I had the same thought. It's like those waving-wand displays that use a 1-dimensional array of LED's to make a 2-dimensional image, only apparently adapted dimensions++
Fortunately for him, wikipedia's history traces back to this revision which was apparently made by Mohd Abubuakr himself, back in August 2006. He was in school at the time, at Jawaharlal Nehru Tech. According to his LinkedIn profile, he's not so much a green field researcher as he is a techie... Performance and Security consulting. The article is a little misleading... makes it sound like MS research has a skunk works in Hyderabad trying to invent a new periodic table.
His blog is cute too. A little emo, a little egotistical, but seems like a nice guy. I wonder what his/. handle is.
We need a new word for the kinds of "competitive behavior" we see where the focus isn't about making better stuff or providing better services, but is instead focused on bringing down the people around you. In competitive sports, there are rules against such behavior. We can't have ice skaters bashing in the knees of other ice skaters now can we?
Microsoft is very easy to criticize because they are very well focused on bringing the competition down instead of working to make themselves more competitive. They need to have their language license revoked when their describe their behavior as "competitive" and "innovative." The word "bully" comes to mind, but I fear it is too simplistic and doesn't adequately describe the depth of planning and focus demonstrated. Whatever the word, it needs to convey the abandonment of fair play principles of competition and the selfish and callous disregard for others in the damage they cause. Anyone know of a word that describes this sort of behavior? Perhaps a few from psychology text books might well fit in here somewhere.
If this article was a movie, "it never runs anything in the background" would rank right up there with "This is a Unix system! I know this!" and "Uploading Virus..." in terms of technical stupidity.
My first move from tech-support to "real programming" was through a friend I'd met in school, so maybe I'm just lucky that way, but I have a few possible suggestions as to why you're experiencing that you're experiencing.
First, it's possible that you're looking for jobs that are over your head. If the posting says you need 3-5 years experience, most companies are not going to take your cute little web projects as counting for that. They're not rejecting you because of your techie background, so much as for your lack of programming background. This may not be a problem for you at all, but if you start looking at the lower-end, very junior, worst paying positions, that's where you start when you're fresh out of college (and it gets better.)
Second, good companies will hire good coders even if they are fresh out of college. Expect a starter salary, but every well-run techie company has an engineering leadership that recognizes programming chops are something you have or you don't, and it doesn't necessarily correlate to experience.
My suggestion to you would be to get in touch with your friends who recently graduated and find where they're working, or if any of them have had more luck. You may also do well with a recruiter -- not a big recruiting house, but a smaller, local recruiter. These often have more positions than they have bodies, and as such they'll be a little more understanding / creative when selling you to their clients. (A caveat: in my experience, most companies that use outside recruiters are poorly run. That should be okay as your first job or two you're looking for a year or two experience, not a 30-year career.)
You can sleep at night and feed your family, you just might have to go through hell with lawyers to get there. If you can document the choices being made really are coverups of violations of the law (and not just weak interpretations of the law) then go ahead and gather the evidence, and then make it clear to your boss or his boss or whoever needs to hear it: this is a problem and if it's not fixed here, you have no choice but to go public with it.
Suddenly, the only way to "cover up" is to fix the problem. If they fire you, you go public anyway, and not only is their coverup work worthwhile, but they're liable under whistleblower protection laws.
And it may not come to that. Most big companies have internal and/or external auditors, who are (or should be) completely independent, and whose job it is to expose internal corruption before it becomes a bigger issue. If not your internal audit group, then perhaps Loss Prevention or even your Legal department -- For all the disrespect they may get, corporate General Counsel recognize liability when they see it, and if something exposes a legal liability, they will push the hole to get closed if only for the sake of saving their own neck.
News flash: Most public education is currently handled by the States. If the U.S. Department of Education went away, public education would still be around. Public education in some States would be worse for it, but other States would be greatly relieved that to have Federal interference out of their system.
