What's with prices on LCD displays? On one hand a laptop can be had with UXGA resolution display for $1000. Try buying that display alone and you'll find it's also around $1000.
Solution: Buy a laptop, nail it to the wall, and watch TV!
engineering nThe application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems.
By that definition, a software developer is quite frequently an "engineer".
The real debate I'm reading here is whether you need an accredited certificate to be titled an "engineer".
I feel no compunction about calling myself a "network software engineer". I perform acts of engineering daily - co-ordinating thousands of bits of data on multiple clusters of computers in a scale and scope comprising thousands or (potentially) hundreds of thousands of people.
Yet, I do not have any official-looking pieces of paper saying "engineer". So, I am not an accredited engineer, but that doesn't stop me from engineering!
1) Qmail doesn't follow convention. Forget inetd, DJB uses his own, goofy "tcpserver". Never mind any other services you have on the machine, and pray to god they don't conflict. You *can* get qmail to work with xinet.d, but good luck getting all the (much needed) features working, since with xinet.d you get an open mail relay by default.
2) There are like 5 different programs, each with different user accounts (qmaild, qmaill, qmailp, qmialq, qmailr, qmails, vmail, etc) - all running from the same !@#!@ bin directory! Talk about confusing as !@#! hell when you want to audit permissions!
3) Qmail has a truly hideous license. Yeah, it's "open source", but you can't redistribute changes!!?!
This means:
4) If you want something decent (such as LDAP support,antivirus filtering or integration with SpamAssassin, etc.) you have to apply 57 god-knows patches to the "official" qmail source, and in just the right order to get everything working.
5) The log format is different than sendmail's. While this is understandable, it means that all these neat reporting tools for sendmail can't be used.
And finally,
6) Administering Sendmail on RH Linux is a breeze. up2date sendmail;/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail restart takes care of most of it.
Ok, maybe this is an odd thought - but I've been doing some pretty serious application development using PHP-GTK. Coupled with the ZEND encoder, it allows for rather eye-popping, rapidly developed, cross-platform, powerful software.
Using PHP means integrating a GUI front-end with a server-driven (PHP) back-end is a snap. And GTK is a decent client toolkit. (not the best, but decent IMHO)
Now FLASH is moving into this area, and it just may well succeed at it. Remember, "worse is better".
BTW, PHP is surprisingly well suited for client-side apps and other programming tasks. (I've written a mail relay with it, among other, more standard "web" things)
Yeah, until the spammers *REALIZE* that nobody is getting their emails - at which point they change tactics so that the messages get through.
A while ago, one of my clients was sending out a newsletter that was labelled as SPAM. It took me just over an hour to look up the tags that Spam Assassin found that it violated, and rework it so that the SpamAssassin score dropped from like 16 down to just 3. (The most common minimum threshold is 5-10)
This is an opt-in newsletter, but don't think that spammers can't do the same thing!
Language is determined by the masses, not by a small minority who get to determine what's PC or right.
Not entirely correct. Language is determined by two parties: the one communicating the idea, and the one listening. So long as they have common definitions of symbols, communication occurs.
Communication, though, is enver 100%. I say "tree", and you might think of an Alabama decidous forest, and I'll think of tall, cool, Northern California pines.
So, talking about trees, we may have to negotiate a common ground.
How many people confuse "schizophrenia" and "multiple personality disorder"? They are two things that, while often related, are not synonymous.
"Hacker/Cracker" is similar for computer people, and proper use of the vernacular is one way you can determine the knowledge level of the person you are dealing with.
Some time ago, I obtained an original set of Windows 1.0. (Not 1.01!) I have the disks and the manual, in working (opened) condition, safely vacuum packed in my cellar.
No idea what they're worth, or if I'd even part with them...
Yes, VZW is much more expensive than any other wireless provider and has a more limited selection of phones.
Where are you at?
