Google was a private company built on the back of a public network. Now they are a public company building a private network. I get dizzy just thinking of it.
Is the future of the internet going to be like television networks? "Hey honey, I want to watch Mapquest. Change it to Internet 6."
They have "Pack" which has Firefox in it, yet they don't update the toolbar for it!
First off, V4 of the toolbar is in beta. This means it is under development, and Google is choosing to share it with us before it is finished! Why should they take the effort to port it to Firefox before it is finished? Do you expect them to be constantly porting while they develop the thing?
Second, it's free! You, my friend, are a beggar and a chooser.
MS 'gets' RSS: While some folks were less than overjoyed that Microsoft was tinkering with the "little orange RSS box," Microsoft ended up looking like a company with a clue when it came to outlining its company-wide RSS strategy in 2005. RSS support will be built into not just Internet Explorer 7.0, but also Outlook 12 and Windows Vista itself. Almost all Microsoft blogs and sites have RSS feeds these days. RSS is gospel in Redmond these days."
Microsoft is adding RSS features years after they have become standard in other browsers and email clients. Microsoft is blogging years after others started. MS adds RSS feeds to its websites years after others. And this means MS gets RSS?
MS was slow to RSS just like they were slow to understand that the Internet was important. But they will probably dominate RSS just like the Internet.
I don't think the problem is with odd names (although sometimes they can be a bit obtuse), I think it's really just market share. If thunderbird was preinstalled on 100% of windows machines (like outlook express does), people would quickly learn to equate thunderbird to e-mail the same way they do with outlook. The same thing applies to gimp, xine, konquerer, etc.
Well, I think this works fine for products. We all know what Kleenex is, almost more than the word tissue. We know what Pepto-Bismal is for, and we are more familiar with it than "bismuth subsalicylate".
But to me, applications are often more a feature of a operating system. Features are confusing when labelled like a brand. I will buy a "Mustang", but I sure don't want the knobs on the dashboard labeled "Gowab", "Chuba", "Sibidy", "Lopsa", and "Mooky". I want the stereo volume labeled "Volume" and the fan labelled "Fan".
In my opinion, it's fine to call the OS "Linux", but when I want to find a Media Player, it should be labelled "Media Player". My car has a "defroster", not a "Lodiddy"; my computer has a "Image Editor", not a "Gimp".
I had the priviledge to work with an older programmer -- and he was amazing...The best lesson he taught us was "embrace new technology"...thanks Leo!
Look, I really missed Leo after TechTV took him off the air, too. But watching and calling into "Call For Help" on your webcam is not the same as working with Leo. I think you need some therapy.
I know you'll see this, and I just wanted to let you know about the debt that we all owe you
I would go one further: mobile thin clients for the masses.
I'm talking about a very simple mobile device similar to a laptop, with wifi, but with extremely limited hardware. All it can run is Opera and perhaps Google Talk. Access to the web and GMail is all that many people would need (if they switch to using a GMail account). Ajax provides capability to develop desktop-like experiences in the browser.
With minimal hardware requirements, this should be very inexpensive. It may sound crazy, but if you put all the peices to the puzzle (the products that Google has acquired or built and the people Google has hired) it makes sense.
Cassettes -> CDs = Better quality sound and slightly easier to use.
Slightly easier to use? Crusing with a friend in the '80s went something like this:
"Hey, Frank, get the Def Leppard tape out of my glovebox. I know, the tape comes out and gets tangled. Stick a pencil in the hole and turn it for a bit. Okay, now the fifth song on the first side is 'Pour Some Sugar on Me', and it totally rocks. You need to fast forward. No, that's not it...forward some more. More. Now you've gone too far...rewind. Damnit Frank, who taught you how to use a tape player? Ah, that's it, now find the beginning."
"See, I told you that song rocks. Now, go in my glovebox and find Van Halen's 1984. The second song on the first side is Jump, and it totally rocks."
You have to be kidding me? XML? Are you out of your mind? Apparently you've drank the XML koolaid and you're parroting it's usefulness for everything but ending world hunger.
He's not out of his mind, and you aren't proving your own sanity by being rude. There's nothing wrong with XML for configuration files, and plenty to gain. If you have config in XML, developers can write config integration or front-ends in any language that has an XML parser. PHP, Java, Perl, Javascript, Python, Mono/.NET, etc., etc. With normal text config files, you have to do ugly string manipulation, and you have no way to adjust from version to version without custom hacking for every setting in the config. This is why front-ends rarely exist for most text config files, and why front-ends do exist for many XML config files.
