It isn't a big deal -- it's important for a good employee to be able to play with others as well as make responsible decisions in stressful situations, and sometimes those tests can be an interesting addition to the interview process.
I find the tests quite entertaining, personally.:-)
Some folks might remember that OS/2 Warp 4 (September 1996) was released with both IBM voice navigation and IBM voice dictation technology as part of the standard package.
The initial product package even included a headset microphone in the box.
Not many people used it, and at that point in time it required some initial training to use in an effective manner (it had to learn each person's pronunciation habits), but there were still a few folks I knew that got a lot of mileage out of the technology at the time.
I wonder why industry focus has fallen away from such tech? Is it that useless in the real world?
Any application that requires a solitary, unique, big server is just definitionally broken.
Why? Centralization is often the best solution for many reasons (performance, security, legal issues, recoverability, reliability can all be factors depending on the nature of the system).
Only an extremist advocates one type of computing solution for all problems.:-)
Disclaimer: my background is medium-scale airline online-transaction applications where monolithic systems (read: mainframes) still tend to work very well.
My own experience with IRC "support channels" has generally been negative when compared to other types of online support channels (mailing lists, news groups, web-based forums).
Maybe the solution is to use a medium other than IRC when asking questions?
It might be better to say work/home/life, since there are many things that a homeowner and/or parent needs to do which don't fall into the "I'm doing this for myself" category (mowing the lawn, sealing the deck, picking up the kids from xxx, etc.).
That's what I do, too. I split the cable before the TV -- the TV's twin tuners can watch whatever they want live (complete with PIP), the ReplayTV records from its own source on and can be watched on INPUT 1, and the DVD player is connected to INPUT 2.
TIVO might be better than the boxes bundled with various video services, but I'm not sure that its superiority over ReplayTV is clear-cut. A lot depends on your functionality preferences and sense of aesthetics.
I log into servers to view application log files. I'd love to view that small portion of the filesystem remotely, but currently it isn't being exported in any way (making remote access just a tad difficult).
The article states that web developers are prone to developing for the browser with the greatest market share (IE) over ones that do not. What a fallacy!
Unfortunately, many corporate web developers do just that.
One of my banks has functionalty on its web site which specifically excludes Firefox (but for some reason allows Netscape 6 to work), the Vista Print business card maker's web site used to be IE-only, the Unisys e-Community site used to be IE only (and formal requests to make it more generalized were rejected specifically because IE had over 80% of the market and that is what they tested with), and there are a half-dozen intranet sites I access here at work which don't seem to work properly with Firefox (when I see these, I let the webmasters know).
I realize that there are lots of web designers who are not so short-sighted, but there are more stupid people out there designing web sites than you seem to be aware of...
Microsoft was convicted of including a BROWSER in their operating system.
Microsoft was convicted of using their legally recognized monopoly in x86 desktop operating systems to leverage themselves into the browser market, mainly by tying Internet Explorer to the OS in such a way that (in their words) the browser was "part of the OS" and could not be removed easily.
That's a far cry from simply including a browser with their OS (as IBM did with OS/2, and as Linux distributors, Apple, etc. do today) even if Microsoft wasn't a monopolist.
(I personally thought the whole thing was ridiculous at the time).
Then it seems you weren't paying attention.
No doubt Microsoft did some coercion (though it wasn't illegal), but that's not why Microsoft won. Microsoft won because they were COMPATIBLE. Pure and simple. Windows 3.1 killed all the competition at the time because it was the most compatible with DOS. Windows 95 killed everything because it was STILL the most compatible with DOS and Windows 3.1.
Nonsense. OS/2 was able to run multiple versions of real DOS images concurrently in VDMs while also juggling multiple instances of its WinOS2 subsystem, and you could also Dual Boot to a real DOS installation those very few occasions where a program used VCPI or some other low-level tricks (e.g., Norton Utilities) which the VDM couldn't emulate.
