instead I bought a shiny new blatronix 5000 that's not only approximately the same machine, but costs less, comes with a blank partition by default AND I get the installation media in case something happens
I searched around for one. Every site I visited wanted, for a similarly configured laptop, about 1.5 to 2 times what I paid for this one.
So... you find me a site that sells an AMD Turion64 computer with 1GB RAM, a 100GB hard drive, DVD+/-RW, an included WinXP Pro license (I could care less if it's pre-installed with the partition scheme I want or just a blank hard drive and the install media included), and has it for under $1300.
I tried. I failed. I found a deal and someone who was willing to do what I wanted (primarily argue with the Windows installer) for a reasonable price, and I now have a laptop that does nearly all of what I want it to do.
Is HP right for not including REAL Windows install disks?? NO. HP should realize....hard disks fail. To a regular AOL/Joe Sixpack type of user, mailing the laptop back to HP or taking it to a service center is perfectly acceptable when replacing a hard disk. To us, we look on it as a opportunity to upgrade the feeble disk it came with. In any case, HP and many other manufacturers SHOULD ship REAL install media....not this crap that accesses a windows recovery partition. They should also stop shipping SPYWARE with there machine as well.
This is, of course, how they'll purport to keep costs down. They push the cost (time, materials, etc) onto the consumer to produce some kind of repair media. Then they'll say that these other companies are paying some of the costs by providing "sample software." It's all an advertising game.
HP's website itself works FINE in Firefox. The website itself is Linux friendly. Not being able to ship you a custom solution should not be a judgement of thier site. Face it....Windows DOES have the marketshare. If you don't like the website that they make you use, then you are free to go to a dealer that IS able to satisfy you. Being mad at them because they won't do your custom job is stupid. Finding a manufacturer that will do whaty you want and supporting them rather then HP is the sure fire way to get HP to change thier ways. What you did by buying from them anyway is VALIDATE thier planning! If a company can't do what I want, I tell them to pound sand.
My complaint has more to do with the author's claim that HP will ship you a linux computer. I'm providing anecdotal evidence that this is not necessarily the case.
By buying from CompUSA, HP only gets the profit that they would normally get from the bulk sales to the chain. If I buy from the web site, they get pure profit... especially when the price is the same at both locations... plus I get "instant gratification" of being able to walk out of there with the machine in hand instead of waiting whatever amount of time is necessary to do the shipping.
BTW, what's the problem with doing the disk formatting and partitioning yourself?
Reread my original post... it has to do with the Windows installation media/recovery partition, having to burn recovery disks, etc. Besides, my time is valuable too. I don't want to sit there and wait for every stupid prompt the Windows installation will put up in front of me throughtout the installation process, trying to figure out what network configuration I want, how I want to configure a specific program because it can't be configured until it installs, etc. With a Linux install (at least through my experiences with Fedora and RedHat), they ask you all the pertinent questions up front. You spend about 15-20 minutes, then just let it go all by itself (if you're doing DVD or network-based, anyway).
Am I the only one who gets the feeling that you need to separate the people who lay down the lines and the people who provide the service?
No. I see the same need. Maintenance of the lines and providing service over those lines when nobody else is allowed to put up new ones seems like a huge a conflict of interest... or at least the beginnings of a monopoly... the same monopoly they tried to get rid of when they broke up Ma Bell.
The Megababy Bells should be split into two companies each... one that maintains the hardware and one that provides the service. You should not be paying a separate bill to the line maintenance company. That would be covered by the access fee paid by the service providers, and could be a separate line entry on your local service bill.
I can understand the desire to limit who has access to the phone poles and wire conduits... if access wasn't limited, we'd be looking up at nothing but strand upon strand of some kind of wire.
When I recently went to purchase a laptop from HP Shopping, because I wanted a 64-bit laptop and they were one of the few actually offering it at lower prices, I ended up having all kinds of grief, having an old-fashioned "fuck you" fight with the customer service desk.