There is a meme-disease that has infested our society, spread by power-grubbing politicians and money-hungry corporate interests (including the sound-bite-driven media.) It is the idea that if there is a problem, the Federal government should fix it. Any problem, great or small, anywhere in the country, is in need of a Federal "fix." There needs to be a new cabinet-level department, or a Federal bill, or a Constitutional Amendment, or a Supreme Court ruling, or a "War On *" to fix it.
You hear it from Obama. His resounding "Yes We Can" is saying "Yes, we, the Federal Government, can fix everything that's wrong!" You hear it from Hillary, or anyone else promoting Federal government-provided healthcare. You hear it also from McCain, Romney and Huckabee. You hear it, with a slightly different tune, from mainstream evangelical Christians -- the problems are different, but the solution, Federal Government enforcement of morality to "fix" immorality, is the same.
The problem with the idea is that it overlooks all the other options for fixing a problem.
When there is a problem: - You or I can fix it - You or I can educate people on its existence and what they can do to fix it - You or I can start a non-profit organization dedicated to fixing it - You or I can (potentially) start a business that makes money by fixing it - Existing local businesses can make money by fixing it - Local religious groups can (possibly) work to fix it - Local non-religious non-profit organizations can help to fix it - Local governments can help to fix it - Larger / regional businesses can make money by fixing it - Larger / regional non-profit and/or religious groups can fix it - State governments can fix it - National / Global non-profits can fix it - National / Global corporations can fix it - The Federal government can fix it
If a flood wiped out your city, who would you be most relieved to see: someone from the Red Cross (National / Global organization) or someone from FEMA?
If you just discovered you had heart disease and needed a triple bypass, who would you rather have handle it: your local top-100 heart hospital (could be for-profit, non-profit or religious), or the National Institute of Health?
If your kid is getting a poor education, who would you trust to fix it: a private school (also could be for-profit, non-profit, or religious, or even yourself if you aren't averse to homeschooling), or the Department of Education?
If there's a problem with people with drug addictions, who often turn to crime, who should fix it, a doctor, or the Federal government?
If there's a problem with internet regulation, who should fix it, ICANN or the U.S. Government? (Even the suckiest-run nonprofits seem less scary than the prospect of the US Government meddling in that.)
If there's a problem with one group of people who don't approve of the morality of another group of people, who should provide the solution? The groups who have the problem working it out with each other, or the Federal Government enforcing the will of the more populous group on the other?
The Federal Government was created to make peace between the States, to defend the States from outsiders, and to guarantee "Liberty and Justice for all." As long as it sticks to that basic plan it can do a lot of good, but when we look at the Federal government as "Mr. Fix Everything" we are setting ourselves up for trouble not just in things getting "Fixed" up in the FUBAR sense, but also in conflicts of interest, some subtle and some not-so-subtle, between fixing-problems and "Liberty and Justice for All"
I'm reluctant to water down the message by adding a cliche, but if eve
Ballmer's a nut job sure, but is he saying anything absolutely, quantifiably wrong or deceitful here? Well, it's somewhat deceitful to try to sound like MS owns the mobile space, when really they're 3rd or fourth place. "Welcome to our house?" Yes, welcome to last place in the smartphone OS marketplace.
No surprise school is boring; the rise of social conservatives have ensured that everything that made any subject interesting have been scrubbed from the curriculum. I don't think it can all be blamed on "conservatives"... but it can fairly be blamed on politics. Conservatives in Texas won't stand for textbooks that are too critical of religion or "traditional values," whether those conservative values are appropriate or not. Liberals in California won't stand for textbooks that are politically incorrect... whether the truth of history, science or literature is politically correct or not. Since Texas and California are both major markets for textbooks, the textbook manufacturers print only books that don't offend either end of the radical spectrum. The result is textbooks that are like lunchroom food... low-nutrition, not very good, but palatable to the majority.
