But the Nokia N900 was NOT the FIRST. The Nokia N770 was the first 2005 - 2006 time frame. Next was the N800 than the N810. So the N900 is the FOURTH open source phone available to the market. Let's hope Nokia markets this one better than past ones. The market is theirs to lose!
To date, only the Nokia Nxxx allow "root" access (or so I have been told) so that a user can install applications that are not specifically designed for the device. (User is not limited to a specific store for purchase of applications.) There is allot of Linux software out there and there is little reason that most of it should not run on a hand held like the Nokia Nxxx series.
I am not sure, but I do not believe that either Android or Symbian give you "Root" access to the device, which limits your ability to install what you want to install on the device.
Root with a strong password is NOT a security issue. While you should not always use "root" you should have access should the need arise....or else the device is NOT "smart"! OF course there is nothing wrong with sudo type of access either. Does Android or Symbian even give you su or sudo access?
But I've heard that US carriers didn't really want to offer them in unlocked state, and Nokia wouldn't castrate its products; so the carriers went with RAZR... (and look where Motorola is now)
You heard correctly. Further their choice of hardware components were specifically chosen to prevent their phones from being unlocked. One of the Linux magazines covered all the cellular / wireless company phones from a hardware perspective module by module.
Most of the individual components to these $300 - $500 hand sets cost less than $40, probably less when bought in bulk. And some deluded American cell phone customers actually believe that the cellular providers are giving you a discount on the purchase of new hardware...what a joke.
Not only do they lock you in with vendor locked-in hardware, they gouge you for the price and lock you in with a plan that if you try to leave early you get fined for well over the cost of a new hand set.
The best solution is to purchase the phone retail for the cellular provider whose cell towers best fit your life and avoid 1, 2 or 3 year contracts all together. At least this way if they try to stick you with an inflated bill for charges you did not incur you can tell them to take a long walk off a short pier before they sick collections on you and ruin your credit.
Of course if you are starting to pay cash for most things as many of us are, your credit score means nada!
Think about it. Microsoft has a vested monetary interest in maintaining and sustaining a stable element of the PC ecosystem (the OS) for everyone else to work with. Same for Apple. The only thing missing from Linux for the same thing to happen is an economic entity to take the lead and provide the single point of stability. Canonical will have to usurp leadership of consumer Linux from the kernel devs and Linus. Period. That is the only way you'll see Linux offered in retail settings:
There is a danger, no pun intended, here...a history lesson to be remembered by one and all. If Microsoft promises to work with a Linux vendor, in any capacity (WINE, MONO, Moonlight and many others should pay attention), do not waste your money on their hardware unless you can verify 100% the hardware will work should that vendor fail.
This lesson should have been learned by anyone who bought hardware running Lindros, once that company went out of business, because they used proprietary components on their motherboards there were many problems upgrading the hardware to other Linux distros. The company that put out Lindros had paid royalty money to Microsoft in order to supply Windows compatible device drivers with the Lindros Linux operating system of their computers.
It seemed like the best of all worlds, but ended up being another Embrace, extend and extinguish strategy/opportunity.
I wish I had known about ZaReason back then, as I would have never experienced problems with Graphics and/or Sound on Foxconn mother boards. Live and learn.
As for my references to Linux open source projects to be "more compatible" with Windows...you have to be careful that you are not assisting Microsoft in the Embrace and Extend business policies that end up extinguishing, innovation, products and companies, as they over the years. History is littered with examples and only fools fail to learn the lessons of that history!
Besides, we do not have to be more compatible with Windows, they need to be more compatible with open source and Linux. Just look at all the kernel terminology, language and functionality that has appeared in Vista, Windows 7 and other Microsoft applications that have existed in GNU, Linux and Unix for years. Microsoft will continue to modify their software applications to be more efficient as GNU/Linux is now.
Open source needs to bravely blaze ahead and let them try to catch up if they dare!
I can't even give a guarantee with hardware that has the Windows logo testing on it.
That is very pathetic IMO. Pathetic and very true. Other articles have come out over the years that show those "stickers" or "logos" are often not worth the material they are printed on.
It's not a distribution method. You want the driver to be available when you release your device. Getting the driver to stock kernel will not get it distributed to the potential Linux-using customers, unless you can get the driver to the kernel at least a year before you release the device, so it has time to get to the actual distributions.
Specifically, at least a year before you release the device part. So what part of your reason explains why proprietary hardware vendors do not release device drivers for their new hardware for more than two or three years after the release of the hardware?
By your own opinion, hardware vendors could get their proprietary driver into the kernel, in at least a year, yet two and three years later some companies are still NOT releasing their proprietary drivers for Linux and Unix use. Nvidia and other GPU vendors are just the most recent offenders. There have been many new enhanced add on hardware devices for PCs over the years...yet those drivers, if they are ever released into open source, are only released after two, three or more years later...
How is this Linux and the Kernel developer's fault? It is not. Please stop spreading FUD!
This is why I recommend a 3 year clock be set for all Nvidia products, three years ~ no purchase ~ from the date they release a new hardware device for PCs for only Windows and not other operating systems (Linux, Mac OSX and Unix).
Hey Hairyfeet like your posts, just disagree with a few here and there, however even when I disagree I can see the experience, the real life experience in your posts.
Have to disagree with this statement:
These companies are NOT gonna release their source code, at least not now in this hostile climate, but what they WILL do is put drivers on CDs, and penguins on the boxes if you'll let them, because nobody like cutting off potential customers.
Specifically the if you'll let them part. No one is stopping them, besides perhaps Microsoft (and many would debate that...so sad ) . When you have projects like the Linux Driver Project, companies have no excuse not to make device drivers available to customers. No reasonable excuses that is.
But expecting users in 2009 with a straight face to play paperweight roulette is just truly the height of arrogance and insanity.
Perhaps suggesting PCs and hardwares might end up as paper weights was not the best choice for an analogy. As this is exactly another reason why I loath Microsoft today, thanks to Vista, though admittedly I had been burned by Microsoft multiple times before than. The BSOD, GPFs and now the blacK Screens Of Death (KSODs) that have occurred after one of Microsoft's recent auto updates.
Microsoft was more than happy to play paperweight roulette as you call it with Vista and user PCs. Though I would suggest to you that with roulette you have a chance at winning, albeit a very small one. With Vista, there was absolutely no chance the old PCs running Vista. As they say hindsight is 20/20.
Can you say Vista, I knew you could...
The best solution for all PC users for hope of NOT being left with a paperweight is to purchase a PC, whose hardware will run Linux FIRST. If you want to run Vista or Windows 7, you can always run them, but if you are smart enough to purchase hardware that will run Linux first, that same hardware will run Linux in 10 years from now, when Microsoft will obviously no longer support either Vista or Windows 7.
I would suggest buying all future PC hardware from a Linux vendor, who knows which proprietary hardware to stay away from. Two that I know of are ZaReason and System 76. Of course a forward thinking person like yourself might see this opportunity for what it is and start creating systems that will run Linux and Windows 7...just a thought!
Perhaps Linux and open source should thank Microsoft, although I am not willing to do that for at least 7 years as I reset my 7 year clock (check my other posts for info about the 7 year clock), as System76’s 1Q 2009 revenue growth — 61 percent thanks to the Vista debacle and that is only one Linux vendor.
Thanks for sharing that link, its a good one. I especially like these quotes from it:
You think you want a stable kernel interface, but you really do not, and you don't even know it.
Assuming that we had a stable kernel source interface for the kernel, a binary interface would naturally happen too, right? Wrong
I especially liked the 6 good side effects of having your driver in the main kernel tree and the fact that the article points out
that Linux, not Microsoft, not OS X, supports a LARGER number of different devices “out of the box” than any other operating system in history of computers.
This is among the common FUD that is spread by proprietary vendors in the hopes (and quite successfully in the past) of keeping Linux adoption down.
Another FUD statement is that Linux is not widely adopted, when it is actually a much bigger market than Microsoft would like for it to be...and why their marketing machine works overtime to confuse people.
The problem is definitely NOT Linux, as the example of how they modified the kernel for USB and it is still running at the fastest USB rates possible and that drivers put into the kernel at version.09 still work in kernel version 2.6 and up. Absolutely rock stable if the hardware vendors will put their drivers into the kernel, which many refuse to do.
There is a solution to the proprietary hardware vendors constantly breaking Linux with proprietary drivers, only purchase your hardware from a Linux hardware PC builder and vendor who knows Linux and will not put proprietary hardware (hardware with no working device drivers for Linux) in their hardware. There are two excellent options: ZaReason and System 76. Both vendors know and build Linux PCs.
You can always install Windows if you want to on their PCs, but down the road you can depend on the fact that hardware bought from them will continue to work with many different distros of Linux. Meaning there will be more than one operating system that can be used on the hardware years from now.
So who cares if Microsoft locks down the big box stores to further slow Linux adoption, let them...buy your hardware from a Linux vendor like ZaReason or System 76. At least you know your hardware will work tomorrow and 10 years from now.
