Their bandwidth isn't, its $20 for the bandwidth to download it.
Nice way of trying to appear nice, but still screwing you...
For crying out loud, it's $20. For that you get something which many thousands of man hours have been used to produce you such a thing. Sure, you would have loved to get it for free - but once you accept that it isn't going to happen, you'll see it isn't that bad a deal.
Sure, you can download Linux for free. But don't begrugde Sun for asking $20. Hell, it's not as if they're charging you lots of money for it and they'll quite happily let you make copies of it and give it to your friends - unlike some companies. All they want is twenty lousy dollars!
Remind me not to get into buying rounds of drinks with you if that sort of amount is that big a deal to you.
I recently upgraded an old faithful server from RedHat 6.1 to 7.3. I allowed an entire day for the process, and was very worried as the machine held almost the entire working life of about 100 people.
I've been tainted by Microsoft too much, but is doing an upgrade to Linux just as good as doing a flat out full re-install?
I've got a Linux box, it's only one user, has a couple of additional applications and settings and could be rebuilt pretty quickly.
Now if it was Windows, i'd go the rebuild route because everyone knows upgraded Windows don't perform as well as fresh installs. But is it the same for Linux?
I know that with a 100 user machine with vast amounts of applications and configuration settings it would be substantially faster to do an upgrade, but for me, the additional time for a re-install makes no difference to me so that can be discounted from the equation.
The point is that no one can stop you from using Free software in whatever manner you want to. If you love Linux 1.2.13 you can keep right on using it for as long as you want.
If you love Windows 3.1 you can keep right on using it for as long as you want. Microsoft doesn't come hammering on your door and demands that you upgrade.
The same with Photoshop 3. Or Word for Windows 2. Or anything that came out several years ago.
The problem is twofold, the first is that people send you stuff that you can't open and the second is that caused when you have a product that is an enabler for other programs. In other words, Windows 3.1 relies on companies writing programs and drivers for Windows 3.1. If they stop doing that, and they do, then it gets harder and harder to use that product.
But still, no-one is forcing you to upgrade. It's just that it's getting more and more difficult for you to work with your existing versions.
It's the same with Linux 1.2.13. Stuff still works for it, no-one forces you to update but I'm sure there is plenty of new stuff coming out that doesn't work on it. You can still run KDE 1 if you want, although you'll probably find your choice of applications is rather limited.
Sure, you have the advantage of being able to access the code and "backport" it - but lets be realistic here, backporting IPtables or any other sort of thing is going to be beyond a fair amount of people.
Even if you do decide to backport it, is the time required to learn the code, how it works, how it interacts with others and how to port it worth it? If so, then do it. If not, then upgrade. But still - no-one is forcing you.
How can you call it a website if it doesn't work on the Web. I haven't seen an official definition of the World Wide Web that indicates what browsers are allowed and what browsers aren't allowed. Care to shed a light on a reference of this nature?
I haven't seen an official definition of what a website must do before it is called a website either.
By your very same argument if I write a website and block everyone from visiting it bar a specific IP I can't call it a "website" because there is no official list of IP's that can and can't view my site.
The truth is, it's their site and they can do what they want with it. Period. If they want to do something monumentally stupid, then that is their perogative.
To put it another way, if your neighbour wants to paint his hallway a rather nasty purple or limit who can stand in it then that's his call. You can't argue that, because of his decisions, he can't call it a hallway any more.
As long as they *provide* the pen drive or similar device, *and* place an easily accessible USB or FireWire port on the front of the chassis. If they're going to remove the floppy and force me to reach around the damn box then it probably won't work.
Hear hear! At a threshold of 3 it took half way down the comments before someone actually pointed this out.
Personally I'd be happy with a frontloading compact flash slot complete with eject button.
8 meg CF's are dirt cheap these days and I could use it in exactly the same way as a floppy - ie. plug in, access, hit eject and walk away.
Given that I've seen Linux make inroads into Microsoft's server market it wouldn't surprise me that, if they do reduce their prices, it's only for the "server editions" of things.
Despite all the comments on here about Slashdot readers, their Mum, Dad, Grandmother, Aunt, Uncle and kids using Linux on the desktop - I don't think the desktop users are making any significant decreases to sales of Windows XP just yet.
Sony Playstation: 50 million units
Nintendo GameCube: 16 million (or 10-12 million depending on who you believe)
Microsoft Xbox: 8-9 million
Microsoft is not doing so well.
