Going way back to my earlier post I'm still left wondering about 2 significant questions that I haven't yet seen answered.
First off, how can anyone make a prediction about an effect by only measuring the cause? I'd be feeling a lot different about this if they had said they've measured more ozone and less CFC's in that area. Some kind of cause and effect connection to what is being looked at.
The other point I've raised has to do with the mechanism for transportation. How the heck are chemicals from the northern hemisphere getting shoved to the south pole without the help of trade winds? Whenever I see this discussed it always seems to get lost in a lot of chemistry formulas explaining how CFC reacts with ozone, which isn't the point. How does it get close enough to that area of the world to get a reaction is what I'd honestly like to know.
Okay, so these folks have concluded that CFC's have gone down in this area. Got that part. Exactly where do they actually measure the actual effect that this is having on the thinning of the ozone layer? They state they measured what the theoritcal cause is of ozone thinning, but not the thinning itself!
It's my understanding that this hole, or thinning, has been down around Antarctica for quite a while now. Perhaps longer than what can be adequately explained by wide spread CFC usage. Even according to this article, the hole is continuing to expand.
So what happens if after all the major industrialized nations drastically reduce CFC output and this hole continues to grow? Then what?
I'm willing to admit up front, I'm no atmospheric expert. I've long had a problem with understanding how northern hemisphere emmissions could cause anything but a northern hemisphere problem. For that matter, how do you manage to get ground based CFC's that high up in the atmosphere considering their weight?
I do hope these guys are right on the money and that all these efforts will result in a more stable atmosphere. I would just feel a little better about it if the measurements reflected the effect, not what we believe to be the cause.
Konqueror (KDE2) is nice, but once you take the KDE bloat into account, using it just for the web browser is a bit much. And I've still had crashes from it.
Just for fun, load up BlackBox for a window manager. Mainly just cause it's pretty darn small and all. Keep an eye on top or ps and load up NS 4.7. Okay, now close it down and start up Konqueror with all it's KDE bloat.
On my FreeBSD box this takes up a wee bit more memory for Konq than NS. Not enough to really matter real world.
As for the crashes, I've had a couple of those as well. Thing is, this browser is showing one hell of a lot more promise than Mozilla ever did, in far less time.
It's not on NT 4.0, and definitely not when you specify IE to run in it's own memory space to avoid OS conflicts. Still pops up a heck of a lot fast than Mozilla nightly builds.
DISCLAIMER: on NT I'm still using NS 4.7x as my primary browser. Just to be clear, this isn't an opinion of an IE zealot. Oh, and posted with Konqeror on FreeBSD.
Last I heard it was in Mozilla, but Netscape decided to leave it out for what ever reason.
As the fella that reported that bug in the first place, let me clarify that point. It was a decision made many months ago at both Mozilla and Netscape to not invest time into LDAP. No point in just blaming big bad NS doing nasty things to the wonderful open source Moz.
Initially the plan was to include LDAP, and every other feature that was present in 4.x. It was after all supposed to be an 'UP'grade. Apparently later on as folks were attempting to reinvent everything that appeared round developer interest just wasn't there for it. Of course, nobody outside of Netscape or Mozilla got wind of this. No, not on the newsgroups, the web page, or even the application itself. It was only about a month ago that they actually removed "New Directory" from that Address Book menu.
I had first heard about LDAP not going in after reading an interview with some folks at NS following the first beta release of 6.0. At first I thought I must have read it wrong, so I got to posting on the mail-news newsgroup asking about this. Sure enough, complete no go.
There was, and still is, a single Moz developer working on LDAP now, but only as a browser component. Nobody has worked in the hooks between what he's doing and the Address Book, which is put together with what is apparently a completely undocumented db format called Mork.
Oh, and this is the really fun part. As I got to expressing my concern to the newsgroups and bugzilla it turns out that it's not being there is MY fault! Yes, apparently I needed to stop my life in it's tracks and learn to program in C, and how to interface with an undocumented db format. That, or try to convince my employer (who is not in the IT biz) to invest funds for an AOL project. All the while nobody at Mozilla was exactly advertising the fact that LDAP wasn't going in.
Yeah, I'm still steaming on this one. Unfortunately, darn near every argument I presented to folks at Moz has turned out to be true. NS 6.0 has hit the streets, and corporations have left it sitting on the curb. Worse still, home users have either not noticed, or have been highly negative of it. If it wasn't for AOL press releases, is there any good press out there for it?
vectus there is right, that article wasn't fair. It wasn't fair in the least. This guy didn't bother to look at all the fun things that happen to memory when you open up E-Mail. He didn't look at what happens when you get into browsing newsgroups. How about starting up that composer huh?
A fair comparison of these products would have included speed and bulk for all of it's key components. Heck, open up 12 screens of NS 4.7, get E-Mail going with a seperate window for Usenet, and a stack of pages opened for editing in it's composer. Approach the same with NS 6.0, if you can.
3 years of development later, the last best hope for not allowing Microsoft to dictate the standards to be used on the web has resulted in this? 3 years of, "quit bagging on it, it's still in work" and this is it? Is this fair?
In short, the article was not fair in the least. It took the one portion of 6.0 that actually doesn't suck gobs of memory, and completely ignored the rest of it. Hell, at least if they had managed to sell a few copies of it they could have helped paid for lawyers, guns, and money to fight MS with. At this point Mozilla sure as hell isn't going to win any battles based on product quality, regardless of the platform.
I dont know that many people using BSD, and if they are it's mostly for servers, not really for desktops.