I look forward to the day when either ZaReason or System 76 starts building Linux PCs with Coreboot. (Linux compatible BIOS)
I predict that Linux will become so popular that proprietary vendors will actually want their drivers in the kernel, if that is where they belong. How many years is anyone's guess.
$650 for a laptop that most likely vendor locks you in to hardware that will only run Windows. You just can not be sure if you do not purchase from a Linux Vendor.
I checked on Pricegrabber.com for that model of laptop, it was $100 more from one vendor and $200 dollars more from another vendor...not that, that matters as if the hardware is designed for Windows, it might not run with Linux. Maybe it will, maybe it will not.
The only way to be sure is to purchase from a Linux vendor and buy Windows separately, even if it costs you $130 - $200 for that copy of Windows. Personally I do not think Windows is worth that, but that is only my opinion.
As for the Linux laptops being twice as much, you are being misleading and you know it.
ZaReason: $349 (10.2"); $699 (14"); $699 (15.4", out of stock); $799 (14"); $899 (12" out of stock); $1299 (15" out of stock)
In both cases, with both companies, only one of the many options was priced at $1299 ("when prices are like double").
Note none of the Linux options have larger than 15" monitors...I hook my 10" Asus Eee PC to my 22" monitor when at home anyway and use a 4 port switcher to switch between my netbook, desktop or two servers (internal at home use only) so I would not pay extra for a larger monitor anyway. I know I am in the minority there. And when I travel, I only take the Asus Eee PC, works great for what I need to do when I am traveling and does not require an extra case for the nickel-dime charges with the Airlines. A HUGE plus!
The only point is vendor lock in, if you buy Windows pre-Installed you might be prevented in running Linux. If you buy Linux pre-Installed; you can always run Windows.
Vendor Lock-in stiffles innovation and has for over a decade now, aren't you tired of this crap yet? Its been over 20 years for me and I am so over the vendor lock-in crapola!
Cheaper in the short term, to buy Windows pre-installed, but the frustration, aggravation and hassles related to Vendor Lock-in are to be avoided at all costs.
Eventually that version of Windows will NOT be supported, unless you want an expensive paper weight (with a cheaper version of Windows on it) its best to ignore all hardware from big box stores and vendors that do NOT do Linux.
Besides have you looked at the prices at ZaReason and System 76 for pre-built Linux PCs, even with shipping you are way ahead of the game.
Just do yourself a favor, get as much memory as you can afford as later you will be glad to have it, no matter which operating system you are planning to use. Adding hard disk space via internal / external / external - usb is a piece of cake and most plug and play with Linux today, though it will not be advertised on the box in the store.
The point is to avoid vendor lock-in that only comes with a pre-built Windows PC...buy Linux first and you know your safe!
Oh, okay, 3 at ZaReason and 6 at System 76, so we are down from 12 to 9 possible laptops...of course both companies have desktops and towers as well.
The point is that if you buy from one of these two vendors you will have a PC that not only runs Linux, but can run Windows if you want too. No Vendor lock-in is all that matters. Period.
I would also recommend that you get as much memory as you can regardless of the Operating System you plan to use. Sure Linux runs in 128MB or 256MB of RAM, runs well in 512MB of RAM...but very well with 1MB or more. That is not even the important part.
What is important, is if you do not get the memory when you get your system and years later you decide you want more memory (for caching on a server or for Video Editing or for heavy Graphics processing) you will probably eventually need the memory anyway, so bit the bullet and get it on the front end. Granted for servers we are not talking a typical laptop are we...
So you have 9 Linux options (minus the "three out of six are out of stock") and none of them vendor locked in; that is the point!
Also, not that I'm interested in 'yet another webOS', but i find it sort of interesting that all the big players are slamming this so quickly. Are they scared?
Yes, unless they are idiots. You are very insightful for noticing how quick they are to pounce...hope many mod you up!
There is much great discussion above, and I am going to save this and read through it to see who is stretching facts and who is not, for instance, the idea that a CO2 bubble can move after it has been frozen and encased in multiple layers of ice is over the top and literally crazy talk. The reason Ice Cores are such great tools for determining the make up of the atmosphere at that time in the planets history is because they are so EXACT. So attempting to suggest that they can migrate is FUD!
The changes in ocean current flows around the planet based on the content of fresh water (glacial melt) and salt water has significantly changed. Its getting worse. We know if the flow changes, Great Britain freezes hard core as do many other places in the world, of course severe winters have happened many times and are cyclical in nature, unlike the CO2 core samples which scientists have proven are NOT CYCLICAL. CO2 content has just gotten more concentrated, there are no cycles based on Ice Cores.
Those that measure glacier melting and retreating have been alarmed, because they have been measuring this for decades, made hypothesis es as to what will happen in the future and so far in the past two or three years have publicly stated that their earlier estimates were WAY OFF. That the amount of melt and retreating, combined with lack of re-freezing in the winter (smaller and smaller areas freeze solid each year which is problematic for many different reasons) is much more severe than previously thought. Thus they now believe in Global Warming theories.
What do we have to do, wait until people on the coast have to live in Tree houses as the oceans move inland due to rising sea levels? How much more difficult will it be to make significant changes that even have the hopes of changing things for the better as such changes take decades to measure?
Why is that independent Scientist, not associated with a political party, are so blatantly shouted down, ignored and their research suppressed?
And multiple people have made excellent points about moving from oil to solar and wind and even if Global Warming was not true, the US would gain in development of the new technologies, not just creating many new jobs but reducing our dependence on foreign oil, which all agree is one of the largest national security risks for the United States today. Heck if we moved everything but our military and perhaps the Airlines off oil, would we produce enough oil domestically to maintain our nation's defense? If not we better get started sooner rather than later finding alternative fuel sources as anything else is most certainly dangerous and I would suggest violates a politicians oath of office to protect the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic.
Reminds me of that quote about encountering or seeing the enemy and discovering that the enemy is us.
I do not own an oil company, oil field or make money from them, if I did perhaps I would want to keep the status quo to enrich myself at the expense of my neighbors...perhaps.
Regardless, the point of the article as I see it, is that documents were stolen, the validity of all the documents now being "discovered" are very much in question, yet that does not prevent one specific political party from attempting to divert our attention to this and from other issues. We need to pay attention to those slanting the date for their own ends...what is it that they do not want us to pay attention to? Health Care perhaps?
Business as usual will not save Americans and the United States. That one political party who refuses to change in order to help Americans needs to get a clue.
One political party started this mess, the other political party went along with it; they are both guilty of not serving and protecting Americans. The more they fight politically against each other, at the expense of American citizens, the more I come to despise them.
Do not think by refusing to work together to fix things it will help get your party elected, it will NOT!
If you are NOT part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Do not be part of the problem!
Did you even try to look? Most people do not even try.
The biggest mistake any consumer of PCs, laptops, towers, etc can make today is to buy any hardware from a vendor who does not understand and do Linux. This goes for all the big box stores and even Dell, they only pay a passing glance to Linux and do not really do it right, as experienced by Linux being buried down in their website and not prominently marketed on their main page from the start.
If you are foolish enough to purchase from anyone but a Linux hardware computer builder, you will be frustrated with needless vendor lock-in issues meant only to keep you a Microsoft Windows users, period.
Here is the rub, Every Linux PC can run Windows. Because of Vendor Lock-In, not every Windows PC can run Linux.
Even the most devout Windows / Microsoft FAN can NOT deny that simple fact!
Moral of story: Eventually a proprietary company will STOP supporting what you purchased attempting you to pay more for new equipment. Your only choice for that older, yet very useful, hardware is to KNOW you can run Linux (any distro, there are many). Even if you do not want to run Linux, by purchasing hardware that will, you will be in a position to donate that older hardware to non profits that will get Linux up and running and donate it to third world countries so children can learn.
There is NO downside to purchasing hardware from a Linux vendor. There are almost ALWAYS vendor lock-in hardware issues from any of the big box stores and anyone who only does Microsoft.
Use the two vendors ZaReason or System 76 above, you will be glad you did, and you will help out children in third world countries one day when you upgrade your hardware, as the hardware your purchased will run Linux.
I am so glad I never started smoking and encourage others to quit, but there is nothing right about this. Smacks of yet another corporation doing anything it can to NOT honor their commitments. That is more disgusting than any smoker could ever be.
And I know how bad smoking can be, once looked at a house for sale, with the three people living there, all three smoking as we were going through the house, probably in a lame attempt to hide the fact that their house reeked of smoke. Very unusual for people to be in the home when a Realtor is showing their home to prospective buyers. And one of the two of us had asthma, so we were sensitive to potential breathing issues in homes. The upper third of the walls, in all rooms of the home, were a burnt brown-orange color that we guessed was from nicotine. Needless to say we were in and out of that home real fast. Even if we could somehow strip and clean the walls, we were not convinced that we could successfully clean the duct work from that much nicotine buildup, ugh. Obviously this example is on the less than 1% extreme side for smoking, trust me it was disgusting. As awful as that was, Apple's stance on not honoring their warranty is more reprehensible to me.
Even with that negative experience and being a non smoker, I still can not see how any corporation can welch on their obligations (warranty) based on smoking alone.
