The same system that ensures that all the patches you download are legitimate might also prevent you from, well, doing pretty much anything
Which is why I'm looking forward to getting a Intel based Mac which can happily dual boot XP and OSX until a certain point when I'm fine with formatting the XP bit entirely off.
(assuming, of course, that Apple doesn't go into this too, in which case I'm stuffed)
Why do you hide the link in your sig behind tinyurl? It's annoying enough when people use it to save characters on irc when the clipboard doesn't care, but what reason is there to do so within an a-tag? It already has a mechanism for making the visual link shorter than what it points to.
Nothing nefarious like hiding it I'm afriad.
It's simply because signatures are limited to 120 characters (a-tags included) and if I use the full length URL, then I'm left with about three words after the Slashdot code has automatically and unhelpfully padded the tag out with the "title" and "rel" elements.
As you can imagine, this doesn't adequately describe what the link is all about so i've had to resort to tinyurl to increase the number of characters I've got available to me.
Without it, my signature would say something like "AvantSlash [fourteenminutes.com]: Slashdot on PDA" and that would be about my limit.
The author is a "known" MS Shill. He'll often post "Screenshots" that are either complete mockups of features or given to him by MS employees to post and passes them off as his own experience.
In case you hadn't noticed, in the past few months this "MS Shill" has been singing the praises of Tiger far more than Longhorn.
In addition, his review actually points out a lot of things that Apple does well that Longhorn tries to copy and gets wrong but, in addition, he points out some other stuff which they do better.
The news here is that Microsoft's biggest fan is slowly backing away from them. If they can't keep the loyal ones, then they need to realise that there could be a problem.
Having read it just before it was posted on Slashdot, I do also believe that it is a very good review from someone who once was the poster boy for Microsoft.
It would appear that after looking at Tiger, Paul's faith in Microsoft has been shaken and these-days he is more critical of what they do and how they implement things.
Hopefully Slashdot will post part 2 as it does make interesting reading.
On a side note: Apple is now offering a Mac Mini testdrive via its online store, allowing prospective customers to purchase a mini and then return it for a full refund within thirty days if they don't like it.
Good news is that they're not charging a restocking fee. Bad news is that you'll have to pay for the shipping if you send it back, the offer only applies to stock minis (not custom jobs) and it's not available outside of the USA.
Can't get everything I suppose. However still might be worth a look, especially since it gives people the opportunity of a risk free (in terms of your credit card) chance to try a completely different operating system.
More than 10 percent of the 90-odd organisations which received a letter asking them to relinquish any legal claim to the 'Linux' name have agreed to do so.
Personally, I think the bigger news is that just under 90% of the 90-odd organisations that received a letter have not responded to requests to relinquish any legal claim to the 'Linux' name.
In other words, 80 of those companies may attempt to assert a legal claim to the 'Linux' name now or in the future. This is a hell of a bigger volume (and worry) than the 10 that said they wouldn't.
Finally, if not all of them were using the 'Linux' name in their business/product/service name - what exactly was the point in sending them this letter? So they could ignore it?
Whilst everyone else bar a select few are completely misunderstanding the reasoning behind Perfect 10 sueing Google (hint: robots.txt wouldn't solve it and yes, it's still dumb) I notice with interest that although Google has updated their page, they have the decency to point out that they have:
* Full-disclosure update: When we first wrote these "10 things" four years ago, we included the phrase "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat." Over time we've expanded our view of the range of services we can offer -- web search, for instance, isn't the only way for people to access or use information -- and products that then seemed unlikely are now key aspects of our portfolio. This doesn't mean we've changed our core mission; just that the farther we travel toward achieving it, the more those blurry objects on the horizon come into sharper focus (to be replaced, of course, by more blurry objects).
Far better than just changing it on the sly and hoping no-one will notice.
While I'm sure many people here will make jokes about Windows 95, it was quite a leap in stability and usablility from windows 3.1. I don't think windows has had such an upgrade since then, nor do I think Vista will be that much of an improvment over XP/2000.
