Anyone who suggests 'abandoning the use of the registry' has obviously never written Windows software.
Anyone who suggests that there is no valid alternative to the registry has obviously not (properly) written.NET Windows software.
Some people at Microsoft themselves suggest avoiding the registry--as of Windows Vista THE REGISTRY IS ESSENTIALLY DEPRECATED. So what is the alternative? How 'bout a standardised XML.config file for each application? That is what Microsoft advocates. And to all those Registry bigots out there:
*.config files are not centralised and a bad setting won't corrupt a whole system * you can edit.config files without the aid of a specialised tool like regedit * Unlike.ini files, there is a standard XML specification established so all.config files are structured the same--also they are always located in the same directory as the application so it is easy to find. *.NET libraries are provided for the creation and modification of.config files, so there is no need to manually parse the file and no excuse not to comply with the standard specification
Of course, we are talking about Windows here, so the legacy registry will be around for another decade I'm sure...and I'm sure as in the past short-sighted developers (both within Microsoft and outside) will ignore this excellent recommendation and continue to use the brain-damaged registry.
It's pretty annoying how people always suggest blatantly stupid 'solutions' to problems instead of focusing on real fixes like better design and better testing
Well, *I* find it pretty annoying when solutions are dismissed as "stupid" because they are different and people can't take the time to understand them. BTW, eliminating dependency on the registry *is* a "real fix"---the registry is a design flaw and.config files are "better design".
It makes my skin crawl to hear words like "solution stack", not only because I don't know what the heck it means, but also because it doesn't mean anything.
Us propeller-heads live in glass houses too and should be careful when throwing stones, as we are as prone to using acronyms for brevity as marketers are prone to use buzzwords to impress. Most regular folk think of a device to illuminate a dark room when they hear LAMP. "Sequel" (SQL) is a new story that continues a previous one. FLOSS is used to clean teeth, and using the preferred term FOSS to reduce confusion doesn't help at all. Even the mighty marketing dept. at Microsoft can't eradicate the evil acronym, thus we end up dealing with ASP, ODBC, DCOM, CLR etc. To technical people they make conversation less cumbersome but to the uninitiated they are about as meaningful as the term "solution stack".
It is important to note that the folks writing cheques and approving such decisions are PHBs (pointy-haired bosses) that probably more often than not have business and marketing backgrounds instead of engineering or technical backgrounds. If you start spewing out LAMP, SQL, SOAP, XML, RPC etc. their eyes will glaze over. These PHB folk were fed this lingo from the time they entered college...it is the language THEY use to make conversation less cumbersome. Furthermore, you won't convince a PHB to adopt your "solution stack" if you don't relate their concerns. Trust me, I know from experience trying to make a go at self employment that PHBs care not about transactions per second, extensibility, standards support, intrusion-detection and so on...if your proposal made it to his desk those who DO care have (or should have) already done that homework and told the PHB "yep that's OK".
If you are on the short-list and you are now presenting to a table of PHB types you have to spare the technical steak and show a little sizzle---bright shiny objects visible at 30,000 feet are alluring to the PHB. If you can show them a "virtual dashboard" with all the "Key Performance Indicators" of interest to a PHB thay'll lap it up, and don't waste ANY time at all on HOW you do it--that isn't even on their radar of comprehension. You have to brush up on your lingo and get a bit familiar with terms and numbers that are a bit outside YOUR radar. You must do a "cost/benefit analysis"--they wand a good "return on investment"...they want a low "total cost of ownership"...they need to be prepared for the "paradigm shifts" involved in migrating to new platforms.
It is indeed a promising sign for Free software adoption when companies providing that technology start speaking the right language--a big reason personal computers in general and Microsoft in particular really started taking off 25 years ago...because after more than 5 years as a niche, hobbyist industry they finally started forming marketing departments.
I'm just hoping that Red Hat, Novell et al don't mature so much they become over the hill as Microsoft is contending with now. That happens when marketing not only presents the company offerings to outside customers but start to dominate product design and developent as well. Microsoft already gives us enough eternally-moving release-dates, hapahzardly designed software and cavalier attitudes towards security and interoperability and we don't need more of that from the Linux camp.
As regards your point about the OS license costs, methinks you are mistaken.
I am not mistaken--especially in terms of the relative cost in comparison to the hardware on which it runs. Firstly you are quoting the price for upgrades. The full retail version of XP Home is nearly $200. For the pro versions, XP Pro is currently a scant $20 cheaper than 200 Pro and XP used to be more expensive than 2000. You are also being misleading about the price of Office. You are again quoting an upgrade or Academic price. MS Office to this day has retailed in the $450 to $500 range, falling to $400 in the months preceeding the release of a new version.
If you adjust for inflation you could say the price has gone down--but given the 500% markup MS could afford to be more competitive, especially when you consider hardware. When Windows 95 came out, the price of a suitably-equipped system was around $1500 (a '486-class machine with 8 MB or so of RAM including monitor). When XP came out (at a higher initial retail cost than 95) you could get a good-enough system for $1000 or maybe a bit less (with monitor). The retail price of XP has come down slightly but now it is possible to get a complete system for close to $500 that is more capable than a machine twice the price 3 to 4 years ago. IIRC large OEMs have paid $30 per copy and that has remained constant, however the overall system price has sunk dramatically, meaning MS' take as a PERCENTAGE is now MUCH higher than it used to be.
You pointed out that Microsoft is fond of charging for a product, then giving it away free, then bundling it [...] this is predatory? I call that evolution
Yes it IS predatory--and bundling as MS does it is NOT the same as free. You obviously completely overlooked the entire point. When MS went from giving away IE to "bundling" IE it really INTEGRATED it. It would've been fine for them to include it on the install CD and make it easy to install, but they went FAR beyond that. You cannot remove IE--they threw its DLLs all over the system and made Windows Update only work with IE (and I haven't heard a good technical reason why they HAD to do that). You can download Firefox and ignore IE, but it must still clutter your hard drive and you must still run its code when you do an online update of the OS. If an animal "evolved" the way Windows did it would probably keep its gills, scales and tail even as it grew limbs, fur and lungs--then it would go extinct as its body had to support all its vestiguous organs.
And to counter your automotive analogy Microsoft would not just offer the module for a price, then for free then standard in next year's model. Microsoft would install the module box in a secret location, weld the box shut and then weld the box to the frame so it cannot ever be removed without a great deal of effort. Then the hood would be welded shut. MS would make the wire connectors overly complicated to thwart reverse engineering and while those ambitious enough to cut open the hood could install 3rd party modules that have the potential of cutting fuel consumption by 33%, those modules would not perform as well as they do in other makes of car because all the signals would have to pass from the sensors through the MS module.
Incidentally, auto makers HAVE tried to pull a Microsoft and keep their electronics and connectors secret, but in the consumers' interest governments have mandated that they cannot do that (at least not permanently)...because it was ruled ANTI-COMPETITIVE/PREDATORY. That is why newer cars all have things like standard OBD2 ports and why 3rd party tuners are permitted to sell their own modules/chips/firmware. You can also have the right to reverse-engineer or modify your car without legal threats from the manufacturer (apart from potentially voiding a warranty).
Microsoft, in my opinion, has HELPED foster competition, not hurt it
Yeah, MS was quite "helpful" there--I mean, look how WordPerfect, Quattro Pro and Paradox flourished after MS got into the act with MS Word, Excel and MS Access.
The consumer wins because Microsoft mass produces software and sells it at a lower price
Yeah MS is quite generous with their prices--the street price of Windows and Office represents a mark-up of a mere FIVE HUNDRED percent. You also conveniently overlooked the fact that the above competiton was consistently sold at lower prices than Microsoft's offerings. Yes, WordPerfect for Windows was real crufty and they didn't get it right for a couple of releases--but keep in mind that the WP folks couldn't peer over the "Chinese wall" as easily as the MS Office guys could. And...Quattro and Paradox actually were well matched or superior to versions of Excel and Access that existed at the time.
It's not the consumer's responsibility to protect ailing businesses. The only responsibility consumers have is to create demand for higher quality and lower prices. Microsoft has met much of that demand.
I also find it distasteful when governments and others feel that we must save ailing businesses without regard to their viability. However, I'd argue that MS did not succeed because it met that demand--its success depended largely on anti-competitive practices. It is fine and dandy to give away stuff or take advantage of an opportunity when a competitor stumbles (hello WordPerfect 5.x for Windows). It becomes a problem when MS "embraces and extends" industry standards, turns applications into "operating system components" and keeps some of its externally-callable APIs secret from non-MS application developers so it can use them for leverage in its own apps. Yes, MS' dominance put an end to the "good" old days when you had 5 different versions of the same app to run on Apple, Commodore, Atari, TRS80 and TI but in the end we got an overpriced, resource-hungry OS that was a haven for malware.
Please help me out here. I am wracking my brain trying to think of a case where Microsoft started charging for something that was once free
POP access to hotmail is the only one that comes to mind, so you're right in saying that MS doesn't use that strategy to gouge consumers in its normal course of business.
Operating Systems, nope, they never were free (though the service packs and updates have always been free)
True, but as time has gone (and competition disappeared) the price of a MS OS has gone up substantially--especially in relation to the cost of the hardware on which it runs. You also seem to suggest that MS is being generous in giving away updates and service packs. IMHO, if MS didn't give them away they already they should be forced to as they correct product defects. Ford was forced to rectify the design flaws in their Pinto so why would MS be off the hook?
IE, nope, free (at least until the government intercedes on our behalf and makes us buy it)
No court in the world has instructed MS to charge extra for IE or WMP. The issue was *bundling*--not only including the apps with the OS but also purposefully INTEGRATING them into the OS to the point that they cannot be removed or replaced--encouraging application developers to treat what should've been applications as "system componenets" and building dependencies on them into everything. This is bad on two levels--from a technical standpoint it creates a monolithic architecture which is a major factor in the weak security of Windows. From an economic standpoint it shuts out competition and creates a captive market--even if you install Firefox on Windows you cannot remove IE--you need it for Windows Update and for a number of apps to work. That is NONSENSE--such things shouldn't depend on IE.
Office, nope, never was free - though the price has DROPPED significantly as competition has disappeared
The price of Office did not drop because of the lack of competition. The price of office dropped BECAUSE of LOWER-PRICED competition. OpenOffice can be obtained at no cost--that's a pretty low price. Even more crucially, the biggest competition for MS Office is...the previous version of MS Office. After all, settling with what you already have 'cause it works well enough is ust as free (monetarily) as OpenOffice.
There MUST BE at least one example! I mean, after all, it's "common knowledge" that this is a predatory Microsoft practice.
Well, I already gave such an example in MSN Hotmail--some services that were free now costs money. I do not think this was done as a "predatory practise" however. The "predatory practise" that MS HAS done is the opposite--they release a product for sale, then start giving it away, then start bundling it. This is what they did with IE--first it wasn't even included on the Windows setup CD and you had to buy a "plus pack" to get it. Then they started giving it away as a download (which was slow) for a short time until it appeared in the Windows 95 "A" release. To that point they were just being aggressive--after that their actions became predatory and monopolistic. By the time NT4 and the "B" version of 95 were in wide use MS had turned IE into a "component" of the OS on which much of its own software (and a number of third party titles) depended.
It isn't actually the fact MS gives away some software that makes it predatory--even if they were to later start charging for it. What hurts the industry and consumers is the way they use their pricing strategy *AND* their platform architecture to LOCK IN users, often at the expanse of security and stability.
Our govn't is basically a dictatorship while in, but their laws can quite rapidly be undone with a election
You are right that Canada is really more of an "elected dictatorship" than a democracy, however you are a bit mistaken when it comes to the ease with which we can change our laws (specifically the constitution--the US constitution is probably easier to amend than ours)
A bit of background: From Canada's inception as an independent Dominion in 1967 until 1981 the Canadian constitution was the British North American act. This was a British piece of legislation and as such Canadians technically COULD NOT CHANGE their own constitution until it passed through the British House of Commons, House of Lords and given assent by the Queen. In 1981 we repatriated our constitution and added a Charter of Rights. This most certainly WAS a "huge deal" and it was indeed debated in the British house and had to be given assent by the Queen herself. This was a long, complicated and contentious process and in the end Quebec never signed the repatriated constitution (so they are only obligated to honour the terms of the original BNA Act? Seems that way).
