If you are truly being serious, the reason is because a kernel number makes it MUCH easier to understand the sort of kernel you are using.
The first number is a major code change, fundamental in nature. After about 7 years we are now up to 2.x.x. The second number also shows major revisions, but of a less fundamental variety than the first number. An odd second number denotes a development series, not intended to be used for production computers. This is why most users went from 2.0.x to 2.2.x to 2.4.x, because 2.1.x and 2.3.x were development versions. When the development version is deemed stable enough to be used in some production platforms, it moves to an even second number, like the recent 2.4.0. However, the 2.2.x kernel series is still being maintained for use as an ultra-stable kernel, while the 2.4.x is more cutting-edge for the latest hardware support and performance.
The third number indicates a small change, usually bugfixes but some small amounts of new features supported. When going to purchase new hardware it is easy to tell if you have a "2.2.0 or later kernel".
Finally, a service pack generally implies a large set of bugfixes, as Microsoft had somewhere around 7 (maybe 8) for NT 4. The Linux Kernel version system allows for a few small changes to be made at every release, decreasing the waiting time for users to wait for a desired bugfix or feature (instead of months for a new service pack).
If my overgeneralization of the Linux kernel was incorrect, my apologies, but I think an overall understading of how the Linux Kernel numbering system works is important for those who don't know yet.
I disagree with creationism, and support evolutionism as the best model for current data. By saying that religion tends to evolve and fit the scientific facts of the day, I have to point out that so does science.
The basis of scientific theory is that a model is accepted until a reproducable experiment is conducted that disproves it, usually modifying the theory to fit the new data. A common example is that of the solar system. First what could be considered scientists thought the Earth was the center of the universe. Then new ideas and observation surfaced leading to the thinking that the Sun was the center. After more observations we eventually led to the current model that we are but one star system in one part of a huge galaxy among a universe of galaxies. This is oversimplified but it shows that as new observations emerge, the scientific model changes to fit observations.
Religion, on the other hand, practices what some call "social science". This is where the current observations of the day are fit to the model, instead of the observations determining the model. Evidence that contradicts a social science model is refuted or ignored, as is convenient.
Over time, however, enough scientific changes take place so that the religion itself must change else it dissappear by people's common sense. Such an example happens often with the Catholic Church (I used to be a Catholic). They supported Aristotalian views for several hundred years before accepting such basic facts as the Earth is round.
In the short run, however, religion tends to fit new facts to the current model.
It's interesting that moderators either consider this post a joke or did not read the link. Unless I'm missing something here, "Public Displays of Affection" are offtopic. THe article was interesting though, just had nothing to do with the latest Sharp PDA.
In a weird way, you've got a point. If you follow the Japanese link above you'll see several pictures of this Zaurus. I have no idea what the actual dimensions are, but it's easy to see that the screen does not take up the majority of the unit. Rather, it seems to have a bunch of launching buttons, and some other control mechanism. It also appears to be a bit thicker at the bottom, presumably where the batteries are stored (let's hope they're a good set of lithium ion batteries, replacing AAA batteries every couple weeks isn't fun or cheap).
Yes, I too would be less inclined to bring along a thicker PDA (like my first gen keyboard one), because it's just not worth it. On the other hand, we can easily get in the habit of taking along small and simple things, which is probably once cause of the Palm's popularity. It may not have the greatest specs or features (even for the price), but it's got a great size and fits in the hand very naturally with great handwriting recognition. That, and not battery-sucking color screens, is the key to a successful PDA.
You simply took one of the better paragraphs out of the article, promoted your own intelligence and called it a post, without further commentary.
You demonstrated no real understanding of the paragraph, when many obvious comments could be made.
- The credit card company American Express opted to promote customer privacy over the massive amounts of purchasing data it could sell and distribute to other companies.
- new e-mail systems are being developed to introduce more privacy, but the paragraph did not seem to mention good encryption.
- I don't get the direct connection between personal bodyguards and privacy, but perhaps the paragraph is implying that people do not feel safe and seek protection from others to safeguard assets.
If anyone would like to argue or discredit something I'd be interested to hear. I'm no expert at privacy or privacy technology, so I'd be interested to know how "self-deleting e-mail" works through the standardized internet.
Yes, most of us are comfortable carrying our driver's license, and we don't mind carrying passports when travelling abroad.