Well, pointed out. In terms of feature change as seen by a user (not developer) I think it must be:
3.1 to 95
95 to 2000
2000 to XP
95 to 98
Mind you, having looked at that now, I'm not sure whether 3 and 4 are the right way around. I never saw versions of windows less than 3.0 to be able to comment.
Anyone else care to fill in the rest/correct me? How would it look if you just concentrated on functionality for developers rather than users?
Insecure Magazine has a great and in-depth article written by Seth Fogie, the VP of Airscanner.com, about Pocket PC security.
It might be a little late mentioning this but the link in this snippet actually points to a 9.1 meg PDF file.
In the future it would be nice if submitters (and especially editors) actually describe the target of a link when it doesn't go to a good old fashioned HTML or XHTML page of content.
...such as problem-solving, resilience, persistence and collaboration
You know, I learn't all these when I was young too. The difference being that I did it in a group of people which meant that I also learn't how to listen properly, empathise with others, social skills, a sense of achievement and made a few friends to boot.
Seriously, I know computer games aren't soley single player these days, but I can't help thinking that there are far better and cheaper ways to teach all this and more and also don't help further a corporations goals (EA doing this out of the goodness of their hearts? I think not) without going near a computer.
How can free or really cheap be more expensive then an Os that costs alot of money ? Training costs aside.
Migration and porting costs. Redevelopment of Windows only applications and scripts. Potential purchasing of new hardware to support new software. Support for external vendors who may have to change the way they work with you. Anyone who works on this isn't going to do it for free, they'll have to be paid.
And, although you wanted to leave it out, training costs can become quite significant - not just for end users, but potentially administrators and other companies who you depend on or who they depend on you.
Without trying to sound cynical, the reason she didn't recommend one solution over another was because no-one was paying for the research.
Had Microsoft funded this survey, I'm sure the statement "then you cannot truly evaluate whether Linux, Windows or Unix is right for your business" would have read "then Windows is right for your business".
Yeah, but having the same features (plus better stability) for less than 1/3 the cost ($20 vs. $47)?
Except that none of them have the same features. From the article "None of the products provides full Outlook-to-Exchange feature fidelity in Outlook".
So yes, you would be saving money but at the expense of functionality and thats ignoring the inclusion of Outlook licences in the Exchange CAL which you wouldn't get if you went with an alternative solution.
Are they really alternatives when it comes to price? From the article:
With the exception of Scalix Server, all the products have prices lower than those of most enterprise groupware applications, with per-user costs in the range of $20 to $47. Exchange 2003, in contrast, has a per-user license cost of $67, while Scalix Server's price approaches $60 per user.
Surely if you're a big enough corporation to pony up the money for Outlook and want Exchange then the saving of $20-$47 per head is peanuts and it would make more sense to just go with the official Microsoft solution and get 100% compatibility?
I've never put such a business case together for that sort of thing, but I think i would have difficult justifying a partially working non-Microsoft solution to over a fully working Microsoft solution for a mere $7 less per head (which is the Scalix pricing).
Before everyone goes on about how evil Microsoft is... if the situation was reversed, how many of you seriously think that Apple wouldn't start demanding licencing fees from Microsoft?
Not that it means that this patent isn't any less silly or peppered full of prior art - but lets not be under any illusion here that, given a chance, Apple would do the very same.
Who is telling the truth and who is deleting cookies? Are you?
No, because it's too much time and effort, I can't be arsed and a whole bunch of sites will randomly break and I'll have to remember all the usernames/passwords and configuration settings again. So i'd have to be selective about what I delete to ensure that doesn't happen and then you get a whole list of ones you need to keep or you accept/deny them when you go to a site and... sorry... but thats just too much like hard work and paranoia to make browsing the web remotely fun.
If you seriously think that users en mass are deleting cookies or that a bunch of Slashdotters with overly thick tin foil hats are indicative of the world, then you'd be very much mistaken.
Most people don't know or care there is such thing as cookies and even when they do, can't be bothered or simply see no need to go deleting them every time they exit their browser.
