All kidding aside...I think that was the best question of the day. You would think someone would piece together a distribution that included all of the varied "little things" that all of the other distributions have created over the years.
Well if it were just load based -- their are hundreds of programs that will automate and simulate till your hearts desire. That being said, I believe the question was more geared around how to test that when I hit the submit button -- does everything work like it should?
The best thing to do is to ensure your testers are familiare enough with the back end and the transaction processes to be able to run cross checks on the Database -- to ensure everything is working as it should. Common things like missing where clauses on deletes, in statements like 'a,b,c' rather than 'a','b','c'. Just simple things that automated tools could never catch. The bad part is that things like this take time and bodies. Atr least were I am sitting -- not near as many of those around here these days:) Everyone wants to claim QA in place, ISO Whatever in place...etc... The reality is, those were the first things to go.
In the same week we wondered why Miscrosoft was making HP/Compaq kneel and beg to "be able" to provide MS Windows with each PC. (rather than Microsoft thinking themselves "lucky" to be moving so many copies of their software)....Along comes this as to where Microsoft may refuse to patch Word 97. Now I personally know of quite a few fortune 500 companies that are still 100% Word 97.....Would not this size and (clout) of a user base still warrant security patches to serious holes? (Well for most software companies it would -- but Microsoft's relationship..err..monopoly with their customer base in almost 180 degrees from everyone else.)
That is good. I have responded 100 times with those same thoughts in my head -- yet never been able to find the right words. But you got it -- "Manipulation", "Control", "Availability"...
I know late -- but here is my view. I used to always get burnt in the 80's - 90's buing CD's that ended up being crappy. After awhile -- I got tired of the whole "hear one song on the radio" -- think that maybe, just maybe this CD may be the next "Dark Side Of The Moon" -- 90% of the time it ended up being bait and switch. So I stopped wasting my money.....Thus without ever even offending me -- the RIAA was out my cash.
Fast forward to Napster and AG. I am really able to give the music a proper test drive -- hence I find a new band that makes the hair on my arm stand up -- I rush to the record store to purchase said CD. Rinse, Repeat. Hell, from my point of view -- the record companies should have been paying Napster and AG rather than suing them. (Maybe the radio stations would have gone broke...)
Fast forward to Post-Napster, Post-AG...(never used Kazzaa (I don't have a windows machine -- they don't have a linux client) -- I have played the dangerous game of trying to decide what bands to buy based on a carefully placed track on the bands website -- or maybe a low quality snippet or two elsewere. I am about 2 for 20 again...Right back to where I last left off.
Note: I really like my Nex II, it is by far the best CF player out there.
That being said: "Firware upgradable and can support future formats" is getting really old from all digital music players. I can honestly say that I have seen over 20 players (CD, CF, HD) that proudly make this claim in their marketing jargain -- yet guess how many have came through??? It's about like me saying that my cars tires will support the ferrari. Yet, technically it could happen -- but more realistically those tires will spend their lifetime on my 87 nissan sentra.
Yea -- it's kind of like finding out that their has been a new type of energy that works better and cheaper than electricity (the only catch is - no appliences can take advantage of it.) And silly us -- we have just spent a bunch buying all sorts of appliences that run off of good old electricity.
I see that they charge for upgrades from one version to the next. (I.E. --> Existing Libranet user $39.95) Does that not kind of make apt-get dist-upgrade a bit useless?
Either way -- if I were going to purchase a new Linux distro, I would give this one a shot. With Debian "Clones" (storm, corel, etal) it has always been a bit of a catch-22, because you have all the power of apt-get, but apt-get is only as good as the updates (and frequency of said updates) waiting on the other end.
Now granted I am late to the party, but with a range of 10M and a very slow transfer rate -- what make Bluetooth a viable technology? (Granted my only experience with wireless is 802.11B -- I can use the wireless NIC in my laptop to cruise around the Internet and transfer files on my LAN at pretty good speeds and from a distance of around 300-400 Feet.)