Problem is, the implant idea can be introduced slowly and carefully. First as an option - a matter of convenience to those who don't want to carry cards, and perhaps the implant would carry other info like credit card #, elec. password, etc. making them very convenient. Then as it becomes widespread, it becomes law that everyone must have it.
Personally, I see no problem with everyone in the world having an advanced ID capable of many convenient things. My concern is that it should be the choice of the user to be anonymous in a tracking system. So I can walk through the streets of Washington D.C. and no one would know where I was if I tried to buy a subway ticket (i.e. ID would not be required more than it is now).
For the convenience of those who find building from source too daunting, Ximian will soon be making binary
packages available for a variaty of platforms.
If one doesn't have the technical experience to compile a beta, they probably shouldn't be using first-gen beta software.
Show me the technology to which you are referring. Unless you mean "everything" as being "restricting everything" that filter is known as "pulling-the-plug".
Seriously, filtering software is horrible, absolutely horrible. If anyone has been forced to surf the web through a filter proxy like Bess or another, they find out that bad stuff gets through at times and good stuff gets blocked.
In addition, to force an ISP to monitor all the content it hosts is IMPOSSIBLE. Imagine a webhosting site that offers $20/month hosting service. They may have a thousand sites or more, depending on the size of the company. To be responsible for the content of each of these sites is unrealistic.
They should include other tests in other subjects as well as other types of testing rather than "multiple guess"
The SAT reduces one's score by 1/5 a point for each incorrect guess, thereby elimintating any benefits of uneducated guesses. However, I understand that your point was mostly that other types of testing - essay, etc. should be employed. While difficult to grade easily, the AP tests (Advanced Placement) to get credit for college classes employ both multiple choice and essays in many of the tests (like the Calculus test). Perhaps instead of abandoning the SAT test they should require an essay-based test in addition to the SAT.
Personally, I think tests like the SAT and ACT should be only slightly considered for submission. Many people don't take standardized tests as well as others, but yet have a much better work ethic to be successful in college classes. Instead, I think that college admissions people should heavily consider transcripts. More than just GPA, the amount and grades in advanced classes and college classes (whether AP or taken through local college) can give the most accurate representation of a student's ability. In addition, I think a small essay is important to demonstrate overall language ability, and shows that the applicant is truly interested in getting accepted to the university.
I just wonder, why do Windows magazines/books sell and Linux ones don't? Is it just being abnormal?
I think you've simply made a few false assumptions. Linux books and magazines do sell, seen by the incredible popularity and variety of new Linux books available on the market now (esp. by the popular publisher O'Reilly). I read Linux Journal and it provides a nice review of products (both free and proprietary). In addition, Windows magazines and books sell, and sell very well, because Windows is the most popular desktop operating system in the world, like it or not. Millions of users make for a large consumer base to sell to, consumers, developers, business people alike.
From the posts I've read about MaximumLinux, it just wasn't a quality publication, for a variety of reasons. It didn't really appeal to the technical user as much, and from what I've been reading didn't keep with the open-source philosophy. At the moment many users of Linux are technical, and not consumer (what this magazine seemed to appeal to).
As a final note, quality books (printed and in electronic form) will always co-exist with online manuals and newsgroups. Why? A lot of documentation for programs is scattered and made as an afterthought. After all, developers generally prefer writing code to writing documentation. I myself enjoy a well-written, thorough book that teaches me how to use a product, as well as serve as a reference when using it later. The market is far from dead.
Just before I saw this article I was reading an article in the latest Linux Journal about the history of MPEG, an interesting read on video and audio compression.
Anyway, the site looks interesting enough. The files are big, to be sure. I'm downloading right now a movie shown to Cold-War elementary school children about atomic warfare.
My cable modem usually gets 50-100 K/sec, but I'm getting about 16 K/sec from this site. I think it's definately a candidate for several good mirrors if it gains any sort of popularity - the 10 min. movie is 246 MB.
"In the meantime, if you want to test drive the
brand new Mozilla 0.8 builds now, we recommend that you install Mozilla 0.8 in its own directory, that you do not get rid of your current browser(s), and that you do not
set Mozilla 0.8 as your default browser -- yet." ">Mozilla is my daily-use,pH-balanced web browser of late
Of course, the people at Mozilla were just saying don't set the version 0.8 as the default browser - perhaps they're simply recommending waiting a few builds for more bug fixes.
On another note, I was encouraged by this:
"Mozilla development work now is focused on bug squashing, improved stability, and better performance."
