Oh really? You've never moved a memcard from one camera to another? You don't enjoy the convenience of tearing an SD Card out of its package and immediately jamming it into your camera, without reformating it first? (Which would erase any data already on the card)
There are several physical form factors for those memory cards. The camera vendors are not interested in memory card interoperability, even between diffent models of their own products.
Requiring users to format media would be a pain, because the average consumer won't know how to do it.
Along the same lines, the average consumer doesn't swap their memory cards between devices. This is now a mass-market, everything is built for the lowest common denominator. The average digital camera buyer knows very little about either photography or computers. Tech-savvy users are a tiny minority of today's digital camera market, prepare to be ignored.
From a domineering-industrialist standpoint, Microsoft has played this very well: they allowed FAT support to seem free long enough for all digital cameras to use it, even though initially filesystem didn't matter. Now that the manufacturers are addicted, they can start to bring up the price. A textbook submarine patent.
Agreed, fiendishly clever. I can hear the diabolical cackling from here. They're smart and evil, that's why people hate them so much.
To change the subject a bit, does anyone know anything about ISO9660? It's free and well supported, is there any way for embedded devices to use it instead?
>So now that you'll either not "have a positive experience or put[s] a >lot of pressure on [y]our support systems" trying to install a digital >camera or flash media under Windows, do you think that Microsoft will >have to drop their desktop distribution?
This fear of "negative experience" will cause the camera vendor to bend over and pay the license fee, because they (rightly) fear their customers are not capable of installing extra drivers.
The *only* nice thing about FAT is that all the Windows machines in the world can read it without installing drivers.
More important is that every electronic gizmo taking flash memory cards (digital cameras and MP3 players) can read/write it without installing drivers!
Because although installing a filesystem driver may be painful on Win98, it's one thousand times worse on solid-state electronics.
It's a chicken and egg thing - the cameras are designed to use FAT because they're made to interface with Windows machines.
MS isn't going after Sony for the cameras they made yesterday, they're gunning for license fees for cameras they are *going* to build.
The cameras don't talk to each other, so it won't matter if the camera I buy next year doesn't speak FAT. Unfortunately, no other filesystem is as well supported on the desktop as FAT.
>BTW How did people get around this issue before Read/Write access to NTFS?
I've got an old machine that I use as a server.
Commonly used files are shared with both Samba and NFS, so I can get at them from whatever OS I'm booted to. The vast majority of files are OS-specific and don't need to be shared.
My email and documents live on the server, and are always available. I don't need to edit/etc/fstab from Windows, and when I'm booted into Linux I don't need to access my Diablo savegames.
OT: Does anyone know how to put a Mozilla profile on a network drive and share it between *nix and Win32? I'd love to have my bookmarks kept up-to-date between both OSs.
what are the default permissions for any files created?
A good question, I dunno. This is complicated stuff.
could you implement this driver somehow so that it followed permissions at some level
I'm sure you could, but I can think of several problems.
What if the users/groups on the NTFS partition don't match those on my *nix box? For example my/etc/groups doesn't include a "power users" group, and I bet yours doesn't either.
If I were implementing this, I'd make it able to read anything, and any files created would be r/w for everyone.
I think the most common use of r/w NTFS drivers would be rescue CDs and such. If I'm booting a rescue CD to fix a forgotten "administrator" password, I'd be pretty steamed if my rescue CD honoured the permissions I was trying to get around!
That horse has been out of the barn for years. Once I have physical access to a computer, I can boot from an NTFSDOS floppy or CDROM and ignore all NTFS security.
This doesn't make things less secure. It may remind people that without physical security, there is no data security.
I took a quick look at lids.org, I don't know of a direct BSD equivilant.
FreeBSD has sandbox infrastructure called
"jail".
The idea is to sandbox all services so that an exploits can't escalate itself into root.
Jail chroots an environment and sets certain restrictions on processes which are forked from within. For example, a jailed process cannot affect processes outside of the jail, utilize certain system calls, or inflict any damage on the main computer
Jail is included with recent FreeBSD releases, but I'm told it is available for Linux.
Systrace takes a different approach, i.e.