I'm in central northern California and Vzw is available here for very reasonable rates! I'm paying $45/mo for 700 anytime, unlimited night/weekends. In the bigger cities like Sacramento and the Bay Area, there are cheaper services but I've never heard of anybody actually liking them.
Also, walking into the local cell shops, I find plenty of different models of phones.
Ultimately, it doesn't come down to the medium used, it doesn't come down to the neat technology, or the gentoo Linux. it all boils down simply and only to this:
Does it provide something people will pay enough for?
Yes, it's neat. I get to hear musicians play music that's not well mixed (it never is "live" unless you spend serious dough) and has alot of background music. (Plates clattering, etc)
But live music is best served... live! Right in front of you!
Live music is when you can experience the sights and smells. It's the sparkle in the eye of your wife (or hopefully, at least girlfriend) as you eat a delicious plate of Italian food, whilst a musician plays to your left.
It's the look of giddy happiness on my lovely 11 y.o. daughter, dancing at a "Concert in the Park" held downtown on a hot summer eve.
It's seeing the attempts by the musician to truly communicate with the audience. It's an interactive, feedback-driven experience.
Recorded music is canned, and attempts to compensate with impeccable mixing and special effects.
One of the most memorable renditions of music I've seen recently was a bum on the street. He appeared to be mildly intoxicated, but had an old catgut guitar. He asked for alms, we agreed but demanded a tune.
I then heard one of the most intense renditions of "Candle in the Wind" I've ever heard. It was unpolished, rough, and a few of the chords were simply wrong. But he played with heart and soul, and gave it all he had.
He earned a few bucks from me, but you could never capture soul and feeling like that if you played it through speakers.
I've always upgraded by the rule of "order of four". This gives me what I need at minimal expense.
I generally hold off upgrading until I see at least 4x performance improvement, barring special needs. My recent upgrade from a 450 Mhz PII >> 1800 Athlon is no exception. I probably won't upgrade again until at least 4 Ghz unless there is a real need for it.
Also, I never buy the "top end". If you look at prices, you'll find that prices start kinda cheap, rise slowly for a while, and then suddenly climb, as you go from low to high end.
The last item before that spike is the one I buy.
Notice: hard drives. (pricewatch.com =)
$49 = 20 GB $58 = 30 GB $59 = 40 GB (who'd get a 30?) $67 = 60 GB $77 = 80 GB $100 = 100 GB (small spike = 80'd be ok) $106 = 120 GB (don't bother with the 100) $151 = 160 (Big spike. Go with an 80 or a 120)
Or, perhaps, AMD CPUs? $50 1500 Mhz $49 1600 Mhz// here, availability is the issue $50 1700 Mhz $58 1800 Mhz $63 1900 Mhz $71 2000 Mhz $83 2100 Mhz $95 2200 Mhz $122 2400 Mhz $170 2500 Mhz (Big spike, get a 2200 or 2400)
This is true in almost every part of the computer industry. At this point, a 2400 Mhz AMD is considered "commodity" while the 2500 is not. Same with 160 GB HDs vs. 120s.
With this, I'm almost happy with my equipment, and still have money to spend on my 5 (yes, FIVE) children.
What would it cost to get up2date to continue to work on my Red Hat 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 systems?
I standardized on RH 7.x because of their apparent willingness to support systems with up2date - notice that they are still supporting RH 6.2!
But, with this news, I have to say, I'm quite upset. I've just finished deploying the last RH 7.2 system and now I have to - immediately - start using 8.0?
1) Not every system comes pre-configured with graphical sign on. In the case of one installation, a graphical installer caused problems with the intended use of the POS system for which the Linux system was purchased. Eventually, this was made to work, but the time spent making it work is "migration cost".
2) Great. So *some* printers are set up automatically. Are you willing to say that you can go down to your local office supplies store or X-Mart, buy the $49 USB WinPrinter and it'll work on your 733T Mandrake system?
I didn't think so.
3) Floppy - here, you go overboard. You're presuming that somebody set up the system (/etc/fstab) so that you (the user) has permission to mount the floppy.