OSHA violations my behind. They could at least remove the PC from the offending environment and work on it in a cleaner place.
I am sick and tired for corporations enriching themselves at the expense of consumers. If this article is true, something tells me it is, Apple is on the same list with Health Care Companies, Telcos, especially Cellular companies, Insurance Companies, Financial Companies, Hospitals, Banks, Credit Companies (all types), Oil Companies, Cable Companies, add-your-favorite customer-no-service-company here.
To protect yourself from a corporation, use RipOffReports.com and check them out. Unlike the Better Business Bureau were a company can be a sponser and have negative reports removed, with RipOffReports, the company can (and should) respond, but the complaints, even after satisfactorily being resolved are NEVER removed.
I once checked out the top 10 banks in the country...all of them had complaints in the multiple thousands, not just a few. The complaints from customers of greater than 3 years, 5 years and 7 years are particularly telling.
Same with the Wireless ~ Cellular companies. There was NOT a single good player in the group, all of them have hundreds, if not thousands of customer-no-service-complaints! If they cared about you and me, they would attempt to make it right. Since they do not it is obvious that they believe that they do not have too.
All the industries mentioned above ASSUME (for me they assume wrongly) that as consumers we have NO CHOICE and we will just switch from one bad company to another.
If you only have two choices, you have no choice.
You always have choices and if you can not find at least three options, you are not looking hard enough or from enough different persectives. As for RipOffReports.com, I expect companies to have a few complaints, its how they respond to those complaints that matter to me. What excuse is acceptable, not to even respond, to not even attempt to make it right with the customer, well there is NO EXCUSE on the company's part for that neglect of customer service. Obviously they are counting on all of us being SHEEP and not caring what they do to our neighbors. Hold them accountable, your children and your friends children will thank you one day!
There is only ONE solution, all of us, to a person, must stop doing bu
All press is good press. I did not know about Bing merchant system, but now I do.
The only good reason not to publish, as promoting FUDly Microsoft is just bad. At least for 7 years... I restarted my 7 year clock last week, yet again.
I would say publish and publish often. The fact that the exploit exists and Microsoft is vainly attempting to hide its existence is the news worthy item in my book.
Yes, they're separate. That's why it's sheer coincidence that criminal charges against Obama supporters (Bill Richardson, the Philadelphia voter-intimidating thugs) were dropped in spite of objections by career DOJ lawyers.
I added the bold highlight for emphasis, not caldodge...
I wonder which party those career DOJ lawyers belonged to?
I wish it did not matter which party, but we all know that party politics are what D.C. has sadly become all about. Pathetic (party politics, not your comment, which both parties are guilty of in some form or another.)
A very well written and seemingly well thought out post. I see many common thoughts and similar desires / hopes aspirations.
All in all very impressive.
I too get tired of all the "same type of games" give me a series of challenges, missions, a ship to fly (and fight in), like Battlezone or Wing Commander. As for the stick my head around the corner and shoot games (too many of those already, yawn) and the drive a car and run over things, sorry boooorrrrring.
Innovate, even if open source and sell, people will buy, they most certainly will buy!
I too am a capitalist, but the shortcomings in the system are very self evident. With the right board of directors, putting customers and people first, corporations can do great things. However when they are only focused on maximizing shareholder value or even worse, only making the board of directors rich, well we all have seen what that has brought us.
Give me a community that prevents big box stores from ruining individual family businesses. Where the infrastructure, electric, water, sewer, Internet (fiber only...Greenlight please...), etc... benefit the community (not make a few greedy people rich or get misused by politicians or developers) only making enough profit to fund expenses, including repairs. Banking / financial industries like the couple of towns where the bank issues a local currency (yes in the USA) and all the local businesses offer discounts for using the local currency. Where doctors care more about healing than bankrupting Americans (granted its the health care and insurance concerns bankrupting 40% of Americans, not doctors). Where you know you have freedom of religion and religious practices because the church is smart enough to see the absolute need, as our founding fathers did, for the separation of church and state. Where property rights are respected, always, and imminent domain is rarely if ever used...if used a fair market price + appreciation is paid as compensation...and never used by a developer to take away from one family just to make one person or another family wealthy.
Where neighbors look out for neighbors. That is where I want to live...
Number one on my list, Fiber over the last mile to my home, like Greenlight did for Wilson N.C.
Number two, preference for small businesses attuned to the needs of the community.
Number three, freedom as promised in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Where people do what is right, because it is right, not just because it is convenient and everyone benefits and grows together. And people do not push their prejudices on others. Where people can discuss, argue, talk and agree to disagree without feeling the need to force/bend another to their will.
The way I see it, 50/50 sounds about right for a dev team without a big name like Valve, id, etc.
Interesting concept but flawed, just because two groups need each other does not mean that the split should be 50/50.
If I had the cash to fund the project I would do a 60/40 split. The 60% would go to the company for everything related to marketing, developing the product, packaging, shipping, taking it to market, etc... Possibly some profit sharing of about 10% of the 60%, should all 60% not be needed.
The developers would split the 40% based on a series of quantitative measures combined with qualitative voting that everyone involved agrees with the quantitative data.
The challenge would be coming up with the quantitative measures, there would need to be multiples. The checks/balance comes from the qualitative voting by the developers periodically during the development of the product.
For instance, Either biweekly, or monthly (if the product takes 6 months or more to develop) everyone would sit down facing each other (nothing hidden) and the quantitative measures to date would be revealed. Each person would be told if the product sold for $x today you would get %a, person 2 would get %b, person 3 would get %c,... person x would get %z.
%a + %b + %c...%z would equal 40% of total GROSS sales (no net income, accounting BS tricks would be allowed). KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid.
Once those numbers were revealed, I would tell the developers do you agree, yes or no. If no, please explain why now in front of god and everyone (all the other developers) why you feel this breakdown is not fair. In my experience developers on the same project know who is and who is not pulling their weight. So the BS goes out the window.
Once the agreement for that period was reached, all the developers would be required to sign a paper agreeing to the percentage payout for that biweekly / monthly period. This process would be continued throughout the course of the project,, and in the end when the product sells, the 40% of gross sales would be divided based on the agreed to amounts (sum of all individual breakouts signed and agreed decisions) . For a new team that has never worked together, weekly or biweekly meetings for the first couple of months would be required until an acceptable velocity on the project was reached and an understanding by all involved on the quantitative measures. After two or three face to face meetings where all the developers agreed to the quantitative measures without disagreement; the group could optionally decide to have only monthly meetings or agree to the quantitative numbers via email. Thus a meeting would ONLY be required if there was a disagreement by anyone for any reason.
An established team that knows and trust each other, after at least one successful product, could probably do everything via email and not need a face to face as their would be no disagreements. So an established group that knows and trusts each other could set the frequency of the meetings to as few or many as they deem reasonable and necessary. The frequency of the meetings would be established by the experienced team at the onset of the project.
People get stupid when money is involved and that is when greed will get the best of someone. At the point the product is selling it is too late to make changes. Thankfully there is no need to make any changes as by that time, the percentages have been well established, defined agreed to and signed off on by all parties. You take the greed, that can ruin things, out of the mix. If someone gets stupid later when the product starts selling, they would have absolutely no legs to stand on. And there would be no attempts made to console them. They would be told to speak up at the periodic meetings next time.
If someone was a pain in the you know what to work with, guess what, they would eliminate themselves for future group development effor
(3) I humbly suggest AAC or Vorbis audio; H264, Theora, or Dirac video; Matroska or Ogg container. (Again, set-top box programmers will love you, and every PC/Mac/etc will play it too. Make it easy for people to do business with you and they will.)
Someone mode this up! Open source codecs are the ONLY way to go for any provider that is honestly interested in providing service to ALL.
The above post probably got marked down by some DRM lovers...while I agree with the sentiment, the Hollywood / corporate model is too deeply entrenched with DRM for them to ever leave it.
For those of us that have been burned by DRM models and wasted money purchasing products that would not play because of them, we are twice shy of DRM (in any form).
"Hulu" = NBC collaborating with some other networks. If they do what you suggest, they risk hurting what is likely one of their biggest sources of revenue: DVD sales & rentals.
I do not believe everyone is aware of the relationship of Hulu with the Cable & Broadcast media...thanks for telling everyone.
The big problem with NBC, is they have chosen a Silverlight only model for the Olympics and I am concerned they will do the same thing with all their content. That would mean all Linux users would be out. Sorry but I do not install WINE or the Linux Moonlight (Silverlight work around) on my computers. Why encourage a model, Microsoft or proprietary, that would eliminate me in a heartbeat if it could. I learned my lesson midway through Windows 2000 with the forced auto updates...HUGE FAIL. After 20+ years using Microsoft products, I have been Microsoft free at home for over two years now. I will never go back. If someone like NBC choses a proprietary data codec that caters to only one operating system, they lose all my potential business.
To all, there are open source codecs available now (and for years) that will let all Internet users view content, whether they are Windows, Linux or MacIntosh users. There is simply no acceptable reason to provide content in only one proprietary format anymore.
