Both the Office import and export functionality has worked flawless for me.
Try importing.xls version 7 with lots of graphs with lots of datapoints. Crashes every time for me. Simpler.xls sheets and Word documents are fine though. Anything with graphs is a crapshoot in my experience.
This is exactly what AGP was designed for -- high-bandwidth I/O to main memory, without blocking the PCI bus.
I've always wondered why I haven't found AGP data acquisition cards... AGP seems so wasted on most systems since your video drivers hardly pull anything from main memory unless you're in a 3D world and there's a million textures to pull.
No, YOU are misleading. Hop on over to dalsemi.com and look up their RTC products. The DS1287 is a good example, as it was actually used in many many many computers.
CMOS is SRAM. If it were FLASH you wouldn't need the battery to keep the settings, and if it were FLASH, you would exceed its MTBF very quickly with the second updates.
Yes there are things called NVRAM which have flash under SRAM and the SRAM dumps to FLASH when VDD falls below a certain level but it's far more expensive since you have twice the storage with no benefit other than no battery (which again is useless for RTC function).
I've found postgres to be nothing but a pain in the @$$.
Care to cite a few examples? I'm curious to see what has caused you so much grief. I've found a few things with Postgres which pained me but MySQL would have fallen flat on its face long before I'd have encountered the problems.
Well 1 year ago no one in his right mind would touch PostgreSQL as it was buggy and slow as hell.
<cough>bullshit. I've never had stability problems on Postgres, and if you turned off fsync-after-every-write (default on) your performance was actually pretty decent. Postgres was (is) always faster than MySQL for any type of query other than straight SELECT x from y where [simple clause].
At the same time MySQL was always rock solid and fast as hell but missing lots of features.
<cough>more bullshit. We ran MySQL as the backend for a RADIUS server for our growing ISP about 12-18 months ago; it crashed regularly (MySQL, which took down RADIUS). We're now using Postgres for the backend and moved to GNU-RADIUSd and it's yet to die (the backend; the RADIUS server has an "every x months" bug that's hard to duplicate)... This is with 8x the load now, too.
You're right though, two radically different philosphies. Postgres is an RDBMS; MySQL was an SQL interface to a flatfile/hashed system. I'm watching MySQL to see how these new changes (transactions and ACID-compliance in general) are going to affect it, but it's got a ways to go before trumping Postgres, or any other RDBMS for that matter.
My only gripe about the KDE file selection dialog is the fact that you can't specify directories in the same spot you type in files.
Uh... I just tested this with KATE. Alt-f, o, win/autoexec.bat [enter] -- works just fine. Same with saving.
Now I don't have the nifty tab completion but if I type the directory in the directory text entry widget I can do/usr/sh[end]/pix[end] and then tab down to the file...
Right. And you should poll the hardware for events, rather than relying on interrupts. That would simplify designs marvelously.
<smartass> Actually in the embedded world sometimes polled is better because it's cheaper than making sure that the external interrupt sources are rate-limited or otherwise "clean". We just came across this in one of our designs. Interrupts were peachy-keen until it left the lab.</smartass>
who cares how easily aircraft can be redesigned with safer fuel -- the government, under threat of arrest, confiscation, and imprisonment, is taking your tax dollars and giving them to the airline companies.
My beef is with the insurance companies who bail out on you when something happens... you pay so much to cover the premiums and then when their bottom dollar is threatened they pull out. The mine subsidence in the Pittsburgh, PA area is another example... It's a sacred cash cow.
The government should not be paying off any industries but instead be going after the damn insurance business. Of course, this (along with Copyright and Patent laws) is a sacred cash cow they don't dare try to slaughter.
Mails,Calendar,Contact..everything..
anybody can suggest one ?
Check out Steltor's product line. Linux or NT for the server, use your own LDAP or its internal one... even has Outlook services and sync tools for Palm and (I think) Psion. We're evaluating it right now. So far, so good. My only complaint is that they do not have any way to transfer over all your Exchange Server contacts.
Connected Software has an app called Address Magic which converts anything to anything else -- it seems VERY nice, I've been using it for about a year and a half now. Their new version is a hundredfold faster but they still have trouble with the LDIF format. I am working with them to get that fixed so I can get rid of Exchange Server here.
In this case the person would have gone into the office and photocopied records, xrays, etc. (confidential information).
