First let me address one note.. The reason Unix will never replace mainframes is probably the same reason joysticks will never replace video game consoles. Unix is an os that runs ON MAINFRAMES and PCs and hay now even on PDAs and maybe someday watches (I mean BSD actually runs on some PDAs)
Now for the reason why mainframes will never be replaced...
If you can get say 1,000 things done a second on a PC thats great. But there will always be the need for computer power that is 1,000,000 times greater than what you can get to todays desktop. For that you need something so complex it could never fit on a desk. ID software writes games for computers that don't exist yet. To achive this they use graphics based mainframes. 3D rendering houses need more powerful computers to make this possable they use rendering farms but in the past they used mainframes.
Your avrage file burrocracy is going to take months or years to convert data from the old mainframe to a desktop to make matters worse there is so much data you could never fit it on a desktop anyway. The processing power isn't the issue so much as the storage limitation. For most mainframes you can add a new hard disk rack.
Thow on the aside.. I remember seeing rack mount PCs where you plug the hard disks externally via SCSI and you have something like 15 slots. I was thinking "Wow I could run a BBS on that" at the time (Think 1980s) A personal mainframe of sorts. Mostly I was thinking hard disks.. many controllers.. many hard disks.. as much space as I could get. Maybe approching say 20 gigs...
Today we need hot swapable reliable redundent self testing net servers. Eventually all that will fit in a PC case but not today. Tomarow when it dose there will be annother need that will not be develuped enough. There will always be a NEW need that isn't develuped enough to fit in a small box and in such demand that a company will dedicate a room for the job if nessisary.
Moderators, what the hell is so funny about that? What can I say. The truth is funny.
Next if you play your own music in the Taxi then you have to pay RIAA and the Taxi cab driver still has to pay.
Eventually this is the moddle we're looking at.
Back in the day the first "Net radio" wasn't so much an Internet audio stream as a radio pluged into a LAN piping the signal into the offices that otherwise couldn't pick up a signal.
Eventually evolved to Internet Radio then came Napster. Now comes the RIAA. Zap: Napster Dead Zap: Internet Radio Injured (soon to die) Zap: Radio in the office.. (Next target)
Most doors now have a lip covering the crack so you can not use a credit card to open the door. Also deadbolts prevent this trick from working as it won't slide under the deadbolt. It only works on a conventional lock with out proper safe guards.
In a DMCA world however the trick with a credit card would work everywhere.. and lock smyths wouldn't exist.
A ballence of reality and hummor Dr Who for example was always sereous but the Dr was a clown. Bumbling with out seeming idiotic makes for a nice character makes the hero less than the viewer in the phisical but bestoing him a brain to give us advanced soltions.
Shurlock homes in the 22 century was an intresting cartoon while short of greatness becouse on the face of it you lose on two aspects... Reality and Homes lacks a sense of hummor. But it has that whole "using the brain to solve things" going for it.
Using high tech gadgets to solve a problem is kind of like "I was a god all along I smite you now" type answer.. it really blows the story. Using high tech in creative ways is even better. But the greatest is defeating the dualtronic hypermind with a logic puzzle, a bucket of water or a paper clip. Again make it a smart.. Pulling the plug seams dumb and runs right back to the "I am god I smite you" solution.
Using the force may not be an inspired solution to targetting it's a smart one and given the whole introduction to the story it's a logical solution that dosen't come off as godlike. Thow it wouldn't have pulled off so well if Darth Vader had not been kicked off Lukes butt by the unexpected (but think about it could he really do anything else?) return....
I think that could have been better played and make it seam more inspired.. But it's still a great example.
The "overwhelming odds leading to death" on the surface with a very obscure but knowable rabbit to pull out of a hat in the form of a smart action.
Linux fans users hate Windows and visa versa Apple fans hated Atari ST (Not true anymore) mostly for the Mac emulation at a lower cost Atari St VS Amiga but only for the most fanatic Amiga and Atari fans Solarus users seem to continue the Mac sucks becouse it's user friendly myth so maybe they belong in the mac hate group.. (I stay away from Solarus fans.. they seem to hate Linux as well)
Amoung the hardoned Pocket PC and Palm Os fans there is more distain than hate.. It's very mild. I think Pocket PC users can see Palm earned market control and Palm fans can see Palm is Amigaing itself so there isn't any air for shouting.
Most of all pritty much everyone hates Microsoft... even a larg chunk of Microsoft Windows users... A good chunk of Windows users don't have any fealing... the majority of them... and a very tiny slice are fans... most of them are fans becouse they were hired into a high paying job with nothing more than provable skill (Not talking collage degrees but the old sorce code resume thing proving one can do anything)
Every major kernel release has this debate.. It has a bunch of imporvements optomisations etc. It's got newer faster better ways of doing the same old things. But... It's doing more than ever before.