Ummm, does that mean I'm not posting this using Konqueror under KDE on a FreeBSD box? You are right on one point, there are a LOT more Linux users out there than BSD. Even still, FreeBSD is a fine desktop platform.
Mind you, I only got going on this here Unix thing about a year ago starting life out with RedHat. From that experience I was convinced that everything I heard about Unix being hard to understand was true. Oh sure, the RH installer went in like a dream and took me right into Gnome when it was done. After that, I couldn't have felt more lost.
Following a HD crash, I decided to try out FreeBSD instead. Initially it didn't provide the same kind of hand holding that RH did, but in more ways than I can count this was a good thing. It had a file structure that seemed to make a lot more sense. My jaw dropped through the floor at the ease of the port and package systems versus those damned RPM can't find dependancy files.
I still don't fully get how Linux got so far ahead in the media game from the BSD's. I've read a number of opinion pieces on this from a number of folks far more knowledgable than myself, and I still don't get it. It's just tough for me to get why you'd go back to Linux after trying FreeBSD out.
Normally I hate Apple stuff, but it'd still be cool to see FreeBSD get pushed forward even further because of it.
Getting WAY off topic now, but the karma lost would be worth it.
Bill and Monica were consenting adults...
I don't recall anyone saying otherwise. What was at question was the collection of evidence to support the allegation of sexual harrasment. By falsifying testimony as to this man's conduct with female subordinates he not only broke the law, but denied the plaintiff a fair day in court.
... who were denied their right to privacy by the right-wing conspiracy
A right-wing conspiracy caused this man to sexually harass co-workers? As usual, Clinton's only real enemy is the truth.
Republicans keep insisting that they are not tax-and-spenders, yet it wasn't the "tax-and-spend" Democrats who spent 70+ million dollars of tax money on an bogus "investigation" that did not come up with anything substantive on the President and First Lady...
Hmmm, I seem to recall something like 20 some odd convictions surrounding this investigation. I also seem to recall a greater sum of money being spent on that whole Iran/Contra thing. How many convictions came out of that one?
Struggling to bring this back into context, the point here is that one man and a single web site took on the President of the United States, and for his own part won! This marks a huge turning point for the US political system. Prior to the Internet, such a thing simply wasn't possible.
The guy is still reporting news not found on main stream sites. Literally you can hear questions at press conferences by "real journalists" that came directly from the Drudge Report. Note, at this moment Matt has posted transcripts from the Broward canvassing board, a few names of military personel that didn't get their vote counted, and the full text of a Lerberman speech talking about how wrong it is to protest. CNN doesn't have any of this stuff.
One man, one site really can make a difference, no matter how bent out of shape our socialist friends here may get. In it's own way, Slashdot is also making a difference in the kinds of stories it covers, and the forums in which those stories are hashed out.
Oh boy, I guess I'll be the first to bite at this one.
Drudge has always been a sleazy little rumor-monger wet-dreaming that his ability to regurgitate steaming clumps of fact and fiction faster puts him in the company of real journalists.
Since you've apparently got all those "fact" things straight, I'm sure you'd be happy to step away from the propoganda podium and clue to the rest of us in to all the "fiction" that Matt Drudge puts up on his site.
Yes, I am aware of the single lawsuit against him still pending from Blumenthal about a story that was retracted in less than 24 hours after it's posting, and before Sid got to complaining about it. Unlike "traditional" left-leaning media, Matt put the retraction of the story right on the front page. Do I need to list here just how many law suits for libel are pending against the LA Times, NY Times, and other major papers across the US?
My reasoning for defending Matt has a lot to do with the fact that he really lead the way for citizen journalists to get news up on the web, without the backing of a large corporate office. He showed that one man and a web page really can expose a sex offender for what he is, even if he's the president, and even if "real journalists" at Newsweek sat on the story for over 3 weeks.
So yes, I happen to like the fact that Slashdot takes on the stories that others ignore. I happen to like the fact that Slashdot provides us the links to where the stories originated as to leave us the audience to research things further, rather than blindly accept what is being fed to us.
Ya know, prior to blindly following the left-wing herd, perhaps you should read the site that you have spent time on to ridicule as baseless in fact or substance. Judging from your post, you're not doing much here but parroting what you've already been told.
don't forget that aol was in serious need of a better browser. no matter which solution they decided on, they had to do something or they would have lost serious marketshare when other competition came along.
Ummm, why is that again? Stop and think about this now, why is it that AOL needed a browser of their very own? They sell a dial up service with a functional proprietary front end, and a portal to the Internet. Just where in the heck does a browser fit into this biz model?
It doesn't. The only reason AOL purchased Netscape was because both companies were financed by the same VC company. It was a way for that investor to cut his losses as Netscape's nose was pointed to the ground and acceleration was being applied.
Will there be a Netscape 7.0? Yeah, hold your breath for that one. When push comes to shove, browser technology has nothing to do with AOL's profitability, or even it's core business.
I believe there was some discussion of making Mozilla more modular at one point..although its been a long while since I followed its production.
That's the problem with the memory usage, modularity. See, instead of writing code to each OS's set of API's the Mozilla folks decided to come up with XPCOM. This adds a layer of stuff (no, I'm not a programmer) between the bulk of the Mozilla code and the OS itself. Then add in XUL to the mix, and that's a lot of stuff to create a sort of virtual machine on top of the machine.
For example, on a Linux box you'd have the base OS at the lowest level, then X, then possibly some kind of desktop environment like Gnome, which has to load it's toolkits, then a window manager on top of it. From there, to load up Moz you now need this extra XPCOM layer on top of that, then XUL, then you get to the actual browser and app specific code. These layers add up.