Further, with XML the configuration option and it's set value can be validated. Right now, we don't know if any setting in a text configuration is actually doing something or doing what we want. From version to version settings change, go away, gain new options, etc., and we have no way of knowing if our setting is valid until we view documentation - and even then we have to hope the documentation is up to date.
Some of use don't want some GUI to do our configurations, and we certainly don't want to be at the mercy of one.
No one is forcing you to use a GUI front-end for XML config files. But thanks for thinking that you are the center of the universe, and all those who want a front-end be damned.
When the GUI breaks or doesn't work (It's KDE only, it's gnome only, Xorg isn't installed, one doesn't exist yet, the ones available don't support these new options yet, ad infinium), we don't want to have to construct super perl scripts with XML capabilities to do mass changes in configuration files.
Editing an XML config file in a text editor isn't harder than a non-XML config file. The same "stuff" is there. Yes, it has tags around it that take up space, but big deal.
Sorry, but you are wrong. WPA does not provide any mechanism to turn off the computer. Once activated, a computer is activated. Don't believe every rumor you read on Slashdot without investigating it.
Re:US Government dependence of foreign corporation
on
Feds Enter Blackberry Fray
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
But a national security that's dependent on a foreign power is insecure. Agreed. No more Windows, no more Oracle,
Not the same at all. Windows and Oracle can't be "turned off" in a time of war. Blackberry's system's can. Further, with MS and Oracle being U.S. companies, the risk is also not comparable. By your logic, we shouldn't depend on Lockheed and Boeing for building the jets and missiles to defend our country.
I like OSS as much as the next guy, but you shouldn't be modded "Insightful" simply because you bash corporate software if your point isn't.
The Crackberries were supposedly the most effective means of communication between many Federal employees following the 9/11 disaster after many other means of communication had failed or was gridlocked.
I really speak from ignorance, but someone please explain this. I own a Blackberry, and like all Blackberries, it runs on a wireless network. Mine is T-Mobile, but you can get them from almost any wireless provider. If the T-Mobile network goes down, so does my Blackberries wonderful wireless capabilities.
On 9-11, how did the networks gridlock but Blackberries keep working? Is it because they can communicate messages with short spurts of connectivity? Certainly the voice capabilities did not work any better than any other phone.
Can you please prove (using science, of course) science?
Of course. The scientific method is truth by definition. If we can create a hypothesis, test it, and draw conclusions from the data that support the hypothesis, and these test and conclusions can be confirmed by others, what about this is anything but the truth. Science is itself a hypothesis that has been tested, confirmed, and proven through pier review over, and over again. Science can, and has many times, been proven that it is valid and truthful.
science is becoming anti-anything-else.
Science isn't anti-anything. Science is pro-truth. You seem to be personifying science. It's not a person. If your views aren't backed by data and repeatable through processes, then I can see how you would feel this Science person is out to get you.
Religions are formed to explain what man cannot understand at the time. They aren't tested and reconfirmed by peers. They are preached, and followers are told to "have faith".
What is the difference between mythology and religion? Mythology is a religion that is no longer practiced by any cultures. At that point, it becomes politically correct to say that it isn't true and we label it as such. It's not PC to say a practiced religion isn't true, because we have cultural stigmas about it. But a religion is no different than a mythology in any other respect.
The great thing about science is that we can now explain many of the things that religion sought to explain. It's good to not be walking around in the dark anymore. I really hope the U.S. isn't going to continue heading towards the dark.
I use Kontact, KOrganizer and KMail and all that. It connects to my company's Exchange 2003 server for calendar and address book and email and does it all better than Outlook.
Don't you mean it konnects to your kompany's Exchange 2003 server for kalendar...
You started the app from the command line and watched output that you did not understand. Then you jumped to conclusions.
JGoodies is an open source Look and Feel for Java. Look and Feels are the standard way to theme Java's standard toolkit, Swing. The issues in your screenshot appear to me to be nothing more than warnings that the user shouldn't see or care. Columba uses Swing. It does not use a non-standard widget toolkit, and it does work on multiple platforms.
But, it seems anyone can get modded up by ripping Columba in this thread....even when your post is based on inacuracies.
Why would I prefer this...over Evolution, Mozilla Mail/Thunderbird, Sylpheed, mutt, or anything else?
