If you're referring to GPLJonas' comment as containing "perfect grammar, good use of white, buzz words and directness" then I'll take that as a compliment! Everything but the first three and last paragraphs were copied from my blog post! (http://blog.fosketts.net/2012/01/03/microsoft-adds-data-deduplication-ntfs-windows-8/)
FWIW, I'm not a Microsoft shill or astroturfer. I'm a blogger who happened to write about MS' dedupe yesterday and it got quoted here. I only noticed this thread thanks to all the Slashdotters coming over to have a read. Hi!
Indeed, I'd love to see Linux implement deduplication similar to Microsoft's new NTFS tech. But of course, it's a major development effort and LOTS of patents are involved.
I don't believe MasterCard is a non-profit. There is no mention of this on their web site, or in google!
Certainly most issuing banks are for-profits and would not be exempt under this "non-profit loophole". Yes, there are exempt, annoying non-profits, but MasterCard isn't one of them.
Hey, hey, this is great news! We have DC declaring vistory publicly and apparently stopping their legal harrassment.
Maybe they decided that it wasn't in their best interest to continue this campaign. They already demonstrated that they disapprove of the hacking, so maybe they'll just let the issue die. They save face by declaring victory and ignoring reality.
This means we can go back to using our CCs for whatever we want. God knows I wouldn't use it for what THEY wanted!
Do you subscribe to Wired magazine? There's a full-page ad in the current issue that says they'll be mailing these Cue:Cat (whatever) scanners out in November. Since that's when the USB model comes out, I'll bet that all Wired subscribers will get a free USB one in the mail then.
My first thought was the same as everyone else's: Cool, free hardware! Let's hack it!
As another reader pointed out, this is just a re-launch of the same old product at a slightly better price point.
Still, $179 per PCMCIA card plus $69 per ISA Host Adapter means $496 (not even including software) for essentially a similar product to the Webgear Aviator 2.4 package, which I picked up at my local CompUSA for $139! Sure, the Wavelans are probably better constructed and may get better throughput, but 2Mbit is plenty for home use (believe me) and the price difference is STILL staggering!
I'm just astounded by the value of the Webgear Aviator 2.4 package. You get two 802.11- compatable cards with Linux support, two ISA PCMCIA adapters, and some Windows software for less than a single competing PCMCIA WLAN card costs! PLUS it's available at every CompUSA so you don't have to bother mail-ordering...
By the way, if you go looking for these Aviator 2.4 packs on the CompUSA shelves, forget it. You have to ask at the parts desk for some crazy reason. And make sure you get the Aviator 2.4 and not the nasty old parallel-port 900MHz Aviator.
Check out my Epinions review at: http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-3A1E-314C776- 38B32E12-prod1
Wireless LAN just RULES!
PedXing
Krauthammer? Brilliant?
on
On to Mars
·
· Score: 1
I would NEVER characterize Charles Krauthammer as "brilliant". Just go back and read his "brilliant" pieces from Time in the early 90s (especially his columns about the Gulf War).
This is more like a very special patch panel than a router. It is NOT a breakthrough in optical computing, or a computing device at all. It uses tiny mirrors (and maybe some tiny smoke *grin*) to direct different wavelengths of light coming off one port to different ports. It apparently does NO routing or inspection, it just sends light from one fiber to another.
Not to say this isn't interesting, but let's not get carried away and declare Lucent the ruler of high-speed optical routing yet!
I finished my four years in High School. While I won't bore everyone with a blow-by-blow, I too was struck at firsy with empathy for the shooters.
Like many, I endured and escaped to a fine college ( WPI) where I found myself and started the real life that I now live. And like most, even though High School is now almost a decade behind me, memories of it still haunt me sometimes.
The problem is, I don't know what would have been better. My college accepted advanced High School students through something called the "Massachusetts Academy". These kids were allowed to go "to college" during the day instead of High School, to take special classes and some regular college classes, and get their HS diploma that way.
The problem was, though they tried to fit in, they couldn't. Some were just HS Juniors (and maybe even younger) and were not equipped for the college life. Many were immature, so they were spurned by the students. Sadly, some of the girls were taken advantage of by our male-dominated student body. They all just weren't ready for college.