Just to disclaimer this up front, the OS layers for a GUI are also very similar on an NT box with different names. Even there you have these additional Mozilla layers of code taking up a healthy bit of memory.
So why didn't NS 4.7 have these memory probs? It wasn't as modular in it's design. Each port of it was specific to the target OS it was to be used on, talking directly to the OS's API's and Toolkits for screen handling. I believe this was one of the primary considerations to do a complete re-write in the first place. Instead of talking directly to each API from within the main program itself, XPCOM would deal with that kind of stuff.
Oddly enough, this very same kind of concept gets argued when discussing OS's themselves. The notion of putting device specific stuff right into the kernel, or to keep them seperated into layers. Micro versus Macro kernel and all that.
What if your a linux user? Last time I checked you cant use IE for linux. I wish you could. But mozilla is all we got
Eeegads! This means that I'm really not posting this with Konqueror on a FreeBSD box. My feeble grasp on reality shot to heck. Gosh darn it, and I thought I was liking this browser too. What the heck am I using?
Since we have also standardized on netscape messenger as our email client on all workstations
Yeah, I did this at my office as well. One of the biggest selling points for Messenger was it's addressing and how it integrated that with LDAP. As it is, AOLzilla apparently didn't think it all that important to support LDAP. If your office is using LDAP now for addressing, don't upgrade to NS 6.0!
There has been "talk" about getting LDAP support into a later release. I guess after 3 years waiting, what's a few more years?
Please don't comment on the death of a company or product that you know absolutely nothing about.
Maybe that's the problem right there, very few nerd types know all that much about it. That alone should say volumes for the amount of market share it presently enjoys.
I know I'm by no means to bring this up. I've seen this addressed by far wiser folks than myself on both sides of the issue, but for this topic I believe it is appropriate.
At what point in time does ease of use and quality start to eat into the profits of a company that bases it's entire revenue stream on support? Just so I have someone to pick on in this discussion, let's pull a RedHat out of a hat. They're a fair example being that they essentially don't sell software, but a service supportting a software package.
Mind you, I don't mean to suggest that RedHat makes any attempts to make Linux difficult to use, and there's certainly ample evidence to suggest that they're invested in projects to ease usability. Where the concern comes from is in the long term, when ease of use starts to collide with the only product they truly sell, support.
In the traditional software market, support is not a profit center. Instead, it's considered to be a liability which charges folks for this service as a way to cover costs. By it's very nature this model has to strive to make ease of use a top priority to be profitable.
If software configuring becomes too simple, this is going to have an impact on support oriented companies. Perhaps the very notion isn't even possible. Still, one method must strive (not saying it's ever gotten there) for support free solutions, while the other must involve enough difficulty as to require a support agreement to make money.
An interesting, yet somewhat overly complex example. A bit more to the point would be talking about how a basic transformer works. One coil of wire inducing current into a nearby coil. You don't require an actual coil of wire to get this effect, simply need the wires or circuit runs close enough to have them induce current into the neighbor.
with supposedly infinite input impedence
Just to get into the nit picky here, but a MOSFET is only said to be very high input impedance. In basic electronic components there's no such beast approaching "infinite" or "perfect" anything.
Jumping away from MOSFET's for a moment, I recall reading some articles a while back as the micron size dumped to 0.14. One of the problems the engineers were having to face was radiated electrons being generated by the solder on the board. Normally this radiation is so low as to be even hard to measure, yet it was causing these new sensitive circuits to trip gates and such.
As the size of these things drop down, there's going to be all kinds of noise problems that wouldn't have been considered prior. Coupling this with current induction problems, which as you pointed out increases with frequency, these engineers have a LOT to work out. Simply inventing a more accurate carving knife is most likely only going to prove to be 30% of the overall problem, and subsequent solutions.
Yet it crashes often enough to be noticeable.
It runs so slowly (a "mere" Pentium 400) that I can actually see my windows redraw.
Booting takes 5 minutes (NT 4.0)
Shutting down takes several minutes, too.
It might be fun and all to bag on NT, but if you're running a PII-400 that's going that slow you've got problems that go way beyond what Microsoft may have done. I'm running a PII-350 here with NT 4.0 WS and it's been running non-stop for 442 hours. The only reason this number isn't significantly larger is that I shut it and my FreeBSD box down when I know I'm not going to be using them for an extended period of time.
I would strongly suggest you start looking at what kinds of services are running, and the very real possibility that you've got some serious hardware problems. From what little info you've given, I'd be looking at either the hard drive or video card as the primary suspects.
For myself, I've been quite happy with this PII-350 for everything from web browsing to editing print quality photos in Photoshop. About the only thing that I'd be looking at a faster processor for is Bryce. Ah well, I'll probably need to crank things up to a 4Ghz processor to get the next Doom to play decently though.
Where you do bring up some good points here, the basic concept of what you're talking about just isn't desirable. Let's work through your example, which is a fair one to be sure.
On the destkop, a user who, on Christmas morning, getting messages that Barbie Magic Funhouse can't be installed because it conflicts with sendmail and will break dependencies for Evolution is complete, utter and total, unadulterated failure.
It seems that you are referring to a Windows based install here, or at least that's the premise I'm working from. It's quite likely that this Barbie program is going to require DirectX of some version level, as well as other possible shared libraries from Windows. What does the software OEM do in this case? They include on the CD any of the possible shared library versions that may not be up to date, then the installer looks to see if it needs to upgrade the system or not.