I'm not sure that school's mission has ever been to teach. I think the purpose is to act as a warehouse for children, lest they learn about the world around them too soon for the grown-ups to handle. You might be interested in John Taylor Gatto's Underground history of Education in America. He comes off as a little bit tinfoil-hatted at times, but it's an interesting perspective on large-scale federalized public "factory" schools, which according to Gatto's sources were engineered to create conformity, rather than intellectual superiority
Whether it's engineered so or not, everything always adapts for survival. Consider corporations, political parties, or even nations themselves -- these are all "super-intelligent machines" of sorts that were originally made to serve their builders, but once released "into the wild" began to take on characteristics conducive to their own survival, simply because of Darwin's nifty engine... what doesn't try hard to survive dies, and what does, thrives. The result is corporations, political groups, etc. that were made to serve men by being smarter / more effective / more efficient than a man, that took on survival traits that make them better at surviving, at the expense of being worse toward the men that created them.
MS and google are just the players I would expect to craft guidelines specifically for the purpose of making it look like they're trying while simultaneously allowing the to run all over their customers' rights. They'd be better at it than government! (Well considering that a lot of regulatory legislation is drafted by the business that legislates, the government is often as "good" as business in that regard.)
Hey, I'm not talking about smearing bananas on the floor or something. I'm not that much of a jerk. I only do it when I'm in a hurry and/or I just want one thing, and the lines are really long--not "poor kid" long, but "incompetent management" long. I'll put non-perishables on an endcap near the registers, or if it needs to stay cold I'll put it someplace cold. I have worked retail before, and I know that it causes grief to the poor minimum-wage kids who have to put things back on the shelves.
But you know what? If those kids are working longer cleaning it up, they are getting paid by their incompetent manager. The same manager who could have paid instead for extra cashiers (the same kids). The kids still get paid for working a sucky job, and the manager--the guy whose fault it is the lines are too long--suffers lost sales and higher payroll. If the kid gets pissed and quits his job to go back to college, hey good for him, bad for the store manager jerk who is also out the expense of finding a new worker.
I've also worked direct sales, and I recognize a difference between a sales person doing a good job, and being unethical. When I walk out on a deal, it's typically because I feel like I can and should be getting a better deal.
And those X10 cameras... I didn't try to DOS them or anything, I'm just not going to give them my business. Likewise Yahoo... they have some really cool portal-type stuff. Even now I'd pick them over Google for many, many cool features on their site.
Popups killed Yahoo, at least for me. Before I got reliable popup-blocking from Mozilla, Yahoo slammed me with popups every time I visited. So I quit visiting. Even when I got good popup blocking, I'd found other services to fill those needs, and Yahoo isn't, nor will it ever again be, my default "portal" for everything. I hope what they made with those popups was worth the ill will from me and (I'm certain) others like me who just quit visiting.
You know those cool X10 video cameras? I'm sure you saw the popups for those too. I might have gotten one if they weren't frickin' synonymous in my mind with popup advertisers. (Just like I'm never going to refinance my mortgage with a spammer, no matter how good a deal I'm going to get.) They look like a neat little geek toy, but I'm going to have to wait for another company to make them before I'll get one.
I guess I'm a little bit of... a jerk... when it comes to stuff like that. If a salesman is being pushy or otherwise "slick" I'll say so and walk out of a store, no matter how good the deal might have been. If a supermarket has long lines, I'll drop my stuff and leave. And if a website wants to make money by obtrusive advertising, I'll find another website that doesn't.
I know there are trade-offs and deals must be made in order to have low prices or provide good content for free. But there is a point at which I really feel like a place sucks, and at that point, I am willing to go through the inconvenince of finding someone else to deal with, rather than give money to those who would abuse me. It may work for other people, but if you don't serve me well, you don't make money from me.
It's not like there aren't other businesses who will take my money (or in the case of websites, my eyeballs) and give me what I want.