The same applied to many of the "early entrance" students who left High School a year (or two) early to go to college. They were woefully prepared for the college life, emotionally.
So if college isn't the right place for many of these poor geeks, where should they go? I think the only real option is private or magnet High Schools. They should go somewhere where they really can blossom emotionally and that will prepare them to take their deserved places in society.
Misfit students should not be forced to endure "chicken coop" schools, but they shouldn't be forced into a college world they can not yet handle.
This project is NOT a plan to unify UNIX in general, but rather a plan to make a new UNIX for IA-64.
SCO has experience with x86 (and owns UNIX) and long ago announced that they will port it to IA-64. Now Compaq and IBM (and Sequent) announce that they will help with SCO's UNIX for the platform and ship it on their IA-64 servers. IBM also plans to port it to their RISC hardware. Compaq sees Monterey as a way to move Digital UNIX (or whatever they call it this month) forward.
In other words, Compaq and IBM don't want to spend a huge amount of money to port their UNIXes to IA-64 to compete with everyone else on that platform. If it works out, then they have a foot in the door. Otherwise, they can just dump it and move on. This is NOT a vote of confidence in IA-64's future!
Sun announced that they will port Solaris x86 to IA-64 and Fujitsu and NCR (if I remember correctly) jumped on their ship. HP will, of course, have HP-UX on IA-64. And Linux is also in development for the platform.
I'm sure Compaq, IBM, and everyone else will ship Linux pre-installed on their IA-64 servers when they come along. They're just covering the "proprietary UNIX" base at the same time in the cheapest possible way.
Note that I'm saying IA-64, not Merced. I've long believed that Merced would never ship in volume because of production delays and poor performance. Only the second-generation IA-64 part will have a chance of success. I'll stand by that prediction...
So MS wants to move to subscription-based pricing? That's fine. This is (supposed to be) a competitive, open industry. But I think not. Instead, they'll have a faux-subscription model with paid updates every year.
Let's all suppose that MS is limited by regular economic laws for a minute and say that they can only charge what the market will bear. Let's also say that they thought about this before arriving at the prices for their Operating Systems.
Price for Windows 95: $89 (9/95) Price for Windows 98: $89 (11/98) Price for Windows 98 update: under $89 (6/99)
As PC Week says, the update for Win98 users will be substantially less than $89. What does that mean? We'll estimate it at half that, or about $45.
Assuming that the Win98 SE is the first rollout of their new pricing model, and assuming it's this year's only update, this means MS means to charge about $45 a year to use their OS. This compares to $89 for three years of using Win95.
But wait, they just charged $89 for Win98 last year, too! Since they deliver a new OS every three years or so, we'll assume that they'll continue to do this and charge about the same for it.
Will consumers really pay $89 every three years for a new OS, plus $45 a year for updates? I know I sure wouldn't! That's quite steep indeed!
Or maybe this is MS' way of getting more money out of the vast majority of people who get their Windows from an OEM with a computer purchase.
This makes much more sense. Assume that they give away windows for free (which they don't) and then charge $45 per year for updates. Over the three-year lifespan of a machine, this is almost $150, or a 50% increase on the price of Windows!
I always believed that the secret to MS' success was piracy. They turned a blind eye on pirates in order to gain market share. This has worked incredibly well for more than 10 years.
If they used subscription pricing, they would have to try to crack down on Pirates. If instead they invent a new update to charge for every year, they can let the pirates work and cement their market share, and still get a little money back... Would they really kill their golden goose by moving to a subscription model? I think not.
Jamie hit the nail on the head with his second reason for Mozilla's problems: It violated one of the most important requirements of Open-Source projects by not releasing a usable product.
Remember how much Linux.98 sucked? I do. But it was able to suck because it existed. Mozilla didn't suck. It didn't even exist. It was unusable from the start and the few pathetic "releases" that did appear were hardly usable at all.
Why are so many people willing to contribute to open source projects? To get work done! They need a certain tool, so they pick one. When they find a problem or a missing feature, they correct it. The important thing is to have Open-Source projects be useful from the start.
