Did you read the article? That's exactly what SmartFolders are. You save query results as a SmartFolder and it updates itself whenever new matches are found.
It's hard to say whether open or closed source is "innovative" without having good definition of what innovation is. McVoy claims Redhat isn't innovative. I'm not sure that doesn't miss the point, but what's an example of an innovative thing a close source company has done for which there is no open source equivalent (or vice versa)? Or let's take some seeming comparable projects:
Is C# more innovative than Python? Is IE more innovative than Firefox? Zope vs. ASP.net?
I know there are other close source outfits than MS, but I'm honestly not sure how to make those "who's more innovative" comparison.
As someone you might be dealing with to find that new job, I find it absurd that your prospective employer would presume to see work you've done which is owned by another company (I have asked if it would be possible on rare occasions, but never assumed it would be). Maybe someone who requests such samples will post a response, but I would hesitate to work for such an employer because I think asking for those samples is (borderline? I'm not sure) unethical.
That said, the knowledge in your head is yours, not your employers, and if you were to suggest a programming "test" to your prospective employer that bears a striking similarity to tasks you done for a previous employer, and if your test "answers" bear a remarkable similarity to the work you can't show the prospective employer, you might be able to finesse the legal (if not the ethical) issues.
That the arguments apply equally to closed source is exactly the point. The idea that the long-term availability of support doesn't matter because you have the source code and can always hire your own developers is just absurd. Sure you can do it, but at a cost which is probably way higher than switch to a different database, so that option is close to irrelevant.
In matters of utmost importance for strategic deployment, open source has no advantage.
Not too long ago I would have been in complete agreement with you, but recently I've been dabbling extensively (I know that's probably an oxymoron) in Python and I'm not so sure any more. Take the code:
bar = map( lambda x: x[1], foo )
Maybe it's possible to do that with static typing, but if so it would add so much grief in making sure all the type related stuff fits together as to be barely worth doing. And it is worth doing.
So I'm moving toward the conclusion that dynamic typing in and of itself is a plus. Not just for prototypes, but for real power and conciseness.
It's true that the statement is out of context, but I believe it more accurately represents the overall tone of the article than the "two-factor authentication mitigages this problem" quote.
See how two-factor authentication doesn't solve anything?
That's not a statement that the improvement is being oversold, it's denying that two-factor authentication is not an improvement at all. I think that's just as inaccurate and just as damaging as overselling it. Whining is exactly what he's doing.
Hmm, I can't agree with that. I don't care how knowledgable your staff is or how motivated (which I take it is what you're getting at with the salary), if they aren't the staff doesn't include skills covering the whole range of what's needed (particularly QA) or aren't pointed at the right tasks, you will not end up with the product you need.
If you don't have someone who has been given responsibility for preparing clear requirements for the programming staff (how formal they are doesn't mattter, but they must be clear) and can do it well, you will end up building the wrong thing, then hacking it to pieces to make it do something close to what you should have written in the first place.
After that, the "easy" part of QA is making sure the result meets the requirements.
Think about it this a minute. The heat/power problems mean CPU advances can't follow Moore's law by increasing the clock speed as they have in the past. Instead, CPUs are going multi-core.
Two CPUs may not be worth emailing home about, but look several years down the road and if Moore's law results in doubling the core count instead of clock speed, before too long you see a computing environment where dozens of cores are the rule on PCs.
There's no reason I can think of why the Apple's legendary ease of use (i.e. low training costs) are more valuable at home than the are at work. But marketting-wise, Apple has no clout with business.
If you could create a B2B market for Apple without driving away the existing fan/customer base (which is a pretty darn stable base), that's worth something. Apple joining forces with IBM is one of the few ways I can imagine that happening, but the cultural divide is a pretty big barrier to overcome.
No it doesn't apply to a smart card. You can get a new smartcard and disable the old one a lot easier than you can get a new fingerprint or other biometric.
Not open source developers, it's open source expertise which is in short supply. I attribute this largely to the overwhelming inadequacy of the documentation of many open source softwares.
Ok, maybe I'm just bitter because I've had a helluva time tracking some things down lately, but I'd argue that it is far easier to build up expertise on MS products because MS has made it a priority that it be that way. As hard as it may be to find documentation on some OS system, it's just as hard to avoid MS info on a competing system -- web docs, tech sessions (free, with free popcorn and T-shirts) -- not to mention shelves of bound paper at your local Borders and Noble.
Just curious, but what would frequent use be? I can see occasionally needing to get into bios settings or see pre-boot messages, but why would you need to do that frequently and not have to be on-site anyway?
A Press Release spells out their roll out plans. It's not available yet, but it is more than a pipe dream in a number of areas. (and from what I've noticed, Verizon has actually been keeping with programs announced in PRs lately.)
I don't think the most important factor determining usuability is addressed in either article. User interface design should be done by user interface designers, not programmers. They need a completely different skill set. While programmers need to understand the working of a computer and be able to extract essential information from documentation, UI designers need to understand the people and processes in the domain they're designing for and be able to extract essential information from people.