But this permission has to be specifically granted - and it isn't always. (Sure wasn't in several situations I've seen as a consultant) Also, you assume we're talking about Mandrake. Do your assumptions hold true for Red Hat 7.2, 7.0, 6.2? Suse? Gentoo? Slackware? What about when you're using KDE 3? KDE 2? KDE 1.x? Gnome? Ice WM?
There are a zillion other, similar types of issues that come up, take time to work around, and cost money.
You are looking at things from the inside, as a Linux user/zealot, armed with your XYZ favorite distro. It's a small and confortable world. It's very different when you are working with people who have to write down the sequence to boot up a computer!
Understand, I'm a Linux advocate myself! I write software on/for Linux, I use it as my standard desktop (and love it!) and do everything I can to get it used.
But zealotism won't get you far when the O/S doesn't matter, you are dealing with computer-neophytes who have trouble pointing a mouse, and the business owner simply wants stuff that works as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Some time ago, I read the most insightful, forward thinking article I've yet seen on the ramifications of advances in technology and their effect on privacy.
It's still up, (after all these years!) The Transparent Society, originally written in Dec 1996.
The cost of training the average user isn't that big of a deal. How hard is it to click on an icon?
This proves you are an idiot, or at least inexperienced.
Let's say you want to do a spreadsheet. You see a login screen, white on black, that says:
Red Hat Linux release 7.3 Kernel 2.4.9-31 on an i586
system login:
This is friendly? Where's the icon? Ok, so you figure out how to login, and you see this:
[user@site.com user] $
Again, where are the icons? You finally figure out how to get into XWindows, you get XWindows set up, and let's just be nice and assume that you have Open Office set up.
You have a printer there. How do you set up the drivers?
You'd be amazed at what a big issue printer drivers can be. Many printers are listed as working through an emulation - which means that the capabilities of the printer are shorn down to the lowest common denominator with another printer. Of course, your epson lq-2500 doesn't say "IBM Proprinter II" anywhere on it, so how do you get your printer to work??
And then, you have floppies. You have a spreadsheet file you want to take home. You have a disk in your hand. How do you copy the file to the disk?
This is what's called "training" and there is a definite, and real learning curve. A cost towards getting all these things figured out.
No. The idea of the patch wasn't to stop it crashing, you probably can't do that
Bzzzzzzt! Wrong, buddy!
I remember working with a DEC VAX 11/750. It had roughly the processing power of a 286, though it's hard to compare the two.
It was the size of a large, commercial dishwasher, and had a stack of other boxes that together were about the same size that were the three 350 MB Hard Drives.
The fault tolerance on this computer simply boggles the mind of anybody used to the Linux or Windows world.
It would dynamically detect and remap areas of the hard disks going bad. It would dynamically detect, correct, mark, and log areas of RAM that were going bad - it would even tell you which CHIP on the memory card (about the size of a dinner plate) the error was on, with zero downtime, while it was running!
It used a method not unlike ECC to determine "bad" and would map around bad RAM or disk sectors as a basic function of operation.
It was so good, that one time, when it crashed (due to the air conditioner failing) that when we brought it back up, most people's sessions were preserved on their terminals, and just started working again, right where they left off! Despite the computer having been OFF for several hours!
Sorry, but you haven't seen fault tolerance in a computer until you've seen it on an older DEC VAX. I can only wish that anything like that was available today.
The best thing that can come of this is that IBM buys SCO.
IBM will be around, it as a company understands the value of Open Source, and won't be bought out by M$, as SCO is in serious danger of being.
Like AT&T owning the Unix TM, that'd pretty much ensure a future for Unix.
Of course, what'd be best of all is for the US Govt to realize the value and industry that is Unix and buy it for the common good, but I'm not even sure if it can do that.
2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....
If you think $1,500 is big bucks, you haven't gotten your high school diploma, yet.
At a "good guy" development rate of $65/hour, that works out to about three days of development time. Can you come even close to replacing the functionality therein in three !@# days?