I wish more people did this, then maybe megacorps would treat people like.... people?
We used windows CE devices for walkabout price scanning / stocking / shipping apps at a place I once worked (a large retail chain) On any given day, about half of the chain would place help desk calls because of gimpy client/server connectivity at the OS level.
We got the impression it was mostly on the server side, though, so maybe a well-engineered WinCE app interfacing with a "real" unix/mini-mainframe store server would have a chance of not barfing andll over the place and die while a user was scanning their frozen peas.
I really wouldn't think WinCE is the best tool for this, though. For one, its big advantage (I'd think) would be its ability to connect with Windows servers. And as I pointed out above, that is a bad idea. This is an "embedded" style system, it should work like a machine--push a button, it always does what it should, and no matter what happens, you should never see "winsock error" or "out of memory" or even "the system has encountereed an error and the current application will terminate."
Not to mention the added task of having to lock it down by removing IE ("pocket IE"), solitaire, Pocket Office or whatever other unnecessary crap that comes bundled standard with WinCE.
If you needed a shopping cart that could easily sync with outlook, or that needed rapid-development multimedia capability out of the box, with security and reliability being practical non-concerns, I could see WinCE being a good choice. But that doesn't sound like a cash register to you, does it?
First let me be clear I'm not a MS shill or otherwise a fanboy of Microsoft. I use Linux at home and for my personal server, and for the past 5 years I've been programming and administering Linux machines full-time for pay. That I believe MS will take the lead on security (if they continue to pursue it with such adamance) isn't because I've got a boner for MS--they do some really annoying crap sometimes--it's just what I think will happen based on observations and experience.
Regarding all users running as root in MS... first, on corporate networks, nobody runs as system administrator, unless they're in Tech Services. At least that's how it is where I work and anywhere else that has a semi-sane security policy. For apps that have to be root to run... what is this, 1998? I'll admit I don't do much user-level admin'ing but what non-legacy package requires that access today?
But more than that, on your Linux box, when you get a new tarball do you pore over the source code checking for viruses before you install it? Or do you "./configure; make; sudo make install; ?" (or "rpm -ivh" if that's your thing) How is that more secure than "Setup.exe, next, next, next"? How is the Linux install more secure if what you downloaded has something malicious piggybacked in?
(side note: to answer my own question, there are tools like apt/yum/portage that automatically check hashes of all downloaded files, which is quite a bit more secure for things that you can get that way, though not unhackable.)
And yes, I know that doesn't address the day-to-day user activities that might open virus-containing files, which could take over your whole Win system as opposed to just userspace if they found a hole in a userspace application. But are you saying that a virus that has complete access to your userspace is not going to be harmful? ILOVEYOU. It came in an e-mail, and spread via userspace e-mail software. I know that has more to do with Outlook security than anything, but who's to say that every app on Linux is 100% bulletproof, that if one had an installed base of hundreds of millions (of gullible dolts) that a security vulnerability couldn't cause major, huge problems without ever touching root?
What part of a virus needs root access to spread? For that matter, what part of a virus needs root access to upload your sensitive data to a website? What needs root to send spam? What needs root to log onto IRC and join a botnet? What needs root to capture your keystrokes when you're going root to do system work... ?
Do you use your Linux PC to work? Do you have to su to access critical documents--not system documents, but presentations, database apps, spreadsheets, reports--the kind of thing that you would *most* not want a virus to corrupt or phone home with?
I don't think my position is one of "buying the FUD" as much as it is... just an observation. And not buying the doctrinaire attitude of smug superiority (DASS?) that comes from FOSS being undisputed champ for so long in the security realm. That's what got MS where it is now in the browser world, isn't it? (shazaa! back on topic!)
You might be more interested in the w3schools survey, which from July last year to July this year shows IE down 7% (from 87% to ~80%) and Mozilla up about that much (from ~5% to 12%).