I really liked your idea about a proposal for the RIAA to "test the waters" with music that was out of print. But that got me thinking even more. Most of the music I downloaded from Napster was music that was either OOP altogether, or never released on CD in the states. Why would the RIAA be concerned if I just happen to like music that they deemed not important enough to even make available for me to purchase. I think your idea would go much further than just "testing the waters" for people in my niche.
My question is this: Why would they not go for something like this?? Have you heard any rational reason for the labels not getting together and giving this a go??
The PSION is what I used to replace my HP 200LX. It was a bummer that it used proprietary storage and expansion --- but overall it was a great machine....Much better than the PALM
Much like the baseball players VS. owners, Microsoft VS. Sun is a result of 2 parties both playing dirty. However, I agree that if Sun had ever bothered to come out with a presentation layer that did not flow like cold syrup across my screen they could have really helped themselves. The world was (and still is) ready for a GUI that is "write once, run anywhere", just not "write once, tweak for quirks, and then crawl in most places".
Since they stopped supporting the same PCMCIA cards that my laptop uses -- and relying on grafitti rather than a keyboard.
I remember my HP 200LX back in the stone age. I could pop the modem out of my laptop and dial up and run telnet sessions and check email -- all the while saving out to the (albeit expensive at the time) 4 meg CF card. I did this all on a regular (albeit small) keyboard. All of this and it rode on my hip -- and the batteries lasted for days. Ever since then PDA's have gone downhill for all I care.
Well stated. (The part about the additional hardware costs needed to decode ogg would be more expensive than the $.75 decoder fee for the software...mp3)
As time goes by -- I am loosing touch and getting less and less time chained to my PC....Yet more and more time listening to my tunez. (More things like jogging and roller blades -- less Dr. Pepper and Perl) -- bottom line OGG Portable. I will be the first in line when a good OGG device is released (and my 3 portables CFLash Nex II, CD SlimX, and HD Archos WILL all go in the closet) but until then -- I am tired of all the ogg advocates telling me to use it....I can't. Wish I could. As I have said in the past: Chaining my PC to my back with a long extension cord is not an option.
I know it happens around here a lot. Did the company that won the bid already have the "paperwork" taken care of with the contracts department based on previous jobs? Many times it is worth $10K not to have to go through all the hoops of working with a "new" consulting company. Much like you had their website mostly "templated" out (thus your bargain rate), they could have already had the winning company "templated" out with a previous contract in place. I have done many RFP's with new companies -- and have been surprised at what it takes paperwork wise to get someone new setup. (billing, waivers, proof of insurence, conduct policies, network id's, mail accounts, etc...etc..)
Redhat is like family -- tons of squabbles and fights in the house....But when someone on the school yard picks on your family (I can pick on my brother, but if you do you are dead meat) -- the first thing you do is come to their aid. Kudos to all the good posts I have read, and the ability of the/. crowd to set aside their internal differences to stand up for RedHat when the inevitible "Is Redhat the next Microsoft" posts come up. Even though I do not use Redhat myself -- I am far from blind to the great contributions they have brought forth....Plus bonus points for not going broke and rolling over like many of those that came after. (I am still bitter that none of the apt based commercial debian centered distros never made it up the hill.)
that our desktop PC's will never be any faster than the slowest computer in the field (we do mostly Unix development -- and the compiles are all on the server end...) We have been doing this for so long -- that I have also neglected to upgrade my computers at home. I don't if or when this Retro "PII / Amd K6 500" thing will ever catch on with you kids -- but I have noticed that more performance tweaking and memory leaks get caught by people who develop and or test on lower end machines.
Any word on the battery life for this? I know that 802.11B sucks the batteries right out of most handheld devices. I am testing an "industrial" Symbol device (PocketPC) here at work -- and am hard pressed to surf around for more than about 45 minutes on a full charge.
Based on the size of this thing, it may have an additional battery on board. A few quick glances of the website did not make it appear that way.
