The test criteria are minimal and oriented toward application installation, interaction with network features such as billing, and ensuring that the application does not disrupt major phone features such as call handling. No meaningful tests exist to ensure usability, quality, effective documentation, conformance with interface expectations, correct operation in the absence of expected network features or correct operation on all hardware variants of the complex and fragmented Symbian platform.
Well, we are talking of an OS for cell phones, right? Wouldn't it be the major goal of such a certification process indeed be about being compatible with the network and with phone features?
Symbian doesn't specifiy a user interface. Nokia developed Systems 60/90 as user interfaces. Sony Ericsson provides again something different. Other manufacturers sublicense the interface (Siemens)
Again and very slowly: Certifying a cell phone (platform) is precisely about the systems interaction with the network. Not about "usability" (whatever that is).
Not all certification is carried out independently.
Ah, you mean like some analysts don't seem to act independently, but sometimes leave the reader with the distinct fealing that they are whores in the pay of a uhhh! major software company trying frantically to get a foothold into the booming cellphone business?
Dudes, this is not about "Windows Certified". I suggest that you use more of your time cluing yourself in, instead of constantly wasting your time in rebooting your Microsoft Powered "Smart"-Phones.
She had been going to a "religious" group for years and basically had been inducted into a cult; apparently when the husband started objecting to how she was siphoning money to these crooks they told her to make these false accusations in retaliation.
Was the "religous" group an UFO nut cult which achieved notoriority on the internet and has a very active newsgroup (which makes entertaining reading) dedicated to them?
There is also a need to hold locks on many more tables when updating one table, because the side effects can cascade through the entire database. It's MUCH faster to delete records from one table first and subsequently delete them from the other tables.
Yeah, I'll tell that to my forex traders, i can really see it now:
Guys, everythings faster, simpler and with far better concurrency effective immediately, beecause now when you delete a customer we just go ahead and delete all his deals. This will also be a blast to the auditors and folks... FOOOLLLKKKSSS!!!
(If you have any more specific questions: I'm the guy sitting on a rock at the edge of the city in this tar and feather coating...)
Last time I flew was November last year. Air tickets were cheap (around 200 return) so I paid cash. I also made the mistake of flying Air France because I couldn't get a BA flight.
Isn't this called a "double whammy"?
Specifically if the immigration officer is an avid Fox news viewer, or a worshipper of pea brained blonde annorexic chicks who like to spew hate.
A European visitor to the US is now (along with nationals from many 'visa exemption' countries) being fingerprinted, photographed, and logged in numerous databases.
Yup, but this stops at the end of September. Except Canadians every terr^H^H^H^Hforeigner will be fingerprinted upon entry to the US.
If I'd be the US tourist industry I'd be in the process of shitting my pants from fear.
From a personal perspective: I've travelled the US about 15 times and spent a significant amount of my tourist Euro there.
This change of procedure however has the stench of assuming that I'm a criminal and doesn't give me the warm fuzzy feeling that I'm welcome.
I might be a tad over sensitive here (given the rotten track record of privacy protections in the US I'm not sure though), but I don't believe that I'm the only ex-US visitor with that view..
After learning how to program mainframes in the late 80's I was thankfully transferred to a departement which used VAX/VMS.
The first VAX I worked on was an 8700 (the 8800 with two processors (!) was the most powerful VAX at that time).
It served 80 concurrent users quiet nicely and probably had the processing power, which would put a Gameboy to shame nowadays.
No snazzy videos, no doom and no music playback, though, but a development environment, which was a true pleasure to work with.
I refer to Stephen Evans article linked below from today.
The implication that the current virus du jour was created by Linux zealots to hurt SCO and Microsoft is outrageous for a "normal" news outfit.
For the BBC - still one of the worlds most respected news organizations - this article, which obviously was very badly or not at all researched borders on a scandal.
It implies that the Free Software / Open Source community (whatever that is) is a bunch of vindictive criminals out to destroy anybody with whom the disagree with.
Being a free software user, since I opened my rather successful database consultancy business five years ago, I feel personally insulted by Mr. Evans diatribe.
expecting presents in their hot little Swiss bank accounts
Actually it would be pretty dumb to use a Swiss bank in order to park bribes or other illicitely won gains.