I have far more important things to worry about than worry about a bunch of cookies that doubleclick has set (technically they don't anyway as I block their adverts).
I've got Windows XP SP2 with IE and the MSN toolbar here and I have pop-up blocking and tabs.
Yes, neither are particulary fantastic, but good enough to make it difficult to persuade people to move from something they already know.
We've discussed malware to dead and whilst it's a threat, the people I know don't go to sites which would try and do this sort of thing to. Which naturally means that they also have no need for the many (fantastic) extensions out there.
With IE now and the release of version 7, I suspect a lot of users won't consider jumping ship because what they have is just good enough. I mean you've got the tabbed browsing and the pop-up blocking that your geek friend harps on about, so why bother with a whole new application?
Is that for real? Not been having much problems which Slashdot recently, but if they're chucking away their mess of tables... the apocalypse might be at hand after all! Yippee!
I hope this is for real since it will mean that I can stop supporting AvantSlash which tries to make Slashdot as PDA and WAP friendly as possible.
Of course, all the parsing of HTML that my code did meant that any little change that occurred on the main Slashdot site completely broke AvantSlash . If you have a look at the change log you can see that they did tinker with the HTML on a fairly frequent basis (v2.18 and onwards are mainly parsing changes to keep up with them).
I think the GP points out rightly that it isn't 'charity' when the intention is not noble... read PR. Also, 5mn is a miniscule microscopic portion of the amount MS spends in R&D anyways, so it's doubtful this money is gonna help fight crime or spam. Or improve the IT skills of the average New Yorker.
Who cares if it's such a small percentage? The recipients of the $6 million that Microsoft didn't actually have to donate to them definately don't care.
$6 million is a hell of a lot of money irrespective of who gives it and their own monetary situation. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Unless of course you would have rathered that Microsoft kept the entire lot for "legal fees"?
I've got a tonne of text books that I bought for University which, after finishing the 10 week course, I've never looked at again.
In those cases, a cheaper DRM'ed book would be a good thing since it will reduce my outlay on something which I won't use when the course finishes.
Having said that, 33% isn't much of a discount when you consider that a second hand book can be picked up for 50% the original cost from someone who is in the year above you and will have no usage restrictions. Contrary to popular Slashdot think, DRM isn't generally evil, it's just the the applications of it aren't particulary exciting, fair or appealing.
For example, if this service was available with a 75% discount instead and the option of buying the hard-copy version at a reasonable discount, then it would be an excellent example of DRM done well.
I'm assuming this should be in the "It's funny, laugh" section since the user hasn't a clue about why Windows makes it easy to run viruses (everything can be executable) and what the DOJ investigation was about (monopolistic practices).
Having said all that, there is nothing wrong (as such) with loving Microsoft. If you like a product, find it easy to use and it allows you to do what you want to do, spend less time doing boring stuff and generally make the time you spend with it enjoyable then good for you. Some people can't stand it, some people love it.
Personally, I don't have a problem with Windows. I know it inside out (well, reasonably), can troubleshoot the few problems I have and so I'm reluctant to change to something else. Yes, the shell is a bit crappy, but XP+Cygwin in my mind is better and easier than Linux especially when under the latter my modem, sound card and network all fail to work.
Finally as for the "loving" comments, I find it odd that anyone could love an operating system. For me, the majority of the added value are the applications than I run on top of it. Sure the OS may have some neat tricks and features but I spend more time tinkering and using the apps than the OS directly.
But then I'm probably not your average Slashdot reader.
Set your mail client to check for new email once an hour.
I find that Outlooks "Display a notification message when a new mail arrives" option is a substantial productivily killer because not only does it flash a window up in your face, but it taunts you to stop working on your current thing by giving you a one button press to view the email.
With this off, the only way to tell that you have email is a small icon in the system tray. If that is still too much then you can either exit Outlook completely or use something like Knockout to remove the icon.
I appreciate that this isn't related to the Slashback articles, but I
would appreciate it if people didn't mod this into oblivion.