It COULD be faster or it could be slower. Or it could be exactly the same as before.
The real answer is "Wait and see" the rest is just talking...
I avoid technical "expertise" from populare news media. Thow I'd trust BBC or MS NBC over FOX or CNN when it comes to computers. Still when it comes to computers and medical science or any techniocal expertise rely on media that knows more about computers than "HTML is hard" and "Internet Explorer is my operating system"
Frankly when ever someone says "Hackers target Microsoft products" tune em out. Hackers don't target populare they target accessable sytstems they don't like.
Example: Mac Virus targeting only the Atari ST using a single brand of Mac emulation. The virus would check to be sure it's an Atari ST before infecting the system. The Atari ST had a very small userbase and only a few of them ever bothered with Mac emulation. The reason is simple. The Atari ST plus Mac Emulation was far cheapter. For a while the Mac fanatics were furreous.
A virus will more likely be writen for a buggy platform that is only used by 10 people while pissing off the general public than a secure platform that us used by 10,000 people.
It's not important how many bugs Windows or IE has it's how many Microsoft passes over or compleatly ignores.
Say Z Os has 12 bugs a day where as T os has only 1 a month but Z os fixes all 12 bugs and T os leaves the 1 a month alone.
Crackers will favor Z os over T os for a target. After a year T os has 12 bugs and so dose Z.. After two years T has 24 but Z still has only 12. If Z ever figures out why they keep making bugs maybe they'll have less but untill that day comes they'll have 12 bugs to crush.
T however knows how to avoid bugs.. they only slip up once a month.. they're only human. But if they just ignore the bugs then it won't matter how few bugs they produce. It piles up.
And in the long run Z os could had 1,000 new bugs an hour vs only 1 bug in T os for 50 years.... If T os never fixed that one bug and Z os fixes everything then it'll be T os the crackers will attack.
No matter how many users they have.
BTW.. Obveously the articals made sense to the other guy or he wouldn't have responded... But I'll it for him to defend them they could be piles of dog poo for all I know. Just heard "It makes no sense" to often applied to the obveous by people who would demand the unreasonable.
Some hackers do target Linux and Netscape so realisticly no platform is safe. The whole idea of just chaning web browsers makes you safe is itself a good sign that the BBC artical is lacking in tech expertise.
It's a mixure of old Microsoft fud and Linux Zeloty. A real FUDmaister wouldn't bring up the switch angle that's more Linux Zeloty.
A sereous tech story wouldn't even start suggesting that popularity had anything to do with it and wouldn't suggest that switching to something else would be good just on the face of it.
Switch to a browser that is consistantly reliable or if you can't get one that has a fast bugfix responce and update often. With web browsers you can just as easly keep track of dangerous websites and IE you can switch off dangerous features so I recomend doing that.
I like Mozilla BTW.. fast bug fix and a lack of annimositys are more effective protections than obscurity...
Dose the end user care if it's one program or a pacage on many? Honnestly no they don't. Historicly however software companys have done better to offer a bunch of programs instead of a single program that dose it all.
One argument once made was "People who slam Microsoft don't understand the issues involved in os develupment" this is a polite way of saying 'you don't know what your talking about' However I do and the issues are faced by anyone wishing to write a large complex system. I've discoverd that one contained pacage makes it impossable to maintain. Instead use a pacage of smaller programs. Then when your working on wordprocessing you need not worry about email handling. You don't have to think "Can this be used to make email worms?" or "Will this interfear with the web browser?"
Even more important than having your applications in many programs is the ability to shop around and buy what works best for you.
I would buy my XT hardware used but I've just found that cast off high end is cast off for reasons other than being old. Always Buy New: CPU, Motherboard, Hard disk, media (floppys, zips, Blank CDs... ok the CDs an obveous one). Prefer new: Fans, advanced cards, ram. Prefer used: Printers (New are good usually people toss old printers for speed and quality... I use Kinkos for quality I don't need speed) Always buy used: Scanners (People cast off scanners when Microsoft declares em obsolete and pulls driver support. Old scanners are already better than I need. However getting good Sane* drivers for new scanners is a pain.
*Sane is a standard Unix scanner support libary for a number of scanners.
Public domain was wide spread in years past however Microsoft put quite a bit of effort to put an end to that. The Commodore 64 and Vic 20 had public domain published in the user manuals. The 1540 and 1541 floppy drives had disks with public domain software. Comal (Not Cobal) had some public domain sorce code available. Early days you had to download source code as text.. this before Xmodem download protocal was ever born.. even then it was kinda populare to make available portable public domain basic programs.