This isn't a one time, one month anomaly. It's a trend, and the w3school's survey is probably showing it ahead of WebTrends because w3schools is more likely to attract site developers, and what site devleopers use, site visitors use too, after a while. The browser wars are back on.
Slashdot Mirror
I had the same thought. It's like those waving-wand displays that use a 1-dimensional array of LED's to make a 2-dimensional image, only apparently adapted dimensions++
The really interesting table on that site is this one: ... Did Mohd rip off Wikipedia?
http://www.meta-synthesis.com/webbook/35_pt/pt_database.php?PT_id=35
Which is labeled "Wikipedia table" and dated 2006
Fortunately for him, wikipedia's history traces back to this revision which was apparently made by Mohd Abubuakr himself, back in August 2006. He was in school at the time, at Jawaharlal Nehru Tech. According to his LinkedIn profile, he's not so much a green field researcher as he is a techie ... Performance and Security consulting. The article is a little misleading ... makes it sound like MS research has a skunk works in Hyderabad trying to invent a new periodic table.
His blog is cute too. A little emo, a little egotistical, but seems like a nice guy. I wonder what his /. handle is.
We need a new word for the kinds of "competitive behavior" we see where the focus isn't about making better stuff or providing better services, but is instead focused on bringing down the people around you. In competitive sports, there are rules against such behavior. We can't have ice skaters bashing in the knees of other ice skaters now can we?
Microsoft is very easy to criticize because they are very well focused on bringing the competition down instead of working to make themselves more competitive. They need to have their language license revoked when their describe their behavior as "competitive" and "innovative." The word "bully" comes to mind, but I fear it is too simplistic and doesn't adequately describe the depth of planning and focus demonstrated. Whatever the word, it needs to convey the abandonment of fair play principles of competition and the selfish and callous disregard for others in the damage they cause. Anyone know of a word that describes this sort of behavior? Perhaps a few from psychology text books might well fit in here somewhere.
War?
If this article was a movie, "it never runs anything in the background" would rank right up there with "This is a Unix system! I know this!" and "Uploading Virus..." in terms of technical stupidity.
My first move from tech-support to "real programming" was through a friend I'd met in school, so maybe I'm just lucky that way, but I have a few possible suggestions as to why you're experiencing that you're experiencing.
First, it's possible that you're looking for jobs that are over your head. If the posting says you need 3-5 years experience, most companies are not going to take your cute little web projects as counting for that. They're not rejecting you because of your techie background, so much as for your lack of programming background. This may not be a problem for you at all, but if you start looking at the lower-end, very junior, worst paying positions, that's where you start when you're fresh out of college (and it gets better.)
Second, good companies will hire good coders even if they are fresh out of college. Expect a starter salary, but every well-run techie company has an engineering leadership that recognizes programming chops are something you have or you don't, and it doesn't necessarily correlate to experience.
My suggestion to you would be to get in touch with your friends who recently graduated and find where they're working, or if any of them have had more luck. You may also do well with a recruiter -- not a big recruiting house, but a smaller, local recruiter. These often have more positions than they have bodies, and as such they'll be a little more understanding / creative when selling you to their clients. (A caveat: in my experience, most companies that use outside recruiters are poorly run. That should be okay as your first job or two you're looking for a year or two experience, not a 30-year career.)
You can sleep at night and feed your family, you just might have to go through hell with lawyers to get there. If you can document the choices being made really are coverups of violations of the law (and not just weak interpretations of the law) then go ahead and gather the evidence, and then make it clear to your boss or his boss or whoever needs to hear it: this is a problem and if it's not fixed here, you have no choice but to go public with it.
Suddenly, the only way to "cover up" is to fix the problem. If they fire you, you go public anyway, and not only is their coverup work worthwhile, but they're liable under whistleblower protection laws.