Depends on intent. In this guy's case, definately not cool. In my whistleblower example, proof is often needed.
Intent is everything.:-)
Re:It all seemed so clear the first time through..
on
Brian West Update
·
· Score: 2
Without this bit of hacking the councilors would've gotten away scot-free. Because of it two resigned and the rest were soundly defeated six months later in elections. The employee managed to conceal his identity and no sane person would try to convict the press member of a crime.
So... what you're saying is that if you want to be a white hat, you better be a politician or risk incarceration?
I'm going to generalize a little bit here and take this out of the context of this one hacker.
Now if someone found that security hole, would it be ok for them to take the key and make a copy? Would it be ok for them to repeatedly break into my house to take my personal posessions? Would it be ok to distribute the key to others? For a profit? Would it be ok as long as they told me about it later and told me how they could make my house more secure?
I agree: what you have wrote is criminal activity. No worse than B&E, theft (possibly grand theft) and whatever the crime is called for profiting off of criminal activity. There is no need for a special "Urban KeyUnderRock Act" -- we have laws to handle this already. But what about this scenario:
Instead of a home, how about a medical office. Some place of business keeping private information on people. Now if someone found that security hole (key under rock), would it be ok for me to -- after contacting you and giving you ample time (weeks) to correct the problem -- write a detailled pamphlet (sp?), write the newspaper, call in journalists, etc., describing the security hole and how widespread this type of security violation was and how it affects all of the people who go to this medical building? Would you have any right to call the cops on me? To try and have me arrested, sued, fined, incarcerated? Because you either don't want to spend the money to do it right?
My opinion is no. I warned you, showed you how to fix it and scolded you for being so patently stupid and disrespectful of private information and you either threatened me or blew me off. My going public with the information is, in my opinion a public service -- the same type of thing as the whistlebowers and people who risk their lives and personal finances to bring a big bad company to justice.
Let's face it; Most companies think this kind of stuff is only doable by UberHaxors -- therefore it's not worth fixing just because some guy comes up and shows them how it's done. The policies are changing, and that is a good thing. However with Mr. Ashcroft's assinine laws he is leading the way to making true security a thing of the past.
Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market.
Bullshit, plain and simple. Get the services installed, leave everything else off and the systems just run. Witness our RADIUS server, numerous fileservers and firewalls (all with hundreds of days of uptime and the only maintenance is a script which rotates logfiles and emails unusual activity) -- all with hundreds of days of uptime.
Like any other OS, the admin is responsible for monitoring the security mailing lists and installing patches. And like any other OS, you get what you pay for in an admin.
Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly.
That's a bold-faced flat-out lie. I run Linux on this laptop and have NUMEROUSLY had the volume level down too low to hear the battery alarm crying out. I've lost power at least three or four dozen times this year with no data loss.
Where EXT2 does lose data badly is when the metadata store gets corrupted (power dies when it's being updated or the drive gets bad sectors in those areas) -- However I also know that Reiser, NTFS and VFAT will die horribly under those cirumcstances too.
Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices.
Let's see some hard numbers. I've been running 2.2.x kernels for literally YEARS without crashes. Quit running alpha drivers and unstable kernels and your stability will increase. This is just common sense.
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost.
So you consider a Win32 admin someone who can go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com? Or a SCO admin someone who can call the support hotline they pay for? I don't understand (nor have you given proof) for increased TCO for Linux.
(an aside: The Code Red fix wasn't included in any patches available from there. So whose fault is that, Microsoft for not making security a priority, or the click-happy "admin" for not knowing better?)
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
I dunno, I've had no problems setting up and casually[1] admining firewalls, SMTP/IMAP/POP servers, LDAP servers, web servers and plain old fileservers. Like I said, once it is up and running, there is next to zero maintenance. This can be done with any unix; For me, Linux makes the most sense and none of my clients have had complaints about "increased costs of their Linux servers." I don't know whether you're a Win2k, SCO, Sun, QNX or *BSD troll, and frankly I don't care. Your post is so full of shit that I just had to feed you. FUD is FUD.
[1] - I use the term "casually admin" to describe what I do: monitor the security lists, provide updates as necessary and receive the emailled logs. The only time I ssh in is to change the configuration based on a customer's request or perform security updates. To me, this is exactly what server administration should be.
he only thing really missing on teh embedded front at this point are development tools...that said, the GPASM and Atmel tools for Linux are quite nice.