Release early and often. This is what has made Linux so successful. It may not have have been great from the start, but the people using it improved this or that and their improvements were given back to the community regularly. This created a truly superior product.
It is sad, too, for the Mozilla project that Jamie has gone. However, as someone said, it is better for all in the long term. Jamie can get working on something better and Mozilla will either get a shot in the arm or a kick in the head (which it gets doesn't really matter at this point). Mozilla probably triggered much of the Open-Source publicity of the last year, but without a usable product, it's worth nothing.
I applaud Jamie for all he's done in the past (I still use that PostScript tape label thing), for trying to make Mozilla what it could have been, and wish him the best in the future. I hope he doesn't wait long to give his next gift to our community.
No kidding! IMHO, The number one thing that put Microsoft on top is piracy. If people COULDN'T pirate Windows and Office, do you really think they'd drop so much money on it? Office in particular would never have become the de facto standard for business communications without rampant pirating.
Personally, I always felt terrible pirating software. I know lots of people who feel the same. That's why I made the Free Software switch: Now I can have all the latest cool stuff for free without being a loser pirate. I wouldn't be able to afford something as cool as Linux, Enlightenment, and GIMP if they were commercial products!
Of course this is how the industry will respond...
on
Toshiba and EULA
·
· Score: 1
I recently bought a customer returned Portege 3010 and it had the same sticker, but it was originally purchased a month ago, so maybe it's not related to the Windows Refund thing at all.
I'm sure MS has been using this time to simply rewrite the EULA so no refund is possible. This doesn't change the fact, though, that they promised a refund on all these old copies and have no intention of honoring it.
Of course, we have to disagree with the license to get a refund. Which part annoys you most? I hate the "no disassembly" part myself. Too bad I already used Windows (to download another copy of Debian) so I'm not eligible...
Slashdot Mirror
If you're referring to GPLJonas' comment as containing "perfect grammar, good use of white, buzz words and directness" then I'll take that as a compliment! Everything but the first three and last paragraphs were copied from my blog post! (http://blog.fosketts.net/2012/01/03/microsoft-adds-data-deduplication-ntfs-windows-8/)
FWIW, I'm not a Microsoft shill or astroturfer. I'm a blogger who happened to write about MS' dedupe yesterday and it got quoted here. I only noticed this thread thanks to all the Slashdotters coming over to have a read. Hi!
Indeed, I'd love to see Linux implement deduplication similar to Microsoft's new NTFS tech. But of course, it's a major development effort and LOTS of patents are involved.
I don't believe MasterCard is a non-profit. There is no mention of this on their web site, or in google!
Certainly most issuing banks are for-profits and would not be exempt under this "non-profit loophole". Yes, there are exempt, annoying non-profits, but MasterCard isn't one of them.
Hey, hey, this is great news! We have DC declaring vistory publicly and apparently stopping their legal harrassment.
Maybe they decided that it wasn't in their best interest to continue this campaign. They already demonstrated that they disapprove of the hacking, so maybe they'll just let the issue die. They save face by declaring victory and ignoring reality.
This means we can go back to using our CCs for whatever we want. God knows I wouldn't use it for what THEY wanted!
Ped Xing
(Or maybe I'm just optomistic)
Do you subscribe to Wired magazine? There's a full-page ad in the current issue that says they'll be mailing these Cue:Cat (whatever) scanners out in November. Since that's when the USB model comes out, I'll bet that all Wired subscribers will get a free USB one in the mail then.
My first thought was the same as everyone else's: Cool, free hardware! Let's hack it!
Ped Xing
As another reader pointed out, this is just a re-launch of the same old product at a slightly better price point.
- 38B32E12-prod1
Still, $179 per PCMCIA card plus $69 per ISA Host Adapter means $496 (not even including software) for essentially a similar product to the Webgear Aviator 2.4 package, which I picked up at my local CompUSA for $139! Sure, the Wavelans are probably better constructed and may get better throughput, but 2Mbit is plenty for home use (believe me) and the price difference is STILL staggering!
I'm just astounded by the value of the Webgear Aviator 2.4 package. You get two 802.11- compatable cards with Linux support, two ISA PCMCIA adapters, and some Windows software for less than a single competing PCMCIA WLAN card costs! PLUS it's available at every CompUSA so you don't have to bother mail-ordering...
