Do you remember when Netscape OWNED the browser client space? How long did it take for Microsoft to change all of that? I remember when I first heard that IE had tipped over 50% share. Joseph Elwell.
Mozilla has a whole page devoted on how to get involved. Get Involved! I, myself download the milestones and then report bugs I find. It's really easy to do, and most people could probably replace their current browser with Mozilla. (however there is no SSL support -- encryption export problems on source code).
Don't be afraid to help out for windows either. Mozilla isn't going to release on windows only -it's a cross platform development. So if you report bugs for the windows or mac (others too) versions then you're still helping out Linux as well as the rest.
Mozilla has a lot of room for helping hands, in paticular bug reporting, testing, and documentation writing. For the more technically advanced: code writing and bug fixing. Do your part! Joseph Elwell.
I just finished reading the distribution howto by Eric Raymond - mostly because I've been thinking about switching distributions. The one thing that made me really sad is Eric's comments about the Redhat Package Manager, "The big selling point of this distribution is RPM, the Red Hat Package Manager. This piece of software is a remarkable advance; it allows you to cleanly install and de-install applications and operating-system components, including the kernel and OS base itself. RPM is now used as well by essentially all other distributions except Debian."
What bothered me was the name of the Redhat Package Manager. If Redhat wanted everyone to use it why not seperate itself from the product name. Anyways, I noticed that many other distributions do use rpms. It makes me equally sad that Debian, seemingly, has a more advanced package deployment, grouping system - but they had to go and make the extension.deb?! Why did these two great distributions make their package management systems so proprietary? Not in the sense of non-openness, but in the sense that other distributions having to rely on Redhat or Debian for their package management systems.
Oh wo is me. When will the LSB do something? This is all probably flame-baiting, off-topic nonsense. Someone point me to slackware, are they still using tar.gz as their package managing system? Joseph Elwell.
WABI! Wabi will run every bit of win3.1 software out there. It was created by Sun, but now owned and distributed by caldera. Wabi is a commercial product and it ran logicworks on my box, which is a pretty intensive app. I'd be surprised if there were applications that didn't run under wabi. Press Release However, it appears caldera discontinued wabi.
Searching around, you might still be able to get a hold of it: http://www.LinuxMall.com/product/00094.html http://eunuchs.org/linux/wabi/wabi_content.html
Programs that work with wine says, "In particular, 16-bit versions of Word, Excel and Quicken do work well enough with Wine for many purposes, although they are by no means flawless."
And this page is dated Quarter 2 1996 - so I imagine Quicken works a whole lot better now. The official list of apps that work is at WineHQ Joseph Elwell.
Hopefully this will ease worldwide usage of cellular phones. I know I for one felt really stupid while in Morroco, to see the locals using the Sony Zuma - which happens to be the digital phone that I use. However my phone wouldn't work on their GSM network because I had a CDMA phone. I kept thinking "it's the same phone, i swear."
I won't get too excited just yet though. I've seen similar technologies out of Erricson that combine competing technologies. For one those phones have been noticeably large, two, you have to buy cell service from two companies (which means monthly payments for both) and three, the phone will not switch between technologies on the fly when a signal is being dropped. Joseph Elwell.
I've been to these sites before, and there's just one thing you need to do before clicking on that banner. Go into Netscape (or IE's) preferences and turn off "Automatically Load Images". You can then go find the password that you need to get in.
One thing about the article "It has always been the case that piracy has links with pornographers and organised crime." Are they kidding with this one? I haven't seen any links to http://www.mafia.spb.ru/. has anyone else?
Do you believe in the Prime Directive? Answer We do. Really. It's more than just a silly rule, but more a philosophy to life. We feel, we all must learn to respect all life, no matter what it looks like or where it came from. Our team has several Star Trek fans, mainly TNG tho, so please don't ask them about what Kirk did in episode 27. Their favorite Trek episodes are The Inner Light (TNG), although the Borg ones as well as All Good Things, rank right up there amongst the top ever, surely. Ah. They don't make them like they used to. Please note, that in honour of Star Trek VIII:"First Contact", the next two Lunar Cities will be named "Tycho-City" and "New-Berlin" as mentioned in the film. Our message is: Live now, because now, will never come again.
What happened to "Live long and prosper"? Who's the star trek fan? Joseph Elwell.
"What I was wondering was what makes BackOrifice itself revolutionary? What does BackOrifice expose that we didn't already know?"