I've been pestering both Microchip and Advanced Transdata for the specs on their ICE-2000 and Rice17 respectively. Nothing to date. However I believe that I can muck with the VMWare parallel port module and have it timestamp and dump all communications in both directions. After that, I'd like to try my shot at using KDevelop and create a debugger/IDE without the inconsistencies that both MPLAB and Rice17 has.
If anyone has any more information on the protocol that either of these ICEs use, I'd love to hear from you.
So, i've always got that. as you say 8M is plenty for over 90% of its intended audience. i suppose i'm in that 10% then. oh well. such is life.
Actually I consider myself in that 10% as well; I have had under 100k of memory left but after working with the palm for a while I realized I didn't need all that shit in memory and tossed a good portion of it. I think the vast majority of people would be happy with 4M; the 8M versions are for people who have enormous addressbooks or very (very!) busy schedules.
8M doesn't sound like a lot but think about it: Reading books on it sucks and GIS information is best viewed in colour. It hasn't got the processor power to crunch huge databases and it's designed to be an extension to a computer, not a standalone computer itself. I haven't been able to find a really heavy appication to that works well on it. Hell even with the folding keyboard PocketC still blows.:-)
However, the anemic amount of RAM seems to be an important downside.
If this thing works at all like the Palm Vx works, 8M is more than plenty for over 90% of its intended audience.
My Vx has all manner of applications loaded, games, time/expense tracking, email, development, etc. and I've still got 3 or 4 megs free.
Re:Speaking of KDE...
on
KDE 2.2.1 Up
·
· Score: 2
Anyways, to make a long story short (heh), if you haven't tried KDE since the 1.x days, this is the time. You will be pleasantly suprised, and may even make the switch. If not, then happy Gnomeing, or BlackBoxing, or WindowMakering, or CommandLineCommandoing. Just have fun! The world is too great a place to worry about what other people are using for their desktop.
What I've been doing for ages is pretty desktop-agnostic: I use WindowMaker because it's (IMHO) far cleaner than KDM or Gnome's WM, doesn't have any sign of a taskbar or "start/K/footprint" button and pretty much stays the hell out of my way.
I've found a certain fondness for the rightclick on the desktop menu -- it takes no room and can be called up anywhere. The clip and dock are a bit of a pain in my arse but I think that's more because I haven't sat down in all these years and really tried to make them do what I want.
One Dockapp I've been meaning to write for a long time now is a replacement for KDE and Gnome's "system tray" -- the docapp could hold 9 16x16 "systray" icons and would pass off the approprate mouseclicks/movements to the apps as normal. I've seen a few Dockapps that swallow other apps but it's not quite the same idea.
One thing I wish I could have in any WM is the ability to bind keys to applications. I'd love to have my alt-backspace pull up the next LICQ message like I did in Windows but I haven't figured out a way to either make LICQ see the key nor have WindowMaker pass it off. Perhaps in my copious spare time I can figure it out.:-)
I've had bad experiences trying to mix a Logitech Cordless Keyboard/Mouse (Freedom Pro? I believe was the moniker) with 802.11 Wireless LAN cards (D-Link PCI/PCMCIA cards).
That's interesting; we use the same Logitech cordless keyboard/mouse (it comes as a pair) but with Lucent (ORiNOCO, god I hate that name) wavelan cards. The cards are on separate floors of an office building (wood frame), about 150' apart I'd say. The "access point" is the company firewall which is in an encassed metal rack. We have absolutely no problems at all.
I'd be curious to try out other vendor's cards to see if there really is a difference between these expensive Lucent cards and the cheaper DLink and other cards or if I'm just lucky.
Try Bynari's Insight Server which runs on Linux or Sparc and offers a fairly complete server for Outlook clients, and offers a *nix client to boot! You can share calendars, global addressing, etc.
I tried out Bynari about 10 months ago and the installer wiped out my existing MTA and LDAP servers without warning and without any warning in the documentation. After I'd realized this I tried the software out and it still had quite a way to go.