The Dual Boot mode OS/2 supported (which is a distinctly different thing from the multiboot configuragion using IBM's Boot Manager which most people used) was almost identical to Windows 95's Restart In DOS option, something it also needed to run certain DOS packages.
Look at OS/2. IBM, with every computer they sold, included OS/2 as the default operating system and also Windows 3.1.
No they didn't. IBM PSP (Personal Software Products, the group in Boca Raton and later Austin that was developing OS/2 at IBM) certainly wanted that to happen, but the PCCO (IBM PC Company) simply wouldn't allow it. That was a great source of bad feelings inside IBM, and the lack of OS/2 preloads even at IBM was one of the reasons that OS/2 had a hard time catching on -- people had to install it themselves, or purchase it from one a few vendors (anyone else remember Indelible Blue?) that preloaded OS/2 on their systems.
People had to go out of their way to delete OS/2 and use Windows 3.1 instead.
No, they didn't. IBM did not preload OS/2 as a general rule, though some IBM hardware (like their IntelliStation line) was formally certified to work with OS/2, and it may have been available for short periods of time upon special request. OS/2 was never a default preload on IBM systems, at least that I'm aware of. Many of us would have purchased a lot more IBM hardware otherwise.:-)
You know why? Because OS/2 was INCOMPATIBLE with a hell of a lot of software and drivers.
Actually, incompatibilty was rarely an issue until Microsoft started creating a constantly-shifting API for Windows 3.1 -- see below.
The "WinOS2" subsystem included with OS/2 2.0 was a recompiled version of Windows 3.0 that IBM obtained from Microsoft, and the one from 2.1 and later was a recompiled version of Windows 3.1. WinOS2 was not an emulation, and it was not an API translator -- it was the real deal. The code was altered to work as a DPMI client under an OS/2 VDM and compiled using an optimizing compiler (Watcom C, I think), and a few bugs (like the infamous calculator bug) were fixed, but it was otherwise untouched, and it was almost 100% compatible with Windows 3.0 and 3.1.
The only real incompatibilities started appearing when Microsoft started releasing 32-bit extensions to Windows 3.1 called WIN32S.DLL every few months (and of course using them heavily in the new versions oftheir own products), but IBM kept up support for those additional APIs until Win32S 1.25a or so when Microsoft actually altered the upper level of the Win32s address space from 512MB to 2GB
It describes what I do much more precisely than Programmer or Software Engineer. I don't pretend that what I do is "engineering", and it isn't -- it's far less precise than that -- but I do a LOT more than write code, since I also do design work, write test plans and do testing, do support work, write documentation, etc.
My manager (who is quite technical and did all of the coding for our application until I arrived a little over a year ago) works between three and four days per week from home now, and if I wanted to I could work a couple of days a week from home myself.
At this point I'm choosing not to, but it's nice to have the option.
It's also nice to have a technical manager who has a clue.:-) I've been lucky in that regard for most of my career, though.
Sure. SLS was nice because not only was it available on diskette on BBSes, but you could order a preformatted tape with the distro on it, and tehre was an SLS mini distro that was on a single diskette. It still boots on my boxes today.:-) Of course, it doesn't do much more than boot.
The first real distro I used was SLS 0.99pl13, I think. Took a while to install it, though, and I never did get X to work with my Diamond Stealth VRAM card.
I also remember distros like TAMU, Slackware Pro (Morse Telecommunications?), and something from Yggdrasil whose name eludes me. I've got all of those living on diskettes or CD's somewhere in my basement.:-)
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It isn't a big deal -- it's important for a good employee to be able to play with others as well as make responsible decisions in stressful situations, and sometimes those tests can be an interesting addition to the interview process.
:-)
I find the tests quite entertaining, personally.
Some folks might remember that OS/2 Warp 4 (September 1996) was released with both IBM voice navigation and IBM voice dictation technology as part of the standard package.
The initial product package even included a headset microphone in the box.