The amending formula of our current constitution requires 7 of 10 provinces representing a majority of the population to pass any changes to the constitution and given the nature of our country (population distribution and culteral diversity) it is practically imposssible to achieve such approval. The last two times we attempted to amend the constitution failed (the Meech Lake and Charlettown Accords--the primary objective was to get Quebec to finally sign on).
The constitution is a fundamental piece of legislation, however other legislation can be written to be made difficult to undo by successive governments as well. The Gun Registry would be very difficult to undo--partly becasue of how big it is and partly because of the huge infrastructure, system of contracts, etc that is involved. Some legislation is also introduced by gov't because it was ordered to do so by the courts (the judiciary in Canada wields quite a bit of power), and such legislation is very difficult to change once it is in place.
There is one challenge that Canadian gov't doesn't have to deal with--and that is with having a divided gov't (such as when you ahve a Republican president and Democrat congress, or HR and Senate led by different parties). We CAN have a minority government which is pretty much as bad though (we have that now--Liberals dominate but do not hold the majority--and they aren't willing to align with the Conservatives or separatists. They are only willing to work with the NDP, which is not large enough to hold the balance of power without the assistance of and independent or two).
In the minority situation we have a REAL problem because the Prime Minister's Office and the governing party hold too much influence over parliament proceedings and we are now seeing how much of our democracy relies on "convention" that can be conveniently circumvented--for example the gov't has stopped granting "opposition days" in which opposition parties can table their own motions so they cannot be easily thrown out on a non-confidence vote. In reality even in a minority gov't the PM can personally control the agenda of the Commons--any meaningful contribution by opposition parties is only granted out of "parliamentary convention". In the US, in order to get anything done in the equivalent situation of a divided gov't the president must cooperate more and his bidding can be vetoed. If Bush had the power over the US that Martin could have over Canada he could HAND PICK ALL Republican candidates in federal elections, declare martial law, draft all young men to fight in Iraq and wire tap anyone he pleases and he couldn't be stopped for up to five years until forced to call an election.
So, yes the proposed legislation on wiretapping just enforces capability and warrants are still required, however given the lack of checks and balances and reliance on "convention" for Canadian democracy (not to mention how the War Measures act was used rather casually in the past) it does disturb me that the gov't is trying to force us all to set up for huge potential abuses.
Just defending objectivity...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I only use the word "guilty" here because the mother has basically admitted that her daughter did exactly what the lawsuit alleges.
The fact the child was implicated by her mother is indeed valid evidence in support of RIAA's case, but from a journalistic point of view calling the child a "Guilty Person" could be considered hearsay. Being implicated by another party doesn't mean someone is guilty. Hell, even a confession by the accused herself doesn't always mean the accused is guilty. That is why the media generally is very careful about throwing around the word "guilty" or calling a murder suspect a "murderer" even if the evidence appears quite obvious.
Get rid of the "think of the children!11!1" emotion from the situation, and look at it from a more sensible point of view
I agree wholeheartedly that the emotion around this issue contributes nothing to the debate, and the link in the/. article pointed to a fairly unprofessional piece of writing. I am all for a sensible point of view. That said, RIAA has clearly demonstrated it is NOT a sensible organisation. Like a typical cartel, it demonstrates a complete lack of sense and concern for anyhting that is outside its immediate interests.
can someone tell me what recourse the RIAA *does* have when people infringe their copyright? And how is their pursuing such action in any meaningful way different to that of any other copyright holder or representative against an infringer?
Suing little girls, or any individual for that matter, for millions of dollars over music files just does not make sense. Even from the financial aspect alone the damages they ask for are orders of magnitude more than any demonstratable revenue loss. The punishment is simply not reasonable. In my opinion, a teen casually sharing music files is about as serious as a traffic ticket--it doesn't warrant the same kind of treatment as an executive bilking investors out of millions. Save those penalties for the mafia-associated pirates making millions from selling bootlegged MS Office, music and movie CDs.
It is also no more reasonable for RIAA to sue ISPs or software developers for enabling users to share files. There are legitimate uses of their technology and services and it is unreasonable for RIAA to force others to protect IP that isn't even theirs. If RIAA wants software developers and ISPs to help with enforcement they should put their money where their mouth is and offer to PAY MONEY to them for their services. That is the least RIAA can do given how they expect everyone to pay for their offerings.
Of course suing the actual violators is a viable option, however RIAA has been going about it very haphazardly and without reason. How productive is it to sue a teenager millions of dollars? What case can RIAA make to justify such obscene valuations apart from 'x' songs found on a p2p network at $750 a piece? They've also done next to nothing to verify that a given IP address or P2P acocunt name belongs to a specific individual. Some of the accused have even offered to turn over their computers to forensic investigators to prove their innocence to RIAA, and RIAA refuses. I've heard of cases where people who did not know better left their wireless routers wide open, only to have the neighbours' kids or warpathers on the street suck gigabytes of music through their internet connection.
RIAA could also pursue other routes to combat P2P piracy. They could try pursuing non-monetary remedies as I mentioned before to seize the offending materials from people and restricting their use of the internet--in most cases 1st time offenses should be handled more lightly. RIAA could also do more to educate the public about copyright law--it isn't fair to convict someone for something they were not entirely aware was illegal. Right now RIAA and MPAA do next to NOTHING on the education front. That they DO contribute are stupid "public service" commercials that create furhter misunderstanding by making a no
"Sues a Guilty Person" has a more...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
...inflammatory and biased feel to it. It is the sort of headline you would see from "news" outlets in Cuba or China. In a world with a more free and responsible press, reputable journalists refrain from calling ANYONE guilty until they are judged so in a court of law. Until that point they are CHARDED WITH or ACCUSED or ALLEGEDLY commited a crime, even when the facts available to the public seem plainly obvious. Strictly speaking, the headline "RIAA Sues Guilty Person" is not only inflammatory in nature it is technically a lie--this girl is not guily in the eyes of the law because she has never been charged and sentenced with anything, so save such rhetoric until RIAA wins its case against her.
As far as the title of this/. article, "RIAA Suea a Child" is not overly inflammatory nor is it factually inaccurate. I think it is perfectly suitable without being too general. What would you have the article title say? "RIAA Sues a person"? "RIAA Sues an Alleged Music Pirate"? How would this differentiate the story from the thousands of other cases RIAA has chased--I mean, it seems that most of RIAA's activities centre around outrageous litigation and getting into the pockets of politicians. Facts are facts--RIAA found evidence of copyright violation that they believe point to a 14 year old child, and the evidence is fairly convincing. The fact that an industrial cartel has decided the proper course of action is to SUE A MINOR for obscene amounts of money is the whole point of the article, otherwise it wouldn't be news--just another pirate getting taken down.
As for ripping off a man trying to "feed his family" by ripping off a GPL product...well, the same copyright rules apply and if RIAA can sue a child then the FSF is well within their right to sue a man with a starving family. However I don't believe the FSF has ever done that nor ever will do something of that nature. If some enterprising 14-year-old started making money of software derived from a GPL project the FSF's first concern wouldn't be to "make an example" of a child by extorting his money--it would be to make sure he divulges the source code to the derivative project. I would support such action.
Really, your argument makes no sense whatsoever and doesn't seem insightful at all. The article isn't titled "RIAA sues innocent little girl" or "RIAA threatens teenager". The simple facts make it hard to title the article otherwise. That is the point of the article--western society is generally reasonable and gives first time offenders under 18 a bit of a break. Children are not sentenced with the same terms as an adult unless the circumstances are severe. RIAA, however, has decided to wield its legal resources as a blunt instrument without regard to reason or even accuracy in some cases. What is the point of suing a teenage girl over copyright violations when she probably didn't even know what copyright was? Hell, most/. readers don't seem to know what it is. If RIAA wanted to teach a lesson wouldn't there be an easier way of doing it, like getting a court order to seize her computer for a period of time and remove all the MP3s before returning it? At least they could teach her copyright violation is wrong and let her voluntarily make amends? No. Even when their targets agree to participate RIAA will not listen until they have gotten their money. RIAA's actions have definitely proven that they are not doing this to defend what is right. RIAA is doing this to increase revenue first, and "make an example" second--then somewhere down the list is education and innovation. This is not a biased opinion, it is a conclusion that can be supported by RIAAs behaviour.
PostgreSQL vs MSSQL vs Oracle
on
Sun Eyes PostgreSQL
·
· Score: 5, Informative
...is probably the most fair comparison.
Don't know much about Postgres in production environemnts. It seems clean and I like the fact you have a choice of stored procedure languages.
I have had experience with both in production environments, and I've come to the conclusion that PostgreSQL is clearly a step above MSSQL in terms of features and scalability. It is much better than MSSQL with concurrency and managing contention (MSSQL's locking strategy is quite brain dead). There is much more flexibility and power to create user functions and stored procs in PGSQL--you can do things like make user-defined AGGREGATE functions and data types in addition to having a choice of languages (none of that is possible with MSSQL). I find that all things being equal PostgreSQL is probably faster as well (largely an assumption becasue the PostgreSQL systems I've worked with are running on considerably less powerful hardware than the MSSQL systems I am doing). A lot of people comment about the ease of administration of MSSQL but I find that PGSQL really isn't that hard to manage even if you don't use GUI tools.
Oracle is certainly one step above PGSQL in power--but of course that comes with a very hefty price tag. That price isn't just in licensing either--Oracle takes more time to administer and you also pay by losing flexibility, since enterprise systems based on Oracle better do things the "Oracle way" or you are inviting trouble (just like with Microsoft products, Oracle really pushes its single-vendor solutions).
I have not played with Yukon/MSSQL 2005 yet, though I've heard a fair bit about it. From what I've heard it closes the gap a fair bit and comes much closer to PGSQL in terms of features and performance--it is supposed to handle locking/contention better and its has embraced.NET--meaning that you can write stored procs and functions in any.NET language. So, they are probably a pretty close match except in a couple of areas--PGSQL is free (libre and gratis), and PGSQL is not platform dependent. I think that the fact MSSQL only works on Windows is a major drawback when all its competitors offer products that run on Windows, Linux and various UNIX derivatives. Various "facts" notwithstanding I still think that Windows servers are a greater administrative burden and more difficult to secure than other alternatives--perhaps the next server version after 2003 will have addressed that.
...how specs are USED. I think his language could be clearer because it is causing a lot of responses like yours. However his opinions are quite accurate.
However, specs are not always theory, and they may be usefull, as well as docs.
Yes, many specs are absolutely essential. If developers of browsers and web content followed W3C's specifications the web would be a much better place. POSIX makes portability much more feasible. Following standards specifications is what made the internet possible.
Notice a common thread among those specs? They are all STANDARDS--one type of specification. Standards codify a common set of practices (ideally best practices but in reality there are often compromises). If there is just one kind of spec that should be honoured, it is the vendor-neutral standard. These specs are at a level quite removed from the end-user experience and are not specific to any single, specific application. Casual end-users would not directly notice whether standards are followed. Sysadmins, integrators and future developers maintaining such applications REALLY notice such things however, and eventually managers and regular end users will too--in the form of reduced maintenance costs and better reliability and interoperability.
The type of spec Linus is probably referring to are application-specific architectural and functional specifications. These sort of specs, particularly the latter type, have proven to be mostly complete wastes of time. This has a lot to do with the fact that the ways such specs are created and employed with respect to software developent are fundamentally flawed. These flaws usually have to do with doing all these specs up front then following some "waterfall" method of project management whereby you completely implement a full set of specs, periodically reviewing and doing iterations, testing then releasing.
Applying the above methods to software development, or in fact any very large engineering projects, is bullsh*t. Such methods do not scale very well. This is something I've learned in the last couple of years as I've found myself involved in projects at a higher level and have gotten a clearer view on the "big picture"--and also from seeing how my employer has had to pull some near-disasterous projects out if the fire. Successful projects have either been quite small and succeeded despite the flawed process, never followed the above model or ended up throwing out the original specs half-way through development. This has been the case whether it was a software product or a refinery.
He cited OSI model, well, but I can assure you I won't go in an airplane if it was done with Linus' practices...