But thats in the day when programmers generally expected that commertal programmers to write there own stuff and NOT steal more than maybe a few snippets of code.
But it's happend at least once when a public domain program has become commertal and all credit to the original author has been stripped. Back in those days it could actually land you in jail as the athoritys don't know the program was yours to begin with. Today the net self documents the true legacy of your hard work.
IBM and Microsoft desided to include only a primitive software develupment tool with Dos and sold Macro Asembler sepretly for $100. This discuraged public domain and insured pubic domain take the shape of binary only code.
Windows went even ferther providing no software develupment tools of any sort with Windows and the software dev tools sold sepretly were extreamly high priced.
Microosoft wasn't alone. Unix was designed to have the C compiler as part of the Os but many Unix venders would leave it out.
That's what drove me to Linux BTW.. I just wanted to be sure I'd always have my compiler.
Still some public domain programmers are presistant.
There has always been a large group of free software develupers it's just been a hard time to get that software into the publics hands. In the past free software authors relied on Commodore, Apple, Atari, Digital Research etc to get the word out. But Microsoft would rather sillence than explote free software.
As Apple, Compaq and Del tap free software to enhance sales users will come to use it.
This won't mean Microsoft is doomed as I'm still thinking of free software on Windows. But open source will be more widely accepted. In the past it wasn't just accepted in some cases it was expected. Thats the whole reason for software piracy. SOme people won't accept the idea that any software isn't free.
I guess Chris isn't a fan of comedy but as he brought it up I'll use his "Just shoot me" to explain why Firefly was doomed from the start. Firefly is a frighteningly innovative show. I mean it's great. The two eppisodes I watched were exelent. I was hooked. I cought one show in passing and the next as it was cancled. It's not like anything else on TV. This is frightening for TV executives who are settled on what works.
Now for "Just shoot me" A well done comedy. The formula here is open for innovation so Just shoot me is free to act under certion guidelines. Of comedys it's the better I think of the available mostly dreck comedy showa.
But Just shoot me never threatons the tv exe comfort zone. The forumula execs like in sifi is "Star Trek wanabe" Firefly is certonly not. With the Internet anyone fed up with the drek can get better stuff from online text fiction and comics. Most of Firefly's target audence don't watch tv anymore. My fav shows Amercan gothic, Asif & Firefly. Dam it...
Unless Microsoft starts giving Windows away they'll never match the price of free software. (As in beer) But for those that do use Windows it could provide a significant discount by bluffing a switch to Linux. Suggest it to your boss and be ready to come through when the ms salesmen dosen't bite... and he won't.
I'd like to know sereously if they do supply tech specs so a driver can be made. Linux support would be nice but realisticly today companys get paranoid and won't relase tech specs becouse then they'd be giving away valuable intelectual property. I mean we can't do something that might expand our costummer base. Oh no then we might make lot's of money can't have that.
So anywho if the tech specs are available then yeah Linux drivers maybe Mac drivers, Solarus drivers, OS/2 drivers.. Dos drivers... "Name your operating system" drivers. Thousand Moneky Os drivers.
"I recorded/dev/randum and out poped this Os" drivers...
You get the idea.
But for gammers and that seams the target there isn't much software for Linux anyway...
In otherwords RMS should have donated money when he spoke of the benifits of free software? The Gates Foundation acts the way preveous similar foundations have been accused of acting. But I hold hope that Microsofts fud will make life easyer for anyone who wishes to donate money. It's not a bad thing when bribe money saves lifes. It should only buy him recognition and that in itself is very valuable. But he appears to be trying to buy more than that. But let him have his face time and really this is one kind of birbe I'm not bothered by. (The FUD mentioned above is the "See he donates money he's a good man" FUD vs the "He's rich he's buying people" demigogory)
Way back I asked myself "How can anyone stay in business publishing on paper with the printing costs etc with the net?" I got my answer more recently with the dot com bust. Not enough readership is online. Advertising isn't priced right and advertisers fear online media. But thats changing. For Electronic News it's already changed. It's readership is totally online by now with out exception. The advertisers aren't affrade.. Microsoft, IBM etc all cutting edge companys use electronic marketting and prefer it to print. It's priced right. They are premiuim ad space in the e space but not so much in the paper world. Your subscription to your local newspaper covers some of the printing costs. Ads take up the bulk of the papers operating costs. Those ads have to be pricy to pay for everything. That's how it works. With free web publishing your publishing costs are slashed to a much more managable price level but unless you can pull in the same money with e-ads the transition dosen't pay.
First experence with Spam: Spammers flooded me untill my e-mail was useless. I ended up setting up "vacation" and left it at that then got a new account.
