I'm an huge fan of Apple's products. I'm typing on a MacBook Pro and I love my 1G Nano. But after Apple's disappointing announcement this week, I have to say that Microsoft is now the technology leader in the portable player market.
Ad-hoc wireless is a huge feature. The widescreen looks great. I have to admit that this Apple fan has, for the first time in years, a little bit of Microsoft envy.
I know, I know. It is yet to be shown that the Zune + Windows delivers a great user experience like the iPod + Mac. iTunes and its store make the whole process seamless. The Airport Express and AirTunes are great features.
But, like I said, while other/.ers put MS down today, I have to congratulate them. Nice design, nice features, great competition. Hopefully this will push Apple that much harder.
This is clearly a shameless slashvertisement for/.
Next!
How to put widgets directly on your desktop
on
Does launchd Beat cron?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
There is a method for detaching Dashboard widgets described here.
This lets you keep as many widgets as you want on your desktop, and they don't jump back into the Dashboard every time you display it.
The one remaining annoyance is that they float above all of your other windows. Hopefully there will be a hack for this soon.
Support the independent press
on
Salon Asks for Help
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Even if you only occasionally enjoy reading a Salon article or disagree with the politics of some (or all) of its writers, I urge you to strongly consider a $30 yearly subscription. Slashdot readers are surely aware that the big press in America is beholden to special interests. We have no BBC or CBC here, just mediocre and sensationalist networks run by the likes of AOL and Rupert Murdoch.
Just as free speech is meaningless to the American poor, so too is free press when owned and controlled by billionaires. I have found Salon to be a great source for thoughtful and challenging articles. Supporting it is supporting democracy.
There is a difference between time and life. Spammers do waste a large amount of "person/hours," but that is a far cry from taking a life. The essence of a person is not destroyed, their family doesn't have to cope with the loss, etc.
That puts a different spin on the "spammers should die" argument.
While the parent post is quite funny, I would seriously recommend that no one actually take this route to cut down on spam. It is very possible that such a reply could get someone/someone's family killed. In China, it isn't like it is in the West... there may not be an opportunity to refute such charges before an impartial court. Couple a technically illiterate local government agency with the language barrier, and you could make some awful big trouble for a (relatively to the crime) innocent person.
$64mil in losses does NOT mean that they have $64mil in outstanding loans
That $64mil in losses is not so significant when you consider Red Hat's balance sheet. The company has far more than that in current assets (i.e., cash, cash equivalents, and short term investments). Going into the last quarter, Red Hat had $375mil in total assets and only $47mil in total liabilities.
Call the information technology department at your Uni and ask them how much of your tuition money they fork over to MS every semester so that you can have the privilege of purchasing Windows XP CDs with nontransferable licenses. At my college, it is about $30 a semester.
That's a $60/yr MS tax on a higher education on top of the $5 media fee.
To make matters worse, when they singed on to the Microsoft Campus Agreement, the infotech department dropped support for all non-MS products. I guarantee that you and your fellow students are getting royally screwed. The DOJ let those monopolist bastards off way too easy.
I respectfully disagree with your conclusions. Contract law is based in common law and the Uniform Commercial Code. The variations between states are minor (but not inconsequential).
First, "handshake agreements" are not implied. They are express (like written contracts). If the terms of an express contract, written or oral, can be ascertained by the court, the court will usually enforce the oral agreement.
Second, I stand by my assertion that minors can enforce contracts against adults. For example, if little Billy makes a contract to provide a service for Mr. Smith, the court will order compliance on the part of Mr. Smith at Billy's option. Since the agreement is enforceable, it is a contract.
Finally, you willingness to claim that EULAs are unenforceable when you admit that they are largely untested in the courts is irresponsible. If EULAs are unenforceable, as you claim, because there is no agreement between the software provider and the customer then, by your reasoning, the GPL is equally unenforceable. EULAs are a recognized trade practice and I think it is a bit premature to dismiss them.
sm
Re:EULA Strength? - IMPORTANT CORRECTIONS
on
Lofgren's Anti-DRM Bill
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
For clarification, most contracts do _not_ need to be signed to be legally binding. Examples of those that must be signed are contracts for the sale of goods $500 or more and prenuptial agreements. Also, minors can bind contracts and enforce them against adults. However, the contract is voidable at the option of the minor.
Most EULAs do stipulate that the software can be returned if you reject the EULA. While this may not be entirely feasible, that does not give you the right to agree and subsequently break your agreement. For the legality of EULAs to be fully known, they will have to be tested in the courts or a supervening law (or administrative regulation) must be passed. I suspect that exactly _what you are purchasing when you buy software_ will have to be determined first. If you are purchasing the right to use the software, the imposition of an EULA ex post facto may lack consideration and thus be found unenforceable.
