriting conclusion, I don't believe him. It is very hard to explain the conclusion the the SpamAssassin section. Included again for emphisis:
SpamAssassin is the perfect example of first-generation techniques becoming outmoded by advances in spamming technology.
That is not what an editor would change, also he didn't say that they changed , he did say removed some explaination.
Maybe the editor did take out a paragraph that said, "The vendor that gave me the software, also gave me a CD of redhat which included SpamAssassin, I didn't bother to use the updated version because the expensive products wouldn't look as good", or perhaps it said... "The vendor that gave me the Redhat cd assured me that it included the latest verion of that outdated product SpamAssassin that he wanted his product compared against.", or perhaps... " the editor insisted that I use the old version to make the ones that pay for advertisment look better".
I have said this before, but... There is no indication in the article that this was not anything but a Product A, vs. Product B, vs. Product C comparision. No matter how he tries to "spin it".
No, he doesn't say that is why he used it. He just states that is where he found it. One would presume that he downloaded the latest versions (or were given by the advertiser...company) other programs, then why whould he just use one that is included as an extra feature to another distribution. In fact, the first rule of software installation is to check for an updated version, unless you have good reason to stick with a older one. I say that he did have good reason... to prove this point (from the article):
SpamAssassin is the perfect example of first-generation techniques becoming outmoded by advances in spamming technology.
I have quoted that before, but it is very relavent to this discusion. In in a open letter to the mailing list he states:
This explanation was condensed in the finished article by copy editors,hich is beyond my control.
Unless his conclusion was actually changed by the editors, I cannot see any reason why this was not the simple Product A vs. Product B vs. Product C comparision. I believe that that entire article was FUD from the comercial spam blocking companies, who what you to pay $20 to $30, per year, per user. Hell, a lot of email hosting companies charge that for entire the account. I get 30 pop accounts does that mean I need to pay at least $500/yr more for spam blocking on my email hosting? According to the author it is well worth the money. My email hosting comes with my web hosting, That is more money than I pay for both.
<liar>
I stated that I used the 2.44 release of SpamAssassin for two reasons - because it was the version shipping with the latest release of Red Hat 9 and because it would illustrate how much the state of the art has changed in the last year or two.</liar>
I might have missed it, but in the article he doesn't state these "reasons". In fact his conclusion on it whould leave you to believe that SpamAssassin wasn't advancing at all. From the article:
SpamAssassin is the perfect example of first-generation techniques becoming outmoded by advances in spamming technology.
In my testing, the performance of the newer products was more than acceptable in every case. Per-user, per-year pricing should not be an obstacle, even for the most expensive product.
Sounds to me like Infoworld has an advertising contract with (at least) one of these companies. At the very least he should have checked the site for an update before he started his "tests". For a while there, I got every one of those "IT industry" hype mags (always free). While there was some good information here and there, you had to wade through a lot of advertising pretending to be articles.
I love SpamAssassin and would not consider email hosting without it. It has made my email account useable again ! For the record, it seems to catch about 80-90% of my spam, and I have never seen a 'false positive' (I do check my 'spam' folder, but less and less)
Ever time you buy anything with a cord it comes with a wire tie. Just save them, or at least the long ones. I just fold them in half and throw them in with the loose 'odd' screws. Most of the time the twist ties are plastic coated, and I have found expecially long ones on children toys (for my son, not me, smartass).
You might even consider buying it by the roll, I am sure its inexpensive, although I have never seem it sold, so I am guessing.
Also one problem with Zip ties, they are a pain to remove without a tool of some sort(knife, etc...). Then you need to be sure that you don't cut (or poke) the wrong thing! You could easily destroy what you are tying to save.
A nightmare of any new server room admin is to find all the wires in zip ties. Not only does it mean they need to keep a pocket knife handy, but it is common for zip-ties to "cut into" the wire casing, if you pull it closed to hard. Velco is better, but unless you want to look good (exposed wires maybe), why buy what you get free all of the time (or maybe by the roll cheap).
You mean to tell me that those researchers found a dead link on the Internet, the horror. Were can I get one of those jobs!
Another study, published in January, found that 40 percent to 50 percent of the URLs referenced in articles in two computing journals were inaccessible within four years
That's because they were ads for companies that went out of business.
besides if you want to see old pages just go the the the wayback machine. Between that and backup tapes, everything you ever wrote still lives (in many cases I wish it didn't !).