Given that any decent-sized project comprises at least weeks to months, is three days really that expensive?
Public FTP servers usually have the restriction that the user enter a valid email address, which the BSA's spidering/searching software faked in order to gain access.
Hell, isn't that illegal under the DMCA?
This is possibly a legitimate point!
I recently did some work making an industry-specific search engine. Part of the material obtained was done through a freely obtained login/pw, and the spider would crawl nightly (4 AM) for any new information.
Extensive review was performed by very high dollar lawyers to make sure that no copyright infringement was done. And yes, the algorithm used was as bandwidth tight as could be done to get the effect needed.
As the ISP, I got a DMCA removal request, because making the materials obtained through the (free or very cheap) login/pw essentially amounted to a copyright protection circumvention device!
Needless to say, the offending material was removed, even though the action of circumventing the "protection device" was so trivial.
This sets a very clear protection mechanism - anytime a password is requested, you have a "copyright protection device".
Slashdot Mirror
What's with prices on LCD displays? On one hand a laptop can be had with UXGA resolution display for $1000. Try buying that display alone and you'll find it's also around $1000.
Solution: Buy a laptop, nail it to the wall, and watch TV!
Hmmm....
Did you notice that you have to use Mozilla to view the graphics that describe how a plugin for IE works?
Anybody find that just a bit ironic?
(Yeah, you can get the source, but how the !@# do you install that for Moz on *nix?)
Sounds good!
Explain to me, again, though, why I need to replace the last segments of coax cable and hub to get 100 Mb ethernet on my home network?
I mean, if coax is so much better than (say) UTP, I have to replace the coax with UTP to get 100 Mb?
-Ben
engineering n The application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems.
By that definition, a software developer is quite frequently an "engineer".
The real debate I'm reading here is whether you need an accredited certificate to be titled an "engineer".
I feel no compunction about calling myself a "network software engineer". I perform acts of engineering daily - co-ordinating thousands of bits of data on multiple clusters of computers in a scale and scope comprising thousands or (potentially) hundreds of thousands of people.
Yet, I do not have any official-looking pieces of paper saying "engineer". So, I am not an accredited engineer, but that doesn't stop me from engineering!
1) Qmail doesn't follow convention. Forget inetd, DJB uses his own, goofy "tcpserver". Never mind any other services you have on the machine, and pray to god they don't conflict. You *can* get qmail to work with xinet.d, but good luck getting all the (much needed) features working, since with xinet.d you get an open mail relay by default.
/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail restart takes care of most of it.
2) There are like 5 different programs, each with different user accounts (qmaild, qmaill, qmailp, qmialq, qmailr, qmails, vmail, etc) - all running from the same !@#!@ bin directory! Talk about confusing as !@#! hell when you want to audit permissions!
3) Qmail has a truly hideous license. Yeah, it's "open source", but you can't redistribute changes!!?!
This means:
4) If you want something decent (such as LDAP support,antivirus filtering or integration with SpamAssassin, etc.) you have to apply 57 god-knows patches to the "official" qmail source, and in just the right order to get everything working.
5) The log format is different than sendmail's. While this is understandable, it means that all these neat reporting tools for sendmail can't be used.
And finally,
6) Administering Sendmail on RH Linux is a breeze. up2date sendmail;
-Ben
This is not really at all like "Cathedral/Bazaar" but rather, " Worse is Better. (now updated)
The underlying idea is that the "right" way isn't always the best, but rather, that the "best" way is what is "good enough" for cheap.
This is the same force that makes Linux compete against *nix, and is also responsible for the rise of Microsoft against vastly superior technologies.
How do you propose to tax this?!?!
./configure; make; make install;
$ wget http://software.org.du/act/actg-1.4.tgz
$ tar -zxvf actg-1.4.tgz
$ cd actg-1.4;
Guys,
The only company that does more waffling than you do is IHOP! (Intl House Of Pancakes)
If it weren't for the cool stuff you've done for the community, (Open Office, anybody?) I'd think you were a bunch of clueless morons.
