I'm amazed more people aren't more familiar with SAMBA - If you're not:
Take an old box at home and set it up as a SAMBA server. Get to know it well.
Figure out how to make it the PDC for your home network and do logins and share printers.
(You'll probably need to download the latest version if you want to authentication on Win2K clients, since it's a fairly recent capability.)
Webmin makes it easy to administer, too.
Then do a gap analysis to see what features W2K server has that you need. You'll be surprised at how robust and transparent it can be to the users.
Plus, if you have Linux developers in your shop, they'll appreciate being able to map to their ~/ directory, or to be able to ssh in from the road to acess their files securely. (I can even do this from my handspring visor.)
If you don't skimp on hardware and you don't load up the box with every known program and service, you should have a nice stable setup to present to management.
Then, document the hell out of everything, especially how to add/delete users and reset passwords, in a way that any MCSE in training could understand.
Maybe do this on a secondary network, until you are comfortable with your skill/ the hardware/ the software. Tell management that you need SMB on Linux for some of the network tools such as SSH.
Perhaps your intranet is the place - Apache on Linux is a lot easier to use if the content producers can map/home/httpd/htdocs/ as their I:\ drive in windows and/or update the MySQL database via ODBC.
I've done a few pages on my experience setting this up on my website: Wirefarm take a look at "Section 2" halfway down.
I was just speaking to some people from Hitatchi Japan about this yesterday at Linux World Tokyo.
(Specifically, I was looking at some of their Middleware offerings.)
It was closed-source development using Linux as the platform, though everything was named "Open - ".
It's interesting because this is an area that is lacking in the Linux server area. When a company is spec-ing out a system, such as a trade processing system with an application server, web server and database, if some of the better alternatives are Linux-based, it opens the door to a lot of new Linux development and a lot of new jobs for Linux developers.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
PS - Had a quick lunch with Hemos and Taco at the conference - great guys. MMDC.NET
Yup - That about sums it up -
My phone (Toshiba 'Mega Carrots', for some reason,) has a color screen, 16 track FM MIDI synthesizer, digital sound, memo recorder, Web Browser, 4 types of messaging/email, 64Kbps Data connection as a modem and a plug-in digital camera.
It lasts 2 weeks on a charge and weighs about as much as a Snickers Bar. (Half the weight and thickness of a Nokia 6160)Plus it doesn't cost me anything when people call *me*.
My Nokia 6160 back in the US *did* come with 'snake', which was a pretty cool game, though...
I like the Wasabi dispenser idea -
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
PS - I just started an iMode site - Check it out: MMDC.NET
Several people have pointed out that a knowing participant cannot give unbiased, impartial data.
Since all of us casual observers know this, It must have occurred to the demographics companies ages ago -
I wonder how many of them have tried intrusive, illegal surveillance of unsuspecting consumers to gather their data.
First, they'd have to identify their target as being 'average' from all outward appearances. Then they hire an undercover team to monitor every move, every purchase, every magazine ad glanced at for more than a second.
The more I think about it, the more likely it seems - here you were, worrying about browser cookies, when some guy who looks like Jean Reno (not Janet Reno, but the guy from that Nat Portman flick, "The Professional",) is lurking in your bushes and going through your trash, seeing if you clip coupons for nasal spray, or buy suspicious amounts of hand lotion...
I suppose there is only one defense - Obfuscate the data! If you think you may be observed, start radically changing your behaviour. If you see an ad for soup on TV, snap into a rain-man-zombie-like state and go directly to the store and buy up 12 cans, all the while chanting "Soup is good food, Soup is good food..." (Better if it's like two in the morning...)
The next day, react violently to the print version of the same ad - scratch out the eyes of all the people in the ad...
That should get them to stop following you.
I'd better go look at ZDNet for a while, to through them off track...
Well, that's what changed, IIRC - Now, programs that use CDDB have to use CDDB exclusively.
My understanding is that GRIP gets blocked anymore.
Is this the case?
To use the CDDB database, you have to agree to ONLY use the CDDB database. No replication to FreeCDDB allowed.
But then again, how about a program that will read the *file system* of your computer and re-construct the CDDB entry for submission to FreeCDDB?
Let me explain:
You use a CDDB-approved CD ripper to generate a dir full of MP3s. You close that program.
You run a script to compare the files in YOUR filesystem to the CD still in the tray. You generate a FreeCDDB submission. You hit SEND and the FreeCDDB gets updated...
You haven't used the CDDB database in an un-authorized way, you've read the attributes of YOUR files that YOU created, that reside on YOUR harddrive.
The pity is that all of this trouble is to make up for the unfortunate fact that Gracenote abused our trust. Maybe they have the right to do it, but nobody who sat dutifully typing in their CD titles knew that it would be one day restrictively controlled like this.