The only good reason to use a Swiss bank is if you plan to do some tax evasion.
See, tax evasion is considered a mild misdemeanor in Switzerland (relatively small fine, a slap on your wrist and 20 hail maries or so) and thus banks will not provide information about their customers on tax evasion cases. Tax fraud (i.e. you don't 'forget' some income on your tax statement, but you cook the books) is a different story and in such cases (as in all criminal cases) the banks provide customer information to authorities (foreign and local).
Also the myth about the infamous numbered accounts is riddled with bullshit. Mind you, they do exist, but that doesn't mean that a customer is anonymous (this is prohibited by Swiss laws and the last loopholes where closed some 15 years ago), but that he is bank internally coded by a number. The true owner is known by only very few people in the bank, but is never anonymous.
If you really want to park dirty money there are far better places then Switzerland, like The Cayman Islands or even a few crooked banks in Florida (which is the worlds money laundring capital, btw)
I'm from Germany and have used both the TGV and the ICE and I must admit that the ICE sucks in comparison.
Depends, I really don't care for the narrow space and the interior of the TGV (alas the Thalis is somehat nicer). The ICE on the other hand is very, very nicely designed (The ICE3 is pure bliss for the traveller). A joy to kick back, light up a Cuban cigar, while entertaining yourself with one of that fine brews that Germany has to offer.
The new tracks between Frankfurt and Koln (Cologne) is pretty fast (while not quite free of initial software errors) and leads to Amsterdam by extension.
Personally I think it was an act of brilliance not to construct a completely new transportation infrastructure in Europe, but to advance the existing train technology to run up to 300km/h (186.4 mi/h) and then some on specific tracks.
The French started somewhat over 20 years ago with the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse, Very Fast Train) and then Germans (being the greatest engineering nation in the world, although they made a fatal engineering mistake in this case) couldn't stand back and developed the ICE (Intercity Express). There where multiple generations of both trains and their major advantage is that they run just fine on the existing tracks, alas not with 200 miles.
You point out a lot of great arguments for the Maglev technology. So why am I such a luddite?
It's the practical implementation. From Paris to London: ~3hrs, Paris Bruxelles: 90 minutes, Zurich Frankfurt ~4hrs, Bruxelles London 3:30hrs.
The network is extensive and frequent and it's far more pleasurable and relaxing to board a train (even though the TGVs doesn't offer lots of space) in the center of a city and being in a different city center some two hours later instead of the horrors (not to mention delays) of flying. Such an extensive network would have never been possible with a completely new technology and infrastructure. So from the usability perspective this was a very smart decision.
That doesn't mean that I think Maglev technology doesn't has its nishes (sp?). For example this would be great to connect Tokyo to Narita (~50 miles and 200$ by taxi). But I don't see it's place in a vast, interconnected network as we are lucky enough to have in Europe.
I'm a SuSE user since 1999 and really think it's a great desktop distribution.
For better or worse however SuSE is dumbing down the distribution to provide it with more mainstream appeal. Which is something I really don't care for. (Yes I know that you can manually edit configuration files, but still...)
So I started to give Debian a serious look and played around with it on the Linux partition of my Laptop.
Not really currently having the time and given the fact that a Debian installation is not that trivial I put that project on the backburner for now.
This script however will provide me with the ability to install convert SuSE to Debian; play and get to learn the more esoteric aspects (for a SuSE user that is) and finally probably set the systems up from scratch.
Firing a bullet from a handgun thru the side/window of an airplane at 25k-30k feet will not cause explosive decompression. You have to pretty much set off a bomb that will blow a sizeable hole in the plane.
My, this will piss the movie mogules in Hollywood mightily off.
given what was done to the technologies that Compaq pioneered since they were bought by HP
Sorry pal, the most notable engineering effort by Compaq was marketing.
Compaq essentially was a marketing organization and box assembler, which made too much money and bought a couple of enterprise computer companies (in hopes to get a foothold into their customer base).
Digital Equipment (or DEC as we preferred to refer to it) on the other hand was an engineering company (which was later part of its downfall) and the technologies you are referring too where hatched at DEC.
