So what happens when you buy a used unit from the local 'Two Guys and a Roomful of Computers' place and it has a locked BIOS? Neither guy has a clue of the original owner. They bought a lot from some lease return outfit.
(asking because I have a Latitude CPi in exactly that situation)
"Where is this 'personal server' of which you speak?"
The personal server has been talked about for over a year without seeming to get any closer to a buyable product. It's a good idea, full of geek appeal. I'd buy one in a hot minute. But nobody seems to even be designing, much less bringing one to market. I haven't seen even so much as a proff-of-concept model.
(I'd be happy to be proven wrong about this, especially if the proof is a 'buy-it-now' link)
There it is... the Holy Grail of marketers: the Customer Relationship. Every marketer wants the ability to "maintain" a "relationship" with their customer even (some might say especially) in the face of that customer's express wish not to. Ubiquitous RFID can turn Customer Relationship Management into Customer Relationship Mandate. I'm reminded of a quote (can't recall the source and Google fails me) from the early days of the Commercial World Wide Web: "I don't want a relationship. I don't want to be your buddy. I just want to buy stuff!"
Even now, I bet you can think of 10 web sites that want to sell you something, but do not have any pricing information. Instead, they want to "connect" you with a "representative" (read: salesperson) to "answer your questions" (read: force-feed you more advertising).
Sure, you do. Interaction with computers affects society much more than the underlying technology which facilitates that interaction. As a simple experiment, take an average Windows user and present him with two machines. One is running Linus, X and Gnome with a Windows-like theme. The other runs Windows 2000 and WinStep with an Enlightenment-style theme. Observe which machine the user is more easily able to interact with.
My guess is that the reviewer is talking about the "operating system" of the Roku in a broad sense, and not in the sense that computer geeks do.
That is exactly so. Recall McLuhan's "The medium is the message" in reference to TV. The computer corollary is "the interface is the operating system".
Lately, my answer would be about once a week, or whenever my T-610 decides that the 'Bluetooth active' icon is a fashion statement, rather than an operational indicator.
I didn't track the downloads too closely, but at least a few people commented on using it. (I suppose I just blew my cover... I wrote ThreatTray and threat-advisory.com is one of my sites)
Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?
The Andromeda Strain. Aside from adding a non-glamorous female and changing the type of final destruct mechanism, it was the closest match I've seen. Interestingly, Crighton didn't write the screenplay. He did write the screenplay for Jurassic Park, which was one of the worst adaptations I can recall. I wondered for months why he would have chosen to shoot himself in the foot like that.
We'd be in a much better place if our e-mail system at least had a trustworthy traceback facility so that we affirmatively know who sent the message by default.
No doubt, but that's a classic Hard Problem. How do you authenticate the entry point without a central credential clearing house? And who runs that clearing house? VeriSign? (hint: that would be a bad choice)
I agree that SMTP needs a makeover, but what to replace it with is still very much an open question.
Maybe one of these days you will get off your high horse and realize that not everybody passionately cares about the latest web standards -- especially when there are *older* standards that continue to work just fine.
Older standards like... CSS2? Or maybe forward slashes in URLs?
Ah, fsck it. What you meant to say is that no one cares about standards at all, as long as IE will surf pr0n. And you're right. So why don't we all just go back to HTML 1.0 and be done with it? Screw that progress stuff!
Now I'm down to the big decision: redirect IE users to a page that explains the problem and offers alternatives, or just throw a 500 when they show up. I have a sneaking suspicion the end result would be about the same.
1..NET will be so overwhelmingly more convenient to develop in that it will make the cost for web developers to migrate immediately and en masse insignificant.
Not convenient... available. As in "just try to purchase Visual Studio 6.0 today" available. Microsoft has the ability to herd developers merely by the availability of tools. I work in Industrial Controls, and already, I'm seeing customers asking about.NET support for controls products. Mind you,.NET and 3-tier architecture brings nothing to the controls mission (unless you wanted to surf the web from a milling machine, I suppose, but that's not recommended). But the older tools are disappearing.
And let's not forget the influence of higher-ranking atechnical types that specify toolsets and designs based solely on non-technical parameters.
The sky isn't falling, but the operating ceiling is certainly lowering a bit.
Not that I'm in any way representative, but a look at my blog's stats shows NS 4.08 as being 1.7% of my Netscape hits. MSIE 5.x, OTOH, is 15.7% of the MSIE hits.