The OSI model is an example of a STANDARD--a model that should be understood and respected but generally makes little sense to mimic in code and Linus says as much in his message. As for going for a ride in an airplane designed by Linus--well barring the fact that aircraft and operating systems are too different to apply the same practices I'd much rather fly the "Linux 727" than the "Microsoft DC10" any day. Furthermore, if you were to look at how aircraft are designed you'd find that they are in fact designed and built WITHOUT a "spec" of the type Linus bemoans. If a jumbo jet was designed the way a lot of people try to do software projects then hundreds of people would get together from Boeing, airlines and airports and write a huge, detailed and incomprehensible spec for a jet--for everything from the layout of the instrument cluster to the shape of the turbine blades on the engines to the size of the tires. Then the managers from Boeing, all the airlines and all the airports would "review" (or gloss-over really) the spec and sign it off and then Boeing would design the plane, following that spec for everything. Then they'd test the end product and "interate", crashing a few dozen multi-million-dollar prototypes in the process. Then the airlines would get theri first new planes and complain that it isn't qu
...it really isn't as effective as it could or should be
Does Microsoft over share their code with developers?
I'd say they "under share" if you ask me. My employer has a fairly close relationship with Microsoft and to my knowledge no one in our company is privvy to the source code to any of Microsoft's OS.
The "Shared source initiative" is really just a marketing term under which MS lumps all its programmes involving the disclosure of source code. These range from truly open source projects like those involving automated generation of application installers to special agreements with governments to permit government security audits on Windows OS source code.
The terms under which third-parties may obtain source code to operating systems is quite limited:
* you are only permitted access to Win2K, WinXP, Win2K3 server. You may NOT legally see the source to MSDOS versions 1.0 to 8.0 or their respective GUIs (Windows 1 to 3.11,95,98 or Me) under any circumstances as far as I know.
* generally, you must be a licensed user of at least 1500 seats--a large enterprise user--unless you are a government, or an affluent MS MVP. My employer qualifies here easily...HOWEVER...there is one problem:
* Quoted from MS' terms: "Source code may not be used to assist with the development of a commercially distributed product." In other words, not only can you look but not touch the source, you cannot eve look at it to make your software product better...oh yeah, and don't think ditributing GPLed software isn't "commercial distribution" because that is forbidden as well.
This third restriction, along with other NDA terms, make us and many others INELIGIBLE for viewing the source to any version of Windows. There is only one form of source licensing in which you CAN distribute software that you developed with the assistance of Windows source code--and that is if you obtain an OEM license agreement. The restriction is still pretty severe...these licensees can only distribute drivers for hardware which they develop and distribute. Since my employer sells more than driver software, if we wanted such a license we'd have to evoke our own "chinese wall" and be extremely careful that those who have access to Windows source code will NEVER work on the development of our commercially distrubuted applications.
Given these restrictions it looks rather unlikely that developers of antivirus software have source access to Windows since they commercially distribute the software. Unless, however, they have negotiated a specific, custom agreement with MS. This has happened at various times, and usually it ends up where MS licenses the outside party's technology for inclusin in their own products. A good example is Citrix--they negotiated for access to the source code of the NT kernel many years ago (before NT4 came out) because their WinFrame product basically installed a modified kernel and they needed access to enough of the source to build that kernel. Later MS strong-armed Citrix into a pretty sweet licensing deal to their MultiWin kernel for inclusion in NT4 TS edition and future NT-based Windows releases.
Such cross-pollination generally happens pretty naturally and frequently in the open source world, but from what I gather the above was only accomplished with a lot of time, money, lawyers and legal documents generated in triplicate. I fear that in the closed-source-MS world the only way we'll get the most effective anti-malware technology possible into Windows will be when MS strikes such a cross-licensing deal and bundles antivirus functions into its OS. At that point, 3rd party vendors of antivirus products will have to shift focus, perhaps offering software that extends functionality or eases the management of the built-in AV functions. It's pretty much inevitable actually, since the closed model of development discourages diversity and friendly collaberation in favour of homogeneity and antagonism towards others.
Edmonton, AB is 12 hours drive from the border. Red Deer, AB is 6 hours. Calgary, AB is 4 hours.
Nor are we that bad at math...
When I last drove from Coutts (US border crossing) to Calgary it took about 3 hours or so...I believe the distance is 300 to 350 km.
Red Deer is 140km further north along the QE2. It takes no more than 1.5 hours (I usually get there in 1:15)
Edmonton is about 150km or 160km further north yet--another 1.5 hours past Red Deer.
So I humble submit a revision to your statement:
Edmonton, AB is 6 hours drive from the border. Red Deer, AB is 4.5 hours. Calgary, AB is 3 hours.
Please don't confuse our poor American bretheren regarding our geography--they have a rough time of it as it is--like US suppliers in Washington state or California shipping things to Vancouver via a distribution centre in Toronto--because it is "easier" since Toronto and Vancouver are in the same country (for those who don't get it, Toronto is 4,500 km from Vancouver...more than twice the distance between LA and Vancouver).
I don't mean to belittle the intelligence of US citizens as they are no dumber or smarter than any other people--their education curriculums are just severely lacking in the World Geography dept. We Canadians have our flaws too--like our tendency to measure distance in units of time.
As for this Bell/Rogers partnership for wireless broadband, I'll believe it when I see it...it'll probably happen but it won't be all that soon judging by how Albert Supernet has been dragging on. Of course this isn't a government project so it may be different. Can you imagine if this thing was cooked up by the wonks in Ottawa?
* it would take 5X as long as promised to finish * it would cost a billion or so dollars more than budgeted * it would be run by Paul Martin's children * Very few people would know about it, despite hefty sums being paid to obscure advertising agencies in Quebec--usually bay way of unmarked brown envelopes stuffed with cash and delivered to agency executives by staffers from the prime minister's office.
(I'm talking about 2000 heren not "Yukon"/2005 which I admit looks quite promising)
* MSSQL is too damned expensive for what it does. PostgreSQL has more features and is free.
* MSSQL's scheme for locking and handling contention is primitive. I've had INSERT and UPDATE queries put on table-level locks at the oddest times. PgSQL NEVER does this, it has quite a sophisticated method of handling concurrent transactions on overlapping datasets (MVCC). If you have many concurrent connections performing a lot of INSERTs and UPDATEs it can be frustrating to manage all the locking in MSSQL.
* MSSQL is not as standards-compliant as PgSQL. The latter has non-standard extensions but their developers place much more effort on ANSI compliance.
* MSSQL is not multi-platform. All the others you mentioned will work on Linux, various UNIX flavours and Windows.
* MSSQL is feature-rich in many ways but lacks other features most of the competition has had for ages. For example, in MSSQL you can return the "TOP x" rows of a set but you cannot do an "offset"--for example, MSSQL cannot return rows 101 to 200 of a set! So, of you are doing a web interface that pages through results you have to resort to clunky hacks. Also you can only do stored procs in TRANSACT-SQL (I eagerly await Yukon's ability do do them in any.NET language though). You cannot create user-defined AGGREGATE functions in MSSQL.
* MSSQL might be "easy to tune" but one might say that is because there isn't much that can be tuned. If the query plan seems wonky sometimes you just have to accept it or rewrite your query. There ARE more tuning parameters than one might be aware of, however you have to scour the web for a knowledgebase tip or an undocumented/unsupported hack. MSSQL is the antithesis of Oracle in that respect--the latter is extremely tuneable but trying to understand and manage it could make your brain explode.
I pray to God every night that this does not become a widespread buzzword.
It's too late...there is nothing you can do to stop it. Marketing executives around the globe have made it an action item to evangelise the plaformization of service oriented architecture to leverage their intellectual property, in which significant capital was invested in recent years to prepare for the impending paradigm shift in enterprise-class solutions.
considering the fact that most PCs that shipped w/ Win95 can run XP just fine
Actually that is a bit of a mis-statement, because by the time machines that meet the minumum requirements for XP were widely available, the current version of the MSDOS-line was Windows 98, NOT Win95. The minimum requirements are 266 MHz with 64MB of RAM. Before Win98 came out a computer of that performance and capacity would be cost-prohibitive for desktop use. Low-end servers where I worked at the time were 133 to 200 MHz with 64 to 128 MB RAM. If they ram a Microsoft OS they'd be running NT-based Windows rather than an MSDOS-based OS anyways.
As for the system requirements for Microsoft OSes, in my experience the minimum requirements are what is needed to merely boot up the system--after that all you could really do is run notepad and solitare and at the outside IE. The "recommended" requirements MS states are typically double the minimum ram and one step up in CPU speed--thus for XP they are 300 MHz and 128 MB RAM. INHO THAT should be the minimum requirements (I've seen XP Home running on such a system...you have to be quite patient at times but it is usable for basic tasks.
The "real" recommended minimums I have made for years (with anything NT-based anyways--NT4, 2K and XP) are 150% to 200% higher clock speed and 400% more memory than what MS states for minimum reqs. For XP that is 533MHz with 256MB RAM, which in my practical experience is quite usable for normal office-type use.
If MS' track record proved true, then Vista will be a horrendous resource hog. Using my rule of thumb, a minimum Vista system will be the following:
* 1 Gigabyte of RAM * 3.0 GHz P4-class CPU (I'm making a generous guess here that a 1.4-ish GHz P4 and higher is considered "modern" by MS standards--in reality this may approach 4GHz) * High-performance SATA-connected hard drive * Graphics subsystem typically more powerful than those integrated on the motherboard, with a good 256MB RAM dedicated to it.
This is a HUGE leap in requirements. Such a system available BRAND NEW now is definitely NOT a budget PC, so even by next year when Vista is released a lot of relatively new PCs will need upgrading to get acceptable performance. Furthermore, to be truly "vista ready" the requirements will be even higher! More RAM and you'll have to get a new video card! I'll make a bold prediction and say that retail sales of Vista upgrades will be dismal--the bulk of Vista installs will be OEM/factory installed on new PCs.
The reasons things are different today for Linux fortunes with this new upgrade are several...not the leat of which are:
* Linux is a much more mature, user-friendly system for desktops today than it was 7 to 10 years ago. My nephew was visiting and saw my GNOME desktop and remarked "is that a Mac?"...speaks volumes about how far the UI has come.
* In the vast majority of cases it is actually easier to install than Windows since you don't have to take as many precautins about connecting an unpatched system to the 'net. Vista will probably not suffer the installation hangups of XP but it will be a very large install, and you still have "product activation" to contend with, which still makes a modern Linux distro easier to install.
* There is better driver support for Linux than in the past--and in the case of slightly older hardware driver availability for Linux will actually be BETTER than for Windows too.
* MS promises that Vista will be the most substantial OS upgrade since MSDOS6.22 w/ Win3.x shell was supplanted by Win95--including dramatic enhancements to the UI. The next release of Office promises dramatic changes too. Vista and MSOffice will look more different from the XP versions than most Linux desktops with OpenOffice will. MS could get away with it in 1995 because Linux GUIs at the time were primitive, and Apple had lost its way (and wouldn't run on the same hardware). Today, there is a competitor in Linux that will run on the same hardware pl
If you honestly believe that PC games are better partly because they are capable of better resolution and have better processing power, then that seems to go against your later argument that older games - made when the capabilities were even lower - are better.
You're right---the technical specs of a platform are not an indicator of how well the games play. The platform DOES influence the game however--as I suggested, action oriented games tend to work better in a console environment with decent controllers whereas strategy games or others with "depth of play" work better on PCs, with keyboard and mouse control and hi-res screens. This is even the case with older "inferior" games--a 10-year-old PC still has the same keyboard and mouse and superior screen resolution even compared to consoles currently on the market. Sure, the old PC cannot pump out true-colour, full-screen, full-motion 3-D, but it is still capable of rendering text and details even todays XBox and PS2 cannot. The old PC might be inferior in every other respect, but the differences lend themselves better to different games.
And I am somewhat glad for modern pricing. It is possible for good new games to come out at $20 (Katamari Damacy) or $30 (quite a few more). Though many games come out for more, at least we don't have the inflated prices that came with cartridges during the Nintendo's hayday. Usually just special editions come greater than $50.
Assuming you are talking American dollars, I'd agree that it is better than it was when 2 carts cost more than the price of the entire NES console with Super Mario pack-in. I'd have to say however that they have a long way to go. Games are still overpriced--$20 shouldn't be the low end--it should be the average and $30 should be upper-end. For NEW releases. There is no single game in existence today, special-edition or not, worth $50. Compare it to DVDs--if you spend $50 you are usually getting a multi-disc set--an entire season of TV episodes or a set of sequels.