It went something like this...
I started customizing the zv6000 laptop, choosing XP Home, knowing that I probably wouldn't get reasonable tech support without having it installed (never mind that there wasn't an option to not get it). As I got to the end, I looked around for a way to request custom partitioning of the hard drive. No dice. So I cancelled the order and wrote to HP Shopping and asked if they could do a custom partitioning job because I wanted to create a dual-boot system.
The response I got was that they couldn't do it and that they were sorry the web site didn't suit my needs.
I responded by asking if they could sell me a blank laptop and provide the installation media on the side, since it was included, and I didn't feel like trying to reinstall the recovery partition for Windows. This is why you don't get installation media... they put it all on a partition on the hard drive that only the Windows installer can use.
Their reply was that they were contractually obligated to sell the laptop with the latest version of Windows installed.
So I told them that they just lost a sale because of their contractual obligations, and that I would take my money elsewhere.
So they replied again with how they were sorry that the website didn't suit my needs and that they would notify the appropriate people.
Now they've pushed my buttons... so I tell them that this is not about a web site, it's about a person sitting there running an FDISK command and watching the install take place instead of just using a ghosting program. I also tell them that I would've been willing to wait an extra couple of weeks, knowing I was asking for a truly customized job.
In the end, I did get an HP laptop, but got it from CompUSA. I got the HP L2000, and for about $40, the tech desk people there were able to do the customized partitioning job for me, reinstall the version of Windows that came with it, and leave me with blank, unformatted partitions to use for Fedora Core 4 x86_64. The tech guys there knew exactly what I wanted to do, understood it, and thought it was really cool. Yes, I need ndiswrappers to get the wireless card to work, and I have to download a driver for the ATI graphics card in there (both are available via a yum archive at livna.org).
Now if only we could get Macromedia to release a 64-bit version of the flash player and Sun to do a 64-bit verison of Java... (yes, I know about the OSS alternatives... doesn't change the fact that they need to do it).
They're the ones who maintain the hardware that goes from the central offices to our homes. They're the ones who used a concept known as FITL (Fiber in the Loop). Sure, this will improve phone service, but it screws people over when it comes to DSL.
With FITL, it's fiber optic cable from the central office to a "lightspeed box" in your neighborhood, where it gets converted to copper wires to go to your home. If you're lucky enough to be in a FITL neighborhood, the best you can get is IDSL (aka ISDN). The Megababy Bells insist on putting the DSLAMs in the central office, when they could put it out in the lightspeed boxes, thus creating IFITL (Integrated Fiber in the Loop). By pushing the DSLAM out to the neighborhoods, a vast majority of people could get broadband... but that means opening up the lines to competition, which I know Verizon doesn't want to do... thus the concept of FIOS... which takes advantage of a loophole in the law, allowing them to maintain total control/access of those fiber lines because they've put brand new ones out there from the central office to your home.
Since nobody other than your local power company, local cable company, and local phone company can put lines up on the phone poles (or in the conduits, if you have underground lines), they're going to kill off the broadband companies.
That's the problem with judicial activism; it's not about how you "feel" -- it's about what the law says...
If that's the way it truly worked, then we would not have a large number of federal programs.
If you go by what the Constitution says, the federal government has overstepped its constitutional authority by leaps and bounds many times over because of creative application of the "interstate commerce clause." Judicial activism at its finest. Did you also know that many times over, the SCOTUS has said the words "provide" and "promote" mean the same thing? Last time I looked in Webster's Dictionary, they didn't. Again, judicial activism at its finest.
There is a large chunk of feeling involved in the way you rule. Sometimes, your hands are tied, sometimes they're not. In the case in question, Justice Kennedy could not make the opinion stick within the law, as best as he could. Words are always subject to interpretation, and he could not apply interpretations that made sense in his original ruling in that case.