Put simply, programmers need computer skills while designers need people skills. Sometimes they overlap, but no more than random variation dictates (and possibly somewhat less). And even if they do, its a different mindset while doing one job vs. the other.
And both jobs are hard. A good UI designer has to get beyond the specific suggestions from users to see what the underlying need. UI designers have to find a way to get users to envision a system that doesn't exist yet and figure out how it could work best. Prototypes are essential. Skills to run meetings are essential.
The toughest part is dealing with criticisms of proposed designs. Sometimes the criticisms are because the new design isn't understood well enough, but other times the criticisms reveal a design flaw. Distinguishing between the two, and correcting misunderstandings of the proposed design without stifling further criticism (which you need) is a delicate art.
Slimserver is built to work with the Slim Devices Squeezebox, but even if you don't get a Squeezebox to go with it, you can stream to WinAmp or XMMS or the SoftSqueeze emulator. The Squeezebox is worth it for ease of use IMHO , nice built-in display/remote control support, no noise, instant on...
Softsqueeze needs X and some horsepower - though it runs OK on a VIA Epia, which is no small feat. The server probably doesn't need alot unless you're transcoding some other format -- of course that's just a guess, I have it running on a PIII/800 where it has no problem serving up multiple streams while doing other serverish things.
If there is a fulltime sysadmin to set it up and keep it going, there is no reason not to have a Unix desktop...
If you need a fulltime sysadmin for Linux to be usable, and you don't with OSX, that in itself is a reason to use OSX. People are expensive!
What I'd really like to know about running a business with Linux is not how to install it and find device drivers, etc., but how to administer a heterogenous network efficiently -- maybe not eliminate that sysadmin, but make him more efficient.
I'm not a sysadmin, but I understand from people who care about such things that such Windows features as login scripts enforced at the domain level which make admin life much easier, and Samba doesn't support them. Maybe life is even better if you're all Linux with no Windows (maybe), but very few organizations are going to be able to get there without a significant transition period of living with a mixed network.
I think Michael Powell is sometimes judged unfairly (yes, even on here/.)
What I recall hearing Powell say on NPR was that it didn't make sense to him to treat cable channels 99 and 101 differently just because one is a retransmission of OTA programming, but that's the way the law is written and his job is to enforce the law. I think he'd say about the media consolidation issues for which he's taken so much heat, and possibly this and other issues -- it's not his or the FCC's fault if the law is bad, and they are obligated to enforce it.
That said, he seems to have been born with a faulty political gene -- everything he does looks arbitrary and the powers that be never seem to have been consulted or even informed.
Slashdot Mirror
Forget Wine.
Virtual PC for Mac, however, will probably run with a near-zero performance hit.
It's hard to say whether open or closed source is "innovative" without having good definition of what innovation is. McVoy claims Redhat isn't innovative. I'm not sure that doesn't miss the point, but what's an example of an innovative thing a close source company has done for which there is no open source equivalent (or vice versa)? Or let's take some seeming comparable projects:
Is C# more innovative than Python?
Is IE more innovative than Firefox?
Zope vs. ASP.net?
I know there are other close source outfits than MS, but I'm honestly not sure how to make those "who's more innovative" comparison.
As someone you might be dealing with to find that new job, I find it absurd that your prospective employer would presume to see work you've done which is owned by another company (I have asked if it would be possible on rare occasions, but never assumed it would be). Maybe someone who requests such samples will post a response, but I would hesitate to work for such an employer because I think asking for those samples is (borderline? I'm not sure) unethical.
That said, the knowledge in your head is yours, not your employers, and if you were to suggest a programming "test" to your prospective employer that bears a striking similarity to tasks you done for a previous employer, and if your test "answers" bear a remarkable similarity to the work you can't show the prospective employer, you might be able to finesse the legal (if not the ethical) issues.
That the arguments apply equally to closed source is exactly the point. The idea that the long-term availability of support doesn't matter because you have the source code and can always hire your own developers is just absurd. Sure you can do it, but at a cost which is probably way higher than switch to a different database, so that option is close to irrelevant.
In matters of utmost importance for strategic deployment, open source has no advantage.
You need a Compaq Portable II
Not too long ago I would have been in complete agreement with you, but recently I've been dabbling extensively (I know that's probably an oxymoron) in Python and I'm not so sure any more. Take the code:
bar = map( lambda x: x[1], foo )
Maybe it's possible to do that with static typing, but if so it would add so much grief in making sure all the type related stuff fits together as to be barely worth doing. And it is worth doing.
So I'm moving toward the conclusion that dynamic typing in and of itself is a plus. Not just for prototypes, but for real power and conciseness.
Askjeeves owns myway.com, a portal with the motto "no banners, no ads, no kidding" Let's hope they don't mess with that.
Coming to python from some years of experience with other languages (C++ mostly), I found Dive into Python to be a fantastic intro.