I maintain and run AvantSlash,
which is a script that allows people who
are using PDA's and mobile phones to view a specially cleaned up version
of Slashdot designed for the limited bandwidth and screen size that they
have.
Unfortunately, however, the account with this code in was recently
deleted (through no fault of my own) and I don't have a copy of the
latest code.
If anyone has version 3.1 of AvantSlash (ideally the full archive, but
the script and config file would be a start), I would really appreciate
it if they could drop me an email to silver (at) ewtoo (dot) org.
Unfortunately I won't be able to run the site any more due to bandwidth
restrictions (although I will still maintain the code) but if anyone has
the ability to host it, then please get in contact with me.
The child wasn't born with condition, it was caused by the position they slept in. It wasn't
life-threatening.
It was an example where the doctors said nothing could be done when, in fact, that wasn't the case. In addition, the UK newspapers reported it a lot more than the BBC one did - but I couldn't find any other links quick enough that were on the web and easily linkable to.
There are plenty of other examples out there that are just like I described but I didn't have the spare hour to go looking for them. Feel free to have a hunt for them yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why I'm looking forward to getting a Intel based Mac which can happily dual boot XP and OSX until a certain point when I'm fine with formatting the XP bit entirely off.
(assuming, of course, that Apple doesn't go into this too, in which case I'm stuffed)
Nothing nefarious like hiding it I'm afriad.
It's simply because signatures are limited to 120 characters (a-tags included) and if I use the full length URL, then I'm left with about three words after the Slashdot code has automatically and unhelpfully padded the tag out with the "title" and "rel" elements.
As you can imagine, this doesn't adequately describe what the link is all about so i've had to resort to tinyurl to increase the number of characters I've got available to me.
Without it, my signature would say something like "AvantSlash [fourteenminutes.com]: Slashdot on PDA" and that would be about my limit.
In case you hadn't noticed, in the past few months this "MS Shill" has been singing the praises of Tiger far more than Longhorn.
In addition, his review actually points out a lot of things that Apple does well that Longhorn tries to copy and gets wrong but, in addition, he points out some other stuff which they do better.
The news here is that Microsoft's biggest fan is slowly backing away from them. If they can't keep the loyal ones, then they need to realise that there could be a problem.
It would appear that after looking at Tiger, Paul's faith in Microsoft has been shaken and these-days he is more critical of what they do and how they implement things.
Hopefully Slashdot will post part 2 as it does make interesting reading.
On a side note: Apple is now offering a Mac Mini testdrive via its online store, allowing prospective customers to purchase a mini and then return it for a full refund within thirty days if they don't like it.
Good news is that they're not charging a restocking fee. Bad news is that you'll have to pay for the shipping if you send it back, the offer only applies to stock minis (not custom jobs) and it's not available outside of the USA.
Can't get everything I suppose. However still might be worth a look, especially since it gives people the opportunity of a risk free (in terms of your credit card) chance to try a completely different operating system.
Personally, I think the bigger news is that just under 90% of the 90-odd organisations that received a letter have not responded to requests to relinquish any legal claim to the 'Linux' name.
In other words, 80 of those companies may attempt to assert a legal claim to the 'Linux' name now or in the future. This is a hell of a bigger volume (and worry) than the 10 that said they wouldn't.
Finally, if not all of them were using the 'Linux' name in their business/product/service name - what exactly was the point in sending them this letter? So they could ignore it?
Except that it's not bloated.
Under Windows, Opera 8.02 is 3,757 KB and Firefox 1.0.6 weighs in at 4,713 KB.
So not only do you get a tonne of features in Opera that Firefox doesn't have by default - but it's actually smaller by over 950 KB.
If you want to complain about bloat, by all means, but you shouldn't be accusing Opera of it.