Maybe Gracenote will realize that they could do better by just opening things up again, not challenging the community to make them redundant.
Anyone else notice that the open letter never said exactly WHY they were suing?
A wise friend once told me: "Paris was always better 20 years before. No matter what period of time it is that you're talking about..."
When I started with computers, it was on a printer terminal. No fancy CRT, just reams of greenbar. Though technically a CLI, it made editing long text files *interesting*... Since every mistake probably meant printing out a few pages of relatively scarce paper, (at my school, anyway...) we were more careful about what we typed. No luxury of on-screen editing for us!
My older sister wrote her programs in college on a deck of 80 char cards - Her husband could manually enter the boot sequence of his PDP-something-or-other using the switches on the front of the box.
(I remember a friend of mine who ridiculed me for using PINE as a mail reader - way too graphical! What a waste of resources!)
It's all relative. Each advance represents certain losses and gains and shifts in perceptions; It is exactly because Windows is such a big, gassy, bloated mess that I can afford a 1.2 GHz processor and so much RAM. They've driven down hardware prices for the masses. If I want to use this hardware to run VI and mpg123 while serving pages with APACHE in the background, I won't need KDE *or* GNOME and the performance will certainly kick ass. For this, I have MS and Intel to thank. (Even though mine is Caldera on AMD!)
Don't worry about the next generation - They will soon enough make us all obsolete with their wizardry, no matter which interface they choose...
I was at the Chiyoda ward office not long ago and they were telling me that with a spouse visa, you still have to get it renewed every three years and prove that you're still married.
In my infinite wisdom, I jokingly asked if you had to be married to the same woman...
Trust me, never try homour at the ward office...
Before I moved to Tokyo, I too used to go to the meetings - Great time - I miss it.
I never did hear anything about illegal activities - just Linux, gadgets and porn, usually. (Of course maybe it was because I often came straight from work at the DOJ in my suit...)
It was mostly a social thing, like any party of friends and peers.
I remember that young kid who came with his dad - I had a nice talk with his father. That kid really kind of found his own there. The first night he was talking about all of this pop-hack-aol nonsense, but quickly settled in and proved himself to be a cool, intelligent young guy.
I think a lot of people go there not for the supposed cracking, but to just be around people who are able to talk intelligently about computers and networks over fried cheese and beers. (Not to say that there isn't a lot of bragging and made-up exploits bandied about as well...)
Some of them even were there to meet girls, believe it or not - there were always a couple of girls there who knew how to hack their way around linux. There was one girl who told me that she would never date a guy who used bash... (Of course, I suspect they really came to see Dave show off his nipple ring... again.)
About half the time, some curious feds would lurk at the fringes of the group and more often than not, they'd be invited to join in. There was really never anything to hide. They'd often cautiously answer questions about their work, once they realized that they were dealing with a pretty good bunch of kids. I'd suspect that they took home a few resumes as well.
Cheers
Jim in Tokyo
www.wirefarm.com
You just HAD to mention that, didn't you?
on
Tokyo.Disney.Net
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· Score: 1
Forgive me - I'm still bitter; I recently took the kids to see "Walt Disney on Ice"and it was just a bunch of people in costumes, skating around.
Ol' Walt's brain was nowhere to be seen...
The kids were _so_ disappointed...
Jim in Tokyo
Re:Yes, this exists, but is not the best solution.
on
DVDs On DAT?
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· Score: 1
The larger DV tapes are 270 minutes - 4.5 hours, but need to have a deck capable of using it.
My VCR has 2 bays - VHS on the right and DV on the left. The DV bay will take either DV or Mini DV.
I'd love to find a Linux solution that will stream out the firewire port to the deck's firewire - Since the deck refuses to record MacroVision streams, I'd have to strip that out of the video, without going to analog. (The DeCSS version I use strips that.
Anyone know of a solution?
(Oddly, the main reason I need this is not to pirate, it's because I am really hard on discs...)
Cheers,
Jim
Whilst playing audio files may be of some relevance in a school there is no reason at all for students to be using the likes of Napster, "ripping" CD's, etc.
I disagree. I think that's exactly what they should be doing on the school computers, if that's what get's them motivated.
The programs I mentioned are some of the best examples of what can be done with Linux - interoperability, usability and appeal. Why shouldn't kids see what's possible now with Linux?
Think of the technologies involved in those activities - Sure, most kids in school would use them only for their obvious purposes, trading music, - But a few of them are going to open up the source code to see what makes it tick. The possible benefits of this happening far outweigh any of the possible downsides.
If the kids have Windows in front of them, there is no source code - they will come to think of software as a commodity, not as a community.