Certainly the weakest point of RPM's is that they are simply awful at dealing with library dependancies. That doesn't mean that this problem can't be resolved, it just means there is a problem. The BSD folks recognized this problem a while back, and address it quite nicely with their package and ports system of installation.
Coming back to this example, in the FreeBSD world if a library equivalent to DirectX were to be needed by this Barbie program, the package would go and hunt down that dependency on the Internet. It's pretty powerful stuff, and goes a long ways to working around the problems that you've brought up.
To date, I only have experience with RPM's and FreeBSD's system of handling installations. I understand that Debian's package management has similar dependency finding capabilities. It's probably fair to say that none of the present solutions now being used are optimal. I would include even Windows installs as problematic in this regard, and anyone who has run into "Can't find VB400RUN.dll" before can certainly appreciate this.
I am of the belief that a truly optimal system can be developed, just based on what I've seen to date. Where I have hope here, I also have a great deal of doubt that the various groups backing their preferred method can step out of their foxholes long enough to work towards that.
Bottom line, there's more going on out here than just RPM's not finding dependancies. Have yourself a look about, there are some very cool things that are already in place, and in work.
Firstly, it's not easy to update the ports tree itself
You're going about it the wrong way there. Have a look see at the FreeBSD Handbook for CVSup for more details on this. Also, if you don't already have a copy, go pick up "The Complete FreeBSD" from Walnut Creek. It's an outstanding book, and one that I found to be a much easier read than many of the Linux specific books out there. It has a chapter covering the ports tree that I think you'd benefit from.
Mind you, ports do have their problems. All in all, I think that it's a far better approach to software distribution than anything else that I've seen. A more in depth discussion of this, which even relates to this thread, was done a few weeks back right here on Slashdot, "Unified BSD packaging system?". One of the concepts brought up in that discussion I haven't seen mentioned in this one is if there is some way to unify all the *nix world rather than just the various flavors of Linux.
It sure would be cool to see a group work out the best of the best features from the leading methods of distributing software and bring it to all the platforms. Definitely not holding my breath for anyone to actually do this, just a pleasent thought just the same.
This is even on topic, but I'll leave you the reader to work out the moral of this story.
------------------------
A couple went on vacation to a fishing resort up north. The husband liked to fish at the crack of dawn; the wife preferred to read. One morning the husband returned after several hours of fishing and decided to take a short nap. The wife decided to take the boat out. She was not familiar with the lake so she rowed out, anchored the boat, and started reading her book.
Along comes the sheriff in his boat, pulls up alongside and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"
"Reading my book," she replies as she thinks to herself, Is this guy blind or what?
"You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her.
"But, Officer, I'm not fishing. Can't you see that?"
"But you have all this equipment, ma'am. I'll have to take you in and write you up."
"If you do that I will charge you with rape," snaps the irate woman.
"I didn't even touch you," grouses the sheriff.
"Yes, that's true... but you have all the equipment..."
------------------------
It's certainly an interesting analogy comparing the distribution of software and music. The only problem here is that the author has completely neglected a key step that allowed something like a Linux to grow: a distribution channel. Could Linux have become the force that it is in the computer world without being able to bypass the old world retailers only interested in stocking Microsoft and Apple?
If the RIAA has power, it's not due to their legal staff. It's due to their ability to control all the distribution, and even advertising channels to the public. What the hell good is free music if it has no means of being heard due to a 50 year lock on all channels of distribution? To move further along the author's analogy, what the hell good is a free operating system if it's nearly impossible to get?
Not to leave out Napster in my rant here. Ever try going and hunting down some of Napster's featured new artists? What a freaking joke! I tried going through their so-so web site, found a couple of groups that sounded interesting based on their description, then as I'm sure you've already guessed I came up empty. The free music that Napster is supposed to eventually channel for just didn't exist. So much for this being the distribution model that can work around the locks of the RIAA.
The point is that you could create your own format based on your musical tastes and drawing from your own musical collection and online.
The only interest a content provider on-line is ever going to take in my musical interest is collecting data on me to focus marketing my way. It's the very same reasoning behind narrowing the market within the broadcast radio world. It allows marketing folks to sell advertising based on calculated demographics.
For example, you aren't going to be hearing the same commercials running on a soft jazz station and a top 40 station. Even within the same station the commercial content will vary based on the time of day, and the expected audience. They've got a fair idea of how much of what kind of market is listening to those stations at what times of day.
Move this model to the Internet, where you go about answering a helpful questionaire of musical preferences, your age, approximate location, and a stack of seemingly docile data. You're now talking about data drill down capabilities that marketing folks would kill to get their paws on. Match up the expected customer base with the listening audience, and you've got a perfect formula for all kinds of push advertising.
It's arguable as to whether or not this is a bad thing though. On one hand you've got this invasive technique, but on the other you've got a market place bringing vendors to those folks most likely to be interested in their products. Given enough interest I suppose I could effectively debate this point on either side. Instead, I'd just prefer not to give them any information at all about me and take the time to make my own playlists.
Au contraire, mon ami. I use the capital "t" to distinguish between "Truth" and "truth", and it doesn't necessarily have to do with theology.
Perhaps you do, but it's certainly not a commonly used form of the capitalization. In addition, this was but one factor in spotting the troll out from under his bridge. The context of this clue was also quite important.
Then there was the resultant data from my experimental post which confirmed my now proven theory.
Slashdot Mirror
Going way back to my earlier post I'm still left wondering about 2 significant questions that I haven't yet seen answered.