Notable engineering efforts where (leaving away very ancient history) the Alpha AXP chip (which introduced 64bit processing 10 years before Intel could even come up with a workable prototype and Itanium "steels" a lot from alpha), or clustering, which worked seemlessly and transparently in 1988 (probably before that), while other "clustering" technologies, most notably under HP/UX, seem to be a bunch of hacked together scripts, which provide a never ending nightmare (specifically after major migrations). I could continue with some of the best compilers and a development environment, which would still put a lot of modern stuff to shame.
Compaq had no fucking clue what they where getting and they where even more clueless in the realm of enterprise customers relying on rock solid, mission critical iron. Uptimes for such customers (for example the Amsterdam coppers) is measured in thousands of days and they tend to take a dim view on the infamous CTRL-ALT-DELETE "error correction" procedure.
I absolutely agree with your statement regarding miss Fiorino, though.
If US law allows any private entity to fire off threatening letters to anyone then the system is totally fucked (well, looking what's going on at RIAA vs their customers it probably is).
If a company suspects foul play they shall get a proper supbonea by a proper court, which does have the legal standing to demand an answer or a declaration.
A bunch of goons (regardless if it's SCO, RIAA, MPAA, BSA or the mafia) has no legal standing to demand anything from anyone without going through a court. Period.
In addition I'd really like to see enhanced jail time for Darl.
I'm not necessarily that vindictive, but that guy should rot in hell (but only after they released hime from his extended "vacation" in a (hopefully) maximum security jail).
Yeah, has a real crappy reputation, the ol' Telekom. But fear not: It's not better in other countries where the local ex-monopolist is now supposed to be a "privately run, customer oriented business", but I digress.
What I actually wanted to point out is the clever mechanism that the Amsterdam cops use not to necessarily recoup the phone but to annoy cell phone thieves to no end. Aparently it has cut down theft by 50%.
For the click lazies it works like this:
Every couple of minutes your freshly stolen phone receives an SMS around the lines:
This phone is stolen property and you will be shot, zapped or get a visit by Darth Vader if you sell or buy it
The fun thing is that exchanging the SIM (Subscriber Identification Module for non GSM users, essentially a smart card or a chip) will not do you any good, since the messages are geard towards your phone's IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity), which is unique.
Well, it will not bring your phone back of course, but you'd at least have the satisfaction that the thieve is annoyed to no end and has a virtually useless phone, which he could as well toss into the canals.
They are under investigation exactly for the reason of trying to abuse their desktop monopoly in order to squash competition on the server side (Kerberos anyone?)
Attempting to abuse a virtual standard on which so many businesses and government agencies depend would guarantee bad trouble for Microsoft. And else then in the US they have not that much cronies in high places here.
Slashdot Mirror
Nevertheless, this "analysis" is just braindead and looks bought by the boys from Redmond.
Well, we are talking of an OS for cell phones, right? Wouldn't it be the major goal of such a certification process indeed be about being compatible with the network and with phone features?
Symbian doesn't specifiy a user interface. Nokia developed Systems 60/90 as user interfaces. Sony Ericsson provides again something different. Other manufacturers sublicense the interface (Siemens)
Again and very slowly: Certifying a cell phone (platform) is precisely about the systems interaction with the network. Not about "usability" (whatever that is).
Not all certification is carried out independently.
Ah, you mean like some analysts don't seem to act independently, but sometimes leave the reader with the distinct fealing that they are whores in the pay of a uhhh! major software company trying frantically to get a foothold into the booming cellphone business?
Dudes, this is not about "Windows Certified". I suggest that you use more of your time cluing yourself in, instead of constantly wasting your time in rebooting your Microsoft Powered "Smart"-Phones.
At least you don't have to wait too long until you can pry her private key from her cold, dead fingers...
Was the "religous" group an UFO nut cult which achieved notoriority on the internet and has a very active newsgroup (which makes entertaining reading) dedicated to them?
Shouldn't that read "different does mean more"?
Yeah, I'll tell that to my forex traders, i can really see it now:
Guys, everythings faster, simpler and with far better concurrency effective immediately, beecause now when you delete a customer we just go ahead and delete all his deals. This will also be a blast to the auditors and folks... FOOOLLLKKKSSS!!!