My guess is that Miers is not necessarily going to be as conservative as some people might think. In fact, she may turn out to be a bit more liberal than several prominent Republicans might like. Of course, like you said, you can never tell what a person is going to be like once they are confirmed and on the bench until they start deciding cases.
And to follow on with your comment about David Souter, a Reagan apointee, Anthony Kennedy, once voted on a case a certain way because he felt it was the "conservative" way to vote. Then, having been tasked with writing the majority opinion, he realized what he was writing wasn't what he truly felt, and ended up changing his vote and swinging the case in the other direction.
Ford never expected Justice Stevens to become as liberal as he is either.
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
on
Palm's Mistakes
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Sometimes, having something basic with a good, widely available SDK can be an advantage. It allows people, companies, etc, to build applications to do what is needed. It's how DOS and Windows got so big... they made SDKs widely available while trying to cover the basics, and others started developing the applications.
Me? I don't like having my PDA and phone as a single unit. I don't like overly large cell phones, and sometimes find myself needing to use a PDA while talking on the phone... so unless you have a speaker phone built in, it can be rather difficult.
Eh... my friends and I got the strangest looks when we all applauded and cheered that scene.
Apparently, everyone else in the theater at the time completely missed out on it.
I mean, come on... even Bill laughed a bit when Windows BSOD'ed on him at a demo/expo.
Though I don't think the people back in Redmond were laughing after that.
Well, if you're looking for execution speed, economy of resources, and other things like that, languages like Java, Perl, Python, et al, are NOT ones you should even consider. I've heard more than enough complaints about friends being called "obstructionists" because they won't rewrite a critical system in Java, never mind that the Java versions of programs the name-callers have done take much longer to run... but they're oh-so-pretty and leading-edge technology.
The problem with the program in question where I work is that it was poorly designed from the get-go. I can tell you for a fact that the vast majority of the program's run-time is in the single line that prints out a 512MB object to a file in human-readable format.
Languages are tools. You should use the tool that's best for the job, not because it matches the newest buzz-words.
Where I am now, someone who is no longer here used Python to write a new project. He used this project to learn python, too. There's a problem... nobody else here knows it or even wants to know it. Why? It's HORRENDOUS for the job it's currently doing now... something very highly I/O bound. Depending on the machine it runs on, it could take anywhere from 2.5 hours (super-fast server-type machine) to 10 hours (P4-1.6 with 512MB) to run. The poor performance of this project has caused just about everyone in my group to swear off of python.
It's also not worth our time rewriting it.
Not too long ago, I discovered the results of operations testing on various languages. Python was the worst in every category except one, where Java (1.4.x) became the worst (Java 1.4.x was the second worst in most of the other cases). This benchmarking, however, was a couple of years old, so it's possible other improvements have been made along the way.
For doing various system administration tasks, file massaging/processing, and stuff like that, I find perl to be quick and easy to use. Mainly because perl's regex engine has been so highly optimized, it tends to run a lot faster. I also have general issues with languages that are white-space dependant for their syntax... which is why unless it's something really simple, I tend to avoid UNIX shell scripts too.
I've also had a Java addict compliment me on my perl style, syntax, etc, because it was clear and readable... and this was for a major financial securities project.
If you really want a "best practice," try writing clear, understandable code, regardless of the language you use. It'll get you further.
On the other hand, what good brings your, say, workgroup fileservers being up when your workstations go nuts?
Umm... remote workers can still access the stuff. Customers can access your web server, if that's where the stuff is maintained. Your systems going down because of a virus infection or a worm tunnel doesn't necessarily mean your customer service has to go away.
A while back, I saw something that talked about business models and Microsoft. It basically said that when Netscape went about doing its thing creating a web browser, it did just fine. It turned profits, was successful, etc. When it changed and started comparing what it did to Microsoft, it started its downward spiral.
Linux will not usurp Microsoft... nor will Macintosh. However, if Linux and Macs make it easier to have interoperability, there will be an easier path to acceptance in the workplace.