Yes it is possible to get a truly interesting game for a reasonable price ($20 for Katamari Damacy) but they are by far the minority. I find that the bulk of games that are released with an MSRP under $30 are garbage and that blockbusters are $40 to $60--and they are mostly crap too. If you're observations differ it is probably because in a matter of hours or days the price is reduced because stock is not moving fast enough.
I know there is still good stuff out there--there was good stuff out there in 1984 too I remember. The problem is when it becomes overwhelmed by loads of crap. In the meantime, I can get a used PS/2 for $50 or less and some still-very-fun games at the fleamarket for pennies on the dollar. When a game comes around that is truly compelling then I'll consider paying $30 or more for it. In the past year however, that has only happened once.
These lists are merely a function of the reviewers. Perhaps the reason the CNET list is "biased towards PC games" is because even today PC games tend to have more depth to them--if you are a fan of arcade/action and/or have too short of an attention span for such games then you might think such a bias is unjustified, but in my opinion the PC games dominate the list becase they are actually BETTER. A PC screen is always capable of crisper graphics than a TV, and PCs simply have more power and capacity to store and process more content.
As far as the second list being biased towards early games, look more closely at CNET's list. Six of the ten games on their list for the last ten years were released in the 1990's. Furthermore, the the NEWEST game on the list is FOUR YEARS OLD! And no, I don't count Madden as a "new" game because it could be argued that it doesn't belong on the list anyways--it was first released more than 10 years ago! (One could argue that only in the last 10 years has it proven to be a "great game").
Given that more than one source is "biased towards early games"--either in the early half of the last decade or early part of a console's live--you might conclude that the lists aren't really biased at all--it's just that the games out today basically suck. That's the conclusion I have come to anyways--I'd say more than 99% of currently published games are merely derivative works of the "greats" that often appear on "top lists".
As such, I would not even consider buying a new release for such absurd prices. I'll buy used or dig around the clearance bin thank you very much. I can get a used console and a couple of bargain games for the price of one of these new games alone. It is my fondest wish that such a practice catches on with consumers at large and that it decimates the videogame industry--it is in desperate need of another 1984. Not the Owellian kind of course, although online play + DRM might bring that into being...By that I mean the infamous industry crash that shook out all the chaff and paved the way for the NES and the next "renaissance".
Perhaps this is troll/flame bait material but I'll bite...
I've been using ReiserFS exclusively for about four years now and in that time have NEVER had problems attributed to ReiserFS.
1) It is supposed to be much faster than other filesystems, but under certain circumstances - when one has lots of small files, I believe.
Such cases are extreme. IIRC it isn't merely a problem with small files--it is when those small files are all contained within a single directory. They have to be very small files, and many many thousands in number. In practice the ONLY time I've ever encountered such a situation is when running benchmarks--most sane individuals would have the sense to organise such files in subfolders, and one might even re-examine their application to remove the requirement to have such an insane configuration.
2) Its usage is fraught with danger - there is a steady stream of horror stories out there about disasters caused by this filesystem.
As I stated I've NEVER experienced a "horror story" first hand, nor have I even seen any evidence of such except for a handful of anecdotal stories. OTOH, I've seen and personally witnessed MANY distressing situations involving filesystems like EXT2 and FAT (word to the wise--you are REALLY inviting trouble if you are running MySQL--without innodb--on an EXT2 filesystem. If you have a power interruption at just the wrong time you are doomed if you even remotely care about your data).
I do suspect this is flamebait as every statement you make is unsupported. As with any project there are bugs, but "horror stories"? Honestly--point me to ONE single article that is a true ReiserFS disaster--and not one on an ancient, obsolete pre-journalling version of ReiserFS or someone complaining about a test/alpha/beta release eating his data. In my experience Reiser3 as included on all production Linux distros is mature, extremely stable and performs admirably (when I converted a mail server to ReiserFS--all hardware remaining the same--the difference in handling very large mailboxes was amazing).
While I agree that the latest version of MS Office is the catalyst for continued evolution in the UI of other apps and the Windows OS itself, I can't help feeling dismayed by the fact that it is STILL HAPPENING. The last version of Office that didn't make me want to throw my PC through a plate-glass window was Office 95.
This is history repeating itself like that bad burrito I had for lunch at Taco Bell. As a user I find it frustrating when--at every major release--MS decides to screw with office at least enough to throw me off balance. Access to dialogue boxes sometimes change locations, and even worse, MS insists on showcasing its latest extremely annoying features by setting them to automatic mode--talking cartoon characters that want to write my letters for me, auto-formatting that insists on "correcting" the spelling and typeface of a snip of source code pasted into a document so it looks like heiroglyphics, etc...it's almost like the MS Office team is mocking me--"we are the standard so we can mess with your mind all we want---suck it up b**ch!"
MS Office is also the bane of my existence as a developer as well. Office has its own set of wigits and pointy-haired types don't seem to grasp that...."Make it look like Office" is easier said than done--you'd either have to make MS Office a dependency of your app or re-invent the wheel and make your own (and as others have pointed out, the result is often a substandard reproduction). While there are sometimes cool litle "innovations" in the UI of each new release of Office, more often than not they are mot consistent with any usability guidelines and it seems that all they serve to do is encourage other developers to practise the same behaviour.
After looking at the screenshots (which are pretty but don't seem to indicate any amazing advances in usability to me) I'd have to say there is one bright side to the situation: With every successive version of MS Office the adoption rate slows down as the bloat and annoying changes increase. Some time soon it looks like "new and improved" MS Office will look look and work less like the MS office we are accustomed to than OpenOffice, GNOME Office, etc.
So...not only will licesning costs and system requirements be the highest in the market for new MS office, business might also migrate to a competitor because users will be more accustomed to a more traditional interface like OpenOffice and training costs would be lower! Not that would be a kicker. Oh yeah, and I'm betting the likelihood that the new document formats (whcih will be the default I'm sure) will NOT be compatible with present versions of Office, so the compatibility argument will not hold water either.
every person over the age of 25 that I've heard comment on the cell shading has been supportive of it
You hit it on the head there. Firstly, there is the fact that older fans of the franchise fondly remember the early incarnations of Zelda when EVERYTHING in videogames was "cartoonish" because of limited technology. Somehow staying with such a rendering would make sense--It's linka like if Nintendo decided to render Mario to look like a REAL Italian-American plumber from the Bronx or something--replete with coarse facial stubble, yellow teeth, sweaty armpits and exposed butt-crack--it just wouldn't be right!
Second of all, most people become less superficial as they age. Bells and wistles will still grab attention initially, but factors of more substance will bring people back for more--basically, looks matter less. That, besides simple nostalgia, is what makes "retrogaming" and long-running franchises popular among older videogame enthusiasts. It doesn't matter if Pac-man is just a yellow dot--there was a bit of fun character deveopment, cute music and simple addictive gameplay. The same factors make those "popcap" games and dinky little shareware titles popular.
Grown-ups will give a game a more fair shake. They will NOT put up with a photorealistic game if it is harder to manage the controllers than it is to play the violin, the plot is pointless, the characterisation is weak and the puzzles are more tedious than the paperwork and procedures HR makes them fill out at the office. They care not about how the smoke looks, or if the frame rate hits 100FPS (so long as it isn't so jerky that it gives them a headache).
Nintendo should release a cell shaded game where the main character is a persecuted homosexual who has to solve puzzles which refer to classical literature... etc. etc.
That is certainly a "grown up" premise for a game, although it is a lousy example, since pretty much EVERYBODY would avoid such a game like the plague. The 14-year-old would be put off by the "cartoony" graphics. The "Church Lady" types who can be equally shallow in other ways would interpret the cartoony graphics as promoting "deviant lifestyles" to children. The controversy would generate a handful of sales but then people would realise that the game sucked because the plot was pointless (how would one's knowlegde of classical literature convince a gay-bashing goon to cease and desist?), the puzzles are tedious (unless you are an English-Lit major--and even they might prefer to read the literature than answer trivia based on it), and the characters are flat and stereotypical (assumtion that all--or even most--people with moral objections to homosexual behaviour would "lynch" or "attack" a homosexual person). And above all else, games are supposed to be fun and the whole premise is a pretty depressing commentary on society.
As a better example I might point to games like "Leisure Suit Larry" where the environment is decidedly cartoony and the theme definitely for "adults only". One might also point out as I did above the success of small and simple but addictive games that are popular amongst players who are not considered the traditional demographic (ie. women over 30, or retirees)--the ones that are "too primitive" for hardcore teen gamers but are still great fun.
I guess that immature people crave "realism" because they have had limited exposure to reality and as such realism is still exciting--and older people have enough reality in their lives that something that departs from reality is a welcome escape.
...seems to be a very bad idea in most cases IMHO--at least if it can be avoided. I should hope any CIO that would suggest that sort of thing would have his ass handed to him by his team.
Is it just me, or does it seem that most big, all-encomapssing IT projects are unmitigated disasters? It doesn't matter if it is Unix to Windows migration, Windows to Linux, VMS to whatever...or even the initial implementation of a big system like SAP--it is extremely difficult to pull off. Really, what "financial model" could possibly show that uprooting the entire IT infrastructure of a large corporation all at once would be favourable? Is there no risk analysis done? Hell, does common sense not even come into the picture?
There are only a few situations that I could see where a massive enterprise project like this would be justifiable--and in the case of large corporations I would say that such situations would be due to neglect and incompetence--for example they've got a bunch of elderly Win95 PCs, a VAX that you cannot get parts for anymore, etc. and if anything bad happens to any of it the results would be catastrophic. So even if a massive IT project is not a foolish idea, it was foolishness that led to the need.
The article says that Linux is still part of their plans--it is just going to be used more strategically and selectively. I don't really see where the big argument is here. I'd rather see a large number of smaller success stories than one huge successful Linux project if it means hearing about 4 more Linux-based disasters that Microsoft could use as ammunition (ignoring the fact that the failure rate of massive Windows-based projects would be at least as bad).
It gave me a chuckle...IIRC it went something like this:
The PHB complained to Dilbert that he couldn't log in. Dilbert notices the network cable has come out and says "Uh-oh, the cable for the token-ring network is unplugged--the token must've fell out", at which point the PHB starts looking on the floor for the token as if it were a contact lens.
Apparently the PHB is a real person, and happens to be the boss of the fellow who was tasked to develop an "ethernet contingency plan"
the graph seems to indicate a surge in "evil google" around the time of the IPO. IIRC Google's motto is "DO NO EVIL", and in the time leading to the IPO that fact was mentioned many times in many articles. It looks like any article that says something like...
In contrast to Microsoft's image of industry dominance at all cost, Google has cultivated a friendlier image with its adoption of open source technology and its philosophy of "do no evil"...would notch the "evil" index up and not hae any influence on the "cool" index at all, even though it is a very positive statement!
'tis an amusing graph, but completely meaningless.
We found that the metabolic and endocrine changes resulting from a significant sleep debt mimic many of the hallmarks of aging
That was EXACTLY ONE OF THE POINTS I MADE in my original post--if one were to abuse a medication that allowed you to stay awake for extended periods, and did so for many years, then you could very well age at an accelerated rate, much like junkies hooked on cocaine, speed or heroin do. yes, junkies often lead hard lives that can wear tehm down faster, but one of the characteristics they share is that they all suffer from significant sleep deprivation at various times. The article only mentions the findings, but if you want to see details of the proof then go find Dr Van Cauter's study.
The other articles I referenced are more to prove the point that sleep does more than let your brain get organised. The fact that the study mentioned in the first article is the first serious study EVER on the effects of LONG TERM sleep deprivation and it only happened in the last few years indicates to me that medical science is extremely unqualified at this point to say with confidence that we can medicate our way out of requiring sleep.
..as a company that "only makes airplanes" anymore--at least anything bigger than little hobby planes. Airbus maybe is the closest thing, and it isn't really a standalone company--it is a consortium of big tech companies glued together with government subsidies and the participants are big conglomerates that make everything too.
Take a look at pretty much any player in the aerospace industry past and present. and they are/were all mega corporations that did/do a bit of everyhing. Boeing and its subsidiaries range from jet planes to weaponry to real estate to financing. General Electric has their paws in everything from turbines to television networks. Rockwell made moon rocket engines, modems for PCs and everything in between. Bombardier has made planes trains and automobiles (or parts thereof).