(If you have any more specific questions: I'm the guy sitting on a rock at the edge of the city in this tar and feather coating...)
Was that different or are they the most recent victims of marketing doublespeak?
Isn't this called a "double whammy"?
Specifically if the immigration officer is an avid Fox news viewer, or a worshipper of pea brained blonde annorexic chicks who like to spew hate.
And you don't have to go to Bagdhad, just remember Oklahoma.
Yup, but this stops at the end of September. Except Canadians every terr^H^H^H^Hforeigner will be fingerprinted upon entry to the US.
If I'd be the US tourist industry I'd be in the process of shitting my pants from fear.
From a personal perspective: I've travelled the US about 15 times and spent a significant amount of my tourist Euro there.
This change of procedure however has the stench of assuming that I'm a criminal and doesn't give me the warm fuzzy feeling that I'm welcome.
I might be a tad over sensitive here (given the rotten track record of privacy protections in the US I'm not sure though), but I don't believe that I'm the only ex-US visitor with that view..
Are folks really that dumb in LA not to turn off the phone, or at the very minimum set it to silent when they go to watch a movie?
It served 80 concurrent users quiet nicely and probably had the processing power, which would put a Gameboy to shame nowadays.
No snazzy videos, no doom and no music playback, though, but a development environment, which was a true pleasure to work with.
The implication that the current virus du jour was created by Linux zealots to hurt SCO and Microsoft is outrageous for a "normal" news outfit.
For the BBC - still one of the worlds most respected news organizations - this article, which obviously was very badly or not at all researched borders on a scandal.
It implies that the Free Software / Open Source community (whatever that is) is a bunch of vindictive criminals out to destroy anybody with whom the disagree with.
Being a free software user, since I opened my rather successful database consultancy business five years ago, I feel personally insulted by Mr. Evans diatribe.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely
Actually it would be pretty dumb to use a Swiss bank in order to park bribes or other illicitely won gains.
The only good reason to use a Swiss bank is if you plan to do some tax evasion.
See, tax evasion is considered a mild misdemeanor in Switzerland (relatively small fine, a slap on your wrist and 20 hail maries or so) and thus banks will not provide information about their customers on tax evasion cases. Tax fraud (i.e. you don't 'forget' some income on your tax statement, but you cook the books) is a different story and in such cases (as in all criminal cases) the banks provide customer information to authorities (foreign and local).
Also the myth about the infamous numbered accounts is riddled with bullshit. Mind you, they do exist, but that doesn't mean that a customer is anonymous (this is prohibited by Swiss laws and the last loopholes where closed some 15 years ago), but that he is bank internally coded by a number. The true owner is known by only very few people in the bank, but is never anonymous.
If you really want to park dirty money there are far better places then Switzerland, like The Cayman Islands or even a few crooked banks in Florida (which is the worlds money laundring capital, btw)
Depends, I really don't care for the narrow space and the interior of the TGV (alas the Thalis is somehat nicer). The ICE on the other hand is very, very nicely designed (The ICE3 is pure bliss for the traveller). A joy to kick back, light up a Cuban cigar, while entertaining yourself with one of that fine brews that Germany has to offer.
The new tracks between Frankfurt and Koln (Cologne) is pretty fast (while not quite free of initial software errors) and leads to Amsterdam by extension.
Personally I think it was an act of brilliance not to construct a completely new transportation infrastructure in Europe, but to advance the existing train technology to run up to 300km/h (186.4 mi/h) and then some on specific tracks.
The French started somewhat over 20 years ago with the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse, Very Fast Train) and then Germans (being the greatest engineering nation in the world, although they made a fatal engineering mistake in this case) couldn't stand back and developed the ICE (Intercity Express). There where multiple generations of both trains and their major advantage is that they run just fine on the existing tracks, alas not with 200 miles.
You point out a lot of great arguments for the Maglev technology. So why am I such a luddite?
It's the practical implementation. From Paris to London: ~3hrs, Paris Bruxelles: 90 minutes, Zurich Frankfurt ~4hrs, Bruxelles London 3:30hrs.