Thanks for mentioning them though; I will evaluate them again. Currently I'm pretty excited about Steltor's CorporateTime -- Uses an IMAP server and either your existing or an internal LDAP server coupled with their calendaring and scheduling server software. Server runs on Linux or NT; clients for Win32, Linux, Mac and web. Also includes PalmOS, WinCE and an Outlook service. Unlike Bynari, I found Steltor's support very solid and professional. Again, this may have changed with Bynari which is why I am going to re-evaluate them.
I have been tempting to have IT forward all my email to my desktop sun box, but I loose the exchange groupware features. Not worth it.
I've been testing out CorporateTime from Steltor. (warning: Flash site.) The server may run on Linux or NT and you can use an internal LDAP server or one you've already got. Mail and shared folders are stored and accessed with an IMAP server (numerous servers supported) and clients are available for Win32, Mac and Linux. There is also a web client and an Outlook service. The API is totally open.
I don't work for Steltor but as I said I've been evaluating the product and am finding it very good. It seems to be priced very similary to Exchange Server and they provide various levels of support. They've been most helpful in the evaluation. The company has been around for about 10 years doing collabrative software but their CorporateTime product seems to be pretty recent.
Well, that may be better for the system, but a nested page with ~2000 comments would take quite a while to load on a 56k modem, I'm guessing.
All the more reason to load it once; Take a couple minutes, it's loaded and you can take hours to read it all instead of pull up an partial page and not be able to read comments you're interested in.
(BTW: I am one of those 56k readers.:-)
Re:Time for some highly unpopular opinion...
on
Handling the Loads
·
· Score: 1
but how do you attack the United States Military through traditional means?
You, um, don't.
My point exactly.
Re:Time for some highly unpopular opinion...
on
Handling the Loads
·
· Score: 1
But you're still saying we should get MORE involved in other people's conflicts in order to solve the problem of uss being percieved as a "global policeman".
I didn't say to move in to every conflict; I didn't say to increase anything -- I was saying I think the policies should be changed.
Instead of sending money and weapons, send troops. Instead of sending packages of medical supplies, send doctors to administer the medicine. What's the difference between arming the armies and actually helping them defend? I bet the other side wouldn't make much distinction. Something President Bush said comes to mind: "We make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbour them."
Whether its a "hands-off" or "hands-on" approach as you describe, or leaving people to fight it out amongst themselves, people still turn to US for some reason to solve THEIR problems, and then complain no matter the outcome.
So you're telling me that you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I'm asking you about gradients between the extremes. Somehow I don't think that people would be as pissed about helping civilians as they would about the one-sided arming, financial and technical backing of one side of a faction, do you?
I'm not blinded by patriotism, as was suggested in the first message -- I'm blinded by the growing futility of us doing anything because of the paradox that every other nation has set before us. Inaction is punished, action is punished, delay is punished, immediate response is punished.
Perhaps it is because the United States government makes their nation out to be the end-all, be-all of nations. Capable of anything, impenetrable and wealthy beyond all comparison. I'm not saying the U.S. is not great; indeed it is and in many ways. But no nation is an island, to butcher a famous quotation.
Everyone else has a lot to say about what we should do with OUR lives and OUR troops, until they actually show up, at which point everyone says what a blunder we've made and how we should just get out of the middle. everyone else seems to have all the answers, so why do they keep calling us?
Yes, it is easy being a monday morning quarterback; yes it is easy to sit back, out of the spotlight and point out the flaws of the team. We're not talking about a game here, we're not talking about a couple of hours. We're talking about over fifty fucking years and multiple administrations consistently doing things that are not in what I would consider the best interests of the American people. So no, I do not consider myself a "monday morning quarterback".
My guess is that they're asking for help from bigger, more advanced nations (not just the United States) hoping that these nations are smarter than they are. It's not easy being a superpower; I never allued that it was. But the track record your government shows indicates that they tend to be more interested in serving their own interests than genuinely helping others. That, as a foreign policy, will get you into trouble. Do you not agree?
Re:Time for some highly unpopular opinion...
on
Handling the Loads
·
· Score: 1
I hope everyone in the USA and abroad encourages and supports Bush in making the correct decision. And conversly comes down on him like a load of bricks if he makes the incorrect decision. One positive result of this disaster is an increased desire on my part to be informed about my country's (USA) foreign policy.
I too hope that Bush makes the right decisions and I personally am taking more of an interest in my country's politics and policies.
I agree; China has a poor navy right now -- Look back on the 2nd world war -- Canada designed the corvette ships in order to enable safe atlantic journeys in a matter of months. It's not difficult to do things quickly when you're sufficiently motivated.