Basically, an homogeneous corporate network (all *NIX, all Windows, all Mac, etc) is great for administration, but horrid for security. An heterogeneous network (mixture of various OSes) will make it much easier to keep at least part of your operation running, should another part fall victim to a virus, worm, or other attack.
He said it best in the article when he talked about interoperability being the route to go for instead of war.
Nobody wants to work on the mainframe systems anymore because it "isn't cool." It's not the perceived latest and greatest.
Mainframe computers are designed around a specific purpose: large volumes of repetetive transactions. This is why they are very prevalent in the banking, credit card, and other financial arenas. They handle the bill processing, customer database, etc.
Sure, you could attempt to blame companies like Microsoft for this, and you would only be partially right. If you do that, you have to add Intel, AMD, Sun, HP, and a whole host of other companies to the mix too, since they all contribute to the "smaller, faster computers are where it's at" attitude. A big reason why this attitude prevails, however, has to do with the "single point-of-failure" issue. When your mainframe crashes, you can do absolutely nothing until the necessary repair work is done. This is where the distributed computing environment works very well.
Having worked on mainframes in the early part of my career, I know that they were useful then, and still are. They excel at what they were designed to do... large volumes of repetetive transactions.
It wouldn't hurt for computer science students to learn about mainframes, or even limited resource embedded systems. It would make them better, more well-rounded IT folk.
It's the way it's behaved for as long as it's been around. You have a space-delimited set of arguments. When you glob, you expand the character(s) in question, and what they become is a space-delimited set of words. That they're put in ASCII order is well-known too. Thus, anything starting with a - will be listed before anything starting with a 0, etc. I can create files with any name. If I don't take precautions, such as testing specific conditions (is a file? is a directory? etc), using defined POSIX behaviors, or learning the tool I'm about to use, I deserve what happens to me. If you're going to use a tool, you should know a sufficient amount of its expected behaviors before you try to do more complex things. Anyone who's bothered to pick up a book on shell scripting, or even read the man pages, could've told you some of the things you need to look out for. Some you will learn by taking an example, expanding on it, and seeing what happens. Some of them you can only learn through trial and error. Ever hear of running through a shell script without actually executing the command? Works wonders for ensuring you've got it all right before you go head first down the path of, "How do I recover from this mess?"
Come out of your windows world and join the real world of computing. Not everything is designed to imitate CP/M.
No, this is not bad platform design. This is incompetence by the administrators and developers.
This is also why you have a dev/test system and run everything on it several times before putting it on a production system.
If we were to visit the mistakes here, they would start with (in no particular order):
failure to test the program/script
NFS mounting with security too relaxed (allowing root across machines)
poor programming assumptions ("directory will always be there")
lack of system monitoring
potentially poor system administration practices (depending on what kinds of backups were taken)
The error here isn't in the computer. A computer is the dumbest thing on the face of the earth. It will do exactly what you tell it to do... or not tell it to do... and it will do its absolute best to do it as fast as possible. The error in this case is between the user and the keyboard.
So then when you purchase something, you'd have to "opt in" to a mailing list... meaning, if you check the box, fill in an e-mail address on a registration card for something other than warranty purposes, they can send you anything they like.
Sale of their list(s) to other companies would be illegal unless you "opt in."
"Unsolicited" e-mails about your product and possible defects do not count, as you expect the company to notify you of recalls, usability issues, etc.
I, like an earlier poster, can't imagine anyone wanting to opt in. That's probably why a lot of the stuff coming out of US-based companies tell you to "uncheck here if you do not wish to receive...."
It's how they capture those who don't pay attention.
The current infrastructure was originally built by a monopoly then known as "Ma Bell," if you live in an area that still has above-ground lines. Underground lines were put in by the Baby Bells or the Megababy Bells, depending on when they were installed.