My site is almost all CSS (except for the portions of PostNuke that are hard-coded in <table>, and I'll hunt those down and kill them, too). My standard is "if it looks good in Gecko, it's golden."
Actually, the only people who do care about IE are the people who know enough not to use it. As TFA said, to the vast unwashed, Windows/IE is the internet. Think about it for a minute. You get a new computer with Windows pre-installed, click the desktop icon titled "Connect to The Internet" and after the little config dance, up comes IE, opening the MSN page.
What the techie crowd continues to forget is that the vast majority if computer users are now "appliance users". In the past, computers didn't become widely popular because it was impossible to pin down what a computer did. Toasters make toast. Dishwashers wash dishes. Computers.... er, compute. The popularity of the web and email in particular have transformed the computer into an appliance that enables email and provides eye candy. There are a dozen MUAs better than Lookout Express, too, but the same problem applies. You have to know there is a problem and it has to actively interfere with your normal usage before you will do anything about it. And the average user has been trained by years of unstable software, mutually incompatible drivers and endless virus/worm attacks to accept that this is just the normal state of the art. Until you find a way to convey to the average appliance-class user that there even is a problem with IE (or Windows, for that matter), Microsoft can do whatever they want and ignore any or all standards.
Now, if the majority of websites (where the techies have a bit more representation) were to start coding IE-hostile HTML without the beancounters' veto having an effect, there might be a possibility of getting the message across. Start with the pr0n sites.
That's been their position for a long time. Way back in '97, MS was hawking Office 97 with the slogan "You won't know where your desktop ends and the internet begins." And they still say it like it's a good thing.
What floors me is that even in the face of never-ending attacks on their products from the Legion of Blackhats, Microsoft still wants to believe that the internet is a big, happy neighborhood where everybody just gets along. One might think that issuing security patches weekly would have disabused them of this notion. Apparently, one would be wrong.
If that number turned out to be unusually low, perhaps the key is to really shove this sort of education down people's throats. How? I don't know.
I do. It can't be done! Lately, I've been kinda bombarded with evidence that the vast majority of (l)users:
A. Do not understand anything deeper than point and grunt.
B. Do not want to.
I'm totally serious. The lusers don't care. The typical/.er is far more technically proficient than Uncle Lou. Lou doesn't even know what Ethernet is. He knows that the yellow cable goes to the box with the flashy lights and the TV cable goes in the back, and doesn't care about anything deeper than that. So if we technophiles attempt to force-feed Lou with security smarts, the result will be that Lou sells the goddamned box at a garage sale and he's done with it.
The good news is that less lusers means less security problems. The bad news is the reduction in economies of scale will make our favorite hobby more expensive.
Gotta love irony. Some would suggest that the situation in the Middle East was created to distract millions from record debt in preparation for an election year.
Provide potable drinking water to everyone on the planet
?????
Profit!
Disappointing though it may be, Earth is in the hands of capitalists and the profit motive reigns supreme. And all the artifical political boundaries just help support the whole profiteering initiative. We go to war so General Dynamics can pay a dividend next quarter. We go to Mars so Lockheed-Martin can build the equipment for the mission. And so on, and so on...
I was going to point out the missing "Ignorance is Strength", but then I realized it was redundant.
Re:Don't ticket me - control my car's max speed
on
Road Marker Marks You
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
It would seem that you are unfamiliar with the revenue enhancement aspect of speed enforcement. Speed limits are only peripherally about safety. In many (most?) small towns, speeding fines are a significant portion of the municipal revenue stream. Of course, they won't publicly admit this in so many words, but a proposal to implement red-light cameras in Ohio was withdrawn after a lawmaker proposed warning signs and a first-offense-free policy. Both the camera company and the town involved complained that that plan would reduce revenue too much, prompting the legislator to ask "Is this a bill about safety or a bill about revenue?"
I love the NetMD player... it's small and it runs for 50 hours on a single AA battery. That and it's cheap
The gadget hound in me wants a mini-disc, but I get the impression you have to have Windows to use one. Is there a mini-disc unit that's usable (and useful) with a Linux box? I have an iRiver flash-based player, an iRiver MP3 CD player and an AIWA CDC-MP3 in the dash of the truck. Would a mini-disc add anything to this mix or just be redundant?