Realilize that while you might be able to get a free lunch today, you might not tomorrow. Sorry, but the dot com boom came and went, so did a lot of the benifit of free VC money. Web Page advertising money is getting worse, and they get nothing if they allow POP3 access (unless you allow them to spam you). Even then, what is the click rate of spam? Maybe some guy in Nigeria can suvive on.01% response rate, but I doubt if Yahoo can.
Buy a domain, heck, go in with a couple of family members and get a "family" domain and you can be "john@doe.us". Don't pay more than $10 yr.
Get an email hosting plan. I have seen good ones with anti-spam, anti-virus, for $5/month for 5 accounts (really there are many out there, shop around*). It is very nice to have access to an SMTP server (but your ISP might not allow the traffic). Split the cost with 4 family members and your cost would be only $14/year total (less than $1.25/month, or 4 cents a day) for your own vanity domain and a bigger mailbox, plus when you get sick of them just buy a different service and take your mail with you!
Also an email address with a family name might be a good Christmas gift!
*on a related note, don't just go for the cheapest, but the one with the most details for a reasonable price. Also, most likely it's a good idea to keep your hosting and your Domain registar separate, they could be related companies, but don't do it as a package. You might not like the service and it would be one step harder to move.
Slashdot Mirror
The article says nothing about the method, the cheapest way (just off the top of my head) would be to update the Saturn 5, but (I think) the best solution would be to leverage a Space Station (one in the "right" orbit) and use that as a way station. That way you could reuse a moon obiter lander repeatedly.
Oddly enough, one of Smalley's main points is that to produce the enzyme or ribosome entity the nanobot would need to have a liquid core. So I quess the answer is "yes, you would need to get them drunk!"
*sigh* I'm touched.
Also I found it interesting that the usage of Nanotechnology was changed so greatly that the creator of the term accepts the newer phrase 'molecular assemblers' for that process.
Just because they are listed in a U.S. stock market doesn't mean the they give substantial jobs to American Delelopers, I bet even in the U.S. they are heavy users of H1-B visas.
Also who says you have to pay them anything, hell, it could be a class project.
Last time I checked MIT was an Educational Institution, that means they are in the BUSINESS of educating their students. Building and deploying an application would be good assignment, perhaps even a *gasp* "learning experience".
I guess that it's hard for the school administrators to soak money off a project unless it's got a big budget. Perhaps a conversation to a close friend goes like this: "Yea, we're outsourcing the project to an Indian company which is paying me to consult"
I'm still waiting for the "h-chip" (for human-chip; but perhaps it will just be known as "The Chip") to be implanted at birth. It would prove idendity and log scans into a database (Oracle, of course).
I believe that the industry is settling in on the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) name. Tivo, ReplayTV, and (dare I mention) UltimateTV refer to themselves on their homepages as DVRs. So it is probally most proper to refer to them individually as a "DVR", or as a "DVR(aka PVR)".
On the other hand, Hauppauge has WinTV-PVR and a google showed several articles refering to those devices as PVRs. So the "jury is still out", but "I see the tide turning", [[insert more sayings here]]
Also, you are sorta right about not knowing that is available with DVRs, I have seen them used and played with a couple (including my father's house), but I do not yet own one. I will (most likely) purchase one over the next year. I am a little confused over your comment that "they sell themselves to a giant Asian firm" and that being better than the hated Hollywood, but the price factor of ReplayTV might push me to that system.
As far as Digital cable sucking, well you must not have any experience with the best feature, on-demand, because the channel quide will start (predictably) at "1" (which is On-Demand). However, I don't use the channel quide in "full format", somtimes I use it to see which "reqular" movies are starting or to check my "favorites", otherwise it's a bit of a pain flipping through over a hundred channels on screen of (maybe) 10 titles at a time. However, mostly I like the show title which shows up even when it's on commercial (a must have for channel surfing). From that I can check that channel's shows for the rest of the night (and find out the "info").
That is nothing new, I remember that an interview with a Nielson "family" some years ago, at the time people filled in a sheet that detailed what they watched on TV. The woman didn't want to be associcated with her "guilty pleasures" and would just put down "Gilligan's Island" instead of what she really watched.
Yes, GOOD advertising already does exist, but you cannot play them "ala carte". You need to sit and watch needless hours of (American) football, just to watch the latest antics of your favorite sock puppet. Even with a DVR, you need to fast forward the programming and the unwanted commercials just to find the one you want, assuming of course that you happened to record the block of programming that the commerical was shown on. On Demand tuning for commercials would change this, and allow for longer more specialized commericals for those who are already shopping for that product. Maybe, even a "buy now" button, which places the order, adds the total to you cable bill and ships to your address.