Cable TV lines were installed by the original company that obtained the contract for your area, whether above or below ground. In some cases, they don't exist any more because they were bought up by the Megacompanies like Adelphia, Time-Warner, Comcast, Cox, or Cablevision.
FiOS is currently a Verizon monopoly. They do not have to open up their fiber lines to competition. Why? A loophole in the law that says, "If you lay a brand new line from the central office to the house, you can keep sole access to yourselves."
No other companies have been allowed to add lines to the poles or underground conduits. We therefore have restricted choices... if there actually are any choices. This type of deregulation would cause more monopolistic behaviors.
The reason DSL failed is because Verizon, PacBell, SBC, and BellSouth have held back on upgrading the infrastructure. And then, if and when they did any upgrades, you ended up with FITL (Fiber in the Loop). In a FITL system, you have to put the DSLAM in the "lightspeed box" in your neighborhood in order to get high speeds. If you put the DSLAM in the central office, you're stuck with IDSL/ISDN (which was also basically killed by the 4 megababy bells, primarily PacBell). Yes, I'm aware there are only 3 now, since PacBell became part of one of the others.
If they're going to deregulate DSL like this, they really need to make the communications infrastructure maintainers and service providers two separate entities, meaning Verizon, SBC, and BellSouth would each end up being split into two companies (six, altogether)... one to provide phone/internet, and one to simply maintain/upgrade the hardware.
You seem to think that browser app equals to Internet site, which is far away from true.
Actually, they all come from a "web page"... whether it's on a remote host served up by a web server, or in a local file. Anything else is writing to a specific platform, in which case you're depending on other things to be there too.
But you thinking bussiness has something to do about social justice doesn't mean it will change from its current reality where it is all about money.
I'm not equating business and social justice. I'm looking at market share. Excluding a significant portion of your target audience is unacceptable in business. If you want your applications to be portable, you have to write them to the least common acceptable denominator. You wouldn't write new web apps to be compatable with IE 3, Netscape 3, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
That's about when it could possibly be true... maybe.. kinda... he hopes.
I searched around for one. Every site I visited wanted, for a similarly configured laptop, about 1.5 to 2 times what I paid for this one.
So... you find me a site that sells an AMD Turion64 computer with 1GB RAM, a 100GB hard drive, DVD+/-RW, an included WinXP Pro license (I could care less if it's pre-installed with the partition scheme I want or just a blank hard drive and the install media included), and has it for under $1300.
I tried. I failed. I found a deal and someone who was willing to do what I wanted (primarily argue with the Windows installer) for a reasonable price, and I now have a laptop that does nearly all of what I want it to do.
Eh... I just wanted them to warranty the work, since they made the machine.
This is, of course, how they'll purport to keep costs down. They push the cost (time, materials, etc) onto the consumer to produce some kind of repair media. Then they'll say that these other companies are paying some of the costs by providing "sample software." It's all an advertising game.
HP's website itself works FINE in Firefox. The website itself is Linux friendly. Not being able to ship you a custom solution should not be a judgement of thier site. Face it....Windows DOES have the marketshare. If you don't like the website that they make you use, then you are free to go to a dealer that IS able to satisfy you. Being mad at them because they won't do your custom job is stupid. Finding a manufacturer that will do whaty you want and supporting them rather then HP is the sure fire way to get HP to change thier ways. What you did by buying from them anyway is VALIDATE thier planning! If a company can't do what I want, I tell them to pound sand.
My complaint has more to do with the author's claim that HP will ship you a linux computer. I'm providing anecdotal evidence that this is not necessarily the case.
By buying from CompUSA, HP only gets the profit that they would normally get from the bulk sales to the chain. If I buy from the web site, they get pure profit... especially when the price is the same at both locations... plus I get "instant gratification" of being able to walk out of there with the machine in hand instead of waiting whatever amount of time is necessary to do the shipping.