Well, I still think you're a bunch of clueless morons that from time to time do something really, really cool.
Come on, guys! I'm trying to root for you, here!
-Ben
Ok, maybe this is an odd thought - but I've been doing some pretty serious application development using PHP-GTK. Coupled with the ZEND encoder, it allows for rather eye-popping, rapidly developed, cross-platform, powerful software.
Using PHP means integrating a GUI front-end with a server-driven (PHP) back-end is a snap. And GTK is a decent client toolkit. (not the best, but decent IMHO)
Now FLASH is moving into this area, and it just may well succeed at it. Remember, "worse is better".
BTW, PHP is surprisingly well suited for client-side apps and other programming tasks. (I've written a mail relay with it, among other, more standard "web" things)
-Ben
Yeah, until the spammers *REALIZE* that nobody is getting their emails - at which point they change tactics so that the messages get through.
A while ago, one of my clients was sending out a newsletter that was labelled as SPAM. It took me just over an hour to look up the tags that Spam Assassin found that it violated, and rework it so that the SpamAssassin score dropped from like 16 down to just 3. (The most common minimum threshold is 5-10)
This is an opt-in newsletter, but don't think that spammers can't do the same thing!
-Ben
Language is determined by the masses, not by a small minority who get to determine what's PC or right.
Not entirely correct. Language is determined by two parties: the one communicating the idea, and the one listening. So long as they have common definitions of symbols, communication occurs.
Communication, though, is enver 100%. I say "tree", and you might think of an Alabama decidous forest, and I'll think of tall, cool, Northern California pines.
So, talking about trees, we may have to negotiate a common ground.
How many people confuse "schizophrenia" and "multiple personality disorder"? They are two things that, while often related, are not synonymous.
"Hacker/Cracker" is similar for computer people, and proper use of the vernacular is one way you can determine the knowledge level of the person you are dealing with.
Some time ago, I obtained an original set of Windows 1.0. (Not 1.01!) I have the disks and the manual, in working (opened) condition, safely vacuum packed in my cellar.
No idea what they're worth, or if I'd even part with them...
-Ben
... that their code won't pass the tests, and that some of the code is just copied from Sun.
Meaning, that Sun's code won't pass the tests either?
Yes, VZW is much more expensive than any other wireless provider and has a more limited selection of phones.
Where are you at?
I'm in central northern California and Vzw is available here for very reasonable rates! I'm paying $45/mo for 700 anytime, unlimited night/weekends. In the bigger cities like Sacramento and the Bay Area, there are cheaper services but I've never heard of anybody actually liking them.
Also, walking into the local cell shops, I find plenty of different models of phones.
Heh?
Ultimately, it doesn't come down to the medium used, it doesn't come down to the neat technology, or the gentoo Linux. it all boils down simply and only to this:
Does it provide something people will pay enough for?
Yes, it's neat. I get to hear musicians play music that's not well mixed (it never is "live" unless you spend serious dough) and has alot of background music. (Plates clattering, etc)
But live music is best served... live! Right in front of you!
Live music is when you can experience the sights and smells. It's the sparkle in the eye of your wife (or hopefully, at least girlfriend) as you eat a delicious plate of Italian food, whilst a musician plays to your left.
It's the look of giddy happiness on my lovely 11 y.o. daughter, dancing at a "Concert in the Park" held downtown on a hot summer eve.
It's seeing the attempts by the musician to truly communicate with the audience. It's an interactive, feedback-driven experience.
Recorded music is canned, and attempts to compensate with impeccable mixing and special effects.
One of the most memorable renditions of music I've seen recently was a bum on the street. He appeared to be mildly intoxicated, but had an old catgut guitar. He asked for alms, we agreed but demanded a tune.
I then heard one of the most intense renditions of "Candle in the Wind" I've ever heard. It was unpolished, rough, and a few of the chords were simply wrong. But he played with heart and soul, and gave it all he had.