Slashdot Mirror
So what exactly were they smoking when somebody at Polaroid said, "Sticker! That's what people want!"
It's funny, I just had this conversation with some friends who are staying with us.
Apparently they are quite a hit with the 9-14 crowd but the cost of film is prohibitive.
Both the Office import and export functionality has worked flawless for me.
Try importing .xls version 7 with lots of graphs with lots of datapoints. Crashes every time for me. Simpler .xls sheets and Word documents are fine though. Anything with graphs is a crapshoot in my experience.
This is exactly what AGP was designed for -- high-bandwidth I/O to main memory, without blocking the PCI bus.
I've always wondered why I haven't found AGP data acquisition cards... AGP seems so wasted on most systems since your video drivers hardly pull anything from main memory unless you're in a 3D world and there's a million textures to pull.
The CMOS has never been SRAM.
No, YOU are misleading. Hop on over to dalsemi.com and look up their RTC products. The DS1287 is a good example, as it was actually used in many many many computers.
CMOS is SRAM. If it were FLASH you wouldn't need the battery to keep the settings, and if it were FLASH, you would exceed its MTBF very quickly with the second updates.
Yes there are things called NVRAM which have flash under SRAM and the SRAM dumps to FLASH when VDD falls below a certain level but it's far more expensive since you have twice the storage with no benefit other than no battery (which again is useless for RTC function).
I've found postgres to be nothing but a pain in the @$$.
Care to cite a few examples? I'm curious to see what has caused you so much grief. I've found a few things with Postgres which pained me but MySQL would have fallen flat on its face long before I'd have encountered the problems.
Well 1 year ago no one in his right mind would touch PostgreSQL as it was buggy and slow as hell.
<cough>bullshit. I've never had stability problems on Postgres, and if you turned off fsync-after-every-write (default on) your performance was actually pretty decent. Postgres was (is) always faster than MySQL for any type of query other than straight SELECT x from y where [simple clause].
At the same time MySQL was always rock solid and fast as hell but missing lots of features.
<cough>more bullshit. We ran MySQL as the backend for a RADIUS server for our growing ISP about 12-18 months ago; it crashed regularly (MySQL, which took down RADIUS). We're now using Postgres for the backend and moved to GNU-RADIUSd and it's yet to die (the backend; the RADIUS server has an "every x months" bug that's hard to duplicate)... This is with 8x the load now, too.
You're right though, two radically different philosphies. Postgres is an RDBMS; MySQL was an SQL interface to a flatfile/hashed system. I'm watching MySQL to see how these new changes (transactions and ACID-compliance in general) are going to affect it, but it's got a ways to go before trumping Postgres, or any other RDBMS for that matter.
My only gripe about the KDE file selection dialog is the fact that you can't specify directories in the same spot you type in files.
Uh... I just tested this with KATE. Alt-f, o, win/autoexec.bat [enter] -- works just fine. Same with saving.
Now I don't have the nifty tab completion but if I type the directory in the directory text entry widget I can do /usr/sh[end]/pix[end] and then tab down to the file...
Right. And you should poll the hardware for events, rather than relying on interrupts. That would simplify designs marvelously.
<smartass> Actually in the embedded world sometimes polled is better because it's cheaper than making sure that the external interrupt sources are rate-limited or otherwise "clean". We just came across this in one of our designs. Interrupts were peachy-keen until it left the lab.</smartass>
who cares how easily aircraft can be redesigned with safer fuel -- the government, under threat of arrest, confiscation, and imprisonment, is taking your tax dollars and giving them to the airline companies.
My beef is with the insurance companies who bail out on you when something happens... you pay so much to cover the premiums and then when their bottom dollar is threatened they pull out. The mine subsidence in the Pittsburgh, PA area is another example... It's a sacred cash cow.
The government should not be paying off any industries but instead be going after the damn insurance business. Of course, this (along with Copyright and Patent laws) is a sacred cash cow they don't dare try to slaughter.
Mails,Calendar,Contact..everything.. anybody can suggest one ?
Check out Steltor's product line. Linux or NT for the server, use your own LDAP or its internal one... even has Outlook services and sync tools for Palm and (I think) Psion. We're evaluating it right now. So far, so good. My only complaint is that they do not have any way to transfer over all your Exchange Server contacts.