I don't know. The sites that actually offer up good old fashioned product seem to be doing pretty good. It's the smoke and mirror sites that went under. People who thought they would make money just by showing up....Well they are where they should be -- gone and/or going. I have done ALL of my Christmas shopping online for the last 3 years (granted I tried to go to the sites that offered reduced or free shipping). I purchase most of my music online -- in the past I have also used the internet to decide what music deserved purchasing -- but the RIAA thought I was not buying enough...but thats another story. I buy most of my books online (even though I have not quite figured out how to suck a mocha through my modem just yet). I bargain hunt at ebay (I bet they have not passed out many pink slips). All the special software we use at work, and my wife uses at home is researched, reviewed, and purchased online....
I could go on forever and ever -- the bottom line being: People are spending money online -- they are just spending it on products.
But I use Fluxbox as my WM with mostly gtk apps. Gqview, Galeon, Gimp, Grip, Etc. I don't get what the whole Gnome VS. Kde thing is. It's all about the apps. Hell, I would give up all the WM's and go back to TWM before I would give up the apps.
Good points. I feel I can make a good review on the subject since I do use (have to use) IE at work everyday. And yes -- if I wanted to I could install Windows and use IE at home. But since I don't, I can compare apples with apples. Yes -- before Mozilla stabalized (I use galeon) I did have a few flustered moments....But nowadays the things that IE does not do right, as listed above...are just WAY to big of a pain in the A** to ignore. Granted if IE could block popups, have tabbed browsing, zoom in zoom out, custom download manager, etc....Then maybe my only leg to stand on would be "They do not have a version for my OS of choice" (as it was a year or two back) but nowdays their really are better browsers than IE. Imagine that!
"But ultimately, Hurd concluded, Opera and other Microsoft competitors would do better to support the technologies that the market-leading Internet Explorer browser made available, rather than focusing on industry standards."
Wow does not that quote stick out like a sore thumb from the company that prided themselves on following the published standards? To me that is a scary way of looking at things.
Slashdot Mirror
We could call it "Linux Cannibal V1.0".
All kidding aside...I think that was the best question of the day. You would think someone would piece together a distribution that included all of the varied "little things" that all of the other distributions have created over the years.
Well if it were just load based -- their are hundreds of programs that will automate and simulate till your hearts desire. That being said, I believe the question was more geared around how to test that when I hit the submit button -- does everything work like it should?
:) Everyone wants to claim QA in place, ISO Whatever in place...etc... The reality is, those were the first things to go.
The best thing to do is to ensure your testers are familiare enough with the back end and the transaction processes to be able to run cross checks on the Database -- to ensure everything is working as it should. Common things like missing where clauses on deletes, in statements like 'a,b,c' rather than 'a','b','c'. Just simple things that automated tools could never catch. The bad part is that things like this take time and bodies. Atr least were I am sitting -- not near as many of those around here these days
In the same week we wondered why Miscrosoft was making HP/Compaq kneel and beg to "be able" to provide MS Windows with each PC. (rather than Microsoft thinking themselves "lucky" to be moving so many copies of their software)....Along comes this as to where Microsoft may refuse to patch Word 97. Now I personally know of quite a few fortune 500 companies that are still 100% Word 97.....Would not this size and (clout) of a user base still warrant security patches to serious holes? (Well for most software companies it would -- but Microsoft's relationship..err..monopoly with their customer base in almost 180 degrees from everyone else.)
That is good. I have responded 100 times with those same thoughts in my head -- yet never been able to find the right words. But you got it -- "Manipulation", "Control", "Availability" ...
I know late -- but here is my view. I used to always get burnt in the 80's - 90's buing CD's that ended up being crappy. After awhile -- I got tired of the whole "hear one song on the radio" -- think that maybe, just maybe this CD may be the next "Dark Side Of The Moon" -- 90% of the time it ended up being bait and switch. So I stopped wasting my money.....Thus without ever even offending me -- the RIAA was out my cash.
Fast forward to Napster and AG. I am really able to give the music a proper test drive -- hence I find a new band that makes the hair on my arm stand up -- I rush to the record store to purchase said CD. Rinse, Repeat. Hell, from my point of view -- the record companies should have been paying Napster and AG rather than suing them. (Maybe the radio stations would have gone broke...)