Nice to see that performance is being worked on - that is my main critism of most browsers for Linux (Konqueror is fast, but it wouldn't properly display a few pages for me in KDE 2.0.1, so I'll wait a few versions). For me, I'm still stuck with Netscrape 4.7 on both my Win comp and my Linux comp, because I want the same browser for both, yet reasonably full featured and psuedo-reliable (Netscape crashes maybe once every two weeks of hard use, not too bad for me).
Anyway, it's promising to see Mozilla and Konqueror coming along nicely. Good work.
The linked article does not state anything about arrests. The first paragraph says:
Acting on complaints from the music industry, police have raided the homes of users of music-sharing websites looking for evidence they infringed copyright rules, the prosecutors' office said Thursday.
Let's get the story straight here - houses were searched. In addition:
He said the searches were part of an investigation of the Internet site mp3blast.com, but added four cases against Napster users were currently under review.
These are not Napster users (necessarily), but that of the now-offline site mp3blast.com (see for yourself. According to the article (at least) no searches have been conducted due to user activity on Napster, 4 cases are under review.
This solution gets its beauty because it is such a very simple, natural solution to a human problem.
Cyanobacteria does, indeed, have a passion for CO2, and what's more important it can survive in the blistering temperatures of gases streaming out of a coal-fired furnace.
It's wonderful to see that one of our problems with coal power plants may be solved using a relatively inexpensive natural method, producing oxygen to boot. However, coal combustion is a very messy business indeed, and the products of it are far from just CO2. Carbon monoxide (CO) as well as other toxins are produced in coal combustion. These are far more harmful than CO2. The main issue with CO2 is that of global warming, but it is not as toxic as CO.
Another thing the article didn't mention was the effectiveness of the trial demonstrations. Also, a real-life test must be done to determine if the method is actually significantly beneficial to the environment, or more hassle than another clean-up method.
Apple sure isn't encouraging the average on-the-fence developer to go switch to Mac OS X development for new applications, because early registration is still a hefty $1595 (which seems just a tad high compared to many conferences, but I suppose about normal).
However, these Apple development conferences should be encouraging people who wouldn't normally develop for Mac OS to attend and find out about the features of a new operating system. I'm sorry, but a normal-sized conference price tag isn't great incentive. I guess their incentive must be this:
The first 1,500 people to register for WWDC 2001 will receive a black, genuine leather, Mac OS X jacket when they arrive at the conference to pick up registration materials.
Also, one should note that they will not provide refunds after April 20, so don't be hasty to register.
This is definately what I consider among the biggest shortcomings of KDE thus far. Fortunately it would seem this project has been in the works for some time and is not vapourware at all. KDE is a very professional, well-done GUI that deserves an installer of equal presentation and ease-of-use.
However, I think the program eventually needs to appeal to all but the "I want to compile the source" people. This means very customized install options, as well as a default newbie option. Individual packages, while not supported yet according to Nick, are also essential to its usefulness.
In addition, such a (hopefully) broad install program should support easy and clean uninstallation of KDE packages. I recognize the availability of kpackage to manage RPMS, but this program would potentially download the binaries of packages required to install (like Ximian GNOME).
I kind of went dreaming there for a sec, asking a lot of a new program. In short, it looks like a great start, and I encourage those interested to help KDE in a sore area.
For all the time and effort spent into developing a hack for DSS, they could buy a thousand subscriptions to the service...that said, I always find the disclaimers on these sites amusing:
You understand that www.HackHu.com does not promote nor condone signal theft of any kind and you do not hold www.HackHu.com responsible for the actions of any of their users as it is the users' responsibility to comply with all local and State laws of their territory and country.
This site is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not our intention to assist you in committing fraud or performing any illegal acts
The news page mentions how much traffic the site will be getting this month. I'm sure everyone who's downloading these programs are using them completely lawfully. Yeah, right. Ah well, I bet the site just loves these/.s they've been getting recently. I'm a bit surprised they don't make enough in advertising to have to ask for PayPal donations (or maybe they really don't need them, and are just looking to feed themselves).
This doesn't really bother me, even the article states:
Yet incremental updates have been around for a long time, most likely for longer than the Internet has been around.
While the patent is pretty stupid, I've got a feeling that no competitor of Symantec's will need to license whatever updating technology they use. One of the patents seems incredibly vague to me, stating:
A software application (110) is updated to a newer version by means of incremental update patches (122). The incremental update patches (122) each contain that information necessary to transform one version of an application to another version. Any version of an application (110) may be upgraded to any other version of the application, through the use of a series of incremental update patches (122). The appropriate incremental update patches (122) are distributed in a multi-tiered manner, such that some update patches (122) update the application (110) by only one version, and others update the application (110) by several versions.