Connected Software has an app called Address Magic which converts anything to anything else -- it seems VERY nice, I've been using it for about a year and a half now. Their new version is a hundredfold faster but they still have trouble with the LDIF format. I am working with them to get that fixed so I can get rid of Exchange Server here.
In this case the person would have gone into the office and photocopied records, xrays, etc. (confidential information).
Depends on intent. In this guy's case, definately not cool. In my whistleblower example, proof is often needed.
Intent is everything. :-)
Without this bit of hacking the councilors would've gotten away scot-free. Because of it two resigned and the rest were soundly defeated six months later in elections. The employee managed to conceal his identity and no sane person would try to convict the press member of a crime.
So... what you're saying is that if you want to be a white hat, you better be a politician or risk incarceration?
I'm going to generalize a little bit here and take this out of the context of this one hacker.
Now if someone found that security hole, would it be ok for them to take the key and make a copy? Would it be ok for them to repeatedly break into my house to take my personal posessions? Would it be ok to distribute the key to others? For a profit? Would it be ok as long as they told me about it later and told me how they could make my house more secure?
I agree: what you have wrote is criminal activity. No worse than B&E, theft (possibly grand theft) and whatever the crime is called for profiting off of criminal activity. There is no need for a special "Urban KeyUnderRock Act" -- we have laws to handle this already. But what about this scenario:
Instead of a home, how about a medical office. Some place of business keeping private information on people. Now if someone found that security hole (key under rock), would it be ok for me to -- after contacting you and giving you ample time (weeks) to correct the problem -- write a detailled pamphlet (sp?), write the newspaper, call in journalists, etc., describing the security hole and how widespread this type of security violation was and how it affects all of the people who go to this medical building? Would you have any right to call the cops on me? To try and have me arrested, sued, fined, incarcerated? Because you either don't want to spend the money to do it right?
My opinion is no. I warned you, showed you how to fix it and scolded you for being so patently stupid and disrespectful of private information and you either threatened me or blew me off. My going public with the information is, in my opinion a public service -- the same type of thing as the whistlebowers and people who risk their lives and personal finances to bring a big bad company to justice.
Let's face it; Most companies think this kind of stuff is only doable by UberHaxors -- therefore it's not worth fixing just because some guy comes up and shows them how it's done. The policies are changing, and that is a good thing. However with Mr. Ashcroft's assinine laws he is leading the way to making true security a thing of the past.
Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market.
Bullshit, plain and simple. Get the services installed, leave everything else off and the systems just run. Witness our RADIUS server, numerous fileservers and firewalls (all with hundreds of days of uptime and the only maintenance is a script which rotates logfiles and emails unusual activity) -- all with hundreds of days of uptime.
Like any other OS, the admin is responsible for monitoring the security mailing lists and installing patches. And like any other OS, you get what you pay for in an admin.
Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly.
That's a bold-faced flat-out lie. I run Linux on this laptop and have NUMEROUSLY had the volume level down too low to hear the battery alarm crying out. I've lost power at least three or four dozen times this year with no data loss.
Where EXT2 does lose data badly is when the metadata store gets corrupted (power dies when it's being updated or the drive gets bad sectors in those areas) -- However I also know that Reiser, NTFS and VFAT will die horribly under those cirumcstances too.
Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices.
Let's see some hard numbers. I've been running 2.2.x kernels for literally YEARS without crashes. Quit running alpha drivers and unstable kernels and your stability will increase. This is just common sense.
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost.
So you consider a Win32 admin someone who can go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com? Or a SCO admin someone who can call the support hotline they pay for? I don't understand (nor have you given proof) for increased TCO for Linux.
(an aside: The Code Red fix wasn't included in any patches available from there. So whose fault is that, Microsoft for not making security a priority, or the click-happy "admin" for not knowing better?)
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
I dunno, I've had no problems setting up and casually[1] admining firewalls, SMTP/IMAP/POP servers, LDAP servers, web servers and plain old fileservers. Like I said, once it is up and running, there is next to zero maintenance. This can be done with any unix; For me, Linux makes the most sense and none of my clients have had complaints about "increased costs of their Linux servers." I don't know whether you're a Win2k, SCO, Sun, QNX or *BSD troll, and frankly I don't care. Your post is so full of shit that I just had to feed you. FUD is FUD.