He earned a few bucks from me, but you could never capture soul and feeling like that if you played it through speakers.
-Ben
I've always upgraded by the rule of "order of four". This gives me what I need at minimal expense.
// here, availability is the issue
I generally hold off upgrading until I see at least 4x performance improvement, barring special needs. My recent upgrade from a 450 Mhz PII >> 1800 Athlon is no exception. I probably won't upgrade again until at least 4 Ghz unless there is a real need for it.
Also, I never buy the "top end". If you look at prices, you'll find that prices start kinda cheap, rise slowly for a while, and then suddenly climb, as you go from low to high end.
The last item before that spike is the one I buy.
Notice: hard drives. (pricewatch.com =)
$49 = 20 GB
$58 = 30 GB
$59 = 40 GB (who'd get a 30?)
$67 = 60 GB
$77 = 80 GB
$100 = 100 GB (small spike = 80'd be ok)
$106 = 120 GB (don't bother with the 100)
$151 = 160 (Big spike. Go with an 80 or a 120)
Or, perhaps, AMD CPUs?
$50 1500 Mhz
$49 1600 Mhz
$50 1700 Mhz
$58 1800 Mhz
$63 1900 Mhz
$71 2000 Mhz
$83 2100 Mhz
$95 2200 Mhz
$122 2400 Mhz
$170 2500 Mhz (Big spike, get a 2200 or 2400)
This is true in almost every part of the computer industry. At this point, a 2400 Mhz AMD is considered "commodity" while the 2500 is not. Same with 160 GB HDs vs. 120s.
With this, I'm almost happy with my equipment, and still have money to spend on my 5 (yes, FIVE) children.
-Ben
and none of it answers my real question(s)!
What would it cost to get up2date to continue to work on my Red Hat 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 systems?
I standardized on RH 7.x because of their apparent willingness to support systems with up2date - notice that they are still supporting RH 6.2!
But, with this news, I have to say, I'm quite upset. I've just finished deploying the last RH 7.2 system and now I have to - immediately - start using 8.0?
This is smelling quite unpleasant.
-Ben
Except that
1) Not every system comes pre-configured with graphical sign on. In the case of one installation, a graphical installer caused problems with the intended use of the POS system for which the Linux system was purchased. Eventually, this was made to work, but the time spent making it work is "migration cost".
2) Great. So *some* printers are set up automatically. Are you willing to say that you can go down to your local office supplies store or X-Mart, buy the $49 USB WinPrinter and it'll work on your 733T Mandrake system?
I didn't think so.
3) Floppy - here, you go overboard. You're presuming that somebody set up the system (/etc/fstab) so that you (the user) has permission to mount the floppy.
But this permission has to be specifically granted - and it isn't always. (Sure wasn't in several situations I've seen as a consultant) Also, you assume we're talking about Mandrake. Do your assumptions hold true for Red Hat 7.2, 7.0, 6.2? Suse? Gentoo? Slackware? What about when you're using KDE 3? KDE 2? KDE 1.x? Gnome? Ice WM?
There are a zillion other, similar types of issues that come up, take time to work around, and cost money.
You are looking at things from the inside, as a Linux user/zealot, armed with your XYZ favorite distro. It's a small and confortable world. It's very different when you are working with people who have to write down the sequence to boot up a computer!
Understand, I'm a Linux advocate myself! I write software on/for Linux, I use it as my standard desktop (and love it!) and do everything I can to get it used.
But zealotism won't get you far when the O/S doesn't matter, you are dealing with computer-neophytes who have trouble pointing a mouse, and the business owner simply wants stuff that works as quickly and cheaply as possible.
This is where you are inexperienced.
Some time ago, I read the most insightful, forward thinking article I've yet seen on the ramifications of advances in technology and their effect on privacy.
It's still up, (after all these years!) The Transparent Society, originally written in Dec 1996.
I can't recommend this strongly enough...