With systrace, a system administrator can say which system calls can be made by which programs and how those calls can be made. Proper use of systrace can greatly reduce the risks inherent in running poorly-written or exploitable programs. systrace policies can confine users in a manner completely independent of Unix permissions. You can even define the errors that the system calls return when access is denied, to allow programs to fail in a more proper manner.
(source)
Systrace is integrated into OpenBSD and NetBSD, and is also available for Linux.
The world is full of stuff we don't like, it takes some bad karma to have to go to the trouble of putting together a comment to express one's dissatisfaction with something, especially one that isn't humourous or satirical. Relax, drink some chamomile tea, and go into the sunlight. Sounds like the author needs it.
The person on the other end of the phone has a procedure she has to follow. She has to follow that stupid script. The calls are randomly monitored to ensure the phone monkeys are following their scripts.
It sucks, but everything about a call center job sucks.
That girl isn't going to risk getting in trouble for not following procedures, no matter how much it pisses off the customers. She's not being paid to provide good service and make customers happy, she's being paid to read the damn script.
Does that suck? Damn straight. I don't know how to fix it, short of burning down every fucking call center in the world. Hmmm, maybe we only need to burn all of the call center MANAGEMENT!
I still think we're talking apples and oranges here.
If you want to compare vi with WP, you're really talking about vi + ispell + LaTeX + some PS filters to get hardcopy.
Or are you advocating vi + ispell + nroff + pic ? Perhaps you prefer vi + ispell + DocBook, with XSLT stylesheets on the side ? Do you hand-hack your own PostScript with vi?
You can use any of the above (including commercial word processors, of course) to create great documents. As with any software, there are trade-offs in portability, ease-of-use, the look of the final product, scriptability, convertability, and the work required to prepare your document.
Everything has its place, although I doubt many use vi to edit their own.ps these days, or nroff for that matter.
Actually, WP5.1 had some pretty decent revision features:)
I'll fess up and admit that I don't still use WP5.1, nor would I really want to. It's nice having a word processor with a WYSIWYG interface.
I sort of agree about feature bloat, but this has been a problem for 10 years. WP5.1 had a LOT of features, as this thread demonstrates.
Re:Are you sure?
on
Does IT Matter?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You may have a point, but I don't agree that the modern trend of fewer secretaries is a good thing. I miss having access to a departmental secretary.
I see busy, well-paid professionals doing stupid clerical shit like making their own travel reservations and doing their own expense reports. A couple of jobs ago, I maintained the fucking phone list in between looking after the servers. My boss at the time spent at least 1 day/month locked in his office, doing expense reports.
Back in the day, the secretary did that junk, and I did the technical stuff, i.e. the tasks they'd hired me to do.
Call it progress if you like, I think it's another case of "penny wise and pound foolish".
* importing external data and graphics - WP5.1 would import several graphics formats.. I'll gladly concede that importing/exporting data was much harder. If anyone cares I could tell war stories...
* writing aids (spelling checkers, thesauruses,...) - WP had a great spell checker, and thesuarases/grammar checkers were available as add-ons.
* formatting tools and stylesheets
* electronic forms. - I don't know if those were in WP5.1.
In terms of usability, there have also been improvements: "auto-correct" tools can be very helpful,
Several of the less popular DOS word processors offered these features, at least according to the reviews in BYTE magazine. They were somewhat controversial at the time, some of reviewers hated it:)
I think the problem today is that the trends are for more buzzwordy "usability" features like clippy and "smart this" and "intellithat", most of which just get in the way when all I want to do is write a letter.
Would a secretary typing up her letters be any less productive using Word 2000, running on Windows 2000, on a PIII/500, than she is using Word 2002, running on Windows XP, on a PIV/1.6GHz?
I'll go one farther and assert there hasn't been a substantial improvement in word processing technology since WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.
>Arguably I'm defending the VP, and the reason I'm doing that is I hate >seeing poor journalism mistaken for "hard hitting" journalism. The >failure of the audience to distinguish between the two is killing the >quality of news media in general.
Ah, now I see where you're coming from.