Second experence with Spam: I was on the flip side this time. One user at my ISP spammed and the ISP cought the spammer. Shortly after that a larg anti-spam group desided the ISP was a spam house. The spam hunters never ever said a word to the ISP so the ISP had to find this out for themselfs. It took them a while to get things cleared up. Over this time sevral important e-mails never got through.
Then there is event zero: I signed up to receave a free Unix industry e-mail newsletter from a company way back before Spam was an issue. Then they desided to shut down due to the abuse. They just didn't want to be mixed up with that croud.
Yes Spam is destorying e-mail. I'd say the cure is worse as others clame but the cure just eliminates my e-mail the cause destorys my time in vain efforts to filter the junk.
The only thing that keeps e-mail around is the lack of a useful alternitive.
I noticed the electric scooter sales started going up shortly after the announcement of this wonderful device. Only the scooters are better designed for the avrage consummer. In otherwords they are cheap.
I've thought buy a new video card or buy a scooter. I ended up updating my PDA but I could do it on a whim.
The street legal scooters are bulky enough but I could pack it up and take it with me on the plane. Asumming they don't lose it in luggage I don't need to rent a car or take a taxi.
No we gotta install content control on your brain so we can regulate what you know. Overclocking might disrupt this process and as a cerumvention device is thusly illegal.
Way back when the first Macs were released there were sereous hardware defects Apple denied for a long time then finally had to admit only after they were fixed. This permitted Apple to continue to sell defective hardware untill Apple could fix it. Microsoft uses the same tactic but instead of fixing it they just sit.
Take e-mail viruses. Any soft of product review should it be able to reveal the obveous design flaw in the way Outlook express handles file attachents. Be that open source's many eyes or closed sources product review. In fact the design planning that should be commen for all software would have picked this one up. But Microsoft's proclamed suppereority to open source design philosophy falls flat on it's face with this one as Microsoft desides to ignore it.
Now let's admit a truth.. This happends in open source as well as closed when ever a programmer fails to consider or disguards possable problems. It should happen less often in a corprate environment as the programmer has to work with managment and posably a team of programmers who might not approve of the original programmers lazyness.
But once the design phase is done and the code is laied down code review begins in open and closed source. Somebody should have noticed something.
The reason it wasn't picked up by Microsoft is plainly they don't care. But give them the benifit of the doupt. Maybe somebody dropped LSD in the watercooler during the whole software dev process. Office pranks do happen.
So let's be really nice and say Microsoft just kinda messed up and never noticed this flaw. When someone did and created the first real e-mail virus (instead of the rummored same) then Microsoft should have sat up and took notice. Some times it takes a blindingly obveous result before a software team will notice.. that's again a universal truth and not unique to closed source. But once done it's there for the world to see. And Microsoft... IGNORED IT... This is why we have e-mail viruses today.
Microsoft needs more than just a slap in the face.
Someday somebody's going to make a virus os that installs over Windows and while users will usually just reinstall Windows Microsoft will take the threat sereously.
We cam't afford to use free software have to pay thousands for defective software.
How did India get the idea that Linux isn't free and worse that Windows was?
I've always knew software piracy hurts free software and here's a good example. mayhap Microsoft is just letting software piracy slide in a nation that couldn't afford it in order to prevent Linux from gainning any footholds. For this reason mayhap it's time for the free software forces to... ahem.. do Microsoft a favor.. and combat software priacy when Microsoft won't.
My question is: Rummors have it that you were a healthy prankster back at Desilu studios and I wondered if this was the case then what was your best/favorett prank.
I would never work under those conditions. If the ex-boss asked nicely I'd probably do it for free. The reasonning here: If she demanded then she thinks it was her demanding that got the work done and not my hard effort. That I'm not worth any consideration. She'll just forget me if pizza comes it while I'm working and later if a job opens for my old spot she'll look elsewhere. If she asks nicely I'll do it for free becouse then she's comming at it from the viewpoint of "as a favor" that it's my valuable work and my kindness. If pizza is here I'd probably ask em to save me a slice.. no pizza on the hardware:) If a job came in I could have a shot. An interview slot or better yet just a contract. She'd bo sooo much happyer with me should she ask for my help instead of demanding it. It's actually hard work to demand stuff and that will be considered latter. My time is worth my results not my results minus the effort to demand I do something. She should not benifit from demanding stuff.
Or for a diffrent view on this. If your not feeding yourself someone else is. You gotta help yourself before helping others or you end up taking more than giving.
Slashdot Mirror
If Walmart's prices match mine (even if on totally diffrent products) then they've violented my copyrights and I demand compinsation.
First let me address one note..
The reason Unix will never replace mainframes is probably the same reason joysticks will never replace video game consoles.