Perhaps others can shed some light on this one (the multi-tiered patent), but it sounds to me like similar technology to update patches used everywhere - small chunks downloaded to update a program from one version to another. Oh well, we'll see what happens.
Someday we'll lose our laptops in between pages of books just like we lose plane tickets/notes/phone numbers today.
Isn't the purpose of (hopefully) cheaper, extremely thin and bright computer screens to replace such things as books and papers? Then again, our society (myself included) is having a hard time giving up our beloved books that come in the dead-tree variety.
"Software giant Microsoft Corp.(NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) will announce plans to allow several semiconductor makers to modify its software to make customized embedded chips,"
Granted, it's only the source code to WinCE, but Microsoft will be letting some developers (maybe this time not even the huge expensive clients of theirs) to get their hands on the source for a Windows product.
I simply cannot see this device taking off for a number of reasons, a few of which have already been mentioned.
1. These really don't hold that much - 8 MB can't even store very large word-processing/spreadsheet documents let alone presentations/databases/mp3s (can't forget them)
2.USB is not completely popular yet, or at least not completely supported. Many computers are still in use that don't have a USB port, or that don't have them installed.
3. USB ports are most frequently in the back of a computer, making these little things very hard to use - my primary desktop is in a cabinet with minimal access to the back (but it's easy to pull out for hardware changes..I just don't need to mess with my cables often). This reminds me of A/V in ports on TVs and VCRs - too often they're annoyingly in the back.
4. Way too expensive. These should be $10, not $50, so students would want to buy them over a $0.50 floppy disk.
5. As others have pointed out, if put on a keychain one would have to leave their keys in the USB port in order to access it - dumb..if it was removable (without removing keyring, like a button trigger), then there's the ever present danger of losing such a small device.
Just my thoughts, but hey, I could be wrong. Watch me buy one in the next few years in spite of myself.
I decided to use Linux on my laptop, and wanted the closest I can get to "latest and greatest" because it's not a production computer - I use it now almost exclusively for development. Anyway, I chose RedHat 7.0 because it had most of the features I wanted - and I've had a fair amount of experience with previous versions of RH, understanding its basic newbie-ish install but most importantly knowing how to get my hardware and software working.
What I didn't like about RH 7.0 was the long list of updates and changes I had to do just to get it to a reasonably secure workstation. Of course I did a custom install, picking few packages for my old and small HD, but RH insisted on turning on by default a few packages I decided to install in case I needed them later (NFS, sendmail, etc.). Not to mention the mandatory updates to glibc and all the development packages (essential to the purpose of Linux on the laptop). Finally, I just today compiled 2.4.1 and got all my hardware to work (including one clunky old Soundblaster external CD-ROM that runs off my docking bay). I'm overall very impressed with Linux's support for my laptop hardware (automatically detected video card, etc). My first experience with PCMCIA under Linux was nice too - with a very generic 10 base T PC card to connect to my home network - works like a charm).
So while RH 7.0 was supposedly so bug-filled, it wasn't too hard to update everything to get to almost exactly where 7.1 is now. For those who were turned away from 7.0 hearing it was too buggy and too bloated, those have not been my experiences at all. I look forward to downloading 7.1 when it's officially released to install on any new systems (like the one I have at work, still running 6.1).
Let's hope RH keeps the tradition of making a great.1 release (I loved 6.1).
The article states this about digital satellite lines:
"Though the box will work with cable, direct broadcast satellite, and digital television, it will have a dialup modem return path, rather than a broadband connection. "
I was mistaken that digital satellite lines would not be supported. However, it sounds even worse - it also requires the use of a traditional phone line as well! The requirements are just adding up - might as well just play PC games IMO.
Sounds like Sega is limiting its market share by requiring people:
1. Have cable in their residence
2. Care to pay money for a digital cable connection
This restricts both the tech-less (antenna, analog cable), and the tech-savvy (digital satellite reciever). To me, it sounds like a great feature and option, but even with a digital cable line myself I'm not sure I'd want to be restricted to loading new games only at home..especially if it restricted me from taking it to another place (i.e. college dorm, apartment, etc.) without a cable connection.
But it's still a year away from release, so perhaps they'll change their minds and find more reasonable distribution methods.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are truly being serious, the reason is because a kernel number makes it MUCH easier to understand the sort of kernel you are using.