So imagine the kid uses Linux at school and thinks "This is great - stable, solid, open source! I should use this at home."
Then he finds out that it won't do any of the cool things that people actually use their computers for, like making and listening to MP3s.
Think of how Napster started - a college student hacking around with some well-documented protocols, cobs them together into last year's killer app and making people re-think the viability of what would seem to be an unworkable system. (Peer-to-peer, versus traditional client-server for reliable information propogation.)
A high school kid in Europe wants to watch DVDs on Linux, so he cracks CSS. A 16 year-old changes an industry...
A Finnish student wants to run Unix on his PC, so he writes Linux - need I say more?
I would not be the one to say what is worthwhile for kids in school to be doing on their computers - I say, let them do what they want - Rip CDs, trade songs, find a way to get past the firewall to playboy.com - at least they're not shooting their classmates -
and maybe one or two of these kids will be staying after school, creating a new industry.
I heartily agree! -
(what I meant was something that the casual user will see right away. A client program.)
Creating a viable replacement for Exchange/Outlook should be a top priority for the community, if they really want to replace NT/2000.
OpenMail from HP was getting close, I think, but not OSS and not being developed anymore - I really hope HP decides to give it to the community.
Have you tried deploying a POP3 server in your network - It has the advantage of being familiar to anyone who has a home email account, offering a range of clients, but without the scheduling and groupware features.
Maybe take a look at LDAP servers and clients - They may be more of what you need.
Take a look at my webpage (www.wirefarm.com) - I've been putting together information on how to do a SOHO network using Linux as the servers for Windows (also Mac and Linux) clients in a way that Windows people might better understand.
It describes a typical home network with a Dialup or leased-line router (old 486/66 PC) and a SAMBA server (Pentium >133) providing Windows Logon and Network Shares.
It also covers basic TCP/IP setup for a typical closed network, using 192.168.. IPs, most static, with DHCP for laptops and such.
Where possible, I've provided the configuration files, with common settings.
I'd love to get feedback.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
OK, I sorta agree, but...
It's changing:
Using linux, I would miss a lot of Windows apps -like Winamp, Napster, CD Rippers - Until I found XMMS, Knapster and Grip - XMMS, in particular, has 95% of Winamp's niceties.
Netscape 6 is almost as good as IE, but Star office still feels like a hack. (Sure you can read and write Word documents, but the formatting gets screwy.)
I do wish my hardware were better supported and I could get USB to work and there are things I wish were easier, like playing DVD's.
What Linux needs is something that it does BETTER than Windows - Something that the average user wants to do, but can't under windows.
If there were a program that your average 14 year old wanted to run and needed Linux to do it, you'd see a LOT more linux users in the future.
To capture a business market share, Linux could become the preferred CLIENT platform for databases. Get ODBC/JDBC to work on Linux in a manner like it does on NT - then make easier native interfaces.
Create a Rapid Application Development language that is as easy to use as VB. Make it accessible to VB developers.
Create an IDE for PERL/RUBY/Python/C++ that beats Microsoft's offerings. (KDevelop is almost there.)
Make it brain-dead easy to configure Apache. Windows converts will want an applet in the KDE control panel, not a bunch of.conf files in/etc.
Something that lets you check off a box that says "Allow PHP" - "Allow PERL" - Stuff that people want to do without too much trouble.
Make SAMBA configuration look familiar to an MCSE. (Make setting usage quotas on SAMBA shares easy and you will win over a lot of NT admins.)
Make IPChains/IPTables easy and safe to configure - a Windows style wizard that asks "Allow Napster?", "Block Common Attacks?" would be great. (I spent a couple of days at my last contract trying to get IPChains running, all the time wondering how badly I was leaving the network exposed while I did it.)
Personally, I think that Single-purpose distros would get a lot of people using Linux - Remember "Internet in a Box"? (It was a $79 collection of TCP/IP shareware that was popular before Windows came with a TCP/IP stack.)
How about "Mail server in a Box"? "Router (with firewall and proxy server) in a box"?
You get the idea - Make them drool-proof to set up and maintain, even for a Windows user.
(Freesco almost has it right - the setup for the freesco single-floppy router is fantastic, but I wish it had the menu option "Install to Hard Drive" and then "Install Proxy Server" or "Install Firewall with most common options".
OK, anyway, I've gotten way off topic - You get the idea...
Cheers,
Jim
Quick question - After you remove the USB card and the metal plate, what next? Do you stick a NIC in its place, or is there an ethernet port hidden somewhere inside?
I've never seen one of the modems, but my brother just got one and we were discussing how to use it with a Linux Router (FreeSCO) - The USB connection means he's got to use a Win box as a gateway or at least as a proxy server.
Would you consider throwing up a quick page on how you did the conversion?