Slashdot Mirror
(asking because I have a Latitude CPi in exactly that situation)
The personal server has been talked about for over a year without seeming to get any closer to a buyable product. It's a good idea, full of geek appeal. I'd buy one in a hot minute. But nobody seems to even be designing, much less bringing one to market. I haven't seen even so much as a proff-of-concept model.
(I'd be happy to be proven wrong about this, especially if the proof is a 'buy-it-now' link)
Even now, I bet you can think of 10 web sites that want to sell you something, but do not have any pricing information. Instead, they want to "connect" you with a "representative" (read: salesperson) to "answer your questions" (read: force-feed you more advertising).
The interface is the operating system.
I didn't track the downloads too closely, but at least a few people commented on using it. (I suppose I just blew my cover... I wrote ThreatTray and threat-advisory.com is one of my sites)
I agree that SMTP needs a makeover, but what to replace it with is still very much an open question.
Ah, fsck it. What you meant to say is that no one cares about standards at all, as long as IE will surf pr0n. And you're right. So why don't we all just go back to HTML 1.0 and be done with it? Screw that progress stuff!
Now I'm down to the big decision: redirect IE users to a page that explains the problem and offers alternatives, or just throw a 500 when they show up. I have a sneaking suspicion the end result would be about the same.
Think we can start a trend?
And let's not forget the influence of higher-ranking atechnical types that specify toolsets and designs based solely on non-technical parameters.
The sky isn't falling, but the operating ceiling is certainly lowering a bit.
My site is almost all CSS (except for the portions of PostNuke that are hard-coded in <table>, and I'll hunt those down and kill them, too). My standard is "if it looks good in Gecko, it's golden."
What the techie crowd continues to forget is that the vast majority if computer users are now "appliance users". In the past, computers didn't become widely popular because it was impossible to pin down what a computer did. Toasters make toast. Dishwashers wash dishes. Computers.... er, compute. The popularity of the web and email in particular have transformed the computer into an appliance that enables email and provides eye candy. There are a dozen MUAs better than Lookout Express, too, but the same problem applies. You have to know there is a problem and it has to actively interfere with your normal usage before you will do anything about it. And the average user has been trained by years of unstable software, mutually incompatible drivers and endless virus/worm attacks to accept that this is just the normal state of the art. Until you find a way to convey to the average appliance-class user that there even is a problem with IE (or Windows, for that matter), Microsoft can do whatever they want and ignore any or all standards.
Now, if the majority of websites (where the techies have a bit more representation) were to start coding IE-hostile HTML without the beancounters' veto having an effect, there might be a possibility of getting the message across. Start with the pr0n sites.
What floors me is that even in the face of never-ending attacks on their products from the Legion of Blackhats, Microsoft still wants to believe that the internet is a big, happy neighborhood where everybody just gets along. One might think that issuing security patches weekly would have disabused them of this notion. Apparently, one would be wrong.
- A. Do not understand anything deeper than point and grunt.
- B. Do not want to.
I'm totally serious. The lusers don't care. The typicalThe good news is that less lusers means less security problems. The bad news is the reduction in economies of scale will make our favorite hobby more expensive.
Harry Tuttle would look for the best place to put the explosives.
I always liked Harry's style. "Go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone."
Gotta love irony. Some would suggest that the situation in the Middle East was created to distract millions from record debt in preparation for an election year.
- Provide potable drinking water to everyone on the planet
- ?????
- Profit!
Disappointing though it may be, Earth is in the hands of capitalists and the profit motive reigns supreme. And all the artifical political boundaries just help support the whole profiteering initiative. We go to war so General Dynamics can pay a dividend next quarter. We go to Mars so Lockheed-Martin can build the equipment for the mission. And so on, and so on...Depressing, ain't it?
I was going to point out the missing "Ignorance is Strength", but then I realized it was redundant.
It would seem that you are unfamiliar with the revenue enhancement aspect of speed enforcement. Speed limits are only peripherally about safety. In many (most?) small towns, speeding fines are a significant portion of the municipal revenue stream. Of course, they won't publicly admit this in so many words, but a proposal to implement red-light cameras in Ohio was withdrawn after a lawmaker proposed warning signs and a first-offense-free policy. Both the camera company and the town involved complained that that plan would reduce revenue too much, prompting the legislator to ask "Is this a bill about safety or a bill about revenue?"