Unix is an os that runs ON MAINFRAMES and PCs and hay now even on PDAs and maybe someday watches (I mean BSD actually runs on some PDAs)
Now for the reason why mainframes will never be replaced...
If you can get say 1,000 things done a second on a PC thats great.
But there will always be the need for computer power that is 1,000,000 times greater than what you can get to todays desktop.
For that you need something so complex it could never fit on a desk.
ID software writes games for computers that don't exist yet. To achive this they use graphics based mainframes.
3D rendering houses need more powerful computers to make this possable they use rendering farms but in the past they used mainframes.
Your avrage file burrocracy is going to take months or years to convert data from the old mainframe to a desktop to make matters worse there is so much data you could never fit it on a desktop anyway. The processing power isn't the issue so much as the storage limitation. For most mainframes you can add a new hard disk rack.
Thow on the aside.. I remember seeing rack mount PCs where you plug the hard disks externally via SCSI and you have something like 15 slots.
I was thinking "Wow I could run a BBS on that" at the time (Think 1980s) A personal mainframe of sorts. Mostly I was thinking hard disks.. many controllers.. many hard disks.. as much space as I could get.
Maybe approching say 20 gigs...
Today we need hot swapable reliable redundent self testing net servers.
Eventually all that will fit in a PC case but not today.
Tomarow when it dose there will be annother need that will not be develuped enough.
There will always be a NEW need that isn't develuped enough to fit in a small box and in such demand that a company will dedicate a room for the job if nessisary.
Moderators, what the hell is so funny about that?
What can I say. The truth is funny.
Next if you play your own music in the Taxi then you have to pay RIAA and the Taxi cab driver still has to pay.
Eventually this is the moddle we're looking at.
Back in the day the first "Net radio" wasn't so much an Internet audio stream as a radio pluged into a LAN piping the signal into the offices that otherwise couldn't pick up a signal.
Eventually evolved to Internet Radio then came Napster.
Now comes the RIAA.
Zap: Napster Dead
Zap: Internet Radio Injured (soon to die)
Zap: Radio in the office.. (Next target)
Most doors now have a lip covering the crack so you can not use a credit card to open the door.
Also deadbolts prevent this trick from working as it won't slide under the deadbolt.
It only works on a conventional lock with out proper safe guards.
In a DMCA world however the trick with a credit card would work everywhere.. and lock smyths wouldn't exist.
A ballence of reality and hummor
Dr Who for example was always sereous but the Dr was a clown.
Bumbling with out seeming idiotic makes for a nice character makes the hero less than the viewer in the phisical but bestoing him a brain to give us advanced soltions.
Shurlock homes in the 22 century was an intresting cartoon while short of greatness becouse on the face of it you lose on two aspects...
Reality and Homes lacks a sense of hummor.
But it has that whole "using the brain to solve things" going for it.
Using high tech gadgets to solve a problem is kind of like "I was a god all along I smite you now" type answer.. it really blows the story.
Using high tech in creative ways is even better.
But the greatest is defeating the dualtronic hypermind with a logic puzzle, a bucket of water or a paper clip.
Again make it a smart.. Pulling the plug seams dumb and runs right back to the "I am god I smite you" solution.
Using the force may not be an inspired solution to targetting it's a smart one and given the whole introduction to the story it's a logical solution that dosen't come off as godlike.
Thow it wouldn't have pulled off so well if Darth Vader had not been kicked off Lukes butt by the unexpected (but think about it could he really do anything else?) return....
I think that could have been better played and make it seam more inspired.. But it's still a great example.
The "overwhelming odds leading to death" on the surface with a very obscure but knowable rabbit to pull out of a hat in the form of a smart action.
Linux fans users hate Windows and visa versa
Apple fans hated Atari ST (Not true anymore) mostly for the Mac emulation at a lower cost
Atari St VS Amiga but only for the most fanatic Amiga and Atari fans
Solarus users seem to continue the Mac sucks becouse it's user friendly myth so maybe they belong in the mac hate group.. (I stay away from Solarus fans.. they seem to hate Linux as well)
Amoung the hardoned Pocket PC and Palm Os fans there is more distain than hate.. It's very mild.
I think Pocket PC users can see Palm earned market control and Palm fans can see Palm is Amigaing itself so there isn't any air for shouting.
Most of all pritty much everyone hates Microsoft... even a larg chunk of Microsoft Windows users...
A good chunk of Windows users don't have any fealing... the majority of them...
and a very tiny slice are fans... most of them are fans becouse they were hired into a high paying job with nothing more than provable skill (Not talking collage degrees but the old sorce code resume thing proving one can do anything)
Every major kernel release has this debate..
It has a bunch of imporvements optomisations etc.
It's got newer faster better ways of doing the same old things.
But... It's doing more than ever before.