I am not a lawyer but have studied law. However, do not rely on the above information as legal advice.
This editorial appears in the print edition as well. Needless to say, the NYT is quite a prestigious publication. While I am surprised its editorial board has taken such a strong stance on such a geeky issue, the positive press will surely be good for open standards and free competition.
We mustn't forget that competition is the cornerstone of a free economy and that Microsoft makes a significant contribution to technological innovation. Without Microsoft's constant competitive pressure on OSS developers, the quality of open source software would suffer. Certainly Microsoft has shown that it is more than willing abuse its monopoly status and it is the duty of the Department of Justice to protect the consumer against economic hegemony. Under the Bush administration, the DoJ is failing to perform its duty. In spite of this, my sincerest admiration goes out to the OSS kernel and application developers who choose to challenge the Giant rather than merely whine about its existence.
Stuart, the author of the addictive Mac tank game Bolo, granted permission several years ago for Windows and Linux versions of the popular game. By the time these were released, Mac Bolo was already out of development and they never really took off in popularity, but they are still developed and available.
The Linux client uses SDL, the Windows client may, too.
Come on, people. Just add testing to your apt-sources and upgrade already. The damn thing is much more stable than any other Linux distro at this point, and KDE1 and a 1.0 Kernel must be getting old by now.
I'm not ragging on Debian, it's just that Woody has been stable enough for production machines for a long damn time. That's a Good Thing(tm).
Most likely, you didn't compile the kernel with devfs support. This is in the filesystems menu if you have "prompt for development packages" selected. No devfs = major mounting problems.
I have had no real problems with portage installing software that is too "bleeding edge", as they tend to stick with offical releases rather than alphas, betas, and cvs snapshots. If you have problems with this, you can probably edit the ebuilds to include an (earlier) version number. I wish that the ebuild maintiners would always use the lowest compatable version as dependencies, as they do sometimes.
Holy shit! That guy got to plug his website NINE TIMES in an article. I can't imagine how much he had to pay for exposure like that. Next we'll be seeing ads like this: Features: ICMP echo requests are 37337! Posted by CmdrTaco on 03:35 PM -- Wednesday March 13 2002 from the leet-nettools-impress-chicks dept.
Hey, Slashdotters! I just found this 37337 tool called pign. You can use it to send an ICMP echo request to IBM.COM. You just type "ping ibm.com"... And it pings IBM.COM! Check it out:
>ping ibm.com Pinging www.ibm.com [129.42.17.99] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128 Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128 Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128 Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128 Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128 Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128 Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128 Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128 Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
(Read more...)
Seriously -- I'm sure more curious people clicked over to samizdat.com than clicked on any of the other ads on the screen (thinkgeek and ibm for me). Maybe there is something to text ads on community sites (ala kuro5hin)
Bullshit! What we need is for people to take responsibility for their own lives. What is wrong with a corporation deciding how to use its own property? Is Budwiser going to start placing Miller Lite ads on it's beer cans? Of course not. But by your argument, the government should step in and force such things to happen.
It is the government's first and foremost duty to protect the constitutional rights of the individual against the tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, the government has failed at even this.
"Remember that there is no such dichotomy as "human rights" versus "property rights." No human rights can exist without property rights. Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life. To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the "right" to "redistribute" the wealth produced by others is claiming the "right" to treat human beings as chattel."
The issue is not whether or not this hurts AOL/TW's competitors, as it most certainly does. The issue is who has ownership (and thusly control) over AOL/TW's cable network. Should The Washington Post be forced by the policing powers of government to run ads for The Washington Times against their management's will? Of course not. In cases like this, the stakes are high. The government must set a strong precedent. I hope, for the sake of both the American people and the business that they fairly operate, that government takes a back seat to property rights and common sense.
sm
I thought that Solaris was going to put Helix Gnome as one of their main X window managers? Is that still on??? Will it now be "Solaris shipped with Ximian"???
This congfiguration (sic) enables Cogent to offer each customer a fully dedicated, non-oversubscribed 100 Mbps connection that is not shared with anyone else...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm an huge fan of Apple's products. I'm typing on a MacBook Pro and I love my 1G Nano. But after Apple's disappointing announcement this week, I have to say that Microsoft is now the technology leader in the portable player market.
/.ers put MS down today, I have to congratulate them. Nice design, nice features, great competition. Hopefully this will push Apple that much harder.