First off, how can anyone make a prediction about an effect by only measuring the cause? I'd be feeling a lot different about this if they had said they've measured more ozone and less CFC's in that area. Some kind of cause and effect connection to what is being looked at.
The other point I've raised has to do with the mechanism for transportation. How the heck are chemicals from the northern hemisphere getting shoved to the south pole without the help of trade winds? Whenever I see this discussed it always seems to get lost in a lot of chemistry formulas explaining how CFC reacts with ozone, which isn't the point. How does it get close enough to that area of the world to get a reaction is what I'd honestly like to know.
Okay, so these folks have concluded that CFC's have gone down in this area. Got that part. Exactly where do they actually measure the actual effect that this is having on the thinning of the ozone layer? They state they measured what the theoritcal cause is of ozone thinning, but not the thinning itself!
It's my understanding that this hole, or thinning, has been down around Antarctica for quite a while now. Perhaps longer than what can be adequately explained by wide spread CFC usage. Even according to this article, the hole is continuing to expand.
So what happens if after all the major industrialized nations drastically reduce CFC output and this hole continues to grow? Then what?
I'm willing to admit up front, I'm no atmospheric expert. I've long had a problem with understanding how northern hemisphere emmissions could cause anything but a northern hemisphere problem. For that matter, how do you manage to get ground based CFC's that high up in the atmosphere considering their weight?
I do hope these guys are right on the money and that all these efforts will result in a more stable atmosphere. I would just feel a little better about it if the measurements reflected the effect, not what we believe to be the cause.
Konqueror (KDE2) is nice, but once you take the KDE bloat into account, using it just for the web browser is a bit much. And I've still had crashes from it.
Just for fun, load up BlackBox for a window manager. Mainly just cause it's pretty darn small and all. Keep an eye on top or ps and load up NS 4.7. Okay, now close it down and start up Konqueror with all it's KDE bloat.
On my FreeBSD box this takes up a wee bit more memory for Konq than NS. Not enough to really matter real world.
As for the crashes, I've had a couple of those as well. Thing is, this browser is showing one hell of a lot more promise than Mozilla ever did, in far less time.
IE is fast because it's already loaded on boot.
It's not on NT 4.0, and definitely not when you specify IE to run in it's own memory space to avoid OS conflicts. Still pops up a heck of a lot fast than Mozilla nightly builds.
DISCLAIMER: on NT I'm still using NS 4.7x as my primary browser. Just to be clear, this isn't an opinion of an IE zealot. Oh, and posted with Konqeror on FreeBSD.
Last I heard it was in Mozilla, but Netscape decided to leave it out for what ever reason.
As the fella that reported that bug in the first place, let me clarify that point. It was a decision made many months ago at both Mozilla and Netscape to not invest time into LDAP. No point in just blaming big bad NS doing nasty things to the wonderful open source Moz.
Initially the plan was to include LDAP, and every other feature that was present in 4.x. It was after all supposed to be an 'UP'grade. Apparently later on as folks were attempting to reinvent everything that appeared round developer interest just wasn't there for it. Of course, nobody outside of Netscape or Mozilla got wind of this. No, not on the newsgroups, the web page, or even the application itself. It was only about a month ago that they actually removed "New Directory" from that Address Book menu.
I had first heard about LDAP not going in after reading an interview with some folks at NS following the first beta release of 6.0. At first I thought I must have read it wrong, so I got to posting on the mail-news newsgroup asking about this. Sure enough, complete no go.
There was, and still is, a single Moz developer working on LDAP now, but only as a browser component. Nobody has worked in the hooks between what he's doing and the Address Book, which is put together with what is apparently a completely undocumented db format called Mork.
Oh, and this is the really fun part. As I got to expressing my concern to the newsgroups and bugzilla it turns out that it's not being there is MY fault! Yes, apparently I needed to stop my life in it's tracks and learn to program in C, and how to interface with an undocumented db format. That, or try to convince my employer (who is not in the IT biz) to invest funds for an AOL project. All the while nobody at Mozilla was exactly advertising the fact that LDAP wasn't going in.
Yeah, I'm still steaming on this one. Unfortunately, darn near every argument I presented to folks at Moz has turned out to be true. NS 6.0 has hit the streets, and corporations have left it sitting on the curb. Worse still, home users have either not noticed, or have been highly negative of it. If it wasn't for AOL press releases, is there any good press out there for it?
vectus there is right, that article wasn't fair. It wasn't fair in the least. This guy didn't bother to look at all the fun things that happen to memory when you open up E-Mail. He didn't look at what happens when you get into browsing newsgroups. How about starting up that composer huh?
A fair comparison of these products would have included speed and bulk for all of it's key components. Heck, open up 12 screens of NS 4.7, get E-Mail going with a seperate window for Usenet, and a stack of pages opened for editing in it's composer. Approach the same with NS 6.0, if you can.
3 years of development later, the last best hope for not allowing Microsoft to dictate the standards to be used on the web has resulted in this? 3 years of, "quit bagging on it, it's still in work" and this is it? Is this fair?
In short, the article was not fair in the least. It took the one portion of 6.0 that actually doesn't suck gobs of memory, and completely ignored the rest of it. Hell, at least if they had managed to sell a few copies of it they could have helped paid for lawyers, guns, and money to fight MS with. At this point Mozilla sure as hell isn't going to win any battles based on product quality, regardless of the platform.
Do we have to kill him off everytime?
No no, not everytime. Just once should pretty much do it.
Oh for crying out loud, I'm joking already!! Geeesh. Here's to a nice long life to Linus and his family.
I dont know that many people using BSD, and if they are it's mostly for servers, not really for desktops.