Not many people used it, and at that point in time it required some initial training to use in an effective manner (it had to learn each person's pronunciation habits), but there were still a few folks I knew that got a lot of mileage out of the technology at the time.
I wonder why industry focus has fallen away from such tech? Is it that useless in the real world?
Why? Centralization is often the best solution for many reasons (performance, security, legal issues, recoverability, reliability can all be factors depending on the nature of the system).
Only an extremist advocates one type of computing solution for all problems.
Disclaimer: my background is medium-scale airline online-transaction applications where monolithic systems (read: mainframes) still tend to work very well.
My own experience with IRC "support channels" has generally been negative when compared to other types of online support channels (mailing lists, news groups, web-based forums).
Maybe the solution is to use a medium other than IRC when asking questions?
It might be better to say work/home/life, since there are many things that a homeowner and/or parent needs to do which don't fall into the "I'm doing this for myself" category (mowing the lawn, sealing the deck, picking up the kids from xxx, etc.).
My 1994 Accord gets 30MPG in non-freeway city traffic, and it wouldn't be that expensive today.
According to Microsoft, an OS is also a browser and (I presume) any other application that they decide to "integrate" into the product.
That's what I do, too. I split the cable before the TV -- the TV's twin tuners can watch whatever they want live (complete with PIP), the ReplayTV records from its own source on and can be watched on INPUT 1, and the DVD player is connected to INPUT 2.
TIVO might be better than the boxes bundled with various video services, but I'm not sure that its superiority over ReplayTV is clear-cut. A lot depends on your functionality preferences and sense of aesthetics.
No, an ethernet connection is all you need. I use my cablemodem connection to get the guide, and I've never even connected a phone line to mine. :-)
I'm a little surprised that Tim Berners Lee didn't mention gopher. Or wasn't it that much earlier than his initial HTML efforts?
The "protect a xxxx or lose it" concept only applies to trademarks, not patents or copyright.
I log into servers to view application log files. I'd love to view that small portion of the filesystem remotely, but currently it isn't being exported in any way (making remote access just a tad difficult).
Unfortunately, many corporate web developers do just that.
One of my banks has functionalty on its web site which specifically excludes Firefox (but for some reason allows Netscape 6 to work), the Vista Print business card maker's web site used to be IE-only, the Unisys e-Community site used to be IE only (and formal requests to make it more generalized were rejected specifically because IE had over 80% of the market and that is what they tested with), and there are a half-dozen intranet sites I access here at work which don't seem to work properly with Firefox (when I see these, I let the webmasters know).
I realize that there are lots of web designers who are not so short-sighted, but there are more stupid people out there designing web sites than you seem to be aware of...
Unless people actually start giving a damn, companies like Microsoft are going to continue to walk all over the law and their customers with impunity.
Microsoft was convicted of using their legally recognized monopoly in x86 desktop operating systems to leverage themselves into the browser market, mainly by tying Internet Explorer to the OS in such a way that (in their words) the browser was "part of the OS" and could not be removed easily.
That's a far cry from simply including a browser with their OS (as IBM did with OS/2, and as Linux distributors, Apple, etc. do today) even if Microsoft wasn't a monopolist.
(I personally thought the whole thing was ridiculous at the time).
Then it seems you weren't paying attention.
No doubt Microsoft did some coercion (though it wasn't illegal), but that's not why Microsoft won. Microsoft won because they were COMPATIBLE. Pure and simple. Windows 3.1 killed all the competition at the time because it was the most compatible with DOS. Windows 95 killed everything because it was STILL the most compatible with DOS and Windows 3.1.
Nonsense. OS/2 was able to run multiple versions of real DOS images concurrently in VDMs while also juggling multiple instances of its WinOS2 subsystem, and you could also Dual Boot to a real DOS installation those very few occasions where a program used VCPI or some other low-level tricks (e.g., Norton Utilities) which the VDM couldn't emulate.
The Dual Boot mode OS/2 supported (which is a distinctly different thing from the multiboot configuragion using IBM's Boot Manager which most people used) was almost identical to Windows 95's Restart In DOS option, something it also needed to run certain DOS packages.