Allow me to wander off-topic:) When I read your vision of superfast application changes and development, one thought strikes me - I've never worked for an organization that could make intelligent snap decisions. I get the screaming heebie-jeebies thinking about a technology that allows "the business" to implement the first thing that comes into their head.
Slashdot Mirror
>And if you did have Bob, you would fire him.
I'm sure I'd enjoy firing Bob, but I doubt it would magically recreate my quickbook files.
Have you played any of those games? Pick up FO or PS:T in a bargain bin for $10, you might change your expectations of how a game entertains you.
There are several physical form factors for those memory cards. The camera vendors are not interested in memory card interoperability, even between diffent models of their own products.
Requiring users to format media would be a pain, because the average consumer won't know how to do it.
Along the same lines, the average consumer doesn't swap their memory cards between devices. This is now a mass-market, everything is built for the lowest common denominator. The average digital camera buyer knows very little about either photography or computers. Tech-savvy users are a tiny minority of today's digital camera market, prepare to be ignored.
Agreed, fiendishly clever. I can hear the diabolical cackling from here. They're smart and evil, that's why people hate them so much.To change the subject a bit, does anyone know anything about ISO9660? It's free and well supported, is there any way for embedded devices to use it instead?
>So now that you'll either not "have a positive experience or put[s] a
>lot of pressure on [y]our support systems" trying to install a digital
>camera or flash media under Windows, do you think that Microsoft will
>have to drop their desktop distribution?
This fear of "negative experience" will cause the camera vendor to bend over and pay the license fee, because they (rightly) fear their customers are not capable of installing extra drivers.
It's a chicken and egg thing - the cameras are designed to use FAT because they're made to interface with Windows machines.
MS isn't going after Sony for the cameras they made yesterday, they're gunning for license fees for cameras they are *going* to build.
The cameras don't talk to each other, so it won't matter if the camera I buy next year doesn't speak FAT. Unfortunately, no other filesystem is as well supported on the desktop as FAT.
> What format did CP/M use?
Whatever format it was, Win98 won't read it without extra drivers.
The *only* nice thing about FAT is that all the Windows machines in the world can read it without installing drivers.
>BTW How did people get around this issue before Read/Write access to NTFS?
/etc/fstab from Windows, and when I'm booted into Linux I don't need to access my Diablo savegames.
I've got an old machine that I use as a server.
Commonly used files are shared with both Samba and NFS, so I can get at them from whatever OS I'm booted to. The vast majority of files are OS-specific and don't need to be shared.
My email and documents live on the server, and are always available. I don't need to edit
OT: Does anyone know how to put a Mozilla profile on a network drive and share it between *nix and Win32? I'd love to have my bookmarks kept up-to-date between both OSs.
A good question, I dunno. This is complicated stuff.
could you implement this driver somehow so that it followed permissions at some level
I'm sure you could, but I can think of several problems.
What if the users/groups on the NTFS partition don't match those on my *nix box? For example my /etc/groups doesn't include a "power users" group, and I bet yours doesn't either.
If I were implementing this, I'd make it able to read anything, and any files created would be r/w for everyone.
I think the most common use of r/w NTFS drivers would be rescue CDs and such. If I'm booting a rescue CD to fix a forgotten "administrator" password, I'd be pretty steamed if my rescue CD honoured the permissions I was trying to get around!
hahaha, my kingdom for some mod points.
>Ownership, permissions, sharing, all that stuff
That horse has been out of the barn for years. Once I have physical access to a computer, I can boot from an NTFSDOS floppy or CDROM and ignore all NTFS security.
This doesn't make things less secure. It may remind people that without physical security, there is no data security.
FreeBSD has sandbox infrastructure called "jail". The idea is to sandbox all services so that an exploits can't escalate itself into root.
Jail is included with recent FreeBSD releases, but I'm told it is available for Linux.Systrace takes a different approach, i.e.
Systrace is integrated into OpenBSD and NetBSD, and is also available for Linux.The world is full of stuff we don't like, it takes some bad karma to have to go to the trouble of putting together a comment to express one's dissatisfaction with something, especially one that isn't humourous or satirical. Relax, drink some chamomile tea, and go into the sunlight. Sounds like the author needs it.