Ummm, does that mean I'm not posting this using Konqueror under KDE on a FreeBSD box? You are right on one point, there are a LOT more Linux users out there than BSD. Even still, FreeBSD is a fine desktop platform.
Mind you, I only got going on this here Unix thing about a year ago starting life out with RedHat. From that experience I was convinced that everything I heard about Unix being hard to understand was true. Oh sure, the RH installer went in like a dream and took me right into Gnome when it was done. After that, I couldn't have felt more lost.
Following a HD crash, I decided to try out FreeBSD instead. Initially it didn't provide the same kind of hand holding that RH did, but in more ways than I can count this was a good thing. It had a file structure that seemed to make a lot more sense. My jaw dropped through the floor at the ease of the port and package systems versus those damned RPM can't find dependancy files.
I still don't fully get how Linux got so far ahead in the media game from the BSD's. I've read a number of opinion pieces on this from a number of folks far more knowledgable than myself, and I still don't get it. It's just tough for me to get why you'd go back to Linux after trying FreeBSD out.
Normally I hate Apple stuff, but it'd still be cool to see FreeBSD get pushed forward even further because of it.
Getting WAY off topic now, but the karma lost would be worth it.
... who were denied their right to privacy by the right-wing conspiracy
Bill and Monica were consenting adults...
I don't recall anyone saying otherwise. What was at question was the collection of evidence to support the allegation of sexual harrasment. By falsifying testimony as to this man's conduct with female subordinates he not only broke the law, but denied the plaintiff a fair day in court.
A right-wing conspiracy caused this man to sexually harass co-workers? As usual, Clinton's only real enemy is the truth.
Republicans keep insisting that they are not tax-and-spenders, yet it wasn't the "tax-and-spend" Democrats who spent 70+ million dollars of tax money on an bogus "investigation" that did not come up with anything substantive on the President and First Lady...
Hmmm, I seem to recall something like 20 some odd convictions surrounding this investigation. I also seem to recall a greater sum of money being spent on that whole Iran/Contra thing. How many convictions came out of that one?
Struggling to bring this back into context, the point here is that one man and a single web site took on the President of the United States, and for his own part won! This marks a huge turning point for the US political system. Prior to the Internet, such a thing simply wasn't possible.
The guy is still reporting news not found on main stream sites. Literally you can hear questions at press conferences by "real journalists" that came directly from the Drudge Report. Note, at this moment Matt has posted transcripts from the Broward canvassing board, a few names of military personel that didn't get their vote counted, and the full text of a Lerberman speech talking about how wrong it is to protest. CNN doesn't have any of this stuff.
One man, one site really can make a difference, no matter how bent out of shape our socialist friends here may get. In it's own way, Slashdot is also making a difference in the kinds of stories it covers, and the forums in which those stories are hashed out.
Oh boy, I guess I'll be the first to bite at this one.
Drudge has always been a sleazy little rumor-monger wet-dreaming that his ability to regurgitate steaming clumps of fact and fiction faster puts him in the company of real journalists.
Since you've apparently got all those "fact" things straight, I'm sure you'd be happy to step away from the propoganda podium and clue to the rest of us in to all the "fiction" that Matt Drudge puts up on his site.
Yes, I am aware of the single lawsuit against him still pending from Blumenthal about a story that was retracted in less than 24 hours after it's posting, and before Sid got to complaining about it. Unlike "traditional" left-leaning media, Matt put the retraction of the story right on the front page. Do I need to list here just how many law suits for libel are pending against the LA Times, NY Times, and other major papers across the US?
My reasoning for defending Matt has a lot to do with the fact that he really lead the way for citizen journalists to get news up on the web, without the backing of a large corporate office. He showed that one man and a web page really can expose a sex offender for what he is, even if he's the president, and even if "real journalists" at Newsweek sat on the story for over 3 weeks.
So yes, I happen to like the fact that Slashdot takes on the stories that others ignore. I happen to like the fact that Slashdot provides us the links to where the stories originated as to leave us the audience to research things further, rather than blindly accept what is being fed to us.
Ya know, prior to blindly following the left-wing herd, perhaps you should read the site that you have spent time on to ridicule as baseless in fact or substance. Judging from your post, you're not doing much here but parroting what you've already been told.
Yeah, let's pull all of AOL's money from Netscape and see how "seperate" Mozilla is. Puhleeze.
don't forget that aol was in serious need of a better browser. no matter which solution they decided on, they had to do something or they would have lost serious marketshare when other competition came along.
Ummm, why is that again? Stop and think about this now, why is it that AOL needed a browser of their very own? They sell a dial up service with a functional proprietary front end, and a portal to the Internet. Just where in the heck does a browser fit into this biz model?
It doesn't. The only reason AOL purchased Netscape was because both companies were financed by the same VC company. It was a way for that investor to cut his losses as Netscape's nose was pointed to the ground and acceleration was being applied.
Will there be a Netscape 7.0? Yeah, hold your breath for that one. When push comes to shove, browser technology has nothing to do with AOL's profitability, or even it's core business.
I believe there was some discussion of making Mozilla more modular at one point..although its been a long while since I followed its production.
That's the problem with the memory usage, modularity. See, instead of writing code to each OS's set of API's the Mozilla folks decided to come up with XPCOM. This adds a layer of stuff (no, I'm not a programmer) between the bulk of the Mozilla code and the OS itself. Then add in XUL to the mix, and that's a lot of stuff to create a sort of virtual machine on top of the machine.