Reread my original post... it has to do with the Windows installation media/recovery partition, having to burn recovery disks, etc. Besides, my time is valuable too. I don't want to sit there and wait for every stupid prompt the Windows installation will put up in front of me throughtout the installation process, trying to figure out what network configuration I want, how I want to configure a specific program because it can't be configured until it installs, etc. With a Linux install (at least through my experiences with Fedora and RedHat), they ask you all the pertinent questions up front. You spend about 15-20 minutes, then just let it go all by itself (if you're doing DVD or network-based, anyway).
No. I see the same need. Maintenance of the lines and providing service over those lines when nobody else is allowed to put up new ones seems like a huge a conflict of interest... or at least the beginnings of a monopoly... the same monopoly they tried to get rid of when they broke up Ma Bell.
The Megababy Bells should be split into two companies each... one that maintains the hardware and one that provides the service. You should not be paying a separate bill to the line maintenance company. That would be covered by the access fee paid by the service providers, and could be a separate line entry on your local service bill.
I can understand the desire to limit who has access to the phone poles and wire conduits... if access wasn't limited, we'd be looking up at nothing but strand upon strand of some kind of wire.
Check http://rpm.livna.org. They've got a lot of good utilities, including video players, pre-compiled kernel drivers, etc.
It went something like this...
I started customizing the zv6000 laptop, choosing XP Home, knowing that I probably wouldn't get reasonable tech support without having it installed (never mind that there wasn't an option to not get it). As I got to the end, I looked around for a way to request custom partitioning of the hard drive. No dice. So I cancelled the order and wrote to HP Shopping and asked if they could do a custom partitioning job because I wanted to create a dual-boot system.
The response I got was that they couldn't do it and that they were sorry the web site didn't suit my needs.
I responded by asking if they could sell me a blank laptop and provide the installation media on the side, since it was included, and I didn't feel like trying to reinstall the recovery partition for Windows. This is why you don't get installation media... they put it all on a partition on the hard drive that only the Windows installer can use.
Their reply was that they were contractually obligated to sell the laptop with the latest version of Windows installed.
So I told them that they just lost a sale because of their contractual obligations, and that I would take my money elsewhere.
So they replied again with how they were sorry that the website didn't suit my needs and that they would notify the appropriate people.
Now they've pushed my buttons... so I tell them that this is not about a web site, it's about a person sitting there running an FDISK command and watching the install take place instead of just using a ghosting program. I also tell them that I would've been willing to wait an extra couple of weeks, knowing I was asking for a truly customized job.
In the end, I did get an HP laptop, but got it from CompUSA. I got the HP L2000, and for about $40, the tech desk people there were able to do the customized partitioning job for me, reinstall the version of Windows that came with it, and leave me with blank, unformatted partitions to use for Fedora Core 4 x86_64. The tech guys there knew exactly what I wanted to do, understood it, and thought it was really cool. Yes, I need ndiswrappers to get the wireless card to work, and I have to download a driver for the ATI graphics card in there (both are available via a yum archive at livna.org).
Now if only we could get Macromedia to release a 64-bit version of the flash player and Sun to do a 64-bit verison of Java... (yes, I know about the OSS alternatives... doesn't change the fact that they need to do it).
With FITL, it's fiber optic cable from the central office to a "lightspeed box" in your neighborhood, where it gets converted to copper wires to go to your home. If you're lucky enough to be in a FITL neighborhood, the best you can get is IDSL (aka ISDN). The Megababy Bells insist on putting the DSLAMs in the central office, when they could put it out in the lightspeed boxes, thus creating IFITL (Integrated Fiber in the Loop). By pushing the DSLAM out to the neighborhoods, a vast majority of people could get broadband... but that means opening up the lines to competition, which I know Verizon doesn't want to do... thus the concept of FIOS... which takes advantage of a loophole in the law, allowing them to maintain total control/access of those fiber lines because they've put brand new ones out there from the central office to your home.