And it may not come to that. Most big companies have internal and/or external auditors, who are (or should be) completely independent, and whose job it is to expose internal corruption before it becomes a bigger issue. If not your internal audit group, then perhaps Loss Prevention or even your Legal department -- For all the disrespect they may get, corporate General Counsel recognize liability when they see it, and if something exposes a legal liability, they will push the hole to get closed if only for the sake of saving their own neck.
This guy got 180 mpg out of a Honda Insight on a 20-mile urban course in the rain, using energy-conserving driving techniques.
News flash: Most public education is currently handled by the States. If the U.S. Department of Education went away, public education would still be around. Public education in some States would be worse for it, but other States would be greatly relieved that to have Federal interference out of their system.
There is a meme-disease that has infested our society, spread by power-grubbing politicians and money-hungry corporate interests (including the sound-bite-driven media.) It is the idea that if there is a problem, the Federal government should fix it. Any problem, great or small, anywhere in the country, is in need of a Federal "fix." There needs to be a new cabinet-level department, or a Federal bill, or a Constitutional Amendment, or a Supreme Court ruling, or a "War On *" to fix it.
You hear it from Obama. His resounding "Yes We Can" is saying "Yes, we, the Federal Government, can fix everything that's wrong!" You hear it from Hillary, or anyone else promoting Federal government-provided healthcare. You hear it also from McCain, Romney and Huckabee. You hear it, with a slightly different tune, from mainstream evangelical Christians -- the problems are different, but the solution, Federal Government enforcement of morality to "fix" immorality, is the same.
The problem with the idea is that it overlooks all the other options for fixing a problem.
When there is a problem:
- You or I can fix it
- You or I can educate people on its existence and what they can do to fix it
- You or I can start a non-profit organization dedicated to fixing it
- You or I can (potentially) start a business that makes money by fixing it
- Existing local businesses can make money by fixing it
- Local religious groups can (possibly) work to fix it
- Local non-religious non-profit organizations can help to fix it
- Local governments can help to fix it
- Larger / regional businesses can make money by fixing it
- Larger / regional non-profit and/or religious groups can fix it
- State governments can fix it
- National / Global non-profits can fix it
- National / Global corporations can fix it
- The Federal government can fix it
If a flood wiped out your city, who would you be most relieved to see: someone from the Red Cross (National / Global organization) or someone from FEMA?
If you just discovered you had heart disease and needed a triple bypass, who would you rather have handle it: your local top-100 heart hospital (could be for-profit, non-profit or religious), or the National Institute of Health?
If your kid is getting a poor education, who would you trust to fix it: a private school (also could be for-profit, non-profit, or religious, or even yourself if you aren't averse to homeschooling), or the Department of Education?
If there's a problem with people with drug addictions, who often turn to crime, who should fix it, a doctor, or the Federal government?
If there's a problem with internet regulation, who should fix it, ICANN or the U.S. Government? (Even the suckiest-run nonprofits seem less scary than the prospect of the US Government meddling in that.)
If there's a problem with one group of people who don't approve of the morality of another group of people, who should provide the solution? The groups who have the problem working it out with each other, or the Federal Government enforcing the will of the more populous group on the other?
The Federal Government was created to make peace between the States, to defend the States from outsiders, and to guarantee "Liberty and Justice for all." As long as it sticks to that basic plan it can do a lot of good, but when we look at the Federal government as "Mr. Fix Everything" we are setting ourselves up for trouble not just in things getting "Fixed" up in the FUBAR sense, but also in conflicts of interest, some subtle and some not-so-subtle, between fixing-problems and "Liberty and Justice for All"
I'm reluctant to water down the message by adding a cliche, but if eve
Whether it's engineered so or not, everything always adapts for survival. Consider corporations, political parties, or even nations themselves -- these are all "super-intelligent machines" of sorts that were originally made to serve their builders, but once released "into the wild" began to take on characteristics conducive to their own survival, simply because of Darwin's nifty engine ... what doesn't try hard to survive dies, and what does, thrives. The result is corporations, political groups, etc. that were made to serve men by being smarter / more effective / more efficient than a man, that took on survival traits that make them better at surviving, at the expense of being worse toward the men that created them.