It's true that the statement is out of context, but I believe it more accurately represents the overall tone of the article than the "two-factor authentication mitigages this problem" quote.
Sorry, the basic idea's already patented and these guys say they have an exclusive license.
Hmm, I can't agree with that. I don't care how knowledgable your staff is or how motivated (which I take it is what you're getting at with the salary), if they aren't the staff doesn't include skills covering the whole range of what's needed (particularly QA) or aren't pointed at the right tasks, you will not end up with the product you need.
If you don't have someone who has been given responsibility for preparing clear requirements for the programming staff (how formal they are doesn't mattter, but they must be clear) and can do it well, you will end up building the wrong thing, then hacking it to pieces to make it do something close to what you should have written in the first place.
After that, the "easy" part of QA is making sure the result meets the requirements.
Think about it this a minute. The heat/power problems mean CPU advances can't follow Moore's law by increasing the clock speed as they have in the past. Instead, CPUs are going multi-core.
Two CPUs may not be worth emailing home about, but look several years down the road and if Moore's law results in doubling the core count instead of clock speed, before too long you see a computing environment where dozens of cores are the rule on PCs.
Hell yeah that's a big deal.
Well, yeah, but I'm still shocked they didn't report it AGAIN.
Wait for real info? WTF?
/. for accurate information from reliable sources is a bloody idiot.
Let's face it, anyone coming to
There's no reason I can think of why the Apple's legendary ease of use (i.e. low training costs) are more valuable at home than the are at work. But marketting-wise, Apple has no clout with business.
If you could create a B2B market for Apple without driving away the existing fan/customer base (which is a pretty darn stable base), that's worth something. Apple joining forces with IBM is one of the few ways I can imagine that happening, but the cultural divide is a pretty big barrier to overcome.
No it doesn't apply to a smart card. You can get a new smartcard and disable the old one a lot easier than you can get a new fingerprint or other biometric.
Ok, maybe I'm just bitter because I've had a helluva time tracking some things down lately, but I'd argue that it is far easier to build up expertise on MS products because MS has made it a priority that it be that way. As hard as it may be to find documentation on some OS system, it's just as hard to avoid MS info on a competing system -- web docs, tech sessions (free, with free popcorn and T-shirts) -- not to mention shelves of bound paper at your local Borders and Noble.
Just curious, but what would frequent use be? I can see occasionally needing to get into bios settings or see pre-boot messages, but why would you need to do that frequently and not have to be on-site anyway?
A Press Release spells out their roll out plans. It's not available yet, but it is more than a pipe dream in a number of areas. (and from what I've noticed, Verizon has actually been keeping with programs announced in PRs lately.)
I don't think the most important factor determining usuability is addressed in either article. User interface design should be done by user interface designers, not programmers. They need a completely different skill set. While programmers need to understand the working of a computer and be able to extract essential information from documentation, UI designers need to understand the people and processes in the domain they're designing for and be able to extract essential information from people.
Put simply, programmers need computer skills while designers need people skills. Sometimes they overlap, but no more than random variation dictates (and possibly somewhat less). And even if they do, its a different mindset while doing one job vs. the other.
And both jobs are hard. A good UI designer has to get beyond the specific suggestions from users to see what the underlying need. UI designers have to find a way to get users to envision a system that doesn't exist yet and figure out how it could work best. Prototypes are essential. Skills to run meetings are essential.
The toughest part is dealing with criticisms of proposed designs. Sometimes the criticisms are because the new design isn't understood well enough, but other times the criticisms reveal a design flaw. Distinguishing between the two, and correcting misunderstandings of the proposed design without stifling further criticism (which you need) is a delicate art.
Softsqueeze needs X and some horsepower - though it runs OK on a VIA Epia, which is no small feat. The server probably doesn't need alot unless you're transcoding some other format -- of course that's just a guess, I have it running on a PIII/800 where it has no problem serving up multiple streams while doing other serverish things.
What I'd really like to know about running a business with Linux is not how to install it and find device drivers, etc., but how to administer a heterogenous network efficiently -- maybe not eliminate that sysadmin, but make him more efficient.
I'm not a sysadmin, but I understand from people who care about such things that such Windows features as login scripts enforced at the domain level which make admin life much easier, and Samba doesn't support them. Maybe life is even better if you're all Linux with no Windows (maybe), but very few organizations are going to be able to get there without a significant transition period of living with a mixed network.
I think Michael Powell is sometimes judged unfairly (yes, even on here /.)
What I recall hearing Powell say on NPR was that it didn't make sense to him to treat cable channels 99 and 101 differently just because one is a retransmission of OTA programming, but that's the way the law is written and his job is to enforce the law. I think he'd say about the media consolidation issues for which he's taken so much heat, and possibly this and other issues -- it's not his or the FCC's fault if the law is bad, and they are obligated to enforce it.
That said, he seems to have been born with a faulty political gene -- everything he does looks arbitrary and the powers that be never seem to have been consulted or even informed.