Since nobody other than your local power company, local cable company, and local phone company can put lines up on the phone poles (or in the conduits, if you have underground lines), they're going to kill off the broadband companies.
If that's the way it truly worked, then we would not have a large number of federal programs.
If you go by what the Constitution says, the federal government has overstepped its constitutional authority by leaps and bounds many times over because of creative application of the "interstate commerce clause." Judicial activism at its finest. Did you also know that many times over, the SCOTUS has said the words "provide" and "promote" mean the same thing? Last time I looked in Webster's Dictionary, they didn't. Again, judicial activism at its finest.
There is a large chunk of feeling involved in the way you rule. Sometimes, your hands are tied, sometimes they're not. In the case in question, Justice Kennedy could not make the opinion stick within the law, as best as he could. Words are always subject to interpretation, and he could not apply interpretations that made sense in his original ruling in that case.
My guess is that Miers is not necessarily going to be as conservative as some people might think. In fact, she may turn out to be a bit more liberal than several prominent Republicans might like. Of course, like you said, you can never tell what a person is going to be like once they are confirmed and on the bench until they start deciding cases.
And to follow on with your comment about David Souter, a Reagan apointee, Anthony Kennedy, once voted on a case a certain way because he felt it was the "conservative" way to vote. Then, having been tasked with writing the majority opinion, he realized what he was writing wasn't what he truly felt, and ended up changing his vote and swinging the case in the other direction.
Ford never expected Justice Stevens to become as liberal as he is either.
Me? I don't like having my PDA and phone as a single unit. I don't like overly large cell phones, and sometimes find myself needing to use a PDA while talking on the phone... so unless you have a speaker phone built in, it can be rather difficult.
I mean, come on... even Bill laughed a bit when Windows BSOD'ed on him at a demo/expo.
Though I don't think the people back in Redmond were laughing after that.
The problem with the program in question where I work is that it was poorly designed from the get-go. I can tell you for a fact that the vast majority of the program's run-time is in the single line that prints out a 512MB object to a file in human-readable format.
Languages are tools. You should use the tool that's best for the job, not because it matches the newest buzz-words.
It's also not worth our time rewriting it.
Not too long ago, I discovered the results of operations testing on various languages. Python was the worst in every category except one, where Java (1.4.x) became the worst (Java 1.4.x was the second worst in most of the other cases). This benchmarking, however, was a couple of years old, so it's possible other improvements have been made along the way.
For doing various system administration tasks, file massaging/processing, and stuff like that, I find perl to be quick and easy to use. Mainly because perl's regex engine has been so highly optimized, it tends to run a lot faster. I also have general issues with languages that are white-space dependant for their syntax... which is why unless it's something really simple, I tend to avoid UNIX shell scripts too.
I've also had a Java addict compliment me on my perl style, syntax, etc, because it was clear and readable... and this was for a major financial securities project.
If you really want a "best practice," try writing clear, understandable code, regardless of the language you use. It'll get you further.
Umm... remote workers can still access the stuff. Customers can access your web server, if that's where the stuff is maintained. Your systems going down because of a virus infection or a worm tunnel doesn't necessarily mean your customer service has to go away.
A while back, I saw something that talked about business models and Microsoft. It basically said that when Netscape went about doing its thing creating a web browser, it did just fine. It turned profits, was successful, etc. When it changed and started comparing what it did to Microsoft, it started its downward spiral.
Linux will not usurp Microsoft... nor will Macintosh. However, if Linux and Macs make it easier to have interoperability, there will be an easier path to acceptance in the workplace.
Basically, an homogeneous corporate network (all *NIX, all Windows, all Mac, etc) is great for administration, but horrid for security. An heterogeneous network (mixture of various OSes) will make it much easier to keep at least part of your operation running, should another part fall victim to a virus, worm, or other attack.
He said it best in the article when he talked about interoperability being the route to go for instead of war.