By the way, if you go looking for these Aviator 2.4 packs on the CompUSA shelves, forget it. You have to ask at the parts desk for some crazy reason. And make sure you get the Aviator 2.4 and not the nasty old parallel-port 900MHz Aviator.
Check out my Epinions review at:
http://www.epinions.com/cmd-review-3A1E-314C776
Wireless LAN just RULES!
PedXing
I would NEVER characterize Charles Krauthammer as "brilliant". Just go back and read his "brilliant" pieces from Time in the early 90s (especially his columns about the Gulf War).
Duh.
Ped_Xing
This is more like a very special patch panel than a router. It is NOT a breakthrough in optical computing, or a computing device at all. It uses tiny mirrors (and maybe some tiny smoke *grin*) to direct different wavelengths of light coming off one port to different ports. It apparently does NO routing or inspection, it just sends light from one fiber to another.
Not to say this isn't interesting, but let's not get carried away and declare Lucent the ruler of high-speed optical routing yet!
The problem is what to do with GED-toting geeks.
I finished my four years in High School. While I won't bore everyone with a blow-by-blow, I too was struck at firsy with empathy for the shooters.
Like many, I endured and escaped to a fine college ( WPI) where I found myself and started the real life that I now live. And like most, even though High School is now almost a decade behind me, memories of it still haunt me sometimes.
The problem is, I don't know what would have been better. My college accepted advanced High School students through something called the "Massachusetts Academy". These kids were allowed to go "to college" during the day instead of High School, to take special classes and some regular college classes, and get their HS diploma that way.
The problem was, though they tried to fit in, they couldn't. Some were just HS Juniors (and maybe even younger) and were not equipped for the college life. Many were immature, so they were spurned by the students. Sadly, some of the girls were taken advantage of by our male-dominated student body. They all just weren't ready for college.
The same applied to many of the "early entrance" students who left High School a year (or two) early to go to college. They were woefully prepared for the college life, emotionally.
So if college isn't the right place for many of these poor geeks, where should they go? I think the only real option is private or magnet High Schools. They should go somewhere where they really can blossom emotionally and that will prepare them to take their deserved places in society.
Misfit students should not be forced to endure "chicken coop" schools, but they shouldn't be forced into a college world they can not yet handle.
This project is NOT a plan to unify UNIX in general, but rather a plan to make a new UNIX for IA-64.
SCO has experience with x86 (and owns UNIX) and long ago announced that they will port it to IA-64. Now Compaq and IBM (and Sequent) announce that they will help with SCO's UNIX for the platform and ship it on their IA-64 servers. IBM also plans to port it to their RISC hardware. Compaq sees Monterey as a way to move Digital UNIX (or whatever they call it this month) forward.
In other words, Compaq and IBM don't want to spend a huge amount of money to port their UNIXes to IA-64 to compete with everyone else on that platform. If it works out, then they have a foot in the door. Otherwise, they can just dump it and move on. This is NOT a vote of confidence in IA-64's future!
Sun announced that they will port Solaris x86 to IA-64 and Fujitsu and NCR (if I remember correctly) jumped on their ship. HP will, of course, have HP-UX on IA-64. And Linux is also in development for the platform.
I'm sure Compaq, IBM, and everyone else will ship Linux pre-installed on their IA-64 servers when they come along. They're just covering the "proprietary UNIX" base at the same time in the cheapest possible way.
Note that I'm saying IA-64, not Merced. I've long believed that Merced would never ship in volume because of production delays and poor performance. Only the second-generation IA-64 part will have a chance of success. I'll stand by that prediction...
So MS wants to move to subscription-based pricing? That's fine. This is (supposed to be) a competitive, open industry. But I think not. Instead, they'll have a faux-subscription model with paid updates every year.
Let's all suppose that MS is limited by regular economic laws for a minute and say that they can only charge what the market will bear. Let's also say that they thought about this before arriving at the prices for their Operating Systems.
Price for Windows 95: $89 (9/95)
Price for Windows 98: $89 (11/98)
Price for Windows 98 update: under $89 (6/99)
As PC Week says, the update for Win98 users will be substantially less than $89. What does that mean? We'll estimate it at half that, or about $45.