Given that:
It is extrememly difficult to break into the console market
Sony and Nintendo have had a MASSIVE head start on Microsoft
Sony's PS2 has backwards capability to run PS1 games so helping its sales
Am I the only person that actually thinks that Microsoft have done pretty well with only "8-9 million"?
Remember the Indrema? It didn't even sell in double figures. Sure the numbers MS have sold are a little off their business plan - but that doesn't mean they haven't done a bad job all things considering.
One thing no-one seems to have pointed out is this:
If I want to backup 50 gig's of stuff, then with a convential system, I just back it up onto a tape and i'm done.
With a distributed internet job, I'd back it up onto several machines on the internet, but in return I'd have to take someone elses backup.
So, at the most I'd be expected to have 50 gig's worth of other peoples data on my hard-drive.
If I have a small hard drive, this might not be possible. How does the space used get limited? If users can limit it, whats to stop them setting it at 0 (or some other equally low number) and effectivily "leeching" off others?
Microsoft always claims that it is the endusers responsibility to implement patches once they're released. The fact that six months later, they hadn't done so themselves would seem to indicate that this is in fact a sham argument put out to distract from their responsibility.
(emphasis mine)
Not really. The fact that six months later, they hadn't done so themselves would only indicate that their own administrators don't keep up with installing their own patches.
Yes, I'm aware of the dog's dinner quote, but without further details, reading anything more out of this is silly.
I don't know about the US having never visited there, but here in the UK companies are actually using patents within their marketing.
Canon recently ran advertisements claiming that they patent a hundred items a month to ensure you get the best pictures.
L'Oreal are running adverts at the moment with the tag line of something like "1,740 patents a year. Because you're worth it" (or something like that).
This of course will kill open source companies but hey, that's the way it should be...
Wasn't Slashdot the very same place that said (about the recording industry) that if their business model was flawed then it wasn't anyone but their own resposibility to change it so that it did work?
So people start downloading OS applications rather than purchasing the CD's, OS companies are hurt because their business model no longer works therefore they need to change it to survive. If they don't, they die.
The UK, one of the slowest countries to adopt open-source - partly because of close ties with Microsoft - last year published a paper offering guidance to government departments considering switching to open-source software.
Whilst this sounds very nice, I feel that I should bring everyone back into the cold harsh reality by pointing about that the UK has a long long way to go before it becomes more open source savvy.
Thanks for the always insightful remarks, Mike, but I'd wager that those of us who give two damns about our privacy would much rather use a cross-platform, free solution such as Helix as opposed to the DRM'ing-you-and-all-your-files program known as Windows Media Player.
Even with all those people out there who do give two damns about their privacy, this still doesn't detract from the fact that Real pretty much has been "beaten-down-by-windows-media-player".
To put it another way, Windows may not be the operating system of choice for many Slashdotters, but that still doesn't detract from the fact that it has 90% of desktop market share.
I hope you don't actually have to touch the surface that it's being projected on.
I just made myself look really stupid in the office here by pretending I had one of these keyboards.
What did it prove? Well apart from the fact that no-one noticed, this might actually be better than a keyboard.
Go on, try it. Pretend you have one of them laser keyboards and type a few words on the desk. Notice how lightly you type? Now hit a couple of keys on your keyboard with the same pressure and notice that you don't get anything.
In fact, as long as you don't have to hammer the table (i doubt it), it'll probably be better for you as you won't be hitting the "keys" as hard.
Also don't forget that you won't have to raise your hands at the wrist quite so much as you do for a keyboard.
However, with Execute In Place, and the generally more efficient Palm software, those 32 MB of RAM and 150-200 MHz of CPU power are actually getting you a lot more than the PPCs can provide.
Except that your 5 Mb spreadsheet uses up twice as much space on your Palm than it does on your PPC. Yes, applications are smaller - but data files generally won't be - and that is what makes a difference.
Let's just pick one example, the Clie NX60 (no camera, so we're back at a reasonable price)
The point of his comment was that Palms are over-priced and then you pick a Clié to disprove this.
I think you'd have a hard time finding someone who doesn't think the Tungstun T is overpriced for its specification.
No, Palm OS is a lot smaller than the equivalent Pocket PC or whatever Microsoft is calling it now.
Whilst this is true...
32Mb is a lot for the average Palm device. Mine only has 8Mb and I've never got close to filling it.
I disagree with this. 32 Mb is a lot of memory for the average Palm device - that is mainly greyscale and used extensivily for PIM.