A: So they can both watch the hockey game.
The person on the other end of the phone has a procedure she has to follow. She has to follow that stupid script. The calls are randomly monitored to ensure the phone monkeys are following their scripts.
It sucks, but everything about a call center job sucks.
That girl isn't going to risk getting in trouble for not following procedures, no matter how much it pisses off the customers. She's not being paid to provide good service and make customers happy, she's being paid to read the damn script.
Does that suck? Damn straight. I don't know how to fix it, short of burning down every fucking call center in the world. Hmmm, maybe we only need to burn all of the call center MANAGEMENT!
I still think we're talking apples and oranges here.
.ps these days, or nroff for that matter.
If you want to compare vi with WP, you're really talking about vi + ispell + LaTeX + some PS filters to get hardcopy.
Or are you advocating vi + ispell + nroff + pic ? Perhaps you prefer vi + ispell + DocBook, with XSLT stylesheets on the side ? Do you hand-hack your own PostScript with vi?
You can use any of the above (including commercial word processors, of course) to create great documents. As with any software, there are trade-offs in portability, ease-of-use, the look of the final product, scriptability, convertability, and the work required to prepare your document.
Everything has its place, although I doubt many use vi to edit their own
Actually, WP5.1 had some pretty decent revision features :)
I'll fess up and admit that I don't still use WP5.1, nor would I really want to. It's nice having a word processor with a WYSIWYG interface.
I sort of agree about feature bloat, but this has been a problem for 10 years. WP5.1 had a LOT of features, as this thread demonstrates.
You may have a point, but I don't agree that the modern trend of fewer secretaries is a good thing. I miss having access to a departmental secretary.
I see busy, well-paid professionals doing stupid clerical shit like making their own travel reservations and doing their own expense reports. A couple of jobs ago, I maintained the fucking phone list in between looking after the servers. My boss at the time spent at least 1 day/month locked in his office, doing expense reports.
Back in the day, the secretary did that junk, and I did the technical stuff, i.e. the tasks they'd hired me to do.
Call it progress if you like, I think it's another case of "penny wise and pound foolish".
I didn't use PC write or any Amiga word processors, so I can't make an intelligent comment. I'll assume the Amiga software had very nice interfaces :)
I will defend WP against vim/emacs, because you are comparing a good word processor to a couple of good text editors- they aren't the same thing.
* mail merge - WP5.1 had kickass mail merge.
* importing external data and graphics - WP5.1 would import several graphics formats.. I'll gladly concede that importing/exporting data was much harder. If anyone cares I could tell war stories...
* writing aids (spelling checkers, thesauruses, ...) - WP had a great spell checker, and thesuarases/grammar checkers were available as add-ons.
* formatting tools and stylesheets
Several of the less popular DOS word processors offered these features, at least according to the reviews in BYTE magazine. They were somewhat controversial at the time, some of reviewers hated it* electronic forms. - I don't know if those were in WP5.1.
>Arguably I'm defending the VP, and the reason I'm doing that is I hate
:) When I read your vision of superfast application changes and development, one thought strikes me - I've never worked for an organization that could make intelligent snap decisions. I get the screaming heebie-jeebies thinking about a technology that allows "the business" to implement the first thing that comes into their head.
>seeing poor journalism mistaken for "hard hitting" journalism. The
>failure of the audience to distinguish between the two is killing the
>quality of news media in general.
Ah, now I see where you're coming from.
Allow me to wander off-topic
That all sounds cool :) But in 2003, I don't think any vendor's snake oil will get me any closer to what you describe.
I'm just not sure why you're defending the HP sales pitch.
>The notion of AE is that it should be measured in days. I'm sure some
>day it'll be down to hours or even minutes.
Um, not to be a jerk, but HOW?
>MS does daily automated builds of Windows for all it's supported CPU platforms
Please help a dumb country boy. How many platforms does Windows run on? I thought they dropped MIPS and Alpha support a long time ago?
>Offering assistance and service is a great way to begin a conversation
>with the opposite sex.
Yeah, but it's not going to get you laid.