Fast forward to Post-Napster, Post-AG...(never used Kazzaa (I don't have a windows machine -- they don't have a linux client) -- I have played the dangerous game of trying to decide what bands to buy based on a carefully placed track on the bands website -- or maybe a low quality snippet or two elsewere. I am about 2 for 20 again...Right back to where I last left off.
Note: I really like my Nex II, it is by far the best CF player out there.
That being said: "Firware upgradable and can support future formats" is getting really old from all digital music players. I can honestly say that I have seen over 20 players (CD, CF, HD) that proudly make this claim in their marketing jargain -- yet guess how many have came through??? It's about like me saying that my cars tires will support the ferrari. Yet, technically it could happen -- but more realistically those tires will spend their lifetime on my 87 nissan sentra.
Yea -- it's kind of like finding out that their has been a new type of energy that works better and cheaper than electricity (the only catch is - no appliences can take advantage of it.) And silly us -- we have just spent a bunch buying all sorts of appliences that run off of good old electricity.
I see that they charge for upgrades from one version to the next. (I.E. --> Existing Libranet user $39.95) Does that not kind of make apt-get dist-upgrade a bit useless?
Either way -- if I were going to purchase a new Linux distro, I would give this one a shot. With Debian "Clones" (storm, corel, etal) it has always been a bit of a catch-22, because you have all the power of apt-get, but apt-get is only as good as the updates (and frequency of said updates) waiting on the other end.
Now granted I am late to the party, but with a range of 10M and a very slow transfer rate -- what make Bluetooth a viable technology? (Granted my only experience with wireless is 802.11B -- I can use the wireless NIC in my laptop to cruise around the Internet and transfer files on my LAN at pretty good speeds and from a distance of around 300-400 Feet.)
I really liked your idea about a proposal for the RIAA to "test the waters" with music that was out of print. But that got me thinking even more. Most of the music I downloaded from Napster was music that was either OOP altogether, or never released on CD in the states. Why would the RIAA be concerned if I just happen to like music that they deemed not important enough to even make available for me to purchase. I think your idea would go much further than just "testing the waters" for people in my niche.
My question is this: Why would they not go for something like this?? Have you heard any rational reason for the labels not getting together and giving this a go??
The PSION is what I used to replace my HP 200LX. It was a bummer that it used proprietary storage and expansion --- but overall it was a great machine....Much better than the PALM
Much like the baseball players VS. owners, Microsoft VS. Sun is a result of 2 parties both playing dirty. However, I agree that if Sun had ever bothered to come out with a presentation layer that did not flow like cold syrup across my screen they could have really helped themselves. The world was (and still is) ready for a GUI that is "write once, run anywhere", just not "write once, tweak for quirks, and then crawl in most places".
Ahh..Another reminder that the crowd on /. gets younger and more imature each day. Taco -- do away with AC.
Since they stopped supporting the same PCMCIA cards that my laptop uses -- and relying on grafitti rather than a keyboard.
I remember my HP 200LX back in the stone age. I could pop the modem out of my laptop and dial up and run telnet sessions and check email -- all the while saving out to the (albeit expensive at the time) 4 meg CF card. I did this all on a regular (albeit small) keyboard. All of this and it rode on my hip -- and the batteries lasted for days. Ever since then PDA's have gone downhill for all I care.
Well stated. (The part about the additional hardware costs needed to decode ogg would be more expensive than the $.75 decoder fee for the software...mp3)
As time goes by -- I am loosing touch and getting less and less time chained to my PC....Yet more and more time listening to my tunez. (More things like jogging and roller blades -- less Dr. Pepper and Perl) -- bottom line OGG Portable. I will be the first in line when a good OGG device is released (and my 3 portables CFLash Nex II, CD SlimX, and HD Archos WILL all go in the closet) but until then -- I am tired of all the ogg advocates telling me to use it....I can't. Wish I could. As I have said in the past: Chaining my PC to my back with a long extension cord is not an option.