This business model must be discouraged or you will be prevented from viewing without incurring an additional fee in the future.
Hulu offers itself to linux users. We have been waiting years for that with Netflix.
I wish they would all support Linux and open source codecs. Look at Nasa, they provide content in about 10 different streams to cater to the world.
With one open source codec, superior in every way to all the others, any website can provide content that every user can view by downloading one player (works for all operating systems, even Windows and Macintosh). Hint: Its NOT FLASH or any other proprietary (limiting) format!
OTOH, I can watch anything on cable commercial free through the wonders of modern technology (DVR).
Only if you've already recorded it (unless you have some form of on demand service, and the show you want is available).
Sorry, but you are wrong here if you are a cable customer with a cable provided DVR/DVD. I found this out the hard way. During a bad storm, multiple neighborhoods lost power.
When the power came back on, the Internet was not yet up, since I had about 40+hours of DVD recorded movies, TV shows, etc... I popped some popcorn, got a soda and settled in to catch up on what I had been recording on my Cable company provided DVD/DVR. To my surprise, there was nothing there.
It seems without the Internet/cable signal, the DVR/DVD setup has NOTHING on it. Everything you record is on the Cable company's servers, not the DVR/DVD they charge you from $6 to $14 per month extra for. A pathetic fail.
I plan to use one of my old PCs, install Linux on it, put on the software for DVD/DVR recording and the only limitation will be the hard disk space and Internet upstream bandwidth. And the upstream bandwidth will only be a limitation while recording and/or streaming. Once the movie is recorded, I will have no limitations to watching what I want, when I want.
I got so fed up with Cable TV, that I sold my TV. Thus the only way I will receive content in the future is via my Internet connection. I am done with subscriber cable models...just does not work for me anymore.
You think the cable companies would learn, yet they continually increase price, sign up more people, reduce their bandwidth consumptions and lie to us all telling us their is bandwidth scarcity in order to ramp up prices.
Does anyone honestly believe this crap anymore?
Get yourself a a DD-WRT supported router install the DD-WRT software on it. You will be able to see your bandwidth in real time, upstream and downstream, 24/7 individually for each of these three: WAN, LAN and WiFi. You will know with 100% certainty were the bottleneck is. To date, my bottle neck has been my Cable ISP...and not for any good reason!
It does not matter who offers what via the Internet as unless you have a Fiber connection to the Internet you are going to find yourself limited, reduced, prevented, shaped, interrupted, put-your-term-here, deep packet inspected, throttled if you have Cable.
I found my up to 8MB/10MB basic cable was throttled upstream to less than 40Kbps (top end) to as low as 0Kbps 85% - 95% of the time. My downstream bounced between 8Kbps and 100Kbps...I was paying almost $50 per month. My Speedtest showed over 9000 Kbps down and over 900Kbps up.
I added the $10 fee for "Turbo with with PowerBoost" the only Internet only plan that is guaranteed by the cable company to allow you to watch IP TV, Videos and Movies without problems. It promises speeds up to either 14MB or 16MB. Again these are "up to" speeds not guaranteed anything. The speed test still only showed over 9000Kbps down and over 900Kbs up, not either the 14MB or 16MB down as promised, so after a week of working on the problem, they are still trying to fix it. I hope they will.
Video still sputters, as do TV shows. Thanks to the DD-WRT software I know that they are throttling / shaping my bandwidth down to less than 40Kbps upstream still. Though I have explained to them that I need better than 250Kbps upstream, preferably 384Kbps to get a decent non-stuttering signal, the shaping software automatically decreases to the point that I there is not enough upstream bandwidth to watch any streaming content, be it IP TV, movies of video without problems. I am trying to work with them, but they either can't or do not want to open up that upstream pipe. This throttling happens no matter the time day or night 24 X 7. I know the cable channel is not saturated at 3am or 4am every night, thus the idea that the shaping software is preserving some measure of quality is just another excuse. Same is true between 9am - 4pm weekdays when most people are at work.
I am starting to think that a DSL ISP provider at under $30 per month, for a guaranteed 384Kbps upstream and 1.5Mbps downstream would be a far better solution than what I am experiencing now with Cable.
It does not matter what the downstream bandwidth is "up to", you must have a decent upstream sustained bandwidth to get a decent stream. And these are NOT high definition streams, I shudder to think what will happen then.
It does not matter what Hulu and others offer, charge, etc... if you do not have adequate bandwidth upstream, sustained, to stream content.
If the Cable people can not fix it, I will try DSL, my guess is that I will have a better streaming experience thanks to being the only one on the pipe at 384Kbps or better. And at those rates I could purchase a second DSL provider and have two DSL routers feeding into my DD-WRT controlled network. If one provider drops the packet, the other could pick it up.
The best option would be Greenlight 100MB/100MB synchronous fiber for $100 per month like they have in Wilson N.C. Heck I have considered relocating and buying a house there just for the Internet band width!
Too bad the Telco/cable company oligopoly would rather limit us then provide service. I can only hope that our politicians step up and stop this crud. Until than, your best bet might be to avoid Cable until they remove bandwidth shaping / throttling and bandwidth caps all together.
My experience has yet to be resolved and trust me when I tell you I will let you know. Hopefully the cable company will do the right thing and fix this as now I am paying over $50 per month and not receiving what they have promised me....
Your scenario with 50+ ubuntu linux all capable of running most apps is the best case scenario, but I cannot find the same optimism from my past experience with the Palm platform and the Java MIDP platform.
I would not put Ubuntu or any full Linux distro on an embedded device, perhaps Lubuntu, but I have not looked into it. My guess is neither would you, so this post is more for others that do not know anything about Linux and not you specifically.
There are many wonderful Linux distros designed for these processors and less memory that would work just fine. However no one is going to go out of their way to tell you that you can save allot of money by using one. And that you will have more options with software to run.
I also would not load applications that require huge libraries to run...Java is among these. Sorry, but Java simply does NOT belong everywhere. There are multiple ways to approach embedded devices with less memory and slower processors. Many of these options have been working for well over 5 years now, some well over 10 years, its just that people do not know any better thanks to the lack of marketing and vendor lock in issues.
The truth is out there, but people have to be willing to look for it to find it. If they do not want to look for it, perhaps they should be left to pay inflated prices for their services. Call it a stupidity tax.
This is called "choice" and encourages manufacturers to observe market requirements(e.g. listen to customer) and hopefully drive down prices(unlikely). Whoever get closest to this wins.
Most of the businesses related to wireline/wireless are simply big to care and/or listen to their customers. And the market does NOT work because of all the proprietary hardware and proprietary software and proprietary networks, etc....
If the market was free and working as you, and many others hypothesis; than we would have fiber to our homes already. (Promised by telcos in 1990s in order to get tax dollars)
By 2000 we would have had 100Mbps / 100Mbps Internet access, for less than $55 per month, via that fiber connection to our homes.
By 2006 we would have had 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps Internet access for less than $52 per month via that same fiber connection.
The market has not and does not work. The companies that play in the space DO NOT listen to customers as RipOffReports.com proves. Enter the name of your provider and search on any term: fraud, problem, billing, and you will discover that your provider and all the other providers have hundreds if not thousands of reports. One or two you might dismiss as crack pots, but not the volume that is there. Also it is pretty obvious when you are reading a report if the person is being unreasonable or not. Sadly most are not, the customers are just not interested in providing service anymore.
If they listened to their customers, no one would get an inflated bill in the mail for any reason. Especially not for the company putting random charges on it. I personally experienced that from two different providers over a 10 year period before I left cellular forever.
I do not mind paying for what I use, but I will not pay for their mistakes or other peoples charges. Both times I had in excess of three years as a good customer with the provider (obviously one time was longer than just 3 years). If I had mattered as a customer, they would have removed the charges that I did not make and proved based on my multi-year calling pattern the first time and via their provisioning mistake the second time. Both times, both companies simply DID NOT CARE. Said pay up or else. Sorry but mob style tactics do not work on honest Americans.
I churned and am much happier for it. Skype is wonderful and if they went out or got bought out tomorrow, I would provision my own VoIP server (Linux of course), use it myself and sell to my friends. There is no way I would ever settle for a total cost of ownership of over $100 per year ever again. Especially not in this economy.
These customer-no-service-tactics are really stupid. They honestly believe you do not have a choice or they would not do it. Guess what, they are WRONG!
Sign me laughing all the way to the bank!
P.S. Only Greenlight in Wilson N.C. offers 100Mbps / 100Mbps Fiber connected to your home Internet access in the USA today. It will cost you $100 per month. When they started offering service, after being invited into the community by the local politicians to do so; the telcos / Cable companies responded by attempting to push legislature through the North Carolina legislature to stop them. Yea, thats a FREE market, NOT!
The markets have not been working since 1990. So wake up and see the reality of the situation, please, before it is too late.
Battery life is a big issue for all WiFi enabled handhelds, including the Nokia Nxxx series. My solution was easy, plug it in at work and plug it in at home. Pretty much have phone access approx 80 - 90% of the time. If I am commuting, anyone calling can leave a message and I will get it when I connect to WiFi the next time.