You're right on one point: BackOrifice didn't expose any problem that we didn't know about. The revolution came when theory became reality and users have to deal with second guessing everything they do, and Microsoft has to address the problem to the media who thrives off of reality rather than theory.
I thought about generating WAD files on the fly, to represent a port scan on any remote machine, before I wrote the remote windows hack. But it didn't seem as fun. Creating file download seems like it would be kindof exciting, except that there are *so* many files on a windows system. It might be more interesting to actually look for known files of some importance first then store those in behind locked doors...
However your idea presents an entire replacement for gmc. Doom as a file manager... Joe.
Using Dennis Chao's work as a base I implemented an interface for the Linux Back Orifice client in Doom! Now you too can Play Doom while you Blow up Windows Machines! http://www.geocities.com/doomhack/ Joe.
William Gibson coined the term "Cyberspace" and arguably started the entire genre with his book "Neuromancer". A very difficult read, I might add. (None the less a good one.) Joseph Elwell.
I've been using linux since 95. I bought Slackware 95 (might have been 96) that year and was pleased when I had similar tools at home that I had at school - but I gave it up. A couple of years later I wanted Linux at home again and I went shopping for a new Linux distribution. I had heard that Redhat was *really* easy to use, but I also heard that Debian was better overall system. I'll tell you what the only reason is that I chose Redhat over Debian. It was because Redhat had a 2 to 3 floppy disk ftp install and Debian had a 7 to 12 floppy disk installation.
I hear a lot of people moaning that Debian installations and maintenance can be difficult for newbies. So I'm thinking - didn't redhat GPL it's installation program? Couldn't Debian use that? I mean *everyone* uses the SysLinux boot floppy that so and so created, why not share Redhat's installation process between distributions?
The only obvious reason I can see for Debian to not use Redhat's installation process is mindshare. Debian stands to lose mindshare if their distribution uses technologies in other distributions. But I know the Debian project to be about freedom. So I hope that they'll have the freedom of mind to make the right decision. Which might mean writing their own installation wizard. Who knows. Joseph Elwell.
Ok, I must say that I was in Budapest this last summer for a bit and I was awe-struck by some the culture there. In Budapest everyone wears skin tight clothing and little to no underwear. If a woman is wearing underwear you can make out every frill of the lace of the g-string that hugs the curves of the butt. I couldn't believe how little they wear there. My guidebook (Let's Go) had informed me that they wear speedo type clothing, and very little regularly, but nonetheless I was shocked.
I approached and spoke with one girl who I had the pleasure of befriending and upon asking her "why women in Budapest wear so little" she was as astonished as I was. Her comment was to the effect of "the women in american movies wear the same". I tried, but could not explain to her that movies are not reality - that everyone in america does NOT dress like they do in the movies. (especially the ones we export to Budapest).
The point here is: Budapest is a pretty racey place. The hostel I stayed at had a drug list behind the counter, and Burger King maps listed strip bars as advertising.
So it doesn't surprise me at all that Budapest loves Madonna. Joseph Elwell.
I had a similar problem because I had deselected a few things in the kernel config like "PCI quirks" and "CMD640 fix", "RZ1000 bugfix" etc. If you took those out thinking that your bios is fine, put them back in a retest. Joseph Elwell.
Why Don't you go tell Sun that Star Portal can't work. Tell them that you graduated from MIT and you know better.
And what about a web based mp3 player? Couldn't they store all the mp3 files on the server and stream to your local machine, saving you from having to find all the mp3s you want and archiving them yourself. Are you trying to say that Netscape doesn't have access to your sound card?
Try reading Tim O'reilly's new article on MS vs. Linux. Joseph Elwell.
I think my favorite quote is this: "Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership" Notice how they pointed out they were speaking about free as in beer; not free as in speech.
I think it's a shame that they continue to spread FUD despite their current fight with the Department of Justice. Joseph Elwell.
I think you're missing the point. Microsoft already "split" into divisions. But that's an obviously FAKE split. The REAL split that the DOJ would enforce is that Microsoft sell off all of it's application development teams. ALL, and the apps themselves. Then Corel could buy MSOffice - or whoever. Someone will spend a bucketload of cash on it, then Sun will laugh when that group dies a choking death when they realize how unfair the tie to the OS is when it's all gone. Joseph Elwell.
Ever since I installed the beta version of Windows 98 almost 3 years ago I have been saying that Microsoft has an unfair advantage over it's competitors because it can integrate it's products into the desktop so nicely (because it controls the desktop). Even before Internet Explorer came out I was shaking my head at poor Netscape who didn't stand a chance unless Netscape's Desktop (which I can't remember the name of - and it failed anyways) came out. The only advantage I could see then, and now is not their money, their numbers - it's that they can integrate their applications and break other products attempts at integration.