Imagine for a moment that Blockbuster rented audio CD's for $1.00 a day or something. What do you
think it would do to the market for CD's? It would probably completely destroy it. Some people would still buy the CD for the printed materials. But, a lot of folks would rent the CD and
rip it to MP3 for a buck instead.
Oddly enough, here in Japan, they do rent audio CDs for about $1.50 a day. They also sell MiniDiscs at the counter. It hasn't hurt sales, even though CD prices start at around $20.
People like to have the original. That's just the way it is.
I've been able to rent a DVD and copy it to my hard disk. I've actually only done this when I rented the movie but never got the chance to watch it before it had to go back to the rental store. In theory, I could use firewire to stream it to my digital VCR and put it on a DV tape, but the large DV tapes are >$30, so I have yet to ever feel the need. Especially since most of what I rent, I wouldn't want to watch twice.
If it's something worth owning, I buy it. I think a lot of people probably feel the same.
It comes down to economics - as long as I can buy the DVD's I want at a reasonable cost, I will. If the market lets the price get too high and hard disk space is competitively cheap, people will build their movie libraries on their computers, rather than on their shelves but we're still not there in cost, quality and ease of use.
Give it six months, and things will probably move that way - all of the DvVx;-) developers are rapidly getting the software to the point where it will be easy and cheap to make great copies that can compete with DVD.
Um...
I looked at the site and I am guessing that the owner's name might really be "Brian Van". (Assuming that Van is a Vietnamese name.)
How is it that he's not more entitled to the domain than you?
You could have grabbed it, but you didn't. It's not like it's being held by a squatter or a clearing house - Be happy with your dot net.
Cheers,
Jim, who didn't get his dot com, either.
Let me preface this by saying that I have done a lot of work over the last few years using Access. For some things, it's a great tool. For others, it's not.
It shouldn't mean leaving your job to do what you believe in.
It's fairly trivial to convert a set of access tables and queries to SQL create statements that will re-create your design in MySQL, so...
Design your database in Access. Design it well - Get the tables right now and you will save yourself a lot of trouble.
A bad design in Access won't be any better in MySQL, trust me.
Be patient and do what you're told - do it in Access. When you design it, keep in mind that you might be upgrading to MySQL. Find out where it might break and avoid those areas.
Find out the advantages to using MySQL and promote them when the time comes. One example would be distribution of the data over the company intranet. Explain that web-based reports can save you installing Access on everybody's machine. In my case, that was the decision point - The company had not bought licenses for everyone to have Access on their desktop. Explain that a switch to MS SQL Server will also require client access licenses. Explain that MySQL can be had for free. (Actually, don't say 'free' - say 'MySQL doesn't require CAL's for the clients and will do what we need.')
Remember that MySQL can be had for NT, too. That may sit better with the PHB's.
Write some VBA to create MySQL create statements from your Access tables. Attach the new tables using MyODBC. Move the data from Access to MySQL. The other developers and your boss will be more comfortable seeing their data as familiar Access ODBC-linked tables than they will seeing it as text output on a terminal screen.
Write documentation that Windows people will understand. Do a newbie howto that tells exactly how to create the database and build the tables, step-by-step. A lot of the fear of using open source tools is that they can't find people who know it. Make your docs such that any MCSE can install and administer it. Burn a CD that has all of the required binaries and a script that will install everything.
You'll probably have to downplay the Open Source aspect of all of this. Show them that to use MySQL, they don't have to abandon Windows. Just let them know that they are choosing a robust, stable place to put their data that will work on several different server platforms.
Also, keep in mind that MySQL may not be the right tool for the job. Be prepared to use whatever is best to get the job done well, be it Access, MS SQL, MySQL or whatever.
I noticed on the Japanese 5 Yen coin, (the brass one with tghe hole,) that, incredibly, the years also changed!
The one on the left is from the Japanese year Showa 60 and when it was shrunk, it became Heisei 3 nen - Some sort of incredible time shift!
Freerifle may be a joke, but had you ever heard of the US Army's "Office of Civilian Marksmanship"?
I heard that at one time, they were giving away surplus M1 Garand rifles.
Now they charge $165 - One per citizen over 18, if you are in a marksmanship program and have no criminal record...
It's an old program designed to ensure that the government can raise a straight-shooting militia, should the need arise.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
Does anyone else remember the article in Wired - (May, 1994 - here) about the war between alt.tasteless and rec.pets.cats? Go read it.
I love the line in the article where it says that usenet has 4,000 newsgroups - I remember seeing something like 25,000 in 1996, the last time I checked...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm amazed more people aren't more familiar with SAMBA - If you're not: /home/httpd/htdocs/ as their I:\ drive in windows and/or update the MySQL database via ODBC.