The first number is a major code change, fundamental in nature. After about 7 years we are now up to 2.x.x. The second number also shows major revisions, but of a less fundamental variety than the first number. An odd second number denotes a development series, not intended to be used for production computers. This is why most users went from 2.0.x to 2.2.x to 2.4.x, because 2.1.x and 2.3.x were development versions. When the development version is deemed stable enough to be used in some production platforms, it moves to an even second number, like the recent 2.4.0. However, the 2.2.x kernel series is still being maintained for use as an ultra-stable kernel, while the 2.4.x is more cutting-edge for the latest hardware support and performance.
The third number indicates a small change, usually bugfixes but some small amounts of new features supported. When going to purchase new hardware it is easy to tell if you have a "2.2.0 or later kernel".
Finally, a service pack generally implies a large set of bugfixes, as Microsoft had somewhere around 7 (maybe 8) for NT 4. The Linux Kernel version system allows for a few small changes to be made at every release, decreasing the waiting time for users to wait for a desired bugfix or feature (instead of months for a new service pack).
If my overgeneralization of the Linux kernel was incorrect, my apologies, but I think an overall understading of how the Linux Kernel numbering system works is important for those who don't know yet.
I disagree with creationism, and support evolutionism as the best model for current data. By saying that religion tends to evolve and fit the scientific facts of the day, I have to point out that so does science.
The basis of scientific theory is that a model is accepted until a reproducable experiment is conducted that disproves it, usually modifying the theory to fit the new data. A common example is that of the solar system. First what could be considered scientists thought the Earth was the center of the universe. Then new ideas and observation surfaced leading to the thinking that the Sun was the center. After more observations we eventually led to the current model that we are but one star system in one part of a huge galaxy among a universe of galaxies. This is oversimplified but it shows that as new observations emerge, the scientific model changes to fit observations.
Religion, on the other hand, practices what some call "social science". This is where the current observations of the day are fit to the model, instead of the observations determining the model. Evidence that contradicts a social science model is refuted or ignored, as is convenient.
Over time, however, enough scientific changes take place so that the religion itself must change else it dissappear by people's common sense. Such an example happens often with the Catholic Church (I used to be a Catholic). They supported Aristotalian views for several hundred years before accepting such basic facts as the Earth is round.
In the short run, however, religion tends to fit new facts to the current model.
It's interesting that moderators either consider this post a joke or did not read the link. Unless I'm missing something here, "Public Displays of Affection" are offtopic. THe article was interesting though, just had nothing to do with the latest Sharp PDA.
In a weird way, you've got a point. If you follow the Japanese link above you'll see several pictures of this Zaurus. I have no idea what the actual dimensions are, but it's easy to see that the screen does not take up the majority of the unit. Rather, it seems to have a bunch of launching buttons, and some other control mechanism. It also appears to be a bit thicker at the bottom, presumably where the batteries are stored (let's hope they're a good set of lithium ion batteries, replacing AAA batteries every couple weeks isn't fun or cheap).
Yes, I too would be less inclined to bring along a thicker PDA (like my first gen keyboard one), because it's just not worth it. On the other hand, we can easily get in the habit of taking along small and simple things, which is probably once cause of the Palm's popularity. It may not have the greatest specs or features (even for the price), but it's got a great size and fits in the hand very naturally with great handwriting recognition. That, and not battery-sucking color screens, is the key to a successful PDA.
You simply took one of the better paragraphs out of the article, promoted your own intelligence and called it a post, without further commentary.
You demonstrated no real understanding of the paragraph, when many obvious comments could be made.
- The credit card company American Express opted to promote customer privacy over the massive amounts of purchasing data it could sell and distribute to other companies.
- new e-mail systems are being developed to introduce more privacy, but the paragraph did not seem to mention good encryption.
- I don't get the direct connection between personal bodyguards and privacy, but perhaps the paragraph is implying that people do not feel safe and seek protection from others to safeguard assets.
If anyone would like to argue or discredit something I'd be interested to hear. I'm no expert at privacy or privacy technology, so I'd be interested to know how "self-deleting e-mail" works through the standardized internet.
Yes, most of us are comfortable carrying our driver's license, and we don't mind carrying passports when travelling abroad.
Problem is, the implant idea can be introduced slowly and carefully. First as an option - a matter of convenience to those who don't want to carry cards, and perhaps the implant would carry other info like credit card #, elec. password, etc. making them very convenient. Then as it becomes widespread, it becomes law that everyone must have it.