It COULD be faster or it could be slower.
Or it could be exactly the same as before.
The real answer is "Wait and see" the rest is just talking...
I avoid technical "expertise" from populare news media. Thow I'd trust BBC or MS NBC over FOX or CNN when it comes to computers.
Still when it comes to computers and medical science or any techniocal expertise rely on media that knows more about computers than "HTML is hard" and "Internet Explorer is my operating system"
Frankly when ever someone says "Hackers target Microsoft products" tune em out.
Hackers don't target populare they target accessable sytstems they don't like.
Example: Mac Virus targeting only the Atari ST using a single brand of Mac emulation.
The virus would check to be sure it's an Atari ST before infecting the system.
The Atari ST had a very small userbase and only a few of them ever bothered with Mac emulation.
The reason is simple. The Atari ST plus Mac Emulation was far cheapter. For a while the Mac fanatics were furreous.
A virus will more likely be writen for a buggy platform that is only used by 10 people while pissing off the general public than a secure platform that us used by 10,000 people.
It's not important how many bugs Windows or IE has it's how many Microsoft passes over or compleatly ignores.
Say Z Os has 12 bugs a day where as T os has only 1 a month but Z os fixes all 12 bugs and T os leaves the 1 a month alone.
Crackers will favor Z os over T os for a target. After a year T os has 12 bugs and so dose Z..
After two years T has 24 but Z still has only 12.
If Z ever figures out why they keep making bugs maybe they'll have less but untill that day comes they'll have 12 bugs to crush.
T however knows how to avoid bugs.. they only slip up once a month.. they're only human. But if they just ignore the bugs then it won't matter how few bugs they produce. It piles up.
And in the long run Z os could had 1,000 new bugs an hour vs only 1 bug in T os for 50 years....
If T os never fixed that one bug and Z os fixes everything then it'll be T os the crackers will attack.
No matter how many users they have.
BTW.. Obveously the articals made sense to the other guy or he wouldn't have responded...
But I'll it for him to defend them they could be piles of dog poo for all I know.
Just heard "It makes no sense" to often applied to the obveous by people who would demand the unreasonable.
Some hackers do target Linux and Netscape so realisticly no platform is safe.
The whole idea of just chaning web browsers makes you safe is itself a good sign that the BBC artical is lacking in tech expertise.
It's a mixure of old Microsoft fud and Linux Zeloty.
A real FUDmaister wouldn't bring up the switch angle that's more Linux Zeloty.
A sereous tech story wouldn't even start suggesting that popularity had anything to do with it and wouldn't suggest that switching to something else would be good just on the face of it.
Switch to a browser that is consistantly reliable or if you can't get one that has a fast bugfix responce and update often.
With web browsers you can just as easly keep track of dangerous websites and IE you can switch off dangerous features so I recomend doing that.
I like Mozilla BTW.. fast bug fix and a lack of annimositys are more effective protections than obscurity...
You know what security by obscurity brings you..
Good idea to leave it at home anyway just so it won't be confiscated as you walk in the door.
Dose the end user care if it's one program or a pacage on many?
Honnestly no they don't.
Historicly however software companys have done better to offer a bunch of programs instead of a single program that dose it all.
One argument once made was "People who slam Microsoft don't understand the issues involved in os develupment" this is a polite way of saying 'you don't know what your talking about'
However I do and the issues are faced by anyone wishing to write a large complex system.
I've discoverd that one contained pacage makes it impossable to maintain.
Instead use a pacage of smaller programs.
Then when your working on wordprocessing you need not worry about email handling. You don't have to think "Can this be used to make email worms?" or "Will this interfear with the web browser?"
Even more important than having your applications in many programs is the ability to shop around and buy what works best for you.
I would buy my XT hardware used but I've just found that cast off high end is cast off for reasons other than being old.
Always Buy New: CPU, Motherboard, Hard disk, media (floppys, zips, Blank CDs... ok the CDs an obveous one).
Prefer new: Fans, advanced cards, ram.
Prefer used: Printers (New are good usually people toss old printers for speed and quality... I use Kinkos for quality I don't need speed)
Always buy used: Scanners
(People cast off scanners when Microsoft declares em obsolete and pulls driver support. Old scanners are already better than I need. However getting good Sane* drivers for new scanners is a pain.
*Sane is a standard Unix scanner support libary for a number of scanners.
Public domain was wide spread in years past however Microsoft put quite a bit of effort to put an end to that.
The Commodore 64 and Vic 20 had public domain published in the user manuals.
The 1540 and 1541 floppy drives had disks with public domain software. Comal (Not Cobal) had some public domain sorce code available.
Early days you had to download source code as text.. this before Xmodem download protocal was ever born.. even then it was kinda populare to make available portable public domain basic programs.