Assuming that the Win98 SE is the first rollout of their new pricing model, and assuming it's this year's only update, this means MS means to charge about $45 a year to use their OS. This compares to $89 for three years of using Win95.
But wait, they just charged $89 for Win98 last year, too! Since they deliver a new OS every three years or so, we'll assume that they'll continue to do this and charge about the same for it.
Will consumers really pay $89 every three years for a new OS, plus $45 a year for updates? I know I sure wouldn't! That's quite steep indeed!
Or maybe this is MS' way of getting more money out of the vast majority of people who get their Windows from an OEM with a computer purchase.
This makes much more sense. Assume that they give away windows for free (which they don't) and then charge $45 per year for updates. Over the three-year lifespan of a machine, this is almost $150, or a 50% increase on the price of Windows!
I always believed that the secret to MS' success was piracy. They turned a blind eye on pirates
in order to gain market share. This has worked
incredibly well for more than 10 years.
If they used subscription pricing, they would have to try to crack down on Pirates. If instead they invent a new update to charge for every year, they can let the pirates work and cement their market share, and still get a little money back... Would they really kill their golden goose by moving to a subscription model? I think not.
Stephen
Isn't it odd that MSN would support Salon?
After all, Salon is wiping up the floor with MS'
own (highly-funded) Slate... I guess MS will try
that "embrace and smother" act in any arena!
This is kind of like Best Buy supporting DIVX. Oh
wait, that already happened...
I hope their new OS lives up to everyone's
expectations...
Jamie hit the nail on the head with his second
.98 sucked? I do. But
reason for Mozilla's problems: It violated one
of the most important requirements of Open-Source
projects by not releasing a usable product.
Remember how much Linux
it was able to suck because it existed. Mozilla
didn't suck. It didn't even exist. It was
unusable from the start and the few pathetic
"releases" that did appear were hardly usable at
all.
Why are so many people willing to contribute to
open source projects? To get work done! They
need a certain tool, so they pick one. When they
find a problem or a missing feature, they correct
it. The important thing is to have Open-Source
projects be useful from the start.
Release early and often. This is what has made
Linux so successful. It may not have have been
great from the start, but the people using it
improved this or that and their improvements were
given back to the community regularly. This
created a truly superior product.
It is sad, too, for the Mozilla project that
Jamie has gone. However, as someone said, it is
better for all in the long term. Jamie can get
working on something better and Mozilla will
either get a shot in the arm or a kick in the
head (which it gets doesn't really matter at this
point). Mozilla probably triggered much of the
Open-Source publicity of the last year, but
without a usable product, it's worth nothing.
I applaud Jamie for all he's done in the past (I
still use that PostScript tape label thing), for
trying to make Mozilla what it could have been,
and wish him the best in the future. I hope he
doesn't wait long to give his next gift to our
community.
Well, I JUST bought a Portege 3015CT. It's a sweet machine, but I intend to send a note to Toshiba letting them know that I don't appreciate this.
I even wrote a web page to support the P3010/3015 under Debian.
Oh, well, no more Toshibas for me!
Stephen
No kidding! IMHO, The number one thing that put Microsoft on top is piracy. If people COULDN'T pirate Windows and Office, do you really think they'd drop so much money on it? Office in particular would never have become the de facto standard for business communications without rampant pirating.
Personally, I always felt terrible pirating software. I know lots of people who feel the same. That's why I made the Free Software switch: Now I can have all the latest cool stuff for free without being a loser pirate. I wouldn't be able to afford something as cool as Linux, Enlightenment, and GIMP if they were commercial products!
I recently bought a customer returned Portege 3010 and it had the same sticker, but it was originally purchased a month ago, so maybe it's not related to the Windows Refund thing at all.
I'm sure MS has been using this time to simply rewrite the EULA so no refund is possible. This doesn't change the fact, though, that they promised a refund on all these old copies and have no intention of honoring it.
Of course, we have to disagree with the license to get a refund. Which part annoys you most? I hate the "no disassembly" part myself. Too bad I already used Windows (to download another copy of Debian) so I'm not eligible...
PedXing