Personally, I see no problem with everyone in the world having an advanced ID capable of many convenient things. My concern is that it should be the choice of the user to be anonymous in a tracking system. So I can walk through the streets of Washington D.C. and no one would know where I was if I tried to buy a subway ticket (i.e. ID would not be required more than it is now).
(From news.gnome.org)
For the convenience of those who find building from source too daunting, Ximian will soon be making binary packages available for a variaty of platforms.
If one doesn't have the technical experience to compile a beta, they probably shouldn't be using first-gen beta software.
We have the technology to filter everything
Show me the technology to which you are referring. Unless you mean "everything" as being "restricting everything" that filter is known as "pulling-the-plug".
Seriously, filtering software is horrible, absolutely horrible. If anyone has been forced to surf the web through a filter proxy like Bess or another, they find out that bad stuff gets through at times and good stuff gets blocked.
In addition, to force an ISP to monitor all the content it hosts is IMPOSSIBLE. Imagine a webhosting site that offers $20/month hosting service. They may have a thousand sites or more, depending on the size of the company. To be responsible for the content of each of these sites is unrealistic.
They should include other tests in other subjects as well as other types of testing rather than "multiple guess"
The SAT reduces one's score by 1/5 a point for each incorrect guess, thereby elimintating any benefits of uneducated guesses. However, I understand that your point was mostly that other types of testing - essay, etc. should be employed. While difficult to grade easily, the AP tests (Advanced Placement) to get credit for college classes employ both multiple choice and essays in many of the tests (like the Calculus test). Perhaps instead of abandoning the SAT test they should require an essay-based test in addition to the SAT.
Personally, I think tests like the SAT and ACT should be only slightly considered for submission. Many people don't take standardized tests as well as others, but yet have a much better work ethic to be successful in college classes. Instead, I think that college admissions people should heavily consider transcripts. More than just GPA, the amount and grades in advanced classes and college classes (whether AP or taken through local college) can give the most accurate representation of a student's ability. In addition, I think a small essay is important to demonstrate overall language ability, and shows that the applicant is truly interested in getting accepted to the university.
I just wonder, why do Windows magazines/books sell and Linux ones don't? Is it just being abnormal?
I think you've simply made a few false assumptions. Linux books and magazines do sell, seen by the incredible popularity and variety of new Linux books available on the market now (esp. by the popular publisher O'Reilly). I read Linux Journal and it provides a nice review of products (both free and proprietary). In addition, Windows magazines and books sell, and sell very well, because Windows is the most popular desktop operating system in the world, like it or not. Millions of users make for a large consumer base to sell to, consumers, developers, business people alike.
From the posts I've read about MaximumLinux, it just wasn't a quality publication, for a variety of reasons. It didn't really appeal to the technical user as much, and from what I've been reading didn't keep with the open-source philosophy. At the moment many users of Linux are technical, and not consumer (what this magazine seemed to appeal to).
As a final note, quality books (printed and in electronic form) will always co-exist with online manuals and newsgroups. Why? A lot of documentation for programs is scattered and made as an afterthought. After all, developers generally prefer writing code to writing documentation. I myself enjoy a well-written, thorough book that teaches me how to use a product, as well as serve as a reference when using it later. The market is far from dead.
Just before I saw this article I was reading an article in the latest Linux Journal about the history of MPEG, an interesting read on video and audio compression.
Anyway, the site looks interesting enough. The files are big, to be sure. I'm downloading right now a movie shown to Cold-War elementary school children about atomic warfare.
My cable modem usually gets 50-100 K/sec, but I'm getting about 16 K/sec from this site. I think it's definately a candidate for several good mirrors if it gains any sort of popularity - the 10 min. movie is 246 MB.
"In the meantime, if you want to test drive the brand new Mozilla 0.8 builds now, we recommend that you install Mozilla 0.8 in its own directory, that you do not get rid of your current browser(s), and that you do not set Mozilla 0.8 as your default browser -- yet."
">Mozilla is my daily-use,pH-balanced web browser of late
Of course, the people at Mozilla were just saying don't set the version 0.8 as the default browser - perhaps they're simply recommending waiting a few builds for more bug fixes.
On another note, I was encouraged by this:
"Mozilla development work now is focused on bug squashing, improved stability, and better performance."