MS and google are just the players I would expect to craft guidelines specifically for the purpose of making it look like they're trying while simultaneously allowing the to run all over their customers' rights. They'd be better at it than government! (Well considering that a lot of regulatory legislation is drafted by the business that legislates, the government is often as "good" as business in that regard.)
Why carry any? Why not just have them built into your phone?
Actually, a good content filter won't let you do GIS's with "SafeSearch is off" in the text of the page.
"About 50% of the human race is middlemen, and they don't take kindly to being eliminated."
Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again
Hey, I'm not talking about smearing bananas on the floor or something. I'm not that much of a jerk. I only do it when I'm in a hurry and/or I just want one thing, and the lines are really long--not "poor kid" long, but "incompetent management" long. I'll put non-perishables on an endcap near the registers, or if it needs to stay cold I'll put it someplace cold. I have worked retail before, and I know that it causes grief to the poor minimum-wage kids who have to put things back on the shelves.
... I didn't try to DOS them or anything, I'm just not going to give them my business. Likewise Yahoo ... they have some really cool portal-type stuff. Even now I'd pick them over Google for many, many cool features on their site.
But you know what? If those kids are working longer cleaning it up, they are getting paid by their incompetent manager. The same manager who could have paid instead for extra cashiers (the same kids). The kids still get paid for working a sucky job, and the manager--the guy whose fault it is the lines are too long--suffers lost sales and higher payroll. If the kid gets pissed and quits his job to go back to college, hey good for him, bad for the store manager jerk who is also out the expense of finding a new worker.
I've also worked direct sales, and I recognize a difference between a sales person doing a good job, and being unethical. When I walk out on a deal, it's typically because I feel like I can and should be getting a better deal.
And those X10 cameras
Popups killed Yahoo, at least for me. Before I got reliable popup-blocking from Mozilla, Yahoo slammed me with popups every time I visited. So I quit visiting. Even when I got good popup blocking, I'd found other services to fill those needs, and Yahoo isn't, nor will it ever again be, my default "portal" for everything. I hope what they made with those popups was worth the ill will from me and (I'm certain) others like me who just quit visiting.
... a jerk ... when it comes to stuff like that. If a salesman is being pushy or otherwise "slick" I'll say so and walk out of a store, no matter how good the deal might have been. If a supermarket has long lines, I'll drop my stuff and leave. And if a website wants to make money by obtrusive advertising, I'll find another website that doesn't.
.... people?
You know those cool X10 video cameras? I'm sure you saw the popups for those too. I might have gotten one if they weren't frickin' synonymous in my mind with popup advertisers. (Just like I'm never going to refinance my mortgage with a spammer, no matter how good a deal I'm going to get.) They look like a neat little geek toy, but I'm going to have to wait for another company to make them before I'll get one.
I guess I'm a little bit of
I know there are trade-offs and deals must be made in order to have low prices or provide good content for free. But there is a point at which I really feel like a place sucks, and at that point, I am willing to go through the inconvenince of finding someone else to deal with, rather than give money to those who would abuse me. It may work for other people, but if you don't serve me well, you don't make money from me.
It's not like there aren't other businesses who will take my money (or in the case of websites, my eyeballs) and give me what I want.
I wish more people did this, then maybe megacorps would treat people like
We used windows CE devices for walkabout price scanning / stocking / shipping apps at a place I once worked (a large retail chain) On any given day, about half of the chain would place help desk calls because of gimpy client/server connectivity at the OS level.
We got the impression it was mostly on the server side, though, so maybe a well-engineered WinCE app interfacing with a "real" unix/mini-mainframe store server would have a chance of not barfing andll over the place and die while a user was scanning their frozen peas.