The cost of training the average user isn't that big of a deal. How hard is it to click on an icon?
This proves you are an idiot, or at least inexperienced.
Let's say you want to do a spreadsheet. You see a login screen, white on black, that says:
Red Hat Linux release 7.3
Kernel 2.4.9-31 on an i586
system login:
This is friendly? Where's the icon? Ok, so you figure out how to login, and you see this:
[user@site.com user] $
Again, where are the icons? You finally figure out how to get into XWindows, you get XWindows set up, and let's just be nice and assume that you have Open Office set up.
You have a printer there. How do you set up the drivers?
You'd be amazed at what a big issue printer drivers can be. Many printers are listed as working through an emulation - which means that the capabilities of the printer are shorn down to the lowest common denominator with another printer. Of course, your epson lq-2500 doesn't say "IBM Proprinter II" anywhere on it, so how do you get your printer to work??
And then, you have floppies. You have a spreadsheet file you want to take home. You have a disk in your hand. How do you copy the file to the disk?
This is what's called "training" and there is a definite, and real learning curve. A cost towards getting all these things figured out.
No. The idea of the patch wasn't to stop it crashing, you probably can't do that
Bzzzzzzt! Wrong, buddy!
I remember working with a DEC VAX 11/750. It had roughly the processing power of a 286, though it's hard to compare the two.
It was the size of a large, commercial dishwasher, and had a stack of other boxes that together were about the same size that were the three 350 MB Hard Drives.
The fault tolerance on this computer simply boggles the mind of anybody used to the Linux or Windows world.
It would dynamically detect and remap areas of the hard disks going bad. It would dynamically detect, correct, mark, and log areas of RAM that were going bad - it would even tell you which CHIP on the memory card (about the size of a dinner plate) the error was on, with zero downtime, while it was running!
It used a method not unlike ECC to determine "bad" and would map around bad RAM or disk sectors as a basic function of operation.
It was so good, that one time, when it crashed (due to the air conditioner failing) that when we brought it back up, most people's sessions were preserved on their terminals, and just started working again, right where they left off! Despite the computer having been OFF for several hours!
Sorry, but you haven't seen fault tolerance in a computer until you've seen it on an older DEC VAX. I can only wish that anything like that was available today.
It probably is, but I sure can't afford it.
Heck, I use RH 7.3/KDE, and I frequently run 'doze in a VMware window. I can even copy/paste between Windows and Linux apps seamlessly!
The best thing that can come of this is that IBM buys SCO.
IBM will be around, it as a company understands the value of Open Source, and won't be bought out by M$, as SCO is in serious danger of being.
Like AT&T owning the Unix TM, that'd pretty much ensure a future for Unix.
Of course, what'd be best of all is for the US Govt to realize the value and industry that is Unix and buy it for the common good, but I'm not even sure if it can do that.
2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....
If you think $1,500 is big bucks, you haven't gotten your high school diploma, yet.
At a "good guy" development rate of $65/hour, that works out to about three days of development time. Can you come even close to replacing the functionality therein in three !@# days?
Given that any decent-sized project comprises at least weeks to months, is three days really that expensive?
Public FTP servers usually have the restriction that the user enter a valid email address, which the BSA's spidering/searching software faked in order to gain access.
Hell, isn't that illegal under the DMCA?
This is possibly a legitimate point!
I recently did some work making an industry-specific search engine. Part of the material obtained was done through a freely obtained login/pw, and the spider would crawl nightly (4 AM) for any new information.
Extensive review was performed by very high dollar lawyers to make sure that no copyright infringement was done. And yes, the algorithm used was as bandwidth tight as could be done to get the effect needed.
As the ISP, I got a DMCA removal request, because making the materials obtained through the (free or very cheap) login/pw essentially amounted to a copyright protection circumvention device!
Needless to say, the offending material was removed, even though the action of circumventing the "protection device" was so trivial.
This sets a very clear protection mechanism - anytime a password is requested, you have a "copyright protection device".
Look out FTP indexes!