Nice to see that performance is being worked on - that is my main critism of most browsers for Linux (Konqueror is fast, but it wouldn't properly display a few pages for me in KDE 2.0.1, so I'll wait a few versions). For me, I'm still stuck with Netscrape 4.7 on both my Win comp and my Linux comp, because I want the same browser for both, yet reasonably full featured and psuedo-reliable (Netscape crashes maybe once every two weeks of hard use, not too bad for me).
Anyway, it's promising to see Mozilla and Konqueror coming along nicely. Good work.
The linked article does not state anything about arrests. The first paragraph says:
Acting on complaints from the music industry, police have raided the homes of users of music-sharing websites looking for evidence they infringed copyright rules, the prosecutors' office said Thursday.
Let's get the story straight here - houses were searched. In addition:
He said the searches were part of an investigation of the Internet site mp3blast.com, but added four cases against Napster users were currently under review.
These are not Napster users (necessarily), but that of the now-offline site mp3blast.com (see for yourself. According to the article (at least) no searches have been conducted due to user activity on Napster, 4 cases are under review.
This solution gets its beauty because it is such a very simple, natural solution to a human problem.
Cyanobacteria does, indeed, have a passion for CO2, and what's more important it can survive in the blistering temperatures of gases streaming out of a coal-fired furnace.
It's wonderful to see that one of our problems with coal power plants may be solved using a relatively inexpensive natural method, producing oxygen to boot. However, coal combustion is a very messy business indeed, and the products of it are far from just CO2. Carbon monoxide (CO) as well as other toxins are produced in coal combustion. These are far more harmful than CO2. The main issue with CO2 is that of global warming, but it is not as toxic as CO.
Another thing the article didn't mention was the effectiveness of the trial demonstrations. Also, a real-life test must be done to determine if the method is actually significantly beneficial to the environment, or more hassle than another clean-up method.
Apple sure isn't encouraging the average on-the-fence developer to go switch to Mac OS X development for new applications, because early registration is still a hefty $1595 (which seems just a tad high compared to many conferences, but I suppose about normal).
However, these Apple development conferences should be encouraging people who wouldn't normally develop for Mac OS to attend and find out about the features of a new operating system. I'm sorry, but a normal-sized conference price tag isn't great incentive. I guess their incentive must be this:
The first 1,500 people to register for WWDC 2001 will receive a black, genuine leather, Mac OS X jacket when they arrive at the conference to pick up registration materials.
Also, one should note that they will not provide refunds after April 20, so don't be hasty to register.
This is definately what I consider among the biggest shortcomings of KDE thus far. Fortunately it would seem this project has been in the works for some time and is not vapourware at all. KDE is a very professional, well-done GUI that deserves an installer of equal presentation and ease-of-use.
However, I think the program eventually needs to appeal to all but the "I want to compile the source" people. This means very customized install options, as well as a default newbie option. Individual packages, while not supported yet according to Nick, are also essential to its usefulness.
In addition, such a (hopefully) broad install program should support easy and clean uninstallation of KDE packages. I recognize the availability of kpackage to manage RPMS, but this program would potentially download the binaries of packages required to install (like Ximian GNOME).
I kind of went dreaming there for a sec, asking a lot of a new program. In short, it looks like a great start, and I encourage those interested to help KDE in a sore area.
For all the time and effort spent into developing a hack for DSS, they could buy a thousand subscriptions to the service...that said, I always find the disclaimers on these sites amusing:
/.s they've been getting recently. I'm a bit surprised they don't make enough in advertising to have to ask for PayPal donations (or maybe they really don't need them, and are just looking to feed themselves).
You understand that www.HackHu.com does not promote nor condone signal theft of any kind and you do not hold www.HackHu.com responsible for the actions of any of their users as it is the users' responsibility to comply with all local and State laws of their territory and country.
This site is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not our intention to assist you in committing fraud or performing any illegal acts
The news page mentions how much traffic the site will be getting this month. I'm sure everyone who's downloading these programs are using them completely lawfully. Yeah, right. Ah well, I bet the site just loves these
This doesn't really bother me, even the article states:
Yet incremental updates have been around for a long time, most likely for longer than the Internet has been around.
While the patent is pretty stupid, I've got a feeling that no competitor of Symantec's will need to license whatever updating technology they use. One of the patents seems incredibly vague to me, stating:
A software application (110) is updated to a newer version by means of incremental update patches (122). The incremental update patches (122) each contain that information necessary to transform one version of an application to another version. Any version of an application (110) may be upgraded to any other version of the application, through the use of a series of incremental update patches (122). The appropriate incremental update patches (122) are distributed in a multi-tiered manner, such that some update patches (122) update the application (110) by only one version, and others update the application (110) by several versions.