Take an old box at home and set it up as a SAMBA server. Get to know it well.
Figure out how to make it the PDC for your home network and do logins and share printers.
(You'll probably need to download the latest version if you want to authentication on Win2K clients, since it's a fairly recent capability.)
Webmin makes it easy to administer, too.
Then do a gap analysis to see what features W2K server has that you need. You'll be surprised at how robust and transparent it can be to the users.
Plus, if you have Linux developers in your shop, they'll appreciate being able to map to their ~/ directory, or to be able to ssh in from the road to acess their files securely. (I can even do this from my handspring visor.)
If you don't skimp on hardware and you don't load up the box with every known program and service, you should have a nice stable setup to present to management.
Then, document the hell out of everything, especially how to add/delete users and reset passwords, in a way that any MCSE in training could understand.
Maybe do this on a secondary network, until you are comfortable with your skill/ the hardware/ the software. Tell management that you need SMB on Linux for some of the network tools such as SSH.
Perhaps your intranet is the place - Apache on Linux is a lot easier to use if the content producers can map
I've done a few pages on my experience setting this up on my website: Wirefarm take a look at "Section 2" halfway down.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
MMDC.NET
I was just speaking to some people from Hitatchi Japan about this yesterday at Linux World Tokyo.
(Specifically, I was looking at some of their Middleware offerings.)
It was closed-source development using Linux as the platform, though everything was named "Open - ".
It's interesting because this is an area that is lacking in the Linux server area. When a company is spec-ing out a system, such as a trade processing system with an application server, web server and database, if some of the better alternatives are Linux-based, it opens the door to a lot of new Linux development and a lot of new jobs for Linux developers.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
PS - Had a quick lunch with Hemos and Taco at the conference - great guys.
MMDC.NET
Yup - That about sums it up -
My phone (Toshiba 'Mega Carrots', for some reason,) has a color screen, 16 track FM MIDI synthesizer, digital sound, memo recorder, Web Browser, 4 types of messaging/email, 64Kbps Data connection as a modem and a plug-in digital camera.
It lasts 2 weeks on a charge and weighs about as much as a Snickers Bar. (Half the weight and thickness of a Nokia 6160)Plus it doesn't cost me anything when people call *me*.
My Nokia 6160 back in the US *did* come with 'snake', which was a pretty cool game, though...
I like the Wasabi dispenser idea -
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
PS - I just started an iMode site - Check it out:
MMDC.NET
Several people have pointed out that a knowing participant cannot give unbiased, impartial data.
Since all of us casual observers know this, It must have occurred to the demographics companies ages ago -
I wonder how many of them have tried intrusive, illegal surveillance of unsuspecting consumers to gather their data.
First, they'd have to identify their target as being 'average' from all outward appearances. Then they hire an undercover team to monitor every move, every purchase, every magazine ad glanced at for more than a second.
The more I think about it, the more likely it seems - here you were, worrying about browser cookies, when some guy who looks like Jean Reno (not Janet Reno, but the guy from that Nat Portman flick, "The Professional",) is lurking in your bushes and going through your trash, seeing if you clip coupons for nasal spray, or buy suspicious amounts of hand lotion...
I suppose there is only one defense - Obfuscate the data! If you think you may be observed, start radically changing your behaviour. If you see an ad for soup on TV, snap into a rain-man-zombie-like state and go directly to the store and buy up 12 cans, all the while chanting "Soup is good food, Soup is good food..." (Better if it's like two in the morning...)
The next day, react violently to the print version of the same ad - scratch out the eyes of all the people in the ad...
That should get them to stop following you.
I'd better go look at ZDNet for a while, to through them off track...
Cheers,
Jim, paranoid in Tokyo
MMDC.NET
Well, that's what changed, IIRC - Now, programs that use CDDB have to use CDDB exclusively.
My understanding is that GRIP gets blocked anymore.
Is this the case?
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
MMDC.NET
To use the CDDB database, you have to agree to ONLY use the CDDB database. No replication to FreeCDDB allowed.
But then again, how about a program that will read the *file system* of your computer and re-construct the CDDB entry for submission to FreeCDDB?
Let me explain:
You use a CDDB-approved CD ripper to generate a dir full of MP3s. You close that program.
You run a script to compare the files in YOUR filesystem to the CD still in the tray. You generate a FreeCDDB submission. You hit SEND and the FreeCDDB gets updated...
You haven't used the CDDB database in an un-authorized way, you've read the attributes of YOUR files that YOU created, that reside on YOUR harddrive.
The pity is that all of this trouble is to make up for the unfortunate fact that Gracenote abused our trust. Maybe they have the right to do it, but nobody who sat dutifully typing in their CD titles knew that it would be one day restrictively controlled like this.