But with the Tungstun Palm are rapidly entering PocketPC space ie. movies, sounds and things other than your basic PIM/ebook applications.
A 5 Mb spreadsheet is 5 Mb whatever platform you put it on. On a PocketPC, this will take up 50% less space because it has double the memory of a Palm Pilot.
Sure, applications are smaller but the datafiles will still be the same. I could upload my entire company phonebook to a 32 Mb PocketPC, but not to my 8 Mb Palm. The fact that Palm apps are smaller doesn't really help me here.
With the Tungstun, Palm are entering the power user/road warrior/business professional market who will want to fill their PDA up with databases, spreadsheets, presentations, MP3's and movies and quite simply 32 Mb is not enough.
Finally how much does it cost these days to stick 64 Mb in anyway? If Palm want to break PPC's stranglehold on the high end market (as Palm never were there in the first place), they have to accept that a 5 Mb data file will still be 5 Mb whatever platform you put it on and, with a Palm, that takes up a lot of what precious little space you have.
I agree with this! I work for an ISP, and when we come across a user that we cannot contact to notify of problems, we simple disconnect them untill they can prove they have resolved the problem. Its worked wonders. We see so much less virus activity trying to hit our mail servers, and we've had alot less complains about people having a virus or worm.
Whilst I'm sure you were agreeing with the parent poster, in fact, what you've actually done is actually pointed out that you do the opposite.
A user is affected and rather than sit there, do nothing and wait for them to fix it (as suggested by the parent), you actually proactivity go out and "kill their processes".
In this case, "killing their processes" means pull the plug on their internet connection.
If you truely did what the parent poster was suggesting then your work stops after informing them and you should "Let them fix their worm problems".
You have to understand you're arguing with someone whose understanding of reality is essentially flawed. A post like this one is classic Slashdot - it doesn't get any better than Mr. Twitter here.
Twitter accused me of trolling because I pointed out that I didn't fancy the idea of running with an ipod for two hours (I run Marathons) because I didn't like the idea of shaking a hard drive all that time.
Browsers that allow that are bad browsers, because they allow that kind of shit to get rendered. They allow any idiot to write a broken webpage and put it online. They allow "wysi(n)wig" web editing software to mangle the available standards and create pages that are completely non-conformant.
I use the web to get information. Personally I don't really care how badly the HTML is written as long as I can get the information that I want out of it.
Given the choice, when confronted with bad HTML, I'd rather the browser had a stab at it (and I got the information that I want) rather than just give up and say "No, I'm not rendering this" and leave me with nothing.
To me, this is all irrelevant because the best input option is neither: it's the keyboard.
I'm thinking about getting a Treo 90 for this very reason. I'm fed up with grafitti, it's a pain in the arse, i don't write particulary fast and tend to make many mistakes.
Since you have one, would you be so kind to let me know if there is anything you don't like about it? I've been looking for reviews and whilst they're favourable - i'd like to hear from someone who actually depends on one day by day.
If you deface a website, you get the same punishment as you would for spray-painting the front of an office building.
Except that I can scrub down a wall to get the graffiti off and i'm done.
If someone has grafittied my website, I'm going to have to clean down the entire system and check all files and data. Otherwise how do I know thatthat changing some HTML is the only thing they've done?
Slashdot Mirror
How can Moore's law become dangerious?
If you break it, will you explode into billions of particles?
Their bandwidth isn't, its $20 for the bandwidth to download it.
Nice way of trying to appear nice, but still screwing you...
For crying out loud, it's $20. For that you get something which many thousands of man hours have been used to produce you such a thing. Sure, you would have loved to get it for free - but once you accept that it isn't going to happen, you'll see it isn't that bad a deal.
Sure, you can download Linux for free. But don't begrugde Sun for asking $20. Hell, it's not as if they're charging you lots of money for it and they'll quite happily let you make copies of it and give it to your friends - unlike some companies. All they want is twenty lousy dollars!
Remind me not to get into buying rounds of drinks with you if that sort of amount is that big a deal to you.
I've been tainted by Microsoft too much, but is doing an upgrade to Linux just as good as doing a flat out full re-install?
I've got a Linux box, it's only one user, has a couple of additional applications and settings and could be rebuilt pretty quickly.
Now if it was Windows, i'd go the rebuild route because everyone knows upgraded Windows don't perform as well as fresh installs. But is it the same for Linux?
I know that with a 100 user machine with vast amounts of applications and configuration settings it would be substantially faster to do an upgrade, but for me, the additional time for a re-install makes no difference to me so that can be discounted from the equation.