Perhaps others can shed some light on this one (the multi-tiered patent), but it sounds to me like similar technology to update patches used everywhere - small chunks downloaded to update a program from one version to another. Oh well, we'll see what happens.
Someday we'll lose our laptops in between pages of books just like we lose plane tickets/notes/phone numbers today.
Isn't the purpose of (hopefully) cheaper, extremely thin and bright computer screens to replace such things as books and papers? Then again, our society (myself included) is having a hard time giving up our beloved books that come in the dead-tree variety.
"Software giant Microsoft Corp.(NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) will announce plans to allow several semiconductor makers to modify its software to make customized embedded chips,"
Granted, it's only the source code to WinCE, but Microsoft will be letting some developers (maybe this time not even the huge expensive clients of theirs) to get their hands on the source for a Windows product.
I simply cannot see this device taking off for a number of reasons, a few of which have already been mentioned.
1. These really don't hold that much - 8 MB can't even store very large word-processing/spreadsheet documents let alone presentations/databases/mp3s (can't forget them)
2.USB is not completely popular yet, or at least not completely supported. Many computers are still in use that don't have a USB port, or that don't have them installed.
3. USB ports are most frequently in the back of a computer, making these little things very hard to use - my primary desktop is in a cabinet with minimal access to the back (but it's easy to pull out for hardware changes..I just don't need to mess with my cables often). This reminds me of A/V in ports on TVs and VCRs - too often they're annoyingly in the back.
4. Way too expensive. These should be $10, not $50, so students would want to buy them over a $0.50 floppy disk.
5. As others have pointed out, if put on a keychain one would have to leave their keys in the USB port in order to access it - dumb..if it was removable (without removing keyring, like a button trigger), then there's the ever present danger of losing such a small device.
Just my thoughts, but hey, I could be wrong. Watch me buy one in the next few years in spite of myself.
I decided to use Linux on my laptop, and wanted the closest I can get to "latest and greatest" because it's not a production computer - I use it now almost exclusively for development. Anyway, I chose RedHat 7.0 because it had most of the features I wanted - and I've had a fair amount of experience with previous versions of RH, understanding its basic newbie-ish install but most importantly knowing how to get my hardware and software working.
.1 release (I loved 6.1).
What I didn't like about RH 7.0 was the long list of updates and changes I had to do just to get it to a reasonably secure workstation. Of course I did a custom install, picking few packages for my old and small HD, but RH insisted on turning on by default a few packages I decided to install in case I needed them later (NFS, sendmail, etc.). Not to mention the mandatory updates to glibc and all the development packages (essential to the purpose of Linux on the laptop). Finally, I just today compiled 2.4.1 and got all my hardware to work (including one clunky old Soundblaster external CD-ROM that runs off my docking bay). I'm overall very impressed with Linux's support for my laptop hardware (automatically detected video card, etc). My first experience with PCMCIA under Linux was nice too - with a very generic 10 base T PC card to connect to my home network - works like a charm).
So while RH 7.0 was supposedly so bug-filled, it wasn't too hard to update everything to get to almost exactly where 7.1 is now. For those who were turned away from 7.0 hearing it was too buggy and too bloated, those have not been my experiences at all. I look forward to downloading 7.1 when it's officially released to install on any new systems (like the one I have at work, still running 6.1).
Let's hope RH keeps the tradition of making a great
The article states this about digital satellite lines:
"Though the box will work with cable, direct broadcast satellite, and digital television, it will have a dialup modem return path, rather than a broadband connection. "
I was mistaken that digital satellite lines would not be supported. However, it sounds even worse - it also requires the use of a traditional phone line as well! The requirements are just adding up - might as well just play PC games IMO.
Sounds like Sega is limiting its market share by requiring people:
1. Have cable in their residence
2. Care to pay money for a digital cable connection
This restricts both the tech-less (antenna, analog cable), and the tech-savvy (digital satellite reciever). To me, it sounds like a great feature and option, but even with a digital cable line myself I'm not sure I'd want to be restricted to loading new games only at home..especially if it restricted me from taking it to another place (i.e. college dorm, apartment, etc.) without a cable connection.
But it's still a year away from release, so perhaps they'll change their minds and find more reasonable distribution methods.