Where I see the industury going in the future is more to the "pay TV" standard, with the price of a channel is included in your package. Some cable companys already include "comercial-less" channels in their various packages. It might even get to the point where if you want the history channels package you'll need to pay $2/month, the news package of CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC will be another $2/month. The stations themselves will have more pay-for-placement and inline ads. The cable companies will have in-line flash-like ads for the various menus (static ads are already there for digital cable). Also, I believe that good story-telling ads will become more important, where people even choose to watch the ads because they are funny, interesting or touching. With on demand tuning you might even be tempted to say "hey, man, play the new Subway ads they're side-splitting funny". Ads which the viewer choose to watch are certainly much more effective.
Clearly your workplace is using the Nextel cellular system for your voice (and maybe data) communications, and I am sure that your workplace has taken great care with the deployment. However, I do wonder how it all will hold up when everything is broadcasting radio signals, cellphones, PDAs, desktops, heart monitors, baby monitors (everything with a processor) etc.; not to mention tracking tags for beds, lunch trays, wrist bands, and everything else that get wheeled about the place. I am sure that questions like that won't escape the over cautious. Don't get me wrong, I love wireless, but adding features to the motherboard before some are willing to adapt (or even live with), might not be the best idea. (Grain of salt) I am sure that Intel will have a way of turning it off in BIOS for people who don't/ can't use it.
BTW, my son is is doing ok and do have a great deal of respect for the fine Nurses and Doctors who have cared for him.
I am sorry to be a bit of a jerk about it, you might have noticed your error after you posted. Sometimes, it's a bit of a problem that you can't edit after you commited a comment.
Building more functionality into the motherboard is an ongoing trend, but adding a radio cannot be a good thing. Due to potential interferance, you cannot go into a hospital or airplane without being told to turn off your cellphone.
- a bunch of internet users who agreed to have their internet activities monitored, with statiscation monitored by follow up survey.
- an analysis of web logs, with the follow up survey based on a pop up after they surfed away?
- click-wrapped spyware.
Each of these methods would bring along certain problems. Weblog analysis would (I believe) give the best population sample, but depending on the added popup for the "fustration data" would skew the results. If someone is truely fustrated with the site then a popup when they go will tend to be ignored. Heavy internet users also tend to ignore popups (or have a program or browser setting to kill them before they are seen). Also the survey's context may get lost amongst the windows.Also I thought it interesting that in both of the figures they presented there seemed to be a "fustration spike" at 6 clicks. However they didn't even mention it. I can't be the only one who noticed it.
With email (like a letter) you compose with a certain number of questions, chekc your speelling for errors, and then to make sure you tone isn't "over the top". Sometimes you can hold the channel open too long (a long email), maybe even explaining what you don't need to because you don't get any sense of what the reader understands already. You might even repeat your message in a different manner, just to be clear. Short, one liner emails tend to pile up the inbox, and they quickly loose context (by the time you get all the headers, and the reply being below the current message etc.) Most people compose email, trying to make a complete thought, changing direction is harder because the process of making the email also reinforces your opinion
With a telephone, you get instant reaction, and you can even tell where their level of comfort is with a particular conversation. Changing direction is easy. However, Voices Carry (to coin a phrase) and conversation in a cube is heard by everyone near you, which can be a distration. Also an open telephone line is a primary focus, I don't know anyone who can carry on two different conversations at the same time, or (for that matter) someone able to continue a conversation with the other person constantly flipping to a different line. Some company phone lines don't allow for call-waiting, so someone trying (my work phone) will go strait to voicemail, when the phone is otherwise used (including checking messages!).
With IM (at work we use sametime), you can shoot off a quick one liner, (i.e. "Does it work now?", "ok, I changed the config"). Also for multi-taskers you can carry on two (or more) private conversations. With an IM client you can easily go over a conversation. It is all in the right order and the correct conversation (very easy to keep context).
The thing that I don't like is to have the chat window take focus off my desktop. So I took the radical step of changing the value of "always on top". When I am in a conversation (on IM), I don't want it popping up and taking my desktop focus. Unfortunately sometimes I didn't see the item flashing on the taskbar. Recently I have be trying notes buddy (beta from IBM), and that has a neat feature to read the messages, I have it set it just to read the first line of a new conversation. Not to great if your in a cube (like a phone ringing, well kinda), but I recently got a real office (I still think it was a mixup).
IM, it not just for cheating spouses any longer
But.. /yr for .us domains. Maybe, I should register it, hummm....