Any comments?
If you love Windows 3.1 you can keep right on using it for as long as you want. Microsoft doesn't come hammering on your door and demands that you upgrade.
The same with Photoshop 3. Or Word for Windows 2. Or anything that came out several years ago.
The problem is twofold, the first is that people send you stuff that you can't open and the second is that caused when you have a product that is an enabler for other programs. In other words, Windows 3.1 relies on companies writing programs and drivers for Windows 3.1. If they stop doing that, and they do, then it gets harder and harder to use that product.
But still, no-one is forcing you to upgrade. It's just that it's getting more and more difficult for you to work with your existing versions.
It's the same with Linux 1.2.13. Stuff still works for it, no-one forces you to update but I'm sure there is plenty of new stuff coming out that doesn't work on it. You can still run KDE 1 if you want, although you'll probably find your choice of applications is rather limited.
Sure, you have the advantage of being able to access the code and "backport" it - but lets be realistic here, backporting IPtables or any other sort of thing is going to be beyond a fair amount of people.
Even if you do decide to backport it, is the time required to learn the code, how it works, how it interacts with others and how to port it worth it? If so, then do it. If not, then upgrade. But still - no-one is forcing you.
I haven't seen an official definition of what a website must do before it is called a website either.
By your very same argument if I write a website and block everyone from visiting it bar a specific IP I can't call it a "website" because there is no official list of IP's that can and can't view my site.
The truth is, it's their site and they can do what they want with it. Period. If they want to do something monumentally stupid, then that is their perogative.
To put it another way, if your neighbour wants to paint his hallway a rather nasty purple or limit who can stand in it then that's his call. You can't argue that, because of his decisions, he can't call it a hallway any more.
Which means, that for once, watching it on BBC2 in the UK is better than watching it in the US.
Why?
We're only up to about 1992 :o)
(waits for inevitable comment about Sky running the latest ones ...)
Hear hear! At a threshold of 3 it took half way down the comments before someone actually pointed this out.
Personally I'd be happy with a frontloading compact flash slot complete with eject button.
8 meg CF's are dirt cheap these days and I could use it in exactly the same way as a floppy - ie. plug in, access, hit eject and walk away.
For a bunch of really interesting/informative/insightful/funny comments about Linux on an iPod - check out this link :o)
Despite all the comments on here about Slashdot readers, their Mum, Dad, Grandmother, Aunt, Uncle and kids using Linux on the desktop - I don't think the desktop users are making any significant decreases to sales of Windows XP just yet.
A year down the line though, who knows ...?
Nintendo GameCube: 16 million (or 10-12 million depending on who you believe)
Microsoft Xbox: 8-9 million
Microsoft is not doing so well.
Given that:
- It is extrememly difficult to break into the console market
- Sony and Nintendo have had a MASSIVE head start on Microsoft
- Sony's PS2 has backwards capability to run PS1 games so helping its sales
Am I the only person that actually thinks that Microsoft have done pretty well with only "8-9 million"?Remember the Indrema? It didn't even sell in double figures. Sure the numbers MS have sold are a little off their business plan - but that doesn't mean they haven't done a bad job all things considering.
If I want to backup 50 gig's of stuff, then with a convential system, I just back it up onto a tape and i'm done.
With a distributed internet job, I'd back it up onto several machines on the internet, but in return I'd have to take someone elses backup.
So, at the most I'd be expected to have 50 gig's worth of other peoples data on my hard-drive.
If I have a small hard drive, this might not be possible. How does the space used get limited? If users can limit it, whats to stop them setting it at 0 (or some other equally low number) and effectivily "leeching" off others?
Xupiter is also being bundled along with at least one peer-to-peer file sharing program
Anyone know which P2P one it is?
(Mainly so I can avoid it.)
(emphasis mine)
Not really. The fact that six months later, they hadn't done so themselves would only indicate that their own administrators don't keep up with installing their own patches.
Yes, I'm aware of the dog's dinner quote, but without further details, reading anything more out of this is silly.
Canon recently ran advertisements claiming that they patent a hundred items a month to ensure you get the best pictures.
L'Oreal are running adverts at the moment with the tag line of something like "1,740 patents a year. Because you're worth it" (or something like that).
Funny old world.
Wasn't Slashdot the very same place that said (about the recording industry) that if their business model was flawed then it wasn't anyone but their own resposibility to change it so that it did work?