Why does this need to be something you prefer? Can't developers contribute open source products because it is something he/she wants to do? I mean, really! Get over yourself.
but to me it looks like a copy of Thunderbird implemented in Java with icons from Evolution.
Nice analysis.
Considering Columba has been around longer than Thunderbird, isn't Thunderbird a copy of Columba? Or, perhaps they both copy another client (Outlook Express)?
And since the Evolution icons are part of a open source product, why shouldn't Columba reuse them? Isn't that what open source is all about?
Install Microsoft's Antispyware program....Microsoft Antispyware popped up a dialog informing me that the app was trying to register a new startup program...This impressed me
This impressed you? The problem to begin with is that programs can register to run at "Startup" in Windows a variety of confusing ways, some that are completely hidden from the user. The Startup folder, Services, the registry's "Run" entries.
At least in the days of DOS, we all knew to look in autoexec.bat for startup programs. The situation has gone downhill since. Microsoft's design (and *nix isn't much better) means Windows starts programs left-and-right without the user's knoweledge. Now you can start something else (Microsoft Antispyware) to (finally) gain control over this, and it impresses you?
Transgaming's subscribers get to vote every month for what they want development efforts to be put towards. July's polls included Google Earth, and it placed seventh out of thirty polls.
So perhaps you'll be able to play...err run Google Earth on Cedega (Transgaming's version of Wine) in the future. Of course, I realize paying Transgaming to use free (as in beer) software isn't high on everyone's wish list.
It's the "big idea" that google is, that makes it a multi-billion dollar enterprise... not the fact that they may or may not have pinched a few pennies here and there.
Hey, hey - A penny saved is a penny...aw fuck it, he's right.
You almost make it sound as if this is the first OSS search engine out there. Apache Jakarta's Nutch, a subproject of Lucene, has been around for over two years. I haven't done tons of research on the subject, so I'm betting Nutch isn't the only one.
Slashdot Mirror
Google was a private company built on the back of a public network. Now they are a public company building a private network. I get dizzy just thinking of it.
Is the future of the internet going to be like television networks? "Hey honey, I want to watch Mapquest. Change it to Internet 6."
They have "Pack" which has Firefox in it, yet they don't update the toolbar for it!
First off, V4 of the toolbar is in beta. This means it is under development, and Google is choosing to share it with us before it is finished! Why should they take the effort to port it to Firefox before it is finished? Do you expect them to be constantly porting while they develop the thing?
Second, it's free! You, my friend, are a beggar and a chooser.
(+1) Troll ??
Since this was just a repost of Linus' comments, did a Slashdot moderator give Linus the moderating finger?
In other news, I just saw a pig fly by my window.
Get a good laser printer...Print the pages you want to read.
I'm a tree, you insensitive clod.
MS 'gets' RSS: While some folks were less than overjoyed that Microsoft was tinkering with the "little orange RSS box," Microsoft ended up looking like a company with a clue when it came to outlining its company-wide RSS strategy in 2005. RSS support will be built into not just Internet Explorer 7.0, but also Outlook 12 and Windows Vista itself. Almost all Microsoft blogs and sites have RSS feeds these days. RSS is gospel in Redmond these days."
Microsoft is adding RSS features years after they have become standard in other browsers and email clients. Microsoft is blogging years after others started. MS adds RSS feeds to its websites years after others. And this means MS gets RSS?
MS was slow to RSS just like they were slow to understand that the Internet was important. But they will probably dominate RSS just like the Internet.
I don't think the problem is with odd names (although sometimes they can be a bit obtuse), I think it's really just market share. If thunderbird was preinstalled on 100% of windows machines (like outlook express does), people would quickly learn to equate thunderbird to e-mail the same way they do with outlook. The same thing applies to gimp, xine, konquerer, etc.
Well, I think this works fine for products. We all know what Kleenex is, almost more than the word tissue. We know what Pepto-Bismal is for, and we are more familiar with it than "bismuth subsalicylate".
But to me, applications are often more a feature of a operating system. Features are confusing when labelled like a brand. I will buy a "Mustang", but I sure don't want the knobs on the dashboard labeled "Gowab", "Chuba", "Sibidy", "Lopsa", and "Mooky". I want the stereo volume labeled "Volume" and the fan labelled "Fan".
In my opinion, it's fine to call the OS "Linux", but when I want to find a Media Player, it should be labelled "Media Player". My car has a "defroster", not a "Lodiddy"; my computer has a "Image Editor", not a "Gimp".