For example, on a Linux box you'd have the base OS at the lowest level, then X, then possibly some kind of desktop environment like Gnome, which has to load it's toolkits, then a window manager on top of it. From there, to load up Moz you now need this extra XPCOM layer on top of that, then XUL, then you get to the actual browser and app specific code. These layers add up.
Just to disclaimer this up front, the OS layers for a GUI are also very similar on an NT box with different names. Even there you have these additional Mozilla layers of code taking up a healthy bit of memory.
So why didn't NS 4.7 have these memory probs? It wasn't as modular in it's design. Each port of it was specific to the target OS it was to be used on, talking directly to the OS's API's and Toolkits for screen handling. I believe this was one of the primary considerations to do a complete re-write in the first place. Instead of talking directly to each API from within the main program itself, XPCOM would deal with that kind of stuff.
Oddly enough, this very same kind of concept gets argued when discussing OS's themselves. The notion of putting device specific stuff right into the kernel, or to keep them seperated into layers. Micro versus Macro kernel and all that.
What if your a linux user? Last time I checked you cant use IE for linux. I wish you could. But mozilla is all we got
Eeegads! This means that I'm really not posting this with Konqueror on a FreeBSD box. My feeble grasp on reality shot to heck. Gosh darn it, and I thought I was liking this browser too. What the heck am I using?
Since we have also standardized on netscape messenger as our email client on all workstations
Yeah, I did this at my office as well. One of the biggest selling points for Messenger was it's addressing and how it integrated that with LDAP. As it is, AOLzilla apparently didn't think it all that important to support LDAP. If your office is using LDAP now for addressing, don't upgrade to NS 6.0!
There has been "talk" about getting LDAP support into a later release. I guess after 3 years waiting, what's a few more years?
Please don't comment on the death of a company or product that you know absolutely nothing about.
Maybe that's the problem right there, very few nerd types know all that much about it. That alone should say volumes for the amount of market share it presently enjoys.
I know I'm by no means to bring this up. I've seen this addressed by far wiser folks than myself on both sides of the issue, but for this topic I believe it is appropriate.
At what point in time does ease of use and quality start to eat into the profits of a company that bases it's entire revenue stream on support? Just so I have someone to pick on in this discussion, let's pull a RedHat out of a hat. They're a fair example being that they essentially don't sell software, but a service supportting a software package.
Mind you, I don't mean to suggest that RedHat makes any attempts to make Linux difficult to use, and there's certainly ample evidence to suggest that they're invested in projects to ease usability. Where the concern comes from is in the long term, when ease of use starts to collide with the only product they truly sell, support.
In the traditional software market, support is not a profit center. Instead, it's considered to be a liability which charges folks for this service as a way to cover costs. By it's very nature this model has to strive to make ease of use a top priority to be profitable.
If software configuring becomes too simple, this is going to have an impact on support oriented companies. Perhaps the very notion isn't even possible. Still, one method must strive (not saying it's ever gotten there) for support free solutions, while the other must involve enough difficulty as to require a support agreement to make money.
called induced gate current where a MOSFET
An interesting, yet somewhat overly complex example. A bit more to the point would be talking about how a basic transformer works. One coil of wire inducing current into a nearby coil. You don't require an actual coil of wire to get this effect, simply need the wires or circuit runs close enough to have them induce current into the neighbor.
with supposedly infinite input impedence
Just to get into the nit picky here, but a MOSFET is only said to be very high input impedance. In basic electronic components there's no such beast approaching "infinite" or "perfect" anything.
Jumping away from MOSFET's for a moment, I recall reading some articles a while back as the micron size dumped to 0.14. One of the problems the engineers were having to face was radiated electrons being generated by the solder on the board. Normally this radiation is so low as to be even hard to measure, yet it was causing these new sensitive circuits to trip gates and such.
As the size of these things drop down, there's going to be all kinds of noise problems that wouldn't have been considered prior. Coupling this with current induction problems, which as you pointed out increases with frequency, these engineers have a LOT to work out. Simply inventing a more accurate carving knife is most likely only going to prove to be 30% of the overall problem, and subsequent solutions.
Yet it crashes often enough to be noticeable.
It runs so slowly (a "mere" Pentium 400) that I can actually see my windows redraw.
Booting takes 5 minutes (NT 4.0)
Shutting down takes several minutes, too.
It might be fun and all to bag on NT, but if you're running a PII-400 that's going that slow you've got problems that go way beyond what Microsoft may have done. I'm running a PII-350 here with NT 4.0 WS and it's been running non-stop for 442 hours. The only reason this number isn't significantly larger is that I shut it and my FreeBSD box down when I know I'm not going to be using them for an extended period of time.
I would strongly suggest you start looking at what kinds of services are running, and the very real possibility that you've got some serious hardware problems. From what little info you've given, I'd be looking at either the hard drive or video card as the primary suspects.
For myself, I've been quite happy with this PII-350 for everything from web browsing to editing print quality photos in Photoshop. About the only thing that I'd be looking at a faster processor for is Bryce. Ah well, I'll probably need to crank things up to a 4Ghz processor to get the next Doom to play decently though.
Where you do bring up some good points here, the basic concept of what you're talking about just isn't desirable. Let's work through your example, which is a fair one to be sure.
On the destkop, a user who, on Christmas morning, getting messages that Barbie Magic Funhouse can't be installed because it conflicts with sendmail and will break dependencies for Evolution is complete, utter and total, unadulterated failure.