Airplanes are too sophisticated to be made by mere "airplane companies"--the technology involved is so all-encompassing that such a company by default would be a capable player in a wide range of markets.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone who suggests 'abandoning the use of the registry' has obviously never written Windows software.
.NET Windows software.
.config file for each application? That is what Microsoft advocates. And to all those Registry bigots out there:
.config files are not centralised and a bad setting won't corrupt a whole system .config files without the aid of a specialised tool like regedit .ini files, there is a standard XML specification established so all .config files are structured the same--also they are always located in the same directory as the application so it is easy to find. .NET libraries are provided for the creation and modification of .config files, so there is no need to manually parse the file and no excuse not to comply with the standard specification
.config files are "better design".
Anyone who suggests that there is no valid alternative to the registry has obviously not (properly) written
Some people at Microsoft themselves suggest avoiding the registry--as of Windows Vista THE REGISTRY IS ESSENTIALLY DEPRECATED. So what is the alternative? How 'bout a standardised XML
*
* you can edit
* Unlike
*
Of course, we are talking about Windows here, so the legacy registry will be around for another decade I'm sure...and I'm sure as in the past short-sighted developers (both within Microsoft and outside) will ignore this excellent recommendation and continue to use the brain-damaged registry.
It's pretty annoying how people always suggest blatantly stupid 'solutions' to problems instead of focusing on real fixes like better design and better testing
Well, *I* find it pretty annoying when solutions are dismissed as "stupid" because they are different and people can't take the time to understand them. BTW, eliminating dependency on the registry *is* a "real fix"---the registry is a design flaw and
It makes my skin crawl to hear words like "solution stack", not only because I don't know what the heck it means, but also because it doesn't mean anything.
Us propeller-heads live in glass houses too and should be careful when throwing stones, as we are as prone to using acronyms for brevity as marketers are prone to use buzzwords to impress. Most regular folk think of a device to illuminate a dark room when they hear LAMP. "Sequel" (SQL) is a new story that continues a previous one. FLOSS is used to clean teeth, and using the preferred term FOSS to reduce confusion doesn't help at all. Even the mighty marketing dept. at Microsoft can't eradicate the evil acronym, thus we end up dealing with ASP, ODBC, DCOM, CLR etc. To technical people they make conversation less cumbersome but to the uninitiated they are about as meaningful as the term "solution stack".
It is important to note that the folks writing cheques and approving such decisions are PHBs (pointy-haired bosses) that probably more often than not have business and marketing backgrounds instead of engineering or technical backgrounds. If you start spewing out LAMP, SQL, SOAP, XML, RPC etc. their eyes will glaze over. These PHB folk were fed this lingo from the time they entered college...it is the language THEY use to make conversation less cumbersome. Furthermore, you won't convince a PHB to adopt your "solution stack" if you don't relate their concerns. Trust me, I know from experience trying to make a go at self employment that PHBs care not about transactions per second, extensibility, standards support, intrusion-detection and so on...if your proposal made it to his desk those who DO care have (or should have) already done that homework and told the PHB "yep that's OK".
If you are on the short-list and you are now presenting to a table of PHB types you have to spare the technical steak and show a little sizzle---bright shiny objects visible at 30,000 feet are alluring to the PHB. If you can show them a "virtual dashboard" with all the "Key Performance Indicators" of interest to a PHB thay'll lap it up, and don't waste ANY time at all on HOW you do it--that isn't even on their radar of comprehension. You have to brush up on your lingo and get a bit familiar with terms and numbers that are a bit outside YOUR radar. You must do a "cost/benefit analysis"--they wand a good "return on investment"...they want a low "total cost of ownership"...they need to be prepared for the "paradigm shifts" involved in migrating to new platforms.
It is indeed a promising sign for Free software adoption when companies providing that technology start speaking the right language--a big reason personal computers in general and Microsoft in particular really started taking off 25 years ago...because after more than 5 years as a niche, hobbyist industry they finally started forming marketing departments.
I'm just hoping that Red Hat, Novell et al don't mature so much they become over the hill as Microsoft is contending with now. That happens when marketing not only presents the company offerings to outside customers but start to dominate product design and developent as well. Microsoft already gives us enough eternally-moving release-dates, hapahzardly designed software and cavalier attitudes towards security and interoperability and we don't need more of that from the Linux camp.
As regards your point about the OS license costs, methinks you are mistaken.
I am not mistaken--especially in terms of the relative cost in comparison to the hardware on which it runs. Firstly you are quoting the price for upgrades. The full retail version of XP Home is nearly $200. For the pro versions, XP Pro is currently a scant $20 cheaper than 200 Pro and XP used to be more expensive than 2000. You are also being misleading about the price of Office. You are again quoting an upgrade or Academic price. MS Office to this day has retailed in the $450 to $500 range, falling to $400 in the months preceeding the release of a new version.
If you adjust for inflation you could say the price has gone down--but given the 500% markup MS could afford to be more competitive, especially when you consider hardware. When Windows 95 came out, the price of a suitably-equipped system was around $1500 (a '486-class machine with 8 MB or so of RAM including monitor). When XP came out (at a higher initial retail cost than 95) you could get a good-enough system for $1000 or maybe a bit less (with monitor). The retail price of XP has come down slightly but now it is possible to get a complete system for close to $500 that is more capable than a machine twice the price 3 to 4 years ago. IIRC large OEMs have paid $30 per copy and that has remained constant, however the overall system price has sunk dramatically, meaning MS' take as a PERCENTAGE is now MUCH higher than it used to be.
You pointed out that Microsoft is fond of charging for a product, then giving it away free, then bundling it [...] this is predatory? I call that evolution
Yes it IS predatory--and bundling as MS does it is NOT the same as free. You obviously completely overlooked the entire point. When MS went from giving away IE to "bundling" IE it really INTEGRATED it. It would've been fine for them to include it on the install CD and make it easy to install, but they went FAR beyond that. You cannot remove IE--they threw its DLLs all over the system and made Windows Update only work with IE (and I haven't heard a good technical reason why they HAD to do that). You can download Firefox and ignore IE, but it must still clutter your hard drive and you must still run its code when you do an online update of the OS. If an animal "evolved" the way Windows did it would probably keep its gills, scales and tail even as it grew limbs, fur and lungs--then it would go extinct as its body had to support all its vestiguous organs.
And to counter your automotive analogy Microsoft would not just offer the module for a price, then for free then standard in next year's model. Microsoft would install the module box in a secret location, weld the box shut and then weld the box to the frame so it cannot ever be removed without a great deal of effort. Then the hood would be welded shut. MS would make the wire connectors overly complicated to thwart reverse engineering and while those ambitious enough to cut open the hood could install 3rd party modules that have the potential of cutting fuel consumption by 33%, those modules would not perform as well as they do in other makes of car because all the signals would have to pass from the sensors through the MS module.
Incidentally, auto makers HAVE tried to pull a Microsoft and keep their electronics and connectors secret, but in the consumers' interest governments have mandated that they cannot do that (at least not permanently)...because it was ruled ANTI-COMPETITIVE/PREDATORY. That is why newer cars all have things like standard OBD2 ports and why 3rd party tuners are permitted to sell their own modules/chips/firmware. You can also have the right to reverse-engineer or modify your car without legal threats from the manufacturer (apart from potentially voiding a warranty).
Microsoft, in my opinion, has HELPED foster competition, not hurt it
Yeah, MS was quite "helpful" there--I mean, look how WordPerfect, Quattro Pro and Paradox flourished after MS got into the act with MS Word, Excel and MS Access.
The consumer wins because Microsoft mass produces software and sells it at a lower price
Yeah MS is quite generous with their prices--the street price of Windows and Office represents a mark-up of a mere FIVE HUNDRED percent. You also conveniently overlooked the fact that the above competiton was consistently sold at lower prices than Microsoft's offerings. Yes, WordPerfect for Windows was real crufty and they didn't get it right for a couple of releases--but keep in mind that the WP folks couldn't peer over the "Chinese wall" as easily as the MS Office guys could. And...Quattro and Paradox actually were well matched or superior to versions of Excel and Access that existed at the time.
It's not the consumer's responsibility to protect ailing businesses. The only responsibility consumers have is to create demand for higher quality and lower prices. Microsoft has met much of that demand.
I also find it distasteful when governments and others feel that we must save ailing businesses without regard to their viability. However, I'd argue that MS did not succeed because it met that demand--its success depended largely on anti-competitive practices. It is fine and dandy to give away stuff or take advantage of an opportunity when a competitor stumbles (hello WordPerfect 5.x for Windows). It becomes a problem when MS "embraces and extends" industry standards, turns applications into "operating system components" and keeps some of its externally-callable APIs secret from non-MS application developers so it can use them for leverage in its own apps. Yes, MS' dominance put an end to the "good" old days when you had 5 different versions of the same app to run on Apple, Commodore, Atari, TRS80 and TI but in the end we got an overpriced, resource-hungry OS that was a haven for malware.
Please help me out here. I am wracking my brain trying to think of a case where Microsoft started charging for something that was once free
POP access to hotmail is the only one that comes to mind, so you're right in saying that MS doesn't use that strategy to gouge consumers in its normal course of business.
Operating Systems, nope, they never were free (though the service packs and updates have always been free)
True, but as time has gone (and competition disappeared) the price of a MS OS has gone up substantially--especially in relation to the cost of the hardware on which it runs. You also seem to suggest that MS is being generous in giving away updates and service packs. IMHO, if MS didn't give them away they already they should be forced to as they correct product defects. Ford was forced to rectify the design flaws in their Pinto so why would MS be off the hook?
IE, nope, free (at least until the government intercedes on our behalf and makes us buy it)
No court in the world has instructed MS to charge extra for IE or WMP. The issue was *bundling*--not only including the apps with the OS but also purposefully INTEGRATING them into the OS to the point that they cannot be removed or replaced--encouraging application developers to treat what should've been applications as "system componenets" and building dependencies on them into everything. This is bad on two levels--from a technical standpoint it creates a monolithic architecture which is a major factor in the weak security of Windows. From an economic standpoint it shuts out competition and creates a captive market--even if you install Firefox on Windows you cannot remove IE--you need it for Windows Update and for a number of apps to work. That is NONSENSE--such things shouldn't depend on IE.
Office, nope, never was free - though the price has DROPPED significantly as competition has disappeared
The price of Office did not drop because of the lack of competition. The price of office dropped BECAUSE of LOWER-PRICED competition. OpenOffice can be obtained at no cost--that's a pretty low price. Even more crucially, the biggest competition for MS Office is...the previous version of MS Office. After all, settling with what you already have 'cause it works well enough is ust as free (monetarily) as OpenOffice.
There MUST BE at least one example! I mean, after all, it's "common knowledge" that this is a predatory Microsoft practice.
Well, I already gave such an example in MSN Hotmail--some services that were free now costs money. I do not think this was done as a "predatory practise" however. The "predatory practise" that MS HAS done is the opposite--they release a product for sale, then start giving it away, then start bundling it. This is what they did with IE--first it wasn't even included on the Windows setup CD and you had to buy a "plus pack" to get it. Then they started giving it away as a download (which was slow) for a short time until it appeared in the Windows 95 "A" release. To that point they were just being aggressive--after that their actions became predatory and monopolistic. By the time NT4 and the "B" version of 95 were in wide use MS had turned IE into a "component" of the OS on which much of its own software (and a number of third party titles) depended.
It isn't actually the fact MS gives away some software that makes it predatory--even if they were to later start charging for it. What hurts the industry and consumers is the way they use their pricing strategy *AND* their platform architecture to LOCK IN users, often at the expanse of security and stability.
Our govn't is basically a dictatorship while in, but their laws can quite rapidly be undone with a election
You are right that Canada is really more of an "elected dictatorship" than a democracy, however you are a bit mistaken when it comes to the ease with which we can change our laws (specifically the constitution--the US constitution is probably easier to amend than ours)
A bit of background: From Canada's inception as an independent Dominion in 1967 until 1981 the Canadian constitution was the British North American act. This was a British piece of legislation and as such Canadians technically COULD NOT CHANGE their own constitution until it passed through the British House of Commons, House of Lords and given assent by the Queen. In 1981 we repatriated our constitution and added a Charter of Rights. This most certainly WAS a "huge deal" and it was indeed debated in the British house and had to be given assent by the Queen herself. This was a long, complicated and contentious process and in the end Quebec never signed the repatriated constitution (so they are only obligated to honour the terms of the original BNA Act? Seems that way).