The Operating System needs to be broken off from all the software development. No more "Can't package applications with the OS". Now it needs to be "Can't make applications."
The Department of Justice tried regulation. They told Microsoft to regulate themselves. The government isn't in a position to watch internal company activities - they didn't know that IE would be bundled with Windows until it was too late. Neither is the government in a position to create a watchdog committee just to keep track of such things. Such a committee would be a heavy cost to taxpayers, and who would lead the committee? Richard M. Stallman I would hope.:)
I know there are laws involving Monopolies. What are the various powers given to the Federal Government over corporations deemed monopolistic? Can they disband the company? I know they can break them up, I'm certain they could regulate them. What else can they do? It might be interesting to iterate over all the possible outcomes.
But, how long for a retrial? Microsoft will come up with something to force a retrial if they lose this first bout. How long can they stall after the decision? I imagine that the Judge would say something like, "Pay 1 Billion dollars a day for every day after the first of January, if you do not abide by my ruling." Will they pay? Didn't the DOJ originally ask Bill Gates to pay 1 million dollars a day for everyday that he wouldn't come to testify (or stop lying or something?). Did they pay then, or did they sidestep the fine?
I'd like to have more updates on the situation. Too bad there isn't a streaming net-cam in the Judge's chamber. Everyone in the computer world is with bated breathe waiting for the decision. However I recall hearing many times from various reporters, "Microsoft chose not to blah blah, so that their appeal will be stronger".
Big Rant. Lot's of typos and flaming opinions. Don't kill me. Please. Joseph Elwell.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you remember when Netscape OWNED the browser client space? How long did it take for Microsoft to change all of that? I remember when I first heard that IE had tipped over 50% share.
Joseph Elwell.
Mozilla has a whole page devoted on how to get involved. Get Involved!
I, myself download the milestones and then report bugs I find. It's really easy to do, and most people could probably replace their current browser with Mozilla. (however there is no SSL support -- encryption export problems on source code).
Don't be afraid to help out for windows either. Mozilla isn't going to release on windows only -it's a cross platform development. So if you report bugs for the windows or mac (others too) versions then you're still helping out Linux as well as the rest.
Mozilla has a lot of room for helping hands, in paticular bug reporting, testing, and documentation writing. For the more technically advanced: code writing and bug fixing.
Do your part!
Joseph Elwell.
The Moral Defense of Microsoft
Wow, I had to do a whois on the domain to make sure microsoft wasn't running it themselves. But it's connected to capitalism.org
Joe.
I just finished reading the distribution howto by Eric Raymond - mostly because I've been thinking about switching distributions. The one thing that made me really sad is Eric's comments about the Redhat Package Manager, "The big selling point of this distribution is RPM, the Red Hat Package Manager. This piece of software is a remarkable advance; it allows you to cleanly install and de-install applications and operating-system components, including the kernel and OS base itself. RPM is now used as well by essentially all other distributions except Debian."
.deb?! Why did these two great distributions make their package management systems so proprietary? Not in the sense of non-openness, but in the sense that other distributions having to rely on Redhat or Debian for their package management systems.
What bothered me was the name of the Redhat Package Manager. If Redhat wanted everyone to use it why not seperate itself from the product name. Anyways, I noticed that many other distributions do use rpms. It makes me equally sad that Debian, seemingly, has a more advanced package deployment, grouping system - but they had to go and make the extension
Oh wo is me. When will the LSB do something?
This is all probably flame-baiting, off-topic nonsense. Someone point me to slackware, are they still using tar.gz as their package managing system?
Joseph Elwell.
WABI! Wabi will run every bit of win3.1 software out there. It was created by Sun, but now owned and distributed by caldera. Wabi is a commercial product and it ran logicworks on my box, which is a pretty intensive app. I'd be surprised if there were applications that didn't run under wabi.
Press Release
However, it appears caldera discontinued wabi.
Searching around, you might still be able to get a hold of it:
http://www.LinuxMall.com/product/00094.html
http://eunuchs.org/linux/wabi/wabi_content.html
Joseph Elwell.
Programs that work with wine says, "In particular, 16-bit versions of Word, Excel and Quicken do work well enough with Wine for many purposes, although they are by no means flawless."