It seems that you are referring to a Windows based install here, or at least that's the premise I'm working from. It's quite likely that this Barbie program is going to require DirectX of some version level, as well as other possible shared libraries from Windows. What does the software OEM do in this case? They include on the CD any of the possible shared library versions that may not be up to date, then the installer looks to see if it needs to upgrade the system or not.
Certainly the weakest point of RPM's is that they are simply awful at dealing with library dependancies. That doesn't mean that this problem can't be resolved, it just means there is a problem. The BSD folks recognized this problem a while back, and address it quite nicely with their package and ports system of installation.
Coming back to this example, in the FreeBSD world if a library equivalent to DirectX were to be needed by this Barbie program, the package would go and hunt down that dependency on the Internet. It's pretty powerful stuff, and goes a long ways to working around the problems that you've brought up.
To date, I only have experience with RPM's and FreeBSD's system of handling installations. I understand that Debian's package management has similar dependency finding capabilities. It's probably fair to say that none of the present solutions now being used are optimal. I would include even Windows installs as problematic in this regard, and anyone who has run into "Can't find VB400RUN.dll" before can certainly appreciate this.
I am of the belief that a truly optimal system can be developed, just based on what I've seen to date. Where I have hope here, I also have a great deal of doubt that the various groups backing their preferred method can step out of their foxholes long enough to work towards that.
Bottom line, there's more going on out here than just RPM's not finding dependancies. Have yourself a look about, there are some very cool things that are already in place, and in work.
Firstly, it's not easy to update the ports tree itself
You're going about it the wrong way there. Have a look see at the FreeBSD Handbook for CVSup for more details on this. Also, if you don't already have a copy, go pick up "The Complete FreeBSD" from Walnut Creek. It's an outstanding book, and one that I found to be a much easier read than many of the Linux specific books out there. It has a chapter covering the ports tree that I think you'd benefit from.
Mind you, ports do have their problems. All in all, I think that it's a far better approach to software distribution than anything else that I've seen. A more in depth discussion of this, which even relates to this thread, was done a few weeks back right here on Slashdot, "Unified BSD packaging system?". One of the concepts brought up in that discussion I haven't seen mentioned in this one is if there is some way to unify all the *nix world rather than just the various flavors of Linux.
It sure would be cool to see a group work out the best of the best features from the leading methods of distributing software and bring it to all the platforms. Definitely not holding my breath for anyone to actually do this, just a pleasent thought just the same.
This is even on topic, but I'll leave you the reader to work out the moral of this story.
... but you have all the equipment ..."
------------------------
A couple went on vacation to a fishing resort up north. The husband liked to fish at the crack of dawn; the wife preferred to read. One morning the husband returned after several hours of fishing and decided to take a short nap. The wife decided to take the boat out. She was not familiar with the lake so she rowed out, anchored the boat, and started reading her book.
Along comes the sheriff in his boat, pulls up alongside and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"
"Reading my book," she replies as she thinks to herself, Is this guy blind or what?
"You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her.
"But, Officer, I'm not fishing. Can't you see that?"
"But you have all this equipment, ma'am. I'll have to take you in and write you up."
"If you do that I will charge you with rape," snaps the irate woman.
"I didn't even touch you," grouses the sheriff.
"Yes, that's true
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It's certainly an interesting analogy comparing the distribution of software and music. The only problem here is that the author has completely neglected a key step that allowed something like a Linux to grow: a distribution channel. Could Linux have become the force that it is in the computer world without being able to bypass the old world retailers only interested in stocking Microsoft and Apple?
If the RIAA has power, it's not due to their legal staff. It's due to their ability to control all the distribution, and even advertising channels to the public. What the hell good is free music if it has no means of being heard due to a 50 year lock on all channels of distribution? To move further along the author's analogy, what the hell good is a free operating system if it's nearly impossible to get?
Not to leave out Napster in my rant here. Ever try going and hunting down some of Napster's featured new artists? What a freaking joke! I tried going through their so-so web site, found a couple of groups that sounded interesting based on their description, then as I'm sure you've already guessed I came up empty. The free music that Napster is supposed to eventually channel for just didn't exist. So much for this being the distribution model that can work around the locks of the RIAA.
The point is that you could create your own format based on your musical tastes and drawing from your own musical collection and online.
The only interest a content provider on-line is ever going to take in my musical interest is collecting data on me to focus marketing my way. It's the very same reasoning behind narrowing the market within the broadcast radio world. It allows marketing folks to sell advertising based on calculated demographics.
For example, you aren't going to be hearing the same commercials running on a soft jazz station and a top 40 station. Even within the same station the commercial content will vary based on the time of day, and the expected audience. They've got a fair idea of how much of what kind of market is listening to those stations at what times of day.
Move this model to the Internet, where you go about answering a helpful questionaire of musical preferences, your age, approximate location, and a stack of seemingly docile data. You're now talking about data drill down capabilities that marketing folks would kill to get their paws on. Match up the expected customer base with the listening audience, and you've got a perfect formula for all kinds of push advertising.
It's arguable as to whether or not this is a bad thing though. On one hand you've got this invasive technique, but on the other you've got a market place bringing vendors to those folks most likely to be interested in their products. Given enough interest I suppose I could effectively debate this point on either side. Instead, I'd just prefer not to give them any information at all about me and take the time to make my own playlists.
Au contraire, mon ami. I use the capital "t" to distinguish between "Truth" and "truth", and it doesn't necessarily have to do with theology.
Perhaps you do, but it's certainly not a commonly used form of the capitalization. In addition, this was but one factor in spotting the troll out from under his bridge. The context of this clue was also quite important.
Then there was the resultant data from my experimental post which confirmed my now proven theory.