Mainframe computers are designed around a specific purpose: large volumes of repetetive transactions. This is why they are very prevalent in the banking, credit card, and other financial arenas. They handle the bill processing, customer database, etc.
Sure, you could attempt to blame companies like Microsoft for this, and you would only be partially right. If you do that, you have to add Intel, AMD, Sun, HP, and a whole host of other companies to the mix too, since they all contribute to the "smaller, faster computers are where it's at" attitude. A big reason why this attitude prevails, however, has to do with the "single point-of-failure" issue. When your mainframe crashes, you can do absolutely nothing until the necessary repair work is done. This is where the distributed computing environment works very well.
Having worked on mainframes in the early part of my career, I know that they were useful then, and still are. They excel at what they were designed to do... large volumes of repetetive transactions.
It wouldn't hurt for computer science students to learn about mainframes, or even limited resource embedded systems. It would make them better, more well-rounded IT folk.
Come out of your windows world and join the real world of computing. Not everything is designed to imitate CP/M.
RTFM. You might learn something.
This is also why you have a dev/test system and run everything on it several times before putting it on a production system.
If we were to visit the mistakes here, they would start with (in no particular order):
- failure to test the program/script
- NFS mounting with security too relaxed (allowing root across machines)
- poor programming assumptions ("directory will always be there")
- lack of system monitoring
- potentially poor system administration practices (depending on what kinds of backups were taken)
The error here isn't in the computer. A computer is the dumbest thing on the face of the earth. It will do exactly what you tell it to do... or not tell it to do... and it will do its absolute best to do it as fast as possible. The error in this case is between the user and the keyboard.Sale of their list(s) to other companies would be illegal unless you "opt in."
"Unsolicited" e-mails about your product and possible defects do not count, as you expect the company to notify you of recalls, usability issues, etc.
I, like an earlier poster, can't imagine anyone wanting to opt in. That's probably why a lot of the stuff coming out of US-based companies tell you to "uncheck here if you do not wish to receive...." It's how they capture those who don't pay attention.
Cable TV lines were installed by the original company that obtained the contract for your area, whether above or below ground. In some cases, they don't exist any more because they were bought up by the Megacompanies like Adelphia, Time-Warner, Comcast, Cox, or Cablevision.
FiOS is currently a Verizon monopoly. They do not have to open up their fiber lines to competition. Why? A loophole in the law that says, "If you lay a brand new line from the central office to the house, you can keep sole access to yourselves."
No other companies have been allowed to add lines to the poles or underground conduits. We therefore have restricted choices... if there actually are any choices. This type of deregulation would cause more monopolistic behaviors.
The reason DSL failed is because Verizon, PacBell, SBC, and BellSouth have held back on upgrading the infrastructure. And then, if and when they did any upgrades, you ended up with FITL (Fiber in the Loop). In a FITL system, you have to put the DSLAM in the "lightspeed box" in your neighborhood in order to get high speeds. If you put the DSLAM in the central office, you're stuck with IDSL/ISDN (which was also basically killed by the 4 megababy bells, primarily PacBell). Yes, I'm aware there are only 3 now, since PacBell became part of one of the others.
If they're going to deregulate DSL like this, they really need to make the communications infrastructure maintainers and service providers two separate entities, meaning Verizon, SBC, and BellSouth would each end up being split into two companies (six, altogether)... one to provide phone/internet, and one to simply maintain/upgrade the hardware.
Actually, they all come from a "web page"... whether it's on a remote host served up by a web server, or in a local file. Anything else is writing to a specific platform, in which case you're depending on other things to be there too.
But you thinking bussiness has something to do about social justice doesn't mean it will change from its current reality where it is all about money.
I'm not equating business and social justice. I'm looking at market share. Excluding a significant portion of your target audience is unacceptable in business. If you want your applications to be portable, you have to write them to the least common acceptable denominator. You wouldn't write new web apps to be compatable with IE 3, Netscape 3, etc.