Best of all, with Skype my total cost of ownership is $100 per year. I use to pay more than that per month for a cellular phone. Stopped doing that over 3 years ago and never intend to go back.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't the n900 a open phone available now?
Yes
But the Nokia N900 was NOT the FIRST. The Nokia N770 was the first 2005 - 2006 time frame. Next was the N800 than the N810. So the N900 is the FOURTH open source phone available to the market. Let's hope Nokia markets this one better than past ones. The market is theirs to lose!
To date, only the Nokia Nxxx allow "root" access (or so I have been told) so that a user can install applications that are not specifically designed for the device. (User is not limited to a specific store for purchase of applications.) There is allot of Linux software out there and there is little reason that most of it should not run on a hand held like the Nokia Nxxx series.
I am not sure, but I do not believe that either Android or Symbian give you "Root" access to the device, which limits your ability to install what you want to install on the device.
Root with a strong password is NOT a security issue. While you should not always use "root" you should have access should the need arise....or else the device is NOT "smart"! OF course there is nothing wrong with sudo type of access either. Does Android or Symbian even give you su or sudo access?
But I've heard that US carriers didn't really want to offer them in unlocked state, and Nokia wouldn't castrate its products; so the carriers went with RAZR... (and look where Motorola is now)
You heard correctly. Further their choice of hardware components were specifically chosen to prevent their phones from being unlocked. One of the Linux magazines covered all the cellular / wireless company phones from a hardware perspective module by module.
Most of the individual components to these $300 - $500 hand sets cost less than $40, probably less when bought in bulk. And some deluded American cell phone customers actually believe that the cellular providers are giving you a discount on the purchase of new hardware...what a joke.
Not only do they lock you in with vendor locked-in hardware, they gouge you for the price and lock you in with a plan that if you try to leave early you get fined for well over the cost of a new hand set.
The best solution is to purchase the phone retail for the cellular provider whose cell towers best fit your life and avoid 1, 2 or 3 year contracts all together. At least this way if they try to stick you with an inflated bill for charges you did not incur you can tell them to take a long walk off a short pier before they sick collections on you and ruin your credit.
Of course if you are starting to pay cash for most things as many of us are, your credit score means nada!
Think about it. Microsoft has a vested monetary interest in maintaining and sustaining a stable element of the PC ecosystem (the OS) for everyone else to work with. Same for Apple. The only thing missing from Linux for the same thing to happen is an economic entity to take the lead and provide the single point of stability. Canonical will have to usurp leadership of consumer Linux from the kernel devs and Linus. Period. That is the only way you'll see Linux offered in retail settings:
There is a danger, no pun intended, here...a history lesson to be remembered by one and all. If Microsoft promises to work with a Linux vendor, in any capacity (WINE, MONO, Moonlight and many others should pay attention), do not waste your money on their hardware unless you can verify 100% the hardware will work should that vendor fail.
This lesson should have been learned by anyone who bought hardware running Lindros, once that company went out of business, because they used proprietary components on their motherboards there were many problems upgrading the hardware to other Linux distros. The company that put out Lindros had paid royalty money to Microsoft in order to supply Windows compatible device drivers with the Lindros Linux operating system of their computers.
It seemed like the best of all worlds, but ended up being another Embrace, extend and extinguish strategy/opportunity.
I wish I had known about ZaReason back then, as I would have never experienced problems with Graphics and/or Sound on Foxconn mother boards. Live and learn.
As for my references to Linux open source projects to be "more compatible" with Windows...you have to be careful that you are not assisting Microsoft in the Embrace and Extend business policies that end up extinguishing, innovation, products and companies, as they over the years. History is littered with examples and only fools fail to learn the lessons of that history!
Besides, we do not have to be more compatible with Windows, they need to be more compatible with open source and Linux. Just look at all the kernel terminology, language and functionality that has appeared in Vista, Windows 7 and other Microsoft applications that have existed in GNU, Linux and Unix for years. Microsoft will continue to modify their software applications to be more efficient as GNU/Linux is now.
Open source needs to bravely blaze ahead and let them try to catch up if they dare!
Some people just have not realized this yet.
I can't even give a guarantee with hardware that has the Windows logo testing on it.
That is very pathetic IMO. Pathetic and very true. Other articles have come out over the years that show those "stickers" or "logos" are often not worth the material they are printed on.
It's not a distribution method. You want the driver to be available when you release your device. Getting the driver to stock kernel will not get it distributed to the potential Linux-using customers, unless you can get the driver to the kernel at least a year before you release the device, so it has time to get to the actual distributions.
Specifically, at least a year before you release the device part. So what part of your reason explains why proprietary hardware vendors do not release device drivers for their new hardware for more than two or three years after the release of the hardware?
By your own opinion, hardware vendors could get their proprietary driver into the kernel, in at least a year, yet two and three years later some companies are still NOT releasing their proprietary drivers for Linux and Unix use. Nvidia and other GPU vendors are just the most recent offenders. There have been many new enhanced add on hardware devices for PCs over the years...yet those drivers, if they are ever released into open source, are only released after two, three or more years later...
How is this Linux and the Kernel developer's fault? It is not. Please stop spreading FUD!
This is why I recommend a 3 year clock be set for all Nvidia products, three years ~ no purchase ~ from the date they release a new hardware device for PCs for only Windows and not other operating systems (Linux, Mac OSX and Unix).
Hey Hairyfeet like your posts, just disagree with a few here and there, however even when I disagree I can see the experience, the real life experience in your posts.
Have to disagree with this statement:
These companies are NOT gonna release their source code, at least not now in this hostile climate, but what they WILL do is put drivers on CDs, and penguins on the boxes if you'll let them, because nobody like cutting off potential customers.
Specifically the if you'll let them part. No one is stopping them, besides perhaps Microsoft (and many would debate that...so sad ) . When you have projects like the Linux Driver Project, companies have no excuse not to make device drivers available to customers. No reasonable excuses that is.
But expecting users in 2009 with a straight face to play paperweight roulette is just truly the height of arrogance and insanity.
Perhaps suggesting PCs and hardwares might end up as paper weights was not the best choice for an analogy. As this is exactly another reason why I loath Microsoft today, thanks to Vista, though admittedly I had been burned by Microsoft multiple times before than. The BSOD, GPFs and now the blacK Screens Of Death (KSODs) that have occurred after one of Microsoft's recent auto updates.
Microsoft was more than happy to play paperweight roulette as you call it with Vista and user PCs. Though I would suggest to you that with roulette you have a chance at winning, albeit a very small one. With Vista, there was absolutely no chance the old PCs running Vista. As they say hindsight is 20/20.
Can you say Vista, I knew you could...
The best solution for all PC users for hope of NOT being left with a paperweight is to purchase a PC, whose hardware will run Linux FIRST. If you want to run Vista or Windows 7, you can always run them, but if you are smart enough to purchase hardware that will run Linux first, that same hardware will run Linux in 10 years from now, when Microsoft will obviously no longer support either Vista or Windows 7.
I would suggest buying all future PC hardware from a Linux vendor, who knows which proprietary hardware to stay away from. Two that I know of are ZaReason and System 76. Of course a forward thinking person like yourself might see this opportunity for what it is and start creating systems that will run Linux and Windows 7...just a thought!
Perhaps Linux and open source should thank Microsoft, although I am not willing to do that for at least 7 years as I reset my 7 year clock (check my other posts for info about the 7 year clock), as System76’s 1Q 2009 revenue growth — 61 percent thanks to the Vista debacle and that is only one Linux vendor.
That's just BS. It is answered by kernel developers several times: http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt [mjmwired.net]
Thanks for sharing that link, its a good one. I especially like these quotes from it:
I especially liked the 6 good side effects of having your driver in the main kernel tree and the fact that the article points out
that Linux, not Microsoft, not OS X, supports a LARGER number of different devices “out of the box” than any other operating system in history of computers.
This is among the common FUD that is spread by proprietary vendors in the hopes (and quite successfully in the past) of keeping Linux adoption down.
Another FUD statement is that Linux is not widely adopted, when it is actually a much bigger market than Microsoft would like for it to be...and why their marketing machine works overtime to confuse people.
The problem is definitely NOT Linux, as the example of how they modified the kernel for USB and it is still running at the fastest USB rates possible and that drivers put into the kernel at version .09 still work in kernel version 2.6 and up. Absolutely rock stable if the hardware vendors will put their drivers into the kernel, which many refuse to do.
There is a solution to the proprietary hardware vendors constantly breaking Linux with proprietary drivers, only purchase your hardware from a Linux hardware PC builder and vendor who knows Linux and will not put proprietary hardware (hardware with no working device drivers for Linux) in their hardware. There are two excellent options: ZaReason and System 76. Both vendors know and build Linux PCs.
You can always install Windows if you want to on their PCs, but down the road you can depend on the fact that hardware bought from them will continue to work with many different distros of Linux. Meaning there will be more than one operating system that can be used on the hardware years from now.