Ad-hoc wireless is a huge feature. The widescreen looks great. I have to admit that this Apple fan has, for the first time in years, a little bit of Microsoft envy.
I know, I know. It is yet to be shown that the Zune + Windows delivers a great user experience like the iPod + Mac. iTunes and its store make the whole process seamless. The Airport Express and AirTunes are great features.
But, like I said, while other
This is clearly a shameless slashvertisement for /.
Next!
There is a method for detaching Dashboard widgets described here.
This lets you keep as many widgets as you want on your desktop, and they don't jump back into the Dashboard every time you display it.
The one remaining annoyance is that they float above all of your other windows. Hopefully there will be a hack for this soon.
Even if you only occasionally enjoy reading a Salon article or disagree with the politics of some (or all) of its writers, I urge you to strongly consider a $30 yearly subscription. Slashdot readers are surely aware that the big press in America is beholden to special interests. We have no BBC or CBC here, just mediocre and sensationalist networks run by the likes of AOL and Rupert Murdoch.
Just as free speech is meaningless to the American poor, so too is free press when owned and controlled by billionaires. I have found Salon to be a great source for thoughtful and challenging articles. Supporting it is supporting democracy.
sm
There is a difference between time and life. Spammers do waste a large amount of "person/hours," but that is a far cry from taking a life. The essence of a person is not destroyed, their family doesn't have to cope with the loss, etc.
That puts a different spin on the "spammers should die" argument.
sm
While the parent post is quite funny, I would seriously recommend that no one actually take this route to cut down on spam. It is very possible that such a reply could get someone/someone's family killed. In China, it isn't like it is in the West... there may not be an opportunity to refute such charges before an impartial court. Couple a technically illiterate local government agency with the language barrier, and you could make some awful big trouble for a (relatively to the crime) innocent person.
sm
Worried about 10-15%? Get real. Look at MSFT:
Total liquid assets: $50bil
Total liabilities: $16.7bil
So, is MSFT "worried" about their whopping 33% "debt-load?" I think not.
Again, RHAT has a 41% liquid assets/liabilities ratio. MSFT is at 33%. Not a real big difference there.
Learn a little about corporate finances before making misleading doomsday postings about Red Hat's crushing debt.
SM
That $64mil in losses is not so significant when you consider Red Hat's balance sheet. The company has far more than that in current assets (i.e., cash, cash equivalents, and short term investments). Going into the last quarter, Red Hat had $375mil in total assets and only $47mil in total liabilities.
SM
That's a $60/yr MS tax on a higher education on top of the $5 media fee.
To make matters worse, when they singed on to the Microsoft Campus Agreement, the infotech department dropped support for all non-MS products. I guarantee that you and your fellow students are getting royally screwed. The DOJ let those monopolist bastards off way too easy.
sm
I respectfully disagree with your conclusions. Contract law is based in common law and the Uniform Commercial Code. The variations between states are minor (but not inconsequential).
First, "handshake agreements" are not implied. They are express (like written contracts). If the terms of an express contract, written or oral, can be ascertained by the court, the court will usually enforce the oral agreement.
Second, I stand by my assertion that minors can enforce contracts against adults. For example, if little Billy makes a contract to provide a service for Mr. Smith, the court will order compliance on the part of Mr. Smith at Billy's option. Since the agreement is enforceable, it is a contract.
Finally, you willingness to claim that EULAs are unenforceable when you admit that they are largely untested in the courts is irresponsible. If EULAs are unenforceable, as you claim, because there is no agreement between the software provider and the customer then, by your reasoning, the GPL is equally unenforceable. EULAs are a recognized trade practice and I think it is a bit premature to dismiss them.
sm
For clarification, most contracts do _not_ need to be signed to be legally binding. Examples of those that must be signed are contracts for the sale of goods $500 or more and prenuptial agreements. Also, minors can bind contracts and enforce them against adults. However, the contract is voidable at the option of the minor.
Most EULAs do stipulate that the software can be returned if you reject the EULA. While this may not be entirely feasible, that does not give you the right to agree and subsequently break your agreement. For the legality of EULAs to be fully known, they will have to be tested in the courts or a supervening law (or administrative regulation) must be passed. I suspect that exactly _what you are purchasing when you buy software_ will have to be determined first. If you are purchasing the right to use the software, the imposition of an EULA ex post facto may lack consideration and thus be found unenforceable.
I am not a lawyer but have studied law. However, do not rely on the above information as legal advice.
sm
This editorial appears in the print edition as well. Needless to say, the NYT is quite a prestigious publication. While I am surprised its editorial board has taken such a strong stance on such a geeky issue, the positive press will surely be good for open standards and free competition.