Maybe Gracenote will realize that they could do better by just opening things up again, not challenging the community to make them redundant.
Anyone else notice that the open letter never said exactly WHY they were suing?
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
MMDC.NET
A wise friend once told me: "Paris was always better 20 years before. No matter what period of time it is that you're talking about..."
When I started with computers, it was on a printer terminal. No fancy CRT, just reams of greenbar. Though technically a CLI, it made editing long text files *interesting*... Since every mistake probably meant printing out a few pages of relatively scarce paper, (at my school, anyway...) we were more careful about what we typed. No luxury of on-screen editing for us!
My older sister wrote her programs in college on a deck of 80 char cards - Her husband could manually enter the boot sequence of his PDP-something-or-other using the switches on the front of the box.
(I remember a friend of mine who ridiculed me for using PINE as a mail reader - way too graphical! What a waste of resources!)
It's all relative. Each advance represents certain losses and gains and shifts in perceptions; It is exactly because Windows is such a big, gassy, bloated mess that I can afford a 1.2 GHz processor and so much RAM. They've driven down hardware prices for the masses. If I want to use this hardware to run VI and mpg123 while serving pages with APACHE in the background, I won't need KDE *or* GNOME and the performance will certainly kick ass. For this, I have MS and Intel to thank. (Even though mine is Caldera on AMD!)
Don't worry about the next generation - They will soon enough make us all obsolete with their wizardry, no matter which interface they choose...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
MMDC.NET
I was at the Chiyoda ward office not long ago and they were telling me that with a spouse visa, you still have to get it renewed every three years and prove that you're still married.
In my infinite wisdom, I jokingly asked if you had to be married to the same woman...
Trust me, never try homour at the ward office...
MMDC.NET
Before I moved to Tokyo, I too used to go to the meetings - Great time - I miss it.
I never did hear anything about illegal activities - just Linux, gadgets and porn, usually. (Of course maybe it was because I often came straight from work at the DOJ in my suit...)
It was mostly a social thing, like any party of friends and peers.
I remember that young kid who came with his dad - I had a nice talk with his father. That kid really kind of found his own there. The first night he was talking about all of this pop-hack-aol nonsense, but quickly settled in and proved himself to be a cool, intelligent young guy.
I think a lot of people go there not for the supposed cracking, but to just be around people who are able to talk intelligently about computers and networks over fried cheese and beers. (Not to say that there isn't a lot of bragging and made-up exploits bandied about as well...)
Some of them even were there to meet girls, believe it or not - there were always a couple of girls there who knew how to hack their way around linux. There was one girl who told me that she would never date a guy who used bash... (Of course, I suspect they really came to see Dave show off his nipple ring... again.)
About half the time, some curious feds would lurk at the fringes of the group and more often than not, they'd be invited to join in. There was really never anything to hide. They'd often cautiously answer questions about their work, once they realized that they were dealing with a pretty good bunch of kids. I'd suspect that they took home a few resumes as well.
Cheers
Jim in Tokyo
www.wirefarm.com
Forgive me - I'm still bitter; I recently took the kids to see "Walt Disney on Ice" and it was just a bunch of people in costumes, skating around.
Ol' Walt's brain was nowhere to be seen...
The kids were _so_ disappointed...
Jim in Tokyo
The larger DV tapes are 270 minutes - 4.5 hours, but need to have a deck capable of using it.
My VCR has 2 bays - VHS on the right and DV on the left. The DV bay will take either DV or Mini DV.
I'd love to find a Linux solution that will stream out the firewire port to the deck's firewire - Since the deck refuses to record MacroVision streams, I'd have to strip that out of the video, without going to analog. (The DeCSS version I use strips that.
Anyone know of a solution?
(Oddly, the main reason I need this is not to pirate, it's because I am really hard on discs...)
Cheers,
Jim
Whatever happens, I just hope I don't have to type:
/usr/local/bin/ssh®
%
My keyboard doesn't have an ® key...
Jim in Tokyo
I disagree. I think that's exactly what they should be doing on the school computers, if that's what get's them motivated.
The programs I mentioned are some of the best examples of what can be done with Linux - interoperability, usability and appeal. Why shouldn't kids see what's possible now with Linux?
Think of the technologies involved in those activities - Sure, most kids in school would use them only for their obvious purposes, trading music, - But a few of them are going to open up the source code to see what makes it tick. The possible benefits of this happening far outweigh any of the possible downsides.
If the kids have Windows in front of them, there is no source code - they will come to think of software as a commodity, not as a community.
So imagine the kid uses Linux at school and thinks "This is great - stable, solid, open source! I should use this at home."
Then he finds out that it won't do any of the cool things that people actually use their computers for, like making and listening to MP3s.