I had the priviledge to work with an older programmer -- and he was amazing...The best lesson he taught us was "embrace new technology"...thanks Leo!
Look, I really missed Leo after TechTV took him off the air, too. But watching and calling into "Call For Help" on your webcam is not the same as working with Leo. I think you need some therapy.
I know you'll see this, and I just wanted to let you know about the debt that we all owe you
The TV isn't real. Leo can't see back at you.
One word: cellphones.
I would go one further: mobile thin clients for the masses.
I'm talking about a very simple mobile device similar to a laptop, with wifi, but with extremely limited hardware. All it can run is Opera and perhaps Google Talk. Access to the web and GMail is all that many people would need (if they switch to using a GMail account). Ajax provides capability to develop desktop-like experiences in the browser.
With minimal hardware requirements, this should be very inexpensive. It may sound crazy, but if you put all the peices to the puzzle (the products that Google has acquired or built and the people Google has hired) it makes sense.
Cassettes -> CDs = Better quality sound and slightly easier to use.
Slightly easier to use? Crusing with a friend in the '80s went something like this:
"Hey, Frank, get the Def Leppard tape out of my glovebox. I know, the tape comes out and gets tangled. Stick a pencil in the hole and turn it for a bit. Okay, now the fifth song on the first side is 'Pour Some Sugar on Me', and it totally rocks. You need to fast forward. No, that's not it...forward some more. More. Now you've gone too far...rewind. Damnit Frank, who taught you how to use a tape player? Ah, that's it, now find the beginning."
"See, I told you that song rocks. Now, go in my glovebox and find Van Halen's 1984. The second song on the first side is Jump, and it totally rocks."
You have to be kidding me? XML? Are you out of your mind? Apparently you've drank the XML koolaid and you're parroting it's usefulness for everything but ending world hunger.
He's not out of his mind, and you aren't proving your own sanity by being rude. There's nothing wrong with XML for configuration files, and plenty to gain. If you have config in XML, developers can write config integration or front-ends in any language that has an XML parser. PHP, Java, Perl, Javascript, Python, Mono/.NET, etc., etc. With normal text config files, you have to do ugly string manipulation, and you have no way to adjust from version to version without custom hacking for every setting in the config. This is why front-ends rarely exist for most text config files, and why front-ends do exist for many XML config files.
Further, with XML the configuration option and it's set value can be validated. Right now, we don't know if any setting in a text configuration is actually doing something or doing what we want. From version to version settings change, go away, gain new options, etc., and we have no way of knowing if our setting is valid until we view documentation - and even then we have to hope the documentation is up to date.
Some of use don't want some GUI to do our configurations, and we certainly don't want to be at the mercy of one.
No one is forcing you to use a GUI front-end for XML config files. But thanks for thinking that you are the center of the universe, and all those who want a front-end be damned.
When the GUI breaks or doesn't work (It's KDE only, it's gnome only, Xorg isn't installed, one doesn't exist yet, the ones available don't support these new options yet, ad infinium), we don't want to have to construct super perl scripts with XML capabilities to do mass changes in configuration files.
Editing an XML config file in a text editor isn't harder than a non-XML config file. The same "stuff" is there. Yes, it has tags around it that take up space, but big deal.
Wrong: Windows Product Activation.
Sorry, but you are wrong. WPA does not provide any mechanism to turn off the computer. Once activated, a computer is activated. Don't believe every rumor you read on Slashdot without investigating it.
But a national security that's dependent on a foreign power is insecure.
Agreed. No more Windows, no more Oracle,
Not the same at all. Windows and Oracle can't be "turned off" in a time of war. Blackberry's system's can. Further, with MS and Oracle being U.S. companies, the risk is also not comparable. By your logic, we shouldn't depend on Lockheed and Boeing for building the jets and missiles to defend our country.
I like OSS as much as the next guy, but you shouldn't be modded "Insightful" simply because you bash corporate software if your point isn't.
The Crackberries were supposedly the most effective means of communication between many Federal employees following the 9/11 disaster after many other means of communication had failed or was gridlocked.
I really speak from ignorance, but someone please explain this. I own a Blackberry, and like all Blackberries, it runs on a wireless network. Mine is T-Mobile, but you can get them from almost any wireless provider. If the T-Mobile network goes down, so does my Blackberries wonderful wireless capabilities.