And this page is dated Quarter 2 1996 - so I imagine Quicken works a whole lot better now.
The official list of apps that work is at WineHQ
Joseph Elwell.
I haven't tried quickbooks under wine, but I run it just fine and dandy with VMware.
Joseph Elwell.
Hopefully this will ease worldwide usage of cellular phones. I know I for one felt really stupid while in Morroco, to see the locals using the Sony Zuma - which happens to be the digital phone that I use. However my phone wouldn't work on their GSM network because I had a CDMA phone. I kept thinking "it's the same phone, i swear."
I won't get too excited just yet though. I've seen similar technologies out of Erricson that combine competing technologies. For one those phones have been noticeably large, two, you have to buy cell service from two companies (which means monthly payments for both) and three, the phone will not switch between technologies on the fly when a signal is being dropped.
Joseph Elwell.
I've been to these sites before, and there's just one thing you need to do before clicking on that banner. Go into Netscape (or IE's) preferences and turn off "Automatically Load Images". You can then go find the password that you need to get in.
One thing about the article
"It has always been the case that piracy has links with pornographers and organised crime."
Are they kidding with this one?
I haven't seen any links to http://www.mafia.spb.ru/.
has anyone else?
Do you believe in the Prime Directive?
Answer
We do. Really. It's more than just a silly rule, but more a philosophy to life. We feel, we all must learn to respect all life, no matter what it looks like or where it came from. Our team has several Star Trek fans, mainly TNG tho, so please don't ask them about what Kirk did in episode 27. Their favorite Trek episodes are The Inner Light (TNG), although the Borg ones as well as All Good Things, rank right up there amongst the top ever, surely. Ah. They don't make them like they used to. Please note, that in honour of Star Trek VIII:"First Contact", the next two Lunar Cities will be named "Tycho-City" and "New-Berlin" as mentioned in the film. Our message is: Live now, because now, will never come again.
What happened to "Live long and prosper"? Who's the star trek fan?
Joseph Elwell.
You're right on one point: BackOrifice didn't expose any problem that we didn't know about. The revolution came when theory became reality and users have to deal with second guessing everything they do, and Microsoft has to address the problem to the media who thrives off of reality rather than theory.
Joe.
I thought about generating WAD files on the fly, to represent a port scan on any remote machine, before I wrote the remote windows hack. But it didn't seem as fun. Creating file download seems like it would be kindof exciting, except that there are *so* many files on a windows system. It might be more interesting to actually look for known files of some importance first then store those in behind locked doors...
However your idea presents an entire replacement for gmc. Doom as a file manager...
Joe.
Using Dennis Chao's work as a base I implemented an interface for the Linux Back Orifice client in Doom! Now you too can Play Doom while you Blow up Windows Machines!
http://www.geocities.com/doomhack/
Joe.
William Gibson coined the term "Cyberspace" and arguably started the entire genre with his book "Neuromancer". A very difficult read, I might add. (None the less a good one.)
Joseph Elwell.
For those who don't like random drawing/contest - you can bid for Signed copies of Cryptonomicon... Signed by Neal Stephenson or even Linus Torvalds.
:)
-Note: I'm not selling either.
Joseph Elwell.
Did Gibson put out a sequel to Idoru already?
Link?
Joseph Elwell.
I've been using linux since 95. I bought Slackware 95 (might have been 96) that year and was pleased when I had similar tools at home that I had at school - but I gave it up. A couple of years later I wanted Linux at home again and I went shopping for a new Linux distribution. I had heard that Redhat was *really* easy to use, but I also heard that Debian was better overall system. I'll tell you what the only reason is that I chose Redhat over Debian. It was because Redhat had a 2 to 3 floppy disk ftp install and Debian had a 7 to 12 floppy disk installation.
I hear a lot of people moaning that Debian installations and maintenance can be difficult for newbies. So I'm thinking - didn't redhat GPL it's installation program? Couldn't Debian use that? I mean *everyone* uses the SysLinux boot floppy that so and so created, why not share Redhat's installation process between distributions?
The only obvious reason I can see for Debian to not use Redhat's installation process is mindshare. Debian stands to lose mindshare if their distribution uses technologies in other distributions. But I know the Debian project to be about freedom. So I hope that they'll have the freedom of mind to make the right decision. Which might mean writing their own installation wizard. Who knows.
Joseph Elwell.