The network is extensive and frequent and it's far more pleasurable and relaxing to board a train (even though the TGVs doesn't offer lots of space) in the center of a city and being in a different city center some two hours later instead of the horrors (not to mention delays) of flying. Such an extensive network would have never been possible with a completely new technology and infrastructure. So from the usability perspective this was a very smart decision.
That doesn't mean that I think Maglev technology doesn't has its nishes (sp?). For example this would be great to connect Tokyo to Narita (~50 miles and 200$ by taxi). But I don't see it's place in a vast, interconnected network as we are lucky enough to have in Europe.
What exactly do you mean with fast enough ?
For better or worse however SuSE is dumbing down the distribution to provide it with more mainstream appeal. Which is something I really don't care for. (Yes I know that you can manually edit configuration files, but still...)
So I started to give Debian a serious look and played around with it on the Linux partition of my Laptop.
Not really currently having the time and given the fact that a Debian installation is not that trivial I put that project on the backburner for now.
This script however will provide me with the ability to install convert SuSE to Debian; play and get to learn the more esoteric aspects (for a SuSE user that is) and finally probably set the systems up from scratch.
Quite appropriate timing I dare say.
My, this will piss the movie mogules in Hollywood mightily off.
Sorry pal, the most notable engineering effort by Compaq was marketing.
Compaq essentially was a marketing organization and box assembler, which made too much money and bought a couple of enterprise computer companies (in hopes to get a foothold into their customer base).
Digital Equipment (or DEC as we preferred to refer to it) on the other hand was an engineering company (which was later part of its downfall) and the technologies you are referring too where hatched at DEC.
Notable engineering efforts where (leaving away very ancient history) the Alpha AXP chip (which introduced 64bit processing 10 years before Intel could even come up with a workable prototype and Itanium "steels" a lot from alpha), or clustering, which worked seemlessly and transparently in 1988 (probably before that), while other "clustering" technologies, most notably under HP/UX, seem to be a bunch of hacked together scripts, which provide a never ending nightmare (specifically after major migrations). I could continue with some of the best compilers and a development environment, which would still put a lot of modern stuff to shame.
Compaq had no fucking clue what they where getting and they where even more clueless in the realm of enterprise customers relying on rock solid, mission critical iron. Uptimes for such customers (for example the Amsterdam coppers) is measured in thousands of days and they tend to take a dim view on the infamous CTRL-ALT-DELETE "error correction" procedure.
I absolutely agree with your statement regarding miss Fiorino, though.
If a company suspects foul play they shall get a proper supbonea by a proper court, which does have the legal standing to demand an answer or a declaration.
A bunch of goons (regardless if it's SCO, RIAA, MPAA, BSA or the mafia) has no legal standing to demand anything from anyone without going through a court. Period.
Running my own small business the question arises why I should certify anything to anyone who has no official business of requesting my certification?
Specifically when it comes to a company who makes the likes of Enron look like a convention of boy scouts?
I'm not necessarily that vindictive, but that guy should rot in hell (but only after they released hime from his extended "vacation" in a (hopefully) maximum security jail).
What I actually wanted to point out is the clever mechanism that the Amsterdam cops use not to necessarily recoup the phone but to annoy cell phone thieves to no end. Aparently it has cut down theft by 50%.
For the click lazies it works like this:
Every couple of minutes your freshly stolen phone receives an SMS around the lines:
This phone is stolen property and you will be shot, zapped or get a visit by Darth Vader if you sell or buy it
The fun thing is that exchanging the SIM (Subscriber Identification Module for non GSM users, essentially a smart card or a chip) will not do you any good, since the messages are geard towards your phone's IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity), which is unique.
Well, it will not bring your phone back of course, but you'd at least have the satisfaction that the thieve is annoyed to no end and has a virtually useless phone, which he could as well toss into the canals.
They are under investigation exactly for the reason of trying to abuse their desktop monopoly in order to squash competition on the server side (Kerberos anyone?)
Attempting to abuse a virtual standard on which so many businesses and government agencies depend would guarantee bad trouble for Microsoft. And else then in the US they have not that much cronies in high places here.