* Full-disclosure update: When we first wrote these "10 things" four years ago, we included the phrase "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat." Over time we've expanded our view of the range of services we can offer -- web search, for instance, isn't the only way for people to access or use information -- and products that then seemed unlikely are now key aspects of our portfolio. This doesn't mean we've changed our core mission; just that the farther we travel toward achieving it, the more those blurry objects on the horizon come into sharper focus (to be replaced, of course, by more blurry objects).
Far better than just changing it on the sly and hoping no-one will notice.
Well, pointed out. In terms of feature change as seen by a user (not developer) I think it must be:
- 3.1 to 95
- 95 to 2000
- 2000 to XP
- 95 to 98
Mind you, having looked at that now, I'm not sure whether 3 and 4 are the right way around. I never saw versions of windows less than 3.0 to be able to comment.Anyone else care to fill in the rest/correct me? How would it look if you just concentrated on functionality for developers rather than users?
It might be a little late mentioning this but the link in this snippet actually points to a 9.1 meg PDF file.
In the future it would be nice if submitters (and especially editors) actually describe the target of a link when it doesn't go to a good old fashioned HTML or XHTML page of content.
Why? Because Windows XP + Cygwin does everything I need it to do and I get the added bonus of sound, modem and my network card working.
Sure, I get to miss out on a couple of nice applications that won't compile under Cygwin but that hasn't really bothered me.
I can't imagine I'm the only one...
You know, I learn't all these when I was young too. The difference being that I did it in a group of people which meant that I also learn't how to listen properly, empathise with others, social skills, a sense of achievement and made a few friends to boot.
Seriously, I know computer games aren't soley single player these days, but I can't help thinking that there are far better and cheaper ways to teach all this and more and also don't help further a corporations goals (EA doing this out of the goodness of their hearts? I think not) without going near a computer.
Migration and porting costs. Redevelopment of Windows only applications and scripts. Potential purchasing of new hardware to support new software. Support for external vendors who may have to change the way they work with you. Anyone who works on this isn't going to do it for free, they'll have to be paid.
And, although you wanted to leave it out, training costs can become quite significant - not just for end users, but potentially administrators and other companies who you depend on or who they depend on you.
Had Microsoft funded this survey, I'm sure the statement "then you cannot truly evaluate whether Linux, Windows or Unix is right for your business" would have read "then Windows is right for your business".
Except that none of them have the same features. From the article "None of the products provides full Outlook-to-Exchange feature fidelity in Outlook".
So yes, you would be saving money but at the expense of functionality and thats ignoring the inclusion of Outlook licences in the Exchange CAL which you wouldn't get if you went with an alternative solution.
With the exception of Scalix Server, all the products have prices lower than those of most enterprise groupware applications, with per-user costs in the range of $20 to $47. Exchange 2003, in contrast, has a per-user license cost of $67, while Scalix Server's price approaches $60 per user.
Surely if you're a big enough corporation to pony up the money for Outlook and want Exchange then the saving of $20-$47 per head is peanuts and it would make more sense to just go with the official Microsoft solution and get 100% compatibility?
I've never put such a business case together for that sort of thing, but I think i would have difficult justifying a partially working non-Microsoft solution to over a fully working Microsoft solution for a mere $7 less per head (which is the Scalix pricing).
Not that it means that this patent isn't any less silly or peppered full of prior art - but lets not be under any illusion here that, given a chance, Apple would do the very same.
No, because it's too much time and effort, I can't be arsed and a whole bunch of sites will randomly break and I'll have to remember all the usernames/passwords and configuration settings again. So i'd have to be selective about what I delete to ensure that doesn't happen and then you get a whole list of ones you need to keep or you accept/deny them when you go to a site and ... sorry ... but thats just too much like hard work and paranoia to make browsing the web remotely fun.
If you seriously think that users en mass are deleting cookies or that a bunch of Slashdotters with overly thick tin foil hats are indicative of the world, then you'd be very much mistaken.
Most people don't know or care there is such thing as cookies and even when they do, can't be bothered or simply see no need to go deleting them every time they exit their browser.
I have far more important things to worry about than worry about a bunch of cookies that doubleclick has set (technically they don't anyway as I block their adverts).