Ok, I must say that I was in Budapest this last summer for a bit and I was awe-struck by some the culture there. In Budapest everyone wears skin tight clothing and little to no underwear. If a woman is wearing underwear you can make out every frill of the lace of the g-string that hugs the curves of the butt. I couldn't believe how little they wear there. My guidebook (Let's Go) had informed me that they wear speedo type clothing, and very little regularly, but nonetheless I was shocked.
I approached and spoke with one girl who I had the pleasure of befriending and upon asking her "why women in Budapest wear so little" she was as astonished as I was. Her comment was to the effect of "the women in american movies wear the same". I tried, but could not explain to her that movies are not reality - that everyone in america does NOT dress like they do in the movies. (especially the ones we export to Budapest).
The point here is: Budapest is a pretty racey place. The hostel I stayed at had a drug list behind the counter, and Burger King maps listed strip bars as advertising.
So it doesn't surprise me at all that Budapest loves Madonna.
Joseph Elwell.
I had a similar problem because I had deselected a few things in the kernel config like "PCI quirks" and "CMD640 fix", "RZ1000 bugfix" etc. If you took those out thinking that your bios is fine, put them back in a retest.
Joseph Elwell.
Why Don't you go tell Sun that Star Portal can't work. Tell them that you graduated from MIT and you know better.
And what about a web based mp3 player? Couldn't they store all the mp3 files on the server and stream to your local machine, saving you from having to find all the mp3s you want and archiving them yourself. Are you trying to say that Netscape doesn't have access to your sound card?
Try reading Tim O'reilly's new article on MS vs. Linux.
Joseph Elwell.
It's never going to replace my Leatherman.
And, on a different note. I found out upon going to Switzerland that the locals all agree that Wenger is the Genuine Swiss Army Knife.
I think it's odd that even on their page where they sell the cybertool they mention it as an novelty.
Joseph Elwell.
I think my favorite quote is this: "Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership"
Notice how they pointed out they were speaking about free as in beer; not free as in speech.
I think it's a shame that they continue to spread FUD despite their current fight with the Department of Justice.
Joseph Elwell.
I think you're missing the point. Microsoft already "split" into divisions. But that's an obviously FAKE split. The REAL split that the DOJ would enforce is that Microsoft sell off all of it's application development teams. ALL, and the apps themselves. Then Corel could buy MSOffice - or whoever. Someone will spend a bucketload of cash on it, then Sun will laugh when that group dies a choking death when they realize how unfair the tie to the OS is when it's all gone.
Joseph Elwell.
Ever since I installed the beta version of Windows 98 almost 3 years ago I have been saying that Microsoft has an unfair advantage over it's competitors because it can integrate it's products into the desktop so nicely (because it controls the desktop). Even before Internet Explorer came out I was shaking my head at poor Netscape who didn't stand a chance unless Netscape's Desktop (which I can't remember the name of - and it failed anyways) came out. The only advantage I could see then, and now is not their money, their numbers - it's that they can integrate their applications and break other products attempts at integration.
:)
The Operating System needs to be broken off from all the software development. No more "Can't package applications with the OS". Now it needs to be "Can't make applications."
The Department of Justice tried regulation. They told Microsoft to regulate themselves. The government isn't in a position to watch internal company activities - they didn't know that IE would be bundled with Windows until it was too late. Neither is the government in a position to create a watchdog committee just to keep track of such things. Such a committee would be a heavy cost to taxpayers, and who would lead the committee? Richard M. Stallman I would hope.
I know there are laws involving Monopolies. What are the various powers given to the Federal Government over corporations deemed monopolistic? Can they disband the company? I know they can break them up, I'm certain they could regulate them. What else can they do? It might be interesting to iterate over all the possible outcomes.
But, how long for a retrial? Microsoft will come up with something to force a retrial if they lose this first bout. How long can they stall after the decision? I imagine that the Judge would say something like, "Pay 1 Billion dollars a day for every day after the first of January, if you do not abide by my ruling." Will they pay? Didn't the DOJ originally ask Bill Gates to pay 1 million dollars a day for everyday that he wouldn't come to testify (or stop lying or something?). Did they pay then, or did they sidestep the fine?
I'd like to have more updates on the situation. Too bad there isn't a streaming net-cam in the Judge's chamber. Everyone in the computer world is with bated breathe waiting for the decision. However I recall hearing many times from various reporters, "Microsoft chose not to blah blah, so that their appeal will be stronger".
Big Rant. Lot's of typos and flaming opinions. Don't kill me. Please.
Joseph Elwell.
It's no good. bad. Free kevin?! no, but really the crackers are good for the economy.
Joseph Elwell.