On 9-11, how did the networks gridlock but Blackberries keep working? Is it because they can communicate messages with short spurts of connectivity? Certainly the voice capabilities did not work any better than any other phone.
USPTO must be as well staffed as FEMA
Definitely not. I have it on good authority that Director of the USPTO, Jon Dudas, has never even owned an Arabian Horse. Pathetic.
Can you please prove (using science, of course) science?
Of course. The scientific method is truth by definition. If we can create a hypothesis, test it, and draw conclusions from the data that support the hypothesis, and these test and conclusions can be confirmed by others, what about this is anything but the truth. Science is itself a hypothesis that has been tested, confirmed, and proven through pier review over, and over again. Science can, and has many times, been proven that it is valid and truthful.
science is becoming anti-anything-else.
Science isn't anti-anything. Science is pro-truth. You seem to be personifying science. It's not a person. If your views aren't backed by data and repeatable through processes, then I can see how you would feel this Science person is out to get you.
Religions are formed to explain what man cannot understand at the time. They aren't tested and reconfirmed by peers. They are preached, and followers are told to "have faith".
What is the difference between mythology and religion? Mythology is a religion that is no longer practiced by any cultures. At that point, it becomes politically correct to say that it isn't true and we label it as such. It's not PC to say a practiced religion isn't true, because we have cultural stigmas about it. But a religion is no different than a mythology in any other respect.
The great thing about science is that we can now explain many of the things that religion sought to explain. It's good to not be walking around in the dark anymore. I really hope the U.S. isn't going to continue heading towards the dark.
I use Kontact, KOrganizer and KMail and all that. It connects to my company's Exchange 2003 server for calendar and address book and email and does it all better than Outlook.
Don't you mean it konnects to your kompany's Exchange 2003 server for kalendar...
Year after year art and hard work are ignored for sex and cheap thrills.
Does the "sex and cheap thrills" have a Linux port?
I had been a huge fan of Opera since I discovered it
I had been a huge fan of the Internet since I created it.
-Al
You started the app from the command line and watched output that you did not understand. Then you jumped to conclusions.
JGoodies is an open source Look and Feel for Java. Look and Feels are the standard way to theme Java's standard toolkit, Swing. The issues in your screenshot appear to me to be nothing more than warnings that the user shouldn't see or care. Columba uses Swing. It does not use a non-standard widget toolkit, and it does work on multiple platforms.
But, it seems anyone can get modded up by ripping Columba in this thread....even when your post is based on inacuracies.
Why would I prefer this...over Evolution, Mozilla Mail/Thunderbird, Sylpheed, mutt, or anything else?
Why does this need to be something you prefer? Can't developers contribute open source products because it is something he/she wants to do? I mean, really! Get over yourself.
but to me it looks like a copy of Thunderbird implemented in Java with icons from Evolution.
Nice analysis.
Considering Columba has been around longer than Thunderbird, isn't Thunderbird a copy of Columba? Or, perhaps they both copy another client (Outlook Express)?
And since the Evolution icons are part of a open source product, why shouldn't Columba reuse them? Isn't that what open source is all about?
Install Microsoft's Antispyware program....Microsoft Antispyware popped up a dialog informing me that the app was trying to register a new startup program...This impressed me
This impressed you? The problem to begin with is that programs can register to run at "Startup" in Windows a variety of confusing ways, some that are completely hidden from the user. The Startup folder, Services, the registry's "Run" entries.
At least in the days of DOS, we all knew to look in autoexec.bat for startup programs. The situation has gone downhill since. Microsoft's design (and *nix isn't much better) means Windows starts programs left-and-right without the user's knoweledge. Now you can start something else (Microsoft Antispyware) to (finally) gain control over this, and it impresses you?
Transgaming's subscribers get to vote every month for what they want development efforts to be put towards. July's polls included Google Earth, and it placed seventh out of thirty polls.
So perhaps you'll be able to play...err run Google Earth on Cedega (Transgaming's version of Wine) in the future. Of course, I realize paying Transgaming to use free (as in beer) software isn't high on everyone's wish list.
It's the "big idea" that google is, that makes it a multi-billion dollar enterprise... not the fact that they may or may not have pinched a few pennies here and there.
Hey, hey - A penny saved is a penny...aw fuck it, he's right.
You almost make it sound as if this is the first OSS search engine out there. Apache Jakarta's Nutch, a subproject of Lucene, has been around for over two years. I haven't done tons of research on the subject, so I'm betting Nutch isn't the only one.