The amending formula of our current constitution requires 7 of 10 provinces representing a majority of the population to pass any changes to the constitution and given the nature of our country (population distribution and culteral diversity) it is practically imposssible to achieve such approval. The last two times we attempted to amend the constitution failed (the Meech Lake and Charlettown Accords--the primary objective was to get Quebec to finally sign on).
The constitution is a fundamental piece of legislation, however other legislation can be written to be made difficult to undo by successive governments as well. The Gun Registry would be very difficult to undo--partly becasue of how big it is and partly because of the huge infrastructure, system of contracts, etc that is involved. Some legislation is also introduced by gov't because it was ordered to do so by the courts (the judiciary in Canada wields quite a bit of power), and such legislation is very difficult to change once it is in place.
There is one challenge that Canadian gov't doesn't have to deal with--and that is with having a divided gov't (such as when you ahve a Republican president and Democrat congress, or HR and Senate led by different parties). We CAN have a minority government which is pretty much as bad though (we have that now--Liberals dominate but do not hold the majority--and they aren't willing to align with the Conservatives or separatists. They are only willing to work with the NDP, which is not large enough to hold the balance of power without the assistance of and independent or two).
In the minority situation we have a REAL problem because the Prime Minister's Office and the governing party hold too much influence over parliament proceedings and we are now seeing how much of our democracy relies on "convention" that can be conveniently circumvented--for example the gov't has stopped granting "opposition days" in which opposition parties can table their own motions so they cannot be easily thrown out on a non-confidence vote. In reality even in a minority gov't the PM can personally control the agenda of the Commons--any meaningful contribution by opposition parties is only granted out of "parliamentary convention". In the US, in order to get anything done in the equivalent situation of a divided gov't the president must cooperate more and his bidding can be vetoed. If Bush had the power over the US that Martin could have over Canada he could HAND PICK ALL Republican candidates in federal elections, declare martial law, draft all young men to fight in Iraq and wire tap anyone he pleases and he couldn't be stopped for up to five years until forced to call an election.
So, yes the proposed legislation on wiretapping just enforces capability and warrants are still required, however given the lack of checks and balances and reliance on "convention" for Canadian democracy (not to mention how the War Measures act was used rather casually in the past) it does disturb me that the gov't is trying to force us all to set up for huge potential abuses.
I only use the word "guilty" here because the mother has basically admitted that her daughter did exactly what the lawsuit alleges.
/. article pointed to a fairly unprofessional piece of writing. I am all for a sensible point of view. That said, RIAA has clearly demonstrated it is NOT a sensible organisation. Like a typical cartel, it demonstrates a complete lack of sense and concern for anyhting that is outside its immediate interests.
The fact the child was implicated by her mother is indeed valid evidence in support of RIAA's case, but from a journalistic point of view calling the child a "Guilty Person" could be considered hearsay. Being implicated by another party doesn't mean someone is guilty. Hell, even a confession by the accused herself doesn't always mean the accused is guilty. That is why the media generally is very careful about throwing around the word "guilty" or calling a murder suspect a "murderer" even if the evidence appears quite obvious.
Get rid of the "think of the children!11!1" emotion from the situation, and look at it from a more sensible point of view
I agree wholeheartedly that the emotion around this issue contributes nothing to the debate, and the link in the
can someone tell me what recourse the RIAA *does* have when people infringe their copyright? And how is their pursuing such action in any meaningful way different to that of any other copyright holder or representative against an infringer?
Suing little girls, or any individual for that matter, for millions of dollars over music files just does not make sense. Even from the financial aspect alone the damages they ask for are orders of magnitude more than any demonstratable revenue loss. The punishment is simply not reasonable. In my opinion, a teen casually sharing music files is about as serious as a traffic ticket--it doesn't warrant the same kind of treatment as an executive bilking investors out of millions. Save those penalties for the mafia-associated pirates making millions from selling bootlegged MS Office, music and movie CDs.
It is also no more reasonable for RIAA to sue ISPs or software developers for enabling users to share files. There are legitimate uses of their technology and services and it is unreasonable for RIAA to force others to protect IP that isn't even theirs. If RIAA wants software developers and ISPs to help with enforcement they should put their money where their mouth is and offer to PAY MONEY to them for their services. That is the least RIAA can do given how they expect everyone to pay for their offerings.
Of course suing the actual violators is a viable option, however RIAA has been going about it very haphazardly and without reason. How productive is it to sue a teenager millions of dollars? What case can RIAA make to justify such obscene valuations apart from 'x' songs found on a p2p network at $750 a piece? They've also done next to nothing to verify that a given IP address or P2P acocunt name belongs to a specific individual. Some of the accused have even offered to turn over their computers to forensic investigators to prove their innocence to RIAA, and RIAA refuses. I've heard of cases where people who did not know better left their wireless routers wide open, only to have the neighbours' kids or warpathers on the street suck gigabytes of music through their internet connection.
RIAA could also pursue other routes to combat P2P piracy. They could try pursuing non-monetary remedies as I mentioned before to seize the offending materials from people and restricting their use of the internet--in most cases 1st time offenses should be handled more lightly. RIAA could also do more to educate the public about copyright law--it isn't fair to convict someone for something they were not entirely aware was illegal. Right now RIAA and MPAA do next to NOTHING on the education front. That they DO contribute are stupid "public service" commercials that create furhter misunderstanding by making a no
...inflammatory and biased feel to it. It is the sort of headline you would see from "news" outlets in Cuba or China. In a world with a more free and responsible press, reputable journalists refrain from calling ANYONE guilty until they are judged so in a court of law. Until that point they are CHARDED WITH or ACCUSED or ALLEGEDLY commited a crime, even when the facts available to the public seem plainly obvious. Strictly speaking, the headline "RIAA Sues Guilty Person" is not only inflammatory in nature it is technically a lie--this girl is not guily in the eyes of the law because she has never been charged and sentenced with anything, so save such rhetoric until RIAA wins its case against her.
/. article, "RIAA Suea a Child" is not overly inflammatory nor is it factually inaccurate. I think it is perfectly suitable without being too general. What would you have the article title say? "RIAA Sues a person"? "RIAA Sues an Alleged Music Pirate"? How would this differentiate the story from the thousands of other cases RIAA has chased--I mean, it seems that most of RIAA's activities centre around outrageous litigation and getting into the pockets of politicians. Facts are facts--RIAA found evidence of copyright violation that they believe point to a 14 year old child, and the evidence is fairly convincing. The fact that an industrial cartel has decided the proper course of action is to SUE A MINOR for obscene amounts of money is the whole point of the article, otherwise it wouldn't be news--just another pirate getting taken down.
/. readers don't seem to know what it is. If RIAA wanted to teach a lesson wouldn't there be an easier way of doing it, like getting a court order to seize her computer for a period of time and remove all the MP3s before returning it? At least they could teach her copyright violation is wrong and let her voluntarily make amends? No. Even when their targets agree to participate RIAA will not listen until they have gotten their money. RIAA's actions have definitely proven that they are not doing this to defend what is right. RIAA is doing this to increase revenue first, and "make an example" second--then somewhere down the list is education and innovation. This is not a biased opinion, it is a conclusion that can be supported by RIAAs behaviour.
As far as the title of this
As for ripping off a man trying to "feed his family" by ripping off a GPL product...well, the same copyright rules apply and if RIAA can sue a child then the FSF is well within their right to sue a man with a starving family. However I don't believe the FSF has ever done that nor ever will do something of that nature. If some enterprising 14-year-old started making money of software derived from a GPL project the FSF's first concern wouldn't be to "make an example" of a child by extorting his money--it would be to make sure he divulges the source code to the derivative project. I would support such action.
Really, your argument makes no sense whatsoever and doesn't seem insightful at all. The article isn't titled "RIAA sues innocent little girl" or "RIAA threatens teenager". The simple facts make it hard to title the article otherwise. That is the point of the article--western society is generally reasonable and gives first time offenders under 18 a bit of a break. Children are not sentenced with the same terms as an adult unless the circumstances are severe. RIAA, however, has decided to wield its legal resources as a blunt instrument without regard to reason or even accuracy in some cases. What is the point of suing a teenage girl over copyright violations when she probably didn't even know what copyright was? Hell, most
...is probably the most fair comparison.
.NET--meaning that you can write stored procs and functions in any .NET language. So, they are probably a pretty close match except in a couple of areas--PGSQL is free (libre and gratis), and PGSQL is not platform dependent. I think that the fact MSSQL only works on Windows is a major drawback when all its competitors offer products that run on Windows, Linux and various UNIX derivatives. Various "facts" notwithstanding I still think that Windows servers are a greater administrative burden and more difficult to secure than other alternatives--perhaps the next server version after 2003 will have addressed that.
Don't know much about Postgres in production environemnts. It seems clean and I like the fact you have a choice of stored procedure languages.
I have had experience with both in production environments, and I've come to the conclusion that PostgreSQL is clearly a step above MSSQL in terms of features and scalability. It is much better than MSSQL with concurrency and managing contention (MSSQL's locking strategy is quite brain dead). There is much more flexibility and power to create user functions and stored procs in PGSQL--you can do things like make user-defined AGGREGATE functions and data types in addition to having a choice of languages (none of that is possible with MSSQL). I find that all things being equal PostgreSQL is probably faster as well (largely an assumption becasue the PostgreSQL systems I've worked with are running on considerably less powerful hardware than the MSSQL systems I am doing). A lot of people comment about the ease of administration of MSSQL but I find that PGSQL really isn't that hard to manage even if you don't use GUI tools.
Oracle is certainly one step above PGSQL in power--but of course that comes with a very hefty price tag. That price isn't just in licensing either--Oracle takes more time to administer and you also pay by losing flexibility, since enterprise systems based on Oracle better do things the "Oracle way" or you are inviting trouble (just like with Microsoft products, Oracle really pushes its single-vendor solutions).
I have not played with Yukon/MSSQL 2005 yet, though I've heard a fair bit about it. From what I've heard it closes the gap a fair bit and comes much closer to PGSQL in terms of features and performance--it is supposed to handle locking/contention better and its has embraced
...how specs are USED. I think his language could be clearer because it is causing a lot of responses like yours. However his opinions are quite accurate.
However, specs are not always theory, and they may be usefull, as well as docs.
Yes, many specs are absolutely essential. If developers of browsers and web content followed W3C's specifications the web would be a much better place. POSIX makes portability much more feasible. Following standards specifications is what made the internet possible.
Notice a common thread among those specs? They are all STANDARDS--one type of specification. Standards codify a common set of practices (ideally best practices but in reality there are often compromises). If there is just one kind of spec that should be honoured, it is the vendor-neutral standard. These specs are at a level quite removed from the end-user experience and are not specific to any single, specific application. Casual end-users would not directly notice whether standards are followed. Sysadmins, integrators and future developers maintaining such applications REALLY notice such things however, and eventually managers and regular end users will too--in the form of reduced maintenance costs and better reliability and interoperability.
The type of spec Linus is probably referring to are application-specific architectural and functional specifications. These sort of specs, particularly the latter type, have proven to be mostly complete wastes of time. This has a lot to do with the fact that the ways such specs are created and employed with respect to software developent are fundamentally flawed. These flaws usually have to do with doing all these specs up front then following some "waterfall" method of project management whereby you completely implement a full set of specs, periodically reviewing and doing iterations, testing then releasing.
Applying the above methods to software development, or in fact any very large engineering projects, is bullsh*t. Such methods do not scale very well. This is something I've learned in the last couple of years as I've found myself involved in projects at a higher level and have gotten a clearer view on the "big picture"--and also from seeing how my employer has had to pull some near-disasterous projects out if the fire. Successful projects have either been quite small and succeeded despite the flawed process, never followed the above model or ended up throwing out the original specs half-way through development. This has been the case whether it was a software product or a refinery.
He cited OSI model, well, but I can assure you I won't go in an airplane if it was done with Linus' practices...