I really wouldn't think WinCE is the best tool for this, though. For one, its big advantage (I'd think) would be its ability to connect with Windows servers. And as I pointed out above, that is a bad idea. This is an "embedded" style system, it should work like a machine--push a button, it always does what it should, and no matter what happens, you should never see "winsock error" or "out of memory" or even "the system has encountereed an error and the current application will terminate."
Not to mention the added task of having to lock it down by removing IE ("pocket IE"), solitaire, Pocket Office or whatever other unnecessary crap that comes bundled standard with WinCE.
If you needed a shopping cart that could easily sync with outlook, or that needed rapid-development multimedia capability out of the box, with security and reliability being practical non-concerns, I could see WinCE being a good choice. But that doesn't sound like a cash register to you, does it?
First let me be clear I'm not a MS shill or otherwise a fanboy of Microsoft. I use Linux at home and for my personal server, and for the past 5 years I've been programming and administering Linux machines full-time for pay. That I believe MS will take the lead on security (if they continue to pursue it with such adamance) isn't because I've got a boner for MS--they do some really annoying crap sometimes--it's just what I think will happen based on observations and experience.
... first, on corporate networks, nobody runs as system administrator, unless they're in Tech Services. At least that's how it is where I work and anywhere else that has a semi-sane security policy. For apps that have to be root to run ... what is this, 1998? I'll admit I don't do much user-level admin'ing but what non-legacy package requires that access today?
Regarding all users running as root in MS
But more than that, on your Linux box, when you get a new tarball do you pore over the source code checking for viruses before you install it? Or do you "./configure; make; sudo make install; ?" (or "rpm -ivh" if that's your thing) How is that more secure than "Setup.exe, next, next, next"? How is the Linux install more secure if what you downloaded has something malicious piggybacked in?
(side note: to answer my own question, there are tools like apt/yum/portage that automatically check hashes of all downloaded files, which is quite a bit more secure for things that you can get that way, though not unhackable.)
And yes, I know that doesn't address the day-to-day user activities that might open virus-containing files, which could take over your whole Win system as opposed to just userspace if they found a hole in a userspace application. But are you saying that a virus that has complete access to your userspace is not going to be harmful? ILOVEYOU. It came in an e-mail, and spread via userspace e-mail software. I know that has more to do with Outlook security than anything, but who's to say that every app on Linux is 100% bulletproof, that if one had an installed base of hundreds of millions (of gullible dolts) that a security vulnerability couldn't cause major, huge problems without ever touching root?
What part of a virus needs root access to spread? For that matter, what part of a virus needs root access to upload your sensitive data to a website? What needs root to send spam? What needs root to log onto IRC and join a botnet? What needs root to capture your keystrokes when you're going root to do system work... ?
Do you use your Linux PC to work? Do you have to su to access critical documents--not system documents, but presentations, database apps, spreadsheets, reports--the kind of thing that you would *most* not want a virus to corrupt or phone home with?
I don't think my position is one of "buying the FUD" as much as it is... just an observation. And not buying the doctrinaire attitude of smug superiority (DASS?) that comes from FOSS being undisputed champ for so long in the security realm. That's what got MS where it is now in the browser world, isn't it? (shazaa! back on topic!)
the original movie starred the Music Man didn't it?
Aren't copyrights limited to 50 years in the UK?
You might be more interested in the w3schools survey, which from July last year to July this year shows IE down 7% (from 87% to ~80%) and Mozilla up about that much (from ~5% to 12%).
This isn't a one time, one month anomaly. It's a trend, and the w3school's survey is probably showing it ahead of WebTrends because w3schools is more likely to attract site developers, and what site devleopers use, site visitors use too, after a while. The browser wars are back on.
First, it's pretty sad when the NYT scoops slashdot on a major piece of linux news like this.
for what it's worth, NYT didn't scoop it the first time slashdot posted this story.
If I may ask, where's your site? I love downloading music from artists that like to share it.