So people start downloading OS applications rather than purchasing the CD's, OS companies are hurt because their business model no longer works therefore they need to change it to survive. If they don't, they die.
But hey, That's the way it is.
Whilst this sounds very nice, I feel that I should bring everyone back into the cold harsh reality by pointing about that the UK has a long long way to go before it becomes more open source savvy.
For example, the NHS, possibly the most underfunded thing we have, just coughed up £60 million for Microsoft Licencing.
Money well spent? You decide.
Even with all those people out there who do give two damns about their privacy, this still doesn't detract from the fact that Real pretty much has been "beaten-down-by-windows-media-player".
To put it another way, Windows may not be the operating system of choice for many Slashdotters, but that still doesn't detract from the fact that it has 90% of desktop market share.
I just made myself look really stupid in the office here by pretending I had one of these keyboards.
What did it prove? Well apart from the fact that no-one noticed, this might actually be better than a keyboard.
Go on, try it. Pretend you have one of them laser keyboards and type a few words on the desk. Notice how lightly you type? Now hit a couple of keys on your keyboard with the same pressure and notice that you don't get anything.
In fact, as long as you don't have to hammer the table (i doubt it), it'll probably be better for you as you won't be hitting the "keys" as hard.
Also don't forget that you won't have to raise your hands at the wrist quite so much as you do for a keyboard.
Except that your 5 Mb spreadsheet uses up twice as much space on your Palm than it does on your PPC. Yes, applications are smaller - but data files generally won't be - and that is what makes a difference.
Let's just pick one example, the Clie NX60 (no camera, so we're back at a reasonable price)
The point of his comment was that Palms are over-priced and then you pick a Clié to disprove this.
I think you'd have a hard time finding someone who doesn't think the Tungstun T is overpriced for its specification.
Whilst this is true ...
32Mb is a lot for the average Palm device. Mine only has 8Mb and I've never got close to filling it.
I disagree with this. 32 Mb is a lot of memory for the average Palm device - that is mainly greyscale and used extensivily for PIM.
But with the Tungstun Palm are rapidly entering PocketPC space ie. movies, sounds and things other than your basic PIM/ebook applications.
A 5 Mb spreadsheet is 5 Mb whatever platform you put it on. On a PocketPC, this will take up 50% less space because it has double the memory of a Palm Pilot.
Sure, applications are smaller but the datafiles will still be the same. I could upload my entire company phonebook to a 32 Mb PocketPC, but not to my 8 Mb Palm. The fact that Palm apps are smaller doesn't really help me here.
With the Tungstun, Palm are entering the power user/road warrior/business professional market who will want to fill their PDA up with databases, spreadsheets, presentations, MP3's and movies and quite simply 32 Mb is not enough.
Finally how much does it cost these days to stick 64 Mb in anyway? If Palm want to break PPC's stranglehold on the high end market (as Palm never were there in the first place), they have to accept that a 5 Mb data file will still be 5 Mb whatever platform you put it on and, with a Palm, that takes up a lot of what precious little space you have.
Whilst I'm sure you were agreeing with the parent poster, in fact, what you've actually done is actually pointed out that you do the opposite.
A user is affected and rather than sit there, do nothing and wait for them to fix it (as suggested by the parent), you actually proactivity go out and "kill their processes".
In this case, "killing their processes" means pull the plug on their internet connection.
If you truely did what the parent poster was suggesting then your work stops after informing them and you should "Let them fix their worm problems".
Twitter accused me of trolling because I pointed out that I didn't fancy the idea of running with an ipod for two hours (I run Marathons) because I didn't like the idea of shaking a hard drive all that time.
Go figure.
I use the web to get information. Personally I don't really care how badly the HTML is written as long as I can get the information that I want out of it.
Given the choice, when confronted with bad HTML, I'd rather the browser had a stab at it (and I got the information that I want) rather than just give up and say "No, I'm not rendering this" and leave me with nothing.
I'm thinking about getting a Treo 90 for this very reason. I'm fed up with grafitti, it's a pain in the arse, i don't write particulary fast and tend to make many mistakes.
Since you have one, would you be so kind to let me know if there is anything you don't like about it? I've been looking for reviews and whilst they're favourable - i'd like to hear from someone who actually depends on one day by day.
Thanks!
Except that I can scrub down a wall to get the graffiti off and i'm done.
If someone has grafittied my website, I'm going to have to clean down the entire system and check all files and data. Otherwise how do I know thatthat changing some HTML is the only thing they've done?