The OSI model is an example of a STANDARD--a model that should be understood and respected but generally makes little sense to mimic in code and Linus says as much in his message. As for going for a ride in an airplane designed by Linus--well barring the fact that aircraft and operating systems are too different to apply the same practices I'd much rather fly the "Linux 727" than the "Microsoft DC10" any day. Furthermore, if you were to look at how aircraft are designed you'd find that they are in fact designed and built WITHOUT a "spec" of the type Linus bemoans. If a jumbo jet was designed the way a lot of people try to do software projects then hundreds of people would get together from Boeing, airlines and airports and write a huge, detailed and incomprehensible spec for a jet--for everything from the layout of the instrument cluster to the shape of the turbine blades on the engines to the size of the tires. Then the managers from Boeing, all the airlines and all the airports would "review" (or gloss-over really) the spec and sign it off and then Boeing would design the plane, following that spec for everything. Then they'd test the end product and "interate", crashing a few dozen multi-million-dollar prototypes in the process. Then the airlines would get theri first new planes and complain that it isn't qu
...it really isn't as effective as it could or should be
Does Microsoft over share their code with developers?
I'd say they "under share" if you ask me. My employer has a fairly close relationship with Microsoft and to my knowledge no one in our company is privvy to the source code to any of Microsoft's OS.
The "Shared source initiative" is really just a marketing term under which MS lumps all its programmes involving the disclosure of source code. These range from truly open source projects like those involving automated generation of application installers to special agreements with governments to permit government security audits on Windows OS source code.
The terms under which third-parties may obtain source code to operating systems is quite limited:
* you are only permitted access to Win2K, WinXP, Win2K3 server. You may NOT legally see the source to MSDOS versions 1.0 to 8.0 or their respective GUIs (Windows 1 to 3.11,95,98 or Me) under any circumstances as far as I know.
* generally, you must be a licensed user of at least 1500 seats--a large enterprise user--unless you are a government, or an affluent MS MVP. My employer qualifies here easily...HOWEVER...there is one problem:
* Quoted from MS' terms: "Source code may not be used to assist with the development of a commercially distributed product." In other words, not only can you look but not touch the source, you cannot eve look at it to make your software product better...oh yeah, and don't think ditributing GPLed software isn't "commercial distribution" because that is forbidden as well.
This third restriction, along with other NDA terms, make us and many others INELIGIBLE for viewing the source to any version of Windows. There is only one form of source licensing in which you CAN distribute software that you developed with the assistance of Windows source code--and that is if you obtain an OEM license agreement. The restriction is still pretty severe...these licensees can only distribute drivers for hardware which they develop and distribute. Since my employer sells more than driver software, if we wanted such a license we'd have to evoke our own "chinese wall" and be extremely careful that those who have access to Windows source code will NEVER work on the development of our commercially distrubuted applications.
Given these restrictions it looks rather unlikely that developers of antivirus software have source access to Windows since they commercially distribute the software. Unless, however, they have negotiated a specific, custom agreement with MS. This has happened at various times, and usually it ends up where MS licenses the outside party's technology for inclusin in their own products. A good example is Citrix--they negotiated for access to the source code of the NT kernel many years ago (before NT4 came out) because their WinFrame product basically installed a modified kernel and they needed access to enough of the source to build that kernel. Later MS strong-armed Citrix into a pretty sweet licensing deal to their MultiWin kernel for inclusion in NT4 TS edition and future NT-based Windows releases.
Such cross-pollination generally happens pretty naturally and frequently in the open source world, but from what I gather the above was only accomplished with a lot of time, money, lawyers and legal documents generated in triplicate. I fear that in the closed-source-MS world the only way we'll get the most effective anti-malware technology possible into Windows will be when MS strikes such a cross-licensing deal and bundles antivirus functions into its OS. At that point, 3rd party vendors of antivirus products will have to shift focus, perhaps offering software that extends functionality or eases the management of the built-in AV functions. It's pretty much inevitable actually, since the closed model of development discourages diversity and friendly collaberation in favour of homogeneity and antagonism towards others.
Edmonton, AB is 12 hours drive from the border.
Red Deer, AB is 6 hours.
Calgary, AB is 4 hours.
Nor are we that bad at math...
When I last drove from Coutts (US border crossing) to Calgary it took about 3 hours or so...I believe the distance is 300 to 350 km.
Red Deer is 140km further north along the QE2. It takes no more than 1.5 hours (I usually get there in 1:15)
Edmonton is about 150km or 160km further north yet--another 1.5 hours past Red Deer.
So I humble submit a revision to your statement:
Edmonton, AB is 6 hours drive from the border.
Red Deer, AB is 4.5 hours.
Calgary, AB is 3 hours.
Please don't confuse our poor American bretheren regarding our geography--they have a rough time of it as it is--like US suppliers in Washington state or California shipping things to Vancouver via a distribution centre in Toronto--because it is "easier" since Toronto and Vancouver are in the same country (for those who don't get it, Toronto is 4,500 km from Vancouver...more than twice the distance between LA and Vancouver).
I don't mean to belittle the intelligence of US citizens as they are no dumber or smarter than any other people--their education curriculums are just severely lacking in the World Geography dept. We Canadians have our flaws too--like our tendency to measure distance in units of time.
As for this Bell/Rogers partnership for wireless broadband, I'll believe it when I see it...it'll probably happen but it won't be all that soon judging by how Albert Supernet has been dragging on. Of course this isn't a government project so it may be different. Can you imagine if this thing was cooked up by the wonks in Ottawa?
* it would take 5X as long as promised to finish
* it would cost a billion or so dollars more than budgeted
* it would be run by Paul Martin's children
* Very few people would know about it, despite hefty sums being paid to obscure advertising agencies in Quebec--usually bay way of unmarked brown envelopes stuffed with cash and delivered to agency executives by staffers from the prime minister's office.
(I'm talking about 2000 heren not "Yukon"/2005 which I admit looks quite promising)
.NET language though). You cannot create user-defined AGGREGATE functions in MSSQL.
* MSSQL is too damned expensive for what it does. PostgreSQL has more features and is free.
* MSSQL's scheme for locking and handling contention is primitive. I've had INSERT and UPDATE queries put on table-level locks at the oddest times. PgSQL NEVER does this, it has quite a sophisticated method of handling concurrent transactions on overlapping datasets (MVCC). If you have many concurrent connections performing a lot of INSERTs and UPDATEs it can be frustrating to manage all the locking in MSSQL.
* MSSQL is not as standards-compliant as PgSQL. The latter has non-standard extensions but their developers place much more effort on ANSI compliance.
* MSSQL is not multi-platform. All the others you mentioned will work on Linux, various UNIX flavours and Windows.
* MSSQL is feature-rich in many ways but lacks other features most of the competition has had for ages. For example, in MSSQL you can return the "TOP x" rows of a set but you cannot do an "offset"--for example, MSSQL cannot return rows 101 to 200 of a set! So, of you are doing a web interface that pages through results you have to resort to clunky hacks. Also you can only do stored procs in TRANSACT-SQL (I eagerly await Yukon's ability do do them in any
* MSSQL might be "easy to tune" but one might say that is because there isn't much that can be tuned. If the query plan seems wonky sometimes you just have to accept it or rewrite your query. There ARE more tuning parameters than one might be aware of, however you have to scour the web for a knowledgebase tip or an undocumented/unsupported hack. MSSQL is the antithesis of Oracle in that respect--the latter is extremely tuneable but trying to understand and manage it could make your brain explode.
I pray to God every night that this does not become a widespread buzzword.
It's too late...there is nothing you can do to stop it. Marketing executives around the globe have made it an action item to evangelise the plaformization of service oriented architecture to leverage their intellectual property, in which significant capital was invested in recent years to prepare for the impending paradigm shift in enterprise-class solutions.
considering the fact that most PCs that shipped w/ Win95 can run XP just fine
Actually that is a bit of a mis-statement, because by the time machines that meet the minumum requirements for XP were widely available, the current version of the MSDOS-line was Windows 98, NOT Win95. The minimum requirements are 266 MHz with 64MB of RAM. Before Win98 came out a computer of that performance and capacity would be cost-prohibitive for desktop use. Low-end servers where I worked at the time were 133 to 200 MHz with 64 to 128 MB RAM. If they ram a Microsoft OS they'd be running NT-based Windows rather than an MSDOS-based OS anyways.
As for the system requirements for Microsoft OSes, in my experience the minimum requirements are what is needed to merely boot up the system--after that all you could really do is run notepad and solitare and at the outside IE. The "recommended" requirements MS states are typically double the minimum ram and one step up in CPU speed--thus for XP they are 300 MHz and 128 MB RAM. INHO THAT should be the minimum requirements (I've seen XP Home running on such a system...you have to be quite patient at times but it is usable for basic tasks.
The "real" recommended minimums I have made for years (with anything NT-based anyways--NT4, 2K and XP) are 150% to 200% higher clock speed and 400% more memory than what MS states for minimum reqs. For XP that is 533MHz with 256MB RAM, which in my practical experience is quite usable for normal office-type use.
If MS' track record proved true, then Vista will be a horrendous resource hog. Using my rule of thumb, a minimum Vista system will be the following:
* 1 Gigabyte of RAM
* 3.0 GHz P4-class CPU (I'm making a generous guess here that a 1.4-ish GHz P4 and higher is considered "modern" by MS standards--in reality this may approach 4GHz)
* High-performance SATA-connected hard drive
* Graphics subsystem typically more powerful than those integrated on the motherboard, with a good 256MB RAM dedicated to it.
This is a HUGE leap in requirements. Such a system available BRAND NEW now is definitely NOT a budget PC, so even by next year when Vista is released a lot of relatively new PCs will need upgrading to get acceptable performance. Furthermore, to be truly "vista ready" the requirements will be even higher! More RAM and you'll have to get a new video card! I'll make a bold prediction and say that retail sales of Vista upgrades will be dismal--the bulk of Vista installs will be OEM/factory installed on new PCs.
The reasons things are different today for Linux fortunes with this new upgrade are several...not the leat of which are:
* Linux is a much more mature, user-friendly system for desktops today than it was 7 to 10 years ago. My nephew was visiting and saw my GNOME desktop and remarked "is that a Mac?"...speaks volumes about how far the UI has come.
* In the vast majority of cases it is actually easier to install than Windows since you don't have to take as many precautins about connecting an unpatched system to the 'net. Vista will probably not suffer the installation hangups of XP but it will be a very large install, and you still have "product activation" to contend with, which still makes a modern Linux distro easier to install.
* There is better driver support for Linux than in the past--and in the case of slightly older hardware driver availability for Linux will actually be BETTER than for Windows too.
* MS promises that Vista will be the most substantial OS upgrade since MSDOS6.22 w/ Win3.x shell was supplanted by Win95--including dramatic enhancements to the UI. The next release of Office promises dramatic changes too. Vista and MSOffice will look more different from the XP versions than most Linux desktops with OpenOffice will. MS could get away with it in 1995 because Linux GUIs at the time were primitive, and Apple had lost its way (and wouldn't run on the same hardware). Today, there is a competitor in Linux that will run on the same hardware pl
If you honestly believe that PC games are better partly because they are capable of better resolution and have better processing power, then that seems to go against your later argument that older games - made when the capabilities were even lower - are better.
You're right---the technical specs of a platform are not an indicator of how well the games play. The platform DOES influence the game however--as I suggested, action oriented games tend to work better in a console environment with decent controllers whereas strategy games or others with "depth of play" work better on PCs, with keyboard and mouse control and hi-res screens. This is even the case with older "inferior" games--a 10-year-old PC still has the same keyboard and mouse and superior screen resolution even compared to consoles currently on the market. Sure, the old PC cannot pump out true-colour, full-screen, full-motion 3-D, but it is still capable of rendering text and details even todays XBox and PS2 cannot. The old PC might be inferior in every other respect, but the differences lend themselves better to different games.
And I am somewhat glad for modern pricing. It is possible for good new games to come out at $20 (Katamari Damacy) or $30 (quite a few more). Though many games come out for more, at least we don't have the inflated prices that came with cartridges during the Nintendo's hayday. Usually just special editions come greater than $50.
Assuming you are talking American dollars, I'd agree that it is better than it was when 2 carts cost more than the price of the entire NES console with Super Mario pack-in. I'd have to say however that they have a long way to go. Games are still overpriced--$20 shouldn't be the low end--it should be the average and $30 should be upper-end. For NEW releases. There is no single game in existence today, special-edition or not, worth $50. Compare it to DVDs--if you spend $50 you are usually getting a multi-disc set--an entire season of TV episodes or a set of sequels.
Yes it is possible to get a truly interesting game for a reasonable price ($20 for Katamari Damacy) but they are by far the minority. I find that the bulk of games that are released with an MSRP under $30 are garbage and that blockbusters are $40 to $60--and they are mostly crap too. If you're observations differ it is probably because in a matter of hours or days the price is reduced because stock is not moving fast enough.