I know it happens around here a lot. Did the company that won the bid already have the "paperwork" taken care of with the contracts department based on previous jobs? Many times it is worth $10K not to have to go through all the hoops of working with a "new" consulting company. Much like you had their website mostly "templated" out (thus your bargain rate), they could have already had the winning company "templated" out with a previous contract in place. I have done many RFP's with new companies -- and have been surprised at what it takes paperwork wise to get someone new setup. (billing, waivers, proof of insurence, conduct policies, network id's, mail accounts, etc...etc..)
Redhat is like family -- tons of squabbles and fights in the house....But when someone on the school yard picks on your family (I can pick on my brother, but if you do you are dead meat) -- the first thing you do is come to their aid. Kudos to all the good posts I have read, and the ability of the /. crowd to set aside their internal differences to stand up for RedHat when the inevitible "Is Redhat the next Microsoft" posts come up. Even though I do not use Redhat myself -- I am far from blind to the great contributions they have brought forth....Plus bonus points for not going broke and rolling over like many of those that came after. (I am still bitter that none of the apt based commercial debian centered distros never made it up the hill.)
That sounds promising. If I could get 8 hours online with the backlight on then I would not complain.
that our desktop PC's will never be any faster than the slowest computer in the field (we do mostly Unix development -- and the compiles are all on the server end...) We have been doing this for so long -- that I have also neglected to upgrade my computers at home. I don't if or when this Retro "PII / Amd K6 500" thing will ever catch on with you kids -- but I have noticed that more performance tweaking and memory leaks get caught by people who develop and or test on lower end machines.
Any word on the battery life for this? I know that 802.11B sucks the batteries right out of most handheld devices. I am testing an "industrial" Symbol device (PocketPC) here at work -- and am hard pressed to surf around for more than about 45 minutes on a full charge.
Based on the size of this thing, it may have an additional battery on board. A few quick glances of the website did not make it appear that way.
I don't know. The sites that actually offer up good old fashioned product seem to be doing pretty good. It's the smoke and mirror sites that went under. People who thought they would make money just by showing up....Well they are where they should be -- gone and/or going. I have done ALL of my Christmas shopping online for the last 3 years (granted I tried to go to the sites that offered reduced or free shipping). I purchase most of my music online -- in the past I have also used the internet to decide what music deserved purchasing -- but the RIAA thought I was not buying enough...but thats another story. I buy most of my books online (even though I have not quite figured out how to suck a mocha through my modem just yet). I bargain hunt at ebay (I bet they have not passed out many pink slips). All the special software we use at work, and my wife uses at home is researched, reviewed, and purchased online....
I could go on forever and ever -- the bottom line being: People are spending money online -- they are just spending it on products.
But I use Fluxbox as my WM with mostly gtk apps. Gqview, Galeon, Gimp, Grip, Etc. I don't get what the whole Gnome VS. Kde thing is. It's all about the apps. Hell, I would give up all the WM's and go back to TWM before I would give up the apps.
%s/Slashdot/google/g
Search for high framerate digital cameras. Let the poor slashdotters get back to writing code.
Good points. I feel I can make a good review on the subject since I do use (have to use) IE at work everyday. And yes -- if I wanted to I could install Windows and use IE at home. But since I don't, I can compare apples with apples. Yes -- before Mozilla stabalized (I use galeon) I did have a few flustered moments....But nowadays the things that IE does not do right, as listed above...are just WAY to big of a pain in the A** to ignore. Granted if IE could block popups, have tabbed browsing, zoom in zoom out, custom download manager, etc....Then maybe my only leg to stand on would be "They do not have a version for my OS of choice" (as it was a year or two back) but nowdays their really are better browsers than IE. Imagine that!
"But ultimately, Hurd concluded, Opera and other Microsoft competitors would do better to support the technologies that the market-leading Internet Explorer browser made available, rather than focusing on industry standards."
Wow does not that quote stick out like a sore thumb from the company that prided themselves on following the published standards? To me that is a scary way of looking at things.