Think of how Napster started - a college student hacking around with some well-documented protocols, cobs them together into last year's killer app and making people re-think the viability of what would seem to be an unworkable system. (Peer-to-peer, versus traditional client-server for reliable information propogation.)
A high school kid in Europe wants to watch DVDs on Linux, so he cracks CSS. A 16 year-old changes an industry...
A Finnish student wants to run Unix on his PC, so he writes Linux - need I say more?
I would not be the one to say what is worthwhile for kids in school to be doing on their computers - I say, let them do what they want - Rip CDs, trade songs, find a way to get past the firewall to playboy.com - at least they're not shooting their classmates -
and maybe one or two of these kids will be staying after school, creating a new industry.
Jim
I heartily agree! -
(what I meant was something that the casual user will see right away. A client program.)
Creating a viable replacement for Exchange/Outlook should be a top priority for the community, if they really want to replace NT/2000.
OpenMail from HP was getting close, I think, but not OSS and not being developed anymore - I really hope HP decides to give it to the community.
Have you tried deploying a POP3 server in your network - It has the advantage of being familiar to anyone who has a home email account, offering a range of clients, but without the scheduling and groupware features.
Maybe take a look at LDAP servers and clients - They may be more of what you need.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
(www.wirefarm.com)
Take a look at my webpage (www.wirefarm.com) - I've been putting together information on how to do a SOHO network using Linux as the servers for Windows (also Mac and Linux) clients in a way that Windows people might better understand.
It describes a typical home network with a Dialup or leased-line router (old 486/66 PC) and a SAMBA server (Pentium >133) providing Windows Logon and Network Shares.
It also covers basic TCP/IP setup for a typical closed network, using 192.168.. IPs, most static, with DHCP for laptops and such.
Where possible, I've provided the configuration files, with common settings.
I'd love to get feedback.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
OK, I sorta agree, but...
.conf files in /etc.
It's changing:
Using linux, I would miss a lot of Windows apps -like Winamp, Napster, CD Rippers - Until I found XMMS, Knapster and Grip - XMMS, in particular, has 95% of Winamp's niceties.
Netscape 6 is almost as good as IE, but Star office still feels like a hack. (Sure you can read and write Word documents, but the formatting gets screwy.)
I do wish my hardware were better supported and I could get USB to work and there are things I wish were easier, like playing DVD's.
What Linux needs is something that it does BETTER than Windows - Something that the average user wants to do, but can't under windows.
If there were a program that your average 14 year old wanted to run and needed Linux to do it, you'd see a LOT more linux users in the future.
To capture a business market share, Linux could become the preferred CLIENT platform for databases. Get ODBC/JDBC to work on Linux in a manner like it does on NT - then make easier native interfaces.
Create a Rapid Application Development language that is as easy to use as VB. Make it accessible to VB developers.
Create an IDE for PERL/RUBY/Python/C++ that beats Microsoft's offerings. (KDevelop is almost there.)
Make it brain-dead easy to configure Apache. Windows converts will want an applet in the KDE control panel, not a bunch of
Something that lets you check off a box that says "Allow PHP" - "Allow PERL" - Stuff that people want to do without too much trouble.
Make SAMBA configuration look familiar to an MCSE. (Make setting usage quotas on SAMBA shares easy and you will win over a lot of NT admins.)
Make IPChains/IPTables easy and safe to configure - a Windows style wizard that asks "Allow Napster?", "Block Common Attacks?" would be great. (I spent a couple of days at my last contract trying to get IPChains running, all the time wondering how badly I was leaving the network exposed while I did it.)
Personally, I think that Single-purpose distros would get a lot of people using Linux - Remember "Internet in a Box"? (It was a $79 collection of TCP/IP shareware that was popular before Windows came with a TCP/IP stack.)
How about "Mail server in a Box"? "Router (with firewall and proxy server) in a box"?
You get the idea - Make them drool-proof to set up and maintain, even for a Windows user.
(Freesco almost has it right - the setup for the freesco single-floppy router is fantastic, but I wish it had the menu option "Install to Hard Drive" and then "Install Proxy Server" or "Install Firewall with most common options".
OK, anyway, I've gotten way off topic - You get the idea...
Cheers,
Jim
That's great - Thanks!
Jim
Quick question - After you remove the USB card and the metal plate, what next? Do you stick a NIC in its place, or is there an ethernet port hidden somewhere inside?
I've never seen one of the modems, but my brother just got one and we were discussing how to use it with a Linux Router (FreeSCO) - The USB connection means he's got to use a Win box as a gateway or at least as a proxy server.
Would you consider throwing up a quick page on how you did the conversion?
Thanks in advance!