So who cares if Microsoft locks down the big box stores to further slow Linux adoption, let them...buy your hardware from a Linux vendor like ZaReason or System 76. At least you know your hardware will work tomorrow and 10 years from now.
I look forward to the day when either ZaReason or System 76 starts building Linux PCs with Coreboot. (Linux compatible BIOS)
I predict that Linux will become so popular that proprietary vendors will actually want their drivers in the kernel, if that is where they belong. How many years is anyone's guess.
$650 for a laptop that most likely vendor locks you in to hardware that will only run Windows. You just can not be sure if you do not purchase from a Linux Vendor.
I checked on Pricegrabber.com for that model of laptop, it was $100 more from one vendor and $200 dollars more from another vendor...not that, that matters as if the hardware is designed for Windows, it might not run with Linux. Maybe it will, maybe it will not.
The only way to be sure is to purchase from a Linux vendor and buy Windows separately, even if it costs you $130 - $200 for that copy of Windows. Personally I do not think Windows is worth that, but that is only my opinion.
As for the Linux laptops being twice as much, you are being misleading and you know it.
ZaReason: $349 (10.2"); $699 (14"); $699 (15.4", out of stock); $799 (14"); $899 (12" out of stock); $1299 (15" out of stock)
System 76: $359 (10.1"); $789 (12.1); $879 (13"); $769 (14"); $779 (15.6"); $1299 (15.6")
In both cases, with both companies, only one of the many options was priced at $1299 ("when prices are like double").
Note none of the Linux options have larger than 15" monitors...I hook my 10" Asus Eee PC to my 22" monitor when at home anyway and use a 4 port switcher to switch between my netbook, desktop or two servers (internal at home use only) so I would not pay extra for a larger monitor anyway. I know I am in the minority there. And when I travel, I only take the Asus Eee PC, works great for what I need to do when I am traveling and does not require an extra case for the nickel-dime charges with the Airlines. A HUGE plus!
The only point is vendor lock in, if you buy Windows pre-Installed you might be prevented in running Linux. If you buy Linux pre-Installed; you can always run Windows.
Vendor Lock-in stiffles innovation and has for over a decade now, aren't you tired of this crap yet? Its been over 20 years for me and I am so over the vendor lock-in crapola!
Cheaper in the short term, to buy Windows pre-installed, but the frustration, aggravation and hassles related to Vendor Lock-in are to be avoided at all costs.
Eventually that version of Windows will NOT be supported, unless you want an expensive paper weight (with a cheaper version of Windows on it) its best to ignore all hardware from big box stores and vendors that do NOT do Linux.
Besides have you looked at the prices at ZaReason and System 76 for pre-built Linux PCs, even with shipping you are way ahead of the game.
Just do yourself a favor, get as much memory as you can afford as later you will be glad to have it, no matter which operating system you are planning to use. Adding hard disk space via internal / external / external - usb is a piece of cake and most plug and play with Linux today, though it will not be advertised on the box in the store.
The point is to avoid vendor lock-in that only comes with a pre-built Windows PC...buy Linux first and you know your safe!
The point is that if you buy from one of these two vendors you will have a PC that not only runs Linux, but can run Windows if you want too. No Vendor lock-in is all that matters. Period.
I would also recommend that you get as much memory as you can regardless of the Operating System you plan to use. Sure Linux runs in 128MB or 256MB of RAM, runs well in 512MB of RAM...but very well with 1MB or more. That is not even the important part.
What is important, is if you do not get the memory when you get your system and years later you decide you want more memory (for caching on a server or for Video Editing or for heavy Graphics processing) you will probably eventually need the memory anyway, so bit the bullet and get it on the front end. Granted for servers we are not talking a typical laptop are we...
So you have 9 Linux options (minus the "three out of six are out of stock") and none of them vendor locked in; that is the point!
Also, not that I'm interested in 'yet another webOS', but i find it sort of interesting that all the big players are slamming this so quickly. Are they scared?
Yes, unless they are idiots. You are very insightful for noticing how quick they are to pounce...hope many mod you up!
There is much great discussion above, and I am going to save this and read through it to see who is stretching facts and who is not, for instance, the idea that a CO2 bubble can move after it has been frozen and encased in multiple layers of ice is over the top and literally crazy talk. The reason Ice Cores are such great tools for determining the make up of the atmosphere at that time in the planets history is because they are so EXACT. So attempting to suggest that they can migrate is FUD!
The changes in ocean current flows around the planet based on the content of fresh water (glacial melt) and salt water has significantly changed. Its getting worse. We know if the flow changes, Great Britain freezes hard core as do many other places in the world, of course severe winters have happened many times and are cyclical in nature, unlike the CO2 core samples which scientists have proven are NOT CYCLICAL. CO2 content has just gotten more concentrated, there are no cycles based on Ice Cores.
Those that measure glacier melting and retreating have been alarmed, because they have been measuring this for decades, made hypothesis es as to what will happen in the future and so far in the past two or three years have publicly stated that their earlier estimates were WAY OFF. That the amount of melt and retreating, combined with lack of re-freezing in the winter (smaller and smaller areas freeze solid each year which is problematic for many different reasons) is much more severe than previously thought. Thus they now believe in Global Warming theories.
What do we have to do, wait until people on the coast have to live in Tree houses as the oceans move inland due to rising sea levels? How much more difficult will it be to make significant changes that even have the hopes of changing things for the better as such changes take decades to measure?
Why is that independent Scientist, not associated with a political party, are so blatantly shouted down, ignored and their research suppressed?
And multiple people have made excellent points about moving from oil to solar and wind and even if Global Warming was not true, the US would gain in development of the new technologies, not just creating many new jobs but reducing our dependence on foreign oil, which all agree is one of the largest national security risks for the United States today. Heck if we moved everything but our military and perhaps the Airlines off oil, would we produce enough oil domestically to maintain our nation's defense? If not we better get started sooner rather than later finding alternative fuel sources as anything else is most certainly dangerous and I would suggest violates a politicians oath of office to protect the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic.
Reminds me of that quote about encountering or seeing the enemy and discovering that the enemy is us.
I do not own an oil company, oil field or make money from them, if I did perhaps I would want to keep the status quo to enrich myself at the expense of my neighbors...perhaps.
Regardless, the point of the article as I see it, is that documents were stolen, the validity of all the documents now being "discovered" are very much in question, yet that does not prevent one specific political party from attempting to divert our attention to this and from other issues. We need to pay attention to those slanting the date for their own ends...what is it that they do not want us to pay attention to? Health Care perhaps?
Business as usual will not save Americans and the United States. That one political party who refuses to change in order to help Americans needs to get a clue.
One political party started this mess, the other political party went along with it; they are both guilty of not serving and protecting Americans. The more they fight politically against each other, at the expense of American citizens, the more I come to despise them.
Do not think by refusing to work together to fix things it will help get your party elected, it will NOT!
If you are NOT part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Do not be part of the problem!
Here are six great options, ZaReason, Inc: Building Linux hardware so you don't have to
Here are six more: System 76 laptops
Did you even try to look? Most people do not even try.
The biggest mistake any consumer of PCs, laptops, towers, etc can make today is to buy any hardware from a vendor who does not understand and do Linux. This goes for all the big box stores and even Dell, they only pay a passing glance to Linux and do not really do it right, as experienced by Linux being buried down in their website and not prominently marketed on their main page from the start.
If you are foolish enough to purchase from anyone but a Linux hardware computer builder, you will be frustrated with needless vendor lock-in issues meant only to keep you a Microsoft Windows users, period.
Here is the rub, Every Linux PC can run Windows. Because of Vendor Lock-In, not every Windows PC can run Linux.
Even the most devout Windows / Microsoft FAN can NOT deny that simple fact!
Moral of story: Eventually a proprietary company will STOP supporting what you purchased attempting you to pay more for new equipment. Your only choice for that older, yet very useful, hardware is to KNOW you can run Linux (any distro, there are many). Even if you do not want to run Linux, by purchasing hardware that will, you will be in a position to donate that older hardware to non profits that will get Linux up and running and donate it to third world countries so children can learn.
There is NO downside to purchasing hardware from a Linux vendor. There are almost ALWAYS vendor lock-in hardware issues from any of the big box stores and anyone who only does Microsoft.
Use the two vendors ZaReason or System 76 above, you will be glad you did, and you will help out children in third world countries one day when you upgrade your hardware, as the hardware your purchased will run Linux.
I am so glad I never started smoking and encourage others to quit, but there is nothing right about this. Smacks of yet another corporation doing anything it can to NOT honor their commitments. That is more disgusting than any smoker could ever be.
And I know how bad smoking can be, once looked at a house for sale, with the three people living there, all three smoking as we were going through the house, probably in a lame attempt to hide the fact that their house reeked of smoke. Very unusual for people to be in the home when a Realtor is showing their home to prospective buyers. And one of the two of us had asthma, so we were sensitive to potential breathing issues in homes. The upper third of the walls, in all rooms of the home, were a burnt brown-orange color that we guessed was from nicotine. Needless to say we were in and out of that home real fast. Even if we could somehow strip and clean the walls, we were not convinced that we could successfully clean the duct work from that much nicotine buildup, ugh. Obviously this example is on the less than 1% extreme side for smoking, trust me it was disgusting. As awful as that was, Apple's stance on not honoring their warranty is more reprehensible to me.