We mustn't forget that competition is the cornerstone of a free economy and that Microsoft makes a significant contribution to technological innovation. Without Microsoft's constant competitive pressure on OSS developers, the quality of open source software would suffer. Certainly Microsoft has shown that it is more than willing abuse its monopoly status and it is the duty of the Department of Justice to protect the consumer against economic hegemony. Under the Bush administration, the DoJ is failing to perform its duty. In spite of this, my sincerest admiration goes out to the OSS kernel and application developers who choose to challenge the Giant rather than merely whine about its existence.
sm
Stuart, the author of the addictive Mac tank game Bolo, granted permission several years ago for Windows and Linux versions of the popular game. By the time these were released, Mac Bolo was already out of development and they never really took off in popularity, but they are still developed and available.
The Linux client uses SDL, the Windows client may, too.
Get them here
sm
You may already be familiar with it, but OSNews.com is a good resource for information on a variety of OSes.
/., anyway.
Scanning the frontpage headlines now, I see stories on Microsoft, Gnome, FreeBSD, Linux, Sun, and Mac OS X. Better variety than
mlup
Come on, people. Just add testing to your apt-sources and upgrade already. The damn thing is much more stable than any other Linux distro at this point, and KDE1 and a 1.0 Kernel must be getting old by now.
I'm not ragging on Debian, it's just that Woody has been stable enough for production machines for a long damn time. That's a Good Thing(tm).
sm
Not if Gentoo Linux counts as a distribution. KDE3 had been part of the official Gentoo install set since version 1.1a, released on 8 April.
sm
I doubt you will get this, but:
Most likely, you didn't compile the kernel with devfs support. This is in the filesystems menu if you have "prompt for development packages" selected. No devfs = major mounting problems.
I have had no real problems with portage installing software that is too "bleeding edge", as they tend to stick with offical releases rather than alphas, betas, and cvs snapshots. If you have problems with this, you can probably edit the ebuilds to include an (earlier) version number. I wish that the ebuild maintiners would always use the lowest compatable version as dependencies, as they do sometimes.
sm
This has been fixed today. It was apparently a problem with the portage database. Re-run "emerge rsync" and your problem should be solved.
sm
Interesting, especially because IBM blocks ICMP traffic, so you never get a reply.
Holy shit! That guy got to plug his website NINE TIMES in an article. I can't imagine how much he had to pay for exposure like that. Next we'll be seeing ads like this:
Features: ICMP echo requests are 37337!
Posted by CmdrTaco on 03:35 PM -- Wednesday March 13 2002
from the leet-nettools-impress-chicks dept.
Hey, Slashdotters! I just found this 37337 tool called pign. You can use it to send an ICMP echo request to IBM.COM. You just type "ping ibm.com"...
And it pings IBM.COM! Check it out:
>ping ibm.com
Pinging www.ibm.com [129.42.17.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
Reply from ibm.com : bytes 32 time 80ms TTL=128
(Read more...)
Seriously -- I'm sure more curious people clicked over to samizdat.com than clicked on any of the other ads on the screen (thinkgeek and ibm for me). Maybe there is something to text ads on community sites (ala kuro5hin)
sm
Best.. post... ever.
Bullshit! What we need is for people to take responsibility for their own lives. What is wrong with a corporation deciding how to use its own property? Is Budwiser going to start placing Miller Lite ads on it's beer cans? Of course not. But by your argument, the government should step in and force such things to happen.
It is the government's first and foremost duty to protect the constitutional rights of the individual against the tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, the government has failed at even this.
"Remember that there is no such dichotomy as "human rights" versus "property rights." No human rights can exist without property rights. Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life. To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the "right" to "redistribute" the wealth produced by others is claiming the "right" to treat human beings as chattel."
Ayn Rand
sm
The issue is not whether or not this hurts AOL/TW's competitors, as it most certainly does. The issue is who has ownership (and thusly control) over AOL/TW's cable network. Should The Washington Post be forced by the policing powers of government to run ads for The Washington Times against their management's will? Of course not. In cases like this, the stakes are high. The government must set a strong precedent. I hope, for the sake of both the American people and the business that they fairly operate, that government takes a back seat to property rights and common sense. sm
So... let's check that FAQs file:
Has anything else changed?
No.
Oh yeah, XINAWM.
(Ximian Is Not A Window Manager)
This sounds nice, from the page,
This congfiguration (sic) enables Cogent to offer each customer a fully dedicated, non-oversubscribed 100 Mbps connection that is not shared with anyone else...
What couldn't you stream over this SOB?
sm
Slashdot: The All-Vapor Network