But thats in the day when programmers generally expected that commertal programmers to write there own stuff and NOT steal more than maybe a few snippets of code.
But it's happend at least once when a public domain program has become commertal and all credit to the original author has been stripped.
Back in those days it could actually land you in jail as the athoritys don't know the program was yours to begin with. Today the net self documents the true legacy of your hard work.
IBM and Microsoft desided to include only a primitive software develupment tool with Dos and sold Macro Asembler sepretly for $100. This discuraged public domain and insured pubic domain take the shape of binary only code.
Windows went even ferther providing no software develupment tools of any sort with Windows and the software dev tools sold sepretly were extreamly high priced.
Microosoft wasn't alone. Unix was designed to have the C compiler as part of the Os but many Unix venders would leave it out.
That's what drove me to Linux BTW.. I just wanted to be sure I'd always have my compiler.
Still some public domain programmers are presistant.
There has always been a large group of free software develupers it's just been a hard time to get that software into the publics hands.
In the past free software authors relied on Commodore, Apple, Atari, Digital Research etc to get the word out. But Microsoft would rather sillence than explote free software.
As Apple, Compaq and Del tap free software to enhance sales users will come to use it.
This won't mean Microsoft is doomed as I'm still thinking of free software on Windows.
But open source will be more widely accepted. In the past it wasn't just accepted in some cases it was expected. Thats the whole reason for software piracy. SOme people won't accept the idea that any software isn't free.
I guess Chris isn't a fan of comedy but as he brought it up I'll use his "Just shoot me" to explain why Firefly was doomed from the start.
Firefly is a frighteningly innovative show. I mean it's great. The two eppisodes I watched were exelent. I was hooked.
I cought one show in passing and the next as it was cancled.
It's not like anything else on TV.
This is frightening for TV executives who are settled on what works.
Now for "Just shoot me"
A well done comedy. The formula here is open for innovation so Just shoot me is free to act under certion guidelines.
Of comedys it's the better I think of the available mostly dreck comedy showa.
But Just shoot me never threatons the tv exe comfort zone.
The forumula execs like in sifi is "Star Trek wanabe" Firefly is certonly not.
With the Internet anyone fed up with the drek can get better stuff from online text fiction and comics.
Most of Firefly's target audence don't watch tv anymore.
My fav shows
Amercan gothic, Asif & Firefly.
Dam it...
Unless Microsoft starts giving Windows away they'll never match the price of free software.
(As in beer)
But for those that do use Windows it could provide a significant discount by bluffing a switch to Linux.
Suggest it to your boss and be ready to come through when the ms salesmen dosen't bite... and he won't.
I'd like to know sereously if they do supply tech specs so a driver can be made.
/dev/randum and out poped this Os" drivers...
Linux support would be nice but realisticly today companys get paranoid and won't relase tech specs becouse then they'd be giving away valuable intelectual property.
I mean we can't do something that might expand our costummer base. Oh no then we might make lot's of money can't have that.
So anywho if the tech specs are available then yeah Linux drivers maybe Mac drivers, Solarus drivers, OS/2 drivers.. Dos drivers... "Name your operating system" drivers.
Thousand Moneky Os drivers.
"I recorded
You get the idea.
But for gammers and that seams the target there isn't much software for Linux anyway...
In otherwords RMS should have donated money when he spoke of the benifits of free software?
The Gates Foundation acts the way preveous similar foundations have been accused of acting.
But I hold hope that Microsofts fud will make life easyer for anyone who wishes to donate money.
It's not a bad thing when bribe money saves lifes. It should only buy him recognition and that in itself is very valuable.
But he appears to be trying to buy more than that.
But let him have his face time and really this is one kind of birbe I'm not bothered by.
(The FUD mentioned above is the "See he donates money he's a good man" FUD vs the "He's rich he's buying people" demigogory)
Way back I asked myself "How can anyone stay in business publishing on paper with the printing costs etc with the net?"
I got my answer more recently with the dot com bust.
Not enough readership is online. Advertising isn't priced right and advertisers fear online media.
But thats changing.
For Electronic News it's already changed. It's readership is totally online by now with out exception.
The advertisers aren't affrade.. Microsoft, IBM etc all cutting edge companys use electronic marketting and prefer it to print.
It's priced right. They are premiuim ad space in the e space but not so much in the paper world.
Your subscription to your local newspaper covers some of the printing costs.
Ads take up the bulk of the papers operating costs. Those ads have to be pricy to pay for everything.
That's how it works.
With free web publishing your publishing costs are slashed to a much more managable price level but unless you can pull in the same money with e-ads the transition dosen't pay.