Look at OS/2. IBM, with every computer they sold, included OS/2 as the default operating system and also Windows 3.1.
No they didn't. IBM PSP (Personal Software Products, the group in Boca Raton and later Austin that was developing OS/2 at IBM) certainly wanted that to happen, but the PCCO (IBM PC Company) simply wouldn't allow it. That was a great source of bad feelings inside IBM, and the lack of OS/2 preloads even at IBM was one of the reasons that OS/2 had a hard time catching on -- people had to install it themselves, or purchase it from one a few vendors (anyone else remember Indelible Blue?) that preloaded OS/2 on their systems.
People had to go out of their way to delete OS/2 and use Windows 3.1 instead.
No, they didn't. IBM did not preload OS/2 as a general rule, though some IBM hardware (like their IntelliStation line) was formally certified to work with OS/2, and it may have been available for short periods of time upon special request. OS/2 was never a default preload on IBM systems, at least that I'm aware of. Many of us would have purchased a lot more IBM hardware otherwise. :-)
You know why? Because OS/2 was INCOMPATIBLE with a hell of a lot of software and drivers.
Actually, incompatibilty was rarely an issue until Microsoft started creating a constantly-shifting API for Windows 3.1 -- see below.
The "WinOS2" subsystem included with OS/2 2.0 was a recompiled version of Windows 3.0 that IBM obtained from Microsoft, and the one from 2.1 and later was a recompiled version of Windows 3.1. WinOS2 was not an emulation, and it was not an API translator -- it was the real deal. The code was altered to work as a DPMI client under an OS/2 VDM and compiled using an optimizing compiler (Watcom C, I think), and a few bugs (like the infamous calculator bug) were fixed, but it was otherwise untouched, and it was almost 100% compatible with Windows 3.0 and 3.1.
The only real incompatibilities started appearing when Microsoft started releasing 32-bit extensions to Windows 3.1 called WIN32S.DLL every few months (and of course using them heavily in the new versions oftheir own products), but IBM kept up support for those additional APIs until Win32S 1.25a or so when Microsoft actually altered the upper level of the Win32s address space from 512MB to 2GB
My ReplayTV 5040 certainly does (I can watch recorded shows without caring what is being recorded in the background).
Heh. My wife has all the lyrics memorized (she knows the movie a lot better'n I do).
A dollar today doesn't buy what it used to in 1964. :-)
Smaller, lower power requirements, probably doesn't use a "vulcan"-style gatling gun.
It describes what I do much more precisely than Programmer or Software Engineer. I don't pretend that what I do is "engineering", and it isn't -- it's far less precise than that -- but I do a LOT more than write code, since I also do design work, write test plans and do testing, do support work, write documentation, etc.
My manager (who is quite technical and did all of the coding for our application until I arrived a little over a year ago) works between three and four days per week from home now, and if I wanted to I could work a couple of days a week from home myself.
:-) I've been lucky in that regard for most of my career, though.
At this point I'm choosing not to, but it's nice to have the option.
It's also nice to have a technical manager who has a clue.
Sure. SLS was nice because not only was it available on diskette on BBSes, but you could order a preformatted tape with the distro on it, and tehre was an SLS mini distro that was on a single diskette. It still boots on my boxes today. :-) Of course, it doesn't do much more than boot.
:-)
The first real distro I used was SLS 0.99pl13, I think. Took a while to install it, though, and I never did get X to work with my Diamond Stealth VRAM card.
I also remember distros like TAMU, Slackware Pro (Morse Telecommunications?), and something from Yggdrasil whose name eludes me. I've got all of those living on diskettes or CD's somewhere in my basement.
Not that good old GW doesn't deserve much of the bashing he gets. I'm personally embarrassed that he managed to get into office even once...
A lot depends on your expectations, your tolerance for certain types of BS, and your standard of living. And plain old luck, of course. :-)