Jim in Tokyo
Imagine for a moment that Blockbuster rented audio CD's for $1.00 a day or something. What do you
think it would do to the market for CD's? It would probably completely destroy it. Some people would still buy the CD for the printed materials. But, a lot of folks would rent the CD and
rip it to MP3 for a buck instead.
Oddly enough, here in Japan, they do rent audio CDs for about $1.50 a day. They also sell MiniDiscs at the counter. It hasn't hurt sales, even though CD prices start at around $20.
People like to have the original. That's just the way it is.
I've been able to rent a DVD and copy it to my hard disk. I've actually only done this when I rented the movie but never got the chance to watch it before it had to go back to the rental store. In theory, I could use firewire to stream it to my digital VCR and put it on a DV tape, but the large DV tapes are >$30, so I have yet to ever feel the need. Especially since most of what I rent, I wouldn't want to watch twice.
If it's something worth owning, I buy it. I think a lot of people probably feel the same.
It comes down to economics - as long as I can buy the DVD's I want at a reasonable cost, I will. If the market lets the price get too high and hard disk space is competitively cheap, people will build their movie libraries on their computers, rather than on their shelves but we're still not there in cost, quality and ease of use.
Give it six months, and things will probably move that way - all of the DvVx;-) developers are rapidly getting the software to the point where it will be easy and cheap to make great copies that can compete with DVD.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
Um...
I looked at the site and I am guessing that the owner's name might really be "Brian Van". (Assuming that Van is a Vietnamese name.)
How is it that he's not more entitled to the domain than you?
You could have grabbed it, but you didn't. It's not like it's being held by a squatter or a clearing house - Be happy with your dot net.
Cheers,
Jim, who didn't get his dot com, either.
Let me preface this by saying that I have done a lot of work over the last few years using Access. For some things, it's a great tool. For others, it's not.
It shouldn't mean leaving your job to do what you believe in.
It's fairly trivial to convert a set of access tables and queries to SQL create statements that will re-create your design in MySQL, so...
Design your database in Access. Design it well - Get the tables right now and you will save yourself a lot of trouble.
A bad design in Access won't be any better in MySQL, trust me.
Be patient and do what you're told - do it in Access. When you design it, keep in mind that you might be upgrading to MySQL. Find out where it might break and avoid those areas.
Find out the advantages to using MySQL and promote them when the time comes. One example would be distribution of the data over the company intranet. Explain that web-based reports can save you installing Access on everybody's machine. In my case, that was the decision point - The company had not bought licenses for everyone to have Access on their desktop. Explain that a switch to MS SQL Server will also require client access licenses. Explain that MySQL can be had for free. (Actually, don't say 'free' - say 'MySQL doesn't require CAL's for the clients and will do what we need.')
Remember that MySQL can be had for NT, too. That may sit better with the PHB's.
Write some VBA to create MySQL create statements from your Access tables. Attach the new tables using MyODBC. Move the data from Access to MySQL. The other developers and your boss will be more comfortable seeing their data as familiar Access ODBC-linked tables than they will seeing it as text output on a terminal screen.
Write documentation that Windows people will understand. Do a newbie howto that tells exactly how to create the database and build the tables, step-by-step. A lot of the fear of using open source tools is that they can't find people who know it. Make your docs such that any MCSE can install and administer it. Burn a CD that has all of the required binaries and a script that will install everything.
You'll probably have to downplay the Open Source aspect of all of this. Show them that to use MySQL, they don't have to abandon Windows. Just let them know that they are choosing a robust, stable place to put their data that will work on several different server platforms.
Also, keep in mind that MySQL may not be the right tool for the job. Be prepared to use whatever is best to get the job done well, be it Access, MS SQL, MySQL or whatever.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
I noticed on the Japanese 5 Yen coin, (the brass one with tghe hole,) that, incredibly, the years also changed!
The one on the left is from the Japanese year Showa 60 and when it was shrunk, it became Heisei 3 nen - Some sort of incredible time shift!
Oh, wait a minute... Um... Never mind...
;-)
Jim
Freerifle may be a joke, but had you ever heard of the US Army's "Office of Civilian Marksmanship"?
I heard that at one time, they were giving away surplus M1 Garand rifles.
Now they charge $165 - One per citizen over 18, if you are in a marksmanship program and have no criminal record...
It's an old program designed to ensure that the government can raise a straight-shooting militia, should the need arise.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
Does anyone else remember the article in Wired - (May, 1994 - here)
about the war between alt.tasteless and rec.pets.cats? Go read it.
I love the line in the article where it says that usenet has 4,000 newsgroups - I remember seeing something like 25,000 in 1996, the last time I checked...
Cheers, Jim in Tokyo
Well, actually, Babelfish translated it perfectly...
;-)
Jim in Tokyo