First experence with Spam:
Spammers flooded me untill my e-mail was useless. I ended up setting up "vacation" and left it at that then got a new account.
Second experence with Spam:
I was on the flip side this time. One user at my ISP spammed and the ISP cought the spammer.
Shortly after that a larg anti-spam group desided the ISP was a spam house. The spam hunters never ever said a word to the ISP so the ISP had to find this out for themselfs.
It took them a while to get things cleared up. Over this time sevral important e-mails never got through.
Then there is event zero:
I signed up to receave a free Unix industry e-mail newsletter from a company way back before Spam was an issue.
Then they desided to shut down due to the abuse. They just didn't want to be mixed up with that croud.
Yes Spam is destorying e-mail. I'd say the cure is worse as others clame but the cure just eliminates my e-mail the cause destorys my time in vain efforts to filter the junk.
The only thing that keeps e-mail around is the lack of a useful alternitive.
I noticed the electric scooter sales started going up shortly after the announcement of this wonderful device.
Only the scooters are better designed for the avrage consummer. In otherwords they are cheap.
I've thought buy a new video card or buy a scooter. I ended up updating my PDA but I could do it on a whim.
The street legal scooters are bulky enough but I could pack it up and take it with me on the plane. Asumming they don't lose it in luggage I don't need to rent a car or take a taxi.
Eah but who am I kidding I don't like driving.
No we gotta install content control on your brain so we can regulate what you know.
Overclocking might disrupt this process and as a cerumvention device is thusly illegal.
Now where did I leave that excella
Way back when the first Macs were released there were sereous hardware defects Apple denied for a long time then finally had to admit only after they were fixed.
This permitted Apple to continue to sell defective hardware untill Apple could fix it.
Microsoft uses the same tactic but instead of fixing it they just sit.
Take e-mail viruses. Any soft of product review should it be able to reveal the obveous design flaw in the way Outlook express handles file attachents. Be that open source's many eyes or closed sources product review.
In fact the design planning that should be commen for all software would have picked this one up.
But Microsoft's proclamed suppereority to open source design philosophy falls flat on it's face with this one as Microsoft desides to ignore it.
Now let's admit a truth.. This happends in open source as well as closed when ever a programmer fails to consider or disguards possable problems.
It should happen less often in a corprate environment as the programmer has to work with managment and posably a team of programmers who might not approve of the original programmers lazyness.
But once the design phase is done and the code is laied down code review begins in open and closed source. Somebody should have noticed something.
The reason it wasn't picked up by Microsoft is plainly they don't care.
But give them the benifit of the doupt. Maybe somebody dropped LSD in the watercooler during the whole software dev process. Office pranks do happen.
So let's be really nice and say Microsoft just kinda messed up and never noticed this flaw.
When someone did and created the first real e-mail virus (instead of the rummored same) then Microsoft should have sat up and took notice.
Some times it takes a blindingly obveous result before a software team will notice.. that's again a universal truth and not unique to closed source.
But once done it's there for the world to see.
And Microsoft... IGNORED IT...
This is why we have e-mail viruses today.
Microsoft needs more than just a slap in the face.
Someday somebody's going to make a virus os that installs over Windows and while users will usually just reinstall Windows Microsoft will take the threat sereously.
We cam't afford to use free software have to pay thousands for defective software.
... ahem.. do Microsoft a favor.. and combat software priacy when Microsoft won't.
How did India get the idea that Linux isn't free and worse that Windows was?
I've always knew software piracy hurts free software and here's a good example. mayhap Microsoft is just letting software piracy slide in a nation that couldn't afford it in order to prevent Linux from gainning any footholds.
For this reason mayhap it's time for the free software forces to
My question is:
Rummors have it that you were a healthy prankster back at Desilu studios and I wondered if this was the case then what was your best/favorett prank.
I would never work under those conditions. :)
If the ex-boss asked nicely I'd probably do it for free.
The reasonning here:
If she demanded then she thinks it was her demanding that got the work done and not my hard effort.
That I'm not worth any consideration.
She'll just forget me if pizza comes it while I'm working and later if a job opens for my old spot she'll look elsewhere.
If she asks nicely I'll do it for free becouse then she's comming at it from the viewpoint of "as a favor" that it's my valuable work and my kindness. If pizza is here I'd probably ask em to save me a slice.. no pizza on the hardware
If a job came in I could have a shot. An interview slot or better yet just a contract.
She'd bo sooo much happyer with me should she ask for my help instead of demanding it.
It's actually hard work to demand stuff and that will be considered latter.
My time is worth my results not my results minus the effort to demand I do something.
She should not benifit from demanding stuff.
Or for a diffrent view on this.
If your not feeding yourself someone else is.
You gotta help yourself before helping others or you end up taking more than giving.