I know there is still good stuff out there--there was good stuff out there in 1984 too I remember. The problem is when it becomes overwhelmed by loads of crap. In the meantime, I can get a used PS/2 for $50 or less and some still-very-fun games at the fleamarket for pennies on the dollar. When a game comes around that is truly compelling then I'll consider paying $30 or more for it. In the past year however, that has only happened once.
These lists are merely a function of the reviewers. Perhaps the reason the CNET list is "biased towards PC games" is because even today PC games tend to have more depth to them--if you are a fan of arcade/action and/or have too short of an attention span for such games then you might think such a bias is unjustified, but in my opinion the PC games dominate the list becase they are actually BETTER. A PC screen is always capable of crisper graphics than a TV, and PCs simply have more power and capacity to store and process more content.
As far as the second list being biased towards early games, look more closely at CNET's list. Six of the ten games on their list for the last ten years were released in the 1990's. Furthermore, the the NEWEST game on the list is FOUR YEARS OLD! And no, I don't count Madden as a "new" game because it could be argued that it doesn't belong on the list anyways--it was first released more than 10 years ago! (One could argue that only in the last 10 years has it proven to be a "great game").
Given that more than one source is "biased towards early games"--either in the early half of the last decade or early part of a console's live--you might conclude that the lists aren't really biased at all--it's just that the games out today basically suck. That's the conclusion I have come to anyways--I'd say more than 99% of currently published games are merely derivative works of the "greats" that often appear on "top lists".
As such, I would not even consider buying a new release for such absurd prices. I'll buy used or dig around the clearance bin thank you very much. I can get a used console and a couple of bargain games for the price of one of these new games alone. It is my fondest wish that such a practice catches on with consumers at large and that it decimates the videogame industry--it is in desperate need of another 1984. Not the Owellian kind of course, although online play + DRM might bring that into being...By that I mean the infamous industry crash that shook out all the chaff and paved the way for the NES and the next "renaissance".
Perhaps this is troll/flame bait material but I'll bite...
I've been using ReiserFS exclusively for about four years now and in that time have NEVER had problems attributed to ReiserFS.
1) It is supposed to be much faster than other filesystems, but under certain circumstances - when one has lots of small files, I believe.
Such cases are extreme. IIRC it isn't merely a problem with small files--it is when those small files are all contained within a single directory. They have to be very small files, and many many thousands in number. In practice the ONLY time I've ever encountered such a situation is when running benchmarks--most sane individuals would have the sense to organise such files in subfolders, and one might even re-examine their application to remove the requirement to have such an insane configuration.
2) Its usage is fraught with danger - there is a steady stream of horror stories out there about disasters caused by this filesystem.
As I stated I've NEVER experienced a "horror story" first hand, nor have I even seen any evidence of such except for a handful of anecdotal stories. OTOH, I've seen and personally witnessed MANY distressing situations involving filesystems like EXT2 and FAT (word to the wise--you are REALLY inviting trouble if you are running MySQL--without innodb--on an EXT2 filesystem. If you have a power interruption at just the wrong time you are doomed if you even remotely care about your data).
I do suspect this is flamebait as every statement you make is unsupported. As with any project there are bugs, but "horror stories"? Honestly--point me to ONE single article that is a true ReiserFS disaster--and not one on an ancient, obsolete pre-journalling version of ReiserFS or someone complaining about a test/alpha/beta release eating his data. In my experience Reiser3 as included on all production Linux distros is mature, extremely stable and performs admirably (when I converted a mail server to ReiserFS--all hardware remaining the same--the difference in handling very large mailboxes was amazing).
While I agree that the latest version of MS Office is the catalyst for continued evolution in the UI of other apps and the Windows OS itself, I can't help feeling dismayed by the fact that it is STILL HAPPENING. The last version of Office that didn't make me want to throw my PC through a plate-glass window was Office 95.
This is history repeating itself like that bad burrito I had for lunch at Taco Bell. As a user I find it frustrating when--at every major release--MS decides to screw with office at least enough to throw me off balance. Access to dialogue boxes sometimes change locations, and even worse, MS insists on showcasing its latest extremely annoying features by setting them to automatic mode--talking cartoon characters that want to write my letters for me, auto-formatting that insists on "correcting" the spelling and typeface of a snip of source code pasted into a document so it looks like heiroglyphics, etc...it's almost like the MS Office team is mocking me--"we are the standard so we can mess with your mind all we want---suck it up b**ch!"
MS Office is also the bane of my existence as a developer as well. Office has its own set of wigits and pointy-haired types don't seem to grasp that...."Make it look like Office" is easier said than done--you'd either have to make MS Office a dependency of your app or re-invent the wheel and make your own (and as others have pointed out, the result is often a substandard reproduction). While there are sometimes cool litle "innovations" in the UI of each new release of Office, more often than not they are mot consistent with any usability guidelines and it seems that all they serve to do is encourage other developers to practise the same behaviour.
After looking at the screenshots (which are pretty but don't seem to indicate any amazing advances in usability to me) I'd have to say there is one bright side to the situation: With every successive version of MS Office the adoption rate slows down as the bloat and annoying changes increase. Some time soon it looks like "new and improved" MS Office will look look and work less like the MS office we are accustomed to than OpenOffice, GNOME Office, etc.
So...not only will licesning costs and system requirements be the highest in the market for new MS office, business might also migrate to a competitor because users will be more accustomed to a more traditional interface like OpenOffice and training costs would be lower! Not that would be a kicker. Oh yeah, and I'm betting the likelihood that the new document formats (whcih will be the default I'm sure) will NOT be compatible with present versions of Office, so the compatibility argument will not hold water either.
Such a thing couldn't happen soon enough.
every person over the age of 25 that I've heard comment on the cell shading has been supportive of it
You hit it on the head there. Firstly, there is the fact that older fans of the franchise fondly remember the early incarnations of Zelda when EVERYTHING in videogames was "cartoonish" because of limited technology. Somehow staying with such a rendering would make sense--It's linka like if Nintendo decided to render Mario to look like a REAL Italian-American plumber from the Bronx or something--replete with coarse facial stubble, yellow teeth, sweaty armpits and exposed butt-crack--it just wouldn't be right!
Second of all, most people become less superficial as they age. Bells and wistles will still grab attention initially, but factors of more substance will bring people back for more--basically, looks matter less. That, besides simple nostalgia, is what makes "retrogaming" and long-running franchises popular among older videogame enthusiasts. It doesn't matter if Pac-man is just a yellow dot--there was a bit of fun character deveopment, cute music and simple addictive gameplay. The same factors make those "popcap" games and dinky little shareware titles popular.
Grown-ups will give a game a more fair shake. They will NOT put up with a photorealistic game if it is harder to manage the controllers than it is to play the violin, the plot is pointless, the characterisation is weak and the puzzles are more tedious than the paperwork and procedures HR makes them fill out at the office. They care not about how the smoke looks, or if the frame rate hits 100FPS (so long as it isn't so jerky that it gives them a headache).
Nintendo should release a cell shaded game where the main character is a persecuted homosexual who has to solve puzzles which refer to classical literature... etc. etc.
That is certainly a "grown up" premise for a game, although it is a lousy example, since pretty much EVERYBODY would avoid such a game like the plague. The 14-year-old would be put off by the "cartoony" graphics. The "Church Lady" types who can be equally shallow in other ways would interpret the cartoony graphics as promoting "deviant lifestyles" to children. The controversy would generate a handful of sales but then people would realise that the game sucked because the plot was pointless (how would one's knowlegde of classical literature convince a gay-bashing goon to cease and desist?), the puzzles are tedious (unless you are an English-Lit major--and even they might prefer to read the literature than answer trivia based on it), and the characters are flat and stereotypical (assumtion that all--or even most--people with moral objections to homosexual behaviour would "lynch" or "attack" a homosexual person). And above all else, games are supposed to be fun and the whole premise is a pretty depressing commentary on society.
As a better example I might point to games like "Leisure Suit Larry" where the environment is decidedly cartoony and the theme definitely for "adults only". One might also point out as I did above the success of small and simple but addictive games that are popular amongst players who are not considered the traditional demographic (ie. women over 30, or retirees)--the ones that are "too primitive" for hardcore teen gamers but are still great fun.
I guess that immature people crave "realism" because they have had limited exposure to reality and as such realism is still exciting--and older people have enough reality in their lives that something that departs from reality is a welcome escape.
...seems to be a very bad idea in most cases IMHO--at least if it can be avoided. I should hope any CIO that would suggest that sort of thing would have his ass handed to him by his team.
Is it just me, or does it seem that most big, all-encomapssing IT projects are unmitigated disasters? It doesn't matter if it is Unix to Windows migration, Windows to Linux, VMS to whatever...or even the initial implementation of a big system like SAP--it is extremely difficult to pull off. Really, what "financial model" could possibly show that uprooting the entire IT infrastructure of a large corporation all at once would be favourable? Is there no risk analysis done? Hell, does common sense not even come into the picture?
There are only a few situations that I could see where a massive enterprise project like this would be justifiable--and in the case of large corporations I would say that such situations would be due to neglect and incompetence--for example they've got a bunch of elderly Win95 PCs, a VAX that you cannot get parts for anymore, etc. and if anything bad happens to any of it the results would be catastrophic. So even if a massive IT project is not a foolish idea, it was foolishness that led to the need.
The article says that Linux is still part of their plans--it is just going to be used more strategically and selectively. I don't really see where the big argument is here. I'd rather see a large number of smaller success stories than one huge successful Linux project if it means hearing about 4 more Linux-based disasters that Microsoft could use as ammunition (ignoring the fact that the failure rate of massive Windows-based projects would be at least as bad).
It gave me a chuckle...IIRC it went something like this:
The PHB complained to Dilbert that he couldn't log in. Dilbert notices the network cable has come out and says "Uh-oh, the cable for the token-ring network is unplugged--the token must've fell out", at which point the PHB starts looking on the floor for the token as if it were a contact lens.
Apparently the PHB is a real person, and happens to be the boss of the fellow who was tasked to develop an "ethernet contingency plan"
the graph seems to indicate a surge in "evil google" around the time of the IPO. IIRC Google's motto is "DO NO EVIL", and in the time leading to the IPO that fact was mentioned many times in many articles. It looks like any article that says something like...
...would notch the "evil" index up and not hae any influence on the "cool" index at all, even though it is a very positive statement!
In contrast to Microsoft's image of industry dominance at all cost, Google has cultivated a friendlier image with its adoption of open source technology and its philosophy of "do no evil"
'tis an amusing graph, but completely meaningless.
From the first link:
We found that the metabolic and endocrine changes resulting from a significant sleep debt mimic many of the hallmarks of aging
That was EXACTLY ONE OF THE POINTS I MADE in my original post--if one were to abuse a medication that allowed you to stay awake for extended periods, and did so for many years, then you could very well age at an accelerated rate, much like junkies hooked on cocaine, speed or heroin do. yes, junkies often lead hard lives that can wear tehm down faster, but one of the characteristics they share is that they all suffer from significant sleep deprivation at various times. The article only mentions the findings, but if you want to see details of the proof then go find Dr Van Cauter's study.
The other articles I referenced are more to prove the point that sleep does more than let your brain get organised. The fact that the study mentioned in the first article is the first serious study EVER on the effects of LONG TERM sleep deprivation and it only happened in the last few years indicates to me that medical science is extremely unqualified at this point to say with confidence that we can medicate our way out of requiring sleep.
..as a company that "only makes airplanes" anymore--at least anything bigger than little hobby planes. Airbus maybe is the closest thing, and it isn't really a standalone company--it is a consortium of big tech companies glued together with government subsidies and the participants are big conglomerates that make everything too.
Take a look at pretty much any player in the aerospace industry past and present. and they are/were all mega corporations that did/do a bit of everyhing. Boeing and its subsidiaries range from jet planes to weaponry to real estate to financing. General Electric has their paws in everything from turbines to television networks. Rockwell made moon rocket engines, modems for PCs and everything in between. Bombardier has made planes trains and automobiles (or parts thereof).
Airplanes are too sophisticated to be made by mere "airplane companies"--the technology involved is so all-encompassing that such a company by default would be a capable player in a wide range of markets.