Even with that negative experience and being a non smoker, I still can not see how any corporation can welch on their obligations (warranty) based on smoking alone.
OSHA violations my behind. They could at least remove the PC from the offending environment and work on it in a cleaner place.
I am sick and tired for corporations enriching themselves at the expense of consumers. If this article is true, something tells me it is, Apple is on the same list with Health Care Companies, Telcos, especially Cellular companies, Insurance Companies, Financial Companies, Hospitals, Banks, Credit Companies (all types), Oil Companies, Cable Companies, add-your-favorite customer-no-service-company here.
To protect yourself from a corporation, use RipOffReports.com and check them out. Unlike the Better Business Bureau were a company can be a sponser and have negative reports removed, with RipOffReports, the company can (and should) respond, but the complaints, even after satisfactorily being resolved are NEVER removed.
I once checked out the top 10 banks in the country...all of them had complaints in the multiple thousands, not just a few. The complaints from customers of greater than 3 years, 5 years and 7 years are particularly telling.
Same with the Wireless ~ Cellular companies. There was NOT a single good player in the group, all of them have hundreds, if not thousands of customer-no-service-complaints! If they cared about you and me, they would attempt to make it right. Since they do not it is obvious that they believe that they do not have too.
All the industries mentioned above ASSUME (for me they assume wrongly) that as consumers we have NO CHOICE and we will just switch from one bad company to another.
If you only have two choices, you have no choice.
You always have choices and if you can not find at least three options, you are not looking hard enough or from enough different persectives. As for RipOffReports.com, I expect companies to have a few complaints, its how they respond to those complaints that matter to me. What excuse is acceptable, not to even respond, to not even attempt to make it right with the customer, well there is NO EXCUSE on the company's part for that neglect of customer service. Obviously they are counting on all of us being SHEEP and not caring what they do to our neighbors. Hold them accountable, your children and your friends children will thank you one day!
There is only ONE solution, all of us, to a person, must stop doing bu
All press is good press. I did not know about Bing merchant system, but now I do.
The only good reason not to publish, as promoting FUDly Microsoft is just bad. At least for 7 years... I restarted my 7 year clock last week, yet again.
I would say publish and publish often. The fact that the exploit exists and Microsoft is vainly attempting to hide its existence is the news worthy item in my book.
Yes, they're separate. That's why it's sheer coincidence that criminal charges against Obama supporters (Bill Richardson, the Philadelphia voter-intimidating thugs) were dropped in spite of objections by career DOJ lawyers.
I added the bold highlight for emphasis, not caldodge...
I wonder which party those career DOJ lawyers belonged to?
I wish it did not matter which party, but we all know that party politics are what D.C. has sadly become all about. Pathetic (party politics, not your comment, which both parties are guilty of in some form or another.)
All in all very impressive.
I too get tired of all the "same type of games" give me a series of challenges, missions, a ship to fly (and fight in), like Battlezone or Wing Commander. As for the stick my head around the corner and shoot games (too many of those already, yawn) and the drive a car and run over things, sorry boooorrrrring.
Innovate, even if open source and sell, people will buy, they most certainly will buy!
I too am a capitalist, but the shortcomings in the system are very self evident. With the right board of directors, putting customers and people first, corporations can do great things. However when they are only focused on maximizing shareholder value or even worse, only making the board of directors rich, well we all have seen what that has brought us.
Give me a community that prevents big box stores from ruining individual family businesses. Where the infrastructure, electric, water, sewer, Internet (fiber only...Greenlight please...), etc... benefit the community (not make a few greedy people rich or get misused by politicians or developers) only making enough profit to fund expenses, including repairs. Banking / financial industries like the couple of towns where the bank issues a local currency (yes in the USA) and all the local businesses offer discounts for using the local currency. Where doctors care more about healing than bankrupting Americans (granted its the health care and insurance concerns bankrupting 40% of Americans, not doctors). Where you know you have freedom of religion and religious practices because the church is smart enough to see the absolute need, as our founding fathers did, for the separation of church and state. Where property rights are respected, always, and imminent domain is rarely if ever used...if used a fair market price + appreciation is paid as compensation...and never used by a developer to take away from one family just to make one person or another family wealthy. Where neighbors look out for neighbors. That is where I want to live...
Number one on my list, Fiber over the last mile to my home, like Greenlight did for Wilson N.C.
Number two, preference for small businesses attuned to the needs of the community.
Number three, freedom as promised in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Where people do what is right, because it is right, not just because it is convenient and everyone benefits and grows together. And people do not push their prejudices on others. Where people can discuss, argue, talk and agree to disagree without feeling the need to force/bend another to their will.
It is possible, I know it is!
The way I see it, 50/50 sounds about right for a dev team without a big name like Valve, id, etc.
Interesting concept but flawed, just because two groups need each other does not mean that the split should be 50/50.
If I had the cash to fund the project I would do a 60/40 split. The 60% would go to the company for everything related to marketing, developing the product, packaging, shipping, taking it to market, etc... Possibly some profit sharing of about 10% of the 60%, should all 60% not be needed.
The developers would split the 40% based on a series of quantitative measures combined with qualitative voting that everyone involved agrees with the quantitative data.
The challenge would be coming up with the quantitative measures, there would need to be multiples. The checks/balance comes from the qualitative voting by the developers periodically during the development of the product.
For instance, Either biweekly, or monthly (if the product takes 6 months or more to develop) everyone would sit down facing each other (nothing hidden) and the quantitative measures to date would be revealed. Each person would be told if the product sold for $x today you would get %a, person 2 would get %b, person 3 would get %c, ... person x would get %z.
%a + %b + %c...%z would equal 40% of total GROSS sales (no net income, accounting BS tricks would be allowed). KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid.
Once those numbers were revealed, I would tell the developers do you agree, yes or no. If no, please explain why now in front of god and everyone (all the other developers) why you feel this breakdown is not fair. In my experience developers on the same project know who is and who is not pulling their weight. So the BS goes out the window.
Once the agreement for that period was reached, all the developers would be required to sign a paper agreeing to the percentage payout for that biweekly / monthly period. This process would be continued throughout the course of the project,, and in the end when the product sells, the 40% of gross sales would be divided based on the agreed to amounts (sum of all individual breakouts signed and agreed decisions) . For a new team that has never worked together, weekly or biweekly meetings for the first couple of months would be required until an acceptable velocity on the project was reached and an understanding by all involved on the quantitative measures. After two or three face to face meetings where all the developers agreed to the quantitative measures without disagreement; the group could optionally decide to have only monthly meetings or agree to the quantitative numbers via email. Thus a meeting would ONLY be required if there was a disagreement by anyone for any reason.
An established team that knows and trust each other, after at least one successful product, could probably do everything via email and not need a face to face as their would be no disagreements. So an established group that knows and trusts each other could set the frequency of the meetings to as few or many as they deem reasonable and necessary. The frequency of the meetings would be established by the experienced team at the onset of the project.
People get stupid when money is involved and that is when greed will get the best of someone. At the point the product is selling it is too late to make changes. Thankfully there is no need to make any changes as by that time, the percentages have been well established, defined agreed to and signed off on by all parties. You take the greed, that can ruin things, out of the mix. If someone gets stupid later when the product starts selling, they would have absolutely no legs to stand on. And there would be no attempts made to console them. They would be told to speak up at the periodic meetings next time.
If someone was a pain in the you know what to work with, guess what, they would eliminate themselves for future group development effor
(3) I humbly suggest AAC or Vorbis audio; H264, Theora, or Dirac video; Matroska or Ogg container. (Again, set-top box programmers will love you, and every PC/Mac/etc will play it too. Make it easy for people to do business with you and they will.)
Someone mode this up! Open source codecs are the ONLY way to go for any provider that is honestly interested in providing service to ALL.
The above post probably got marked down by some DRM lovers...while I agree with the sentiment, the Hollywood / corporate model is too deeply entrenched with DRM for them to ever leave it.
For those of us that have been burned by DRM models and wasted money purchasing products that would not play because of them, we are twice shy of DRM (in any form).
"Hulu" = NBC collaborating with some other networks. If they do what you suggest, they risk hurting what is likely one of their biggest sources of revenue: DVD sales & rentals.
I do not believe everyone is aware of the relationship of Hulu with the Cable & Broadcast media...thanks for telling everyone.
The big problem with NBC, is they have chosen a Silverlight only model for the Olympics and I am concerned they will do the same thing with all their content. That would mean all Linux users would be out. Sorry but I do not install WINE or the Linux Moonlight (Silverlight work around) on my computers. Why encourage a model, Microsoft or proprietary, that would eliminate me in a heartbeat if it could. I learned my lesson midway through Windows 2000 with the forced auto updates...HUGE FAIL. After 20+ years using Microsoft products, I have been Microsoft free at home for over two years now. I will never go back. If someone like NBC choses a proprietary data codec that caters to only one operating system, they lose all my potential business.