Yes, neither are particulary fantastic, but good enough to make it difficult to persuade people to move from something they already know.
We've discussed malware to dead and whilst it's a threat, the people I know don't go to sites which would try and do this sort of thing to. Which naturally means that they also have no need for the many (fantastic) extensions out there.
With IE now and the release of version 7, I suspect a lot of users won't consider jumping ship because what they have is just good enough. I mean you've got the tabbed browsing and the pop-up blocking that your geek friend harps on about, so why bother with a whole new application?
I hope this is for real since it will mean that I can stop supporting AvantSlash which tries to make Slashdot as PDA and WAP friendly as possible.
Of course, all the parsing of HTML that my code did meant that any little change that occurred on the main Slashdot site completely broke AvantSlash . If you have a look at the change log you can see that they did tinker with the HTML on a fairly frequent basis (v2.18 and onwards are mainly parsing changes to keep up with them).
Who cares if it's such a small percentage? The recipients of the $6 million that Microsoft didn't actually have to donate to them definately don't care.
$6 million is a hell of a lot of money irrespective of who gives it and their own monetary situation. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Unless of course you would have rathered that Microsoft kept the entire lot for "legal fees"?
In those cases, a cheaper DRM'ed book would be a good thing since it will reduce my outlay on something which I won't use when the course finishes.
Having said that, 33% isn't much of a discount when you consider that a second hand book can be picked up for 50% the original cost from someone who is in the year above you and will have no usage restrictions. Contrary to popular Slashdot think, DRM isn't generally evil, it's just the the applications of it aren't particulary exciting, fair or appealing.
For example, if this service was available with a 75% discount instead and the option of buying the hard-copy version at a reasonable discount, then it would be an excellent example of DRM done well.
Having said all that, there is nothing wrong (as such) with loving Microsoft. If you like a product, find it easy to use and it allows you to do what you want to do, spend less time doing boring stuff and generally make the time you spend with it enjoyable then good for you. Some people can't stand it, some people love it.
Personally, I don't have a problem with Windows. I know it inside out (well, reasonably), can troubleshoot the few problems I have and so I'm reluctant to change to something else. Yes, the shell is a bit crappy, but XP+Cygwin in my mind is better and easier than Linux especially when under the latter my modem, sound card and network all fail to work.
Finally as for the "loving" comments, I find it odd that anyone could love an operating system. For me, the majority of the added value are the applications than I run on top of it. Sure the OS may have some neat tricks and features but I spend more time tinkering and using the apps than the OS directly.
But then I'm probably not your average Slashdot reader.
I find that Outlooks "Display a notification message when a new mail arrives" option is a substantial productivily killer because not only does it flash a window up in your face, but it taunts you to stop working on your current thing by giving you a one button press to view the email.
With this off, the only way to tell that you have email is a small icon in the system tray. If that is still too much then you can either exit Outlook completely or use something like Knockout to remove the icon.
I maintain and run AvantSlash, which is a script that allows people who are using PDA's and mobile phones to view a specially cleaned up version of Slashdot designed for the limited bandwidth and screen size that they have.
Unfortunately, however, the account with this code in was recently deleted (through no fault of my own) and I don't have a copy of the latest code.
If anyone has version 3.1 of AvantSlash (ideally the full archive, but the script and config file would be a start), I would really appreciate it if they could drop me an email to silver (at) ewtoo (dot) org.
Unfortunately I won't be able to run the site any more due to bandwidth restrictions (although I will still maintain the code) but if anyone has the ability to host it, then please get in contact with me.
Thanks!
Yes.
The child wasn't born with condition, it was caused by the position they slept in. It wasn't life-threatening.
It was an example where the doctors said nothing could be done when, in fact, that wasn't the case. In addition, the UK newspapers reported it a lot more than the BBC one did - but I couldn't find any other links quick enough that were on the web and easily linkable to.
There are plenty of other examples out there that are just like I described but I didn't have the spare hour to go looking for them. Feel free to have a hunt for them yourself.