[1] - I use the term "casually admin" to describe what I do: monitor the security lists, provide updates as necessary and receive the emailled logs. The only time I ssh in is to change the configuration based on a customer's request or perform security updates. To me, this is exactly what server administration should be.
he only thing really missing on teh embedded front at this point are development tools...that said, the GPASM and Atmel tools for Linux are quite nice.
I've been pestering both Microchip and Advanced Transdata for the specs on their ICE-2000 and Rice17 respectively. Nothing to date. However I believe that I can muck with the VMWare parallel port module and have it timestamp and dump all communications in both directions. After that, I'd like to try my shot at using KDevelop and create a debugger/IDE without the inconsistencies that both MPLAB and Rice17 has.
If anyone has any more information on the protocol that either of these ICEs use, I'd love to hear from you.
So, i've always got that. as you say 8M is plenty for over 90% of its intended audience. i suppose i'm in that 10% then. oh well. such is life.
Actually I consider myself in that 10% as well; I have had under 100k of memory left but after working with the palm for a while I realized I didn't need all that shit in memory and tossed a good portion of it. I think the vast majority of people would be happy with 4M; the 8M versions are for people who have enormous addressbooks or very (very!) busy schedules.
8M doesn't sound like a lot but think about it: Reading books on it sucks and GIS information is best viewed in colour. It hasn't got the processor power to crunch huge databases and it's designed to be an extension to a computer, not a standalone computer itself. I haven't been able to find a really heavy appication to that works well on it. Hell even with the folding keyboard PocketC still blows. :-)
However, the anemic amount of RAM seems to be an important downside.
If this thing works at all like the Palm Vx works, 8M is more than plenty for over 90% of its intended audience.
My Vx has all manner of applications loaded, games, time/expense tracking, email, development, etc. and I've still got 3 or 4 megs free.
Anyways, to make a long story short (heh), if you haven't tried KDE since the 1.x days, this is the time. You will be pleasantly suprised, and may even make the switch. If not, then happy Gnomeing, or BlackBoxing, or WindowMakering, or CommandLineCommandoing. Just have fun! The world is too great a place to worry about what other people are using for their desktop.
What I've been doing for ages is pretty desktop-agnostic: I use WindowMaker because it's (IMHO) far cleaner than KDM or Gnome's WM, doesn't have any sign of a taskbar or "start/K/footprint" button and pretty much stays the hell out of my way.
I've found a certain fondness for the rightclick on the desktop menu -- it takes no room and can be called up anywhere. The clip and dock are a bit of a pain in my arse but I think that's more because I haven't sat down in all these years and really tried to make them do what I want.
One Dockapp I've been meaning to write for a long time now is a replacement for KDE and Gnome's "system tray" -- the docapp could hold 9 16x16 "systray" icons and would pass off the approprate mouseclicks/movements to the apps as normal. I've seen a few Dockapps that swallow other apps but it's not quite the same idea.
One thing I wish I could have in any WM is the ability to bind keys to applications. I'd love to have my alt-backspace pull up the next LICQ message like I did in Windows but I haven't figured out a way to either make LICQ see the key nor have WindowMaker pass it off. Perhaps in my copious spare time I can figure it out. :-)
I've had bad experiences trying to mix a Logitech Cordless Keyboard/Mouse (Freedom Pro? I believe was the moniker) with 802.11 Wireless LAN cards (D-Link PCI/PCMCIA cards).
That's interesting; we use the same Logitech cordless keyboard/mouse (it comes as a pair) but with Lucent (ORiNOCO, god I hate that name) wavelan cards. The cards are on separate floors of an office building (wood frame), about 150' apart I'd say. The "access point" is the company firewall which is in an encassed metal rack. We have absolutely no problems at all.
I'd be curious to try out other vendor's cards to see if there really is a difference between these expensive Lucent cards and the cheaper DLink and other cards or if I'm just lucky.
Try Bynari's Insight Server which runs on Linux or Sparc and offers a fairly complete server for Outlook clients, and offers a *nix client to boot! You can share calendars, global addressing, etc.
I tried out Bynari about 10 months ago and the installer wiped out my existing MTA and LDAP servers without warning and without any warning in the documentation. After I'd realized this I tried the software out and it still had quite a way to go.