To all, there are open source codecs available now (and for years) that will let all Internet users view content, whether they are Windows, Linux or MacIntosh users. There is simply no acceptable reason to provide content in only one proprietary format anymore.
This business model must be discouraged or you will be prevented from viewing without incurring an additional fee in the future.
Hulu offers itself to linux users. We have been waiting years for that with Netflix.
I wish they would all support Linux and open source codecs. Look at Nasa, they provide content in about 10 different streams to cater to the world.
With one open source codec, superior in every way to all the others, any website can provide content that every user can view by downloading one player (works for all operating systems, even Windows and Macintosh). Hint: Its NOT FLASH or any other proprietary (limiting) format!
OTOH, I can watch anything on cable commercial free through the wonders of modern technology (DVR).
Only if you've already recorded it (unless you have some form of on demand service, and the show you want is available).
Sorry, but you are wrong here if you are a cable customer with a cable provided DVR/DVD. I found this out the hard way. During a bad storm, multiple neighborhoods lost power.
When the power came back on, the Internet was not yet up, since I had about 40+hours of DVD recorded movies, TV shows, etc... I popped some popcorn, got a soda and settled in to catch up on what I had been recording on my Cable company provided DVD/DVR. To my surprise, there was nothing there.
It seems without the Internet/cable signal, the DVR/DVD setup has NOTHING on it. Everything you record is on the Cable company's servers, not the DVR/DVD they charge you from $6 to $14 per month extra for. A pathetic fail.
I plan to use one of my old PCs, install Linux on it, put on the software for DVD/DVR recording and the only limitation will be the hard disk space and Internet upstream bandwidth. And the upstream bandwidth will only be a limitation while recording and/or streaming. Once the movie is recorded, I will have no limitations to watching what I want, when I want.
I got so fed up with Cable TV, that I sold my TV. Thus the only way I will receive content in the future is via my Internet connection. I am done with subscriber cable models...just does not work for me anymore.
You think the cable companies would learn, yet they continually increase price, sign up more people, reduce their bandwidth consumptions and lie to us all telling us their is bandwidth scarcity in order to ramp up prices.
Does anyone honestly believe this crap anymore?
Get yourself a a DD-WRT supported router install the DD-WRT software on it. You will be able to see your bandwidth in real time, upstream and downstream, 24/7 individually for each of these three: WAN, LAN and WiFi. You will know with 100% certainty were the bottleneck is. To date, my bottle neck has been my Cable ISP...and not for any good reason!
I found my up to 8MB/10MB basic cable was throttled upstream to less than 40Kbps (top end) to as low as 0Kbps 85% - 95% of the time. My downstream bounced between 8Kbps and 100Kbps...I was paying almost $50 per month. My Speedtest showed over 9000 Kbps down and over 900Kbps up. I added the $10 fee for "Turbo with with PowerBoost" the only Internet only plan that is guaranteed by the cable company to allow you to watch IP TV, Videos and Movies without problems. It promises speeds up to either 14MB or 16MB. Again these are "up to" speeds not guaranteed anything. The speed test still only showed over 9000Kbps down and over 900Kbs up, not either the 14MB or 16MB down as promised, so after a week of working on the problem, they are still trying to fix it. I hope they will.
Video still sputters, as do TV shows. Thanks to the DD-WRT software I know that they are throttling / shaping my bandwidth down to less than 40Kbps upstream still. Though I have explained to them that I need better than 250Kbps upstream, preferably 384Kbps to get a decent non-stuttering signal, the shaping software automatically decreases to the point that I there is not enough upstream bandwidth to watch any streaming content, be it IP TV, movies of video without problems. I am trying to work with them, but they either can't or do not want to open up that upstream pipe. This throttling happens no matter the time day or night 24 X 7. I know the cable channel is not saturated at 3am or 4am every night, thus the idea that the shaping software is preserving some measure of quality is just another excuse. Same is true between 9am - 4pm weekdays when most people are at work.
I am starting to think that a DSL ISP provider at under $30 per month, for a guaranteed 384Kbps upstream and 1.5Mbps downstream would be a far better solution than what I am experiencing now with Cable.
It does not matter what the downstream bandwidth is "up to", you must have a decent upstream sustained bandwidth to get a decent stream. And these are NOT high definition streams, I shudder to think what will happen then.
It does not matter what Hulu and others offer, charge, etc... if you do not have adequate bandwidth upstream, sustained, to stream content.
If the Cable people can not fix it, I will try DSL, my guess is that I will have a better streaming experience thanks to being the only one on the pipe at 384Kbps or better. And at those rates I could purchase a second DSL provider and have two DSL routers feeding into my DD-WRT controlled network. If one provider drops the packet, the other could pick it up.
The best option would be Greenlight 100MB/100MB synchronous fiber for $100 per month like they have in Wilson N.C. Heck I have considered relocating and buying a house there just for the Internet band width!
Too bad the Telco/cable company oligopoly would rather limit us then provide service. I can only hope that our politicians step up and stop this crud. Until than, your best bet might be to avoid Cable until they remove bandwidth shaping / throttling and bandwidth caps all together.
My experience has yet to be resolved and trust me when I tell you I will let you know. Hopefully the cable company will do the right thing and fix this as now I am paying over $50 per month and not receiving what they have promised me....
Your scenario with 50+ ubuntu linux all capable of running most apps is the best case scenario, but I cannot find the same optimism from my past experience with the Palm platform and the Java MIDP platform.
I would not put Ubuntu or any full Linux distro on an embedded device, perhaps Lubuntu, but I have not looked into it. My guess is neither would you, so this post is more for others that do not know anything about Linux and not you specifically.
There are many wonderful Linux distros designed for these processors and less memory that would work just fine. However no one is going to go out of their way to tell you that you can save allot of money by using one. And that you will have more options with software to run.
I also would not load applications that require huge libraries to run...Java is among these. Sorry, but Java simply does NOT belong everywhere. There are multiple ways to approach embedded devices with less memory and slower processors. Many of these options have been working for well over 5 years now, some well over 10 years, its just that people do not know any better thanks to the lack of marketing and vendor lock in issues.
The truth is out there, but people have to be willing to look for it to find it. If they do not want to look for it, perhaps they should be left to pay inflated prices for their services. Call it a stupidity tax.
This is called "choice" and encourages manufacturers to observe market requirements(e.g. listen to customer) and hopefully drive down prices(unlikely). Whoever get closest to this wins.
Most of the businesses related to wireline/wireless are simply big to care and/or listen to their customers. And the market does NOT work because of all the proprietary hardware and proprietary software and proprietary networks, etc....
If the market was free and working as you, and many others hypothesis; than we would have fiber to our homes already. (Promised by telcos in 1990s in order to get tax dollars)
By 2000 we would have had 100Mbps / 100Mbps Internet access, for less than $55 per month, via that fiber connection to our homes.
By 2006 we would have had 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps Internet access for less than $52 per month via that same fiber connection.
The market has not and does not work. The companies that play in the space DO NOT listen to customers as RipOffReports.com proves. Enter the name of your provider and search on any term: fraud, problem, billing, and you will discover that your provider and all the other providers have hundreds if not thousands of reports. One or two you might dismiss as crack pots, but not the volume that is there. Also it is pretty obvious when you are reading a report if the person is being unreasonable or not. Sadly most are not, the customers are just not interested in providing service anymore.
If they listened to their customers, no one would get an inflated bill in the mail for any reason. Especially not for the company putting random charges on it. I personally experienced that from two different providers over a 10 year period before I left cellular forever.
I do not mind paying for what I use, but I will not pay for their mistakes or other peoples charges. Both times I had in excess of three years as a good customer with the provider (obviously one time was longer than just 3 years). If I had mattered as a customer, they would have removed the charges that I did not make and proved based on my multi-year calling pattern the first time and via their provisioning mistake the second time. Both times, both companies simply DID NOT CARE. Said pay up or else. Sorry but mob style tactics do not work on honest Americans.
I churned and am much happier for it. Skype is wonderful and if they went out or got bought out tomorrow, I would provision my own VoIP server (Linux of course), use it myself and sell to my friends. There is no way I would ever settle for a total cost of ownership of over $100 per year ever again. Especially not in this economy.
These customer-no-service-tactics are really stupid. They honestly believe you do not have a choice or they would not do it. Guess what, they are WRONG!
Sign me laughing all the way to the bank!
P.S. Only Greenlight in Wilson N.C. offers 100Mbps / 100Mbps Fiber connected to your home Internet access in the USA today. It will cost you $100 per month. When they started offering service, after being invited into the community by the local politicians to do so; the telcos / Cable companies responded by attempting to push legislature through the North Carolina legislature to stop them. Yea, thats a FREE market, NOT!
The markets have not been working since 1990. So wake up and see the reality of the situation, please, before it is too late.
Best of all, with Skype my total cost of ownership is $100 per year. I use to pay more than that per month for a cellular phone. Stopped doing that over 3 years ago and never intend to go back.