Springer-family.us is open. In fact registerfly only charges $5.99
just for the record, <rant>one jerk with the same last name as me, is just sitting on the pinder.com, .net, and .org. Why does he need three domains just to park his content-less website, and he just renewed each of them for another two years.</rant> Other pinder domains are unavailable as well. Usually you need to "add a little" to get the address or go with an uncommon TLD (like .biz, .us, or .info)
News Flash -- .name TLD opening up early next year, the format is different, they keep the domain name and sell the "server names", and they expect the name like: [FirstName].[LastName].name but I can easily see it to be [LastName].[location or other word].name (like springer.usa.name so that you could be Jerry@springer.usa.name or Jerry@springer.my.name or
Jerry@springer.our.name
Jerry@springer.giveMeBackMy.name
hope that helps your search!
Maybe the editor did take out a paragraph that said, "The vendor that gave me the software, also gave me a CD of redhat which included SpamAssassin, I didn't bother to use the updated version because the expensive products wouldn't look as good", or perhaps it said... "The vendor that gave me the Redhat cd assured me that it included the latest verion of that outdated product SpamAssassin that he wanted his product compared against.", or perhaps ... " the editor insisted that I use the old version to make the ones that pay for advertisment look better".
I have said this before, but... There is no indication in the article that this was not anything but a Product A, vs. Product B, vs. Product C comparision. No matter how he tries to "spin it".
Unless his conclusion was actually changed by the editors, I cannot see any reason why this was not the simple Product A vs. Product B vs. Product C comparision. I believe that that entire article was FUD from the comercial spam blocking companies, who what you to pay $20 to $30, per year, per user. Hell, a lot of email hosting companies charge that for entire the account. I get 30 pop accounts does that mean I need to pay at least $500/yr more for spam blocking on my email hosting? According to the author it is well worth the money. My email hosting comes with my web hosting, That is more money than I pay for both.
From the article: See nothing about this "old" version or "the one that ships with Red Hat 9.0". Off hand, I am not familiar his work, but both of the books on Amazon are out of print. One from '99 and the other from '98, talk about being outmoded!
Novell's Problem-Solving Guide for Netware Systems (The Inside Story)
and
Troubleshooting Netware Systems
Sounds to me like Infoworld has an advertising contract with (at least) one of these companies. At the very least he should have checked the site for an update before he started his "tests". For a while there, I got every one of those "IT industry" hype mags (always free). While there was some good information here and there, you had to wade through a lot of advertising pretending to be articles.
I love SpamAssassin and would not consider email hosting without it. It has made my email account useable again ! For the record, it seems to catch about 80-90% of my spam, and I have never seen a 'false positive' (I do check my 'spam' folder, but less and less)
You might even consider buying it by the roll, I am sure its inexpensive, although I have never seem it sold, so I am guessing.
Also one problem with Zip ties, they are a pain to remove without a tool of some sort(knife, etc...). Then you need to be sure that you don't cut (or poke) the wrong thing! You could easily destroy what you are tying to save.
A nightmare of any new server room admin is to find all the wires in zip ties. Not only does it mean they need to keep a pocket knife handy, but it is common for zip-ties to "cut into" the wire casing, if you pull it closed to hard. Velco is better, but unless you want to look good (exposed wires maybe), why buy what you get free all of the time (or maybe by the roll cheap).
besides if you want to see old pages just go the the the wayback machine. Between that and backup tapes, everything you ever wrote still lives (in many cases I wish it didn't !).
Realilize that while you might be able to get a free lunch today, you might not tomorrow. Sorry, but the dot com boom came and went, so did a lot of the benifit of free VC money. Web Page advertising money is getting worse, and they get nothing if they allow POP3 access (unless you allow them to spam you). Even then, what is the click rate of spam? Maybe some guy in Nigeria can suvive on .01% response rate, but I doubt if Yahoo can.
Buy a domain, heck, go in with a couple of family members and get a "family" domain and you can be "john@doe.us". Don't pay more than $10 yr. Get an email hosting plan. I have seen good ones with anti-spam, anti-virus, for $5/month for 5 accounts (really there are many out there, shop around*). It is very nice to have access to an SMTP server (but your ISP might not allow the traffic). Split the cost with 4 family members and your cost would be only $14/year total (less than $1.25/month, or 4 cents a day) for your own vanity domain and a bigger mailbox, plus when you get sick of them just buy a different service and take your mail with you!
Also an email address with a family name might be a good Christmas gift!
*on a related note, don't just go for the cheapest, but the one with the most details for a reasonable price. Also, most likely it's a good idea to keep your hosting and your Domain registar separate, they could be related companies, but don't do it as a package. You might not like the service and it would be one step harder to move.
Damn it.