Thanks for mentioning them though; I will evaluate them again. Currently I'm pretty excited about Steltor's CorporateTime -- Uses an IMAP server and either your existing or an internal LDAP server coupled with their calendaring and scheduling server software. Server runs on Linux or NT; clients for Win32, Linux, Mac and web. Also includes PalmOS, WinCE and an Outlook service. Unlike Bynari, I found Steltor's support very solid and professional. Again, this may have changed with Bynari which is why I am going to re-evaluate them.
I have been tempting to have IT forward all my email to my desktop sun box, but I loose the exchange groupware features. Not worth it.
I've been testing out CorporateTime from Steltor. (warning: Flash site.) The server may run on Linux or NT and you can use an internal LDAP server or one you've already got. Mail and shared folders are stored and accessed with an IMAP server (numerous servers supported) and clients are available for Win32, Mac and Linux. There is also a web client and an Outlook service. The API is totally open.
I don't work for Steltor but as I said I've been evaluating the product and am finding it very good. It seems to be priced very similary to Exchange Server and they provide various levels of support. They've been most helpful in the evaluation. The company has been around for about 10 years doing collabrative software but their CorporateTime product seems to be pretty recent.
Well, that may be better for the system, but a nested page with ~2000 comments would take quite a while to load on a 56k modem, I'm guessing.
All the more reason to load it once; Take a couple minutes, it's loaded and you can take hours to read it all instead of pull up an partial page and not be able to read comments you're interested in.
(BTW: I am one of those 56k readers. :-)
You, um, don't.
My point exactly.
But you're still saying we should get MORE involved in other people's conflicts in order to solve the problem of uss being percieved as a "global policeman".
I didn't say to move in to every conflict; I didn't say to increase anything -- I was saying I think the policies should be changed.
Instead of sending money and weapons, send troops. Instead of sending packages of medical supplies, send doctors to administer the medicine. What's the difference between arming the armies and actually helping them defend? I bet the other side wouldn't make much distinction. Something President Bush said comes to mind: "We make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbour them."
Whether its a "hands-off" or "hands-on" approach as you describe, or leaving people to fight it out amongst themselves, people still turn to US for some reason to solve THEIR problems, and then complain no matter the outcome.
So you're telling me that you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I'm asking you about gradients between the extremes. Somehow I don't think that people would be as pissed about helping civilians as they would about the one-sided arming, financial and technical backing of one side of a faction, do you?
I'm not blinded by patriotism, as was suggested in the first message -- I'm blinded by the growing futility of us doing anything because of the paradox that every other nation has set before us. Inaction is punished, action is punished, delay is punished, immediate response is punished.
Perhaps it is because the United States government makes their nation out to be the end-all, be-all of nations. Capable of anything, impenetrable and wealthy beyond all comparison. I'm not saying the U.S. is not great; indeed it is and in many ways. But no nation is an island, to butcher a famous quotation.
Everyone else has a lot to say about what we should do with OUR lives and OUR troops, until they actually show up, at which point everyone says what a blunder we've made and how we should just get out of the middle. everyone else seems to have all the answers, so why do they keep calling us?
Yes, it is easy being a monday morning quarterback; yes it is easy to sit back, out of the spotlight and point out the flaws of the team. We're not talking about a game here, we're not talking about a couple of hours. We're talking about over fifty fucking years and multiple administrations consistently doing things that are not in what I would consider the best interests of the American people. So no, I do not consider myself a "monday morning quarterback".
My guess is that they're asking for help from bigger, more advanced nations (not just the United States) hoping that these nations are smarter than they are. It's not easy being a superpower; I never allued that it was. But the track record your government shows indicates that they tend to be more interested in serving their own interests than genuinely helping others. That, as a foreign policy, will get you into trouble. Do you not agree?
I hope everyone in the USA and abroad encourages and supports Bush in making the correct decision. And conversly comes down on him like a load of bricks if he makes the incorrect decision. One positive result of this disaster is an increased desire on my part to be informed about my country's (USA) foreign policy.
I too hope that Bush makes the right decisions and I personally am taking more of an interest in my country's politics and policies.
I agree; China has a poor navy right now -- Look back on the 2nd world war -- Canada designed the corvette ships in order to enable safe atlantic journeys in a matter of months. It's not difficult to do things quickly when you're sufficiently motivated.